Best Hubris

Here is why I do business consulting and business coaching. I get an email today from Microsoft. I attended an event not long ago for their CRM product. Truth be told, I’m doing just fine with Zoho right now, so we’ll call it good. But, they were offering a free license of Office 2007 Professional, and cheap software is a good thing. In order to register I gave them an email address, so here we are.

Invited to Microsoft Small Business Center

The email invited me to take a look around the Microsoft Small Business Center. At first glance, this thing looks chock-full of useful information. A few minutes clicking, however, reveals something a little different.

First, you never know which clicks go to real useful information, and which clicks take you to a page where the “solution” is a 60-day trial of some Microsoft product. Unless you don’t have a word processor, it is doubtful that the solution to any of your business issues is a product. Chances are a product could help you, but it won’t be the solution.

Second, even if the click does take you to information and not an infomercial, the information isn’t exactly “wow” material. Take “5 Ways to Create a Media Kit,” for example. A media kit is a critical resource in getting the word out about your small business, especially if you are in a higher-end service business where your target market isn’t likely to respond to form letters or cold calls. So, information on 5 ways to create a media kit would be most welcome.

Create a Media Kit

Here are the so-called 5 ways to create a media kit.

1. Cover the conventional basics.
2. Choose brand-appropriate, consistent packaging.
3. Decide on digital and print options.
4. Include a call to action.
5. Stay timely.

Um, that’s not even one way to create a media kit. Those are five hints you might want to keep in mind when creating a media kit, but that is a far cry from 5 ways to create a media kit.

Really Create a Media Kit

As part of our business coaching we cover various forms of marketing and one of the key forms of marketing is a media kit. Our information includes how to actually create a media kit, not breeze platitudes. Our advice involves choosing a format, usually a file folder or presentation book depending upon the industry. Then, it involves how many pages to include, and what should be on each page. It also includes formatting examples, and things like whether or not to include some sort of coupon, sample, or give-away, depending on your industry. We help with design and offer feedback and tips. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include any advice on staying timely, so they got us there. Of course, after reading that one sentence, I think you know everything you need to know about timely-ness.

Real Solutions for the Real World

There are successful professionals out there who don’t need fluffy hand holding advice. What they need is the prospective of a fellow business professional that has seen things they haven’t seen and tried things they haven’t tried. We provide that tangible real world consulting or coaching to our clients. That’s what separates us from the pack.

Ok, now that I’m running several websites:

www.financegourmet.com

www.arcticllama.com

www.undefeateddaddy.com

with more on the way, I need good blogging software. By good I mean I need it to do more than just be a text editor with a publish button. This theme I’m using uses the “custom fields” so ideally the blogging software I find would handle those. Oh, and it can’t do what that piece of crap from Microsoft does by randomly naming my images that I carefully choose file names for to whatever it wants when I upload. What the heck is up with that? Does Microsoft intentionally try to make their products useless to power users? The terrible implementation of CSS in IE STILL has us coding bizarre workarounds for it. Now Windows Live Writer comes with an undocumented random image name generator. When you publish your blog posting Live Writer takes the file name that you gave your image file and adds a bunch of junk to it, because it knows that what you really want is a file named “winodwslivewriter-articletitle-yourfilename”

Yea! Just what nobody on the whole planet wanted! If I named the file guy-on-a-bench.jpg it was because I wanted the file to be named guy-on-a-bench.jpg. No doubt this stupid idea is someone’s idea of “branding”. Jerks. Well, there goes the uninstall program. You guys are morons once again. Good thing you have that monopoly because man, are you incompetent.

software, blogging, blog, Microsoft, Wordpress

Technorati Tags: software, blogging, blog, Microsoft, Wordpress

Best Hubris is a joint venture with myself, and the parts of my brain which think that they come up with great ideas, wonderful questions whose answers might lead to large scale change or innovation, and pie in the sky pipe dreams which might not be so pie in the sky if I just wrote them down, thought about them for a while and then worked on bringing them to reality.

The truth is that I have all kinds of thoughts all the time. I know, so do you. So does everyone. That’s just the kind of thing that has kept me, until now, from ever bothering to put those ideas out there. After all, I’m just some guy. And that is the thing. Everyone is just some guy. Donald Trump is just some guy. Bill Gates is just some guy. The Wright brothers were just a couple of guys.

There is a great episode of the Simpsons when Springfield has a town meeting to discuss an issue. During the discussion they decide they need someone to lead their efforts. Since, Ned Flanders has been doing the talking, someone shouts out that Ned should be the leader. Ned, being the good never-overstepping, stay-in-line, don’t-stand-out, guy that he is, demurs momentarily with some aw shucks sentiment. During that moment, someone in the crowd shouts out “Someone Else!” Homer stands up and proclaims, “I’m someone else!” to which another member of the crowd replies, “He’s right!” and off they go with Homer as the leader.

It’s a cartoon. I get that. But, in real life, it can be almost as simple. A moment seized is a moment used to its full potential. The question is, “Was it me who seized that moment?” Until now, the answer has been no. That ends today.

I’ve started my own business. It’s a bit of a stretch from where I was previously, but it is still very connected back to my experience and resume, or as I like to call it, my paper quals. But, the fact of the matter is that I’m more than my paper quals say. I have ideas and experiences and things that I’ve noticed that somehow seem to have escaped the attention of everyone else. I’m not saying that I’m a genius, or that everyone must listen to me, but I do have something to say, and I’m going to say it.

Is that foolish? Am I being a chump to assume that people will listen to me? After all, I don’t have a PhD in anything. I’ve never been on Oprah, heck, I’ve never been on T.V. (not entirely true.) So why should people listen to me? Well, my friends, that is where the name comes from. I know that no one may ever listen. I know that I may well be deluding myself into thinking that my ideas and theories are original or worthwhile. The Greeks believed that those who reached highest fell hardest. The civilization that gave us democracy also gave us socialized fear. Try too hard, reach too far, strive to be more than you are, and you will likely end up humbled. They may have been right. Frankly, I don’t care. I’m going out there. I’m going to reach way too far and strive to be more than I’ve ever imagined in my wildest day dreams (and some of them are pretty far fetched.) This site will be my launching pad. The place where I explore and chronicle my ideas and my efforts to bring them to reality. It will be your front-row seat to the birth of ideas and concepts that you may one day see in the isle of a store, or even ideas that revolutionize a whole industry, or if the Universe is in a good mood, maybe even the whole world. It will also be your front-row seat to flame out and eventual burial of those ideas whose time has not come. Either way, I promise the road will be fascinating. I look forward to your company.

Wish me luck.

Have you ever known what you wanted but not been able to articulate it, even to yourself?  That’s where I have been for a long time with regards to this site.  I’ve been through dozens of 3 column layouts because I was sure I wanted three columns.  Truth is, I did want three columns, but I did not want two sidebars.  So, everything I looked at looked a little off.  I’d load one up and go, we’ll kind of…but not really.

The impasse was broken when I stumbled upon the Revolution Theme.  That looked pretty good.  But, they wanted a hundred bucks for it.  Yeah, maybe when this site is making money.  From there I found Mimbo and its clone Branford both of which had a lot going for them, but still just a hair off.  I spent a hour or two figuring out how they worked and started jotting down the changes and customizations I wanted.  I started looking at the list and figured I’d be spending a lot more time designing than writing.  I was going to give up and just go with something when my direction shifted. 

I found this theme, its called Transmission and it is a garish nightmare of colors and a header graphic loud enough to make you want to fall out of your chair.  But, those things are easily fixed and for the time being I’m going with it.  We’ll see how it works out.  It has a lead article which I like and then two columns for content, not for menus and archives and tag clouds.  I’ll tweak it of course, and who knows maybe I’ll hit on something else, or enough of what I want will stop hiding behind the subconscious wall and show up in the front part of my brain where I can do something about it.  Until then…here we go.