Monthly Archives: April 2011

You Need A Support Network

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I was just re-reading an article written in February by Maria Nemermann entitled “Ten Reasons Why Good Link Builders Fail”.   You can read the full article at:

http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2011/feb/28prt.html.

One particular item caught my eye as having relevance to a lot more than link-building. Maria’s seventh reason was:

7. No Support Network

This is a real risk for the small business website in more ways
than one. You're not working in a big SEO shop and you can't
stroll over to a colleague and bounce an idea off them. Try to
develop a network of talented website builders that you can call
on for help and be ready to help them when they call you.

Wow! That really struck home. One of the hazards of entrepreneurship, especially the online variety, is working alone. Most of the time, I find myself working on the computer in my office with nobody to say whether I’m doing something of value or just wasting time.

Website design is not rocket science. Yes, there are some mechanical things you need to know, but these days there are so many tools to help automate the website building process that you don’t need a PhD in HTML.   What’s left is mostly an art form.

Don’t believe me? Then tell me why there is so much conflicting information out there. In one place I read that it’s important to have a simple, clean design that takes the audience immediately to the action step without any scrolling: in another it tells me that ugly websites sell and that the sales page should be so long that the audience has to keep scrolling down page after page before getting to the offer!

The truth is that there is no single “right way” to do anything in business or in website design. Some ways work better than others for particular applications. Telling you how to make your website more effective is what your support network can do for you.

I get a lot of blog support through the TSA Mastery group. If you’re a blogger and not familiar with this group, I strongly recommend that you look into joining it. You can find the information on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tsamastery, and there is a link on the right hand side of this blog post.

I am also blessed to be married to a woman who will take the time to review what I develop and make helpful suggestions – see her post here on Transforming Limitations Into Features. Do we always agree? No, but most of the time we do!

Even so, I know that my sites are not as effective as they might be, and an extended support network would really help me. Recognizing that websites (like blogs) are at least partly a matter of taste, there are still ideas another designer can suggest that can make all the difference to a successful site (or post) and one that only generates yawns.

If you believe you need a support network, please leave a request in a comment and let’s see if we can support one another in developing our online presence.

 

 

Transforming Limitations into Features

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by Billie Willmon Jenkin (Guest Author)

One of the poems I love sharing is “Richard Cory,” by Edward Arlington Robinson. A short narrative about a man who had it all (money, looks, charm, etc., ad nauseum) and was greatly envied by others, ends abruptly with the words,

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

How often we – like the “people on the pavement” in Robinson’s story – judge the qualities of others’ lives based on what we can see. Then, comparing our own images (looks, bank accounts, education, etc.) to others’, judge ourselves as “less than” or “more than.” We all can fill in the following blanks… likely with many qualities:

  • “ I don’t have enough ____.”
  • “I wish I were more/ less____.”

Yet, around us, live shining exceptions to the “rules” we make up about happiness. One such exception burns in my memory for the example he set for youth.

“Sam” served as an adult leader for a 4-H group in Texas when my sons were active a couple of decades ago. Probably what first caught one’s eye about Sam were the two prostheses extending from his shirtsleeves. Next, one noticed his height and general appearance of health. Very quickly: the twinkle in his eye that warned of the unexpected. What others could not see was that inside his boots and jeans resided prostheses for both lower legs. Sam walked with a sort of a swagger, but then so did most cowboys these 4-H’ers knew.

Not long after the teens met Sam, his visible differences mattered little. Apart from not being able to eat sandwiches (His Cap’n Hook-like prostheses cut the bread into odd shapes and left a mess in his lap), his only other stated limitation was playing basketball (Those great mechanical appendages poked holes in the rubber). However, he transformed those prosthetic hands into a feature, channeling his humor whenever he saw opportunity.

An example of this channeling of humor occurred when he danced. Youth gatherings generally attract more girls who want to dance than guys willing to be their partners. So, Sam willingly obliged. One particular evening, he danced (probably a two-step) with a girl from our county organization. As was the gentlemanly custom of the time, after the dance he guided her back to her seat, with his right “hand” about waist level. Smoothly, however, he slid the hook into the back loop of her jeans. So, reaching her chair, she tried to turn around, she found Sam had “anchored” her into position. The more she squirmed, the bigger the laughs from friends who watched with good-natured appreciation. Sam had turned his limitation into a feature. From then on, everyone seemed to forget they had ever considered Sam limited

Sam was indeed a larger-than-life person. Born with all his limbs, shortly after he married, a single careless move robbed him of them all. It was a beautiful day; so he was on the roof putting-up a television antenna. The metal structure touched a power line, and he was immediately electrocuted. The fall from the roof to the ground saved his life; he was rushed to the hospital for lengthy treatment.

Imagine for a moment being a newlywed… with all the hopes and expectations one often has: A good career; the joy of doing things together; the hope of having a family…. All these appeared shattered in a single moment. Had I found myself in Sam’s (or his bride’s) position, I likely would have crumbled totally; for at that time, I had no idea how important my attitude was to EVERYTHING in life. And even if I had realized my attitude’s importance, I did not realize that I could control it.

Somehow, Sam (likely with his bride’s encouragement) managed to corral his attitude and determined, first, to survive. Thriving came later.

In fact, some months after Sam’s accident (and his being fitted with prostheses for both lower legs and lower arms), he determined to participate in the multi-day trail ride into Houston for the city’s huge rodeo. Perhaps it was on this trail ride that he had his first taste of the fun he could have with his “hidden” prostheses.

Sam was well on his way into the city, with crowds lining the highway to watch the procession of chuck wagons, stage coaches, and individuals on horseback. Though an experienced rider often keeps the body’s weight in the stirrups, with the new prostheses rubbing blisters on the stumps of his legs, Sam needed to relax, leaving his weight in the saddle… thus leaving the legs loose.

Without weight in the stirrups, when his mount began a bouncy gait, Sam had no way to control the direction his “feet” pointed. With a gleam in his eye, Sam recounted the story of guiding his horse over to the side and (with his toes pointed to the horse’s rear) asking a woman turn his leg around to the front again.

Seeing the “backwards” limb for the first time, the woman nearly passed-out! Sam? Well, somehow, he managed to get the toe of his boot pointed forward; but he nearly fell out of the saddle because he was laughing so hard!

There is a little bit of “Sam” in all of us: We all see ourselves as lacking in some way… until we realize that such an attitude does not serve us. Oh, sure, our “lack” – our “problem” (whether visible or invisible) – may get us sympathy for a while. Ultimately, though, sympathy cools, and people tire of victim stories.

We learn it’s time to “get on with our lives.” The first step in changing a circumstance ALWAYS begins with changing our attitude toward it. How can this disaster/ problem/ challenge/ limitation be a “blessing in disguise”? How can we look at the situation differently?

Sometimes we forget that we are all simply “making it up as we go along.” Over and over we have been told that “thoughts become things.” So, what thoughts can we shift to create the manifestations we desire?

What we find is that the anguish we suffer is not in the situation at all; rather, it is in the way we have chosen to interpret the situation. Choose different thoughts, and we change our reality.

Through Richard Cory and Sam, we realize it’s our attitudes - not “having it all” – that determines quality of life. Choosing healthy attitudes opens possibility. Refusing to give up, Sam became the father of two great sons … who lived with the example that attitude is everything!

 

 

Billie Willmon Jenkin, is a two-time best-selling author and the creator of

The Knock-Kneed Cowboy: A Tale of Being “Just Right”… Just As We Are.

http://www.EmpoweringForChange.com

 

For another inspiring story about overcoming adversity, see http://alanjenkin.com/myblog/2010/05/the-story-of-peng-shuilin/

 

The Power of Social Media

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I just read an article about the power of social media that blew my mind! Apparently, a few days ago one of the top trending topics on Twitter was #ripjackiechan. Could it be true that Jackie Chan had died?

 

A Google search for Jackie Chan reveals that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated. Don’t worry – he’s fine. “Jackie is alive and well,” reads a note on his Facebook page – in fact he just raised $3.3 million in three hours for the Japan relief.

 

So what happened?

 

According to news.com.au it all started with a fake website made to look like the Australian news website Yahoo!7News.

 

Then, around 6p.m. on March 29th @forumn00b tweeted “Jackie Chan dies following heart attack, new details http://bit.ly/h67UWD #RIPjackieChan.” Within an hour, about five tweeters had retweeted the message, and an hour or so later Twitter user @tweetmeme re-tweeted the bogus death hoax.

 

@tweetmeme is a Twitter account that tweets about Twitter trends so it wasn’t long before #ripjackiechan went wild. Very rapidly, the Jackie Chan death story took over from Japan, Libya and every other news story as the most tweeted trending topic!

 

The trick was to build credibility around the story by creating a fake website, using a technique where you can paste html code in a browser to make it look like an actual page. In fact, there was no website behind the code, but it was made to look like the Australian news site Yahoo!7News. The perpetrator even included a fake eulogy by Obama!

 

Once the “credibility” was established, the twitterverse took over, and before long it seemed that everybody believed that Jackie Chan had departed this life. It’s interesting, too, to me that Jackie Chan was not the first celebrity to experience a fake demise: Jeff Goldblum and Bill Cosby are among several that have been hoaxed in this manner.

 

Don’t ever underestimate the power of social media!