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Thoughts and things I care to shareHow simple are you willing to go on your biz cards?
Today I was curious about business cards. I asked my Twitter friends just how simple (or minimal) in design or information they felt they could go with their business cards.
Of course most businesses include their corporate or brand logo and color scheme on the business card. Information on the business card has grown from the traditional company name, tagline, person’s name, title, and phone number.
Now you’ll find people’s business, mobile and sometimes home phone numbers. You’ll sometimes find more than one fax number. Most often there are more than one email address. Add to that the corporate web address and the space has gotten quite cramped.
For us social media types, you now start adding things like a Twitter address, or your LinkedIn, or Facebook URL. Some people may feel that their FriendFeed, Plaxo, or Xing URLs are of use to people requesting their business card.
With all these things taking up the limited space on a business card and you can see why full color bleed to the edge, and use of both sides are features offered by professional printing services. Seems like too much information to me.
Here were some answers from my Twitter friends to the question “How simple are you willing to go on your biz cards?” (Clicking on the the links below will take you to the individual “tweets” on Twitter.)
As you can see, we had a pretty good conversation on business cards with a number of great viewpoints and ideas. Wondering about that card of Brian Shaler’s that Ryan Kuder mentioned? Check it out here.
Want to have some fun with your business card? Check out GapingVoid where Hugh MacLeod draws “cartoons on the back of business cards“.
What am I thinking of doing on an upcoming version of my business card? I guess this is a first rough draft.
Those of us in the social media sphere have the luxury of expecting people to know how to find us. Google is our friend!
For the rest of the business world, however, the expectation that their time is valuable. That they shouldn’t have to go searching for the information that a “proper” business card should provide. My belief is that there is more information about me that I want a person to find by searching than I can add to my business card.
What’s your take on the topic of business cards? How simple or complex are you comfortable with?
Artwork credit: Hugh MacLeod
Is the blogosphere doomed by unprofessional behavior?
These public bitchfest’s by the supposed “A-List” really need to be taken offline. This crap has filled my RSS reader for too long – I want to be reading real, valuable, useful information from these “thought leaders”, not this drivel. If you can’t share an opinion in a way that adds value – why bother?
I haven’t bothered to read up on the current brouhaha involving Loren Feldman/Mike Arrington and Shel Isreal because I really couldn’t care less. The result is that TechCrunch has less value today than yesterday, and I now know that I’ll not even bother to stop in at 1938 Media. I’ve got better things to waste my valuable time on.
If you’re wondering when blogging will overtake MSM, you’ll first have to get the leading online “publications” to stop acting like 10 year old playground bullies. Until that happens, and people working on high-profile sites start acting like real professionals blogging will remain a little Gen-Y pipedream.
There – I feel better now. 😉
WordPress 2.5 Upgrade
Well I just upgrade my WordPress install to version 2.5. Everything seems to be working as intended, so I’m not too worried about it. After several upgrades, I’ve figured out the best method for me.
- Back up the database, and the WP-specific folders
- Inventory my plugins and verify that they are compatible with the new version
- Disable all those plugins prior to the upgrade
- Make sure that the theme is compatible with the new version
- Upgrade WordPress
- Enable the plugins one at a time, checking their main function to verify that there aren’t any issues
- Finally, test the site in all major browsers, which for me means FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera
It’s gone quite well and I think I’ll test one more thing by publishing this post. That tests the compatibility with Windows Live Writer, my main (and favorite) blogging editor.
Have you upgraded WordPress yet? If so, any issues? Good luck if you’re just getting around to it! 🙂
Change your vista
It’s all perception, or how you view things. I’m often trying to change my view of the world by working in different places when I have the chance. Whether that be coffee shop, a cafe, or a park – the change of scenery does wonders for one’s productivity.
Inspiration
That thought was driven home when I looked out the window last evening and watched the beginnings of a beautiful sunset. Just being able to see that sunset after a darn hard day of coding helped change my perspective on the day. It elevated the spirits and allowed me to get more done around the house than I had planned for the evening.
Look for Patterns
So often I see people doing the same thing day in and day out. It’s an easy routine to fall into. After all most tasks are repetitive and we naturally evolve processes to fit them and simply follow the process over and over. Often we don’t even think about the repetition, instead letting the frustration of it cloud our view of things in general.
Trying Things
It’s amazing how changing even the simplest of things can change one’s point of view and bring on a fresh perspective.
- Soundtrack for your life – listen to some tunes while you work
- Rearrange your desk – it’s amazing how moving things around shakes things up
- New wallpaper for you desktop – get some new vistas to look at
- Work remotely – go find that “Coffee-Fi” as my friend Thomas calls it, exactly who says you can’t be productive outside the office
Watching for it
More than anything, simply watching for real opportunities to change how you do things, view things, or even work will help bring a new perspective. You’ve probably been doing this type of thing for your employer, “think outside the box”, but may not have done it as often for yourself.
Stand up for a minute and take a good, slow look around your office, and office mates. Turn all the way around. How many others are looking up or around? I bet you’ll see most of your cube mates “heads down” doing those repetitive tasks we talked about.
What About You
So, what are you going to do? Do you have something that we can learn from? What other things have you found to change your vista?
Photo credit: lulacerdarj
Experiencing the bad Internet: Email Spoofing
I just wanted to post a note on email spoofing. In the past two weeks, I’ve become a victim of this shitty practice, with my inbox inundated with thousands of all sorts of not-so-great spam, along with the thousands of mail-delivery failures that accompany a spamming storm of this sort.
To anyone receiving email allegedly from my domain (rickmahn.com) I apologize for any inconvenience it may cause you, but understand that I’m not generating this spam. I am in the process of reporting as many of these messages to the FTC as possible and also am working with my email server host (Google) to help identify, report and curtail as much of this unwanted traffic as I am able to.
This has been happening for about 2-3 weeks, and I’m most worried that my domain will be black-listed because of this spoofing event. Yes, I’ve published the SPF for my domain, and have enabled all technical means to deal with this problem, but this does not stop the people actually trying to spoof my domain (or potentially yours!). It’s all down to detective work at this point, reporting as many of these messages as I have time for around my real job and home life – not an easy task at all.
So, if you’ve gotten spammed by an email that seems to be originating from my domain, I apologize and understand your frustration – I also am being spammed (doubly so) as this happens – and my name and reputation is being affected because of this. The funny thing is that there are only three actual email address that send email from my domain, so it’s easy to tell what’s spam.
Any suggestions on other steps is appreciated!
Social Media Breakfast – Twin Cities 2
I’d like to let my fellow SMBer’s in Minneapolis & St. Paul know about the next SMB-TC event! It’ll be held at the Caribou Coffee in Roseville, just off Snelling Ave. They’ve got a dedicated conference room that may be more conducive to being able to talk with everyone, working WiFi, and great coffee.
Although the room is smaller as it holds ~12 people or so, I think it may let us have better ability to talk without having to play musical chairs. I’m interested in all feedback on this one as I’m going to try to find a similar, larger venue for the May event when we may have some folks from out-state MN join us! So if you can’t make this one, I hope to have the details for the May event all figured out in the next week or so.
You can sign up using the Upcoming Event page: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/467223
Is today the day?
That’s the question I Friday morning, mainly because I’m just curious what people thought. Originally I had planned to post this later that day, but… life intervened. Anyway, a number of people shared their thoughts and I thought I’d put them together in a short post. So the question was…
What makes today special for you? Is today the day?
I want to say thank you to all my Twitter friends that sent responses, and I really appreciate you letting me share your Friday! I hope that everyone get’s a bit of insight and inspiration from what we share in these Q&A sessions on Twitter – they’re fun!
Blogging and Freelancing – A side note.
This morning I was getting started on the day, fired up Twitter and immediately saw that Chris Brogan had a new post. One that hits home to an issue I’ve been having as a consultant or freelance professional. The post is a great resource for those starting out freelancing, or re-launching their personal brand.
The biggest thing I took away from his post was the importance of blogging. That is the piece that I’ve struggled with for several months. Most of the other parts, I’ve been working on for some time. But the most important part is blogging.
Without sharing your ideas, or expertise, or passion on a topic, people can’t gauge how interested or engaged you are in your profession. When you write about your profession or interest, you are sharing your knowledge – your expertise on the subject and providing content that attracts the attention of others.
That is the point I wanted to reinforce in Chris’ post earlier today. While all the points are very important, providing the content and networking with peers are the top two things that you can do to help show who you are and why potential clients should choose you over another freelancer.
Moving into the cloud – an update
It’s contract renewal season for me, and I’m kind of “heads down” working on what comes next. So I’ve been kinda distracted from sharing ideas and discussions with everyone.
I’m continuing my evolution into cloud computing, shedding local software as I figure out my approach. I’m lucky enough to have access to excellent coverage by T-Mobile, albeit EDGE only, plentiful free WiFi and T-Mobile HotSpots available to me as I go through each day. So I’m always able to be connected, most all the time.
The first step has been dropping Microsoft Outlook. This was a the biggest step of all, as it’s been my email client for over a decade, and a damn good one at that. Just a quick note on usability – much nicer to not have to wait for all the IMAP folders to sync! GMail is… well GMail, and has it’s own peculiarities to adapt to.
Now that I’ve got that one figured out, and completed, it’s on to the next steps. I’ve got hundreds of Microsoft Office documents that I need to review and move into the cloud. Reviewing them will not be the problem, and getting them into whatever service won’t either.
But… which service to move these to? Google Docs & Spreadsheets because it’s tied to all my Google account stuff? Or should I go for Zoho Office? I’ve used both for almost the same amount of time (~2 years) and find pros/cons to both. There’s also ThinkFree, which may be most like the native Microsoft Office environment.
That’s going to take some thinking… in the meantime I’m going to sort through several hundred megabytes of documents, some quite dated to be quite honest. It’ll be nice to trim down to what’s actually valuable and relevant.
Probably the biggest Microsoft Office app besides Outlook that’ll be hard for me to replace is OneNote. Since the release of Office 2003, this application has been a staple of my note taking. For all sorts of things, like projects, seminars, meetings, online research, etc… It’s become indispensable and its really hard to find a replacement, but I think I may have it. Zoho Notebook is the closest I’ve seen of anything, so I’ll be working with that for the next few weeks to see how viable it is as a replacement.
So there you have it, an update on where I’m at. I still have more questions than answers, but I’m finding many more online solutions than a year or so ago when I last really considered doing this. It’s now actually feasible to migrate online. With the critical components of connectivity and software services, I’m well on my way to reducing my dependence on legacy software.
Have you bit the bullet? What’s worked for you? Heck, what headaches have you had that may have pointed you back to locally installed software?
Social Media Breakfast – Twin Cities, Now With Ning Goodness!!
It’s up, it’s live, and it’s waiting for you! Come on over to the new SMB-TC social network hosted on Ning:
I’ve got a few forum topics I’d love feedback on, things like location ideas, topic ideas, and a shout-out for someone to create a logo for the site.
This’ll be the official site for news, schedules, ideas, and topics for SMB-TC – head on over and share your thoughts!
@MAC_Arms Pay taxes when you make your money, pay taxes when you spend your money, pay taxes when you successfully invest your money, pay taxes when you save enough taxed money to afford a house, pay taxes to live in your house, pay taxes when you sell the house that you paid taxes on to
Yup, taxes are criminal and we need serious reforms. I've always said that if you want to see a tax revolt, make withholdings illegal and have Americans write a tax check every payday. They'll revolt for sure. You don't miss what you never had.
I think it’s safe to say that @GovEvers should stop blocking audits in Wisconsin and open the books…
“Only AMERICAN citizens should vote.”
Sen. @berniemoreno says voter ID and proof of citizenship are simply common sense.
“We’re talking about a very low threshold — identify who you are and prove you’re a U.S. citizen when you register to vote. I think we’re getting closer to
Wrong. Democrats are solely responsible for hours-long airport lines.
They voted to defund TSA three times and won’t even entertain a conversation about reopening it. Why?
They’re using it as leverage to stop enforcing immigration laws.