This is the book I wish I had a year ago when I first started the EasyStreet Business Blog.
DL Byron and Steve Broback are experienced bloggers and business blogging consultants who have condensed their practical advice into a friendly 180 page book.
Byron and Steve demonstrate how businesses are blogging and how you can use blogging technology to converse with your customers to build your brand and sell your products. One of their clients is Boeing who is achieving much positive attention from their InFlightHQ.com blog.
They observe that Google loves blogs because of their up-to-date content and accessible structure. And readers likewise find blogs relevant and personal in a way that creates conversations.
Blogging is economical and easy for small businesses. Mike Landfair of Landfair Furniture in Portland, Oregon credits his www.LandfairFurniture.blogspot.com blog: "In an economy that still seems a little slow, our traffic to our main store has increased, and sales are up a healthy percentage over last year."
I am lucky. EasyStreet allows me the freedom to host this blog and follow where it leads in service to our customers. With nearly a year of experience to compare with the advice in this book and with continuing input from you, my growing community of readers, this blog will grow stronger and more useful.
Publish & Prosper - Blogging for your Business
DL Byron & Steve Broback
ISBN: 0321395387
$21.99 US
After you read the book, share your thoughts here.
Technorati Tags: , business blogs, book review, social networking
July 25th, 2006 by Day Tooley
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This was on my summer reading list. It was much more thought provoking and insightful than I expected. From a small-business perspective, chapter 2 set the environment with how we got to where we are:
Flattener #1: 11/9/89 - When the Walls came Down and the Windows Went Up.
This refers to the Berlin Wall and Microsoft Windows.
Flattener #2: 8/9/95 - When Netscape Went Public
Flattener #3: Work Flow Software
Let’s do lunch: have your application talk to my application.
Flattener #4: Open-Sourcing
Self-organizing collaborative communities
Flattener #5: Outsourcing - Y2K
Flattener #6: Offshoring - Running with Gazelles, Eating with Lions
Here’s an African proverb that was translated into Madarin and posted on the floor of a fuel pump factory in Beijing:
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.
Flattener #7: Supply-Chaining
Flattener #8: Insourcing - What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts Are Really Doing
Flattener #9: In-Forming - Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search
Flattener #10: The Steroids - Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual
These forces have come together to create the ‘perfect storm’ that is changing the way the world competes and evolves.
The Indians and Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top — and that is a good thing!
So how do you position your business to thrive in this new reality? And what might we do as a nation to remain competitive? You will likely find some good insights in this best-selling book.
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
ISBN: 0374292884
$27.50 US
August 24th, 2005 by Day Tooley
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Guy Kawasaki has grown in understanding and insight from his early days in 1980 at Apple Computer to becoming the founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm. This book is a must-read for anyone running or starting a business. I found the philosophy of success he suggests to resonate with how things really should be done, without all the hype baggage most 'how-to-succeed' books usually offer up. Here is the GIST (Great Ideas for Starting Things) of the book:
- Make Meaning
- Make Mantra
- Get Going
- Define Your Business Model
- Weave a MAT (Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks)
The pivotal vital motivator is the first one. Here is a quote from the first chapter: Do I want to make meaning? Meaning is not about money, power, or prestige. It's not even about creating a fun place to work. Among the meanings of "meaning" are to =
- Make the world a better place.
- Increase the quality of life.
- Right a terrible wrong.
- Prevent the end of something good.
Want to go back later and find something in the book? Yes, there's an Index as well as a table of contents. The Art of the Start Guy Kawasaki ISBN: 1591840562 $26.95 US
August 24th, 2005 by Day Tooley
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