Where we work matters. If we're comfortable. If there's natural light. If we're not tripping over power cords. I have a funky Target-designed surge protector in my living room. It's cute, it's functional, and it gives me a safe place to plug in a laptop. But, until...
If Bing's process for setting up a Bing Local Listing is any indication, Microsoft is in trouble. It look me 7 weeks from start to end to do something that should have taken 7 minutes. (Okay, maybe 30 minutes.) Here are a few of the hoops I had to jump through: I...
We all know that relationships matter in business. So we work hard to stay top of mind with our clients, customers, colleagues, and prospects. Advertising. E-mail marketing. Facebook pages (and hopefully conversations). Postcards and other direct mail. Quick @ tweets....
You can't really shake a first impression. It's done. When we screw it up, we have to live with that. But I'll share a secret: You can make a second impression. I received a call recently from someone I'd talked to a few months ago about a possible project. She had...
It's generally a bad idea to mix business and politics. (Unless, of course, your business is politics.) My friend Deborah Brody pointed me to this story on Friday about a bar owner who used his blog to share his opinions about illegal immigration. By the time I...
People seem to envy those of us who don't work out of corporate offices because we get to set our hours and select our work settings. But what often gets lost is that we, too, have to have a routine. Otherwise, how would we ever get anything done? My latest post for...
Over at Small Business Labs, Steve King set out his top 10 business trends for 2011. At number 9: "Freelancers Realize They're Small Business Owners." King identifies two categories of contingent workers: those embracing freelancing and those stuck with it because of...
Jessica Hibbard, who's organizing a February conference in Frederick, posed the following question on Twitter the other day: At a conference, how important is the keynote address? Do we have keynotes because they're essential, or because we've always had them? ...
Twelve months ago, I wrote a post about my efforts to clean out my office, close out the 2009 books, and achieve Inbox Zero. Operation Clean Office was a success. And the biggest takeaway was that these tasks, individually, don't take a lot of time if you don't let...
For the second year in a row, I’m taking a page from Chris Brogan. He annually identifies “three words that will be my guiding pillars for what I will focus on in the coming year." My three words for 2011: velcro, abandon, and crayons. I’m going to use them, hopefully...