Successful Blog

Mark McGuinness is a B.A.D. Blogger

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello, Hello, Hello is Mark there?

Mark and I were ready for a great phone call. Skype wasn’t as prepared. After a good college try, Mark, gentleman and hero, volunteered the call from London to Chicago. What’s not to love about a blogger like that?

Mark was a business coach at the corporate level, but his passion is creativity coaching. So he changed his focus to working in the creative industries — television, film, design, and others. Last month, Mark finished his dissertation on coaching in creative businesses. He’s putting podcasts of the interviews on his blog while his dissertation is under review.

Mark and I talked about his interviews and my experiences as director of departments that were made up of editors and designers. Mark touched on the same point that Tony made yesterday — creative work requires a personal investment; then folks have to let go. We talked about managers helping with that and the way managers translate to financial folks the most effective ways creative people think and work.

Our conversation included high-trust environments and the problems of needing to be creative on-demand — the fact that no one is creative all of the time — and that people need to know that it’s okay not to be exceptional every moment.

Mark’s a poet. He drew an analogy between poetry and blogging. He pointed out that the deeper you go into poetry the more you notice the great poets connecting to poets who have gone before — he called it a poetic form of hyperlinking. One more way that poetry is code.

Imagine poets as the first bloggers . . . I can see the similarities.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

A blog is like a book where you can see the readers reading it and talking back to you. –Mark McGuinness

Stop by Mark’s Blog, wishful thinking, and say hi!

Thanks, Mark, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar

Net Neutrality 11-16-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

So How About That New Congress? [via bj]

Lets do the micro first. Conrad Burns and George Allen are gone. Burns and Allen both opposed network neutrality and generally supported deregulating telecom, cable and media companies. Burns in particular was a true friend to the large broadcasters. He opposed low-power FM, supported deregulating big media companies, and generally did his best to advance the agenda of the folks I oppose.

On the flip side, Allen and Burns did support white spaces. But even so, for folks who support media and telecom reform that limits rather then enhances corporate power, their departure makes life a heck of a lot easier.

Looking to the Committee Chairs and leadership – Inouye supported overturning the FCC’s dereg in 2003-04. Inouye has also supported net neutrality, opening up the broadcast “white spaces” to unlicensed use, and protecting local franchising. While I would not call Inouye or Reid enthusiastic champions for issues I care about the way Dorgan and Feingold have been, I do think they will support positive reform on both media and telecom. They are likely to allow legislation in favor of network neutrality, low power FM, and limiting further media consolidation proposed by other members. Whether they will make such legislation a priority remains to be seen.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Links Leaking All Over Time!

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In Due Time

We went exploring and some could say we got lost in time at Tuesday Open Comments Night, last night. We were set on going forward in time until Renée mentioned going back and then back was the favorite way to go.

The Link Leak Virus apparently crosses time as well as space. — The Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes at Open Comment Night they become a link free-for-all.

Welcome to all of the new folks who came. It was a great time having you!

Cool links were shared time after time.

A Good Time Was Had . . . By All

Trisha would rather explore with the Doctor than Dora. She figures that traveling to the past to visit would be fun, but she wouldn’t want to live there.
BJ would rather go forward than backward — can’t live without the Internet. She was also heard saying My bedroom has been taken over by aliens. I collect vintage SciFi. I think I have every time travel paradox that exists ensconsed on one of my bookshelves.

Doug launched which isn’t the same as exploring, but it seems that way,
and it went well enough with the top secret project SeanRox was working on.

Robert Bruce would be dead by 3 days old from disease, late 1800’s American frontier. You know, Smith and Wesson on the hip, 12 gauge on the saddle.
katiebird would like to travel to the future as long as she could come back here to visit….
Char doesn’t think she could go back too many years in time – what would I do with out the Internet?

Rick is set for the future because it would be bad losing toilet paper and toothpaste, and various other things we take for granted. He knew what he was talking about — I go with the Many Worlds Theory, Joe, so I think you already did it and it created another world. Look at that! You get to be a murderer and a god at the same time.

Renée had a reason to go back in time — The first place/people I want to go is my maternal great grandma era. . . . I would like spent a few months with her, learn those skills she had cultivated.

Ben was traveling by train and his train didn’t give him much time to stay.

Starbucker was exploring musical moments in history — when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show. All those screaming kids – wow.
Cat provided the recipe for how to break your toe in no time at all.

Meikah asked a question which got a new conversation going — Wonder who I was in my past life?
Joe asked another and had his own answer — Why does everyone want to go into the past?
I would rather be “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”.

Mike thought he had Joe with this comment — Having lived my whole life in the past, I can say with some surety that it’s overrated. — He was just kidding.
Chris thinks he’d like to go have a chat with some of the American revolutionaries.

Leon thought the mixing of comments was time travel fun.
Carolyn thought she should reset her clock.
Delaney went back in real time to see Pink Floyd.
Ah Pek was looking for a flashlight to go exploring.

Hans showed up some time past bedtime for me.

And the rest is history.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
The Mic Is on and We’re Going Exploring!

Business Rule 2: How to Do What You Want

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The Most Important Pattern

Business Rules Logo

I snuck into business. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t go to business school. I was a first-grade teacher. Well, at least that was true once. The truth changes. I did spend a year studying organizational behavior and other MBA stuff. But that’s not what this story is about, so let’s go back to where I was.

After teaching, I was an executive recruiter — that’s right a headhunter — for high-level sales positions. Then I was a territory sales rep that handled two states, selling shirts wholesale for the Phillips Van Heusen Corporation. I even worked in an Interior Design Firm. None of these jobs quite fit me. They were fun, but not where I wanted to be.

Eventually I decided to use my degree again. I started freelance writing about education for magazines, textbooks, and finally for developers who worked for educational publishers. Then I got a job directing a group that included editorial, design, production, typesetting, and printing. That led to my first real publishing job — I was the youngest Executive Editor my new employer had ever hired.

At the beginning of my business career, I felt that without a business school education I had lost out on knowing how business worked. I wanted to know what the unwritten rules were.

I even said out loud, “Just tell me the rules. I’m an overachiever. I like to do the impossible.” But no one came through with the answers. I’d missed the secret handshake and I’d missed everything.

I kept doing the only thing I knew how. I paid attention and processed all of the information I could. I read hundreds of books on management — I learned Drucker inside out. I read all of Tom Peters. The list was extensive and encompassing. That’s when I got interested in organizational behavior, and looked for patterns in everything.

I discovered the most important pattern of all.

You can do anything you want in business, IF you can show how it’s in the company’s best interest.

Why didn’t I see that sooner? That’s true of everything. What have you done lately to frame what your goals in terms of those around you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

You might have heard of my new service for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and folks who are forging a path of their own. I’m calling it PVM, the Perfect Virtual Manager. We all need Managers. It’s perfect because you get to decide your manager’s job description. What could more perfect than that?

Related
Business Rule 1: Working at Home and Doing it Right

Tony D. Clark is a B.A.D. Blogger

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Tony there?

Yesterday, I heard Tony D. Clark’s voice for the very first time! Today I feel good about saying I think he’s a friend of mine. Maybe part of that’s because he’s been reading Sucessful-Blog since before I was here. Immediately we were talking about good stuff.

He told me about jobs he had — drawing his cartoons on surfboards and t-shirts and working in bookstores, among others. He decided he liked having clients better than having a boss.

I told him how having three daughters meant that he had been hit by the “curse of the movers.” The curse is one my friends and I made up iwhen we were 20. It says that guys who are wild men in college should grow up to only have daughters.

The conversation was mostly about creativity. We shared thoughts on how artists, writers, and others have to invest personally to do creative work and then have to step back and let the work go. We both like the collaboration part of working with a team — how ideas change when they have everyone’s view. Tony said that his cartoons are still his favorite thing to do.

Boy, time sure flew while we were talking.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

There aren’t enough right nows left to wait for some day. –Tony D. Clark

Stop by Tony’s Blog, success from the Nest and say hi!

Thanks, Tony, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar

Net Neutrality 11-15-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

We Neutrally Reserve the Right to Charge Anything at Anytime

So the first anti-net neutrality ad hit San Diego this week, claiming that unless we allow the ISPs to prioritize certain packets based upon how much the sender is willing to pay, the consumer will be forced to pay more.

I’m a bit confused…we consumers are already paying more. The ISPs already make people to pay for their internet access. And if you use a lot, such as by being a big company or a popular blogger, then your ISP starts charging you more because of all the traffic. And who pays for it? Certainly not the person providing the content. No, the costs get passed on to the consumer, of course. Whether it is through direct cost by the amount the site charges for their services or indirect cost by their charging the advertisers more for their support which the advertisers pass along, the person who pays when a site becomes popular and starts drawing traffic is the consumer.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE