Making people and ideas findable

March 2008 Blog Posts (199)

Attracting New Customers While Staying "Top of Mind" With Your Current Contacts

From TipTopics.com:

If you're a small business owner and/or professional service provider, you face a daunting challenge: turning strangers into customers. Referrals help because prospects trust their friends who might have already used your services. But referrals typically can't reach far enough to quickly grow your business, so you may need to rely on advertising and other key marketing initiatives. Here are… Continue

Added by Bob Chenoweth on March 31, 2008 at 10:03pm — 1 Comment

5 Goofs That Can Wreck Your Business Communications (And How to Fix Them Before They Do)

From TipTopics.com:

Even the smartest business professionals and most skilled communicators sometimes lose focus. Competing priorities and tight schedules can cause otherwise diligent people to give less than their best effort. But if you think others won't notice, you're wrong. If you think glaring goofs don't send the wrong message, think again. The truth is that your audience -- from co-workers to clients… Continue

Added by Bob Chenoweth on March 31, 2008 at 9:30pm — 2 Comments

Two gadgets that won't make you drive through the night

"You don't think we'll have problems finding a hotel this late at night, do you?"

Those are the words I uttered to my wife while driving down I-75 at 11 pm on the first night of our spring break vacation.

The first few hotels we stopped at confirmed my fears. "Sorry, we don't have any rooms available."

But being a techie, I couldn't give up. Or maybe… Continue

Added by Patric Welch on March 31, 2008 at 4:05pm — No Comments

Indianapolis blogMOB April 14, 2008 Monument Circle 12 noon--from wordpress.com

Come be a part of a FUN event designed to raise awareness of Indiana as a tech-savvy place to live and work. Bloggers and other digital mavens will gather on Monument Circle at noon on Monday, April 14. It will be streamed live to the world. It will be a hoot. This is a pre-event to promote the blogIN Unconference on April 26th.

We have no agenda, but we do have purpose. We want to raise awareness locally about the power of the Internet, specifically blogging. We want to create a… Continue

Added by Bruce Allen on March 31, 2008 at 3:00pm — 2 Comments

Fun with Feeds and Safari

While I love Firefox, I've lately been using Safari (for PC) and finding it to be a guilty pleasure. For one, it sure seems to load pages much faster. It also displays text in a way that is very pleasing to the eye (ie. websites just look and read better). However, there is one simple difference that I'm really starting to take advantage of and it can really save time: default feed rendering.

Default Feed Rendering, you say? It… Continue

Added by Noah Coffey on March 31, 2008 at 1:43pm — No Comments

Opening Day

I don't care what Bud Selig says, Opening Day does NOT happen in Japan! Spring is here, my friends. Hope springs eternal, especially for us poor lemmings who year after year line up for our tickets to the group denial that is Cubs baseball. Every year starts the same - we all believe that this year is different because of some guy we got in the off season or because of some young player developing or for some undefinable cosmic reason like in 1998 when the Cubs went to the playoffs. That just… Continue

Added by Rhett N. Cochran on March 31, 2008 at 11:00am — 6 Comments

Websites: Design vs. Style—An Interview With Charles Cooper, The Rockley Group

In this exclusive interview with Charles Cooper (Vice President of The Rockley Group), Scott Abel (The Content Wrangler) discusses the difference between design and style as it relates to websites, and asks Cooper to help us understand why so much of the content we create is not really useful to end users.

TCW: Charles, thanks for taking time to chat with us today. For those of our readers who don't know who you are or what you… Continue

Added by Scott Abel on March 31, 2008 at 9:42am — No Comments

One on One Learning

Last year I became a big believer in using Podcasts to learn. To the point that now, I rarely listen to the radio when I'm in the car and since I travel by air regularly, I am never without my trusty iPod.

Here are some Podcasts that are available on iTunes that I highly recommend:

For the outdoors:

The FredCast Cycling Podcast - The latest news, views and product reviews in cycling

Phedippidations - A goofy little running podcast

Outside Online Podcast -… Continue

Added by Steve Bullington on March 31, 2008 at 8:00am — 1 Comment

The Power of The Linger

Stuart McLean, host of the CBC’s Vinyl Café, spoke about the joys of lingering on his show this past Saturday.

“It’s not procrastination, it’s enjoying the moment you’re in,” he said. “Lingering is an attempt to let life slip out of time for a bit. It’s about letting go and engaging at the same time. About being imbued with the present rather… Continue

Added by Erik Deckers on March 30, 2008 at 11:30pm — 1 Comment

How to get high definition television programming for free

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. You can get high definition television programming without paying a dime in monthly fees. Think I'm pulling the wool over your eyes? Well, I'm not.

Before you get too excited, what I am about to tell you is not a scam. It is not crooked. And it is not illegal. It does, however, require you to have the following: Continue

Added by Patric Welch on March 30, 2008 at 10:20pm — 2 Comments

Audible.com, now that's more like it

Audible.com recently sent me an email solicitation trying to get me to come back to them (I used their service a long time ago). I was a little hesitant to try another audiobook service due to my recent sour experience with Simply Audiobooks but decided in the name of research, I would give Audible.com a try.

Ok, ok, it also… Continue

Added by Patric Welch on March 30, 2008 at 10:17pm — No Comments

Barcelona Tapas - Restaurant #2

Way back when, before Lent, we went to Barcelona Tapas at the urging of David. I had a few friends who recommend it as well, so I thought - what the heck?

The atmosphere was good and I really liked the decor. The food... well it was pretty good. I was worried that it might make my stomach a little nauseous, but it wasn't bad. It was a little odd to order food as we ate and not all at once.… Continue

Added by Brooke DeRam on March 30, 2008 at 7:04pm — 9 Comments

Naked Tchopstix - #4

Not much to say about this restaurant - great location in the heart of Broad Ripple, but sushi is not any better than Wasabi on 82nd and definitely not better than Sakura on Keystone.

The atmosphere was less like a genuine sushi place and more like a typical Broad Ripple hang out - not that that is a bad thing.

Maybe it would have been better if we were at the bar? I always like to watch them make the… Continue

Added by Brooke DeRam on March 30, 2008 at 4:30pm — 1 Comment

Brugge Brasserie - #3

We LOVED this place! Actually, I cheated because I had been here before, but David had not and I knew he would like it. Besides, it's so close to our house that we had to go!

David had the Waterzooi, which he said was better then fish the fish chowder in Boston. I had a chicken pesto sandwich. I was not a huge fan of the sandwich, but we had the pomme frites and they made up for the not-so-good sammy!…

Continue

Added by Brooke DeRam on March 30, 2008 at 4:00pm — No Comments

It's Finished: My Barista Is a Social Media Expert

Folks, the results are in. But first let me tell you a bonehead thing I did. We’re probably all guilty of it, and you’re welcome to laugh at my expense. Without further ado, there’s a price to pay for being an early adopter of new technology. I have been using Flock, the new web browser from Mozilla. It’s a great tool – lots of new gadgets other browsers lack – a blog posting feature, for example.

All was well as I finished the last entry when, in a nano second, everything came…

Continue

Added by Rodger D. Johnson on March 30, 2008 at 9:31am — No Comments

Update: My Barista Is a Social Media Expert

To those who have weighed in on my previous post about social media expertise, or lack there of, I am compiling comments from three different social networks. My goal is to have this posted at Your PR Guy sometime Sunday.

I second the motion to set up a coffee meeting to discuss this issue more. I call for a vote!!!

Anyone else who wants to weigh in please do, I'll include you comments as they arrive.

Added by Rodger D. Johnson on March 29, 2008 at 9:23pm — No Comments

Are You Acceptable?

We live in a country that has promoted super sized value meals, daily drink specials/happy hours, business casual work attire, Crocs... are we so relaxed as a culture that we opt for shoes that we don't have to bend over and tie to wear? And when did "relaxed" carry over from our personal time to "on the job?" Isn't relaxing supposed to be the reward for a hard days work?

Most of us have accepted these unhealthy concepts into our lives without a second thought.

Our children are… Continue

Added by Ross Burdge on March 28, 2008 at 4:30pm — No Comments

My Starbucks idea is apparently everyone's Starbucks idea

Starbucks recently announced a new web site called My Starbucks Idea. Consumers visiting the site can share their ideas with Starbucks to help shape the future of Starbucks (their words, not mine).

When I first heard about this site an idea immediately popped into my head. Wouldn't it be great if Starbucks could tie my favorite drink to my Starbucks gift card? That way I could just walk… Continue

Added by Patric Welch on March 28, 2008 at 2:08pm — 4 Comments

Cézanne’s Astonishing Apples

Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses

“I will astonish Paris with an apple.”- Paul Cézanne

An Impression Posted

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art brings us Cézanne’s Astonishing Apples, the latest microsite addition to the Explore and Learn section of the… Continue

Added by Ed Illig on March 28, 2008 at 11:57am — No Comments

New Media Rocks - Playing and Playing with music.

This is a quick post, and in an effort not to duplicate posts I have already written, some links.

I have been super busy after hours lately putting together as much content as possible to help support some work I have been doing with music. I play in a band and also group blog with some friends at RockitBomb.com. We all like music, and I have been doing some podcasts for a while there.

I am starting to branch out into publishing some… Continue

Added by Brian Wyrick on March 28, 2008 at 9:30am — No Comments