It happened...

Welp, my 9 year old knows the truth now.

She and her 7 year old sister both lost a tooth at the same time so the tooth fairy killed two birds with one visit, or something like that. My 9 year old always writes the tooth fairy a note asking her questions and being friendly. Well the tooth fairy always writes back, in teeny tiny handwriting.

This time she said, "Mom, be HONEST. Did you sneak into my room and put the money and this note under my pillow?" Kids had been teasing her at school and were telling her it was her parents.

What do you do when your kids prefaces something with, "BE HONEST". In the past she just said, "Is there really a tooth fairy?"

So this time I fessed up. "Yes, it was me."
Well, the level of devastation took me by surprise a little.
I said, "Well why did you say, BE HONEST?"
She sobbed through her tears, "I didn't think you would say YES!"

So then came the inevitable follow-up disappointment of no Easter Bunny etc.

"EVERYTHING I'VE EVER BELIEVED IN IS A LIE!!!" Oh for heaven sake...

Now, being a week before Christmas I REALLY didn't want to kill off Santa so when she said,
"Mom, are you Santa?" I heard myself saying, "No. For the record, I still believe in Santa."
"So you are saying that you are NOT Santa. Right?"
"Um... right. I'm not Santa." (What the hell was I doing?)
"So then there IS a Santa then, right?"
"Well, yeah."

Ok, so all was well until my husband later tells me that he fessed up that we were Santa, since she asked him too. Ah MAN! I forgot to fill him in on my conversation with her.

Apparently, she took it surprisingly well. By that time I'm pretty sure she knew Mom was full of crap and she was willing to humor me.

You can see though that it's still this peripheral thing. Since there is no tangible evidence that we are Santa, it's just sort of this conversation that happened. When she actually sees us stuffing the stockings, I think that will be the closure she is reluctantly looking for.

So goes the tidings of youth. She still gets to keep it alive for her little sister. So that will be a little bit of fun for her.

The Campaign Killers: 12 People You Need To Fire

This post is by Jerry Bader. I thought it was terrific so I'm
posting it for you. I read it to my husband and he was like,
"Hey, that's me... That's me too... That one also!" Good thing
he owns his company. No one can fire him. Get the gist though.
There are some important points here. A nice way to wrap up
a good year, if you're a glass-half-full kind of person...
=========================================

Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing to do in business is
to get things done: so little time, so many obstacles. And when
it comes to marketing it gets even worse, after all there are
all those administrative details that need to be dealt with,
emails, inquiries, suppliers, and on and on. Finding the time to
devote to creating a sustained, focused marketing effort seems
like it's near impossible. But the biggest obstacles of all are
some of your trusted colleagues and advisors; you know the ones
I'm talking about, the ones that are a royal pain-in-the-ass.
So lets just call them on the proverbial carpet and fire their
butts; but first let's check the files and find out who they
are.

File One: Mr. Inertia
Everybody knows this guy. He's the one who hasn't had a new
idea in five years. This is the fellow who thinks everything is
just fine the way it is, so let's not rock-the-boat, everything
is just hunky-dory, thank you very much.

You have to treat your business like it's a shark: no standing
still, if you don't keep moving forward, you won't survive.
It's a competitive world out there, and in the Web-centric
marketing environment, you're not only competing with the shop
down the street, you're competing with the whole world, so
standing still is not an option. Mr. Inertia, you're fired!

File Two: Mr. Know-It-All
I love this guy, he knows everything, he's done everything, and
if you ask him he'll tell you he invented it. It doesn't
matter what it is or even if it relates to your business, he's
done it all and seen it all, or so he says. This is Mr.
Know-It-All; he stopped learning, stopped improving, and stopped
listening years ago.

Despite all his self-proclaimed knowledge and insight, this guy
hasn't contributed anything meaningful to the marketing effort
since a Blackberry was something you ate. Mr. Know-It-All,
you're fired!

File Three: Mr. My-Business-Is-Unique
We all like to feel that we have created something unique,
something different, something that no one else does. The fact
is business is business; it's very dangerous to think that your
company is so unusual that it's irreplaceable, so different
that you don't need to market, so special that branding isn't
required, and so singular that positioning is a waste of time.

Don't be fooled, finding your 'mark of differentiation' is
just as much an exercise in marketing as it is an exercise in
product development. Mr. My-Business-Is-Unique, you're fired!

File Four: Mr. We-Always-Do-It-This-Way
At one point in my career I ran a company that manufactured
photo albums. We had a large competitor who always undercut our
price no matter what we sold our product for. In an effort to
find out how they were gaining this advantage, we cut open one
of their new albums and found that they were using cheap
corrugated cardboard as a stiffener instead of the more
expensive traditional 80-point board everybody in the industry
used.

Our sales manager made an appointment with a major photo chain
known for only buying quality. He made a dramatic presentation
by cutting open our competition's product illustrating the
superior nature of our product and demonstrating how they were
being duped into buying the inferior junk our competitor was
selling them. The buyer, who was also one of the owners looked
at the products on his desk, uttered an expletive-deleted and
laughed, "Yea," he said, "but they are cheaper."

Just because things were done the same way forever, doesn't
mean that you can keep doing it that way. Keep innovating,
experimenting, challenging the status quo. Mr.
We-Always-Do-It-This Way, you're fired.

File Five: Mr. Everybody-Is-Stupid (But Me)
This clown's a real buzz-kill. In brainstorming sessions this
is the guy who shoots down every idea that comes up without
offering any alternatives. If some idea is actually adopted he
immediately begins to try and change it. You'll usually find
him with a coffee in one hand and a donut in the other, standing
over someone who is actually trying to work, telling them to
move it a pixel to the right or add a little blue or saying
stuff like, "I think it needs a pony, ya add a pony." This
jerk is like a dog going from hydrant to fencepost depositing
his mark without any purpose or validity other than leaving his
scent. Not only is this guy unproductive, he makes everybody
around him less productive. Mr. Everybody-Is-Stupid (But Me),
your fired!

File Six: Mr. I-Know-All-The-Customers-Worth-Knowing
Hard to believe but this guy does exist. I once called on a
potential client who told me he didn't need a website because
he knew all the customers worth knowing, all six of them. He was
a manufacturer and he did sell to the six largest retail buyers
of his merchandise but one thing I've learned over the years,
you never have enough customers, and as soon as you think
you've got them all sewed up, watch out, because every
competitor is out to take them away from you. And as good as you
are or as good as you think you are clients will eventually be
pursued by a competitor offering something better or cheaper.
Never stop prospecting, never stop looking for new business, and
never be satisfied. Mr. I-Know-All-The-Customers-Worth-Knowing,
you're fired.

File Seven: Mr. I-Know-All-The-Benefits
We all could be guilty of this marketing sin if we're not
careful. Thinking you know everything that people do with your
product or service is a risky mindset and speaks to a lack of
vision. This guy goes to the appropriate conventions, listens to
all his industry's experts and reads only stuff about his own
established market. If it's about something else, he's just
not interested, and he doesn't see or understand the
relevance.

The fact is all your customers are people who have lives outside
of business; they all have problems, insecurities, hobbies, and
interests that have nothing to do with business. And they may
have a totally different point-of-view as to what you offer and
how they can use it. You must pay attention to what's going on
in the world and how people think and react to events and
situations. The market is an emotional and psychological
minefield and you must pay attention to outside forces because
if you don't you're limiting your potential. Mr.
I-Know-All-The-Benefits, I'm sorry but you're fired!

File Eight: Mr. Everything-Is-Bulls@%t
This employee is not just useless, he's downright destructive;
no matter what marketing plan you're considering implementing
this guy thinks it's bull. He doesn't believe in branding,
positioning, or any form of sophisticated marketing. He doesn't
believe that psychology or emotion plays any part in the sales
process and is probably the master of wining and dining clients
resulting in the biggest expense account in the company but not
much else. His clients were customers before he arrived and will
probably be there after he leaves unless he pisses them off.
This guy still doesn't see the benefit of a website and keeps
repeating, 'it's just an electronic brochure.' His answer to
a dip in sales is always the same, to cut prices. Mr.
Everything-Is-Bulls@%t, you're fired!

File Nine: Mr. I'll-Get-Around-To-It
Nobody really knows what this guy does. He is pleasant, tells
good jokes, and he most likely is the guy who brings coffee and
cookies to the office for everybody once a week. His desk is
always piled high with papers, files, and binders, and when you
ask him for something he invariably starts to rummage through
this heap of junk ultimately telling you that he'll bring it
along as soon as he finds it, he's just been 'sooo' busy. It
takes him three days to answer an email, a week to return a
phone call, and at least two weeks to respond to a request for
a quotation. This guy just has to go. Mr. I'll-Get-Around-To-It,
you're fired!

File Ten: Mr. Automatic Pilot
This chap believes that the great benefit of having a Web-based
business is that he doesn't have to work. This guy spent a
considerable sum of money having a bunch of programmers,
probably from one of those offshore sweatshops, develop a
website system that automatically answers emails, fills orders,
and processes inquiries. The only problem is that it doesn't
matter if a customer has a question or complaint they all get
the same email-response that says they can order even more stuff
they can't figure out how to use. Mr. Automatic Pilot, you're
fired!

File Eleven: Mr. I-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-Creativity
This guy doesn't believe in any kind of creativity, he thinks
everything is based on rational dollar-and-cents
decision-making. His website lists as many features and benefits
in 48 point red Times Roman as he can think of; he highlights
each point in yellow and underlines them in green with a big
purple checkmark beside each one. He adds several royalty-free
photographs of fake customers with quotations he made-up while
sitting on the john. And just to enhance his special offer page,
he tacks-on a bunch of extra bonus gifts like a useless free
e-book. This guy's idea of marketing got stuck in the fifties;
so Mr. I-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-Creativity, you're fired.

File Twelve: Mr. Get-Me-the-Coast
You run across these types every now and again. I once went to a
meeting with this guy who was the Vice President of Whatever
Mega Corporation. At first glance, he was very impressive,
handsome and tall with a big office and lots of hair, and a
voice made for AM radio. He talked faster than anyone I ever
met. As we made our presentation, he slammed his hand down on
the intercom and bellowed to his secretary to "Get me Johnny on
the coast!" Before I knew what hit me, he's talking to his guy
in California who's on his way to his dry cleaner to pick up
his laundry. He asked him a couple of questions as fast as I
ever heard without much reference to anything we were discussing
and slammed down the phone with a thud. I had no idea what we
were talking about or if this guy heard a single word we said.
This guy was the master of taking meetings and impressing
people, but with what I am still not sure. Mr. Get-Me-the-Coast,
your fired!

A Final Thought

The single most important thing about managing good staff or
contractors is that they will only be as good as you let them.
So now that you've laid-waste to a staff of dead weight, what's
next? You need to hire or outsource the right people; people who
are creative, innovative, and talented; people who are
interested in getting things done, whether it's filing or
creating your next marketing campaign.
================================================================
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
================================================================
Article re-printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Coach Yourself From Circular To Straight Line Thinking

Many people complain that the career or broader life issues they're grappling with just circle endlessly in their head. I've experienced this myself.

There is also A LOT you can do to help yourself with this issue. It sounds a bit strange, but try making a coaching appointment with yourself, to think in a structured way about what's bothering you. Give yourself at least 20-30 minutes and get a notebook to jot down your questions and responses. Then apply this coaching model:

1. ESTABLISH A FOCUS

Identify a single issue.

To do this, ask yourself questions like:

"What specific outcome do I want from this conversation?"
"What would I like to be different?"
"What's troubling me most about this situation?"

For example, say you think you want to set up your own business but you haven't a clue about how to start, or even if it's really 100% what you want, and how do you find out if it's what you definitely want without starting (which you don't know how to do)? (spot the circle??!).

"What's troubling me MOST about this situation?"
"I don't know if I have the skills to run my own business. I don't even know what those skills are."
"OK, so what would I like to be different at the end of this 20 minute talk with myself?"
"I'd like some ideas for finding out the skills needed."

Perfect!

2. EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES

This is brainstorming territory. Some good questions are:

"What options or approaches can I think of?"
"What are the positives and negatives of each option?"
"What have I seen work for others?"
"What else?"
"What has worked for me in the past?"

Continuing our example...

"What approaches can I think of?"
"Well, I guess I could ask other people who've started a business what they think are important skills. And I could google a bit, there must be some websites which could help me."

"That's great! What else could I do?"
"I don't know. This is too difficult. Can I go and make a cup of tea now....?"
"Later. Think: what's worked for me in the past when I've needed to learn about a new topic?"

"Usually I read books. Hmm, so I could have a look on Amazon as well. That's perked me up a bit, I love buying books. This is fun!"

3. PLAN ACTIONS

Start to pin yourself down.

"What do I need to do now?"

"Well X just started her own business and she's very approachable, I could talk to her. I can't think of anyone else right now but maybe she would know of other people."

"Good... When will I do this?"
"I'll call her tomorrow morning."

Put this in your diary, and keep going until you have committed to several actions.

4. REMOVE OBSTACLES

Make sure you don't leave yourself with any excuses...

"What might stop me doing this?"

"Feeling insecure. X might think I'm crazy to even consider having my own business. Maybe she won't even want to talk to me."

"What can I do to overcome this obstacle?"

"What's the worst that can happen? If she says she's too busy, I'll be a bit upset but I could still ask her for some names. Someone will speak to me: I know I'd help if the roles were reversed."

5. RECAP

Go over your notes and ask yourself:

"What did I learn today?", or "Looking back over the conversation, what else comes to mind?"

"That there's always something I can do to get the ball rolling. I feel much better. The circle is broken!"

Good luck with straightening your own circles...!

If you are still stuck, consider getting professional guidance. There is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it. Here's a start:

---

Sarah Cooper is a career coach who specializes in working with people who want to follow their passions, express their creativity or help people or society in some way. Kick start your new life by signing up to Sarah's FREE mini e-course 5 Keys to Finding Freedom By Doing What You Love at http://www.cowsfrommywindow.com

Happy Thanksgiving

Stylease wishes you a day of relaxation and fun.

Good food too!

Jen's rules for a peaceful holiday:

• Do not pick fights with your in-laws. (if they pick one with you, just smile and know that you or they will be going home soon)

• Take the politics disputes outside, people.

• And no discussing religion allowed, unless you all are in agreement, or can politely agree to disagree. As impossible as it may seem, mature people have been known to pull this off.

• Just try to have a nice day. No, I mean really try.

• Shop your butts off on Friday.

You HAVE to have a website

My husband's staff covered his office with sticky notes while he was away for the summer. Well, because he works at Disney TV animation (he's a director on Phineas and Ferb) it wasn't just a prank, but a documented production. And a funny one at that.

So funny in fact that when the Disney Execs got wind of it, they wanted to add it as a DVD Extra on the next release of Phineas and Ferb episodes that come out on DVD.

Now, being the cross marketing hound that I am, the first thing I thought, is that since there will be millions of kids seeing this funny little video, there is a good chance a portion of them will then go to the internet and do a search for more info on it.

I would.

So I set up a website called Rob Sticky Note Hughes. Now, Rob is an artist, not an IT guy and he thought I was wasting my time setting up a site for this. He still does not get it. What is the point?

What is the point?! Publicity baby! The man owns his own animation company where he is developing fabulous animated TV shows for worldwide distribution. If a kid finds RobStickyNoteHughes.com (which will have links to his company which has info on the other cartoons that he makes) then that kid can go to their mom or dad and go "Wow! Where can we see this show?!" And if mom and dad are cool and living in the 21st century, they can go to their DVR and type in the cartoon title and record the shows. The kid loves the shows and wants to go to the store and buy the toy...

See how this works?

By the way, I noticed that the bananas on my kitchen counter have a website... The purple sticker says "Let's Play at eatachiquita.com"

People, if you have a business and you don't have a functioning website, you are officially less organized than a banana.

Overcoming Challenges - Embrace it!

I'm off to Michigan for the weekend.

Just enough time to have the 3 hour time difference mess with me. I can't imagine what the presidential candidates go through while traveling around like madmen (and women there for a while). They must just function in a state of suspended animation.

It's looking like we will get snowed on while we are there. Whoot! Just not while we are taking off or landing please.

Here is a thought for the day: It's a big thought. A whole group of them actually but a necessary reminder to not let yourself get bogged down. Don't sweat the little stuff, or even the big stuff. Just deal with it all, one step at a time.

5 Top Tips To Overcoming Challenges

Here are some simple strategies to overcome any challenge that may be stopping you form moving forward in your life.

Challenges are a very normal part of life. Many people look at challenges and cringe, but the reality is that challenges help move us forward in life. We would be stopped in our tracks and stand still without challenges, we would never find the way to improve ourselves, and we would remain the same people we are right now - how boring!

Now that you know this, it might make some challenges that much easier to deal with and may even enable you to overcome obstacles that are standing in your way. So ask yourself:

Am I where I want to be in life?

If you're not happy, then it's time to take charge, make a stand and make a change! Overcoming some challenges can be as simple as remembering that nothing lasts forever. Even though this is a rather simplistic thought, it is actually true. When you are in the middle of a tough situation, you should stop, take a moment and remember that the situation will pass. We often get caught up in the drama and the stress of a challenge or obstacle. This blinds us to the reality that this moment is simply a stepping stone to where we are going.

Another way to overcome challenges is to ask for a little bit of help here and there. We often become islands unto ourselves, but that need not be the case. Ask friends and family for help, or get professional help if the challenge seems so unattainable that you think you would benefit from an expert opinion. Teaming up with those who are in our lives often makes a challenge seem smaller and less threatening.

Positive thought is a great way to overcome challenges.

Many people keep a list of affirmations with them - either physically or in their minds - to help them overcome difficulties as challenges arise. Affirmations are simple statements to help you quieten down negative thoughts that are in your mind. Many people find that positive thoughts are the key to overcoming both big and small challenges.

Breaking challenges down into more manageable pieces also may make them easier to overcome. Many of us look only at the big picture, which often can be overwhelming. Look at the challenges you are facing and see if you can't break up the problems into smaller pieces to make the process less intimidating.

You can take positive thoughts one step further and incorporate affirmations into your everyday life. These affirmations may include, "If I can say it, I can do it, and I can be it." Getting up each day and saying these thoughts out loud reaffirms the positive thought and allows you to live it. Many people repeat the thought each day at the same time, while others use them only in those moments when challenges present themselves and become overwhelming. Either way will work, you just need to work out what's best for you as an individual.

Overcoming challenges can be difficult, but this is a vital part of learning more about yourself, who you are striving to be, and what your place is in this world. In lots of situations, just one of these methods will help you overcome the challenges in your life, and in other situations you may need to use a combination. Each person finds different methods of dealing with challenges to work for them, but the power of positive thought cannot be overlooked. This power will enable you to see the good in each challenge or obstacle that you encounter throughout your life.

Make the glass half full.

In maintaining positive thoughts, you will be able to look at how to overcome your challenges with much less stress involved.

------------------------

Find Inspiration and Motivation at http://CompletePersonalDevelopment.com. You can sign-up to receive 365 Days of FREE Personal Development and Motivational Top Tips delivered straight to your inbox!

Did You Vote?!

Go on. Get out there.

I'll wait...

Still waiting. Let me know when you cast those votes.

Ok, good. Good for you.

I was so excited to vote in this election. Even though my state will go to Obama without me, I voted anyway because I want him to get the popular vote too. By the way, that is a very poor point of view. YOU HAVE TO VOTE. If you are able to and you don't, well, you should leave this blog now, otherwise I shall kick you in the shin.

I also voted to uphold a gay person's right to get married. I have never understood why people care so much if two gay people want to get married. Please, explain it to me. What is the threat? What is it that people are so afraid of? What on earth difference does it make to another person if somebody wants to legally wed the person they love? How does that somehow "weaken" or theaten the bond between a man and a woman? I, honest to God, do not understand that. I find a healthy, loving relationship in any capacity, far more beneficial than hatred and discourse.

So let me get this straight... two heterosexual people who hate each other and argue openly in front of their children is a better thing than two people of the same gender who respect each other and offer a stable emotional environment of RESPECT of another human being as an example of how to treat people?

The answer is No. It's not better. I think that once again religion and fear come into play here. I am not a person who subscribes to organized religion so I don't have that whole, fear of God and judgment upon my person thing to battle with every moment, thank you.

Maybe that is it. It's as simple as some other human in a fancy robe behind an alter, telling you it's bad. And that's good enough for some. I honestly hope that is all the more complicated it is. Because if that is it, then there is hope for those who are blinded by the opinions and judgments of others. That they may one day talk to people outside their group and broaden their mind to see that we are all just doing our thing, trying to make it all work and find true happiness.

As long as what you do in this life doesn't hurt anyone else, it's all good. Everything else is just a distraction.

==================

Obama just won and I feel like someone opened a window. Heavy sigh of relief.

Happy Holloween

Lawyers and cybersquatting

Can I just say how much I love my attorney right now?

I LOVE MY ATTORNEY!

Not just because she is a she (which is a plus because I love to see fellow chicks succeed)
but because she is really good at her job!

Over the last couple weeks I have been caringly, mildly harassed by a someone claiming to be a domain registration company in Hong Kong. They sent this very concerned e-mail saying that they had been contracted by this Holdings Company to buy versions of my domain names and Internet Brand. (stylease.com.cn, stylease.name, stylease.info etc.) They let me know that they were contacting me to "give" me the first opportunity to buy these various domains before they register them for the other company.

Well it smelled of fraud the second I read it. But something said, well, maybe there is something to it.

So it sent me on a little research journey that has come to the events that happened today. A cease and desist letter from my attorney to this guy, who it turns out IS part of a huge fraudulent mass of unsolicited e-mail campaigns to extort big bucks out of people who fall for the bit and buy up the various versions of their domains to protect themselves. Part of me fell for it, but because I am a research hound I looked as deeply into it as I could. Never mind that I have 20 other things I needed to do today... But this became important because I wasn't sure if the brand I have been working so hard to launch, was in jeopardy of being deluted due to its growing equity. Well, in a way, yes it is. So I may hire a Internet Brand Protection Company in the future to watchdog this stuff but in the meantime, I found out that there is no need to pay this clown to secure the domains this SECOND... but

I learned a new word today CYBERSQUATTING. It is the practice of this exact thing and it is highly illegal. There are great resources out there to protect you or at least offer legal leverage. Clinton passed a federal law in 1999 called the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. It even has a clause in there to protect you against foreign squatters even if you don't know who they are! Sweet.

So hopefully this legal letter will shut this guy up and I can get back to work. I imagine he will go find some poor, reactionary sucker to bilk $$ from since I clearly am too much of a pain in his butt at this point, threatening legal action.

And here is the other thing, being the glass-half-full kind of person I am... This little episode flagged the need to obtain an international registration for my brand, not just the US version.

Hopefully this post served someone well. I'll bill you for my time. :-) Nah- knowledge is free here at Stylease.

What are the odds?

I have a friend and neighbor, Lori Hall Steele who is a fantastic journalist with over 3,000 articles to her credit. Eleven months ago she contracted what has now been diagnosed as Lou Gehrig’s disease (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS). A mutual friend had seen her in a wheelchair and asked me about it.
She is in Michigan and I am now in Los Angeles. So I e-mailed Lori right away asking what was going on. We had these terrific long e-mail-a-thons back and forth where she was energetically proactive in finding out what was wrong, why she had lost the feeling in her feet. That was last October.

Then the emails got shorter
Then they stopped altogether

We went to Michigan for the summer and saw our dear friend, by this time a quadriplegic. She sat in our yard, still upright in her chair and sipped a beer through a straw waiting for her lungs to re-inflate to contribute to the conversation in small, quiet bits.

By summer's end she was confined to a hospital bed in her dining room, on a breathing machine.

This is my friend. A 44 year old divorced mom of a 7 year old boy. This could be any one of us.

Now because she can no longer write / work and her insurance carrier dropped her, ya know, because she actually needed their services, she is losing the house she has lived in for many many years.

Lori wrote this 2 page essay 3 years ago, when she was in perfect health. It was published in The Washington Post this past April, while the steady and rapid decline in her condition continued. It's chilling to read it now. Now that she is in Hospice care. Coincidence or did her son somehow know there was something brewing.

Please visit Lori's Blog and website which were set up to offer information about her plight and save her house from foreclosure. Donate if you can. If not, that's ok too. Just send her healing thoughts and help spread the word about her situation.

Hug your kids.
Call your parents to tell them that you love them.

Creative Photography - Add Impact to Your Subject

I love to take pictures. I have always shot my own models and assembled all my ads. When digital cameras came out... well suffice it to say I had to get an arsenal of storage to hold all my pics. I have taken well over 15,000 since the digital camera age was born about 8 years ago. Makes scrap booking a bit of a task. Good thing I don't do it. Ha! Then I recently bought a Nikon D40. Love love LOVE that camera! I was having a terrible time with my old digi camera because it took so much time to focus etc. that by the time the camera got done farting around, the baby model I was shooting had moved on and I would miss the shot.

Well, no more. The Nikon is such a fantastic camera. The D-40 in particular. Well, this isn't a camera ad, I just thought I'd let you know there is a great one out there and the price is coming down!


If you love photographing people, flowers, or wildlife, you never have to look too far for a subject. The true challenge is to create an image with real impact.

How do you make your subject really stand out in a photograph? As a beginner, it is tempting to blame the camera when you don't quite get the results you want. I have news for you - buying a more expensive camera will not necessarily solve the problem. In truth, the techniques in below will work for almost any camera. All you need are manual aperture and shutter speed settings, and a decent zoom lens.

Here are a few simple tips for adding impact to your subject.

Tip #1. Highlight A Brightly Lit Subject Against A Dark Background. If you photograph a flower is in the sun, but the background is in the shade, the attention of the photo will naturally fall on the flower. This is a simple principle to understand, but it is a little easier said than done.


When your photograph has two very different levels of light, the lightmeter in your camera can be confused. It may expose for the dark background, causing your subject to be overexposed. The trick is to expose for the subject.

You can't do this on automatic. What you need to do is switch your camera to manual, and adjust the aperture and/or shutter speed settings until the photo is underexposed by one or two stops (according to the lightmeter). When you get the balance right, you should have a dark background and a perfectly exposed subject.


Tip #2. Use A Small Depth Of Field To Blur The Background. You have seen plenty of photos where the subject is sharp and clear, but the rest of the picture completely out of focus. This is an excellent way of creating a three-dimensional effect and adding real impact to the subject.


To achieve this, you use a combination of a large lens and a wide aperture. First, zoom in on the subject with your largest magnfication. This will naturally reduce the depth of field. Then adjust the aperture to its widest setting. A wide aperture will reduce the depth of field even further.

The closer you are to the subject the more pronounced the effect becomes.


Tip #3. Use A Wide Angle Lens To Exaggerate Perspective. This technique is almost the opposite of Tip #2. A wide angle lens makes everything in your photo appear much smaller, so objects in the distance seem much further away than they really are. Meanwhile, you can stand very close to a subject in the foreground (a person, animal etc) and still fit it in the frame.

As a result, your close-up subject will appear to tower over a background in which everything else seems very small and distant. Although the surroundings will be mostly in focus (the wide angle lens has a much larger depth of field), they will seem relatively small and insignificant, making your subject seem larger and more dominant by comparison.

So there you have three fairly simple ways to add impact to the subject in your photos.

The great thing is, you don't need a professional camera to try these ideas out. As I said earlier, if you have a zoom lens, and manual control of your aperture and shutter speed, you can add impact to your photos with just a little practice.

Even better, in the age of digital photography, practice costs nothing...so get out there and start snapping!

All photos are ©2008 Jennifer Hughes -

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If you found these tips helpful, check out Andrew Goodall. He released two top-selling ebooks that have already helped thousands of new photographers learn the art and skills of nature photography. See Andrew's images and ebooks at http://www.naturesimage.com.au

While you are there, enjoy even more great photography tips by subscribing to their online newsletter...it's free!

How Far do You Take the Lie?

Ok, it's not a lie per-say... Or it's a lie as much as Santa and the Easter Bunny are a lie...

My youngest lost a tooth and the usual tooth fairy monetary reward discussion came up. Oh yes, put it under your pillow and the tooth fairy will bring you money...

No trouble there.

But she decided to write the tooth fairy a note asking "where do you keep the teeth and are you tiny or big, like me?"

So I answered the note on the back using a mechanical pencil to make a very fine line, wrote in a tiny back-hand script so the kids wouldn't recognize my writing... I had, incidentally, done this for our older daughter too, when she lost a tooth in Indonesia. She left the fairy a note saying that she already had tooth fairy money in US funds so to use local currency was fine. Precocious little fart.
Well, I copied some Indonesian language off the wall in the bathroom at the hotel, to respond to her note. I imagine I instructed her to leave her towels on the floor if she wanted the maid to change them, or to save water, hang the towels up if she wished to use them another day... I really have no idea. But I wrote it in my best cursive.

It was a HUGE hit. That made the tooth fairy real!

So in this latest tooth/note episode, the answered note, again, had amazing impact. So much so that they woke me up to see the note, and my oldest, convinced that tooth fairies are very real, related a story of how kids at school made fun of her for still believing in the tooth fairy. They told her it's just her parents pretending.

She told me this looking for a reaction. To which I shook my head and shrugged as if to say, "Wasn't me."

She then said, "No! I know they're real. I don't care what they say. People believe what they want to believe."

Man! Pretty insightful for a 9 year old.

But I digress.

I'm not sure how to find a graceful way out of this perpetual series of "lies" we tell our kids. Santa is real because there are big ash boot prints on the hearth and cookie crumbs and carrot bits left on the plate! (Yes, the carrots are for the reindeer). We go pretty far to suspend belief.

I don't remember being heartbroken when I found out none of that was real. I don't even remember finding out at all, but alas I am aware they live in the hearts and heads of children,

and the delusional.

My dad wasn't allowed to believe in those things because, reportedly, his mother didn't want to deal with the disappointment that would come when he found out the inevitable.

Shame on that thinking. The joy these little tooth fairy note instances bring are precious.

So that settles it. I'll keep up the lie for as long as I can get away with it.

What the heck is going on?

Sometimes I crack myself up.

I started out my day thinking I would get caught up,
go to the store do some gardening, work on some new styles...

The problem is, my list of potential activities was too long.
We have house guests and we leave back to LA in less than a week.
So on my way to taking a shower I made a mental list
of things to get at the store. But didn't end up going.
On my way to the car I remembered I wanted to finish a gardening
project and started looking for the shoes I wanted to wear for that
(gardening in flip flops, renders black sooty feet that you can not
scrub clean!) So while I'm going for my shoes I notice my digital
camera and remember that there are a bunch of photos I wanted
to download. So I did that and sat down at my computer to organize
them when I remembered I had wanted to go to the store and do some
gardening.

Oh for Pete sake!

Ya know how some people do lots of stuff, pretty well but not great. And some people focus and do one or two things really well. Well today I have managed to do nothing particularly important. And I didn't even do it very well.

Sometimes you just have to write the day off and start over tomorrow.

Trouble is, it's only 2:00 pm.

The Tremendous Loss of Buzz Wilson

The following is important to me because it shows how living a good life, full of generosity is so rewarding. By helping others you feed your soul. His generosity of spirit was uncommon, and to lose a person with those qualities is a loss greater than the obvious physical and emotional void. It's a loss of humanity. He will be deeply missed.

Founder of the Traverse City Film Festival, Michael Moore writes:

It is with the deepest regret that I tell you of the passing of our good friend, Buzz Wilson. Buzz died unexpectedly on Monday on the beach of Lake Michigan, a place he truly loved.

I first heard of Buzz Wilson when Deb told me a few years ago that someone had just offered to sponsor the nine films for which we had no sponsor. They were the "difficult" films -- controversial, experimental, or forgotten: a film where Kevin Bacon played a pedophile released from prison, a documentary that questioned the Christian Right, a Stanley Kubrick classic that remains banned in some countries to this day.

Buzz just called up and said, "I'll sponsor all of the films that don't have a sponsor." And he continued to do that each year. He was a big believer in the First Amendment and he knew the importance of never backing down in the face of censorship, bigotry, or fear.

I need to tell you that there were moments early on when I asked myself if it was worth all the trouble -- the initial opposition to the festival, the "counter-fest," etc. After all, I came up here to live in peace and quiet, to have a place separate from the more public life I live. Then I undertook a grueling two-year-plus negotiation/pleading/cajoling with Rotary Charities to take a leap of faith on the Guy from Flint, to allow me to re-open the State Theatre for the community. At the Ciccone's opening festival party for sponsors in 2006, I asked one person -- one "angel" -- to please step forward so we could re-open the State. And one person came forward. Buzz Wilson.

But Rotary still wasn't convinced, the talks dragged on, and I went off to make my movie. It wasn't until Buzz Wilson asked to speak to them privately that things turned around. As a Rotarian for many years, he knew what assurances they needed and they responded positively. Within weeks, we sealed the deal.

There were a few times when I wanted to say, "Forget this. Who needs the grief?" And there was one man who wouldn't let that happen. He kept his eyes on the prize, he believed that right would prevail -- and within months after Buzz got involved, the State Theatre was open again! He oversaw its entire construction with me. He wrote checks, he supplied workers from his business, he sent over the materials we needed. I'd say, "How 'bout a balcony?" and he'd say, "Done!" I am convinced there would be no State Theatre -- and no sponsors for the truly provocative, edgy films at the festival -- if it weren't for Buzz.

For a 67-year-old guy, Buzz played heavy metal music louder than anyone I know. I hadn't yet told him of the big heavy metal surprise we were going to announce for the festival this Friday. I was so looking forward to getting him up on stage with one of the great original metal bands in a few weeks, right there in the auditorium of Central Grade School!

And after of all his months and years of work on the festival and the State, for him not to see our first film fest that will take place in the new State Theatre, it only deepens the sadness I feel tonight.

Buzz has suffered for many years from Parkinson's, a disease he often said had a chance of being cured through stem cell research. Last year, Buzz and I were at dinner with his wife, and good friends, Thom and Becky. He told us how hopeful he was on election night 2000 when it was announced that Gore (who supported stem cell research) had won. "I went to bed thinking, 'I'm going to get to live.' When I woke up and heard that Bush had won, I realized my death sentence had been sealed." Upon hearing this, tears came to my eyes. I was now face to face with the results of decisions I made back in 2000. I told him how sorry I was. He would have none of it. I won't repeat his comments here; let's just say the man respected those who stand up for what they believe in, and he was a living example of that to all who encountered him.

I last saw Buzz a week or so ago when his 1949 Packard Woody stalled outside the State Theatre. I went outside and pushed the car down Front St. with Thom and a few others, Buzz behind the wheel, until it finally started. As he drove off, the people dining outside at Amical gave him a spontaneous round of applause, and I gave him a wave, never thinking it would be the last time I would see him. Monday morning, just hours before he passed away, he was at the State, working on the sprinkler system we would soon put in. Yeah, he was paying for that, too. "I'll take care of that," was his mantra.

Buzz had a wonderful wife, and three grown sons he adored -- He didn't know how much longer he would have in this life, but he knew he had lived it fully and without regrets, and he will continue to be an inspiration to all who knew him.

I'm sorry I never got to sit and watch "2001: A Space Odyssey" with him. He wanted to watch "Spartacus" at the State with me. It didn't happen. I will never forget Buzz Wilson, and we as a community are better, much better, for having been graced by his presence.

Yours,
Michael Moore

P.S. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that people make a contribution to the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I would also ask that people contribute to the ballot initiative this fall that would allow stem cell research in Michigan. Buzz was thrilled that the public will finally be able to vote on it. And we will plan a celebration of Buzz's life in the State Theatre sometime soon, in conjunction with his family.

Back Up North for the Summer

Working from paradise this summer. In more ways than one. R is with us for the whole summer, which hasn't happened for a few year in a row. That means camping and beach trips and hikes.

How the heck am I supposed to get anything done?! Somehow he worked into his contract that should he decide to come back, he wanted the whole summer off. Naturally this ginormous corporation that he works for said,

"You can't have the whole summer off, in the middle of production!"
R: "Then I'm not coming back."
GiantCo: "You HAVE to come back!"
R: "Then give me the summer off."
GiantCo: "You can't have the summer off!"
R: "Then I'm not coming back."
GiantCo: "You HAVE to come back!"
R: "Then give me the summer off."
GiantCo: "You can't have the summer off!"
R: "Then I'm not coming back."

Yeah and it went on like that for a little while. R was in a nifty position of not really needing the GiantCo job but wanting to work on the project, but REALLY wanting to go Up North for the summer since he had missed out on that too many years in a row. Obviously he was not getting anywhere with GiantCo so he hired an agent. He had wanted to get one to negotiate higher pay anyway... Next thing we know there is a contract with a pay raise and time off from June 15 until August 18th.

What the?! Ok, so the agent is worth her 10%, which is the increase she managed to get him.

What's the moral of my story? Well I didn't start this post with the intention of finding a moral, in fact when I sat down I didn't even have an idea of what I was going to chat with you about, but I did had a few nice pics I wanted to post.

The moral I guess would be, if you aren't getting anywhere with a tactic you are employing, switch it up. Bring in some heavy guns or try another angle. Just saying you are doing something isn't the same as actually doing it.

Now go have a terrific day.

So you have a great idea... Now what?

Great inventions come from inspiration. You have done the first step, which is to look around for people who might know how to do the parts of the process that you don't. Or gather information to arm yourself for what lies ahead.

Your first step would be to get a prototype made. I would try here in the US. China is fantastic in helping with development but I say "in the US" because the communication and information turnaround is much faster during the development stage. I have never used them but there is a company called Pattern Design Unlimited.

Check out their website. They are a full service development company from what I gather. They would be able to work with you to get your prototype made. Once you have that, looking for a good manufacturer is next. Stateside... $$ but smaller runs... Overseas... more cost effective per unit but much higher volume, bigger runs.

I would recommend you shop your prototype around to specific stores that would buy it, before you go producing it. Tradeshows are where buyers go to find new products. Do some searching on the internet for specific tradeshows that would be a good fit for your product. Then you would contact the shows as a potential exhibitor and show your product there, by paying for booth space and setting up a display. Tradeshows are great because all the buyers from everywhere come to you.

Or you could try to get a sales rep who already carries other silimilar products like yours, to add your item to their stuff. They take a commission (10%) but it saves you tradeshow expenses and they already have client relationships with buyers, so that is a good route.

The internet is your key to finding a rep and tradeshows to expose your product. I would have at least $50,000 set aside to properly develop and pitch your idea. That does not include production costs. That is start-up and marketing, so you can create materials to go with the product (brochure, business cards, product brand name registration, patent (if applicable)? Consider setting up a limited liability company to protect yourself from liability resulting from product usage etc.

Think of the product as a small piece to a bigger puzzle. If you are serious about investing in your idea, it's not just about developing a product, but also about what to do with it once you have it. Development can be expensive and it would be a waste of time and money to create something without also considering what you will do with it once it's created, in order to get a return on that investment.

Good luck with it! And don't forget to have fun!

How To Deliver Effective Presentations

"O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters..."
William Shakespeare: Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 2

Giving presentations to audiences, large or small, can be a daunting and anxiety-ridden task. You’re going to be in front of a group of people, some you may know, some may be total strangers. You’re on stage, all eyes are on you, the audience has high expectations or they wouldn’t be there. Every word, every nuance, your appearance, the tone of your voice, not to mention the content of your presentation, will be scrutinized in every way. You know what you want to say – you know the material – but there’s that nagging feeling that you’ll say the wrong thing or you’ll have a spot on your suit or there will be some errant distraction.
Business presentations take many forms. Some are extremely formal with highly detailed information… how do you make sure the audience doesn’t get lost in the detail and focuses on the overall message? Some are informal and the difficulty is controlling the cross-talk. What about the technical aspects? What will you do if the projector goes out; do you have a backup plan? The outcome you want is that when the audience leaves, they will remember the information and be impressed with the overall presentation. These steps offer some guidelines on how to accomplish that purpose.

Steps

1. Know your audience and understand its perspective. Whether your goal is persuasion, or simply to inform, you need to understand your audience, its level of expertise and how your message will resonate. Crafting a presentation for a group of high school interns would be very different compared to an executive report to management, pitching a sales idea, or addressing a hostile audience about why the company needs to cut benefits.
   
2. Research thoroughly. You absolutely must be an expert on the subject. Okay, you don’t have to be the world’s leading authority, but you have to know the critical facts as well as much of the little-known information. Just talking about things everybody already knows is a recipe for boredom. It’s not at all unusual to spend weeks, or months, getting the facts, alternate opinions and comments from reputable sources as well as what the general community may think.
   
3. Document your sources. Where you get your information is as important as the information itself. Without solid, peer-reviewed data, you’re just a person with an opinion. The audience, in this exercise, is expecting facts and projections. Your personal opinion may very well be important but it must not be the only thing you present. You won’t be listing the sources ad nauseum (you will bore them silly) but you do want to be able to give citations when asked.
   
4. Write your speech. Off-the-cuff talks are fine if you’re on a soap box in a park. In a large room with hundreds of attendees, you just can’t afford that. You might not exactly "read" the speech, but that’s certainly not uncommon, especially if you’re going to be using a teleprompter. Print the speech in large print so you can easily see it at a glance without appearing to read from it. You want to give the appearance of talking to the audience instead of reading to them, but you also want the words and phrases to be precise and predetermined.
   
5. Prepare the slide show. If you're going to use a slide show, the visuals you will show to the audience need to be designed to support what you’re saying. Avoid showing a slide that has an inordinate amount of detail – the visuals are for impact. A spreadsheet with dozens of rows and columns will be basically meaningless. Titles on the slide should reflect the content of the slide and support what you’re saying. Do not read the slide! Assume the audience can read. The visuals should support your words, not duplicate them. There are very few things you can do that will have a worse impact than reading what the audience can read on their own. If all you’re going to do is put up slides and repeat what’s on them, then they don’t need you.
   
   • PowerPoint slides, overhead projectors, blackboards, and whiteboards are "visual aids" and should be treated as such. First, they should be visual, focusing on graphics, illustrations and plots rather than text. If your slides contain large blocks of text--or even a few sentences in bullet points--your audience will spend their time reading instead of focusing on you and the points you want to draw attention to. Second, they should be aids--don't rely on the slides to make the presentation for you. Your speech should have more content than the slides.
     
   • Don't pack slides too densely. If you put too much information up at once, the audience will lose focus.
     
   • Don't use too many flashy graphics and animations. They distract attention from the information content of the slides--and they will distract attention away from you, the speaker, and what you are saying.
     
   • Time your presentation to fit the information. If there is a time limit, be sure you stick to it including time for questions, if that is planned. It is better to pare down the material rather than to rush through it more quickly. Time your visuals to coincide with your speech. Avoid unnecessary or redundant slides such as outlines that describe the presentation to follow.
     
   • If you have more material than you can fit in the time limit, push that material onto "extra" slides after the end of your presentation. Those slides might come in handy if, during Q&A, someone asks you for more detail. Then, you will look extra-well-prepared!
     
   • Make sure the color schemes of slides are appropriate for the presentation venue. In some situations, dark text on a light background looks best, while sometimes light text on a dark background is easier to read. You might even prepare a version of your presentation in both formats just in case.
     
   
   
6. Rehearse alone. Do this repeatedly. Read your speech and watch your presentation dozens of times. This needs to be so familiar to you that you know what slide is next; what you’re going to say about each one, how you will segue between slides… this must be second nature to you. When you begin to get completely bored with doing this and you know it by rote, then you’re ready for the next step.
   
7. Do a dress rehearsal. Enlist some people that you trust to give honest opinions. These should be people that are reasonably representative of your expected audience. Give them the whole presentation. Have them make notes during the rehearsal – where are you confusing; what is particularly good? Have them also concentrate on you: Are you moving around too much; too little? You don’t want to appear "hyper" but you also don’t want to come across as a monotone statue.
   
8. Tweak the presentation. Take what you learned in the dress rehearsal and make modifications. Try to put yourself in the audience when you do this. What will they hear when the slides are on the screen?
   
9. Prepare yourself. So far, the steps have all been about preparing your presentation. Now, it’s time to think about you. Unless you do this for a living, you’re going to be nervous. Do some visual imagery of yourself in front of the crowd; doing a perfect job; getting applause, oohs and aahs. Find a quiet spot, close your eyes, and go over the presentation, imagine yourself being completely in control without any stumbling. This is a very, very important step. Professional athletes use this virtually every time before they go out to perform. It’s a proven technique.[1][2] Use it. You should also be doing this immediately before you go on stage.
   
10. Introduce the presentation. You’ve done a great job preparing, you know the material, you’ve rehearsed, you’ve visualized perfection – in short, you’re ready. One of the very important things to which you must pay close attention is your physical demeanor. You don't want to look too stiff, and you don't want to look too casual. You should have already gotten the right stance and movement in your dress rehearsal.
    
11. Present the material. Obviously, this is the meat of the subject. Remember you are the expert. Also remember… you will be nervous. How to avoid "stage fright" varies from person to person (you have heard the "imagine them in their underwear") but one serious tip is to use eye contact. Present to one person – then another – then another. Don’t think of it as a large crowd… you’re talking to one person at a time. Remember that YOU are the presentation.
    
12. Question and answer. This is optional, but can be an important way to clarify key points and be certain that your audience received your message. How to do a Q&A session is worthy of an article in itself but there are a few things you should consider.
    
    • You must be in control. Some questions will undoubtedly be less than friendly. When you get those, answer them factually and move on. Just don’t call on that person again.
      
    • You also might get "soft" questions that don’t really ask anything new – be careful with those. They’re easy and don’t deserve a lot of time. Don’t dismiss them or brush them off, but don’t spend too much time rehashing what you’ve already said. Answer factually, bring in some new information, then move on.
      
    • Open the QA with, "before I close, are there any questions". This allows for a strong close and not a presentation that withers away with poor audience participation.
      
    • When you get a question, first repeat the question to the audience so everyone can hear it, then proceed to answer.
      
    • Take a few seconds to formulate a clear answer before replying to a question. Failing to do so can lead to wandering or vague responses that do not reflect well on you as a speaker.
      
    
    
13. Exit the stage. Thank everyone for their attention, tell them the presentation is available in printed form. If you will be available for personal consultation, make sure you mention that. Don’t spend a lot of time in the exit; you’re finished – exit graciously.
    

Small Group Events
The previous steps are oriented primarily towards more formal presentations. In a less formal setting, consider the following:

• Remember adults are self-directed. You are a facilitator and not a grade school teacher.
  

• Ask your audience to share their experiences with the group; adults need to connect learning to their knowledge base.
  

• Help your audience see the importance of your topic to their work. Adults are goal-oriented and will appreciate an educational program that is organized and has clearly defined elements.
  

• Remember to show your audience respect. They bring a wealth of experiential knowledge to your presentation and will, if allowed, contribute richly to it.
  

• Control the cross-talk. In these evironments you can lose control of the presentation if you do not maintain the focus of the audience. This does not mean adopting Draconian-style dictatorship, but do make sure everyone is aware that you are the presenter and keep control of the other participants.
  

Tips

• Dress for the event. Plan what you’ll wear and lay it out the night before. Is it formal dress; business casual; jeans and t-shirt? What you wear depends in part on the audience and in part on the material. Whatever you wear, make sure it’s clean and looks nice on you. Clothes that are too tight or too loose for your body shape will distract the audience from your presentation. You want them concentrating on the material – not how you look. Avoid clothing with distracting designs, as listeners may go on more "mental vacations" and miss important aspects of the presentation.
  
• Walk as you talk. Move around a bit, but not so much as to be distracting. Your movements and body language can evoke interest, reinforce the emotions of your stories and punctuate a change of pace or topic.
  
• Prepare handouts. You will want printed copies of the slides, and perhaps notes, to be available to the audience… after the presentation is over. You can also use these as a backup to hand out in case the technology you’re using fails. If the projector goes out, you can quickly distribute the printed material.
  
• If you stumble. Recover and move on. Don’t dwell on that. It’s perfectly OK to correct yourself, but don’t focus on it. Don’t try to turn it into a joke – just account for the error (if necessary) and proceed as though it didn’t happen. Focus on the present and the future – not the past.
  
• You might start with a humorous anecdote. If you do this, be very sure you try this on your dress rehearsal group and pay attention to their feedback. This often works to get the audience, and you, relaxed. But if you bomb on the joke, it will take time to recover.
  
• If appropriate, honor some attendees by name. Cite individual audience members by name as positive examples of the points you are making. Interview the meeting planner well in advance, sharing your main points and gathering examples that involve people in the planned audience. If you do this, make sure you pronounce the names correctly.
  
• If the audience will be seeing multiple presentations in one session, focus on what your audience should remember most from your presentation.
  
• On bullet slides, set up the slide to start blank and to add bullets one by one only after a mouse click. Dim (gray) the previous bullets that you've already covered, so only the new bullet is highlighted. Having a slide full of bullet items in front of the audience is an invitation for them to read ahead or get distracted by re-reading old material, instead of listening to you. By dimming the previous bullets, they're still readable should someone (or you!) need to refer back, but they're also "in the background" enough to direct the focus onto the current bullet.
  
• Confidence! It's the magical charm that makes others want to listen. If you've followed the steps so far, everything will be fine with nothing to worry about. So look straight at your audience members, speak clearly and keep the pace of the presentation.
  

Warnings

• Do not hand out the presentation in advance. This is a very, very common mistake. If you do that, the audience will read and not watch. You will lose their attention and the impact will be gone.
  
• Strictly avoid "pause" words. "Um" or "uh" are things you must avoid. A pause is better than an inappropriate conjunctive. When used appropriately, pauses can be highly effective. Winston Churchill was supposed to be famous for dramatically pausing during speeches, then blurting out what he would have said anyway, giving the audience an impression that the phrase had just occurred to him.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Speak Confidently in Public
  
• How to Be a Great Speaker
  
• How to Give a Speech
  
• How to Improve Your Speaking Voice
  
• How to Lead a Discussion
  

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19990501-000018.html


2. ↑ http://healthjournal.upmc.com/0405/MentalTraining.htm

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Deliver Effective Presentations. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Find a Manufacturer

I found an exciting link this morning that I wanted to let you know about.

I make absolutely NO guarantee of the quality of the facilities listed but man, what a great resource for finding a manufacturer!

The Export Bureau

The great thing about it is it gives you a terrific selection of companies in every category from all over the world and provides some info on each company. If you click on the tiny bar graph to the left of each company name it gives you a breakdown of what the company does so you can see if they are just private label or of they design from specs or what.

It appears to be a non-biased, not for profit group. Bonus. I have not confirmed or researched it though, I just found it and hastily posted the link, perhaps exposing you to fraudulent rubes and thieves.

You're welcome. (read: Tengas muy cuidado!)

And as a complete non-sequetor, here is a new picture of Mr. Bubbles cause he is just so darn cute. Do I have time for another pet? No. But here we are Wobert.*



* Edna Mode said that in "The Incredibles". We use it all the time. :o)

I'm off to somewhere to find a pressie for the hubster. Our 14 year anniversary is tomorrow.

Have a lovely day.

Holy Time Warp Bat Man

I guess I had a busy March. Last I looked up it was, well, what I thought was two weeks since my last post.

HA!

But the dated blog post doesn't lie. So, how was your March? I know in Michigan, March is downright miserable. Folks are tired of being cooped up. The weather teases you with shades of spring then dumps more freezing rain on your hopes and dreams of sun and fun. Here in So Cal however, I must say March is grand. Trees budding and flowers poking up in places.
I had several shows in March. One in NY and one in the Bay Area. They went ok, considering no one is spending due to all their money ending up in their gas tanks. I'm thankful I drive a hybrid.

Here is a new addition to our family... Yep, It's a pig. And yes, he will be a city pig.
His name:

Mr. Cobra Bubbles

Understanding the Core of Strategic Partnerships

The definition of a strategic partnership is "a formal alliance between two commercial enterprises, usually formalized by one or more business contracts, but falls short of forming a legal partnership or, agency, or corporate affiliate relationship."

Whew! Does it really have to be that hard? Absolutely not. You form strategic partnerships all the time without even realizing it. A strategic partnership simply takes the resources that a person or company has to offer and combines them with the equally valuable, but differing resources of another person or company in order to save time, money or energy - or all of the above.

The easy analogy of strategic partnerships

Have you ever borrowed something from someone? A power tool, a ladder, something you didn't have, that you didn't necessarily want to spend your time and resources to acquire because you weren't sure that you would need to use the item often? Well, that's a simplified form of a strategic alliance. Your neighbor provided you with a resource that you didn't have and didn't necessarily want to acquire. Chances are you'll reciprocate in some fashion at some point in time.

Typically, when two companies form a strategic partnership, each business has a particular asset that the other company doesn't want to spend the time and energy to develop for themselves. For instance, manufacturing companies form strategic alliances with inventors. The manufacturer provides the product materials, production, and distribution. The inventor provides the creative or technical expertise. Normally, it's a win-win situation for both parties because it saves them time and money, while allowing each party to focus on what they do best.

Finding a strategic partnership balance

Strategic partnerships are often seen in between companies who are in the same industry, but who are not in direct competition. A small car dealer may develop a strategic alliance or partnership with bank who can offer financing to the dealer's customers. The dealer wins because he doesn't need to be licensed for loans, but he can service his customers and sell cars. The bank wins because they are being sent customers that they didn't have to solicit.

Think about service and product providers in your industry who are not in direct competition with your business. Who offers a product or service that could be beneficial to your business that you do not have the time or resources to develop? What would be an area of your business that could be beneficial to them?

In one example, a marketing company that specializes in strategy developed a strategic alliance with a graphic design firm because they included collateral development as part of their strategy. However, the marketing company did not want to develop a design department. They felt it wouldn't be cost-effective given their strategic niche. The design firm often had people looking for a more comprehensive marketing plan than what they chose to offer. Obviously, this was a strategic partnership that worked well for both companies.

Take a look at your business and begin to think about areas that are not your focus, but for which you continually hear requests. Now, take a look and find a company that services that area. You may need to "try out" a company or two before you find the right fit, but when you do, it will have been worth the time and effort.

Here is a great link to a specialist in joint ventures.

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Christian Fea is a Collaboration Marketing Strategist. He empowers business owners to discover how to implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Ventures marketing tactics to solve their specific business challenges. He demonstrates how you can create your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your new sales, conversation rates, and repeat business. He can be reached at: http://www.christianfea.com

Copyright © 2008 Christian Fea

It Pays to Poke Around

Good morning my cheeky monkeys. (I love Craig Ferguson)

A friend of mine sent me a link in an email to "click here and join this website and we will plant a tree". Well I clicked, just to be a good friend but then it started asking me my personal info and I'm thinking, "hang on a second, what am I signing up for and how much junk mail will this mean. I don't need any more male member enhancing advertising sent to my obviously female named address..." So the clicking quest stopped there.

The main problem is that my friend had sent the link to my main e-mail address which happens to be the one I use for business. I have had to kill my main address before due to spam and it was a nightmare because it was on all my business cards. And Amex sent me $800 in chargebacks for fraudulent internet orders because I never answered their inquiries because I forgot to update my contact info with them after killing that e-mail even though I implemented redirecting autoresponders and mail forwarding for over a year! OUCH!

Mid-Story Moral: Have a different address than your main business contact, for personal e-mail!! DUH!

I digress... So I didn't sign up for this site from that e-mail, BUT I did go to that website directly. The website is called Mamasource.com. I liked the name and thought there might be something to it.

Boy am I glad I went in search of. This is a terrific site. One of the best things I like about it is it connects local people. All the moms asking for advise are right here in the city I registered as mine so it has a very local flavor. I was surprised how many responses post so rapidly from many qualified, intelligent people. People post a concern or question and get an onslaught of advise and comments very rapidly. What a fantastic resource.

I'm trying to think of something I want advise on so I can post in that capacity. In the meantime I'm enjoying my daily, brief newsletter and browsing people's questions. Some, I lend advise to and others I just look forward to reading what other folks have to say. It's a very inspiring and encouraging community. I also listed my business, since I'm a mompreneur and business owner and they naturally support that kind of thing.

Do yourself a favor and check out Mamasource! It's also on my side bar.

Carry on my cheeky monkeys.

Qualities Required to Start Your Own Business

A lack of skill, ability and experience in certain business areas need not be a barrier to success and starting your own business. The personal qualities exerted by a small business owner overcoming deficiencies over and over again are vital and present in many entrepreneurs much more so that specific technical knowledge.

Not everyone is a master of all business attributes in fact very few are. Certainly being a master of all is a fantastic position but unrealistic while certain personal qualities are essential to fight the inevitable battles to come. Business battles the successful entrepreneur wins.

Businesses that have grown and become medium sized and bigger are not reliant on the business owner entirely. Employees are engaged with specialist skills and abilities to develop and grow the business. A sole trader just starting out has to settle for a comfortable living or have the ability to grow the business to the point where more specialist abilities can be added to the business.

Most small business owners who start a new business do so in an area where that small business owner has some knowledge, experience and skill. It is a natural progression having acquired the business knowledge and experience to use those abilities to build the business under self employment rules rather than earn profits for an employer.

The personal qualities a small business owner possesses are more likely to determine the level of success. Abilities such as hard work, determination, persistence, intuition, tolerance and aggression can be the bedrock of success. But the road to success is not all slam wham bang for the entrepreneur.

Small business owners invariably work longer and harder than employees. An employee works for wages and an adequate work performance is enough. A small business owner is more likely to be on the job at first light, miss the coffee and dinner break and twelve hours later announce he has to finish off for the day because he has to go home and do the business accounting books that he started on Sunday.

Determination and persistence go hand in glove with success. Every new business runs into problems at some time or reaches a stage where the business owner needs to be completely focused and stick with a strategy to make the plans work. Things go wrong from time to time; its normal, determination and persistence are valuable qualities to see through these times.

Aggression in forcing through a business plan may sometimes be the only viable option. Not physical violence but the heightened state of anxiety to push through the plan and make it work with controlled aggression and passion. On the other side of the coin there will be times when the small business owner has to exercise tolerance and just go with the flow.

Many small start up businesses go out of business within 2 to 3 years of starting a new business. A major cause is under capitalisation which basically means they run out of money. Liquidity is a major area of concern for every small business entrepreneur and a cautious approach to a new business can be of considerable value.

There is a strong tendency for a new business start up to borrow money and buy new equipment just to get started. Such businesses are taking a major risk the plans will work. Some plans do work but rarely it is a smooth path and a better option is to build the business and reinvest profits made.

A more cautious approach would be to start a new business without borrowing substantial funds because if the small business owner has the ability to make a success of the business and make money then they can usually do so without external funding and use the profits made to build the business in the future. The sound reason for a small business or a start up business to borrow money is to already be showing a good financial performance and use extra funds to speed up future success while borrowing funds with no track record is a gamble.

Here is a good source for accounting and payroll!

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Terry Cartwright, DIY Accounting qualified accountant designs Small Business Accounting Software on excel spreadsheets and Payroll Software for small to medium sized business providing a complete accounting and bookkeeping solution and also supplies Company Formation packages for new limited liability companies

Shipping Ports

Who knows what kind of readers that heading will pull in. Organized crime bosses, kingpins, oh hey, maybe first time manufacturers struggling to make sense of it all.

I was scared to death of importing when I got started. How was I supposed to master the container shipping industry and import tariffs and dockside management and and and... I just want to design baby clothes!

DELEGATE - and I don't mean the presidential kind... find someone who knows how to do a specialized service you need and PAY THEM to do it for you. You actually save money by spending it. With that attitude I should work for the Federal Reserve. I'm not republican but at first glance, I kinda like Huckabee's idea of doing away with income tax and replacing it with a 23% national sales tax. Tax on what you spend, not what you earn. I'm sure there is a way to easily corrupt it and the rich get richer and poor get the shaft, just like any idea that starts out as a nice thing... oh that's just me being an optimist...

But I digress... FedEx holds my import bond and they do everything for me, door to door. It's lovely. The reason for this shipping port post, quickly before I endure the masses of Los Angeles County at Costco, which is an unfortunate but necessary trip I must make this morning, is because I was in Long Beach yesterday and I saw where my goods come in when they arrive from China. Grizzly shipping dock by day, seedy shipping dock by night but awfully pretty at sunset.

So they make their way here via LCL in a 20' container shared with who knows what else. LCL meaning Less Than Container Load. It's much more cost effective but more risky because if someone else's goods, with whom you are sharing the container, runs into problems, your shipment can be held up indefinitely. And you generally can't pick your container roommates. Logistically it's complicated.

Then the goods get off loaded and put on a train and rail across the US to Detroit where they are put on a truck that takes them to the warehouse in MI. And all that happens with one phone call. Then an e-mail that tells me the goods have been checked in. Ahhhh efficiency. It's yummy!

Even though we are now out in Los Angeles... 35 minutes from where the goods arrive, it is more cost effective to truck them around, house them and drop ship from the Midwest.

But why, you ask? But how? Well insurance is very reasonable as there are no natural disasters there. The zip code they reside in is a benefit because there is virtually no crime. And they are centrally located so it is cheaper to ship to all places from the middle than to every place from one coast or another. Plus we have a house in the dreamy little town where the warehouse is and we can write off our visits... SO THERE.



The container cranes through a porthole cause I'm artsy-fartsy.

The lovely town of Long Beach... home of the Queen Mary

And NO Time Life Magazine, you may not use this picture without paying me huge royalties that will help fund my company... You can look at it but you can't have it. :-) It made me all patriotic and stuff.


Off to Costco... Wish me luck.