Purple Wren

Send an Extraordinary Greeting Using SendOutCards

Here's a new twist! I want to tell you about a service I recently found that makes it REALLY easy to send an extraordinary greeting to your family, friends, and business contacts using your own photos.

It's SendOutCards! Have you heard about it yet? If not, take a few minutes to Take a Tour. (Be aware, there is an audio component that starts talking immediately.)

This is not an electronic card. It is custom printed, put in an envelope, stamped and mailed. You can choose from more than 6,000 8,000 designs in 40 different categories, create your own design with PicturePlus, or mix-and-match. You can even select your own handwriting font when you write your message. They use recycled paper and green ink.

This is a network marketing opportunity. Originally I signed up because I wanted to send custom photo cards to my Mom using the PicturePlus feature (she doesn't have email). Then I quickly realized the marketing and communications potential of the service for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

There's three ways to become a sender of cards: retail, wholesale, and entrepreneur.

Are you looking for an extraordinary way to keep in touch with your clients, customers and business contacts? Ready to take a "test drive?" Let me know and I'll set up a gift account for you to try it out.

How do you keep in touch?

Are You Using Social Media to Extend Your Reach?

The magic of the Internet and blogging . . . I just visited (virtually) a new friend in London. We met because of blogging and had a conversation offline (email). He also happens to be a passionate purple person. He pointed out that the color on my site is not purple, but more mauve. Sir William Perkin would be proud. Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World.

How's that for an introduction? Anyway, I totally agree. On my screen it's more lilac, and I know many purple lovers would not technically call it purple, but I choose to keep it because I like the shade. In fact, I like all the shades of purple. Watch for more about the community of purple lovers. Are there any others out there who share a purple passion?

Back to the main point! This is a win-win-win scenario.

As a result of this conversation, Jeremy has extended his reach to my community of readers because I'm going to talk about him and share a link to his blog because I like the topics he writes about. Maybe I'll get to hear him speak in the U.S. someday.

I was able to share my virtual business of designing presentations for speakers with Jeremy.

This stunning photo taken by Steve Wall is shared with readers with the appropriate credit line and links. I also left a comment for Steve and we have an opportunity for a conversation.

JeremyJacobs - Professional Speaker & Presenter

Steve Wall - Photography on Flickr

SlideShare - Examples of PowerPoint Design by Sandra Renshaw

The new social media tools are a great way to extend your reach. How are you reaching potential clients?

Photo on flickr by Stevetookit

Iowa Blog is a Top-Ten Finalist in Weblog Awards

Brett Trout, one of our own Iowa bloggers, has been notified that his blog is a top-ten finalist for the Best Law Blog in the Weblog Awards, the largest web competition in the world. That's quite an honor!

Voting begins today (Dec. 7) and ends on Dec. 15. You can vote one time per day per computer. Go Brett!

Check out Brett's blog and you'll see he has great, informative content. Did you know he has been blogging since 2003 about intellectual property issues?

I'm copying this list from Brett's post, so you can see the finalists in the Best Law Blog category: 

• Blawg IT (Brett Trout, patent lawyer, discussing intellectual property issues)
• How Appealing (Appellate litigation)
• Becker-Posner (Noble laureate Gary Becker and Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner)
• Balkinization (Constitutional and civil liberty issues)
• Concurring Opinions (Law professors opine on various legal issues)
• Consumer Law & Policy Blog (More than a dozen experts discuss consumer law issues)
• The Grotian Moment: Saddam Hussein Trial Blog (Experts discuss legal issues surrounding Saddam’s trial)
• IMPACT (Information technology and IT blog)
• The Volokh Conspiracy (Law professors discussing legal issues from libertarian and conservative perspectives)
• JURIST - Paper Chase (Legal news and real-time legal research service)

Vote today - Click on the banner above and look for "Blawg IT"

To Blog or Not to Blog...

The topic of a meeting I attended today was Blogging - Best Practices for Use in Your Workplace. The presentation got me thinking, so I sent the following links to a few people for further reading and to continue the discussion.

What is a Blog?

• Contentious - Amy Gahran
• Online Journalism Review - USC Annenberg
• Small Business Blogging Scout - Hendry Lee
• TheWeblogProject

What Makes a Blog Different?

• ConverStations - Mike Sansone
• telltenfriends Marketing Co. 

How To Blog

• Web Strategy by Jeremiah - Jeremiah Owyang
• Communication Overtones - Kami Huyse
• Martin Gordon's Blog

Popular Business Blogs

• Business Blogwire - Easton Ellsworth
• Wells Fargo Blogs
• PR meets the WWW - Constantin Basturea
• MarketingProfs:DailyFix

Waste of Time?

• Logic + Emotion - David Armano
• Creating Passionate Users
• Seth Godin's Blog
• How to Change the World - Guy Kawasaki

Handling Negative Comments

• Google search for 'handling negative comments' on blogs

As a Marketing Tool

• Technorati search for 'marketing'

Findability

• findability.org
• Blog Business Summit
• The Blogging Systems Blog

Should Your Company Blog?

• Working Knowledge - Harvard Business School
• Backbone Corporate Blogging Survey - backbonemedia
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah - Jeremiah Owyang

 RSS Feeds

• Why RSS Feeds Rock My Marketing - adotas
• Search Once and Subscribe - ConverStations
• 800-CEO-READ Blog
• Read the Freakin' Blogosphere - Micro Persuasion

What best practices can you share?

Photo on flickr by Quan Nguyen

SlideShare Makes Sharing Easy!

Now that's fun! I took time out today to test the new SlideShare tool.

Using a popular post by Mike Sansone on www.ConverStations.com, I put the contents into PowerPoint, added a few graphics, and shared the file on SlideShare and with Mike.

It was easy to use. What do you think? Can you think of a way to use this in your business? Seems like a good way to showcase new products, share instructions, tips, etc. Bet we could come up with 101 ways to use SlideShare. Want to add to the list?

If you need assistance creating PowerPoint presentations, using SlideShare or any of the new social media tools, give me a holler. I can do the work, teach you how, or both!

Lessons for a Small Business Owner

This evening I joined several people for a meeting of the Des Moines Entrepreneur Meetup Group. We had the pleasure of listening to Kristy Maitre, Senior Stakeholder Liaison, IRS, who talked about taxes and related topics. This year is very interesting for me as I learn all the ins and outs of small business ownership, and bookkeeping and taxes are a big part of that learning curve. If you're interested in a group like this, check out the November meeting description. There are several great topics in the coming months.

A neat tool they are using is the Meetup software. It's a great way to find other people in your neck of the woods with common interests.

What's the biggest lesson you learned the first year about running your small business?

What kind of Meetup would you like to attend?