I have been invited to write an article series for the Rideau Valley Home Educators Association (RVHEA) Newsletter starting this month, so I will be including a more detailed version of my print articles here.
The series is on managing your data. Backups, Syncing, Using the Cloud, etc…
Stay tuned for the first in the series coming soon – All about Dropbox!
I was reading an article posted tonight by my fellow blogger and tweeter extraordinaire @adrsocialmedia
Her blog post What’s in a Like? asks alot of good questions about how much “liking” a page compares to active following a page.
Everyone seems to want as many likes and follows (i know I do…). But what we really want are people we can engage with, that can spark a relationship with, and hopefully business will follow.
If we think about it old school, many people used to sign up for free catalogs. And many people would either briefly read them when they arrived, or chuck them out right away.
What we need to do is hone ourselves and our message in arond those people who would hold on to the magazine, eagerly awaiting its arrival, and be the first ones in the door when sale time came.
Establish relationships with your followers and customers, and dont worry solely about the stats. Engage and follow through. And then the customers you have will really “like” you.
I met an interesting blog writer and social media entrepreneur this evening at a local networkng event for small businesses in Ottawa.
Ali Goldfield runs a Social Media consulting business that helps get the uninitiated business owner comfortable and present on social media sites. She puts them through Bootcamps to help them understand and take part of this new way to market and interact with customers.
Her latest blog post at http://wp.me/p1NUsQ-24 lists 10 tips for newbies to the world of social media, and is a great read for those of you who want to know how to get in the game.
I like “Be yourself”, “find your niche” and “Follow back”. It is important to be who you are, and get to know the people who are following you. They may end up being your customers, your advisors, or the next Steve Jobs.
I would add “Just Start. And then Start Again”. It takes a while to get a following, and you may find that what interests your followers is nit what you thought you’d spend your time writing about. However it all begins with beginning. And be prepared to start again if it doesn’t work out tge way you thought it would.
Ok, really it probably takes longer than 8 weeks to build a good web application, but you can take 8 weeks to get you a web application, or at least a landing page and maybe an initial feature or two.
However I did find a good article today that gives you a good lean web startup, with an amazing list of tools and resources to help you.
Our company is setting out right from the beginning to use Agile software development methodology, and using Scrums and Sprints.
For many of us, it is the first time we are employing all these ideas, and keep wondering – “Where can we find good information on how this is supposed to work?”
Well, I found a link to an article written about this.
Books for newly minted Scrum Masters has a great list of books and even has a MindMap displaying the list visually!
I will be at Google’s Engage workshop day in Toronto, ON – August 8, 2011
I am in the pre-startup phase for a new web and mobile startup firm, and I have been working for the last few weeks on getting a pre-business plan done to get some initial funding to get me through the initial start-up phase when I develop the full business plan. Between now and then, I need to fully flesh out the ideas laid down, and begin working on prototyping the designs, going through some iterations with some test customers, and see if my assumptions can be validated.
I love this stuff! It’s been a really good process to take my ideas stuck in my head, and lay them down on paper so others can see and hopefully understand what it is I am trying to do.
So now the real work begins.
Wish me luck!
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