“More and more people becoming part of this uber talent marketplace … They are entrepreneurs of their own lives,” Nishar said. That doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily going out and starting up their own companies. But in the new talent economy, everyone’s in charge of their own destiny.

So what is LinkedIn doing to capture more users during this transition? And what can users do to take advantage of LinkedIn’s tools?

Nishar said the first step is for users to create their profiles, and for LinkedIn to help them to build their professional networks. According to Nishar, users with completed profiles are about 12 times more likely to find new jobs through the site than those who don’t.

But LinkedIn doesn’t stop there — it’s also trying to help users get relevant information about their field with its top headlines in the industries that users work in. Nishar said the goal is to make users aware of what’s happening in their professional world, but to allow them to do so in just about 15 minutes a day.

Finally, LinkedIn wants to be mobile, with apps and optimized web experiences that help users connect from wherever they are. LinkedIn recently launched a new iPhone app, but has yet to build a comparable experience on the iPad. But when asked if an iPad app was coming soon, Nishar demurred, saying he couldn’t confirm or deny one way or the other.

While LinkedIn is all about networking, it’s not about the same type of social networking and sharing as, say, Facebook. So LinkedIn isn’t interested in driving up the amount of time its users spend on the site, Nishar said. Since LinkedIn’s goal is to make people more productive, it can’t do that if users are there all day. Instead, LinkedIn tries to measure how much value users get out of the time they do spend on the site, by what they do when they visit.

Photo by Pinar Ozger.

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Here are a few reasons why side projects make good business sense.

1. New skills. I love to use side projects as a way to stretch myself and learn new things that I wouldn’t normally do as a result of my regular work. In the past, I’ve had side projects where I co-founded a nonprofit to organize community technology events, co-founded a location-based startup, wrote a book about community, wrote a cookbook, started blogs and much more. Out of each of these efforts, I’ve learned many new skills that I’ve applied in my day job. I’ve personally benefited from each of these efforts, but the companies I’ve worked for have also benefited from the skills learned in my off-hours.
2. Connections and networking. Most of my side projects have given me an excuse to meet new people. I’ve made friends and valuable industry connections that I can talk to about new ideas or trends. Especially for those of us working in technology, many of these connections bleed over from one project or company to the next. Having additional contacts in your industry gives you a broader base of people to talk to about new side projects or interesting things that you are working on in your day job.
3. Sense of accomplishment. While many of us are lucky enough to have great jobs where we get a sense of accomplishment from our regular work, it isn’t always the case. There is nothing quite like launching a fun project to boost your overall mood and give you a sense of excitement. For me, the accomplishments from my side projects tend to have a positive impact on my regular job, too, since my improved mood makes me even more productive when it comes to other work. Employees with improved self-confidence from a big accomplishment can often become better workers in other areas.
4. Safety net. In today’s economy, we need to be prepared for a potential job loss. The people who have wrapped their entire identity and life around their job at a company can be devastated when they lose a job. Those of us with healthy side projects can throw ourselves into these existing projects and maybe even generate a little income while we look for a new gig. Having some projects to fall back on and keep your skills current can help to maintain your sanity and prevent you from becoming despondent over your loss.
5. Fun. Most importantly, side projects should be fun! In many cases, side projects can be hobbies that you enjoy spending your free time on. If your side projects start to suck the energy out of you, then it’s time to find a new side project that leaves you energized and with a sense of enjoyment. This is part of why I organized tech events in my spare time for so many years. They were hard work, but it was great to get all kinds of different people together and create an amazing and fun experience. After a while, I had done so many of these that it ceased to be much fun, which is when I dropped them from my side projects and moved on to other projects.

What types of side projects do you most enjoy?

Photo courtesy of Selena Deckelmann

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Most of these helpful folks are well-connected to a large network of people, but they don’t build this network by being selfish and difficult to work with. The people I know who fit this mold are usually generous and “pay it forward” in return for the help they’ve received from other people. Paying it forward is something I’ve tried to achieve in my professional life, and here are a few ways that I do it:

• Career mentoring. While formal mentoring programs work well for other people, they always seem a little forced to me. However, I’m often happy to sit down with people just starting their career or moving into a new one to provide suggestions and ideas for ways to improve. If nothing else, I can share what’s worked for me over the years and hope that they find something useful in it.
• Sounding board. I like to spend time talking to people who are working on interesting, innovative projects. In most cases, I learn something from them while also providing them with some feedback. Providing a fresh perspective and looking at something for the first time can often uncover things you miss when you’re very close to a subject.
• Spontaneous connections. Not everyone asks for help or even knows that they could use some assistance. When I see someone struggling with a project or activity, I’ll try to make a spontaneous connection to someone I think might be able to help. However, this only works if it’s unobtrusive and not too pushy. In these cases, I’ll usually point out that I know someone who has been through something similar, then offer to make an introduction. This leaves it up to them to decide if they want the introduction or want to continue on their own. I know that I’ve been grateful for similar connections in the past.
• Organize events. Organizing in-person events and meetups where people can connect and collaborate is another way to pay it forward. We’ve all attended events organized by other people and a good way to contribute back to the community is by organizing our own events, or helping someone else organize one. This gives other people a place to connect with like-minded people while giving you some additional visibility at the same time.
• Community participation. There are many existing online communities where you can contribute some expertise or be helpful as time permits. Answering questions or providing some other help as part of an online community is a great way for busy people to pay it forward and help others while making fewer commitments that they might not be able to fulfill when time is tight.

How do you pay it forward?

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Planning

For a while, I gave up pre-planning almost entirely and relied on serendipity or conversations with other attendees to guide my way to sessions. While this works to some extent, I found myself missing too many interesting sessions. So now, I’ve started pre-planning sessions that I want to attend, and for large conferences, like SXSW, I identify two or three at every time slot, which allows me to pick the one I’m in the mood to see, and also gives me a backup in case my first choice was a dud or too crowded.

I also try to pick a variety of types of sessions so that I can get a broad range of knowledge with some more technical talks and others leaning toward community or business topics. I also try to pick speakers who have done amazing things to get more insight into the stories behind their success.

Finally, I’m always prepared to deviate from my plan to see sessions based on recommendations from other attendees or to take advantage of other interesting opportunities at the event. If I’m in a session that turns out to be a snooze, I’ll do a quick check on Twitter to see if friends are raving about another session that I might want to catch instead.

Conversations

Don’t underestimate the value of the “hallway track” where you can have interesting conversations with amazing people outside of the traditional conference format. This is an especially important side-effect of conferences for those of us who regularly work remotely or who work in a job with few peers within our own company. I’m not saying that you should spend all your time chatting with friends, but it is important to balance sessions with time spent talking to other people in your field. This is an opportunity to build lasting personal and professional relationships with smart people working in similar roles.

Make sure you attend the parties or meet up with other people for meals. While this might feels like goofing off, it’s really one of the easiest ways to get to know other people in your field. Resist the urge to go back to your hotel early and be careful not to hang out with the same few people during the entire conference. Take advantage of all of these opportunities to talk to new and interesting people, and make an active effort to renew relationships with people you’ve met before while making sure that you also spend time meeting new people.

Ditch Work

I know, you are incredibly important, and you can’t possibly ignore your work for more than a few minutes at a time. However, if you spend all of your time at the conference on email and calling into meetings, you might as well have saved some money and stayed at home to work. If you really want to get the most value out of the conference, you’ll put off what you can and delegate the rest to someone else for a few days.

Follow Up

Most of us leave a conference with a big pile of notes that we never look at again. You really need to do something with all of that information. I usually try to get a few blog posts out of each conference, or at least one post with something interesting that I learned. If you work with a team of people, a short trip report to share what you learned with your team might also be a good idea.

I also try to come up with at least five things that require some additional work on my part, and I add them to my task list. These might include an idea for a new project I want to start, something I want to implement in my current job, an interesting technology that I want to learn or someone that I want to follow up with on a specific topic. By getting these out of the huge pile of notes and onto my task list, I’ve drastically increased the chances that I will actually do something rather than forget all about it when I return home.

What are your favorite tips for getting the most value from attending a conference?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Kenneth Yeung

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The Problem

A website address like gigaom.com is actually an easy-to-remember alias or nickname for a numeric address like 74.200.247.61. (GigaOM actually has several, to deal with the traffic that the website receives.) These addresses can be in the range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. Because some of the possible numbers are reserved, there are theoretically somewhat over 4 billion internet addresses available under this system, which is known as IPv4.

Unfortunately, it’s been known for some time that we’re running out of IPv4 addresses. By some measures, only 2 percent of the available addresses remain, and they will be exhausted in mid-February, in just over a month.

So the internet will need to move to IPv6 addresses, which will give us a bunch more possibilities: 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 of them, in fact. There’s some great information available if you want details.

Getting Ready

A lot of the infrastructure of the internet will need to be updated in order to support IPv6, but very little of it has yet been deployed. It won’t be possible to make the transition to “native IPv6″ in the time available. Therefore, a number of short-term fixes are in the works, but the FCC, in a recent paper [PDF], calls them “kludges.”

The short term solutions are necessary because there is not enough time to completely migrate the entire public Internet to “native IPv6″ where end users can communicate entirely via IPv6….These kludges include more efficient use of the IPv4 address resource, conservation, and the sharing of IPv4  addresses through the use of Network Address Translation (NAT).  While these provide partial mitigation for IPv4 exhaustion, they are not a long-term solution, increase network costs, and merely postpone some of the consequences of address exhaustion without solving the underlying problem.

Most users won’t see any immediate effects when the IPv4 addresses run out. But large site operators, like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo, will be affected, so they have agreed to test their readiness for IPv6, or at least the short-term solutions being worked on today, on June 8. In the long term, major infrastructure upgrades will be needed. As the FCC paper says:

[T]he short-term solutions are problematic. The “solution to the solution” is to complete the transition to a native IPv6 network. A native IPv6 network will restore end-to-end connectivity with a vastly expanded address space, will improve network performance, and should decrease costs. Completing the transition of the public Internet to IPv6 will take time.

As for the rest of us, we probably won’t need to do anything in the near future. It will be up to our internet service providers to make the necessary changes to their systems. A few people may need to reconfigure routers and VPNs, and web hosts will need to add some new DNS records.

If you’re interested, you can test your connection here. But don’t worry if you get results like this one.

It just means that your ISP hasn’t assigned you an IPv6 address yet, which will be true for almost everyone.

By the way, Google and Facebook will still be available via the current IPv4 system on and after June 8. So don’t panic. You’ll probably hear from your ISP in coming months, but it’s unlikely that you’ll lose service.

How are you and your colleagues preparing for IPv6?

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A great conference leaves you feeling empowered, inspired and ready to take on whatever comes your way. And then you arrive home feeling overwhelmed as you unpack, do laundry, open snail mail and handle all the mundane stuff that needs doing. Not only that, but also you have so much information that you hardly know where to begin to put it to use.

Profit from a Conference in Five Easy Steps

Recovered? Rested? Don’t proceed until you are. For a day or two, focus on recovering and getting through the mundane stuff. You have notes, business cards, programs and handouts to help you remember what you need to know. Then start making your conference pay off with these five steps.

1. Review your content. This includes notes, business cards, handouts, people to follow up with and anything else that came back with you. Don’t use this time to read it all. Instead, sort the content into three piles:
   • Now: The information most important to you, and items with deadlines.
   • Next: The things to look after you finish working through the “Now” pile.
   • Never: Useless stuff you received and items with the least value. Be ruthless: Toss them in the trash. Let them go, otherwise you risk doing nothing with any of the things you brought home. Tip: Next time you go to a conference, do a review to toss the bad stuff before you leave, as it will leave less to pack and less to contend with when you get home.
2. Act on the quick “Now” items. Read the notes, enter business cards into your address book, drop a quick note to contacts, link up with contacts in social networks and make a list of action items that will take more time.
3. Schedule “Now” items that take more time. If you want to, say, write an article based in information received or study notes in depth, put them on your tasks list with due dates to ensure they get done.
4. Check for information posted online. You may skip this if you have all you need. Sometimes you find a gap in the information you have or wish you had notes from a session you couldn’t attend. Find out if the sessions were recorded or the speaker’s slides have been posted online, and see if the conference had a Twitter hashtag or web site where everyone shared notes.
5. Complete your tasks. Make sure to follow up on the items scheduled in step 3.

Go Deeper With Your Conference Knowledge

Everyone absorbs and uses information differently. Here are things you can do to make the most of your conference content. Just watch out that you don’t get overwhelmed;  it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to contact too many people, select too much to study or write too many articles.

• Follow up with people. Did you make any promises to contacts you made at the event? Do those first before pursuing the rest of your “Now” items. Only move onto the “Next” group after you have comfortably followed up and stayed in touch with the higher-priority contacts.
• Study the materials. Since you sorted out the more important content, study it. How you study depends on your learning style. Looking over it one time isn’t enough for most people to remember and apply the concept. As you learn the material, you’ll find opportunities to put it to work. After you feel you got what you needed from the material,  move on to the “Next” pile.
• Write blog posts or articles. For some, one of the best ways to learn the material and let it sink in is by writing an article or blog. Make a list of article ideas and then prioritize them. Write articles on the most important topics. Put away remaining ideas for safekeeping.

Next time you prepare for another conference or trade show, check out Judi’s “A Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker.”

How do you make the most of a conference after returning home?

Photo by stock.xchng user Vicky 5.

Almost on a daily basis, I come across opportunities to refer business to someone. Sometimes I’m asked for a resource, like if I know someone who can design business cards. Sometimes a possible connection just pops in my head, like if a person I come in contact with mentions something that reminds me of someone else or of an opportunity that might interest him or her. Other times, though, I miss the opportunity to make a referral simply because no one comes to mind right away. Yet, if I gave it some thought or asked some of my existing contacts, I’m sure I could easily find a resource to fill the need.

As a business owner, maximizing these opportunities is really important for several reasons:

1. It solidifies your place in the customer’s mind as a go-to resource, as someone who can always help solve problems and find solutions,
2. It reinforces relationships you’re building by showing your willingness to help those around you, and
3. It opens the door for reciprocal referrals between you and other service providers to which you regularly send business.

But how do you make sure you’re ready to act the minute an opportunity presents itself (or at least not very long afterward)?

Step 1: Have Tools in Place to Support You

There are tons of CRM and contact management applications available to help you manage an ever-growing database of connections. Highrise is my favorite; I like the simplicity and ease-of-use of 37Signals tools.

Of course, even the best tool won’t help you if you don’t populate it with data, and this can be the most intimidating part of starting to use contact management software. My recommendation is to ease into it. Start from today and add new contacts you come in contact with. To get existing contacts into the program, try adding a few each day until you have everyone set up. There are ways to import contacts from other programs, too. Just be sure to go through all applications and places where you currently keep information about contacts, including your email and social networking accounts, past blog entries (for example, if you interviewed someone for your site or they provided a guest post), and anywhere else you might find a long-lost resource.

The most important thing, though, is to be sure and tag each person in every way you might search for him or her. For example, you might tag a virtual assistant as VA, virtual assistant, web designer, website designer, etc., depending on that particular virtual assistant’s expertise and skill set.

Step 2: Get to Know the People in Your Network

Learn what your network does. Learn what they need. Recently, someone asked if I knew of anyone who did a particular type of web design. At the time, no one came to mind, but then just a week later, I met another person who fitted the bill. I did an email introduction, which will hopefully lead to shared referrals between the two of them.

Pay attention to the little details about people, even things like hobbies and past work experience. If someone is an avid reader, for instance, you might need a book recommendation one day, or maybe you’ll read a great book that you can pass along to that person. As you discover these little tidbits, enter them (again, as tags) in the person’s contact record.

Not only does paying attention to the “little things” help you along the way as a business owner, but it also deepens your relationships and builds your credibility.

Step 3: Keep Your Network Top of Mind.

Always be thinking of the people around you. How can you help them? How can you help not just your clients and followers, but also fellow business owners? Every connection, every referral and every introduction strengthens your network and your business. People will come to trust and depend on you for quality recommendations and resources to help them in their lives and businesses.

Step 4: Show Initiative

Show people you can help them. When someone asks for a web designer and that’s out of your area of expertise, go to your contact management software and search for “web designer” and see who shows up. Nothing will impress a customer more than you going the extra mile for him or her and sending over a list of quality web designers.

By developing a strong and comprehensive list of resources, it becomes even easier to take better care of your customers and clients, as well as all the relationships in your network, and of course, there’s something to be said for good karma and paying it forward.

What tips do you have for maintaining a better “little black book”?

Photo by Flickr user vince42, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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It’s silly, and kind of stupid, but it’s fun and it brightens up the Facebook News Feed. And it actually gets people interacting on Facebook, which it seems to me was once the whole point of the site in to begin with, although I can’t be certain because that’s a time clouded by the impenetrable fog of so many Farmville updates that my brain has been severely damaged.

And since these kinds of memes put the “social” back in “social media,” I find them quite useful from a web working perspective, too. They help you connect on a human level with people you might not otherwise have communicated much with.

Case in point, with many people who add me to Facebook after finding me through professional channels (i.e. this and other blogs I write for), there is little to no follow-up communication after that initial virtual handshake. Regardless of what we claim this says about our proficiency as social networkers, it does not constitute a relationship by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks to the doppelganger game, and others like it, I’ve actually begun to have meaningful, non-business related interaction with a few of these folks. Even if the initial back-and-forth is quite innocuous, it’s still a seed that can lead to great things growing. Please note, I’m talking about impromptu memes and interaction here, not the use of Facebook apps like Farmville. If Facebook cut off application support tomorrow, I doubt I’d notice, except for the fact that I’d have to click the “Hide” button much less frequently in my News Feed.

The other benefit of participating in the impromptu online social network games that crop up constantly is that they’re just plain fun. You know as well as I do that you’re already spending lots of time procrastinating on Facebook anyway, so why not procrastinate in a way that encourages community building?

Have you developed any meaningful connections via innocuous social games like this?

You don’t have to limit your marketing and promotional efforts to content creation, though. Here are a few other ideas to help you get the word out about your business.

1. Create and maintain a high-quality, easy-to-use, self-explanatory web site.

Your web site works for you 24/7/365, so it’s important that it does a good job. It doesn’t need to be beautiful or showy. As a web designer, I would actually recommend clean and easy-to-use over pretty, fun or cute.

When thinking about your web site’s design and functionality, focus on answering these questions for your ideal visitor:

• What is this site about?
• What does this person/company do?
• How much does the service/product cost? How does the service/product work? What else do I need to know about this service/product?
• How can I sign up or purchase this service/product? How can I contact this person/company?
• Should I keep up with this person/company (through a blog, newsletter, regular email coupons/discounts, etc.)? If so, how do I sign up or follow the person/company?

Your site should quickly and obviously answer these questions so that visitors can find their way around your site easily and so that they take action as quickly and painlessly as possible.

2. Use a short and effective email signature.

Every time you send an email, it’s a chance to remind your followers and new contacts what you do. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t be spammy. Don’t overdo it. Just provide a concise message to jog their memory and get them to click over to your site every once in a while.

Here’s my signature.

Amber Singleton Riviere
http://www.ambersingleton.com/

I also like my friend Betsy’s.

Betsy Talbot | www.marriedwithluggage.com | Twitter @marriedwluggage

3. Be a guest on other video blogs, podcasts and radio shows.

Monitor places like Twitter, Blogger Linkup, and HARO for opportunities to be interviewed for video blogs, podcasts and radio shows. It’s a great way to expand your reach and get known for your expertise.

4. Invite others to be guests on your blog, video cast or podcast.

One of my best methods for networking actually revolves around guest posts, whether I’m inviting people to contribute to my site or offering content for their sites. It’s been a very effective way to generate interest around my business. It takes a lot of effort to keep up, but it’s worth every minute of it.

I offer guest posts regularly on my site (usually ten or more per month), and what’s great about it is that you usually get the added benefit of promotion to the person’s followers and audience.

5. Participate in online networking.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to meet new people and get the word out about you and your company or site. Also, be sure to follow and comment on other blogs that target your ideal customer or client. By participating in conversations surrounding your niche, you’ll become known as an expert and a valued source of information.

6. Run promotions and discounts on your services periodically.

Getting potential customers and clients to take action and actually purchase your products or services can be tricky, but if you run occasional discounts, you’ll find customers coming out of the woodwork, and it’s a good way to get new prospects to test the waters with you and your company.

I offer a discount in each of my newsletter issues, as well as occasional discounts on Facebook and Twitter. On that note, running contests can also be a good way to get attention for you and your business, especially on Twitter.

Promoting a business doesn’t always have to be difficult. The key, though, is consistency.  Select the methods that work best for you and then stick with them. Do them on a regular basis, even if you’re not seeing immediate results. It takes some time to gain traction, but if you’re persistent, you’ll eventually hit the tipping point and business will start to snowball.

What other easy ways do you promote your business?

Image from Flickr by Slack pics

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It takes a while to appreciate the juggling you have to do as a business owner, but Larson’s quote wraps it up pretty concisely. Here are the three things you need to pay attention to if you want your business to thrive.

• Do what you do, and do it well. You might be a writer, a virtual assistant, or a publicist. No matter what your trade, work to be the best at it. Know your business, constantly improve, and have guiding principles that define how you work and who your ideal client is.
• Be systematic and consistent about promoting your business. The strategies and tactics you use to market you and your services or products are much less important than the regularity and consistency in which you do them. Pick the things that work for you, develop a plan of attack around those strategies, and take small and steady steps toward reaching your marketing goals on a daily basis.
• Nurture and grow your network. People mean everything to the success of your business. Take care of them. Surround yourself with clients and colleagues who inspire you to do your absolute best work, and then make it a two-way street. Be genuinely excited by their success, and they will be in yours.

As a business owner, it can be easy to neglect one or more areas of our businesses. We drown in the work itself and forget to take care of the people in our sphere of influence. We obsess over the marketing aspect at times, until our work suffers. The only way to lasting success is through taking care of all three areas equally.

How do you ensure that you take care of your people, your marketing and your business?

Image from Flickr by CuLeX-

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For a long time I thought of trade shows as specialized shopping malls, with dealers in booths trying to sell their wares to a sea of customers. But recent experiences have taught me that trade shows aren’t just shopping malls.They are the business equivalent of speed dating.

Technology has changed what most businesses need to get out of a trade show. Thanks to the ability of the web to spread information, a trade show isn’t a customer’s only way to learn about products that they need. Vendors can educate customers via the web, and make sales contacts via email.

That almost sounds like there isn’t a need for trade shows any more. But on a day-to-day level, for many of the things that we do conducting business, we don’t do business with companies. We do business with people. That is where the real value still is in trade shows. “Networking” is a buzzword we hear all the time, but at trade shows it really has become the primary value. It just isn’t worth it to go to most shows anymore only to do a “look-see”. You only get true value if you go with the intent of interacting, meeting people and furthering relationships.

That is why  it’s a good way to think about trade shows as speed dating. In speed dating, you rotate around a room and spend a few minutes each with different people before deciding if you connected with any of them and want a more extended interaction. At a trade show, you run around a trade show floor chatting for a few minutes at a time with a variety of people, trading business cards and then extending an invitation to follow-up with someone you think you might be able to establish a relationship with. Both are about spending a few minutes to get a first impression and decide whether there might be anything in a future relationship between you.

So how do you succeed at trade show speed dating?

• Make a good first impression. Pay attention to the details, just like you would if you were trying to impress someone to get a date. What you wear, how you carry yourself, and what you say all contribute to that first impression. Make sure you correctly gauge the vibe of the event. Over-dressing can be just as bad as under-dressing.

• Think outside the box. Don’t dismiss someone as a business connection because it seems like what they do isn’t useful to you. Talk to everyone. If you meet someone you find yourself feeling in step with professionally, don’t walk away from that. Maybe one or both of you will change positions at a future point. Or maybe you can work together in some ground-breaking new way.

• Have good radar. This takes practice. It really is an art. But learning how to spot the people who are fake, or putting on a show, will save you a lot of trouble down the line. And it will save you networking time because you can move on to the next prospect faster, and maybe find that next fabulous business connection all the sooner.

What is your best trade show networking tip?

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As I look back, I realize that our success was based not just on our technical skills. After all, anything technical can be done, and done well, by lots of people. Our products and services aren’t that different than those offered by our competitors. So what did we do right?

• We listened to our customers, so we could tailor our offerings to their current and near-future needs. We don’t speculate about technologies in decades to come, but we do keep up with the latest technologies, products and services that are available today. Our informal slogan (with apologies to the old Panasonic commercials) is: “Just slightly ahead of our customers.”
• We were flexible. We were able to change our pricing structure, create new packages of products and services, and experiment with special deals, quickly and easily. My friends in marketing would be horrified at the lack of research we did before embarking on some of these changes, but we didn’t have the time or the money. Since we spent zero dollars on advertising, though, any success went straight to the bottom line, and unsuccessful experiments cost only our time.
• We took advantage of our reputation. After almost 25 years in business, our customers knew that we could provide creative solutions and personal service. In tough times, people were much more willing to do business with folks they knew and trusted, which put us in an excellent position to meet their needs.
• We could afford to be selective about the projects we took on. Even in tough times, we’ve learned that it’s just not worth the hassle of working with customers with whom we don’t see eye to eye.
• We minimized our overhead. As WWD readers know well, there are tons of products and services available to let small businesses work from home (or anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection) easily, and just as effectively as businesses with expensive office space. I’ve worked from home since 1991, and thanks to the latest technologies, it’s never been easier than it was this past year.
• Networking was more important than ever, and social network sites like LinkedIn and Facebook expanded who I could reach easily. Such sites didn’t create new friends, but they made it easy to keep in contact, and reconnect, with old friends. In 2009, I actually did business with an old high-school friend who I hadn’t heard from in many years, as well as my very first client from 1985. Of course, I didn’t give up networking locally; I acquired several clients who got to know me through professional and community groups.
• We maintained a diverse customer base. We’ve all heard the stories about car parts manufacturers who were dependent on one client, like GM or Ford. When the auto companies crashed, the parts companies did, too. It’s easy to fall into the trap of relying too heavily on one customer, one sector, or one type of business. It’s a mistake I’ve made in the past, too, but my company now has a customer base that’s about evenly divided between small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and nonprofit organizations. And while many of our customers are in the Northwest, we have lots of clients elsewhere, as the Seattle area tends to be tied to a couple of large employers that have their own booms and busts.
• We did everything necessary to retain a strong team. I’ve been fortunate to work with many talented people over the years, but my current colleagues are the best. We’ve developed a skill set that makes our small company competitive with much larger organizations. When we reorganized the company in 2001 as an LLC, we agreed that our first priority was to have fun and make a living doing so. It was sometimes tough to do that this year, but we managed it most of the time.

In 2010, my company will mark its 25th anniversary. I’m already working on planning the party. Let’s hope 2010 will be a better year for everyone. In the meantime, best wishes to you for a prosperous new year!

What techniques did you use to survive 2009?

Photo credit: stock.xchng user gtrfrkbob

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I act quite differently in my car than I do when I meet strangers in a store. I’m much more likely to be aggressive while driving, whereas in a store, I’m generally very courteous and tend to go out of my way to hold doors open for people, and that sort of thing.

It’s strange, really. I’m “in a rush” when I’m on the road and don’t have time for niceties, but after parking my car and walking into a store five minutes later, I can take the time to be polite. It made me wonder if medium influences behavior.

I was talking recently with another entrepreneur about how people can be rude and even intentionally hurtful when posting comments online. We wondered if those same people would act differently in person. We agreed that the Internet has a tendency to evoke rudeness where it otherwise wouldn’t exist. For example, I came across a Twitter reply a few days ago that, while not necessarily overtly rude, seemed snippy and maybe a little arrogant. It gave me a bad first impression of the company and its team, something that is now hard for them to repair.

All of these instances made me realize how important it is to be polite and courteous in every environment. A simple tweet or blog comment might very well damage a reputation that you’ve worked hard to establish, when all that was really needed was a little consideration for another person.

How observant are you about how you behave in different environments? If you knew your customers could see you, would you act the same?

Image from Flickr by Jacob Bøtter

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But how do you tap into this invaluable resource? It can be intimidating to go to others for help and can be perceived as pushy and self-serving if approached the wrong way. Here are a few tips to help others help you.

1. Embrace the idea of “paying it forward.”

People really do want to help you, which usually stems from them wanting to help everyone in their network. They ask what you do and immediately think, “Oh, you should meet [fill in the blank]!” Likewise, when you mention that you have a particular need, they mention several people you might consider and offer to connect you with them.

The most important thing to remember is that networking is all about adding value. The more you find ways to help those around you, the more opportunities will inevitably come your way.

2. Make it easy.

In an article on Techcrunch, Michael Arrington said “Those of us in a position to help entrepreneurs need to do more of it…But this is a two way street. Budding entrepreneurs trying to break down the walls need to grow up. Most of the time people don’t have the time to help you, and you shouldn’t aim hate at them for it. Instead, try a different angle or a different person.” This quote made me think of two things. Firstly, it’s important to remember that people are busy, so you need to make it so easy for them to help you that they can do it quickly and without too many steps.

For example, Betsy Talbot of Married with Luggage emailed people in her network recently asking for promotional help. She made it insanely easy by including links, as well as short and specific instructions for what to do with each of the links. She even included copy so that we didn’t have to come up with it ourselves.

3. Don’t be self-serving.

The second thing about Arrington’s quote that struck me was about trying a different angle. It’s easy to come at things from the wrong angle, and when promoting a business, that’s usually followed by rejection. If you always think of it as, “How can I get people talking about me or my business?,” then that means (a) you have to introduce yourself to someone without sounding like you’re selling something and (b) you have to somehow get them to feel compelled to mention you to others. If you think of it this way, it can seem purely self-serving.

Instead, find a way to help them, and of course, you have to always be sincere with your help. Maybe ask to interview the person for your blog or podcast, or if the person has written a book recently, offer to review it. By reaching out in this way, the person will actually look forward to learning more about you and your business, and if they enjoy talking with you, they may take the time to mention you to people in their own network.

The main thing to remember is that people are more than willing to help you. Most entrepreneurs are acutely aware of the value of networking, and successful ones understand that networking is all about helping others. Just remember, as Arrington said, it’s a two-way street.

What have been your biggest lessons in networking and helping others help you with your business? How do you make sure that you’re not perceived as self-serving?

Image from Flickr by crschmidt

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A good bio shares your experience, builds your credibility, makes a first impression and displays your personality. Having a great Twitter bio is important as it can make or break a person’s decision whether to follow you or not.

Not only do you need to pay attention to what your bio says about you, but also the other fields in your profile including “Web” and “Location.” The Twitter bio may be small, but it’s powerful. Here is a checklist to ensure you your bio passes muster.

Does your bio include relevant keywords? Do you want people to find you by your career, company, industry, location? Why are you using Twitter? Who are the people you want to connect with? Use these to figure out what keywords to use.

The keywords for me include “writer,” “editor” and “games” (I do game reviews.) I built my bio around those and added a personal touch at the end: “Content maven aka writer, editor and bookwormette who plays with words and games (www.thegamezen.com) in between PTA work and refereeing the kids.” Yes, I snuck in a URL, even though it’s not clickable.

Does your bio cover what you do? People who use Twitter for networking and business tend to follow people based on what they do and their topics of interest. The “what you do” part can also get you on people’s lists. For instance, I have lists for writers, marketers, PR peeps and so on; and it’s the bios that helped me with building my Twitter lists.

What do you have under “Location”? While many of us can work with people all over the world, our locations can lead to surprising opportunities. In fact, I had lunch with someone I met in Twitter. Within just a few tweets, we found out that we live within a mile of each other! Again, this can get you on location-based Twitter lists like mine, which covers Dallas-Fort Worth.

Have you seen nonsense numbers for location such as UT: 12.345678, -234.5678? This comes from Twitter applications like Ubertwitter, but these mean nothing to most people. (FYI: you can enter these coordinates in Google Maps to find the person’s location.) Originally, I had “Plano, Texas” and changed it to “Plano, Texas, north of Dallas” so those searching for “Dallas” will find me.

What does your web link look like? This might seem like a strange question, but some people put in short URLs (tinyurl, bit.ly, ow.ly, is.gd, etc.) in this field. Most of us have learned the hard way not to trust this. Twitter doesn’t shorten the links in this field, so don’t use a shortened URL link. It reeks of spam. “Hidden URLs are usually spam sites or MLM marketing,” tweets Suzanne (aka ZeroCattle.)

Where does your web link go? There’s no one single obvious answer. Often I want to go straight to a person’s blog, if they have one. Sometimes I just want to read more about the person. Some people create a landing page specifically for Twitter, which is where my link goes. However, I wonder if pointing to my blog would be a better idea.

Suzanne suggests linking to your business’ web site or to a profile on a social network site, if you don’t have your own site. While it’s easy to set up your own site, not everyone has the need for one especially those in corporate careers. Peggy Dolane (aka FreeRangeMom) likes to see a person’s web link take her where she can learn more about them or their passions.

Don’t worry too much about having the perfect bio. Many of us have tweaked our bios over time while becoming more comfortable and familiar with Twitter. Even my own is probably version 3.3. Remember, be yourself. That’s what makes you stand out.

What do you look for in a Twitter profile?

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There are other things you can do, things that are far more representative of your trade than a lifeless rectangular slip of paper with some contact information printed upon it. That’s not to say that all rectangular slips of paper are without merit, just that most traditional ones just aren’t getting the job done like they used to, following the demise of the Rolodex. Here are some alternatives you may want to consider.

Email/Blog Address Fortune

Maybe I just have a lot of superstitious friends with hoarding tendencies, but I, and people I know, tend to hang on to the fortunes we get from fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants. At least until the next time I wash the pants I’m wearing, at which point I empty out the pockets and re-read said fortune.

Lucky Brand jeans uses this as a marketing tactic, and includes a branded fortune in the pocket of a new pair of its product. You can do the same. Find a memorable quote or write an interesting fortune, print them on slips of paper with your logo if you have one, and put an email or blog address on the back. Handing these out will not only help you network, it should spark conversation, so long as the content you print on them is interesting enough. Try to come up with a variety so that you can hand them out in groups without doubling up.

QR Code

Depending on the crowd you’re mixing with, and whose attention you want to attract, you might want to riff on the traditional business card by handing out cards printed with QR codes. QR codes are a type of barcode that can be used to link to digital content via a scanned, printed symbol. Here’s an example:

QR codes can be scanned by software readers on smart phones with cameras (as long as there’s an app available for the phone, which there often is) and will process the information and launch the appropriate content. For example, the one above should open a link to WebWorkerDaily. You can generate your own QR codes here.

Obviously, you have to be careful who you give this kind of thing to. It works best with tech professionals who’ll either be familiar with QR codes, or with tech enthusiasts who’ll be interested enough to find out more about them.

Contact Info T-Shirt

If you’re going to a trade show or convention, and you aren’t afraid to do a little shameless self-promotion (which you really shouldn’t be if you’re in this line of business), then have a t-shirt printed up with either your email or web address on it.

Now that cell phone cameras are so prevalent it’s unlikely you’ll come across someone who doesn’t have one, all you have to do to share your info with someone is stand very still for a couple seconds while they snap a photo. It’s memorable, it’s environmentally-friendly, and you get to feel like a rock star for a day while getting your picture taken.

Business Rock

This isn’t mine, it’s something I found on Instructables, but it was so off-beat that I had to share. Basically, the idea is just that you find a well-worn lake or river stone, hand-write your details on it, and distribute that in lieu of a business card.

It’s time consuming, sure, but it doesn’t cost a thing, and it will help you stand out from the field, especially if you work in a creative line of business. You can pick up a relatively inexpensive customizable craft stamp if you’d rather simplify and save your hand some cramping, too.

It’s a little out of left field, but maybe in your line of work, that’s seen as a good place to be coming from.

Let’s face it. The business card isn’t useful. It’s a little like wearing a hat in public. An odd tradition left over from a bygone era that evokes some nostalgia, but that’s about it. You don’t have to start carrying around a sack of rocks, necessarily, but try and shake things up a bit, and your business relationships will benefit.

What business card alternatives do you use or have you come across and thought about using? Any tangible benefits to do doing things differently?

Photo credit: bargainmoose

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