Woman at laptop looking frustrated

To some bloggers I know, them’s fightin’ words up there in that title…

They hang on to their proclamations — “I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO WRITE!” — like life preservers on a sinking RMS Titanic. They claim that imagination-deprived status as if it’s a badge of honor, or something. These are probably the same people who brag about how stressed out they are, I’d imagine.

But it’s a non-issue. You should never run out of ideas for your blog. It’s impossible. Here’s why.

Your Eyes ARE Open, Correct?

Look around you. Every single day you see literally thousands of Things. Also (hopefully) People. Each one of those Things – and every single one of those People – is a potential blog source.

Don’t believe me? Let’s do a little experiment.

OK, I’m sitting in my home office (which is actually a nicely furnished basement) and here’s what I see around me:

• Television (turned off)
• Futon mattress
• Sleeping cat
• Refrigerator (running)
• Door
• Art supply cabinet
• LOTS of books

There are a lot more things, obviously but let’s just keep the list manageable. Otherwise I’ll be here all day.

Right there, I have at least seven blog topics:

1. Can’t find time to engage in high-level vision planning for your business? Why your television is probably to blame
2. Is your customer service a futon or a waterbed? How to tell and why it matters
3. Ten things I learned from my cat about running a successful business
4. Are you the television or the refrigerator? Why you need to unplug once in awhile for your business’s sake
5. Out the door? Not so fast – seven things you should do before giving notice to start your own company
6. Art Day! Why engaging your inner child’s creativity is crucial for your inner entrepreneur’s success
7. Are you reading too much? When to put the books down and get out there and DO SOMETHING!

Not one of these ideas existed before I just put myself through that little exercise, mind you. I also have zero clue right now about how some of them will flesh out. (Hello? Have you SEEN my cat? All he does is sleep. And terrorize the dog.) But I know that each one of these could be a blog post.

And you know what?  I’ll prove it to you: Right now, I commit to making these seven posts the next seven posts on The Inspired Solo. (Dang, I just screwed up my editorial calendar all to pieces. Oh well. The price you pay for social proof, I guess.)

Your Brain IS Functioning,  No?

You don’t know everything. No, don’t bother denying it. Cat’s out of the bag on that one, buttercup. None of us do.

So, what don’t you know? Make a list of questions. Ask those questions. Find out the answers. Or just make the blog post about those questions — or one question — or whatever. Just get curious, and share that curiosity with your readers.

You DO Feel Emotions, Don’t You?

Sometimes when clients complain to me that they’re running out of blog post ideas, what’s really going on is that there’s something they’re itching to write but they’re afraid it’s too … personal. it’s too … touchy-feely.

What they mean is “It’s different than everything else I’ve written and that scares me.”

Completely valid feeling, by the way, but … ignore it. Seriously. Ignore the crap out of it. Do what scares you. Put yourself out there. No, I’m not talking about writing about what you had for lunch (or, God forbid, your sexual history). I’m talking about putting more of yourself into your posts. What you feel – where your sense of justice is violated — what you’re outraged by — what you’re inspired by.

You have SOME Measure of Empathy, Right?

If all else fails, put yourself in someone else’s shoes. What does the world of what-you-do look like for someone else? If you typically write from the perspective of the “you” that does what-you-do, try writing from the perspective of the person for whom you do it.  If you approach your blog posts from the perspective of the targeted client, then try going at it from the viewpoint of some other kind of professional who also serves the same targeted market.

Or expand your market – think of some other kind of prospect that might benefit from what-you-know and what-you-do.

Or expand what-you-do into what-you’d-LOVE-to-do.

What if what-you-do doesn’t work? What then for your poor customer? Or if it works superbly well — what happens next?  What if someone can’t afford to hire you? What does the world look like for that poor man, woman, or business?

Just try on a different pair of eyes.

The Take-Away

There’s no such thing as running out of blog ideas. There is, however, such a thing as failing to utilize your eyes, your brain, your emotions, and your empathy.

Suggested exercise: Challenge yourself to come up with twenty new blog post ideas right now. Then keep adding to that list, every day for a week.

Think fast: You’ve got 2.6 seconds to grab your prospect’s attention, bring them over to your business blog, and make them read that all-important first line of your brilliant work. The first line must make them read the second line, and so on. It all starts with the headline.

Headlines are crucial. I know, I know: “Tell me something I don’t know, genius.”

OK, how’s this: with a fairly simple six-step approach, you can guarantee killer blog post headlines for your business blog, every single time.

1. Start With the Blog Post’s Headline

This may seem counterintuitive. After all, how can you write a good headline if you don’t know what the post is going to contain? But that’s backwards thinking, and here’s why.

Think of your headline as your midway barker’s call. How can it pack the sideshow tents if it doesn’t speak first? That’s gotta come before the show, in other words.

Your headline makes a promise to your prospects/readers. Make the promise, then deliver the goods.

Another reason: I find it makes brainstorming easier. I can think more quickly in headline-format than in vague synopsis terms. Every week, when I’m planning the editorial content calendar for TIS’s coming week, I give myself fifteen to come up with as many different headlines as possible. I’ve tried thinking of subjects but I find I don’t get nearly as excited and energized by the results.

2.  Cheat. Cheat Like Crazy.

There is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel.

Riff off other headlines all you want. In fact, you should take a page from copywriters and create a swap file (a collection, either digital or analog, of really cool copy that you found especially impactful in some way). When inspiration runs low, take out the swap file and peruse some samples. Allow the samples to generate the next thought — “what if I changed this subject to my niche and added a list …?”

If you need a little refresher course on what kinds of formulas are available for you to steal from, check out Copyblogger’s “10 Surefire Headline Formulas That Work” (hint: that’s one of them, right there).

3.  Decide What Kind of Blog Post You’re Writing

The kind of post you write will, to a large degree, determine what your headline will look like. A “how-to” piece should be titled differently than a list resource.

A few guidelines:

• Start a “how-to” piece with the magic words: “How To ___________.” When a user searches for instructions, she’s going to be more likely to use those magic words in her search; the more closely your page title and headline match her search string, the closer to the top of the SERPs your post will find itself.
• How-to post headlines should focus on the benefit of following the advice in the post, not the end result necessarily. They’re not always the same thing — in fact, probably rarely the same thing. Tell me how to get my teeth whiter, sure, but the benefit isn’t white teeth — it’s greater self-confidence, or being more attractive to my gender of choice, right? Tell me that.
• If you’re working on a list piece (i.e., “36 Ways to _________”, “7 Secrets of __________”), put your number in the title. Use numerals instead of writing the number out (style guides be damned). Hint: you might not know how many items you’re going to come up with initially when you’re crafting your headline – just use ‘x’ and move on. You can fill it in later.)
• Opinion pieces are good candidates for question-format headlines. Ask a question that you can (and will) answer in the post. Be straightforward, and eschew the cleverness in favor of directness.
• BUT, a word of warning about questions: if the reader can answer that question, she’s not going to be motivated to read the post. The question has to arouse significant curiosity in a majority of your targeted readers in order to be effective as a headline.
• Guide pieces — like “how-tos” but more in depth and focusing generally on a larger-context activity or task — needs magic words. Some choices: primer, guide, basics, “101″ (as in “Blog Publishing 101″).
• “Best of” posts are a type of list post, generally a round-up of what the blogger (or some third party) considers the most worthy candidates of a particular genre, subject, or some other collective group. Frequently extended to blog posts (as in “The Top 200 Blog Posts on Social Media Marketing in 2009″) and websites. Focus on superlatives in your headlines: best, most, greatest, etc.

4.  Research Your Keywords

We all should know by now that keywords are crucial for SEO and best possible placement in SERPs. The closer your headline and page title match the search string entered by your reader, the higher up on that list your post will be. But there’s another reason keywords are important: they help your reader decide whether to keep reading.

One mistake many beginning business bloggers make when thinking about SEO is to consider only the site as a whole. That’s important, sure, but remember that each and every blog post you write will be its own separate page, with its own potential to reach targeted readers (read: business prospects).

Your keywords should come at the front of the headline, as well as the title; assuming you’re up to date on your WP installation and have wisely installed either Headway or Thesis (note: affiliate links), or the All in One SEO Pack plugin, you can customize the title of the page differently from the headline.

By the way, you may have heard that advice before but didn’t understand the reasoning behind it. It’s a fairly practical point: the search engine results won’t show the entirety of your description (assuming you have crafted one) or your title or headline if they exceed character limits. So, to make sure the searcher sees the good stuff, put it at the front of each element.

5.  Outline Your Post

Once you have your keywords, your headline draft, and a basic idea of what kind of post you’re writing, it’s time to outline the post, keeping the promise you made in the headline firmly in mind.

You don’t need to make this a formal, detailed outline but you should at a minimum jot down a few words for each point you want to make and make a preliminary guess as to where your headings ought to be placed. Remember that your headings ought to be keyword-rich, too — but in a natural, organic way.

To make sure you’ve achieved that balance, read your work out loud. If it sounds like you’re repeating yourself unnaturally, then you’ve gone overboard. If you find yourself wondering what the piece is really about, you likely haven’t gone far enough.

After the outline’s done, write your post.

6.  Finish With the Headline: Keep the Promise You Made

You’re not quite done yet. Now that you’ve finished the post, go back and take a fresh look at that headline you wrote way back in the beginning. Read it again carefully – out loud, preferably – with the post that follows in mind. (Just make sure, if you’re not alone, that those around you feel pretty secure with your sanity before you start, because you will probably start to sound a wee bit loony after awhile.)

Did you keep the promise you made in that headline? If not, rework it and/or the post until you’ve delivered on it completely.  Tweak the words on the micro level until it zips when you read it out loud as well as when you read it silently on the screen.

When you’ve hit the right mark, you’ll know. For me, it’s as if my brain exhales after holding its breath, or like that moment when you finish a hard workout. It could be different for you – who knows? Maybe I’m just way too into this stuff to be anywhere close to representative, much less objective.

Conclusion

Headlines are important — maybe not all important but crucial enough to bring those readers along for the ride into the rest of the post. Use these six steps outlined above as a paradigm to get you started developing your own method, because every blogger’s got to find his or her own best practices.

To Do List

NB: this post was prompted by a comment left by Carolie of WordMagix on an earlier post about what Sandra Bullock’s Oscar weekend teaches us about business blogging. Carolie’s comment, boiled down to its essence (the whole comment is worth reading in its entirety) was this: “Why don’t business owners outsource the stuff they’re not good at? Don’t they realize saving a few bucks is actually costing them in the long run?” She asked for my thoughts on this subject, and – knowing my tendency to run on a bit on subjects about which I have strong opinions – I agreed to do so in a separate post. Which is this. Right here. Read on.

Do It Yourself Brain Surgery? No Way. DIY Graphic Design? Why Not?! (Here’s Why Not.)

As a recent commenter noted on this blog:

Say you’re a neurosurgeon. You’d be absolutely appalled if your lawn guy decided to perform his own brain surgery, right? Or let’s pretend you’re an accountant. Wouldn’t you do your best to talk your actress friend OUT of doing her own bookkeeping — for her own sake, not just so you could get the job? As a designer and copywriter, I outsource my accounting, my surgeries, and anything else where someone else will do a better job than I!

Commenter Carolie has the right idea, and that’s exactly the right analogy, too. You wouldn’t dream of performing major surgery on yourself. (Well, if you would, you have much bigger problems than how to market your business, my friend…)

Yet day in and day out, I see solo and small biz owners do pretty much the equivalent, over and over again.

Need a new business card design? “Hey, don’t I have some application on this new desktop computer I just bought that can do business cards? I could have sworn I read something about that somewhere…”

Creating copy for a new website? “Why hire a copywriter? I can write. My tenth-grade English teacher told me so.”

Or my favorite — time to do the taxes?  ”Well, I did my own personal taxes every year when I was a W-2 worker. How much harder can it be now that I own my business? I mean, it’s not like I’m making millions of dollars or anything. Turbo Tax, here I come!”

Honestly, it makes me want to bang my head against the desk because nine times out of ten, these are the same folks — smart, capable business owners, mind you — who complain to me as their business coach that they don’t have enough time in the day to do all that marketing stuff I want them to do.

Who are also the same folks who complain at year’s end that the cash isn’t flowing as profusely as they’d like, and their bottom lines need to be relocated upwards in a hurry.

Hmm.

OK, let’s see if we can parse this out …

More Time Than Money: The Curse of the Newly-Minted Solo Entrepreneur

When we’re all just starting out, and at every point in the timeline after that launch, we’ve got three major assets to our name. No, I’m not talking about specific assets, like cars or office buildings or furniture or computers. I’m talking about:

1. Time
2. Money
3. Ourselves (personal assets, like intelligence, experience, skillsets, energy)

That last asset is pretty much static over time — sure, we might have more energy in the morning than in the afternoon (especially after that pasta primavera lunch!) but by and large, we know what we know, we can do what we’re trained to do, and those resources change slowly (and hopefully, always in the upwards, increasing direction).

But those first two … ah, there’s the rub. And generally speaking, at the beginning you’re going to have more time than money on your hands.

So, it’s understandable that you’d look at a problem — any problem (and that’s what they all appear to be, in the beginning, one big ol’ laundry list of problems) — and want to keep your cash to yourself. And if you can’t throw money at it? You throw your time at it. (And also a good healthy dose of #3 — your energies, your attention, your intellectual capital.)

It seems like it makes sense — at least, initially. It’s a problem. You have to solve it. You have some small amount of exposure to this problem’s solution set. You’ve got the time — heck, it’s not like you’ve got a ton of clients beating down your door right now. So why not tackle it yourself?

Sometimes this will be the best approach. Sometimes. But most often, you just end up hurting yourself. Why? Let’s look at numbers.

It takes me — someone who knows what a blog header is, how it functions, how big it’s supposed to be, and the basic steps of how to make one — anywhere from two to six hours to finesse a really good looking blog header.

But graphics design in general and designing headers specifically? That’s not my thing.  My “thing” is a two-ingredient casserole consisting of equal parts strategies (creative problem-solving in the marketing and administrative areas) and words (copywriting, editing, story-telling). Subsets of “my thing” include SEO (creatively using words to solve the problem of low-SERP-ranking sites), blog content creation (creatively using words to solve the problem of how to consistently generate targeted content), and SMM/SNM (creatively using words to solve the problem of connecting with target markets).

Coding sites? Creating headers? Not part of my thing. But they are the thing of other really cool and creative business owners. It takes some of them about one-eighth the time it takes me to create that self-same header. (Plus? It looks a lot better and there aren’t any of those fuzzy misplaced pixels I always end up with, damn it. Hey, why do you think I’ve had a plain text header on this site ever since the great revamp of Aught-Nine?)

Now. If I do my site’s header, I’m out eight hours, and countless amounts of stress and frustration (measured in increased heart rate, higher blood pressure, and fewer hairs — except of the grey variety). If I outsource it, I’m out $100 or so.

And I end up with a better, more reliable product.

Let’s say I charge $100 an hour for my time. (I do, actually, as a base rate, though the equivalent rate is sometimes lower for folks who purchase packages of services from me, simply because I like round numbers and I hate billing hours with the searing fiery passion of a thousand white-hot suns, but I digress.)

So, my DIY approach costs me $600. Outsourcing it costs me $100.

“But That’s IMAGINARY Money, Not Real Money!” Yes, And It Doesn’t Matter.

My newly-minted baby solos might protest, “But I don’t actually have a client that would be paying me that money, so it’s not like I’m really out an additional $500. It’s imaginary, but $100 would be awfully real!”

OK, you know what? You’re right. It is imaginary. I’m still right, though, and here’s why:

• Most importantly, it’s this: That time you’re spending on the crap you’re not good at? Could SHOULD be spent marketing your business and actually getting those clients you don’t have.

• Also, perhaps not as urgently but just as critically: The habits you’re creating now are the habits you’re going to end up with in ten years, when you’re tearing your hair out by the roots because you can’t get it all done, clients are screaming at you, and you’re about to go under, even though you’ve got all these clients beating down your door. Start refusing to outsource the crap you’re bad at now and you WILL pay the price. Maybe not now, maybe not even this fiscal year, but soon, and for the rest of your miserable business-owning life. Please. PLEASE trust me on this one.

That Ego Will Kill You(r Business)

Here’s another sneaky little truth that none of us want to admit: Solo entrepreneurs are, as a lot, raving egomaniacs.

C’mon, admit it. We so are. We think we can do it all, and do it better than anyone else, in our deepest, most secret heart of hearts. Our brains might know better, but in our hearts? We’re superheros.

You know what? We totally are. Want proof? Look at how many hats we have to wear in any given day — CEO, marketing VP, line worker, customer service, accounts receivable, research and development … I mean, it’s all us. And generally speaking, we do it pretty damned well.

The problem comes when we turn that little secret into “I can do everything …”

You know that little saying “Jack of all trades”? There’s a little-known coda to it, and it goes like this:

Jack of all trades

And Master of NONE

Here’s the Takeaway On Outsourcing

Be a master of your trade. And let others be masters of theirs.

This is the story of two computer repair shops in Clearwater, Florida, a Craigslist ad, and a marketing consultant who probably should have kept her mouth shut but couldn’t resist trying to help a small business owner out of the darkness of spam and into the light of permission-based marketing. It’s a story of revenge, and redemption proffered but not received. And it’s an object lesson for us all.

Chapter One: Two Computer Repair Shops Use Craigslist for Marketing, With Very Different Ideas About How to Do That

Scott Johnson, aka the “Computer Tutor,” goes to Craiglist every week to post an ad for his computer business. But late last month, something happened that rubbed him the wrong way: he got a response he hadn’t asked for.

If you’re not familiar with Craigslist, the computer-based, location-specific “virtual classifieds” site that offers advertising for just about anything under the sun, then you might not know that Craigslist is pretty bullish on the whole “no spam” thing. They really don’t like folks using their service to spam users. In fact, they say so, on every single ad (click to enlarge):

It reads right there, in pretty plain and emphatic language, “It’s NOT OK to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests.”

Scott’s weekly Craigslist ad the last weekend in February, however, gained him an unwelcome bit of attention. He got an email from someone who either didn’t see, didn’t understand, or didn’t care about that Craigslist prohibition against sending unsolicited services offers.

Enter Robert Mannarino, of Precision Division Advanced Computer Repair. (Robert doesn’t get a link, because I’m not going to give him any additional Google juice off my PR-4 blog.)

Robert sent an email to Scott through Craigslist — in clear violation of Craigslist’s TOS (Terms of Service) — of a blatantly commercial nature:

Do you own a Florida registered computer repair shop? Get your first motherboard repair free!* Precision Division is in business to support computer repair shops! We repair laptop motherboards at the component level, saving you time and money! We are located at 13791 49th Street North, Suite B3 Clearwater, Fl 33762

We specialize in HP!

*Restrictions apply. Some models excluded. Valid only for FL registered computer repair shops only with retail establishments who are accepted into Precision Division’s ASP program. New customers only. This email must be presented at first time check-in to receive promotion.

Robert Mannarino Precision Division 727-831-4369

Scott admits his response was less than polite:

Yep, I really want to do business with a company so desperate that they have to spam Craigslist ads for work.  No thanks.

Scott thought that would be the end of it. To me, what followed was predictable — the situation escalated:

That’s interesting. Do you consider me a competitor? You clearly lack the mental capacity to understand the difference between part swapping and circuit-level repair work. You probably work out of your home, and are angry because your welfare check hasn’t arrived yet. Have a great day, Scott Johnson.

Robert Mannarino Precision Division 727-831-4369

And of course, Scott retorted:

Wow, who’s the angry one?  We’re not talking about the difference between what you do and what I do.  We’re talking about the mental capacity to see the line that says “it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests” and actually comprehend that no one wants your spam email cluttering their inbox.  Did you not read that?  Or do you not think it applies to you?  Do you understand what spam is?  Do you understand that people hate receiving spam, and they look with disdain on the scum that send it out?  What is unclear about that?

And then Robert wrote back:

What’s clear to me is your using a free email account, reflecting a degree of illegitimacy upon your “business”. You’re also not very resourceful, and don’t seem to work well with others. I think you have issues. Everyone else on Craigslist says, “sure sound great”,  or no thanks I”‘ve got it covered”. The people with issues, like you, overreact. I think you should see a psychiatrist.

Robert Mannarino Precision Division 727-831-4369

Thankfully, that’s the end of that round.

Chapter Two: The Conflict Escalates

Except, it wasn’t the end for Scott, because Robert decided next that he’d teach Scott a thing or two — what, precisely, he thought he’d be teaching Scott isn’t quite clear. But he signed Scott up for a bunch of email newsletters.

Either he didn’t know how easy it would be to identify Robert as the one who signed him up for these newsletters, or he didn’t care, but Scott spent several minutes doing a little detective work and reporting Robert to his ISP and his hosting company. (If you’re interested in how he did this, you can read Scott’s detailed instructions on how to identify and report email spammers at his blog.)

That’s when I decided to extend a hand to Robert. I should have known – proselytizing just never works. Still, I thought, maybe he just doesn’t realize how bad his initial email was, and if I can just explain it to him, and maybe offer him a little help to do this marketing stuff the right way …

So, I offered Robert one free month of consulting work. I explained my approach. I explained why he shouldn’t have violated Craigslist’s TOS, why permission-based marketing is always superior to force-feeding spam to people from whom he’s seeking business, and how I could help him revamp his approach and even turn this whole unpleasant incident into a marketing bonanza.

I only had four conditions, I told him:

You must agree to weekly conversations

You must commit to giving the process sufficient time and attention – amount of time varies but count on at least three hours a week. Most marketing pros agree that if you’re not already spending at least that much on marketing, you’re not doing enough.

You must commit to not sending out unsolicited messages again or violating Craigslist TOS again.

You must apologize to Scott. Even if you believe he treated you wrongly, you erred in the initial contact, and in trying to sign him up for newsletters.

The response I got was a succinct one:

I’m not apologizing to Scott until he apologizes to me and removes the potentially damaging public statement that he has made about me.

I told him I understood how he felt (hey, even spammers have feelings and it’s never easy being made the target of a critical web post) but that he was in the wrong initially, and hey, let’s just do this, so you can put it behind you and start building something pretty cool and amazing here out of it.

Then, I found several comments on Scott’s post that Robert left after our email exchange. You can read them for yourself at that above link. And then I discovered that Robert had actually posted a new Craigslist ad titled “Beware of Scott Johnson.”

In which he lambasted Scott for unprofessional conduct. And in which he posted Scott’s email address.  It’s gone now, but luckily I made a screengrab (click to enlarge):

Clearly, Robert …

• Doesn’t get it
• Doesn’t want to get it
• Is interested solely in satisfying a base urge to eke out a bit of revenge for a perceived slight — when he’s the one who spammed Scott.

So, I immediately emailed Robert again and rescinded my offer to work with him. My professional reputation is a valuable asset, and I’m not about to risk it working with someone so willfully clueless.

* Interestingly, just as I was going to check to see if Scott had responded to my email to him asking if he wanted to comment for this post, I saw another three emails from Robert. The first two each reasserted his position that he was the wronged party. But in the final email, he expressed a change of heart, offering to take down all his content, if Scott would take down his; if that was done, he said, he’d work with me. I declined.

Chapter Three: Scott’s Response, Verbatim

I offered Robert the chance to respond in this post, but he was more interested in perpetuating and escalating the conflict. So, to be fair, I offered Scott the same opportunity. Here’s his response in full:

Sheryl, thanks for the opportunity to shed additional light on this situation.  If there’s anything a spammer doesn’t like, it’s for his actions to be made public.  That was really the point of my post – to bring it out into the open, and to let people know that when spam shows up cluttering the inbox, there are other options than just “hit the delete key”.

I am way past the point of trying to educate this guy, since he clearly doesn’t get it even when it is spelled out so plainly.  He can at least serve as a bad example.

There is one thing I wanted to address though.  One of his retorts was critical of the way I responded to his initial spam.  “All he had to do was say ‘no thanks’” and the whole thing would have been forgotten, he claims.  But that’s the very point.  If I had just refused his offer and deleted his email (which was my plan until he kept coming back), he would still be spamming Craigslist advertisers and annoying more and more people (not to mention violating the law).  Now that the light has been turned on his activities and everyone can put a name to his spam, he wants it all to go away.  I’m really hoping that after this fiasco he will think twice about promoting his services via spam.

Spam Is Bad, Permission Is Not Optional, and Other Key Lessons in Marketing From Craigslist-Spamgate

Initially, this post was going to be a quite different one than how it’s turned out now. Back when I viewed Robert as somewhat young, inexperienced, clueless maybe but not beyond redemption, I was going to outline a series of better practices in this section, based on the mistakes he made. Now, that seems pointless. Shouldn’t we all get this stuff by now? I mean, these aren’t even really close questions, are they?

Robert asserted to me that he wanted to create “lasting relations” (I assume he meant “relationships”) with other Florida shops; he wanted to get their outsourced business for the technical work they didn’t want to do. That’s the right goal. So what went wrong here?

There seem to be three options here. Either Robert (A) didn’t read the Craigslist rules; (B) didn’t think they applied to his actions; or (C) didn’t care. I’ve no idea which is true. I don’t think it’s (A), because several times now this has been pointed out to him, yet he hasn’t once addressed that point. For the record then: don’t go emailing people who post ads on Craigslist offering them your services. It’s wrong.

Robert also didn’t see anything wrong with sending unsolicited individual commercial emails, either. He admitted as much in one of his emails to Scott when he said “Everyone else on Craigslist” responds differently. That’s pretty clear to me — he does it a lot. For the record: spam isn’t just bulk email — it’s any unsolicited commercial email. It’s wrong.

Robert then escalated the situation by signing Scott up without his permission for newsletters — more spam. For the record: Other people’s email addresses do not belong to you, not when they give them to you voluntarily and CERTAINLY not when you get them on your own or via private communications. Don’t give them out to anyone else, ever. It’s wrong.

(It appalls me that I just wrote that. Do I seriously need to even go there? Surely not with y’all. But apparently some folks out there still don’t get it.)

Bottom line(s):

• Get permission first. Always.
• Take the high road. Always.
• Don’t spam. EVER.

A Tale of Two Computer Repair Shops – the Alternate Ending

Here’s how it could have gone, had Robert just opened his mind a little bit to a different possibility and entertained the notion that maybe he’d been wrong after all …

He  apologized to the other business owner. He was sorry, he said, and now that he realized what he’d done was wrong, he was dedicated to learning how to market his services in a new way, without scummy tactics. There was no excuse for the newsletter sign-up thing, he said — he’d been angry, and he was wrong. He was sorry. The spammed accepted the apology, and moved on.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile spammer sat down with a pad of paper and a pen. Who are my ideal clients? he wondered to himself. He began to research his targets, in a way he never had before. He wanted to know everything about them — where they lived, what computers they owned, where they shopped, what they bought, what sites they visited frequently — everything.

He read every book and blog post he could get his hands on about permission-based marketing. He updated his website and added a blog. He added an opt-in form on his site, and started a newsletter for folks who signed up. He got a Twitter account and started tweeting helpful computer tips, and engaging with people who needed help, which he gave willingly, for free. He created a Facebook page for his business, and by the end of the week, he had over 200 fans.

It was a start. A good one.

As he reviewed his greatly improved cash flow for the month, he mused to himself, “Tis a far, far better thing that I did, than I had ever done before…”

]]> http://theinspiredsolo.com/marketing/why-permission-based-marketing-works-and-spam-doesnt/feed 6 http://theinspiredsolo.com/solos/what-sandra-bullock-and-her-oscar-can-teach-us-about-solo-entrepreneurs-business-success http://theinspiredsolo.com/solos/what-sandra-bullock-and-her-oscar-can-teach-us-about-solo-entrepreneurs-business-success#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:02:21 +0000 Sheryl http://theinspiredsolo.com/?p=1468

Last week, it seemed like a foregone conclusion: entertainment industry insiders had pretty much achieved across-the-board consensus that Sandra Bullock would take home the 2010 Oscar in the best-actress category. A few ornery types were holding out for a Gabby Sidibe upset, but it seemed pretty likely that Bullock, a 20-+ year veteran of the acting profession, would take home her first little golden statuette after Sunday night’s festivities.

And — spoiler alert! —  that is, in fact, what happened. Most commentators are billing it as a case of an almost-universally appealing (yet formal accolade-deprived) performer finally winning the coveted little gold guy, as much for a body of work and longevity as for her specific role in The Blind Side.

What makes it a really interesting story is that just 24 hours earlier, Bullock won the Worst Actress award (aka “Razzies”), making her the first actress in Oscar history to win the Razzie and the Oscar in the same year for the “same” (leading actress) category.

Normally, actors don’t pop up at the Razzies to claim their ignominious awards. Yet that’s exactly what Bullock did — showing up the night before the Oscars to take home the Raspberry with grace and good humor.

What does any of this have to do with being a successful solo entrepreneur or running a successful business blog? Plenty, as it turns out.

Embrace Your Competitors

One of the greatest parts of Sandra’s acceptance speech was her sincere and vocal appreciation of her fellow nominees. She had something genuinely warm and kind to say about each of her “competitors.”

I got the feeling, listening to these accolades, that they weren’t just motivated by a desire to be nice — no, she wasn’t “just saying that” — she had paid attention, and she knew them. They’d had an impact on her, and she knew exactly what the impact was.

Do you know your competitors that well? Can you appreciate what they have to offer? And more importantly, are you clear on where you differ from them? Find out which business blogs are competing sites to yours. Analyze their “performances” in depth, and learn from both their mistakes and their brilliance.

Don’t Obsess Over Mistakes — Just Try the Next Thing

Sandra messed up with All About Steve — or maybe All About Steve messed Sandra up. Whatever, it bombed, in every way possible, and that’s the role that nabbed Sandra the Razzie. But Sandra just shrugged it off and moved on to the next promo junket for the next movie, and then the one after that … and that’s the one that got her the Oscar.

Are you still obsessing over the last business flub? Knock that crap off! Move on and get yourself headed in the forward direction, buttercup.

So, your blog post last week got zero comments and  no one clicked on your Hootsuite links? OK, figure out what you did wrong (or not-so-great) and get back on the blogwagon!

Own Your Failures …

And to top it all off, Miss Sandy didn’t just roll her eyes, grit her teeth and make a funny joke or two about that Razzie. Girlfriend showed up to get that award in person.

Is there some failure in your past you’re still running from? Face up to it — own it — learn from it — and claim the hard-won wisdom you earned from it.

Look, I get it – believe me. Long-time  readers of this blog are well aware of my own failure in this regard (if you’re not, basically in a nutshell: started a solo law practice, got sick as a dog, couldn’t work, tried to find new lawyers for my clients, couldn’t, lost business, lost license to practice – in short, huge failure).

Yes, owning that kind of failure is a herculean task. Think of it as eating your spinach, Popeye.

… And Celebrate Your Successes

You just know Sandra felt pretty damn good about that Oscar last night. And you know she celebrated the win with her adoring hubby and menagerie of two-legged dogs. (No, really.)

OK, so it’s a bit easier to own our big successes. But how many times do we let the little wins slide by unnoticed, unremarked-upon, uncelebrated?

Don’t do that! Every little success is a reason to party – even if it’s just a teensy little party for one. Recognize your achievements in some concrete way. Jot them down in a journal or text file dedicated solely to recounting your wins. When things get down — and they will — pull that journal or file out again and take a good hard look at your past successes. Every post that gets a ton more comments than you expected — every steady increase in traffic — a jump in subscriptions to your RSS feed — yes, it all counts. Celebrate!

Don’t Forget Your Team

Sandra didn’t get up on that stage by herself, you know. She knows it too. A whole team of folks got her ready for her big evening, and an even bigger crew helped her deliver that performance.

In the same way, solos aren’t solos — not really. And if you are truly alone in this endeavor? Look around and assemble your team. Find a Jedi Knight Council to surround you with wisdom. Outsource the crap you’re (A) not good at and (B) hate to do, so you can focus on being CEO of You, Inc. and delivering the best, most authentic, helpful blog posts you can muster up on a daily (or whatever) basis.

And whatever you do, when the Academy comes calling, don’t forget to thank your co-stars.

Please, please, please: if you take nothing else away from this post, take this next statement to heart —

Having your WordPress business blog hacked is seriously, seriously bad stuff.

If you need an illustrative example to help cement that statement into your bloggy heart, check out John and Lindsey’s story in an earlier post about getting hacked.

If you want a solid, well-researched and complete strategy to protect your WordPress business blog from the kind of evil crap that befell Lindsey’s jewelry site, I recommend John’s product WordPress Defender. Sometimes tragedy is the mother of the best inventions, you know? (Full disclosure: that’s an affiliate link.)

If you just want a quick fix approach to tide you over until you can get around to shelling out the $40 for WordPress Defender, then read on.

How Hackers Get Into Your Blog’s Files

Hackers. God love ‘em.  Y’know, if they put half the energy and intelligence into a valid pursuit that they put into hacking, they’d rule the world. Or at least be able to afford really cool cars and move out of their moms’ basements.

But how do they gain access to your site in the first place? There seem to be a few points of entry — and, before I go further, let me profess up front I am not an expert on hackers or hacking. The information I’m sharing here has been born out of necessity from getting hacked myself and comes from a lot of web-based research but it’s far from being expert-level. So, take this as a starting point if you wish but don’t consider this the first or last word in hacker defense, ‘kay?

Moving on – how the hackers get in to your WordPress files:

• They brute-force hack your password and sign in as you. How do they know your user name? Well – show of hands: how many of you have added a user named (or gone with the default option of) “admin”? Uh-huh.
• They register as users on your site and use a worm (malicious code) to bump themselves up to admin status.
• They take advantage of security flaws in your blog’s database, the server itself, or your computer’s firewall defenses.

Check to See If You’ve Been Hacked

If you’ve never been hacked, you might expect the site to be visibly affected. We typically think of defaced sites with changed content and obscene photos and the like as hacker’s work. But WordPress blog hacks are typically of the spam link insertion variety. These links don’t even show up on your page itself. To see them, you’ve got to go under the hood.

Two methods to do this:

1. Load the page in your browser then View Source (in most browsers you can right click on the page and choose “View Page Source”). Scroll all the way down the page and review the code. You might see a long list of links that looks something like this in a text file (click on the image to view a larger version):
   
   
2. Go to Appearance–> Theme Editor and view your header.php and footer.php files. The lists will show up in the code appended to the end of the genuine code.

Steps to Take to Remove Hackers’ Spam Links and Protect Your Blog in the Future

If you find those links, or any evidence you’ve been hacked, then you need to take steps immediately to rectify the situation and prevent it from happening again. Here’s what you do:

1. Delete your “admin” user (first, make sure you add a new one with a non-guessable name and give it full admin powers).
2. Change all your user passwords using the WP-generated password function. Then log in, and change the password to something random and unguessable, using a mix of numbers and letters – the more characters the better. Do that regularly from here on out.
3. Make sure you’ve upgraded to the absolute latest version of WordPress. Earlier versions may have security flaws that hackers can exploit easily.
4. Delete the bad code in Theme Editor and edit the affected file to mirror the accurate code (use your downloaded theme files to verify this – and be careful with this one! Errors here can really screw up your blog.)
5. Delete all unused plugins and themes.
6. Go to your cpanel File Manager (make sure you click the little box to show hidden files) and somewhere in your public_html folder you should see a file named .htaccess. Edit this file by appending the following code:


# PROTECT install.php
<files install.php>
Order Allow,Deny
Deny from all
Satisfy all
</files>
# protect wpconfig.php
<files wp-config.php>
Order deny,allow
deny from all
</files>

Save the .htaccess file.

Another option: use the AskApache PasswordProtection Plugin. This is a recommendation from the WP Codex article on “Hardening WordPress.”

Will this guarantee your blog’s safety? No, far from it. But it will help, and it’s where you should start. I would point out, though, that this is – what, one or two strategies? Maybe three, if you count the plugin suggestion. John’s WordPress Defender gives you thirty strategies to protect your WordPress blog from hackers.

Periodically on TIS I like to introduce you to inspired solos who are doing business the “TIS” way. What does that mean? Well, to me, it means anyone who’s taken a creative approach to a solo business — whatever that business might be. It can be a creative approach to doing the work, marketing, running a business, integrating work and life … any aspect of being a solo business owner.

Today, our subject is Rania Combs.

Rania’s a Texas lawyer who just launched her solo estate planning practice this year. (Full disclosure: Rania is a TIS client, and I worked with Rania on developing her blog and other online marketing endeavors.)

The cool thing about Rania’s practice: she lives in North Carolina. So how’s she doing the law thing for Texas clients? With the very creative solution of a virtual law office.  That technology comes courtesy of the brilliant attorney (and fellow Tar Heel!) Stephanie Kimbro and VLOTech.

Rania had practiced in Texas for fifteen years, but found herself transplanted to North Carolina when her husband’s work brought the family here. She’d also done work as a freelance attorney previously, but she really wanted to launch her own full-time practice.

Knowing that she’d be physically in NC for most of the year, Rania recognized that marketing was going to be a challenge for her. She decided to work the heck out of online marketing channels — a wise choice in any event but especially important given the geographical constraints.

Rania’s blog is her main channel. She writes about specific topics related to estate planning, wills and trusts with a Texas focus. One thing Rania came up with on her own that I especially loved was the concept of “Wacky Wills Wednesday” — periodically, she’ll cover a strange or entertaining will provision from a celebrity or historical figure. It’s a cool way to lighten up what can be a pretty morbid subject.

Rania’s already seen some return on her hard work. Her stats are up, she’s being featured in the Texas Bar Journal’s monthly newsletter “Weblinks” section this month (where she kindly gave The Inspired Solo a little love!), and she’s been approached by a few outlets to contribute content. She’s also getting some retweet love on Twitter for her blog posts, and got a Blawg Review mention after just a few weeks of blogging for one of her most-publicized and well-received posts, “The Problem With LegalZoom.”

Here’s what Rania’s done right:

• She planned her blog launch and stocked up with tons of content in reserve.
• She grasped the concept of funneling social media/networking traffic to the central channel of her blog, and focused her SNM efforts on supporting that goal.
• She clearly and completely identified who her targeted readers/prospects were, and has targeted her efforts at reaching those folks by “going” (in a virtual sense) where they are.
• She writes incredibly well, and  …
• She knows her stuff!

Rania’s using the premium Thesis theme (full disclosure: that’s an affiliate link) which is great for SEO, stability of the underlying site architecture, and ease of customization. However, I can’t take any credit for the way it looks — Rania did that all herself before she hired me. (And if you’re thinking, “Oh that’s great for her, but I could NEVER…”? Rania didn’t know the first thing about WordPress, blogging, or themes before she tackled this project on her own. It can be done.)

So, welcome to the blogosphere, Rania, and here’s to your business success!

UPDATE: To clarify, the post I mention that’s coming on how to protect your blog will not be nearly as detailed or comprehensive as WordPress Defender. It can’t be – he has 150 pages of information plus 14 how-to videos, and I’ve got one post to work with. In a nutshell: If you want a quick fix, stay tuned to this blog – if you want a permanent fix, get WordPress Defender.

The Inspired Solo … Hacked?!?

If you were following me on Twitter a week or so ago, you probably noticed the following:

Here’s what happened, as best I can tell from research and logs: Some time ago, there was a spate of hacking activity into WordPress blogs with a prior upgrade. I’d been slow to upgrade to the next iteration, which fixed the hole, due to illness. It was at that point, I think, that someone sneaked their way into my blog’s dashboard.

Here’s the weird part: I’ve changed my blog’s theme twice since then, but apparently the malicious code regenerated itself both times, because when I decided to check out my themes’ files (looking for a particular footer script) I found a list of over 200 spam URLs inserted into my header.php file:

That’s just the first part of the screengrab – it goes on like that for over 250 URLs. Yep: The Inspired Solo had been hacked, no question.

I cleaned it up, deleted several users who’d registered for the site (which is one way potential hackers gain access to your sites), and shored up the blog’s defenses. It took me about four hours total. Not a huge time-suck but … OK, yes, a huge time-suck but a necessary one. That’s four hours I could have spent writing a new ebook or developing a new service or learning something new that my clients might find helpful.

Four hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Why Having Your WP Blog Hacked Is Much More Than An Unfortunate Inconvenience

But there are even bigger reasons you should fear the hackers.

Since WP technology is open-source, and enjoys a robust development community backing it up, things change pretty quickly in WP-world. Unfortunately, that means more hackers, too — more people bent on destruction and on gaining access to places they’re not invited, just because it’s fun. It also means the architecture behind our sites changes regularly, and there are even more opportunities for those hackers to find new ways into your site’s dashboard and mess with the code.

The results can be devastating for small business owners who use WordPress to power their blogs and business sites.

Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s John Hoff’s story:

My wife Lindsey decided to take her jewelry business online two years ago and really put her all into it. She wanted it to succeed, and as a family with two kids, we really could have used the money that site was going to help bring in. We had car payments to make and money was getting tight.

So we worked hard to build a website for Lindsey’s products, and with a deep breath, we launched it. It was great. In just a short time, Lindsey was bringing in $1,000 a month from her site … She wanted to grow it even more, and we were really eager to see what we could do with this. …

I’ll never forget the look on Lindsey’s face the morning she turned around and asked, “John, what happened to my site?” Her beautiful online store was gone. …

We found out that her WordPress site had been attacked by a hacker, and he’d left a vicious virus behind …

These hackers are malicious, heartless, and downright evil. They don’t care how hard you worked or how much that site may mean to you financially and personally. They just show up in your WordPress one day and ruin everything you’ve worked so hard to create – for months. If they take your site out long enough, it can be enough to destroy your business permanently.

John and Lindsey’s site eventually recovered, thanks to John’s hard work. He had to go out and research WP and hacker code to (1) find out what the problem was and identify the malicious code; (2) remove it and restore the site; and (3) protect the site so it couldn’t happen again.

In the meantime, John writes, his wife’s business suffered serious damage, including lost trust (some previously loyal customers never came back), a severely-whacked PageRank (from 5 to 1), lots of time and money lost forever fixing the problem …

Not so funny, is it? What would happen if your site suffered an attack like that? Could you recover? Would your business survive?

Two Options to Defend Your WordPress Site Against Hackers

WordPress bloggers basically have two options to protect their blogs and websites against hackers’ malicious actions:

1. Do it yourself. This is what John did and what I did, as well. You can go research the safety holes, pore over your code, restore the original files, delete unknown users, and shore up your blog’s defenses.
2. You can let John show you how. Based on his experience, John’s created a program called WordPress Defender (that’s an affiliate link) consisting of an ebook and how-to videos, to show bloggers exactly what to do to protect their blogs from attacks like the ones that disabled Lindsey’s site and made my life a living hell for four hours.

Either option will work. Which one’s best for you truly depends on your current knowledge of WordPress and its underlying architecture, how comfortable you are monkeying around in the theme editor, whether you have time to go research the best options for plugging the holes in the virtual gates around your site.

John’s product seems to be a viable alternative for those who either don’t have that kind of time or would prefer to have a resource showing them step-by-step what to do and how to do it. At $19.99 for the next few days (half off the regular price of $39), it’s a relatively small investment to make in your business’s future security.

John promises to stay available in the event a purchaser has future questions. The WordPress Defender website has more information and an order form.
NB: The above links are affiliate links, which means if you purchase the referenced product, it will cost you absolutely nothing additional, but I’ll receive a small portion of the proceeds for the referral.

Coming Soon: How to Protect Your Blog Using the “DIY” Approach

By the way, if you’re not interested in making a $20 purchase today, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered. I’m going to focus on option #1 — the “do it yourself” approach — in an upcoming post this week.

Originally, I was going to publish that information today as well and include it in this post, but the result was overlong, and given how frequently hackers up their game, and WP developers have to respond with new ways to defend against hackers, writing an accurate, up-to-date how-to post requires a great deal of research. So, check back later in the week for that post.

How did a PR-software company convert a mildly-disinterested marketing consultant into a “definite maybe, pending funding”?

It started with an emailed offer of a free white paper to one of the many social media and marketing lists to which I subscribe. I get a ton of those on a daily basis, but this one was different. First, it was a good whitepaper. Then, it was followed by an offer for a live demo in exchange for a gift card.

I admit it: I’m a sucker for the free gift that’s really a free gift. I saw some potential value in the Vocus software as a product I could possibly recommend to clients, but — again, true confessions: I signed up for the demo for the gift card, primarily.

But less than five minutes into that WebEx demo with friendly Todd, who knows his product, I was seeing all kinds of potential — not just for clients but for my own business, too. In fact, Todd suggested, it could be a whole new revenue source for us at TIS … and that’s when the wheels started turning. (What? Capitalism is good, people.)

By the end of the call, I was blinking at the price (which is admittedly steep for a small biz like mine) but was already thinking ahead to potential sources of funding … maybe shift this around … maybe delay that project until next year …

How’d they do that?

Five Rules for Non-Scuzzy Online Marketing That Vocus Followed

Here’s what I think Vocus did right:

1. They knew who to partner with. If they’re looking for PR/marketing pros as a primary target, they have to go where those people are. Makes sense, right? Vocus obviously did the research and determined that this particular list was a viable one, that could reach a good mix of those folks they wanted to convert.
2. Their first drip in the funnel was a worthy one. Had that white paper been crap, I don’t think the gift card thing would have worked. My time’s valuable, too.
3. The next drip upped the ante in a valuable way for the target (me). The “gift card for demo”  came with some options — I get to pick the store out of a list of brands I recognize and trust.
4. They sent a competent, personable, knowledgeable rep to do the demo. Todd knows his product but he also knows how to demonstrate it. He first asked more about my business — what I do, who I do it for — and tailored the demo to reflect my answers.  Then he focused on the benefits of the Vocus software – which are abundant, let me tell you — a major time-saver (without getting into too much detail, I can safely estimate that a PR project that would take me hours to compile and prepare would take one-tenth the time with this product).
5. Last but far from least: Their product appears to be superb. From the demo, I can safely say that it contains thousands upon thousands of valuable contacts, would enable personal relationship-building with key media outlets and contacts, and is feature-rich. See, none of the above would mean squat if the product sucks, right?

Lessons for us all. And no, I’m getting nothing (besides that gift card, which I would have gotten anyway) for writing this post. As I told Todd, I just appreciate good marketing where I see it – especially when it works.

NB from Sheryl: Here’s another golden nugget or three from Colleen Wainwright, aka Communicatrix. Colleen has this uncanny ability to write just what I need to read, just when I need to read it. I found myself throughout this piece — from my weird and wonderful career track (Equity actress to bartender to lawyer to consultant/writer) to my esoteric (and some would say appalling) taste in music (on my iPod right now: Barry Manilow and Alice Cooper — and just about everything in between and all around, too). I hope you find something worth musing over in Colleen’s words, as I did!

Some lucky folks seem to be born with a laser-focused, singular purpose. You’ve met a few, no doubt: they’re the ones who know from the age of five that they want to be doctors — and don’t want to be firemen, ballerinas or television news anchors the following week.

Others of us (and that would be me, raising my hand) have a rockier go of it. While I always wrote, at various times during my formative years I also wanted to illustrate album covers, write pop songs, design women’s clothing (oh, how I wish those sketches had survived) and be Mary Tyler Moore.

As it turned out, I had a 10-year career writing commercials, another 10-year stint acting in them, and a brief two-year blip running my own little design studio. In between, though, there were long, painful stretches of wandering in the desert, complete with confusion, self-doubt and an overarching thirst for clarity.

I’m in a Desert Phase now, which is why I have such an acute awareness of the terrain and its potential impact on the human body and psyche. It’s not fun, and it’s not pretty. But it’s natural and it’s necessary: day does not exist without night, sound without quiet, soft without hard. It’s even kind of fascinating, in a morbid, staring-at-your-own-cut-off-finger kinda way, if you can stop the judging long enough to detach from it and get a little distance.

These are the tools and practices I’ve used before and have refined this time around to help keep me as calm and sane as I can be during a challenging time.

Morning Pages

While I recommend this wonderful exercise (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) quite a bit, I don’t do so—or it—indiscriminately anymore. When you’re on a clear path toward creating something, investing energy in morning pages can be a mistake: you need to channel the full force of your creativity (doubts included!) into writing a book, mounting a play, painting a new series. But when you’re in the confusion stage with art or your personal life, it can help keep you sane by burning off all the chaos, doubt and internal nay-saying. Use the pages (or a journal) judiciously as a creator; remember that it’s there to support your primary goal, not become it.

Fewer Distractions, Less Noise

The flip side of the jangly mess you’re in (or that you will be at some point) is orderly quiet (or, if you like, quiet order). I’ve naturally gravitated towards projects like cleaning and decluttering when I’m in one of my desert phases; in recent times, I’ve discovered that less noise in all its forms helps, too. Consider cutting back or even eliminating “noisy” inputs like TV, Twitter and Facebook, talk radio and even gossip. Replace with some of it with more rest, walks, and reading, especially books (they require extended focus and engagement that most internet writing–this included!–does not).

Fellow Travelers

I’m like a broken record on this, I know, but just as it’s important to have teachers for learning skills intensively and counsellors for assisting your through the often challenging process of emotional growth (and providing those all-important sanity checks), it’s critical to have some kind of peer support. This can and probably should take many forms; I’ve gotten value from buddy-system arrangements, women’s circles, Toastmasters, BarCamp-type “pop-up” meetups, mastermind groups, and theater companies.You can form a group around pretty much any interest, need or cause: books, dogs, Buddhism, improv.

Yes, it’s scary for introverts to get started with this, but we need it, too. And having mirrors held up by fellow travelers can lead to wonderful things: this month’s column finally came together from a conversation I’ve been having with my new friend, Dave Seah, via a project we’ve been working on in Google Wave.

Oh, and speaking of Wave, one note on virtual connections: I’m a huge fan of using technology to initiate and even foster connection. But I think it’s imperative to get your butt out and about and meetup in real life in between. So use Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Ning, Google Wave or whatever. But then create real-life events to strengthen the ties: tweetups, like the one I attended in San Francisco last month, are a great example. BarCamps are a great model, since they’re a mix of online and “meatspace” connecting, as is Biznik, with its active web community and, in certain cities (Seattle, Portland, and now, Los Angeles), a real-life component.
It’s hard to be neutral about “bad” times, but putting the term in quotes is a start. There’s nothing bad about the desert, really: it’s just different. Drier, certainly, and less comfortable–and a place that requires extra alertness and preparation if you’re a human being who needs more shade and water than, say, a lizard. But deserts are do-able. And if you’re a creator, they’re inevitable.

Meet you at the oasis in 10?