Back in December of 2008 I put this post together “2009 and Beyond – Threats and Opportunities”

I have been a subscriber to The Future of Work newsletter for a year or so, and Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham are definitely two of the most astute observers of what is happening in this rapidly changing world. The most recent newsletter has a couple of articles that bear further review, and I will share some of that with you this week.

As we move into the new year, many of us in the Social Media field have been making some predictions about the marketplace. Ware and Grantham have gone a step further and made some predictions about the global economy and political landscape. See The Virtues of Near Death for some remarkable observations:

In our very humble opinion, the next several years will bring a number of near-death experiences to many businesses, public agencies, and, yes, even sovereign nations. And we’re sorry to say that some of those near-deaths will result in actual extinctions. Not every corporate dinosaur is going to survive the global cataclysm that we’re facing today.

Being futurists at heart, then, we’d like to close with a few predictions.

We’ve already seen the meltdown in financial services. Look for similar events and patterns in:

* Health care (in the United States)
* Higher education – both public and private
* Transportation – both local and long-distance
* Local municipal governments

It does look like these industries are teetering on the brink of some sort of big, big changes.

Read the whole article at “2009 and Beyond – Threats and Opportunities” and share your thoughts.

I’m an entrepreneur. Or am I?

This is what has been bugging me for a few weeks, and even more so since my birthday just whooshed by yesterday.

I have been working ( a lot) as the restaurant manager for a small hotel here in NH and, while it is rewarding and fun and all of that, I miss the freelancing and excitement of my own biz.

I spent some time yesterday working on brainstorming and planning and goal-setting for 2010, and came to the conclusion that I am going to have to be very focused and extremely diligent if I am going to accomplish the things that I want to do while working around the full-time-job thing.

In fact, I am a full month behind where I should be in terms of updating some of my products for 2010. While I can write part of that off to being sick for 4 weeks in Oct/Nov, a big part of it is that I simply have not been at my desk. The state of my in-box can attest to that! I linked to a post about creating a fixed schedule for yourself in order to balance work and non-work last week, but this solution is just not going to work for me – I can’t create a fixed schedule for the restaurant. So this is going to take some more thinking, with these concepts as guidelines:

1. Time allows you to rest and recover – I particularly need downtime for recuperating from stress. Pushing myself and overcoming challenges are excellent ways to invest time, yet until I fully recover from the recent bout with illness, resting is the best way to use some of the time I gain from that investment.
2. Time allows you to increase your focus – With less time to work on the “important” projects that I do want to complete, it is vital that I focus tightly on them. And start less projects in order to accomplish/complete the ones that I do start.
3. Time allows you to see how things turn out – Having set this restaurant manager gig in motion I am identifying the variables that are beyond my control, and now waiting to determine their full effects is all I can do. I will work toward investing this downtime to prepare for the next stage of the progression.
4. Time allows you to create balance in your life – All work and no play leads to a heart attack, or GERD. I must remember to invest the time that I do have to be with/communicate with my family and friends. Connecting with your circle is energizing and something that I definitely do not do enough of. Hearing from people that I have not heard from in a long time was one of the best things to happen yesterday.

There it is. Part one of the thought-process. Part two will involve making some choices and breaking down the vital projects into Action Steps. The choices will be difficult, mainly because I have started/want to start too many things.

Because it is time to get back into that entrepreneurial mindset, applying it to my “job” and to the freelancing/personal projects. It is time stop deluding myself, hoping that these projects can languish and wait on the back burner until some point in the future where “more time” magically appears.

Because, like everything else in Pandora’s Box, hope is evil and destructive. [important note: I am not being a pessimist or taking the negative point of view, it's just that hope is not a viable strategy for accomplishing anything, and hope is distinct from positive thinking]

Do less to accomplish more is my new mantra.

Discipline and Focus are the watchwords.

I will keep you posted, can you help me stay on track with encouragement and gentle prodding? I think that Twitter will be the best place for that.

Editors Note: This is a guest post from Robert Tuchman, whose book, Young Guns, I reviewed a while back. Robert Tuchman is the founder of Tuchman Sports Enterprises, a company he started out of his one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan at the age of 25.

Do you ever find yourself thinking about something that could work in today’s market? An idea that is unique and unlike anything else out there in the big world of business today? If you are a savvy entrepreneur and ready to tackle the business world like I once was, here are four solid things to remember when applying your first plan:

1. Your business is going to be built on a great idea
2. That great idea is going to connect you to a market
3. You will create a plan based on what you learn, on an ongoing basis, about that market
4. You will adjust that plan over time.

The last item is particularly important. Good businesses don’t stand still; they don’t rely on a single idea. Good businesses adapt to the situations that emerge in the market. Good businesses keep moving forward; they become a nonstop source of ideas, not a graveyard for a single idea that once made sense. If you stick to your first big plan, and execute it with precision and enthusiasm it may take you to places that you may never have foreseen. Remember that if you love something so much, and have a great knowledge on your idea, making it work for you and your business will come that much easier.

Now that you have your plan, with your target audience in mind and you niche clear, you next develop a game plan for your business. This plan does not have to be as elaborate as a business school project, but it should outline what you want your company to do and how you want it to look. Jot down your best ideas on a single sheet of paper this is
exactly how I drew up my first business plan. You must be able to visualize your company growing in the way that your one-page game plan suggests. Think positive, and have long-term goals.

Thanks, Robert.
You can order this book via my Amazon affiliate link:

In a previous post (Productivity and Work in Social Media) I discussed some of the ways that I use Social Media tools for productivity. In this one I am going to get specific about how I use Twitter:

How I invest my time in Social Media

Twitter presence. I love Twitter, because I get to talk to people that I know from all over the world about this and that. Many of these folks I met at conferences (see the next bullet) and they have amazing things to say, things that I can learn from every day. You can see my list of people that I follow here (hdbbstephen on Twitter), and you may notice that there are only about 500 of them.

I find it difficult to participate in conversations or catch the good information that comes from these folks if I follow many more than that. The good news is that many of these people share awesome links to other Twitter people that I don’t follow, so that the best of the best information still gets through. I also use Twitter for reaching out to new clients and readers for this site, but that is another post!

This is that post.

First things first, download TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.

TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date.

I love it. Yes, there are some other applications that you can use, and there are lots of opinions about all of them. I like the functionality of TweetDeck: Sorting your Follows into groups, maintaining lists of search results, and (best of all) the ability to Tweet from more than one Identity from the same screen – no more logging in and out of Twitter to utilized different personas.

Twitter as a Marketing Tool

I use Twitter (and flickr and FriendFeed – all linked together) as a marketing tool for my products and services – by providing value, sharing information and pictures, and joining in conversations or answering questions. One of the most important methods is finding people that have questions that I can answer via Twitter Search. I will type in some of the different topics that I can offer my help and see who is asking questions, then extend their conversation. For example, if you search for “WordPress Theme Help” you can see all sorts of people that have needs regarding their blogs and websites. Some of these are easy questions and some are more involved, but I always try to do something for them – sometimes it leads to a paying client, sometimes not. But it is good for Word-of-Mouth and a good investment of time.

Twitter as a Communication Tool

I love chatting with my friends and associates on Twitter, even if its not about valuable or business-related stuff. I will schedule some time for myself, usually in the evening, for just shooting the breeze with my Twitter friends that are scattered across the globe.

Important caveat: Twitter can be extremely addictive and hours can go by as you read your Twitterstream and jump in & out of conversations. I recommend that you schedule some time for tweeting and stick to that schedule! I usually set aside 2 or 3 half-hour periods throughout the day to log in and see what is going on.

What is your Twitter strategy? Leave a comment.

Today’s graduates face the toughest job market in 10 years. Their peers only a few years older, who just started their careers, are now back on the job hunt with few prospects. There is a highly competitive pool of applicants for companies that aren’t hiring. What options do these bright, young, ambitious people have? To wait for the economy to recover and recruiters to come knocking? Or to take that ambition and passion and turn it into something tangible? Now is the time to become an entrepreneur—take that drive and start realizing your dreams.

Yikes. What is a young go-getter to do? One of the first things that I would recommend is picking up a copy of “Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur’s Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking out on Your Own”, by Robert Tuchman. I have read this book and found it to be very motivational, in fact I would have loved to have received this advice 15 years ago, when I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

I may no longer be a “spring chicken” but I do consider myself to be a “young gun” (I feel younger now than I did 10 years ago!), and as an entrepreneur in my own right I agree with what Tuchman is getting at with this book. Instead of a bunch of useless cliches, Tuchman gets right to the point: you can start a business, you can make your dreams come true. With some excellent examples and anecdotes he underscores the most important part of creating a business – focus on customer service first.

I really like the chapter featuring the Seven Priorities for the First Year, a short list of basic practices that any business would do well to refresh their memory on. I believe that these seven priorities are so fundamental that they deserve to have a place in your thinking well after the first year. For example, the concept of “Building a culture of action & enthusiasm” is absolutely vital. Maintaining this culture, however, will take work, discipline, and responsible leadership but the return on this investment is incalculable. (You can read more of my thoughts on the Seven Priorities here.)

Other chapters focus on salesmanship, marketing (“Talk to absolutely everyone about what you do“), accounting, and more. In fact, this is one of the very few ‘business books’ that I have read that had a chapter devoted to creating and maintaining relationships with the vendors that support your business. This is fantastic advice, speaking from my own experience. In a ‘former life’ I built a million-dollar-plus sales position based on word-of-mouth and references from vendors that knew me and my work. This kind of insight is gold.

You can read more about this book at the Young Business Executives site (link).

What are your thoughts or tips for young entrepreneurs just starting out? Leave a comment and get a chance to win an autographed copy of Robert Tuchman’s book “Young Guns”.

Also, please consider purchasing this book via my Amazon affiliate link:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Tuchman is the founder of Tuchman Sports Enterprises, a company he started out of his one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan at the age of 25. TSE has gone on to appear on Inc. 500’s list of “America’s Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies.” Tuchman now serves as president of Premiere Corporate , a division of Premier Global Sports. A frequent guest on “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” he has also appeared on CNN, the “CBS Morning News,” and BET. He has also been the subject of features in USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Entrepreneur Magazine. He recently had two books published, Young Guns The Fearless Entrepreneurs Guide To Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own and 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live . He writes for entrepreneur.com, rentacarnow.com, and espn.com.

Gail Lynne Goodwin, Ambassador of Inspiration provides a guest-post at the SOBCon blog:

Just a few short months ago, my husband and I had a visioning session together where we dreamed BIG dreams without limitation. We asked ourselves one simple question- “What would I do if I knew I could do anything, and knew that I couldn’t fail?”

That one simple question has opened doors and knocked down walls. Imaginary walls that only we saw- until we eliminated them with an easy change of our thoughts. What if there were no barriers? If you knew you were going to be successful, what would you choose to do? What’s the biggest contribution you could make?

Read more –>

I am going to be speaking at two conferences (so far!) this year- SOBCon 2009 in Chicago and Mountain Social in Helen, Georgia. I will be writing some more about SOBCon shortly, but the Mountain Social event is a new one and I would love to get your input. You can get more information at the Mountain Social website, but here are the basics:

Event Details

The 2009 Mountain Social Media Summit focuses on the 4 P’s of Social Media: Personas, Problems, Projects and Profits.

Personas: Who leverages social media, what are the opportunities and why is social media important in a personal, professional and commercial context.

Problems: What challenges exist for social marketers? What problems does media address? What problems exist for social media. Understand the opportunities, obstacles and value social media can bring to your business or your personal growth.

Projects: Understanding use cases and case studies which highlight key lessons and themes which are important.

Profits: Where is the market opportunity, revenue channels and process improvements. Can social media increase customer acquisition, drive cost reduction and improve customer/market awareness?

September 11-13, 2009 | Unicoi State Park Conference Center | Helen, GA

My presentation will focus on Implementing a Social Media Marketing Strategy, and I am planning a series of posts on these topics prior to the conference and I would love to her your thoughts on them.

1. Which category is most important to you and your business?
2. What would you most like to learn from this presentation?
3. Do you need help with tools, tactics, or strategy?

Leave a comment.

UPDATE: You can register for the conference at eventbrite.

Info on other speakers: Christopher Carfi is an entrepreneur and is currently the CEO of Cerado, Inc.

Chris Garrett is one of my inspirations for starting this blog/business, and he has just shared a slideshow that explains why:

Business Blogging is fast becoming a vital part of any online strategy. The old days of “blogging puritanism” where bloggers were not supposed to make money have given way to individuals, companies and non-profits all hoping to use blogs and social media to grow and engage their audience.

I just got back from Social Media Congress in the Netherlands where I presented on this subject, and I think the subject is so valuable it needed to be shared with you, your friends and colleagues.

Watch the whole thing. Then register for SOBCon 2009!

Ever since I started my Getting Things Done practice 2 years ago, I have struggled with my system of reviews. Primarily due to my ADD, but also because of the many, many changes and transitions that my household has undergone in that time.

Since the Lovely Bride and I were married in March of 2005 we have moved 4 times, lived in 3 different states, and had 11 different jobs (combined). That is a LOT of change and those of you who know me personally know that I can have trouble adapting to change.

Since we are once again in the middle of an enormous transition I have taken the opportunity to get a head start on my Annual Review. It turns out that in spite of (or perhaps because of) the challenges 2008 was a pretty darned good year.

• Our marriage is strong. The Lovely Bride and I have faced some serious challenges, at home and with her career, but we have remained strong, positive, and pro-active about making things happen.
• We are ahead of the curve. With the economy in the state that it is, we were able to look forward and make some choices and take actions to stay out of the worst of the troubles:
  • Beating the Christmas rush – we started buying presents in March, and were able to finish in October. All of our gifts for family and friends were wrapped, packed, and shipped by the first week of November. What an amazing feeling to have all of that done during this week of Christmas! Buying gifts this way allowed us to avoid a massive hit to the budget during a fairly lean period, as well as providing the opportunity to find things in our travels that would be personal and special for the recipient.
  • Living with less - both of us have a tendency to hoard “stuff”, and we have been moving boxes of junk from place to place for 3 years. This fall we decided that boxes that have not been unpacked in two years are likely to contain things that we do not need. We did a massive sort-and-purge, donating a ton of clothes, books, and small appliances to charity.
  • Creating alternate income streams – both of us have worked in the hospitality industry for most of our careers and a down economy hits that segment hard. We have been creating products and services that we can sell online, and in October I took the leap and went to work for myself.
• I started my own business. And business is pretty good! The main site is called Business Development in Context and I have been writing about Social Media, Blogging, and Networking for success. I have found a handful of clients, and some clients have found me. I am not making a fortune (yet) but it is paying the bills and financing our adventure. The funny thing is, I work as many or more hours than I did when I had a “real job” yet it is so much more rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable. I should have done this years ago!!
• I accomplished nearly all of my goals for the year. In January of 2008 I sat down with a workbook on goal-setting and laid out a plan for achieving some goals over the course of the year. (In no particular order)
  • I lost 25 pounds and kept it off.
  • I started a new blog for business purposes, and it is growing.
  • I attending the SOBCon conference in Chicago and learned a LOT about this business of blogging.
  • I paid off one of the credit cards.
  • I purchased a new laptop computer.
  • I took a job as a paid writer online.
  • I joined a Chamber of Commerce and got involved with the local business community.
  • I spent at least one full day each week with the Lovely Bride doing something fun and building our relationship.
• Use a more positive vocabulary -My Lovely Bride asked me to add this point as her contribution. I have always been a very optimistic person, but since we have been married my wife says that learning to use a positive outlook rather than a negative one creates a much different framework for approaching a problem.

Now it is your turn. How was 2008 for you? What did you learn, achieve, or accomplish? Be sure to share in the Comments.

Watch this video for some excellent lessons. I will be getting this book and doing a complete review soon.