I started blogging a year a half ago.  It is, by far, one of the best things I could have done to jump start my career. Here is why you should start blogging right now: Writing skills – Writing is the basis of all wealth. No doubt about it. If you are a good writer, [...]

Ever heard of crowdsourcing? It’s when a company leaves it up to you, the consumer, to decide on something. A new feature. A new product line. Or even an entire business model. (Bonus points since it’s a brewing company.) Here are some more examples:  - DEWmocracy  - Cambrian house  - American Idol Crowdsourcing has proven [...]

Scenario – You created a group on Facebook that has grown to 200 kids. A small business approaches you and asks you to send a marketing message on their behalf. You notice that your Facebook group is the perfect target market for the business…. What do you do? A) Sure!  I’d love to help out.  [...]

Here is the dilemma: Every day at work I have the opportunity to promote myself to a lot of people. The question is… Should I be using the company I work for to promote my personal online brand? More specifically, should I include links to my blog in the signature of all my emails? What [...]

Iowa – you have a problem… You have a too many jobs and not enough qualified people to fill them. Right now, there’s a surplus of roughly 48,000 jobs; that number is expected to go to nearly 200,000 within six years. This is what we commonly refer to as “The Brain Drain.” So why is [...]

Today is day four of a six day business camp I’ve been facilitaing.  There are 14 of us industry advisors who help high school  students throughout the week. Basically, on Sunday night, students have 30 minutes to create a product from trash… As the week continues, we help the students dive deeper into what their [...]

This is video is fantastic.  It shows exactly why students aren’t engaged in their classes anymore and why education systems haven’t evolved like students have.

It’s a must for any business.  It’s how they get customers in the door.  It’s their marketing plan. Since every business has should have one…  And since we are living in a Brand You world… It only makes sense that we should develop a personal marketing plan. I started working on mine last weekend.  First, [...]

Topics. Design. Style. Content. Personality. Those are reasons people might subscribe to your blog… But that’s not it. There’s a lot more to it. You’ve got to invest time in building relationships with all of the other struggling bloggers. Reading. Commenting. Emailing. As my friend Mike Sansone puts it, “IT ain’t nothing without the C… [...]

Face it. There ARE dumb questions. And you shouldn’t ask them. Questions can do two things: They can build your credibility or they can take away from your credibility. Ever been at a meeting where someone asked a question about something that was supposed to be reviewed ahead of time? That automatically ruins the pace [...]