I had the chance this past Friday to attend Search Engine Watch‘s SEO conference in Seattle. Here’s what I enjoyed the most about the event:

• Many SEO professionals, including both Google and Yahoo representatives reiterated my belief that good SEO entails optimizing your content for humans first and search engines will follow. (content optimization)
• For publishers: Try using both Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network for your contextual site ads. Many have seen significant revenue increases from one server to the other. Retry these services every six months.
• For publishers: Use phpAdsNew for ad cycling and reporting.
• Remember to use Wordtracker for keyword ideas if you don’t already.
• Yahoo Answers is growing off the hook. Very cool website with a large and very active reader/contributor community.

I owed Tim (who went to the conference with me along with Phil) a baseball ticket, so he and I went to a Mariners game on Friday night and watched them beat the Padres in an excellent game with six home runs and one heck of a play at the play thanks to Ichiro. Good times.

Presentations here [Search Enging Watch]

Just how much is/are your domain(s) worth? Granted that’s subjective, but LeapFish.com is trying to add a little objectivity to domain valuation. From the site: “Domain names rely entirely on demand and therefore the only indication as to value is what somebody will pay for it… We have created a rating system which is based on various factors and ratings you may find individually for a domain name.”

Smooth Harold got a measly 86 composite score, selling for an estimated $12k. I swear it’s worth more than that. 🙂 What’s your domain worth?

[via Life Hacker]

I’m doing a little research on the side trying to unearth what really makes a blog tick. The general answer would be a site that caters to a community of people, sharing similar interests, and seeking relevant content to fuel those interests. But what specifically makes a good blog/website work?

In talking with a friend yesterday, he reiterated the importance of establishing a personal relationship with your audience. Connect with them in a personal way, and they will be “readers for life.” That can be difficult to do at times, so generally speaking, here are some reasons on why I read blogs:

• They get me my information faster than most, in bit-size chunks I can consume. I despise long blog posts.
• Blogs are a more democratic form of news and information. I like the reader comments just as much as the post content.
• I get to see the personalities of writers and readers that comment, and look forward to what they have to say on a given topic because I feel like I know them, even if slightly.
• I believe them to be one of the best, if not the best way to get to really know and trust someone over the web. I’ve even hired an excellent programmer solely by getting to know him through blogging. I now consider him a close friend even though a majority of our communication happens asynchronously via blog posts, comments, and emails.

So what say ye, Smooth Harold readers? Why do you read the blogs that you do?

As some of you know, when I’m not building websites, I also freelance blog for Weblogs Inc. I’ve been in LA this past week covering the Electronics Entertainment Expo, which is the world’s largest video game conference. Last night a group Weblog employees went to dinner with CEO and founder, Jason Calacanis. I had the opportunity to sit down with him and here are my thoughts.

Jason is a very savvy and energetic guy. He understands content. I sat across from him and picked his brain on all things blogs, SEO, YouTube success, AOL, and his thoughts on where online content is headed in general. AOL bought his company in October, and originally I thought it was because Weblogs does such a good job at driving traffic through selling convenience (in the form of attention) to millions of readers. They still do that, but after meeting with Jason, I feel that AOL really wants the man to trim fat, make AOL faster, more efficient, and add more valuable content. 85% of AOL’s revenues still come from their dial-up business. I’m guessing the other 15% comes off partner referrals or link love on the company’s homepage out to some of their other sites like MovieFone. Weblogs, on the other hand, is all word of mouth. It’s viral content. It’s so good, that people just go to it.

I look forward to getting to know him more and learn some of the traits that have made Weblogs one of the hottest, up-and-coming, content companies on the web. The great thing is that Jason is a lovecat too. He is an advocate for sharing information and knowledge and recognizes the importance of helping others progress. The rest of the Weblogs team are very passionate as well, and I’ve had a great time working aside them.

As a parting bonus, I also got to meet Chris Pirillo over dinner. He is a very friendly guy and technology evangelists that’s involved in some really cool mobile RSS search. I’m going to try to meet up with him at an SEO conference in Seattle next week, and in case you didn’t know, Chris was the host on TechTV during the infamous cylinder drop blooper. You can see him on the right.

Here’s me playing Nintendo’s new Wii console (from the hip of course during a shooter). The controller works in 3D space and is one of the most impressive interface devices I’ve played with in a long time. Should be interesting to see how console gaming pans out over the next few years between Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.

Also of note, were the many VC’s I saw at the event. One in particular even interviewed me asking several questions about the games industry. Video games are big business, and this conference is proof of that.

I’m currently in LA attending the Electronics Entertainment Expo. Lots of news has been breaking, and it’s been a busy past two days. One interesting thing about this year’s show (outside of the stellar games of course), is there will be a heavy focus on “advergaming” (in game advertisements) and marketing to the 18-35 male demographic. Fact: If you want to get the attention of the above mentioned buyer group, video games rank a close second to only internet in terms of media consumption (more than tv, radio, movies, etc). Boys are growing up but still remain boys. It’s been said that the average adult video gamer makes a median income of $70,000. Incredible purchasing power.

Regarding advergaming, companies are starting to serve up relevant in-game ads via online game profiles. For example, game developers will be able to sell digital wall space in a game to advertisers. If the game is online, those ads can change and be relevant, just like Google. Very interesting.

More to come.

The shown picture comes from Flickr’s Cream of the Crop (most popular, highest rated photo pool). My younger sister, Lexia, is graduating with a master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan later this month, and the family and I are flying out to see her.

Haven’t been to the Big Apple since pre-911, so I’m anxious to get back to the financial capital and the hustle and bustle of this great town. Any fans of the place? Where does it rank on your list of favorite American cities?

Yet another usability lesson learned from sweating the small stuff rather than focusing on the important (i.e content). Signal vs. Noise writes: “Think about how people are going to actually use things. Don’t get caught up in the wow. Don’t confuse enthusiasm with priority.”

I just got done reading Game of Shadows. The book explores the prominent use of steroids in professional sports, especially baseball, a game that I love. Here’s an excerpt: “So with few exceptions, the more than three dozen athletes who appeared before the grand jury admitted taking steroids–through injections in their belies, by droplets squirted beneath their tongues, with creams rubbed into their bodies. They weren’t asked why. perhaps the answers were too obvious: It was all to run faster, jump higher, hit the ball farther, and, ultimately, make more money… Competitive sports, it turned out, was part mirage, a game of shadows.”

They’re called professionals, but cheating sure seems amateur to me.

Lindsey and I are finishing up a short vacation at a very nice resort in Orlando Florida. We are just about to catch our plane. Other than the relaxing moments spent with my wife, one of the most memorable experiences of the trip was Friday night’s Karoke by the pool.

For those who don’t know me, I don’t care too much for amateur live singing. I do, however, like Neil Diamond. Combine the two and magic happens. 🙂

After several mediocre singing attempts, a humble gentlemen stepped up to the mic and requested the classic “Sweet Caroline.” Once he started singing, the entire resort errupted in anticipation and clapping. By the first chorus, nearly everyone was singing aloud to “so good, so good” as well as the rest of the song’s refrain. I’d never heard so many people in public sing aloud and enjoy that much atmosphere.

Though the individual singing didn’t have the best voice, the song and large crowd filled the gaps and made for a truley memorable experience for both a music lover and Neil Diamond junkie.
[Sent from a wireless Blackberry]

I have a confession to make; in the past three years as a learning entrepreneur, I’ve never once sought out to design, develop, or sell the next big thing. Maybe that hurts my chances, but I doubt it. I met with a gentleman last year who was starting a company that was going to be the “next big thing.” In his own words it was even “bigger than Google.” He of course wanted me to develop this NDA’d project for next to nothing. I told him no thanks, and walked away.

I haven’t heard anything from this guy in the past year, so either his “next big thing” is deep in development, or he’s already found a better next big thing. Hate to break it to you, but several companies, including Google, weren’t out to build the next big thing. In the case of Google, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page solely set out to make a better search engine that would help humans find things on the internet. They started out in their garage and didn’t even have a business model till several years later.

Focus on doing something better than the next guy and make sure it provides real value to several end users; not just something you think will. Being a successful entrepreneur takes a lot of honesty; realizing failure and trusting in the varied expertise of others that no one person can have. In my case, I prefer letting the big boys with hefty budgets be the first movers. Let them do all the R&D which can prove user demand, then swoop in as the little guy that does it better, faster, and cheaper.

[Inspired by Chris Knudsen’s Don’t Tell an Investor That!]

A new trend in IT management is emerging. It’s called BYOC, and it’s an excellent idea where everyone wins. Nicholas Roussos writes: “Looking at the thread, the common complaint is, ‘How are we IT guys supposed to fix XYZ?’ Umm, that’s the whole point. The IT department is no longer responsible for upkeeping these machines. They just run the servers, network, etc. At the very least, it might force companies to hire people who know how to use the tools they were hired to use.”

Advertising Age writes: “Apple — a brand that prides itself on the purity of the user experience — will soon put up billboards on its popular iTunes service, according to content partners who have been briefed on the plan. The introduction of visual ads could be the first step to allowing ads in other content areas or on iPods.”

I’ve just posted the first interview with a good friend and business associate of mine, Eliot Jacobsen, who is now the head of strategy at PayPal. From the Utah Monitor interview: “PayPal will succeed because we provide a compelling service to the ‘long-tail’ of eCommerce. With 1 million accounts, adding over 100,000 new accounts per year, PayPal will likely become one of the most important financial services companies of the new economy.”

I actually met Eliot via this very blog. He liked what I had to say about a certain topic and gave me a call. Griffio did some work with him shortly thereafter. He is a very sharp guy and has even put me in contact with other successful businessmen such as Jeff Jones. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, blogging has opened up more opportunities for me in the last year than anything else. So I guess a big thanks to all the Smooth Harold readers out there is in order.

Digg the interview

My good friend Nicholas is at it again laying down the law on SEO. From the article: “Link Building is not SEO. It’s not Content Optimization either. It’s good, old-fashioned marketing. Ironically, it’s the reason why SEO is dead because Link Building has a far greater impact on search engines than SEO or keyword stuffing ever will.”

Link building to quality content on my sites is what has really driven traffic and repeat visitors in my experience. How has link building impacted your site, and how do you compare it to pure SEO?

Yesterday was a fine, sunny, Easter day. I don’t know about you but Easter always seems nice, relaxed, sunny, and reverent. Then I awake this morning to a very cold house due to my leaving the windows opened and a drop in Utah temperature. Later on in the morning it even started snowing here in Orem. Why such a change, you ask? We’ll, today is tax day. That’s right, today Uncle Sam gets paid, and with that payment comes bad weather, gloomy skies, and a reluctant entrepreneur.

Although I feel at ease to have reconciled my liability with the IRS as company owner, it was tough to part with so much cash. Granted, I’ll pay my part because this country has made starting a company a very easy process. Plus I just feel so blessed. But death and taxes? Yeah, they’re absolutes in life and they always seem to come before you know, expect, or even want it.

Thank goodness for H&R Block.

Watch Chris Bliss perform an amazing juggling routine synchronized with a Beatles’ classic, Golden Slumbers. Very impressive and definitely the juggler with the most style and rhythm.

My wife and I recently experienced suspect customer service at a furniture store, an occurrence that has made me rethink my definition of how to treat customers. Last year, I defined customer service as follows: “Customer service is equivalent to how you cordially serve your customers to make them happy.”

Sounds good. However, being nice and cordial isn’t customer service, that’s just something a good human being does. Being understanding, maintaining a willingness to help, and striving to keep a customer feeling at ease when problems arise is good customer service. It’s easy to be nice when all is going well, but when issues come up, that’s more difficult. It’s at that moment when good customer service can fail or be realized.

The individual helping us at the furniture store was very nice throughout the majority of the buying process. However, when a problem arose with our order, due to her fault, she quickly tried to bypass the situation. I stopped her, and returned to the discrepancy. She then become very curt and rude for our wanting to correct the situation, with the store manager even. Although Lindsey and I were happy with our purchase and the issue with our order was taken care of, we left with an awkward feeling. We weren’t treated very well near the end. I don’t think we’ll shop at that store again.

A friend, developer, writer, and fellow blogger of mine, Nicholas Roussos deems search engine optimization, or SEO, dead. I’d argue that it’s merely loosing relevancy but he raises some good points. From the article: “SEO is so Web 1.0. In it’s place is a new form of optimization I like to call Content Optimization. That’s Web 2.0. It’s about taking your content (in any media) and optimizing it so it reaches the largest audience of any type, whether it’s bloggers, the press, normal people, or even search engines.”

I’m all for retracting most of Google’s “search influence” through the use of content optimization for humans. I’d much rather get Digg’d or linked to from another social site on a consistent bases on a variety of topics that would lead to higher diversified traffic. I’ve personally benefited from manual link building, mass blog linking, and the “Digg effect” helping bring one of my sites from 0 to 2,500 daily visitors in under 5 months. The PageRank then took care of itself. Granted, that’s not huge, but I did it without a single spot on Google’s first 10 pages. Imagine if I did have a top place page, I know, but in “commodity content” I think it’s best spending your time optimizing your content. Content is the new… content!

Granted, my traffic success has been, for the most part, social based. But I know millionaires have been made either selling SEO, benefiting from it, or running it (cough, cough, Google). So what do you think? Is SEO dying?

See also: How Digg.com is Revolutionizing the News

Do motivational phrases help you get things done? Lifehacker sums up some of their favorite motivational sayings when the tough get going:

• Can’t Never Did Anything
• Make Yourself
• Acknowledge. Move on.
• No one ever excused his way to success
• Just Do It!
• Damned if you do. Bored if you don’t

Those who know me can hear me saying “Wait for it…” quite a bit, but I’m not sure that’s too motivational. Furthermore, here’s how Despair Inc. defines motivation: “If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.”

In all seriousness, what sayings, if any, help you get motivated?

Lindsey and I moved to a new place in Orem this afternoon, in the snow even. Its a really great place and my turntables finally have a room of their own. The view from that room, which is also my office, overlooks Utah’s beautiful Wasatch mountains. The only bad part is that I won’t have internet until monday which is for me like a ceral lover going without milk over the weekend.

Anyways, I’m happy to live in Utah and to be surrounded by so much opportunity. My growing network of friends, associates, and clients has grown larger than I’ve ever imagined. Basically, it’s just a great time to live, learn, meet new people, and share the little knowledge love you have to offer.

[Sent from my wireless Blackberry]

I wouldn’t be a computer nerd if I didn’t post this today. Apple is releasing a dual-boot program for their Intel based Macs today. This allows users to run both Mac and Windows operating systems on hardware superior Apple computers. From the release: “Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.”

Happy to say we just launched the new PaulAllen.net today. Many thanks to Mike and Jordy for the technical prowess they provided. Out of all the blogs I’ve designed (my amateur self), this has to be my favorite.

We hope to add some additional features in the near future but for now XHTML compliance, liquid and fixed width toggling, and a streamlined look will have to do.

I use both Mac and PC platforms and believe both add several good things to the computing world. However, I’ve got a bone to pick with they way Mac’s handle zip folders and the way Windows does. When you click on a zip folder on a Macintosh, the OS auto unzips the folder archive and off you go. On a PC, Windows prompts if you’d like to unzip the folder, to which you are presented with the option of doing so, or you have to manually do it. What? What else would a person want to do with a zip folder? Just to make sure it has archived contents?

Software is changing. It is giving users more ways to access information. It pushes content to them rather than forcing the user to “go” get it. It thinks intuitively and tries to understand the quickest way to get what the end user needs. That’s smart usability.

What other instances of poor software usability are you aware of?

I’ve been BlackBerry-ing for about a week and a half now, and I love it. The only problem? I was addicted to email even before I started using the portable email/phone/IM handheld and this has only worsened the problem. I know my communication with those I work with will greatly improve through it’s use. Now if I can only get my wife Lindsey on board. She doesn’t like me emailing from bed. 🙁

One of my favorite things about the social web are new custom 404 maintanence pages that have oh-so-much personality. Though it’s not fun to have a site down that you use (Bloglines is my feed reader), when I saw the above message, it gave me a chuckle and all didn’t seem lost.

I think when Flickr is down for maintancence they just say, “Flickr is getting a massage.”

Though I’m biased on the subject having worked from home for the past 2.5 years, Calacanis had this to say: “Offices are best at creating three things: politics, commutes, and distractions. Again, find great folks and do regular in person meetings, then let them go home and work. They’ll be happier, you’ll have less expense, and there will be much less drama.”

I think it depends on the situation, but for the most part, I believe this to be true. Do you agree?

[via Nicholas Roussos]

“My personal position is still that you should never build a business to flip. If you’re a basketball fan it is like jumping up and then looking for the pass… if you don’t find the open man you’re screwed.” – Jason Calacanis – founder, Weblogs Inc.

I couldn’t agree more. In my view, when you build a business to flip, the customer is not top priority. If the customer isn’t top priority, it’s not likely you’ll earn money. If you don’t earn money, it will be difficult to flip your business.

This is the dilemma I faced while learning about exit strategies in business school. I never believed in them. Sure, you need a goal, and that goal should be to provide the best service to customers indefinitely. Build a great service with real value to consumers, and the business model will take care of itself.

Though a professionally designed site can do wonders for credibility and enhance the user experience, if you’ve got great usability, users will come. From the article: “Let’s be honest though and admit that there are two kinds of simple designs that you can produce: Ugly [and] Beautiful. In either case if you are offering what the user wants they will use the site. It never was about the ugliness of a site, it was about its usability, community and a couple of other things.”

Think Ebay, Delicious, and Craigslist. I know I’m missing lots more, but you get the idea. Nail both usability and aesthetics and you’ll have a knock out like Flickr, though.

Literally. Business 2.0 writes: “In a 2004 study of annual reports, Fiona Lee of the University of Michigan found that stock prices were higher one year later when companies blamed poor performance on controllable internal factors (i.e. CEO’s) rather than on external issues… Numerous studies have shown that consumers value an admission of failure and an apology.”

Regardless if stock price increases, taking responsibility is just good leadership.

I just heard an excellent presentation on the Long Tail theory by Judd Bagley from Business Jive. I could ramble on and try to explain what he did oh so well, but for business nerds interested in monetizing content, products, or services on the web, follow the link for one of the best articles on the theory coined by Wired Magazine.

Many who have read Smooth Harold for sometime probably know that I’m an aspiring writer. Not a very good one, but aspiring none-the-less. We’ll I’ve decided what my first book will be entitled and what it will be about: Expectation Management which will cover the little that I know on project management and how it has effectively helped me manage my workload, clients, contractors, partners, employers, sales pipeline, college, customer service, and even my family relationships.

You see, project management is all about managing expectations of all parties involved on any given project. It can and should be used in not only software development but any engagement that is working towards an end result better than the current state. The gist of Expectation Management is to ensure that all parties know what is expected of them and one another, when deliverables need to be completed, how follow-up will take place, and what will happen if problems or delays arise. It’s not rocket science, so I think I can knock her out in 100 pages or so.

Anyone know a publisher?

Many years ago, as I worked as a single college student back in Georgia, I decided to buy my mom her first cell phone from the Cingular store where I worked. It was one of those pre-paid kinds before the current nationwide plans gained popularity. So I bought her the phone, wrapped it up in a box, and gave it to her for Christmas. She was excited with her new techie gift.

Soon after, the phone was giving her problems. Being perceived along with my brother as the tech nerd in the family, it was up to me to get the phone back to its original state. So I called Cingular on my mother’s behalf and tried to get the problem resolved. The customer service representative said that the phone belonged to my mother and that she would have to call to solve the issue. I tried to explain that my mother wasn’t the best troubleshooter to no avail however. I hung up frustrated.

I then proceeded to call again, hoping to get a new attendant which I did. The dialog went something like this:

C: “Hello, how can I help you?”
Me: “I need to get my phone fixed.”
C: “Is this Cathy Snow?”
Me: “Yes,” I replied in my most manly voice in retaliation of the previous call.
C: “Uhhh, Cathy Snow the female?” the representative replied, obviously doubting me.
Me: “Yes.”
C: “Ohhh-kay…” after which she proceeded to fix the problem.

That’s power of attorney, folks. At least I’d like to think it was so as not to be considered “crying wolf.” Regardless, it was a very comedic experience with customer service. What are some of your most memorable (good or bad) customer service experiences?

This is simply amazing. Affluent American video gamers are offshoring the early rounds of an online video game to Chinese gamers so they can spend there efforts on finishing the game closer to the end. The gamers outsource the game for something like $10/hour through the sale of digital services oversees. From the article: “This six-minute video is a teaser for an upcoming documentary that examines the practice of hiring low-cost Chinese labor to farm virtual goods for sale in richer nations. It’s the new new sweatshop.”

I wouldn’t call it a sweatshop, just capitalism. But video games are big business, and the monetization and sale of digital goods and services are increasing at a rapid rate. Follow the link for the teaser video.

Steve Jobs is a Liar. Okay, that may be a little harsh, but the oh-so-well engineered PowerBooks have their fair share of problems a la Window PC’s. Granted, issues arise in all things, but it stings more when Macs are touted as “indestructible” by Jobs and Co. yet they break too.

I’ve just spent several hours reimaging my Mac trying to get it to boot. Now I’m installing all my 3-rd party programs. Hopefully I’ll be “fully operational” (spoken in my best Star Wars Emperor accent) by day’s end. But now my Airport card is “throwing up,” and I can’t connect wirelessly. Boo!

I was bound to have computer woes today though. It was my digital karma turn. I Haven’t had computer issues in almost two years (while on my Windows desktop machine mind you). The downtime does remind me of just how dependent I am on my computer and more importantly, my internet connection. So outside of human beings, here are my top three material priorities:

1. Power (to start my computer)
2. Computer (to connect to cyberspace)
3. Cyberspace (to work, produce things, and enjoy the social web)

What are yours?

I recently had an epiphany of sorts on how both my wireless carrier, T-Mobile, and myself could benefit from a new proposal to cut costs. I’m not talking about switching to Fedex but by using paper-less invoicing to internet savvy subscribers thus avoiding unnecessary paper, printing, and postage costs, and less hassle for me and my ever-so-full trash can. (Save trees too!)

According to my estimations, T-Mobile currently has 21 million US subscribers. Because 60% of Americans use the intenet, we’ll say around 13 million could potentially go paper-less. I estimate about half of those people use online banking, so we’re down to 6.5 million potential users. Now if all 6.5 million subscribers opted to use online notifications and payment processing to take care of their monthly bill, T-Mobile wouldn’t have to mail out the average 8-12 page invoice to each subscriber. Assuming each printed page costs .02 cents, that’s a minimum of .16 cents/month/subscriber. Add it all up, and the wireless carrier could save a little over $1 million dollars per month, excluding postage costs.

Tell you what, T-Mobile; implement this plan and I’ll split the savings with you. What can I say, I’m a nice guy.

Regarding the definition of web 2.0, a recent Digg user had this to say: “Web 2.0 is a new buzz word that will allow startups to get funding again if they can tag themselves as web 2.0… If your website has gradient colors and uses ajax you’re already web 2.0 baby!” Somewhat true, but I prefer Nicholas Roussos’ definition of the term: “What I find most interesting about Web 2.0 is that it’s really a return to Berners-Lee’s vision of Web 1.0… the Web is finally meeting its original potential.”

Maybe I should stop using that phrase (how avant-garde, eh!). Any ideas? The social web? Slick website? Cyberspace 2.0? Post your web 2.0 replacement names in the comments below.

The web really should be making your life more productive by facilitating your information intake on a push basis (i.e. let the content come to you). Sure, there’s Google Alerts via RSS, but two other great tools you should consider using if you haven’t already are Digg and Delicious. Here’s a rundown on the two if you’re feeling out of the loop:

Digg. Think of Digg as the Google search engine run by humans. Individuals decide what tech sites are relevant for a searched topic, rather than a search bot or complicated algorithm. If you want to see what’s hot in technology news for any given day, just check Digg’s homepage. It features the fastest “people-linked” sites and topics on the net and is extremely relevant and fresh. I subscribe to several Digg searches, such as “project management” to stay on top of my game.

Delicious. This site is used to not only bookmark your favorite sites and pages online for later use, but you can tag (label for organization) and share your bookmarks with the rest of the world. Delicious is also entirely run by humans which is a good thing in terms of relevant search. Subscribe via RSS to a tag of your choice (say blog) and you will know what other sites people bookmark on the topic. I recently imported all more local IE and Firefox bookmarks into Delicious and have been productively using it ever since. You can find or subscribe to my bookmarks by clicking here (although I still need to organize my imported “all” bookmarks).

You should be using both sites along with Google alerts to monitor the subjects you’re interested in. This, more than anything else, should help you stay informed, and you don’t even have to go look for it. RSS is the only way to go. Just let it all come to you.

Follow the link for an excellent read on cheating, ethics, and avoiding taxes. This post by Paul Allen reminded me of the importance of being honest in your dealings with all you come in contact with, even if it’s the IRS. It also reminds me of a sport that I love, baseball, that is filled with cheaters who take steroids. Adweek recently had an article in which they talk about the dilemma that Major League Baseball faces in celebrating Barry Bonds’ pending home run record who is widely believed from various reports to have used steroids over the past 8 years.

Everyone knows the guy is on drugs. Just look at the man’s increased head size. I do believe that an individual is innocent until proven guilty, so what do you do if you’re the MLB? I say don’t pitch to the guy. Don’t give him the chance to cheat. It kills to see our world filled with so many dishonest individuals, but it’s also a wake-up call for me to do all that I can to ensure my integrity, honesty, and good character.

None are immune from becoming dishonest, and secrecy only increases those chances. Be sure to keep all that you do transparent to those around you and make an effort through self-assessment to become and remain an honest individual in life.

An associate sent me an excellent 10 minute way to follow up with employees, clients, providers, or anyone that is trying to meet an expectation. Though it doesn’t encompass the entire project management process, it’s an excellent way to take account of a certain task’s progress.

From the article: “Think of Scrum as a simple set of rules, that everyone plays by. The rules are so simple, that no one can forget them. The rules for the daily Scrum are to ask every person involved in the development 3 questions during a daily 15 minute meeting.”

1. What have you done?
2. What needs to be done?
3. Are there any impediments in your way?

What helps you take account of productivity?

Let me preface this post on the fact that I haven’t bought new clothes in over a year and a half. Sure, I may have bought a sweater or two, but that literally is about it. The harsh reality is I’m so darn picky when it comes to shopping for threads that I avoid it like the plague. Combine that with my added frugality (thanks, Dad) and you’ve got the workings of a poorly-dressed hipster-dufus like myself.

So last week I decided it was time for a new wardrobe. My casuals were looking too casual and my formal attire was looking, well, casual. So Saturday Lindsey, Sadie, and yours truly took to the streets to find me some new clothes. We ventured to Fashion Place mall in Salt Lake City where they have an Express for Men retail store, which I’ve always wanted to buy from. I’m preppy at heart, and they seemed to offer the San Francisco look that I was going for. Boy, did they ever.

We must have stayed at the men’s boutique for 2 hours. Clothes were flying everywhere. I felt like an emperor or something ’cause store employees just kept bringing new styles, sizes, etc. I’ve never been treated so well in a clothes shop. The apparel seemed as if it were tailor-made, cause everything just fit so well. Maybe it was the mirrors, but at the end of the day I had racked up on lots of good stuff. It was a relief to finally buy new materials, and ones that actually fit me.

The other side of the story is that during all of this, I realized how poorly dressed I’ve been over the past year and a half. I must have met with 75-100 prospects to close new business during that time. I closed some. I lost a lot. How many prospects could I have closed were I better dressed? Sure, I know buying goes much deeper than physical appearance, but we just hired two new individuals, and they were coincidentally the two best dressed interviewees.

So how much do you value physical appearance when buying a product or service from someone? And do you dress for success?

While most sites have an RSS feed, many out there with good content still don’t. Sure, you could setup a scrape feed, but why do that when there’s FeedYes. Just enter the url of your choice, isolate static pages (not news worthy) and subscribe to your feed. So far I’ve been very happy with the service.

It’s been a fun and productive week with the launch of a new local website, Utahmonitor.com which is a business news aggregator sprinkled with original content for the state of Utah. Though I’m affiliated with the site, we hope to make it a free and useful place in connecting entrepreneurs with other local companies in the community. Stop by if I haven’t already alienated your readership, and/or if you have an interest in all things Utah business.

Many thanks to all the developers, designers, and writers that have made the launch a success. It’s good to play, err, I mean work together.

I’ve been listening to a lot of entrepreneurial podcasts as of late (via Business Jive). Many attempt to define the most important thing for an aspiring entrepreneur to-do towards achieving success. My take? Get in front of the customer. Sell to them. Pitch to them. Nothing compensates for lack of experience in dealing with your end user, I don’t care what it is that you’re doing. They will teach you faster than any cliche business book can. So stop reading on how to become an entrepreneur, and start becoming one. Sell yourself, your product, and your ideas to people that have money, and you’ll be well on your way.

And remember, a quality prospect has a need, urgency, and greenbacks. If they’re missing any of those three (and not what you think they need), move onto the next prospect.

I’m a big proponent for Wikipedia. In a lot of ways, I like it better than Google (let humans tell me what’s good, not servers, right?). Well now you can get Wikipedia on your iPod. Lifehacker writes: “You can install Encyclopodia from any OS, but it does require you to install it on a separate bootable partition of your iPod. Installation is quick and easy (at least it was using Windows)… For what it’s worth, so far it seems to be working perfectly on my 4G iPod, which I’m very pleased about.”

Very cool for a nerd like me, especially since I don’t use my iPod Video for video.

Well the boys at 37 Signals (Signal vs. Noise is their blog) liked what I had to say about their new eBook. They re-posted my original comment on their follow-up post. From the article: “As for the book itself, here’s some early feedback (found at the original launch announcement post): ‘In a word, quality. Thanks 37s for what you’re doing and for sharing the knowledge love. -Blake'”

In this, the web 2.0 age, there’s something very exciting about seeing your name posted elsewhere. If anyone wants to know what to get me for my birthday, a handful of warm HTML links back to Smooth Harold would have me giddy. “Handshake” networking will only take you so far. “Thought” networking through blogging will broaden your reach and the opportunities that present themselves. So get your Google juice and link love on the rise via quality content. As always, thanks to those that have linked to the site and have valued the little that I know.