I Just Read This

reading: Tumblr Now Integrates With Facebook Timeline, News Feed & Ticker [Updates] http://t.co/tHRMNOjj

reading: 4 Ways to Rethink the Press Release http://t.co/KkRGrcTL

Prince & The Revolution – Pop Life (Fresh Dance Mix)

Good story from Tim Ward in Missouri BNI Missouri-Southern Illinois: What could BNI do for YOUR business in 2012? Timothy Ward, Legends Financial Services, member BNI Professional Business Builders-Stl.

http://bnimissouri-illinois.blogspot.com/2012/02/here-is-outstanding-video-about-power.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BniMissouri-southernIllinois+%28BNI+Missouri-Southern+Illinois%29

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10863.aspx

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220529 

Good read from LifeHack:

http://feeds.lifehack.org/~r/LifeHack/~3/kLp5Vy5ITto/6-ways-to-make-your-daily-social-media-activities-more-productive-with-buffer.html

Kwaga's SmarterEmail Engine Detects Critical Business Data Inside Emails

Are you a GMail or Google Apps user? Are you bad at updating your contact list? Is keeping in contact with your networking contacts important to your business?

You need to look at WriteThat.Name.  It is the perfect business networking and relationship building tool.
What does it do?

When you receive an email that has a signature, WriteThat.Name will update your contact list.  It has to do with semantic engines and what not.  All I know is that it keeps my contact list for business and personal use up to date. You also get an update from the service every day to let you know which contacts were updated, and if any of the info is redundant or incorrect for some reason, you can correct it from the daily email.

They are offering 30 day free trials for this service, and they will keep giving you free months for every friend you get to join. After your trial periods are up, you can continue using the service for as little as $3 per month.

I have been using it since June 15 and I must admit it is nice having someone else constantly updating my contact list.

If my layman explanation doesn’t do it for you, read a more technical review from this link from Gear Diary.

Farewell To Notify.Me

http://twitter.com/#!/notifyme/status/119308372620226561

Okay, I may have overstated it.

Notify.me has been one of my go-to services in this social media age.  It is such an important program and delivers the goods so efficiently, you forget that you are using it.  Which may be one of the reasons it is closing its doors on October 4th. I try to talk this service up at lectures and workshops, but because it works so well, I sometimes take it for granted and do not remember to bring it up each and every time. For that I apologize.

During college basketball season, this tool is critical for me.  As a Syracuse Orange fan, I am not able to watch every game on TV because I attend a lot of events.  I have the twitter feed from the Syracuse Post Standard sports writers going to my notify.me account so that it gives me scores and game action via email and/or text.  When I’m on the bus or walking on the NYC streets between meetings, notify.me keeps me in the loop.  That’s on the very personal side.

On the business side, I will occasionally take a journalist/blogger/editor’s twitter feed and put it in my notify.me account in order to keep abreast of what topics are catching their interest.  Or to find ways to connect.  I have set up good relationships with folks in the press, by taking advantage of this.  I have been able to get media opportunities for clients by doing this.  Also, two or three years ago it was a much more consistent way of getting notified if your name or brand was mentioned on Twitter.

I know there are other ways to stay abreast, but this is the way that I chose in 2008, and it has been a great assist to me. I will try the suggested replacements and let you know which one is going to stick.

So instead of saying goodbye, I will say thank you, notify.me, for all the important news you delivered to me (almost) instantly.

Kudos to Jason Wieland and Arne Claassen!  Looking forward to your next projects.

Saying Hello To Long Lost Colleagues Can Be Profitable

Last month, I did a post on collecting biz cards.  Now, I wanna know how often do you go through those old contacts and reach out? How often? Damn.  What good is it if you have all these contacts and you don’t interact with them?

Last year around this time, I was looking through my old contact list so that I could find someone to say, “long time no speak.”  I was also looking to drum up some business as well.  As a small biz owner, no matter the economic climate, you should constantly tap into your networks in order to find work. Well I did  catch up with quite a few folks. And while some of them couldn’t hire me or jump in to some ventures with me immediately, a few of them came back to me months later with some checks (or Paypal transactions).

I think it’s obvious to guess what would have happened if I didn’t decide to reach out and touch some old colleagues.  I truly believe that when you are in your respective game for a long time and run your own shop, you don’t get biz by mailing out your CV.  It’s not what you know, but who you know.  And Larry Sharpe would go one more step by adding, “It’s not who you know, but how well they know you.”

So get out there and nurture those relationships.  Saying hello after 5 years makes (dollars and) sense.

Have any of your dormant friendships turned into dollars?