I read blogs in English.
I write blogs in English.
Sometimes I forget that
there are entire segments
of the blogosphere
available in different languages.
Bigger segments than the one I play in.
English is not the number one blogging language.
Japanese is, at 37% of the blogosphere,
English is second at 33%.
Know another language?
Consider blogging in it.
The bans against trans fat
has the food industry worried.
So worried that they’ve been
working overtime
trying to find solutions.
The ingredient
CoaVel is being heralded by baking experts
as the solution to completely eliminating trans fat
from commercially sold baked goods.
Was this solution a breeze to find?
Nope.
Along the way, researchers dealt with exploding muffins
and hockey puck cookies.
It took trial and error
to find this now deemed “easy” solution.
Jeff Cornwall reminds would-be entrepreneurs
to ask themselves
3 key questions
before pulling the trigger on a business.
Is there a market?
Is there a margin?
Is this for me?
One test of the third question
is whether or not you can walk away
from the idea with no regrets.
If you can while you’re in the rosy pre-launch stage
then you will likely bail
when the going gets tough…
and it WILL get tough.
It doesn’t often rain in Marrakech
during the month of May.
One of the locals said he couldn’t remember
it raining in May the past 12 years.
It rained this year.
Almost everyone at the breakfast table
was unhappy about this.
Almost everyone.
One smartly dressed businessman
bounced into the room,
exclaiming how wonderful the rain was.
And it was…for him.
The man was a roof installation salesman.
When better to sell roofs
than when it was raining?
Someone profits from every situation.
Marian Salzman points out three major trends,
the growth of brand sluts,
making complex things simple,
and increased isolation
as the average person grows wealthier.*
The third trend I find most interesting.
Salzman points out that as people have more,
they become more paranoid
about keeping what they have.
This drives them to withdraw from others,
seeing them as possible threats.
What does this mean?
More gated communities.
More tables for two.
Less church attendees.
* May 2007 issue of easyJet Inflight
Country star Alan Jackson
had to deal with resistance
when he launched his now loved
but then controversial song
“I’ll Go On Loving You”.
He said “I knew the fans would like it
but didn’t know if we could get it
through all the red tape at the radio
to get it to the fans.”
Every industry has gatekeepers.
These gatekeepers have to be sold on new ideas
before the innovations even have a shot
at being sold to the target market.
In Harvey Mackay’s book,
Beware The Naked Man
Who Offers You His Shirt,
he tells the story of Sam Walton
walking into the messy, disorganized
store of a competitor,
zeroing in on one area
and asking
“how come we’re not doing that?”
The competition may lag you
in sales but
there’s a reason they are
still in business.
That is because they are offering
something you aren’t.
Find out what that something is.
When I moved from Road To Forbes
to my own domain,
I almost reposted
my two years of history.
I told myself that it was
because readers wanted the old posts.
A lie.
All that content is available
with a simple Google search.
No, it was arrogance, pure and simple.
It irked me to be back to being
a baby blogger,
starting all over.
The price for this arrogance
would have been high.
I’d be back in the Google Sandbox
(where I have my own chair)
penalized for duplicate content.
How is that serving my readers?
Easy answer.
It doesn’t.
An accounting friend is interviewing.
She’s gifted (yes in finance)
and companies are wooing her.
One of her criteria for
a prospective employer?
She has used the latest version for months
and it simply doesn’t work
(for finance people).
It has all the bells and whistles
(though no flight simulator this time)
and that is the problem.
The fancy Fluent menu bar
interferes rather than enhances.
The product is over developed
and is not longer usable.