My G+ Experience

I spent about a month working with Google Plus. More like three weeks really. The first couple weeks, didn't do much except observe. During that time I added about seventy people who seemed smart, knowledgeable, or otherwise talented in photography, tech, or social networking and followed their streams. As people added me to their circles, for the most part, I added them back. I also created a noteworthy number of social circles so I could kind of keep track of various G+ conversation streams, and made a few comments in some of the more interesting discussions.

The G+ user interface is uncluttered, and most of the controls are intuitive to use. The exception for this,  of course, is the most important part, the account controls. I uploaded a profile picture... for those of you that actually haven't ever used a social network before, the profile picture is the first picture of you that visitors will see when they look up your profile. This should be a good picture.

The first profile picture I uploaded, didn't look very good. Neither did the second. The third ended up being just ok. I made a mental note to schedule a visit with a portrait photographer, and then tried in vain to delete the two poorer examples that I had uploaded. There were no readily apparent tools to  delete photos.   Not in the photos section either. It's not like I upload bad photos either, G+ automatically resized the profile photos using some mysterious (broken) algorithm resulting in some surprising results for profile images I use (and that look good) on other web fora.

The third week was the most interesting. Circle sharing was formally introduced. In this, experienced users could (if they wanted) share their circle of contacts (Who might have not desired to suddenly meet other new G+users)  using a point and drag interface in the web browser. I was able to add a couple of 250 person circles (One in photography, and one composed of Non-Profit Organization G+ members). Later on I added an additional photography circle, as well as some individuals using the G+ search tools.

After this I began having problems adding other G+ member circles,  and in moving members from these larger general purpose circles into smaller more well defined social circles. As it turns out, this is because of the database API.

Whenever one moves a member, adds a member, or deletes a member in a circle, this updated information is sent to the G+ cloud database.  Some G+ users are being limited (or throttled if you will)... in the number of hourly or daily reads and writes they can make to the cloud database. While some G+ users are having  4,000 to 10,000 contacts added every day and they are able to arrange their circles any way they like, I was unable to change even one contact in one circle.

It didn't matter what browser I was using. I tried  Opera, IE Explorer, and even Chrome.  Using Chrome, I even tried to send a trouble report to Google. It crashed the first time I wrote  the trouble report , just more lost time... time I don't have to lose. My second trouble report was brief and included my resignation from G+.

I like the idea of an extended social network. I'd like to be a part of such a network to help make a better world. It needs to be a network that is hassle free, where the features work as advertised, ...and not just for some of the network members.

Putting your business into the Fast Lane!

Good Business is all about solving problems that other people have. The quicker you can contact people and identify their problems, and then offer a solution, the quicker you'll end up getting paid! Here's some notes for doing exactly this by writing quick short articles for your blog or website:

Quick Effective Articles for Bringing New Business In!

What unusual obsessions do you have? If you had to teach two things related to your obsession (three minutes each), what would they be?

Create Two Article Titles: "How to..." "...101"

Create two New Article titles: "How... can help you..."

Create an Article about the Future: 250-750 Words or <5 Minute video (Make for friends, share with friends)

Create two more titles for "The Difference between A & B..." (products, services, goods)

Create an article on "How somebody gets something done..."

On E-Mail 

Irresistable E-mail subject lines are useful, ultra-specific, unique, & urgent.

Identify yourself.

Shorter is better.

I have a prize for the first commenter that can identify where most of these ideas were originally published! 

Raising Money for your latest Project

Originally Published May 14th, 2010

Note: Since this article was originally published Kickstarter has made it even easier to get funding by allowing anyone to post a project for consideration. Turns out letting the buyers decide for themselves what constitutes a good investment is just good business!

Kickstarter 

There are times when you may need to raise some short term capital for your business. Maybe for a new CD or video release, maybe to complete a product launch or to acquire some new tech. Maybe you need to expand your office and add a decorative alcove or a couple new workstations, or maybe you want to publish a book. If you happen to need one to twenty-five thousand dollars (and possibly a bit more) It would be well worth your while to look into:

http://www.kickstarter.com/

Kickstarter is a funding platform designed to help you fund and complete a single well-conceived project. The way it works is this: Project creators inspire people to open their wallets by offering smart, fun, and tangible rewards (like products, benefits, and experiences).  This is ALL-OR-NOTHING FUNDING! 

Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands. Kickstarter projects are efforts by real people to do something they love, something fun, or at least something of note. These stories unfold through blog posts, pics, and videos as people bring their ideas to life. Take a peek around the site to see what they're talking about. If you want to start a project here, note you must be willing to Blog about it, for the benefit of other creative people there.

Note also, that this is not about investing, Project Creators keep 100% ownership of their project.

Note also, that this is an invite only process. It's a great idea, and even if you don't get an invite, there's no reason not to implement your own version of this, on your own website. I'm going to add this to my 2010 Resolutions to-do list!

Twitter

I actually joined Twitter about fifteen months or so ago. The first run was a total crash and burn as I quickly gathered a hundred or so followers, followed about two hundred Twitterers (is this actually a word?), that is to say Twitter followers  (Tweeters maybe?) and was then also quickly overwhelmed by spam, pretty much of the worst sort. I ended up unfollowing everyone and withdrawing from the Twitterverse for about six months or so, and spent some time thinking about other more important things as I couldn't figure out how it could actually be used for business ... you know...to improve my income... The bottom line.  Twitter came back to me though.

And I finally figured out how it would fit for my business, how it could improve my business, and other people's business as well.

In the traditional business world as you are rising up the corporate ladder you cultivate mentors and gatekeepers. People with connections. People who were willing to refer you to other business people, and who would refer other business people to you. Twitter is great for this, and so takes a place in my business portfolio as a valuable resource, for me, for my clients, and customers, and for my Twitter followers.

Here's how I'm using it, along with a few words on twitter etiquette.

I'm gathering my mentoring group.  It's a wide diverse range of Tweeters that include writers, bloggers, comedians, artists, actors, musicians, bands, business leaders, entrepreneurs, attorneys, real estate investors, home buyers, home sellers, politicians, information technology specialists, multimedia specialists, a few resellers, some wholesalers, motivational speakers, advertisers, open source software advocates, socialites, media personalities (just a few), advertisers, travel agents, web designers, graphic artists, small business owners, physical, mental, and spiritual health advisors, photographers, game designers, motivational speakers, social media advisors, news reporters (especially business news reporters from around the globe), wholesale discounters, and of course, a few fine purveyors and bloggers of fine coffee and food.

Right now, I have about four hundred and fifty followers and follow just about five hundred other tweeters. I'll stop actively recruiting followers when I get to a thousand or so. While this is happening, I'll be doing features on my website and in my community about my Twitter followers and their businesses, and I'll be answering requests for help or otherwise meeting with other tweeters  as they request, to help them with their business. I'll be selecting a few to work with as partners, and I'll be purchasing goods and services from a few as well.

They say that many hands make light work. Let's see how this works out over the long run.

On Twitter Etiquette

Generally I'll follow you back, if you follow me. There are a few exceptions though.

Spammers

Number one on my unfollow list is spammers.  If it takes more than one tweet to get your message out, I'm ok with that. If you tweet ten or fifteen tweets in the span of a just a couple minutes a day I'm ok on that as well, as I understand your time is valuable and you may only allocate a few minutes a day for the twitter part of your business.  If you are tweeting something every twelve minutes, you are not going to find a place here.

At over a hundred tweets a day, you are just spamming. Not only that, you are wasting my time sorting through all that spam to connect with the real twitters that care about their businesses and their customers who tweet exceptionally valuable information, but only once or twice a day. You are not allowed to drowned them out with your noisy self!

Sorry... just not going to do a follow on this, no matter how much you want me to. There are a few exceptions of course, a couple of news sites, stock trading, foreign exchange trading and such. There's no hard and fast rule, however if you are tweeting anything more than once an hour, I'm looking at, and leaning towards, the unfollow button.

Sex Tweets

Another way to get unfollowed real fast, and even blocked,  is to tweet about sexual favors and/or services. I'm married and unavailable as a partner, toy, plaything, casual fling, or paying client. It's unfortunate the twitter API doesn't have any easily accessible IP address detection features to determine the IP address of tweets, because it's the same few businesses that  follow my Twitter account in order to spam me with unwanted and unneeded sexually oriented offers.

Retweets

Retweets are the most powerful tool in the twitter tool collection for rapidly releasing news, new information, and recommending messages from other Tweeters. A dedicated group of Tweeters can really make an Impact with a news, timely information update, or new product release, and I'm all for that!

It's also unfortunately the most abused twitter tool with folks repeatedly retweeting simply stupid messages or recommendations, or retweeting headline news. If I want a flock of Parrots, I'll buy them. Twitter recently added a button that allows you to choose which followers you will receive retweets from. Thanks for that!  I'd prefer keeping that button, however with the default set so that retweets are automatically not broadcast in my timeline unless I specifically choose to add the retweets of a specific tweeter.