Bizosphere

Archive for February, 2008

Welcome to this week’s “give me a break, I’m busy and hey, you could have volunteered to host” late edition Carnival of the Capitalists. The entries were few, but decent enough. I put most of them in, and they appear in the order received below, followed by selections of my own.

Before I get to those, I’d like to point out that Gautam Ghosh is soliciting entries for the Carnival of Human Resources.

At the risk of making CotC even less relevant by pointing out a good example of one of the ways in which something like CotC has indeed become less relevant in the last 53 months, you might want to check out the Small Business category at Guy Kawasaki’s new Alltop site. It seems pretty cool.

Here’s the part where I have an annoying habit of promoting Deb’s shop, as if you can’t see the colorful pictures and link over to the right, and of promoting the services business, into which we’re working on incorporating, at least, as I recently summarized, “online services, digital coach, virtual assistant, and computer support.” Again with the pretty link on the right, and it’s the hosting sponsor of this place. Not this week. Oh, too late, but wait…

I would also like to point out Naturescape, which belongs to my niece’s husband. They specialize in hardscape construction and associated landscaping in New England, based in Plympton and Middleboro, Massachusetts. They have a cool portfolio. If you’re in the region and in the market, Naturescape is the one. Tell them Jay and Deb sent you.

Now without further unseemly capitalistic commercial interruption, here’s this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists…

Gavin Ingham asks Is there such a thing as a professional salesperson?

Andrew Rondeau is not endorsing, but points out What Every Manager Can Learn From Barack Obama. You can’t take success for granted, and it seems Hillary’s management reflects her having done so.

John Bambenek echoes what I always say about health care and the market, though I was unaware of Ted Kennedy’s role - it figures, in The Health Care Crisis and Why it was Inevitable. I blame the divorce from market forces and choice principally on FDR and LBJ policies and programs, with a bit of AMA thrown in for good measure. Why yes, this is a favorite topic of mine. Assuming it’s not thrown out, and is not forced on the rest of the country by whoever wins in November and the associated menagerie of congresscritters, we are contemplating leaving Massachusetts in response to the absurdity that is RomneyCare.

Warren Wong explains How To Expand Your Business Through Quality And Word Of Mouth.

Matt at Life is your Career recommends Avoiding group think. I love the poster. Meetings: None of Us is a Dumb as All of Us.

“FMF” of Free Money Finance shares an answer he gave to the burning question What Will Happen to the Stock Market in 2008.

Leon Gettler presents an Interview with Brett Curran from Axentis.

Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme presents an explanation and discussion of The efficient market hypothesis.

Scott Allen answers reader mail regarding the always tricky Pre-revenue Company Valuation question. Be warned that there was a popup ad when I went there, as well as a timed survey prompt that briefly blocked the content one time.

Mark at SportsBiz notes far greater implications than you might suspect in New York City to Shutter Off Track Betting.

Wally Bock looks at the Microsoft/Yahoo scenario in What do you get when you cross a gorilla and a donkey?

Tamar Weinberg of Lifehacker discusses how to Manage Your Online Reputation, of relevance to business as well as individuals. There are even people you can hire out there to help you with that sort of thing, if you don’t have staff or time for it yourself.

William J. Holstein believes the economy is in for A Grinding Five-Year Restructuring.

Rob Sama has an excellent new design and has been posting up a storm. Although it technically was written after the deadline for this week and should go in next week, I’m going to point out Housing Bubble and Inflation on Deb’s recommendation. It’s above the normal quota for cited text, but it’s multiple sources of interest he’s tying together and commenting on intelligently. It’s wrong beyond reason to prevent market self-correction.

Sean Silverthorne wonders is The New eBay headed in the Wrong Direction? My reaction? Yeah, just a little, which is why this caught my eye. There’s increasing room for a “not first, but better” competitor to snap up a chunk of the market.

Ilya Somin in an untitled post titled Zoning and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis discusses the economic impact of land use regulations and points in turn to Land-Use Regulation and the Credit Crisis at Cato@Liberty. Since I was old enough to have a reasonable grasp of economics and the Constitution, I have maintained the belief that land use regulations are unconstitutional takings, period, and further, that they would be “unconstitutional,” as it were, even in the absence of ours or any written constitution.

Jason Falls guest posts at Buzz Networker on business applications of Twitter, centered around direct promotional experience with the Baja 1000, in Twitter Me This… And Be Informed.

It’s not a post, but I meant to include Startup hotshots score last week. It’s a profile of the Swan brothers, centered around their recent sale of MyTrade.com.

Also note a post, Chris Anderson at Wired has an article titled Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, which you might find interesting.

Finally, if you are not a regular at BusinessPundit or here between CotC editions, you might have missed Rob May in his last major post, The Top 10 Changes In My Business Thinking, or the post where I linked and opined about it, Top 10 Lessons

That’s it for this week. I am still interested in hosts. I would be interested in hearing arguments in favor of hosts returning to doing so at their own blogs.

Next week will be the last for which I will take entries via the third party submission forms, rather than to bizosphere@gmail.com directly. If it’s good enough to enter, it’s worth paying attention to the actual home of CotC. That said, I’ll put an autoreply in place to let entrants know for the next couple weeks or so.

I’m so thrilled, too. Nobody really seems to be interested in it anymore. I’ve been preoccupied. There were all of 14 submissions, most of which didn’t make me say “great post!” but some of which will do. I probably have a few more I’ve bookmarked. Shouldn’t take long, once I’ve done errands ahead of the snow and muck.

Seriously, though. Traffic is still sinking. Entries plummeted this week. Nobody apparently wants to host, apart from me and, after the dust clears from the baby’s arrival, Rob. I’d blame it all on the change to a static location, but hosts were getting scarce before, traffic was absurd, and entries had fallen and disproportionately not so great.

I might be willing to have people host on their own blogs, combined with the new screening of entries, if there’s vehemence about the new “not a carnival but a weekly feature of this blog” arrangement, and if more good hosts would come forward. However, I think people aren’t volunteering to host because they aren’t reading CotC and aren’t seeing the requests, and aren’t interested in seeing the requests. If it were hosted elsewhere some weeks, it would probably only be some weeks, and it’d be here, done by me, the rest of the time.

Oh well. The next few weeks are likely to be especially tough, and after a while it’ll settle out one way or another, if I don’t suspend it before then.

Don’t miss Rob May’s final post as owner of BusinessPundit as controlled by Creative Weblogging: The Top 10 Changes In My Business Thinking.

Perhaps the most important one that I have learned yet still have trouble engaging is number 6, Do Stuff. This applies to looking for funding versus pursuing business activity that won’t depend on funding, right down to the business of daily life.

I think I learned plan and worry and undecide from my father. At the same time, he could make what appeared to be snap decisions about major things, as I often do, while agonizing for an hour about what to have for supper. In my case, probably his, those snap decisions are usually the product of much thought behind the scenes, or are more obviously logical and easy to make than they might appear to others.

Take the business that hosts this blog and thereby “sponsors” Carnival of the Capitalists. I had the basic idea sometime prior to October 1996 (oops, keep doing that) 2006, because in October I will have had the Blackberry for two years, and getting that was associated with the concept. I was stuck in a business partnership that was effectively just me, but if I fired things up, getting more work and making more money, partners who contributed nothing would profit. I was stuck with a large client that produced not enough to live well on, while being the 800 lb gorilla that could tie me up for days, call me in for an emergency at any time, and generally made it difficult to do anything substantive besides. I’m kicking myself for not pursuing harder a side income from blogging at the time, or other more passive income that would fit around what I was doing.

To be more responsive to them while trying to get side work as me, not the partnership, and be able to access e-mail anywhere, as well as have a better cell phone, I decided to get the Blackberry. It’s not quite my mental image of what I’d carry to be portable, but it would be a start.

I agonized over a name. I bought dozens of domains appropriate to the original name, which I was never fully comfortable with for the services in mind. It was last spring I realized a catch phrase I had created would make a better name, found the domain available, grabbed it and dropped the old name even as I had a site under construction because it was about damn time after fiddling for a year.

By that time the inevitable divorce with the large client and the partners was well underway, but then I agonized over whether to push that, get a job after things were settled enough, or what. I also wanted things to be both well settled and not to take off seriously until after the baby arrived.

Yet with the type of work - or side work even if I got a job - it would not have hurt anything to have gone around and said “hey, I am doing X and you can reach me here if you’re interested.” It was, frankly, stupid not to push it along hard, even if I wasn’t sure it was exactly what I wanted, even if I was shell shocked from being in business and dealing with that kind of thing, while not over being shall shocked from dealing with crazy employers and the logical kind of work I might still end up doing there. Momentum is everything.

His number 1 point is one I have recently realized is particularly important, along with number 3, though in my case staying angry rather than being vengeful. Well, no, I still stay angry, resentful, or hold onto earlier impressions, but I at least recognize it can be silly or counterproductive.

There’s more. I could write multiple posts, sparked by the one, depending exactly how frank I wanted to be. You should go read and ponder yourself, while I try to keep reminding myself “the perfect is the enemy of the good” to help me do instead of plan, refine and worry.

Some of this seems over the top, but I’ve experienced some of it, as no doubt have far too many people: The Top 25 Signs of a Dysfunctional Workplace.

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists.

Please note that I am posting regular content at Bizosphere. It’s not just for CotC anymore. If I can’t get guest hosts regularly, it may soon not be for CotC at all.

Seriously, as in it being too much of a distraction from trying to scratch out money to stay housed, fed, phoned and online before my situation improves enough to shrug off CotC not earning its keep.

Confused about the newfangled, non-carnival CotC? Here is a comprehensive explanation/description. Even if you can’t make it to the end of that, you should see the Political Calculations post that discusses blog carnivals as an early form of social media, which of course would make them obsolete. Not just because of all the options like this for finding content nowadays. Not like when I was a kid and we had to walk forty miles, uphill both ways, through the snow, to blog, let alone find yummy yet obscure business posts by others.

Now that I’ve been a downer and verbose, without even mentioning that we’re selling off books, still accepting but not remotely expecting tipjar donations, selling amazing crochet products (who could resist this baby blanket or these dishcloths that are a favorite in Australia?), selling ads - including here if I don’t get around to deciding to join the Forbes ad network this week, and selling computer and other services (including TBA blog setup and possibly some virtual admin/research), on with this week’s CotC!

Where better to start than with Rob May, who leaves BusinessPundit this week. Someone suggested including From Creationism to Evolution: How the World’s Most Powerful Idea Has Shaped My Thinking About Business, which is certainly worthy. Then via Twitter I noted this item:

Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer interviews CotC co-founder Rob May about his departure from BusinessPundit in Top Business Blogger Calls It Quits. A part two has been promised on the same day this CotC will publish, so look for that even if I don’t update this post with the other link. (Here’s part two.)

Which I now see Rob has also linked. While you’re at it, check out How You Can Finally Make Some Money From Reading This Blog, in which Rob recruits readers to help with marketing, and describes what sounds like a great direction for his business.

Codswollop examines Why it is Not Advertising that is Broken, But Advertisers.

Sales Machine explains How to handle “It Costs Too Much,” of particular interest to me, given my perpetual angst about pricing. As a bonus, the same blog also asks Is Bad Marketing Killing Future Sales?

The Webpreneur wonders Are We Born Entrepreneurs? That sounds about right.

Duct Tape Marketing asks, or rather suggests that you ask, What would you Google if?

At the risk of it being too IT-oriented, and too law firm specific, I thought I would point out the excellent IT v. LT; A Critical Distinction Many Firms Fail to Make from Ross Ipsa Loquitur. It has wider application to other specialties, and to the importance of looking at what you do and how you do it, rather than blindly smacking random bandages on your business technology needs. In a way it’s old hat and simplistic, because it’s what you would do in planning a custom database or software package… but then, too many companies lack the patience or don’t want to go to the apparent added cost of getting it right. No wonder you get rampant IT Project Failures.

Speaking of pricing, An Amazing Mind looks at Why Linux Doesn’t Spread - the Curse of Being Free. Makes sense to me. I a “doesn’t make sense but I know the psychology” sort of way.

It’s not a post, and I haven’t read it myself, but you may be interested in the Intuit Future of Small Business Report.

Frequent past CotC host Scott Allen of the About.com Entrepreneur’s Guide wonders Sex Sells? Oh Really?, about which he says:

“Sex sells,” or so the saying goes. But does it really? Can it be applied to the marketing of any product, or can its use in advertising actually hurt you rather than help you?

From GoDaddy to Unilever, it’s an extensive analysis.

This may seem an odd choice. It’s something Deb pointed out to me. It’s part personal financial advice, part business advice intended for writers, including item 10: “Writing is a business. Act like it.” It’s also more widely applicable to micro/one-man and startup businesses. Excellent author John Scalzi presents Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money.

Dawn Rivers Baker at The Journal Blog has an interesting look at the economy as we’ve known versus may need to know it going forward in Sustainability and the new world order (operators standing by). She says:

Growth economics has pretty much outlived its usefulness and has gotten to the point that it causes people and other entities to do things that make no sense and/or are self-injurious. But if one is going to get rid of growth economics, what do we replace it with? Sustainability.

Which does seem to be the new buzzword. I just wonder if people too often overlook the role of technology, the human mind, and the power of markets - if minimally fettered - in keeping sustainable what sometimes appears not to be.

Dawn’s post was also timely in that it resonated with Deb’s Reality Bucket post We’re barely more than a century removed from the year an entire town in South Dakota nearly starved to death. It’s a similar look at past expectations, who benefits and promotes them, and that perhaps not being able to continue indefinitely, any more than two workers will be able to support one retiree down in Ponziland.

At the risk of including something a bit sale-pitchy and previous content linky, it’s worth remembering that business web sites are for marketing and web designers aren’t necessarily marketers. And so we have TechnoBuzz with Build a Better Website.

SoxFirst brings us Subprime explained - crunch time glossary:

Credit crunch? Credit default swaps? Honeymoon loans? NINJA loans? Negative pledge? The subprime crisis is upon us and investors are confronted with jargon designed to baffle and keep them in the dark. Here is a glossary of key terms you’ll need to know to keep ahead of the game.

Ninja loans? No relation to Ninja Turtles?

Speaking of easier ways to find business content five years on, One Man Band notes a useful business research took in Online Research on the Way to Online Business.

SharpBrains is an interesting blog, and a past host, but doesn’t usually touch directly on business. Brain Training Games: Context, Trends, Questions delves into the significant and growing business of brain fitness training and brain exercise products.

Wally Bock is making sense again, with In it for the long haul.

We say that a CEO’s job is to increase “shareholder value.” But what we really mean is “short term shareholder value.” The difference is pressure to gut the future to produce short term increases in share price.

It’s a serious problem, management by stock market (MBSM, not to be confused with MBWA?). If you’re jumping here and there at every stock price fluctuation, you’re not running the business for the long term, where the true and stable value lies.

Recent host Nikole at Small Business Essentials has something of an advice post I might normally skip, but the problem of managing e-mail effectively is a big one in business. It’s the kind of thing you see regularly at places like Web Worker Daily. It also resonated because, from what she describes in Less, Part 3: The e-mail Diet, we’ve had very similar e-mail volume and filters.

I have several gigabytes of e-mail in Outlook Express on this computer. Since I stopped working for the former large client and brought the old business to an end (mostly; still tying things up), I get considerably less e-mail, but there can still be dozens in a day. One policy I’ve adopted, for now, Blackberry notwithstanding, since I mainly look at that when I am not home, is e-mail doesn’t stay running every moment of the day. I have a Pavlovian reaction to the e-mail indicator, and stopping to see what just arrived can completely derail whatever else I was doing. As I pick up more work, that may not be possible, or I may have e-mail running with just the relevant accounts monitored on one computer, while the rest arrives as invoked on the other computer (the blue one here).

But I digress, and that’s it for this edition. Which I just realized I did not place into categories as it’s been for each of the newfangled editions so far. Oh well. It also took me only three hours or so to put this together based on the entries and some links I’d bookmarked recently. Spread the word, link away, and if you’d like to guest host, by all means e-mail host or jay @ this very domain, or even use the submission address of bizosphere@gmail.com, where I’ll see it the next time I go to see what’s arrived for submissions.

Speaking of submissions, keep them coming to the aforementioned Gmail address, including a link and a brief description. Even if I give up on CotC (or it could become less frequent), I’m likely to draw from links that show up there for inclusion in routine posts here.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition, hosted here by lovely and talented TBA, who also taught many classes when I attended college.

Here is another in a series of reposts. This was posted here on April 17, 2004. A lengthy comment from Jen might make it worth visiting the original, if you’re curious. I have replaced the broken original link to the BusinessPundit post with the one that is currently valid. Almost two years later, Rob wrote a followup post you may also wish to read.

Here’s the post and the link to Rob’s part one introversion post.

Rob has posted excellent thoughts on being an introvert, yet an entrepreneur as well; two things that might not seem they would work together. As an introvert, a fellow INTP, coping with what can sometimes be near-debilitating is a subject of great interest to me.

I can see how immersion in the entrepreneurial flurry could actually help, as long as there is always a little down time. It tends to affect my business negatively, but more so if I am less busy, less so if I am more busy. Yet it is a barrier to becoming busier; a conundrum.

The funny thing is, I often remark to people about how shy I am, only to be told by the more casual observer “you’re not shy!” I am quite capable of putting on a more gregarious face, but it takes a toll and requires balance. I also act more gregarious with people I already know. Catch-22.

Here I am, needing to sell - not merely engage in some relatively standoffish marketing - and needing to increase my volume of billable work by 50% for starters, 100% to break through the “need two people and can now afford it” barrier. Yet between introversion and the residual terror of picking up the phone that doing high volume tech support tends to impart, I can hardly bear to answer the phone (and need the aforementioned greater volume before I can have someone answering for me). It wouldn’t hurt for me to do personal cold calling, but there is no way that’s going to happen. I can make myself physically sick anticipating such a task. Thus the approach of building enough volume, gradually if that’s how it has to be, then lighting things up to a new level by bringing on someone who can “do sales.”

Not that I can never manage to flare up into evangelical mode, but I don’t do it the way one of my former partners could. Yet he was more introverted - or at least far moodier - than I am. If you truly believe, brothers, then that can be far easier than other things introversion impacts. It’s all very challenging.

Apparently there is some confusion about how Carnival of the Capitalists has changed in an effort to save it, and perhaps benefit from all the effort I’ve put in over the years.

Preface

Blog carnivals as a concept have run their course, in the original definition.

A well-done periodic collection of quality links is not necessarily obsolete, though it’s easy to find and filter stuff these days, compared to, say, 2003 when CotC started.

Carnival of the Capitalists does have some brand recognition, presumably some value, and some modest no-matter-what following. It had developed a quality problem, and had long been bleeding readers.

The theory was, it was worth saving, but would need to change.

Goals included getting more traffic by staying put and being better, getting built-in traffic by staying put on a site that self-generated traffic, not relying on heavy hitter links each edition, and being able to monetize site traffic that happens to include CotC. More ambitious possibilities included being linked or picked up by a mainstream publication, after stabilizing and growing again.

Changes in Content and Submissions

Submissions through Blog Carnival will be phased out. The official e-mail address is different: bizosphere@gmail.com. Entries are expected to be hand-generated and include a link and a brief description/justification for inclusion. Anyone may enter a great post they liked.

Inclusion or exclusion starts with whether or not it’s on-topic and so forth, but beyond that is completely arbitrary and up to the host, who also hand-picks posts that were not entered. Items that are included, while we encourage the obscure and the might not see otherwise, can include articles or posts from mainstream publications or their adjunct blogs.

Entries are pre-screened by me, so the host only sees the better ones, or ones about which I am on the fence.

Entry cutoff remains 3 PM eastern time Sunday.

On-topic still means the same. Some other elements are technically more flexible, like whether you could submit two posts, or have two included, though the preference would still be for one, and they are expected to be especially compelling.

Changes in Hosting

CotC no longer migrates from blog to blog.

Each host acts as a guest editor, with the post published here.

Hosts get to put their imprint and spin on an edition, and are promoted heavily. So far, a large proportion of out clicks each edition seem to be people checking out the host, so that actually seems to work, for relatively modest values of traffic.

As mentioned, I forward the host pre-screened entries. This is complete by sometime Monday morning, and usually Sunday evening. I forward them regularly during the week.

The publication day is now Tuesday, rather than Monday, allowing longer for the host to finalize an edition and, if needed, locate and include more good links. Plus Monday was too crowded with carnivals and, well, being Monday.

The host logs in directly to this WordPress account and saves the post as a draft.

I review it, tack on an intro or ending as needed, making sure the host has been appropriately credited, publish it and check all the links, fixing as needed any that are wrong, malformed or missing from their anchor text.

I announced it for CotC Twitter followers.

I announce it on the mailing list.

I update the edition lists, past and future.

I no longer update at Blog Carnival, because it’s been changed to not a carnival, except in brand name and as a matter of history and spirit, perhaps.

Finally

My big concern centered on whether it would be worthwhile for people to host, and whether I would attract any hosts. I believe the answers so far have been “reasonably so” and “not really any harder than it had become under the floating carnival model.” It’s just that it had become challenging.

I’m not so concerned about attracting entries, because we are less reliant on and less likely to use them, and instead of random blogs, it’s always on a known quantity blog of decent page rank (the only PR5 I have that isn’t a retired blog). Entries may be excluded freely, but it’s more meaningful when they are included. There has been a reduction, because people mostly failed to follow along when I changed things, and are less prone to drive-by submissions on Blog Carnival when no new upcoming edition has been listed. The overall quality of what we get has improved.

I’d like to keep it going, even with a continued few hours of work a week involved. It’s just that doing the entire thing myself adds to the time involved, and it’s reaching a tipping point. If the new concept doesn’t attract guest hosts most weeks, it’s going to have to end, or become an irregular feature by the same name at this blog.

Are there any questions I didn’t answer?

Update:

Political Calculations has a great discussion of blog carnivals as an early form of social media. I couldn’t have said it better. Included is a comparison between the current traffic charts and Ironman’s CotC traffic experience back in 2005.

In going back through old business and economics posts I’ve written elsewhere, I noticed regular assertions i made that we were in a housing bubble, and links to other people on the topic. It might be interesting to compile them, in retrospect, especially given the latest assertions by some that there is or was no bubble, or certainly not one of significance.

We had to fend off people trying to drumbeat us into buying a house we couldn’t possibly have afforded, at or near the obvious top of the market, which would have been done through dubious financing for which we should have qualified if we’d applied, even without most of the debt we carry. That fact alone screamed bubble and overextension.

Retrospectives to come, as I get to it.

I find myself again wondering if I’m beating a dead horse, keeping Carnival of the Capitalists going, even as “no longer a carnival.”

While it does increase the overall traffic here, and I will increase traffic by more routine posting, which will ultimately help the CotC rather than vice-versa, the traffic is downright pathetic compared to what it should be. Not compared to what it had been, as it was already bad, but it’s not even at the level of one hit from each person subscribed to the CotC mailing list. That means people who pointedly asked to be notified, somewhere along the line, are substantially disinterested as a group.

I feel fortunate that I’ve had as much interest in hosting from people as there’s been, so far. However, it seems to be similar to what I was encountering toward the end of the old style carnival. That is, getting hosts was difficult, nearing impossible.

I’m not sure I want to handle it myself, each and every week. That would give it the benefit of one voice and tone, but variety was the beauty of varying hosts.

I also don’t think it should become a “carnival” again. Especially if hosts are scarce either way.

I’ll try to carry on with it as long as I can, and see if traffic and interest go back in the other direction. I’m tempted to do the weekly roundup, but call it something else. That goes against the attempt to salvage the brand, on the idea it has some value.

Any thoughts from the throngs of readers?

Welcome to this week’s CotC. I will update the intro when my power comes back, but thought I’d publish Barbara’s draft via my Blackberry. Here it is… That was fun.

This edition is hosted by Barbara Payne, who tells you more about herself at the end of the post.

Unless I get a volunteer, it appears the next edition will be hosted by me. All subsequent editions are open as well. Jay @ this domain or host @ this domain if you’d like to see your name in lights. Well, see your name here, anyway.

Here’s Barbara’s Carnival of the Capitalists:

Meandering over the business/marketing landscape is particularly rewarding when you have so many savvy, insightful observers to guide you. It’s a pleasure to serve as the CofC editor for this session-thanks, Jay, for the opportunity to share in the fun.

PR and the big guys

Nowadays they spend $20 million per campaign. But back then, Nike was struggling with ads and branding that just didn’t hang together. They were addressing everyone in sports, from runners to superathletes, and wanted a one-phrase-does-it-all tagline.

Turns out, “Just Do It” was a throwaway line. But audiences fell in love with that and the swoosh. Nike started getting letters from people who weren’t even in sports saying it had saved their emotional health. Read Mark-the-attorney’s blog about their latest PR campaign-and the video they introduced on CNBC Tuesday night.

Internet dominance - will Microsoft-cum-Yahoo bring Google down off the online throne?

Deb presents a well-reasoned look-she sounds like a savvy insider-at what the battle of the giants has to do with you and me. What Does The Yahoo/Microsoft Debate Mean For The Rest Of Us? posted at Marketvise.

Getting found online - by people in your neighborhood

More on Google versus Yahoo-One Man Band writes this article that describes steps to take to improve your business’s visibility in local search by comparing Google’s Local Business with Yahoo’s Local Basic. Get found by reading Supercharging Local Search.

How NOT to sell to women

It’s always gratifying to see the ad people called on the carpet for work they produce that’s in poor taste or even downright insulting. Yes, many women are extraordinarily body-conscious, but they’re usually not focused on their chest (unless it’s to want it bigger). So who is a blouse-button-popping commercial entertaining?

As Yvonne DiVita suggests, makes you wonder where these people have been for the last two decades. Yvonne says vote with your money-don’t buy Special K. Yvonne’s LipSticking blog presents a highly reasonable rant against using misrepresentations and sexual innuendo to sell cereal as diet food.

Winning online by being first

You’ve heard of Digg. Ever wonder how it got started and what it’s doing now? Chris Harris writes about how the two founders put Digg far ahead of its competitors by outsourcing their service work-which supposedly helped them “get there first.” I don’t know whether that’s always a sound strategy. There are a lot of winner companies out there that let someone else invent it, and then “borrowed” the idea and found a way to do it better-faster-cheaper. Anyway, check out this outsourcing-improves-time-to-market post

Speaking of outsourcing…how’s free trade doing?

Jordan Ballor presents a lengthy (for a blog) look at how globalization is affecting both the US and the world-and concludes that the US is getting the short end of the stick, but that we could still do more to help the poor in developing countries. Economists are People Too posted at Acton Institute PowerBlog.

While you’re at it (if you’re into this sort of thing), check out The Library of Economics and Liberty’s definition of income redistribution. Interesting. And here is Manuel Lora, a Cornell University TV and multimedia producer, writing on the topic “Income Redistribution Is Not Charity.”

Small business finance-What do VCs really want?

C. Worrall talks about what it takes to “do your due”-Venture Capital Due Diligence posted at CFO Yourself.

HR - Before you VC, make sure you’re not bleeding money internally

If you tend to be a trusting soul-and many entrepreneurs who’ve finally learned to delegate a task find they want to really wash their hands of it-beware of taking your eyes completely off the process.

Erica presents Protect Your Small Business from Embezzling Bookkeepers Part 1: Checking Account Savvy posted at American Consumer News.

Last but not least, technology

Anita Campbell has a true story and a solution for the latest rather nasty hacking attacks on WordPress and other blogs. She says this threat affects bloggers and small business owners. Read her story on “Hacking-that could never happen to my site-famous last words.”

Your editor, Barbara Payne, publishes several blogs-though some get more of her attention than others. They reflect my widely varying interests and commitments. In BioMedNews.org I look at developments in bioscience and the scientific/medical industries and give my two cents on what they might imply or lead to. In Blog for Business and Get More Customers (my newsletter), I share information from business/marketing experts and insights from my own experiences as a marketing consultant/copywriter.

And in the SWWAN blog, I express my views on life for women, particularly single working women, in our society and our world. You can also listen to or download interviews and commentary on fascinating topics on the SWWAN Dive Internet radio show. Here we archive our podcasts on a broad range of subjects-everything from what it really takes to get a business loan to how to use pictures to get yourself unstuck and moving forward in your life.

Good visiting with you. Please feel free to comment on any or all.

Barbara Payne

That’s it for this week. Note that I have started posting regularly here, if only in the form of reposts so far. Partners, Friends, and Uncommon Goals and Business Lessons From Gilmore Girls were the first two. This is an effort to take the site away from being merely the administrative or even weekly hosting home of CotC, and toward being a destination itself. If the blog gets more traffic, CotC entries should get more pass through traffic, even without linkage from many or high volume blogs.

On the capitalistic front, in addition to my business and Deb’s Neatly Tangled Shop I’ve mentioned ad nauseum, we’re selling of books via a Half.com shop.

Thank you for linking and visiting Bizosphere and Carnival of the Capitalists.