Alphablogs

Blog Mission

Back in December we posted our blogging goals. One of them was to come up with a mission statement for this blog. We finalized the first draft on January 15, just as planned (yay!). A draft? Yes, mission statements are always in flux, especially in the beginning. So we figured we’d post it here, air it out in the world, and see what happens.

What do you think of this mission statement? Does it speak to you? Does it make you want to write one yourself? Do you think it’s too long, too short, too … - or is it just right?

Core services
· Canada 9-5 – the only place on the internet that features Canadian business blogs
· Easy-to-digest information for people who are not 100% internet savvy
· “Dear Nettie” – an “emotional blog advisor” on communication and other psychological issues on the web

What makes Alphablogs unique?
· Alphablogs gives a Canadian outlook on the blogosphere
· Our writers are experienced and easy-going with lively interests that extend beyond IT
· Both writers have over 25 years of media, IT and communication experience – and still they’re not “geeks”
· Alphablogs offers practical, non-technical, hands-on advice
· Our “value package”

Our Value Package
· Community, collaboration and mutual understanding
· Right livelihood: There’s room for everyone to grow and be comfortable financially
· The power of creativity, communication and unique self expression
· Fun
· Self-determination: Your internet presence belongs to you, not your web master or a big, faceless mega-conglomerate

Our readers
· Of course, we invite readers from all corners of the world and all walks of life and work. However, as we present our posts, here is who we think of as our audience:
· Independent entrepreneurs, small organizations and artists
· People who don’t have the time or inclination to become experts in blogging
· People and organizations who need to transition or need to add web 2.0 and/or social media

What’s the background?
· This blog grew out of the enthusiasm of Carol and Isabella, two Vancouver creatives, for the medium of blogging.
· We live in an environment where trying to sell 50,000 identical widgets or services to people in our little world just doesn’t work anymore; the market has become global and wants tailor-made goods and services
· We need to give people what they specifically want and need, and that means we need to encourage conversations with our clients.
· There are a lot of people who feel a bit left behind – especially small business people, artists and small organizations. The internet grows so fast, it’s a continuous game of catch-up. Someone needs to help the people who live outside the “nerd fortress”.

Why Alphablogs?
· We want our clients to get to know us and our approach
· It’s fun
· We genuinely enjoy helping people get their stories out
· Blogging is such a versatile, inexpensive and simple medium
· We want to help as many people as possible explore this medium
· Because in blogging, there is so much potential for working together, and we really believe in collaboration

Friend of Alphablogs and one of Canada’s leading sommeliers, wine writer extraordinaire Mireille Sauve recently did a Taste BC guest blog post in Northwest Palate Magazine.

After her article was posted, she discussed with me some of the differences in the process of writing for blogs compared with writing articles for print. Whatever the differences may be, it’s clear that good writing transcends all supposed rules - bringing both the writer and the topic vividly to life in the reader’s mind. Here’s an example of Mireille’s approach in this excerpt describing only one of the wines featured in her Taste BC article:

Dunham and Froese Pinot Blanc. A full body is what struck me most about this wine, then it dawned on me: it tastes like Alsace! So rarely do we see good Alsatian Pinot Blanc in this neck of the woods that I nearly forgot what it tasted like–and here I was tasting a fine example, only it was from B.C! Excellent weight supported flavors of white peach and chalky flint with a charming white peppery spice at the finish. A mere $16cdn is what they were asking for this gem of a wine.

You can find out more on Mireille’s work as a wine industry consultant at her Wine Umbrella website.

Nettie: Your Emotional Blog Advisor

Dear Nettie,

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a long time now, but I am afraid to post anything. I find I’m quite shy and don’t want to be criticized for it. The thing is, I do want to share my writing. How do I get over this feeling of inadequacy and fear of exposure?

Waiting to hear from you,
Shy One

Dear Shy One,

first of all, thanks for coming out of your shell long enough to ask this question.

I noticed you didn’t sign your real name (that wasn’t you, Jennifer, was it?) It looks like it was okay with you to write and sign as “Shy One.” That’s a good first step.

So let’s do a few more baby steps. Why don’t you go over to WordPress and get yourself a blog name. shyone.wordpress.com/ is taken already (although they only had enough stamina for two posts, I see) but how about iwontbeshyforever.wordpress.com – that one is still available. There ya go, all you have to do is click on that link. It doesn’t commit you to anything.

Then take some time playing around. You can set the privacy settings so that no-one can see your blog for now. It’s just you and your pet iguana.

Talking about which. If you think it’s going to take you a long time to come out of your shy privacy shell, why don’t you have your iguana do the blogging? Okay, not really but you could say it’s your iguana writing; dogs do it, why not pet iguanas? If you’re a budding writer, it might even be an interesting challenge to write from your pet’s point of view.

Of course you can just have an ordinary anonymous blog. Lots of people do that. This guy’s been at it for almost five years now; seems to work for him! If you want to remain anonymous then …. wait, that’s another post, I think someone else was asking about that. Stay tuned.

After you’ve played around a bit and made the decision to come out of your privacy shell you can start making a decision whether you’d like to out yourself on that blog. Or you can do what many others do and start a second blog that does bear your name.

Well, Shy One, I hope that helped. And if you want to get over your shyness in other areas of your life, not just blogging, check this out.

Nettie

If you have a burning question or concern, send it right over to Nettie using the simple form on our Just Ask Nettie! page, or add it to the comments section below.

(Iguana image by MrClean1982)

As promised yesterday, here are some stories about LinkedIn. Let’s make them part of our social media project.

Lisa Gates has this to say:

Isabella, I think I’m too new and green to give you a full blown story, but I will say this: people have come out of the woodwork to say hello, people from my past that I’d wished to find again. And still others who connect because of a common dot. I think the thing I’m liking best is connecting others to others–seeing something in someone that I know someone else would love to be part of.

Gerrit Visser, with whom I connected on LinkedIn after becoming Twitter friends, comments:

I found out that LinkedIn truly crosses the borders and once was contacted by a recruiter in London. The community function of asking questions within your network serves its purpose. Compared to other social networking sites I like it that you can choose to reveal your contacts or not to. Positive is also that LinkedIn protects your email address and gives you full control about the provided features.

Terrence Seamon shows that LinkedIn is much more community oriented than I thought:

I guess my story would be that, since I’ve become such an avid user of LinkedIn Answers, people say things to me like,

“Hey, I saw you on LinkedIn.” and “See you on LinkedIn.”

I still don’t know what to say in reply yet. I smile. And I’m happy that they noticed.

And here is something from Director Tom, who I met last year through LinkedIn. He makes full use of the questions section in LinkedIn, and that’s how we hooked up. Here’s his story:

I did an advanced search a month ago and found my first college professor who taught my television class in 1975.

Do the math…that’s 32 years ago! We haven’t seen each other since then.

Until last week. We connected on LinkedIn and decided to meet at a coffee shop! 32 years seems life a lifetime ago.

We re-connected because of LinkedIn. Cool!

On top of that, our networks will help each other’s business.

Finally, JL Robinson suggests we read the following articles, each written by LinkedIn users:

How I started on LinkedIn

Guy Kawasaki on Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn

Ten ways to get LinkedIn to work for you

Lisa, Terrence, Gerrit and Tom, if write your own blog post about LinkedIn in the next month, please let us know, and we’ll include it in our social media project.

Oh, and let’s not forget a wave to Vivien, who started all this!

By now, you’ve all figured out that I’m a big social media enthusiast.

Since many of our readers are people who don’t spend that much time on the internet, let me just clearify again what social media is

Social media incorporates the online technology and methods through which people can share content, personal opinions, swap different perspectives and insights into world issues and generally discuss the evolution of media in itself.

Social media website content can come in many shapes and forms:

• Text - text is often used to put across opinions or write blog posts
• Images - images and photos can display anything from holiday photos to shots by professional photographers.
• Audio - social media lets you create podcasts for users to download.
• Video - video sites mean that you’ll be able to record a video of your child’s birthday for friends all over the world to see.

(Thanks to Big Mouth Media)

Social media can be a real jungle. That’s why our blogging friend Vivien started up a social media mega project, to help us find our way through it.

Here at Alphablogs, we’re going to be hosting the section about LinkedIn (and on my other blog I’m hosting the section on Twitter.)

Let’s remember what LinkedIn does for us:

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 17 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Through your network you can:

• Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
• Be found for business opportunities
• Search for great jobs
• Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
• Post and distribute job listings
• Find high-quality passive candidates
• Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know

So, let me ask you - do you have experience with LinkedIn?

Share with us how you work with LinkedIn. Here are a few ideas: how do you integrate LinkedIn into your work life? What are your good or bad experiences? How would you compare LinkedIn with other social media sites? What do you and don’t you like about LinkedIn? How did you benefit from becoming a frequent user? What secrets have you learned?

Tell us about it!

Tomorrow I’ll share with you some stories I’ve heard about LinkedIn. In the meantime, if you’re not familiar with it, go here, and you can also

Here are the guidelines:

1. Write a post on your blog about LinkedIn.
2. Contact me with your name, email and a permalink to your post. If you don’t have your own blog, you can always write a guest post on my blog, or simply send me your thoughts by contacting me in person.
3. Once I collect the links from all participants and publish them on my blog, you can write another post and link to either all or only your favourite articles by other bloggers.
4. You can contribute one article per project/site. You are more than welcome to visit other participating blogs that host projects dedicated to the different social media sites we are talking about and take part in those projects by submitting your articles about other social networking sites.

Here are two more guidelines, developed after talking to a few people:

1. If you want to submit an article that talks about more than one social media site, that’s fine, but you can only submit it once, to one host.
2. If you’d like to submit an article that was written in the past, please make sure that the information is still current, and please edit the article to show the link to the overall project as well the link to the host to which you are submitting the article.

The project runs until February 22, 2007.  On February 25, 2007, Vivien from InspirationBit will collect all the posts in one big super mega hyper article about social media.

And if you’re curious what other social media we’re looking at, here is the complete list. If you have experience with any of these sites, please write about it and submit the post to the respective blogger.

Del.icio.us. Host: Aaron Stroud from On financial success

Facebook. Host: Ina from Inspiring Wear

flickr & zooomr. Host: Brian Auer from Epic Edits

Twitter and LinkedIn. Host: Isabella Mori from change therapy and Alphablogs

Stumbleupon, youtube, myspace. Host: Karen Zara from a1-fan-fun

Sphinn. Host Simonne from All tips and tricks

Second life. Host Dandellion from Metaverse

Mixx, netscape, squidoo. Host: Pearl from Fresh perspectives

Sk*rt, blogging zoom, bvibes. Host: jhs from Colloquium

Digg, reddit. Host: Vivien at InspirationBit

Technorati. Host: Monica at Me like the interweb

People, I like blogging so much - what did I do before this medium came along?

There are so many things you can do with blogging. Here’s a terrific project by my friend David Alexander (yet another person I met through Stumbleupon). David has a blog, Planet Thoughts, about Global Warming, Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, and Sustainable Living. David is really committed to this, he doesn’t just talk about it, he’s also taking action. Here’s his project:

We all want to do what we can to reduce the global warming gases that get emitted, especially in our own areas of living and working, where we have the most direct influence. To add another dimension, it would be great to congratulate others who are doing something to help the environment.

For these reasons, we have created the Super-Cars Shout Out Competition™ (SCSOC). This contest allows you to place a simple, colorful flier on high mileage cars that you encounter, showing the vehicle owner that she or he has done something worthy by choosing a leading-edge (in fuel efficiency) vehicle.

… when you are outside look for vehicles that are on the list of high-efficiency vehicles, those that officially achieve at least 40 mpg US (16.74 kmpl) on the highway. Place a flier on the windshield, keeping it as straight as possible, then step back and take a clear photograph showing the flier, and enough of the car to determine the make and model.

Here are the instructions in point form:
1. Download and print one or more of our fliers (recycled paper preferred)
2. Find a 40+ mpg US (16.74 kmpl) car from our list (or make a request that one be added)
3. Place our flier under the windshield wiper
4. Use a digital camera or good cell phone to photograph
5. Upload the image or images to the PlanetThoughts.org Web site

(and 6: Wait to see whether you’ve won the contest. Yes, you can win up to $500 with this. Go here to look it up. The contest is up until June 2)

Anyone can participate, from anywhere: from Alaska to Argentina, from Tokyo to the Tuscany.

I have to confess that I’m not much of a picture taker at all but this is such an interesting and important project, I’ll commit do doing this at least once before June 2. And I bet my partner Carol, who is much more of an image person, will participate, too. After all, here in Vancouver we like to think of ourselves as environmentally conscious people. Time to walk our talk!

Talking of which, let’s drum up some more participants. I’m calling on some of my Vancouver connections: The King of Compost, Al the Bokashiman; Nancy Zimmerman, our super-enlightened money coach; Beyond Robson, one of our “all about Vancouver” blogs; our green writer Mr. Narvey and of course our transit camp hero, Paul Hillsdon. Oh, and even though he’s not in Vancouver, my buddy Kilroy, I know he likes taking pictures.

People already involved in this are Sustainablog, A New Green Earth and Pelf-ism is contagious.

(This post was included in the Green Living Carnival)

Hello everyone! Here we go – our Canada 9-5 blog carnival is officially in year two. Well, in calendar year two – but who’s counting!

Canada 9-5 is something we’re very excited about. What we have on offer here is once again the crème de la crème of Canadian business bloggers, people who use the power of blogging to showcase their professional and business expertise and to better get to know their customers and clients. We’re concentrating on non-IT bloggers; for IT people, blogging is second nature - it’s people whose business isn’t in IT already who, we think, need some help seeing the magic of blogging.

We even have a badge for it now (yup, we’re working on our blogging goals). I’ll let Carol have the word here for a sec, explain why we thought it would be important to do this:

We are really keen to see Canada 9-5 get going strong this year, and we’ve been calling 2008: The Year of the Business Blog.

Here’s our badge - feel free to use it to link back to us.

So here is our line-up for this month:

Small Business Owners - How tough to you want to get?
Our first article is by someone we already met – welcome back, Vahid! To Succeed As a Business Owner, You Have to Be Tough is a post on his blog, Work at Home Business Solutions. It talks about the drawbacks of being tough – burnout, for example – and how to deal with it.

Divorce Help - All the way from the East Coast to BC
Divorce Online is a good resource for people all over Canada who have decided they need to part ways with their spouses but want to go for an uncontested divorce. What I like about this blog is that it looks at both Federal and the various Provincial laws. Lately, they’ve had a few posts on spousal support – this one, for example.

Coaching - The poetry of search engine statistics
Lee Down is a coach here in Vancouver. His background is actually quite similar to mine – a quirky mix of IT, spirituality, community development, writing and human services. This post here about the deeper usefulness of search engine statistics shows his personality in a wonderful way. That’s exactly what blogs do – they help your clients get to know you better.

Fashion - Stories from a “petite activist”
Cynthia C is a writer and petite activist from Toronto. She has recently published her first book, Aspirations, which can be found online (Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, Borders, etc) and in bookstores everywhere. I have to confess, I’ve never heard of petite activists before – but it makes perfect sense! I have two friends who are very short and always complain of how difficult it is to find pants (and reach cupboards and find your friends in a mass of people when everyone is at least a foot taller and and and …)

Really enjoyed this article – I always find little historical bits like this one here fascinating:

The inventor of petite sizes, Hannah Troy, died almost 15 years ago at the age of 93. Mrs. Troy thought up the petite size when she noticed that many women were pulling on shoulders and waists, making them fit their figures properly. And yes, like many of us petites who know from experience, Mrs. Troy knew that alterations can “spoil the design.”

Community banking - What’s a blog bar?
Gene Blishen runs a small credit union; his blog is a bit about that and a bit about all kinds of things. He’s a great example of what we talked about in an earlier article, Blogging for business – letting your hair down. In the article we’re showcasing, Gene talks about the idea of consumers letting their hair down: In blog bars, customers (or clients, or consumers, whatever you want to call them) can let you know online right away what they think. These “blog bars” are installed on location. A very interesting idea – we’re coming full-circle: from online to on-site.

This concludes this edition of Canada 9-5. The next edition will come out on February 28. Got any articles to submit? If it’s a Canadian blog that talks about work or business, bring it on – here’s the submission form.

Last week Isabella Mori and I met with writer and marketer Monica Hamburg in an interview for her Social/Viral Marketing Blog, Me Like the Interweb. We originally connected with her through the Blogger Meetup. In a delightful conversation at the Our Town cafe, we covered much more than the topics she had emailed us in advance of our meeting. Her article, Why Start a Blog for Your Business? also includes one of the fantastic Lee LeFever Common Craft videos explaining blogging in super-easy terms.Since you’ll see the blogging video through Monica’s article, here’s Common Craft’s most recent show on online photo sharing.

In developing our mission statement for Alphablogs we kept mentioning fun. Well, comics are fun - so I put this one together to illustrate a coffee session on increasing blog traffic that we did in late November. We documented the meeting in a standard way in this previous post, which also includes more information and content. What do you think? Does the comic make you want to find out more?

As you might have gathered by now, I’m a Twitter fan. As mentioned before, Twitter is one of my all-time favourite social media sites (here’s my account). In 140 words or less, Twitterers post (or “tweet”) about what’s important to them right now, anything from “I think I’m going to have a beer now” to late-breaking news to links to interesting web sites – there’s no limit to the topics.

One of the things that you can do in Twitter is gather a list of your favourite “tweets”. I love those favourites – witty, profound, humourous, eloquent quotes not by Churchill and Mother Teresa (nothing against them, of course!) but by my smart, insightful, funny Twitter friends. Every once in a while I go to these favourites and look at them like a collector would savour her pre-1970’s model trains.

Such a great collection should be shared, don’t you think? Below is a little taste, and here is the full collection. In order to give a nod to my Twitter friends, I’ve also included their blogs.

Trula all these ‘twitter how-tos’ I’ve been reading talk about finding like-minded folx 4 friends, biz blah blah. I like exposure 2 not like minds

Brian Shaler Overheard: “I’m so awesome, people talk about how awesome I am.”

Brian Shaler Overheard “I haven’t moved my queen yet. She’s a stay-at-home mom” (playing chess against @…)

Robert Sanzalone Just cleaned up and updated LinkedIn, Plaxo and some other services I use. Man, Web 2.0 is A LOT of work!

Bloggers Blog First Knol & now Google Profiles? Google needs better names. Koogle and Gphiles? Ginfo and Gfaces? Orknow and Faceoog? I’m not any better.

Darren Barefoot “They’re so good at making soldiers, but not as good at making men.”

Robert Sanzalone Still experiencing that “Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, Me. Oh, and me, me, me, me, me and me. Bye everyone!” in my chat rooms.

James Leask Do you know what is most certainly NOT finishing a literature paper? Watching Bruce Springsteen music videos on Youtube

John Bollwitt Spice Girls are being spotted around Vancouver… I’m overcome with a lack of excitement.

Critt Jarvis Remembering there’s a real heart attached to each of these avatars.

Chris Heuer really really upset with dumb companies that pretend to be real, but are completely faking it…

Fred Wilson assistant spam - when you can’t be bothered to spam me yourself so you have your assistant do it for you.

Nickie C If your medical marketing makes me laugh, it’s not effective.

(This post is being submitted to the social media megaproject, started by Vivien at InspirationBit. The Twitter section is hosted by non other than myself at Change Therapy).