DISQUS

Truth is I don't know who recorded the track I'm using for the theme song. I have a friend who is in radio and I asked her to send me a podcast safe track with some jazzy saxophone. I'll ask her if there is any artist info on the track. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. :)

For the last 20 years I've lived in Jacksonville, Charleston and now in Savannah. And in the coastal Southeast US "business casual" usually means a polo shirt and khaki pants. We see about as many people wearing shorts with their polo shirts as we do sports jackets. They're definitely more casual down here than where I grew up in the Northeast.

I think Bob should polish up his resume. His days at this company are numbered.

If he does nothing he'll likely end up getting fired or frustrated and quit. And having changed jobs a number of times myself I've seen that it is much easier to get a job when you have a job.

Besides Bob should look for a company that is more inline with his passion and beliefs. He'll be happier there and more productive. Everyone wins if he moves on.

Re: Comment #4 - Andy, I for one am glad you're not basing this on merit. It means I might actually have a chance!

Chris Cree's last blog post..Learn What Really Stresses You Out

Oh, and $6 million + is HUGE numbers for this movie. To make 1360% of your production budget back on opening weekend is phenomenal.

To put it in perspective if the biggest opening weekend ever, The Dark Knight (the latest Batman flick) would have made $2.5 Billion opening weekend instead of it's record $158 million.

Would you believe I tried to get Gorgeous to go see it on Saturday AND on Sunday to no avail. You'd think it would be the kind of movie she'd be trying to drag me to go see, not the other way around.

Ah, well.

You had me laughing as I was reading about the Marcus Scale of movie quality. I keep telling Gorgeous that from a guy's perspective pretty much anything that goes whoosh or boom is good stuff.

I get along much better with folks of diverging opinions after a friend of mine told me one day, "Chris, you've got to decide: do you want to be right, or do you want to have friends?"

It never occurred to me that those mostly are mutually exclusive goals.

So now, instead of working to "prove" to others that I am "right" I simply share my view and allow them to think that I'm "wrong."

Sure I still have as much conviction of my own beliefs. But once I let go of my need to be seen as right I quickly found myself getting along a whole lot better with other folks.

I've long been a fan of StumbleUpon. I hear what Brian Clark says above about it oftentimes being "low quality" content.

The thing is that SU is interest driven, unlike other sites which just look at general popularity. By filling out your own profile accurately (and, um, honestly) and connecting with other folks with similar interests you join a pool of like minded people.

I've found that a wide variety of niche sites can attract quality traffic via SU by simply staying true to their network's interest. Tagging accurately & adding a review of the stumbled site really go a long way towards filtering out the junk traffic.

I had a Marine Corps room mate in flight school (I was Navy) who claimed that melting the polish with his lighter made for a better shine. I just figured his shine was better than mine because he worked so much harder at it.

Me, I was content with good enough.

One good thing about that particular hack is that your blog still looked normal to your readers. But not being able to log into your blog's dashboard is, um, inconvenient. Stupid hackers!

Chris, that video clip is great. Had to explain to Gorgeous why I was laughing. Since she's never seen the original "Coffee is for closers" scene it took a bit of explaining. :)

This post is timely for me. Having left my old career recently to pursue something I love, I've been slowly transforming that something into "work" instead of that fun thing that I love doing.

After all we don't get paid unless "work" gets done, and certainly not for having fun. Right?

What was I thinking?! Better get my own attitude in check.

I'll take the fun and the money, please! :)

Chris Cree's last blog post..Organize Your Internet with SecondBrain

In my school days my fight checklist went something like this.

1. Try to talk my way out of it. - Self depreciating humor worked most times.
2. Run - Under the philosophy that "he who runs away lives to run away another day."
3. Get beat up - Obviously the least desirable outcome.

I didn't learn to successfully defend myself until I got older, and really tired of that third step.

I think part of the challenge is that we live in a culture that says we should look inward to find out who we really are. Unfortunately we are really defined by how we interact with our world. It's more external than our culture wants to believe.

When we focus inwardly to the exclusion of our external relationships we become selfish and narcissistic. As a result we weaken our relationships and cause harm to others, even if it's just through neglect.

Extreme self-centeredness (aka selfishness) is something we expect of children. It is unbecoming for adults and downright unmanly. Too bad that selfishness so often gets confused with self-awareness.

The author correctly points out that one good way we can figure out who we are is to take a look around our lives and see what commitments we have that are others focused. He then offers up some examples, not as a formula, but rather to help drive his point home.

Of course it flies in the face of the conventional wisdom in our culture today so it's no wonder some protest how they are doing just fine with their seeming selfish inward focus.

Kinda reinforces the point of the original post though, doesn't it?

Andy I'm glad you posted about this. Looking through my recent comments I see several different people have all done this at my place pointing to a German marketing site. Not being a German speaker I didn't catch what they were doing.

They just earned banishment to Spamilvania.

Not being much of a hugger myself I prefer the "side hug". It's more of a half-hug kind of thing than a full on squeeze.

Chris, the trends in advertising seem to be strengthening the argument for Seth Godin's Idea Virus more and more as technology keeps making it easier for consumers to bypass ads, even in conventional media. Heck it's to the point now with TIVO, for example, that I get frustrated watching something live & being unable to scan through the commercials.

Dropped from a PR5 to a PR4 this last go 'round, which makes more sense to me compared to other sites around (much as it hurts to admit it.)

Funny that comment spam volume dropped within a day or so. Guess there is a little silver lining to loosing a little favor with the Google gods.

Here in the South guys still wear hats a lot (go to a NASCAR race and see for yourself). But like you said it is mostly the boring ball cap.

Me, I mostly wear a hat in the morning just to cover up my bed head until I get into the shower to knock it down into submission.

For me there's a bit of a vanity angle in not wearing a hat. Sunlight is the only think keeping any blond in my hair. It's darkening up as I get older. Wearing a hat would only speed up the process.

NoFollow is a classic case of punishing the innocent to try to stop the guilty. Google originally suggested its use to combat spam.

Three years later it should be obvious that the nofollow anti-spam initiative has failed miserably. Just look at the Akismet figures with 90+% of the comments coming through as spam today.

Spam is still on the rise in spite of nofollow. There has got to be another way to deal with the problem, preferably one that actually deters spam instead of just filtering it or "nullifying" the link juice for it.

I was at a workshop this morning where the topic was marketing and the speaker emphasized one of the points you made, John. Everything your business does that comes in contact with your potential client is part of your marketing effort.

I need to work on improving some of those in my business!

I'm with you there, Doug. I sing along to the radio with the windows rolled up!

It's one thing for the person sitting at the stop light next to me to think I might be a little silly bellowing away. But it's quite another thing to prove that I am by rolling down the windows!

Did you say chocolate? Mmmm... ;)

We run a big risk of getting into trouble when we even start thinking in terms of "personas" either on or off line. The implication is that we aren't being ourselves and are intentionally hiding something or pretending to be something we aren't.

That kind of thinking can become dangerous because people have a tendency to discount consequences when they think they are anonymous.

Doug I also think you were a touch wide of the mark in one of your statements above. Add one word and I'm with you.

The last thing you want is to leave a trail, personal or business, that can [negatively] impact how your company or a prospect will perceive you.

I certainly hope that prospects will be positively impacted by my online trail. It's part of who I am and the value I bring to table.

And always I assume that Mom & a future employer will both be looking at whatever I put online. That helps me have self control and leave of the especially stupid stuff.

Heya Shane! I followed you on Twitter. I'm not real active on the other two or I'd add you there too.