Today is Monday January 09, 2012

Thought For The Day

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility.
-T.S. Eliott

I Have Been Thinking

What is it you are interested in? Are you a one-of-a-kind with no one else In the world interested in the same things as you? I think not! Make a commitment to a few groups that focus on your greatest professional interests. According to Wikipedia “A Special Interest Group (SIG) is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology…” Members of the group may cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field. You may already be a member of one or more special interest groups.

Interest Groups As Categories

Finding interest groups begins with creating a list of your special interests. You may already have a list since deciding first of all on your niche and of course in finding products or services that you can sell in your niche. Now is the time to find people to tell about your product or service.

In the real world you have people that walk into your office or store. You may have people that find you in the yellow pages. You also have friends, family and other customers that refer new clients or customers to you. In the virtual world you might have people stumble on your site but it isn’t likely. Interest groups are found online simply found by entering the subject of your interest in a search box at your favorite search engine.

Categories were created for indexing. Indexing did not begin with the Internet. The Internet search engines just make it easier and much faster to find what you are looking for.

Blogs and Forums

Enter you search term or interest in quotation marks, then add the word blog to the search criteria. Find blogs and forums with people who think as you do. There is a term coined several years ago, “lurking.” Before posting or answering questions, lurk for awhile. Read what people are talking about. If you can add quality to the content, by all means add content. Adding content to blogs and forums is a great way to get known. Talk about those things you love to talk about.

Once you have found the blogs you like and want to visit often, if you are building your CMS (Content Management System), you will want to add the feeds to your system so that it is very quick to visit your favorites click, click click.

Using an wrapper for forums you want to visit often will help to keep them handy to hand.

Participation And Etiquette

Before participating in any blog or forum, please read the terms of service and any rules the owner may have. Breaking the rules will get you blocked from the forum or blog.

Adding content is more than just saying, “I like your blog.” Adding content means saying, “I like this blog post because it reminds me of …” Tell stories about using the content of the blog and how it affected or impacted your life. Adding content is answering questions as well. When another contributor has asked a question, review the answers then answer.

Opportunity is never lost
It goes To Those Ready to Accept It!
Your Success is my Greatest Interest
CWinslow

Ice Breakers

Bookcases For Sale

I was working in a furniture store when a customer entered and asked
to see the bookcases.

I reviewed the different cases for her, describing the available sizes
and finishes.

As I went along, I mentioned the different names: “The Library Case,”
“The Standard Case,” “The Modern Case,” “The Video Case” and “The
Lawyer Case.”

The customer stopped me and asked, “Why do they call it ‘The Lawyer
Case’?”

I replied, “If you look carefully, you will notice how many of them
are made just a little crooked.”

 

Grandma Wisdom

 

Participating with and in your interests is a great way to network. You can get to know others and you can become known through those groups. It has been my experience that blogs, groups and forums relating to hobbies, pets, education, religion and politics can be quite effective. Lead with your particular knowledge, follow only with product or service when someone asks. If you can get others to ask you what you do, then you have permission to tell them.