Wayne Porter blogged about the tie-in between blogging, Twitter, and social networks. Rather than search new information, a lot of it will come from friends and friends of friends. It opens a whole new world of human rather than machine-facilitated interaction. Interaction based on relationships. Yes, there is still room for search it’s just that it shifts from search to networks.

I made a new friend on Twitter today. He’s an illustrator who lives in Mexico and has illustrated stories for many publications including Microsoft, Businessweek, and others. Check out his portfolio. I believe he found me through my blog but then saw me on Twitter. We instant messaged and now rather than an anonymous reader, I know a bit about Federico.

I could potentially make friends all over the world this way. My blog is an introduction that is enhanced by Twitter. LinkedIn is another connection that has brought me new contacts and friends. I say friends not just in a socializing sort of way (which some of you may think is a waste of time) but also in a networking way. These are people who enrich my professional life. I guess the kind of people hanging out on Twitter right now are the type of people I like knowing.

I’m far from my original topic now. But let me just say that when my friends introduce me to ideas and places online I am introduced to the web through another person’s eyes. I’d much rather do that than rely on Google alone. When Wikipedia introduces a new search engine that is collaborative and open source, it will again expand the possibilities. However, they are not people I know and trust, which is the power of social networks.

I’m totally fascinated with how Second Life becomes a platform for people to practice their real life but without the barriers.

In real life I can’t fly but I can in Second Life. Second Life becomes a metaphor. It seems like you can act something out there (something you would be too afraid to try in real life). You can try on ideas without feeling like if you do you will be stuck with them forever. You are somewhat free of judgment which frees you to try new things.

Many people get sucked into the darker side of Second Life where deviant behavior is alright to act out. I’ve heard it transfers right into real life. So I guess, watch what you ask for. But, you can also do a lot of good too, if that is your desire.

Inside of Second Life you can learn to start a business. You can give presentations. You can overcome physical barriers (like if you are handicapped and cannot walk in real life). This Wired article on Second Life is inspiring. I only wish I had more time to play.

Google’s Talkabout blog just talked about Twitter.

So I have a crush on Twitter. Even if Chris hates Twitter I still love it. It’s such efficient communication. And fun. Think of it as a way to send out simple requests. To make new friends. To see what your friends are up to.

It works with Google Talk too. Just add twitter@twitter.com to your contact list and you’ll get your Twitter conversations through chat.

Here’s the cool part though: you can now embed Google Talk onto your blog (with tabs for multiple chats!) and then you can get Twitter conversation and instant messages directly from your blog. So that means Chris could read my blog and if I’m on it, he can complain directly to me.

Jeff Barr coined the phrase “twitterpitching” where you pitch your business plan over twitter. I also like the idea of pitching a business need you have and see what comes back.

Very cool.

I realized after last night’s blogging class that my blog is not the best way to publicize such things. Almost everyone who showed up was already blogging. That is who reads my blog. You’re already converted.

I didn’t do a good job of marketing the class to the right audience. In fact, I didn’t market it at all except on my blog. I thought the center invited me to teach to their clients. They thought I was going to get my own. So we had a good chat with friends and learned a lesson.

When you read my blog you’ll see my mistakes as well as my successes. I see ways I want to improve (public speaking). Even though I have learned and proven things again and again I can still not apply what I know. That’s incredible to me.

I do want to develop a roadmap so that I remember to incorporate what I preach. I’m working on it now. It will be a set of CDs to teach internet marketing principles. Paul and I are working on that. We’re also working on our ebook which is going great but taking longer than planned. I guess when you start something new there is always a bit of a learning curve.

I’m not a fan of cold calling myself, and thankfully I haven’t had to do it a lot.

However, I discovered that if I don’t think of it as cold calling but as interviewing or seeing how I can help someone else, it helps. In that reference I actually have to try to stop from making friends with a person. To me sales are relationships and they must always involve mutual benefit.

MarketingSherpa published an interesting story today about lead generation. If you are in Business-to-business sales this is the story of your life.

In some ways this applies to finding a job too -
Warm the cold first by doing your homework
Know beforehand about who you are calling, their needs, and their industry. Then really listen to them. Tools like LinkedIn, blogs, the company’s press page, and simply googling the person’s name will give you a clue to who they are. I prefer to listen to a podcast of them to get an idea of who they are by hearing their voice.

Think: what can I do for them?
Make the offer or pitch apply to what they are looking for. I like asking, what can I do for you after establishing trust in an area they are interested in.

Utilize online marketing with your other lead generation efforts
“Only a third of the firms polled publish their own blogs or host their own online seminars, such as webcasts or webinars. But, as the table below shows, the ones that have adopted online lead generation techniques have found these techniques to be quite effective.”

I can’t believe my last full-time job deleted their blog. Even if they turned off comments and made a final post directing people to their site. I can’t find the blog anywhere, not even in archives. It kills me!

Running your own online seminars rates as an underutilized but effective technique. Make the seminars into podcasts that people can listen to at any time. I always like Omniture’s seminars and they keep a steady stream of very well-done presentations.

Last, like any good relationship, it may take time, especially with online marketing. It’s a gradual warming up. You send out information to the search engine and it’s there forever. You may not see any results right away (unless you can get a really good backlink, I’ve seen that pay off IMMEDIATELY).

However, you are laying a foundation each time you produce quality content that other people can find and will also value from.

As a reminder to Utahns, don’t forget our free blogging class is tomorrow night. My business partner Paul Wilson is joining me. This class has new content, so even if you went to the first one, come to this one also.

This is an introduction class. Even if you are already blogging we have some great ways to promote your blog using social network sites.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
7pm-8pm
LDS Employment Center next to Deseret Industries
437 South 500 East
American Fork, Utah

These classes are free and open to the public.

This actually did hit my inbox today: “It is always nice to meet a girl that knows her CPM from her PPC…let alone one that knows the importance of conversion. ”

Last week I met Alison Doyle, the About.com Job Search Guide. She and her husband were in town, visiting from New York Jason Alba arranged lunch. We talked about many subjects but here is my takeaway about how to get on About.com.

Why you Want to Get your article or idea on About.com
Many of the About.com pages have high page ranks and come up high in the search engines. About.com as a whole comes up as #94 on Alexa, making it in the top 100 web sites on the internet. It’s also an authority site.

3 Tips for Getting on About.com
I quizzed Alison on how to get on About.com and here’s what she suggested:

1. Link to the About.com guide’s articles and let them know that you did
2. Submit a guest article (some About.com sites have a link that you can use to pitch a story)
3. Focus on a niche – for example, an article on getting your resume noticed in Holland. You could take a geographical angle, type of position (i.e. focus on HR), new technology, what skills you need to find a job, tie the story to current events, etc.

Tools for job searching: zoominfo, myworkster. I also need to join a Yahoo PR group.

I’ve been thinking about how owning your own business or being an entrepreneur goes. I have been pretty hard on entrepreneurs and bosses. Why? I wasn’t even ready to accept that I could be one. It scared me to death. I’ve seen very closely how tough it can be on families or marriages.

Working full-time for someone else brought out a certain rebellion in me. No matter what I did it kept coming up again and again. And even though I helped the businesses I worked for, I was hard on them in a sense. I sabotaged myself, almost begging for them to let me go! That’s what I truly wanted – to be let go. Only I couldn’t trust myself that I could earn enough money to support myself without them. Plus I had some lessons to learn.

I read this post about reasons not to be an entrepreneur

“It’s sheer agony. If you think love is agony, try running your own business. There are days when you feel like the skin of your back is being torn away.”

Entrepreneurship to me is a form of love. It’s not love to another person, it’s love to ideas and creation. At times I couldn’t understand why people would think I had an actual crush on a business partner. Now I get it. Attraction is creative energy. If you don’t give birth you’ll die from ideas. You’ll overwhelm people with them. They can’t be squelched no matter how hard you try. Even though it is business, it involves the heart. I’m shying away from writing the complete story that’s been in my mind lately, but this is the general theme.

“I am an entrepreneur for similar reasons you are. I also learned that because of my desire to try new things, embrace chance, etc., I am unemployable. My wife is an entrepreneur too and we value supporting others because we know that true entrepreneurship is hard for most to understand.” – comment on Carolyn’s blog

Actually you might think it’s true that being an entrepreneur is a hard life. I think that it is actually a fun, adventurous life. Phil Burns called me to ask if I was ok (ha!). I’m more than ok, I’m having a great time. Am I scared? sometimes. I have no idea where things will lead but I’m at the beginning and it’s energizing. I get up in the morning charged, even if I didn’t get enough sleep.

Thankfully I have a contract gig that gives me just the amount of security I need (I’ll be talking more about this later). Plus, I’m buying an existing web site that my friend has wanted to buy for a year. So I’m official. I’m an entrepreneur or self-employed. I never want to go back either. I just can’t bring myself to have another boss besides me.

Also, I’m going to be a book publisher, something completely new. So you’ll start seeing these themes show up on my blog. As always whatever I’m thinking about shows up here on my blog. Hope you enjoy the adventure too. If you read, you’re along for the ride with me, the ride called life.

Fear is excitement without breath.
-John Stubbs