adam.benjaminbloom.net » business

my life purpose exercise worksheet

adam — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:19:08 +0000

In having dialogues with many people about the life purpose exercise, I decided to post my personal version. This took about 20 minutes. I started listing a bunch of stuff that meant something to me…stuff that I could feel good about being committed to. Then I started combining and re-arranging. And yes, it made me cry.

Peas! ab

quote: you can lead

adam — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:33:33 +0000

I am gonna take credit for the third part of this quote…I keep using it…it sticks…so…

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him/her drink…however, you can make the horse thirsty.

Think about it .

p.s. I don’t claim this “add-on quote” without hesitation, but I’ve used it with about 20 people who had never heard it before…so, why not?

photo credit: tibchris

chop wood, carry water

adam — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:08:18 +0000

When life throws challenges at you…just keep going. Keep opening doors and walking through them. Keep your balance of positive in the face of difficulty and negative.

That is how businesses launch and ideas come to be introduced to the marketplace.

Betalkaboutable is a brand I came up with some time ago…and now the “business” (really just me right now ) has actually launched. It’s a milestone in my life…and I am very thankful. Special and sincere thanks to all the mentors listed here and many more!!!

As Bob says, “chop wood, carry water.” Good point…thanks Bob…hope you are well…though I kinda like “chop water, carry wood” better…go figure!

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

photo credit: geoftheref

a story i am proud to share

adam — Sun, 16 May 2010 13:59:47 +0000

If you haven’t been exposed to it, this was an inspiring event in my life. I have been fortunate to share it with a few folks who appreciated it. Just search “zen surfing benjamin bloom” and it will show up. (Actually, it doesn’t any more, so here is a link http://www.benjaminbloom.net/zenandtheartofsurfingandworking.htm)

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

photo credit: Bryce Bradford

photo credit: ?serendipity

photo credit: eschipul

photo credit: nosha

photo credit: kimdokhac

very cool to come across this today – kinzan and scoble

adam — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:37:48 +0000

what was cool is this post (not related to the pic below…but the pic is bad-ass too). see an excerpt of the post below between garland and robert scoble. as background, i worked with garland (and many other bright, talented people) at kinzan…I left and went to Siebel Systems before this dialogue happened…and had no idea that the dialogue occurred.

Excerpt from Scoble’s post: “But, I had to admit it was cool. I’d never seen a coding environment that was like this. Just plop a component down on the screen. Draw a line to connect it into the system. No code.

Then the shocker. He closed down Eclipse, opened up Visual Studio and did the same thing. Only this time his system used Visio inside of Visual Studio. He showed me the code it wrote. Showed me the XML file it created. And how it enabled a new kind of development team.

‘Is this interesting?’ he asked.

[expletive] Yes!!”

nice, simple, marketing…and fun too

adam — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:06:49 +0000

haiku and ascii…hahaha! aha!

Akin Arikan is THA MAN! (web analytics expert)

adam — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:15:34 +0000

Unica’s Akin Arikan presented in one of the eMetrics Marketing Labs session with Michelle Rutan of National Instruments where they provided a jaw dropping showcase of the power of the NetInsights product.

nice info on culture, entreprenurial environments, and product development

adam — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:07:04 +0000

thanks @waynesutton for capturing and posting this social media interview

adam — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:31:50 +0000

enjoyed the mashable atlanta mixer last week…met a lot of cool folks.
thanks to wayne for capturing and posting this!

oh…yet another good marketing quote

adam — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:29:12 +0000

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.
- Peter Drucker

thanks to leland

adam — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:25:28 +0000

It’s great when people help you as part of marketing to you – this IS the future of marketing. Leland @ Themelab posted a great article – clear, concise, good pictures, etc. Honestly, it was one search to get just the solution I needed (and frankly should have started with…but I did get a WP upgrade for my efforts looking into other ways to solve the problem).

As a marketer, I am now in the “awareness” category for Themelab.
Thanks Leland!
Up, up, and away!

what is vintage?

adam — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:31:10 +0000

why is “vintage” popular and will it be that way forever?

rules against wordiness

adam — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:51:10 +0000

We sin: write the first thought, miss the best order, and then add is, was, of, by, to-be, there, there are, it is, which, who, whom.
Promote a noun into a verb.
Remove un-needed words (e.g. advance notice is notice, each separate incident is each incident).
Avoid passive voice (e.g. It has been decided that your draft…for) which sounds committee-ish.
Active voice is object-verb-subject (e.g. Joe was hit by the ball) NOT subject-verb-object (the ball hit joe).
Eliminate of’s and their nouns, change “which” clauses into particples (e.g. a car which was going south…is a car going south), change nouns into verbs.
Use (as a noun or verb) can be wordy.
Careful not to over modify the noun or use too many noun pairs (e.g. puzzling in nature is puzzling…of great importance is important).

More: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/concise.htm

dave’s demo

adam — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:12:01 +0000

This is a demo for dave.

writing equals emotion

adam — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Recently, I’ve become more fascinated by writing than I may have ever been in my life…maybe I should say “communications” which includes writing as well. The quote below caught my mind and the related picture caught my eye.

From this article:

“Everyone ultimately buys for emotional reasons and then makes every attempt to justify it with logic. It’s simple…

Everyone wants to be right. No one likes being wrong, or being perceived as being wrong.

If you want to accomplish this feat you must appeal to emotions. Fear, greed, anger, flattery, exclusiveness, salvation, lust, desire for love.”