More Communication, Less (Marketing) Automation

I watched this video from Andrew Davis: And have listened and watched Val Geisler It kind of connected with some things I’ve been thinking about… moving to really aggressive (not annoying aggressive, but making-things-really-easy aggressive) communications. Super personal until I absolutely HAVE to automate. So, I’m using Contact Form 7 (a very basic contact form)…

Read More

Protecting Passwords / #DefaultSecure

Once upon a time, I was a security guy. For real. At NSA even. It is an easy field to get burned out in. For, the big secret that no one tells you is that (MOST) security isn’t hard or expensive. The big problem is not brilliant hackers, it is businesses that… don’t know and…

Read More

Four Kinds of Audiences

There are four types of audiences.. and it matters for businesses: Pull Audiences – where you have a direct audience connection, but it is controlled by your audience. Blog, Podcast, Books. Push Audiences – where you have a direct audience connection that is controlled by you. Email / Newsletters, SMS, Mail. Magazines. Borrowed Audiences –…

Read More

The Washington Post Rule – Digital data is forever

Never email, post, or share ANYTHING that you wouldn’t mind being published in “The Washington Post”. Today, this may include phone messages… and anything that exists or could exist in digital format. I had my first email account in the late 1980s… maybe 1986? when I worked for the National Security Agency. We had a…

Read More

Social Media Homesteader Strategy – 1

It is impossible to be active on every social media platform. BUT… if you can, it makes sense to “Claim your home” page or account on as many sites as practical (barring problematic effects on your reputation due to… their reputation). Review and select the platforms that you consider important. Set up a basic account…

Read More

Czars, Commissions, and Task Forces

I live in California. Right now we have no visible plan to distribute vaccines, we’ve got huge problems with our system for distributing emergency employment benefits because of fraud, big trouble getting schools reopened, and epic wildfire and long term water problems…. and, unsurprisingly, Governor Gavin Newsom is in political trouble facing a recall. We…

Read More

#DefaultAccessible

How do you design a business to be “default accessible”? If you want to be available for the people you want to serve, what does it take? How far should you go? What is frustrating is … no one wants to help. … not true, you can hire people to help of course (another item…

Read More

My Hubris / #DefaultAccessible

Almost 2 years into being a “disability activist”, and I’ve finally started to take accessibility / inclusiveness for my own business seriously. Embarrassing. Both of our established sites “Disability Democracy” the home of our podcast  and our 501c4 “Not Without Us“… were not designed with accessibility and inclusiveness as a top priority. I’ve been starting…

Read More

Disability Day

(no business work due to problems with disability related services for my son both at school and through our health insurance) NOTE – this is not a problem because of disability itself, but because of how our society treats disability.

Read More

What is old is new – real networking via cold calling

I’ve been thinking about how we are going to go about building our “digital community network”. I’m an online-high-tech guy, so I’ve been tracking online marketing techniques for years…. … but… over these past several years, I’ve started to read and learn about SALES… a skill and subject area that I had avoided for the…

Read More