Random Ramblings

Yesterday my day started innocently enough - with a hot cup of coffee and my Sunday NY Times. I pulled out my reading glasses (a relatively new necessity bowing to my age) and settled into my chair, hoping to learn just a little bit more about the world and times I live in.

My eyes immediately caught this little nugget on the Style page:

“Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal”

I was intrigued mainly by the fact that this was the first time I could ever remember the NY Times using the word “Blog” in a headline (hey, we’re mainstream!) . I also was interested in the little tease about the book deal.

I read on.

And here’s the punch line - a guy who’s never written a book before and has only been blogging since January just received an advance of $300,000 from a major publisher to write a book based on the blog.

Yep, $300K - that’s not a misprint.

What on earth could this guy be writing about that could attract that kind of money? What original philosophies and profundities are he posting that is stirring the masses?

He’s writing about “Stuff White People Like”.

It’s a clever satire on the “WASP” stereotype, although someone is quoted in the article as calling it prone to “snarkiness“, defined as “contempt before investigation“.

So its kinda edgy - edgy enough to attract plenty of attention (give the blog its due - it supposedly has gotten 1.5 Million hits), and a book deal.

But it’s still a BLOG - a periodic posting of individual musings. It looks like a blog, reads like a blog, it barks like a blog.

Just like my blog. I write a bunch of original things. Sometimes they are even kinda funny (at least I think so). I preach positivity and “half-fullism” and the benefits of great leadership. I’ve also been doing it much longer than this other guy - for over two years now.

I guess the missing ingredient is the “edginess”. I don’t write anything that could be interpreted as offensive. I don’t write about politics or religion.

Is that the “$300,000 difference”?

Well, maybe not. The article said the site “Gawker” got a book deal, but it only sold 1,000 copies. They are edgy, right?

Maybe it’s just plain weirdness that carries the day - I kid you not, there is a blog called “Skull-A-Day” that simply features skull images made from candy, sparklers and other “things”, and THEY GOT A BOOK DEAL.

Bottom line, I suppose it’s no wonder I haven’t been inundated with book deal offers- I have no edge and no weirdness.

But hey, I do have mystery - doesn’t that count? I blog under an assumed name. I’m living a double life. People I’ve known for 25 years don’t even know I blog.

I even have a name for the book - “The Secret Life of Terry Starbucker“.

Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?

So Random House, give me a look-see!

Lark, Gotham, Crown, Harper, and St. Martin Books, check out the temple of Half-Fullism and lay down a few bucks on me!

Hey, I’m a Blogger Too!!!!!!

Is that a little too strong? Edgy perhaps?

What do you know! I just might be ready for my close up.

Lots to cover today, fellow half-fullers, so here goes:

SOBCon (the contest)

Recall last week we launched the 2008 SOBCon Marketing Contest, with a $750 first prize. So far we have 14 different URLs officially registered:

http://www.gitrknowswow.com/
http://businessbloggingtips.com
http://www.officiallifebydesign.com/
http://alexshalman.com/
http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/
http://hdbizblog.com/blog
http://troyworman.com/
http://brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com
http://moneymakingblogs.com/blog
http://www.smallbizsurvival.com/
http://www.brandandmarket.com/
http://toddjordan.wordpress.com
http://www.confidentwriting.com/
http://blog.looseends.net/

The top 3 URLs so far:

1) http://toddjordan.wordpress.com
2) http://www.gitrknowswow.com/
3) http://hdbizblog.com/blog

It’s not too late to register, since the contest goes through March 15th- just drop me a note at terrystarbucker(at)gmail(dotcom).

And hey, go on and register for SOBCon!

Update on the 30 Day Yoga Challenge

Recall I’ve pledged to practice yoga every day for 30 days as part of a challenge at my local studio. Today is day number 21, and I’ve managed to keep my word so far. There’s nothing like getting up at 5:30AM on the road and plopping my Rodney Yee Yoga DVD into my laptop and hitting the mat.

Rodney’s a yoga “rockstar” for me, because for whatever reason I find his videos to be the best. And he does this stuff with such precision and ease. He’s such a rockstar that when one of the owners of my studio recently mentioned that he practiced yoga with Rodney Yee, it was like he had jammed with Led Zeppelin. “You practiced with Rodney Yee - awesome“!

A rock idol in my lifetime, yes (see Elton John) - but a “yoga idol“? Life is too funny.

Oh, one other thing - I mentioned I wanted to learn something from all of this. Well, my sore shoulder, hip and knee all agree that I’ve learned this so far - I shouldn’t practice every day. Oh to be 25 again……..

End World Hunger…..One Grain of Rice at a Time

Dr. Delaney Kirk tagged me (or challenged me, really) to go to a site called Freerice.com, where you get to play a vocabulary game that donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for every time you can guess the correct definition of a word (you get a little help since it’s multiple choice).

I’ve been doing it this afternoon and it’s a heck of a lot of fun for the brain - I got up to level 42 but didn’t get “stypic” (rats) and dropped back to 41.  Can you beat level 42? How about you Ben? Maria? Mary? Rosa? Steve? Liv?  Terry? Gal? Jodee? Karen?  Terri?  How about all my other blogging friends? I double-dog dare ya!  (and it’s for a great cause too).

Thanks Dr. Kirk for this tag!

I’ve always been an admirer of Amazon.com - I remember back in 1998 being inspired by Jeff Bezos’ vision, and imagining how I too could sell books online from my garage for a hefty profit. That never materialized (thankfully), but I did become a loyal Amazon customer, and later a stockholder.

I bought the stock at it’s peak in 1999 (quite a stockpicker am I, which is why I leave it to professionals these days), and watched it go way, way south when the tech bubble burst. I bailed out of it a year later, but hoped that this business model would survive the downturn.

And survive it has - Amazon now generates $1 Billion in annual free cash flow.

What’s more impressive is how the company did it - by putting customers first.

There was a great column in the NY Times today by Joe Nocera that chronicled his own Amazon experience just before the Christmas holiday, where a $500 item (through no fault of Amazon) never made it to him, but yet Amazon gladly sent him another one, no questions asked.

As a result of this pleasant experience Nocera looked a little deeper into why Amazon has thrived over all these years, and the answer became clear just listening to what founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has to say about it:

“They (customers) care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast. And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”

Pretty darn simple. But there’s a catch to customer focus - it takes time, money, and effort for it to pay off over the long run. You need patience, and lots of it. Your shareholders also need patience, as you spend money on “intangible” elements like better training for customer service agents, or more intuitive web sites to aid customers.

Nocera notes, quite correctly, that Wall Street never has put much value on this focus on customers - hence, the lack of faith in the business model back in 2000 and 2001 when the stock got hammered. What’s really admirable is Bezos’ unwavering position in the face of all the naysayers - “the customer, the customer, the customer, the customer“.

12 years later, all the loyalty is paying off in spades. Check out this statistic quoted in the article - “According to Forrester Research, 52 percent of people who shop online say they do their product research on Amazon.”.

Think about that one. 52% of ALL online shoppers.

Happy customers bring you the ultimate payoff - great word of mouth. And oh by the way, much more profit growth and stability.

You just gotta be patient. And courageous. Just ask Jeff Bezos.

PS: Because of my admiration for this company I’ve joined their associates program and am happy to offer my readers “one-click” convenience of shopping for my reviewed books at my “Amazon Store” - check it out. All commission proceeds also go to the National Park Foundation too - a nice “twofer”.

Like many folks I’ve received (and given) retail gift cards during this holiday season. They are the perfect remedy to indecision at the stores, and it gives the recipient the freedom to choose the items they want.

It’s all great, right? Well, not exactly. I was startled this morning to read this sobering fact:

“Americans lose about $8 billion annually by not redeeming gift cards”

That’s not a misprint (or should I say, a “mis-copy and paste”).

The retailers issuing these cards must be jumping for joy at this number, because it’s all pure profit. Just by taking advantage of our busy and cluttered lives, where those little pieces of plastic can get lost in a drawer and forgotten.

A capitalistic dream come true, no doubt.

But only if we, the consumers, let it happen.

So I’m going to comb every drawer and crevice for all the cards I haven’t used (and you can imagine 95% of them are Starbucks cards) and USE them. I might get terribly over-amped on caffeine but heck, I won’t be delivering windfall profits to Starbucks!

Who’s with me? Can the blogosphere band together to reduce that $8 Billion? I bet we can.

Find those cards and let’s get ‘er done!

Last weekend the NY Times printed a fascinating piece on Twitter, the social networking system that invites its users to disclose what they are doing on virtually a real time basis via bite-sized “mini-blogs”, entitled “The Global Sympathetic Audience”.

The article’s centerpiece was a Twitter user who posted that he was going to commit suicide, and then got a deluge of responses from other users urging him to reconsider (he didn’t go through with it, but not because of that reaction).

I admit I’ve had mixed feelings about Twitter myself - I registered many months ago, but have really yet to post to it. Between my life, my job, my blog, and everything else, I haven’t been able to get to the point where I can chronicle my activities in that manner.

Nevertheless, as the story points out there are lots of people (and I know many of my blogging friends are in this group) who see a great value to these oftentimes personal and emotionally raw interactions.

Biz Stone, one of the founders of Twitter, puts it this way:

“A sort of social alchemy happens. You put this stuff out there and you don’t know what happens. You might make a friend, get a job or a date.”

Or your fellow “Twitterers” coax you off of a ledge. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that - a wonderful illustration of the compassionate and empathetic nature of the human race.

So Twitter away, my friends and readers, if you have the time to pull it off. One of these days I may jump in myself, if I could only find a way to do it telepathically……

Have a great weekend!