Boomer's Texting Vocabulary

Okay, this is for all you folks in "that demographic" group. Yea, I know, I'm right there with you.
The Boomer’s Texting Vocabulary… handy shortcuts for those of us of a certain age. Feel free to share with your BFF Jill.

WMG: Where’s my glasses?

WMK: Where’s my keys?

WAIITR: Why am I in this room?

WDIPMC: Where did I park my car?

IDR: I don’t remember [or "I don't recall" for Al G]

IFYRN: I forgot your real name

FANOI: F***, another night of insomnia

There are a lot more, and some great additions by commenters.

The wisdom of Dave Barry

A friend emailed this to me today. I thought it was so clever and insightful, just enough humor mixed into the truth, that I just had to post it.

16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN
by Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings."
3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Cool Site: World Travel Guide

Just happened upon this cool web site for anyone who plans on traveling -- anywhere, for almost any reason. You can search for information by country, city, airport, and much more. What I found particularly interesting was the information on business travel and etiquette in various cities from Delhi to Edinburg.

http://www.worldtravelguide.net/

Brainstorm! - Love is in the Air and on the Web

Love is in the Air and on the Web

That's the theme for the February issue of Brainstorm! - Whole Brain Technologies' monthly e-newsletter. It has a new look, to go along with the new design of the web site, and lots of new information:

1. Making Virtual Connections: Friends, Dating, LOVE and Business Online - and article about the explosion of online social networks like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Match.com.
2. The Business of Love: 9 Best Practices for Improving the Bottom Line of Your Relationship - a great book by Dr. John Curtis about applying business concepts to your marriage.
3. 10 +1 Things to make me LOVE your business email - a blog post by Liz Strauss at SOB (Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers)).
4. Plus other news and announcements going on at the WBT Headquarters.

Don't miss out. Read it now.

FREE book

Everyone likes getting something for free. So how would you like to get Seth Godin's book "Small is the New Big" for free? All you have to do is visit his Squidoo Lens and download a new chapter each week. You'll also find some added bonuses.

Cool huh?

http://www.squidoo.com/smallis/

If you want to just buy it outright...
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas

Small Business Trends for 2007

If you're a small business, I'm certain you've faced some of the employment trends/challenges highlighted in this blog post by John Mariotti. And if you're thinking about starting your own small business, you might get a clue about what holes you can fill by looking at the tips for solving some of these dilemmas.

And in another post, highlighting a study by Intuit on the Future of Small Business, you'll see diversity, the rise of personal business, and growth in entrepreneurial education topping the list of trends.

And while you're there, Craig, take a look at the Pet Industry Trends for your awesome gourmet pet food and treats business - Colorado Pet Chef.

Which are you?

In his blog, Seth Godin asks the important question: "Which are you?" It's much better to be a "the" than an "a". Are you A realtor or THE realtor? Are you A salesperson or THE salesperson? Whatever your profession, strive to be THE, not A.

Google's Philosophy

I've been working diligently on redesigning the Whole Brain web site while I'm recreating my company and myself (more on this later). I was looking for some samples of a business philosophy because I want to include one on the new site when I ran into this one from Google. I thought it was very interesting to see how they think about what they do. Although it's lengthy, it's not terribly boring because it's written in a "google-style" -- friendly, conversational, open -- not a lot of fancy wording, just talk. See for yourself.

What's RSS?

For many, RSS is still a mystery. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. I found a really simple explanation on Seth Godin's blog, along with a link to add it to your own RSS reader.

Seth's Blog: What's RSS?

In case you're interested, the RSS readers I use are Google Reader, Sage Feeds, and MyYahoo. There are lots out there to choose from, so try them out until you find the one you like best.

'Truthiness' is the word of the year - CNN.com

How "truthy" is your favorite talk show?
Have you ever "jumped the couch?"
What do you think of "Katrinagate?"
Have you ever tried "podcasting?"

These were among the words considered by the American Dialect Society as the 2006 Word of the Year.

'Truthiness' is the word of the year - CNN.com

‘Truthiness’ voted 2005 word of the year - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

The check is in the mail

Here's an innovative way to support nonprofits. You can promote your organization as well as other worthy causes at the same time. Instead of sending a box of candy or cheap shwag as a thank you to your clients, friends and associates this year, why not try this instead? Let them pick their favorite charity, then see where their interests lie when the checks clear the bank.

Seth's Blog: The check is in the mail

Quantity vs. Quality Web Traffic

Seth's Blog: Different kinds of traffic

So many discussions of the issue of quantity vs. quality, whether it's time spent with children, money spent on clothing or shoes, reading romance novels or War and Peace, or hours in front of the television. Now here's another one for you: web site traffic.

We in the web marketing world talk about unique visitors, page views, and conversion. As Seth Godin illustrates here, it doesn't necessarily matter how much traffic you get to your site, but whether or not you're getting the right traffic.

I worked with a client who had signed a longterm contract with a company who promised to drive traffic to her web site where she was selling an audio CD. I have to admit that they did exactly that. Her site got lots of traffic, but no one bought her CD -- not one!

Now you may think that the problem was with her product, which wasn't the case. Her CD was professionally produced with quality information. You may say that the problem was with her web site, which was partly true. There were definately some improvements to be made that would promote her CD more effectively and allow for a more simple method of purchasing it.

But even if she had a horrible web site and a horrible product, you'd think that with the millions of visitors sent by the company, she would have sold at least one CD from her web site to an anonymous visitor. But no, the CDs she did sell were to people she met on her own or who were referred to her site by associates. Despite the imense quantity of traffic the big and expensive company sent to her site, the quality of traffic was seriously lacking.

Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you how many hits their site gets. First thing to ask is how that translates to unique visitors (since "hits" are pretty meaningless for marketing). Then ask what sort of results they're getting from all those visitors. Are they converting those visits into sales, referrals, phone calls, etc. They may not even know for sure.

As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' for ya?"

Impact Lab - 5 Predictions for 2006

This is a great to-the-point interview with marketing guro Seth Godin on the future of digital marketing. Check it out and let us know what you think!

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6872

Revenge of the Right Brain

Wired 13.02: Revenge of the Right Brain from Wired.com.

Logical and precise, left-brain thinking gave us the Information Age. Now comes the Conceptual Age - ruled by artistry, empathy, and emotion.

Tsunami

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the tsunami in South Asia. A more horrible natural disaster is difficult to comprehend. For a fact sheet and list of Relief Agencies, please visit TheDenverChannel.com.

It's Here!

Well, it's finally launched. We've been working on a new look and navigation structure for our own web site for quite awhile now. Thanks to Matt, we've had the look for awhile. But you know how it is: "The cobbler's children have no shoes." Our own stuff almost always takes a back seat. But we had some new publicity hitting the streets today, so we had to set a deadline for ourselves. Let me tell you, we can really sympathize with what our clients go through to develop their own Web sites. It's a lot of work! And it can be an intense process!

Since Heather and I both do Web work, and we both like having control, we had an additional dilemma to resolve: who's going to handle what and using what programming language. This can require quite a feat of coordination, which gets confusing at times, but we manage to work it out. What's our secret? Plan as much as possible up front, deciding what needs to be dynamic and what will be static, remember to back up, watch version control and communicate changes. Did we ever screw up and overwrite each other's work? Sure, but it happened fairly infrequently and we could always recover easily and quickly.

So here you have it. The new site for Whole Brain Technologies. Enjoy!