This whole meat trade thing… let me check I’m understanding this right… to be able to provide the UK populace with ‘affordable’ meat, you have to ship and trade meat from Romania to Holland to Cyprus to France to the UK?

First thought: Convoluted trade chains like that is how money laundering works isn’t it? …because you lose sight of the source, making controls and accountability conveniently harder.

Also: Given the transportation costs alone of these little jaunts around Europe, how come the meat is still cheaper than if you nipped down to your local farmers’ market or good butcher? That just can’t be right.

My brother served up an amazing Sunday Roast yesterday including a fillet of Dexter beef which came as part of a purchase he made -along with my parents – of an entire hind quarter from a local hobby farmer. Apparently, the cost was HALF what he would have paid at the local butcher, as the farmer rears the animals for food, not profit.

I’ve just started eating meat again after 32 years as a vegetarian. I’ve been insisting on happy chicken. This whole meat laundering story justifies why. I had a teeny taste of the beef yesterday because I knew its back-story. (I didn’t like it, but that’s by the bye.)  I have decided that if I’m to continue my ‘adventures in dead flesh’, I am going to have to know exactly where it’s from and how it was reared. And I mean really know. I won’t assume a printed story on a label is true. I also won’t expect it cost more.

There. That’s that off my chest. Thank you for your time.
*Exhales*

See the original post for comments – and do wade in with your own below.

EDIT: In this conversation, the ‘faith’ they are discussing is Christianity. For the record, I am not a Christian. I’m not remotely religious. But I do have a deep and rock-solid faith in a greater power. Sometimes I call it God. Mostly I call it The Universe or Infinite Spirit. Just saying. So, here it is:

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.

The Invitation

by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming, from the book ‘The Invitation’ published by HarperONE, San Francisco, 1999 All rights reserved

UPDATE: OK, so now I’ve read it through again… it’s kinda obvious – to me anyway – why I found it again today. Such a powerful work.  Thank you Oriah,

An RT immediately adds at least an extra 10 characters to the orginal tweet (and that’s if your username is only 5 digits long, so… ‘RT @xxxxx ‘  Therefore, you need to ensure your tweets allow space for that if you want people to be able to RT you easily without editing or losing the end of it (if they haven’t noticed it’s too long). Don’t make work for people.

Chances are your username is much longer than that eg. ‘@hemelcarwashesrusltd’ (max length at 20.) and by the time you’ve added in the character spaces for the ‘RT’ the colon and the spaces either side, that’s another 5… so my advice would be:

• Ensure that your tweets are no longer than 115
  - and even less than that if you want to allow people to add their own comments.

RTing RTs

Absolutely fine to do this in most circumstances, but if you are implementing a collaborative strategy as per Operation Social Storm,  (see video explanation here) rather than things getting really messy, again, my advice would be:

• Locate the original tweet and RT that.

Oh – and one final thing…

Putting Words In Their Mouth

When adding a comment to an RT, best practice is to PUT YOUR COMMENT BEFORE THE RT. Why? Because otherwise its very difficult to work out which are your words and which are the original tweeter’s. You can read more about that in this ancient but still entirely relevant ranty post by Scott @unmarketing Straten entitled: Don’t Stick It In Their Mouth: How to Retweet

That’s all for the moment – as you were…

Sometimes friends become clients. Sometimes clients become friends. In any case, I <3 working with friends…  and most of all I love connecting good (as in honest, fun, friendly, creative, positive and talented) people with each other. Especially when I ‘know’ that by collaborating in some way, they could be creating even more wonderful things together. The sum of the parts being greater and all that…

The RHS Show Cardiff starts tomorrow. I’ll be there from 12ish keeping Brainpop Shiva Nata‘s Noreen company on Lynne Allbutt‘s Labyrinth garden while she does meeja stuff. And Big Beat Team Engagement‘s Adrian will be percussing live to Noreen’s flailing sessions. I’m really rather looking forward to it.

But I’m no Labyrinth expert… knew nothing about their magic before I met Lynne. Nor Shiva Nata before Noreen and I became friends. And it’s not my musicianship that connects Adrian and I.

So where are my talents? What do I bring to the table?

Well… aside from (to varying degrees) helping all 3 of these wonderful people with their business and personal branding, positioning and marketing, I seem to be quite good at networking. And I don’t mean going to events and handing out loads of cards while pitching my services, I mean connecting with people, connecting them with each other and collaborating or encouraging collaborations where it would be smart or fun to do so.

That old adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” used to irk me. It smacks of elitism, unfair advantage – that kind of thing. I view it very differently now. Whether we like it or not, our circles of influence, our connections and networks and collaborations are what shape our lives – in business and in private. What’s different in these Information Age days though, is that we can make those connections far more easily than we ever could before.

I know there are still plenty of businesses, networks and groups who operate under the old-school ‘closed, selective & controlling’ model, but frankly, if that’s how they are, do you really want to be a part of that decaying old system? Even if they still hold some power – they won’t for long. Far better to go create a new alternative which will thrive if the ‘open, random & supportive’ model is adopted.

“What is the best way to interlink tweet and blog… how do you best tweet to point to your blog post, but further more how can I get people to follow me from the blog, and how can I get them to retweet my blog entry when they are reading a blog?”

If you know even half the possible answers to those questions, you will know why I chose to answer here in a blog post rather than attempting to text him back! So… let’s break it down people…

What is the best way to interlink tweet and blog?

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to read ‘tweet’ as Twitter.

Ok – so you need to connect the 2 things up, which means having a Twitter presence on your blog and a blog presence on your Twitter profile. Let’s start with your blog; what you’re aiming for and how you might achieve it…

I always recommend 3 things:

• A prominent visual link to your Twitter profile within immediate view as people land on your blog or (NB!) read your post in an email or in a feedreader (don’t forget your subscribers.)
• Obvious and easy sharing functionality, ie. ‘Tweet this’
• Evidence of engagement, activity and buzz within Twitter, eg. a widget displaying your Twitter stream or relevant hashtags (see SME7.com, widget bottom left, headed SME7 Twitter Buzz for the hashtag thing).

So what are your options for making these things possible? Well, this will largely depend on which blog platform you are using, what widgets and plugins they provide or allow and your personal visual preferences, ie. how you want things to look.

My friend uses Blogger, which up until 2 minutes ago, I have no experience of… But I’ve just set myself up with a ‘playground’ blog in there and within the More Options drop-down menu, I’ve clicked into Layout, then on one of the ‘Add a Gadget‘ labels and found a whole raft of available ‘twitcentric’ gadgets after searching for ‘Twitter’.

Unfortunately, the only plain ‘Follow Me on Twitter’ gadget appears to be broken. However, the initial ‘Add a gadget’ window offers ‘Configure HTML/JavaScript‘, so you could create a link, using a Twitter icon (hosted either somewhere within Blogger or elsewhere) and your personal Twitter url. Having said that, and given my third recommendation above, I would suggest something I found in that gadget search for ‘Twitter’ called ‘Twitter Updates 2.2: FeedWitter‘ which gives you your stream and a follow me button – so that’s points 1 & 3 sorted.

Incidentally, for Typepad and WordPress (self-hosted ‘org’ flavour), you can grab the Twitter stream widget here: https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets (click on My Websites for options), or use Typepad’s own ‘widget’ or a third party plug-in for WordPress. If you go with Twitter’s own widget in Typepad, just create a ‘Notes’ type Typelist and paste the code in there.

So, point 2, best options for Typepad and WordPress are probably ShareThis who continue to improve their offering. In Blogger though, still within the Layout area, clicking on ‘edit’ at the bottom right of the Blog Posts area reveals that sharing functionality comes as standard – just ensure that the tickbox is ticked.

So… that’s the blog linked to Twitter… next (and this needs just one sentence)…

How to link your Twitter profile to your blog…

Logged into Twitter, click on the little ‘head and shoulders’ icon top right of the page, click on Settings, then Profile. You’ll see a field labelled Website. prefilled with the ‘http://’ bit. Put your url in there. Job done! Oh… ok, that was four sentences, hey ho… my verbosity is (in this case) wholly intended for foolproof communication.

OK, moving on to the next question…

“How do you best tweet, to point to your blog post?”

This is such a good question, because there are several options – some smarter than others – and the right answer will very much depend on your situation. Someone who is posting at high frequency, and who uses Twitter largely as a broadcast channel, can easily automate the ‘tweeting the blog post link’ process. And they’ll think about what information (besides the link) they want to include in the tweet eg. blog name, title, keywords, hashtags etc. which will inform their choice of the many tools available for simultaneously tweeting when you publish.

The thing is though, I’m no broadcaster (I’m an apallingly lax blogger and twitterer), it’s unlikely that you are either and that’s certainly not my friend. We should all be focussing on doing it best, not quickest. Plus, given that if you take the advice given in the last section, you provide sharing tools at the foot of the post which you want your readers to use, it’s no bad idea to use them yourself – if for no other reason than to check that they are still working ok. The other advantage, of tweeting your post that way, is you don’t have to set up another app account/connection somewhere which you may in time forget all about. (Scoff not; I have a broadcast client who somewhere along the line has done exactly this and is getting nowhere in her attempts to contact the app maker and ‘please make it stop!’ She is being prevented from using other smarter solutions now, and testing in readiness for a live-blogging event, because this rogue app is resulting in her double-tweeting everything. Not good.)

So manual tweeting is probably better than automated… but what about shortening those long, long post titles? Because when you use those ‘tweet this’ buttons at the foot of a post, they rarely come with shorteners… and you only have 140 characters… and you have those other inclusions to think about too (keywords and hashtags) and you may want to add a comment or a question which encourages engagement and click through…

Well – you have 2 options really… either

1. Go straight to a url shortening service, like http://bitly.com/ or http://goo.gl/, create your link and paste it in, OR… and here I’m going to contradict a bit what I’ve just recommended…
2. Start using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck which both provide built in shortening functions, AND ALSO allow you to tweet manually, schedule tweets for times when you can’t, shorten links and RT in a far more meaningful way than the Twitter page itself allows you too…

which is the perfect segue into…

“How can I get them to retweet my blog entry when they are reading a blog?”

Well, of course, you can’t. Because they are in your blog. But if you do the things I mentioned in the first part of this article, you can encourage them to share the link to the blog entry (post) on Twitter – and if you have an alert column set up in Hootsuite (oh yes, another advantage) you will probably see that, and can retweet their tweet yourself with a ‘thank you’.

You can also encourage people to retweet (RT) your tweets, but simply adding ‘Please RT.’ And you won’t even have to say that if you make a habit of rewarding your RTers in some way, by RTing them or mentioning them on Fridays as part of the Follow Friday (#FF) thing.

There is so much more to say about smart things you can do with Twitter, Hootsuite and your blog – not least that meaningful retweet thing – but it will have to wait for another day. My friend is itching to get his post out, so I’m going to stop here and publish this…

Oh wait – I missed the bit where he asked

“How can I get people to follow me from the blog?” 

We sort of covered that in the first part, but besides those suggestions there – I suggest simply asking them. There is no harm in adding a footer to your posts which includes the call to action to ‘come say hello and hang out with me on Twitter’…

I’m @ClaireRaikes by the way, if you fancy that.

Why do I say that? Because according to my email, I set up my account on Boxing Day 2010. With the exception of a very short reprise mid 2011, I stopped using it within days of starting.  The amount of time you can fritter in there makes minutes wasted on Facebook look minimal… And I just don’t get it. What’s the point?

I’m clearly missing it – would someone please explain? Guest posts duly invited

So, it’s nearly December; d’you remember how last year I organised the Cardiff So(u)lopreneurs Christmas Lunch Thing? Yeah? Well, this year the Queen of Amazing Possibilities , Noreeen Blanluet is sorting the freelancer festive frolics… from her (rather wonderfully revamped) blog:

How Mindy might look if she gets into the party spirit and agrees to be dressed up like an elf!

I’m organising a Christmas Do for Cardiff(ish) Entrepreneurs and Freelancers. It’s on Friday, 16th December, in the afternoon/evening, there will be a home-made (by me!) Festive Spread, and it’s happening at the BeAmazingToday Headquarters in Splott (Cardiff). So whether you define yourself as freelance, self-employed, entrepreneur /solopreneur /soulopreneur /soultrepreneur, work-from-home…  or if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur but haven’t made the leap yet… this is for you!

Come and hang out and partake in more-or-less Christmas-related food. (There may be mince pies, or something mince pie related. I will see how far I can push my baking skills!) Significant Others are welcome, the dress code is: absolutely no ties (unless worn as headbands), and pre-booking is ESSENTIAL by 13th December, on the eventbrite page which you will get to by clicking this link, and for the reasonable contribution of six squid.

So… see you there, yeah? x

Too right, you’ll see me there Noreenski! In fact, she’s put me in charge of music and decorations… ha!  I’m thinking all white and silver… ooh, spray snow… and Mindy the cat dressed up as the baby Jesus… or an elf! Or…

Anyway, click on this here link – or that one up there – and get yourself booked in. It’s gonna be smashin’ I tell ye.

1. Mindset. Typically, they are leaders and entrepreneurs – neither of which find it easy to

a) admit they need help – and that’s as much to themselves as, God forbid, anyone else
& b) actually ask or look for it!

We are used to being independent, making things happen… so even when we know things are not working, that things need to change, the idea that this time, we alone might not have the answer/can’t fix whatever’s broken is just a thought too far! Add to that the discomfort of feeling vulnerable, exposed, ‘stupid’ even, that admitting and sharing our problems can bring up and it’s little wonder we delay getting help – often perilously.

2.  Financial. When big businesses have problems, they call in expensive consultants. That works for them because they can afford big fees and they take the (correct) view that it’s an essential investment ie. they focus on the value the ‘spend’ will deliver, rather than seeing a ‘cost’. The sole trader, or small business (even if they share this ‘success’ mentality of ‘value/investment’) would be hard pushed to afford big business consulting fees. Even a few hundred pounds for half a day (say) with an independent consultant, can, in times of hardship – and when there are no guarantees – bring on the jitters. There’s a worry* about putting all your eggs in one basket… What if your investment doesn’t deliver, or fails to give you the desired return? (*Oh look, we’re back to mindset again!)

So what to do? Well, besides stepping away from our egos and accepting that we alone can’t possibly have ALL the answers, we can also accept that not only is it ‘okay’ to admit that we want help, it’s actually the smartest position to take. And from there, we can start looking for the best help available.

About a month ago, my dear friend, client and colleague Chris Ogle came up to Wales on one of his 4Networking (4N) Road Trips. Besides visiting and 4Sighting at several Welsh 4N meetings, he also arranged and chaired a Link4Growth ‘taster’ session after the  4N Chepstow event. Chris had been banging on about Link4Growth for months, and had hired me to build them a very basic website, so I already knew a fair bit about this new venture; but in truth, I didn’t really ‘get it’. He described it as a ‘Board Room’. Honestly? It sounded really dull and stuffy to me and I’d kind of decided that it wasn’t anything that I’d benefit from. However, I’d heard some really positive feedback from people who’d attended the first Link4Growth events, down ‘that London’ way, so whilst my decision to attend this ‘taster’ was mostly out of loyalty and a desire to support him, it was also to see what all the fuss was about.

Boy am glad I decided to show up! In fact, so powerful was the experience, that immediately afterwards, I put myself forward to get Link4growth off the ground here in Wales – and booked and PAID for my place on the first one.

Why so powerful? You know, I keep trying to explain ‘why’ to friends and associates in business , but it’s incredibly hard to do. I’ve yet to work out why that is, but I suspect it’s to do with the multiple levels it works on; it is a ‘board room’, and it’s also a mastermind group, and I’ve since discovered that the process is essentially an ‘action learning set’, but none of those phrases really explains how it flexes your business, relationship and personal development muscles simultaneously. And that goes as deep as it does broad. Plus it makes you feel great because you get to give as much as you receive…  so you feel supported and supportive, valued and valuable etc. in equal measure.

But most importantly perhaps – you get tangible, practical, workable  solutions and ideas to apply to your business from 12 REAL business people… not theorists, or people who are out of touch with today’s marketplace, but those – who like you are actually out there doing it – day in, day out.  So you benefit from freah thinking, MASSES of experience and new and varied skills and perspectives…

AND because dropping your ‘Yeah, business is fantastic!‘ mask, in favour of the ‘Actually, things are a bit crappy and I’m struggling‘ truth, takes a bit of courage – and you do it along with another 11 people in a supportive, respectful and confidential space – a quality of relationship is created which is usually only achieved after months, maybe even years, of small talk over coffee/wine.

Anyway, I’m loathe to go on now, because my gushiness is in danger of over-egging the whole thing, so instead, I’m going to point you towards the Link4Growth website where you can find out more about how it all works and where your nearest ‘board’ is.

I’m also going to leave you with an audio of an unplanned conversation I had with my friend Beryl Whiting about her Link4Growth experience.

If you’re in the South Wales area, please do come and try it for yourself. Our first session is on 18th August 2011 at the Coldra Holiday Inn in Newport (11 – 1.30pm) or the next one after that is on 7th September at the Maldron Hotel in Cardiff (10.30 – 12).
ADVANCE BOOKING is ESSENTIAL (£30*) and is easily done via the website or by following those links above.

*Someone suggested to me that people wouldn’t be prepared to spend £30 on something they’d never experienced before and that we should run a freebie session!! Well, I’m sorry if this upsets anyone, but if you’re not prepared to ‘risk’ a £30 investment in yourself and your business, then perhaps you should go find a job, because I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be in business.

Today alone, I’ve had 3 separate enquiries from people needing help with Facebook business pages – all of them involving how to create a memorable URL or ‘pretty page name’, so I thought I’d share some key info here.

First thing to understand… you are stuck with that rather messy URL for your FB page (ie. it has all those ugly numbers in it), until you have 25 ‘likers’. That’s just how it is. So your first task (after you’ve populated the page with a bit of useful content) is to get to that magic 25!

To do that, I suggest you click on the ’Share’ link (1) which appears as the bottom-most item on the left hand side of your page margin. A box will appear:

Click on the ‘down arrow’ just to the right of ‘On Your Own Wall‘ (2) and you will see further options appear in a dropdown menu. Select ‘In A Private Message‘ (3), select (in batches of 8 say) people who know, like and trust you – and then, before you click on Share Page (4),  simply ask them to help you get to 25 and why. Let them know you won’t mind if you unlike in a week or so and don’t be shy to ask them to share your Facebook business page on their wall or with their own friends who may be interested.

Once you have 25 likers, you can get yourself that pretty and memorable URL – perfect for printing on your business card and/or sharing verbally. So how do you do that?

Simply go to: http://www.facebook.com/username/ and follow the instructions there.

Hope that’s useful