As I continue my journey in extending Wordpress blogs with audio (podcasting), video (videocasting, video blogging) and social media (eg. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.) I invite you to join me in this journey at ShermanLive.com. I continue to experiment and document my process and progress with videos and podcasts at ShermanLive.com.

If you have questions pertaining to either WordpressTutorials.com or ShermanLive.com, you can reach me at AskShermanHu.com.

Wishing you a prosperous 2008! Live Well, Live Strong, & Live Your Best Life!

Sherman Hu

Here are some stats that are astounding (Source: Shel Israel)

* Over 150,000 registrants daily. That’s 1 million a week since January.

* 35 million users today. Of course that number will be off a million one week from today.

* Half user are outside college. That number was zero in Sept. 2006.

* 0ver 40 billion page views in May 2007

* Average visitor stays 20 minutes

* Most growth is among people over age 25.

* 47,000 Facebook groups.

* #1 photo sharing app on the web. 2.7 billion photos on site.

* More than 2000 applications. The Top 10 are: Top Friends, Video, Graffiti, MyQuestions, iLike, FreeGifts, X Me, Superpoke!, Fortune Cookie & Horoscopes. The smallest of these has over 4.5 million users.

I've been connecting with friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances at Facebook, and it's been enjoyable.

It's also a fantastic platform to discover interest groups (think: brainstorm ideas).

Speaking of groups, I've created an open group called: "Beginners Guide to Mastering Web Basics" - a place where
technophobes can hang out.

Here's the URL: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5668471204

I'll be providing some video tutorials targeted for beginners, and hopefully even technophobes can learn a thing or two

[Jeff Foxworthy voice] If you are one, that's great!

If you're savvy, you're who I need to speak to. You see, you may have a host of friends or family that who're constantly hounding you about how to do this, how to do that - sound familiar?

It's my hope that we can help them out in a non-intimidating, social community place like Facebook, where they can learn basics about the Web.

There are no opt-ins (except if they don't have a Facebook account, and need to register for one to connect with us) so no need to fear a flood of emails to their inbox.

So whaddya think?

Here's the URL to the group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5668471204

See you there!

ps. I'm hoping that the savvy ones can offer little tidbits of how-to's along the way too! Every little bit counts, and it'll grow to be a huge vault of knowledge that will help a bunch of folks!

Check it out and consider joining me there? You can save up to 50% if you register by Aug 3, and up to 25% by Oct 16.

Since I'll be speaking on 'Traffic' related subjects, I may reveal to my workshop attendees how I got arrested by cops and halted highway traffic for at least 20 minutes! (It's a really great story! Wanna know more? Join me and you'll find out

Dave wanted my topic summary, so here's what I emailed him…

Sherman will reveal his H.O.T. Blueprint (Hu's Online Traffic Blueprint) to his workshop attendees. This proven blueprint of evergreen strategies has been responsible for:

Bookmark your schedule to join Sherman as he openly shares his H.O.T. Blueprint and expands on the strategies so you can benefit and profit from it too.

See you there!

What do you think?

Here's my response to her post…

"Suzanne, I appreciate your keen intuition in this matter. As a blogging coach to thousands of business owners through WordpressTutorials.com and speaking to the same audience in conferences, this is my take on this.

There is a camp that have heard of blogging and its importance and benefits, and are just starting out. Good for you folks Keep going…

Then there's the camp who are blogging, and enjoying the many benefits from this publishing platform.

The latter are emailing me or pulling me aside at conferences, revealing that its quite painstaking, or laborious to keep a consistent publishing schedule.

What to do?

Well, this is a situation of 'do what I say, don't do what I do'

This is a strategy I've coined "B52". I recommend you spend a weekend or two, and craft out 52 blog posts/tips/how-to's etc and pre-schedule/post-date your blog posts - one post per week. Hence, 52 tips will publish automatically to your blog, in its respective categories.

As a result, you're blessed with a consistent blog publishing schedule that speaks volumes to your audience (credibility, SME, conversions etc) and the search engines (consistent indexing, increased rankings, increased traffic etc).

For those who ask 'I don't have time to write a few blog posts, let alone 52' - this is my response…

"Think outside of the box!"

Outsource the writing to your personal assistant, VA, team member, staff etc. As long as your content is evergreen, it'll fly. And keep your 'voice', your 'vibe' - you know what I mean?

Then when the motivation or inspiration kicks in, feel free to craft additional post/s to your blog, which just adds to your existing pre-scheduled 52 posts. Voila!

Makes sense?

Me, on the other hand, I get bored very quickly, and my wife and I have observed that every 2 years, I get the 'itch' to move on to something new, to learn a new discipline or whatever. This new itch has taken me to the podcasting/vidcasting space.

Still blogging, mind you - as my podcasts and vidcasts will publish to a blog for easy rss/xml feeds - but I'm moving past just text.

That's one of the reasons why I've launched www.ShermanLive.com - a new podcast published to a Wordpress blog, with a purpose of simplifying and demystifying new media (blogging, podcasting, vidcating, screencasting, social networking, etc) so business owners so they can profit from it.

Maybe its blogging ADD, maybe its boredom, and I joke that 'blogging is so yesterday', but in reality, it still rocks and if biz owners would just consider blogs and blogging as a super website on steroids that builds community, that can help you boost your search engine results, traffic, sales and profits - then they would continue  to publish good, fresh content - even irregularly.

Blog on!"

The good news is now Typepad users finally have the ability to create Pages. The Typepad blog offers several great ways one can use Pages, and more of my members can also benefit from understanding how to use a Page.

The other good news is Wordpress users have had this feature - forever, as long as I can remember.

How do you access this feature in Wordpress?

After logging in to your blog, click on the 'Write' tab, 'Pages' subtab.

Just like writing a new 'Post', you would simply fill out your Title, Body Content, Name of your Page (aka Page Slug), click the 'Publish' button and you're done!

In addition, on the Typepad blog, they announced a new feature -  "you can even set a Page to be the home page for your blog, so it’s the first thing readers see when they go to your URL." - aka Static Home Page, or Static Front Page.

I've used this feature via plugins for as long as I can remember, probably since 2004. Since I'm a fan of this Professional Theme/Plugin Set for Wordpress, there's a Static Front Page plugin that comes packaged with it. Simply writing and publishing a new Page, and using the word 'home' in the 'Page Slug' field (right column of 'Write' > 'Page' screen), it produces a static home page for me that offers a welcome page for my new visitors.

This static home page gives you the freedom to publish text, pictures, audio and/or video to direct visitors to the important sections of my blog/s, which includes suggestions to my visitor to subscribe to my blog feed or to my newsletter.

Currently, Wordpress has built in a static home page feature in its core feature set. I still prefer using the Static Front Page plugin from Denis (search for 'static front page' at semiologic.com), but here's Wordpress' explanation on how to create a static home page with their method.

For bloggers using Typepad, congrats! For Wordpress users and Semiologic Pro Theme users, it's just business as usual

ShermanLive.com is a podcast/video podcast blog that seeks to simplify and demystify technology so YOU (and other business owners) can profit from it. It will cover topics on blogging, podcasting, videocasting, screencasting, and other cutting-edge technology topics.

I'll also be featuring in-depth, intelligent interviews with SMEs in this space, along with my own interviews hosted by others.

On the 15th, I was greeted in the morning with an email from iTunes that my feed has been approved to be in their podcast network, so come on by to ShermanLive.com and click on the iTunes icon to subscribe via iTunes, k?

I'm thrilled about this new platform, and hope to add more value to you there.

Live well, live large and live your best life!

Sherman Hu
ShermanLive.com

(Here's a quick tip I learnt from Andy Jenkins - buy another laptop battery, because you can never be certain if your airline seat has the power ports. This way you can be certain to have enough 'juice' to work on your laptop while in flight. Thanks Andy!)

– The Problem:
Without a game plan or system of organization, projects and deadlines can easily slip and will cause an avalanche of overwhelm, frustration, a poor reputation, and business, family and health crises.

– Why Hasn't It Been Solved:
Many of us don't plan. Some of us enjoy flying by the seat of our pants. If you do plan, then we don't look at our plans often enough to check if we're still on-point, on-purpose or on-track.

In addition, many of us weren't taught in school/college/university or growing up how to plan and execute effectively, let alone what systems and processes can help us plan efficiently.

– What's Possible:
Planning (or using sports terminology, 'game planning') can be much easier with simple, cheap and effective tools available to us today.

If you have the desire to move forward in your business or personal life, then the following tip may be of value to you.

– Sherman's Solution:
There are many tools available - whiteboards, whiteboard wallpaper (stuck to your walls so you can write on them), portable planning journals, PDAs with planning software etc.

I use Microsoft Excel.

It comes standard in your PC, MAC or laptop, so it's zero cost to you and me.

I use Excel because its portable on my Mac laptop. I could plan on a board or whiteboard wallpaper in my office, but I don't work in one place. Sometimes I work in my office, most times in the living room or on my bed. And as my laptop is portable, it suits my style and preferences. If you prefer to work from one place only, then a fixed planning device may work to your advantage.

Here's what I do…

I use separate Worksheet tabs (in the footer of your Excel spreadsheet) to segment all my major involvements. Eg. "Products", "SEO", "JV", "Team" etc.

Then in each worksheet, I list in the top row all the Clients, Partners or Products I'm working on or planning for. Eg. in the "SEO" worksheet, I list all my client names in the top row.

In the left column, I list all the Strategies & Techniques I'm going to deploy for all my clients or campaigns. Eg. "Article Marketing", "Blog Marketing" - with all its corresponding sub-categories and strategies.

In the middle of the spreadsheet, I color code the boxes that apply, with:
Green - for 'Go' - meaning its in progress or in deployment
Orange - for 'Pause' - meaning … well, er it's Paused.
Red - for 'Stop' or 'Done' - meaning the project is halted or its complete.

The key is to use it and reference it often to keep a bird's eye view of your projects and your progress.

You can even project business interests for the entire year, including projected resources and revenues. If you want, you could even plan out the next 3-5 years on this spreadsheet.

Simple but effective, eh?

– Sherman's Suggestion:
Start your free Excel "Game Plan" spreadsheet today and test it out for yourself.

Then review it daily, weekly, monthly.

Modify as you go. It's meant to be flexible and adaptable to you, not the other way around.

If you do this, you'll find stronger focus, minimal time-wastage and distractions and actual progress towards your goals and results. (Of course, this assumes you have a vision and goals set for your business. If you don't, read my blog post about planning: www.wordpresstutorials.com/99/backtoyourfuture/)

– What Now:
Start your Game Plan. Customize it how you wish, so it works for you. Review it daily, take action and breakthrough.

And please give me your feedback on your experience with this tip. I'd be interested how you're using it. Maybe you'll have an interesting way to use it that I might like to try.

Give me your feedback here:
==> www.wordpresstutorials.com/102/productivitytip2-excelingameplanning/#postcomment

View the other Plate-Spinning Tips here:
==> www.wordpresstutorials.com/wordpress/productivity/

Stay tuned for next week's 'Plate-Spinning Productivity Tip #3: 30 Boxes Simplified'.

Chat with you soon.

Call it the 'luck of the Irish', or in my case, the 'luck of the Chinese'… but I'm multi-tasking so many projects right now - an activity I call 'plate-spinning'. When others ask what I do for work, I share with them that I'm a 'professional plate-spinner'

I'm confident you're also busy (hopefully productive) and I want to share what's been going on, how I'm dealing with the chaos of 'spinning plates' and in the process you may be able to glean some tips and strategies for your own business.

I'm all about simplicity and using technology to increase the ROI of my time, so over the next few weeks, I'll reveal to you my techniques and tools I've been using recently. I call these my 'Plate-Spinning Tips'.

- - - "Professional Plate-Spinning" - - -

Here's a selection of the plates I'm spinning…

- Existing client SEO projects
- An ongoing flow of new referred SEO clients
- Managing WordpressTutorials.com ongoing questions in emails and forums
- As faculty at StomperNet.com, fielding forum questions, conference calls & creating video training curriculum
- Current & new joint ventures creating new products and services
- My own To-Do list of products I plan to create this year
- Traveling to speak at half a dozen marketing conferences this year
- Then there's family and life, with family travel, date nights and camping trips,

and the list goes on…

- - - Plate-Spinning Productivity Tip #1: Cover Your Bases - - -

The Problem:
Without a system of organization, projects and deadlines can easily slip and will cause an avalanche of overwhelm, frustration, a poor reputation, and business, family and health crises.

Why Hasn't It Been Solved:
Many of us weren't taught in school/college/university or growing up how to manage time, projects and multi-task effectively, let alone what systems and processes can help us manage chaos efficiently.

It's the school of hard knocks that we learn. Training by trial and error, if you may. And this can be a very costly journey.

What's Possible:
Time-management, project-management and multi-tasking can be much easier with simple, cheap and effective tools available to us today.

Sherman's Solution:
I personally use Basecamp (http://www.prcq.com/bc) for this task. I stopped using it for awhile and found a lack of control and effective communication with my team, clients and partners. So I'm returning to my use of Basecamp.

Basecamp is a project management portal which allows you to simply manage your projects, teams, clients, tasks and milestones.

I'm setting up Basecamp projects for SEO clients, my VAs and team members and joint ventures.

To prevent emails and correspondence slipping through the cracks, I strongly recommend clients and team members to dialogue and attach files in our designated Basecamp project.

I love the simple interface and convenience of managing everything (from messages, to-dos, milestones, file management) from one place. It's a Web 2.0 app, web-based, easy to use, cheap and good.

Basecamp offers a visual tour, a free account, scaled plans for heavy users ( I personally use the Basic account that manages 15 projects ), and easy to follow instructions if you're needing assistance.

The free account allows you to manage 1 project, and I remember using this plan until I got serious about project management, then I upgraded.

Sherman's Suggestion:
Start your free account today at Basecamp (http://www.prcq.com/bc) and test it out for yourself.

If you have an assistant, Virtual Assistant, project manager, or staff, add them to your 'People' list so they have access to your project space. Have them exchange files, messages (which eliminates email, and encourages discussion threads in Basecamp) and track progress using To-Do's and Milestones.

What Now:
Start using Basecamp, and give me your feedback on your experience with it. I'd be interested how you're using it. Maybe you'll have an interesting way to use it that I might like to try.

Stay tuned for next week's 'Plate-Spinning Tip #2: Excel in Game Planning'.

Chat with you soon.

Game rules: Once you're tagged, you have to blog about 5 things that few people know about you.

So here's the 411 on Sherman Hu:

1. "Game, Set and Match! When I was a teen, I played junior competitive tennis and was ranked 14 in British Columbia. Then I moved on to coaching kids. For a short time, I also ran my own racket stringing business.

2. "You go, girl!" In college, I showed up one Halloween dressed as 'RuPaul', and no one recognized me. I had the whole getup, make up and walk all down pat - imagine that - a Chinese RuPaul

3. "Let's rumble!" In high school, I played Bernardo, the leader of The Sharks in West Side Story. I enjoyed learning to speak with a Spanish accent, dancing and stage-fighting.

4. "I'm gonna get you!" In 1991, I had a small part in a TV series - Street Justice - as 'John Hieu', a Vietnamese gang member, who was yelling at Carl Weathers as John was cuffed and hauled off by cops. (Can you say typecasted?) As a result, you can find me at IMDB.

5. "I do" When I was 21, I met the love of my life, Sarah. We met, dated, got engaged, and were married over a 9 month period. Now, 11 years later, we're still very much in love, and have two wonderful children.

Tag, you're it!

Laura Childs
Liz Tomey
Ann Griffiths
Michael Campbell
David Bullock
Dave Taylor
Suzanne Falter-Barns
Ken McCarthy

Remember Doc from "Back to the Future" saying it to Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox)? Doc appears in the fusion-powered and hover-converted DeLorean car, and says to Marty…

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."

For those who don't (who doesn't know B.T.T.F?), it's an 80's American science fiction/comedy film about a young man named Marty McFly who accidentally travels into the past and jeopardizes his own future existence.

Imagine traveling back in time, knowing what you know today, and fixing some things, relationships, decisions, and actions.

(...)
Read the rest of "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." (1,107 words)

When I first heard it, I thought he was crazy too, but let me share him with you…

Wayne Kelly is a top-tier Media coach and a Top 40 Radio DJ with a very successful (real-live on-air) radio show on 95.7 FM. He's interviewed celebrities from Dr. Phil McGraw, Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, Lionel Richie, Richard Simmons, Survivor & American Idol contestants and the list goes on.

He's been awarded a Canadian Association of Broadcasters "Special Citation" for community service for his live broadcast in October 2001 from Ground Zero in New York. The following year Wayne was voted "Broadcaster of Tomorrow" from the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters.

(...)
Read the rest of Holey Radio Batman! YOU on Radio? (865 words)

Who was the call from?

Andy Jenkins.

Andy is a veteran business-owner and film-maker. He's an Associate Producer, Post Production Supervisor, and Investor in 'Altered' (released Dec 20), first film that the original makers of “The Blair Witch Project” have made since “Blair.”

Plus, his online medieval sword ecommerce stores push 3.2 million a year. Serious credibility.

Click to find out what he said that overturned my plans for 2007…

(ps. Watch for another blog entry from me today. I reveal how a 5-minute phone call overturned my 2007 business plans…)

Here's some Christmas fun making the rounds online, and after having a good 'ole time with them, I thought your family and you may enjoy them too…

Gingerbread Man/Woman Cookie Decorator
This one's my daughter's favorite. You can decorate a cookie with various jelly-bits, sprinkles, and all kinds of icing,
using different nozzle sizes and custom colors. And you can email your cookie creation to all of your friends - so if the Gingerbread man can, you can too!

Snowflake Creator
Also one of my daughter's favorite Christmas games. Design your own snowflake with this flash- based snowflake creator. You can sign your creation, add a message to it, and the best part? No paper to fold!

Reindeer Tipping
This is my favorite. Go reindeer tipping with Ebenigma Scrooge. Be careful — they have serious kick!

Simon Sez Santa
Make Santa do whatever you want! <hehe> It's kinda fun - and didn't realize Santa could do all of my Simon Sez
requests!

Winterbells
A beautiful, elegant, and simple game. Just click the mouse and steer to bounce the cute bunny rabbit as high as you can.

Mission in Snowdriftland
Nintendo's platformer-type game, kind of an “Advent calendar” where a new level is opened up every day until Christmas. You’ve got some catching up to do if you play it now - go have fun!

Have fun - enjoy - and a Merry Christmas to you!

WordpressTutorials.com version 1.0 was formatted as a direct marketing long salesletter.

WordpressTutorials.com version 2.0 is intended to attract a mainstream business audience, the internet marketing audience and the media.

Launched Tuesday November 14th, it presents a clean, 'less-is-more', Mac-ish feel to the layout, creative and tone. I've always been inspired by Apple creative, so this is my rendition of that style for Wordpress Tutorials (WPT).

This was a project long overdue, which started in September, but was in my mind many months before. I've been working with Wayne Kelly, a professional radio DJ, and realized that in order to be 'friendly' to media types and the mainstream audience, I needed to present WPT as a professional quality product and website, congruent with the quality of the videos backstage.

In addition, blogs and blogging is 'old hat' to the Internet Marketing (IM) sector, but outside of this IM 'bubble', there are many sectors and audiences who are still not familiar with blogs, blogging, their purpose and the power of blogging to build customer relationships, increase sales and maximize profits.

With this in mind, WPT 2.0 seeks to be more education-focused, and is mindful of the different needs and situations that new visitors have.

I welcome you to browse and read the new pages at WordpressTutorials.com. I welcome your feedback and comments on this new facelift and extreme makeover.

Some key points in this case study:

1. They're a startup organization, no shortage of things to do—only a shortage of time to do them.

2. One of the first things they should do after the site went live was to create and maintain a LuckyOliver blog.

3. Should blog activities—adding posts, replying to comments and encouraging interaction—be something that was treated as a priority? A corporate blog would be a good use of the company's time?

(...)
Read the rest of Tracking Blog Effectiveness - A LuckyOliver Case Study (182 words)

The questions "What do you do?" or "What do you do for work?" seem to be an ice-breaker for most of the conversations I have with other men.

Here's an example of a typical conversation and one that resembled my conversation on Tuesday.

Michael, a long-time friend of Randy (who's my buddy), was visiting from out of town, and we were introduced. After exchanging pleasantries, the conversation followed with…

(...)
Read the rest of "Bob's Your Uncle" (Literally) With Information Products (815 words)

Well I have, and hindsight 20/20, it was the best thing that's happened to me - as I now have been working full-time from home since 2002.

In 2002, I was working for a renowned internet marketer and was fired for referring customers to Planet Ocean and to Michael Campbell (InternetMarketingSecrets.com). These two bleeding edge resources were (and still are) delivering 'meaty' search marketing strategies, and what I thought was customer service  (as they didn't offer the same material) was construed as corporate espionage.

Fast forward to 2006, and Michael (with his lovely wife) and my family enjoy our visits, and we delight in dining on dim sum and spicy Chinese food together. Come to think of it, we're due for another meal… I'll have to call Michael for a lunch date after this email

If you are familiar with Michael Campbell and his offerings, you'll know these next three titles.

(...)
Read the rest of Get Your Own Revenge and Get Clickin' (219 words)

This acquisition strengthens Adobe's position in video software — for both video professionals and consumers.

Read the press release here

And if you're already blogging, you can still glean one or two good points from this story. Keep on reading…

This last Monday, I had my first reflexology appointment with Twila, a friend who is a pro masseuse and aromatherapist. She's now embracing the fine art of reflexology and I volunteered to be one of her first 20 'practice' clients.

As I entered her massage room, I was greeted with jazz music whispering amidst the soft glow of lights that enveloped the burgundy-walled relaxation haven. My feet were begging to be pampered as I eased into the massage bed located in the middle of the room.

As she expertly worked on my feet, we chatted about her business, family, her summer… and she segued to her needing a website for her holistic health business.

My interest was piqued.

Our conversation went something like this…

(...)
Read the rest of Blogging Reflexology (598 words)