The Biznik Blog - where collaboration beats competition

The Sisters of Sizzle Interview the Biznik Cofounder, Tomorrow, July 8

Lara Feltin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:05:11 +0000

I’ve been invited by The Sisters of Sizzle, to be interviewed tomorrow on their A Life On Fire talk radio show.

The Sisters of Sizzle are Seattle Bizniks, Jill Pagano and Elise Kloter, who love connecting you to the people who are living their dreams. With a dash of sass, a sprinkle of humor and a whole lot of realness, they bring you the inspirational people, helpful tools and tidbits of wisdom to keep your spirit aglow and your Life on Fire!

I’m looking forward to sharing my story, but I’m particularly interested in the conversation with these two like-minded women. Elise and I share the Montessori philosophy of child education. While Elise is a former Montessori teacher. I was raised by a Montessorian, attended Montessori school myself as child, and credit my Montessori roots with my ability to think outside the box, and search for creative solutions to my entrepreneurial challenges.

And Jill is exactly the kind of person for whom Biznik was created. While working her first corporate desk-job in 1988, and hating it, she asked her father for advice. He replied what he knew: “you’re not supposed to like it Jill, that’s why they call it WORK.” How many Bizniks can relate to that and through their business have resurfaced with the determination that they would never dislike their life work again.

My interview tomorrow will be recorded for an airing on Wednesday, July 15 at 3pm. Listen here: http://www.contacttalkradio.com/hosts/kloter-pagano.html, or visit their site and listen to the Archives at another time.

Then join them each week they invite you to skip along this fabulous and crazy path called life. They’ll spark your passion, fan your flame and support you in turning your fizzle into sizzle!

We’re trying an Amazon affiliate experiment

Dan McComb — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:57:56 +0000

OK everyone, here’s your chance to weigh in on an important issue: how Biznik can continue to grow and generate revenue in a way that works for everyone. We tried an advertising experiment more than a year ago that taught us an important lesson: advertising doesn’t work on social networks. At least not on this one (MySpace, which just laid off 400 people, is another luminous example).

We’ve been thinking about this, and have decided that on articles, many of you may be interested in further exploring the topics of articles that get your attention. So yesterday we deployed an experiment - we’ve added a list of books that are relevant to the topics covered in the articles. These link you to Amazon, and if you purchase the book, Biznik collects a 4-6 percent commission.

We don’t want to clutter up the interface unnecessarily, especially for something that simply doesn’t work. So we’ll be listening to your feedback, as well as watching closely to see whether members like you are actually following the links and completing purchases, which of course, is the only way it will be worthwhile to us to continue. Check out an article or two and let me know what you think. Intrusive? Helpful? Relevant?

Note: we’re conducting an A/B test (to determine which is most effective) of where to put the book links. On some articles, it’s located at the end of the article just above the comments, which appers like this:

On others, there is a sidebar on the right column, which looks like this:

Help these entrepreneurs get the recognition they deserve…

Dan McComb — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:30:33 +0000

OK, we screwed up. Big time. We spent an entire morning filming entrepreneurs for SHINE a couple weeks ago at big aircraft hangar at Sandpoint, and forgot to get their names. So here’s your chance to help them (and us) SHINE! Do you recognize any of the entrepreneurs on this page? If so, please post a comment below or better yet, click which will take you to Biznik’s Facebook fan page where you can drill down to each and tell us who they are in the comments. We can’t use them unless we know who they are…

You’ve Got Your SHINE Video, Now What?

Dan McComb — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:10:57 +0000

Share it with the rest of us, of course! Here’s how:

Download your SHINE video clip from your Biznik profile. If you participated in SHINE, you’ll find your clip waiting for you to download on your profile page. You must be logged in to your profile to see the link to download. NOTE: Make sure you download it before July 31, as we’ll be removing the download link at that time. To download: Mac users can CTRL-Click on the link, and you’ll be prompted to save the file to your system. Windows users can right-click on the file to do same.

Be patient - it’s a big file, which can take a long time to download. Once you’ve got the file, it’s time to publish it to one of the video sharing sites that Biznik supports. If you don’t have a preference, I’d suggest using YouTube - it’s the most popular service. Here’s specific instructions for each:

How to publish your video on YouTube.

How to publish your video on Viddler.

How to publish your video on Vimeo.

How to publish your video on Facebook.

How to publish your video on Blip.tv.

Once your file is successfully uploaded to one of the above services, it’s time to spread the word. Here’s how:

1. Post a comment on Biznik’s Facebook fan page that your video is available, with a link to your video. That’ll alert me, and I’ll post it so that all the other fans (which number about 1,800 now) will have a chance to see your video.

2. Post it to your Biznik page (if you are an Active or Supporting member). To do that, click the “share” link on your video’s page, and copy the resulting embed code. Then, open your profile on Biznik, and select the service you’re using from the popup menu. Paste the code into the field, and save. Your video will appear on your Biznik profile.

Common problems:

I’ve had a few people complain that the file is corrupted after downloading (an error message appears when you try to play it, or the sound is missing). If that happens, delete the file, and try downloading again. It’s likely that it was someone corrupted in the download, so re-downloading will fix that. Repeat until you get a good copy of the file.

File takes forever to download - this means you have a slow internet connection. Because the file is huge, you’ll need to either start the download when you go to bed, OR go to a coffee shop that has a high-speed connection to retrieve the file.

If you’re still having problems, drop me a note and I’ll be happy to help.

Finally, if you’d like to take your video to the next level, have a chat with one of the awesomely talented and truly helpful videographers who volunteered their time to create the clip for you in the first place. Here’s a list:

Facebook is for fools who Stalin and Hitler would have sent to termination camps

Dan McComb — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:54:52 +0000

I’m a big fan of clarity in communication. Every time I send a special message like the one I sent out Friday, asking for help to claim our identity on Facebook, I cringe because I fear someone will take it the wrong way. I sweat over every word, careful to create messages that will be well received and that offer something of value to all recipients.

When you send a message to 30,000 people, you gotta figure at least one of them is having a bad day. Still, this reply is so over the top that I just gotta crack open my inbox and share part of it with you:

I despise facebook, twitter! This is for FOOLS who Stalin and Hitler would have had sent to termination camps. I can’t stand sheeple or groupies and don’t want to make you rich unless I too get there. Don’t send me this condescending crap………take me off your list.

Wow. Really, all you had to do was click the unsubscribe link.

On the positive side, I also got this message from member David Iwano, who hails from Brisbane, Australia:

Dan,

Mate you had 999 fans now you have 1,000…. keep up the good work.

Thank You
David Iwanow

Update: Biznik now has in excess of 1,700 fans on the Biznik Facebook Fan page, which we’ll be using to post special offers, member Shine videos, special announcements and much more. Thanks for your support.

Taste Washington’s best independently made wine today at Seattle Wine Awards

Dan McComb — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:42:36 +0000

Lara and I are heading to the Seattle Wine Awards tasting this afternoon, where we’re looking forward to meeting some of Washington’s best independent winemakers and - more importantly - tasting some of their yummy wine! We’ll be posting updates here and on Twitter and Facebook throughout the day - in fact, starting around 4pm, you can watch a livestream from the event right here:

As an aside, the Seattle Wine Awards appear to be doing a heroic job of incorporating social media into the event, in a way that I haven’t seen many local organizations do effectively. For starters, they invited us! Biznik is a great fit because every winemaker is an independent business - Biznik’s core community. But they didn’t just invite us - The Wine Awards gave us 4 free tickets, so that not only could we attend, but we had a pair of tickets to give to a lucky Biznik community member (which we gave away last Friday to Margaret Friedman, the winner of our invite contest.)

Nice work guys - thanks for including us and I look forward to posting more here throughout the afternoon. First up: I plan to interview some winemakers about what’s near and dear to us: entrepreneurship.

5:44 PM: Lara and I wandered the floor at #seawineawards for several hours, met some great winemakers, tasted a lot of amazing wine, and made this 2-minute video to share the passion that wine entrepreneurs have for their product. Enjoy!

SHINE video clips are up!

Dan McComb — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:36:01 +0000

As of 11:25 this morning, almost everyone who participated in SHINE can download their personal video clip from the front page of their profile. All but 27 of the clips are ready to go - the remainder we are still working on. We plan to post the remainder on Monday.

The link on your profile will direct your browser to download the video file in QuickTime format. This format is suitable for upload directly to any of the video services supported by Biznik, which include YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo and Facebook. You can further edit the video in any respectable video editing package should you like to make changes to your clip.

After you’ve viewed your clip, if you decide you want to take your video to the next level, remember that you can contact the person who operated the camera at your event. All are outstanding videographers who are available for hire. Here’s the list of videographers who volunteered at SHINE - I recommend all of them highly:

Three other key players who were deeply involved in SHINE, by supplying video cameras from their production companies (Daniel and Jeremy also were interviewers at SHINE):

On the editing side, we have:

Caution Zero Networks, with two talented team members: Stephen McCandless and Ben Laurance.
Chris Julian - Christohpher Julian Designworks.

Shine’s production team featured these talented members:

David Guilbault, documentary filmmaker
John Patzer, Snacky! Brand Media
Lorraine Montez, marketing, writing, film production

Win two tickets to join Lara and me at the Seattle Wine Awards tasting this Sunday

Dan McComb — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:18:54 +0000

Lara and I will be attending the Seattle Wine Awards tasting on Sunday afternoon, and we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away valued at $170. The tickets include a sumptuous Rainier Club dinner buffet, a souvenir Riedel Magnum tasting glass, and a chance to sample the best wines produced in Washington. If you’re a wine lover like we are, this event will be a real treat. So how do you enter?

Here’s the deal: To decide the winner, we’re having a 24-hour contest to see who can invite the most new members to Biznik in 24 hours. The person who sends the most email invitations using Biznik’s invite tool will win a pair of tickets to the wine tasting, valued at $170. How’s that for a deal?

NOTE: Invitations sent to existing members will not be counted!

The contest will run from 4:30 pm today through 4:30 pm tomorrow (Friday). In addition to sending the invites, drop me a message on Biznik that you’ve entered, so I know to count you. We’ll be announcing the winner immediately after the contest ends tomorrow afternoon, so you’ll have time to plan your weekend wine consumption accordingly.

Here’s more info about the event:

The Grand Awards Tasting will be held Sunday, June 14, 2009 at Seattle’s historic Ranier Club. Taste for yourself Washington’s award-winning wines for 2009, meet the winemakers and tasting panel, and enjoy a splendid afternoon with other wine connoisseurs. Your ticket includes a sumptuous Rainier Club dinner buffet, a souvenir Riedel Magnum tasting glass, and a chance to sample the best wines produced in Washington. Tickets are available online now!

Biznik’s Vancouver BC Ambassador hosts social media telesummit

Dan McComb — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:15:52 +0000

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be participating in Embrace Social Media, a “telesummit” hosted by Biznik’s Vancouver, BC Ambassador, Christa Wagner. What’s a telesummit? Here’s how Christa describes it:

What Is A TeleSummit?
A TeleSummit is similar to attending a multi-day conference, all from the comforts of your own home telephone. Our TeleSummit, Embrace Social Media, will include 8 social media experts who will be speaking over a two-day period for 75 minutes each.

What Will You Take Away?
We are going to kick off each call with a case study from each expert about their social media topic. We have a Facebook expert, a Twitter expert, a LinkedIn expert and an expert to talk about time management and social media. We want the goods; if you are a social media beginner or Tweeting several times of day, you will learn how to maximize your social media results through questions, examples, case studies and tools, you can start using immediately. No one needs one more thing to do; but everyone wants and needs new clients. By attending the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit, you will finally understand how this new marketing phenomenon can expand your clientele to a place you have not imagined.

I’ll be involved in an hourlong question and answer session about social media, in which I’ll answer the following questions:

1. Tell us a little about how you came to use social media and start a social networking website?
2. I have heard you talk many times before about the power of the weak connection; can you talk a little about that as I know many people don’t understand the benefit of marketing to people they may not know and knew once upon a time.
3. What is social media and what characterizes something as social media?
4. How is social media changing the face of marketing?
5. When did you realize SM wasn’t a fad?
6. What opportunities are available to business owners using SM?
7. What makes a success SM campaign?
8. How long does it take to see results?
9. What is the first step to getting starting with SM?
10. What suggestions do you have for someone who has been dabbling in SM and not getting much out of it?
11. Can you share 1 -2 companies that are using SM successfully. Perhaps who are using Biznik.com.
12. Can you use SM too much? Go overboard to speak?
13. Are there any risks associated with SM?
14. What common mistakes do you see on Biznik?
15. Where do you see SM in 1 year, 5 years and 10 years?
16. What is your best advice for a small business owner using SM?

You can learn more about the telesummit on Christa’s website.

SHINE video clips delayed until late Tuesday

Dan McComb — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Most of the SHINE video clips are ready to go, but a few are taking longer than expected to edit, so we’ve had to delay delivery until end of day Tuesday. On Tuesday evening, you’ll be able to log into your Biznik account, and find your SHINE clip ready for you to download on your profile.

FYI, the clips are looking fantastic! We can’t wait to get them to you.