Life on Avenue Z

Register for new Travel Tools webinar and get a free book!

Register Now! Top 20 Travel Tools for Nerds on the Go! $30 registration includes a signed copy of the presenter’s book! Wednesday, April 11, 2012 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Pacific Time) If you travel, there’s no need to juggle printed itineraries, collect business receipts or feel disconnected from the office. Beth Ziesenis, Your Nerdy [...]

Back to Square One, Again

Last year the woman I ran my first marathon with contracted cancer, and three weeks ago, she passed away. In her honor, I’m running my sixth marathon — back to the one we ran together, the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, June 3. Now, you’d think that after five marathons in five years, I’d [...]

I need your help, but then again, right now I need everyone’s help

This is another one of those posts that I really hesitate to write because it would be nice to live the myth that publishing my first book equates to instant success. But I’ve always tried to tell the real story here, even when it’s not so pretty. So here goes… Sigh… my business life was [...]

That’s all she wrote: A pictorial history as Avenue Z closes

This weekend I sent off the final file for the final project for the final client of Avenue Z Writing Solutions. Yep. That’s it. I retired from the copywriting biz to write more books and make a living speaking around the country. Or something. I haven’t really convinced myself that being a full-time author and [...]

Judging a face by its cover

I’m at the airport again, and I’m people watching, as I often do. Among the people traveling alone, see tense faces, frustrated faces, sleepy faces and occasionally someone who looks amused. It seems that when people are concentrating on getting somewhere, their contenace reflects their mood. And more interestingly, if they simply sport a blank [...]

A bribe just sounds so… tacky

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m sitting here trying to come up with, for lack of a better word, a bribe. I want to create a cool little freebie that I can offer as an incentive for people (umm — like you guys) to do all the wonderful things that help businesses in today’s world stay [...]

Accepting Exposure, aka What Will Seth Godin Say?

Butterflies in the stomach. My publisher is sending out what they call the Mondo Press Kits with advance review copies of my book, cupcake magnets and marketing material to about 60 people today, including THE Seth Godin, who not only has stopped by this blog a couple of times but who also contributed to [...]

And today’s crisis is….

Yesterday was my monthly hair appointment, and my stylist says, “So, how did that Big Thing you were worried about turn out?” My mind started jumping about… What Big Thing was on my mind last month? A speaking gig? The book? A charity event? I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I had [...]

Are your little problems a big waste of time? Join me for Fix-It Day!

I love all my little free tech tools and gadgets, but things break. I have a pro version of Xobni that isn’t hooking up with my account, so it only shows the free version. My Live Mesh file system is blocked by an antivirus program on my laptop, so the files don’t update. And I [...]

The First Book Giveaway!

Now that I’ve held an actual advance copy of the book in my actual hands, it’s time to start sharing! We’re giving away 10 copies of the book on Goodreads, complete with a cupcake magnet and other goodies! Enter to win the chance to be one of the first reviewers: bit.ly/U2Fgoodreadsgive