Video marketing has become an extremely popular approach for generating interest in services or products offered online. With so many affordable tools in the marketplace, videos can be easily produced and distributed online for less than what other mediums (like TV) would cost.

Consequently, utilizing the ever-so-popular video testimonial has become a common approach to connecting with prospective customers. And the proliferation of video cameras installed on most computers manufactured within the last few years has made it easy for people to record their own videos. Businesses are starting to leverage this recent technology trend to gather raw video submissions from customers – without the enormous costs of doing an on-site or commercial production.

But preparing your customers to record a proper video is critical for gathering useful video clips that can be displayed as effective testimonials on your website, blog, etc. Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out of your customers when they hit that record button.

Don’t be afraid to give them some direction

A good testimonial doesn’t have to rely on fancy scripts to get the point across. But it can be to your company’s benefit to provide customers with some direction.

• Consider giving them talking points, however broad they may be;
• Encourage them to focus on their overall customer satisfaction, the ease of working with your business, or whatever other angle you want your testimonial video to take;
• Encourage them to talk about any unique experiences or stories that reflect well on your company;
• Don’t be afraid to ask them to talk about certain aspects of their experience that other customers aren’t likely to share.

Explain the real value of their testimonial

You’re probably seeking testimonials for one reason: they’re valuable to your business and can lead to more sales. Don’t sidestep this goal – let your customers know up-front how integral their relationship is to your business, and explain that their testimonial can be a big boost to your business’s future.

You don’t have to encourage them to exaggerate or lie for your benefit, but by understanding the value they have within your company, they will feel empowered to help – particularly if they are satisfied.

Strike while the iron is still hot

Timing is everything. The best time to approach your customers about recording a video testimonial is while they’re enjoying the benefits provided by your product or service.

If they’re actively enjoying your product or using your service, you have a better chance of getting them to agree to record a quick video than you will if you wait until their customer experience is weeks or months old.

—-

Thank you, Sean, for adding to the conversation! Killer testimonials do so much.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I don’t play with every new social media tool. In fact, I ignore most of them. I’ve decided my view is that tools are vehicles for problem solving or uniquely rare opportunities for new learning. The former I go looking for when I need them. The latter show up without warning, but are few and far between.

Once the decision is made to participate, I’m in with “both feet.” I’m a saturation learner, always have been. It shows in my 14+ years of dance training, my 8 years of theater, my 35 years of education and educational publishing … even in the way I took on blogging.

I’ve been exploring EmpireAvenue for one year now. The game and the sociology caught my attention and offered me something new worth exploring.

The premise of Empire Avenue is that a player buys shares in other players’ participation on social media platforms across the Internet. So at first what fascinated me was the idea of getting a more rounded picture of the people who were playing the game and what was driving them — and also what would drive me.

Soon enough the game pushed the question of reciprocity.

The way the game is engineered, the currency I spend to purchase shares in your activity doesn’t flows through to you at much less. Basically, if I buy 100 shares in you, you’ll get a deposit worth about 10 of your shares. So complete reciprocity — for you to buy 100 shares back — is nearly impossible, even if my share price is WAY less than yours.

Yet some folks hold an unrealistic expectation of reciprocity — one that hurts their own success.
Their expectations seem to me out of balance with their best interests.

The reason I invest in your activity is because your shares earn value and deliver daily dividends. If I buy you I grow and pass on that growth to my shareholders. It’s a perk if you buy my shares too.

If I wait for every winner in the game to come back to buy equal shares in me — some never will. Their share price will get higher as they grow. I’ll lose the dividends I could have been earned while I waited for some transactional reciprocity.

Who loses in that scenario?
Me … not the winners I believe are ignoring me.

It works that way in everything. If I invest in you as a person, it’s because you’re growing, you add value by who you are and what you’re doing. By investing in you I grow too!

Reciprocity is relational. Not transactional.

Plant a seed.
Watch it grow.
Enjoy the flower.

Reciprocity is the flower — color, beauty, fragrance.
It’s not “I cared for the seed. Now the seed cares for me.”
The act of helping the seed grow provided a far more powerful payoff.

It’s the same with people.

An unforgiving belief in transactional reciprocity is a skewed form of not seeing the whole picture.
When we close our eyes to seeing all point of view, we defeat ourselves — or as my mom would say “Cut off own nose to spite our face.”

Big Stock: Girl smelling Flower

And you can’t smell the flowers without a nose.

So if you’ve been hoarding your attention because someone’s not paying attention to you … could be you’re at the losing end of that idea. Look for the flower in the attention you’re giving. Not the seed of attention that you think you’re owed.

Build relational reciprocity by investing in what you’re willing to grow.

Choose your winners wisely and invest in them unconditionally.
Value the resources you’re investing dearly. Then offer them without fear.
For the more important, don’t hold back the blood, sweat, and tears.

See the flowers in the seeds even before you start helping them grow.
And keep your nose.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

by
Ann Smarty

click photo for source

A System to Save Time

When you run a blog, there are some things you can’t help but spend a ton of time and energy on. Coming up with new posts, fiddling with the template, talking to readers, publishing videos of funny cats you found on YouTube and just had to share…these are the important elements in the life of the average blogger.

Certainly, the last thing you want to waste time on is organization. Yet every time most of us set out to organize things, we tend to spend all day on the process. Getting sorted turns out to be more of a hassle and hour eater than remaining in a frazzles state of chaos!

This is one of the biggest traps that bloggers tend to fall into. What you need a system in place for organizing things in a timely matter. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

1. Create a List - When you have a list to follow, you will be less tempted to veer off into unnecessary or unimportant areas in the name of organization. This will keep you from wasting time you don’t have where it isn’t needed. Try to keep your list of goals sorted from most to least important, and never move from one item to the next until you have completed that goal.
2. Set A Timer – Calculate how much time you can dedicated to fulfilling that list, and stick to that time. If there is too much to do, break it up over the course of several days or even weeks, and follow by that schedule. You don’t have to get everything done at once, after all.
3. Don’t Allow Distractions – I am a huge procrastinator. I can’t help it, as I tend to have the attention span of a fruit fly. Sometimes I start doing something else without even realizing I have taken my eyes off my work. A simple way to avoid this while organizing is by using a program like LeechBlock or StayFocused. This will keep you from surfing the web and getting distracted while you work.
4. Have Background Noise – This might sound a little silly, but I have always found it much easier to remain focused if I have the right kind of background music playing while I do my task. Whether it is better for most to have something classical in the background for its gentle tones and lack of lyrics, anything that motivates you and lets you think can work. Try a playlist site, like 8Tracks or Last.fm.
   

   
   

5. Keep Things Organized – The easiest way to keep from wasting time on organization is by keeping things organized. Spending a few minutes here and there making sure everything is as it should be has the same effect as spending fifteen minutes cleaning an area a day. It keeps it from getting overwhelming.

Three Tools For Organization

• Evernote – Keep track of clippings from anywhere on the web, and view it in your browser, on your desktop or on your phone. Easy to use, and it can save small bits of text, pictures, links or full pages.
• HootSuite – Monitor all of your social media accounts, stats and followers in one place. This is a social media dashboard that can save a lot of time and effort.
• Pocket – Originally called Read It Later, this is a plugin that works by saving pages you wanted to read for when you aren’t busy. You can access it through your browser, on your phone or any media device connected to the web.

You don’t have to spend a whole lot of time organizing your blog. It just takes a bit of planning and thought, and you will be done quicker than you thought possible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Every morning for almost a year, I’ve been publishing photos of the sunrise over Lake Michigan. Sometimes when the afternoon is worth a photo graph I also publish a photo of the sunset too. On Twitter I greet my friends with a “Good morning, Twitterville” and a kind word. I try to check in with them via Facebook and Linkedin too.

Many of my online social interactions help me keep my day moving … as I transition from one task to another, it helps me to stop by Twitter to give my friends a shout out or to take time for a short read and a retweet. Being social online is a natural part of how my day goes by when it’s just me and the keys.

But when I’m with people, I like to be with people.
I find it hard to be where I am, if I’m looking at at screen.

What I Learned, Lost, and Earned by Being Off Social Media for 10 Days

The theme of #SOBCon this year was Creating and Leveraging Opportunity. I challenged myself to do what I believed.

• Be balanced. In this case, have my head and heart in the same place as my mind and my feet.
• Go deep. Be a saturation learner. Meet people where they “live and think.”
• Build a business not a birthday cake. Allow for the fact that a business is not a closed system — that flexibility is a key component to strategy.
• People ARE the opportunity. Buildings, companies, products, technology do not have the stability or the reach of human-to-human relationships.

Last Wed., May 2, I left home with a suitcase to head downtown in preparation for our annual #SOBCon event in Chicago from there I would be speaking at CMSExpo in Evanston to arrive back home on May 10th. But things being what they are it ended up that I was hardly around on social sites until the 12th.

Before I left, I loaded up my blog with the blog posts that I had planned for the week. I also loaded up my Twitter account with some great posts I’d been reading on other blogs — articles on small business, strategy, weird science, and cool brain stuff — my favorite information to share via tweets.

When I got down to the hotel, I did some last minute planning. I went over to the event center to check a few things and pick an HP Folio Ultrabook that the Small Biz Folks at Hewlett Packard had sent for me, thinking maybe if I set up, I’d be able to Tweet some, or post some, or connect some like a good social media do-bee. I got the computer up and rolling in no time. It’s light, intuitive, and has a huge battery life — can’t say how long it lasts yet, because, well, once I got it going, I kept turning it on and then getting involved in other things.

And in the course of 10 days, here’s what I about social media, the Internet, and me.

• The social is more important than the media. When the choice comes to talking to the people live and in person, take it! Be where you are. Look them in the eyes. Listen actively. What I saw and experienced in the richness of a hug, a tone of voice, smiles shared, and glasses clinked is something I carry back to the Internet. I hear the voices of those same people when I see them again this week on Twitter.
• Being in the story is faster, easier, and more meaningful than reporting it. I can only speak for my experience, but seconds I spend trying to share something with people online turn me into a reporter. When I shed the reporter’s role, I see, hear, and feel so much more. I am mindful and present. I am also calmer, more flexible, and more fluent because I can attend to and respond to the world I’m in rather than trying to translate to the world I can’t see.
• The Internet got along fine without me. As far as I know, no one suffered greatly by my absence. The world didn’t stop turning. I had no more than 3 “must respond to” emails daily – I’m just not THAT important.

What I lost is easy to measure …

Yes, my blog traffic went down a bit. I didn’t attract as many Twitter followers as I had in the previous 10 days. My stock price on Empire Avenue dropped. My stats on Facebook now need some attention. My email inbox took about two hours to get back in order.

What I earned was more lasting …

Deep real connections.
Deep real memories.
A whole lot of learning and fun.

The actual business directly attributable to these particular 10 days outpace ANY 10 days ever.

Working or playing, showing up is most important.
How can they see you, if you don’t stop long enough to be you?

#justsayin’

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Sand Bubbler Crab Art

I was walking on the beach and saw what to me looked like a butterfly. When I put the photo onto the computer I saw it could be a bow-tie. Nature is amazing. This pattern was made by a small sand bubbler crab who live in burrows in the sand. At low tide they scour the sand for food and these bubble patterns are the result of their foraging.

What do you leave in your path for others to find?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

I can remember distinctly the first few minutes of my oldest daughter’s life. She arrived at 7:04 p.m. after 18 hours of labor and every hour since then has been changed by her arrival. My very first recollection was that I had never felt anything as soft as her skin.

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” ~ Rajneesh

I remember also something that I believe has shaped not only her childhood but that of her sisters… I somehow innately grasped and internalized that she was an autonomous Being. …That her choices would be hers and that, although I could shape them by the upbringing and environment that I provided, she would be capable of making her own decisions.

This comprehension of her independence from me has made all the difference in the way I’ve interacted with the three people who have come into my life as my children. Rather than think of them as three extensions of me and proxies of my life experiences, they have given me lessons and made me a better person, and here are just a few:

1. Take ownership of your choices. This can also be framed as “If everyone else ___________ (jumped off the bridge, stayed out past curfew, set fire to their underwear) would you?”

2. Mean what you say. There are fewer mirrors as unflinching as a three year old who takes you at your word. They expect you to walk your talk.

3. Decide what’s really important. Whether a budget item like band camp over a Coach bag or time (like a recital instead of one more meeting squeezed into the end of your day), priorities take on new dimensions when you become a parent.

4. Build efficiencies. When the girls were very little, my closet had three “Emergency Ensembles” hanging on hangers within. Each held a complete outfit, including jewelry in the pocket and shoes to match. When the occasional oversleeping morning hit our household, I could still make sure that we left the house on time.

5. Admit when you are wrong. I am so grateful that my daughters have the perspective and courage to even now point out when I am missing a greater Truth. Ceding ground when faced with a nuance or understanding that I fail to see creates children who trust their gut and who are not afraid to voice opinions.

6. Always be learning. I think I finally understand the saying, “Those who can’t do, teach.” The only way I’ve learned how to be a parent is to teach myself the lessons through my children. The neat part is that I’ve actually turned out to be the student (and that I’m still learning)! I’ve had three very loving, patient teachers who have helped me through the iterations.

What are some of the lessons your children have taught you? What are your thoughts on being a mother? A parent?

Happy Mother’s Day to you all!
——-

Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation) or “Like” them on facebook.

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Statistics provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration organization indicate that small businesses in the U.S. make up a staggering 99.7% of all employer firms. The almost 30 million companies of this size provide employment to half of all private sector employees, generating 44% of the total U.S. private payroll in the process. With statistics like these, it’s clear why small businesses are said to be the lifeblood of the American economy.

Despite their contributions to the economy, the sad truth is that a high percentage of small businesses will fail in the first five years of trading, if not the first. Industry professionals have long since speculated on the reasons why this happens with suggestions like insufficient capital, poor credit arrangements and unexpected growth commonplace. If you are just starting out, you’ll be keen to ensure that your venture doesn’t become a statistic. Let’s take a look at three tools the small business owner can call upon to bolster chances of success.

1. Social Networking

A social media presence is of utmost importance to business. A third of respondents to a survey of SMB owners conducted by Zoomerang and GrowBizMedia plan to use social media as a primary means of attracting new customers in 2012. Business Insider puts that figure at more like 75%. Whichever statistic you think is closer to the truth, there’s no getting away from the fact that 98% of the U.S. online audience use social networking. That’s a considerable audience for any small business owner. If you’re wondering where to start, consider these:

Facebook is undoubtedly the leader of the social network pack. With a user base that is rapidly approaching one billion members worldwide, it represents an excellent place to start your venture into social networking for business. It’s free to join and the new Timeline style pages make it easier than ever for businesses to connect directly to customers. Once a user likes your page, any content you post will appear directly in their newsfeed, where they are between 40 and 150 times more likely to consume your targeted branded content.

LinkedIn boasts over 50 million members in the U.S alone. A social networking platform aimed at promoting networks and connections, it is an excellent resource for business. The site also represents an excellent opportunity to find new talent. The Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2011 found that 94% who recruit through social networking have successfully hired via the LinkedIn platform. It’s an interesting and viable alternative to using costly recruitment agencies.

Twitter should also be considered. Don’t be put off by the 140 character limit of tweets. Think of it as an opportunity to show your creative side. Blackbox Social Media reports that 67% of people on Twitter follow a brand in comparison to just over 50% on Facebook. If nothing else, Twitter represents a chance for you to promote your business by linking to your other more detailed content.

Cyberlawcentre image: Licensed under Creative Commons for commercial reuse.

2. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing essentially refers to services such as office applications that are delivered over the Internet. In a report commissioned in February 2012, Microsoft reported that a quarter of companies with between two and ten employees are currently using paid cloud services. This figure is expected to triple to 76% within the next three years.

Cloud computing presents a number of attractive benefits to small businesses:

1. Cost savings on business applications: traditional technology applications and platforms can be costly and complicated for small businesses to adopt and maintain. With cloud computing, there is no need to allocate capital to expenditure to business applications. Services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps are sold on demand, typically by user. Prices do vary but a few dollars per user per month are typical. Google Apps affords organizations with less than ten users with access to their services for free.
2. Cost savings on IT infrastructure: the very concept of cloud services mean that business is conducted in the cloud. There is no need for the small business owner to invest in costly dedicated servers, since all of your data will be stored securely on the cloud network. The removal of the need to store employee email in-house can alone represent significant savings in terms of disk storage space on a server.
3. Collaboration: data stored using this technology remains in the cloud. All of your employees access the same documents and have visibility of any changes immediately. This can significantly reduce mistakes brought about by outdated information and, in turn, improve the service you are able to offer to your customers.

3. Professional Membership

Last, but by no means least, comes membership to a professional organization aimed at helping small business weather the economic climate and succeed. In the U.S. there are many of these organizations so it’s worth devoting some time into researching which of them are best suited to your business. The following organizations are worth checking out.

- U.S. Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov)

- National Small Business Association (http://www.nsba.biz/)

- U.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://www.uschamber.com/)

- U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (http://usasbe.org/)

- National Association for the Self-Employed (http://www.nase.org/BenefitsHome.aspx)

- Small Business Benefit Association (http://www.sbba.com/)

- America’s Best Companies (http://www.americasbestcompanies.com/)

Adopting these various tools may not serve as a guarantee that your small business will succeed, but they will certainly go a long way towards helping you avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Linda Forshaw is a Business Information Systems graduate from Liverpool in the United Kingdom. She is a full-time writer and published author who writes for several sites including Degree Jungle (http://www.degreejungle.com/rankings/best-online-colleges) specializes in social media, technology and entrepreneurship. You can find her on Twitter @seelindaplay

Thank you, Linda!

You’re irresistible!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

It may look like that I am trying to butter up Liz, but honestly, that’s not the reason I am writing this post. I felt like writing on this topic yesterday; when I was doing some research for one of my clients that required surfing through the blogosphere. After some hours of surfing, I felt utterly and totally aghast by the amount of SE optimization and monetization going on at these blogs. There was an insane focus on the keywords, and some evidently desperate attempts at cashing in on each and every visitor who lands at the blog. The thing is, I’ve always preferred blogs over any other type of websites when it comes to reading, mainly because the quality of content, the variety, and most importantly the personal touch even if it is biased, but sadly, all of these characteristics are vanishing, and blogosphere is getting tainted by all sorts of malpractices.

Thankfully, there are some veteran bloggers like Liz who have managed to avoid being a part of this frenzy. Their blogs continue to educate and at times entertain the readers, instead of serving as bait for people searching at Google, to lure them into clicking on one of those ads.

Following are some reasons why I like Liz blog. Remember that I might be an average writer, but I am a hell of a reader, and if this blog has managed to make me come back and go through the posts every once in a while, there must be something right about this blog and its content. In other words, this post is not just a flatter; I am writing this while hoping that some other bloggers will also go through these points and opt to change their priorities.

Posts are not influenced and drenched with keywords:

One of the worst outcomes of bloggers getting aware of the SE optimization is the obsession with the keywords. I have seen reasonable bloggers turning their blog into a spam fest by trying to write posts targeting some keywords or key phrase. That’s certainly not the case with successful-blog, where the posts are not heavily infused with keywords. A big majority of posts were jotted down solely because the writers (Liz, in particular) felt like writing on the topic, and that is what a blogger should be doing.

Something to take home:

When the bloggers write on a topic that’s close to their heart, chances are that the readers will be able to relate, and there will find many points to take home. A big majority of bloggers are writing on topics which are in demand, even if they don’t know jack about it, or even when they have nothing to add. As a result, the readers can’t help but feel dismayed after reading the posts, which are more like a hodgepodge.

Lessons for All and Sundry:

The blog doesn’t cater to a particular niche, the lessons in most of these posts at successful-blog.com are meant for everybody, from students to Internet Marketers, and small business owners to social media experts. If you are looking to be more successful, and a little more productive, in almost any walk of life, you will surely find a lot of doable advice that actually works. The

No emphasis on Making Money:

How many popular blogs do you see nowadays with the posts having no ads whatsoever? I have seen many bloggers starting with a good intention, developing a thriving community and then losing the plot altogether, and deciding that helping out others is not enough. What follows is a drastic makeover, with the blog transforming from a helpful resource to a money-making machine. It’s quite the opposite at successful-blog.com, so much that sometimes I feel that Liz is letting go some easy bucks by not monetizing it sufficiently well, but maybe that’s the reason this Blog continues to stay unpolluted, serving as one of the very few resorts for a quality-content starved readers like me.

__

Rahil is an Internet Marketer, he shares prweb coupons and g neil coupon code for online businesses. If you are looking to save, you will find these prweb and f neil discounts and coupon codes of use.

Since reaching $3.94 a gallon in early April, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gas has dropped to $3.75 as of early May, according to the AAA national motorists club. Despite prices heading in the right direction, many motorists are still bleeding at the pumps each time they fill up.

That issue also holds true for many small businesses that rely on one mode of transportation or another to remain in business. Whether it is transporting goods, going out on service calls, or having employees like salespeople meet in person with current and potential clients, a large number of companies are seeking ways to trim their gas expenses.

Businesses That Have to Deliver the Goods Feeling the Pain

Some small business owners most feeling the pinch are those such as florists, eateries, cleaning services and more that have to deliver products and services in order to remain profitable. While it might have cost $100 or so for weekly deliveries only a few months back, that expense has easily increased to double or triple that for many businesses across the country.

If high gas prices seem to be more common than rare, that is because both consumers and businesses have had to deal with them more often the last couple of decades.

It was just as recent as 2008, when the cost for a gallon of regular gas ballooned to a national average of $4.11. Even though the recent AAA report indicates prices have been dropping, the summer driving season is right around the corner, meaning they could just as easily rise as quickly as the summer heat.

If your small business has been feeling the pain of the prices at the pump, there are ways to bring the costs down and still meet the needs of your customers. Practices to think about for your business plans include:

• Trimming delivery services for a period of time;
• Requiring employees operating company vehicles to not take them home for the remainder of the day once their shift has ended. Installing GPS systems on the vehicles if they do not already have them is a great way to track how far the vehicle has been driven;
• Making additional deliveries during a stretch of time in concentrated areas instead of several trips out;
• Shopping around where your business is located for the best prices at the pump. A number of Web sites provide weekly and even daily information on which gas stations have the best deals available;
• Taking some time to rethink how you do business. Do you really need to make all those deliveries and service calls or can more things be done online in order to cut fuel costs;
• Consider providing your customers with deals in return for not having to make deliveries. If you run a floral shop as an example, instead of having to make a large amount of deliveries, provide customers willing to come to the shop to pick up flowers with coupons that they can redeem during an upcoming purchase.

As politicians and the oil companies blame one another for high oil prices, it is the consumer, including the business owner that gets caught in the middle.

Photo credit: app.com

Dave Thomas, who writes on subjects such as office equipment and supplies, writes extensively for San Diego-based Business.com.