Today I tweeted about a local (Utah) story that is just really cool.  You can read the story in our local news here (it’s about iBert safe-T-seat, which is an invention by Kelly Eissinger).

The tweet went to Facebook where Joyce Michelle Knudsen shared the coolest quote:

Abraham Maslow said, “The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”

How about you?  Was your creativity, even your “human potential,” lost or crippled?

I’m hanging out with my wife this week as she recovers from surgery.  I am her best friend since she can’t lift for 10 days, so I get to give her our three month old for feeding (and put him back – makes for long days and nights

Anyway, we got a bunch of  movies, one of which is The Miracle Match, which is the story of the 1950 throw-together soccer team for USA who beat England in a World Cup match – that obviously wasn’t supposed to happen.

Cool movie, cool story.  My favorite part has to be when the coach gave his pep talk toward the end of the movie, at half-time of the big game.  He said something like:

“…the team who wins will be the team who has character and stamina…”

Love it, I absolutely love it.

As an entrepreneur, I am not sure if there are any two other things that are more important.  Lots of other things are important, but I think if I focus on CHARACTER (dang, I need to respond to blog comments better) and STAMINA (not giving up… playing hard to the end… “leaving nothing on the field”) I will be OKAY.

I started blogging three years ago this month.  It was a fantastic environment where you had your own “bully pulpit” … a place where you were in charge, you had the mic, and you could say whatever you wanted.

I soon learned that bloggers had quite the ego.  They used their bully pulpit to talk about boring stuff (that we were supposed to be interested in) as well as though leadership or subject matter expert stuff.  Bloggers had enough rope to hang themselves with – and some did.  Others became fantastically popular (Seth, Guy, Michael, Chris Brogan), and even internet celebrities.

One of the most empowering, ego-feeding things for a blogger is the comments – or, NUMBER of comments.  When someone leaves a comment on your blog it means (a) you have readers (aside from your momma), and (b) you touched someone intellectually to the point they wanted to weigh in.

Getting comments on a blog fed a blogger’s ego like Golden Coral feeds a hungry boy scout.  There are even bragging rights associated with getting comments.

Read a blog that doesn’t get comments?  You might just be the only reader of that blog.  Obviously, a blog with a few comments (if there are consistently a few), or dozens, or hundreds, or even tens of thousands, really validated the blogger.

And fed their ego.

Fast forward a bit and we come to the evolution, or perhaps the problem (if your ego is tied to your comments): the introduction of other social platforms where discussion can happen.

For example, three years ago I might have written a thought-provoking post and gotten 15 comments on the blog post – my ego is fed, I’m validated, and everyone knows I’m a force to be reckoned with.

Today, however, it’s different.  I write a blog post, and tweet a link to my Twitter followers.  I get NO comments on the blog.

But my tweet gets RT’d 6 times.

And 4 people reply to my tweet with their thoughts.

And 7 people comment on my “status” on Facebook, since my Tweets become my Facebook Status.

There are two problems with this scenerio:

The first problem is artificial… it isn’t really a problem, although it crushes the blogger’s ego.  If you get no comments on the blog, you start to look like a chump… right?  What happened to all of those validating comments?  Maybe you should QUIT BLOGGING?

You might have heard that blogs are dying (they aren’t!)… I think people who see the conversation go elsewhere wonder why they still blog and are somehow convincing themselves they should follow the discussion (as it travels through various platforms), as opposed to continue to initiate the discussion (on their blog).  I think this is a shortsighted mistake.

The second problem is what really irks me.  It is that someone who reads my blog post WILL NOT get the benefit of the wisdom of the crowd.

I try and write my blog posts from my perspective, and always wonder what other smarter folks would say – either agreeing or disagreeing – I don’t care their position, but I do want to get a well-rounded discussion.

It’s no one’s fault, but when people respond a little bit here (Twitter) and a little bit there (Facebook), and even in Facebook they respond on the Wall and/or the Notes section, the conversation is fragmented, and NO ONE can follow it, except me.

It makes me sad that the wisdom of the crowd gets lost amongst the platforms, and no one else can get the value of the conversation.

Are blogs dying?  No.  But there is an interesting evolution of where and how the conversation happens…. and this is an evolution that hasn’t been fun to watch

I have a weird brain.  I have been told I am a “unique” thinker… which usually means I’m thinking of weird or off-the-wall stuff…. ideas that don’t always fair well in a corporate setting.

I also need to multi-task.  For example, today my goal is to get my inbox down by a couple hundred (a great task to do while healing my torn calf)… but I had to take a break to do this blog post.  Because I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and because now seems like a good time.

Today I will also contribute to the design of JibberJobber, sales and marketing of my LinkedIn DVD, writing one of the three books I’ve started, and probably another blog post or two.  And a few tweets here and there.

I came up with my 10 revenue streams, and work to move each one forward as appropriate (some are on the back burner where they wait patiently, others are on the front burner where they are simmering).

When I’m sitting I need brain candy.  This is either Internet, work, TV, movies or reading.  Last night before bed I started Harry Potter again – I can’t just “go to bed….” must have something for my brain.

I wonder if I’m ADD, but I don’t want to insult anyone and self-diagnose, since I don’t know much about ADD.

I do think that in order to be successful down the path I’ve started, I need to have some level of “Business ADD.”

How else would I be able to work on multiple things at once, making progress on them, without the ability to pull out of one project and go into another project, time after time, throughout the day?

Would I be more successful if I could just focus on one project?  Not sure.  But I’ve chosen my path with 10 revenue streams, and I feel like I need to be able to jump around.

Maybe I need professional help – thoughts?

Sometimes I think I’m nuts. Even though I’m more sane than others.  But seriously, what am I thinking, doing my own business? Where’s the safety net in that??

Sometimes I think I’m dense. Even though I got a hecka lot of education, and feel like I’m rather witty.  This “dense” thing comes mostly when I compare myself to others.

Sometimes I’m lonely. Even though I have a terrific wife and family support, and thousands upon thousands of people who read my stuff in my blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  But when I’m sitting in my office, all by myself, with hours to go in the day, wondering which thing I should do next, I wish I had a team working with me.

Sometimes I feel poor. Especially recently as we paid for a new baby, a broken van and car, my doctor’s visit to get my calf looked at, working on getting our basement finished, and payroll… but then I think about the families I met in Mexico who know what poor, and poverty, and hunger, are, in a way that i’ll never have to know.

Usually I’m hungry. Not for food, but for success.  Actually, not even crazy-wild success, just the kind of success that pays the bills for a family with a modest lifestyle.  That’s what i told my publisher, and why I swore I’d make money from book sales.

Most of the times I’m scared. Scared of failing.  Or scared to take steps backwards.  I often wonder if I’m the right guy for the job, and then I just get back to work, day after day, to get the job done the best I can, and hope that indeed, I could be the right guy for this job.

I’m an entrepreneur.

I feel privileged, and hope that I don’t mess this up.

I feel like this is bigger than me… much bigger than me.

I feel like thousands of people need me to keep on plugging along, as my stuff (whether it’s JibberJobber or my books or DVD or blogs whatever) are making a difference to them.

I feel like my future is in MY hands. Not the CEO of Enron, or some board of directors, or some cranky boss… but my own hands.  Please let me not screw this up.

I’m an entrepreneur. While it isn’t easy, it’s rewarding.  I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

I’ve been thinking about something for years… since before I started JibberJobber.  A bit of history…

Back in the olden days, just 4 years ago, my old boss would talk about the number of hits on website.  When he reported hits the developers would snicker, because hits were not very well defined.

Most executives wanted to know how many people visited the website (unique visitors) or how many pages they looked at (page views).  But this notion of “hits”…. hm… let me tell you what a hit was:

Hit: the number of times our server served something.  You (the normal human being) thinks it’s something logical, like perhaps unique visitors or page views… but each time our server served an image we got a hit.

Get that?  If a page has 3 images on it, you get 3 hits.  Want to multiply your hits by 10?  Put 27 more images on the page, and now you got 30 hits!  Want to really impress the suits?  Put 300 tiny 1×1 (pixel) images on the site, you can even make them transparent (so they are invisible), and you get 300 hits!

Yippee!!!!

The programmers saw right past it.  The suits didn’t.

So there’s my introduction to this fake metrics crap.  If you like this stuff then pick up one of my favorite books, How to Lie With Statistics.

Now, fastforward to today.  There are some other metrics that a business like JibberJobber would measure.

Users.

What is a user on JibberJobber?  If I wanted to impress someone I would tell them the number of people who have signed up… which is usually called a “user.”

Not so.  Absolutely not so.

Let me differentiate between:

Signups: this is anyone who has signed up… regardless of whether they have ever logged in or not (much less use the system.  This is a super-easy metric to report, but most times I hear it I think it’s a fake number.

Users: Like… LinkedIn has 40M users.  NO, they don’t.  They have had 40 million people signup….!  I think users are people who… use the system.

Upgrades: These are people who fork over the loot… I’ve had peope in JibberJobber upgrade the day they signed up… without ever using the system.  Love that, of course… but it doesn’t guarantee they’ll be a “user.”

There’s a terrific post on TechCrunch talking about a freemium site called Evernote – the post is titled Evernote Stats: One Million Registered Users, 360,000 Active, 13,755 Paid

I love this because off the bat it declares the signups (which they call “registered users,” the users “which they call “active,” and the upgrades.  Nice differentiation!

Now, the concept on premium upgrades, conversion percentage, etc. is a totally different discussion (and I disagree with how TC got the percentages)… but this is a good place to start talking about real metrics.

Almost a month ago I listed my DVD on Amazon… getting into a $39.95/month payment plan.  Shortly thereafter I had to take the listing down because I hadn’t gotten my DVDs yet, and by policy I had to ship within 2 days of any order. Once I got the DVDs I immediately went back to Amazon and relisted the DVD… but there was one little, er, MAJOR problem: If you look at LinkedIn book, my DVD would not show up.

Why?

Because I had to list my DVD in the DVD section, where it was buried amongst movies… and totally not related to books at all.  Even though they are the same (a) subject and (b) author, you wouldnt’ find my DVD on my book page.  And what I really wanted you to see was my DVD on ANY LinkedIn book page.

Alas, wasn’t going to happen.

I spent hours poking through the help pages, the advertising pages, listening to the advertising webinar, emailing support, and even trying to talk with them on the phone.  It was very frustrating trying to get an answer.  Amazon has a cool sellers forum, where I found some awesome information, so I listed my problem there.  I learned about more options, but didn’t get the answer I wanted.

Finally, I decided to try calling again, and finally got on with someone who had a suggestion that wasn’t going to work (he said to put the DVD as a book, and in there you can say what the binding is (I think that’s the section), and he said to say it was a CD ROM or Diskette).  The problem with this first suggestion is that I didn’t want Amazon to come back and say I was doing something deceitful… I certainly didn’t want my amazon account to get taken down!

The second solution sounded a lot better, and he reiterated three times that this was totally acceptable and would not get me in any hot water… he said to “package” my book with the DVD, and then I could put it in the books section.  That is what I did.  So here is what I came up with (the wording was almost 100% from the Amazon rep, as we were brainstorming it):

and here’s the image (which is the front cover of the CD sleeve… luckily it already had the book cover on it!):

You can click here to see the posting.

Today on my JibberJobber blog I announced the Now What??? series, where I have authors writing books, and I’m the executive editor.  It’s pretty cool, although I was jazzed about starting it.

A few days ago I was on the phone with my publisher and said “okay, I’m going to draw a line in the sand.  I’m telling you [and now I'm telling all my blog readers] that I’m going to have a Now What Authors Conference in Fall of 2010 in Salt Lake City.”

The vision for this conference is to have my authors (dozens?  more than 100?) come and learn from people on how to leverage being an author into other revenue streams.

I’ve thought about the buddies I’ve met at NSA, and others who have created various types revenue streams, to come in and speak.  Perhaps some workshops… who knows what it will be.

2 days of fun, education, inspiration, stories, ideas, networking, etc.

This wouldn’t be limited to just my authors… it would be for anyone who has (or wants to have) a book, and/or wants to take their “multiple revenue streams” to the next level.

Exact date? Dunno.

Price? Dunno.

Location? Somewhere in or near Salt Lake City.

Speakers/Presenters? Dunno.

Cool, huh?  What would you suggest to make this event amazing?

Last night I bit the $39.95/month bullet and listed my LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD on Amazon as a “Pro Merchant.” I could “list a single item” on Amazon for free, ONLY IF they already have that item in their “catalog.”  In other words, if there is a book or DVD you can already find in Amazon, you can list yours to sell there… but if you want to submit a NEW item (like LinkedIn for Job Seekers) you have to pay $39.95 a month and become a Pro Merchant.

There is lots of help information available for this, although I find it to be a rather complex thing so I ended up reading a lot to do research on it.  Here are my initial thoughts:

• I need to list this item on Amazon because I think that’s where most of the sales are going to come from.  I think around 80% of my book sales come from Amazon, even though I have a bunch of Happy About affiliates, and I’ve promoted the affiliate program quite a bit since we started.  But Amazon has gazillions of eyeballs and people going there to look and purchase.
• I got sideblinded when entering the product because it requires a UPC.  DANG. For some reason I didn’t think that little-ol-me would have to have something so formal.  I did a search on UPC amazon and came upon a great blog post, which led me to IWantMyBarCode.com.  I read through the site and based on comments from that other blog post I decided to drop $22 for my UPC – a one-time purchase.  I LOVE the I Want My Barcode site style… not the design, but the personality and the story behind the site.  I ordered it last night (around 6pm) and got my UPC this morning (so I could finish submitting the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD this morning).
• When I submitted the product for some reason it took it as “LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD by” … UGH.  I clicked the edit link but the only thing it would let me edit was the quantity and some other thing.  I have no idea how to edit the title… but then when I clicked on the actual listing it did NOT have the “by” … so it looked good.  Still bugged me :p
• I have seen plenty of items on Amazon that have a different “available” or “shipping on” date. I was hoping that I could set the “doesn’t ship until” date to April 7th, which is when the DVD company told me they would have the DVDs in my office.  Instead, the shipping date is TODAY, March 25th.  This is a problem, especially if people want expedited shipping.
• When I put in my inventory, which is 980 units, I was surprised to go the the Amazon product page and see there was … drum roll… 1 product.  I am not sure it matters, but I was surprised to see something different than what I put in.  I think it would be better to not show 980, or anything over a couple of dozen…
• Oh yeah, one thing I didn’t ask Amazon about was the price – for a limited time I’m offering it for 49.95 from my website… and wanted to do the same on Amazon, but I can’t find a way to change the price (or show there’s a special temporary price)…
• Finally, and the most important thing for me, is I want LinkedIn for Job Seekers (the DVD) to show up when someone is looking at ANY LinkedIn book on Amazon.  This is critical.  CRITICAL.  I don’t think this DVD will show up on those product pages because, well, I don’t think that BOOKs and DVDs mix.  This is not good for me, because many people who are looking at any of the LinkedIn books could be potential purchasers of my DVD… especially people who are looking at MY book!  Doesn’t it make sense that my two products are one one-another’s pages? I hope this wall between product types (books vs. DVDs) is something we can get around.

So those are my first impressions.  It really will be interesting to see how many are sold through Amazon, which will likely be people who have NO idea who Jason Alba is, vs. how many are sold through my own network/audience and affiliate channels.

Here’s an image from the Amazon listing page:

This meeting was EXCEPTIONAL.  Here’s a fun picture with Patricia Fripp, the presenter, and Mark Eaton, professional speaker and ex-Jazzman: