I just wrote an email and hit the send button… check out the popup that I got:

I admit it is a little eerie that gmail reads my mail, but you must realize this has been happening with all hosted email for over a decade… right?

Anyway, I regularly hit send before putting the attachment in…. it looks like that might not be an issue anymore?!?

Brilliant user design Gmail!

Have an inclintation to be an entrepreneur?

Read this post by Tim Ferriss, called Why Grow? and other wisdom from 37Signals.  Here are some of my favorite parts:

>> 37Signals is focused on getting sh*t done instead of chasing the Silicon Valley venture capital death spiral. Financing has it’s place, but it’s a means to an end and shouldn’t be confused with an end.

I’ve played around in the funding space for almost four years, thinking about getting funded, talking to people who have gotten funding, asking advice, talking to investors, etc.  I have recently been going to any Funding Universe Crowdpitch I can, which is really enjoyable, but I’m still leery of looking for outside investors, so I really appreciated that line

>> More than 3,000,000 people worldwide use 37Signals products

WOW.  3M.  That is amazing.

>> Have you ever noticed that while small businesses wish they were bigger, big businesses dream about being more agile and flexible?

Talking about the perfect size of a company… everyone is looking for that greener grass. Huge used to be the goal, but look at all the huge companies and all the problems they have?

>> The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use.

I love that entire section… examples of companies that started because founders had their own itch to scratch, came up with a solution, and have done very well.

Very nice, inspiring post. I’ll have to check out the book.

Last night Kim threw up on my bed after too much playing and laughing.

About an hour later, as I was putting her to bed, I asked her:

Does your tummy feel yucky?

She replied, with a grin:

No, my tummy feels yummy!

I have a buddy who is looking at developing a very cool new business offering and wanted to see if JibberJobber, as a CRM,  was good enough to be a part of the offering.  After spending hours on the system this is what he wrote to me:

Even though I have played with JibberJobber for quite a while, I never really dug deep into how I could use it to grow my biz. I just used it as a place to store contacts – but now that I have a focus of how I should be using it, I have to say that you have done an incredible job with it.  I just played with the quick add from Twitter function which is way cool.

What a super compliment.

And a great testimonial.

This just came from him after he’s spent hours on MY product.  He’s known me for years, he’s known about JibberJober for years, and he’s even had an account for a while.

But he was playing around with it, not serious, not understanding how it could meet his needs (not really understanding his “needs,” until recently).

It made me wonder: how many of the people we know, who know us, really know what we do and what we offer, and have an appreciation for our services?

I bet it’s less than 5% or 10%.

How to get that number higher?  Well, maybe it is in your communication. Maybe it is just a matter of time, and waiting until the sun (your product), the moon (their needs), and the stars (their understanding of your offering) align.

When it does align take the sweet opportunity to ask, like I did: can I use that as a testimonial?

Yes, they’ll say, and they are happy to help you because you’ve made them happy by providing them a terrific solution.

I love these types of testimonials.

I have 10 I’m in a Job Search — Now What??? books that I’ll bundle with my LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD for only $40 with no S&H.

Total spend is $40.

When they are gone, they are gone. (I have other books I can substitute…. I’ll let you know if we’re out when you order)

First come first serve – take advantage asap before the book is gone.

To pay, go to this payment page and fill out the form (put $40 for the purchase and make sure to put your mailing address in the comments).

Check out the intro in this email I got:

Are you serious?  The first sentence says he’s been following my blog.  Dude, my name is all over all my blogs.  It’s not that hard to figure out.

And am I a blogger OR an expert?  I’m still trying to figure that one out…

You have to get a little more personal to pitch me… my name is (well, you’ll have to figure that out for yourself).

On Saturday I had three of my kids and we were escaping to Costco for a bit. I called my wife and asked her to look for an address for a store… I wanted to get her two end tables but didn’t want her to know about it.  This was going to be my valentines present to her.

End tables aren’t the most romantic things, but we’ve been wanting real end tables for a while and I knew the kind to get (real wood, sturdy, new, etc.).

Anyway, I got off the phone and stated “we’re going to spend a few hundred dollars today guys!”

“Why?”

“To get mom’s valentines day present!”

My six year old then says “ah come on Dad, why don’t you just get her something lame?”

I was cracking up, wondering what the heck that meant.  I asked “Like what?”

She said, “something lame, like flowers and candy.”

And then, after a short pause, she sincerely asks, “what does lame mean?”

ROFL — that was too funny :p  Ah, the joy a six year old can bring.

This is what I wrote when my JibberJobber developer asked me a question about a certain part of JibberJobber.

He asked me something that had to do with the Jobs section of JibberJobber.  In my mind I starting thinking of my response:

“I don’t do much with jobs.”

(I use JJ more as a business CRM, since I’m not in a job search).

While I was typing that I started to think:

“I have to eat my own dog food. In fact, any business owner, designer, product manager, salesperson or product advocate has to eat their own dog food… if they don’t eat their own dog food then….!”

I went on a mental rant… and instead of typing what I wanted, I combined both ideas and produced this sentence:

“I don’t do much with dogs”

To which my developer had to ask “I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?  What do dogs have to do with anything?”

LOL – sometimes, I swear I need a new brain…

Along the path to becoming better parents we came across Nicholeen Peck’s stuff, which is best summarized as “teaching self government” to kids.

The idea is to help kids understand how they can govern themselves, their actions, their emotions, etc.  I’ve blogged about Nicholeen here and here.

One of the things she teaches us is how we can teach our kids to “accept a ‘NO’ answer.”  That is, when they ask something, and we say no, they can respond by saying OK with (a) a calm face and (b) a calm voice and then (c) dropping the subject.

If you think about it, it’s a brilliant thing to learn (many adults need to learn this).  Of course, they can “disagree appropriately,” also, so it’s not all about accepting our NO.

Usually when our 3 year old asks a question and we say NO, she is thrilled to say okay in that way. And then she immediately says “dad, I accepted a no answer with a calm face and a calm voice!” with the cutest smile and sense of pride you can imagine.  It’s really cute.

A few days ago she said something equally cute… we also hope our kids make right decisions… even though nobody always makes right decisions we want them to know they can CHOOSE to make a good (or right) decision – they are empowered to make decisions that will impact the consequences.

The three year old was talking to my wife and said very simply, and with a very serious face:

“I  choose the right, not the left“

It was good to hear her clarify that she had made a right decision, not a left decision :p

There are probably a million ideas on how to write, and how to write a blog post, and how to write a freaking awesome blog post.

I’ll share just one… since it’s on my mind. I don’t remember where I heard this but it made a ton of sense to me.  Before I share it I want to say why I think it is brilliant.

One reason I write is to develop a community. One measure of community is the discussion.  A way to gauge the discussion is by the comments.  A “comments” metric is “Number of comments.”

I think blogs that have comments show they have (a) readers and (b) a community.

So, how do you write a blog post that gets comments (perhaps that should have been the title of this post, which really should become a series)?

WRITE ONLY 80% OF THE POST.

Let your readers finish the other 20% in the comments.

Think about that – if you write enough of the post, but leave it open for discussion, as opposed to making a super-tight conclusion, you don’t give your readers much to comment about.

When I heard this I thought it was absolutely brilliant.  It takes skill to write that 80% and not sound aloof… and I think by nature we want to complete things, but if you want to generate discussion and create community, make sure you don’t say all that should be said.

I’m wrapping it up here – tell me in the comments what YOU think a FREAKING AWESOME blog post entails