Standing Out

RACE TO GROUP A

Ridiculous! This post may be a bit off topic but it just boggles my mind that I just checked in online to a Southwest flight that leaves a full TWENTY-ONE hours from now, and I landed in GROUP B position 19.

WHAT IN THE WORLD?? That really is insane, in my opinion. I was never a huge fan of their strange, herding process, and became even less of a fan when their prices started to be around the same as the other airlines. But now that the prices are equal or higher in some cases, AND the herding thing has taken on a new complication with numbers, I’m not a fan at all.

For me to get stuck in Group B at position 19 means that in the three hours since check-in opened (24 hours ahead), over 60 people woke up, rubbed the sand out of their eyes and checked in. Position 19 isn’t so great, either. That means all 60 Group A-ers and another 18 Group B-ers will get to board before me. That’s a huge bummer!

The icing on the bitter cake is this whole no pre-boarding nonsense. I have to travel with my 4 month old son, and Southwest has decided it’s no longer necessary for those of us with kids to pre-board. Luckily I have only one child. If I had, say, two or three, it’s not guaranteed we would get to sit together. So instead of me sitting next to my crying child, it would be YOU.

So anyway, I’m pretty miffed about this, if you couldn’t tell. This has become an issue of who has the fastest fingers and internet connection. I want to scream at Southwest: bring back assigned seating! Bring back real business class. If you need a method to determine who goes first, reward those who pay extra, not those who have Blackberry’s with high-speed internet and nothing to do in life other than wait for check-in to start.

Cheers.

WANTED: smart entrepreneurs looking to post new (or re-post) content to the Standing Out home-based business blog.

Perks
The major “perk” is that you’ll get to submit blogs to Standing Out and its ever growing population of readers. It’s a relatively new blog but I’m proud of its success so far. Having additional contributors means that the blog could potentially be updated every day (or more than once a day) with great content by my contributors, and that frees me to do some other things like publicize and optimize the blog to get us ALL more readers!

Two months ago we weren’t even on the map in terms of Google rankings. Now we’re a PR3. This is definitely a growing blog. Additionally, the feed is also growing, with new subscribers being added daily.

The second perk is that you’ll get some additional advertising for yourself and your business, as I’ll post the contributors’ profiles as well as links to their websites and blogs, and of course when you post you can include linkbacks & pingbacks to your own blogs as well.

This is a great alternative to article submission!

Post Good Content
The key is to post good content that readers will enjoy and pass on. The content can cover essentially any topic but I want contributing authors to focus on entrepreneurship, growing your business, working from home or similar topics.

You can RE-POST articles from your own current blog on my blog as well. You can do that using Blogjet or simply manually re-posting. I’ll leave your strategy up to you.

Interested?
REGISTER as a user using the link in the bottom-left corner of this blog or by clicking here. When you register, you’ll be set up as a subscriber. I will then contact you to confirm that you want to be a contributor, and will change your user type to “Contributor” so you can start posting immediately.

I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of this!

Cheers!

Tia

Oh, the irony!! Not two weeks after I wrote a post declaring myself a Twitter Quitter, I got two new followers.

What do I do now?? Arggh. I didn’t delete my profile for one of the major reasons I “quit”: lack of time. But I can’t very well quit NOW, not now that I’m still getting followers!

I’m now a Twitter Quitter in a jam. As long as people are viewing my profile on Twitter, I’m getting exposure for my blog. And that’s worth it. I wonder if I just update Twitter once a week…hmm. Just a thought? We’ll see. Cheers!

–Tia

Including TOP universities: Carnegie Mellon and MIT

This isn’t my typical kind of post, but I really wanted to pass along some info I ran into.

http://tinyurl.com/28aw3w

The article lists some excellent courses you should consider taking. Many of these are real, instructor-led courses where you will really learn something - and best of all, they’re FREE.

This is an example of one of the many ways you can get smart about business & it doesn’t cost a cent. It does cost time, but you must be willing to spend it if you want to get serious about growing your business.

Check it out.

I’m starting with Carnegie Mellon’s free Entrepreneurship & Business Planning Course with audio. There are 33 recordings that you can download and listen to, along with course materials: 16 PowerPoint slides, several handouts, a case study and a blog.

Feel free to take the course along with me! I’m going to be posting a digest of the course topics weekly, starting next week.

Cheers!

Tia

Let’s face it. We need friends. I need friends for a few reasons:

1. To increase readership & feed subscriptions of this blog, for one.
2. To bounce ideas and get advice.
3. To remind me that there’s real life outside of work.

I’ve been a member of Startup Nation for a little over a month now, and I have to say that I’m really growing fond of that community! The people are real, the comments are genuine, and I don’t go ignored. It’s an excellent resource for small startups seeking other startup “friends.” There is a forum for everything, including one where you can go to get your website critiqued by others (remember to take things with a grain of salt). It’s also a good SEO tool, as it’s a PR 5 site and you’ll find plenty of ways to link back to your own site by commenting and posting (but don’t get crazy).

Another great, non-Internet tool is Meetup. It’s used for social groups as well, but business-related groups make up a hefty percentage of users. I’ve participated in meetups professionally and socially and I really recommend it.

I’m sure there are many other ways. If you’re feeling alone and without people to commiserate with and bounce ideas off of, branch out! You may even meet a potential business partner or someone whose idea takes your business to another level!

Anyway, just thought I’d pass along some tips. Here’s to your success!

Cheers!

Tia