LOVE IS THE KILLER APP

Have you read my book review (Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders) over at Small Business Trends?

THREE KEYWORDS FOR 2010

Time for an open thread post. What are your three keywords for 2010? Here is an excerpt from Chris Brogan's post, Wiring Yourself for Success:

I’m getting ready to write up my 3 words for 2010. If you’re not familiar with the exercise, the object is to come up with three words that you use as compass points for your efforts over the year to come. They’re not resolutions. They’re ways of framing what you plan to do in the coming year. Here were mine for 2009 and 2008. (In my mind, I did okay with 2 of the 3 goals. I’ll make 2010 a redoubled effort on “armies.”) (December 26, 2009, ChrisBrogan.com)

[Editor's note to David Stiernholm: I look forward to hear more about your three keywords: harvest, pleasure and renewal.]

Talking about harvest, please check out my late harvest of chile peppers and paprika.



Related: My post, WRITING DOWN NEW RESOLVING THOUGHTS.

FINE PIX OF MORRIS THE CAT

Morris the cat wants to inform you that the editor will publish the blog carnival post during this weekend.



[Editor's note: This photo is taken with my brand new FinePix Z30 by Fujifilm.]

UPDATE 12/20/09: The blog carnival post will be published on Wednesday, December 23.

ANOTHER UPDATE: 12/28/09.

Morris the Cat wants to distribute the following bulletin:

I'm sorry for the delayed blog post carnival. I am feeling a bit under the weather at the moment due to a cold. [Editor's comment: Maybe I should have a blackout shot?!] I will try to publish the post on Wednesday, December 30.

OK, back to my hiding place... ;)

TWITTER INTERVIEW BY CINDY KING

Here is an excerpt from Cindy King's post, Twitter Interview With Martin Lindeskog:

I haven’t had time to update my blog for a couple of weeks, but I will do as Stephen P. Smith and take some time to reflect on my blogging and publish a new post in the near future. I have started a new blog carnival, but the first edition is delayed. I will kick-off 2010 with a new series of podcast interviews, when the producer of Solid Vox has fixed the recording studio and other technical issues. (CindyKing.biz, December 8, 2009.)

BLOG CARNIVAL

Image via Wikipedia

Please read my post, GOODTHING IN LIFE CARNIVAL AND CHAT, and then submit your entry at Blog Carnival.

About this edition: Please send your Thanksgiving recipes. It is time we are commemorating the first official Thanksgiving in Jamestown, Virginia.

If you don't have a recipe related to Thanksgiving, please tell me about your favorite dish, beverage, drink, etc.

As a chile head, I enjoy receiving posts on hot & spicy stuff...

You are welcome to share your "glorious lunch break" (quote by Mary Ann Sures) moments and other good things in your life.

The submission deadline is at midnight (Pacific Time), on November 21. If you have an entry after this date, please send it by email [ LYCEUM at GMAIL dot COM ] before November 28. The carnival post will be published on November 28. I am planning to arrange a Twitter chat [ hashtag # GoodThingInLife ] on Twubs one week after the post is published, probably on December 6. We could then discuss the entries, talk about your Thanksgiving celebration and upcoming carnivals.

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BANNED IMAGES OF MUHAMMAD

Have you seen the "banned images" of Muhammad? For more information, read the following:

• Duke Professor Finishes Yale's Job, Prints Mohammed Images in New Book; FIRE Co-signs Statement of Principle by Adam Kissel.

• Muhammad: The "Banned" Images: by Eugene Volokh.

In 2008, under the glare of the controversy over the Danish cartoons, one of Flemming Rose’s few appearances on an American campus was sponsored by Dr. Gary Hull, director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace at Duke University. Dr Hull has for five years taught and supervised the Power of Ideas, one of Duke’s most popular honors programs. In late 2001, he made national news when he posted an article calling for a strong military response to the 9/11 attacks. Duke pulled his website, but reinstated it after the action gained wide publicity. (About page - MuhammadImages.com)

"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." — George Washington

Related: My post, MUHAMMAD CARTOON CONTROVERSY: ONE YEAR LATER.

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• Greg Lukianoff: Duke Beats Yale: Censored Images of Muhammad Finally Printed in New Book (huffingtonpost.com)

THE BERLIN WALL

Image via Wikipedia

How did you commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall?



Related: My post, PAN-EUROPEAN PICNIC 1989.

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CRUSH IT BOOK AND TEA TIME

I recently got the question by a former business partner if I had interest in participating in a new project regarding tea. I have been a tea drinker since my childhood. I started to import tea from Hong Kong and Taiwan after my trip in Asia in 1992. [Editor's comment: Here is a different way of brewing your tea...]

I will talk to a former classmate about becoming our tea expert and source of quality teas. She has worked with the promotion of Ceylon tea.



In 2006, I asked a tea shop owner to create Blue Chip Café tea blend (Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong, blue malva, rum and vanilla).



About a month ago I sent some questions via Twitter to Chris Garrett in time for his interview with Gary Vaynerchuck.

Hi @chrisgarrett my #q4garyvee: Is it correct that you are a tea drinker too? Do you like other types of beverages, e.g. seabuckthorn juice? 12:36 PM Oct 1st from web

@chrisgarrett #q4garyvee: Re. tea & sea-buckthorn. I'm a passionate tea drinker & I will work as a social media enthusiast for a sea-b. co. 12:58 PM Oct 1st from web

Hi @chrisgarrett my #q4garyvee: I recently bought several books on social media and personal branding. http://bit.ly/gSm3a More book tips? 1:10 PM Oct 1st from web

I received Crush It on October 29 and finished reading it the next day.





[Editor's note: If you want to support my blogging in a monetary way, please feel free to click on above affiliate link and purchase the book at Amazon.]

Lo and behold! In appendix b: five business ideas I won't get to - they're yours, you could read the following on page 140:

a tea blog

I think the tea market in the United States is about to blow up, and for the person who wants to educate and entertain the masses there will be enormous opportunity to build a site much like Wine Library TV, Offer a tea-of-the-month club and you'll be in serious business.

Some ideas for the site:

• Tea reviews.
• Tea and food.
• Health studies on tea.
• Tea trade.
• Activities with tea enthusiasts.

[Editor's note: Here is a video clip and Halloween greeting! Please note the spooky "ghost filter" and the Halloween candle burning in the background.]





Related: My posts, CASH IN ON SOUR GRAPES and GOODTHING IN LIFE CARNIVAL AND CHAT.

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A LOVELY KITTY I SAW TODAY

Hello again to Martin's readers--I thought I'd post a little update from Hungary, where we are celebrating the anniversary of the 1956 revolution. It being a holiday, the traffic has been calm, so I decided to take advantage of it: I put on my inline skates and hit this road, which leads to a secluded little suburb called Pinnyéd. That is where I met this charming young kitty and her somewhat older brother, who were relaxing on a fence and seemed quite happy to provide me with a photo opportunity. Ain't they just cute?

UPDATE:
[Editor's note: Roland, Great catblogging! I have updated this post because I couldn't find the comment field at the moment. Maybe something has happened at Blogger HQ. I will submit your post to the Friday Ark #266 at The Modulator.]

GOODTHING IN LIFE CARNIVAL AND CHAT

Image via Wikipedia

After I read Gus Van Horn's post, Cooking as a Hobby, I have decided to "kick it up a notch" and start something called #GoodThing in Life Carnival & Chat.

I enjoy reading your "good eats" (to use Alton Brown's wording) posts. I haven't been able to find an ongoing carnival of recipes lately and I wanted to participate now and then in this kind of blogging. Maybe it is time to start a Good Life (#GoodThing on Twitter) blog series with recipes? For inspiration, read my post, Food Trip.

From FOOD TRIP:

I will start to write more posts on the culinary industry, gastronomy and other food related topics. My long-range goal is to write an e-book on the Good Life, e.g., tea, wine, chocolate and chile pepper. I am on the quest to find special "hot & spicy" places all around America. (EGO, July 25, 2009.)

The food recipes carnival will be mixed up with other good things in life as described in my post, NOTE FROM EGO EDITOR:

At the end of the week, I will use the odd phrase "Thank God It’s Friday" with posts on the good life, e.g. wine and other beverages, recipes, and "glorious lunch break" (quote by Mary Ann Sures) moments. (EGO, August 27, 2008.)

I am planning to kick-off the carnival during the Thanksgiving weekend. Please send your entries to me by email [Lyceum AT Gmail DOT com] before Sunday, November 22. It would be great to have some kind of chat in conjunction with the carnival. I am thinking of using Twubs or Tinychat. Please come with suggestions on how we could have a live session on this topic. If you are interested in hosting a carnival in the future, please send me an email or write a comment.

Here are some food for thought material and tasty links for your reading / viewing pleasure:

• Martini by Hot For Words.

Related: My post, PERSIAN LIME MARTIN(I).

• What Wine Pairs With Cereal? – Episode #734 by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Related: My post, CASH IN ON SOUR GRAPES.

• What I Learned From the Food Channel About Developing a Niche by Anita Campbell.

• Good Things by Amy Mossoff.

My posts, CARNIVAL OF THE DANISH RECIPES and CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES.

Cheers!

• Say What? by John Cox.

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• Crush It! (800ceoread.com)

MELTING POT AND INNOVATIVE IDEAS

Please read my new post, The Melting Pot Bubbles with Innovative Business Ideas, on Open Forum.


Image source: screenshot of Open Forum.

Related: My posts, IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM and USA - LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

BAD BLOG ACTION DAY

I found out via Chris Guillebeau's post, Avoiding False Dichotomies, that it is Blog Action Day (BAD) today. The topic is "climate change"... I want to change the intellectual climate by publishing this post!

Related: MICHAEL GRIFFIN ON CLIMATE by Roland Horvath.

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• "Blog Action Day - climate change" and related posts (samizdata.net)

EXPLORING AMERICA ON COLUMBUS DAY

Image via Wikipedia

How did you celebrate Columbus Day? I paid a tribute to the great explorer by reading passages from Thomas A. Bowden's book, The Enemies of Christopher Columbus, and thinking of my future exploration of the land of opportunity.



In the news: Is Columbus Day Sailing Off the Calendar? - The Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE 10/13/09:

Columbus Day Celebrates Western Civilization

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BACK TO BASICS

I am glad to see that my post on Open Forum, Productivity Tools For Your Worklife, has been "retweeted" so many times. I want to highlight C. Scyphers, who gave a short & sweet summary of my post:

scyphers says: Tips for managing time: (OpenForum) Recap; Actual inbox, empty email, mindmap, small tasks, take notes, always improve (1st October 4:19, Tweetmeme / Twitter.)

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends, wrote the following comment on my post:

Martin, good article! I have tried, but I find it impossible to a zero inbox -- or even close to zero, say 30 unread emails. Unfortunately, my unread emails number in the 3-figures or 4-figures. Of course, most of those are monitoring emails, such as Google Alerts, or newsletter subscriptions, or email notifications about comments on my various blogs. I've tried setting up special folders and automatically pushing certain emails to those folders so I can review them later. That helps. But even so, unread emails just accumulate in my inbox. Then eventually they get archived, and that helps keep the numbers down. Of course, my business is mainly Web-based and 99% of everything we do involves email. But I wonder if others have the same problem? -- Anita (Open Forum, idea hub - topic: innovation, October 2009.)

As I said in my post, I have struggled with maintaining an empty email inbox for a long time. At the moment, I have 8794 messages in the inbox... I have to archive them and start from scratch again. I am sure that the GTDInbox is a great application and solution to this problem. Please read, Why Email is Addictive (listen to the rats), for a possible explanation to the email "problem"...



Amanda Stillwagon, editor of Small Business CEO, has used an excerpt of my post in her post, Work Smarter With Productivity Tools. Please feel free to leave a comment here, at SMBCEO.com, or a vote at bizSugar.

I will go back to basics and use a low-tech solution:

• Stack of index cards with a clip, a.k.a a Hipster PDA. I am using pre-printed to-do cards by Stiernholm Consulting.
• Small pens. I am using a TEC pico pen and a Fisher space pen.
• Notebooks. I am using Moleskine notebooks.

For inspiration, I will participate in Stephen Smith's "work.life.creativity" forum and continue to read Todoodlist by Nick Cernis. [Editor's note: If you are interested to read Todoodlist and at the same time support my blogging, please click the "buy now" button. I wonder if I have to add a disclosure to this post? Read Duncan Riley's post, My FTC Disclosure, and have you done yours yet?]

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MICHAEL MOORE AND HIS HATE STORY

Here is an excerpt from Jonathan Hoenig's article, Michael Moore Is Clueless on 'Capitalism':

After making an unpaid cameo in his last movie, I have no interest in seeing Michael Moore’s new film bashing capitalism. But even from the few interviews I’ve caught, it is quickly apparent that Moore is ignorant – obviously willingly so – of exactly what capitalism is. In a popular clip now circulating online, Moore incoherently struggles to describe capitalism as “the legal system which allows this greed to take place,” quickly suggesting that “the regulation and rules that used to keep these people in check…” -- businesspeople we can presume -- is “no longer is keeping them in check.” (October 1, 2009, SmartMoney.com.)

Related: My post, PICK A BOOK.

UPDATE 10/05/09: Read mtnrunner2's post, A Review of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" at Fun With Gravity.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND NOTEBOOKS

I recently received the following books:

• Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders. [Editor's note: I will write a review of this book for Small Business Trends.]

• Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki by Rohit Bhargava.

• Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

• Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. by Mitch Joel.

• The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web by Tamar Weinberg.

• The Plan-as-You-Go Business Plan and 3 Weeks to Startup by Tim Berry.

Talking about books, Jan Ekbom mentioned to me that he had bought several books by Ayn Rand in Swedish at the book fair in Gothenburg. I went to the book fair on Sunday and bought some notebooks by Moleskine.


Moleskine Volant - plain notebook with 54 detachable pages. (6.5x10.5 cm)
[Editor's note: What should I put as a reward? "As a reward: $"]


Moleskine Volant, Weekly Notebook Diary (hard cover) with address book insert (9x14 cm, 208 pages) and TEC pico pen.


Moleskine notebook diary in action!


Moleskine weekly notebook diary (hard cover) opened with expandable inner pocket. Formatted to-do cards.


Moleskine notebooks in three sizes: 6.5x10.5, 9x14 & 13x21 cm.


I will get a New York City Notebook when I visit the Big Apple again...

Recommended reading: Moleskine: The Guide by Nick Cernis and Why Moleskine Is The Model For Newspaper Survival by Jon Bernstein.

Image via Wikipedia

POST ON PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

What kind of productivity tools do you use in your worklife? Read my post, Productivity Tools For Your Worklife, on Open Forum.


Image source: screenshot of Open Forum.

READING TWEETS WITH BRIZZLY

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I haven't published any new posts for some time, but I have been microblogging during this time. You could follow me on Twitter, FriendFeed, Posterous and Tumblr.

I will start to use Brizzly when I am reading and writing tweets. It is a new, web-based Twitter client. I have been using Twitter's standard dashboard, Seesmic's desktop and in-browser. Read Jennifer Leggio's post, Brizzly takes the guesswork out of using Twitter.



If you want to have an invitation to Brizzly, go to my tweet message:

@Brizzly says: "All the cool kids are using Brizzly! Don't miss out - use this invitation link, good for 10 people." http://bit.ly/SVyO7

Related post: How Small Business Owners Get More Done with 101 Twitter Tools by TJ McCue.

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40 YEARS OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY

How did you commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing? I wrote a new post (The Space Race Is Finding New Heights) for Open Forum.


Image source: screenshot of Open Forum.