What is more motivating than traditional ‘incentive’ packages?

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

The new “operating system” for business.

This is a topic I discuss with entrepreneurs a great deal. Since my business is about helping other businesses design and develop a successful web presence, what is happening online is something that is critical for me to stay current about. But I often find that some business owners (especially outside of the tech sector) are reluctant to trade in their WSJ subscription for a good RSS reader.

Here are the top three things I hear on this topic from entrepreneurs:

I don’t know where to start
This is actually the easiest one of all the responses I frequently get — and it’s usually one of the first things I do with a client. Start with the same publications that you would read in an offline setting — they all have websites, and many of them have a lot of content that is only available on the web. Use that as a starting point.

And then follow the trails. Is there an author who wrote something that you particularly like? Google them. Even money says they have their own blog, or they blog on several different locations on related topics — any one of which are also likely to be relevant topics for you.

Do they mention a person, business or recent study that interests you? Do another search, and see who else is talking about it. Odds are that if someone is talking about one thing that is of interest to you, they are also likely to have a track record of discussing other things of interest to you.

It takes too long
My response to this one varies: yes, it can be tremendously time consuming. But the truth is, if you were looking to be truly well-informed (on any topic) twenty years ago, it still would have been time consuming. In fact, it would have been worse.

Yes, it requires an investment. And yes, you need to figure out where the line is between “investing your time” and getting caught in a “temperal vortex.” But, again, that’s true of almost anything. The best way to manage this is to have goals around the information you are seeking. And then to be ruthless with yourself and your schedule: cut out the useless noise that simply distracts you.

In his book The 4-Hour Work Week, author Tim Ferriss talks about a ‘low information diet.’ Even as someone who consumes a huge amount of information on a daily basis, I still consider this one of the most sound pieces of advice I’ve ever read. I routinely go through my RSS feeder and purge out blogs I no longer read, or ones that are on topics that no longer hold my interest (or represent a critical function of my business).

Clay Shirky talks a lot about how human beings have lived in a state of “information overload” for several centuries (ever since more books were printed than a person could ever be capable of reading in a single lifetime). The key to managing that, he says, is your filters. Knowing what to filter, how to filter it and when to update them to continue performing the way you need. This is especially true when it comes to consuming “news” online.

The bottom line: it will be as time consuming as you allow it to be — just like anything else.

The credibility of the sources is too iffy
This is the response that tends to actually make me chuckle the most, because the I have always found the credibility of traditional media so iffy, that I am stunned to be reminded that many people considered them inscrutable.

In a world where anyone can sign up for a Blogger or WordPress account and start publishing anything they want, yes, you absolutely need to be discerning in your information consumption habits. But the truth is, a smart information consumer also knows that you need to do the same if you are watching CNN or FOX, or when you are reading the Wall St. Journal or BusinessWeek. All sources have their biases, and none deserve unconditional trust.

Online or offline, you should never automatically trust everything you read with impunity. The blogosphere is no different. The key is in looking for people coming from places or saying things that you feel comfortable trusting (to some degree) and then follow the breadcrumbs, and look up the people they reference, interview or generally find to be good, credible sources of information.

One of the greatest things about being an entrepreneur today is the amount of information that is readily available to you, in almost any fields of study you could want. I’m constantly amazed at the sheer number of people who do not take advantage of that face, and often because they think it’s harder to find value in it than it really is.

The last thing I tell entrepreneurs on this topic is the same piece of advice I give them on all others: when in doubt, ask someone whose opinion you trust. We live in a word-of-mouth world. So start with the people you respect, and go from there.

As we march forward into 2010, businesses need to recognize that a lot has changed from the early days of the web.  What was once under the strict purview of elusive technophiles, has morphed into the purview of marketing, and is now shifting again into the hands of the every-person.

It’s an exciting time to be on the web.  Finding your voice and expressing that to your customers is more important than ever.  Do you know how to put your best foot forward?

Alora speaks with Jonas Lamis of Tech Ranch about web marketing strategies for startups and personal branding.

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not as straight forward as most people want. The good news, however, is that — long before an entrepreneur starts looking at expensive outsourcing solutions — there are a TON of things he or she can do for themselves.

Our SEO Plus Workshop is about just that. The class consists of one part lecture and information, one part interactive collaboration and brainstorming, and one part personal plan building. Designed specifically for entrepreneurs, this workshop includes tons of valuable information to get every entrepreneur on the right track — on their own! Our training is designed to accomplish three critical things:

1. Help you understand what you need to know to manage your websites online presence yourself.
2. Build a plan, based on your specific business needs, on how best to move forward given your resources.
3. Understand how to find the appropriate SEO resources at the right time, and not be sold something you don’t need at a price you can’t afford.

The way we do this is by educating entrepreneurs on the most vital elements of online marketing solutions (including SEO) for themselves. And since we are not an SEO firm seeking a monthly SEO contract, we have no conflict of interest about sharing information with you. One way that we do that is by giving workshop attendees an additional half hour of face-to-face consulting time, plus on-going access to our student-only online services.

The class is being held on the evening of Monday, November 9th at Tech Ranch from 7:00-10:00 p.m. You can register for it at Eventbrite. And if you have any questions, please contact us and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Barn Builders matches unemployed professionals with start-ups and other small businesses in need of their talents.  Barn Builders focuses primarily on building social capital to rebuild the economy.  The hardcopy version of ABJ includes the article and picture on the cover.

At the time the new association launched, there were a small handful of businesses involved: BatchBook, FreshBooks, MailChimp, Outright and Shoeboxed. The companies involved were starting the affiliation and announcing that, though a series of API-based integrations, they were offering a new capability to their customers: integration between their services. Since each solution provides a single slice of back-office functionality for small businesses, by integrating with each other, they are able to support a much more robust lifecycle of back-office activity.

The requirements for joining were simple but essential:

First, a public, demonstrated commitment to customer service.

Second, a technology solution that includes an API.

What I love about this is that, though most business people may not know what an API is, they know what it does: it makes their lives easier. It makes a huge difference in a socially-interconnected eco-system. The fact that these applications are all capable of communicating with each other, sharing vital data, eliminating duplicate entry and providing a much broader view of small business activity, by re-using the same data across multiple areas of their business.

What I love even more, though, is seeing how many additional businesses have joined the original handful since launch earlier this year. If you look at the list today, twenty-seven (27) additional companies are on the list. Not all of them have integrations (not all of them need it), but they are all companies serving the small B2B market. It is one of the first resources I send small business owners to, because it’s a great place for them to see what is available at price points they can afford.

My only lament, of course, is that unless or until we all become part of The Matrix, consultants can’t have APIs, so we can’t join.

I still vividly remember client phone calls in which executives on the other end of the phone could barely contain their disdain, because — in their view — the web was a fad that would eventually fade away, and there was no reason for them to invest anything in it at all. Obviously, even the most die-hard ludites have eventually capitulated to the realities of an online world and succumbed to the importance of the web for the survival and growth of their business.

One of the most critical lessons we have learned over the years, though, is how to get better about separating out the technical parts of a solution, so that it no longer takes hand-coding HTML in order to update content. The advent of the straight-forward, open source CMS is one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to small business.

Of course, with power comes the power to make mistakes — and in a world where your customer’s first impression of you is often your website, that means that developing an appropriate and aesthetically pleasing website is vital to your online success, even if your core business is not web-based.

Indigo Heron is excited to announce the launch of a new set of products and services tailored to meet this need. In addition to our consulting services, designed to provide this capability for our clients, we are now also developing the training needed to help clients understand the basics, and learn to self-serve as much as they would like to tackle on their own. Training will be available in class settings, on-site private sessions for your team, or online.

Training services will focus on:

• Getting a straight-forward CMS implemented
• Configuring the most relevant widgets and add-ons appropriate for your site
• Organizing your content to support good Information Architecture practices
• Understanding SEO’s most vital Do’s and Don’t’s
• Writing strong SEO-friendly site copy
• The basics of online marketing and advertising
• Social media tools, how to use them and when
• eCommerce best practices, technologies and solutions
• Website hosting needs, considerations and options

As always, Indigo Heron is available to provide any of these services (and more) to companies in need, but we also realize that for the best possible on-going care and management of your website, a basic understanding of how things work and why cannot be skipped or assumed.

If you are interested in joining an upcoming training session, or in having us come on-site to your business to provide training for you, your team, or your group, please contact us.

On Tuesday, Sept. 29th at 6:00 p.m. Tech Ranch will be announcing a new program called Barn Builders, and Indigo Heron gets to be involved and share the excitement.

I hope you can join us to hear the details!