The Secret Structure of Great Talks
This TED Talk video really helped me understand what makes for a great, viewer-engaging, presentation. Ever wonder why your great idea got passed over, while another mediocre one got snapped up? Watch this video, seriously.
"Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
 "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: 'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'" ~from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, by William H. Murray
Stuff We Love ...and use every day. We don't get anything for the recommendation, we are not "affiliates" of these companies, we just love them. :-D  Squarespace Websites: Squarespace for websites is often our system-of-choice for most people. It's been years and we still can't say enough good things about this company, their wonderful platform for creating websites/blogs/portfolios, and their stellar customer support. We have short helpful videos on our website for those of you on the Squarespace platform. They'll show you how to do all the basics to update your website yourself. Check `em out if your curious. They also have help videos at their website. Now, Squarespace is offering live online workshops on a nice range of topics to help you get started, work your blog, maximize your SEO, build your portfolios, and learn how to use their truly great Members & Audience functions.  Shopify: In my never-ending search for a great shopping cart, web marketing guru and SEO expert Leif Jason of Mastermynde recommended Shopify to me for a new client who needs a powerful shopping cart for her online business that she can update herself without getting a degree in computer programming. I'm in the process of setting it up and so far am so happy to report that it's exceeding my usual high expectations. If you need a shopping cart or are tired of wrangling with the one you have, check it out.  Basecamp: We use Basecamp to collaborate on projects and keep track of a whole lotta info that would be otherwise overwhelming. We could not run Sagara Development without it and many of our clients also use it for their businesses. As BusinessWeek said, "It's addictively easy to use." You can communicate through the online system with everyone involved in a project (and have a record of those message), share files, calendar items with reminders, make notes on writeboards, setup and check off done items on to-do lists and milestones, and a lot more. Works on your mobile phone too. They have a bunch of helpful videos too, to help you get started and use all the features.   Excel and Numbers: Just about everyone we work with asks about ways to organize their data. They consider buying specialty software for databases, artwork and other types of inventories, and mailing lists. Often they buy new software only to find it's not what they need, is underpowered, or very difficult to learn. Another thing most people have in common: They underutilize the software they already have. What we recommend is that they start with a spreadsheet, Excel or Numbers. Getting their data organized into columns is absolutely the best start to getting it all into one place that's searchable and sortable. Plus, when you need to get that specialty software, it's easy to transfer your data if it's set up correctly in a spreadsheet.  Photoshop Elements: We use and love Photoshop (the big sister of Photoshop Elements) but it's overkill for most people. If you've ever had a hankering to do some image editing but shudder at the though of investing hundreds in Photoshop, not to mention the long learning curve, try Photoshop Elements. It's a very affordable scaled-down version of Photoshop that's low cost, much easier to learn, and still has lots of powerful Photoshop features.  Skitch: Don't want to become an image editor, but need to make fast web-ready images for your website and other online uses like Facebook? We're talking seconds fast. Skitch is free and absolutely awesome. I used it to make all the little images for this blog post. All our best to you and yours, |
