May 2005

Websites are a great business tool anyway you look at them. I’ve recently been re-optimizing Griffio’s meta tags and it’s fairly easy with the help of your leading competitors. Whatever it is you sell, Google it, and then see who comes on top. Take the top 5 natural rankings and view their meta data (to do so, click on View, then Source on your browser. The meta tag content should be near the top). See what keywords your competitors are using and apply as needed to your own. This WON’T make your natural ranking leap right up to the top, but it’s a foot in the right direction.

Some of you may have already used this, but RoboForm is a very nice FREE web utility. It easily stores you critical online passwords in a safe and secure manner. To logon to this very blog, I just clicked a drop down box, and selected the site. Wa-la! RoboForm navigates to the page, fills in the password, and submits it. Very fast and a great tool!

Too many people try to think outside of the box, especially when it comes to product design. I guess they think that being outside of the box will automatically classify their efforts as creative. This belief couldn’t be further from the truth. Good design doesn’t always require creativity. Innovation does. So I guess before starting to design a product you need to decide, “Am I’m designing or innovating?” Once you get that down, you’ll be much more successful with your creations.

A quick example of this might be if you were a shirt designer. You might decide to “design outside of the box” by moving the shirt pocket from the left side to the right. The shirt was already working fine though as shirt users expect the pocket to be on the left side. In this case, you wouldn’t reinvent the shirt, just redesign it to make it look better. Maybe try a new pattern or a different color, but don’t try to innovate the already functioning shirt. You have to consistently use common sense to achieve intelligent design.

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I have been very excited to see Keane live in concert. Their CD Hopes & Fears has been one of my favorites over the past year. Their is a certain freshness to the album, even given that some of their songs do sound similar. But how do the they sound live? How are they as performers?

First off, for those of you comparing Keane to Coldplay, their is no comparison. Keane has outplayed them with only one record to Coldplay’s three. Haven seen both in concert, I must say Keane brought so much more energy, enjoyment and freshness to their live sound. The lead singer’s voice is one of the prettiest, melodic voices I’ve ever heard. It’s that good. The piano player rocks. He constantly was on the verge of knocking over his piano. The drummer is tight and ads the perfect rhythm section san bass (bass is sequenced on a laptop). The two sure do bring a lot of energy and sound for only having two musicians playing . The light and video was something I didn’t expect, but brought an additional level of ambiance to the already full sound at the lovely Abravanel Hall in downtown SLC. One of the nicest venues I’ve ever been to.

The evening was a blast! The music was even better. Very good show! A+

According to Slashdot, Google will start combating how those gimmicky SEO (search engine optimization) companies use artificial link inflation (i.e. spam). Apparently, Google will revamp how PageRank takes into account the freshness of a webpage as well as some other features.

This proves yet again, that if you build your business on gimmicks, it will only last for a short time. (Think trendy weight loss products and you’ll have a good understanding of how most SEO companies work.) Not that there aren’t good SEO companies to help a site’s performance, but it is getting harder and harder to do because of saturation. I propose Link Optimization (LO) instead of just SEO. For example, who are the most important bloggers in your industry with the most traffic? Post thoughtful comments on their blogs and watch the traffic roll in. I’ve recently experienced 9 times my normal traffic because of the above strategy. It works!

I got a call this evening from a good friend of mine in Seattle. He is a businessman by birth and was instrumental in helping me take the entrepreneurial leap a few years ago. He got me thinking about what it is to be an entrepreneur so I did a little research and thought I’d share my findings with you.

The word entrepreneur is Old French for “undertake” or engage. There are two things I feel define a true entrepreneur. One, an entrepreneur assumes risk. That is, they take a chance. While not everyone is meant to be in business for themselves, risk takers aren’t afraid to be creative. They put themselves on the line. Sometimes you fail and learn how to better yourself. Usually you’ll succeed and learn from your success. Second, an entrepreneur has a strong desire to make something better. They can either start a new company to feel the void, or propose a new way of doing something at work. Entrepreneurs are individuals that find greater enjoyment in life by exercising risk and being passionate about making a difference. If you can do that in whatever it is you do, you will find immense purpose in your craft.

It takes guts and passion to be an entrepreneur. The greater the passion, the higher quality of work. It can be intimidating, but what a feeling to give it your all and see where it takes you. Speak up in your workgroups. Share your ideas. Start a new company. Take a stand for something you believe in. All are forms of “preneurs” or undertakers. All are ways of adding enjoyment to your workload (and maybe even your pocketbook).

This post is a tribute to all the great mothers in the world. First and foremost to my mother Cathy Snow. Thanks mom, I love you. Secondly, to all the other mother’s I’ve known in my life: Lindsey, Annette, Rhea, Colleen, Cami, Summmer, and Lucky. Happy Mother’s Day! You really make the world go round, and are great models of love, charity, and responsibility that the world needs more of.

Lindsey and I just finished watching Million Dollar Baby for the first time. It is really one of the best movies I’ve seen this year (right up there with Hotel Rwanda). For those of you who haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. It’s a boxing tragedy about guts, chutzpah, and endurance. Heck, I almost even cried at one point. Clint Eastwood has proven himself one of the best writer/director/actors in Hollywood. Very creative, very well-done, and an excellent story. A-

I have a very talented younger sister. She is currently a student at the prestigious School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and has just partially launched her personal website. It can be found by clicking here.

Lexia offers a simple yet sometimes skewed perspective of art. Her style is very enjoyable and refreshing to look at. For those of you who enjoyed the intro to the Napoleon Dynamite movie, Lexi’s been creating that style since before the movie was released.

Nice work.

Griffio has been selling databases and websites since the summer of 2003. It was a lot tougher back then to find new work. In the short period of time since then, we’ve been fortunate enough to have the number of referrals and repeat-work greatly increase. Just over the past two weeks I’ve received several emails from people saying they’ve heard about us and would like to talk. And I’ve received two requests for repeat-work from existing clients in as many days.

Networking is all about genuine friendship. If you are someone that is trustworthy, meaning you are true to your word, people will find you. They will reach out to take advantage of what you do well. While the effects might not be immediate, they will eventually become evident if you remain persistent in your efforts.