Alberta Business Marketing

Probably not…but I think I took a good step forward on Saturday.

I have been a huge supporter of the blogging platform WordPress for many years.  Like many of you, I cut my teeth on the free versions of WordPress and Blogger.  However, when I started to take blogging seriously, I stumbled on a company called Siteground.com and the rest is history.  Blogging is now part of my daily routine and this blog reaches thousands of folks each day.

WordPress offers one of the most reliable and easy to use blogging platforms available today.  Over the course of my regular business day, I work with many Calgary and global companies on how they can leverage blogs in their business.  Ulistic offers a wide range of blogging consulting services for business.  From blog consulting to coaching.  Contact me if I can help you with your business blogs at anytime.

WordPress is evolving to a fully functional web development platform.

For many years WordPress has strictly been used as a blogging platform.  For a while, some of the leading web developers started developing great looking websites on WordPress.  However over the past little while WordPress has become more acceptable in the mainstream web development world.   WordPress is now making serious moves towards offering a full-featured and rich content management system and web development platform.

On Friday, I met up with a good friend of mine and fellow WordPress blogger in Calgary and we immediately jumped into sharing tips and tricks on how we can make our WordPress blogs really sing.  I shared a few great plugins that I have found and started to use every day.  Many of our Ulistic clients are also leveraging these great additional functions on their WordPress blog.  Some of the plugins allow you to scroll testimonials, perform grammar/spelling checking and a wealth of other great added features.  You can even send a thank you note to those folks who leave a comment on your blog.

Then my friend shared with me a service he has been using and having some great success with, headwaythemes.com.  Headway is a blog development platform for WordPress.  You can see it on this blog, this weekend I changed the layout of my blog to a headway designed blog.  It took a bit of playing around at first, but after you learn how it really works and read the manual  or watch the YouTube videos it is quite awesome.  Headway takes all the confusion of CSS and HTML  and offers a powerful interface for you to develop your own professional business blog.  Upload your own header, change colours and really take ownership of your blog.

Don’t kiss your web developer goodbye just yet, but here is another web tool you can take advantage of for your blogs.  Your web developer combined with Headway can really make your blog rock n’roll.  I am not a developer, but as an avid blogger and marketing professional…I get this and the power a great locking blog can do for business.

Headway only works on your hosted WordPress blog.

Sorry folks…you need to have your own hosted version of WordPress to make this work.  If you have your blog hosted on the free WordPress servers, you can’t take advantage of the power headway offers.  However, don’t worry I have a solution for you.  Get a hosted version of WordPress with your own domain name for only $9.95 for the first year.  Click Here – Cheap WordPress Hosting.  After the first year, your hosting is only $120 for the year.  Great deal to get started.

Headway is about $90 for a personal version which allows you to run it on 2 of your websites, upgrade to the developers version for about $160.00 and use it on unlimited sites.  This is an awesome tool for WordPress, if you are serious about your blogging – this service if for you.

Tags: Akismet, awesome tool, blog, Blog hosting services, Blog software, Blogger, BuddyPress, Business/Finance, Calgary, Computing, content management system, Content management systems, functional web development platform, HTML, mainstream web development world, PHP programming language, Siteground, Technology/Internet, ulistic, USD, web developer, web developer goodbye, web developers, web development platform, web tool, wordpress, World Wide Web, YouTube Inc
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One of things I miss about not being at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference besides not being able to see all my buddies from Microsoft and through the partner channel is all the great announcements that come from this annual pilgrimage from Microsoft Partners.

I tuned into Steve Ballmer’s keynote address on Digital WPC this morning just in time to hear the announcement of Windows 7 Slate amongst all the talk of the cloud (FY2011 is going to rock).  Microsoft is getting into the iPad type game with full force.  I kinda thought they would and no better place to announce it.  WPC I heard has over 14,000 delegates in attendance this year.

If you don’t think the cloud is for real…watch the keynote address from Steve Ballmer.

This will be my only year off from WPC.  I look forward to WPC2011 in Los Angeles.

My good friend and fellow blogger Karim from Techvibes summed up the announcement on his blog.

This year one of the most important things that we will do in the smart device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates.

They’ll come with keyboards, they’ll come without keyboards, they’ll be dockable, there’ll be many form factors, many price points, many sizes.  But they will all run Windows 7. They will run Windows 7 applications. They will run Office.

They’ll (the tablets or slates as Ballmer calls them) come from the people you would expect — from Asus, from Dell, from Samsung, from Toshiba, from Sony.

I can’t wait to see one and compare it to my iPad.  I do love my iPad but it has limitations when it comes to working on documents.  If the Slate will run Office, I may just switch.  After all, Office is the make or break application for me.

What do you think?  Leave a comment.

Tags: Blogger, Computing, iPad, microsoft, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Partners, Technology/Internet, World Wide Web
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Have you considered Google Docs for your small business? You may want to revisit Google’s online cloud strategy if did in the past and just didn’t like what you saw.  Google announced on Monday via their blog some great new enhancements coming soon to their cloud-based document and spreadsheet programs.  Here are some of the highlights from their blog which you can read in depth at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-generation-of-google-docs.html.  You can find examples and a pretty cool video (see below as well) on how Google Docs work.

New document and spreadsheet features
We’ve responded to many of your requests for features you’re used to in desktop software. In documents, we’ve added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets, you’ll now find a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and other features not possible with older browser technologies.

Stuart’s note – still no page break though…disappointing

Higher fidelity document import
We’ve made big improvements to our document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier now. Imported documents retain their original structure more accurately, so you can hit the ground running editing in the browser without having to fix formatting like bullets and text alignment.

Speed and responsiveness
New browser technologies like faster JavaScript processing have made it possible for us to speed up Google Docs significantly. Even very large spreadsheets are fast to work with in your browser now. Applications that run this fast feel like desktop applications but have the unique advantages of being in the cloud.

Faster collaboration
We’ve extended Google Docs’ collaboration capabilities too, with support for up to 50 people working together at once, and in documents, you can now see other people’s edits as they happen character-by-character. And now you can also collaborate on flow charts, diagrams and other schematics in real time with a new editor for drawings on Google Docs.

Tags: Ajax, Blogger, browser technologies, Business IT, collaboration, Computing, desktop applications, desktop software, Editor, google, Google Docs, Google Inc., JavaScript, online cloud strategy, Online spreadsheets, Spreadsheet, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, Web applications, web development, World Wide Web
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What a crazy week that just finished?

Lots of interest from business in Calgary looking to understand more about the power of social media in business and what tools will serve them the best.  How can small businesses take advantage of what these almost mission critical online services?  What can they do combined with skilled and trained people for their overall success of  business?

All I know, there is more and more information to share with all of you over the next few days, weeks, months and maybe years.  Social Technologies are rapidly becoming part of our daily activities if they haven’t already.

First off, the following folks need to be publicly thanked:

• Frank at the Blackfoot Inn – Frank saved the day for us during our Calgary social media training course with a handy USB wireless adapter.
• The entire team at GoForth – Thank you for just being who you guys are and your support of Ulistic
• Mike Iem at Microsoft – Thank you Mike for the opportunity to serve the Microsoft Partner Community once again as part of the 5W25 training sessions.

Lots of discussion this week about how to we can employ Social Media in business and what all of our businesses can do right now to start to build a competitive advantage for themselves online.  Don’t take my messaging the wrong way, social media services are still just a spoke in your overall business development activities.  It is an awfully big one and gaining in importance.

One of these crucial online or social media services is the power of blogging.  How can a blog benefit your business?  Why should you blog?  I personally feel if you are a President of a corporation or small business and you do not have a blog you are doing a disservice to your staff, customers and those in the community who are looking for someone to learn from or follow.

Blogging for me is an essential part of your business recipe book.  It doesn’t take much to get started either.

There are a number of reasons why you and your must have a blog.  Some of these reason range from being a thought leader in your industry or community right through to having a mechanism for you to share information with your customers and staff.  Maybe you simply want to spread the word about the great things your non-profit is doing within the community as well.  Blogging in business or community is all about providing valuable content to those who find what you got to say interesting.  This can range from those who don’t know you to those who know you best.

What is your story?

We all have a story to tell and the best blogs come from those who take their natural ability to share stories and take these stories into the online world for all to read.  Some of the best blogs I follow are simply stories about what and who the reader is or who has influenced them.  How can you tell your story online and position yourself in front of the pack?  Who can you influence without knowing who they are?

A great blog can do this for you, sometimes all it takes is for you to simply start.  Get down in the ready position and fire your own starting pistol.  Over the years, working with many Calgary business folks and all the way up to my facilitation duties with Heartland Tech Groups, I have found simply starting to be one of the biggest challenges for a number of business owners.  Sometimes we just need to shelf our fear of looking stupid or failing aside and just get started.  I know that is easier said than done for many.

The nice thing with blogs is that you can always go back and tweak it later.  But you can’t tweak what you don’t do.

I love the fact in life sometimes we can take the re-test.

Tags: blog, Blog marketing, Blogger, Business/Finance, Calgary, Cityblog, Computing, heartland tech group, media services, online world, President, Social information processing, social media, technology, thought leader, Virtual world, World Wide Web
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