The Death of Steve Jobs

If ever there was a bold leader…

 “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

 ~ Steve Jobs

This is what drives me to Landmark. To live my life foolishly, happily, in pursuit of what matters to me. We lost a bright light yesterday when Steve died. As I sit here using staring at my computer screen’s graphical interface, using my mouse, talking on my iPhone, listening to music on my iPod, and lusting after the newest iPhone, I am touched, moved, and inspired by his vision.

 Lin

F.E.A.R.

The acronym for F.E.A.R., False Evidence Appearing Real.

 Get out of your head! Once you get yourself out of your own way, you are then able to generate extraordinary results.

Hi Fans and Followers!

Hi All,

Today I submitted my book for production and am waiting for final approval. I’m using CreateSpace to publish it and doing the self-service path because I know how to format Word files and create PDFs. So far I’m loving the service and the interface.

People have asked me what my book is about. I have a difficult time answering. But it is about my family life, growing up in the San Francisco bay area in the 60′s with seven brothers. I was the oldest, only girl, and the family slave for many years. I’ve survived my family, made it through several tragic events, and come out of all the experiences with a sense of humor and an optimistic attitude. I’m currently creating a workshop to help felons reenter society when I’m not working as a trainer/instructional designer or developing my skills as a Introduction Leader.

Everyone I know has had something tragic happen to them at least once in life. Some people let those things define who they become; others rise above their experiences to become stronger. I have let my experiences strengthen my spirit and compell me to inspire others.

My intentions for this book are:

• To make you laugh
• To inspire you to lead a more challenging life
• To share my experiences in how I am changing my own life to meet the possibilities I have created for myself.
• To share how to transform your life into something that you want now.
• To provoke thoughts and feelings
• To touch and inspire you to dream big and live big

My book is full of stories of things I have done, observations that have come from the experiences, my opinions, and insights. I hope you enjoy them. I am including one story from the book. I hope you will enjoy it!

Learning About Social Media

It is amazing these days at what is available online to help you promote a product or service. Since I want to promote my book, I started investigating. I knew about Twitter, FaceBook, Blogging, LinkedIn, and creating mailing lists as powerful methods for getting your message out there to the masses, but now I’ve been learning about some other tools. Some of these tools are valuable for other uses as well as PR tools:

• Bitly is a way to shorten your links and to track activity. For instance, if your domain is GotALotOfLettersInIt.com, you can use Bitly to shorten it to something like Got.com and then track activity from your shortened link. This is more of an analysis tool from my perspective but could be useful if you want to come up with a cute shortcut name for your site. I guess I could go with Lin.com instead of LinLaurie.com if I wanted to.
• Delicious – This is a tool for social bookmarking. which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. You can also view the most popular bookmarks being saved across many areas of interest. Delicious also has search and tagging tools to help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find the coolest new bookmarks from others like you.
• Digg.com – This tool lets you promote your content. The content is rated by the Digg community. You can choose to follow other Diggers or explore on your own.
• Google + 1 – This is a way for you to rate something so others can instantly know if it is worthwhile or not.  It only works in Google so you must have a Google account. If you already have one and you see those little comment bubbles at the bottom of a page, then you’ve experienced Google+1.
• QR Codes – These are bar codes that you put on flyers or other physical item. If a user engages using their smart phone and the bar code, their interest can be tracked. You can use a bar code generator like http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to create a bar code for your web site or twitter account. Print the bar code on a book or other item and then track its usage. The generator can turn a URL, phone number, text, or SMS message into bar code. You will be on the bleeding edge if you use this technology for analytical purposes but it seems like a great idea if it catches on.
• Reddit – This is a tool that lets users select links to news and videos and then other users vote on them and the more popular the link the higher up in the Reddit list it will appear.  If you put out a provacative video or press release, it may make it up the list but it isn’t for just any kind of announcement.
• Social Mention is a social media search and analytics platfor that aggregates user-generated content from anywhere into a single stream of information. This could be useful to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.
  Social Mention currently provides a point-in-time social media search and analysis service, daily social media alerts, and API.
• Stumbleupon.com – This discovery engine helps you find “the good stuff” on the web. If you click through a suggestion, you “educate” it to learn your likes and dislikes. You can also share your findings with other stumblers.
• Yahoo Buzz – This was discontinued by Yahoo recently but I still see icons listing it on the web. Don’t bother to look into this one.
• YouTube – If you have the talent and ability to put together a short video about your book, product, or service, you can post it on YouTube. If you have a “sticky” gimmick (ideas that stick in people’s minds), you may get coverage from news media. Or you may just have a commercial that you can use on your own website or other places that allow video postings.

Additional reading:

• http://searchengineland.com/the-social-media-promotion-checklist-for-internet-marketers-23926
• http://www.publishingbasics.com/2011/06/27/3-things-you-can-do-offline-to-drive-online-sales/

Production Time for My Book

I am happy to announce that my book is almost through the production process. I’ve used CreateSpace to produce and distribute my book. They have a cafeterial-style list of services starting with self-serve for those writers who know their way around a Word template and how to create a PDF file. From that end, they go all the way up to the other end where they will provide editing, layout, reviewing, and marketing services. These services come with a cost, but I don’t think that the costs are outside the norm.

CreateSpace was purchased by Amazon and one selling factor in its favor is that it posts your book on Amazon. CreateSpace handles the creation of the book, distribution, and they pay you royalties once a month for all books sold. What is awesome about them is that they can produce one book at a time and they do it nicely and cheaply. So there is no advance purchase requirement for writers to have stock onhand. Now you still may want to keep between 10-30 copies for your self if you plan to go to bookstore openings or push your book in other ways. But there is no requirement to layout a lot of upfront cash to proceed. You can order your own book in any number you feel comfortable with handling. Wow!

In the past, a self-publishing writer would need to find a printer and do a print run. Depending on the book requirements such as color, page count, etc. you could be forking out a lot of money. Then you would carry the inventory yourself and schlepp it around to try to sell it. You can still schlepp, but you don’t need to start with 500-1000 copies. I bet we’ll see a lot more people going this route in the future.

Using the CreateSpace printing model, it is your responsibility to market your book. You could choose a marketing plan where assistace is provided but you will still need to do a fair amount of marketing on your own. I plan to start arranging TV, radio, internet, and news interviews to push out my book. I’ve also been collecting the names of co-workers and others who are interested in knowing when my book is released. I will use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social media I can figure out. I have my blog and also my own website. I plan to develop something for each application. I want to become a social media marketing guru.

In the meantime, you can sign up for one of the following ways to find out more about my book:

• To purchase the book: https://www.createspace.com/3629203
• To follow me on tweet: Twitter@linlaurie
• To be added to my mailing list: http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=001kDm6CUQET6-r_HSQ_urbOw%3D%3D

I hope to see your name on one of my lists soon!

Lin