The Useful Ones

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 12: Chunking change

handfulofstars_nadyuuusha

A lot of the feedback I've been getting on my wackadoodle, up-and-down journey through divesting has centered around the overwhelm factor, which makes sense: getting rid of anything is hard for a lot of us, and a kind of paralysis can set in when you're getting rid of a TON of stuff.

I had a few marathon sessions before I hit a wall of exhaustion. You may find that you, too, go kind of crazy with the decluttering once the stopper's been pulled from the drain. But eventually, you need to rest. You do. Even given all that beautiful new energy that pours in to support you. (Maybe it's angels, giving you the high-sign from above.)

And once you've hit the wall and your sprint is over, something else may pop up to further interrupt the process. For me, it was an out-of-town trip to a conference. For three days, I did no decluttering (although I did enjoy the best-packed bag I've ever had at my destination). It was kind of like going off a diet a little, then really falling off the wagon, then deciding, "Hell. I'm'a let that wagon just roll on into the next town while I stay here and eat my way through this pile of Ho-Hos."

For you, the way back in may be whole hog. If so, that's grand! Me, I suffer from Shiny Object Syndromeâ„¢ and myriad other ailments that make me prone to wicked backsliding.

This time around, I've tried something new that seems to be helping:

When I pick something up I haven't touched in a while, I stop, weigh it in my hand and ask if I still want or need it. If I do, it stays (duh). If I don't, I put it in the Goodwill bag, which is large and opaque.

It's a small gesture, but like bringing your attention to your breathing in yoga/meditation or asking yourself the "where am I right now?" question of Method acting, it can be powerfully effective.

If you're on the decluttering train yourself, maybe give it a whirl and let me know how it goes. Or, as folks did in the posts on travel and books, leave your own excellent one-off, quickie ideas for keeping the pump primed (the paint wet? the other, better metaphor?) in between big uses.

xxx
c

Image by Nadyuuusha via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 11: Cafe du Village, and the beauty of disposable goods as reward

cafeduvillage_christinamarcetbrie&applepanini_flao

I was hit by the blow of the decade last week: my beloved Café du Village, delicious, unpretentious and relatively reasonably-priced, indoor-outdoor French eatery on famed (and a wee too twee, but oh, well) Larchmont Boulevard, was getting the boot by the building's owners.

Or rather, they weren't exactly, but raising the rent 100% overnight makes staying put a difficult proposition for a small, family-owned eatery in the middle of the worst economic downturn we've enjoyed (ha!) since the Great Depression.

The good news? They've been given a three-month reprieve. That's three months to load up on the Monsieur Cobb, the curried chicken salad, or the yum-diddlee-yum Nicoise.

Three months of grilled chicken, ham & swiss or my own personal fave, Le Bandol (kinda like Frenchy gyros) on ciabbattina (sic), with a split side of yummy salad and skinny fries (are there any other kind?) on the side. (SCD-ers take note: Le Bandol is also delish served atop the salad alone; order double-meat like the fat, proud, American pig you are and thank me later).

You like breakfast? They do a nice breakfast! And a non-crowded dinner, with a special or two in addition to the regular menu. Personally, I'd get my coffee elsewhere, maybe Peet's, down the block, but coffee in general ain't the best in L.A. What can I say? We get the nice weather instead.

I plan to eat at Cafe du Village as often as humanly possible over the next few months, both to get my fix and perhaps generate some positive juju flowing their way, that they might be asked to stay a little bit longer. It is my fondest wish that if you are an Angeleno or just passing through, decluttering or not, you make Cafe du Village your destination for breakfast, lunch or dinner at least once in that three-month window as well. It is hard to find great places to eat clean (although I've been known to succumb to a fry or two in my weaker moments), and I'd like this one to stick around, or at least enjoy such a rollicking business that they're compelled to re-open in a new (and less twee, maybe?) location if they do get the boot.

Decluttering and all, I'm still considering the purchase of one of their ultra-cute tees, in solidarity with them. But reward enough for me will be Le Bandol on salad, double-meat, with a fruity-ass iced tea on the side.

Eminently delicious; 100% biodegradable.

Win/win...

xxx
c

Cafe du Village
139 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 466-3996

(open until January; call first, just in case!)

Photo © flao via Flickr.

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 8: Clutter Busting (book review)

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The hardest book reviews to write are about the books that, for whatever reason, make your heart beat most wildly.

These may not even be the books you enjoy the most; you may enjoy these books least of all, if that makes any sense. The things that touch you are not necessarily elegant nor exquisitely wrought nor especially witty. But they pierce you somehow, getting straight to core of what makes you you, for better or worse, and in doing so, they disarm you.

Or, to put it another way, it's hard to write a review when you feel like you've just been pantsed.

This is the effect that reading Brooks Palmer's new book, Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back, had upon me. The writing seems deliberately stark and gentle, stripped of all the hoo-ha and folderol with which I love to adorn most of my own ideas, designed so that there is no avoiding the very simple, almost alarming thoughts contained within, yet somehow softening you enough to yield to them. Like...

  • "Things will not make you happy." (page 4) I know this. We all know this, kinda sorta. But most of what most of us are surrounded by every day screams "More and/or newer is exactly what will make you happy...AND HERE IT IS!" TV, radio, magazines, billboards, stores, and that great, big 24/7 bazaar of Never Ending Stuff, the Internet. It is, quite literally, difficult to sit still and do nothing, or even to sit still and do one thing. Whereas Brooks, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times on his last visit to Southern California, including one at-work time, has so little "noise" he can be completely present and still even amongst the most chaotic of circumstances, seven ladies dealing with a combined 280 woman-years of crap, or a crowded networking event on the West Side's noisiest outdoor dining area. It's unnerving even as it inspires. Like this book.
  • "Hanging on to things is a way to avoid change." (also page 4) I know this, too. Or, I think I did. Maybe I heard it somewhere before, in a book where the writer was also trying to be entertaining and clever. I loved Peter Walsh's book, and you might, too. But smart assery is my modus operandi, and that book was apparently too far inside my comfort zone. I enjoyed it, but I did not take it to heart. For those of us used to cluttering up our feelings with fancy turns of phrase, Clutter Busting may be the better bet. It's far too earnest and plainspoken to turn away from.
  • "Clutter keeps you from feeling." (page 90) This, from a really excellent chapter that addicts of all stripes will recognize and run screaming in the night from. Kidding. No, I'm not. Nor is Palmer. It's an interesting paradox, because one of the reasons we acquire things is to either chase a feeling or hang onto one, both impossibilities, but hey, hope springs eternal. The hard work of letting go of the things we think give us the feelings (or the stopping of the chasing of them through acquisition) actually does let the feelings happen. Only with those good feelings come all the other feelings and...well, living is fucking hard. But it beats the alternative.

Palmer seems to have written the book so you can drop in at any point and start with any node of decluttering; as he says in his annoyingly true chapter on how clutter is all about avoiding change,

Change is like a dog that is utterly enthusiastic to see you the moment you decide to greet it. There is no right time to begin other than now.

Each chapter contains several exercises for addressing clutter, so you can do so from pretty much any angle that works for you. Some of the exercises involve imagination, stepping outside of yourself to get a better look at your surroundings or your relationship to the things that surround you, including everything from pretending you're dead and that loved ones have been assigned the task of combing through your possessions to interviewing your clutter (yes, really).

He also has some pretty hard and fast rules about execution: there are not a lot of "maybe" or "to mend" piles in Palmer's universe; this may seem overly harsh, but in my extended experience with the decluttering process, those two piles often become "gimmes" and are responsible for a lot of crap creep. It's easy to kid yourself that you'll take those unflattering pants to the tailor or get the glass on that hideous poster replaced, when most of the time you'd have done it already if you really, truly loved it.

I'm at a place in my own process where all I really needed were the right set of words (I guess) to give myself permission, and this book abounds with those. It's a plain and simple message at heart, people matter, things don't, and Palmer comes up with many different, yet very plain and simple, ways of delivering it. Not all works resonate with all people, so by all means, browse the book in a store, check out the sample pages on Amazon, or enjoy some of the fine posts on Palmer's blog to see about fit.

But if at first glance you feel like it's not a fit, ask yourself about compassion: how much you have for yourself, for your predicament, for your secret, down-deep, tender desire to become something better, even if you've no idea what that is right now, much less how you'll get there from here. Because you will get there, I promise.

And the first step, before even looking at what might possibly be in the way, is to address yourself with compassion. Love is what's under everything: doesn't it make sense that we handle the journey towards the heart of it with that very same love?

xxx
c

Image by Mish Bradley via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Clearing my (psychic) clutter, Day 4: Brooks Palmer, decluttering catalyst

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If you had told me even a week ago that one night in the frighteningly-not-distant future I'd be standing in the showroom of an El Segundo boutique, letting a stand-up comic talk me into heaving photographs of my parents into the trash can, I'd have laughed in your face. As politely as I could, but seriously, family photos? I would no more throw away the blurriest, crappiest, surliest-faced of them than I would mark or cut up a book. Some things are sacred, if you grew up a middle-class child of the 1960s.

That's just what I did, though, along with about 400 attendant lbs. of psychic baggage. Brooks Palmer, former actor/retailer/what-have-you, current author and clutter-buster to the stars, has a way about him that removes the threat of...doom? Death? Plain old fear itself?

I'm not exactly sure, to tell you the truth. It's way too close to the actual event to have the proper kind of perspective on it. But I feel like I've had a gigantic cork pulled out of me and stuff has just started flowing again. I mean, I started this salute with the thought that, "oh, good, I'm doing this workshop; there will probably be some fodder there for the blog." Or, I knew I was going to a thing; I had no idea that this was going to be an Event.

For the similarly crippled by clutter who need help, here's the deal:

Brooks Palmer, who's been doing what he calls "clutter busting" for about 15 years professionally (and longer than that, just noodling around) is based in Chicago but travels extensively to work one-on-one with private clients in their homes and offices, and leading workshops for small groups. (Ours was especially small, at just seven messy ladies.) He's in Los Angeles four times per year for two weeks at a time, and usually does a Northern Cali stop on those trips; so far, he's done U.S. workshops exclusively, although after an interesting interview with the London stringer for Paris Match, he's setting up a workshop there soon, and open to visiting other nearby places on that trip.

He'll also work via the phone. I lucked out and got the in-person experience, but as someone who does 99.99% of my own consulting work over the phone (and has been coached, consulted and shrunk via the phone as well), I'm guessing it's pretty effective or he wouldn't offer it. Dude is the soul of integrity and kindness from what I've seen so far.

He also has a terrific book I'll do a full report on this Tuesday. If you're a highly motivated DIYer, and/or you've been on the decluttering warpath for a stretch, it might do you fine alone. But to me, the killer combo would be to do what I did: warm up with the book, then get a session or hit a workshop. You, too, will soon be hurling out dead plants and dead relatives like the freewheeling, unattached, pre-buddhic spirit you are meant to be!

xxx
c

P.S. His excellent clutter-busting blog has tons of great tips, insights and inspiring stories you can read for free. See if you recognize the, uh, "workshop participant" in this recap post. Not that you need to be a clairvoyant to read me like a book with attached Cliff's Notes.

Photo of Brooks Palmer & yours truly @ 2009 Dyana Valentine.

Referral Friday: Jen & Charlie's Work Party

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

workspace_mathonan

Getting organized is hard. So is hewing to the right stuff and letting go of stuff-stuff. I know; I'm doing it, for the eleventy-billionth time.

And while I've read a lot of helpful books and blogs and even plain, old-fashioned articles on Actual Paper, the most effective kickstart I've had (outside of the crumbling of some relationship, which is always so delightfully galvanizing for me) has been the good, old-fashioned purging I did at a good, old-fashioned Work Party.

You did who in the what now?

Jen Hoffman has a little business called the Inspired Home Office, where she helps people create and maintain the spaces they need to get done what they need to. Charlie Gilkey is a self-described "systems guy" who helps people wrap their brains around what's getting in the way (literally and from a process standpoint) of them getting their Real Work done. You can see how this might work, but really, you have to experience it. Because honestly, I had my suspicions going into it that two and a half hours on a conference call was going to be weird at best and ungodly annoying at worst.

What happened in that two and a half (!!!) hours was a gentle moving towards clear, if that makes sense. We did a little talking, explaining where we were stuck and what we hoped to get out of the experience. They did a lot of listening, and a little reframing*. And then we played little games with our stuff. Right there and then, we did brief exercises that actually helped excavate our desks and floors and what-have-you from the piles of crapola that they'd been buried in, poor dears.

Because it was gentle and slow and fun, it was not scary and hateful and resistance-provoking. It's just a game, so you play! Only at the end of the game, you haven't just had fun, you've cleared your shit out and are all fired up about commencin' to work on their Real Purpose.

And in case you forget, that Real Purpose thing? That's why we're here at The Big Party, period...

xxx
c

Details for Jen & Charlie's Work Party:

  • Date: Monday, October 26, 2009
  • Time: ET: 2pm-4:30pm / CT: 1pm-3:30pm / MT: 12pm-2:30pm / PT: 11pm-1:30pm
  • Available space: Limited to 12 people
  • Last day to sign up: Wednesday, October 21, 2009
  • The price: $57

Photo by Mat Honan via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. Pretty inspirational note on that photo at the Flickr page, worth a look!

*That's what most good coaches and consultants are, by the way, good reframers, who get you to see things differently and in a way that helps you move yourself toward action. Freebie, on the house. I love you, too.

,

Ready to set yourself free?

,

podcampaz_azchrislee

I've talked about books I wished existed when I was starting on my journey to this or that aspect of self-actualization, but I have not talked about the class I wished existed.

This is it.

Pam Slim's Escape from Cubicle Nation tour stops are the start-your-engines workshop you want if you are:

  • doing work you hate and can't see your way out of
  • recently laid off from a job and have no "plan B" but know you ultimately don't want to keep working for The Man
  • germinating some kind of idea but unclear about how to move forward with it

I know; I sat in on one in Chicago this July. It's an extraordinary day of support, discovery, encouragement and actual, bona-fide tools to help you get your shit together and get to work turning dreams into action. Pam, whose writing I have long adored, is even better in person. She's a presenter's presenter, fun and funny, charming and smart, and one of those people you're instantly comfortable with handing yourself over to.

She's also a freaky magnetic sort who attracts the best kind of people to her. I was blown away by the people who attended the Chicago event, although after watching her work her magic at South by Southwest earlier this year, I shouldn't have been surprised. The day is a mix of Pam teaching and people actually hunkering down to do the work. You'll come out of the day with the beginning stages of a map and a plan, plus, if past events are any indication, a whole new tribe of people who are fellow travelers to help make your journey easier and more enjoyable. (In general, that's been the most valuable takeaway of my favorite events, but you really do get vast quantities of good, actionable info here, too.)

You'll also get me, yours truly, taking you through the nuts and bolts of my branding process. This is what one-on-one clients pay a lot of money for, and you get it rolled into the cost of your day with Pam. Because really, this is all about you getting what you need to move forward with what you want, and Pam's stuff contains the most critical first steps you need to understand.

How much for all this wonderfulness?

  • Early bird registration is $138, increasing to $168 on October 19 at 5pm PST.
  • SPECIAL BONUS! Enter "Communicatrix" (without the quote marks) at checkout and you'll get an additional $20 off.

Best of all, seats are limited to 50. That means plenty of time to interact with Pam and me, ask tons of questions and come away with even more ideas. If you have questions, you can email me (colleen AT communicatrix DOT com) or Pam (pamelac.slim AT gmail DOT com) or, if you're into the Twitter, shoot Pam your questions there: she's @pamslim (shocking, I know).

Wait, when is it again? And where?

Well, I didn't say yet. But here are the details:

Wednesday, November 4, 8:30am – 4:00pm

The Belamar Hotel,
3501 Sepulveda Boulevard
Manhattan Beach, California 90266
(310) 750-0300

And to cap it all off, you'll be capping it all off: this is Pam's last stop on the tour for 2009, with no firm plans in place for starting up in 2010. In other words, if you're local and this speaks to you, jump on it. And if you're not local and it speaks to you, consider jumping on a plane.

Magic happens, but only when you give it room.

xxx
c

Image © Chris Lee, via Flickr.

ALSO OF POSSIBLE INTEREST!

...for the chronically disorganized: My PacNW trip got rejiggered a bit with the cancellation of a retreat I was looking forward to. Fortunately, this opened up my schedule to attend my friend and client Sam Carpenter's Work the System Boot Camp on November 16th & 17th in Bend, OR. You may have read about the breakthroughs I had upon reading Sam's book (before I even met him); since then, "WTS" has continued to enrich my life as it streamlines the way I approach much of the more tedious aspects of it (sorry, tree-huggers, but some parts of wax-on, wax-off are tedious!)

Since I'm coming anyway, Sam asked if I'd do a very short summary of some of the key aspects of branding yourself effectively, and of course, he was so charming (and effective!), I couldn't refuse. More to the point, if you put the word "Colleen" in the coupon code window upon checkout, you'll get an additional 30% off the insanely low price of $100 (and that price includes meals and a hard copy of the book).

...for the financially-challenged: Somehow or other, I wound up on a panel at this big Learning Annex free-for-all in San Francisco on Saturday, November 7. Its official name is the Learning Annex Make Money Expo. Suze Orman is headlining. I'll be on a panel talking about freelancing. I have no idea what any of this will be like. But hey, they gave me a coupon code for my peeps: enter "WEB" in the coupon code box at check out to save $35 smackers, which gets you a dazzling day of, um, money stuff for just $19. I mean, that's cheap, right? Plus we could meet! Maybe it's worth it to you to pay $19 to meet me and hear what I have to say about freelancing, right?

Book review: Simple Abundance

poolbreak_Tom@HK

There are some books you can sit down and write a smashing, relevant review about instantly upon finishing reading them.

Pam's book is one of those, as is Chris and Julien's. Whether or not I learn something new from them (and I did with both books), these kinds of books cover topics I know well enough to recognize that they'll be outrageously useful to someone coming to them for the first time: they're the kinds of books I wish I'd had at the beginning of my odysseys in self-employment and the social web, respectively.

Likewise, it's a fairly straightforward proposition to review a work of fiction or a biography or a memoir once I'm done. Not easy, necessarily, but simple: did I like it or didn't I, and why? I might write a slightly different review after a re-read years down the road, deeper, more nuanced, with additional insights, but it's unlikely that my opinion will fundamentally change (assuming that I'm ingesting the book with the requisite knowledge for basic comprehension the first time around. Or it hasn't happened so far.)

Books of prescriptives are a little harder to review wholeheartedly because, like products and services and classes, their true value often isn't apparent until way after the fact of consumption. The Artist's Way is a perfect example of this. It's an outstanding book, and perfect for a certain type of person seeking a certain kind of self-knowledge. But I wouldn't have been able to endorse it until years after the fact (and as someone who does it so frequently now, I'm overdue to write a formal review). Getting Things Done is another one. While the lights go on as you read it if you're the Right Audience for David Allen's great but really complex system, only implementation and time will tell if it's good for you.

Two things have come up recently that have me looking hard at books I've not only read, but consumed, and that have proven useful to me. It's easy, perilously so, to forget once you've trod the ground and moved on to other things how intensely you struggled with something when first you ran hard up against it. (Walking, anyone? Or omelet-making? Or driving stick?)

The first thing is the preponderance of talk in the air about decluttering or paring down or what have you. Maybe it's the economy, maybe it's a function of acceleration, but all of a sudden the zeitgeist seems to have shifted from acquiring stuff or organizing all the stuff we've acquired to getting rid of it. My new friend Lisa Sonora Beam and I were just talking yesterday about how the stuff, once gone, seems to let the ideas and emotions flow more easily (not to mention remove a lot of worry about dusting and insuring and suchlike). Andy Dick, of all people, was on Adam Carolla's podcast talking about getting rid of all his beautiful stuff and moving into an Airstream trailer in his ex's backyard to spend more time with his kids. (It's an especially good episode, by the way; check it out.)

I'll write a separate post about that at some point, perhaps, but let me say this about the simplification books: almost without exception, you should not buy a book on simplifying, at first. Even Leo, who wrote a really terrific book about the power of less and supports his family with his writing is with me on this: he gives his book away for free. Buying a thing to solve your problem with acquiring things is like cracking open a beer to troubleshoot your drinking problem: might feel good in the moment, but is getting you further from, not closer to your goal.

The second thing is how many people I'm hearing who are looking, looking, looking for meaning, at all points in the trajectory. Because I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but it's an ongoing thing, the looking, looking, looking. I've gotten much closer than I ever thought I'd be pre-Crohn's onset, and off-the-charts close compared to head-up-my-ass, ad whore me, wandering the streets of Westwood, filled with falafel and inchoate longing.

Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, by Sarah Ban Breathnach, was one of my guidebooks out of that particular hell of inchoate longing. It's an agnostic prayer book of sorts, a volume of 365 daily exercises, thought- or action-based, to lead you from some kind of confusion to some kind of clarity. Honestly, I think that almost anything done methodically and incrementally can be a tonic: a photo a day, a page a day, a walk around the neighborhood a day. (Probably not a beer a day, but don't quote me on that.) Bringing yourself back to the same activity lets you loop around the mountain again and again, slowly and deliberately, slowing you down and giving time and space for truth to bubble up and patterns to emerge.

The value of Simple Abundance at that particular point in my life was its gentleness and softness. I am (still) given to handling myself with a certain brusqueness: my shrink says I suffer from a chronic lack of entitlement, which is not humility (that's a nice thing that requires softness and awareness) but a brutality mindset. And the world doesn't need me being a brute any more than I do. It was, come to think of it, really humiliating (or at least humbling) at times, working the Simple Abundance book. Certainly I felt like a Class A jackass, and kept that sucker hidden away from sight like it was super-kinky p0rn. It got me where I needed to go, though, and, FOR ME, was a perfect follow-up to The Artist's Way. Or maybe prelude, honestly, it was so long ago, I can't remember.

While it's been in print a long, long time and has many adherents, it may not be for you. It's very fluffy-cozy-precious-tea, if you catch my drift. The cover is pink! With scrolly stuff! Before plunking down your hard-earned money, you should definitely page through it in the store, or at least peek inside on the Amazon page. And read the 1- and 2-star and 3-star reviews as well as the 4- and 5-star ones (that's a good rule of thumb in general, if you're not doing it already. You'll learn more from the full scope of reviews than you will the gushing ones).

There are lots of copies available used, as well. Perhaps there are a lot of haters out there, or perhaps, like me, it's a journey you only want to take once. For a while, I'd buy up a copy whenever I came across it in the field, then give it away when I came across someone who needed it.

Here's the thing: if it speaks to you, even if you're a hardass and embarrassed by the speaking, go ahead and get it. Put it in a plain brown slipcover and lock it away in a secret cupboard, if you have to, but do it. We hardasses need to do tricky end-runs around ourselves with some of this self-improvement stuff, but we need to do it. Because your hardass gifts are of severely limited use to anyone if they're not tempered by a little softness and understanding. And I'm here to tell you now, they will turn on you at some point if you don't stay the (gentle) boss of them.

xxx
c

Image by Tom@HK via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Referral Friday: BuyOlympia.com and Nikki McClure

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

IMG_0610

Nowhere are my whack-job Virgo tendencies on better display, metaphorically and literally, as you can see by the photo, above, as they are in my picky picky picky set of criteria for a great, functional wall calendar.

  1. It must be stunning, because it is going to be displayed prominently on my wall.
  2. It must be simple, because it is going to be displayed on my wall all year. I use my digital calendar to write stuff down in; I want a wall calendar to show me the date, period.
  3. It must be compact, because it is going to be on my wall, which I like to use for other stuff besides two square feet of What's Going Down When.
  4. It must be easy to read from four feet away, because my eyes ain't gettin' any better.
  5. It must be matte, because glossy paper is for magazines and bad motivational posters.

I fiddaddled with all kinds of calendars over the many, many years I've used them, but once I discovered Nikki McClure's, I stopped looking.

Her woodcut papercut* illustrations are both stunning and simple, wearing well over the year and years after. I've saved most of my Nikki McClure calendars from previous years because they're too beautiful to pitch or even recycle.** The sentiments are thoughtful, not cloying, the design is perfection and the paper is delicious. I could eat that paper.

Toward the end of last year, it struck me that, just like having the previous and upcoming years printed alongside the current in one's checkbook in equal weights, you know, back when we still used checkbooks, it might be useful to have such a set-up on the wall, so I could at a glance see what's going down, what's coming up, and, if necessary, grab a day/date from the previous month. Production people scope out a few months at a time on those heinous but useful dry-erase calendars; wouldn't the same thing be nice if it was, you know, nice?

A year later, I can happily say that it is. I no longer have to fire up my electronic calendar while I'm pacing around with the phone, or jump to a different program when I just need a quick date. It helps when I'm writing thank you notes, it helps when I'm writing in my notebook (I date the pages of stuff I'm working on), it helps when trying to get a basic handle on where I am in time and space (this will sound crazy to more organized people, but may make sense to ungrounded, arty-farty visual types who are perpetually in danger of floating off into the stratosphere if they become unmoored.)

So a couple of months ago, I wrote to the fine folk at BuyOlympia, showed 'em my rig, and asked if they could perhaps offer a specially priced three-pack for other OCD types. They talked to Nikki, everyone agreed, et voila! Here it be.

As they point out in the item description, a perfectly fine use of the three-pack would be to keep one and gift two friends with the other copies. Let's turn the world onto these wonderful calendars, and keep Nikki in linoleum blocks and carving tools until she drops! Or, if you're not into Colleen's Overzealous Ordering of Time in One Place, you could have a calendar for key rooms in your house. I swear, just like a clock, it's nice to be in eyeshot of a calendar.

Especially one that is essentially art masquerading as a useful item. Because as we all know, when in doubt, buy art...

xxx
c

*Sorry! I knew this, I swear. But Ms. McClure emailed me herself to remind me that they are cut with an X-Acto from a single sheet of black paper.

**And they're still (mostly) sitting around. Hawk-eyed McClure fans out there will note that a couple of birdie illos made it into the frame, but boy, I'd love to pass along what else I have to an interested party. If that's you, email me your contact info and what you like to make. I'll ship off what I've got to the first one I get. Thanks for your emails, Nikki McClure fans! They've been snatched up by a lovely reader who will use them to decorate the walls of the apt. she's newly moved into.

Image by Colleen Wainwright via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Book review: Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life

redribbon_Muffet

My favorite example of the conceivably-possible, magical woo-woo powers of feng shui has to do with two checks for $10,000 each and my kitchen, which, according to the Black Hat school of feng shui* (as differentiated from the compass school) is my prosperity corner.

It was the summer of consternation for me: a devastating breakup, the role of a lifetime and, though I didn't know it yet, the onset of Crohn's disease. I was miserable and looking for distraction; somehow or other, during one of my many forays down the self-help aisle at my local bookstore, I discovered Karen Rauch Carter's Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life.

Serendipitously, the heartbreak had already spurred me to begin what all (good) feng shui experts agree is the first step to chi'd-up house: throwing shit out and cleaning what's left from stem to stern. Earlier that summer, I'd bought a mini-steam cleaner and started cleaning my filthy carpet on my hands and knees in obsessive, 12" squares. When my back threatened to give out, I dismantled every jalousie window in my place (curse you, 1950s designers!) and cleaned not only the glass slats themselves but the hardware, with Q-Tips. Lots and lots of Q-Tips.

I wouldn't suggest going that far (unless you're as OCD as me and whoever invented Q-Tips), but it bears stressing: clean first. And throw a bunch of stuff out. Otherwise, like layering perfume on top of stank, you stand to compound any confusion that already exists.

Once you've got things relatively clean and clear, you can start having some fun with stuff: moving things around, sprucing up, adding "cures" where you feel like they're warranted. A red ribbon tied discreetly around a pipe, to prevent good fortune from going down the drain, a candle (fire element) to bolster my Fame and Reputation bagua, a slip of yellow construction paper behind a bookcase in my Health area. Carter's position on applying feng shui to one's life is that the process should be fun and joyful, not serious and scary, and all of her advice, including cures (to correct shitty shui) and admonitions (to pay particular attention to this or that) is served up in a light, breezy tone. Occasionally, too breezy for me, she veers into cornball territory every so often. But she is charming and authentic and lovely, so we forgive her that.

We also love that Rauch does not advocate breaking the bank to get some money flowing back into yours. The book has lots of suggestions for moving stuff from one part of your house to another, or just rearranging things in the room. The only things I actually bought for my feng shui adventure were some lengths of inexpensive red ribbon (that good-fortune-down-the-drain thing did kind of freak me out) and lavender contact paper. My Prosperity/Abundance corner is square in my kitchen, plus I'd never put down my own contact paper in the drawers when I moved in, so, you know, ew. It was time.

I've told the story at least a hundred times, often just before giving away yet another copy of Rauch's book to another friend in need of lover, cash, luck or just diversion: within two weeks of starting my Feng Shui that Kitchen! project, two gigantic residual checks, for $10,000 each, floated into my agent's office on the same day. My agents had been leaning on the producers, since they keep track of this sort of thing, but something finally broke in that 14-day stretch.

Magic or happenstance? Honestly, I didn't care. I had a clean and lovely kitchen, a ginormous deposit in the bank and the satisfaction of participating in a little white voodoo. It's hard even for a woo-woo-friendly soul like me to say, "Oh, sure! I sprinkled fairy dust around my apartment and Chinese leprechauns showed up at the door with a pot of gold."

On the other hand, I do know that what I turn my attention to tends to flourish and what I ignore becomes a static, sticky mess. And that when I create room for something, it does tend to show up. So who knows?

Ultimately, I see feng shui, and especially Move Your Stuff's user-friendly, no-pressure serving-up of it, as a great framework from which to initiate change. In the book's first chapter, Rauch quotes physicist and feng shui-er Barry Gordon as saying that feng shui is "'the intelligent use of intention through environmental metaphor." He goes on then at length about quantum mechanics and a lot of other stuff that makes my head hurt, but the money graf is this:

Every thing, even the sticky front door that doesn't open all the way, has meaning. Every thing, every action is intentional, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious. Feng shui brings the unconscious in our environment back into consciousness. That brings the beliefs and feelings back into consciousness. Then we have choice and can create our universe consciously.

First, attention. Then action.

Then checks in the mail, perfect health and a handsome man to play ukulele in your goofy video.

xxx
c

Image by Muffet via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*Here's a pretty reasonable description of the various schools from a page without too many doo-dads on it. Amazing how many feng shui pages have crappy feng shui themselves.

Referral Friday: Biznik

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

biznik091609.27

I am the first to confess that I did not "get" Biznik when I first encountered it.

What was up with the cute name and the forum boosterism? Seemed pretty at odds with a saucy tagline ("Business networking that doesn't suck.") Mostly, why were these people all so goddamn friendly?

biznik091609.18

It took a month-long trip up to Seattle last year to see the light: Biznik, the site works because it's designed to develop Biznik, the real-life community. These are not people who just hang out on the Internet all the time (although some hang out a lot of the time, I'll tell you); these are people using the web, and specifically Biznik, to cultivate relationships that they then take offline, a.k.a. "meatspace," a.k.a. "the actual three-dimensional world." The easy-to-use interface that lets them sort and connect and reach out and share helps like-minded people save time and shoe leather and agita by doing a lot of the heavy lifting of maintaining relationships, which is really the small, upkeep-type stuff that falls by the wayside without these tools.

So on Biznik, you can write an article about your area of expertise or interest, then publish it for a pre-selected group of interested people to read. You can read other people's stuff and start conversations about it, or chat on message boards, or use any number of other tools, search, email, forums, groups, to get to know them, sifting and sorting online so you're not walking into a room cold when you do finally venture out. Rather than certain other networking sites where people go just to sleaze off the land and skim off what they can, you're building something cool every time you connect on, and then off of it.

biznik091609.12

A caution or two if you decide to jump in.

First, give it time. Like any new spot, it takes a while to get the lay of the land. Click around, see what's up, get comfortable. Read the "about" page and skim the FAQ to get a feel for the way things work there. And for a view from someone who's been there/done that, here's a very illuminating "best practices" post from my former coach/mentor, Ilise Benun, who PUSHED me into Biznik.

Second, give it attention. Most great things in life get that way because you apply yourself to them, and this is no exception. I didn't start "getting" Biznik, much less getting much out of it, until my trip to the PacNW last year, where, after going to several events and co-hosting a few, I finally got the hell out of it.

I know that no one has time to waste on social networking (unless they're playing those damned word games on Facebook, in which case they appear to have all the time in the world). Ultimately, what I love about Biznik, other than the fine, fine people I've met through it, is the idea of what it could become: a built-in network of awesome people you can tap into anywhere you go. Toastmasters runs on this model: as a member you are warmly welcomed as a guest at any Toastmasters meeting you attend, anywhere in the world. Show up in Beijing or Manchester or Sao Paulo and POOF!, you've got insta-community.

biznik091609.21

With enough of us onboard, I can see Biznik becoming a mini-version of this for indie biz types as they make their way around the world, helping to connect the people and passion that, in combination, make great things start happening.

Photos of various Bizniks by various other Bizniks grabbing Dyana Valentine's camera.


Book review: Ignore Everybody

macleodctrix08

There are three people and/or things directly to blame for me starting a blog way, way back on November 1, 2004:

  1. a severe onset of Crohn's disease, which served both to jar things loose and make me unafear'd (or less afear'd) of looking like a jackass;
  2. my friend, Debbie, who is so discreet her web footprint is almost invisible, and so modest she's probably already mortified at being called out here (hi, Deb!);
  3. Hugh MacLeod, insanely great writer and generous creative mind who also draws cartoons on the backs of business cards

I was introduced to the goodness that was Hugh back in 2003 by a smart but annoying troubadour during my 18-month tenure as the Whore of Babylon. Hugh's blog was by far The Troubadour's biggest gift to me; I was instantly hooked both by the mad and intricate drawings that came from Hugh's Rapidograph and the buckets of cold, clear water he splashed over the screen with his keyboard. The Hughtrain, his manifesto on marketing, remains one of my favorite WAKE THE FUCK UP, PEOPLE! screeds on the nexus of old tenets and new tools. His blog posts were a refreshing mix of smart, funny and flat-out curmudgeonly. And the cartoons, well, they made me laugh. Hard. And think, at the same time. And slightly after that, wish I could draw well (I'm still trying, as you can see by the little illos on my monthly newsletter). And yes, hate him. Just a little.

But it was his "How to Be Creative" series that hooked me hard and eventually turned me into the drooling fangirl obsessively linking linking linking to Hugh's shit. "How to Be Creative" was as comprehensive in his way as Twyla's is in hers. There's theory embedded in there, and stories, and even how-tos, if you're not a lazy slob.

Ignore Everybody (And 39 Other Keys to Creativity) is the book that (finally) sprung from that amazing series of posts. It's inspiring and infuriating, and it's both of those things because it's true as hell. Hugh has lived his way through these 40 rules and has the experiences and the output (and doubtless the battle scars) to show for it.

The book itself is an example of Rules #1 ("Ignore Everybody") and #16 ("The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do from what you are not.") As he says himself in a story illustrating Rule #5 ("If your business plan depends on suddenly being 'discovered' by some big shot, your plan will probably fail"*), Hugh was offered a deal years before to turn his series into a book, but turned it down because ultimately, he couldn't stomach the terms. This book, he says, is exactly the book he wanted to make, with exactly the cartoons to illustrate it.

Having gone through a heady back-and-forth myself with a big NYC agent earlier this year, this cheered me greatly. Yeah, I was probably a dumbass (or a hard-head) in most people's books for not making some changes that would move me closer to my dream of being a Writer Who Speaks.

In my book, though, it would have been in wild violation of Rules #27 ("Write from the heart") and #26 ("You have to find your own shtick.") When something is going to chip away at your soul just enough to bother you, there really isn't another choice.

To answer that question (cheap) people repeatedly bring up when it comes to books derived from blogs, yes, a great deal of what you'll find in Ignore Everybody is easily found on Hugh's blog. Frankly, if you're that hard up, I'm guessing Hugh would be cool with you reading the material online for free and just missing out on the tweaks and finessing that make this a book-book. But if you're really enmeshed in the struggle to be creative, don't you want an ally at your side, your literal, actual side, while you whack your way through the marshy swamps that lie between you and your cherished prize?

I did. I do. No one is getting my copy. Not until Oprah drives by in that long, sleek limo, rolls down the window and beckons me in...

xxx
c

*Or, as I call it, the Limo Analogy.

Card design ©2008 Colleen Wainwright; Card redesign ©2008 HughMacLeod.

Referral Friday: 20x200

monteiroreferralfriday

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

I think if you are a writer, especially one who wants to sell books, you should consume as many books as possible.

I think if you are a seller of products or services, you should buy other people's products and services.

And I think if you are a living, breathing human being, you should buy art. Go look at it, too, in museums and galleries and such. Make some, while you're at it.

But buying art is some of the most joyous of energy-exchanging you can experience. To look at something whose sole purpose is to wake you up or to tell you the truth or to make your heart sing and say, "Yes! Yes! I support this! Yes!", that, my friends, is better than diamonds, or sunshine, or the finest small-batch bourbon swirling around in your glass before it heads down your gullet.

Especially diamonds.

I get that some people are a little freaked out by the art-buying process. I remember getting dizzy, the first time I spent real money on a painting, $1,000, in 1986.

The dizziness passes, and you're left with the most wonderful feeling in the world, easily accessible ever after with a mere tilt of the eyes upward, or even a pause of remembering while you and your baby are separated.

Jen Bekman, curatrix of the 20x200 project, makes it easy-peasy to buy art. Artists offer their works at various price points, small, medium and large, and there are dozens of galleries to choose from. We know I'm a fan of Mr. Monteiro's, so I started with the print shown above. You should start anywhere you like.

But start. Please start...

xxx
c

Book review: The Creative Habit

crayolaLincolnLogs_laffy4K

Whether from laziness, lack of inspiration or the youthful conditioning that made me the cheapskate I am today, it's rare that I will mark up a book.

Unless the book is choreographer Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit and you are me over the past two weeks. If my first pass was any indication, I'm going to need to bust out the box of 64 for subsequent reads. Of which there will be many. Many.

It would almost be disrespectful not to mark up a book like this: a staggeringly juicy and well-crafted manual/bible/first aid kit, bursting with tools and inspiration for creative types, served up in every possible way to serve every possible style of learner.

There are concepts, laid out clearly and logically and in an order that makes perfect sense, and that would be a jumble of chaos in the hands of lesser wranglers*.

There are stories to illuminate and illustrate the concepts, both from Tharp's career and those of the great artistic legends of our time and beyond.

There are pictures, there are (praise be!) lists, there are pull-quotes.

And there are exercises, 32 glorious, immediately executable exercises, that I guarantee you will be all over like white on rice.

One minor quibble? The bulk of the book is rather unfortunately set in Bodoni, a lovely title case, but a bit hard on the eyes as a text case**. On the other hand, it slows you down, which is probably a good thing: I quite often found myself racing through parts, my greedy brain screaming for more, and faster. This is a book to be devoured and savored, and marked up, and discussed, and grabbed for in moments of creative crisis. Of which...well, you know.

Honestly, I don't care who you buy this from. But buy it. It's not a loaner. Not unless you have an extremely understanding librarian.

And then, when you get it, don't put it on your "to read" stack: put your ass in the chair, get a big, old writing implement and commence to reading***.

You can write and thank me later...

xxx
c

Image by laffy4K via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*The author credits go to Tharp and Mark Reiter, Tharp's literary agent and a frickity-frackin' Renaissance one at that, he's collaborated on eleven other books! That's the kind of agent I want, dammit.

**Merlin likened it to "reading a 250-page poster for a freshman poetry series." Maybe unkindly, but brother, it's the truth.

***Thank you, Julien. You were 100% right, and I totally owe you a beverage of choice.

Referral Friday: LOCAL

local_stevendamron

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

Funny that until I'd actually typed out the name of my new-favorite local eatery here in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, the aptly named "LOCAL", I'd never thought of the potential for shifting the stress to the other syllable and making it "Lo-CAL", a world away in meaning, for want of some punctuation.

LOCAL is about many things: fresh, delicious, simple ingredients prepared with love in novel and exceptional ways; a laid-back, neighborhood-y vibe in which to enjoy your squares; and, yes, hot guys (see above photo for documentation, living in hipster L.A. has its advantages). What it is not about is anything lo-cal, by which I chiefly mean food-esque items that have been manipulated into simulacra of real food, only with whatever extracted so that you don't plump up around the edges. You know: the diet, lo-cal crap you find packaged in stores with labels like "Healthy Gack" or anything with the extra consonants in the word "light" removed.

Then again, LOCAL is hardly a fat-fest, and should you bring your level head along to direct your mandible, I'm guessing you'll come out alright. (Or, if you're local and walk or bike there, you can pig out with relative peace of mind.) But there are things like pig in various delicious forms on the menu, and there are eggs, and there is butter. Tasty, tasty butter, as in "a good pat and a half on my thick-cut, fresh-baked slice of rye toast." Sweet Jesus, carry me home.

There are also plenty of yummy vegetables to balance things out. My dining (or rather, breakfasting) companion had a mind-blowing side of sauteed spinach, yes, spinach, laced with thyme and apple matchsticks. And that was only the obvious and/or visible prep: our host and pork-enabler, Lee, explained the rather elaborate three-step process the spinach went through before things like heat and apple matchsticks were introduced. And something-something locally sourced and organically grown and OH, LOOK, A BUNNY!

Whatever, Lee! Just keep those lovingly-pulled Americanos coming and smile at us with your icy-blue orbs of magical goodness, and we're good. Nay, great.

xxx
c

Local Restaurant, Silver Lake
 2943 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026
323-662-4740

Open for breakfast 7 days
Open for dinner Tues - Sat
See site for hours.

Image by steven damron via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

,

When you can't hire me

,

sadface_sittered

I raised the price on my main consulting package today.

Well, okay, technically, I raised it several days ago, and then I lowered it slightly to a number that was still higher, but not quite so much. But still, the price ($475) is higher now than it was ($250) a couple of weeks ago. And while I noted it in my newsletter, pretty much the only place I pimp stuff like that, you may have missed the big, fat, hairy announcement.

While I raised my prices almost 100%, the truth is that I just brought the price in line with what it actually costs me to do these things. I started consulting verrrrry tentatively, at the request of a friend who became my first client, over a year ago.

I then created the Main Thing I Offer by way of consulting, the "Full Monty" (still in beta!), as I call it, about 10 months ago, and purposely kept the price low, even as the Monty grew in depth and scope (and goodies, which I've added). I've done a slew of them, and so far, everyone has walked away from the experience ecstatic, unless they're lying to me. They come out of it with clarity and excitement and a plan, and I get to share all this great stuff I've learned and assimilated over the past 20-odd years, and it's awesome. It's a billion times more satisfying, not to mention useful, than writing ads or even acting in them. (And let's not even mention the design, which was an ulcer-inducing year for me.)

Which means that people who need it are happy with it, and I'm happy with it, and it should all be sunshine and roses. And it was, except for what it was taking out of me. Because while I got better and better at doing them, they still require tons of prep. Shit-tons of energy. All good, but completely unsustainable at the old rate.

Problem is, even though it's a reasonable increase given everything that goes into it and still a pretty awesome value considering what you get, it's also a big jump, percentage-wise and I recognize that it's going to put me out of range for even more people than before, an unfortunate but unavoidable reality.

So.

I'm working on some ideas for putting what I do for clients with the not-too-high-priced (but still not cheap, I realize) one-on-one consulting stuff into a do-it-yourself, low-priced alternative. It's a little tricky, but I'll figure it out. This ain't rocket science, and plenty of other fine people have figured it out before me. But in the meantime, until I get these magical, mysterious, as-yet-unknown things out into the universe, what do you do when you can't hire me but you want some help sorting out your marketing messaging, here's what I'd suggest:

1. Comb through the newsletter archives. They're right here. There are a lot of ideas and exercises embedded in the monthly thingamajiggy I put out which, because I am a barefoot cobbler's child and can come up with no better, I call a "newsletter." It is not really a "newsletter", since by weight, it's only about 2% news, if that. (The price hike thingy is news, I guess, as are my occasional "Come here and hear me speak" items.)

The "newsletters" are archived chronologically, with a little description for each. Browse them, see what catches your eye, then pick two or three to work on.

And then subscribe. Seriously. A lot of what I do with my clients is help them apply the stuff I talk about in the newsletter to their specific needs. You won't get a custom fit, but trust me, you're a smart enough cookie to figure it out yourself with a little extra effort.

2. Do the Formula exercise. The Formula kicks ass. Seriously. And it's the foundation of doing ANYTHING right, marketing-wise, on or off the web. Remember: at its core, marketing is the truth of you, translated into the language of them. Here's an example of it in action on my old design website. Here's another one, on Conrad Winter's copywriting site. More as I think of them.

3. Download the DIY version of the homework. Seriously, download it. Won't cost you a cent. No, you don't get me going over it with The Mixmasterâ„¢ (my brain, didn't know it had a name, did you?) Then DO it. If not now, put a time down in your calendar to do it.

BONUS EXTRA: If you want help in any particular area, getting up to speed on social media, becoming a better copywriter, being more productive, check out my copious delicious and StumbleUpon links in your area of choice. Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of tags to sort through. Do a search for what you need, or use one of the bundles I created for delicious. These two spots are where I bookmark most of the truly awesome stuff I find on the web. Again, you'll have to do a bit of the legwork yourself, searching through them, but it's there.

As any real productivity nerd will tell you, a huge part of getting things done is just doing it, starting it. Start with these. Do, read, write, think. See how far along you can get yourself. It takes a while, but it's possible; after all, it's how I learned to do all this stuff.

And if there are specific things you'd like me to address, let 'er rip in the comments. Like I said last week in the Very First Screencast Ever on Communicatrix, I'm looking to do more stuff with audio and video to help share the crazy tricks and tips I've picked up along the way.

Basically, I'm open for suggestions. Wide open. What do you want? What would make your life better/stronger/faster?

If you're just "here for the beer," as we used to say, that's cool, too. But if there are particular things you're looking for, problems you wish I would tackle in my uniquely communicatrix-y way, this would be an excellent time to let me know.

Thank you, and have at it...

xxx
c

Image by sittered via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Referral Friday: TextExpander for the Mac

TextExpander

If you're like me, you type the same stuff over and over again, without even knowing it.

  • Your name.
  • Your address(es).
  • Your (too many, and growing list of) phone numbers.
  • Etcetera.

I've written before of my awesome and abiding love for TextExpander, the text expansion program for the Mac. After mere hours of use, I wrote about it so glowingly that they used my quote as a testimonial (and an awesome and abiding, albeit virtual, friendship with Smile On My Mac's evangelist, Jean MacDonald, was born). Other people, Merlin Mann, from whom I learned of it (and many other Tools and Practices of Goodness), and Gina Trapani, of Lifehacker and many other flavors of worthwhile celebrity, have done a better job than I've the time or brain cells to pull off (especially since my brain feels like it's permanently expanded, and in the bad way, in this heat.)

Still, I'll share what have become my favorite uses for TextExpander snippet storage:

  • Email signatures (I have many!)
  • Amazon affiliate links
  • Evergreen frequently-linked-to stuff (my newsletter signup page, my filthy motivational song, etc.)
  • Evanescent linked-to stuff (PresentationCamp, the workshop I did with Pam Slim, etc.)
  • Etcetera (biggest category, always thinking of new uses)

Bonus screencast of TextExpander in action, communicatrix-style

Regular readers have likely noted (I hope) that at the top of most posts, I use a carefully chosen photo from the Creative Commons Attribution-Only pool on Flickr to illustrate my posts. Extra-careful readers have probably also noted that there's a line tucked into the bottom of those posts that looks like this:

Image by CrazyFlickrName via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

That's two links and a bunch of italicized text every time. Or, it's three keystrokes, f-f-l (without the dashes), that invokes all this data:

<em><a href="%|">Image by  via Flickr</a>, used under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">a Creative Commons license</a></em>.

The super-magical part, as Merlin explains in his post, is that there are some nifty shortcuts built into TextExpander itself, like the "%|", which is a command for the cursor to travel back from the period at the end of whatever your long text thread is to the place where the "%|" resides.

Here's a little screencast I put together to show you how it works:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6391559&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

In case the video doesn't play, you can click here to watch it. Also, you might want to embiggen it via the button with the four arrows in the lower right-hand corner, since it's all about the minute details. Still working on the encoding and such, but this is at least legible.

Let me know what you think of the video, okay? And TextExpander, if you buy it!

xxx
c

UPDATE (5/27/10): If you have to suffer through a second computer running on the Windows platform, check out Breevy, by Patrick McCann: it also invokes text via self-designated shortcuts, and you can import your TextExpander snippets directly or via Dropbox. And let me know how you like it, okay?

*For any of you especially hawkeyed viewers, that long-ass link is not an affiliate link, but it is the one they sent me in the email this week. As someone who obsesses over my own stats, I can totally appreciate this desire to know from whence come the links. But no, not making an effing dime off of it.

**Ditto on this long-ass link. Also, it takes you straight to the iTunes store, don't freak out! Just breathe!

Book review: Trust Agents

julienandchris_ambernaslund

Anyone who's been in shouting distance of me since I tore through the first 75pp of Trust Agents, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's hot-diggity-damn-dog book on the wherefores of social media already knows that this is the one book I'm recommending to anyone who's trying to wrap their head around the web.

And the reason why is exactly because it's a book about wherefores, not "do these!" (although there are plenty of actionable tips and explanatory sidebars; they just manage to be supportive and unobtrusive, not glaring and Dummies-like). The authors finally wrote the book I've been praying for when I'm met with the hungry eyes ringed ever so gently with panic: that look that says, "Oh, god...I'm really going to have to learn about this Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn stuff, aren't I? Please direct me to some real help and/or a spoon with which to gouge out my hungry, gently-panic-ringed eyes."

The full title of the Brogan/Smith opus is Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Relationships, and Earn Trust, and right there, you have your main wherefore. The web does not exist for you to sell yourself; it exists to facilitate connections and communication. To initiate them and to deepen them, in tandem with real-life meeting-up-in-actual-person, not to do drive-by shilling or scoop the digital equivalent of a fistful of business cards into your pocket. One of the more delightful parallels the authors draw more than once is that of the social web meeting to the real-life, business networking event: don't be "That Guy" on the web, glad-handing and hard-selling and speed-networking your way through life.

Almost everything about this book is an unqualified surprise and delight, from the bazillion-notches-above-your-typical-business-book quality of the writing to the examples Chris and Julien use to point out right (and very, very wrong) use of the social web to the actual structure of the book. It's carved up into six main chapters, each of which explores a different characteristic of what they've dubbed "Trust Agents" (i.e. people who are using the social web the right way, to do the stuff they break out in the book's subtitle). About the only part I took any issue with at all was a mercifully brief foray into the ethics of paid blogging, nothing (thankfully) that most people who need to read the book even need to read about, and a reasonable discussion of which is simply beyond the scope of the book. And in the interests of 100% disclosure, any book (or post, or article) that looked at posts-for-pay on 99.99% of blogs as being okay I'd most likely look at with suspicion at best and loathing at worst. Commerce is cool, but only within very, very narrow and well-defined parameters for this stinky hippie.

A quibble, really. The book is outstanding. It's not a web book so much as it's a marketing book, which is why I love it so (well, that and the great writing, which I'm a sucker for, I admit). Every speech I give, every client I advise, every line about so-called social media that I write, I do my best to tie to the underpinnings of the works, which is marketing, baby.

So if you're looking for a great book about marketing, buy Trust Agents. And if you're looking for a great book that will explain how to do (some of) your marketing on the web, buy Trust Agents.

It's the book I'd have written if I'd gotten there first...

xxx
c

Photo of Julien Smith & Chris Brogan by ambernaslund via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Referral Friday: Barbara's at the Brewery

barbarasathebrewery_daynah-dot-netguillebeaumeetupatbarbaras

Referral Friday is an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!

One thing that drives me batty about Los Angeles is the paucity of excellent, low-key, non-gross hangs for a nice-sized crowd.

I hail from Chicago, you see, where the hardest thing about picking a place to meet is choosing which one to meet at. Maybe it's because the rents are cheaper; maybe it's because the people are.

Regardless, when you find a great venue to host a crowd, one with terrific draft beers and tasty food at reasonable prices, plus a big comfy space in which to hang, you must note it. And cherish it, and tell others, the right kind of others, hopefully, so that the cash will continue to flow its way and the vibe will persist in its awesomeness.

Barbara's at the Brewery scores on all the above counts, and it's easy to get to, and it has copious free parking on site. What's more it's the hang of choice (for obvious reasons) of the very nice tenants of the Brewery Arts Complex, an off-line brewery that was converted to artists' lofts long ago, and which is the place for the twice-yearly, super-crazy Artwalk at the Brewery.

They're even the unofficial headquarters of the KERNSPIRACY designers' list, meatspace division: I've enjoyed many a glass of Cab mingling with designers, photographers and other delightful creative folk.

If you live in Los Angeles and you're not a tool (sorry, tools, nothing personal!), please consider having your next party at the awesomely accommodating Barbara's.

And tell Mike that Colleen said to say, "Hi!"...

xxx
c

Photo © 2009 Aaron Wulf.

Barbara's at the Brewery
The Brewery Arts Complex
323-221-9204


What's up and what's gone down (Aug 2009)

arnoinrepose

A thus-far monthly but forever occasional round-up of what I've been up to and what I plan to be. For full credits and details, see July's entry.

Colleen of the future (places I'll be)

Colleen of the Past (stuff that went down)

  • New interview! Er, Twitterview. What can I say: it's a brave new world. Me and fabulous HOW magazine editrix Bryn Mooth mix it up on the Twitter about...the Twitter.
  • World Domination comes to Los Angeles! Haha, not really. But Chris Guillebeau did, and I helped to organize one of the funnest meetups ever for him and his considerable peeps. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to the blog so you don't miss future meetups coming to an area near you. (I mean, dude travels!)
  • The Escape from Cubicle Nation Workshop in Chicago Can I say how awesome this was, working with my gal, Pamela Slim? Doubtful. Just do yourselves a favor and go to the one Pam is doing in New York on September 12 with our mutual friend, Jonathan Fields. I am jealous I cannot be there, too.
  • ...finally, I changed my tune. For the time being, anyway. Which is to say that I was so moved by Mark Silver's Heart of Money course, I am an affiliate for the first time ever. Only one product so far, and the only affiliate links you find here will be clearly marked. The above link takes you to a standalone post I created outlining my experiences with and love for the damned thing. And that's the only way I roll: no sidebar confetti for me. That's a promise.

Colleen of the Present (ongoing projects)

  • I asked for something! Specifically, for you to nominate one of my 2009 posts for acceptance to Creative Nonfiction. I assembled what I think are the best candidates, to save you time, but hey, whatever you want to nominate is fine by me! By August 31, though. And thank you!
  • The Virgo Guide to Marketing I'm just over halfway through a year-long project where I work on my marketing daily and blog about it weekly. People seem to dig it, as well as the podcasts I record weekly. Go figger.
  • communicatrix | focuses My monthly newsletter devoted to the all-important subject of increasing your unique fabulosity. One article per month (with actionable tips! and minimal bullsh*t!) about becoming a better communicator, plus the best few of the many cool things I stumble across in my travels. Plus a tiny drawing by moi. Free! (archives & sign-up)
  • Act Smart! is my monthly column about marketing for actors for LA Casting, but I swear, you'll find stuff in it that's useful, too. Browse the archives, here.
  • Internet flotsam And of course, I snark it up on Twitter, chit-chat on Facebook, post the odd video or quote to Tumblr, and bookmark the good stuff I find on my travels at StumbleUpon and delicious.

Please let me know if you find this kind of curation at all useful, and/or if there's a better way to handle it. Thanks!

xxx
c

Photo of Arno J. McScruff housed on Flickr, where I also occasionally stick pixels.

Book review: The Little Book of Moods

nicolemoods_allyaubry

One of the saddest things about loving books to death is finding that someone else has actually killed them off.

I feel crazy-mad in love with a little "snack book", my beloved paternal grandfather's term for them, way back in 2004, when it caught my eye on an impulse-buy shelf at some local booksellers' shop.

I'm rather, er, frugally-minded, so I tend to wait before buying. But I kept coming back again and again to read Jane Eldershaw's delicious, compact, textbook/diagnostic of the things what ail us, The Little Book of Moods: 101 Ways to Identify and Deal with Any Emotion.

It offers exactly what it says on the cover: a quick way to identify what sort of a mood you're in, plus a handful of prescriptives for handing it. "Sulky," for example, is a place of withholding or withdrawing: "an attempt to punish someone or try to make her care by demonstrating your unhappiness without putting it into words." Well, Eldershaw put that into words, and not very many, and very well chosen. There follow a quick series of illuminating circumstances, thoughts and how-tos for starting to find your way out of it.

She does the same with, well, 100 other moods, among them: "frumpy", "ineffectual", "apprehensive" and "vengeful". We're talking way beyond mad/sad/glad, here. When I first picked up my copy, I was in the throes of a bloody breakup, the most challenging theatrical role of my career and the beginning stages of Crohn's. God knows what kinds of moods I was in at any given moment; the only thing I knew is that they were flitting through me like cards from the shoe of a particularly robust blackjack table. For a spinning top like me, The Little Book was a small miracle, something that would shut down the voices in my head and give me something to actually do, that I might keep them quiet a while longer.

It's no longer in print (F&W, my homies! what's up with that?!) and Eldershaw seems to have moved on to making jewelry from junk, but The Little Book lives on in extant copies available at low, low prices from resellers on Amazon, ALibris and Half.com. Nothing would make me happier than to have a run on them, as it might convince the publisher (F&W! my peeps! come on!) or Eldershaw to revisit the book, and/or perhaps put up some nifty, sortable website with the amazing technology that's evolved over the past five years. Content with the shit tagged out of it would help you more readily suss out your awful mood (let's face it, the good ones are easy to grok, though still fun to read about) and do something about it. Make the world a better, happier place. (Seriously. Can we get Gretchen on this or something?)

Regardless, I highly recommend you snag your own copy. Mine has been my constant, if sometimes neglected, companion for almost five years now. I can't help but think you or someone you love wouldn't love one, too...

xxx
c

Image by allyaubry via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.