April 08 - Here's to the new!

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Malachi Gilmore Community Centre, Oberon, NSW

Wow, change can happen so quickly!

Last week my old kitchen was demolished (in an hour!), and within a few days it was brand new!!! Of course the details still need some ironing out (hah, who needs handles?), which is so much a metaphor for corporate change, don't you think?

While minding the house for the kitchen installers I have upgraded my online shop so that buyers will get access to ebooks as soon as they put their card down (through paypal).

If you'd like to check it out for me, buy $50 worth of books and get $15 off your next product purchase. If you manage to find an (original*) mistake with the site, I'll throw in a $10 gift certificate for product at my site on top of that! Offer ends 22 April 2008 (and original* means that you're the first to report it).

Oh, and I'm off on a holiday to New York for a few weeks from April 24, so the May edition will be late-ish! Looking forward to lots of good photos!

Cindy

In this month's ezine we have:

• Improving your consultancy: when to walk away from work; signs a client won't pay; working linked in, and page rank
• Managing better: Careers in comics, free podcast books
• Fascinating: knitting grannies and where you live is the most important decision of your life
• Fun: sand art, book autopsies, Theatresports® and impro in Sydney

Your Consulting
business

The "main street" of Mount Wilson, in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney

The steep path on a bush walk at Kanangra Walls (near Oberon, NSW)

Walking away, getting paid

Alan Weiss on walking away from work if the client wants to micro-manage your project for you (and requests end-products before they even engage you!)

Or try this article from Michael McLaughlin about foreseeing trouble with clients paying bills. The signs are: when the problem hides other problems; when the client is just not available enough for you to find the problem (or solution); when the client fusses over the details of the fees; when the client is very directive about what and how they want you to do it. Anyway, check it out yourself!

Making Linked in link for you!

If you like me have been receving invitations to join Linked in, Naymz, and other like-sites, you may appreciate this checklist from the Go-to-Market Strategies people.

I had dinner last week with a friend who was lamenting that googling her name didn't lead to her web site... but it did in fact bring up her linked in profile. So it's worthwhile making your Linked in profile as professional looking as your website.

Ranking pages

And by the way, one of the reasons she didn't come up is that her name wasn't in the copy of her website, only in the keywords. Google pays attention to the copy - see here Google's info about how to create a Google friendly site, which includes tips like:

• provide information people want
• make sure other sites link to yours
• make your site easily accessible
• avoid words in graphics which are supposed to be part of the text (if google can't read it as a word, it doesn't "see" it

And I would add this one: if you want Google to find your name, put it on your website. If you want people to search for and find your company name, put that there. If not, don't!

Managing better

Waterfall at Kanangra Walls (outside Oberon). Photo by Nicola Dunbar

Dan Pink and careers

Since Free Agent Nation, and then Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink's one of my favourite business writers. His newest work is in manga (a Japanese form of the graphic novel), and it's career advice for Gen Y. It's called Johnny Bunko - you can read the first 23 pages (this is a 16 mg pdf file, so it will take a moment to load).

Podcast books for free

Go download a free podiobook listen to on the train or while you're ironing. It's an audiobook delivered in podcast sized / serialised chunks. There are only 2 business books listed, but an impressive and eclectic range of fiction.

Fascinating

Seed Pod at Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens (Blue Mountains, NSW)

Grannies will knit you a sock!

Now this is a business idea which I still don't quite get: If you're feeling in need of something original or different for the person who has everything, why not get a Swiss Netgranny to make your friend a sock or 2? There are 15 Netgrannies. You go to their web site, choose your favourite gran and the colour of your socks and in 2 weeks you get a pair of socks! (for 26 euro). Maybe I should rope my nana into a local version (kangaroo shaped finger puppets, maybe??).

Where you live is important

Richard Florida has written a Manifesto on Why the Place You Choose to Live is the Most Important Decision of Your Life. It seems to be mostly an overview of his book Who's your City. A little US-centric, and could do with some diagrams (he refers to lots of maps, but describes them rather than showing them!). He contests that the world is not flat, but "spiky" - that certain places are better than others for creativity and innovation for finding a partner or living happily. Go browse it!

And Fun, fun, fun

Gotta love a gum! Oberon, NSW

Waterfall at Kanangra Walls (outside Oberon)

Beautiful things

For your daily dose of beauty check out this video of Ilana Yahav - sand artist. Or these marvellously altered books by Brian Dettmer. He calls them 'book autopsies' - amazing three dimensional objects!

And of course, there's impro!

There's more than a little improvising going on in Sydney:

Firstly, I'll be speaking (or animating maybe) the Australian Board of NLP AGM on 18th June 2008, 7:30 (venue TBA), along with my Ludic Creative colleagues : we’ll be inter-playing improvisation with Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP.

Sooner than that, this Sunday I'm co-hosting the second "episode" of Impro Australia's Prequels and Sequels season (where the audience chooses how they want to "remake" movies (The Terminator played by Sean Connery, or Sleepless in Seattle with Arnie Schwarzenegger instead of Tom Hanks, anyone?), and create new sequels and prequels that Hollywood never thought of. It's on Sunday 20th April 8pm at Newtown Theatre in Newtown. Tickets from Ticketek.

And even sooner than that, I'm in this week's cast of Scared Scriptless Theatresports® season. It's at the Clarence Hotel, Petersham cnr Crystal St and Parramatta Rd (in Sydney, Australia). Every Friday night from now till Christmas. Doors open 7:30, show starts at 8. Drinks at pub prices, food available. There's a second show (The Late Show) which I'm also often in at 10:30, so catch them both for $10 whenever you're near Petersham in Sydney.

Let me know what you like about this ezine - or anything you'd like to see more of!

C

Cindy Tonkin The Consultants’ Consultant
Certified Management Consultant

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This month's images are original photos ©2008 Cindy Tonkin, aside from one image by Nicola Dunbar, as indicated. See more here.

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