Its been a long time since I’ve updated this particular blog.  Work had got busy and and this blog fell by the wayside.  Not any more though.  Expect more frequent posts and some new directions.

Digg.com

For some reason I have turned a blind eye to Digg because well…no good reason really. So call it late bandwagon-jumping but lately I’ve been finding myself using Digg.com more often as well as taking the time to actually vote for articles that I find of value. Gino Orlandi from uprinting.com has made a good list for those looking to make more use of Digg.com’s value in Social Media applications.

Thanks to Brian Solis for pointing out on Twitter that there is a lovely new post on www.SocialMedia.biz with a calendar of Social Media conferences upcoming in 2009. I’m not a huge resolution person but this year – this will be the year of travel. Also with the guise of it being “business related” I can justify using the time this way.

In my goal to find the perfect solution of being able to sync and have access to files wherever and whenever I please I’ve stumbled upon Syncplicity. Its very pretty demo claims that it will not only be able to store my info online securely, but also make the whole process less of a pain. There are other options out there that I’m currently also taking a look at but this one looks promising.

If you are looking for me or anything interesting to do over the next few days try International Pop Overthrow first. It will be on Wednesday to Saturday of this week and be featuring over 30 bands that hail from Toronto and abroad. For more information visit their site. Also the band “See Spot Run”, whose song “Weightless” I loved circa 2001, is reuniting for this as well. Lovely!

Need to know just the basics on a topic? Just the facts ‘mam? Try AllTop. I’ll admit I don’t read my favorite news sources as much as I would like, frankly because there are not enough hours in the day and I’d rather watch Family Guy. This is a lovely little RSS updated cheat sheet on major topics such as Politics, SEO Innovations to Beer. Gaked from one of my favorite gals The Barganista.

Mark Forbes was kind enough to introduce me to a neat little widget that I haven’t seen since its Beta version many moons ago.  Its a trippy thesaurus! Forget the analog and check out this cool tool when you need another word for the obvious.  Really handy when trying to find out another word combo for a domain name, as I was with new client TheHiddenGlobe.com (cool website and detailed info to follow in a few weeks).  Give Visual Thesaurus a try.

So today is an absolutely beautiful morning here in downtown Toronto.  The sun is shining – but not too much, and the temperature is warm – though not too hot.  Watching all the people slowly walk on by in Leslieville it’s really easy to want to take it easy, especially in light of all the other summer distractions that are available.  However, summer also provides a great opportunity during these slow times for entrepreneurs to catch up on working on the extras in your business.  Typically for most businesses summer is a bit of a slower time as many people are away on vacations or taking it easy in other ways.  Summer though is a great time though to work on the little extras that will make your business thrive.  Take advantage of these slower times to update your contact lists – specifically check in with them and see how they are doing.  Also this is a good time to review your business plan’s marketing and operations section.  It’s a bit like walking down memory lane to see where you thought your business was heading and seeing how things actually played out.  Maybe there are some great ideas in there waiting to be implemented that you have put aside for lack of time.  If so, take this slow period to have fun and get creative.

Its crazy tonight with the amount of things going on downtown.  So if you are in the city, hope to see some of you there!

Martin Cleaver has complied a great little listing of what’s going on where.

Two forgotton things from the 80’s looking for a comeback.  Dr.  Pepper apparently is so interested in getting Axl Rose to release a new Guns n’ Roses cd that they have offered to give the incentive of passing out free Dr. Pepper’s to the population of the US.  Well that’s unsusal. 

 Saw british phenom Adele live in concert at the Rivoli where she promptly broke my heart with an accustic version of Make You Feel My Love.  The concert itself was a bit too short for my taste, but no complaints were heard from the crowd leaving because every minute that she did perform was fantastic.  With her cute banter between songs she seems like someone you want to have a pint with or keep her in a little box where you take her out sometimes and hug and pinch her cheeks.  I know.  I am a bit weird.