Is it possible to change the world just one book at a time?  I honestly believe so, which is why I launched a challenge to myself that started yesterday to sell 200,000 copies of my e-Book, LinkedIn Made Easy, in just 30 days – I’m on day 29 already, so the clock is ticking ….. fast!

Why would I set myself such challenge you might ask?  In fact I do too on occasions, but in short it’s because I want to PROVE SOCIAL NETWORKING DOES WORK FOR BUSINESS – do you think I’ve shouted loud enough there?

Oh, and the small matter of also wanting to raise £400,000 for charity as well as help to fund The Hysterectomy Association with the majority of the rest of the money.

So, here’s what I’d like you to do:

• BUY THE BOOK – it’s only £4.99 and if 200,000 people do then I will have reached my goal
• Tell all your friends, your colleagues and your family – especially those who might benefit from using LinkedIn more effectively for their professional lives.
• Send an email to at least 20 of your contacts encouraging them to a, buy the book and b, pass along the message to anyone they think may be interested in using LinkedIn for their business or professional profile.
• Tweet, chirp, twitter and chirrup about the book AND the Challenge to raise £400,000 for charity
• Pop it in your status updates on Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and of course LinkedIn – or any other network you care to mention too.
• Write a blog post about me, the book, the challenge
• Pop an advert on your website or even write an article about it too
• Finally, let me know what you are doing, what you think about my challenge and the book – EVEN IF IT’S TO TELL ME YOU DON’T LIKE IT!

Thank You – in advance and I will keep you posted as to what happens in this most miraculous of times.

If you are involved in the recruitment industry then we’d love it if you took part in a survey that a colleague of mine and I are undertaking.  The survey is on Survey Monkey and we’re asking questions related to YOUR business use of Social Media when you are recruiting new staff.  It is completely anonymous, unless you would like to receive the report and/or be in with a chance of winning a bottle of Champagne.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9m00FDmhA781rOYugN7hnw_3d_3d

The closing date for the survey is Friday 18th December 2009 and we’ll be producing a couple of reports as a result of it, that look at the responses and what this means for the future direction of the whole business of recruitment.  And don’t forget, one lucky respondent will win a bottle of the very best champagne.

I’ve been playing again. Playing with widgets that is. I know what you must be thinking, but I am perfectly sane and normal, really please believe me.

The widgets I’m referring to are those you can find on WordPress.com. So many widgets, so little time. Just which ones do you pick to make very best use of the opportunities that arise.  I can’t make my mind up between displaying pages or not, having a category cloud or a category widget (I’ve gone for the later incidentally).  The problem is that each widget you use makes your page longer and longer, that’s not a problem on the home page as I display my most recent 10 posts, but when a reader visits a page like this, then there’s an awful lot of white space at the bottom of the page.

So, my solution was to change the theme (that’s the second time in less than a month) to see if I could find a nice three column layout that I liked the look of.  It’s still difficult, the one I’ve settled for, I’d really like to be able to change the background colour to a luverley shade of pale puce (not!) but I can’t unless I purchase the upgrade – so now I have a new question, do I risk irritating Anne who thought the previous theme was dark (and gloomy) and keep the background grey, or do I hope that my pretty rainbow of eggs provides enough colour for one blog to bear.  You see, too many choices.

So back to the widgets.  I’d like people to be able to find my other websites – I have several you know, I’d love them to be able to read (if they were at all interested) the other things I write about on those self same websites.  I also want more people to subscribe to my blog and event to comment on my blog – the numbers are growing every time I write something that is of interest.  Ah! so there in lies the heart of the problem, writing something of interest.

I guess one of the things I need to overcome on this blog is that it’s so random, I talk about just about anything that takes my fancy – hence the question of widgets – and then some.  It’s not a business blog, it’s not designed to be a business blog, this is just Lindy’s space on the web to explore, play and have fun with the things that interest me.  I hope you’ll agree it’s eclectic (Laura, if you even read this, then there’s a potential word of the week for you!), I hope you think it might be interesting, but above all I hope it sparks your enthusiasm and interest in all things blog.

Now, where was I?  Oh yes, widgets.

Those who use wordpress.com for a blog will know that it is notoriously difficult to find a way to use the site in any form of e-commerce.  However, my brand new BOOKSTORE, has just included a way to do just that.

As a writer, my aim is to get my work known by those who may be interested and as a result I have a number of different places that I write on.  Over the last year or so, this blog has had details of my books included on it, with links to Amazon where people could by the paperback versions should they so wish.

Now, however I am making all my books available as pdf downloads which means that YOU can get your book almost as soon as you’ve completed the payment process.  No more waiting for the post to arrive (if the post arrives with the latest postal strike here in the UK).  You simply make a payment, are returned to a page where you can download the e-Book and then either read it on screen or print it out – the choice is yours.

I’ve set this up in conjunction with PayLoadzand it’s just one of a number of different things I am trialling at the moment to see which are the most effective at driving traffic and sales for these intangible goods.  If you would like to see a couple of slightly different way of selling the same products, you can find it on my Grow A Better Business website and also on my Linda Parkinson-Hardman Business Card site.

I had an interesting conversation this morning with one of my closest friends all about illusion.  Not the sort that is usually done by magicians or illusionists, but about the sort we create for ourselves.  You know, the ones we often called ‘rose tinted glasses’!

Our ‘rose tinted glasses’ ensure that we never really see things for what they are.  We put a gloss and a sheen over sets of circumstances, events and conversations that lead us to believe in something that was never actually there in the first place.  That doesn’t mean to say, this is always a negative, but it’s sometimes worth acknowledging the benefits of having those same spectacles removed every so often.

When we remove the spectacles (or when they are removed from our noses by happenstance) we see things clearly.  We can see what was, what is and what might have been but isn’t.  What we no longer see are the illusions that have been keeping us in a place of denial about the ‘reality’ (if there can ever be such a thing) of a situation.  And yet, illusion can also provide wonder, joy and even happiness; at least for a short time anyway.

I suppose my writing is really about what happens when the illusion is removed, the spectacles set aside and clarity is allowed in.  What one gets is often not what one expects, and it would be very easy to then look around for an easy target on which pin the blame for our current predicament.  But that is hardly fair.  That’s the thing about rose tinted glasses, we have to put them on ourselves; no one forces us to and often no one asks us to either.

Do then, we need to blame ourselves?  Once again, it would be easy to say we were silly, foolish, wrong; all words that make life harder to bear in the long run because they create a burden of unreasonable responsibility that we can never hope to shift.

My preference then is for a simple acknowledgement.  ”This is what was, and for many different reasons this was how the world was perceived for a time.  it is neither right nor wrong, it just ‘is’”.  Acceptance that this is the case, allows us to learn from the experience, file it away in the backpack of our lives and perhaps reflect upon it in the future when we come to a similar (but hopefully not the same) place again.  This is a place of true responsibility for ourselves, it is neither blame nor passive acceptance, it is recognising we have a part to play at every decision made and every journey taken.  In many ways, this post reminds of that quotation that sat for many years on my mothers study wall.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

I now know that much of my life has been lived in illusion for many years, but that this no longer needs to be the case.

He pulled the bedroom door gently closed behind him, not wishing to wake anyone at such an early hour.

He prided himself on his consideration for others, constantly checking and rechecking that he was not causing a problem or offence to anyone who came within his vicinity.  This quietness was just another example of his thoughtfulness.  He was the type who would dry himself in the shower or bath BEFORE stepping on to the bathmat, just so the next person would have a dry mat to themselves.

As he moved slowly along the corridor to the stair, he mused about the wonders of life and how his profession was one which constantly required levels of awareness and consideration that were rare in this day and age.   By this time he had reached the first step and was just about to start travelling downward when he heard a sigh drift through the gap between door and frame to the bedroom next to him.  Instantly, he was still.  He didn’t want to wake anyone, they all needed a good nights sleep as it had been a tiring day for everyone.  He had no need for anyone to see him off, he was used to working late at night and early in the morning  and so getting up alone had never been a problem to him.

The sigh wasn’t repeated and he assumed, rightly, that sleep had overtaken once again.  Silently he moved down the stairs, keeping a careful ear on the sounds that emanated from a slumbering house at night.  Once in the hallway, he turned back on himself towards the kitchen and once inside he closed the door and sat for a moment before putting on his shoes and tying the laces.  He plucked an apple from the bowl in front of him, a juicy treat for his journey, and stood in a single fluid movement.  Heading for the door he stopped at the handbag on the dresser and pulled out it’s purse.  He counted out £100 in notes and stuffed them in his pocket, he had a special present to buy for his son later that day.

He unlocked the door and walked through, pulling it behind him quietly and walked quickly away, along the side of the house to the back gate.  Once he was in the lane he moved swiftly to the road he had parked in, let himself in and then bit into the apple.  It’s flavour was sweet he reflected, a little like the murder he had just committed.

I was sitting, enjoying my first cup of tea this morning when my mobile ‘phone let me know I’d had a message.  Immediately, an image of a person popped into my head and I was suddenly aware that I always associate that particular notification with this particular person.  And it got me thinking …. as many things do, about how this was just as good an example of learned behaviour, as the experiments that Pavlov did with his dogs.

Those of you that aren’t sure what I’m talking about, Ivan Pavlov was experimenting during the 1890’s with what he termed “conditional reflexes”, that is those reflex responses that only occur conditionally based on a ’specific’ previous experience of the animal, in this case he associated the sound of a bell ringing with the provision of food.  Every time the bell rang, the dogs salivated, even when food wasn’t presented simply because they had associated the sound with the action.  You can read more at here at wikipedia if you like.

Anyway, I digress.  As I continued musing on the fact that the ring tone always made me think about a particular person, I realised that this happens a lot in life.  I know, I can be slow sometimes and I’ve heard this a million times before, but it is essentially the same information that is shared in The Secret and every other tome on changing your thought patterns.  I realised that most of my thoughts are automatic and dependent upon a specific stimuli that triggers them, therefore to change the way I think I need to take action that helps me to prevent the trigger having the automatic effect, to that end ……. I changed my ring tone – job done!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This quotation is taken from one of my very favourite spiritual books, A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson. If you have never read it, I would urge you to do so.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of work recently on a variety of projects, some that are related to Grow A Better Business and some that are related to other work areas that I’m interested.  However, they have all had one thing in common  – how do I get my message across to an increasing number of people?

This of course is the question that’s on everyones mind these days, especially as some businesses are struggling to maintain a foothold at all and  I realised that my own specialities are those that are highly relevant as a result.  Internet Marketing, can and does work, when it’s done consistently and appropriately and I wanted to share just a few ideas with you that may just help.

1. For those interested in SEO (search engine optimisation) at all, the latest news out of Google may well be relevant and you can read more about the developments of the project they are calling Caffeine here.
2. Many of you may know that I’m passionate about blogging, business blogging in particular, and my very favourite tool is WordPress.com.  But one of the problems with wordpress.com is that you have very little control over the things you can add to it, so I thought that a short article on my Top Five WordPress.com Widgets might of interest to you too.
3. I have finally completed my Online Social Networking for Business course, at just £97 it is fabulous value for money and certainly well worth taking a look at.  It takes you through developing not only the skills, but also a strategy to match them, of some of the top social networking sites including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and of course Business Blogging.  Why not check it out and see whether it can your business through the recession.

Finally, I’d like to welcome everyone to join me on 13th October at 7.00pm for my very first Webinar.  The subject is Building Your Personal Brand With Effective LinkedIn Profiles and is a great taster for anyone who thinks that my online course might be what they need.  You can find out more details by clicking on the link above and join me by leaving your name and email address in the box provided.

That’s it for this month, and don’t forget if you have any requests for subjects you’d like to see me write about, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve been working with a client for most of the day today and one thing we were discussing was how to track the success of a WordPress.com blog.  In essence we were talking abut the Blog Stats facility that wordpress.com gives you which allows you to see the number of visits your blog has had, the top posts, the top referrers and other useful information.  What was interesting was that we were using this blog of mine as a discussion tool and when I looked, I noticed that the most commonly referred page on my blog is a post I wrote about Lack vs Growth, which was an overview of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs.

Clearly people are searching for this sort of information and so I thought I’d add some more information or opinion in to the general debate and consider how Maslow’s most popular theory relates to business.

Just a quick refresher, Maslow has suggested that there were five basic human needs that needed to be met in order for a person to feel whole and fulfilled in life.  The theory has been expanded and adapted over the years by others to meet almost any type of situation you could imagine., however, the original theory purported that there were five levels:

1. Basic needs for survival
2. Safety and Security
3. Belongingness and Love
4. Self Esteem
5. Self Actualisation

My suggestion would be that the way Maslow’s theory could be adapted for use in business would be to consider the needs as follows:-

1. Having a job – any job will do at this point as it provides money to pay for survival
2. The job must be in an environment that is safe and secure, think Health and Safety!
3. To be part of a team that has a common goal and set of ethics and values
4. To be able to demonstrate that you have an opinion that is heard and valued by the business
5. That work is now self fulfilling in that you are able to fill your potential

This is an over simplification, I know, but  it is something that I think I will return to in the coming weeks as I prepare a presentation for local business network on Groups and their use in Internet Marketing.