Magazine SOHO is a print version of SOHObiztube.com, a online networking site that focuses on one of the hottest mediums on the web, video. As businesses are looking to connect online, SOHObiztube.com is an incredibly valuable platform for business networking on growth.

I’d just like to thank Cd Vann the founder of Magazine SOHO and the other SNAPs for being so gracious to ActionsTalk as we’ve grown our show and our viewership. We hope that ActionsTalk will continue to contribute to the growth of Milwaukee’s web startup community, and we hope you’ll help us. Enjoy the mag!

I’ve read marketing books before and this one is different! The idea of the purple is this…

When you drive by a boring road in the mid-west (and they all are, I speak from experience) you see cows a plenty. You don’t notice them at all, one cow after another and it literally has no affect on you whatsoever. But, if one day you were driving down the same boring mid-west road and you saw a purple cow you would FREAK OUT. You wouldn’t know what to do and you’d probably stop to look at it. But if later that day you continued to drive down the road and every cow was purple you wouldn’t stop anymore. You’d probably still be stunned that you saw purple cows but how long do you think that would last? Eventually you wouldn’t even care that there were purple cows at all.  You’d continue down the boring mid-west road just as you had when the cows were black and white.

At first as Godin explains, a purple cow is something remarkable. It commands demands attention. But, eventually even the remarkable becomes the ordinary and something else ‘remarkabler‘ takes its place.  Godin teaches in Purple Cow how to continually create remarkable products! This book and Godin’s thoughts on the subjects of R&D vs. Marketing and how they are inter-related are invaluable. This book is a must read for any start-up, marketer, or product developer.

Godin’s sums it up best (as the author should) “Marketing is way to important for the marketing department”.

Ever wonder what your friend at Microsoft, Yahoo!, Cisco, etc. are making? Is it more than you? Maybe. Well Glassdoor.com gives you a clear view of what that number may be. The gist of the site is, “tell me your salary and I’ll tell you mine”, and it works. The site has ratings & reviews of jobs, companies, and leaders of different businesses. The interface is clean and simple and seems to really give you a “insider” view of the the company. The salary number will only become more accurate as more people join, however, the site does rely on the honesty of its users. Because of the anonimity of the information posting it is possible that a person could mislead the numbers.

Here’s how it works:

Everyone has a plan until you get hit. A boxing legend friend of mine told me this once (see item #9). It’s good advice for entrepreneurs also, because we all know that defensiveness is kryptonite to entrepreneurship — and obviously to interviewers, too. After you get your nose bloodied, can you “retrack” and reestablish the goal? Can you get back to fundamentals? Founders have to.

This is from Larry Chiang’s post about Sarah Lacy’s failed attempt at interviewing Zuckerberg at SXSW this year. The post was a cheeky commentary called ’8 Things Sarah Lacy Could Learn From Founders She Covers’. Kind of a tough blow, but watch the interview, so

Also, you can track my travel using the widget in the sidebar.

• Seesmic is obviously sweet and is going to last. The big names are buying in.
• Kevin and Gary combined have phenomenal insights into building web companies and communities.
• I’m pissed I caught this late and didn’t ask a question.

I watched most of the question and answers and chose to post this one because of its relevance to start-ups. However, many questions were totally random and I loved that. One question was about how to sneak out of the house!? This question is about how to bring more people to a company as it relates to employees and as it relates to funding. Here is Kevin and Gary’s answer.

These guys are awesome. Look soon for my review of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book: 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World.

Although I’m at least months out from being in a position to pitch a product idea to potential investors I found the chapter to be very applicable. Guy makes a point in the chapter about how VC’s (the audience) isn’t here for an autobiographical monologue, rather they are there to hear your idea/s. So, he advises that you immediately dive into your idea versus introducing yourself excessively and going into your background. I did this consciously at the ActionsTalk meeting and it worked wonders. The group was captured by the vision for ActionsTalk and moved towards finding out how they could be involved. After the attention of the meeting was placed on the vision of ActionsTalk it was simple to introduce myself and introduce how I will help the ActionsTalk conference become a reality. My story did not take away from, bore, or force the group to wait, rather, it was a building block in the plan of ActionsTalk.

Much of this chapter discusses the best ways to use a presentation in a meeting and Guy lays out ground rules for a Powerpoint presentation. I did not need to use a actual powerpoint pitch in this scenario but will definitely need to in the future and I will surely use this chapter as a reference at that time.

Lastly, one of the best take-aways from the chapter is the idea that you need to pitch constantly. It is stressed that always talking about your idea will do nothing but help you refine the idea, refine the pitch, and increase the likely hood that you are able to communicate your mission clearly and convince someone to give you money, resources, or support. Just another crucial lesson in learning the art of starting a start-up.

chilirec is like TiVo for internet radio. You log in, choose your music that you want to record, and within about 5 minutes you have music that has been recorded for you off the internet. chilirec then stores the music in “your personal space” on the web and you can return to listen to it whenever. This service is totally free, however, it is questionably legal (just like this entire genre of services). For you say.no.radio’ers the quality of music is subject to the web radio stations. If you can find good indie channels you will probably be able to record, save, and listen via chilirec.

One awesome feature of the service is that you can actually upload a copy of the playlist you create on chilirec directly to your ipod and listen on the go! No need to be tied to your comp. Awesome. chilirec is still in beta release so check it out.

How it works

for more cool music stuff check out say.no.radio

post inspired by TechCrunch

I once again feel obligated to apologize for my post bashing the Twitter faithfuls. It is truly an awesome and affective web app! I am now fully on board and would encourage any of you who are not yet sold to try it again. It took me two tries to see how useful the tool could be. I’ve met some awesome people on Twitter and have had some great conversations with existing friends via Twitter.

The next step at least in my head is, how I or others can use Twitter in the workplace? How can Twitter contribute to Enterprise 2.0? Well, Tara Hunt author of horsepigcow.com tells you just how companies can make good use of tweets in the professional environment. Twitter is legit, jump on or get left behind!