Steve's Biz Blog

Elance.com recently posted the top ten skills requested on their site.  Will you be surprised?  Check the results on the Elance Blog – Top Ten Skills in Demand.

Saw a great blog entry today that is SOOO applicable to running a home business and retaining the best parts of your life. Rather than reprint it here, please go to The Orlando Golf Blogger’s Blog.

By the way, his post has nothing to do with golf. It’s a quick read, and helps to give a little perspective to any solo business person. A one-minute lesson that will stick with you all day, and maybe help your biz just a little…

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Very funny presentation from Seth Godin (highlighted in his blog a couple of days ago), but it made me a little uncomfortable.  Do I have any similar problems in my business?  Could one of them be highlighted in Seth’s next presentation?  Or worse, will that problem languish in my business for years, turning away customers and ruining my image?  Horrors…

Over the last year, we’ve seen a lot of emphasis on “change”, “new initiatives”, and “doing what is right”.  Great words for politicians (not really).  Wouldn’t it be nice to see some of the obviously broken things fixed first?  And wouldn’t government be a logical place to start?  Yes, quite a few businesses could use a little bit of that too…  What would happen if, over the next month, we identified as many things as we could with our own businesses that need fixing.  Then we could spend the summer fixing the things we identify, one by one.  Yes, let’s work on the things we can personally fix, and forget all this pie-in-the-sky stuff…

Maybe we could complete everything on the list, maybe not.  But wouldn’t our businesses be better off if we all fixed the stupidly obvious things as soon as possible?

Although I still write letters to my representatives in Congress, I’ve given up on the government fixing any of the problems they’ve created.  It’s just too sexy to go after something new, unknown, and unproven.  But I know that I can have an impact on my own little business.

So I’m devoting from now until Memorial Day to identifying problems and planning ways of overcoming them.  And I’m going to spend the summer fixing the problems I find, so that on Labor Day, I can say (and feel) that things are looking a lot better.  And if I haven’t completed everything by Labor Day, at least I’ll have a handy list of remaining items to complete.

That’s my plan for making 2009 a better year.  It will be my contribution to improving my personal micro-economy, and, by extension, the national economy.  Anyone care to join me?