AB: All-Round Nice Guy

OK, so why am I giving you a run-down of how to start a new business or launch a new product or service - when the economy is all over the place, and business and consumer confidence is falling like a lead balloon…?

The answer is actually simple: the next wave of new businesses and new product and services are usually born during periods of economic slowdown, since it is *during* these times that all the half-thought-through ideas fall by the wayside, leaving only the truly remarkable remaining.

So… don’t despair - in fact, get your thinking cap on, and see what new product or service or solutions to everyday problems lies waiting dormant within your brain!

There’s no secret that the word ‘google’ has gone from an obscure mathematical reference to an internet phenomenon, to the point where it is has now joined the ranks of other marketing heroes such as Hoover and Biro. The word ‘google’ can be considered a noun (’google it’), a verb (’to google’ something), and often, an adjective (’I'm going googling’).

The main touch point most of have with the Google megacompany is their search engine - either google.com, google.com.au, or the search field built in to our browser.

Google is certainly the largest and most impressive search engine on the planet, and with it’s minimalist design, it’s both highly accessible and usable.

But (you knew there was a ‘but’ coming, didn’t you?) searching for things on Google is still a hit-and-miss affair: many, many times you get search results numbering in the tens of millions, while other times, your results can be few and far between, and totally removed from your original intentions of your search.

In the end, Google does the best job it can, but then it leaves us mere humans to filter the results until we find exactly what it is we’re looking for. Humans are good at filtering things - Google isn’t always the best at it.

So, just like getting to know your way around your local library, you realy have to get to know Google if you want to find things faster and easier - the good news is that there are many tips, tricks and techniques to getting the most out of searching for things on the internet - so sit back, and I’ll show you some of the best ones.

You’re writing about how to organise you music? On a business blog? Yep - you heard it right. As put so eloquently in the movie ‘The Castle’, it’s just, well, ‘the vibe’ of it, really…

It doesn’t matter whether you’re in small business, big business, working from home, or not working at all: music can help set your mood, sometimes for clarity of thought, sometimes to cause a welcome distraction, and sometimes for anything in between.

The following 12 points show you how to organise your music a little smarter - and so that you can at least claim that the time you spend reorganising your music is somewhat ‘business related’, we’ll call it ‘new media training’.

Can I please have a show of hands for anyone who uses their computer’s desktop as their filing system? Uh-huh - thought so. It’s a pretty common situation - that of saving ‘important’ files to your computer’s desktop in the vain hope that, since it’s the first thing you see when you fire your computer up in the morning, that something *might actually get done* with those important files.

Yeah, right. Here’s a handy technique for regaining some semblance of control…

Here’s a quick Photoshop tutorial based on a recent project of mine - how to fake a photo of a new book for promotional material, when the book wouldn’t be printed for a few months.