Distractions: SAT PM

Making Gas Money Without Annoying People
The web monetization project started because I had several registered domain names that were pointing at nothing or at something that only I found clever.  Most of the domain registration sites offer a hosting program where they will direct advertising and you will get paid.  My big error was not registering a few hundred back in 1998 and 1999 when you could still find four letter (e.g. abcd.com) and lots of real names.  I did register a number of meaningful .net names.

If you have never registered a domain name you should at least register your name.  This the first step in establishing your personal brand.  If your name is Seymour Nixon, www.seymournixon.com might be handy.  I did check and that name is available.  Now if I was really on top of things and I knew that Seymour Nixon read my blog I'd include a link to one of the registration/hosting sites and I'd get at least a $50 spiff he he click through.  Seth Godin and Austin Kleon both provide good perspectives on establishing a personal brand.  Austin Kleon's personal brand is problematic for me to remember since I once did a lot of business with a guy named Leon Kline and I get the two 'brands' confused.

It's been a busy week at the small business so I've not been able to start narrowing the ad presentation on this blog or on the blog we write (not well) for the small business (which is a cafe) and which chronicles the challenges of having a small business in the boring suburbs where people seem to only want pizza and we want to put healthy and tasteful food on the table.  We also talk about our quest for food in the Twin Cities 'www.questforfood.com' is already taken.  'www.isthisdomaintaken.com' is not taken.  That could be the gold coin.

Distractions Abound

I've been attempting to write a post for four days.  Often I grab an image with my iPhone and then attempt to wrap something meaningful in words around a mundane image.  On Sunday we're having this big 'event' at the small business where people come between 11 & 3 (we're not usually open on Sunday) and buy lots of holiday items.  My better half was doing some details that I purposely do poorly and I attempted to find a corner to write.

"Can you package these?"
"Can you price these?'
"Can you dig out the buckets of x and y?  I can't lift them"
"How many of these should I do?"
"What do you think about this?"

Good grief, Charley Brown.  The bucket contains some stuff we melt and use but it comes in blocks about 30 pounds heavy.  I whacked at it.  As I sat down to write I noticed some laminate that was falling off so I went out to the car and retrieved some Gorilla Glue which was frozen (it is winter in MN).  I thawed it in about 3 minutes in some water out of the coffee machine and then went back out to the car to get some duct tape to hold down the glued laminate.  Finally I decided that I'd had too much sweet stuff and found a container of spicy trail mix.  This gave me another few minutes of distraction.

"What are you going to do with that poinsettia?" 

"What about these?  Do they look OK?"

"Did you price those things?"

Between being distracted by a never-ending string of unclear directives and questions and my propensity to be distracted it's difficult to get to the point of these blog posts.  This afternoon I received the small electric winch purchased online.  Other purchasers mentioned that the supplied mounting plate really does not fit and one needs to drill out a couple of holes.  Without even looking at it or holding the parts up and saying "that's not going to work" I've been pondering the next step of getting my farmer/beekeeper friend to partake in this.  I've been keeping bees much longer than him be he has been much more successful.  It's attributed to him milking cows for thirty years.  He does give me a "didn't anyone teach you anything?" look when it comes to welding, large farm animals and equipment stuck deeply in mud or cow stuff.  I've found that almost everything is far more costly and consuming of time that the stuff or the parts that we buy to get things done.  In the 27-year gig we used a three-year payback on equipment purchases.  Shown to save hard or soft costs over three years, those decisions were made very quickly.

Literal Windfall Profit
We burn a lot of wood.  Our suburban lot was full of large red and white oak tress.  Three years ago we took down on that died.  Approximately 48" across chest high it was a monster.  There could have been a lot of saw logs but there was no way to get a vehicle where it came down and it was too large to manipulate for a portable mill.  Over the course of a mild (not much snow but still cold) I converted that into about ten cords of firewood (split by hand.  Checking prices seems to indicate that that was about a $5000 profit not counting my time, wear and tear on me and my saws (Stihl all the way).  

Where is this heading?

There are many instances where the options are limited.  There are no blended choices, no opportunity to innovate.  Commuting is much like that.  You can sit on the bus or the train, put some tunes in your head or act like you're reading.  I've never ever been able to read anything of any value on a bus, train or aircraft.  Unfortunately it's a bit of a zoned out time.  People Magazine, were it longer, would be good for air travel.

You could take the unusual action (Fantasy: hotel elevators [w/ cameras]) but in a confined space it may result in you going nowhere or literally raising an alarm.  Established organizations are a bit like this.  We have x number of products or our delivery channel is like this or here is how we do planning or we like employees like xyz.  Outside of that really does not work.  I used to think that some of the places I labored were a bit like being in prison.  As of this moment they are being re-framed as being in a four floor hydraulic elevator (hydraulic versus cable is another good topic).  Perhaps elevators should have some sort of rheostat control...I guess that's what elevator operators did.  

Now that I've "not worked" my way out of the daily freeway commute my travels take two forms.  The first is back and forth to the small business and the handful of places I go to quietly think about my personal brand, the small business brand and leveraging those in a "new economy" or "new commerce" income stream.

The second route is literally "up north" where my outdoor stuff, artistic work, workshop, etc., provide an even better palette for thoughts about the "new economy" or "new commerce" income stream.  We have timber wolves about, too.  They have eaten a lot of cattle and the deer population in central and north central MN is down.  For the past three years there has been a limited hunt in MN, WI and MI but a federal judge closed the door on that yesterday.