You are invited:  Business Executive Learning Lunch

Sponsored monthly by Robertson, Woodford and Summers, CPAs and The Alternative Board

Tuesday Sept. 21

“Why is Google Important? ”

An Introduction to Online Marketing: email and more

• Developing an keyword list for your business
• Competitor research to improve your website and marketing
• How to get your website to the top of Google search results
• How to set up your business on Google Places
• An introduction to other Internet marketing – Pay per click, social medi

Coryon Redd is a local entrepreneur and Internet educator.  He is the President of batteries4less.com,  a successful ecommerce business that sells cell phone batteries and accessories online.  Coryon brings his energy, experience and expertise to Internet marketing classes taught locally and beyond.

NOTE NEW LOCATION

RSVP by contacting; Ruth Schwartz at 530 288- 0180 or ruth@highperformanceadvocates.com

Lunch is Free.

Noon – 1:30 at Sierra Commons – at the top of The Stonehouse 107 Sacramento St., Suite 300 in Nevada City

Add this to the “things you need to learn the hard way” category but my poor, poor, website has has a miserable summer.

The good part is that many people notified me last week that my website was sick. Either I have really great friends or many site visitors. Hope it is both.

The bad news is that it was REALLY sick.

Here is the story as I understand it. A few months ago someone or something hacked into my site. The best local minds went to work , restored it and told me that it was a weakness with WordPress.

Lesson: Seems you need to do your upgrades regularly.

A month later my site was hacked again. Files everywhere! But this time the verdict was that there many people are finding their hosts at fault.

The lesson: change hosts.

A few weeks later, my host shuts me down because someone tries to hack me.

Lesson: have an advocate that can talk to these guys. (Not my fault!)

Last week I woke to emails telling me that Google had put a big, hairy, scary, red warning across my pages. It seems that a virus had entered my site via the passcode and taken my site to its knees requiring a week’s worth of cleanup to fix.

The lesson: Protect your ridiculously complicated passcodes.

What’s next poor,poor website?

I wish that my site were important or controversial enough to deserve this attention.  But at least I can say that my website is healthy and safe today and I hope you will visit it.  But If this had been my husband, my kid or my dog I would be a wreck right now.

The lesson: Its just a website.

The Internet is Not a Territory

In 2003 when Apple announced the launch of iTunes, I was in the audience in Cupertino as an independent content provider. It had been many rough years leading up to this.

For years record labels, artists and distributors had been arguing the following points:

John said ” Its money for nothing, Ruth. No one will ever sell much music through the internet.”  (True enough!)
Mark said, ” We aren’t selling on the internet. We should sell there any way we can.”
Jay said, ” Our agreement says we can license music in other territories. This clearly is another territory.  ”

In my search for understanding I turned to my attorney, Marc Greenberg. He said, “No one understands what is going to happen on the internet in terms of intellectual property. But in the eyes of the law, the internet is clearly not a territory. There is no physical space you can go to. It is not like they are planning to sell music on Mars. This is legally, a new format, a delivery system.  While it is going to be hard to understand and control it is clearly not a territory.”

This clarified two huge issues for me. As a music distributor, this tested my ability to stay in business as new delivery systems evolved. Secondly, by what model were artists going to retain ownership of statutory songwriter and performance rights in the long term? As I write this today, I can confidently say that the answer to both of those issues remains mired in the missing link that the music industry has done everything in its power to resist and find new models.

Apple temporarily helped maintain the advantages and liabilities of ownership and kept quite a few record labels in business. But Apple is not a music company its a computer company. The jury is still out in terms of a long-term solution for delivery of intellectual content while retaining the artist’s rights.

Recently I reconnected with my attorney, Marc Greenberg. He was now the Dean of Intellectual Property at Golden Gate University of Law.  I asked him casually, “ When will the law catch up to technology?” His answer was illuminating. It started with, “If you think the music industry is interesting, you should hear about the gaming industry, cloud computing, avatars and internet business communications.”

That was when I asked him to come to The Holbrook Hotel on Nov. 13 to give that exact presentation. If you are interested in how this story impacts your business or in fact your life in other ways, join me- The Alternative Board, the ERC and the Nevada County Bar Association for lunch.

Reserve your seat now.

I don’t have the answer. I’ve been thinking about it a lot though. And I’ve been noticing a lot of business owner anxiety not just about Twitter  but social networking in general. Until I get really clear about my opinion, I’ve been telling my clients with anxiety to single task. Learn one thing at a time. Prioritize and conquer. Keep to the plan. And above all else, don’t worry about it. 

For now, read Alexandra Samuel article” Don’t Keep Up With Social Technology” on the Harvard Business Review hotlist. She’s close to mirroring my current sentiments.

While researching hiring systems and incentive plans for TAB board members, I ran into “Building a Better Website” on Inc.com’s website. There are 22 How-to guides in these catagories:

Make Sure Everything Clicks ( hosts, performance, links and utilities)

Content Is King (Writing, traffic, blogging, proofreading and more)

Know What Your Users Want, and Give It to Them (surveys, live-chat)

Building Your Brand in Cyberspace (marketing rules)

I’m reading them all. Let me know what you think.

I have been a member of Grass Valley’s lunch time Le Tip networking group for almost three years. Dollar for dollar this networking group has netted more business for me in a number of different ways than any other marketing effort.

Lunch Bunch is a casual, volunteer lunch that is a part of the program. Click here to see what  some members, at lunch bunch, have to say about Le Tip: