Home Based Business

In the words of the immortal Rabbie Burns, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us -To see oursels as ithers see us!”

And to see our business “face” as others see it.

Which is to say that I’ve just come to the realisation that I haven’t been communicating effectively what it is I “do” from a business viewpoint.

Even (especially?) with this blog.

And what makes that acknowledgement even more discomforting for me than it might otherwise be is that, along with other blogging consultants, I’m in the habit of explaining to business people that one of the main advantages of a blog, as compared to a traditional website, is that your readers can get to know you and your business in a more transparent and personal way.

So it’s fair to say I’ve been going along on the assumption that people who read this blog, regularly and/or frequently, would have a fairly good idea of who I am and what I “do”.

I’m thinking now I may have been kidding myself.

Because over a coffee last week, a business acquaintance, who I thought had a pretty good idea of what I do and who told me he reads my blogs, told me also that he didn’t really know what I did.

Then I remembered seeing either an email or comment some months ago from a blogging colleague, a very smart guy, who had indicated that he had not been clear about it either.

Obviously I needed to hear the message a couple of times. But discomforting feedback is often or always more valuable than praise and reassurance. Anyway, I figured it was time I posted something here to clear the air, so to speak.

So here goes. Basically, I’m a business coach. What I “do” is that I work with successful business owners and entrepreneurs
who want to take their business to the next level without getting burnt
in the process.

And in fact I started blogging as a way of promoting my services as a
coach, after I’d been to a coaching conference in San Francisco and attended a session with a great guy named Hal Macomber, a project management expert whose topic was, from memory, “becoming an e-celebrity through blogging” - at a time when I didn’t have a clue what blogging was. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a celebrity, more that I was interested in the idea of expanding my coaching business by becoming better known internationally. Blogging seemed to offer that and at a very low or no dollar cost. That impression was reinforced later when I did a course with another blogging coach, Andy Wibbels, now a best-selling author on blogging for small business.

Little did I know back then that blogging was to become an obsession a passion for me!

After trying various blogging platforms, topics and names, I started the original Thinking Home Business on the Typepad platform. I think part of my approach was that, as I’d had years of experience about working from home I had a topic I could write about without much stress.

Then as time passed I noticed a couple of things:

• I seemed to be posting more about issues to do with blogging and social networking and not quite so much about the working from home aspects
• the visitor stats indicated that the blogging and social networking posts were getting proportionately more attention than the working from home ones.

I then made a conscious decision to write more about what seemed to be of greater interest to readers.

Which is how Thinking Home Business started to be more about reflections and opinions on blogging and social media as well as, but by no means exclusively about, the practicalities of being a home
based professional.

Then as I
blogged I got more involved in and passionate about blogging, social
networking and other Web 2.0 wonders, and more enthusiastic about spreading the word about how they can help business. I began to describe myself as “a business coach and blogging evangelist” and put that on my business card. I wrote a “getting started “blogging manual for business owners and put myself forward for speaking engagements. In due course invitations came to speak to local groups and even state and national conference gatherings, not about coaching but about business blogging.

All of which is fine. In fact a great buzz. I really enjoy doing presentations and panel appearances on blogging and Web 2.0 for business.

And I like writing,
such as for the audiobooks LinkedIn for Recruiting and Big Biller which I’ve co-authored with Bill Vick, my colleague in Dallas, and my own aforementioned blogging manual.

None of which activity is in conflict with the coaching. In fact, as coaching is a lot (all?) about more effective communication, I make good use of my coaching skills in the “other than coaching” work I do, such as in presentations and workshops on business blogging. And even in writing books about, say, recruiting.

So I’m still a coach.

As far as blogging on the subject of coaching goes, I’m re-focusing on that on my deswalsh.com site - and it’s my intention also to get back to contributing as a member of the coaching group at Coachamatic.

By the way, if you’re one of those business owners or entrepreneurs who want to take their business to the next level and you think we might be able to work together, I have a
few timeslots available at present, so why not drop me an email (deswalsh(at)gmail(dot)com) and we can set up a call to chat about it - no obligation, no
stress: all my clients are volunteers. And I coach by phone or Skype, so geographical distance is not a problem. More
here about my coaching.

Of course, one of the great things about a blog, compared to a traditional website, is in a situation where I find I’m not communicating effectively I have the opportunity to explain to many people at once and in the confident expectation that many will actually read it. Whereas with a website it would surely take much longer to get the clarifying message out.

Minor rant.

Just found the official CeBIT blog (Update: not quite - it just looks like the official one. See note at the foot of this post.)

On blogspot?

Is that a chance missed for a platform vendor? SixApart? Blogtronix? WordPress.com? etc.

Maybe Australia/CeBIT are not on the radar.

Then again, I see that Google are sponsors. But couldn’t they have made it look a bit more schmick than your basic blogspot template?

Hope they let me into the Blogger Zone tomorrow

UPDATE and Correction: If I’d looked closer at the sidebar on the CeBIT site I would have noticed a link to the real  Official CeBIT Blog integrated into the website structure. It looks like it’s exactly the same content as at the blogspot site - slightly confusing.

When I had to register anew for the IT event CeBIT Australia, which started today, I realised it’s been a while since I visited - my address had presumably been scrubbed after I missed for a couple of years. Anyway, I’ve signed up now and will be off to Sydney for the day tomorrow.

Having just spent the past couple of hours going through the list of exhibitors and checking their websites, I believe I’ll have plenty to keep me engaged, checking out the various stands, asking questions.

I must admit that in the past, although I’m not a real gadget guy, my interest in this sort of trade show tended to be about trying to understand something about the latest gadgets - “technology as gizmos”. From a scan of this morning’s press about the CeBIT show, I was evidently not alone. Just as I am obviously not alone in being more interested now in how the technology can facilitate business rather than in the gadget wow factor. And more focused on what online services there are available.

Evidently the exhibition this year has been aligned to a heightened visitor interest in practical applications of technology.

As is explained in veteran IT watcher Roland Tellzen’s story in today’s The Australian newspaper - Down to business at big show:

“It’s about how business today can use
the new wave of technology,” said Jackie Taranto, managing director of
Hannover Fairs Australia, CeBIT’s organiser.

“To now, CeBIT has brought in the right environment to see what is happening with innovation on a global scale.

“Now we’re providing the environment to show how that innovation can
be used to improve business competitiveness on a global scale.”

and

I’m keen to get the maximum value from the exhibition tomorrow, as well as catching up with a few colleagues during the day. As I no longer live fifteen minutes from the exhibition centre, so won’t be able to pop back a second day for another look,  what I don’t see tomorrow I don’t see. Not my ambling round approach of yore.

I’ll be looking particularly for ideas about how the technology can simplify and streamline the businesses of those of us working from home.

I’ve just spent a couple of hours going through the website and clicking through to nearly all of the linked websites of exhibitors. It looks like I will have no shortage of things to see or questions to ask.

It’s been a bit frustrating, this pre-visit research exercise. For instance, I found it frustrating that some links did not work. And it seemed odd to me that at least two of the links were to sites in German, without an English version,or even just a page in English saying “come and visit our stand and we’ll explain all”. Perhaps some underlings were charged with filling out the form and did not stop to wonder how people with, if I remember the phrase correctly, überhaupt kein Deutsch (no German whatsoever), might be encouraged to visit the respective stands. Or maybe they thought the show was in Austria.  

And while I found it interesting to have the various exhibitors arrayed in sectors - as e-Health, Web Services, Business Software, etc, it was a challenge to work through the logos to the links, one by one, and not see them displayed in a list anywhere that I could see. Also, as some of the exhibitors obviously put their products into several categories, there was quite a bit of repetition involved- “I thought I’d looked at that: oh my, so I have (grrr)”. Eventually I ran out of time to go one by one through the twenty four categories. I have enough to go on, but I will have to check the program thoroughly tomorrow so that I don’t miss stands I would particularly like to visit.

It would have been beneficial especially for those of us on a one-hit time schedule, to have on the website a map of the space with exhibitors listed. I assume I’ll get such a map tomorrow when I arrive, but then I will have to spend twenty minutes or so studying and planning my circuit, which would otherwise have been viewing and question-asking time.

I’ve earmarked several stands to check out as a matter of priority and I’m particularly keen to talk with the people at:

As I wasn’t planning to lug a laptop around all day, I had thought  I would not be able to do any live blogging from the show, but I’ve just re-visited the CeBIT site and found - the Blogger Zone! Nice one. Maybe someone there will be able to show me how to make Twitter work for me and not the other way around.