Thinking Outside the Box

Thinking creatively, and with originality is a tricky business.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Too often we limit ourselves
with boundaries, constraints, and rules when we don’t have to. I
offer you the “poem” below as a small example of “thinking
outside the box”.

Some will tell you that this is not true poetry, and it may not
be, for a number of reasons. It doesn’t appear to have much of a
meter, or even a consistent rhyming scheme. I also use different
bold text to emphasize certain words. In the original
version of this I also used different colors for some of the
words and formatted the whole thing as a big diamond in the
middle of the page. Some of these things are probably traitorous
sins against the general rules of “traditional” poetry.

Even so, that doesn’t mean that this piece is not a creative
endeavor in it’s own right. What do you think?

The black cloud still looms menacingly overhead.

It’s circling like some kind of

dark, vaporous buzzard,

waiting for us to give up,

so it can dive and peel the flesh

from our bones in dripping strips.

We squint against the sun at it,

shading our eyes from the glare,

shaking our empty fists at it,

muttering snippets of our misfortune

to each other.

Behind us in the sand, we see the trail

of our desperate footprints,

scurrying this way and that

across the landscape.

We have left no stone unturned,

yet we have not found our shotgun

or our parasol.

Unless a caravan of gypsies appears out of nowhere,

we will soon need to leave here voluntarily,

or be shown the way out in a much more distasteful
manner.

To sit idle is to give up, and quitters never win, but
…

we have no answers for this riddle we are in.

When I first released this, the description I wrote said,
“Don’t tell me this isn’t poetry. I think it’s poetic, so…
it’s poetry.” I was bitterly trying to stuff it into a box that
it wouldn’t fit in.

However, based on some feedback I received, I realize it can’t
be traditional poetry. Still, I feel that as a creative piece,
it combines art and poetry, and therefore has some sort of value
to stand on its own. Maybe it’s not poetry, but it’s…
something.

Thinking “outside the box” when you do anything creative is like
that. You have to be willing to stand up and validate your work,
because it won’t easily fall into any certain category for the
masses.

So, be brave. Make your own genre. Make your own medium.

Make a new box.

Getting Yourself Known

What are the 5 best ways of getting known in the speaking industry?

Getting known in the speaking industry does not happen overnight. You need to work at it bit by bit. The first thing to remember is that you are an unknown in the beginning, even if you possess the expertise required for the audience. At first you will need to speak to anyone who will listen. Second, you will need to get feedback on how well you did and what the audience liked and what they thought needed improvement. Third, do not take any of this feedback personally; use it as a tool to advance to the next stage in the speaking portion of your career.

Fourth, constructive feedback will provide the basis for making improvements to your talk. You will need to see where there is conflicting comments and make a judgment as to what should be the correct topic. Fifth, you should have every speaking session video-taped, or at least audio-taped. You will need to review everything you said, even the stories of failures and successes. This tool will enable you to make even further refinements. You can even tape yourself without the audience, but it is the audience reaction that you need to hear.

When you first begin, your audience is not likely to be well targeted. The reason is probably that you need to gain the necessary experience to more finely tune who they are. In the beginning you are after constructive feedback, and when you are able to implement the feedback and fine tune the presentation, you are ready to further define your audience.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com

How to sell ebooks online.

Recently a client asked us for the best way to sell ebooks online. We put them in contact with Newsletter Magic and we’re so happy we did. The client is really happy with the service and has already sold hundeds of ebooks online. The best part is that its 100% automated and his money gets deposited the same day. The client took less that an hour to configure his account - which says a lot about the ease of the product - and was seeling his book the same day. Our client didn’t have to worry about getting his own website or a shopping cart or anything.

Here is a quick excerpt from Newsletter Magic that describes in better detail how they do it. It really is a slick little program and its only $9.95 a month.

“An entrepreneur sells and delivers his new e-book using Newsletter Magic. The entrepreneur utilizes Newsletter Magic’s hosted webform to process payments for his new e-book. A ‘Receipt’ is sent in the form an autoresponder while the ‘e-Book’ is sent in the form of an attachment. The purchaser’s details are saved to the database and used in autoresponders to inform them of future e-books and public engagements.”

How To Write Quality Articles For Reprint

Writing articles is probably the best way of promoting your
website these days. It gives you the chance to seriously
increase the amount of backward links your website has, links
which are also on a one way basis and helps you to spread your
message and website across the net.

In this article I describe how to write these articles to make
the biggest impression and to get the maximum impact.

My name is Stephen Hill and I write articles for my own websites
and am also asked to write articles for other people. These are
the areas I think are most important when writing articles:

Article length

Your article should not be too long, the reader should be able
to read your article in between three and five minutes.

Keep it simple

Not everyone who reads articles on the internet are brain
surgeons. Keep it simple by using easy to understand text.

Short paragraphs

Keep each paragraph fairly short, on average about three to five
lines.

Make it interesting to read

When writing, try to write from the heart with a passion. Keep
the reader interested and make it fun.

Give the reader a reason to read the article

The article should have lots of free advice and information
which is likely to be of use to the reader.