You might find it strange, but I’ve actually never looked at business as an art that can be mastered. Up until recently, I saw business as a skill and a discipline that you learn, much like solving a physics problem. But only now I realize that it’s much more than that – it’s an art that needs to be mastered. My previous attempts at starting a business weren’t as successful as I would have liked them to be, and now I realize that perhaps the reason is just that; it’s an art and a science with infinite intricacies and challenges. But in the end, if you see the pattern, beyond the numbers and the well thought out strategies, perhaps you’ll make it after all.
If you’ve seen my blog before, you might have noticed that the title changed. It used to be “Alexandre Boudreau’s Blog”. Yes, I know, that’s far from being creative and appealing, but the fact is I just didn’t know what to call it. That is, until now. It’s probably déjà vu, but what the heck, that’s how I see it now, that’s how I’m calling my blog. In addition to a revamp in title, I’m taking a turn with the content as well. You see, I’m a man of projects. It’s the only thing that keeps me alive (obviously aside from my beloved wife and son). I need to think, learn, innovate, and create. This is why I’ll be mostly dedicating my blog to a new project I’m starting – outside business hours of course. But it’s not so much about the project itself, but rather the process and journey towards the goal: One year from today, I must have brought this new project to life. I have one year to bring everything together and make it a successful project, according to my terms. There’s no stopping, no looking back, no abandoning. Just move forward and adapt along the way. On a weekly basis I’ll be describing this journey and hopefully we can all learn from it.
Let’s mark the date. On no later than December 12, 2010, I must unveil this project to the world.
Cheers!
Since I jumped aboard the social media wave I turned millionaire almost overnight. Ok, that’s not true at all, it’s just a joke. But if you read blogs, articles, tweets, and books about the topic, it’s something you’ll see from self-proclaimed social media gurus. Is it just me or does it seem like EVERYONE is a social guru nowadays? So you’ve been using Twitter and Facebook for while and now you have revolutionary marketing advice for every business out there?
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly agree that being social is an extremely powerful way of building your business or even your personal brand. After all, I wouldn’t be blogging here and using Twitter if I didn’t believe it. (For the record though, I’m not pretending to be a guru or almighty expert, I’m just sharing my opinions from experience). But the reality is everyone out there (figure of speech) is doing the same. Some books I’ve read recently seemed to imply that if you create exceptional content and you indirectly promote it through social media you’ll eventually be successful in your endeavor. But let’s face it; with millions of blogs out there, it’ll be a challenge. It certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it because of that – after all we do it for the fun of it in the first place, but I think it’s important to realize that it requires effort, dedication, and persistence.
If you were an early adopter and strategically positioned yourself in your ecosystem, then you certainly have a good head start which increases your chance for success. But I believe the methods that have worked for the now famous bloggers and authors will not be as efficient for newcomers, who started in the past year, like me for instance. I believe it’ll require us to step it up, be innovative, and leverage the existing tools to breakout of the crowd. Differentiation is not that easy, but it’s possible, and quite frankly necessary in my opinion.
In any case, I do believe startups and small businesses do need to get onboard very quickly, otherwise they risk of being left behind and if they wait, it’ll take them too much effort to get back to par. Here’s some great statistics on social media adoption posted by @SocialSonya.
