Micro entrepreneurship. What has worked well

Taking the Bull by the Horns,
Minoan Bull

 Started 7:30 am Friday 30th December 2010  
Words 577

Micro-entrepreneurship  is the sub-theme of this blog.  After evaluating the blog yesterday (Blog content) this is the first part of the new cycle.  So what have I discovered and achieved this week?

First is that small can be beautiful.  The danger with a lot of social networking tools is that they can take over and become a means to themselves.  Many businesses are finding that employees are spending a lot of time on Facebook, for example to the detriment of productivity. 

Personally, I do not visit Facebook all that often, owing to the fact that I do not want to know everything that a person is thinking.  Mystery and secrets can be wonderful things.  Also not clever if a recruiter wants an insight into your character.  A small blog article when written well and focusing on a single topic may be  more effective than a display of all your knowledge.  This often leaves a reader a little overwhelmed much as it does in a conversation. The discipline of micro blogging via Twitter removes a lot of the stunned and wonder factor.  However, my experience of Twitter is that there is a lot serial twittering, how do they get the time, whose message sometimes becomes diluted because of the sheer volumes of tweets.  From some sources it is almost like spam email, especially teacher recruitment agencies.  Do they not realise that if you are teaching you only have a small window of opportunity to indulge in tweeting?   

Linking activities and drawing almost Chinese walls between web presences is another conclusion from this week.  Why repeat the same information in a blog (dynamic presence) that could be better served by a static  presence,  a web page?  After all a blog should be like a reflective diary.  It should not be an out and out sales pitch.  Written in a journalistic style it can intrigue and lead people to want to know more.  They  interact and find the information you want to give them.  Then you can do the micro-entrepreneurship from your static presence. It is about time management.  What is the most effective use of your time for producing income streams as a micro-entrepreneur?  

I have spent a bit of time this week looking at a number of areas. Use of Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing and how to make people come to you for your services (which will appear on Tuesday).  Institutions for professional development, which will appear next Wednesday.    On Thursday, those tricky work-life balance issues.  As a Wellbeing Facilitator/champion in a former employment I have over the years acquired some knowledge of this often murky topic.  Which brings us to the free running or free blogging of the weekend, general on Saturday and Lunch on Sunday.   Monday is for that aspirational moment and the intention to ski uphill.

So how long should it take.  About a half-hour per day.  You can always go back to important issues at a later time.  They won't go away, if they do they are not as important as you thought.   This time frame is not difficult, as a teacher I have used reflective practice on occasions.  The trick is to focus on the positive benefits of the experience to best practice.  An Australian technique that was championed by pupil behavior gurus many years ago (do not hear about it too much now) was the ratio of positive to negative comments.  This also applies to any form of communication.  Nobody likes a miserable basket!