Business Blogging

Voice transcription service for blogging?

I was introduced yesterday to Copytalk, a transcription service based in India that records up to 4 minutes of voice, transcribes it, and sends it your or any 4 email addresses you want the same day. (It's $50 a month.)

Although I use squarespace to host my blogs, I'm aware and have used email to post remotely to blogs.

This service would allow Paul Allen to forego his cherished blackberry and shrinking thumbs and just speak into his phohe and see a new blog post appear. I'm quite sure that almost anyone can speak faster than they can type.

When Bloggers say: Hey! There's a lawyer after me!

I am an attorney. First, the legal comments and advice you are providing constitutes the practice of law and, thus, you could be facing criminal sanctions. Second, I have been contacted by one of your readers you wants to take legal action against you for improper legal advice. I suggest that you refrain from providing any further legal advice in your blog or have it reviewed by an attorney before posting it

Blog your business & your competition.

Business blogging? Here's my 2 cents.

I've been blogging for a while.

irBlogLogo.gifI'm sure I started out the way most bloggers do. I heard about blogging. Clicked a few links. Opened a free account at Blogger which I posted 2-3 sentences and then abandoned. Read a few more blogs. And then I started a blog at a paid service.

The paid part and the sense of familiarity that came with time allowed me to actually start writing.  (I'll leave the decision as to whether it's worth reading to you.) The tipping point came when I realized that I didn't have to write a book, that I was an authority on a number of things that others wanted to know, and that I enjoyed sharing that information and felt rewarded when people would read my stuff. It's not a thesis. It's a blog.

Now I have a total of three blogs, each with a specific focus.

The first blog I posted to was Medical Spas Online. MSO is a community blog that I write for occasionally  focused on non-surgcial cosmetic medicine targeted directly at physicians in that space. It's attracted a loyal redership of around 2000 docs.

Interaction in that space and a growing familiarity with blogging in general has built a sense of 'blog trust' in me. 

So I started two other blogs. (I'm also trying to talk my daughter into starting a blog on 'Three Day Eventing for Young Riders'.)

I've launched an experimental blog for my medical business. The Surface Medical Spas Blog is designed to be an interface between Surface and our patients. Our physicians and staff will post information on our treatments and technology, and answer questions in a format that is available to our existing  and potential patients. I'm excited by this since I haven't seen this kind of format used by any business in the way we're using it.

Then there's this blog of course. Startup venture, startup blog. 

A growing number of great blogs cover much of what I'll be blogging about here. Why would the bloggosphere be in need of anything I might ad? Who knows. I'm hoping to be able to accomplish a number of things. Focus my thoughts and strategy by forcing myself to commit my thoughts to paper (kind of). Interacting with other entrepreneurs. Attracting talent. Instigating a corporate culture. Buiding trust in our small business clints, and potential business partners.

Now before I get too excited, Chris Anderson has some feeling on business blogs; "the natural voice of the boss is fundamentally incompatible with the voice of the blogger, at least as regards their own company affairs."

 But wait, there's still hope. Chris goes on to say "The best business blogs come from the employees, not the bosses. They have more time, and are less prone to marketing gobbledygook and gnomic platitudes. And those kind of blogs are on the rise, not the decline."

In reading that, it seems like my wish list may be a tall order. We'll see what we can do. 

Why there so many sucky blogs and artists.

Blogging's not easy. It often feels like you're actually haveing to write something for an audience.

I've been reading a lot of business blogs lately and am struck with the number of posts that suck. (Not like this one.) While I  enjoy blogging I've come to realize that the actual writing is less than exciting. It reminds me of my artist days. As an artist you must be very comfortable being alone. All my paintings (almost all) we're created entirely by myself, in my studio, while I was working late at night and alone. Everyone thinks that the act of creation is exciting and fulfilling, and it is. But the joy of creation comes at the beginning and the end.

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A painting is exciting at conception and fullfilling at completion. The actual act is not usually enjoyable at all. In fact it's rather tedious. The Jackson Pollock style of throwing paint on a canvas is not my experience. As a realist, I've spent countless hours painting and repainting. This is a painting I worked off and on for a year. (Total full time of maybe 3-4 weeks.) It's big. 5 by 6 feet.