Monday, October 31, 2005

Early Skiing in Washington???!!!???

 

After a very disappointing, almost non-existent 2004-2005 season, Washington Ski areas may be looking at a great and early ski season this year.  Stevens Pass today received its first snow fall of the season – over 6 inches at the base and over 8 inches at the summit.  More information can be found at Stevens Pass .  

 

Other Washington ski areas planning on a great season include: The Summit at Snoqualmie ,  49 Degrees North , Bluewood , Crystal , Hurricane Ridge , Mission Ridge , Mt. Baker , Mt. Spokane , Stevens Pass , and White Pass .

 

Bartell Drugs to open in-store MinuteClinic Health Care Centers

Bartell Drugs announced today (10/31/05) that they are teaming with Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic to provide in-store health care centers.  They will be starting with Bellevue, Renton, Sammamish and Seattle in December.

 

These health care centers will be staffed by nurse practioners who will treat and write prescriptions for minor ailments including strep throat, earaches, bronchial infections and pink eye.  

 

For a full press release, please look toward www.EastsideBusinessWeekly.com

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Scoble mentions Eastside Business blog

Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist and Blogger from Microsoft, mentions the Eastside Business blog at:  http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2005/10/30/how-to-get-on-memeorandum

 

We have since moved our blog to our own site at www.EastsideBusiness.com/blog.htm

Eastside Business website is being reworked

After yesterday’s Blog Business Summit, http://blogbusinesssummit.com , we are putting the redevelopment of our websites into high gear and the new site should be complete by December 1st (if not sooner). In the meantime, if you would like to keep up on Eastside Business news, please feel free to sign up for the FREE Eastside Business E-Newsletter by sending an email to Subscribe@EastsideBusiness.com

Did you know that you can post a blog entry by email????

This is a really cool part about blogging.  I just found out how I can post an entry to the Eastside Business blog by simply sending an email!

Now anyone who can send an email can be a blogger!

Get your own blog at www.blogger.com and make sure to check out www.EastsideBusinessWeekly.com

 

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Business Blog Summit - Overall Summary

Today's 2005 Blog Business Summit in Seattle was great! Each of the speakers and presenters had a lot of great knowledge and experience to share and I took a lot of info away from it. The entire day was well-planned and professionally organized. It was the first time I had visited Bell Harbor International Conference Center and it was first class all the way. Did I mention how great the food was??? I feel bad for anyone who thinks they have a web presence who was not in attendance at today's Blogging 101 Seminar. I'm sure they will want to get to the next one, wherever it is ... We at Eastside Business certainly learned a lot of great information that we will put to use immediately. Our readers and businesses on the Eastside can look for some substantial changes in our web strategies in the very near future. Thanks again to Steve, Kim and all the other great people at: Blog Business Summit, as well as the great speakers who shared their knowledge today. Joe Kennedy Eastside Business Promote@EastsideBusiness.com

Business Blog Summit - Blog Management: Strategies and Tactics

A panel of blogging experts including Chris Brownrigg of Boeing, Janet Johnson of Marqui and Brian Ratzliff of www.WhatCounts.com in Seattle, and moderated by Buzz Bruggeman. The initial discussion involves screening and editing posts. Boeing's main blog does not accept comments at all. Their marketing (Randy's Blog) blog does accept comments but only by email. Brian talks about how only 11% of the current net audience is involved with blogging. He believes that will be a slow build as the new Microsoft Vista operating system that will support RSS feeds is released, as well as new versions of web browsers that will incorporate news aggregators as well. Janet recommends that all blogs clearly state their mission statement. This will help to keep on topic and relevant. She also points out What the Lawyers Will Say: Blog, but be aware of the risks. The panels talks about bloggers who have had problems with what they have written. There have been cases of people getting fired for making inappropriate comments in their blogs - Buzz points out these are really simply cases of people doing stupid things.

Business Blog Summit - Blog Promotion: Posting isn't enough

This session is being lead by Robert Scoble and Buzz Bruggeman. They both talk about how blogging is the way that word of mouth networking has evolved. How do you get a blog to talk about you? - join in - link to them - be interesting - share information - don't write about your product all the time, provide other interesting information, such as how someone is using your product, testimonials, - have conversations, engage people Use trackback to find out who is talking about you. Feedster.com is a good place to check for who is writing about you, your competitors and your industry. When you are interested in developing a working relationship, linkbacks, etc with a blogger, care enough to find out about and know about who you are approaching. Buzz talks about how both he and Robert are big fans of David Allen. Scoble talks about people who ask him about how to get more traffic. He says that is not the right way to think - think instead about how to get a few key people to read what you are blogging - that's what will really bring the traffic. Buzz said "treat everyone who writes about you as if they're writing for the New York Times" and Scoble chimes in "they are" ... memeorandum.com is a site that Scoble likes to use to find new ideas and interesting people. Buzz recommends the cluetrain manifesto - www.cluetrain.com He is now talking about the importance of talking (and being nice to) the media ... I'm really getting to like this guy ;-) Now is he talking about knowing what the audience is. Both Buzz and Scoble understandably think that press on the web has a lot more impact - I would think this is especially true for companies like theirs that are in a tech business. Scoble's new book Naked Conversations will be out January 9th ...

Business Blog Summit - Choosing a Platform

This session is about Getting started: Choosing a platform, which will be examined by Steve, Byron and Molly. A blogging engine is software that drives your blog. There are many different varieties that can have numerous admin and user features. There is a discussion going on about if and how to migrate from one engine to another, say from a free service (like this msn spaces blog) to a more robust solution with more tools. You want to keep the ability to import and export all your information. Molly seems to be a big proponent of Blogger which can be both hosted on their servers or on those of your own domain host. Type Pad, Word Press, Movable Type, there are many different choices of engines to use, but there is no guarantee that any of them will be around next year or even tomorrow. It seems to be extremely important to keep control of your content so that it won't disappear on you - if your content is important to you. Enterprise level solutions feature tools from blogging and traditional CMS (content management system) and include those such as Drupal, Marqui and others....

Business Blog Summit - Seattle WA - Live! continued

After a break and fine lunch, Janet Johnson, Vice President of Communications of Marqui is telling the group about their experience as the first company to be widely known to have paid bloggers to write about them. They started an ethical debate about the use of blogs. The results are very interesting ... I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Janet during lunch and I pointed out that it has been said that any press is good press. She points out that on Marqui's blog they do not write about their (marketing) products, but they write about how to become good marketers. This gives their blog a better value to both their customers and their potential customers. Another couple of interesting points that she makes is to make sure to engage your detractors and drive to closure. Janet's six rules of engagement: 1) Develop thick skin 2) Be absolutely honest 3) Have a point of view 4) Do Your research 5) Engage your detractors 6) Drive to closure Doug Gastich from Marqui is now showing off some of the features of their web-based marketing integration suite which recently launched. You can find out more at www.marqui.com

Business Blog Summit - Seattle WA - Live! continued

DL Byron is now presenting Smart Blogging: Essential Blog Design and Critical Features Blog design influence: - minimalism - simplicity - usability and focused on content

RSS - Really Simple Stealing????

Here at the Business Blogging Summit in Seattle, Scoble said that RSS might be called Really Simple Stealing .... He also explained that he wants people to steal his posts, because that way they will help generate him extra links and traffic.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Eastside Business Weekly E-Newsletter - Sign Up for FREE

If you are interested in Eastside Business, you will definitely want to sign up for the FREE Eastside Business Weekly E-Newsletter delivered by email every Monday. To sign up, simply send an email to Subscribe@EastsideBusiness.com