BryanPovlinski.com

I’m the kind of person who wants to know how to do everything. Lately, I’ve been extremely interested in the blend between business and technology. I’ve bought quite a few books on topics like new media marketing, entrepreneurship, etc.

Currently, I’m reading Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernhoff and I’ve recently read Free by Chris Anderson.  Both of them have taught me a lot about where the business world is heading, and how technology will play a major role.

I’ve also been interested in learning how to build websites and how I can start some of my own projects.  I’ve started by dabbling in blogs.  First, I started on Wordpress.com with The Idea Exchange.  It was fun for a little while, and I started getting a few comments here and there.  I learned how to submit my new posts to Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon and it was pretty exciting when I got a wave of traffic from those sites.  I just kept getting frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t really customize my blog the way I wanted to on Wordpress.com.

I graduated onto Typepad.com with my Career Kickstarter blog about a year ago.  My goal with the new blog was to provide a resource for college students and recent graduates on everything I was learning as I started my career.  I planned to document some of the things that went poorly and some of my own success stories.  I learned how to add my own HTML to pages, bring in 3rd part widgets, and put Adsense ads on my site.  I learned quite a bit about how things worked together, but I was still frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t really customize things any way I wanted.  I would see some cool new functionality on another blog that I wanted on mine, and then I couldn’t figure out how to make it work or it just wasn’t possible with Typepad.  Plus I couldn’t have my own domain…it had to be careerkickstarter.typepad.com which I never really liked.

Now I’m here on my own hosted Wordpress platform.  I haven’t done everything I wanted yet (far from it).  But I feel confident that I can make changes when I find a new idea that I want to implement.  I still have a lot to learn, and I plan to take some tutorials on PHP so I can really get into customizing the Wordpress templates.  You’ll probably be seeing a lot of changes to this blog while I tinker and experiment with everything I’m learning.

That brings me back to the original point of this post.  I would have never gotten to where I am now if I just took classes about blogging or read a book about it.  I probably would have been able to talk about blogging , and been able to understand what most things mean but I wouldn’t have been able to actually do anything on my own.

I’ve gotten a lot of value in experimenting and learning how things work on my own.  However, sometimes it gets to the point where I really want to make something work, but I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.  That’s where I think it’s valuable to talk to an expert or someone who has more experience than you.  I changed my blog over to a new domain because I originally installed it at www.bryanpovlinski.com/blog.  I didn’t have anything that I wanted to put at www.bryanpovlinski.com so I set out to move everything over.  It ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought.  I ended up having to go into the .htaccess file to make changes.  Now I had read about the .htaccess file before and I knew what it was, but I had no idea that I needed to go in and edit it.  The installation of wordpress has hundreds of individual files, and I never would have known which one to go in and change.  Luckily, my friend and co-worker Brandon Corbin is just across the office and he knew what I needed to do.  Now I know it’s not always possible to have an expert of whatever you’re trying to learn sitting right next to you at work.  If you do, perfect, ask them for as much help as you can.  Here are a couple more resources that I’ve used to get expert advice.

LinkeIn Answers

I had heard about this, but I didn’t realize how active people are on this site.  There are experts out there that subscribe to keywords that they are experts in so that they can respond as soon as someone asks a question about their expertise.  I asked a question about ecommerce and had 7 answers in the first day from people who are experts in that field.  If you have any business or technology related question LinkedIn is an outstanding resource.

Twitter

Twitter is another great resource because mostly everyone on Twitter is extremely open to responding to questions and helping each other out when they can.  Again there are people on Twitter that use search and RSS to subscribe to keywords that they know a lot about.  These people are eager to answer questions and help others out when they can.  Twitter is also a great way to reach out to others in your local area that you might be able to meet up with to talk about your project.  Services like Twellow are great because you can search for Twitter users by city and by topic to find people in your area that might be able to help you.

Online Forums

When I first got my hosting account with Bluehost I had an issue with uploading images and video so I posted in the help forums.  I had a response by the next morning that helped me solve my problem.  Another forum that I’ve used a few times that is popular with the web marketing community is the Digital Point Forums.  There’s a forum for any single topic that you can think of so it might be a useful place to go when you’re really stuck on a problem.

What other places do you know where you can get specific expert advice quickly?

This month Inc. Magazine did a feature article on Ponoko, an on-demand manufacturing platform from New Zealand. The article explains founder David ten Have’s motivation of starting a company that provided an opportunity for everyday people with a desire to make things.

The article explains ten Have’s theory that the innate desire to make things has been suppressed by our “consumer-oriented” society and the fact that we’re so used to being able to go buy whatever we want at Wal-Mart or any other store.  Ponoko is absolutely an awesome business concept.  I can upload a design for any kind of object that I can dream up and Ponoko will have it manufactured for me at a reasonable price.  No minimum quantities or any other restrictions.  If I want to sell my creation I can set my own retail price and even use their web site to start marketing it.  Plus, if I’m planning to sell I don’t have to purchase any kind of inventory.  My product is stored simply as a design file on my computer and whenever someone makes a purchase I can place another order with Ponoko to have one made.  I’m excited…this is really cool!

However, here are the problems I see with this as a major business.  How many people really understand how to use CAD (computer aided design) applications?  I don’t, and I’d consider myself pretty proficient with technology.  Ponoko has already addressed this by allowing users to request a product by working with an experienced designer.  That’s definitely helpful because then I don’t have to worry about learning the software.  But the deeper questions is how many people really have their own ideas for how a product can be made?  If I want a new table I’m probably going to go looking around a store to see what types of designs look best.  I’ll probably be able to find one that I really like.  I don’t think I need to create my own when I don’t have the slightest idea of how one should look anyways.  Have I become a victim of the consumer-oriented society that Ponoko’s founders are trying to rebel against?

Regardless of how Ponoko does as a business, I think it’s a great concept and I plan to try it out and get a product built soon.  Heck, maybe I’ll even try to sell a few.  I do hope this type of distributed manufacturing catches on because it could lead to innovation in a whole slew of product categories.  Is Ponoko something you’d like to try out?

This is a question I ask myself quite often. On an everyday basis, how am I being useful and valuable to others? I’m pretty sure that the value you create for others is proportionate to what you get back yourself. Think about Bill Gates. The reason he is so rich is that Microsoft and it’s Windows operating system and Office productivity suite made things better for so many people. Businesses could use software programs on the Windows operating system to operate rather than keeping written records. Everyday people could use computers to store information, play games, and communicate better with each other. Those are all incredibly valuable and Bill Gates obviously made out pretty well himself.

Every day I think about what kind of value I’m creating. I hope this blog becomes valuable a couple (hopefully more) people. What are you doing to create value?

Image Credit - CNET

Have you ever actually thought about what web browser you’re using?  For the way you use the web could there be a better option?  According to the data, about 65-70% of people use Internet Explorer.  Now, is that because Internet Explorer is so much better than Firefox, Chrome, or other competing browsers?

I think the main reason is that Internet Explorer comes pre-installed with Windows, and it’s sufficient for most things you want to do online.  It’s almost like the sports team that you grew up rooting for or the religion that you were born into.  You get set in your ways, you’re happy, and there’s no reason to make any changes.

However, there may be some major advantages in other browsers depending on what types of things you like to do online.  Here are some alternative browsers and why they might be an upgrade over Internet Explorer.

Firefox

The best part about Firefox is the add-ons.  You can find a add-on for almost anything you like.  If you’re involved in social media and you spend a lot of time sharing things with others (through email, Facebook, Twitter, etc) you can add the Shareaholic application.  If you enjoy looking at pictures in Facebook albums or anywhere on the web you might like Cooliris.  Finally, you might want to try Xmarks if you have a lot of bookmarks on your home computer, and you’d like to be able to use them on any other computer you log in to.  There are tons of other tools that you can find in the Firefox Add-Ons Directory.

Google Chrome

The biggest advantages of Chrome are speed and seamless integration with Google products.  If I just want to have a clean, fast, and simple web browsing experience I’m going with Google Chrome.  Although it can have trouble running too many tabs, it’s by far the fastest browser for simple activities.  It also works the best with Google services like Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Docs, etc.  If you use these applications and have had trouble in Firefox or IE it’s worth downloading Google Chrome and just setting up Google products in Chrome separately from whatever other browser you’re running.

Flock

Flock is somewhat under the radar, but it’s actually the browser that I use most often.  I like to have a lot of tabs open at once, and Flock has been the best at handling multiple tabs at once.  Sure, there are some issues once I’ve had a tab open for a week with 7 other tabs, but that’s more of my problem than the browser.  Flock is built on the Firefox platform so almost any add-on that is available for Firefox can also be installed on Flock.  The other cool part about Flock is that it incorporates social media and RSS directly into the browser.  Even as I read articles on other sites I can see new Facebook or Twitter updates or my friends in real time.  I also have the Facebook Chat feature available at all times (even when I’m not on Facebook) in case I want to shoot one of my friends a quick question.  I can grab an RSS feed automatically while I’m on a web page and throw it into my reader application.  Obviously, not all of the features in Flock are necessary for the average user, but it allows you to do so many things at once instead of having to jump back and forth between the normal sites you use.

Take a look at your online habits and see if there is a browser that’s better for you.  Obviously, IE works quite well and it now has quite a few features of its own, but it’s not your only option.

So this is the first post on Bryanpovlinski.com.  I’m excited about this new arena because I’m not limited to a certain topic.  I’m realizing that I have a lot of interests, and I’d like to be able to voice my opinion on any of them whenever I want.  With Career Kickstarter I tried to narrow the focus to career related advice.  I’m definitely interested in my career and giving advice for others to find their path, but I’m by no means an expert and it becomes a chore to post career thoughts several times per week.  Here on Bryanpovlinski.com I’m going to be talking about a few different things.  One theme that I hope to talk about often is using online tools to make improvements in your life.  I think that new technology tools are seriously underused by the general public, and there is some value in simply making people aware of some of the awesome new tools available online.  I’m also passionate about entrepreneurship and doing side projects for fun and profit.  I’m also extremely interested in the world of online marketing, and I’m learning quite a bit about that area in my job with Sigma Micro in Indianapolis.  Finally, I hope to write a lot shorter posts here instead of trying to work really hard on long, informative posts.  I know you don’t want to read long posts so I might as well keep things short for your sake and mine.  I’ll also be integrating my Twitter profile and comments on other blog posts/articles through my Posterous and Delicious.  Hope you like the new blog!