Visitors to My Blog
Back in 2004 I created a web statistics tool I called Twinkle Maps. It would show views to a page on a map over time so it looked like little lights twinkling across the map. This was exceptionally good for tracking viral spread. I’ve stopped using that tool since Google Analytics handles a bunch of other things as well as a map component. It’s not as useful for viral marketing analysis but it does more than what I need on a daily basis.
I look at the analytics once a day and study them in more detail once a week. I’ve found some fascinating results. Today I found someone using MSN with the search term “red dwarf” visited my blog. I posted an article about the BBC and Creative Commons licenses that mentioned Red Dwarf and that is what the person found. It seemed odd that the person would find my blog based on that search term so I tried the search myself. My site does not show up on the first 32 pages. How far down the search was the person looking?
Raser Inc. has visited my blog 4 times, once going to the contact page but they didn’t contact me. Why? Only 10% of people that go to the contact page contact me. Perhaps they were looking for my phone number. I added my phone number, lets see how many calls I get.
I get a lot of traffic from universities. Here are all the universities and colleges that visited my blog this year.
Borders Personal Publishing Beta Test
Borders Books new concept store in Ann Arbor has several innovations. My next book will be part of a Beta test for one of those innovations, Borders Personal Publishing Service. http://publish.bordersstores.com And I would like you to be part of this test. I want the readers of my blog to suggest things to cover or questions to answer in my next book, “Free. How to Thrive in the New World of Abundance”. When the book is published I’ll be making appearances at Borders to talk about Predictive Innovation & Abundance.
Borders Publish Yourself allows you to have your book printed and listed for sale at every Borders store plus others such as Amazon and even Barnes and Nobles. The books are printed on demand through Lulu.com, the leader in on demand publishing. I’ve already published one book using Lulu. The great thing about all of this is how quickly you can complete a project. Instead of waiting months for a traditional publisher to print your book Lulu can print your book the same day and ship it to you overnight. This is exactly the reason I used LuLu to publish Ron Paul Revolution: History in the Making. The content was fresh and it needed to get out while the topic was hot. As a result I beat Ron Paul to market with his book.
Low upfront cost. Traditional book publishing and even self publishing services required printing thousands of copies. Print On Demand allows you to print as few as one book. This fits very well into the long tail. Now that people are able to publish books that might not have large audiences those books can now be sold. The market goes from 0 to 100s and maybe 1000s. Perhaps your market is bigger than you imagined. Until you can get it published you will never know. Abundance makes things possible that weren’t before.
Borders Publish Yourself offers three levels of service plus a selection of individual services.
| Service | ISBN | Standard | Premium |
| ISBN Registration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Interior Page Design & Formatting | No | Yes | Yes |
| Free Proof Copy of Your Book | No | Yes | Yes |
| Self-Publication Guide | No | Yes | Yes |
| Editorial Evaluation | No | No | Yes |
Action Items
Finding Gold in the Closet at the Detroit Economic Club
Today when I attended the presentation by Gary Shapiro to the Detroit Economic Club I uncovered opportunities that were being overlooked. Mr. Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronic Association, encouraged Detroit to embrace free trade agreements and use innovation to meet the challenges of increasing competition. He was absolutely correct, however as so many others beating that drum, he failed to explain how to innovate. Many of the attendees left feeling even more pressure.
Oddly enough, everyone of the people I spoke to were using the same failing approach to competition and every single one was overlooking huge profits from using resources they already own. Profits from things they currently considered expenses.
Two companies I spoke with were trying to improve efficiency in hopes of lowering prices. The first was a tool and die company that was implementing 6 Sigma to find ways to improve process efficiencies. This is a good thing. I was one of the founders of using statistical process control (SPC) in the USA back in the 1980s. If the company was typical they could expect 10-30% improvements. This would make many managers very happy. But they were actually wasting their time and energy. They had 4 very expensive machines sitting idle. They were probably losing $400,000 per year in missed revenue. More importantly if they just made $1 more from those machines it would be INFINITE improvement in efficiency. They are currently getting zero efficiency. The machines are collecting dust and wasting space. Any money they make from those machines is infinite increase in efficiency.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com