Open Source Blogging

Over the next several months, I’m giving several presentations and speeches on my story and what I learned about personal finance along the way. Some of these engagements will be paid ones, thus this may be the beginning of a new revenue stream in my life.

As with anything new in my life, I’m filling some of my spare hours learning more about public speaking, particularly since this may begin to become a source of income. My first step was to simply ask some of my friends for … Continue Reading

Today is the two year anniversary of the launch of The Simple Dollar. Last year, to celebrate the site’s one year anniversary, I selected my twenty five favorite articles of the first year of the site. I thought I’d continue that tradition by selecting my twenty five favorite articles from the second year of the site. These aren’t necessarily the best articles of the last year (though many of them are), merely the ones I enjoyed writing the most and also generated interesting discussion. Enjoy!

Homemade Bread: Cheap, Delicious, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think … Continue Reading

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Ruby of the Ruby’s Life blog.

In 1999, I was stocking frozen food at a San Francisco Health Food Store and chatting with my friend Dan Moore, a painter and bicycle messenger (and now square dance enthusiast!). I was bemoaning my lack of success with writing and dance. There in the freezer aisle, in our padded gloves and box knives he gave me a little lecture.

“If you want to be good at something, you have to to be obsessive. You have to do the thing all the time, and when you’re not … Continue Reading

I just finished a speech at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego where I discussed the trend of "marketers as publishers" for about an hour.  Great group, excellent questions. During the speech, we discussed social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn (among others).

I spoke at an OMS event six months ago, and the number of people using these three social networking applications have easily doubled (as measured by a raising of hands) over that time. Social media is literally part of a marketer’s life today. … Continue Reading

I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Peter Burris, principal analyst from Forrester Research, speak today at the ISBM (Institute for the Study of Business Markets) conference at Penn State University.

Outside of some interesting statistics regarding business-to-business marketing, Peter’s take on what marketers must do to survive really hit home with the audience of mostly btob CMO’s and product managers.

Core research findings from Forrester state that new product adoption success, now managed by the buyer and not the seller (not new news here), is solely dependent on the quality of the need-matching effort. More specifically, Burris states that "marketing … Continue Reading

Editor’s note: I will be away from my computer for a little bit, so I’m posting this quickie, but I hope you enjoy it! I know it will probably be criticized for a lack of depth, but please forgive me as I take a break for a day. I’ll try to do something more in-depth tomorrow!

Sometimes we all can use a little inspiration. I thought I’d share some of my favorite inspirational videos with you, hoping that it’ll help pick you up today.

Play these as needed. Warning: you might be inspired to greatness, so use with caution.

1. Randy Pausch’s Last … Continue Reading

I’ve sat in tons of audiences at tons of conferences this year. I’ve noticed a trend that I first noticed at Gnomedex: more and more people are sitting on their computers or Blackberries. Some people have decried this as the inattention of an audience that should be paying attention on stage.

I say that’s hogwash. If you want us to pay attention do something worthy of paying attention to.

Yesterday I watched as an audience of several hundred put down their Blackberries, turned off Twitter, and became transfixed on what they were hearing. It was so quiet you could hear a pin … Continue Reading