It’s Not About You

It's Not About You book cover

It’s Not About You
A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business

An all-new, inspiring parable from bestselling authors Bob Burg and John David Mann. If you’re a network marketer or business person who enjoyed ‘The Go-Giver’ and ‘Go-Givers Sell More’ you’ll love their most recent collaboration.

“In this story, as we re-visit Pindar’s town, a few familiar characters from The Go-Giver show up again, along with some brand new ones. The book’s lessons — expanding on Law #3: The Law of Influence from the original story — touch on influence and leadership, business and parenting, even life and death. We hope it will change the way people go about pursuing personal and business success.”

>> Pre-Order ‘It’s Not About You’
>> Website

“This book captures the essence of life and leadership. I recommend it!”
– JOHN C. MAXWELL

“A manifesto for twenty-first-century leadership.”
– DARREN HARDY, publisher of Success magazine

“IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU reveals the same philosophy we have at Zappos: Get out of the way, so your employees can lead the way.”
– TONY HSIEH, CEO of Zappos.com

“I LUV this book.”
– COLLEEN BARRETT, President Emerita of Southwest Airlines

About the Co-Authors:

Bob Burg photo
Bob Burg

Bob Burg @BobBurg is an author, speaker, defender of free enterprise and an empowerment thought leader.

John David Mann photo
John David Mann

John David Mann @JohnDavidMann is a composer, concert cellist and prolific, multi-award winning author.

Gas or Electric?

Nissan Leaf charging

Gas or Electric? Electric vehicles pollute (electricity generation, batteries… ), but there’s a general consensus that they’re a much more eco-friendly alternative than today’s gas guzzlers.

If you were an electric car company how would you advertise your new vehicle?

Sometimes the best argument for a new technology is to mock, or at least draw attention to, what we’re doing right now. Kudos to Nissan’s ad agency for this commercial.

BC had an early version for the Winter Olympics and we’ll be seeing many more in 2012.

Choosing Markdown Software

HTML to Marked and Byword

Not too long ago, having a website required at least a little knowledge of HTML (HyperText Markup Language). For many of us that meant purchasing an HTML book. I chose Elizabeth Castro’s ‘HTML FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB’. Sadly, even with Elizabeth’s book sitting on my desk, composing HTML wasn’t always straightforward. Fortunately, for those of us who are code-challenged, John Gruber created Markdown and made our lives easier. It’s been said, "if you can add an emoticon :-) to an email, you can compose with Markdown."

"Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)…"

Using Markdown is easy, but choosing Markdown software can be befuddling; new tools arrive almost every week, so there’s a big list of apps vying for your attention.

My recommendation for choosing Markdown software for Mac:

  1. get Marked
  2. get Byword
  3. there is no step 3… cliché but true, grab Marked for $2.99, Byword for $9.99 and you’re good to go.

For about thirteen bucks you have a very powerful, personal-publishing system for your online/offline needs.

Related Article: Markdown Mac

Mac Bookmark Managers

Webbla icon

Mac Bookmark Managers: Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I used a Mac Bookmark Manager called URL Manager Pro. As time went by it began to feel like Alco Blom, the developer, had lost interest in his app. I found a new bookmark manager called Webnote (originally WebnoteHappy). Unfortunately, once again, as time past, it felt as though the developer, Luis de la Rosa, was losing interest.

from URL Manager Pro to Webnote to Webbla

Shortly after I installed Mac OS X 10.7 Lion I started looking for a modern, 64 bit, Cocoa, Objective-C, Mac bookmark manager that was being actively developed and that interfaced nicely with both Delicious and Pinboard. I also hoped to find a Safari extension designed to work with the bookmark manager.

I discovered Webbla. Webbla was exactly what I was looking for.

Webbla screen capture

The Webbla website does a great job of describing Webbla’s bookmark library management features.

“If you like to handle your music and photos with iTunes and iPhoto, Webbla is the right application to handle your bookmarks.”

I love the way the Webbla team advertises “sunny mac software” from the island of Mauritius. These folks are very pleasant and are a pleasure to communicate with.

BTW, yes, I had a quick look at BookMacster, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

If you’ve been searching for a Mac bookmark manager, you need to check out Webbla.

Best Lion Apps

My heading, Best Lion Apps is a little misleading. The apps I’ve listed work best for me, but choosing applications is clearly subjective, everyone’s needs are different. That said, I’ve tested a huge pile of apps and I always enjoy discovering which apps other people are using.

In past lists, I included links to all of the application’s home pages, but with the advent of the Mac App Store, most of the apps I’ve listed are very easy to find. If you can’t find an app at the MAS, have a look at iusethis or even MacUpdate.

With each major upgrade to Mac OS X I slim down my system. You will note that I’ve eliminated Microsoft Office, Adobe Design Suite Premium and DEVONthink Pro Office. I’ve also deleted and replaced dozens of lesser known apps:

  • Sublime Text replaced both BBEdit and TextMate
  • Alfred replaced LaunchBar and Quicksilver
  • Echofon replaced Twitter
  • Reeder replaced NetNewsWire
  • SmartBackup replaced Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!
  • Soulver replaced PCalc
  • Sound Studio replaced Amadeus Pro, AudioHijack Pro and Wiretap Studio
  • Webbla replaced WebNote

Here’s my list of Best Lion Apps

64 Bit Apps

  • 1Password
  • Alfred
  • Aperture
  • AppDelete
  • BetterZip
  • Byword
  • Caffeine
  • Contacts Cleaner
  • Default Folder X
  • DiffFork
  • Direct Mail
  • DropDMG
  • EarthDesk (activated occasionally)
  • Echofon
  • Export Address Book
  • Fantastical
  • ForkLift
  • FX Photo Studio Pro
  • Growl
  • iClipboard
  • Integrity
  • Leap
  • LicenseKeeper
  • LittleSnapper
  • MAMP PRO
  • Marked
  • Moom
  • Mou
  • PDFpenPro
  • Picturesque
  • Pixelmator
  • PopChar X
  • Postbox
  • Printopia
  • Reeder
  • SmartBackup
  • Soulver
  • Sound Studio
  • Sublime Text
  • TaskPaper
  • Tembo
  • TextExpander
  • TextSoap
  • TinyAlarm
  • Transmit
  • VidConvert
  • VoodooPad
  • VueScan
  • Webbla
  • xScope
  • Yoink

32 Bit Applications

  • Color Schemer Studio
  • CrashPlan
  • Dragon Dictate
  • Dropbox
  • Flare
  • Google Earth
  • HoudahSpot
  • iLife
  • iWork
  • Levelator
  • OmniGraffle Pro
  • OmniOutliner Pro
  • Panorama Sheets
  • PhoneView
  • ScreenFlow
  • Scrivener
  • Skype
  • Syncman
  • ToastTitanium

I suspect most of my 32 bit apps will eventually become 64 bit apps. In any event they work well with Lion today.

If you think I’ve missed an essential app, please let me know.

MarkdownNote for Mac

MarkdownNote for Mac icon

I’ve been on a text editor, plain text and Markdown kick recently. Why is that? Quoting Brett Terpstra, Markdown is just such an “easy, fast, clean, portable, flexible workflow” for writing with plain text and outputting to HTML, PDF and LaTeX. Just yesterday I wrote about using Sublime Text and the Marked app.

Today, a nifty new application arrived at the Mac App Store. It’s called MarkdownNote for Mac OS.

“MarkdownNote makes it really easy to create notes using John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup language in your Mac or iPad. Using live preview feature, you can preview your Markdown markup syntax to HTML on writing. Sync your documents with Dropbox.com, built into MarkdownNote for iOS and using the desktop client on Mac.”

It’s not going to replace Sublime Text and the Marked app in my workflow, but the implementation of a single widow design with instant live HTML preview is brilliant. A tip of my hat to Young Hoo Kim at Coding Robots.

Update (20111002): I also recommend checking out the new Mou app

Note: There’s also an iOS iPad version of MarkdownNote.

MarkdownNote blog entry

Best Mac Text Editors

Sublime Text or TextMate or BBEdit graphics

What are the best Mac text editors?

My current top three Mac OS X text editors:

  1. Sublime Text
  2. TextMate
  3. BBEdit

Even the recently released BBEdit 10 somehow feels old, but, frankly, I have no idea why. Is it still a carbon app? It’s still 32 bit, but do either of those things actually matter? I was a BBEdit guy for years, right up until TextMate was released and then again after TextMate stopped receiving regular updates. I should love BBEdit because it’s updated regularly by a team of very clever fellows who clearly have a road-map. It’s Mac only, so the engineers are focused, but for some reason I’m not in love, BBEdit doesn’t suck, but…

TextMate works remarkably well considering how long it’s been since it was last updated significantly. It’s still 32 bit, but again, does that matter? I just have the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that TextMate has been abandoned. Update: TextMate 2 alpha just announced.

Sublime Text recently captured my, almost full, attention, it feels fresh and modern. I’ll confess when I first visited the Sublime Text website, I was a little put off by the Windows screen shots. I also thought, “What a crappy icon.” The preferences thing was next on my list of off-putting stuff; I’m a Mac guy, so I’m accustomed to a nice GUI, instead I was greeted by customizable preference files. On my second download and install cycle, I added my favourite TextMate theme and played with the combination of Sublime Text, the Marked App and TextSoap; ends up they worked very well together. The first positive thing I noticed was that Sublime Text was fast. Then that it’s also receiving very frequent updates. Hey, since then I’ve even gotten to like the preference files, there’s significant power hidden in there.

Chocolat has potential, but it’s clearly very early days. It was slow to launch and slow to quit compared to Sublime Text. That plus I’m a ducks in a row kind of guy and Chocolat didn’t remember my chosen window size and position, so that was it for my evaluation, at least for now.

Looking for a markdown theme (.tmTheme) for Chocolat, Sublime Text or TextMate?

MacVim also beckons from time to time, but I suspect I’d end up spending more time learning Vim than actually getting stuff done.

*Disclosure: I’m certainly not the best guy to review text editors, I don’t write code. I use my text editor for general writing, updating my blogs, content manipulation and a little, very little, HTML and CSS. That said this really isn’t a review, it’s just a few thoughts about why I’m currently using Sublime Text.

Markdown Mac

Sublime Text 2 plus Marked App icons

Markdown Mac: Have you considered using Markdown on your Mac?

Markdown is “a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).”

Why Plain Text

Proprietary file formats can be a pain. Have you ever received a document that was tough to open? Microsoft Word and Publisher files spring to my mind. Years ago many Mac owners were forced to use a program from DataViz to convert files that arrived from Windows users. These days some Mac owners still feel compelled to purchase the newest version of Microsoft Office. It really doesn’t have to be that way. In an ideal digital world, your operating system, software of choice, software version and chosen fonts shouldn’t matter, it’s your content that’s important and it should be readable everywhere, now and into the future.

Plain text gets it right, it’s your words that matter; simplicity and portability are important.

It’s Your Words That Matter

Plain text isn’t just for the Web, it’s perfect for email, text messaging, all sorts of information sharing and archiving. An added bonus is that plain text doesn’t have to look boring, it can contain simple instructions for formating when output to HTML, PDF and LaTeX. This is where Markdown and MultiMarkdown come into play.

>> Why Markdown? A two-minute explanation

>> Markdown Primer

Action Steps:

  1. Get a text editor (see list below)
  2. Grab the Marked App

Apple supplies TextEdit with every Mac, but you might want to consider a more powerful app. Mac OS X is fortunate to have a number of excellent text editors, you’re likely aware of BBEdit, TextMate and TextWrangler, but there are also other apps that handle Markdown very well. Examples are:

  • ByWord
  • Chocolat (early days)
  • iA Writer
  • Macchiato
  • MarkdownNote
  • MarkMyWords
  • MultiMarkdown Composer (was MMDEdit)
  • myTexts
  • Smultron
  • Sublime Text

I’m currently using Sublime Text 2 in combination with the Marked App.

Sublime Text is nifty, it’s fast, modern, cross-platform, 64 bit and capable of using many TextMate themes, snippets and bundles.

Note: Fletcher Penney, the creator of MultiMarkdown, is developing MMD Composer, I’m anxious to see how it will perform.

Blogging with the Marked App

Marked App: Markdown Preview for any text editor.

Marked App icon

Do you use a Mac? Do you have a blog? Have you used Markdown? If so, there’s a new OS X app new you need to check out. It’s called Marked.

“Marked opens MultiMarkdown, Markdown, Text or HTML files and previews them as HTML documents. It watches the file for changes, updating the preview any time the file is saved.”

Features:

  • works with any editor (I’m using TextMate)
  • floating preview
  • a number of preview styles
  • document statistics

Marked app example

I just select ‘Copy HTML’ and then paste the code into my WordPress HTML editor. Voila a new post is ready to go. All I have to do is to tweak the SEO fields.

>> learn about the Marked app

I’ve previously written about nvALT an earlier app from Brett Terpstra, but the beauty of the new Marked app is that it works with any text editor. Brett doesn’t have to keep up with the changes to Notational Velocity and users choose their favourite text editor; the Marked app does the rest.

Enthusiasm for Network Marketing

Don’t you wish you could bottle ‘enthusiasm for network marketing’, the ‘on fire’ emotion that new distributors exhibit the day they decide, “I’m in!” and they join your company?

As it turns out, new distributors quickly discover that:

  • many people have negative preconceptions about network marketing and relatively few people are willing to consider joining the network marketing profession
  • of those who do “join us”, some become discouraged and quit.

Q: Is there a way to reduce attrition (number of people who give up)?
A: Yes, there are a number of ways. Here’s one, have new team members focus on the process, not just on their results:

Rick Hagar

Rick Hagar is a full-time network marketer who has previously built an organization of over 200,000 associates (team sales in the tens of millions). In the video, Rick briefly mentioned the ‘Law of Averages’, if there’s a secret in network marketing, S.I.N.A.L.O.A. (Safety In Numbers And Law Of Averages) is it. If you reach enough people, you will build a team and with persistence your team will very likely become huge.

FYI, I first learned about S.I.N.A.L.O.A. from Lawrence Thompson, who, surprisingly, is still most famous for his success at Herbalife.

Update: I’m no longer involved with network marketing.