Phil Gerbyshak » Blogs

Why I Love Google Reader

Phil Gerbyshak — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

If you read blogs, you need an RSS/blog reader. It’s so much easier to use a blog reader than to bookmark all your favorite sites and visit them because you only get notified when they update their content, saving the step of visiting a site and wondering “Did they update today or not?”

My favorite blog reader used to be Bloglines, but then the site was too slow to load and I started using Google Reader, and now here I am with Google Reader.

I read a lot of blogs. 1004 blogs to be exact. I don’t know that number by heart, but I know that number because Google Reader tells me so. The stuff I love, I shared publicly. You can check it out at http://philgerb.com or by clicking in on any of my articles and looking in the right sidebar at the widget that says “Google Reader Shared Items.”

I love Google Reader for many reasons, and I thought I’d share several of the best reasons with you now.

Google Reader’s shared items (for you) – I can share items with all the folks who want to follow me, saving you the time of reading through 1004 blogs yourself.

Google Reader’s shared items (for me) – I enjoy reading things people I respect read. I can do this easily by “following” these people and enjoying their shared items. I like this feature so much, this is where I start my blog reading every day, in my friends’ shared items.

Create Topical Folders – Google Reader allows me to easily create topical folders for the various things I read about. Customer service, social media, management, marketing and the like, all have their own topical folder. Sure, some authors go off-topic from time to time, but I categorize them in the most appropriate folder for the bulk of their writing.

Add tags to individual articles - I can also tag individual articles by topic, so when I share them with my followers (and when I refer back to them later on for research), they are nicely categorized.

Separate website for my shared items – If I haven’t convinced you to use Google Reader yet, or if I don’t want to share my Google e-mail address with you, you can still check out all my shared items on a specific URL. The real URL is https://www.google.com/reader/shared/philgerb but I have pointed http://philgerb.com to it so when I share it during my presentations, it’s much easier for folks to remember. This website also links to my Google profile, so for those who don’t know, they think I built another website

Mark All as Read (by a certain period of time) – Sometimes I just get too darn many articles to read in my backlog, so I want to mark them all as read and start over. But now, if I use the drop down (see below), I can pick the period of time I want to mark them as read, especially helpful if I am on vacation or traveling for an extended period of time.

So those are some of the reasons I love Google Reader. Now it’s your turn.

Do you use Google Reader? What’s do you love (or hate) about it? Do you have a different RSS/blog reader that you’d like to share?

Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for playing!

Love photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chitrasudar/2752476205/

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Host and Setup Your Blog (for Less Than $75 a Year)

Phil Gerbyshak — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:14:00 +0000

I’ve shared why you need a blog, I’ve shared how to set up a blog for free. Now I’m going to share with you how to host and setup your blog for less than $75 per year.

First, why spend any money when you can set up a blog for free? Lots of reasons, but here are my 3 most important ones.

1) Credibility – If you have your own domain, folks take you more seriously. I experienced this first hand, as I used to have Make It Great! over at TypePad (you can see it at http://makeitgreat.typepad.com if you wish). When I told people what the URL was, they would inevitably type makeitgreat.com which is someone else altogether.

2) Personal e-mail – As much as I love Gmail, it’s nice to have phil @ philgerbyshak.com to give people, plus it looks better on a business card.

3) Control – I get a LOT more control now that I have my own domain on a shared hosting. I can add widgets to the sidebar, I can control my design, I can change colors, and if I wanted to, I could add advertising and do other things to make money. Please note: I am not going to tell you how to be a professional blogger. If you want those tips, please head to http://problogger.net and Darren Rowse will tell you how to do this!

There are tons of other reasons you may want your own domain, and one day I may go through them with you. For now, if you’re interested, please keep reading, and if you’re not, then go ahead and go back to set up your blog for free.

Register your domain for $10 a year and sign up for small hosting at A Small Orange (It’s only $5/month). Pick your name, pick your mantra, pick your niche, but pick something easy to remember and easy to spell (except for your last name). ALWAYS register a .COM address. Trust me, you’ll thank me for this!

Wait for the e-mail to come to you with your control panel (CPANEL) information. It usually takes less than 15 minutes.

Log into CPANEL and scroll down until you see the Fantastico De Luxe smiley face. Click on Fantastico De Luxe smiley face.

Look on the left side for WordPress and click on it.

Install WordPress

Here’s a screenshot with 1 of my domains

Leave the install in directory blank
Enter your administrator name (please don’t use administrator) and your password (please make it 7 or more characters with letters and numbers to be safe).
Enter your name in the Admin nickname, and your e-mail address in the Admin e-mail.
Enter your site name in the site name, and enter 3 or 4 keywords in the description field, then click Install WordPress.
Click on Finish Installation.
Follow the instructions on screen to get your admin stuff (if you followed my instructions, you’ll be able to login with your administrator username and password at yoursite.com/wp-admin
Get writing!

And now you are set up with your website for just $70 for the entire first year!

Any questions?

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My Personal Brand

Phil Gerbyshak — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:44:00 +0000

I’ve been talking a lot about social media lately, but I think it’s important you build a base for your social media presence, so I’m going to back up a bit and talk a little about branding. I talk about personal branding, because I am my brand, and ultimately even if you are a business, you are YOUR brand too.

Pete Kistler put together this nice template for explaining your personal brand based on work by Meg Giusseppi. They are encouraging others to use it for themselves, and so here I am.

My vision is:

A world where everyone is connected to the people, places and tools they need in order to be successful.

My purpose is:

To make difficult ideas simple so that everyone can be remarkably successful.

My passion is:

Helping people understand their uniqueness and maximize their presence to the world.

My values are:

Simplicity. I like to make things as simple as possible and no simpler. Complicated ideas are only complicated until someone explains them in English.
Authenticity. I am good at some things, and not good at others, and I’m smart enough to know the difference. I’m willing to admit when I made a mistake…and I’m willing to share what I learned with you.
Relationships. Business is person to person, regardless of what business they are in. The more people you can develop relationships with, the more you can accomplish.

My goals are:

In one year, I will have 10 courses/products completed around finding your brand and showcasing it for the world to see.
In three years, I will be delivering courses and keynote addresses 30-50 times a year, with at least 50 courses/products for folks to use to build their brand.
In five years, I will be published by Wiley or Portfolio with a book on the power of being a relationship geek.

My top three brand attributes are:

I constantly am dreaming of new ways to do things better and more effectively
I constantly envision what could be and believe in the power of YOU!
I love people!

I excel at:

Uncovering patterns and strategies for simply explaining who you are and what you do.

Getting deep quick with people to understand what is REALLY there and not just what’s on the surface.

People describe me as:

Energetic, authentic, passionate, helpful

My weakness is:

Lack of attention to details. I spend a lot of time thinking about the big picture, and the details can get lost.

My target audience is:

27-40 year-old professionals/entrepreneur who wants to take their career/life/business to the next level!

I know I have competition. What differentiates me is:

My ability to break things down into the simplest possible terms and explain it to others in ways they can understand and take action.

What do YOU think?

Is this a helpful exercise for finding your brand?

What’s on YOUR personal branding worksheet?

Ideas for action:

Take some time to go through this exercise and find your unique brand.

Share it with those who know you best.

Revise often until you find something that really FEELS like you.

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Build Buzz for Your Blog

Phil Gerbyshak — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:05:00 +0000

Guest article from Chris Perry, Career Rocketeer founder.

NOTE from Phil: I got introduced to Chris when he featured me as one of the 150+ Experts on Twitter ALL Job Seekers MUST Follow. I was impressed with the time he took to create this list, and the care he took to really talk a bit about each person he profile. I quickly realized this was someone to learn from, so I asked him to write a guest post and he asked me to write one, so here goes his fantastic article.

Bloggers from across industries and areas of interest are always seeking new ways to reach greater audiences with their articles and gain increased recognition for their expertise. Developing your reputation as a blogger often takes a lot of time, effort and patience through consistent publication of valuable content.

Because we live in an age in which we are being bombarded by more and more information on the screen, it is increasingly important to be able to convey the content of your blog in a concise and visually pleasing manner that visitors can swiftly survey and assess. One way to generate more buzz for your blog (i.e. attract more visitors and get talked about) is to compile and publish critical information in lists. A list appears shorter and more organized on the screen. Furthermore, lists are easier for busy professionals to digest on-the-go.

You can create buzz-worthy lists on just about any topic that is relevant to the theme of your blog. Even when you are not specifically writing a list, you should think of ways to break down your articles into bullet points or shorter parts to make them more quickly digestible for your readers and in turn, increase the potential for them to go viral.

The following is itself a list of some ways to generate buzz for your buzz-worthy blog content:

LinkedIn offers a number of ways to promote your blog content. First, place a description and a link to your new article in your LinkedIn profile status. Second, join LinkedIn groups (maximum limit is 50 groups) that are relevant to your industry or areas of interest, and, where appropriate, submit the article link to each group’s News section. Third, if you own or manage your own group, you can send the link out in your weekly announcement to your group members.
Facebook is not the ideal syndication platform for your articles; however, you can also use your profile status to link friends to your article. If you have a Facebook group or fan page for your blog or website, there you can create a link to your article for your members or fans.
Twitter offers you the opportunity to “tweet” or broadcast a short description of your article and its link to your followers. While you should never overtweet anything, you may choose to tweet this to your network at a couple different times of day throughout the week to provide your followers more of an opportunity to see content of interest to them.
Business Exchange, by BusinessWeek, is a great resource for reading material that is relevant to your areas of interest. It is also a place where you can syndicate specific articles from your own and other blogs and websites. You can submit your article to multiple topic categories for increased readership.
Ning networks within your areas of interest offer you forums where you can share your article content and links to your blog.
Newsletters are great channels for the distribution of information. If you maintain an email list of consenting newsletter recipients for your blog or website, your newsletter can be a great place for you to include a link to your article.
MOST IMPORTANT: If your lists or articles feature people, blogs, websites, services, organizations , books or anything associated with someone who would value such press or promotion, don’t forget to contact them by email, LinkedIn message or Twitter direct message to let them know about their coverage and politely request that they promote it to their own personal networks. We all appreciate recognition (you wouldn’t be reading this article if you didn’t) and we are often more willing to do something to help someone else if it also helps us, too.

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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What are you reading?

Phil Gerbyshak — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:22:16 +0000

I love to read and learn new things. I frequently read 5 or 6 books at a time.

Right now I’m finishing World Wide Rave and Hit the Ground Running, along with a few other daily meditation/devotional/attitude books. I just finished Smile and Move, and I’ll be doing a book giveaway of it later this week.

I also read several hundred blogs. You can get what I share on Google Reader if you’d like to keep up with me that way by going here.

I’d love to know what you’re reading.

Are you reading any great books?

Are you reading any great blogs?

Is there a great book you’d like to read? I get tons of books to read and review. Perhaps I have the book you want on my bookshelf and I’m done reading it. If I am, I’ll send it to you.

Maybe you’re an author, and the folks reading this blog are the perfect audience for your book or for your new blog. Share your book and your blog below.

Or maybe you could send me your book, and I could read it and review it, or do a book giveaway, or offer your book to someone who wants to read it?

Take a few minutes and share something in the comments.

Let’s learn something TOGETHER!

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Blogging is Dead!

Phil Gerbyshak — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:39:38 +0000

Have you read the article about blogging being dead?

Interesting article, and dead on!

If your goal is to write "posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google’s search results for any given topic."

I think if you’re trying to have intelligent conversations or share best ideas, you’re better off writing an article on your blog instead of just writing 140 characters on Twitter.

Do a Google search for manager, and tell me where Manager Tools and Slacker Manager rank.

Tell me blogs don’t work!

This article is interesting though, and I agree that as mainstream media go more blog-like (read: more frequent and fast updates) they will show up higher in search engine rankings. After all, what are you looking for when you search for "Obama campaign speech" Obama’s campaign speech on a major news network, probably in a copywrited video form, or some bloggers take on the same speech, with a link to some useless YouTube video?

Another way to think of it is comparing it to TV: Do you want to watch The Office or do you want to watch a show that talks about The Office?

Make sense?

What do you think?

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Hanging at SOBCon

Phil Gerbyshak — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:10:15 +0000

Stephen Hopson, Susan Quandt, Stephen Smith and I started SOBCon yesterday with a trip to the Levenger store in downtown Chicago. Good conferences start by being and thinking productively.

Now that it’s Saturday morning, I’ve listened to Anita Bruzzese and Brian Clark thus far.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from the presenters and my fellow participants is one big thing:

Honesty and integrity are critical to successful business ventures.

Glad to know I’m headed in the right direction!

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Gone to SOBCon

Phil Gerbyshak — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:31:00 +0000

I am super excited! I am off to Chicago to SOBCon! Yay! I get to meet a bunch of new friends, learn a bunch of new stuff about blogging, and fill my head full of stuff I can share with you here on Make It Great!

Who am I going to meet? Hopefully everyone on the below list, that’s who And I’m bringing a regular camera AND a Flip video camera.

If you’re going to SOBCon, feel free to call me at 414-640-7445 (text works too) and let’s connect! Even if you’re not going to SOBCon, feel free to call me sometime anyway. I’d love to connect with you!

Bear hugs for EVERYONE!

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Meet me in Chicago May 2, 3, 4

Phil Gerbyshak — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:15:33 +0000

I love Chicago. It’s a fun city, at least when you have fun people to share the city with. And if you read this blog, you know that I would LOVE to get to know you in person, as Chicago is in the center of the US, why not come visit me when I’ll be there May 2nd through the 4th.

Why will I be in Chicago? For SOBCon08.

For those who don’t know about SOBCon, I think of it this way:
Put a room together with 100 or more of your best friends, many of which you’ve never met in person, and you get a week’s full of hugs in about 3 minutes. Then, you get to hear a bunch of folks who are experts at what they do share their stuff. Your brain hurts a little (ok, it hurts a LOT) and you get so many ideas, you don’t know which to implement first. But the relationships you built by sharing a meal, a smile, a hug, a conversation, go on for well after the event ends. You’ve now firmed up these friendships, and now you actually KNOW them in person, so you’ve got friends for life.

And more.

I didn’t even mention the fact that this year’s theme is Business School for Bloggers.

Unless you’re dead, I expect to see you in Chicago at SOBCon08. Click through, sign up, and get to Chicago May 2nd through May 4th. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

That link again: SOBCon08

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GuitarPlayerZen says I’m a top 50 Blog…

Phil Gerbyshak — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:50:00 +0000

Just wanted to give a quick shout out of thanks to Jeff over at GuitarPlayerZen for naming me one of the "Top 50 Blogs to Light a Fire Under Your Ass." Other awesome blogs include OkDork, Achieve IT!, Success Begins Today, Ian’s Messy Desk, and Legal Andrew, to name just a few.

Check out the whole list of Top 50 Blogs to Light a Fire Under Your Ass!

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