Apr
24
Brazen Careerist and Alltop and Memes, Oh My!
IttyBiz has been awful busy lately, and I figured I’d give y’all an update on what’s going down at the home business HQ.
IttyBiz and Brazen Careerist Get Together To Make Sweet, Sweet Love
Brazen Careerist is:
“We’re an online career center aimed at Generation Y — young professionals who want to design and define their careers using the new rules for success.
“The Brazen Careerist network is made up of a vibrant, curious and ambitious group of career-minded bloggers, passionately covering a variety of fields: personal development, entrepreneurship, public relations, technology, marketing, and politics, each blog offers a unique, informed perspective to our ever-expanding audience.”
They’ve included me in that network of bloggers, which is damn nice of them, wouldn’t you say?
IttyBiz and Alltop Get Together To Make Equally Sweet, Sweet Love
Moving on to the lovely folks at Alltop:
Guy Kawasaki, general internet dude extraordinaire, created Alltop as a place to go to get all the top stuff in one place. You dig Mommy blogs? Daddy blogs? Humor? Religion? Wine? Books? Social media? It’s all there, all on one page.
“We import the stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and display the headlines of the five most recent stories.”
The cool kids are saying that Alltop will help non-RSS people start reading blogs regularly. This is, shall we say, highly cool.
Anyway, they say I’m good enough to hang out with Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, Seth’s Blog, and Copyblogger, among other cool people and websites in the Small Biz category. Yay!
I Never Said It Was A Meme
UPDATE: It has come to my attention that what follows is even snarkier than my usual fare. This is what happens when I try to be funny. Sorry if it sounds bitchy. I’m just playing, y’all.
Certain readers of this blog have accused me of starting a meme with the What’s Your Small Business? post. I would like a chance to defend myself against such a grievous and public attack.
(For the uninitiated: A meme is when a blogger creates a post with the intention that it goes Viral Lite and gets them incoming links. They pose a question or challenge, and generally tag several people to answer it on their blog, linking back to the original post. A popular meme that goes around a lot tells the reader to grab the nearest book, open it to a predetermined page and post a predetermined sentence or word from that book.)
Memes, while allegedly fun, don’t help your business. What’s Your Small Business? does. Therein lies the subtle but important difference.
Contribute! Participate! It’s fun. It opens the conversation with your homeboys. It might get you business. It will get you a PR 4 link from IttyBiz, not that you’re so shallow to care about that sort of thing.
You don’t have to link back to me, although it’s nice when you do. In fact, you don’t even need to participate.
You can die in obscurity for all I care.
Anyway, that’s all folks. I’m going to go do weekend things with my family. (By weekend things I mean tie Jack to a keyboard and whip him until he comes out with legible web copy.)
***
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I wondered what a meme was. Thanks for the explanation.
I posted your “What’s Your Small Business?” list on my blog because I thought it was smart. I credited it to you because I’m ethical. I didn’t know either was controversial. Learn something new every day.
Hah! First comment!
I love this shit.
I got your Twitter thing and I swear by all that is holy and righteous (read: Ben&Jerry’s) that I said, out loud, “Ooh. How intriguing.”
It wasn’t a meme? Then why am I saying nice shit about you on my blog again?
Congrats on BC! See, you don’t need the small fry. You play with big dogs.
But I will have my vengeance one day. ::shakes fist in anger::
Question: Why don’t people shake their fists in anger anymore? It’s so satisfying.
Damn you for stealing first comment, James. ::shakes fist again, in James’ direction:: You made me look like a tool.
@ James — Nah, they’re not really controversial. Memes were created back in blogging’s Dark Ages, and they’ve become synonymous with navel gazing blogs. I was just playing with Kelly — sorry about the inside joke. I’ve updated the post to reflect that I was kidding.
@ Tei — Haha. James made you look like a to-ol.
Watch it, wench. The wrath of my fist will descend upon you.
Oh, wait. EW.
@ Tei — Dude. You’re almost a client now. Don’t get on my bad side. I’ll give you all the wrong advice and then publicly claim we’ve never met.
Dude. I ain’t sent the money yet. You should be sweet-talking me.
Seriously, I don’t know how. Check your email.
Well thank Goodness someone finally told me what a meme was. Who came up with that bizarre word???
I did my *homework*- not knowing it was or wasn’t a meme- in my journal this morning ( as you know from me whining about it at Brett’s house. ) I will post my answers shortly after I am finished chewing on them for a day. I am not really one to be glib with my vision…just my comments. :)
I’ll post them here..or on my Saturday site and link you.
Thanks for the tip about e-books. Much more converstion and learning will have to take place on that subject. (would someone like to post on that and educate the newbie? Naomi? suggestions?)
It would bring you much gratitude and loyalty and affection….
Not like I don’t already have it for this house. :)
@ Wendi — “The word meme first came into popular use with the publication of Dawkins’s book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek “mimeme” (something imitated), making it sound similar to “gene”. Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator.”
Should we pretend I knew that all along or should I just admit I got it from Wikipedia?
And yes, I’ll do a post on ebooks. The people need to know.
@Naomi
You should have pretended. It’s late enough at night. I was very impressed with your off the top of the head info!
I would have still respected you in the morning.
Thank you for doing the e-book post. My undying gratitude. And Loyalty. Oh, and I think I promised affection too.
hugs. but that’s it.
That’s cool, Naomi! I saw the Brazen Careerist thing a little while back and laughed. Gen Y? Moi? They would kick me out. “No old fart Gen Xers here!” Congrats on the Alltop thing, too. I never cared about Alltop, but now that you’re on it, I do. :)
Hey MM! Nope, they’d kick your old ass to the curb. I actually didn’t know if I qualified. I’m like, “I’m married with two kids. I don’t own a cell phone. My Facebook notifications default to my trash folder. Is that OK?”
Congrats on all your cool news Naomi.
Michael…I’m with you on the Gen-X thing (actually I may not be X or Y…Gen-Limbo?). Either way, I feel like an old fart.
And I’m too busy *doing* my job to write about my job…or I’d be all over that non-meme and getting my shallow link…dammit.
I second an ebook post and Tei, you did look like a tool. ;)
Haha. No shallow link for you. :-)
@Naomi – Right. It specifically says, “be a grandchild, not have one.” (yes, I do–she’s 3). Also, I just have to be really careful about doing anything new. Kinda maxed out as it is. That really sounds like I’m making excuses, so I’ll just shut up, now.
Nah, you’re cool. It’s only an excuse if they invited you. Since they wouldn’t let you in anyway, it totally doesn’t qualify.
She’s three, you say? Can she type? We could give her the first ever IttyInternship.
She comes up to me while I’m working at the computer and says, “Letters, Bampa?” (Grandpa). I put her on my lap, open up Writer, and let her have at it. She does a perfect imitation of someone seriously typing, except of course she is so cute that my heart completely melts.
What she “writes” comes out like any usual blog post.
That is the most adorable thing in the history of anything.
If she’s better than Carl Ocab, she’s hired.
See how interesting the “persons-like-me” marketing wave is?
I’d read about (or been pitched incessantly!) Alltop and had no interest, didn’t like most aggregators I’d seen, didn’t find SproutWire as good as I’d hoped, it felt like MLM marketing somehow — I don’t know, it just never sounded real or worthy. And I know the players, but felt I was being sold something.
And now Naomi’s into Alltop and suddenly — now it seems worth a second look, now it’s cool enough to woo you, now you’ve vetted it, now I can’t write it off. One more goddamn thing to help me procrastin– uh, learn.
My new thing with the web might have to be the same I try with my closet, kitchen, etc: one thing in = one thing out (after a week’s trial/decision period.)
All good news, Naomi — very cool for you, great update.
Oh, cool stuff! Congrats!
Naomi –
Ohh, I have a new tagline:
Ittybiz: Read it. (or, you can die in obscurity for all I care.)
Naomi,
First, congrats on all the big news. Now I have three friends on Alltop and I am completely jealous of each. (Go ahead, say it, who said we wuz friends?)
It’s a meme and you know it!
Yes memes go back way further than the Internet. The original idea was that there are some concepts that just seem to BE in everyone’s head, like really persistent rumors; though you can’t remember where you got the idea, you just know, basically, and why? Because it’s a meme, went the theory. No wikipedia so that’s my best hemming and hawing explanation.
Memes on the Internet have obviously come to be something you do have to pass on, but I suppose if enough people passed one around, it would eventually feel as though you just knew X, without really knowing why.
This meme is cool. It gets you thinking harder than we usually do about the customer’s perspective. Pass it on.
To James, who stole Tei’s thunder: Ya gotta click on the link (“certain readers”) to get the joke… and to get me another reader, but we won’t talk about that now.
Thanks for the link, friend. :)
Regards,
Kelly
P.S. You can do WAY snarkier. You aren’t getting soft now that you’re even more famous, are you?
It’s not a meme! I’ve been doing this shit for so long that “meme” is a real word to me. (Feel free to pity me now, if you didn’t already.) This whole “starting games on blogs and spreading them from blogger to blogger” phenomenon is a meme. I don’t know what the fuck the individual games are.
We can make up a new word. They are bjorks. Someone, do one where you ask & answer five questions about Bjork so we can call them bjorks. The word bjork needs more air time.
Serious gigantic congratulations, with all seething jealousy and freakouts withheld, on the cool new gigs. That is just exciting as hell. I suppose I, also, am too old and irrelevant to be on BC, although fuck, my kid is three. But that’s just because I procrastinate like crazy. My web pic was taken before my divorce & kid so I look all youthful, maybe they would fall for it? Nah.
MM, we want to see flip videos of super adorable 3yo. Well, i do, anyway. Do a tumblog or somethin’.
Naomi,
Congrats to you (you’ve worked hard for this) and may we all be as successful someday. Enjoy the family time, too.
(James, beware Tei’s tiny fists, they are lethal)
I actually think I may go back and leave a *real* comment at “What’s your small business?” rather than the smart-assed one I left the other day :)
(Believe it or not, I do have a plan.)
I just wanted to let you know that I read a whole bunch of blogs every morning and yours is the best. Sarcastic, funny and educational. You make me pause and think with just about every post. Thanks for that!
@ Michael – Don’t feel bad – I’m an X gene myself. So I guess we can start our own Brazen adjective crap thing.
@Naomi – I am trying to get hip with the RSS feed and meme stuff. I added you today. And your spawn, Tei.
Meme gene. I like it.
@Michael, just noticed you said your granddaughter uses Writer, is that the web-based full screen program?
(Naomi, sorry for the O/T, just personal interest…)
@ Brett — Are you kidding me? I LOVE O/T. Far more interesting than plain old regular T.
@ Ellen — Thank you. You are lovely. Tei, however, will be the death of me. Spawn indeed. :-) Oh, and I’ll tell you a secret. Until yesterday, I thought meme was pronounced mey-mey, like the French. Jamie’s like, I really don’t think so, hon. I am REALLY glad we didn’t have that debate in public or I would have lost, badly.
That Tei…she’s dangerous..I was over at her blog late last night, minding my own business reading a well-written, thought-out article when suddenly…swearing, fighting…geez! You have unleashed a wild woman! :)
Now ..could you please tell me just I AM supposed to say this new meme word in my vocabulary, in case I ever say it out loud? I thought it was a french sounding word too.
mimi? meeemeee? maamaa? oh bother. I suppose I could go look it up myself….
Meem.
@ Wendy — What Kelly said. Which is totally hilarious because that was my nickname from when I was a kid and everybody who knows me from pre-17 still calls me that. My mother wanted me to get meem.com.
@Naomi,
Well, I figured it was okay, but being it’s your place and all… I’m the same way though, lovin’ the way everyone just does whatever at my blog… perfect!
“mey-mey” sounds pretty sophisticated, actually. Like when I was in Grade 5 and mispronounced geography… (GEE-o-graph-E was how I thought you said it…)
:)
Hey, everyone laughed but they knew what I meant!
Tei is *awesome*, I can’t stop laughing when I read her stuff…
What a meme scream.
Kids used to call me Ellen the big fat melon. Bastards. I hope all of their crayons are broken.
Hey, how come everyone’s over here at IttyBiz talking about me instead of over at Rogue Ink and talking about me? All this nice stuff, and I’d never even KNOW about it if I hadn’t come over at a god-awful hour this morning and gotten schooled. And subscribed to comments. Come play with me! I’m lonely!
Stupid Naomi with her stupid 33 comments. “Send me some readers,” she says. “My poor sad RSS feed,” she says. My left buttcheek.
@Brett – Now, how did you know I had a small fist?
@Naomi – Heh. Spawn.
@Tei
You can’t whine at me, I was at your site moments after you posted it. I beat Brett….so there!
And if you didn’t hit your guests with bar stools and have fights breaking out at all hours of the night, maybe….just maybe…
Oh never mind…let’s go play at Tei’s house too…just look out for flying language…
Oh Tei. You poor thing. Your blog is, what? Oh yes. THIRTY TWO DAYS OLD. And you’re averaging 15 comments a post. I’m sure all of IttyBiz readers pity you OH SO MUCH.
Kindly readers, please go comment on Rogue Ink. Her blog obviously sucks and she needs the traffic. :-)
Uh, dude? You averaged my comments?
That’s just CREEPY.
I don’t know if I want you to be my marketing wizard anymore. Also, James is mad that I paid you first.
@Tei,
You were beating your small fists on the desk to encourage me to write more stuff when I had my “man cold”. I was frightened :)
@Wendi,
Yes, today I was humbled (either that or wanted to give someone else a chance? actually, it was garbage day…)
@Brett
Oh. Right. I knew that.
They really are tiny. I am 5′8”. I’m a good-sized woman. And yet my hands and feet are as small as a ten-year-old’s. I shoulda been a geisha.
@ Tei — For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, get yourself a domain name and start a personal blog with the tagline “I shoulda been a geisha”. James Chartrand will tell you that’s stupid but I don’t care.
Hah!
That’ll be the tagline when I start the blog about the high school boys becoming my personal trainers.
Seriously. I’m supposed to have the body of Brandi Chastain by the end of the year. They assure me this is so.
But then, they are teenage boys.
::sigh:: I’ll get it up and running soon. You know, once I’ve gotten the hang of this one. And that whole business thing.
It’ll be called something really cool and manly too. Like:
The Gauntlet: I shoulda been a geisha.
Tei,
Woman, you average 15 comments a post? *jealous* *reeeally jealous*
*Note to self: Suck up to Naomi more often.*
Later,
Kelly
@Ellen – “Brazen adjective crap thing” = LOL.
@Brett – OpenOffice Writer
Hmm, and I promised myself so faithfully that I would sit quietly in the corner and just take notes over here. However, I can’t leave the highly communicating granddaughter just sit there. My 2.5 year old granddaughter spent the night last weekend and revealed that she is up to composing (oral not typing although I expect her to start texting any day now) 8 word grammatically correct sentences. I was speechless. So hey, there might be some competition for Ittyinterns. She doesn’t tumble but she’s got a mean Swing Charleston.
Okay, I’ve got a gig to cover so I’m out of here.
There is no good jumping on point for this comment stream, is there?
Anyway, Naomi, good luck with Brazen Careerist and Alltop. :)
@Tei,
Hey, you *are* tall (I’m intrigued now, especially because of the sunglasses on your Twitter pic) and with those small but mighty fists I wouldn’t want to cross you :)
(but don’t worry, I think you’re still a lady)
@Michael,
Ah. I guess I have full screen editors on the brain… the next OpenOffice (3.0) is going to be very very cool. The beta is really good…
Ha! That’s great Naomi! And Tei, post those “little” hands.
@ Deb – I had to teach my daughter the story of the little boy who cried wolf. Remember that one? It’s all about LIARS. I love teaching fables. And Carolyn was asking, “momma, did anyone talk to the boy after that?” Me: Well, geez, honey, social isolation happens, but yeah, they did talk to the boy again after the village got over their anger. It took awhile though.
@Mark – You should just jump into the river anytime you want! Like, with one of those rope swings.
@Brett. And the swords. Don’t forget the swords.
@Ellen. I will do you one better, and post my little hands and my little handwriting. It’ll be a twofer.
@Tei,
Aw crap, I forgot about the swords… I’m really scared now, what, with you and your swords & mighty fists, and Tyler Durden stalking me…
Shit. That’s it, Brett. That’s the blog.
Naomi, get this:
MIGHTY FISTS – I shoulda been a geisha.
Tei,
Excellent… if you want a guest post, let me know ;)
Man, I am always late to these parties. But I am Gen X and I suppose that I go to bed too early. :)
BTW, I hit Alltop too, same category. Welcome!
Thanks for letting me know what a meme meant as well..I was always confused when I would read about them, and its good to know I was not alone.
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://www.grammology.com