I think PR has been devalued some and proximity and exactness of the phrase may be more important. I’m too busy to give this a lot of thought organizing our Urban Garden.

I stay away from the money making schemes, link exchanges from gambling sites are the ones I get offered, because I write about playing games sometimes…

Hint to companies: If you’re thinking of hiring a “professional blogger,” hire someone who knows A LOT MORE about the medium than you do, and listen to all of their ideas. Simply pushing your marketing message out there the same way as always (just with updated media tools) isn’t going to change much. Focusing on content that is of value (REAL value) to your customers will be infinitely more successful. Simply put, your strategy should be less about how many incoming links you can generate, and more about how many meaningful conversations you can start.

We are so in love with our crafts that sometimes forget the business aspects of what we do, and unfortunately that could really expose us to exploitations of those who don’t accurate our talents, but know their ways with money. Money on it self is green stuff, but it does represent power. Power of one person over another.

I partly blame that on the school system that separated business curriculum from the other studies. I was a comp-sci student who took electives in marketing. I was amazed to see that for all the hours the Science and Art students spent behind their textbooks and computer screens biting their nails and perfecting their craft, the Business students were creating power points, studying business models, and making multiple presentations a day in front of an audience.

The business mind learned how to acquire money, and therefore held power over the Arts and Science mind.

We’ve created a population of Scientists, Writers, Designers who know very little on how to promote themselves, handle a negotiation, or protect themselves from those who want to exploit them.

The good news is that business skills can be learned and taught.

Ironically it is often easier for the Arts and Science person to acquire business skills than for the business person to learn a craft or technology. A business model is yet another life problem, it is an algorithm, and when there is a problem, there are always creative solutions.

And there will always be people who want to exploit other people, we just have to learn not to give in to their psychotic ways and stay way from them as much as possible.