I’ve only by trying to use the Pomodoro Technique for a few days now but it does seem to be helping me to be more productive.

Here’s a link to the Pomodoro Technique website where you can read about it and also download a pdf that explains it. Here’s a little to give you and idea

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method. For many of us time is an enemy. The anxiety triggered by “the ticking clock” and deadlines to be met leads to ineffective work and study habits and procrastination. The Pomodoro Technique transforms time into a valuable ally.

Francesco Cirillo created the Pomodoro Technique in 1992 after a long search to improve his own study habits. Starting in the late ’90s the technique was embraced by professional teams. It can help us accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it.

Lifehacker recently posted this video that clearly explains the Pomodoro Technique in less than 5 minutes.

“We really don’t manage the conversation,” says Evans. “Rather, we manage our participation in the conversation and the experiences we create.” Through the social media marketers and small businesses can begin to understand what they do as a product or service to drive the conversation in the first place. It is a place to listen and understand.

This conversation is new in the sense that (a) more people are now connected to it in digital media, and (b) marketers can go back to the conversations to research them and learn from them. Consumers are talking to each other, says Evans. Marketers can now join the conversation and have a voice with the customers. Even if your business is rather small, you can learn from conversations about your business as well as from other businesses like it, so that you can get insight into how things work. If we’re truly listening to what is actually being said, concludes Evans, our businesses, products, and services can improve.

Dave Evans is the Consulting Director of 2020 Social and the author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day (Sybex, 2008). This interview was taped in August 2009 at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, California.

Using these free platforms you can create content using text, images, and video that informs, entertains, or engages people about your brand, products, or services.

To develop a content strategy, first define your goals — what you want to accomplish. This is also the first step in develop an advertising campaign. But instead of thinking: What can I buy? think: What can I create?

Since you’re developing your own content, you can put your own keywords into your content that are highly relevant to your business and will attract search engine traffic.

Assess the skills and capabilities you have in your organization to create content.

Then “think like an editor,” that is, create a calendar for your content creation, stick to it, think of new ideas and angles. Perhaps you can position yourself as an expert by discussing new developments in the industry.

Rebecca Lieb, former editor of ClickZ, has opened a US office for eConsultancy.com, the largest provider of interactive and digital marketing best practices, news, information, research, training, and events in the UK. This interview was taped in August 2009 at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference in San Jose, California.

Small business owners need to “really” believe in themselves and know how to management the doubts. Most business owners over estimate themselves in the sense of understanding all the difference facets of entrepreneurship that are needed to be successful. The business owner must understand their ‘blind spots” and know when to seek assistance.

The approach involves three main stages: finding and organizing core keywords, and then arranging a campaign with the qualifiers to those core keywords.

Self-knowledge is an important factor as is leadership. You can be the visionary leader, the networking, collaborative leader, or the operational leader. Most people don’t possess all three leadership skills so you need to find others who help fill the void.

Find someone you trust for advice and in turn, be coachable. Find people who can help you clarify your ideas, challenge or confront your concepts and nurture your soul.

As a business leader, you need to tell your story, don’t assume the employees embrace the vision. The management style and cultural values of the organization also needs to be translated into “this is how we do things.” When interviewing potential employees, detail your values and management style to the candidate so that they too can decide whether they fit with your company.

1. Define what success looks like for that position. Keep in mind that you are not hiring co-workers, but employees that need defined roles.
2. Articulate the details and identify what you want to them to do and how they are to do it.
3. See yourself as a leader/manager of the organization.
4. Don’t get caught up in first impressions, watch and listen to what the candidate says.
5. Past performance can predict future performance, pay attention to job skills.
6. Let the candidate ask questions.
7. Don’t make any promise until after all are interviewed.

If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about I’ll try to explain it very simply.  Through the use of a very easy to use java script, you can make your email address invisible to the robots that scrape your site looking for email addresses.  Thus, people can still email you from your website, but the bad guys can’t steal your address.

Now Google comes along and says “not so fast there Mr. Security.”  Google is getting to the point where their robots are starting to have the ability to read java.  That means your email address could very easily wind up in Google search results.

Check out this video from Matt and see what I mean.

Your business has a big problem. You’ve thought about it, but you can’t seem to crack it. So you consult your colleagues — to no avail. Then you turn to the big guns — your industry’s top experts. They’ve got nothing. (Well, to be precise, they’ve got 40 PowerPoint slides worth of nothing, and you’ve got $225,000 less of something.) Now what?

You might take some inspiration from Pete Foley, associate director of the cognitive science group at Procter & Gamble, who was looking for an inspired solution to challenges faced by P&G’s feminine-care business unit. Its R&D staff had pursued several approaches, but none of them offered the breakthrough that Foley craved. So he did the next logical thing: He took his team to the San Diego Zoo.

Really good advice in this article from the folks over at Fast Company, A Problem-Solver’s Guide to Copycatting.