If you work the most important general skill you can acquire and develop is marketing. Whether you’re a grunt in the trenches or a CEO leading the way, knowing how to market is going to be your biggest asset.

When do you market:

1. You market your self to your employers when you’re looking for a job.
2. You market your offering to your customers when you’re trying to sell a product or service.
3. You market your leadership to your employees when you’re trying to build teamwork and sell a vision.
4. You market your personal attributes to your co-workers when you’re trying to build consensus.
5. You market your productivity to your boss when you’re looking for a raise or increased responsibility.
6. You market your business to your investors or bank when you’re raising money.

When you market you need to know who you’re talking to, what they want and need, and how to communicate that you’ve got the goods. This analysis is the driver of all your business.

Hi everyone! My brother, Adam Lowe, founded a Mac blog at http://mac.lowetechlabs.com. He has invited me to publish some of my thoughts, writings, and videos on Mac related items from my Windows perspective. Adam lent me a MacBook several months ago, about six weeks ago I purchased a new MacBook for myself.

Check out the blog, it’s got some great stuff. I’ve published a first video in an infinite part series on How to make the Mac not suck for power users and I’ll continue to produce video and blog posts.

Also, if you are a Mac enthusiast and want to share tips and technology, contact Adam, he’s looking for more authors!

While this article below does not paint the entire picture, it does mention comScore is only one source and others are required to see what’s going on, it does spark an interesting conversation.

With an online economy driven by advertising demand and not necessarily demand for your product or service how do you plan and compete?

Check out the article: 

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005997&src=article1_newsltr .

This is really just a test of my iPhone and WordPress integration so I can do some mobile blogging.

I’m the guy in the center accepting the award. This is Las Vegas in 2005 when I was CTO of WebRaiser Technologies.

You’ll read lists and lists and lists. You’ll read advice and more advice. I’m part of the information storm, and I want to talk about it. When you’re in a startup the context of your business changes all the time. It is so dynamic that “the most important thing” never stays that way for long.

If you’ve read a lot of books and articles on business and “how to win,” or “the top ten attributes of successful businesses,” or “how to execute” you’ll notice that you get somewhere between a couple morsels of applicable information and zero. Maybe you’ll pick up the latest buzz words.

So why do we read all these books and articles if what we get seems to be very little? Well, it’s to fill gaps, to build confidence, and to reflect. There is a lot of good information out there, it’s just sometimes the context of the writer doesn’t match the context of your business.

There is a lot of context missing from business advice. What is a priority for a company, group, or individual not only changes by individual but is also a function of change over time. Funding is most important, now it’s people, now it’s a sales strategy, now it’s protecting IP, now its [fill in the blank], etc., etc.

Take time to regularly evaluate where you stand. It’s easy to get caught up in the flow of things. Every week or two take some time to slow down, sit back, and think critically about where you’ve come from, where you’re at, and where you want to be. Give yourself some context, try to recollect all the advice you’ve gotten, and then modify your plans.

And, if you find yourself needing some advice, just remember to translate all that you hear and read into the context of your business.