John Carlton echoed a mantra of mine in this post where he commented on the successes that hackers have had (unfortunately) in penetrating PayPal’s security.

My mantra? There is always a way.

I use it on people around me in particular whenever their pessimism forces me to respond - I try to keep my mouth closed but you can only take so much.

Anyway, who cares if you say I can’t? There is always a way.

Things may be looking very bleak, but your not seeing the way doesn’t mean there is no way. It just means that you can’t see the way. Enlisting a fresh pair of eyes, a pair that does not have the same biases that you have usually restores the glint of hope and you begin to see that maybe, just maybe there is a way.

The hackers don’t give up. They keep coming up with new ways to take your money illegally, wipe your harddrive and pollute your soul. They are persistent.

They know.

There’s always a way.

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In a forum recently a poster asked: What have you found most effective in keeping track of your business “to do” list?

Here was my response:

Index cards.

Keep a notebook where you jot down all the to-do items. Just keep adding them to the list. Don’t worry about the order in the book.

Every night transfer the most *important* item to the top of a new index card. You can also add other items that you think must be done… but everything that’s urgent is not necessarily important within the scope of your long-term goals.

Don’t be unrealistic about what you can achieve during the day. If you can only do 2 things on a regular basis, only put 2 things on the index card. That way you feel good about achieving rather than awful about not doing getting things done… “again!”

:-)

The simpler you keep it, the more likely it will get done.

I heard the title of the product (which I won’t repeat here). Then I read the sales page and this jumped out at me…

“And How to Build Long Term Success in the Search Engines Using “The Next Generation of Blog And Ping”…”

You may have heard my groan echo across the hemisphere.

Anyone who manages a blog knows the headache that blog spam has caused. If it weren’t for the generous work of the creators of anti-spam blog plugins, most of our blogs would have drowned a long time ago.

What is sad is that too often, even marketers that want to be ethical are taken in by the lure of higher pagerank and are easily persuaded that the tactics (for that is what these are - tactics) are fair game.

I remember purchasing one product recently that I hoped was advocating responsible use of the internet real estate, tools and marketplace. I did this simply based on the marketers that were promoting it. I was almost horrified when I saw that the product was advocating that we create thousands of waste blogs.

Ugh! Tag him nofollow.

And… no. I do not believe that the good techniques he included in his ebook could ever be worth being published when you consider the damage that the spammy techniques will cause.

Friend, practically all the information is all out there free already. I know.. we pay for the convenience of having it pulled together and techniques clearly outlined. But… if it smells of spam do a little research on forums and see if you can find an ethical marketer who covers the same topic - reward him or her for being responsible by giving them the sale.

By the way, I do tag - responsibly - on this (WordPress) blog and if you want to learn more here is the plugin I used to get it going: Ultimate Tag Warrior - Check out my tag cloud.

And if you aren’t using a plugin to manage your spam, this one works wonders: Spam Karma 2 - Reloaded

Read Sherman Hu on “Social Bookmarking - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly“.

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