www.WrensJournal.blogspot.com

On this day 200 years ago, the Lewis & Clark expedition returned to
St. Louis and civilization after over 3 years in the wild West. Two
day previous they had arrived in St. Charles. This was in the St. Charles
newspaper yesterday:

Lewis and Clark return to St. Charles
By Valerie Schremp Hahn
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/22/2006

ST. CHARLES

This case of deja vu reached back 200 years.

Just as the residents of St. Charles did 200 years ago, hundreds of people gathered on the city's Missouri River bank on Thursday afternoon to greet members of the Lewis and Clark Discovery Expedition, back from their journey west.

Just as the crew did back then, they greeted the people with booming cannons. And just as they did back then, they landed their canoes and pirogue at the southern end of the city - a spot now known as Bishop's Landing, outside the Lewis and Clark Boat House and Nature Center.Advertisement
There were differences, of course. Back then, many of the people of St. Charles had given up Lewis and Clark and the crew for dead. On Thursday, plenty knew full well of the arrival. As the boats rounded the river bend and emerged under the Blanchette Bridge, spectators stood on their toes and lifted their digital cameras in a modern-day salute.

"Can you imagine, going out west and not knowing where the river runs?" said Genie Colonna of Florissant.

The expedition crew is made up of more than 200 people, and they take turns traveling on the boat, talking to the public and providing ground support. A few have made the entire trip or most of it; many joined when they could for a few weeks or months.

After watching the crew perform a brief ceremony onshore, the crowd followed behind them through the underbrush for a more formal welcome outside the boathouse.

"It's always a good day in St. Charles. Today is a great day," said St. Charles Mayor Patti York, wearing a period dress and hat topped with fluffy green feathers. "Welcome home, gentlemen. Welcome home."

Crew members mingled with the crowd after the ceremony.

Gary Ulrich, 66, of Affton, traveled nearly the entire journey. He'll remember its extremes: traveling through Montana in mid-May in 4 inches of snow, and slapping at mosquitoes so thick "we could hardly breathe without inhaling them." Lewis and Clark endured the same things.

After the crew's arrival in St. Charles in September 1806, the residents wined and dined them at their homes. And this crew would get similar treatment, this time at a catered dinner Thursday night at the boathouse.

They will make formal arrivals at Fort Belle Fontaine Park in north St. Louis County today and at the St. Louis riverfront on Saturday.

"Then, they'll have to say goodbye," observed Colonna, the woman from Florissant. "And so we'll start the tricentennial."

vschremp@post-dispatch.com 636-255-7211


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/498A70A945465C90862571F1000FD434?OpenDocument

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Erik Hansen, Tom Peters’ Brand Manager, (recently gave a talk to a group of public speakers and he) had lots of fantastic ideas that he shared with the group. Here is my list of his top tips.

Business Basics and Branding
1. People Love Lists – Use numbered lists as a way of sharing ideas. That’s why I am creating his tips as a list.

2. “Screw Around Vigorously” (SAV) – Have a bias for action and “just do stuff.”

3. Use Rapid Prototyping – Rather than analyze everything to death, take action and learn from your failures. Fail often and fail quickly.

4. Building the Brand Creates the Brand – He quoted John Moore, author of Tribal Knowledge, “Contrary to what you may have heard or thought, Starbucks never sought to create a brand. Instead, the company passionately sought to create appreciation for a better tasting cup of coffee.”

5. Your Brand is “What People Say It Is” – Someone from the audience asked Erik to define a brand in 5 words. The brand is not your logo or marketing materials. It is what the public says it is.

6. Brand You, Not Your Business – There was much discussion on what was more important to brand – you or your business. In the case of speakers, Erik felt that since you are the product, you are the brand. Based on this recommendation, I am going to rework all of my websites (goalfree.com, 24-7innovation.com, and others) into a steveshapiro.com website. Goal-Free Living, 24/7 Innovation, and my other work are just projects. I am working on an umbrella theme, such as, “Steve Shapiro, the Guy Who Helps You Get Out of Your Own Way.” Or something like that.

7. When Branding You, Find a Common Anchor – Erik talked about how the “!” on Tom Peters’ materials has become his icon that everyone remembers. This did not create the brand, but rather reflected the brand. Find a similar mark and use it on all of your websites, books, presentations, etc.

8. It’s All About Connections and Conversations – Your brand is the conversation that people are having about you and your products/services. And the more you can stimulate these conversation on the internet, the more buzz that gets created.

Content, Conversations, and Connections
9. Blog – Erik said that the five most important steps are, “1) Do good work and lots of it, 2) Blog, 3) Blog, 4) Blog, and 5) Blog” Do you think he likes blogging? He believes this is a great way of generating buzz, links and connections.

10. You Can’t Write Too Much – Tom Peters is known for writing volumes of content on his blog. To date, he has roughly 400,000 words. Given that the average book is 50,000 words, his blog contains as much content as 8 books.

11. Give People a Reason to Visit Your Website – If you don’t have compelling content, no one will visit. And no one will link to your site.

12. Promote Other People – On Tom’s website, he has his “Cool Friends.” This promotes other people in addition to Tom. Of course if you include content other than your own, this gives people more reasons to visit your site. And it gives more people reasons to link to your site. In fact, I am one of Tom Peters’ “Cool Friends.” Here’s the link.

13. Use Guest Bloggers – If you write a blog, get others to also write blog entries. This serves multiple purposes. It creates more content and more reasons for people to visit and to link. And, if you are like most people, you will want to take vacations from your blogging. If people see your blog is not updated regularly, they will stop coming back. Guest bloggers can create content when you don’t want to.

14. Share Everything – Instead of hording your intellectual property, give it away. This attracts more people, more buzz, and convinces buyers that you really know your stuff.

15. Place Comments on Other Blogs – Search http://blogsearch.google.com/ for other blogs that might have similar topics. If you write about leadership, search for leadership. Comment on blog entries on other sites and include links back to your site. HINT: Leave comments on my blog; it’s a start.

16. Seek Out People With Similar Interests – Did you read a book on a topic that is related to yours, or maybe just of interest? If so, call them and start a real conversation. These people may become advocates, business partners, or idea generators.

17. Use Link Websites and External Websites – Look into sites such as technorati, del.icio.us, changethis.com and others that can help bring more links to your site. Also take advantage of YouTube, Flickr, and others places where you can post pictures and videos, with links back to your site.

Other Ideas
18. Google Search Yourself – Go into Google and search for yourself every week. This gives you an idea of what others are saying. It also helps you determine if your marketing efforts are working.

19. People Love Cards – Tom created a number of “flash cards” that he sells and uses in his workshops. One set of cards were designed by IDEO.

20. Try New Things – Go for things you don’t normally go for. Read magazines you don’t normally read. These will give you new and different insights/perspectives.

21. “Aspire to be The Dumbest Person in the Room” – Quoted from Cool Friend Sally Hogshead’s book Radical Careering. Surround yourself with bright people. And, always look for the nuggets in what everyone is saying. There is gold everywhere.

22. Be Controversial – Tom’s book, Re-Imagine, gets 5 star ratings and 1 star ratings. Not much in the middle (personally, I love it). If you try to please everyone, you will please no one. In your speeches, say something provocative as a way of engaging the audience.

23. Minimize Friction – Make it easy as possible for people to get to you and your content.

24. Be Real - Before posting, I asked Erik to review the list. There were 23 tips on the list I sent him. So I suggested that if there were two more tips, it would round to 25. He wrote back, ” I like 23. 23 is a real number, unlike 25, which is a number that everyone would use. If I see that someone has 25 tips, I know that they worked it to come out to 25, meaning that there are some repetitive ideas in there. Whereas 23 is 23. You don’t try to come up with 23 tips. It just so happens that you extracted 23 tips from what I said. Therefore 23 is a lot more real than 25. So, I’d prefer to stay with 23.” And with that last tip, we have 24. Another real number.

Thanks Erik!

Stephen M. Shapiro, Author of
Goal Free Living-- How to Have the Life You Want Now!
http://www.goalfree.com/?p=278

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A couple of more responses to my question, should I keep doing this blog?

Hi John,

I wanted to reply about your question regarding the blog. I have been
businer than usual lately as I have taken on some new responsibilites. I am
representing a marketing agency that helps small businesses. (small meaning
1 mil minimum annual revenue) I have been interested in the field for years
and studied it in college, but was handed an opportunity in printing and
stayed comfortable in that for many years.

Anyway, explainging why I have not been able to read all of your blogs,
although I did take time to read a couple. I think they are very
interesting, and I think you should continue with them.

Of course, one very large benefit of blogging is the fact that search engine
spiders pick up very easily on keywords you might place in the blog. They
are frequantly on the first page of google if you use unique key words.

It also is obviously a creative outlet, and that is a good thing in many
ways. As opposed to painting (which I have nothing against since I am an
artist) there can be a financial reward to blogging. (You may sell
paintings, but I am not so lucky) With blogging, not only can people find
you through searching, but also it may just help you think of new ideas that
otherwise you would not have developed.

As far as comments, I think if there were some dialoge started it would
domino, I am not sure how to get that rolling though. I will ask around.


I say stick with it!

Tom Huxley

John,
I think we all have information overload. I generally look at very specific industry sites or specific topic sites. Not enough time to do and read everything. Ben Trujillo 303-995-7500


So I'm going to make a decision about what to do tomorrow. My thought now is that I'm going to keep posting the way I have been to keep the "raw date" in front of everyone, including me, and then once a week write a summary that I mail out, possibly with some humor. We'll see.