Social Business: a voice i just discovered.

This week I got to discover a new 'voice' in the world. Little did I know that this voice has been around for years already, not in the background but very known and even recognized.
I discovered the work of professor Yunus, founder of the first micro-credit bank, winner of Nobel peace price.

His philosophy on Social Business seem very much connected to the Social Profit model that Tjeko is developing for its fun parks. I bought his book Building Social Profit and want to know more about this 72 year old entrepreneur that seemingly has influenced the world of empowering poor people around the world, starting with his own country, Bangladesh. His work is based on 7 principles, an approached that deserves our attention as well. 

I love people with inspiring quotes like:

... When tiny, tiny things start happening  a million times, it becomes a large thing. It lays down the foundation of a strong economic base. With women participating in building this economic base, it becomes the foundation for better social and economic future ...

So I'm really looking forward to read his book and learn.

Who is new in your realm of influence? What are you learning from them? Because the truth is: if you're not learning, you're dying :/

Feel free to leave your opinion on this blog! I love to know what you think.

How to keep your wife! or: 5 things to keep a healty marriage [Part 2]

This post has been moved our family blog!

How to keep your wife! or: 5 things to keep a healty marriage [Part 1]

When we look around us these days, it seems as if marriage is a thing people try once or twice... As if the glue that keeps people together is of a bad kind. Because it's not keeping people really together!

On the other hand, I see great couples that have kept the 'vibe' between them! The once that are married for about 40 years - and still have the other person make them laugh. Or still make the other person hold their hands! I love being a witness of those moments! Love is a beautiful thing.

Having been married for almost 9 years makes me no expert by any measure ... yet I can tell you honestly that I've never been more in love with my wife than before. And truth be told, she has never been more attracted to me (of course!)

Here are 5 things I keep in front of me that keep my marriage strong. And these might chance trough time - but for now they work GREAT!

1. Keep dating!
For some people this is completely normal - but for too many couples it seems that dating was something of the past. But it shouldn't. Because if dating is something of the past - one day you'll wake up and wonder: what happened to you?!! You never noticed the changes that took place in your partner!
Dating to me is setting aside time to spend with my wife. Not just to go shopping together, or watch a movie on the coach. No, I want to make sure it's time to really talk. Like the time we first started hanging out!
When you 'date' like this, you allow yourself to really see where your spouse is going. Some people I know that divorced told me: when I look back it just seemed our ways had grown apart. When you date, you keep noticing that when it happens...not when it is to late. When you notice it, you can stir on it.

2. Ask her what time she needs you home
This one might seem a little absurd. But do you know what time of day your wife needs you most? Is she an evening person, or more a morning star? Is there a moment in the day your household seem to explode? Are there days in the week your wife is walking on her toes to make things happen?
For us that means that in this period of our lives I make a commitment to BE home by 5pm. That's about the time Tatiana has heard enough toddler arguments and is tired of keeping the house from falling apart. Its also a brief window of time I get to physically invest in the lives of my two (soon to be three) little heroes.

Find her love language, and then speak it
There is a great book called: the five love languages. This book explains in very plain English how different people feel loved in different ways. And if you speak the wrong language to the right person - it simply won't work! It's like going to the south of French and trying to speak English - they might give you the impression they understand you - but they don't! I discovered that to show Tatiana I really care for here - I need to spent quality time with her! That means that when we are together, she really needs me to be there. Not answering my mail when she is telling me about her day. Not watching a movie 'together' while I'm reading a book - because the movie is just not that interesting. Chick-flicks are a great test of love...sitting trough one of those with your wife helps our marriage to stay strong. Not because of great advise - but because we're laughing at the same stupid stuff...and have something to refer to when funny things happen!

 I have two more that are worth reading - they will follow soon. First you might check if you can use any of these - and maybe they got you to think about ideas for yourself! Share them - so we all can be better husbands!

Experiment: 60 days 30 minutes Social Media - Week 1

Social Media for your business, private blog or good cause is very important.
It's one week into our experiment with '30 minutes of Social Media', and I have to say it's been very revealing. It might sound like an easy challenge, but I have to say, after a full week I've learned lots of do's an  don'ts. I can tell you I've discovered a need for a plan!

Last week I started in these three area's:

• Personal Blog: That's what you're reading right now.
• Business: The company I work for: www.kaarskoffie.nl 
• Good Cause: The Social Profit NGO my wife and I started,  www.tjeko.info 

Each area's has is own personal needs. Each catagory has its own challenges, chances and interesting way of approach. All I'm doing in this post is sharing some of my challenges. I'm in the experiment myself - I'm learning, not teaching. So don't expect me to give you a clear cut plan! Yet!

Personal Blog: I found that writing blog posts in a small part of the 30 minutes I'm given is actually challenging for me! Even right now I feel I just get warmed up. But if I want to do other things, I should stop this post and do other things, to guarantee my precense on the web today. Result is a half finished post in my blogger - while i'm typing this time sensitive blog now first!
One of the successes of this week is allowing many more people to know I am using Twitter. In return I got 14 new followers! That's a 10% increase!
Having a good cause that had an exciting week also helped! It gave me things to blog about - as I am personally very involved in the cause, and really want my friends and followers to know the things that happen there.

Business: Time is everything. First challenge in my current position: Having 30 minutes of un-interupted time for the Social Media activities of the company. In preperations of the Social Media 30 minute challenge, I decided to do the Kaars Koffie activities at night, at home. WRONG. After 9pm I just don't have the creativity to really make too much sense. So this week I'm telling my boss: Don't bother me for 30 minutes - I'm in the zone!
Our newly launched Facebook account went from 37 likes to 41. We're preparing a big campaign (as we didn't have any Facebook activities until 3 weeks ago!). Be expecting to read more about this in the future.

Good Cause: Using 30 minutes a day for our good cause has been very rewarding. Using the momentum that was created around Tjeko for our own good has resulted in much conversation about Tjeko. It seems that Social Media is very good to give extra attention (read: extra value) to events that are already happening. You might organize ANY event (church, ngo, school or sport club) - with 30 minutes of social media attention to your event the impact dramaticly improves.

I am going to experiment today with writing some specific goals and approaches for each area - it seems I need some more focus on some areas.

If you have any tips or tricks on how you use your Social Media - please let me know, and leave me your thoughts in a comment!

Tips for reliable affiliate links in a blog

There is a trend going - and it has been going for years now. Producers, resellers, software developers and even charities are willing to pay you! They would love to pay you! If you get to sell their products, they want to pay you for it! Depending on the service, the product and the channel, referrals can actually be a nice way to support your blogging efforts.

On my blog I've used several affiliate referrals on many different topics. Even the pictures I use from www.123rf.com  (referral link) I try to include a referral link.

First of all: Sharing a good product you use or love gives great satisfaction. At least to me! Second, I can use a little extra pocket money - even if it's just to pay for the different web-based memberships!

Truth to be told. It is not a milk cow. Not at all - at least not for me. Partly because I am very specific on referral links that I integrate. I will also not add general advertisements - those just side-track visitors from your website!

So here is my promise.
All referral link on this blog are 100% genuine. They are products or services that I honestly like. I am not going to promote anything I haven't used or experienced myself.
If I'm referring a book, I do so because I really believe it's a good book
If I'm referring a service, I do so because I enjoy the benefits of using it (or having used it) myself.
I can't promise YOU will like it - but I promise I did!


In a blog post about referrals, it only makes sense to give you my most liked products of the moment:

• Livedrive online storage. After crashing my hard disk and having to pay over 1200euro ($1500), this service really seemed to make sense to me!
• HootSuite - the best dashboard I've ever used to keep some order in all the social media streams!
• Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World - my absolute guide to blogging etc! Michael Hyatt really inspires many people around the world - including me!

An experiment: 60 days 30 minutes for Social Media

Because I'm working on 3 big projects at the moment, and I feel the danger that I'm going to work on the wrong things ... loosing too much time in things that are important - but have the potential to take over...

What am I talking about? The time you should spent on Social Media. It's a fact: it's not going away... It's a fact: it helps businesses, individuals and good causes to connect with their followers. Their tribes.
But it's also a fact that it is very time consuming. It seems proven that it's only effective when you are consistent. It's proven that people get annoyed when you make simple mistakes (like posting private tweets on your business twitter account!!!) But I'm a living proof that Social Media can also take away valuable time. If I let the Social Media monster do his thing, I find myself checking all my channels ALL the time. As if I'm missing something when I don't... I feel captivated. But often times with a feeling of failure... What am I doing with my time. Every time I take my phone to do a 'quick' scan, I find myself lost in endless lists of little facts that are not too important...

• John Simple has invited you to play Farm Ville. 
• Jacky Joe wants to add your birthday to 'my calendar'. S
• haniqua TheQueen; ilmao! u 2 cute!!!!
• bla bla bla!

And all I wanted to 'know' is how many people responded to MY messages... 

Anyway! I decided I was going to take myself and  2 other projects I work on an experiment.

For the next 60 days I will channelize my Social Media time to one period a day. That period will be 30 minutes. Not longer. And no more. (the hardest part will be breaking the habit of watching 'the responses')

My goal: 

• Great content
• Bigger Networks
• Greater dialog with my tribes (thanks Seth Godin for giving that word new meaning!)
• Seeing if this will work.

How will I show that it's 30 minutes?  I will film everyday, and do a promise:

I will only use Social Media 30 minutes a day!
I feel I might have to add a small apology: If I CAN'T resist the temptation to see if anybody started responding to anything I do in those 30 minutes - I will only LOOK - and not do anything else.

If I DO, I will confess publicly! And maybe in a few days I will have to adjust my experiment. That's why they call it an experiment.

OK - I have 13 minutes left to go and connect!

After finding the picture - I have 4 minutes left today! 

How sharing your great idea might not be so great.

My wife often tells me I shouldn't share my ideas with the world - at least not before they are somewhat developed. And I can see the point in that.
But don't you ever walk around with a great idea, and you feel you just have to share it with somebody?
That feeling that if you keep the idea any longer to yourself you'll just burst!? (I guess some of you will answer 'no' to this question. Like my wife. So you can actually stop reading. But if you do - this post will help you 'canalize' the idea and the feelings keep you up at night!)

Image via 123rf.com

Sharing an idea before it's time has a few negative outcomes to it. It's like you make a decisions to say 'well - I'm pregnant now for 5 months - enough already, let's have this baby! You can't. It's not good for the baby.
Maybe you feel that if you don't share your idea, they won't ever come to pass. You, like me, have seen so many people sit on very good ideas -and some even take them with them to their grave - or see their ideas simply go out-dated...

Fact is, when you share a good idea before it's time, you'll expose yourself to the following dangers:

Somebody will steal your idea can hear you think right away: most people say an idea doesn't belong to you - so you have to share it. And that's true... eventually . But if your idea as answering a need that others are not yet answering - or you answer it better, you'll be shooting yourself in the foot if you tell anybody and their mother about your great idea! Somebody with more money than you will simply STEAL it! Yes! There are many people that believe you better steal a good idea, than to come-up with a bad one yourself...

Too many people will shoot it down
There is a very wise and true saying about wisdom in gray hair. Yet there is also the reality that lots of gray haired people never got to build anything great themselves...and why should you let them pie on your parade?! Seriously! Your idea can be shot down by people that shoot down anything! Be careful who you share your dream with!


Once you actually get to execute your idea, your inner circle has lost all it's momentum
I've published some idea's even in the last two years that up to today have not seen daylight yet! In the book Great by Choice from Jim Collins talks how it's always better to under-promise and then over-deliver. How true. Many of my friends have lost any kind of interest, when I told them my great idea finally came to pass.... Just hold on to your great ideas - only share them with a few.

Of course you shouldn't share your ideas with NOBODY. There are also dangers in that.
Let me give you 3 tips that really help me to 'bite my tongue' when I want to share some thoughts:

#1: Write your great ideas out on paper. This is the first amazing process that will take place. You will actually start seeing some angles that will help you shape your idea - before people can start shooting it down.

#2: Ask you partner - or your best friend that knows how to confront you - to listen FIRST. They are often able to hear trough your excitement - and give you some HONEST feedback!

#3: Just give it some time. This one is an other 'gut-feeling-indicator'. Guess you just have to keep telling yourself you won't share your great thought - until you just know the time is ready! Remember - Timing is EVERYTHING!

Ever had to 'bite your tongue' on sharing a great idea? How do you manage? Or how don't you?!