I wrote something in my newsletter recently about how hard it can be sometimes for a solo entrepreneur - we don't have a Finance Director or a boss to question our decisions and make suggestions.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net  read more »

I'm not sure when it started, but it has become cool and trendy in on-line circles to promote on the basis of exclusion. There's much talk about recruiting tribes of like-minded people and being as clear about who your offerings aren't for, as you are about who they are for.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm not sure I understand the logic. It seems a negative way to market anything.  read more »

I did a go kart Grand Prix yesterday. The format was that we ran several heats, each time starting from a different grid position, and then our points were totted up to produce a winner. There were seven of us, so the lowest starting position was 7th. The key to remember is that one serious mistake - a spin, or hitting a barrier, basically means a last place, there isn't enough time on each heat to recover.

The event was won by the guy who did best from his races at the back of the grid, and I was interested to analyse his tactics.

Safety  read more »

Seth Godin posted that Linchpin is the last book he'll publish in the traditional way. And that of course lead to a great deal of debate on other blogs and via Twitter.

Interestingly, I can't see where Seth said he was going digital - I think his focus was on publishing rather than format - but the debate has really become all about the death of the traditional print book and how it will be replaced by the digital book.

I'm somewhat at odds with this conversation. I'm unusual in that I love reading, but I have no interest in books. Does that make sense?  read more »

Living on an island, we basically have to fly to get anywhere. I seem to spend half my life booking flights for us, or for family and friends visiting us, and I hate the whole process with a passion.

This week has been a classic example. I needed to get my daughter, son in law and grand daughter back to UK. It's the busy time of year, when everyone has to get kids back to school, so the airlines ramp their prices up. A flight that normally costs in the region of €100 to €150 suddenly becomes €600! I was able to find seats on many of the flights departing from here, but I simply wasn't going to pay €1800 for the privilege.  read more »

Did you read Chris Brogan's post about how he bought his new Camaro online? Maybe start there.

And then perhaps you should read the fascinating follow up interview with Aaron Smith.

Regular readers will know that I spent many years in the motor industry. I've been watching it from the sidelines since I got out ten years ago, and I've seen the manufacturers and dealers fall further and further behind other retailers in the way they market and in their use (or lack of it) of social media.  read more »

This is a guest post from Justin Aldridge, another Brit who lives in Spain.

I first started blogging about five years ago.  In those days I used to blog all the time as Google, in particular, loved it.  I would blog about a topic and within minutes my blog post would appear in Google's search results.  My main aim in those days was to blog to drive traffic to my main website, and it worked really well.

 read more »

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that yesterday I did the first of a series of ocean swims which we've been training for this summer. It was a reasonably easy one, only 1.8KM, although we did hit some current and a pretty choppy section.

In all, just over 150 people took part, swimming from one beach to another. The kind of people who do this fall broadly into three categories:

1/ Serious (often professional) athletes

2/ Ordinary folk who are pretty good swimmers (that'll be me)

3/ People who aren't great swimmers, but just want to "have a go"

Even in group two, I'm nowhere near the fastest, although I'm not bad for my age group.  read more »

You can't buy the Flip here, so I've been waiting for one for a long time.

I recently did some consultancy work with Ben from www.wecanbuttri.com and he mentioned he was planning a trip to UK and asked if I wanted him to bring anything back. We quickly struck a barter deal in exchange for the consultancy and my new Flip arrived today.

Here's a short video just to test out the quality of audio and video:  read more »

I choose to share quite a lot about my life on social media. Here on this blog, as well as on Twitter and Facebook, you can learn a lot about what I'm up to and who with.

It's the way I am, I'm a pretty open book in real life as well.

But some will say you shouldn't share too much. Some might say it's not really very interesting, and others would point out the security and privacy issues that may arise from doing so.

What are your thoughts?

Do you have a line you won't step over?

Are you prepared to share anything?

Does online privacy, or lack of it, concern you?  read more »