2010 September

Andrea J. Lee and Wealthy Thought Leader Event

September 14, 2010 By Des Walsh

Andrea Lee Way back in early 2007, at a conference in San Francisco, I met a dynamic young woman, Andrea J. Lee, who was at that time General Manager of a coaching organization to which I belong, Coachville. Since then, Andrea has written books, run events and shown many business owners new and productive ways of looking at and promoting their businesses.

One thing that makes Andrea stand out from the crowd is that she is singularly inventive in identifying ways in which other businesses can stand out from the crowd. And in showing them how to monetize that. Ever since I have known her and no doubt before that, Andrea has been passionate about helping businesses be profitable and sustainable.

At the end of this month, from September 30 to October 2, again in San Francisco, Andrea will be hosting the Wealthy Thought Leader Live Event, with a worldwide video simulcast for the benefit of people who want to participate but for one reason or another can’t get to San Francisco for the live version.

Just over a week ago I interviewed Andrea about the event and what participants could expect to learn.

While the interview, as below, is intended to help promote my friend and colleague Andrea’s event (which would also benefit me directly as an affiliate for the event), it also contains some insights and tips which many business owners will find valuable in their own right.

Such as:

playing it safe is not really safe any more (nice paradox)
quality is the best business plan
do you have something amazing to say?
how we can earn the right to raise our prices (and have people happy to pay)
examples of how some basic service businesses can be transformed by some “thought leader” thinking

Here is the interview, to listen here or download to your own device:

Click here to download…

And here is the link to the Wealthy Thought Leader event and simulcast .

Social Media in Bali, Indonesia

September 9, 2010 By Des Walsh

Results of a search for social media related sites from Bali, Indonesia

Having just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, the last section of which (“love”) is set on the beautiful island of Bali, Indonesia, only a few hours north of where I live, I have been relishing in the past couple of days some memories of Bali, where I have spent some very happy and also educational times.

That in turn led me to wonder about the state of play with social media in Bali today, and then in Indonesia generally.

So I did some searching (I have only a few words and phrases of Bahasa Indonesia but with the help of Google Translator I can usually figure out what sites in the language are generally about).

On Facebook a simple search <Bali> produced , not surprisingly, the BALI page, with over 51,000 “likes”. The Info section provides only a link to a blog, Bali Community, completely in Bahasa Indonesia, with basic tourist type information and an acknowledgement of content – including a table of Governors from 1950 to the present) from Wikipedia. The posts on the Wall section of the Facebook page are a mixture of advertisements for houses for sale and hotel offerings, with some fleeting comments about Bali, but not much sign of conversation.

Another Bali-focused page on Facebook has more than 120,000 “likes”, very little information on the Info section (a couple of links only), very few contributions on the Wall, but over 1,600 photos.

I found also the Bali Blog (part of the BootsnAll travel sites), mainly a guide to hotels and other accommodation and with actual posts as well as ads.

Another site, Bali News, discovered via Google, looked promising at first glance, but disappointed on closer examination. The claim on the About page is ambitious and full of promise for anyone interested in Bali:

Launched in February 2008, BaliNews.web.id is the interface for the latest web-buzz on Bali, a single web page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the internet having to do with the keyword “Bali“.

What I found was a page with syndicated links from:

the Bali Blog mentioned above)
the Bali Discovery Tours site (dominated, not surprisingly, by advertisements for tours and accommodation), and
the Bali Travel News blogspot site (a few posts from January and one from July but nothing more recent).

Which I guess fulfilled the promise, but I found it less than exciting.

Best till last

Just when I was getting somewhat disheartened in this search, I revisited and took a closer look at a site I found yesterday, that for water&stone, described as “a full service digital agency”, with its offices in the Kerobokan area – that is, actually in Bali in a findable, physical location, with telephone number, etc. Listed services include web design, print design, search marketing and social media marketing. They are on Twitter and designed the elegant and functional site for Bali’s prestigious and rapidly growing Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

My search for social media relevant sites in Bali took me into searching on Indonesia more generally and I will post soon about what I found on the broader front.

In the meantime, I would love to hear about other Bali-related sites which can illustrate the state of the social media landscape in that island of gorgeous landscapes.

Image credit: Bali Statue by Erik K. Veland, via Flickr – Creative Commons