Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
It was a little slow in the beginning but I really enjoyed this book. It was fun to read and with all the historical facts along the way, you wanted to believe it was real. He made one of America’s greatest heros and Presidents and made him even more admirable. At times you forget that vampires don’t exist because the stories and historical events are so descriptive.
Get Found: How Inbound Marketing Can Drive Customers to Your Business by Brian Halligan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is one of the best books I have read. The book gives step-by-step instructions for getting your company into social media and more importantly, how to communicate with and interact with your customers in a way that is beneficial to both of you. This is a great book to get customers coming to you instead of traditional interruption marketing.
My only complaint is that the book wasn’t longer. That’s not to say that it was short but rather that I didn’t want it to end. It was full of good ideas and techniques for getting the name of your company or product out there.
I knew from the first chapter that this was going to be a book that I would read over and over again.
Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is not a “how to lead” book or a step-by-step approach to good leadership. Instead it is more of a look at the forest of leadership and interest groups rather than the trees.
Seth does a good job of using use cases to explain how modern interest groups (large and small) are getting together and interacting. By providing a vehicle for interaction amongst people who share a common interest, you can create your own tribe.
He also provides a few cases of how change in an organization was made by individuals who were not considered to carry much power but by being passionate and serving as a beacon for others to get on board, their changes happened.
Most people will find this book very light on details, and it’s true, but I don’t think that was the authors point. He wanted to inspire true leaders, not create imitation leaders. The fact is, if you want to be a leader, you’ll use this book as a starting point and go forth and do it.
I wanted to formally announce my latest endeavor, Allure Boudoir Photography – Baltimore and Harford Maryland Boudoir Photography. This is a new brand/sister business that I’m creating with the help of Steph and Nicole that will offer a very fun experience to women, as we are saying, “We capture the allure of the everyday woman”. I’m taking more of a back seat role in this one and focusing more on the behind the scenes stuff. Nicole and Steph will be the more active ones in leading.
Steph has really stepped up and will be the primary photographer for the sessions, her work is fantastic and I’m really glad to see her using a camera again. She has a great eye for details and that is something that will really shine in these sessions. She’s also the main blog writer, she does a great job writing the blog entries for Shawn Grimes Photography so it was a natural extension to have her do the same for Allure. Steph is also a great digital designer so just like SGP, she’ll be lead on designing albums and other digital art pieces.
Nicole is a new addition but one that I’m really excited about having on board and working with. Her role behind the scenes will be marketing, managing appointments, coordinating with the team (make up artist and hair stylist), and other business tasks. During the sessions she’ll be our modeling coach and helping woman get into the poses that look best.
My role is more behind the scenes. I will be ordering samples and prints for customers, editing, and supporting the ladies from a business perspective. I recognize that I’m a man and probably don’t know as much about what woman want from a boudoir session as the Nicole and Steph might so I’m trying to stay out of their way and just be a supporting role.
Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was hesitant about this book but it’s actually pretty good.
Some will criticize it for being too touchy feely and even I can’t help but admit that as someone who is adverse to physical expressions of emotions, I’m weary of a huggy work environment. Aside from all the hugging, it has some pretty good ideas for making yourself marketable and admired.
One of the points that the book makes is the importance of sharing knowledge. It gives you good steps for gaining knowledge to share as well, encouraging you to read books, actual physical hard backed booked (which is ironic since I was listening to it in audiobook format). Once you have a number of books under your belt, you begin recommending these books to people that you think would benefit from them. You then become a comrade of these people as they find useful information in these resources.
One of the other points that was emphasized in the book that I liked was the sharing of contacts and social network nodes. Introduce people of need to people that supply that need. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. This point reinforced ideas introduced to me by How to Win Friends & Influence People
Overall a good book and probably worth a read again when I get into curmudgeon mode. Like I said, a lot of touchy feely concepts and a lot of talk of bizlove and lovecats, that made me uncomfortable but I could see them working in certain situations. The benefit of turning a business relationship into a social relationship is more business and that is clear.
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A very intriguing book filled with a mix of pretty solid good ideas and then some really drastic and out there ideas. I’m not saying the drastic and out-there ideas were bad, they were just extreme or hard to swallow.
One idea from the book that I was particularly fond of was taking mini-retirements all throughout life rather than saving it up until the end when you are too old to enjoy them.
I liked the idea of a “muse” project, one that needs very little oversight but can be a source of income with a little effort up front but then having your involvement taper off while you automate the project/business and still collect the income. I’m not sure that I can come up with one, but I liked the idea of having one.
I also liked his idea of outsourcing certain tasks to personal and virtual assistants. Having them find you jobs, write resumes and cover letters, schedule interviews, perform research and create presentations. It seemed ingenious really.
Some of his work slip streaming tactics seemed a bit reclusive and not really possible if you are in a service based position but that doesn’t mean that the techniques couldn’t be adapted to most work situations. I may not be able to check email once a week like him, but I couldn’t certainly trim it down to twice or three times a day and put off the constant interruption of “new mail” notifications.
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book hammers home how important it is not to compete in the “average” range of a product or service but rather that opportunity lies in the extremes, be the “most” of something to stand out and attract a niche market of devoted customers who will spread your word. Old models of advertising on television and radio to the masses is not effective in an established market.
It’s a short book with a good deal of information. It may feel like it’s a little vague but the point is that you need to focus on the edges instead of the saturated middle-area and become the fastest, the most expensive, the most unique, the ugliest, the prettiest, etc.
Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fantastic book about service oriented professions and marketing yourself and keeping your customers interested and happy. View all my reviews >>
I’m currently wrapping up one vacation and starting a second one (back-to-back). I am literally on the road writing this on my way from North Carolina where I spent a week relaxing with Jessop, Lauren, Mike, and Steph. We didn’t do a whole lot which was exactly what I was looking forward too. The drive down there went by fast as I slept most of the way (after a late night out the night before we left with my friend Evan).
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| From North Carolina |
We went to a real grass putt putt range and the guy running it was originally from Maryland. He was a really awesome, laid back beach bum and we chatted with him for 30 minutes while we waited for the girls to return with our liquid refreshments for the course.
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| From North Carolina |
We all worked on a pretty difficult puzzle for a few days (wild and crazy kids, I know) but it was a lot of fun working on it together. Another favorite of the week was Rock Band. Mike brought his Xbox and Rock Band setup and his HUGE collection of songs and we rocked out until the wee hours of the night/morning.
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| From North Carolina |
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| From North Carolina |
We also did a lot of hot tubbing and laying by the pool. The house was awesome complete with hammocks for napping and lots of porches to sit on and look out over the dunes and into the sky. I did take a short walk up to the beach one night and put my toes in the sand and surf but since I really hate putting on sun screen, I pretty much stayed to the house and shade.
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| From North Carolina |
Jessop and Lauren kept us fed with delicious food all week including roasted free range chicken, bison burgers, chicken chili, and pasta with bison meat balls. It was great not having to worry about what/where to eat and leaving it all to them.
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| From North Carolina |
I also had quite a bit of editing of photos to do on this trip. It has been a very busy time for taking portraits. I had 13 photo sessions scheduled between July 4th and July 17th. It was a lot of fun doing all of those sessions and getting ready for them. I’ve been going through the photos (all 2400 of them) and editing them and culling them. I’ve been really happy with the way that they have turned out. I’ve been spending time during my vacation editing the photos and getting them ready for everyone.
Steph has been doing the blog posts for me for my site to off load some of the work and it’s been a real big help.
Here are some photo sessions that have been posted lately:
Now we are on our way to West Viriginia for the weekend for some more relaxing with friends and Steph’s family. Steph’s cousins and sister pitched in and got a house up there for the weekend so I’m really looking forward to hanging out with them this weekend, despite the 12 hour drive from NC to WV, ugh!
It’s been a while since I posted on here so I have a lot to catch you up on.
The first thing I will go back to is my 29th birthday. I’m not a huge fan of my birthday for some reason and it has nothing to do with being almost 30, it’s just this weird awkwardness I have when getting all the attention that I get. My family is really cool about birthdays though and they always have at least a little something for you whether you want it or you think you don’t 
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| From My 29th Birthday |
For my birthday, my parents and my grandparents pitched in and got me a Wacom Intuos 4 input tablet. This lets me use a pen like device to draw and edit my photos. The nice thing is that I got the medium size so it’s portable with my laptop and I can edit pretty much anywhere, even in the car (as a passenger, not as a driver). I love the new features of the tablet including the 8 programmable buttons down the side and the jog wheel for controlling zoom and brush sizes. It has made my editing much easier than using the touch pad on my macbook.
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| From My 29th Birthday |
