Frank Kern stuck this up on his blog … and you’ve got to see it!

It looks like Google has finally done something great for the little guy. But it might just be more important than just that. You see one of advantages that the big guys have is that they can use more than just the internet to advertise. The Shopping Channel, Late Night TV, all of these are used by the real big guys to sell their products. By combining the media they create a stronger brand and a better level of sales than they could using just one media. It’s called synergy!

The problem has always been that you have to be really big to afford to compete in the traditional media. That’s why the internet was and is such a game changer.  It allowed the little guy to compete.

This just might change things yet again. By making TV advertising accessible to the small guy, that synergy is available no matter what size you are.

And that just might level the playing field yet again!

FYI $1.30/name is only slightly more than the standard internet value of $1/name. If you’re value per opt-in is higher then you might find this a useful technique.

We shall have to see.

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Okay … last two posts I talked about the trials and tribulations of  article marketing and the issues surrounding censorship.

This one, I’m going to talk about the amount of work involved and some good news.  And I’ll give you a hint of some good news to come shortly.

Okay so, Sean Mize has been getting me building traffic by writing short articles. Which is not something I’m particularly good at. So from that point of view alone it’s been good for me. (As you may have noticed, I’m better around the 700 word limit than I am at keeping these posts to 400 words. (Actually most of these have been 2000 + words split into 3 or 4 articles so I take half of it back   )

Unfortunately, I’m also really slow at it and writing 25 of these suckers has been taking me on the order of 5 hrs a day for just the articles & posting them (plus emails, plus job hunt plus blog plus changes to the site). But they’ve been so successful that I’m reluctant to back off on them — plus I’m really close to 100 articles. (This week barring any problems).

However, if I’m to keep up with the coaching, I need to revise my e-mails and also create some more products to sell.

Plus I want to create some products that are focused on information product creation rather than just on writing books. And the webpages to support them of course!

The good news is that Paul is finally back from Spain and Ohio and set up in his new home office. So if things come together with him, by Friday I’ll be able to make an announcement about some new products — and it’ll be great news for you my loyal reader! (Thank Sean).

So if you are interested … signup to your right (blog’s left). Either with the general mailing list or the coaching list and I’ll send you an email to let you know first thing. Or come back Friday and with luck you’ll find a big announcement!

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Okay, as I said last post (yesterday???) I blame Sean Mize for my having to pull my posts from this week and next. (You can check out Sean at Internet Success Secrets or his new Internet Marketing Training website).

You see he’s been helping me with my traffic problems. And since his technique involves article marketing (marketing with articles not selling them), he’s had me wearing my poor little fingers to the nubbin. I usually write an article a day but he’s got me cranking out 25-30 a week.  .:ouch:

Anyway I had a great week last week and cranked out a whole mess load. In that mess were five articles on (the subject which shall not be named).

Turns out I did a bad,bad. They don’t like (the subject which shall not be named). Which I can respect. It’s questionable legally, it degrades the writing craft and it’s a cheat to both your customers and you. Cool. I understand that. Hopefully anyone who’s been around Internet Marketing for more than six months does too. However, it is a common, frequently used technique. And it does have its uses. And it is possible to write a balanced article about it. (Yes, that means it will be slightly negative article but it can be balanced).

Unfortunately, their opinion is that if it’s not negative about (the subject which shall not be named).: then it shouldn’t be published. Cool. I can understand that. I can appreciate that they don’t want to support the practice. So I yanked the articles and wrote ten or so different articles to replace them. Not good but I’m a big boy. I’ll survive. I’ll just use them elsewhere.

Like my blog.

OOPSSSS …   My very bad …

Seems that they are intending to wipe the world of any reference to (the subject which shall not be named).: .  They held all of my articles !!!   Everything I wrote on Friday, Saturday and Sunday got rejected!

Anyway I had to make a choice — concede to censorship or lose my article market. Did I say that I’ve already had a 259% increase and I’m heading for 400% (actually as of 5:30 today I’m at 290% with 5 days to go).

Now I may be a Celt but I’m not totally nuts … now you know why those posts are not there anymore! Now I have to figure out what to do with them. Anyone out there want a set of posts on (the subject which shall not be named). ?

On the good side, there’s lots of news on building an ebiz for me to share. Including the return of Paul (YAY!!!! ) and a really important video.  All of which will show up next week along with the good news that Sean has forced me to give you.

So have a great weekend and come back next Monday ….

P.S.

I forgot to mention that — just to T me off even more — Sean just published an article on (the subject which shall not be named).: on that self-same article publisher. And he got away with it!!! :Grrrr: 

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Have you noticed that I’ve pulled one of my articles? (Actually I had to pull a whole series going off into next week )

I blame it all on Sean Mize….

Who is Sean Mize and why is he to blame?

He’s the guy what’s solving my traffic problems … and making me go blind in the process.

Okay, let me explain. You see I’ve had this site up for roughly six months now. And frankly I’ve had a real hard time driving traffic to it. So I finally decided that I needed help. Coaching help!

Yup, here I am … a coach and professional trainer and I need a coach.  Talk about an ego buster.

Anyway I picked Sean because:

• He didn’t make unreasonable promises
• He was quite clear about the amount of work (he still lied )
• He had a clear solution to my traffic problem
• He had only started in the last two years and had still succeeded.

AND …. (drum roll please)

• He did the coaching himself…. (you’d be surprised how many gurus hire a company out of Denver to do the actual coaching).

Unfortunately, Sean uses Article Marketing to drive traffic.  So I’ve been going nuts for the last few weeks writing articles and articles ….

And as you know by now … I write SLOW … (I may share a name with a certain cowboy star, and even meet him on the level, but I talk closer to a Jimmy Stewart … and I write about the same speed).

And I guess I’m going to be going nuts for the next few weeks ’cause guess what? It works!

Somehow though I need to get some other work done (did I mention he lied about how many hours of homework he gives ??? ). But it’s actually working which means I can forgive him for underguessing the number of hours needed.

BTW, working means my monthly traffic has increased 258% over the most I could get on my own. And I still haven’t finished March yet. My guess is that it will be closer to 400% by the end of the month… if I can keep up the workload   and if EzineArticles.com doesn’t bounce my articles the way they have lately.

Anyway, if you want to check out Sean try his Internet Success Secrets website or his new Internet Marketing Training website.

It’s been awhile since I updated everyone on the trials and tribulations of an internet oldie so I’m going to replace the missing articles for the next two weeks with a somewhat elongated update. Besides my explanation of the yanking … and some more information on what Sean’s got me doing (good news for you folks) … and lots of other headaches … there’s been some neat new things happening in the internet world that you need to know if you haven’t hear of them already. <gasp, gasp,gasp> I gotta lose the run-on sentences!

Anyway it’s almost 2Am and 500 words so I’ll do my next installment on Friday.

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Now Monday (that’s P.S.P.D. for anyone who’s counting … and please do it quietly!)   we were talking about classifying learning content and so forth.

And we came up with the following classifications by communications:

1. one way (facilitator to student)
2. both ways (facilitator to student to facilitator)
3. Exploratory (facilitator starts discussion and keeps discussion going)
4. Practice (facilitator starts, students discuss in small teams, students report to all, discussion with all)

One typical terminology for this is:

1. Lecture
2. Seminar
3. Tutorial
4. Workshop

So what does media have to do with this classification?

Each of the media has different characteristics. Therefore no matter what media you choose to deliver your learning content with, you will have to adjust the content to allow for those characteristics.

Uhh… let me try simplifying this ….

The classification of the learning content limits which media you can use.

The choice of media in it’s turn then affects the learning content.

It’s all a case of the media and the message as it were.

So to illustrate:

If I choose to perform a lecture (one way, teacher to student) … I could use any media. I could perform it using:

• Live – Large audience
• Live – Intimate audience
• Video – Talking Head
• Video – Mixed Media
• Video – Webinar/Slide Show
• Audio
• Book

However, if I choose to use Live with an intimate audience, I will be losing several major advantages. For example, a live presentation is not repeatable — at least not without the same amount of work. One of the video, audio or book media would be better for this reason. Similarly by using a live intimate audience for a lecture I’m losing the main advantage of that media — two way communications.

The point is it’s better to match characteristics than to adjust. So for example, a lecture would be much better in video, audio or book format.

On the other hand, if you’re doing a seminar, using video, audio or book makes life difficult.  There are very few people who have learned the trick of getting feedback from a disconnected audience. (And trust me “Write this down” doesn’t work)!

So from a media point of view:

1. Live – Large Audience  — Lecture
2. Live – Intimate Audience — Seminar, tutorial or workshop
3. Video – all types – Lecture
4. Audio – Lecture
5. Books – Lecture, tutorial, workshop

At which point you’re going huh? Books? 3 types????

The answer is in another question … What’s the difference between a “how to” book, a textbook and a workbook or manual?

The answer is a textbook has practice questions (effectively an exam).  A manual or workbook are task focused. Essentially they incorporate the questions in their structure.

Which is a hint as to how to translate video and audio into a tutorial or workshop. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to do without looking manipulative.

(By the way PSPD = Post Saint Paddy’s Day )

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And a Happy St. Padraig’s Day to ye and ye’re own!

I went and forgot Dewi Sante’s day again (Boy, does that sound weird … St. David’s day to you Saesneg.) Even though my son’s name is Dafydd. Only the Welsh would have a saint named St. Davey as in Davey Boy!

Anyway, the bottom line is I have to settle for St. Patrick’s Day … My Bad! And here I could’ve had two celebrations!

So now I’m off for a bit of Corned Beef and Cabbage (the version of Colcannon me ancestors have been settling for these last 150 years or so). And I’ll trade the green beer for a pint of Harp or maybe a Black ‘n Tan. I love the Guinness but me shape has been heading towards a circle for too long!

And today’s column is  but a simple wish “May you always have a clean shirt, a clear conscience, and enough coins in your pocket to buy a pint!”  

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• No related posts.

I forget what the other terms were so until I remember I’m going to take off and discuss a related topic … so there! If you won’t suggest topics you get to put up with my eccentricities.

One of the ways that learning content (or more correctly the tactics of delivery) can be classified is by the direction and nature of the communications.

For example, an event’s communications can be either:

1. one way (facilitator to student)
2. both ways (facilitator to student to facilitator)
3. Exploratory (facilitator starts discussion and keeps discussion going)
4. Practice (facilitator starts, students discuss in small teams, students report to all, discussion with all)

One typical terminology for this is:

1. Lecture
2. Seminar
3. Tutorial
4. Workshop

A lecture is what we traditionally think of when we think of teaching. One person stands at the front of a group and spouts their knowledge.

A seminar is closer to the Socratic ideal of mutual exploration. It is characterized by feedback and development of the information by the “student”. However, it is still very much a case of the facilitator dispensing information out to the student. In fact, there is a saying that until someone asks a question, a seminar is just a lecture.

A tutorial on the other hand is the Socratic method. By this point the information should have already been disseminated. Although the facilitator may spark discussion by repeating the information the focus is on the group expanding and questioning the information.

A workshop is a practice session.  The facilitator may start the process but the process occurs primarily inside the student. Break out sessions are a great example of this tactic.  In this tactic, students break apart for the practice then return to discuss and explore the results. The individual versions of this may include homework or software practice which may be discussed, may be self-evident or may be self-evaluated.

Now I have no idea why all this is important … but it seems to be and I’m short of something to talk about. So Friday, I’ll continue the discussion by looking at training media and it’s relationship to these tactics.

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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

- Lewis Carroll

Now that we’ve determined what information products means — sort of. We can go on to discussing what is learning content … besides the base for a company name. (Yeah, I know we’re LearningCreators not LearningContenters but this is all going to make sense in time).

So what is Learning Content? First of all it is an information product. More specifically it is a (re)casting of information for the purposes of transferring knowledge. Wee … academia here I come ….

Take a course … it can be delivered by a live seminar, or by DVD or by an audio-only format. But the core information — the course — remains the same. It can even be recreated as a book or an eBook. Now when the course has been repurposed from live to DVD to audio it may be exactly the same course. However, it may have been redone (and probably should have been). But it still remains the same course.  Later it may be written down as an article, white paper or book. Despite this the content remains the same.

That’s learning content! It is the course itself — irrespective of the format or media the course is delivered in.

Now of course, things are never as simple as they seem. While the information remains constant for all media and the learning content (the course) remains almost the same, in real life, the actual course may change to make better use of the properties of the media. For this discussion, however, I’m going to presume they remain constant.

That’s why many marketers suggest repurposing your training materials (sell a live training, video record it then sell as a DVD, convert to audio and sell as a CD, the transpose it into a written product and sell or give that away).  If we ignore the effects of the media properties, the learning content remains the same for all products.

Of course, in real life, for quality reasons, we do not want to ignore those media properties.

S0 to restate, learning content is the content of the course ignoring the media the course is delivered in. Whether the course is delivered by video, live seminar or mp3 or even by book, the learning content remains the same.

How does Learning Content relate to Information Products? Learning content is the creation side of anything to do with training. Therefore items like coaching, Books & eBooks, Seminars & Courses all use learning content. Or more correctly, disseminate learning content. On the other hand, consulting, software, data analysis, databases etc. — which are not related to training – are not related to Learning Content.

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“‘Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and I don’t believe you do either!’” Lewis Carroll

We’ve been tossing around this term “Learning Content” as though it means much more that just our company name!

Well it does!

So do most of the other terms we use …

So for this week — and maybe next — we’re going to define some terms and how they relate to each other.

So let’s start with the widest term…

What is an information product?

Although internet marketers tend to think in terms of one type of information product there are in fact a great number of them. Information products in general are any product which deals in information. That includes the manipulation of information as well as the provision of information.

In other words, some of the information products (and only some) are:

1. Computer programs
2. Databases
3. Data analysis services
4. Consulting services (but not contracting services).
5. Coaching services.
6. Information posting (e.g. Link Building Programs & Search Engine Submitters).
7. Seminars, and courses
8. Books and eBooks
9. Articles and Magazines

And there are a large number of other items. In fact, some items are information products but are often considered to be more related to other classes e.g. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is considered to be either marketing or internet services but is actually more an information product than anything else. In fact, copywriting is a form of information product but is typically lumped into marketing.

In short, information products is a wide grouping of anything to do with data or information or the dissemination of that information. In practice, it is so wide that it typically must be broken into sub-sets in order to be a useful classification.

Having said that, internet marketers tend to think of information products as fitting into one of three groups … database services, courseware and software. The rest of information products tend to be assigned to something else — such as marketing or internet or consulting — or ignored.

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Part 1 – Write How-To Books & Creating Information Products & Course – Where To From Here?

Hey Folks, I just wanted to thank you for reading my blog. After all a writer without readers is wasting his time and energy. So Thank You for reading my few poor words.

Now up to this point I’ve been concentrating most of my advice  on writing how-to books and eBooks and whatnot.  But of course, what I do is create Learning Content … of which how-to books and eBooks are just one form or media.  Basically, anything that is a course or a knowledge transfer is fair game for me.

So what would you like me to concentrate on? Do you want me to continue talking about how to write how-to books and eBooks. Or would you rather I spent time on other course formats … DVD, CD, and Live Seminars for example.

What questions would you like me to answer? Where are you having problems with writing your how-to Books or creating your information products and courses? Ask away … this is your chance for some FREE coaching!

————————————————-

Part 2 – On Writing Articles – I Can Write More Than Just How-To Books — Really I Can!

Just an quick announcement  — Over the last two weeks I’ve been writing article after article for EZineArticles.com which has been both tiring, frustrating and a bit of an ego boost. I’ve got several articles up … I’m aiming for 10 a day — hey they’re short — but we’ll see how many I can actually get out.

The reason it’s an ego boost is that I got two promotions ahead of time.   One is being flagged as an Expert Writer. (wee 8)  ) Which is cool but …   And the second is that I got promoted to platinum from basic ahead of time.  You see they edit the submissions. You get 10 submissions to convince them you are good enough to bother with. Each of which is edited twice before being posted. They then evaluate all ten of your submissions.  You then get another 25 to convince them that you are good enough to be let loose.  Again these are edited twice and posted. After the 25 are published, you are evaluated yet again. With luck you then get to be promoted to platinum level — which means you can submit as many articles as you’d like.

I was promoted directly to platinum after only 9 submissions.

Pretty cool huh?

You can get access to my articles by clicking on the box to the right.

————————————————-

Part 3 – On Free Courses and Paid Courses and Keeping In Touch.

Just a reminder about the boxes over to the right ….

The first is a link to our FREE course on How To Write How-To Books. Over 7 weeks I’ll show you how to plan, design and write a how-to book in under 24 hours. Nothing is held back!

The second box is a link to the book How To Write How-To Books in 24 hrs Or Less. This system in a box will help you to write your how to book. Lots of bonuses and a great price.

The third and fourth boxes link to two solutions for those of you who’ve hit a block. The third box links to our coaching service where you can get weekly guidance on writing your how-to book. The fourth box solves the problem by linking to our custom book writing service.

Don’t forget our twitter birds and the newsletter opt-in. Our twitter account at www.tritter.com/PMPsicle are great ways to connect with us and keep track of what is going on here.

Give them a try

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