Jimi Jones has relocated to a new digital office for 2010 and beyond.

This blog will be repurposed in the coming weeks but in the meantime stop by the new place.

Please enter below

I have listed some resources below to help the cause. It does not matter if you choose from this list of resources or help in some other way, the important thing is that we all pull together for the people of Haiti.

This is one of the great powers of blogging and social networking, we can connect globally, particularly during times of crisis.

You may click on any of the links below:

AmeriCares

Care

Habitat For Humanity

Red Cross

Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund

World Concern

You may also text the word “Haiti” to 90999 and a $10.00 donation will appear on your cell bill.

Donate to reputable sources like those listed here. The profiteers and scammers are working overtime.

Thanks and may God Bless!

The Online Business Blog will continue to be a part of my online life, serving as an outpost and resource, but I am shifting my home base to Jimi Jones Dot Com where I will continue to help new bloggers and entrepreneurs get off to a great start and build their online businesses.

Come on over to the new camp where we will continue to share the online experience and build a better tomorrow. I am excited about what lies ahead in the blogging community and I hope you are as well.

Follow this link to Jimi Jones Dot Com and we will see you on the other side.

Like most bloggers and entrepreneurs, I have quite a few email accounts set-up for various purposes. I set out to get all of them cleaned up by the end of 2009 but life, as often happens, got in the way.

The next thing I know the New Year had arrived and I had hardly started on this project, which was quite substantial.

I use Gmail for most of my business accounts because it’s free, easy to use, and you get tons of storage space (7.2 Gigs) for each account. Now you know how the email thing goes, you get so many during the course of the day that you find yourself cherry-picking the really high priority and important ones first, leaving the others to get back to a little later.

The fact that I had so many emails to get back to began to bother me and it had gotten to a point where I knew I had to do something. It is a new year and this was gnawing at me, so drastic action had to be taken.

So I rearranged my normal work schedule to spend the required hours upon hours each day to clear away this backlog from my inbox, my mind and my life. I can tell you that I am now so refreshed and ready to rock and roll for 2010 that I just had to write this post about the experience.

This may sound like a small thing but when you have multiple accounts that accumulate 20 to 40 emails daily, and each account has an inbox with numbers in the thousands, let’s be honest, this **** is out of hand.

This situation has caused me to add another goal for 2010, and that is to implement a highly efficient email management system to avoid recurrence.

My old system was to set aside blocks of time to keep the numbers manageable but obviously I flubbed at that along the way.

This is where you can help me out.

What systems or techniques do you find most effective for managing your email?

Yeah I know, no system will help me if I fail to read them in the first place, but the sheer numbers had overwhelmed my efforts.

If you would kindly leave me some suggestions in the comments section, it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

As a blogger I travel around the internet stopping at numerous places during the week to read the work of others and to share some of what I find in this ongoing weekly series. This is a form of networking that I thoroughly enjoy because it leads to meeting so many people from all over the globe. That’s pretty cool considering you never have to leave your office.

This year has just begun and there is a lot going on, not only for me, but all around the net. People are busily getting off to a great start and it shows.

The week ending January 10th 2010

Do You Need Help loosing Weight? By Rando

Hey, I am just providing the title so don’t get pissed with me.

Seriously, you know the drill, each January there are legions of people setting out to reduce their clothing sizes. A little motivation is often helpful, so think about that cruise coming up later this summer.

TrueTwit is a validation service used to avoid robots and spammers while helping you manage your Twitter followers. You can check it out at TrueTwit.com.

How to Brand Your tweets with TweetBrand By Ching Ya

This is a nice Twitter branding tool that allows you to place your Blog or Company name at the bottom of your actual Tweet instead of yielding this digital real estate to clients software like TweetDeck or Hootsuite.

10 Tips for Overcoming Your critics to Build Your Business By Frank Angelone

I met this dude over on David Risley’s guest posting, which is a prime example of how guest posting can benefit your business. Anyhow, his 10 tips piece on critics was spot on and exactly what I think about that situation as well. Check it out.

I followed his link back to his camp and found a really nice blog on technology and social networks. Swing by sometime –>  Social Tech Zone

Job growth returns — then fades By Chris Isidore

The dismal U S job market continues to yield bad news as 85,000 more jobs were lost in December, bringing the 2009 totals to 4.2 million.

It is no wonder then that people are coming to the internet in search of opportunities. Families are hurting.

On the OBB

Create the Lifestyle You Desire in 2010

Is It a Good Time to be an Online Entrepreneur?

With so many new launches occurring during the beginning of this year I offer;

15 Blog Design Mistakes to Avoid

From the archives;

Why Start an Online Business in a Down Economy?

Have a great weekend everyone and Keep Blogging!

To get right to the point – YES! I actually believe that there is no bad time to start a business if that is what you desire, just get started and build it over time to what you want it to be.

Some general thoughts

It’s been a bumpy two years (2008 – 2009) for the global economy, as you no doubt have heard from the constant parade of talking heads on the daily blues news.

History has once again repeated itself and the cycle will be complete when the economy stabilizes and moves more consistently toward the positive.

This of course will not happen until the entrepreneurs of the world join forces and lead the way back, as has happened so many times before.

You see, economic prosperity never started with Dow Jones on Wall Street, but with Sam Jones on Main Street. Long before there were large corporations there were small businesses, started and operated by entrepreneurs who saw a need and decided to fill it.

History has shown us that whenever times got tough and there was economic uncertainty, people began to look within, grabbing hold of that creative spirit and finding a way to make ends meet. Simply put, when jobs dried up they made their own.

We are witnessing that very same thing today, as difficult times once again provide a necessity to create opportunities.

Today’s internet is loaded with opportunities as witnessed by the thousands of blog launches that occur daily. For the first time in history the average business person can compete with large multinational corporations since the startup fee for an online business is well within the reach of most.

As a business owner, you can reach as many people online as the large corporations through the smart use of social media. This leveling of the playing field positions you to carve out a niche.

The internet has exploded

In the year 2000, there were 360 million people on the internet, according to InternetWorldStats.com. Today there are 1.7 billion global users and growing. The sheer numbers tell you that opportunities are everywhere.

The importance of working together

Back in the day shopkeepers all worked together and looked out for one another for the betterment of the entire community. Today’s business climate is no different, with the exception of those who only care about themselves and are missing the larger picture.

This approach increases the chances for additional opportunities like joint ventures and project collaborations that otherwise may be more difficult to find individually. Working together within a community of bloggers brings about a collective knowledge that benefits everyone involved.

Conclusion

There has never been a better time to launch an online business. With a blogging education, a business plan and a strong desire to reach your goals the end result is totally in your control.

I would remove the curiosity of what might or could be and begin the journey of building your online enterprise.

This is what I find so attractive about being an internet entrepreneur and operating an online business. With the internet, you have the power to create that dream lifestyle; it is only a matter of taking action and working hard to reach your goals.

I do not mean to oversimplify this because it is not easy to accomplish, but it is without a doubt, a strong possibility for anyone who applies themselves and follows a proven business model like the many used by other successful entrepreneurs.

For me, I made but one resolution this year, and that was to continue to work hard, following the 2-year plan I laid out last year. This plan is allowing me to create the lifestyle I want and I am quite excited about what lies ahead in this year of 2010.

Most of us live and work the well worn corporate lifestyle where we graduate from college, get a job and trade time for money for the next 4 or 5 decades until we retire, all the while hoping that some semblance of a decent pension will await us when it is all said and done.

That particular lifestyle model leaves too much of your future in the hands of corporations who have their best interest in heart, not necessarily yours. Sure a good corporate job can provide you with all of the financial security you want, but the continuance of this income is out of your control and you are not free to do as you wish.

The times have changed and businesses have changed as well, trimming retirement and compensation packages with slim-fast approaches, leaving the dedicated worker to wonder what became of their dreams.

This is why taking charge of your own future is so important and this is where the internet provides huge opportunities for you to do so.

I made a conscious decision to design my own lifestyle and work a plan that will allow me to accomplish my goals. As an internet entrepreneur I can build and operate my business from anyplace that has internet access.

Some find this type of decision bold while others find it to be fool hearty, but one thing is for certain. Designing your own lifestyle means that you have chosen to buck the old system and become a non-conformist. It is a choice to get out of the box of what is viewed as “normal work behavior” in society.

I have had some great jobs over the years and was always fairly well paid, but when you begin to see the unraveling of the corporate structure as we have known it, you wonder what the future really holds for you.

Watching your 401Ks and real estate holdings decline in value, while corporate executives escape with huge bonuses for running companies into the ground should give you reason to pause and evaluate your long-term well being.

If my future was going to be that uncertain I was not going to just sit around and hope for the best, I was going to do something about it.

The allure of the comfort zone

It is human nature to want to stay in a place of perceived safety and comfort. Often times we find comfort in doing exactly what everyone else is doing. It is the safety in numbers mentality. You know, it must be the thing to do because everyone else is doing it, right?

We are naturally attracted to these behavior patterns.

Somewhere along life’s highway I came to realize that this can sometimes work against you in the long-term.

Consider this; the most successful among society did not reach that level of success by staying in their comfort zones. They were people who took some risk and worked hard to design the lifestyle they truly wanted.

Reaching your dreams

While watching others and studying how they have reached success, it became quite apparent that it is a matter of laying out your dream, developing a plan and taking actions that will lead you toward that dream.

Your plan must include the steps required to reach the goal, and then break each of those steps down into smaller tasks. In the end, you will likely have a very long and detailed plan, but taking action on each item listed, checking it off and moving on to the next will eventually get you to your destination.

Conclusion

If you have determined to blog your way to your dreams you must consider your blog to be a business and operate it as such. Just like any offline business, it will take time to build and grow into what you have envisioned it to be. Continue to work hard, avoid distractions that do not fit into your plan and make 2010 the year that you find the freedom to design the lifestyle that you have dreamed about.

Throughout this year, I will be blogging about this very process and the progressions of my overall plan as I move forward.

I hope you join me as the journey unfolds, sharing the experience and moving toward your own desires.

What have you envisioned as your future lifestyle?

Have you dared to dream?

Here is to a highly productive 2010.

Keep Blogging!

I thank you all so very much for your support throughout the past year, and I look forward to the continued sharing of the online life.

Be blessed, be safe and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Wishing you all the best in 2010 and beyond.

The big news this week was the launching of the book “Beyond Blogging – The Secrets To Blogging Success!” by my friends Nathan Hangen and Mike Cliffe-Jones. There was much buzz surrounding this launch and by all accounts it was a success. You can read my book review below.

Great job guys!

The week ending January 3rd 2010

Wow can you believe we have closed out another decade?

Time flies when you’re having fun, is what they say.

As usual, I like to list a few of my stops that I enjoyed during the week. They are always randomly listed and I could never list them all, but here are a few.

The Blog Master David Risley has made not only this week, but the entire year a fantastic blogging experience for me. I’ve learned a ton from this guy and could not close out the year without mentioning that. Thanks for all you do man.

Brian over at the fast growing BE posted the winners of the Year End Contest

My 100th Post was put up by Hulbert Lee. A nice look back, this blogger is here to stay.

I came across Don doing a guest post video at Ben Lang’s blog. I was impressed with his style in the video, he’s a natural. You can check it out here at How to Tell what Theme your Favorite Blog is using.

On the OBB

9 Tips for Building your Personal Brand

How to Pause TwitterFeed

Book Review: An Inside Look at Beyond Blogging

Special note of thanks: May each of you find the best of luck and success in 2010 and the many years beyond. I want to thank you personally for making this, my first year of blogging, a truly wonderful experience. It is because of the many friends and associates I have met online this year, that I so look forward to 2010.

Happy New Year and as always…Keep Blogging!

Whether you set out to build a brand or not, you are building one by simply being online. People will form perceptions of you regardless, so why not have an influence on what those perceptions will be?
Below I have listed 9 tips to help you in 2010 and beyond. Why 9 and not 10? I like odd numbers, they draw more attention.  :-)

1. Establish your identity from day one. Select a nice passport style photo of yourself and use it continuously. This will become your brand and bring instant recognition of you as people become accustomed to this image.
2. Select a niche and become an authority on your chosen topic. You want to become the go-to source for answers on the topic you cover. Niche selection can sometimes require more time than you would like, but it is important to fully research your topic to avoid overwhelming competition.
3. Develop a business or marketing plan, something that will get you from A to your destination. Operating an online business is too difficult to simply feel your way. You will be operating in the blind, which will only lead to failure.
4. Become an outstanding communicator of your message. You must deliver your message in an easy to understand manner through written or audio content. Write and speak clearly and conversationally.
5. Be a contributor. Always be willing to lend a helping hand and contribute to the success of others. When others are successful they will reach out to you as well, so you are really helping yourself by helping them. This establishes valuable working relationships that that build a strong network of like-minded individuals.
6. Maintain a presence everywhere. Your readers or followers are all over the internet, and you must have a presence in many places to gain wide exposure, drawing more and more readers to your blog. Establish outpost in all of the popular hangouts on the net and maintain them regularly. Only establish what you can reasonably maintain to avoid the appearance of outdated or abandoned profiles.
7. Join a group. You will be using many social media sites and tools, so be sociable. The lone ranger approach can leave an impression of you being unapproachable or standoffish. Build a network of friends and associates, you will find the support and camaraderie to be invaluable.
8. Be authentic when interacting with others. No one likes a phony and just because you are behind that monitor, do not make the mistake of thinking that people cannot pick up on those vibes. Admit to some mistakes and let others know that you are like them, less than perfect. The respect gained by being you cannot be substituted in any way.
9. Always be positive. A positive attitude rubs off on others and makes the entire online experience what it should be. Sure, there will be times when someone brings negativity to the fore, but let them corner the market on that for themselves.

Bonus tip: Remain humble, no matter your level of success. Keep in mind that it will be your readers and followers who will make you a success and they should be rewarded for supporting your efforts.

Life online is no different than life offline, people are to be treated with respect and you will get what you give.

I enjoy blogging and all that it brings to my life. The large numbers of people I have met has made this year a very positive experience and I look forward to the continuance of the online lifestyle for many years to come.

Keep Blogging!