Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

Seek out subject matter experts

This is a very simple step that many of us overlook for various reasons. We might fear that it is inappropriate. Or think that person is competition. Or feel it is a sign of weakness. Yet I have found this action of seeking out people who are experts or knowledgeable in the subjects I want to know more about to be a huge asset for many reasons.

It is not inappropriate. People love talking about themselves. I know I do. If someone wants to meet with me I definitely take the opportunity. If the person you are asking is smart enough, they will also recognize it as an opportunity to learn something themselves. It is human nature to want to help. Even in the smallest of ways.

So go and ask that person for a coffee and see where it takes you.

Since the day I started my own business I’ve thrown the notion of competition out the window. I don’t have time for that pettiness and neither should you. Those other people or businesses that have similar goals should be allies. You should be able to lean on each other with the end goal in mind. Period.

And never think you are showing weakness. Wanting to further your knowledge is not shameful. By wanting to meet others in your industry you are displaying a higher level of investment in it. No one will ever know everything and we can all learn something from one another. Even if the other person has a giant ego. You can still learn from them.

Overall you should strive to meet as many people as possible in whatever field or industry you want to be in. Most people are happy to talk but the worst they’ll say is no. Connecting with your competition can lead to bigger things. And seeking out established industry people will show your willingness to continue to learn. It will show you are willing to grow.

These simple actions will benefit you by way of straight knowledge. They will also put you in front of thought leaders and subject matter experts. It will plant a seed in their minds for future opportunity. It might not happen right away but you’ll be there in their subconscious. When the moment is right your name will come up in conversation. In the planning of a new product, as a person to collaborate with or in a recommendation to someone else.

Thus, the universe will present you with an opportunity.

Now, go. Get out there. Meet someone new.

This post is post is part of a bigger series called Let The Universe Know What You Want. See the other posts below:

• Seek Out Subject Matter Experts
• Let Your Passion Drive You

Brent Hodson my Informant

I would have to say that Brent Hodson is my informant. As it appears and as he so gleefully pointed out this morning my previous two posts were information from him. He knows the know of Fort St John, you know. So naturally I need to point that out and point out his bloggidy, so maybe he’ll use it more often.

Brent’s Blog: Well it reads like a book, no seriously, go look at it his WordPress theme looks like a book. Not my first choice but cool nonetheless. Brent is all over the Social Media scene, but I would like to see more from his blog. Further developed thoughts on the World of Fort St John, Pop Culture, Music and Politics. What’d you say Brent can we expect that?

Brent's Blog BrentHodson.ca
Brent's Blog BrentHodson.ca

Government Vs. My MacBook

I’m not going to get in to the details as to what I was doing but I will give you a quick recap.

I was going through parts of the Fedral Government website in the Business section or whatever it might be called looking for information on starting a business. The thing that drives me nuts about the government site is all the linking. You read one article which links to 10 other articles and each of those links to another 10 and so on. Call me stupid or challenged but that is confusing. I hate being directed around in circles by big websites. Did I find what I was looking for, No.

The next little issue that was pushing me over the edge was a form I was filling out online on the Government site. The form was for a business number but it seemed to be taking forever to respond to the server it was pulling and sending the information to. On top of me becoming impatient so was my computer because it started to freak out. It all of a sudden started to get glitchy and freeze up for 2 or 3 seconds at a time. At that point the fan was spinning at worp speed and sounded horrible. Then as if the computer said that’s it I have had enough and flicked an internal off switch, it dropped the Wireless connection and froze up. I was so mad I actually said “I want to throw you(my macbook) at the government” whatever that means.

I did not throw the computer. I did although let it cool down while I did the same. I then plugged it in and all was good again except I did not go back to the Government site. I didn’t think I will worry about it for now.

That was how 5 minutes of my evening went, how did yours go?

Join Twitter Through Facebook

It seems that a lot of people don’t want to bother with Twitter because all they see it as is a site with just Facebook status’. But this couldn’t be more incorrect.

Somethings Twitter offers:

  1. News – A lot if not all major news station are on Twitter tweeting new stories when they happen. So instead of waiting for the evening news you are able to here about them when they happen. Some celebrities (ie Lance Armstrong) aren’t talking to the media anymore and just tweeting what they have to say.
  2. Marketing  – Have something to sell and promote. Twitter is the place to do it. You are able to share your product with the world.
  3. Answers – Many times I have had a question that I just can not figure out and Google doesn’t have the right answer so I just tweet it. Believe it or not with in 10 minutes I normally have an answer.
  4. Meeting people – Unlike Facebook you can follow people with out them having to approve you or following you back. This is a great resource for finding information in your field or moving to a new place. For example I started following someone who lives close to where I will be attending school in the fall and they are helping me find a place to live. It is like the ultimate networking.

Those are just some I can think of off the top of my head.

If you are still unsure that Twitter is really for you I have an idea for you. If you are on Facebook, which I would assume most of your are and update your status there every once and a while there are many option for you to also send those status’ to Twitter at the same time. It wouldn’t make anymore work for you but it will allow you to dip your toes into the Twitter world while in the comfort of your Facebook Page.

To see the 5 solution from transfering your Facebook status to Twitter check out the post Masable put up.

Review: Ykcity.ca Yellowknife Event Site

I’m going to jump out of my little bubble for a minute here and offer some constructive criticism to YKcity.ca as the creator has been asking for some but didn’t give many options in the survey. I think the idea of the site is an excellent one and Yellowknife needs more online information portals such as this. I wishing the creator the best of luck and hope he succeeds with the site.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way a professional and am only saying what is on my mind. I am not to be taken seriously in any way unless of course you want to. Then you might just be as weird as I am.

First I want to talk about the theme. The theme of a website is very important, it is what your visitors will see first. So that being the case you want it to be easy to look at which it is for YkCity.ca. What I think the downfall is, is the theme of the site does incorporate the city of Yellowknife at all. At first a theme was used that had a picture in the header of a city and I thought great all you need to do is use a photo of Yellowknife’s city skyline and crop it in there, but then the theme changed. Having a picture of Yellowknife, its colours, or something iconic to the City would make the site look more authentic and professional. As this is not just a personal blog I would also suggest looking into premium wordpress themes. There are many great developers out there that make them and although they cost around $70 it would be worth it. Many of these themes are better suited for SEO and come with access to the developers support forum where you can find many tutorials on how to customize the theme to your liking as well as answer any question you may have.

The next thing most people look at upon arriving at a site is the title and what is on the front page. Looking at the title there isn’t much I can suggest about it. It states the name of the site and gives you a short idea of what the site is about. Simple and Sweat. What I would suggest doing is adding a introduction or description paragraph underneath the header and navigation bar, ideally where your most recent post is currently. I think it would be beneficial to the site when new comers arrive. Depending on where they have arrived from they may not know what the site is about, this introduction paragraph would be a great place to give them a brief summary of what the site is and what it can be used for. You could even make the front page a static page and give a more detailed introduction to the site but on the other hand you could use the posts on the front page to your advantage. Yes I realize that today’s events are located in the sidebar but it might also be worth having a daily post with the days events on it. Some of the advantages could be that event details could be more detailed and easier to read rather then the small pop up boxes they currently show up in. Have a daily post of the days events can also be a bonus for those like me who use Feed Readers. This way people could check the daily events while they are checking the rest of their feeds and wouldn’t have to navigate to the site each day. You could also set up your feed so visitors could subscribe via e-mail, that way the daily events show up in there inbox making it easy to read while check the rest of their mail. Have a daily post can seem like a lot of work if it can not be automated so a weekly post might be better suited if that is the case.

When it come to maintaining the site I can only hope you have help. That’s not to say one person can’t do it on their own but it takes a lot of stress away if you have someone to fall back on. Things can happen unexpectedly and prevent us from being able to do things such as updating the site. Once you gain a large following, where people are depending on you it is important that you are able to keep up with them. To take some stress off you and decrease your work load for you site ask a couple people to help you out. You could still be the one who controls the site but if you had someone out in the community constantly keeping an eye out for events and gathering info, and then another who wrote up the event description. You would be able to quickly add them to the site with out any hassle. Little things that friends can do, and don’t mind doing. When people see the benefits to the site you could think about setting up a page where your visitors can submit their own events or ones they have heard about around town, again taking some of the work load off of you.

On to the Event Calender which happens to be the same one I use for one of the sites I maintain. The issue I have found on this site as well as my own is the calender font is very small and when highlighted in its different colours can be hard to read for some. So if at all possible making the font should be considered as well as making the calender the full page width. This mean removing the sidebar. The only thing you have in the sidebar that people can see when on the calender page is today’s events and upcoming events so I would strongly recommend removing it so that the calender can be larger which has today’s and upcoming events on it already.

My finally suggestion as I have now gone on way to long is Twitter, of course. Twitter is currently the in thing so having an account for the website would be a great marketing tool. Have a tweet created when a new event is added to the calender or when a post with the daily or weekly events is published. The Twitter community of Yellowknife is growing and I have said it several times already Twitter is a great way to get heard, so businesses should be signing up and at least giving it a try.

I hope some of these suggestion are helpful.