photo by respres 

Twitter - it’s everywhere. 

Ashton racing CNN to get to 1,000,000 followers.  Oprah’s on, along with lots of other celebrities.  Growth for twitter the last year has been 2565%.  It’s even being used successfully for business – here’s a great Forbes article on a CEO that’s using it for her business.

The number of twitter profiles is now over 18 Million.  I think it’s safe to say that twitter has hit a tipping point.

But if you’re like most people that I know, the first question is ‘What is Twitter?’ followed closely by ‘What is the big deal and why should I care?’.

The reality is that if and when you go out and try twitter, you are extremely likely to shake your head, look confused and shut your computer off in disgust trying to figure out what all the noise could possibly be about.

One of the secrets about twitter that’s not obvious is that www.twitter.com actually sucks right now when it comes to using twitter – that’s what most new users try to use and justifiably walk away frustrated and overwhelmed in a very short time.

Twitter’s not for everyone, but read on and see if some background and suggestions on what everything means and tips on how to use it might help change your perspective.

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  photo by jurvetson 

The American way is the creative and entrepreneurial spirit that remains strong even in the face of a terrible economy, bad news and a lot of reasons for people to be depressed.

I was fortunate enough to participate in the Kansas City Startup Weekend this past weekend and I came away with a new level of respect for innovation, creativity and  the ability for inspired, committed people to get stuff done.  A big thanks to Dan Melton at nptLabs for organizing the event!

If you don’t know, Startup Weekend is a celebration of the startup process – but the coolest part is that the attendees aren’t guests, but active participants that are on their own to make things happen.

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It would be easy to dismiss Seth Godin’s latest book as a way for him to cash in on his (hard earned) reputation as the Marketing Genius of our time.

For those that don’t know him – Seth Godin (you can read his frequent updates at Seth’s blog) is an author of many books, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae.  Not only is he a compelling writer, but he also has a history of illuminating (perhaps leading) changes in the marketplace that we’ve been seeing the last 10 years.

At first glance, Tribes appears to be more of the same – written in a stream of consciousness style almost as a collection of blog posts (which is likely where they started).

However the real value of Tribes is the ideas that get sparked from the conversation it feels like you’re having with Mr. Godin.  Here are a few that came to me when I read it:

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