What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

There is no better way to start the week then reading last week’s best business, marketing and PR pieces! So let’s kick this week off with a few reading recommendations!

Guest blogger Lena West explores The Unfortunate Burden of Poor Social Media Examples on LipSticking, discussing how bad examples seem to weigh a lot more than the overwhelmingly numerous good examples of businesses using social media.

Do you know what the difference between reach, outreach and reaching out is? Liz Strauss explains it in a great piece, stressing the importance of reaching out and connecting with someone, building a valuable relationship.

Once again proving there are things to be learned and to be successfully applied to your business virtually anywhere, Karen Swim shares 5 Sweet Business Lessons from the Cake Boss. Continue reading

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I have always been intrigued by the relationship Romanians have had with their car brand, Dacia. It is the only brand that still exists and that did not disappear after the Revolution that put an end to communism. But the way we’ve seen the brand, the way we’ve related to it or chosen to ignore it, makes for a very interesting story.

Dacias were not the best of cars during the communist period.  But they were one of the few types of cars you could actually get. Long lists and long waits came before any car purchase. And when I say long wait, I mean years. But then again, that gave you time to raise the money for it. The design was outdated, there weren’t that many options to choose from, and some relatives told me some now funny stories about how they prayed for their car to arrive with most of the parts on it.

After the Revolution, we finally had choices. And we went for them. Foreign cars, used at first, brought from nearby countries, Germany being the leading supplier. I grew up with high-school friends that made a business out of driving to Germany in one car and returning in three. They would work on them for a while, then resell them for some extra cash.

Old school Dacia, Sandero and Duster

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What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

The last week of January 2009 comes with the 20th edition of the Monday reading tips brought to you by Words of a Broken Mirror.

We’ll start with some interesting top 10 trends for 2009 from Samll Business Trends: the top 10 software publishing trends by Tim Berry and the top 10 global trends for SMBs by Laurel Delaney.

Mihaela Lica raises the issues of spam-like ads on Twitter, an attempt thought of by Magpie, not Twitter’s monetization team as you might have thought.

Lip-sticking has published an inspirational guest post by Mary Schmidt on powerful first ladies, what they have achieved and what women in general can accomplish, regardless of being married to powerful men.

Brad Shorr of Word Sell Inc. discussed the issue of business-to-business sales and how managing daily pains helps build or demolish businesses and individual careers.

Brian Solis of PR 2.0 pointed out that social networks are growing up as more adults are joinging the conversation.

Hoping you’ve enjoyed this week’s list, I invite you, as always, to share your recommendations in the comment box. See you next week!

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This is the kind of news that makes all those predicting the end of print media go “Aha!”. Starting February 2009, we’ll have to say goodbye to the print version of PC Magazine. It will be changed into a digital format, with similar subscription options. I’m looking forward to see how advertising options will change, but even more curious to see how many of they readers switch from paper to downloadable format.

How did they announce it? Well, it’s all posted on their site, the CEO emailed their contacts and, just in case that email was lost among others, account managers also contacted their clients. From what my contact shared with me, before this move, a large part from the magazine’s income was generated by their digital branch. This leads me to believe the complete switch was a pretty smart move.

What do you think? Any predictions you’d like to share? Will other magazines follow the same pattern? Is this easier for a tech magazine? I’d love to read your thoughts.

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