Bnpositive's Blog

This is a promotional blog post. Opinions and viewpoints are still my own and I will share my opinions and thoughts honestly about this product regardless.

I was recently contacted about participating in a blog tour for Gatorade that helps promote the risks and dangers of playing sports in extreme weather. The timing couldn’t have been better because my son is actively involved in baseball and football, and lately has been enjoying practices and games in 90+ degree weather.

Being able to keep him (along with his teammates) cool and hydrated as needed has been a concern and he loves to drink Gatorade when it’s available. Gatorade provides additional benefits to him than just drinking ice-water.

If you’re in Indiana, then you know we’ve been experiencing some serious heat indexes lately and having our kids out playing sports, we need to be aware of the symptoms and challenges of heat and dehydration related illness.

Gatorade has teamed up with the NFL for the “Beat the Heat” campaign and provided a number of resources for parents and families to use to help protect themselves and their kids through their sport activities.

For every unique download of the “Beat the Heat” kit Gatorade and the NFL will donate $1 to a variety of charities that have been chosen for the campaign.

One of the things I’ve learned while reading through the information provided was the importance of being sure to hydrate yourself before, during and after the game. Many times I only seem to think about the need for extra fluids is in the middle of the physical activity.

We’re all now back into our normal work week and those of us who attended Blog Indiana 2010 may be super-motivated and gung-ho to jump into blogging and producing more content. If we’re lucky, we might even make a buck from all the effort.

The question is, are you prepared for the consequences of your blog becoming a revenue source? To all who earn, much is due. Taxes! Fees! Penalties!

Although nothing has been heard of yet from the city of Indianapolis, if you’re a Philly blogger, get ready to pony up $300 for a “business privilege license” to operate any business engaged in “activity for profit”. You can read about Marilyn Bess in Philadelphia that writes occasionally for eHow.com on The Washington Examiner and on Geekosystem.

This along with other and more government oversight seems like a great way to create a black market.

Hopefully we won’t have to worry about this anytime soon in Indianapolis. I’d hate to have Mayor Ballard getting his hands on the attendee list from Blog Indiana 2010 and setting up a “Bloggers Most Wanted” list.

Image: henriquev on flickr

I’ve already mentioned that I had the opportunity to be a speaker at the Blog Indiana 2010 Social Media 101 sessions. Myself along with Chris Theisen of Hare Chevy, Erik Deckers of Pro Blog Service and Patric Welch of Noobie all spoke on different topics to serve as introductions for people that were just getting started in social media.

• Keynote “Intro to Social Media” by Erik Deckers
• Breakout “Getting Started with Facebook” by Patric Welch
• Breakout “Twitter Tips & Tricks for Beginners” by Chris Theisen

I presented a breakout session titled “The Blogger’s Toolbox” which covered a list of the various applications that I’ve picked up over the years of my blogging experience. These were tools that have allowed me to write on a number of blogs consecutively, while maintaining a full-time job and being a husband and father of two great kids.

I divided the tools up into the different categories below:

The Fodder of Blog Ideas

Sometimes the challenge is just coming up with a new idea to write about for your blog topic.

• Digg – mainly used to see what’s being discussed and is popular, although this site is losing popularity overall with other options that provide similar resource.
• Google News Alerts – regardless of your blog topic, put in some keywords in Google Alerts and receive updates in your RSS reader or in your email inbox.
• Twitter Search – Twitter continues to be a wealth of a resource for blog ideas. You can either respond to what others are saying online or just get inspired about your own new post idea.
• Blog RSS – that’s right, we’re still reading blogs. Sometimes a great post can be an extension of a comment you left on someone else’s original post, or your own spin to a post or topic shared online. I personally use Bloglines as my RSS reader, but Google Reader is also an obvious option.

Read the rest of this entry »

Day 1 is in the books and Day 2 is about to get underway for the 3rd Annual Blog Indiana conference in Indianapolis, IN. This year I had the honor to be selected as a speaker for the event at their Social Media 101 event that happened on Thursday afternoon. My session was titled “The Blogger’s Toolbox” and there will be some posts to come to give more details on the tools I spoke about in my session.

For this post though I want to focus on drawing attention to just how great of an event this continues to be. If you’re not sure what it’s all about, check-out this promo video that my friend John Uhri (@y0mbo) about this year’s event.

John has always done these great sketch notes of the sessions he attends, these things should be collectibles and framed!

Noah Wesley (@noahwesley) and Shawn Plew (@hoosierplew) have continue to do an amazing job with this event. Every year they’ve got great speakers speaking on great topics. The keynotes are always engaging and informative as well. It really is a world-class event.

You’ll be informed and entertained with presenters that I’ve enjoyed getting to know and hang-out with over the years at previous conferences, Tweetups, social media events and a variety of coffee shops around the city of Indianapolis.

Folks like Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr) author of the new "Corporate Blogging for Dummies" that was just published (co-authored with Chantelle Flannery (@chantellef)), Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy) that wrote "Twitter Marketing For Dummies" and has a new book coming out in December that he wrote with my other friend Erik Deckers (@edeckers) who’s an amazingly witty humor writer. You’ll also be impressed with the wit and insight from the most interesting female blogger I know, Casey Mullins (@mooshinindy) and amazing photographer. Casey shared on how to tastefully sell yourself online and what you should probably be thinking about if you’re not. Then there’s Robby Slaughter (@robbyslaughter), who’s probably the most intelligent person I’ve ever met and shares some great insights on workflow and productivity process for business and bloggers alike. Robby recently published his book “Failure: The Secret to Success”, which should be an interesting book on what to learn from what didn’t work.

There’s so many more great speakers and presenters that were involved with this event, but to find out more about all of them you can visit the speaker’s page at the Blog Indiana website.

If you have anything to do with social media or want to learn more about what’s happening, be sure and put Blog Indiana 2011 on your schedule for next year. I can guarantee you it will be worthwhile!