Wicked Widget for RSS

Okay I'm not a great widget fan so far, but this one just grabbed me by the throat and screamed "USE ME! USE ME NOW!" And I know it's easy to use because I created the item below totally by accident initially by clicking a link in my Feedburner feed. It supports text, audio and I expect video too (gotta test that!). Really neat tool from Spring Widgets ! Try it out on your own or to see it spring into action on the fly.

And as Blue Peter would say "Here's one we created earlier..."

Get this widget!

While I haven't played with it fully yet it does look like you can stack multiple RSS feeds into one widget too...

OPM Firms as a stabilizing force..

The thought of "Corporate Stability via OPM Firms" had never crossed my mind, but the other day one of the AMWSO team came to me and said: "My contact at the clients end is leaving for a new job, he introduced me to his replacement last night, 4th one in three years."

And that's when it struck me: I looked over all our corporate clients and sure enough, every one has had at least three changes in staff and management in the time we've worked with them! So that's three chances for:

• Knowledge to be lost.
• Down-time for training up new staff.
• Lost continuity with affiliates.
• Lost contacts and relationships.
  
• And more I am sure.
  

I never really saw OPMs as a "stability" factor in large firms before, but looking at their high turn over rate of staff, it becomes obvious that many firms rely on their outsourced partners (of any kind really) for stability, just as much as they do for their professional skills. An OPM firm can provide continuity in the area of expertise, like for example, AMWSO does for the affiliate channel. It’s a very solid value-add factor which I hadn’t really thought about until now.

Tied to your desk.

I just had a great conference session with James Martell and the focus was about affiliate marketing and travel.

I think one of the big draws of affiliate marketing, or any Internet based business really, is that you can do it from home, free yourself up from travel to the office, live a better lifestyle... but the reality is that many of us become just as tied to our desks now as we did when we had to go to the office to work. Heads down 7 days a week, we barely take note of where we are or what we could ... should... be doing.

If the Internet is our place of work, and our laptops our desk then we should all be trying to take our desks outside, away, far far away, hit the beach, the pool, where ever and start living a little of the lifestyle we planned, but didn't do.

I'm as guilty as everyone else on this, but I wonder how many people do manage to get out and do work where ever they lay their hat.

So here's my challenge for everyone, start working away from your "home" , head to a local pool with wifi, a cafe, library, where ever, experience working "out of the office" and then once you've overcome that nervous first step, see how far you can take your desk, and live a little of that lifestyle we should all be enjoying :-)