The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Marketing Online, Clear and Simple: newspaper review

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Mt. Shasta, California, Jan 18, 2012: I’m in the newspaper! I’m in the newspaper! (Again.)

Today the Mount Shasta Herald, which covers most of the Siskiyou county towns, published a great interview with me about my new book “Marketing Online, Clear and Simple, for Local Business.” I got my picture in, and a photo of the book as well. Wow! For the next 15 or 20 minutes, I’m famous!

[from the article]

Cronos’s book outlines three steps which he says will help local businesses make money online.

“A website is not enough. There are two other steps that need to be accomplished before money begins pouring in unexpectedly.” This three-step formula is clearly and succinctly laid out in his 172 page book.

Cronos said he was involved with computers before the internet became popular and as a business person in San Francisco, he was one of the first to put up a website.

“I didn’t intend to acquire this information, but simply due to circumstance, I’ve had the good fortune to see how selling and writing is adapted to the cyber-universe,” Cronos writes in the book’s preface.

“And through working with my clients and their businesses, I’ve discovered how to separate what works from the tidal wave of opinions and methods that normally bury the inquiring business person.”

[Marketing Online newspaper review: read more]

Introducing Webnova.Net Affordable Websites

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Weed, California, January 10, 2012 — I’ve been thinking. And that’s always fun. Here’s the scoop …

For some time now, I’ve been focusing on CopyDragon webwriters, because after all I have been a business writer for 40 years and an internet expert for 15 years. There’s been enough work and more to keep me busy.

But time and time again, I encounter small business folks, sometimes artists and “spiritual” folks and therapists and such, and they know they ought to get on the internet, but they don’t really have resources adequate to hire me for a custom, full-blown marketing project.

I wrote a book, spelling out the process, but now I’ve worked out how to create low-cost, easily affordable, and quickly-deliverable websites so that even the smallest enterprise can get a foothold on the internet. Since such a huge number of people search online even before visiting a local store — and even more with the proliferation of cell phones — then simply *being there* becomes darned important.

Get a Website for $99, 3-Day Turnaround

And now, anyone can have a website, quick and affordable …

Introducing Affordable Websites from WebNova.Net.

What the Heck is a QR Code?

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Want to learn how to use those Weird Graphics (‘QR Codes’), like that one on the left on my CopyDragon facebook page, to promote more fans to your gigs, more customers to your business, more ‘likes’ to your facebook?

I’m going to be ‘spilling the beans’ about QR Codes (short for ‘quick-response codes), and how to use them to create more fans, business, money, and a bigger audience. It’s the coming thing … a……nd you could fight it, but … “A rising tide raises all boats” … so the smart thing is to let it carry you on a wave of growing success, right?

I’m starting the discussion by discussing “What are QR Codes?” —

Want to know more?

Click the graphic below to visit the article, then scan the graphic below with your cellphone and press the ‘call’ button … and I’ll answer the phone.

🙂

Big Hit: Bloggard’s New Marketing Book!

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[this post reprinted with permission from “MarketingOnlineClearAndSimple.com“]

Small Business Marketing Consultant Nikolas Allen
Expert Marketing Consultant Nikolas Allen

 

Resident of Mt. Shasta, California, local marketing heavyweight Nikolas Allen, raves about Arthur Cronos new book “Marketing Online, Clear and Simple,” available now on Amazon in print and Kindle editions.

“Totally stoked,” says Mr. Allen, “and ready to dig into “Marketing Online – Clear and Simple” by local author Arthur Cronos ! Thank you for the gift, Mr. CopyDragon!”

Mr. Allen, thank you and you’re welcome!

–0–

Nikolas Allen (http://bamsmallbizconsulting.com) has the knack of presenting marketing how-to in a crisp and easy-to-understand fashion, and is the brains behind some of the best marketing programs currently earning money for local business owners in Northern California’s Siskiyou County. His online blog is well worth regular reading for the outstanding, insider marketing content he delivers week after week.

 

 

So Long, Steve Jobs

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October 5, 2011: Apple Computer has announced that Steve Jobs died today.

That sucks, and I’m saddened.

I remember an evening, many years ago, I think a Tuesday, at the regular monthly meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club, which was held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator building.

I’d ride my (somewhat small) 360 Yamaha motorcycle down Interstate 280 from San Francisco, and my tushie was frazzled by the time I arrived. But it was worth it. Those were exciting times, with new announcements about CP/M and new peripherals for the Altair. Some of the people attending have now become household words, and I met the infamous Captain Crunch there, who was imprisoned for hacking long distance calls with a whistle that came in Captain Crunch cereal boxes.

And on that particular night, there were two scuzzy guys in the foyer. They weren’t on the regular program, so they’d set up just inside the door but before you went into the auditorium where the “real” program was going on.

They were demonstrating a board they’d just developed that displayed … (gasp!) … colors. (At the time, displays were black and white.)

These two guys reminded me of my hippie days. Steve and Steve, their names were. Wozniak and Jobs.

===

In the wake of his departure, here’s one of my favorite quotations, and maybe it has even more meaning today …

“Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs

 

The Return of the CopyDragon …

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June 1976, San Francisco: As I mentioned, the Network Answering Service was created in my studio apartment at 495 Third Avenue, north of Golden Gate Park, and according to the employee manual, the primary purpose of the answering service was to feed Rosie the Cat.

Of course, we had a more noble mission, and-  But that’s neither here nor there, because this is about the CopyDragon, copywriter extraordinaire, raconteur, and gentleman at arms. That is, ahem, myself with my writing-copy hat on.

As best I know the first copy written was some advertising for Simple Simon bookkeeping (myself), and then there was a brief audiotext positioning message for my high-tech and newfangled answering machine, but this summer as I prepared to launch the answering service, I began writing a lot of what’s called “commercial writing,” which simply means writing for business purposes.

It includes:
[Read more…]

So Long — to the Ramen King

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Instant Ramen was invented in this workshop by Ando Momofuku
The Invention of Instant Ramen

Osaka, Japan, January 6, 2007: A Hero of Our Time … In 2007, at the age of 96, Ando Momofuku, the inventor of Instant Ramen, passed away. While a student at Ritsumeikan University he learned to operate a clothing business, but on a cold night shortly after World War II, he came upon a long line of people who were waiting to buy fresh ramen (noodles) at a black-market food stall. In an epiphany, he came to believe that the world would have peace when people had enough to eat.

So in 1948 he began learning the food business, and ten years later developed instant Chicken Ramen, which he thought would provide better nutrition for soldiers in the field. His company grew and grew and grew. Two years ago, his company developed vacuum-packed noodles for Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to eat on the U. S. space shuttle Discovery. When interviewed, Ando said, “I’m happy I’ve realized my dream that noodles can go into space.”

One small step for man, one giant leap for noodles. But perhaps more important is this: We don’t know who invented beans and rice, and we don’t know who invented spaghetti, but we do know who invented Instant Ramen. So for all the students of the world, and for those of us who once needed very affordable food for a simple meal, we thank you, Ando Momofuku.

In this simple way, you’ve changed the world.

The Day of the Murders

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San Francisco, November 27, 1978: I was living in the studio apartment at 495 Third Avenue; and I had a devastating flu that knocked me woozy, half-unconscious.

Over the radio, the murders seemed lurid, wacko, surreal.

George Moscone was San Francisco’s very popular new mayor, after many years of Joe Alioto. Diane Feinstein was on the board of Supervisors, as was ex-police-chief Richard Hongisto, along with Harvey Milk and Dan White.

Harvey Milk ran a camera store on Castro street. He was the first openly gay candidate elected to public office when he was voted a Supervisor.

Dan White ran a tourist shop on Pier 39, and after being voted a Supervisor, supported the Briggs initiative, which would ban gays from teaching. Dan clashed with Harvey, and with mayor Moscone, on a number of issues, and Dan was also having business problems with his shop. White at one point resigned his post, and then later, wanted it back, but mayor Moscone declined.

According to White, his colleague Harvey Milk “smirked” at him, and therefore Dan White decided to kill both supervisor Milk and mayor Moscone with a small-caliber pistol.

Harvey Milk, the Gay Supervisor

He smuggled the pistol past City Hall security by the simple expedient of leaving a window open, through which he then re-entered with the pistol. He murdered both men in their offices with the hit-man’s trick: he shot them in the belly, which is so painful it incapacitates the man, and then close-up he shot them in the head.

Later, when White’s attorney invented the “Twinkie” defence, claiming White was unstable due to stress and eating Twinkies, there were riots, but at sentencing time, White escaped the death penalty, though after parole he committed suicide, as is proper for Twinkie murderers.

On the day of the murders, dimly following the reports on the radio through my flu-muddled mind, it seemed surreal, shocking and unbelievable. But perhaps I am to be forgiven that what I remember most about the day was something else entirely.

My girlfriend Joanne had made for me a long nightshirt, of orange and brown stripes; it resembled those long African robes that some black men affected at that time. Sounds awful, but it was comfortable.

I was wearing only this long shirt when I tore myself from my sickbed, because I had to take out the trash. It had heaped up too much, becoming smelly, and it was bugging me. I only had to go a few steps down the hall, and behind the frosted glass door was the trash chute. Nobody would see me, barefoot in my night shirt. No problem.

Afterward, discovering that I’d locked myself out of my apartment was very disappointing.

Dim-witted, I thought over my options. I didn’t much like them. And I didn’t like the obvious answer, which was to climb the stairs to the roof and come down the fire escape to my apartment on the third floor.

On the roof in the early November afternoon, the sky was bright overcast, and the sea breeze brisk. In my thin night shirt, no undies, no socks, I was freezing. No help for it.

At the edge of the roof, I paused, woozy. No help for it, so I firmly grabbed the hand rail, turned facing the roof, and stepped over the edge of the building, feeling with my bare foot for the metal step below. Found it. So, step by step, I climbed down the two stories to my own window.

The chill wind turned gusty, blowing my night dress in bursts up around my waist. Being naked beneath, I hoped no neighbors were at their windows.

Up the block, two black women pushing perambulators appeared around the corner and were briskly walking toward me.

“Oh, great,” I muttered, hoping that they wouldn’t look up.

I had to focus, but the biting cold of the metal steps on my hands and bare feet helped. I was shivering uncontrollably, but forced myself to move slowly and carefully. My night shirt blew lewdly this way and that. I was chilled through when I reached the metal ledge outside my window.

The window was open an inch. I pulled it open wide. Clumsily I climbed in.

I could hear the women as they passed below, for one spoke to the other.

“Now that burgler,” she said, “. . . he bold!”

 
 

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