Up and Running:

I hope it doesn’t seem like total self promotion–I’ve tried to avoid that as much as possible on this blog–but hey, tomorrow Palo Alto Software is going to give away thousands of copies of Business Plan Pro (and not a light version, the upscale, premier version) for free to Oregonians who want it. I would like to think that’s newsworthy, even if it’s my company.

The video here is my talking for slightly less than three minutes, my summary of what happens tomorrow. If you can’t see it for any reason, please click here to go to the Youtube source.

And for more information, here’s the link to the page at Palo Alto Software that explains what we’re doing and provides a map of the 85 locations (mostly town halls and chambers of commerce, no commercial locations–it really is a free giveaway) where people can go tomorrow to get the software.

It’s just for the one day, tomorrow, July 1. For any Oregonian 18 years or older who goes to one of those locations to collect a download card.

I like the title: “Just Start,” as in start your business, shades of the now famous Nike “Just do it” campaign. Just start.

I’m pleased to be speaking along with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, Ken Yancey, CEO of SCORE, and Rich Sloan of StartupNation for this free webinar next Wednesday.

It’s a free webinar, but capacity is limited, so if you’re interested, please click here to register right now.

Blogs are supposed to be personal, right? So allow me to personalize. Let’s consider the plight of one Megan Berry, 22 years old today, graduating from Stanford in two months with close to straight As.

Megan wants a job. More specifically, she wants a job related to social media and internet marketing in the Silicon Valley.

In any normal year, this would have been no problem. Google would have snapped her up. Yahoo would have. So would a couple of dozen other companies. She’s an opportunity: a “fuzzy” political science major who won web awards for programming Cold Fusion databases before she reached puberty, and did serious web programming work for darfurgenocide.org while still in high school. She’s kind of a bridge, a writer and marketing type who understands the depths of programming. She has her own blog, and she also blogs at Brazen Careerist and Huffington Post. She’s been on Facebook for four years. She’s on Twitter. She’s on LinkedIn.

But then came the downturn. And the worst year for graduating seniors since sometime in the 1930s. Megan’s got some possibilities; some things might still work out–one of which came directly from Twitter, by the way. But we’re passing mid-April now, and she’s still available.

Think of this strategically. She’s as young as most college graduates, but in her chosen world of social media and internet marketing, that whole world started about the same time she got into it. So maybe she has something special in the strengths and weaknesses category, something that might help even in this toughest of all years to get a job.

All her information, links to her various blog posts and all the rest are (right where they should be for a young social media marketing person) at meganberry.com.

Please join me this coming Monday afternoon, February 9, on Build Your Business Radio with Barbara Weltman. Her show starts at 1 pm PST, 4 pm EST, and I’ll be joining her for the second half of the show, around 1:25 pm Pacific Time or so.

You can listen live at that time at http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/Build-Your-Business-Radio.html.

That’s this coming Monday, February 9.

I’m sorry for the late notice, but if you’re in or near Eugene, Ore., tomorrow (Jan. 22), Sabrina Parsons and I are doing a planning workshop for smartups.org. Live and in person. That’s 5 to 7 p.m. at the Vistas Conference Room atop the Eugene Hilton. Click here for more info.

I just got an email from Roger Parker, who will be be interviewing me Today live on the Guerrilla Marketing Association website, from 7 to 9 PM EDT, meaning 4 to 5 PM for us West Coasters. He seems to have an interesting special focus, the business of books, writing books, and marketing books, all related to companies and entrepreneurship and building businesses.

It should be fun. I hope you join us.