I had the privilege Friday night to speak to the MBA Program at the KV Institute of Management and Information Studies in Combaitore, India.   I was a guest speaker as part of their International Business Expert Series, and my subject was "From Small Business to Global Business in a Small Town."     I did the presentation over live video using ooVoo software, which is similar to Skype. 

There was a full classroom (pictured above) and the students were very attentive and very engaged.  Coimbaitore is a city of 1.5 Million people, so I started by trying to explain just how small South Carolina is and how small Wagener is.   I then spent time talking about two of my customers, Busbee Truck Parts and Tyler Brothers, as well as my own home-based business, Broadstreet Consulting. 

When talking about Busbee's, I told how they started selling truck parts on eBay before I built their ProStores store and eventually ported them to Drupal.  When I asked how many of the students had ever purchased something online, I was surprised that NONE raised their hand.  This points to a great opportunity for online businesses in India.  There are over a BILLION people there and a great number, even young people, have not yet made an online purchase.   I talked about how Busbee's is now selling parts all over the world using the Internet.

  I also talked about  how Tyler Brothers has used their Facebook Page to expand their reach among existing and new customers, extending their personal relationship to the online environment.   I then proceeded to talk about Broadstreet and how we have collaborated with eNova Technologies to provide reasonably priced Drupal development services for U.S. clients. 

After my presentation, we opened the floor to questions and the group had many excellent questions.  We discussed Internet business strategies for another 45 minutes.   Many thanks to Kumar Gounder and his great staff at KVIMIS for a great experience. 

Recently I've had to do this.  I create a Drupal Content Type using the Location Module and GMAP Module,   I created a Location CCK field and started entering (or importing) location data into the field.

Afterward, I realized that I did not really want a CCK Location Field.  Instead, I wanted to set the Locative information on the configuration page of my content type.  I did NOT want to re-key my location information, and it turns out I didn't need to.  

When you key in Location data to a location CCK field, the Location data is stored in the Location table.  It is stored in the same place when you use locative information.  The only difference is the data that is stored in the Location_Instance table.  Instead of storing a reference to the for a CCK field in genid, it stores the node id in the nid and vid fields.      

I ran the following query to take the node id from the rightmost characters of the genid and use them for the node id, and blank out the genid.  Worked like a charm... 

UPDATE `location_instance`
SET `nid` = right(`genid`,3),
   `vid` = right(`genid`,3),
   `genid` = ''

I wanted to get a tee time for golf a couple weeks back so I Googled Indian Trail Golf Course in Leesville, SC.  It's a decent course, close to home, and very reasonably priced.  

When I found their Website I was VERY IMPRESSED by the design and particularly the photography.  Upon closer inspection I realized it was a Drupal site.  After all that I was not surprised to find out that it is the work of Poieo Design, my friends Chad and Dave.

Congratulations Chad and Dave on another great-looking Drupal site. 

I found out today that the myrcpl.com site is built with Drupal.  Also found out that an old friend and co-worker from Syneractive (Scottie) helps to manage the site.  It's a great looking site and very well done. 

I love the Richland County Libary (or as Poof  would say, the lye-berry), and I love them even more now.  Next time you're in the library, tell them you love their Drupal site!

Here are the some of the blogs I've read this week and thought were worth sharing:

www.drawncloser.com - My new favorite comic strip, drawn by my friend Jimmy Steen.  You can also follow him on Twitter at @steenfamily. 

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/23-essential-elements-of-sharable-blog-posts/ - Chris has some good tips for making people want to share your blog posts.  I'm probably not following any of them right now, but for those of you trying to get started with a blog, some good advice.  Do as I say, not as I do, my Dad used to say...

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/graduate-school-for-unemployed-college-students.html -  Seth Godin has some good advice for college graduates who can't find a job-- Learn something new! Volunteer!  Start a business!   Good advice for anyone, really...

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/06/is-momblogging-the-new-radio.html - NYC Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson talks about Mom-bloggers and how they are influencing the spread of new music.  Worth reading for moms and bloggers and especially mom-bloggers.

Enjoy!

I read quite a number of blogs ever week, but I spend very little time "surfing the Web."  Instead, I subscribe to blogs using RSS, or Real Simple Syndication.  My RSS Reader is Google Reader.  When I find a new blog that I like, I subscribe to it by looking for the following image and clicking on it.

If you want to understand RSS better, you should take a look at this video from CommonCraft:

I had the pleasure of listening to theDuct Tape Marketing Podcast recently, the March 23 episode featureing David Meerman Scott, who recently wrote the book called World Wide Rave.  David makes some really interesting points about how trends get started on the Internet.  He provides numerous case studies on viral videos and blog posts, and how people have used these to build their businesses. 

Examples included Blendtec, a maker of heavy-duty blenders who increased sales tenfold after creating some wacky videos and the site Will it Blend?, showing their blenders chop non-food items.  He also talks about  Helaine Smith, DMD, a Boston Dentist who quintupled her business after publishing a free e-book called "Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex." 

Watch Tom Dickson blend some golf balls here...

Seth Godin had a great post recently -- a video showing a guy dancing, then two guys dancing, then... well, watch for yourself. 

Seth's point is the first guy is very important, and the 3rd guy is very important, but Guy #49 is pretty much a dime a dozen.   I'd like to put in a word for Guy #2 who took a real risk by joining Guy #1.  He could have been rejected, but he joined in and believed in the movement.   Guy #3 gets credit for the big wave but maybe there would not be a Guy #3 if not for Guy #2?   Read Seth's comments at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/guy-3.html