Montréal - Québec
I bridge the chasm between you and your customers. I despise complexity. Complexity promotes miscommunication. The path is simplified and complicated by technology. That's a paradox, a Gordian Knot. Think of yourself as Alexander The Great. Think of me as your Sword.
120 articles
Hi all, it's been a while since I've reported on the ups and downs of mid-life dating. This post is about a down... a big down. No, a Gargantuan Down. No, a solid kick to the emotional nuts. I'm getti...
Hi, y'all. It's been a while. In fact, it's been so long, I forgot how to use the Producer platform. I'm sure it will come back to me. There hasn't been much to talk about on the dating front. I just...
Many of you are curious about what happened between Coco and I. I'm somewhat surprised, frankly. I started this whole thing by being completely honest and blunt with the drama, melodrama, dark comedy,...
Last Saturday was the day of "The Talk." You know, that's the talk that results from those words that freeze every man's blood solid, "We need to talk." We men all know that "We need to talk," really...
This is the seventh post in the MisAdventures in Mid-Life Dating series. Some of you may be thinking, "No, Paul there have only been 5 so far. This is the sixth!" It started with " On Love, Relationsh...
This post is partly a continuation of " MisAdventures in Mid-Life Dating, the Male View: The Ambush " and partly a response to Cyndi wilkins ' comment on that same post. It also marks the reappearance...
I think my re-entry into the dating world would make a good sitcom. Or maybe it would make a better slapstick comedy routine. Then again, sometimes it looks more like a Shakespearean tragedy except th...
I sort of hijacked Nicole Chardenet's "Adventures in Mid-Life Dating," series. You know what they say, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." I hope you feel flattered, Nicole, 'cause I don't...
I've been somewhat less prolific than usual lately. A second divorce will do that to a guy's muse. No, Phil Friedman for pointing Dave's post out to me. Dave's post inspired me to write this one. If y...
Consumers can contest charges made against their credit cards. That’s their primary recourse against fraud. When a cardholder contests a charge, the merchant is assumed to be guilty until he/she can p...
They say, "Every cloud has a silver lining." That's obviously false. Cumulus clouds are the big white puffy ones that look like angels sleeping all cuddled up. They have no lining at all unless it's m...
Obviously, I’m not talking about loving a tax audit here. There’s no way to love that. I’m talking about a whole different kind of audit, an audit that is painless yet can save you a bunch of money. I...
Most MBAs are Masters of Business Administration. Those MBAs are good. The other MBAs, the Major Bullshit Artists, are another story altogether. I’ve been lucky, I rarely bump into those. . . until no...
Few things boil a business owner’s blood faster than credit card interchange rates. Even WalMart Canada got so pissed off that they stopped accepting VISA cards for a while. That Goliath vs. Goliath b...
This article's title could just as easily have a question mark at the end. It will offer my thoughts and ideas on how the related issues of Notifications (or lack thereof) and LinkedIn Groups can be f...
You know browsers. They're those thingies that let you surf the net. There's nuthin' to them. Right? I mean. . . you type in a link or even just click on one, and whammo. . . there it is! "There's nut...
How's that for a weird title? And no, it's not clickbait. Like most entrepreneurs who know their arses from their elbows, I have an advisory board. It isn't a formal thing. It's a bunch of friends wit...
RANT MODE ON Maybe it's my inner Grouchy-Old-Man talking. Maybe my points are silly. Maybe they're profound. Whatever, this is how I feel. Yes, I see the irony in writing a post titled, "Nobody cares...
In Part 1 of this series ( https://www.bebee.com/producer/@paul-croubalian/is-the-responsive-web-a-mobile-app-killer-pt-1 ) , we set the stage to look deeply into the Responsive Web. To me, the most i...
Google thinks the Responsive Web will kill many mobile apps. So do I. To be sure, when Google gets behind something it tends to happen. Remember when they said they would photograph every address in t...
Zombies have a great PR department. They're everywhere in modern culture. They are mostly Bad Guys a la "The Walking Dead," "Z-Nation," et al. "Game of Thrones" has its Army of the Dead. What are thos...
I hate my washing machine. No, "hate" is not too strong a word. If anything, it understates my feeling. My current washing machine is absolutely, for-frigging-sure, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, the wor...
Lahmajoun, a.k.a. Armenian Pizza has its origins lost in antiquity. The earliest references I can find date back about 4,000 years. It was popular in Jerusalem centuries before the birth of Christ. I'...
Let me first say that I LOVE the show NCIS! It has a great cast, well-developed characters, and interesting plot lines. The writing is nearly perfect. This is exactly what you would expect from a show...
There are currently 45.6 million people in Spain. There are at least that many ex-pats and people of Spanish descent living elsewhere. That would imply there are about 70 to 90 million paella recipes....
A little bit ago, I wrote a post/recipe about Mediterranean Pasta with Seafood . In the comments, Wayne Yoshida said he makes lasagna without pasta. He subs sliced zucchini for the pasta sheets. That...
I'm coming up for air. Phew! The last few months have been a whirlwind. I need a break, but, I have to be honest. I don't know how. The second test book in the Lost In Amazon series is ready for publi...
This post will be a short one I think, well, except for your sneak peek, a killer Low-Calorie Recipe that you can serve to guests. I just want to report back on what the first test book is doing. It s...
It started benignly enough. Last Saturday, my wife was at a vernissage. I'd rather have wisdom teeth yanked out with rusty pliers, so I stayed home. It was a nice day. I decided to clean out the shed....
The first test book for the Lost in Amazon series in now live. I don't expect wide readership. That's not why I wrote it. It already sold three copies. I haven't started promoting it yet. I assume the...
I woke up early this morning. My wife was sound asleep and I believe in letting sleeping tigresses sleep. I needed something quiet to do. From 05:00 to 09:15 I read Producer posts on beBee. I had an u...
I started getting private messages on both beBee and LinkedIn within minutes of publishing, “Lost in Amazon 5: How to NOT Look Like Crap” If you missed it it’s here . For an index to the entire Lost I...
People who manage websites know about bounce rates. For those of you who don't, bounce rate is a measure of how people use your site. A script starts a timer when they access a page and stops when the...
Wayne Yoshida and Lisa Gallagher both asked for my Indestructible Pizza Dough recipe. I call it indestructible because it's nearly impossible to goof it up. It can also handle freezing cooked or not....
Contrary to popular belief, everybody has at least one book in them. Before my fellow writers bite my head off, please note that I did not say, "Everybody has a good book in them." Nor did I say, "Eve...
This is a myTweetPack.com post. You may not need to read it. Maybe you have all the time in the world to keep up an active presence. If so, this post isn't for you, neither is myTweetPack.com. For eve...
It's not often that a simple buzz gets me to thinking. Sure, sometimes a producer post spawns another. But a buzz? Robert C. Stern wrote a buzz about the importance of video. It's over here if you mis...
Laziness has a bad rap. People think it's a bad thing. It isn't. Laziness is the driving force behind every human advancement. Why walk if you can ride a horse? Why ride a horse if you can sit comfort...
If you're curious about myTweetPack.com, start here. myTweetPack was created by writers for writers. It morphed into a complete Twitter-based promotional platform for anyone who has anything to promot...
With Great Power comes Great Responsibility Voltaire, not Spiderman's Uncle Ben That's right, Voltaire said that, or close enough. Uncle Ben paraphrased it for Spiderman. Not that Uncle Ben wasn't a g...
"Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein (I think) That's not easy to do. Yesterday, Candice Galek signed up for a trial on myTweetPack.com. For the record, I think of Cand...
Most people are not tech experts. They get used to a way of working. They don't realize that the human way to work is rarely the best way for a server to work. Servers are fast but stupid. Humans are...
This post will explain how to filter your Potential Follows list into an actual Follow List. To review, we discussed the importance of Alpha Wolves here . Then we moved on to building our Potential Fo...
In the last post , we learned about the importance of Alpha Wolves in myTweetPack.com. Alphas give us a good variety of tweets. That's important. No one wants to just hear us talking about ourselves....
myTweetPack.com is going live in a couple of days. This post explains how to use the GRRowth Portal. It's a walkthrough of sorts until I can get it on video. After I post this piece, I'll add a "view/...
I created a Hive where I'll put videos and other how-to stuff for the myTweetPack.com, formerly known as the Web-App-With-No-Name. It's here if you'd like to join. I'm now building the website that wi...
Last week, Lynda Spiegel and I started an experiment. The idea was simple. Can a Twitter skeptic be convinced of Twitter's value as a promotional medium? To be honest, I was a little frightened. Doing...
Lynda Spiegel commented on a previous post. She said that Twitter doesn’t do much for her. I asked if she would be a Guinea Pig for a Case Study. Lynda agreed, but I don’t think she thought I was seri...
Doing Twitter right is a complicated thing. I can make it easier. . . a lot easier. I can't make it automatic. At least, I can't if we want to stay on Twitter's good side. And, yes, we want to stay on...
Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with sheep. They're cute. They're cuddly. Their wool makes great sweaters. But . . . Their young are mighty tasty. Some people even like to eat the adults. I...
This post is inspired by Phil Friedman's recent "Two Pizzas and a shovel. " It made me remember something I read years ago. I have no idea who wrote it and when. This is me remembering the gist. It st...
As business people, we always try to meet or exceed our customers' expectations. Whether we call them clients, customers, patrons, or guests is irrelevant here. They are the ones we depend on to keep...
Non-native English speakers may not catch the reference to the Birds and the Bees. We use the birds and bees metaphor to explain to children how humans make babies. I always thought that was strange....
Today is October 14th, 2016 in Montreal. It's overcast and cold. At least, the rain and wind let up. The last few days featured heavy winds Maybe those in the Southern USA wouldn't consider our winds...
My fellow Canuck, Graham Edwards mentioned that today is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. He did a cool Live Buzz on the subject. It's here if you're curious. I mentioned my Thanksgiving day menu in the com...
By now, most of you know that I'm working on my latest and, hopefully last, start-up. The fun thing is that is isn't "mine" at all. It came to life on its own during discussions and comments on discus...
Old habits die hard. They're old habits because they work. Maybe I should use the past tense. They're old habits because they worked. As in, they used to work. As in, they don't work anymore. As in, s...
Fatima Williams commented on Milos Djukic 's post, " Fractals, Beauty of Complexity (and Chaos) ." In her comment, Fatima asked about a Share via Email function. Franci "Legs" Hoffmann also asked abou...
Nicole Chardenet recently wrote a rant post titled " How's Your Privilege? " In it, she talks about how a Pakistani student complained about racism in Canada because she was assigned an idiot for a ro...
Last week we got intermittent server errors. Some users couldn't get on. Then they could. Then they couldn't again. I assumed the problem lay in my server. Until we finish it, the web-app-with-no-name...
Grace Killelea recently wrote a post titled, " Women shouldn't have to take off their engagement rings to get hired. " I thought the title was a joke. I am neither on the job market nor a woman. I am...
There is something in the air, my friends. It’s the foul odour of rot. It’s the stench of animosity. It’s the reek of cowardice. It’s the sickening putrescence of a soul. Bullying has come to beBee. I...
I promised you a rundown of how to schedule tweets using the Web-App-with-No_Name. Yes, the song by America, "A Horse With No Name" is still stuck in my head. La, laa, laaa, lalalalaaa! The last post...
My apologies to the group, "America" for butchering their beautiful lyrics. For most of the last few weeks, this song has been stuck in my head. I guess it will stay there until we figure out a name f...
It's no big secret that Javier and Juan inspired me to start my latest, and (hopefully?) last, start-up . They seem to be having so much fun with beBee that I figured I wanted to get me a piece of tha...
Gary Sharpe wrote about RSS feeds a few weeks ago. My first thought was, "Oh boy! The Digital Sherpa is slipping." RSS is about as exciting as day-old bread. RSS is old news. RSS is nothing special. R...
I once heard someone say, "I'm tired, but it's a good tired!" I thought they were nuts at worst, self-delusional at best. I'd like to say I get it now, but I won't. I don't want to lie to you. I'm tir...
Angus Grady messaged me yesterday, Angus seemed to remember that I once wrote a getting started guide for beBee. He couldn't find it. I actually wrote a few. I thought I would assemble them all here....
Today, I gave birth. My as-yet unnamed social media automation Web App has gone server-hot. We aren't running simulations anymore. Now we communicate for real. It wasn't a very long labour as these th...
Sarah Elkins' post, "Get Extraordinary Service, Be an Extraordinary Customer," inspired this one. I could just as easily have titled it, "We're All Idiots Sometimes." I enjoyed Sarah's post where she...
It's now 08:24, GMT-5, (Montreal). I haven't gone to bed yet. I'll go to bed after I post this. More accurately, I hope I'll post this before I pass out. Let me explain. I like to take big bites. I'm...
I awoke to a surprise today. As usual, I fired up my laptop on the way to the coffee maker. As usual, I poured myself a sweet black coffee and shuffled over to my home office while scratching assorted...
That's my "little boy," Peter. At 6'2," 235 pounds, he's not so "little." He's still MY little boy. The picture is what he woke up to this morning. He's allergic to bee venom, so putting that bin next...
I realize this is an international community. "There's more than one way to skin a cat," is an expression meaning there is always another way to do something. Okay, so it's not the prettiest mental im...
Please ignore this post. I am only testing how beBee handles special characters in titles. HTML and Google are both not big on them. It would take forever to find real posts that use all these charact...
Please ignore this post. I am only testing how beBee handles special characters in titles. HTML and Google are both not big on them. It would take forever to find real posts that use all these charact...
So, there I was minding my own business in the shower. I had just lathered up what I call my hair when my wife threw open the shower door. She exclaimed, "Oh, MY GOD!" At first, I was flattered. Then...
UPDATED AUG 18, 2016: There are more social media platforms available than we have time to use. We do have lives. We have things we need to do. Who has the time or patience to post, re-post, cross-pos...
In Turkish, “shish” means skewer or stick. “ Taouk ” means chicken. So, shish taouk means “Chicken on a stick.” Shish Touk sounds fancier. I don’t use skewers or sticks when I make it. If you prefer i...
This post is about two things. Neither is what you think. The title is misleading. Sorry. This is actually a rant. I know I said I would limit those. As rants go, this one is pretty tame. In fact, may...
I promised an EZ version of something few people ever try at home, Memphis-style glazed ribs. I know purists will squawk that these are not traditional Memphis ribs. They'd be right. To train a Memphi...
This is an open letter to Jack Dorsey . Jack, you have your work cut out for you. No one can argue that. Twitter is "stagnant". Wall Street is pooping all over Twitter. Wall Street isn't exactly throw...
Yesterday, Twitter announced significant changes. They started with Developers. That was nice of them since it gives us a chance to adjust everything we've done to the new realities. Yes, I'm being fa...
I'm writing an update to my Twitter Management System. It involves a new way to schedule tweets. Right now, I schedule either by time lapse or by pre-established times. When I say, pre-established tim...
Engaging customers based on where they are is useful and valuable. This post is the first in a series that will dig into the location technologies now available. We will start with GPS since it's the...
A while ago, I asked people to vote for what we should cook next. Then I got really, really busy. Then I dislocated my shoulder. Sorry for the delay. The choice was between spaghetti sauce and easy gl...
In the main post, I outlined a method to automate promotional tweets. I also mentioned that I would be looking into using Octoblu to make things easier. When I spoke with Koshin Mariano from Octoblu,...
The more bees are in a hive, the more honey that hive puts out. The more Bees we have on beBee, the more we all get out of it. This post is meant to help newBees navigate their way through the self-pr...
I’ve built many websites. I’m not a professional. I still want professional looking results. Usually, I dive in with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and mySQL. I get exactly what I want at the cost of a h...
When David Ogilvy talks about business writing, I listen. He's an expert. No, he's THE Expert. He's the real-life Don Draper. I will cheerfully listen to his advice. Ogilvy's wrote his famous hints in...
The locksmith and the burglar use the same tools in the same way. They both pick your locks and gain entry to your home or office. What's the difference? Context is key Context has close relatives, Pe...
Not everyone can afford to hire a professional writer. Not everyone needs to. I recognize that. I also recognize that there is a surplus of content that is ineffective. I read too many posts that soun...
I originally wrote the "How I write" series on LinkedIn. There, Dawna Bate suggested that I write one more. Dawna wanted me to write about dealing with comments. Since Dawna inspired this post, I thin...
I know I’m going to catch flak for this, especially when I re-write Hemingway later on. Frankly, I don’t care. I am writing this series of posts to help some of my fellow bees join the ranks of Publis...
I'm a social media newbie. I’ve been on Facebook for a long time, but that's mostly to keep tabs (i.e. "stalk") my kids. I first looked at LinkedIn back in June of 2003. I dismissed it as nothing more...
This post started as a rant. Maybe it’s still one, a little one. I realized that the people who triggered my rant didn’t actually mean to piss me off. They were just living in La-La Land. That isn’t t...
I was looking at the beBee page about the Maldives contest. They ask us to post pictures from our last vacation. I figured I'd re-post this instead. It better suits my thoughts on vacations and what m...
I tend to write things in series. I wrote a series about Location-Based marketing. I wrote another which has come to be known as "The Twitter BadAss Chronicles." Lori Boxer suggested I combine them fo...
I haven't been active on LinkedIn lately. My search for a good way to measure ROI on the Twittersphere led me astray. Heck, it darned close became an obsession. Mea culpa. There's some good news. I go...
#4 Targeting"> So, you've businessed-up your Twitter profile ( #1 ). You started a follow/follow-back/unfollow program ( #2 ). You learned how to promote posts with tweets and how to schedule your twe...
