Spread the IBC word, if you please

We’re gradually upping the ante here at Indie Breakfast Club, posting more often and digging deeper into what it means to be an entrepreneur or creative professional with a social conscience.

If you like what you’re reading, please spread the word to friends and contacts who might also enjoy IBC’s content, blueberry waffles and all.

Click here to sign up for our daily email (it’s tasty!). And here for our recent Malin & Goetz Q&A if you missed that.

Poking around Flickr

Manhattan bridge 2 - Originally uploaded by Oliver Sweatman

I spent the afternoon poking around Flickr, checking out other power Flickr users and Flickr groups to see how IBC might partake in the magic.

I started by cleaning up my personal Flickr “photostream”, including creating several “sets” to aid navigation (Vermont, NYC, etc). This took some time, but served as a good Flickr immersion session.

Next, I’m thinking about how Indie Breakfast Club (this riveting blog) might benefit from having a Flickr pool. For example, it might be fun to see images of emerging brands from around the world… stay tuned.

IBC narrows focus to emerging brands

Instead of trying to offer tips to and inspire the emerging brand community AND flesh out my worldview (e.g. my thoughts on religion, global warming, foreign affairs, etc) in the same blog, I have decided to separate and focus these two distinctly different initiatives.

From here on in, Indie Breakfast Club will run under the banner: “what’s working for the best emerging brands, and what isn’t” (we will soon decide what “best” means). And my hair-brained worldview project will move to another newly-minted WordPress blog, “The Worldview Project”.

Signing off on an upbeat note, this past week was the best week so far for Indie Breakfast Club in terms of site traffic. Thanks for sticking with me; I am determined to bring you more value. As always, your feedback is welcome - anything that you think will make IBC stronger.

I smell water, just over that horizon line…

I doubt there’s another blog out there that has changed its tagline as often as we’ve changed ours here at IBC. A dubious honor…

Back in March ‘07, we started out with “fermented mare’s milk for the indie horde”. Remember that one?

For the past few weeks, it’s been: “entrepreneurship. self-actualization. positive change.” (I do like this one.)

But, like a Tibetan Ass searching for water on the dry plains [such a thing actually exists], I’m now heading towards: “emerging brands. design & innovation. conscious capitalism.” [what you see up above].

This doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect self-actualization - just the opposite, I’ll weave it in every chance I get. But I’m not sure it should be in our tagline.

I also loaded a new green banner today.

Any thoughts on either from the peanut gallery?

IBC catches its tail…

I’m taking IBC back to the early days. In other words, this blog is going to re-focus on emerging brands and entrepreneurship.

So the re-revised About section now reads:

“IBC (this blog) is a place for people in the emerging brand community - entrepreneurs, investors, advisers, service professionals - to come and exchange tips, insight, ideas, inspiration, connections and opportunities. We’re passionate about indie spirit, authentic brands, working smarter, better design and positive change. Welcome.”

What do you think?

IBC tries to crack some big nuts, in time for b’fast

IBC is evolving…

Truthfully, we’re this close to throwing in the towel on our day job(s) so we can pursue this adventure full-time.

We can’t seem to resist the immediacy of the medium and feel we have some important material to discover, think about & relay back to you, hopefully serving up some fun and inspiration along the way.

Anyway, here’s the copy from our new About section:

“Globally-minded? Culturally-curious? Concerned about where things are headed? IBC aims for critical thinking around big hairy issues, tips for self-actualization, and inspiration for affecting positive change. Keep us honest and enter the fray… “

The site look’n feel has changed a bit (another WordPress template) - take a quick visit if you haven’t been in a while.

OK, fire away if you have any feedback at this stage…

Last thing: we put up three posts today (vs. our usual one) & we’re praying that our email subscribers don’t get three emails in the morning. If that happens, please accept our apologies; we’ll find a fix.

Update on Indie Breakfast Club

Indie Breakfast Club just turned one (celebrated by a quiet dinner at RICE), so we took some time to reflect on the past year and think about how things might unfold in the future…

We’ll be brief.While we enjoy the medium (hitting “publish” is fun) and our traffic keeps going up (March ‘08 was our best to date), we now feel the need to get more focused. So that’s where things are headed. From here on in, you’ll find fewer personal rants and hopefully more insight and intelligent discussion on subjects we think are important.

This means less on emerging brands (sorry) and more on worldview development, whole-systems thinking, creativity, culture, consciousness, sustainability and affecting positive change. Of course we’ll go out of our way to spotlight indie spirit when we see it, because nothing inspires us more than “the little guy” trying to change the world.

We’re looking forward to this new phase of Indie Breakfast Club and hope that you’ll stick around to shape the discussion.