The Real Estate & Wealth Expo was in Toronto a few days ago. About 15,000 business hopefuls were duped into paying a couple hundred bucks to learn the secrets of wealth from Trump, Robbins, and a few other big self-help names.

Trump was obviously the biggest name on the set list, having fetched himself $1.5 million to speak for an hour. If you’ve read any of Trump’s books you’ve seen his presentation, minus the professional fucking vernacular of course—he tends to swear a lot.

But the highlight of the event had to have been this motivational dance-a-thon:

(Video link)

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the event myself, and as a result am a couple hundred dollars richer and have the pleasure of not being one of the scapegoats in the above video.

Matthew Baldwin over at The Morning News posted a great compilation of Tricks of the Trade.

As an entrepreneur, half of my work seems to be finding a cheap and easy solution to a problem. This list was entertaining and very insightful to how different people find little easy to use solutions to common problems.

Some examples:

Cartographer
Mapmakers will often use “copyright traps,� bits of information in their maps that are purposefully wrong. They might label a body of water “Lake Strongbad,� for instance, and then examine the next editions of competitors’ maps to see if the incorrect information makes an appearance.

Jeweler
When setting a semiprecious gem, set a tiny piece of silver or gold foil behind it to make it sparkle.

Balloon-Twister
When you’re twisting balloons for children, never tell them what you’re making. The majority of the finished products—despite your best attempts—almost always look like a dog, a blastula, or something vaguely phallic. If you identify what you’re actually attempting to make, the children will respond to your finished product with, “That doesn’t look like a [insert animal name]…� But if you make the animals and then ask, “What does it look like to you?� the child’s imagination will take over, turning the blue, four-legged balloon into Blue from Blue’s Clues, the blastula into a Pokemon, and the phallic object into an elephant. You’ll also get bonus points because you were so cool for making exactly what they wanted.

Read the Full list at The Morning News

Do you have any Tricks?

I’m still trying to comprehend how all this came about and who’s behind it. To start, read Kathy Sierra’s post on Creating Passionate Users.

Basically, a group of bloggers and well known authors had created a site called MeanKids (no longer online) that smack talked famous and respectable bloggers such as Kathy Sierra, Hugh MacLeod, and Robert Scoble.

The assholes behind this blog included Chris Locke (co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto), Jeneane Sessum, Frank Paynter, and Allen Herrel.

A few posts on the MeanKids site are archived by Google’s cache, you can find them quite easily, and they are disgustingly idiotic.

Someone chose to go much too far, threaten Kathy through comments and e-mails, and hide behind an anonymous name.

The whole nature of creating a blog with the intent to slander others, no matter how humorous you found it, is ridiculous. You have to be out of your mind to not think that those words won’t offend anyone.

If you’ve ever visited Break.com, you know that almost every single comment on a video is immature, offensive, and has no relation to the video whatsoever. I feel this MeanKids attack on Kathy is much the same. It’s a shame that these people can hide behind their little avatars (Seth touched on this) and can’t find something better to do with their time.

I apologize for the title, but this one really got at me.

Best wishes to Kathy.

Podcasts seem to have taken the backseat to video in the past year, but there are many businesses that still devote their time to producing shows on a regular basis. Finding those shows and filtering the weaker ones out can be quite a challenge. That’s why I’ve taken the time to create a list of business themed podcasts that are worthy of subscribing to.

Hopefully you’ll see a few new shows to add to your reader. Here they are in no specific order:

Read the rest of this entry →

For anyone interested or involved in the web design process, at some point you’ll come to learn the importance of grid systems. To help you begin the grid-tastic journey, here are a couple resources that surfaced this past week.

1) Subtraction has written about and released their presentation (pdf link) from a couple weeks back at SXSW. The pdf is a fantastic ice-breaker that’ll help you understand what grids are and slowly release the nitpicking designer within you.

2) Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain discusses his design process for the recently re-launched ExpressionEngine website. Again, you’ll see how grid systems come into play but more importantly an inside look at the refinement process.