I’ll start this post by saying, many of the following statements may contradict advice I’ve given in the past. Some of you may agree and disagree with the words that follow, all of which are based on something I’ve gained over the past several years. Experience.

You either have it or you don’t. There’s no adequacy in between experienced and inexperienced. The latter of which I’ve advocated on many occasions and still have a small portion of beliefs allocated for.

I, you, and we, will only have the opportunity in our lifespan to embark on 0.1% of the World. There isn’t enough time in the day, money in our pockets, capacity in our brains, or stamina in our bodies to attempt everything, and gain experience while doing so.

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A couple weeks back we reviewed a gentleman by the name of Adriaan Pienaar, a “WordPress Rockstar” in the making. Adii was kind enough to contact us recently and offer one of his goodies to a YGG reader (that sounds so wrong). His Premium News theme for WordPress is up for grabs.

This theme, which retails for $99, is an extremely well articulated magazine layout and includes all the plug-ins you need to make it work like a charm with all it’s Ajaxy goodness. You can see and demo Premium News here.

Like we mentioned in Adii’s review, transforming WordPress into more of a CMS, and replicating elements of magazines is a huge trend that’s just starting to take off.

So how do you be an early adopter of this trend? Easy. Post a comment here, telling us where, how, and why you’d use the Premium News theme. This coming Friday morning we’ll pick one of you young go getters’ comments and Adii will send you the theme. That’s it. A quick and simple little contest.

So who wants a premium theme?

I wrote this shortly before my computer issues arose last week.

It’s bright outside. Awfully bright. I’m not used to this.

For the past 3 or so months, I’ve enjoyed living as a creature of the night. While you arose at 6 am, punched in at 9, and crawled home at 5, I enjoyed my breakfast around that time. Then work began at about 7pm and straight through ’till sunrise.

There’s nothing like the peacefulness of having your music cranked to 11 with your headphones sitting comfortably around your neck — all while the rest of the household, and what seems to be the World, is silently asleep.

I’ve known for quite some time that I have a serious case of Attention Deficit Disorder. It began in early high school and has snowballed since then. Deficit is such an awful term. I’m not disadvantaged because of it, I’ve simply had to experiment with and make note of the environment, actions, and factors that allow me to perform at my peak.

It seems these factors will only coincide when the sky is dimly lit.

This is far from a monumental discovery. I’m certain many owls and midnight shift workers would attest to the benefits of a nocturnal lifestyle.

While simulating an Australian schedule, I’ve also come to appreciate how it and music are an inseparable couple. Much like a light switch, evening and tunes automatically enable tunnel-vision for me, in a good way. Objectives and tasks seem to present themselves in an orderly manner while I hum to Hotel California. From the music comes a rhythm that makes my keystrokes and mouse clicks sound harmonious.

Potential distractions such as prime-time are replaced by infomercials, which automatically cues my trigger finger for the power button. The telephone no longer rings. E-mail notifications are nowhere to be seen. All is well.

There are days, much like today, where I sit in my client’s office shortly after lunchtime, struggling with the weight of my eyelids. I can hear the fax machine, the crackly radio station playing mid-80s music you’d usually hear while on hold with tech support, and the sounds of a warehouse as products are picked, packed, and shipped. Thankfully, these days are few and far between each week, and I’ve become accustomed to quickly recover from the jetlag of a nine-to-five stopover.

As I collect my misaligned eight hours of rest, my mailbox usually collects several dozen messages. By the time I reply to each of them, most respondents are well on their way home for the evening and won’t process them ’till the next day. Will the world end because of this delay? Not a chance. You don’t always have to answer the phone when it rings.

There are times when I have to follow the rest of the herd for weeks on end and attempt to be diurnal. A project, event, or long design shift can discombobulate my habitual nocturnality, but things always seem to restore themselves to a comfortable state after a while.

Would I recommend such a lifestyle? If you’re over 25 and not self-employed, no. Mainly because the amount of responsibilities you’ve accumulated to that date, will demand an almost immediate response or action. Heck, even if you’re under 25, it takes quite an abnormal mindset to sprint through the night.

Thankfully, I’m as abnormal as you can get, and have done more all-nighters than I can confidently recount. So if you have the hutzpah, give it a try on a holiday break or extended weekend. What’s the worst that could happen? Hoot, hoot.

We get quite a few requests in our inbox each month for paid reviews. Almost all of which have nothing to do with business or have any relevancy to you guys and gals.

Thankfully, we were approached by a young entrepreneur for a review a week or so ago.

That young go getter’s name is Adriaan Pienaar (aka Adii), whose based in Cape Town, South Africa. Adii is a freelance designer who’s also completing his Honours Degree in Business Management.

Having begun the chronicling of his life and work in January of ‘07 at http://www.adii.co.za (quite the popular blog), Adii is approaching the one year anniversary of his foray into the world of blog design and development.

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Today is Blog Action Day. An important opportunity for bloggers of all sizes to influence the thoughts and actions of the mass and media. Collis, Cyan, and their team have done a phenomenal job organizing this event and having it recognized worldwide.

We were one of the first sites to sign up for the event and are anxiously awaiting the final tally later this week as the amount of participants, funds raised, and response from all the big news networks, is released

I thought it might be interesting to pick out a handful of existing businesses/ideas that you may or may not have heard of and highlight their environmental benefit. These ideas are creating markets of their own and opportunities for young go getters like ourselves to grab a share while they’re still in their early stages.

Recycled container housing

This environmentally conscious alternative has become quite the trend. Shipping containers that would normally be used to transport goods from overseas, are stripped down, cleared out, and stacked much like Legos to create a unique grid of housing or retail stores. These containers were and are used for many years in the Eastern world and by the military, but are only now becoming a cost-effective mobile condo.

Bicycle vending machines

A Dutch company called Springtime, has created the green version of Zipcar. Many cities pose quite a risk when locking your bike up outside. By creating vending machines for bikes, you’re enabled to rent one for a short or lengthy commute and return it to another machine near your destination. With zero emissions and the cost of pennies compared to a car, this initiative is much needed in many parts of the world.

Reusing instead of recycling packaging

TerraCycle is a truly innovative company. Their products, fertilizers, are packaged in cleansed pop bottles that each of us use every day. By providing a Pepsi bottle or whatnot, you receive $0.06 along with an ever important contribution to the already 1,098,440 bottles collected to date. This model could be applied to hundreds and thousands of different liquid based products that we use and eliminate the entire process of having to crush, melt, and re-form new bottles.

Designer shopping bags

We wrote about the trend of designer shopping bags back in July. The idea is that retailers offer a fashionable or classy version of a bag that replaces the disposable plastic ones we would normally receive at the checkout. These stylish woven ones can be used hundreds of times and serve as an accessory, especially for the female crowd. Would still be nice to see dozens of lines and variations of these bags be offered by the major chains across the world. Until then, the hilarious UK version you see above will be effective at grabbing attention.

Generating energy through our actions

The idea of being a hamster on a wheel doesn’t sound too bad when applied to our normal actions throughout the day across all our environments. Energy generating speedbumps are already in the works, as are treadmills that convert the rotation of the belt into electricity. While the small amount of power generated from these devices may seem minimalistic at this time, once a cost-effective way is developed to enable us to convert motion to energy, this could change the hydro industry altogether.

Happy Blog Action Day everyone. Please contribute to this initiative by writing on your blog or donating to a green charity of your choice. Cheers!

There are plenty of guides, books, articles, and directions as to formulas for effective advertising. Donald Gunn narrowed it down to 12 back in 1978, Suzanne Pope, 11 or so over at Ihaveanidea. I want take 4 directions that may or may not be labeled exactly as to the two lists I mentioned, and give examples of how you can use them, whether that be in networking, marketing, or face-to-face with your customers.

Stories

It’s not a matter of writing stories, but creating them. FedEx is known for their fly through a blizzard to ensure their package arrived on time story; a timeless classic in every b-school. A more recent one got to me and is an even better example from a customer’s perspective:

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While they say “no risk, no reward”, I’d like to change that a bit for the purpose of this article. How bout, “some risk, no immediate reward”?

In almost every industry, service providers work on a per project, per milestone, or per hour basis. The tasks are determined before the assignment begins, by yourself and your client. An amount and method of payment is agreed upon. And you begin your process, whether that be creative, financial, manufacturing, etc…

That model appears to be going through a process of evolution in the creative world and migrating across numerous markets. The new approach takes from the entrepreneurial notion of banking on equity. If you’re a sole proprietor, the entire equity of your business is in your hands. Your actions determine your earnings (or losses) and your lifestyle is molded by the outcome of those actions (no sales, no rent).

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NOTE: This post came from a conversation Eric and I were having at 3:00 am EST.

Followers are just as important, if not more important than the big name bloggers. Without them, those powerhouses wouldn’t exist. They are a metric of pop culture in our community. We need them. But I don’t think any of us like to be labeled as a follower.

In every single industry, in management positions, there’s been individuals making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. That’s nothing new. When you can count the amount of bloggers making such an amount on your fingers and toes, it doesn’t look like the most promising industry to be in.

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Guest post by Dan Schawbel, owner of the Personal Branding Blog and publisher of the Personal Branding Magazine.

Personal Branding applies to everyone throughout the world, but who really benefits most? As a youth, you have the flexibility and lack of responsibilities necessary to focus on your brand and improve it. The faster you can discover who you are in your youth, the more prone you are to a successful career. As you age, your responsibilities increase, such as leasing an apartment, purchasing a car, marrying your fiancé or having your first child. When these milestones in your life occur, they force you into making decisions outside of the “branding realm.”

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Most small businesses would define branding as the identity by which their company is recognized and all of the items it’s associated with, whether that be an advertisement, business card, voicemail message, etc… This would be correct by definition. But when it comes to owning something with your brand, many b-schools, books, and articles don’t touch on that.

By owning an object, I mean a physical object, colour, saying, sound, style, phrase, shape, packaging, texture, or anything that you could uniquely call your own. Something that people can identify, relate to, and instantly associate with your brand.

Below, you’ll find 9 examples of brand ownership from the past and present, without the brand. See if you can name the brand behind each item and post your numbered guesses in the comments.

Note: You have to click on number 5 to hear the audio clue.

These examples are pretty easy. Of course, all of the companies behind these brands are massive compared to our small businesses, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and create a branding object to call our own. It’s actually much simpler for an entrepreneur to find a unique object to own because of our market size and chanches are, our competition lacks any sense of branding insight.

I’ll post the brand behind each of the objects tomorrow. Until then, see if you can go 10 for 10.

You young go getters got pretty close, with 9 out of 10, but that last one may not have been as distinctive a palette as I thought. Here are the correct answers.

1) Fender, 2) Corona, 3) Tiffany’s, 4) Kanye West, 5) MSN Messenger, 6) Mary Kay, 7) Rolling Stones, 8) Swingline, 9) Altoids, 10) Kodak.