Last night my hands hurt. A lot. The left hand in particular was so painful that I was worried about being able to work today. I used Salonpas on the left hand. This morning, my right hand hurts more than my left, which hardly hurts at all. Salonpas is like magic. I should have used it on my right hand as well, but it didn’t seem serious at the time. It’s only by comparison with my magically cured left hand that I even notice it.
 
I’m working for only a short time each week for my new Dark Art client, a bruise treatment. I asked for a sample, but got no response. So I ordered some, but it has yet to arrive. I’m hoping it will be as magical as Salonpas so that I can go around the internet talking about it with unbridled enthusiasm.

I added a small job yesterday for a skydiving company and put it out on my calendar. I met my deadline on the blog posts. I cooked a proper dinner. I worked on editing my class Squidoo lens. Today I have more of the class stuff, and my Dark Art clients, and blogs for a variety of people, and paid Twittering.

One of my students is writing her research paper on social media for business. She finds the whole idea odd. But if you do it right — which is to say, with the same degree of naturalness that you’d know you had to create in person — it can be very effective. I said to her, “I bet you’re good at face to face networking, like at Chamber meetings.”

She said something like, “Pshaw,” which means, “Heck yeah, but I’m modest.”

“So you wouldn’t race into the Chamber meeting and start trying to sell people stuff, right? You’d build networks and relationships and notice when someone actually needed what you had to offer. Same with Twitter. And there are people who waste lots of time going to networking meetings instead of getting any work done, and some who really benefit from those meetings, establishing relationships and sharing information and bringing in business.Same with Twitter.”

Recently a friend said it was amazing how often I was able to find someone who knew something about the subject I was writing on. It’s not amazing. It’s because I have an actual network, face to face and virtual. And it’s super helpful, too. I try to be helpful back.

I had an email from the Poster Queen yesterday, too. She had just been to a workshop on using social media in the classroom. She may be the first at her school to make a Squidoo lens in her classroom.

Me, I’m going to track down parents of cheerleaders and gymnasts (#2 son is coaching gymnastics at a place wiht a cheer team, so I’m feeling confident) and see what help they can give me on the subject of bruises. It makes a person feel a little sinister, hunting for info on bruises. You so often run into stuff about domestic abuse. I can’t see myself marketing to victims of domestic abuse. I think I’ll stick with sports.