Steve Mills - Online Entrepreuership with the SPOKE system

Vibrant and alive and full of purpose

I have spent the last few weeks locked into a battle between me and some troublesome code. I am getting the online directory up online for the revamped Livingnow.com.au website, and it has been giving me a few issues. But through perseverance I can see the light at the end of the development tunnel, and can now start to focus on getting some new interesting projects on the go, including a new social bookmarking site, and another cracking idea for a new form of social network which is in collaboration with the excellent Seamus Ennis.

I have also been thinking over the past week (through a code induced haze) that this site is going to be a central asset to the success of these and other projects, as I want to use it as a central hub to introduce people that I meet on my real life and digital travels to all of my projects. The development of a personal brand is one of the most important things that we as blog reading, digital literate people can do.

If you are in anyway half serious about getting your work out there or if (more importantly I think) that you have new and original ideas then get yourself a personal blog. Make it the focus point of all of your online efforts, a hub where people can find out about you and your work. Put it all up there, your social media profiles, your writing, links to your work, links to things you are selling. Give people handles that they can grab onto you and connect with you.

On Rebel Zen, Seamus and I  are always talking about letting your “real self” shine through, and that is where you should be headed with your macro and micro blogging efforts. Show us more of the real you, and you will make your online efforts vibrant and alive and full of purpose.

Large organisations are not rational entities

One of the major paradox’s of the modern world is that we are supposed to live in an age of rationality, yet the very things that control our modern society are completely irrational.

A modern western government may look like a coherent structure, will clear aims and goals (at least at some level), yet inside  the belly of the beast it is ruled by people’s emotions, hidden agendas, factions and also a deep need to appeal to un-rational people who will get them re-elected.

They make reactive and not pre-emptive decisions; they do a lot of things that are not in the interest of the people, or even the government of the time.

The same can be said of corporations. They have corporate charters and directives, but they function like a hive mind, with thousands of employees each having competing sub agendas. The sum total of these sub agendas is the direction of the organisation. The only “rational” thing that an entity like a corporation can do it is to look after its shareholders and get profits, which it will do at the expense of everything around it and within it.

We really have a troubling history on this planet, of whenever a large group of people come together, and form any kind of organisation unit larger than a few hundred people.
The interests and characteristics of each individual member, including their compassion, common sense, and love for each other are all lost inside the crazed irrational direction of the organisation. It has happened time and time again, from religions to ideologies, scientific movements to empires. Things that start of with the best intentions by a few are quickly subsumed and become the antithesis of the original intention when the many become involved.

The current world financial crisis is just one example of allowing non rational entities (corporations and governments) to set the agenda that the rest of us need to live by.

Chasing the Thread of Thought

The internet is one of the most brilliant things that ever to emerge in the history of reality. Sure, that is a pretty sweeping statement, but when you really sit down and have a look at what the internet REALLY is, it is absolutely mind-blowing.

It is a way to collect the combined intelligence of billions of the most complex things EVER developed in the Universe (as far as we can presently see) and allow each of them to communicate this intelligence to each other in ways never before seen. It is the over mind, a way of joining all individual minds together, here in the physical world.

But it does more than just connect minds, it also connects IDEAS.
By amassing so much data together in such a close proximity, we can see connections, similarities and patterns in the way the real world that have never been seen before. All over the planet, at this very moment there are people making scientific, philosophical, spiritual and unclassifiable discoveries that are absolutely amazing.

You don’t hear about them a lot in the mainstream news, or even on other blogs and alternative media on the net. But they are out there. Small rays of hope and inspiration, insights and theories that shake your conception of reality to pieces.

It is my hope for this blog that I can highlight some of these ideas, and my own to a wider audience. To chase some of these threads of thought back to their very beginnings, and unravel them into coherent concepts and stories.

One such thread that I have currently been following is that of physicist and theorist Nassim Haramien theresonanceproject.org, who has some very interesting theories concerning energy, other dimensions and the interconnectedness of consciousness.
It really does amaze everyday how mundane reality looks to the average western world citizen, but how incredibly complex, and exciting it really is.
Just to illustrate that point, here is one youtube video that you should watch.

Don’t worry if the physics goes over your head, if this has captured your interest go to YouTube and hunt down the rest of the videos. They are well worth a look.

I can see a time in the near future where a grand unified theory of physics gets mixed with our present knowledge of consciousness, and also with theories about what exactly Information is.
In fact, I think a lot of what has been termed spirituality, and controlled and interpreted by religions over the past 6000 years may soon be seen to have some foundations in scientific fact.

The world of present cutting edge scientific theory looks nothing like worldview presented to us by the media, government and scientific education of all but the highest level. String theory, Brane theory, advances in information science and quantum theory. The present state of these leave the idea that we are living in a solid, material,  3 dimensions of space and one dimension of time universe on very shaky foundations.
This is not science fiction; this is not wishy dreamy new age platitudes. This is fact.

The Digital Integration of Steve Mills

Hi all and welcome to another bi-annual 180 degree turn of direction here on Steven-Mils.com

This blog is going to slowly evolve from what it is currently ( a half arsed internet business blog that gets updated twice a month if it is lucky) to a regularly updated notebook of my thoughts, a showcase of my writing and music, and a central reference point for all of my online projects.

Basically what you are going to get on here is the following :

• My daily musings on what I find interesting.
• Links to my new music and writing projects on the web.
• Longer writing pieces about music, art, social media, information, quantum physics and other science, sociology, evolution, the nature of reality, human society, the universe and just plain weirdness.

Why such diverse and wide ranging topics you might ask? In addition to being topics that I have a huge interest in, I am endeavoring to throw out a large “Datanet”, that is to attract as much organic search engine traffic as I can. If you come here via a Google search, Welcome! The strategy must have worked, so please have a look around while you are hear, and not just be another “bounce”.
Oh and just to give you a small idea of where else this may all be going, here is a link to something I used to have on here that was quite popular.
Proof that Google is God. The scary thing is they make a very good point.

Also, If you want to read about personal development and other issues of the self, please go over to the excellent Rebel Zen to read my and the ever fantastic Seamus Anthony Ennis’ writing over there. It’s well worth the click I assure you.

Online Business is more than just blogs

Just a quick post today to make sure that everyone knows that I am still around and kicking. I have had a busy last month, consolidating a couple of exciting new opportunities that have presented themselves, and getting my teeth into some challenging new internet marketing campaigns.

I just wanted to put the idea out there today to all of the bloggers out there that are wondering how to make money online with their blogs. The short answer is that you have a very small chance of making a decent income with just your blog alone. A blog that just has posts, a few adsense ads and some affiliate programs (like this one is at the moment) may turn some dollars, but not enough to get the bank manager excited every time you walk in.

You should not be considering yourself just a blogger, but taking the next step, treating this area seriously and start thinking about starting an online BUSINESS. Sure, a blog may be an integral part to it, but at the end of the day you need to know how to attract peoples attention and move some kind of product. The internet is full of bad information about “How To Make Money Online”, in fact there seems to be more of this around today then ever before. But in-between all of this there are some sound strategies of people that have gone before and made Sustainable Online Enterprises.

Like the byline of this site says, I am all about helping people become Sustainable Personal (as in personally branded) Online Connected Entrepreneurs. Its a simple phrase, a small acronym that can be easily remembered and applied to everything you do online. It is a system that outlines how to gain traffic, and then monetize that traffic so that your audience becomes your customers, and yes, even your fans in the year to come.

By utilizing the wide variety of ways to promote your business, develop content and target customers the SPOKE system deals with social media, google adwords, SEO strategy, blog optimization, marketing and advertising theory, personal branding and sound business knowledge to provide a comprehensive system to at the very least give a good online business idea a head start.