Thanks for the insight.  However, isn’t it all relative?  Also, is labeling lobster as premium privileging one species of food over another for no other reason than marketplace sensibilities? If you lived in a fishing town/ industry, where seafood, including lobsters were common enough, would you respond the same way?

Thanks! What are some of the items on your bucket list? Perhaps some of them can stir ideas for others to incorporate into their randomization ritual...

@Donna, please DO join the bible study class and at least try it out! Small groups and bible study classes are great ways to meet people and *start* to feel connected. There are many others that join classes and small groups because they don't know anyone else in the church.

I have produced and managed Adwords pay per click campaigns (also on Yahoo, MSN/Live, etc) for our church. With most visitors now doing their "research" to find out more details about the church and pastor before driving into the parking lot, placement of ads on search engines pointing them to your website is efficient and appropriate. We must remember that search is self-directed -- they are seeking information, it is not interruption advertising like television ads.

We have had good results in the past and look to continue using search advertising in the future.

Last year’s conference was awesome.  The keynotes were consistently great.  And the break-out pastors’ track was especially valuable – it was such a small group setting given the size of the conference.  Loved getting to speak to Ed Young directly after one of the breakouts – wouldn’t be able to do *that* probably if I go down to Grapevine and visit Fellowship Church.

Interesting post. Could be that his trend is related to RISK?

If I am correct, it used to be that publishers accepted a small number of titles to pursue because they shouldered the majority of the RISK involved with publishing a book. But as actual costs have been driven down and marketing channels / distribution outlets have increased, the RISK has effectively been reduced -- hence publishers are able to and have been "investing" in more titles to increase the odds of getting a "hit."

Separate, but related, self-publishing has also been affected by technology improvements in publishing on-demand, so that authors are increasingly able to take on the financial risk and pursue vanity press outlets without publishing houses' involvement.

While the floodgates have opened, your company's response to cut title is worthy of consideration. But how about looking at how to influence another area of the issue? How about trying to see if you/we all can influence the filter/edit/curate process of what consumers consider when going to the bookstore (or amazon). One example is Oprah's Book Club. While there's probably a lot of criticism for that "vehicle", it is serving to deal with this onslaught of new books each year. It is helping consumers to identify which are the "better" books as you describe. Just as Twitter Lists or BlogRolls help others discover and consume new content, I believe there is space for more innovation in how readers do the same with books.

There's more to develop on this thread of thought, but I figured it was interesting enough to post here...What do you think?
My recent post My Own [Randomization] Ritual

Mitch, what would you be using this theme for? Interesting that you are investigating the ecommerce options.
My recent post My Own [Randomization] Ritual

Aw, such flattery.

Here's one right back atcha:


Seriously though, it will be interesting to see if you can develop case studies regarding this theme where you can demonstrate that usage will bring high visibility on a consistent basis of some sort in the SERPs across Google, Yahoo, etc. Seeing an awareness (& implementation) of both the aesthetics/design elements *and* SEO considerations to a deep level is rare. I think that many designers are now starting to catch onto the basics that should be incorporated, but I don't think the knowledge of general SEO mechanics are understood yet by enough people doing web design work.

Hope your template accomplishes this, kind of how the THESIS THEME purports to do it as well.
My recent post My Own [Randomization] Ritual

John, nice work on this one. Still love the personal identity theme you created and I'm using at http://www.kennyjahng.com

With SEO/SEM consulting/coaching in my background, I fully appreciate your attempts to integrate this into the WP world, especially the no-plugins-necessary part.

If I get one of the freebie Standard Theme packages, I'll be using it for YAB (yet another blog) that I have to set-up since one of my legacy blogs still using the Blogger platform + FTP needs a new solution (Google announced they will stop supporting FTP blogs via Blogger.com starting 5/1/10). So instead of buying into the custom URL hosting via blogger.com, I will take one of my blogger blogs and convert it to a WP-based platform. It would be a great case study to see just how easy the transition would be.

Out of curiosity, what features of Standard Theme are missing from michaelhyatt.com's current config or vice versa worth noting? Are you going to integrate them via custom dev work? Or leave as is?
My recent post My Own [Randomization] Ritual

Leonard Sweet
www.leonardsweet.com
www.twitter.com/lensweet
Will challenge how you hold onto your assumptions about faith and church

Michael Hyatt
Thomas Nelson Publishers
www.twitter.com/michaelhyatt
This guy knows how to engage

Looking forward to see your final list!

Kenny
www.twitter.com/godvertiser
www.godvertiser.com