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My dad passed away on March 17th.

I was not able to say anything at the funeral because of the disbelief and shock. When I saw a lot of my family men in suits walking around at the funeral, it was so unbelievable and for a few seconds, my eyes were looking around the room to find my father. How could it be that he was not amongst us? He was right there, but not walking, resting with a smile on his face. In the new suit that he had just bought and gotten custom tailored, as if he knew. It felt like he would wake up any second.

I cannot believe it’s already been over two weeks without him.

I am not able to express in words the intensity of my sadness but if you were here dad, I would like you to know that you truly are my hero.

I love you dad and I really miss you.

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I haven’t been able to update this blog for a couple of weeks and I thought I owed you all some explanation. Some of my blogging friends know by now that my dad has been in ICU for the last couple of weeks. At times, his health seems to be improving but at other times we get terrified.

This is how it all started. One day out of the blue he started having severe headache that wouldn’t go away for a few days. He’s never had headaches all his life so that was alarming but he is of the type who never asks anyone for any help. He wouldn’t let our mom tell any of us siblings saying he didn’t want to bother any of us. But then one day, he had a vomit and was taken to emergency. You would think the doctors would have done the cat-scan of the head right away but they took two full days to review his symptoms - which included lower back pain, intense weakness and pain in the thighs. They kept thinking it was some kind of weird virus. But when the cat-scan was done, it was discovered that he had bled at multiple spots in the brain. The bleeding had stopped but then other complications started happening - lung infection which according to the doctors, was picked up in the hospital itself.

My dad has always been very self sufficient, always going out of his way to help just about everyone and asking for help for himself is the last thing in his dictionary. Not always a positive I know. So this morning, he talked to my mom on the phone that he was feeling a lot better and should be home by the weekend. Only around noon we found out that he had tried to get out of the bed to go to the washroom but as soon as he got up, he fell because of weakness and passed out. We don’t know when the nurses got to him but he did get bruised and started bleeding on the forehead - externally.

Thank God, he didn’t have any internal bleeding. But he is extremely weak and is hardly talking. He said a few words to me this evening and they were “don’t worry about me my child, I will be fine, take care of yourself”. Apparently he knows I have been sick with high fever from the stress. And hearing these words, I couldn’t stop crying. That’s my dad. Always bringing attention away from himself, always thinking about others.

All these days I’ve been helplessly praying that he gets better. And at times while praying, I’ve found myself making deals and promises with the supreme being, in exchange for making my dad better.

As I write this, my childhood images float in front of my eyes. Our parents try to provide us with everything that is within their power. They will themselves go through difficulties but not let their children suffer. So why does God make us see them suffer so much?

Sometimes parents will use, loving though weird, names to refer to their children. My dad calls me his little tigress. It’s his way of giving me strength and tell me I can achieve just about anything in life. But today, with him lying helplessly in the hospital, struggling for his life, I feel completely shattered and lonely.

A lot of questions go through my head these days.

Why are we all running after making money?

What is it that I should make my priority to do, while I am able bodied?

What is it that makes us walk, talk and smile? makes us feel pain and happiness?

I was chatting with a friend a few days ago, whose family went through some similarly tough situation. I asked him, does a person create a journey or the journey molds a person? We both didn’t know the answer to this. Do you?

Today I request you all to keep my dad in your prayers. I can’t continue as I cannot see the words on the screen anymore.

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You know that the success of your online business is based on how much volume of targeted traffic you attract to your website, blog or online e-commerce store. One of the easier ways to do that is to master a few of the social media sites available, since social Media sites have exploded all across the web over the last year or so. With literally millions of websites and thousands of them probably selling almost similar products and services as yours, it’s difficult to use traditional means to promote your products and even your website.

Attracting customers to your home based business by using social media sites sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? It is easy once you learn the how these networks work but many people running home based small businesses are still completely unaware of this method of reaching out to the world.

Social Media Marketing is the fastest growing phenomenon on the internet today, for its unique advantage of being able to tap into the latest and greatest user generated content such as blogs and bookmarking sites. So, every business, big or small, home based or not, should definitely utilize any of the hundreds of social networking sites to attract customers to their business and increase sales.

Here are some of the steps they can take to get started and benefit.

1. Create a Blog

Blogs are highly interactive, with ongoing conversations amongst like minded people, and can be easily controlled and shaped by the blog author.  This is in contrast to static web-sites that just sit there conveying one-way information to the visitors. As a blogger, you can write about anything and everything and if you are writing useful articles, solving people’s problems or providing value with your content, you’ll easily develop a faithful audience. By sharing your thoughts and ideas with you website visitors, you establish trust and build a relationship with them, instead of coming off as some marketing robots. Do not just start a blog and then hope someone would be buying your services or products. Get involved in the community because that is what blogging is all about. Visit other blogs in your industry and participate in the ongoing discussions, leaving a link to your website. If you are leaving meaningful comments, people will want to look at what your site is all about.

2. Create Videos

Low-cost high speed internet connections everywhere, low cost portable devices, phones and laptops with wireless connections capable of streaming video content combined with YouTube, EyeSpot, Google Videos, Revver, JumpCut, Grouper and vSocial to name just a few, make it extremely easy to spread your content to wider audience. If nothing else, converting your text content to short infomercials is a must in your efforts of marketing. YouTube allows you to add friends, leave comments on other people’s videos. These video sites are used by millions, so using the comment systems judiciously, in an attempt to attract the right kind of population is a must.

3. Join a Networking Site

By joining many social networking sites, it’ll be easier for you to find new customers for your business. By actively participating and sharing useful informative content with other members, you’ll develop a stronger voice and in time will gain recognition of other high profiled members. Making your connections with these other powerful and known members will make you more visible and once you are visible, you’ll gain trust of many, which will make selling your services or products easier.

4. Join Online Groups

Google Groups and Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn and other forums, that allow people with similar interests to have discussions are places for any small business owner to be able to find the right customers. On these sites, you should also be able to have a sense of locations and demographics from people’s profiles. Don’t forget to use your own same powerful profile that you built is recognizable on other networking sites.

5. Get Involved in Local Business Networks

Besides interacting with the virtual communities like Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and MySpace, do not shy away from taking active role in the offline gatherings, face-to-face real-life conferences and social meet ups to connect with other professionals and learn about your local communities and its needs.

Home business can benefit and thrive from socializing actively with the online as well as off line communities. Every social networking scenario will have different rules to participate, get ahead and be visible. So, learn the rules and follow them properly.

Do not spam the system and do not start asking other members to vote your content up or buy your services the first day of joining (or even the first week of joining). Get to know people. Help them in their endeavors first before trying to gain something. I’ve had people send me shouts on Digg the first day of them joining the network and befriending me. Or on StumbleUpon, there are people who will tell you to vote their content without giving any introduction first. That’s a strict no no.

Regardless of what you are selling and how you attract traffic to your home business, there is one way that works all the time, and that is the quality of your content. Continuing to add fresh content to your website will be searchable on the search engines as well as be appreciated by your likely customers.

Where to find Social Networking Sites

There are many places you can find these sites and join them, learn them and start participating. Here are some of the resources that I know of:

Social Networking God: 350+ Social Networking Sites @ Mashable

Social Media Sites @ Traffikd

List of Social Networking Sites @ Wikipedia

Note: I don’t run a home business, but I have been using many social media sites and networks for some time now and feel that the above points should work for any type of small business in achieving it’s goal of finding new customers. Feel free to add to these points and let us know how you have used networking for your business.

This post is submitted to Don’s Group Writing Project on Home Based Businesses

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I’m happy to say that Awards, Accolades has become a series in itself..  Check out Awards I and Awards II to see what I mean. 

I can’t begin to thank all the wonderful people I have met ever since I started blogging.  These fellow bloggers who have become good friends make my life better each and every day.   So, once again, I thank these shining stars, who have become part of my life, from the bottom of my heart.

You have heard me talk about the most generous soul,  Mig, who not only comes up with the original posts (like 10 reasons why she loves pearl), but also continues to bestow me with numerous beautiful awards and accolades. 

And what can I say?   Sue from Sueblimely and Kuanyin from Blog Pond and Colin from Free PC Security made me blush by calling me their Blogging Mentor, the award created by Sue.

How can I thank these beautiful people making my world ever so exciting?  Kim the beautiful artist from Laketrees designed another award this year called Significant Blogger Award and it was an honor to receive it from her.

Kim has also spent considerable time coming up with Top 101 Artists’ Blogs which is worth checking out. 

Colin also awarded Best Friends award which is very nice of him.  Colin maintains numerous blogs with a lot of useful information and is always ready to help out anyone in need.  I am proud that he is my friend.   thanks buddy.. (Did I pick up all the awards from you Colin?  I know you’ve been showering me with a lot of them lately lol)

When you get mentioned and recognized by others,  it makes blogging experience even more exciting and makes you want to continue, despite all the struggles that come with blogging.  I started reading Steven Snell’s blog, Vandelay Design, a few months ago and really loved it.   I was surprised when Steven asked to feature me on his new blog, Traffikd, a blog about Social Media and Internet Marketing. Check out this blog for all you want to know about Social Media or Internet Marketing.

Steven was also very kind in including me for his list of 8 Bloggers That Won’t Bite, on PureBlogging.  

What more could I ask?  I am blessed meeting so many supportive and kind friends and I wish the best for all of you. 

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Today when I was logged in this blog, I noticed that I have written 186 posts which generated 2676 comments. I was surprised at how much I had written especially when at the time I started this blog, I had no intention of keeping it up. It was fun to write and it was fun to see comments on what I had written. It still is fun to see comments. But now I am much more self-conscious for some reason. This is also becoming one the reasons for the decline in my posting frequency.

Oh, writing that word, self-conscious reminds me of a brief conversation I had with Liz Strauss once and I had said I couldn’t write anything (apparently, this has been the case for some time now) and do you want to know what she said? Her answer was “Pearl, There’s no pressure. Doc Searls says “A blog is just an email to the world.” ” And that gave me a much needed push and I was fine for some time. Isn’t that so profound? Liz always writes such beautiful and inspirational words. Today while I was browsing StumbleUpon, I came across her article Let Yourself Join the Human Race that describes so much of what I’ve been feeling lately.

During the first few weeks and months into blogging, I remember I used to feel ‘free’ and would write as if I was talking to a close friend. But lately I’ve been feeling some sort of pressure to do well. The expectation. And when we start build expectations and start worrying about the results, it becomes that much harder to start. After reading that article from Liz, I felt as if she wrote that piece just for me. (I’ve had this feeling numerous times when I read Liz’s blog). Why am I so self conscious now? I know, once upon a time, these words didn’t exist. So, why now? I’m not sure why, but today I decided to join Liz and decided to drop this ’self-destructive’ word - self and decided to just start writing, whatever came to my mind.

So, while I am talking about writing, something else comes to mind. One of my job functions is to grade essays written by grown ups for employment. I can’t begin to tell you how horrendous some of these essays sometimes are. People just do not pay attention to their writing. I am far from writing perfectly, but I hope whatever point I am trying to convey, it does make sense to you.

So, when I recently graded some of these essays, I jotted down some of the problems I came across again and again. Based on my observations, I think if we kept following in mind, may be the articles or essays or whatever it is we are writing, would come out a bit better.

1. Use plain, conversational language.
2. Write to express, not to impress.
3. Use plain and familiar words.
4. Never use a long word when a short one will do.
5. Keep sentence structure simple.
6. Use the active voice.
7. Keep your paragraphs short.
8. Omit needless words.
9. Revise and rewrite. Improvement is always possible.
10. Write in a natural style.
11. Pay closer attention to spellings and grammar
12. Edit and proofread and weed out errors and clutter

In writing tips for writing, I couldn’t leave out the literary legend, George Orwell, who wrote an essay in 1946 called Politics and English Language, in which he provides the following rules for good writing:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Anything else to keep in mind when writing a good piece? Also, I would love to know how long it takes you to write and publish a post.

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