Musings on Growing the Money Tree: Bonanzle, Facebook and Twitter

I have a little storefront on Bonanzle, and you can check it out if you've never visited before. I thought it would be nice to be involved in a community marketplace in addition to seling from my website, so about a year ago I set up my shop there. Bonanzle is a hybrid venue, a social marketplace. There are some great sellers there, wonderful, trustworthy merchants. And, there has been a year-long ongoing debate among them as to whether Bonanzle is a serious selling site, or chat and gamers lounge, or both, or neither.

Many of you have visited me there, and I know that some have experienced first-hand the cart that does not always function, the quirky search, and server glitches. And, I thank you all for your patience and willingness to find a creative, alternative way to make your purchases when necessary. Management has made many, many wonderful site improvements, and things do run smoother there today, although for me, with a large international clientelle, Bonanzle's checkout remains problematic. I've spoken with several savvy, vetran sellers just this week who still cannot lead a new international buyer thru the checkout process with 100% certainty. Ummm, lets think about that.

So I got to thinking, musing actually... why would a shopping venue not prioritize checkout, and shipping? The bells, whistles, hip and trendy trinkets that – cool as they are – don't make my customer's experience any easier, add no real value to my buyer. And, Bonanzle continues to applaud and encourage games in which members buy each other's wares rather than assist the business people who do most of their selling off site, to many seller's dismay. Google base, google anaylitics aside, and the seller tools and marketing tips, all common sense, thanx. I'm talking checkout issues. Always coming back to the debate as to whether Bonanzle is a serious selling site, social site, or both, or neither.

The latest set of Bonanzle improvements are links to Facebook and Twitter (yes, I use them both), and the directive is to use these tools to advertise the site, the perk being you will get a little bump in visibility on site in a prominently displayed panel of web communicators. Ummm, lets think about that, too. I'll let someone else blog about that...

This morning, as I paid my $10 fee for selling there last month I got to thinking... although my $10 is chump change, if I multiply that by the roughly 22,oo0 booths listed on the site, there'd be a revenue of $220,000 in final value fees for the month. Add in Plus and Premium memberships at $10 and $24 /month respectively and I would think that throwing a little money at the checkout glitches would be possible. Probable. A priority? Part of the plan for growing the Money Tree?

And, there might be enough left over so that the site could do some advertising of its own during the Holiday shopping season, now in full swing (on other venues at least). The natives are getting restless, some trees have born no fruit even in this Harvest Season. Again, fodder for someone else's blog, I'm not going there either. But here is where I am going:

Mark Zuckerberg, 23, is the founder of Facebook. His social networking site is at about 60 million users, with a projection of 200 million by the end of this year. It's estimated to be worth $15 billion. Yahoo! offered to buy Facebook in 2006 for $1 billion in cash. (Zuckerberg declined their offer). In 2007, Microsoft bought 1.6 percent of the company for $240 million.

But Facebook has yet to figure out how to make money off its huge audience. Facebook needs to find a way to generate revenue...

On Facebook, members get a dose of social interraction by playing imaginary games such as Mafia Wars, Castle Wars, members give gifts of crystals, flowers and cocktails while they chat. Then they tweet that did, and do, they announce it to the world. Sometimes I wake up to tens of gifts and offers to come play. I don't, but that's me. I'm not all that drawn to imaginary enemies or cyber trinkets and such.

Now here is my aha moment: On Bonanzle, members play games and the site takes a final value fee from each little happy social interraction, and members tweet to the world that the game is about to begin or end, oh my! The game is called "Shopping!" And, now they've created unique interface so that we can access Facebook and Twitter and never leave Bonanzle. Sticky isn't it?

Bonanzle has already figured out how to make money off its growing audience. Imagine if all the Mafia Wars players tuned in to "Tickle me Tuesday" or "Finding Friends on Friday"? There is a seemingly endless list of games to choose from. Why send your friends each an imaginary crystal from Facebook, when you can send them each a real one from Bonanzle for just a few dollars in the how-low-will-you-go LIMBO game?

Well, there you go. No crystal ball needed. A hybrid indeed, and the game is shopping. If Bonanzle can pull this one off, it will be the next best thing! The new big thing. The thing. The Money Tree. Tweet that, Facebook!

When you're chasing $15 billion, what's losing a few sales in Canada or the UK this holiday season? Unless you are a Canadian wanting multiple varieties of my Chinese Blooming Tea? If you are, just email me, together we'll figure it out.

We always do.

May you be blessed!

What I am doing? Less. And more!

In 140 characters or less...

thinking less and paying more attention to my heart

acquiring nothing and appreciating what I already have

criticizing less and complimenting more

complaining less and giving more

letting go

paying more attention to stillness

talking less, listening to silence

finding meaning...

pondering truth, birthing inspiration, casting visions

taking risks

trusting

bookmarking wisdom

being generous

developing character, learning humility

discovering healing, planting joy

thinking globally

conquering demons, embracing peace

avoiding gossip

nurturing love

tweeting compassion

May you be blessed!

Tweeting with the Ancient Ones

I dreamed of Twitter. I am not kidding.

I have this recurring dream in which I am sitting with Lightbeings, the Grandmothers, usually on my beach around the firepit, but sometimes we meet in other places. But there is always a central fire, and the Ancient Ones are always there. These are multi-layered, multi-dimensional dreams, perhaps more real than this ordinary reality I call "awake in the daytime."

These are serious dreams. Sometimes they are life-changing. They are sacred, holy dreams. Ancient social networking opportunities, I suppose, although I never thought of it that way until today.

Because in these dreams, often, I am holding space for a very ill client, perhaps in transition. Sometimes I am with a new client who has just made contact with me but we have not yet begun our work together... these meetings with spiritual, non-physical teachers and guides serve a preparation or support purpose. Much of the ancient wisdom I steward has been transmitted around these fires. Many secrets shared. I am often shaken by these encounters, surprised. The unexpected is the norm.

But I had no idea that the Grandmothers tweet. Really, no idea.

They were talking about connections, global sharing, a restoration of oneness, the necessity of joy. A favorite topic. Guest lecturers on this topic have included Dolphin Goddesses, Pulsing Geometric Fractals, Children. They all teach about being present, attentive, and the art of listening. Loving and encouraging one another. Spirals, circles.

And then Twitter came up.

"I tweet! I tweet! I'm a tweeter, a retweeter, I'm in a group, no two, three, four... and I'm a friend on Fridays, I have 28 cheap tweets!," I jumped up and down, one of us.

They kept on talking, teaching.
Always the student, I listened, and shut up.
And then I woke up.

And then I thought about it for a few days.

If we are aware, we can appreciate that Twitter provides us with opportunities to connect with others around the world so we can sense how self and world are linked in ever-expanding circles. Twitter enables us to share our deepest dreams and to encourage others. Twitter promotes the art of listening in which we lean toward others in love, realizing that everyone wants to be heard, valued, understood.

Twitter facilitates our exploration of a wider world, of other cultures, and points of view while it reminds us to share the stories of our lives with our companions on this journey toward oneness.

Twitter taps into the enthusiasm that lights up our lives and spreads it around. It is the domain of Healers, Lightworkers, Angels, and Mothers.

And, Twitter is the realm of the Grandmothers. Unbelievable!

In meditating on this, I've realized that Twitter best challenges us to be mindful of every word we write and to honor others as best we can in that brevity, a spiritual practice of the highest to be certain. It can serve as a holy space where we can be deeply moved by reverence, and like koans, mantras, and the Native American wisdom-keepers, teaches us that brevity can be a path of rich communication.

Twitter is a temple. A campfire. A prayer. An opportunity...

...an opportunity to listen, love, and to be a catalyst for joy.

May you be blessed!

Gratitude for the beep, blink and tweet

Every Sunday morning I spend 60 minutes in a walking meditation and then I sit down and blog. I blog on other days, too, but as a matter of spiritual practice, Sunday morning is reserved as the sacred space in which I have gifted myself with permission and freedom to turn my attention to attention.

On Sunday morning, whether I walk on my treadmill, in the woods, or along the bike path, I do so in silence, without my ipod, without my neighbor's kids, without my best old dog, but alone with my intention of attention.

Attention is also known as mindfulness, awareness, concentration, recollection. Not only of who you are, but why you and everything else are here.

During my Sunday morning meditations I recall recent and long forgotten moments of grace. I find opportunities for gratitude. I contemplate evidence of my meaningful connections with others, and signs of the presence of Spirit in my everyday comings and goings. I do so by looking for the bigger picture encompassing my experiences.

Yes, I am a watcher of the big picture. I watch for patterns in the world and in my own behavior. I string together meanings like pearls by attaching analogies, metaphors, symbols, and stories to things and events. I discover that messages and messengers will come to me when I regard them in this way. I learn to understand things by paying attention, and walking.

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches walking meditation as a practice of attention.

"Try to practice this in your daily life. Even when you go to the bus stop, make it into a walking meditation. Even if your surroundings are full of noise and agitation, you can still walk in rhythm with your breathing. Even in the commotion of a big city, you can walk with peace, happiness, and an inner smile. This is what it means to live fully in every moment of every day of your life. This is something which is possible. All of us who live here at Plum Village have signed an agreement with the flight of stairs we most often use. We agree to always practice walking meditation on these stairs, whether going up or down. Even on these stairs, we find a rhythm with our walk and our breath. We never take them absent-mindedly. When we realize we have climbed several steps in forgetfulness, we go back down and climb them over again. Over twenty years ago, I signed such an agreement with my stairs, and it has brought me great joy."

I find that even within a few hours without awareness, I can end up living in a daze of stimulation without any grasp of its significance. I operate on automatic pilot, and because nothing really registers in my consciousness, I can feel really drained of energy. And sometimes, not paying attention has just the opposite effect: everything registers, and I find I don't know what to do with it all!

At my computer, with its tweet alerts, email notifications, incoming faxes, and ecommerce and social networking technologies working overtime like a staff of ten – sometimes I am so bombarded with stimuli that I can't focus on anything. I feel scattered, stressed, and mesmorized by seemingly random fragments of interactions. I think of the effect as an unproductive cocoon of protective trance.

But, the universe is a friendly place, and everything in it has meaning, even this daze of stimulation. Nothing happens by chance. To everything there is a purpose, and the purpose of getting caught up in this comedy we know as the world wide web of beeps, blinks and tweets is to urge us back into silence, awareness, and significance.

It's a paradox. If we assign urgency to every little beep, we risk the health of our bodies, mind and sprits. But, if we think nothing deserves to be taken seriously, then it is easy to regard what happens to us as insignificant, pointless. After all, what really matters if the universe is characterized by random occurrences or endless urgency ? On a personal level, this translates to the feeling that there is no direction to our lives. And, who has the energy to deal with that?

For both lack of direction, energy and stress, attention is a good corrective prescription.

I begin by doing one thing at a time. I keep my mind focused on whatever I happen to be doing at the moment. I notice details. If what I am doing doesn't seem important, I realize it's time to work with the practice of meaning. I simply close my eyes, breathe, and visualize the winding set of stone stairs that lead from my garden thru the woods to the driveway. Even on these etheric stairs, I find a rhythm with my walk and my breath. If I realize I have climbed several steps in forgetfulness, I go back down and climb them over again, watchful and open for analogies, metaphors, symbols, and stories to emerge. With every step I increase my ability to discern the possibilities available to me. Of what is important, and of what I can let go.

On these steps I find opportunities for gratitude. I find connections with others, and signs of the presence of Spirit in all of our comings and goings, chance meetings, 140 character greetings. Eventually, the regular practice of attention yields understanding, not only of who I am but why you and everything else are here. Gratitude for the beep, blink and tweet.

May you be blessed!