Cart-Away®

More Blogworld contacts

Continuing with the visitors to our booth:

Shashi Bellamkonda with Network Solutions was in the booth next to us.  He was interviewing the top people in the New Media nonstop throughout the show.

Becky McCray - we met at breakfast and she was a major cheerleader for us throughout.  She sent people by to see us and then helped us beg for posts.

During the one slow moment when I could leave the booth, I went by the ideablob booth.  I plan on ging it a shot.

Brian Vogel form GreenMedica came to the booth.  We talked the debate of biologicals vs. Pharmacuticals.  I will keep in touch

We met Don Straits and Tyler West from CoolConferenceLive.  Their new product is super and a must have for anyone who trains or meets with others who are not located at the same site.

Met Scott Jones shortly after meeting the coolconferencelive folks on Friday night.  Scott is a Prof of New Media Comms at Indiana Univ., Kokomo.

We also met Srini Saripalli at the Friday party.  He was a wealth of information.

Gotta run - more later.

Tom

More Blogworld

I apologize in advance for any misdeeds (forgotten people, misspelled names, etc., etc.).  I have decided, even though I have yet to learn how to do this, I won't have time to enter all the names and pictures from the Expo.  I will try to enter names and links so here goes, in no particular order:

Ben Koo - did a nice post for us, had cool sports blooging booth.

Mario Bonilla - came by to discuss his great PR product, PRWeb

Kate Heffernan with OutBrain - we traded t-shirts

Major Charles Ziegenfuss with soldiersangels - it is a great cause and is doing wonderful things for our soldiers.

Jay Berkowitz, TenGoldenRules.com, wish we had the time to ask a few more questions.  Will have to explore his site.

Patrick Hewitt, GM of Sitemeter.  We discussed how we will track the success of our adventure at Blogworld.

John Pozadzides with Layered Tech, He got us a beta of Woopra and introduced us to Lorelle Van Fossen.  We have already called Lorelle and hope to get together with her soon.  She is a neighbor in the Great Northwest.

Jim Forde, born and raised in Hawaii (I could identify, I'm a graduate of Kailua High School - go Surfriders!) He wore a different Hawaiian shirt each day-both nice.

Ted Murphy - how could we forget.  He climbed up on our Concrete Mixing Trailer to have a picture taken.

David Wolf - he interviewed us but I have yet to chase it down on the net.

That's it for now.  Maybe I will get to 10 more tomorrow.  Or, maybe I'll post some pictures.

Six Secrets

Six Secrets to Planning a Landscape Project

 

1. Plant PVC:  Every landscape plan will change.  Some plants will die.  Some will outgrow the space you allowed.  You will tire of others and want a different look.  You will want to change a path or move a planter or add a patio space.  Things will change.  If you bury PVC under every hard to change feature, you will be prepared to make the changes with the least disruption to the rest of the landscape.  See my post on this at Plant PVC (May 12, 2008).
2. Prep is half the battle:  As with most construction projects, preparation is about half the labor but it is the important half.  If you don’t provide a good foundation, whatever you put on top will suffer.  Though the finish and detail work is what you ultimately see, when it starts to fall apart because it was built on a poorly constructed foundation, you will appreciate the importance of the foundation.  Plan half your labor and one third of the cost of your project for the preparation and foundations and you will be thankful you did.
3. Too much variety is no variety:  Often people do a landscape plan with the goal of having one of every plant material known to man.  What usually occurs is that instead of having all these great unique plants, you end up with a blend that is so confusing to the eye that nothing stands out.  Planting too large a variety of plant materials also creates a care problem.  In theory, each plant will require a different amount and type of fertilizer, different amounts of water, and different pruning.  I have seen yards where the owner meant well but ended up having to compromise on the care of all in favor of doing something that is good enough for everything but allows nothing to thrive.  Plant an oak in a lawn and either you get too little water for the lawn or too much at the surface for the oak.
4. Focus:  Much like #3 above, one key to a successful landscape plan is to establish focal points.  Like any art, composition is critical.  I once had a back yard that was very narrow.  Though 100 feet wide, it was only 25 feet deep.  By placing specimen trees in the far corners and plants leading the eye to them, it appeared as if the yard was much bigger because the views were longer.  Planning and building a landscape plan to feature items like benches, specimen rocks or trees, or unique structural features is a great way to put more interest into the landscape.
5. Spacing:  The best landscape architects and designers make plans for gardens to look the way they want them in 10 to 20 years.  You may not want to wait that long, but be sure to plan for the growth of the plants for that period.  If you want early cover, you can plant twice the number of plants needed, but, you must do it in a way that you can remove half the plants as things increase in size.  The classic example of this is the garden planted with 100 juniper plants in a bed that is 10 feet by 20 feet.  When the plants first go in, it covers nicely and gives a good look.  Three years later, it is badly overgrown, looks terrible and is almost impossible to control.  The junipers have woven their roots together and probably around the sprinkler lines.  Try to pull them out and you just destroy everything nearby. 
6. Think about height, not just spread:  When planning gardens, we often look at the spacing needed between plants but in doing so forget to consider height.  Often a tall plant will shade a smaller variety and affect its health.  Planting tall plants with appropriate understory plantings is an effective way to plan.  Failing to do so usually has negative impacts on some of the materials planted.  Height is also an important consideration when you are planning your focal points.  Varying heights of plants is often more interesting than just having everything at one level.  

BlogWorld Posts

I confess to being a true newbie in the blogoshpere.  I don’t yet know how to pass on all the great experiences of Blogworld and still make this blog about landscaping and hardscaping.  My next post will be about landscaping.

 

I will try this evening to schedule posts each day with one or two items from Blogworld.  Between those posts I hope to have new and better posts about landscaping topics.

 

Tom Vail is the President of Cart-Away Concrete Systems and one of the owners of CPC Holdings, the owners of the Cart-Away Supply Franchise offering.  He blogs about landscaping and hardscaping at

http://cart-away.typepad.com/cartaway_supply/

BlogWorld Expo #2

For those of you who came here to read and comment about landscaping/hardscaping issues, please see the many posts below and bear with me for a couple more posts on BlogWorld.  It was pretty great and worth the few comments below.  Those who know nothing about BlogWorld Expo, go there to learn more.

 

I’m driving back to McMinnville, Oregon from the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, towing our MixKing concrete mixing trailer.  I am visiting a few customers on the way so won’t be back for two more days to really comment or properly thank all the folks at the Expo who were so helpful and friendly to Bruce and to me.

 

Bruce flew back (since he drove the unit down all 1100 miles).  Today he has sent out notes to many people.  The gist of his message and mine is, “Thank you.”

 

Thanks for starting to inform us about the world of blogging and the universe of social and new media.

 

Thanks for showing us a glimpse of the amazing power and potential of these new (to us) means of communication.

 

Thanks for tutoring us and give us great tips on what to do to maximize the effectiveness of our blogs and websites.

 

Thanks for being such a friendly and open community.  To a person, the folks we met were helpful, interested and interesting.

 

We have already seen a number of posts that include photos, videos and nice stories about Cart-Away Concrete Systems and our Cart-Away Supply offering.  Now we have to decide how we are going to measure the effects of this marketing effort.  If you have any suggestions, let us know.

 

Comments are appreciated.

Below is Marty Frahncke, who was the second person to blog us at the Expo.

AMAZING!!!!!

We (Bruce Christensen and Tom Vail) said we were headed to the Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas.  The first full day has just ended.  My head is just swimming with new knowledge and new respect for an amazing community about which I was barely aware.

We have been welcomed by a group who has nothing to gain from helping us.  We have been offered help and advice from all quarters. 

Everyone (and I hate 'allness' statements) has been friendly.

The show management has put together a true, world-class event.  I only wish I could have attended every session.  Anyone in this industry who does not attend this show is missing the best bargain in industry conferences I have ever seen.  I have attended events, conferences and expos of this type in a half dozen different industries over the past 30 years.  None come close to the value I have received here at Blogworld. In short, it has been simply AMAZING!!!

I took photos of about 50 of the bloggers and others who have dropped by our booth to hear our story.  It is a great story but the reaction of the new media community has been over the top.  I promised many of those I photographed to do a blog post with their photos/names.  I am afraid that will have to wait a day or two. Please be patient.  My skills are limited and my time is prioritized for the next week.  Below is a single example - It is a photo of Anita Cohen-Williams, the first person we met at Blogworld.  She's a Renaissance Woman.  She is a Cybrarian, an Archeologist, a Search Guru, a ghost writer and all around helpful person.  If we had met no other person at the show, it would have been a success.  We have met 50 like her and hope to blog about them soon.

Until my next post about this event, I just want to thank everyone involved.  What a great day.

OOPS - Just discovered there is no easy way to visit our websites from this blog.  Will have to learn how to correct that today.  In the meantime just go to Cart-Away Concrete Systems, Cart-Away Supply Franchise Page, or The Concrete CUBE page using these links.

BLOG WORLD EXPO

WOW!!!  WE'RE GOING TO BLOGWORLD EXPO IN LAS VEGAS!!!!!

September 20 and 21, Cart-Away Supply will be at the 2nd Annual BlogWorld Expo.

The 2008 BlogWorld & New Media Expo will take place September 20-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Like we have in the past, were plan on breaking the mold.  Rather than marketing our great franchise opportunity, Cart-Away Supply, in typical media outlets, we are using new media.  We are going to learn from 2000 (or more) of the most successful bloggers in the World just how we can get our message out. It should be a gas, and, a great learning experience.  

In exchange for all the great advice and knowledge we hope to receive from the bloggers, we are going to treat them with a chance to view, hands-on, the MixKing, our 1.75 cubic yard Concrete Mixer.  We are pretty sure we will have the only piece of construction equipment at the show.

Be sure to log onto your favorite blogs on the 20th and 21st and see if they mention any of the activities at the Blog World Expo.  Who knows, they might even have something about us or even a picture of Bruce and Tom begging for blogging help.  You know we need it.

Landscaping or Golf? What will it be this weekend?

Let’s pretend you love to golf.  Let’s also say that you are planning to build a new patio in your back yard.

 

You run the numbers and make your estimates.  You think you can get the patio done in four consecutive weekends.  You think it will cost you $2,500 in materials and services, not counting your labor.  You decide to get a couple of quotes from Landscape Contractors.  You get one quote for $5,000 from a Landscape Contractor who gave very good references.

 

What do you do? 

 

Do you spend $2,500 more and have the job professionally done?  That will allow you to play golf each weekend and keep your handicap low.  If you do it yourself, you will lose four of the best weekends of the year.  Winter will be here before you know it. 

 

Or, do you take on the job yourself?  You are fairly handy.  Think of the personal satisfaction when you have friends over for a barbeque and you’re wife tells the friends, “Sam did all the new patio himself.”  Then you think how expensive that golf will be.  Even if you get in 8 rounds in the four weekends, that works out to over $300 per round.

 

Of course you have heard horror stories about the results of do-it-yourself jobs.   What happens if the patio starts cracking apart right after you finish?  Do you really want to dig the garden up again to find the leak from where you backed over the lawn with your truck to deliver materials closer to where you were working?

 

My advice?  (You knew that was coming.)  Ask yourself a few questions, make a decision, then get on with life.  The questions you should ask are these:

 

1. What is your level of confidence?  The local Cart-Away Supply store experts can help you with great advice.  The proper equipment and supplies are available there.  The question is this – do I have the requisite aptitude or would I be taking too big a risk?  Only you can answer this question.
2. How will this decision affect others?  If it is just you and lost opportunities to golf, that is one thing to consider.  If it is displacing your family from using the yard for a significant part of the season, would it not be better to have a pro do the job and inconvenience everyone for only a week?
3. A year from now, will you be happier that you did the job or that you had it done by a contractor?  Again, only you can evaluate your level of confidence, the disruption you might cause, the value of your golf game, etc.  The value of that feeling of accomplishment in a job well done is a wonderful thing.  You have to consider also the $2,500.

 

I’m not suggesting that either way is better than the other.  I am suggesting that like any project, planning is a very important tool for success.  Sometimes just planning properly gets the job halfway done.

 

Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the time and money it will cost to do it yourself, and, don’t overestimate your chances of hitting a hole in one if you go for the golf.