You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
Hello,
After years of having www.ballueder.de and problems about payment to Germany, I now decided to set up www.ballueder.co.uk - just as a site to be found if anyone ever wants to find out what the ole Ballueder is up to.
So, here we are! New site, new layout, and some links. Perfect idea, isn’t it?
Hello,
7 am on a Saturday morning and Ballueder just can’t sleep. I came home last night and instead of going to the gym I had a nice pizza, too much wine and was knocked out on the couch not later than 10 pm I think. Made it to bed around 11 and woke up at 7.
What has happened in my personal life the last few weeks/months? As you know I started my new job in December, just realising that it has been 4 months. The first job I truly enjoy. It not only challenges me, but I also take on responsibilities and work in my most favourite industry.
Then, Jen gave up her job and now started her new one back in London. She loves it so far too and we even go to work together in the mornings. And, she had her first real “Friday night”, e.g. she never was off at weekends before on a regular basis. Welcome to the real world. So that is all good.
What else? I sold my bench, my cooker and about to sell my computer desk. Things must go before we move. We move? Yes, we put in an offer for a house and I hope my current landlady does not read that. Looks like the paperwork should be coming through shortly and we should be able to close the chain this coming week with survey and solicitor work going ahead. We also looked for furniture and discovered that we both have similar taste. Och well, at least I do not mind my wife’s expensive furniture taste ,-) We shall see where we have to compromise. Just mentioning the word IKEA drives her mad. Sorry honey ,-) So moving date will be sometime June/July we hope.
Personal life: as far as there is one. I went back to the gym. Weights during lunch and cardio at the weekend. Is it going well - to be honest not really! I just have too much on and feel too tired. Then again I cannot sleep. I will need to work more on meditation and spiritual practises in order to gain more energy and start using my little spare time more efficiently. E.g. I still need to catch up on a few books I want to integrate in my essay and work with O and M on some ideas for my essay too. Who knows what is going to happen.
Friends - they are there and we had a great Easter. Jenny made a fab roast and I was very impressed. We will be at a wedding in 2 weeks time to catch up with friends from all over the country, so that will be great just to see everyone and go shopping in Glasgow. The latter one is worthwhile the trip, and of course the wedding!
Homepage: yes, we got a new one. www.ballueder.co.uk is now officially registered and does replace ballueder.de
That is about all.
Plans for the weekend: sleeping if I can. Gym of course. Ironing. Fondue and a great CabSav (£25), paperwork for the house.
Hello,
Today another story of poor customer service - from the financial sector for a change.
I wrote to my lovely credit card (cc) company a “secure message” asking to raise my limit. Purely to be on the safe side for our house expenses coming up (not that I can put the whole house on the cc 
).
So, I got a nice message back within a few hours saying that it is not a problem and the limit was granted.
However, today a company called me up saying my cc is not working. Embarrassing! I spoke to my cc company and they said that I the limit was not raised and that I cannot get a higher limit. I said “fair enough” as I do not necessarily need the limit, however I asked how they dared to tell me they raised the limit but did not.
“I should write a complaint online about the limit” they said. So I did, mentioning the above and explicitly saying “I do not care about the limit but mainly about you telling me that the limit was raised”. Haha, got a message back saying that for an appeal about the limit I would have to……
Often I wonder about customer service. And why people are too stupid to understand me and my emails. Sometimes I wonder if it is me?! Then I show people my emails and they reassure me that it is not me - it is them!
I now replied, again via secure message, that I don’t care about the limit. I care about their service. 18 months ago their charged me for being 150 GBP over the limit for 24 hours and it took 10 emails to sort it and get my money back. Ridiculous.
Alright, I keep you posted.
Volker
Hello,
I often get asked what that picture on the top means and where it is coming from.
My wife and I were on honeymoon in Thailand, Chiang Mai, where at the end of the day this Buddhist monk walked in front of a grave yard, next to a massive temple. I took this picture and absolutely loved it.
Since cb consulting does offer spiritual consulting and holistic views on businesses, I decided to put that picture up. Also, it reminds me daily of my wish to expand my view on myself and others in a Buddhist way. 
Hello,
After a few months my new website for cb consulting is live!
I made a few changes and added more services. Now, cb consulting not only concentrates on coaching and on trainings but also adds the management consulting for strategy and marketing to its portfolio.
Also, particularly looking back at my old job, I gained so much knowledge and experience about the Online Marketing industry that I am more than confident to suggest marketing strategies for various services to clients. Just done that recently.
It crosses the line to my main job, working in Search Marketing, a little but to be honest, anyone who has not thought about Search Marketing for their site should do that immediately. That is almost the fundamental of the Internet these days.
I think I will enclose a chapter in my essay about islands. A dear friend of mine met me on Tuesday night and it was good speaking to him. He knows all about Buddhism and suggested, after me speaking about the islands, the following:
Volker, I think you should stay on the island where you feel happy and let other people come to your island too. Develop yourself from input from others, build bridges and network. That would increase your personal development and you increase the cross-fertilization with others.
I like that idea. Why do I always have to go back into the water? Always striving to find something new. I should settle down and relax. Now got a house ,-)
The idea of sitting there and looking inside myself and enhancing performance from within, that appeals to me. I will start working on that soon.
Hurray, the offer was accepted. Now, we have to be patient, surveyor to come, solicitor to sort things out, our financial advisor to sort things, moving date…..etc.
I just hope my landlady does not see that. She won’t be happy I guess. But, we got our dream house, we hope.
Stay tuned, pictures and infos soon!
So, now we spent a whole weekend looking at flats. Yes, they are great, they are your own, you can modify some, you cannot modify others, you cannot get what you want. One has a central heating, the other does not. One has single, the other double glazing. But others come with a power shower, are huge and cheaper than others.
Any logic in there? No, no logic in flats. They suit the needs but none so far totally excited us.
However, there was a 2 bedroom house, great downstairs but tiny upstairs. We now decided we look more into houses and try to find something in the budget that suits our needs. The only one we found so far is below, unfortunately not within budget.
Hello,
Jenny and I finally made up our mind. We are going to buy! Yes, we decided to stay in Beckenham and have our own little 2-3 bedroom place and make it the way we want. Prices are horrendous but och well, it can only get better!
So we are all excited to look at flats, and houses, and who knows what we get offered. We will keep you posted here and tag it as flat hunt. How excited am I….and Jenny too!!!!
Hello All,
Here is my new space, my new blog. I moved.
Shortly I will add more features, links etc, just give me some time!!!! Easter is soon ,-) Sorry, Jenny.
This blog covers some stuff for cb consulting, but also personal stuff, work stuff etc. So watch out for a revamped site in terms of bloggind and cb consulting - that site goes live Easter too!
Thanks for bearing with me.
Volker
Hello,
I set up email blogging now.
After I managed to send pictures from my phone I now manage to send emails from anywhere ending up in my blog…
Let’s see how it turns out?
Kind Regards,
Volker Ballueder, Business Development Manager
Hello All,
Monday morning. Made the 10 minutes to the station, totally soaked, it was raining like hell.
Waited for train and just as it was approaching my station a tree fell on the tracks, no more trains. So I was considering to go in on the other line to London but the train people said that that line was shut too.
Great, what a start in the week.
Here is the text from the BBC:
Monday 10 March WEATHER WARNING Wind gusts up to 75 mph are possible along the south coast of England this morning. Over Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly 85mph is possible from mid-morning. These winds will be damaging. Heavy rain is only just easing but 10-15cm of snow could still fall above 300m across highland Scotland. Valid until 2100GMT
Monday 10 March FLOOD WARNING There are severe flood warnings in force in the following areas: Southwest England (7). Further updates will appear here. Monday 10 March FLOOD WARNING There are 48 flood warnings in force across England and Wales. Further updates will appear here.
Funny enough the sun is shining now…..and I almost got hit by a roof tile this morning….
Trying out mobile blogging.100th entry at cb consulting.
Tracy Chapman sings about a “new beginning” and so do I. Then again, I am not singing, I am just writing about it.
On Friday I finally signed a new gym membership for a gym just around the corner from work. My work colleague goes every day and I aim to go 2-3 times a week and also, to go at the weekends at their branch in Beckenham.
Today I was in the gym at 8.21 am! Did some cardio and some weights, ordered more protein and I am all set to lose more weight (I admit I put some more on since the wedding) and to get fit again. Too easy to just sit in front of the telly and have a glass of vino.
Btw telly, I will pick up the old telly from a friend. So excited to have a bigger and better TV. On that note: I never got myself I new telly ever. Always bought old ones from friends and family.
So, watch this space for more info on my new beginning/gym adventure.
Hello,
I am still contemplating to move my blog to wordpress. Not sure if that is really much better or not and I am just getting fully used to the blogger dashboard.
So I changed my layout for now. You might have noticed that I am back and blogging, e.g. I found more of a direction now on what I want to write about.
I re-labeled the blog “Volker’s blurb” as I do not only write about things about cb consulting but also on my job at WebCertain. My day time job is as a Business Development Manager there and I really enjoy it. We work on Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click Management, Online PR and we do that for over 20 languages.
As a multilingual agency we also run our own summit: International Search Summit in May in London. This is very important to me because we are so unique that I see us being the leading multilingual search engine marketing agency. And from my work with one of the biggest Online Marketing shows worldwide, I have seen a lot of companies out there.
Linking to that work I might add some comments on SEO, PPC, Blogging and SEO (as I have done) and also will link some sites of interest. This is a fascinating topic! All of those are tagged as “SEM“.
I will also start blogging more about me and my thoughts and that will relate back to cb consulting again. As cb consulting’s website will be re-launched you might find more information on Marketing Strategies, more on Career Advise and much more on Spirituality. Please bear with me as I have much less time for all of that than anticipated.
Have a great Sunday.
Hello,
Above subject line kind of gives it away. Blogging and SEO - that is the topic I am speaking at the SMX in Munich. So, Volker Ballueder, is speaking there.
Now, in those two lines I already created 2 links to the event - that should increase their site ranking, should it not? But, would e.g. Google be happy to see me writing English content linking to a non English site? The “Volker Ballueder” link should still be ok as there is content about me at the other end.
Those are just a few things that blogs can do. What I find very interesting and useful in blogs is the ability to communicate with your target audience, your clients. You link deep into your website with content that is relevant, maybe a little hidden to most users. You then add social bookmarks to it, get involved in the blogging community, and “bang” you have more hits then you wish for.
That easy? Maybe not.
So, I hope to see you all in a few weeks time in Munich. I they put another great SMX programme together. Their SMX West event was great and very helpful for the Search Community.
Hope to see you all soon.
Volker Ballueder
Islands, Islands - Inseln.
Years and years ago, as some wondered why I write about islands on facebook, I came up with a theory that life is like going from one island, one level to another.
You start on one shore, going into the water, life, and struggle to reach a piece of land - an island. Now, after you reached the first island, you can get a breath of fresh air, relax and have reached some kind of “higher” level. However, you would not be happy with the first island, because you aim to be at the other shoreline (if there is one, but I come back to that later).
So as years go by you go from island to island reaching a higher level in your life. More experience, more confidence, more fresh air if you like, and you just enjoy reaching them. But then you have to go back into the water to reach a new level. Some people like the island they achieved and stay, but I am a person that needs to move on and find a new island.
Now, one point to make is that NLP, TA and other techniques, meditation, Buddhism and career/personal development give you new tools in order to reach new islands quicker or easier.
As an example I used that I am almost at the level that I jump from island to island using some jet skies. However, my aim is to get airlifted, have a yacht or fly. The higher I get on the level ladder, the better the tool, the quicker the way to the next level. It is almost like a race where you chose or learn to use different tools and the speed gets quicker as you move along.
The other point is that each level is giving you great satisfaction. Happiness. And, you do not know how long/wide the ocean is (N.B. nothing is linear). Is it just from Calais to Dover with a few islands or are there more islands, e.g. we are going from NY to London, or even further. This ocean might never end until you either get insane or you reached a level of the magician (you remember the story from Bandler and Grindler in Frogs to Princes about the islands ,-)).
So, whatever you decide to do, be patient, collect tools on the islands, go into the water to reach the next. Never give up, the sky is the limit really.
Currently, I reached a new island. I know what I want, how to get there but the water is still deep and dangerous. But I am up for it. Let me breath for another few weeks, then I will be out there again to reach the next island!
Have a fabulous night!
Hello,
For my talk at the SMX in Munich I am now trying to get my head around social bookmarking. Although not the main topic, it is somewhat related to it.
Social Bookmarks, e.g. digg.com or del.icio.us are fascinating, you can find them on the side navigation bar of the blog now too. You share the sites you like, you can also add it to facebook, and tag it yourself. Latter is the main drawback, whilst some might tag my blog as “spiritual ideas”, other might just call it “the big blabla” - whatever works, the more people bookmark your site, the better, as you get found more often and people visit your site. Ergo, you get a higher ranking too, if people link your site.
So, that is my first impression for now. Surely I digg on that topic again later.
Have a good day,
Volker
I forgot to add a video of myself from the last SMX West in St. Clara.
The link to the video is here: SMX VIDEO VOLKER.
It was my wife’s birthday that day and it was the 3rd year in a row we could not celebrate it together. But, there are many more birthdays to come.
Hello All,
I do not believe it is March! Where has the time been between Christmas and New Year? Where are we today?
My job is going well. Very well. I enjoy being involved in a SME with not only great potential for the company but also for my career - my first ever job outside the events industry. I am loving it!
Although, I still get head-hunter calls for the event industry. Interesting who thinks I would ever go back?
cb consulting is transforming. More into a Marketing Consulting Business with strong emphasis into spiritual and sustainable business. The launch of the new website might be another while but it will be all good.
I was at several search shows (SES, SMX) over the last few weeks and got great input on my talk for Munich. There I will be speaking!
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/speakers/VBallueder.shtml
About time for me to launch some social bookmarking on my site and get more involved in the community of search too. We shall see what the new cb consulting brings.
I keep you up to date. Enjoy the spring in the meantime!
ballueder
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