Category: Marketing

Great News & Valuable Lessons!

When I got home last night from a dating, judging the local county science fair exhibits with my husband I had a very welcome email in my email box……seems the TV “personality” who was challenging my grandson’s right to the domain has withdrawn his domain dispute!

Apparently he (or his attorneys) now believe that Billy is real and has legitimate rights to own the domain.

This has been a very interesting experience, and I certainly learned a lot – a lot more than I really wanted to know about the person who brought the complaint, but also a lot about the process itself.

If you’re interested – or if you find yourself facing the same thing and want to know how I handled it – you can read about it by clicking on this link.

That’s the Great News. The Good News is that it was withdrawn before I had to make all the copies and pay for shipping to Switzerland, so it’s not costing me as much as I thought it would.

However, I’ve already poured a bunch of time and money into gathering the evidence and having pieces of it overnighted to me, so there are still some expenses.

While I was dismayed in the beginning, thinking I had to find an attorney, not knowing what was needed to successfully respond to the challenge, knowing I would have to go learn a BUNCH (I’d have to read the prior cases and figure out which ones applied to us, as well as respond to every one of their allegations, and all within a 5000 word limitation), in the end it was a lot less of a burden than I had been afraid it would be.

In fact, by tackling it myself, I found I was up to the challenge. I did the research, I did the writing, I responded to each of their allegations, I gathered my evidence, I talked with attorneys (including his), I corresponded with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), and I continued to talk it over with my 15 year old grandson.

Ultimately, with each and every step forward I knew without a doubt we would win the dispute.

So on Friday I only had to dot a couple i’s and cross a couple t’s before sending it in. I had received my final piece of evidence (a certified birth record for the grandson). I planned to re-examine everything over the weekend in a final review and send it off on Monday or Tuesday to the WIPO Center for the Panel to decide.

Late Friday afternoon I received a call from one of the Complainant’s attorneys. At that point I was certain of prevailing in the dispute.

After a short discussion, during which he brought up (for the fourth time) the possibility of their purchasing the domain name, he told me he was 99.9% convinced that my grandson existed (!) and they would withdraw the complaint on Monday.

By end of day on Monday I had not received notice from the attorneys, so decided I would have to move forward. Tuesday evening, upon returning home from judging the local County Science Fair, the withdrawal email was in my inbox. Wednesday morning I received confirmation from WIPO and Wednesday afternoon my Domain Registrar had unlocked my grandson’s domain.

The process can seem tedious, and definitely if you are dealing with attorneys, it can be intimidating. Fortunately, though, the rules are fairly straightforward. If you have legitimate rights to the domain name, are capable of doing some research, and able to write in a fairly clear and understandable manner, you should be able to handle this yourself.

This is a permanent page that discusses how I handled our dispute, and some things to pay attention to.

Oh, and the lesson? Well, actually there were lots…the main ones being:

  • Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself, especially when you know you’re right.
  • Persevere, and hold steady.
  • Be nice, even when they’re not. (Okay, these guys weren’t bad once I actually talked to them – it just looked like it by the arguments they submitted in the dispute. Plus, they never bothered to call before filing the complaint.)
  • You don’t have to be the biggest dog on the block to win.

…plus a bunch more that I’m sure will come to me over the next few weeks!

The Blog has moved…and get another free ebook

Content of this post:

  • Cleaning Up
  • Moving On
  • Learning How to Communicate 

This past week I’ve been doing some housecleaning – I guess instead of Spring cleaning I’m doing the Fall cleaning thing.  I always did kind of feel like Fall was a new beginning – perhaps because of school restarting, and then, of course, my birthday is in late September.

So, I’ve been getting rid of lots of old stuff around the house – old files, old half-completed projects, old clothes, just about anything that didn’t feel “right” any longer. And it reminds me of an article I wrote some time ago that I called “Clearing Out Your Mental Attic”. 

Thoughts carry weight, unfinished projects require a certain amount of attention to maintain.  Letting go of what is obsolete (even if it was a good idea at the time) is the only way we can free up enough personal RAM in this information-overload era we seem to be stuck in.  And clearing out your space gives you room to reorganize in ways that suit you now.

So, part of the fun has been moving files and programs to my new computer (that had been sitting since I bought it in July), and reconstituting the projects that were a good idea and that still appeal to me. 

As a result I have pulled out some of my blogging information and decided to move this blog to the Career Life website, and to move my other blogs to the sites where they belong, too.  Once I got a little guidance from a very generous webdiva, I found it wasn’t as complicated as I thought it would be.

In the process of reading through some of the woefully backlogged business emails in my emailbox, I discovered another gem from Ken Evoy for those of you who are interested in improving the success of your website (or in starting one). 

This time it’s called, “Make Your Content PREsell“.  This book is kind of an off-shoot of “Make Your Site Sell”, but it focuses almost exclusively on one thing – communicating effectively with your audience.  Which is the secret to repeat visitors and satisfied customers who want to buy what you’re selling. 

And let’s face it, we’re all selling all the time – whether we’re trying to influence our children, win the job we want, share an important concept with others, or go out on a date with someone we’re attracted to, the only way we get the results we want is by communicating effectively with the other person.

And on the Internet it’s even more important because we lose out on the visual aspect of our interaction.  It’s limited to what’s on the screen, so it’s very 2 dimensional.  Learning how to satisfy our visitor/customer’s needs, and responding to their concerns, becomes a primary focus if we want people to stick around on the site, sign up for our newsletter, or keep coming back.

So here’s another opportunity to pick up a great little reference book – and no, it’s not 1500 pages this time!  Simply click here and you will be taken to the site.

That’s it for now.  Enjoy!

Katie