As I come to the end of Colin Powell’s autobiography, I find myself even more impressed with the man than I had been before reading his story. The son of immigrant parents of modest means, Powell worked his way up to the highest rank in the US military, eventually becoming the first African-American to serve as Secretary of State in the US.

The first to admit that I do not agree with all of his decisions or all of his politics, I still find myself looking to the man as an example of how to work hard, think clearly and act decisively. I can learn a lot from his example.

I’d like to share General Powell’s Rules which he developed over this 35 years of active military service and which are included as an appendix to his autobiography.

1. It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
2. Get mad, then get over it.
3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your positions falls, your ego goes with it.
4. It can be done!
5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
8. Check small things.
9. Share credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Powell’s rules strike me a relevant for running a small business as well. I especially like the emphasis of perpetual optimism: I try to attack each day with a glass half-full approach. Knowing that such an approach helped Powell reach the pinnacle of professional success goes a long towards convincing me of the value of that approach.

If I have learned one thing since starting this blog in 2007, and in running the daily blog at chickenmonkeydog, it is this: when inspiration hits, capture that feeling, those thoughts or that picture right away. Don’t let the moment escape and leave you lamenting “Only if …” Generating quality blog content for our small businesses is tough; we cannot afford to let any good content ideas slips away.

Four tips for capturing inspiration

So, to help improve our ability to harness those sudden burst of inspiration, I have shared a few tips to ensure that we capture those inspirational moments in a timely fashion.

1. Write it down

In the technical age, there is still great value in keeping a pen and paper handy at all times. With a little notebook and pen stuffed into our pocket or bag, we can easily jot our thoughts down. Write as much as we need to capture the full thought and spirit of the idea. If we have the opportunity to do so, take as much time as we need to be complete. It is time well spent.

2. Send an email

If we’ve access to the internet, we can email ourselves the key points from our brainstorm. Depending on our work flows, having our thoughts in an email can help us organize and store them too. An added benefit of this approach is that we’ll have these thoughts in the cloud in case we want to refer back to them later. We should use a idea-specific subject line to help us find the email later.

3. Leave a voicemail

For old school people whose phone only makes telephone calls and sends text messages, we can call and leave ourselves a voicemail. In just a few minutes — or longer if we need it — we can leave ourselves a detailed auditory note that we can check and re-check later. Don’t forget to transcribe the voicemail when we have time. This saves us from mourning our accidental deletion of that message.

4. Snap a photo

If we have a smart phone, we can capture the inspiration with a photo. We can use the camera to take pictures of more than just smiling faces and captivating landscapes. We can photograph anything to save it as a visual record: signs, ads, meeting minutes, business cards, whatever! We can always type up whatever notes we’ve photographed at a later date.

Organizing those notes

While the first half of this blog post focused on capturing our creative ideas and inspirations for our small business blogs, the second half deals with storing and organizing the notes we generated documenting those ideas.

For the smart phone user, I have a wonderful recommendation: Evernote. It is a great app for capturing, storing and searching all the little notes we generate during our business day. Integrating smoothly with both the iPhone and the computer, Evernote allows for all notes to be titled, tagged and stored in the cloud. Check out the overview video (for Mac) from Evernote below:

With the right tools in place, and a bit of practice, we will be well on our way to writing better blogs posts as we will have a method for capturing and storing ideas and inspirations for blog topics as and when they hit us.

Today’s after work drink of choice. Bottles all around the office.

By the way, if you’re a craft beer lover, be sure to check out Pintley, an app for rating, sharing and recommending quality beer.

See? It’s not only small business blogging that interests me. Ha-ha!

A late convert to the wonders that are Apple products, I wanted to pay a small tribute to the man whose influence on my own career flows through my office on a daily basis.

Others will be more eloquent in their eulogies. Others will be more profound in their reflections. My own tribute to Steve Jobs is small and will definitely go unnoticed by most of the world. Yet that is a testament to the ubiquitous presence of Steve Jobs in this world — he spread design, innovation, enthusiasm and more into every corner of the world.

Photo: Shot on and emailed from an iPhone 3Gs. Edited and posted to the internet on a MacBook Pro. Says it all, doesn’t it?

Using the iPad, I managed to capture a simple photo that seems to capture the spirit of those late summer evening drinks on the deck that I do so love. Watching the sun set, the air just a bit cool and the leaves beginning to ponder changing colors.

Although I am not a sports writer by any stretch of the imagination, I thought I would do something a bit different this season as the Barclay’s Premier League and the UEFA Champions League get underway: I am going to offer my own prediction about how the Gunners will fare this season.

I follow Arsenal pretty closely, regularly reading the news about the team, the players, transfers and injuries. There are definitely people who know more than I, yet there are surely those who call themselves sports fans who know less. So I am somewhere in between.

In thinking about whether or not my prediction will add anything to the sporting conversations this season, my feeling is that it will. Sports fans argue about everything often with little or no understanding or knowledge of the facts. Why should I be any different?

Therefore, without further ado, my prediction:

Arsenal will finish in 7th place in the league and will progress far into the Carling Cup campaign, but alas, will not win it. There will be no Champions League or FA Cup trophies for us this year.

There! I’ve said it. I’ve written it down. I’ve published it. Now all we need to do is wait to see if I am correct.

Through my own delays and the meanderings of a busy work schedule, I only registered and insured by motorcycle earlier this month. It was silly to take so long, but at least now I am out there on the road. Riding motorcycles is what summer is all about.

The riding this summer would not be possible without the amazing work of Mark Smit, of M and M Motorsports.  Mark is an amazing mechanic.  His skilled hands breathed life back into my ’96 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic after it had been parked in a garage for seven years.  Mark is a quality and honest mechanic, if ever there was one.

There is a great brewery in the City of Brotherly Love that has produced some wonderful beers for us here in the colonies. Crafted by Yards Brewing, the Ales of the Revolution are inspired by the original recipes of some of America’s first political leaders.

With the beer purchasing laws in Pennsylvania, I picked up a mixed case of Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce, Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale and General Washington’s Tavern Porter. Although I’ll leave it to true aficionados of Pintley to produce a formal review, I will tell you that these fine craft beers pack flavor, texture and atmosphere into twelve ounce bottles like few others. These are strong drinks too: Tavern Spruce is 5.0%, Tavern Porter is 7.0% and Tavern Ale weighs in with an impressive 8.0%. The Ales of the Revolution offer a varied approach for those with a wider palette. Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale is a delicious, refreshing golden ale, while General Washington’s Tavern Porter is a dark, ruby-reddish brown Philadephia-style porter. Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce is a unique rich brown ale, flavored with spruce.

My ‘thumbs-up/thumbs-down’ review: Two thumbs up for all three.