Going to try something new for Monday's – will give you all a weekly wrap up from the previous week, just in case you have missed reading a post or watching a tutorial or video interview.

Love The Products & Services Posted On Tiffinbox? talked about how some of the reviews of products and services mentioned on Tiffinbox have actually been very useful to you and your photography business.

Robert Norman wrote a guest blog post on How To Use CardMunch To Manage Business Cards, an application for your iPhone that will scan and save your data. Pretty cool!

Leon Sandoval from Colorati came back to Tiffinbox for another guest blog post about < a href="https://tiffinbox.org/how-do-you-keyword-your-digital-images/">keyboarding digital files. He had two short tutorials on using Lightroom or Bridge, whichever works best for your workflow.

Blair Phillips has a handle on using video to attract high school senior clients to his studio. In his guest blog, “Video Speaks Louder Than Words,” he tells us just how he goes about it.

Lastly, I had an opportunity to speak and interview David Hobby, the photographer/teacher behind Strobist, a veritable repository for off-camera flash users. David also spoke about his new project “HOCO360,” photographing the people and events in Howard County, Maryland. Check it out!

P.S. This weekly wrap idea was highly influenced by the awesome Copyblogger blog. You ought to check it out too.

This guest blog post is by Robert Norman, a wedding photographer based in Trumbull Connecticut. He has 21+ years experience as a professional photographer and has photographed models, actors, President Obama, celebrities and, a zillion weddings. He does a fair amount of travel photography in an effort to keep his sanity. He has photographed events throughout Connecticut, New England, New York as well as Ireland, London and Italy.

I recently returned from Inspire Boston – a really cool 3 day conference in Concord, Massachusetts filled with learning and networking.

It also filled my pockets with a ton of business cards.

I’ve been researching a way for quite some time now to digitize all of my collected business cards. For years I kept them in an ever-expanding card binder; handy but not practical to reference on the fly. Last year I looked into Evernote, one of my favorite apps ever, which you should definitely have on your phone or use at home online!) But while I could scan cards, get them in there and access anywhere – there was no database per se where all the info would go into. It was just a bunch of scanned cards. (not to mention that their free service limits your monthly uploads, which I blew through by mistakenly scanning the cards at WAY too high a resolution! OOPS!! I have since upgraded to the $50 a year plan, which substantially increases your monthly storage space.)

Then I looked into Shoeboxed, but found their system of paying and mailing in cards so they could scan them kinda clunky and didn’t allow me to easily add a card or to. They also kept calling me which while potentially helpful, I felt quickly became too much a sales call for an upgrade or something of that nature.

I also kept seeing the NeatDesk scanner advertised, and almost hit the ‘buy now’ button on Amazon on many a late night shopping frenzy. But after reading the reviews, a lot of folks seemed unhappy with the NeatWorks software for the database. The unit is also $200-$400 which was expensive enough to give me pause.

So I think that I MAY have finally found the solution with CardMunch, an iPhone app that lets you photograph business cards and then adds it to both it’s own database as well as your contacts, automatically! They CLAIM that ‘real people’ (as opposed to Fake People) are on the other end checking that all the info is correct, which may be true but hard to believe as the app is free (maybe they hire prisoners?)

Still, it’s easy to use and actually pretty darn accurate. Only a few cards did not read properly – generally where something is REALLY small, or the contrast between the ink and paper are low. Also since you use 4 brackets to ‘frame’ your card before it automatically shoots it, certain oddly shaped or proportioned cards would not read (including my own card!). CardMunch is unhappy if the object doesn’t neatly fit in the specified area. If the card does a partial read, the contact comes up as ‘unknown contact’, which you can then go in and manually correct. Since the ‘real people’ are overseeing this sometimes it can take a couple of hours for the contact to be added to your phone. It also is suggested you use it only with an iPhone 4 as the camera focuses at the distance needed which the previous iPhones will not.

StillI gotta say – for a FREE app, CardMunch works pretty great, and I’ve even venture to say that I’d pay for it (did I say that out loud?)

Tell us, what do you use to corral your business cards? How do you keep track of all your contacts?

As an Adobe Community Professional, A.J. has been an enthusiastic representative in the creative community for several years. It's not surprising he's been ranked the #1 Adobe Instructor WORLDWIDE more than once. Students enjoy his straightforward teaching style, and the ability to communicate ideas in the simplest of terms. An active NAPP Evangelist, A.J. posts Adobe tutorial videos each week on YouTube. Follow A.J. on Twitter, post your questions to his Facebook page, and catch the latest insights on his blog.

Catchy huh? Yeah, I'm not once to mince words although, I generally like to spin a tale or two. It's my pleasure to join you today, and I appreciate the invitation Seshu extended to me quite some time ago. He is a gracious & patient host, and I hope my thoughts leave you wanting… Wanting more like Charlie Sheen's 2nd performance in Chicago, not wanting to leave like the angry mob that caught him in Detroit. Where was I?

Oh yes, harnessing your talent, your desire, that passion which many of us find in photography. It's rather difficult to focus on that passion when you're bogged down with the day-to-day running your photography business isn't it? There's the marketing, the office paperwork, the website, dealing with clients, to Facebook or Twitter, the list goes on, and yet many of today's photographers seemingly do it all. Maybe you're just starting out, and you haven't thought about your business plan or the logistics of making money from photography. Perhaps you're a seasoned pro, and you're wondering how you'll stay on top of all the changing technology, and the wolves scratching at your door. It's a wonder you get to take any pictures at all. That's okay, I'm here to tell you:

To discover your talents you have to recognize & acknowledge when you suck.

It's a common philosophy I share with my students, and many interpret it as a direct statement about their passion. Like Simon Cowell, I'm somehow there to obliterate their dreams. Let me clarify the statement with some editorial tweaks:

To maximize your talents you have to recognize & acknowledge where you suck.

I know plenty of folks who at some point were caught in company downsizing, and ended up being one of the lucky ones who had more job responsibility for the same or less pay. Oddly enough, I see the same types of folks launch their businesses with DIY zeal only to suffer from burnout or stagnant growth after a year. Yes, you have grand ambitions, some talents, maybe a kickass plan or two, but you're just one person. What you need are minions … I mean a support group … umm … network –- You need to develop your network. Just like that lone crusader Batman had a sidekick, and spent some time with other superheroes in the Justice League of America. (Wait … what do you mean a comic book reference kills my credibility?) Focus–a network.

Leverage your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.

When I talk to photographers about networking events many of them mention social mixers based around getting clients or connecting with peers. Generating leads is a must, and mentoring other photographers or finding a mentor is a wonderful thing. However, those connections do not address the immediate issues of office management, marketing or managing your website. I highly recommend finding those people at the networking events they attend. Where do you start? Your local Chamber of Commerce is a good place. Another good place is Meetup.com. Any hobby, popular fad or obscure interest can be found listed at Meetup.com. The best part is meetup groups are specifically designed to get people together live and in-person. Now I know what you're thinking, “That's a good way to generate client leads!” Point to you dear reader, that's a takeaway bonus for hangin' out with me this long.

But let's stay focused. I don't want you networking without purpose. What you should be doing is building your network. Your team of professionals. The people that you can call to handle the portions of your business that are really best suited to be handled by someone other than you. If you suck at website design, then by all means hire someone to do your website. And if you're great at website design, why in the world are you spending your time as a photographer? My point is by building your network, you can focus your energy at the really important tasks. My good friend Glyn Dewis is a fine example. He had a hand in building his first website, and it wasn't bad. It got the job done. See for yourself. However, Glyn's passion for photography literally oozes into everything else he does, so a good website wasn't good enough. Now he probably could have spent the man-hours himself building & retooling his website, but he found someone better suited to the task. Scott Kublin is another fine example. You don't know Scott? He enjoys HDR photography. He's friends with another HDR guy–Trey Ratcliff. *heart pounding from sheer awesomeness* You can read the backstory on Scott's About Me page, but the summary is Scott wanted to learn HDR and Trey needed some top-notch SEO for his website.

Leverage your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.

Thank you for taking a moment to read this post. As a fellow-overachiever-one-man-band-DIY-caffeine-infused-control-freak, I know it's tough sharing some of the parental responsibility for your growing business. However, it's the best way to ensure your business does grow. I want to thank my partner in creative shenanigans, J Schuh for illustrating my thoughts in the opening cartoon. Feel free to buy a t-shirt if we've tickled your funny bone. Oh, and where are my manners?

Here's a quickie Photoshop tutorial for you:

Tiffinbox, at its core, is about providing solutions and resources for photographers, by building a community of “go-givers.”

Will you join me in making this happen?

For 2011 and beyond I am looking to grow Tiffinbox into something much bigger. As the diversity of guest blogs have shown in 2010, I know that a group effort is much more interesting for all.

7 Things You Can Expect From Tiffinbox In 2011?

1) Video Interviews with photographers

2) Tips on how you can use social media to grow your photography business

3) Portfolios from emerging photographers that will inspire you

4) Reviews of the following:
– popular Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets
– photography equipment
– workshop DVDs, seminars and conventions
– online solutions to streamline your studio workflow

5) More fun contests and giveaways of products you will actually use

6) Opinion-editorials on a variety of topics (some even controversial because we still need to discuss them!)

7) A brand new design that will make it easier to find and share information and connect with other photographers

Seeking Your Support

So, if you are just starting out, or, you've been in the photography industry, for a while, I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, suggestions, tips or heck, even strong opinions about one topic or another, please feel free to email me at – seshu at tiffinbox dot org.

I might be able to answer your question(s) or someone who has guest blogged here might jump in. Or, even better, someone who hasn't written for Tiffinbox before might offer an answer in the form of a quick article.

a) Guest Blogging For Tiffinbox

My heartfelt thank you's to ALL the 2010 guest bloggers here on Tiffinbox.

If you are interested or even ready to guest blog for Tiffinbox, feel free to submit your ideas now. I am scheduling guest posts for 2011 and will publish them in the order they are received. The sooner you send me your pitch, the sooner your post will show up on the site.

If you have been following my Twitter stream @PicSeshu, you'll know that I am pretty good about promoting the articles you see here on Tiffinbox.

The benefits of guest blogging can be summarized by these three points:

1) Helps you take the first steps in establishing yourself as a credible authority
2) Link back to your site from mine (happens to be a PR5 site)
3) Gain a loyal following of your own if you publish regularly here

b) Tiffinbox began as a labor of love. It will remain so for the most part, but I do have expenses to deal with. If you find the content here valuable, please consider the following 7 ways to support this site:

1) Express yourself. Write a guest blog post.

2) Make a small monthly donation of $1 or more (my PayPal address is – fei8ht at gmail dot com)

3) Buy the e-books you see on the right hand side of this site. I wouldn't recommend anything if I didn't think it was of value. Yes, I make a small commission off of each sale.

4) Buy all your camera equipment from Adorama using this affiliate link: http://www.adorama.com/?kbid=66174. Their prices are competitive and their customer service is awesome!

5) If you are into blogging yourself, consider using WordPress and the Thesis Theme (great for SEO) and Hostgator for your hosting needs. Go on click on those affiliate links and sign up.

6) Help Me Spread the word! Tell your friends, blog about Tiffinbox, Tweet or use Facebook to mention a specific blog post.

7) Sponsor a series of posts in a particular month. Contact me for details on ways that I can help publicize your company in exchange as well.

The end goal at Tiffinbox is to create a community of passionate photographers who are looking to openly learn from each other, elevate their craft and thrive in their businesses together.

Thoughts, reactions, responses, suggestions or opinions? Sound off below in the comments. I would love to hear from you, especially if it is constructive. [grin]

Happy New Year To You All!

That's right, I am an Apple lifer. Over the last 20 years, I have bought a number of Apple computers. I am a huge fan of their operating system, their user interface, their attention to design and packaging … well, essentially, everything that Apple has produced. Nearly everything. For the record, I did not buy those multi-colored iMacs when they came out. They looked like igloos on drugs. When the iPhone came out three years ago, I stood there salivating and watching my watch as the seconds ticked down on my Sprint contract. When I finally got an iPhone, I wasn't disappointed, save for the battery consumption issue which still leaves me smarting.

In about 10 hours, Apple is set to launch a tablet-like device. Will it do for book authors and newspaper publishers what the iPod did for the music world? How will the new Apple tablet (iSlate, iPad or iTablet as it may be called) revolutionize your life? Comment below to let me know.

I am visiting India at the moment, but the new Apple device will be one of the first things I will check out when I get back to the US. I look forward to reading your thoughts on this potential game-changer.

If you are really intrigued by this launch, point your browser to Mashable and watch for their commentary.