For those of you who use WordPress to promote your business or personal blog, here are some killer plugins that I would recommend for your site. These are plugins that I’ve used personally and for clients. They’ve each helped me expand and grow my business and personal blog.

Plus they’re all FREE!

1. My Brand – Lets you create your own custom login page with your own custom logo. Great way to personalize your site. Also a great tool if you build WordPress sites for clients.
2. Under Construction – Lets you work on your site behind the scene while visitors can only view your “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” page. It also gives you the option to fully customize it.
3. WPtouch – Automatically transforms your WordPress site into an iPhone app theme. Great way to allow mobile viewers to visit and view your content on your site conveniently from their mobile devices.
4. WordPress.com Stats – Lets you track the number of hits and pageviews to your site daily. You can monitor which pages get the most traffic, where traffic is coming from, and more! You’ll need to enter in your API key once it’s installed. The rest is smooth sailing.

The Fortune 5,000,000 is what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from 37signals describe as the countless small businesses and organizations that continue to go underserved by creative professionals. These small businesses (ie. local restaurants, clothing and boutique shops, bookstores, success startups, grocery stores, car dealers, film companies, etc.) make up the largest percentage of businesses in the US.

As stated in one of their posts…

“It’s time to care about the Fortune 5,000,000. Forget the enterprise market. Forget the mid-sized company market. Build for the smallest of small companies and you’ll find a thirsty, neglected market waiting for you.” -37signals

However, what we read about in newspapers, blogs and magazines, and hear about on the news and radio are the successes and failures of large and popular companies. These companies make the cover of the New York Times and CNN headline news. They boast hundreds and even thousands of employees with millions and billions of dollars in annual revenue. And for decades, the overarching focus for many creative professionals has been to market their creative services to these types of companies. Why? The bigger the company, the bigger the account.

But what continues to go underserved are the Fortune 5,000,000.

I’ve been doing some research of different groups of out-of-the-box people who have rallied around a cause or idea. Many of these groups have established businesses, organizations, and even churches that have made major impact in our culture and world over the last decade. I want to highlight one in particular…

“To Write Love On Her Arms”

I heard about this group of amazing young adults about 2 years ago. Their story and vision is beyond extraordinary! I didn’t realize that the name of their group is also their cause, which is, “To Write Love On Her Arms” or “To present hope and find help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.” And in some cases, it is to literally write love on the arms of those who have suffered from the issue of cutting. Cutting has become a common response to young adult and teen depression. And in some cases, it leads to suicide.

I recently finished reading a book by Seth Godin called Tribes. Towards the end, he says something that literally challenged me as a young leader. He said,

I was reading a post from Dustin Britt from Matchstic and I decided to comment on it. It may seem irrelevant, but I think the topic is great for discussion. The question that he presents is definitely one worth discussing. Here’s a snippet from his post…

Is Apple starting to oversell itself? I go to BestBuy, and there are now Apple computers for sale there; I go to Walmart and can buy an iPhone. And the way I feel when I see an iPhone at Walmart vs when I see one in the Apple Store or even on Apple’s website is a totally different vibe. Is Apple in danger of becoming Starbucks by starting to sell their products in places that don’t embody the same customer experience? Are they ultimately devalueing their brand by making this move?