A loyal reader asks: My company is courting a client in the pharmaceutical industry. What’s my responsibility in this process? To find reports that the government has written about one of their more obscure drugs. Any tips on how to tackle this quickly?

We know exactly where to send you.

Google continues to hold us captive – but we’re not complaining. We suggest you pay a visit to Google’s specialized U.S. Government Search, which searches sites of organizations including the FDA, NIH and others. And to further focus your results, choose “advanced search” and limit the file type to .pdf documents. (Or if you’re brave, just add this to the end of your search: filetype:pdf and it will limit the search to pdf documents. Want to see if there are any PowerPoints? change pdf to ppt. It’s fun, try it!)

You won’t be disappointed. Good luck!

A client of ours just launched a very cool and very important website for Family Violence Prevention Fund –

RESPECT!

Check it out.

Not only is the message important, but it’s very cool to see how they incorporated some groovy tools. See them also on Facebook, YouTube, Flicker, Team Sugar.

If you’re so inclined, spread the word!

Ever wish you had the time to track down an extra two tickets to see your favorite band, or find the best deal on a new flat screen, or better yet — the perfect dinner date? Check out Yotify.com. Its a free personal web scouting service you’re going to love. They do all the hard work and all you have to do is look through the results. You plug in all your criteria and Yotify will alert you hourly or daily of new postings from your favorite sites like Craigslist, Flickr, shopping.com, linkedin and more. You can get your friends in on the gig as well. Sweet!

A loyal reader asks: I’m having a Scottish party. Don’t laugh. I like theme parties. What foods should I serve?

Dear reader, we’re not laughing. Not much, anyway.

We found an amazing food site! Practically Edible.

If you drill down through the Cuisines section, you’ll find Scottish food and you’ll see this:

Scots get tired of their food being summarized as haggis, whiskey, deep-fried Mars bars, and shortbread in tartan tins.

Yet there is something to it. Haggis is oatmeal and offal, both of which the Scots both eat a lot. Scots are very pround of their whiskey. And as for shortbread, Scots really do have a sweet tooth.

In general, Scottish food is seen as being very heavy. There are many jokes of it all being “artery clogging”. Not even a vegetable such as cabbage is a major player in the Scottish diet.

And you’ll also see this:

Comfort foods in Scotland are soups, casseroles and steamed puddings. In November 2003, the “Food Trust of Scotland” surveyed 6,000 Scots to determine what their top ten Scottish foods were. The results were as follows, in order from the most popular down:

1. Cranachan
2. Aberdeen Angus beef
3. Smoked salmon
4. Scotch broth
5. Venison casserole
6. Haggis with neeps and tatties
7. Farmhouse cheese and oatcakes
8. Roast lamb
9. Clootie dumplings
10. Baked salmon

And on this wonderful site (our new favorite? I don’t know – we like so many!), you’ll also find extensive information in these categories:

• encyclopaedia
• recipes
• biographies
• foodcalendar (now this has some funny stuff!)
• tips
• conversions

Check it out. Gotta run. Getting hungry.

Chris Brogan compiled a free ebook on personal branding called Personal Branding for the Business Professional (pdf format). It runs just about 15 pages (including the cover) and contains everything from strategy advice to some considerations to over 100 tactics and ideas on what to do next.

I liked what I read, and since Chris asked that if I did I’d consider blogging a link back to this post so that people know where to get the ebook.

You probably know a lot of this stuff. But it’s worth a read. Don’t we all get around to our own branding and promotion last?

Note: the illustration is from Chris’ site.