Rake vs Peace Broom Competition: Peace Broom WINS! Moving more leaves, further, and leaving fewer behind. The added “air power” blows and sucks more leaves, where rakes require more strokes, and more leaves are missed by gaps between the tines.
Year Round Tool – Avalanche of Wind
Peace Broom does a lot more than just blow leaves. As a year round tool, you will want to keep it handy for all sorts of jobs around the yard: clear your patio of leaves in seconds, rake & blow leaves from your lawn, clear away debris from garden beds, and load it into a wheelbarrow or garbage can, and you can easily sweep a few inches of snow off your walkways, patio, driveway, and your vehicles, too. You can even use it as a squeegee to sweep away water puddles, or to quickly clear a flood accident, like an over-filled pool or hot tub. Stoke a camp fire, and clear a campsite of leaves and debris in minutes. Who needs a leaf blower when Peace Broom is so quick and easy to use? Brooms and rakes are great, but our added shield catches & directs powerful airflow currents that aid each sweep or rake stroke giving you greater cleaning power. Peace Broom’s ability to catch and direct airflow is even backed by NASA aeronautic research. Rockets and planes were designed and tested using the same principles. The process seems obvious enough. However, the amount of air pushed & pulled along with each sweep stroke also creates a powerful, invisible vacuum that, all-combined, pull surrounding air along with it creating an avalanche of wind. Walls and the ground surface aid to focus & concentrate the airflow you create, allowing you to blow leaves and debris out from corners, away from walls, and out from under furniture. Sure, Peace Broom is great for clearing leaves in the fall, but use it as a year round tool, and it will make your life easier, clean up faster, and you’ll have more fun doing it.
The Leaf Blower Rake – Entrainment
Entrainment: Leaf blowers have nothing on Peace Broom’s ability to add a gust of air, and a powerful suction vacuum to every rake/sweep stroke. Entrainment is the process of not only directing the moving air, but also by sucking in the surrounding air to boost your air power. No gas, no cords, no fumes, no noise, no hassle.
Peace Broom Comes Fully Assembled
Peacebroom is balance
Balance is everything. Quality and cost. Finally decided how to attach a pole to a shield to catch air. That’s basically all Peacebroom really is. Uniquely subtle, as it is powerful, sweeping the air simply moves more stuff, more easily, than sweeping the ground.
Let the wind you create do more with less effort, and less resistance. Sustainability for the environment and the business, competitively producing products made in America.
These are all important aspects of balance that personify Peacebroom. There is balance in how you swing the tool, from how it was designed, the materials, and to how it fits into enjoying your spaces more peacefully, in harmony with nature.
Balance in also a theme to the marketing, branding, and social media push that this very blog is an integral part. In seeking to resonate with people, obvious groups like “ban leaf blowers” people who back legislation banning noisy gas and electric leaf blowers from disturbing their peace have been very supportive and encouraging.
Turning a negative into a positive, peace broom offers early morning and late night, or anytime, options with real power, but no noise or smell to disturb you, your neighbors, or pets. There is also a balance in how you care for your spaces and the trade offs of what you give up for what effort you put into it. Peace broom helps keep you balanced.
Clearing narrow side walk Peacebroom
Here, at the opposite end of the patio and narrow side walk surrounded by some beautiful Hollyhocks, I show how handy Peacebroom is in tight spaces, clearing the narrow side walk. Notice how hard it blows the plants at the lower right and left edge of the frame. Hear the doors on the shed rattle. Even the strong winds here in the Sierras never rattle the shed doors like that. Again, this is right before mowing the grass to pick everything up. The strong power of the airflow it is generating is easy to see.
20 Second Patio Leaf Blower Peacebroom Challenge
After filming this, the winds and a quick rain just came up and quadrupled the leaves you see here. This time, I blow them into the yard quickly. It takes a bit more to corral them into a pile or corner, but it is pretty simple, with just a little practice.
Getting them all under the hot tub stairs is a feat of genius, and serious fun.
Some people like their leaves “picked up”, and sometimes you just want a clear patio. We mowed the lawn after this video, letting the lawn mower pick them up. But later, in this photo, Becky prefers to keep her freshly mowed lawn free of more leaves, if only for a few days before giving in to the deluge. The wisteria leaves grow so fast that green leaves, obscured by other green leaves, soon lose their green and fall all throughout the summer. Long before the major fall drop, we enjoy a steady, never ending, supply of wisteria leaves. Oh, and the shade and atmosphere it provides is priceless.
To pick them all up: Start at the other end of the 30’x8′ patio, blow inwards from the grass, and down along the walls to dislodge and scoot out all the leaves against the wall, under furniture, blocked by obstacles, and tucked in corners. Continue to work your way to the other end of the patio. Then, slowly sweep smaller piles like a broom, occasionally drawing back to blow just a little to get the smaller debris. Pick up the blade higher after each blowing stroke on the backswing, or turn it sideways on the return, to keep the airflow moving (and the leaves going) where you intend them to go. You can also use the shield as a “shield” against the wind to protect what you just swept up. In fact, you can use the wind to your advantage, as well as try to work against it (not as easy, but still fun).
Morning Clearing of Leaves – Why Peacebroom Rocks!
Summer has arrived along with beautiful wisteria on the pergola, and the morning clearing of leaves that has begun to give us a never ending (I’ve swept it 3 times today, all before 4 pm) supply. Just a few sweep strokes clears the mess away, leaving nice, clear space to walk on and enjoy. You won’t disturb the peace or annoy the cat, dog or neighbors. Anytime, early or late, Peacebroom is handy, fast, and fun to use. Make it your next favorite tool. #nextfavoritetool
My Social Media Tools Exposed – Updated 1/28/2016
Where am I? Might be a better title. 4 plus years into this start up and trying desperately to get serious about my social media presence, branding, and close to producing an actual product or 2, or 3, to sell wholesale, and retail.
Every day there are areas to address that I am not an expert in solving. So, I prioritize. What first? Well, it’s kinda like a fire that is spreading. The more I learn, the more I know that I need to know, but don’t. If I ask for direction, I can assume that each area of importance will and does have immense impact on the success of each of the others. Like pillars supporting an overhead structure, my take is that my website should be sound first (it isn’t). Then, connecting my website presence to social media…? Yes, I know quite a bit more about this now.
I can say that I now (still don’t) have access to all the right tools, apps, apps that work within and between other apps, cutting edge advice from top performers, and I get the feeling that I have been trying to drink from a fire hose to learn it all. Ok, I’ve scratched the surface pretty hard anyway. And, I have several take aways for start ups seeking to launch their products and services while they grow and coordinate their social media presence.
No, I’m no expert, I’m far more dangerous than that. I don’t have the luxury of actually knowing what I am doing. I just have to get it done. The funny part is, all the so called experts are just trying to keep up just like me. There are a ton of free products out there to help you and I will share with you what I can about the ones I am working with and my take on how that’s going for me. Please take this opportunity, everyone trying to market your tools to me and everyone else, to correct my thinking and steer me in better directions, point out when I am flat out wrong, stupid, or just off base, which may be often.
Top of the mind tools that I use: connecting social media and auto re-post on another platform apps that I use a lot, but have unique advantages and problems:
1) Instagram, love it, hate how it posts to Twitter directly, also using Layout, a sub-app within an app, and yes, they get confusing (something about who owns them…?). Solution: use IF (IFTT, IfThisThenThat, also Do, Do Camera – eh, getting confusing, you had me at IF and IFTT) confusing name, but it posts my pics and vids so they actually show up in the Twitter feed, where Instagram slights Twitter by only providing a lame link. Nuff said here. Layout from Instagram is fast and great for adding collage pics to post.
2) Buffer, there is Hoot Suite and others, but Buffer was easy to sign into, has easy to use browser links, and is free so far and works great. It has it’s own issues, but I can use my iPhone 6 or my Apple laptop to repost most anything I find. Again, native inclusion of most all graphics and title work best on FaceBook, where Twitter again is a lame text link, unless you go out of your way to copy the picture and upload it separately for Twitter posting, which seems to work well, and I get more retweets, depending on the subject matter. Take away for all new tools: make signing up fast and easy using FaceBook or Twitter, and make connecting all social media accounts just as easy, or you will not get us to use your tools. Period. *I may unfairly bash or praise tools that I tried before they improved or screwed up their sign up processes, but ease of use is mandatory.
3) CrowdFire provides easy unfollows to those not following back. Bitly to shorten a link to your website, FB page, and save you tons of Twitter characters. Stats iPhone app can track your progress relative to a competitor or benchmark company, product by Twitter name. Rebel Mouse, I want to use more, but remain impressed by the fact that they email you your recent posts and encourage you to forward the email to your email base, which will help grow social media and still connect to those that you can only reach by email, and make you look awesome to those not paying much attention to your Twitter and FaceBook post, but might be greatly influenced by email.
I am writing this post directly in WordPress, but have also found other ways to post, if I can just remember them and use them. Hint, reminder emails that encourage usage of your tools will prompt us to do more than just sign up and forget about your tools. Hey, there’s a lot to remember. Oh, I have a WordPress app on my iPhone 6. Maybe, Ill look at it again. **Update 1/28/2016: I just don’t use it, but it works pretty good at posting, if you are away from your computer, and want to get something out fast. Nice to know that I have this option, mobile.
4) Other impressive tools and companies: Post Planner, helps you find stuff to post and has great analytics. I get stuck on some bloggers posts and try to find stuff on other platforms, but tend to do well with popular posts, and these guys do that for you, probably better than I do on my own, but I don’t want to look like a drone that only posts popular stuff. Commun.it provides a great dashboard combining accounts and adds a way to thank people and identify influencers. I intend to see what else I can do with this one. **Update 1/28/2016: Commun.it is awesome, and makes me look good and responsive, which I pretty much am anyway, but they make sure you don’t miss stuff. Considering upgrading for more goodies from them.
5) **Update 1/28/2016: This is not a tool, but a sage guide through the mess that is social media. Gary Vaynerchuk is by far the most helpful voice out there. The #AskGaryVee Show is my favorite way to consume his topical, in-depth insiders take on everything social media related. You might find yourself going back to older episodes, again and again, to learn even more.
Progress Update: New Narrow Shape
A lot has been happening lately. For one, the shape of the Peace Broom has changed. It is now long and narrow, easier to handle, and store, adding a bit more control and stability as a dustpan or loader, and a more concentrated focus area for blowing, sweeping and raking. A simple mistake in flute direction on a prototype has quickly transformed the shape of things to come. **Note the legacy holes in the woodpile loader video (just posted to the Home Page), we don’t waste prototypes here!
We are also ramping up our social media presence, growing our contact and follower base, preparing for crowdfunding and selling our first products. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, keep “liking”, “sharing”, and “re-posting” our posts! Thank you all very much for your support! We need even more!!
Epiphanies are welcome, as branding and marketing will need to center in on early adopters to co-promote our launch efforts. I will try my best to make our posts as engaging and entertaining as possible. After all, this is the coolest tool to hit the market in some time. Let’s just say, it’s “Swifter than a Swiffer®” and we’ll let the world judge for itself.