Maya Angelou at the Discovery 2000 conference.
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If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. -Dr. Maya Angelou

It’s not that you have to like something, of course, but you just have to know that you have to be willing to adjust and change your attitude. What is something you don’t like? What would you like to change right now?

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I was just on the phone with Jamie Teasdale, owner of a small business and entrepreneur development and assistance consulting company in Portland Oregon and one of the topics we spoke about was building a presence for your brand and personality online.  I guess its serendipitous, because after the call, I came across this blog post by Andrew Gay of SocialVideoLabs which I’ve paraphrased below.  The original blog post you can reach below the first three tips:

Top 60 Ways To Build Influence Online July 6, 2010 By Andrew J. Gay

I just got off of a really neat call. One of my friends on twitter @mikestenger told me about it earlier today, so I checked it out. It was an informational project called The Influencer Project. It’s purpose was simple, to hold the shortest marketing conference ever.
What did they do?

Basically they pooled 60 of the most successful people in social media and had them each do a 60 second spot on How to build digital influence online…
So, being totally out of my normal character, I actually took some notes and here is what they said. By the way, these are not quotes, just my notes.

Anne Holland

Anne Holland - Founder, Which Test Won, Marketing Sherpa: Improve the conversions of landing pages by improving buttons. Get rid of all unnecessary buttons like clear form buttons and other distracting buttons. Change the copy on your buttons. Make your buttons bigger, use stand out colors, and keep them above the fold.


Mike Volpe

Mike Volpe – Hubspot: Mike talked about transparency. Share things about your company. Share the things you are doing, don’t worry about someone stealing your ideas. Also, don’t be afraid to share the bad things as well. Share things that worked for you and things that didn’t work out so well. Don’t be afraid to show your mistakes. Being transparent gives you a trust factor that will build your influence online.


Michael Port
Michael Port - Author “Book Yourself Solid”: Your consistency demonstrates your commitment. You must be able to show others that you are commited to what you do. In order for you to have any influence over others they must believe that you are committed, otherwise why should they be?

Social Media Manager Wanted – Learn how and why this in-demand job and career skillset is the newest way to jump into the Social Media Marketing Services arena!”

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New Music Friday featuring Roman Candle

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Beyond just Tweeting and Facebooking, I love to discover new music and artists. While searching for a custom social network application for a client in Portland, I came across this artist on Bandcamp.com.

You can listen to the track or visit their Bandcamp.com page – Roman Candle featured song here on the blog “I Woke Up This Morning.”

Enjoy, comment and share! Happy New Music Friday! :-)

Roman Candle Independent Band Indie Pop

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Social Media Manager Wanted – Learn how and why this in-demand job and career skillset is the newest way to jump into the Social Media Marketing Services arena!”

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Portable eye exams coming to cell phones near you

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

MIT Media Lab invents portable eye exam in cell phoneFrom MIT Media Lab, video reveals new device anyone with cell phone can use -

MIT Media Lab researchers have created a quick, simple, and inexpensive way to use mobile phones to measure refractive errors of the eye, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and age-related vision loss. Until now, these measurements have only been possible using specialized equipment operated by a trained professional.

My newest favorite website to watch videos at is The New Media Lab Video Podcast from MIT.  And in the June 2010 #48 episode, one of the teams has developed a prototype system to enable users to get a very accurate eye prescription analysis with a cell phone, software and special eye reading device. Watch below:

It’s amazing what’s being developed daily throughout the world and some of the most advanced, technological feats are occurring right here in the US.

Have you heard of the SixthSense personal user interface device? This device allows the user to use ANY surface as the screen and your fingers track the action. It’s hard to explain, so just visit SixthSense inventor Pranav Mistry‘s website (he’s also a former MIT student from India) and watch the videos. You can also catch his ground-breaking presentation at Ted.com.

You WILL be blown away and be amazed. Think of Tom Cruise in “Minority Report.” The stuff in movies is now here and it’s real! How cool is that?!

Social Media Manager Wanted – Learn how and why this in-demand job and career skillset is the newest way to jump into the Social Media Marketing Services arena!”

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If you’ve ever had to deal with explaining the “bird and the bees” and having “the talk” with your child, here’s a little humor to brighten your day.

From TEDTalks: Despite her best efforts, comedian Julia Sweeney is forced to tell a little white lie when her 8-year-old begins learning about frog reproduction — and starts to ask some very smart questions.

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Be the change you wish to see in the world – Gandhi

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Change is a good thing, even when it sometimes can be hard.  But if you wish to see change, it starts with you.

What’s best for you, may not be best for someone else, but the bottomline is if you can begin with the change that you would want to see elsewhere, start within.

== 

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In an article by Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender, he lists the Top 10 Social Media Predictions for 2010. I believe that online reputation management, both on an individual personal level and on a business or company level, will be more prudent, now more than ever.  Do you have Google alerts set up for your name? Do you simply at least do online searches of your name, your family members, children and/or your business or company you work for?

Make sure you have an online reputation policy and plan in place, to be able ward off any negative information and also to help “push” up positive information as well. There are ways to do it yourself, but services for a very nominal fee exist as well, to help with daily and monthly monitoring of your brand.

Here’s Michael Fertik’s Top 10 Social Media Predictions for 2010 in its’ entirety below:

2010: The year of Atomic Branding

Source: ZDNet Date: 12/29/09
By:
Michael Fertik

2010 will see the arrival of what we can call Atomic Branding. Thought leader predictions tend toward the conclusion that we will see a personal brand renaissance in 2010. But let’s expand that. Atomic Branding is a concept that captures the many-layered and concentric-circled features of human brands.

You have a personal brand. You have a professional brand. Your family has a brand. Your neighborhood has a brand. Your small business has a brand. And all of them are tightly connected. At its most atomic level, atomic branding starts at the unit of the individual human.

I predict that 2010 is the year of Atomic Branding and the “business of one” — the birth of and focus on the individual’s personal and professional brand in the world — that will require a new type of digital promotion, control, and security. Individuals will yearn for online privacy, something that is under increasing threat as social media sites gather and publish more detail about us every day. We will all need to manage our online reputations.

Here are my Top Ten Social Media Predictions for 2010:

1] Resumes will become obsolete: Job seekers will be evaluated in part as brands who live online, rather than as bullet points on a page. Hiring managers will rely little on submitted resumes and will instead Google their candidates, expecting to find a solid Web history that includes a LinkedIn profile showing work history, accomplishments, references and networks.

2] 100% of hiring managers, universities and potential dates will use search to evaluate candidates. 100% of them will choose, at least once, not to hire, accept or go out with someone due to negative search results.

3] Teens will have an average of 2.5 social profiles–with distinctive usernames and even real/fake names–and adults will have 1.25.

4] Social network privacy settings will be 90% ineffective: Recent changes to social networks’ “privacy” settings are the most significant contribution to digital security since warrantless wiretapping.

5] Spam will represent 30% of all social media communications: People will continue to receive tweets and messages from people in their social networks that carry a virus, encouraging them to open a bank account in Vladivostok. Security for social media sites isn’t strong enough yet

6] 2010 is the year of the online reputation score. The death knell has sounded on old-school credit scoring, which is seen as both data poor and outdated. The race for the new, more useful score is on.

7] Social media will start and propagate at least five major rumors about politics, arts, finance, or sports that old media will report as real news before realizing they got hoaxed.

8] The rise of teen suicides from cyber bullying will become a major nationwide news discussion.

9] At least 1 Fortune 1000 CEO and one member of Congress will resign due to a social media controversy.

10] Celebrities will stop using Twitter: Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Miley Cyrus have already leapt off the Twitter bandwagon.

Original post at Link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=2264&tag=trunk;content…

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Aruba - From Ed Bisquera PostSo I stumbled upon this idyllic photo of a beach in Aruba. Back in the early 1990′s I worked and lived aboard a cruise ship, playing music for passengers and one of my favorite spots was Aruba, an island in the southern Caribbean. Why am I reminiscing about this island getaway? Because it got me thinking about how little time we have now and I wonder with the advent of the Internet and automated tools, etc, has it really helped us or are we more distracted than ever?

I spent the last few days constructing a better system at publishing content online for all my clients and using some suggested “best practices” on how much the content delivery can be automated through the use of RSS feeds and a few social network syndication tools. My goal was to create a work flow system that allowed for semi-automated distribution and fully automated as well. My goal was to also find a way to do updates via audio and/or a phone call. [Update: read below; found a service that takes a phone call and converts voice to text. Read update below.]

A few things I discovered was that while http://Ping.fm could deliver to multitudes of social networks, and to my favorite posting service http://Posterous.com I also noticed that http://HelloTxt.com had some better ways of dealing with syndication that I liked. In addition to these free online social networking tools that connect and allow for simple syndication of your content marketing, I employ http://Twitterfeed.com to take my blog RSS feeds to auto post.

Will saving time posting and updating to my social networks really save me more time, enough to enjoy my family and friends more? Maybe, and maybe just enough to get back to Aruba someday! :-)

– Update –

After searching for a safer way to create and update content online while driving (no longer do I text while driving; so dangerous I know!) I found that http://Dial2Do.com let’s me call a number, say “reminder” to take my voice recording and dictate or “email” to send an email from with voice-to-text or “Twitter” to do the same. I have added the commands “hello text” and “ping fm” as well, to experiment with posting. Apparently http://Dial2Do.com also allows to post to a blog via a phone call as well. Stay tuned while I try this service out! Aruba, here I come!

Ed Bisquera

Vancouver | Auburn | Washington
(360) 597-8283 cell
http://Twitter.com/edbisquera
http://Activerain.com/edbisquera

Sent from my iPhone

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Trying an experiment with Posterous.com Does this work?

Monday, November 9th, 2009

For today’s post, I’m experimenting with using http://Posterous.com and creating a blog post, with attached audio.

If everything works out correctly, clients should be able to automate about 40-50 % off their social marketjng online and still have accurate control of what is posted and where. In addition, different media can be uploaded and posted, including pictures, video, Powerpoint and PDF’s.

Hopefully this works. Please let me know if you see this and also can hear the attached audio.

Thanks!

Ed Bisquera

Vancouver, WA 98664
(360) 597-8283 cell
http://SocialMediaNetworking101.com
http://Twitter.com/edbisquera
http://Activerain.com/edbisquera

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Ed Bisquera

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Well, it’s nearly official folks; President Obama is poised to sign a bill today, it IS OFFICIAL, Obama signed a bill that extends the homebuyer tax credit that passed Congress this week (the Senate and the House of Representatives, for those that a quick reminder in government civics lesson) that will extend the First Time Homebuyer Non-Refundable $8000 Tax Credit to April 30, 2010. UPDATE (8:55 AM):  Looks like it’s official. Tax credit extension, plus more to help unemployed & small business owners http://ping.fm/gprxx

The quick skinny on the new bill:

  • The bill, awaiting for Obama’s signature, will extend a non-refundable homebuyer tax credit to existing homeowners as well
  • In addition to first time homebuyers, as long as homeowners looking to purchase their next home have owned and lived in their current home for 5 years, they too will qualify, but for $6500
  • First time homebuyers will still qualify for the full $8000, in relation to the new income limits, which has been increased…
  • Income cap has also been increased from $75,000 for individuals to $125,000 and for joint filers from $150,000 to $225,000
  • New Deadlines:  Contracts need to be signed by April 30, 2010 and the sales need to CLOSE (and likely need to FUND, meaning money from buyer/lender needs to arrive in escrow’s hands) by June 30, 2010.

What does this mean for Washington and Oregon homebuyers and homeowners?  The government just agreed to “print more money” in an effort to continue to stimulate the housing industry.  If we continue to see housing sales increase through the 4th quarter of 2009 and now through the first half of 2010, the government hopes we can move a just a little quicker out of this recession.  Time will only tell, though…

On a sidenote, it has been a little disappointing to see so many mortgage and real estate professionals spreading news earlier this week on blogs, Twitter, etc, that this bill had already passed and the tax credit had been already extended to homebuyers. Well, these real estate and mortgage professionals were a little incorrect in spreading the news of the tax credit being extended, when in fact, it takes the President to sign the new bill OFFICIALLY into effect.  Yes, it’s likely to be passed, but let’s not spread incorrect news and information to consumers, until it’s official.  Don’t spread news or incorrect information until it OFFICIALLY HAPPENS.  I think it can mislead the consumer and our clients when I think we should be sharing information that is accurate and helfpul.  Just my two cents…  :-)

At least there were some folks like @jaypapasan (official trainer with Keller Williams) & @PhxREguy (Jay, Real estate agent in Phoenix, AZ) that had the news correct, on the potential passing of the tax credit.  Hopefully I can amend my blog post and make it official, that President Obama has signed this extension for homebuyers today (November 6, 2009).

For a reminder of how a bill makes it into law, here’s a video from our friends at Schoolhouse Rock.

Schoolhouse Rock- How a Bill Becomes a Law

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