On Monday, July 27th, 2009 I'm teaching another Marketing with Search Engines class and this time I'm raising money for Symphony Parnassus, a community orchestra here in San Francisco where I live. I am honored to be a clarinettist in the orchestra and it is one of my favorite extra mural activites. We have the summer off and I can't wait to start rehearsing again in September.
The orchestra is a registered non-profit and functions on member fees, individual and grant donations, many of which have not come through this year due to the economic downturn. To make a long story short, Symphony Parnassus is struggling and if we don't come up with $41,000 per year, which is petty cash for most for profit companies, we will no longer be able to exist - something I would prefer to not even think about.
So if you are at all interested in learning about what Search Engine Marketing is, please consider taking the class. We'll be looking at whether you be optimizing your website for search engines, the difference between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and advertising on Google, also known as SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and which search engines should you focus on. This class will show you the basics of search engine marketing and offer a primer into ways to improve your ranking on the search engines. Afterall, if you're not on the first page of search results, you're basically invisible to people searching for your products and/or services online.
The class is limited to 10 people, so it will be cozy and intimate with plenty of time for questions and a review of your website. Please share this post with your friends and colleagues and sign up today.
The Summer of Social Good campaign started on June 1st and will run until August 28th. The idea is to use the power of Social Media and the Internet to raise funds to benefit The Humane Society, Livestrong, Oxfam America and WWF. Started by Mashable's COO Adam Hirsh, the campaign aims to simultaneously give back and engage the social community.
I'm particularly interested in anything related to climate change and enjoyed this video from Oxfam America this morning.
"Climate change isn't just about the environment, it's about people too," says Raymond Oppenheiser, President of Oxfam America.
I couldn't agree more and believe we need to educate people about the impact that global warming is having and will continue to have on people, their families, their loved ones, children and grandchildren because when you make it about them it becomes much more important. Talking about the environment isn't enough. It's too far removed from what matters to people. People and relationships matter to people and therefore we have to make everyone aware of the effects climate change is having on people and how they can help in small ways.
Homeless has a name. Spend some time on Invisiblepeople.tv and you'll understand that homeless people are human, they have stories and if we ask, they are willing to share those stories with us.
A recent LA Times article: Homeless advocate brings his message to the masses through social media introduces us to Mark Horvath, the videographer and interviewer of various homeless people on a journey around the United States with social media story-telling site Whrrl.com. Mark was once homeless himself and started sharing pictures of homeless via his cellphone. That's where his relationship with Whrrl began. He is now one the biggest advocates for the homeless and he's using social media to build awareness of the people behind the tragedy.
It's so sad and yet inspiring at the same time. Hats off to Mark for giving faces and names to homeless people. His passion and compassion is acutely evident and his final question in each interview is always a heart-breaker. "If you had three wishes, what would they be?"
Quoting from the LA Times article:
He was headed for a woman in a wheelchair, with spaces where her front teeth should be and a catheter snaking out from a hole in her blue sweat pants.
He addressed her by name, Viper, and asked: "Where did you sleep last night?"
"Down on Highland," she answered, adding that her seizures were troubling her and that it was hard to stay cool, especially with new medications making her sick.
Then Horvath posed one of his trademark questions.
"If you had three wishes," he asked, "what would they be?"
At first, she answered promptly: "Housing."
Then what had been a steady smile crumpled and tears began to fall.
"Seeing my daughter," she added. "Being around family."
That night, Horvath posted Viper's interview on his website, with this note: "Six months ago, I cautioned that her story is tough to watch. Today, I must again. . . ."
On Saturday, July 25th, 2009, Pablo Chamorro will be holding a massage workshop for couples. This workshop is designed for partners or friends who want to learn how to give each other a basic, one-hour massage. You won't need any previous massage experience to learn principles of chair massage, shiatsu and thai massage and blend them together your own way to be able to provide a relaxing massage.
During the 3 hour massage workshop, you'll learn how to give a 1 hour massage, focusing not just on basic strokes but also on quality touch and breath work. Students will be given plenty of time to practice, working on each other, fully clothed and either on a massage table, floor mat, or chair. Students are encouraged to wear thin, loose, cotton clothing in order to receive the maximum benefit from giving and receiving the massage.
The cost is $60 per couple which is a great savings from a regular couples massage which would be $200 or more. It's a great deal and what's more, since this is a Classes for Causes workshop, Pablo is donating his time, expertise and the use of his massage studio to benefit the LGBT Center in San Francisco.
In today's tough economic times, all non-profits are struggling to receive the donations that help them keep running very important programs. Classes for Causes aims to assist people to raise money and awareness for non-profit causes through teaching and learning.
This movie was referred by a colleage - George Kao, who is an excellent sustainable productivity coach with integrity and heart. He has numerous tips and webinars available to help you make the most of social media and living the best life you can live.
When I run I think of interesting things. Sometimes I have great ideas. I think it's the oxygen or maybe just the meditative state.
One of my recent ideas is to build homeless shelters out of old cars. Intead of sending each vehicle to the scrapyard, couldn't we figure out a way to fit a bed into the structure of a car and house a number of people in a facility like a parking lot or structure? What if we could build a place for people to wash, use the bathroom and even have a communal kitchen. Would people use it? Would it save any space? Would it be a good use of the cars in terms of recycling or could we get more money to put into a traditional homeless shelter by selling the car for scrap metal and contributing the money to a traditional homeless shelter?
We need to think of ideas to solve the homeless problem. Do you have any ideas?
Kenneth Cole introduced his "Clothed Mindedness" "Awearness Blog" this month and it is an interesting take on transparency and really showing the philosophy behind the brand. For example, were you previously aware of Kenneth Cole's political stance and interest in social rights and well-being for all. I personally like the idea and wonder how many big brands will follow his lead of showing customers exactly where he stands politically, socially and financially.
We are entering the era where it's better to be real and talk with your customers and constiuents than at and to them. The Awearness blog is a good example of a company pushing the envelope on this. http://awearnessblog.com/
In 2002 I started running. I weighed 167 lbs and thought I needed to get into shape. I was completely out of shape, so running at that time mean running for 1 minute and walking for four for a total ten minute workout.
After a week or two I increased my run-walk strategy to two minutes running, two minutes walking and increased my workout to 15 minutes, and after about six weeks I could run (although quite slowly for the full 15 minutes).
In March my relationship at the time started to disintegrate and the running started to be an outlet for emotional stress. By June the relationship was over and I was running four times a week and had increased to 20 minutes.
In July 2002 I met someone else and gave up all meat and dairy at the same time. That and the breakup helped me lose 35 pounds and after another six months I reached 125 lbs, which is the lowest weight I have ever been. (No, I'm not 125 lbs anymore.)
Why am I telling you this? Well because in 2005 after increasing my runs to 30 minutes four times a week, I received a flyer in the mail from Team In Training. The flyer said that Team In Training would help me run a marathon if I could raise a fixed amount of money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
It seemed like a worthy cause and a big challenge so I decided to take it on. What that meant was raising $2,500 and training for 5 months (May through October for the Nike Women’s Marathon). That’s where I learned about marathon training.
The marathon is an endurance race. That means you need to prepare and be able to pace yourself so that you don’t burn out before the finish line. When we started training the longest run for the week was four miles and by the end of the training we did a 20 mile run including many of San Francisco’s toughest hills.
I have run four other marathons since then and the race itself as it said at the starting line of the 2008 Chicago marathon is “your victory lap.” What that means is that the race itself isn’t really what matters, it’s the preparation you put into training for the race. Reaching the starting line injury free and have the courage to run 26.2 miles is an accomplishment in itself. 26.2 miles is the distance run by Pheidippides, a messenger, who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the "We have won!" message before collapsing and dying.
If you’re with me so far, that’s where the teaching comes in. The actual class itself where you’re standing in front of the class, is the victory lap. You wouldn’t be there unless you had prepared and the preparation takes a lot more time than the actual class itself.
This is why I really admire teachers. I understand what it means to prepare a class and then teach it. Teachers are usually vastly underpaid and yet excellent at what they do. They care about their students enough to spend the time preparing the materials to make learning fun and easy. If it weren’t for the passion and giving of teachers, we wouldn’t be half as educated as we are.
I applaud all the teachers in the world. Thank you for giving so much of your time to the cause of education. Education is a necessity, a luxury and a privilege and teachers are my heroes and sheroes.
I stumbled upon this on one of my hero's blogs and thought is was fitting for posting after a long hiatus. Sorry for the long vacation from blogging. I am starting my business, went on a vacation in the Alaska wilderness and have been working on my business website for the past few weeks.
This old Apple ad talks about the old internet, but the encouragement to continue to think of ways you can change the world and make it a better place never dies.
On Saturday, July 25th, 2009,