Moments of Clarity

Houses with Dual Incomes

I had a conversation with a buddy yesterday about the usual range of dude topics over a beer like politics, taxes, sports, and the economy.

So when we touched on taxes he mentioned how expensive day care and day camp programs are over the summer and how his wife's paycheck goes mostly out the door to fund those things.

It hit me at that point that we're now 6 years into a single income household and the concept of additional revenues entering our coffers would truly feel a bit like the lottery. 

We'll have both kiddos in elementary school by fall of 2010 so look out after that. It's on.

The Power of Face...to Facebook Communication

In the last 48 hours I was:

1. Found organically by an organization looking to do some video work in a specific niche here in Des Moines.  The firm is NOT anywhere near Des Moines and they found me.
2. Re-contacted by someone who heard me speak at an event that led to another event where they heard me again...and now they're at another firm and are "finished with their agency contract and looking for new ideas and options to grow their organic findability.

Never discount the power of being findable online...nor the power of speaking to groups in person passionately.  That's connecting Face...to Facebook.

Biz Tactical inaugural show streaming LIVE! from ABI convention

A while back I had this crazy idea about creating an Extreme Makeover show for Iowa Businesses.  So I sat down and created Biz Tactical.  Biz Tactical is modeled after the show called "We Mean Business" on A&E.

Video about the show below.

We will take submissions from businesses that want HELP!  We'll assemble a panel of experts and descend upon this business bringing tangible resources, connections, and solutions that rapidly accelerate success.
We're building our team of panelists and the show's anchor hosts are myself and Adam Steen.  I'm proud to announce that we'll be doing our first show from the upcoming Iowa Association of Business and Industry convention at Lake Okoboji on June 10 at 530PM.  The show will be produced as a live radio broadcast with commercials and special sponsored segments.

If YOU are going to the ABI convention, please stop by the social media suite upstairs where you'll find the createWOWmedia team coaching, connecting, and capturing the excellence of the ABI membership.

mitchgroup links that matter 05/22/2009

• Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO - ReelSEO

  More great stuff. Remember the "$1500 to surge to the top" guys can't build your defensible reputation online. Only you can do that through content. This piece gives you some great guidelines on how NOT to make the googlebot angry

  tags: createwowmedia, mitchgroup, google, keywords

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

mitchgroup links that matter 05/20/2009

• VideoPress - Video Blogging Gets Easy with Wordpress Video Press - ReelSEO

  Wow. Wordpress.com just got a lot cooler! Let's see how quickly the amount of text based posts drop and video based posts accelerate. I'm not sure it will be earth shattering early on because many people are still intimidated by the "camera". We shall see. Very good development!

  tags: ors, createwowmedia, mitchgroup, video, wordpress, video blogging

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

mitchgroup links that matter 05/18/2009

• Kickstarter » Learn More

  This has promise. Is this the platform that will take away the "If I could just get $10k to build a prototype" excuse? We shall see. I can't wait to hear what people do with this.

  tags: mitchgroup, funding, angel, investor

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

mitchgroup links that matter 05/16/2009

• How to Sync Facebook Events with Google Calendar

  I've been missing a few events lately myself, so I did a little research and figured out how to automatically sync my facebook events with my google calendar (my scheduling lifeblood!). Our team uses google calendar for EVERYTHING and it's a snap to learn. So use this great blog post to set up this feature yourself!

  tags: ORS, createwowmedia, facebook, google calendar, ', sync, event, mitchgroup

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Disturbance in the Force

I've been sensing a positive disturbance in the force.  Larger companies are calling me and saying, "We're ready to learn" albeit at "Big Co." pace.  Interesting this one.  Wise are they.  Being made progress is.

--Yoda Mitchell 

Teaching is the hardest profession

So as a teacher, you have to balance all kinds of things.  Most challenging for me in my limited role as an occasional teacher in online findability, multimedia, etc...is pacing the learning when classes have both novices with limited Internet experience...to hungry journeymen who've dabbled and thirst more...and everything in between.

I get what teachers must go through all the time when they have very mixed and diverse classes.  If you go too fast, you leave people behind or leave them scratching their heads.  Too slow, and people are bored.

I'm not certain that personality can pull you through all of these times where you must address each portion of the curve when working with adults in a classroom setting.

Any advice out there? 

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Central Academy Talk Follow Up

My friend and colleague Steve Schultz has summarized our visit to Central Academy in Des Moines, IA very well so I'll let you read his excellent analysis.

I will simply add that it's truly amazing to me how many amazing stories are NOT being told out there purely because slower and larger institutions (educational/corporate/government) cannot or will not adapt to the current state of technology. 

I realize why they have trouble. I get it.  But usually we see the same story.  Culturally, the subordinates start to get it...but have to go up against "The Man" to get anything done.  After so many battles with the man (or the woman to be fair) they give up and go back to not making waves.  Argh.

Let's hope that we sparked a mini revolution of folks wanting to make change, break rules, and ask for forgiveness. 

In only 3 weeks, I've discovered 2 educational institutions that I knew nothing about but want my kids to attend.  Let's hope they both take the "Become findable where they all agree everyone is looking" route. 

Yes I'm still at 100% on "Google" for that answer.  Steve's mom almost said phone book but we quickly moved on to keep my record going :).