Global Search Pros

I saw this video on IHT. I think I’ll need to lose some weight before I try it, but its awesome.

Enjoy

Its probably not too smart for me as a business owner to be very vocal in my dislike or endorsement for political candidates: you can never be sure which way a client leans. But I am continually shocked by Sarah Palin’s back-story and the revisionism that the McPalin campaign is using to make her out as some type of reformer.

This isn’t the place for a political rant, but I wanted people to know that several of the most influential women’s rights groups in the country, including NOW, National Congress of Black Woman, Business and Professional Women and the Feminist Majority got together to say they Could Not endorse Sarah Palin. Here is a video of their announcement:

Whether you agree with me or not. Please vote.

Thanks

Handling Disasters & Emergencies: A Private Sector Solution

Since Katrina, I’ve been really interested in how governments, businesses and other organizations handle emergency situations. Thinking back to the tragedy in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast, I know that our government was neither prepared for such a large-scale emergency nor able to gather the information necessary for making critical decisions.

At the time, I believed that emergency management was primarily a government function (and consequently its failure), but since then I’ve learned that there are several companies that will help both governments and businesses prepare for these situations.

Global Search Pros has recently signed such a firm as a client.

Early Alert is a Florida-based emergency management consulting company staffed by experienced professionals in meteorology, emergency response & emergency planning. Several members of their team have military backgrounds, as well as, extensive experience working with governments and businesses in this important area. They offer several really critical (and kind of cool) services.

In addition to Emergency Management Consulting, they offer:

• All Hazard Training - teaching governments and companies how to respond to disasters (man-made or natural)
• Situational Awareness - Tracking & reporting of critical information so clients know exactly what is going on during an emergency
• Continuity of Operations Planning - Creating plans and procedures so organizations can get key functions back up and running as soon as possible
• Alerts & E-letters - custom information about weather and other threats to operations

As you might have guessed, I’m pretty psyched about bringing Early Alert on board. While I don’t expect that I will need them (I live in the Northeast), I’m pretty sure that New Orleans would not be rebuilding (still) and my friend’s church wouldn’t have been torn apart if someone like them had been contacted.

This year, the hurricane season was not as violent or tragic but every year people lose their lives and billions in damages occur. I’d prefer that government kept the right expertise in house, but if they can’t or won’t do that, then we need to look to the private sector.

Every year, I obsess over finding a unique fathers day gift for my father. I start out looking for a super gift, but somehow end up getting him a tie, some power tool, or just taking him out to dinner. The problem is that while I know Dad will appreciate anything I get him, I also know that he doesn’t really need or want much: he’s the type of guy that will buy whatever he wants and he’s past the point where he has many “needs”.

This year, as with Mother’s Day, I decided to make shopping a project and focused on the most efficient way to find a gift. After doing some surfing, I came back to the Collectibles Today. They have a Father’s Day store that is really easy to use. After looking through their tech gifts and Star Wars gifts for fathers, I decided on the Star Wars graphic novel collection from Dark Horse. I’m a big comics fan, my little brothers are just getting into them and we all love Star Wars so this gift seems like a win-win-win.

I’m really happy with my choice. I’ll still be taking Dad out for a beer, but I finally got him something worth while too (it helps that I can borrow them). Maybe this wouldn’t be the best gift for everyone, but if your dad is into sci-fi and still likes Star Wars despite the recent films, then this is a great place to start.

After setting up my Twine registration, they suggested I check out this video.

I am terrible at gift giving. Not because I’m cheap (I’ll spend what I need to) or lazy (alright, maybe a little), but because I’m never sure what to get the most important people in my life. For example, I’ve been dreading Mother’s Day since the beginning of April. I’ve searched Amazon, flower shops, art galleries, and my psyche in pursuit of the perfect mothers day gifts for my mother and step-mother .

No luck.

So now the clock is really ticking and I still have no idea what I am going to get them, but I’ve made some decisions about how I’m going to shop:

1. Look for a one-stop-shop (efficiency is key)

2. Make a decision quickly (you don’t want time to second-guess yourself)

3. Get express shipping (Mother’s Day is really close)

With these 3 precepts, I plan to conquer Mother’s Day. If anyone is on a similar quest, leave me a comment.

I don’t usually pay much attention to screensavers. Mine has been custom for years: after 15 minutes, my desktop starts saying “Get Back to Work”. Still, when a jewel drops into your lap, you have to be grateful.

System47 is THE Star Trek screensaver. If you ever dreamed of being Geordi, Worf, or Capt. Picard then you’ll want to download this. It has the different displays from ship (targeting, engineering, long-range scan, etc) and the sounds too.

I finally have a good reason to let my desktop go idle (as if I needed a reason).

Email Marketing is the Granddaddy of online marketing. Before blogs, SEO, or social anything, we had industrious business owners sending out emails to their contact lists and tracking bounces on a spreadsheet.

As the years have passed, email has become a respected industry with a lot of players: list sellers, tracking partners, designers, copywriters…and you the website owner. If you are starting out with email then you should know you have a lot of options: html or text, buy or build a list (usually you end up with a combination), how to segment the list, when to send it, how often to send emails, and, of course, what the content should be.

I have dinner plans, so I won’t be answering all these questions tonight. Instead, I’m going to point you to a great article from Digital Web Magazine, “10 Tips for your first email campaign“.

Note: No, I am not being lazy. I really liked the article and wanted people to get a look. I will put together a nice post on email marketing later this week. I promise. 

To show how helpful I can be, here are a few tips to wet your appetite:

1. We use CampaignMonitor to make the process as simple as possible
2. Subscription forms are important to build traffic, make them visible and short
3. Unsubscribe options should be plentiful…losing a subscriber is better than pissing one off
4. Study the clicks you get: if you know that certain recipients always click on a particular area, then you have the start of list segmenting.

This article has been updated to reflect the change of DRIs domain name from www.dristaffing.com to www.dricareers.com.

Diversified Recruitment, Inc. (www.dricareers.com) is a diversity recruiting, consulting and management company based in the Chicago area. Its goal is the development and placement of minority MBAs, IT and Engineering professionals.

In addition to a job board featuring positions with Fortune 1000 companies and other firms, DRI provides a large library of articles.

The main purpose for most visitors is finding a new job, but the number of free resources available on the site should not be ignored. Article topics range from typical career development pieces, such as negotiating your compensation package to more ’soft skills’ oriented features such as how to communicate with your boss & managing work/life balance. There is also material for entrepreneurs and overall the site offers content for professionals at every stage of their career.

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