I’m going to get geeky on you here again.  I’ve been working on a few things with SocialToo to enable Facebook Connect on the site - more on that to come.  What I’ve been surprised by though is that this long after the launch of Facebook Connect the main Perl libraries for Facebook, WWW::Facebook::API, still do not support Facebook Connect.  The main difference between making API calls from a native Facebook app and a third-party Facebook Connect app is that in the native app, you verify the signature via the URI parameters, via parameters that begin with “fb_sig_”.  In Facebook Connect, those variables are set in Cookies by the Facebook Client-side Javascript libraries, and begin with your applications API key, so they’d start something like “(api key)_”, and come from the cookies instead of the URI.  You can read more about that here.

So for full compatibility in your preferred Facebook API libraries, both the URI parameters have to be checked along with the Cookies in the event the developer is trying to connect from a third-party website.  In the PHP libraries this is already done for you.  Surprisingly, Perl has not yet implemented this.

So I got to work on it, and through a couple simple lines of code added to WWW::Facebook::API::Canvas I was able to make get_fb_params check your cookies when the URI parameters are not presence.  I’ve submitted the patch to the library’s owner, Clayton Scott, but in case you want to integrate it sooner you can apply it to the 0.4.14 version of Canvas.pm by downloading this patch.

I hope you’re able to get as much out of this as I am - please let me know if you see any potential bugs with the changes.

Just a quick note to remind you that this next Thursday, July 9 from Noon to 1:30 the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum will be recognizing the best emerging companies in the State of Utah at the annual Top 25 Under 5 awards ceremony. All are welcome to attend, and encouraged to bring business cards to one of Utah’s premier business networking events.

Rick White of Fusion-io will be our Emcee, and the Utah State Governor will be presenting the keynote address. 25 Utah companies will be recognized for their outstanding growth within the first five years of business.

Cost to non-members of UVEF is $25, which includes lunch. Membership can be purchased on site, if you are interested in participating in the Utah Valley entrepreneurial community.

Details:

Building A, Provo Novell Campus
Thursday, July 9, 2009
From Noon to about 1:30 p.m.
$25 for non-members; Lunch is included

Need a map? (Note that while you will be entering ‘Building A’, the event is actually being held in the Education Center in Building B.)

See you there!

—Cary

I got some information from my good (virtual) buddy Jessica Lee yesterday that really blew me away. I’ve blogged about health care here a few times - starting from when I cut my hand open to my thoughts about Obama saving the healthcare system… but this one is really heartening.  And I get to blog about it on the Fourth of July weekend… I can’t help but think how dang American (or COOL, or HUMANE) this is, and how Pfizer is treating us right (I really don’t know much about Pfizer, so if you are a Pfizer hater and think they are not treating us right, leave a comment elsewhere).

I’m going to show you the email I got from Jessica, who is helping spread the word about this… it’s kind of formal, but since it’s about getting free prescriptions I don’t want to paraphrase.  Note, the end the email talks about people who don’t qualify - bottom line is to go to Pfizer Helpful Answers, or call their number (866.706.2400).

This really is the bomb - thank you Pfizer for stepping up and treating us right!  The email from Jessica (with my bolds for emphasis):

I wanted to touch base with you as I’m working with Pfizer to raise awareness of its new patient assistance program called MAINTAIN, which became fully operational on July 1, 2009. MAINTAIN helps eligible unemployed Americans (and their families) who are in financial need and lack prescription coverage continue to get their Pfizer medicines free-of-charge for up to one year or until they become insured, whichever comes first.

Based on your coverage of issues affecting job seekers on the Jibber Jobber blog, I thought you would find this program relevant – and helpful – to your readers.

Through MAINTAIN, more than 70 Pfizer medicines are offered that treat a range of chronic health conditions. It is easy to learn if you may be eligible, by visiting www.PfizerHelpfulAnswers.com or calling 866-706-2400. The program is user-friendly, with a one-page application that Pfizer will typically process within two to three weeks. The program is expected to accept applications through December 31, 2009.

There are four eligibility requirements for MAINTAIN:

• Applicants must be able to demonstrate loss of employment since January 1, 2009;
• Lack prescription coverage;
• Attest to financial need; and,
• Be on their Pfizer medicine for at least three months prior to unemployment and enrolling in the program.

If you would like more information about MAINTAIN, please let me know and I can put you in touch with someone from Pfizer Helpful Answers.

I hope you will take a moment to learn more about MAINTAIN and to post details about it on your blog. It’s a valuable resource for the millions of newly unemployed Americans who may need help to continue getting their Pfizer medicines, but who may not be aware that this program is available.

Thank you,
Jessica

P.S. Uninsured patients who need a Pfizer medicine but who do not qualify for MAINTAIN may qualify for Pfizer’s other Patient Assistance Programs. More information is available at www.PfizerHelpfulAnswers.com. For patients who are taking Pfizer oncology or specialty medicine and need assistance, Pfizer Helpful Answers also runs programs designed specifically to meet the needs of those patients including those who have recently lost their jobs and their insurance. These programs include RSVP for anti infective, HIV and PAH medicines, FirstResource for oncology and the Pfizer Bridge Program for endocrine care medicines.

How many other companies are doing something like this? Please help spread the word on this - I think it’s just plain COOL!

Smooth Harold reader Scott Daniel asks via email: Does social networking really work as a marketing tool?  My CIO is standing firm that it does not. Yes, it does, provided you have something interesting to say. For example, my blogging efforts on Smooth Harold alone have directly resulted in checks amounting to around $17,000 over the last [...]

I've been heads down for the last few weeks getting a project out the door for a new customer. As I mentioned, this involves creating a virtual appliance. I decided, due to the circumstances of this deployment that the best option was the build an appliance factory that is capable of churning out new virtual machines at will. I'm going to describe how I did that in this post.

There are bascially three steps to creating a new image that runs the Kynetx Network Service (KNS):

1. Create a new virtual machine
2. Install packages and Perl libraries, create users, and otherwise configure the machine to run KNS
3. Deploy the KNS code and test it

I was exporing Kickstart files for automatically installing Fedora and CentOS when someone pointed me at Cobbler. Cobbler is a Linux installation server that is simply amazing. It includes templated kickstart files, DHCP and DNS servers, the ability to manage multiple distros and repositories, and a database for keeping it all straight.

You start by importing distros and images, then define profiles that combine those with kickstart files, and finally create system definitions for each machine refering to profiles. I pnly needed one distro, one repo, and one kickstart, so I ended up with multiple systems hanging off of one profile. Once that's done, a command called koan (kickstart over a network) is used on the Dom0 machine to create virtual machines as defined by the system definitions cobbler.

I carefully edited the kickstart file to create just the machine I wanted with the right packages installed. At this point, I was building new VMs and taking them down 20-30 times a day as I tested this. That's the beauty of automation--tacking up a machine is just dirt simple.

I was lucky that I'd already invested considerable effort in Puppet recipes for building the environment that KNS need to run, so the second step was almost done. In fact, with just a few edits, I had Puppet building the new VMs up.

The third step was also one that I'd spent some time on. I have a custom deploy script (in Perl) that deploys KNS code based on server role and takes care of all the little details like setting up the configuration files for the various servers.

Every system is slightly different, but I think there's a definite distinction between machine setup, system configuration, and code deployment. The first creates a fairly standard environment, the second configures it to a specific purpose, and the third manages the code.

Some thoughts on all of this:

• Some have asked "Why not put the code in Puppet (i.e. why use a deployment system)?" My answer is that code deployment is a dynamic process that I want more control of than puppet's automatic configuration provides. You could probably press Puppet into this, but it didn't seem to fit for me.
• I had to create a simple YAML-based configuration file for KNS to pull everything together. YAML was the right answer for this. I chose to put that configuration file in Puppet, but I think I'll pull it into the deployment process in the future.
• One missing piece is a database that everything can read system configurations from. Cobbler provides a light-weight one that may serve our purposes for a while, but something like iClassify is more flexible. Right now there's system information in Cobbler, Puppet, and the deploy script. There's a way to put additional attributes in Cobbler that we could use in other places.
• All of this--Cobbler, Puppet, and the deploy script--were installed and running on a virtual machine that we call the factory. That one image, once installed in Xen is capable of creating as many copies of each type of machine we run as needed.
• This can all be done on physical boxes too, of course, but I prefer the flexibility of virtual machines--even when only one will be running on the physical hardware. They can be moved, replicated, and managed with a lot more ease that physical hardware. Plus I have the ability to fire up new ones for QA or whatever without buying and installing new physical hardware. When a 8 core, 32 Gb box costs $4K, you can amortize that investment a lot with virtual machines.

Startups need to be lean. Achieving that goal in a compute-intensive business requires automation. Fortunately with tools like Cobbler and Puppet, automating the build-side of your infrastructure is not only possible, but fairly easy. We manage several dozen machines with only a few hours a week of effort. What's more, adding a new box for load or experimenting is as easy as typing a few commands and waiting 20-30 minutes.

Tags: kynetx system+administration cobbler puppet

Facebook Groups, Facebook Pages & Other Facebook Tips

I’ve taught Facebook marketing. I’ve blogged about it. I’ve helped businesses with their Facebook presence. I’ve bought ebooks, I’ve spent hours in the HELP! section and reading many blog posts but you know what? I should’ve just bought Joan Stewart’s Facebook product instead.

When I first started reading it I didn’t think that much. Then I went to the handouts at the end and that is exactly what I was looking for.

I’m printing it off and keeping it as a reference. Even the best teachers forget how to do things on Facebook. This will be my reference from now on. It’s up-to-date and helpful. Other people might know just as much but Joan has a way of making the information accessible.

I’ve bought other guides and read many blogs and this has more helpful, clear instructions than ANYWHERE ELSE I’ve looked.

Why?

Because it’s written in an easy conversational tone.

Because it’s easy to skim if you’re impatient like me and just want to get to the information you DON’T already know.

You learn how to do these things on Facebook:

• Announce on your profile that you created a Page and how to find and link to that Page.
• Keep up with what’s happening on Facebook - I should’ve thought of that!
• Facebook group or fan Page? and why
• How to find your pages once they’re set up (it’s confusing!)
• Delete “friends” without them knowing it (we’ve all wanted to do this!)
• Get good content for your Facebook Page
• Use the tagging feature
• Quickly learn how to do something you don’t remember or know how to do on Facebook
• Use events as a promotion tool for more than just events
• Avoid getting overwhelmed by Facebook

And…

What are “highlights” and how do they work?
Adding, deleting and customizing tabs.
How to get your URLs to promote off of Facebook (this can be tricky)
Facebook badges step by step
Examples of effective pages and how to set one up
How to use the “share” button
Promote other people’s fan pages (what goes around comes around - I’m sure you’d do this for me, wouldn’t you?)
Making your event invites look nice
Import your other social network sites onto Facebook

At the end she gives a lot of links to other internet marketing resources. Skip to the end first. It has the notes with screenshots.

Missed Opportunities - even if you know a lot this reinforces and reminds you of key parts of Facebook marketing.

My missed opportunity on Facebook?? Video! Did you know that when you update your wall, click the video link and you can record directly from your laptop webcam or upload a YouTube video.

So my post sounds like a sales page and yet I’m sincere when I say I recommend that you buy this right now, print it out and read it.

Oh, and if you’re a Utah blogger, please join my Utah blogger’s fan page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Utah-Bloggers/96701207442 or if you’re interested in my new book become a fan here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Online-PR-Book/113709178083

Get the Facebook Tips transcript or audio file here. Make sure to order the transcript for $10 more or just get the transcript. I’m having mine printed and spiral bound.

I’ve talked in the past about how I read your blogs. I rarely subscribe through Google Reader any more - I read all of your blogs through FriendFeed. Therefore if you want me to read your blog, I strongly suggest taking the first step of importing it into FriendFeed. Well, if that weren’t reason enough, FriendFeed just gave you even one more reason to import your blog and other social data into their site: real-time search.

If you’ll look down in the lower-right sidebar of this blog, you’ll see an example of it in action - every mention of “realtime”, “real time”, “social”, “friendfeed”, “twitter”, “facebook”, or “Jesse Stay” anywhere on the web, at any time that has been imported into FriendFeed now appears real-time, as it’s happening.  Go ahead - change the search parameters to something like “earthquake”, or “iran”, or “michael jackson”.  You’ll quickly see the value of having such real-time, on-demand search at your fingertips.

FriendFeed is said to be getting ready to also release notifications, probably in the same way they do your other friend lists and feeds via e-mail and IM for the various search terms you’re trying to find.  As the terms come in real-time, you’ll receive them.  This is powerful stuff!

Over a year ago Twitter had a similar feature - they called it “track”, which they’ve recently re-introduced to developers via their API.  It was the main reason I joined and stuck with Twitter.  As soon as their competition was dead they removed it.  It looks as though FriendFeed has one-upped Twitter once again with this feature.

So if you haven’t already, go to FriendFeed, get an account, import all your Twitter and Facebook friends already on the service (you’ll find most of your active friends probably already are!), and start adding your blogs, Twitter feeds, facebook feeds, photos, videos, and more into your stream so they too can be indexed by this powerful search.  The web just got a whole lot more real-time, and FriendFeed just got a whole lot more powerful.

I don’t have any research to back this up (too lazy to find it), just experience watching others and with my own experiments. I can’t think of a single time that an ad in traditional media led to sales that covered or exceeded the cost of the ad campaign. Taking out an ad in a newsletter doesn’t seem as effective as writing an article for them or a blog post. Or, better yet building up your own community through your blog.

I’d rather have affiliates selling my product for a commission than paying for an ad. I’d rather work with someone who has a strong following online.

I hear the success of working with bloggers and it’s usually where I start when I trying to think of ways to market a business. I started a Facebook Page for Utah bloggers precisely so local businesses could pitch us, like this local chiropractor (but I hope they’ll get people who want to try the service and write about it with a keyword rather than an ad):

Hello! We are looking for Utah bloggers to advertise with. If you are looking for advertising please send us a message and we would love to check out your blog.

Best Wishes,
Alisyn Shepro
Marketing Director
Hansen Chiropractic
www.thebackdoctors.com

Smart!

Seth Godin said:

“Visa…spent a million or more dollars on a very expensive, complex and largely ineffective online promotion last month–not because it was likely to work, but because it was well sold by persistent and effective salespeople. They should have sponsored your blog and 400 others instead.“

As promised, today Rich shares his secret of ‘walk and talk’ meetings and why they can be so helpful for your small business momentum.

 

 

In business, surprises are never good—even when they are a good surprise. Good or bad, you’ve done something wrong if you didn’t see it coming.

 

When I was the general manager of About.com’s Web Services division, I found myself working with a group of brilliant engineers. Despite their brilliance, one of the challenges the group faced was a continuous breakdown in communication. Management would give direction to the engineers on a project, and the engineers would then disappear into their cubicles for several weeks to work out the details.

 

It was like waiting for a baby to be born—boy or girl? Ten toes and fingers? Pretty or ugly? They would surface several weeks later and present their interpretation of what they had been asked to create. Sometimes, it would hit the mark; oftentimes, it would not.

 

After several of these “little surprises,” I established weekly “Walk and Talk Meetings.” Some organizations share a common problem: they talk, talk, talk the day away and never get down to work. This is not good. My division had the opposite problem; the engineers would go off on a long “walk, walk, walk,” reaching a destination (the surprise product or feature) that no one wanted in the first place. When I realized this, I created a new approach for our team: “Walk and talk, walk and talk, walk and talk.” Walking and talking involves frequent, brief check-ins to keep everything on course. We would touch base in a way designed to keep everyone moving in the right direction together, avoiding the need for major course corrections.

 

It sounds simple, but it became a weekly ritual that was not only productive but fun. I ended up tying rewards to it, setting benchmarks and then springing for group lunches or handing out incentives upon completion. This dramatically increased productivity and stopped our brilliant engineering group from wasting energy.

 

Porter’s Points – Walk and Talk

 

• To avoid surprises in your business, keep tabs on all assignments that you hand out. People quickly lose interest and momentum, though, so keep this contact brief and to the point.
• Come to meetings with goals made and plans in place. If something doesn’t help you toward a goal, don’t use it. Talk things over with your team, then make decisions quickly but wisely and make sure everybody understands the plans and goals.
• Some teams come with a little bit of inertia. Use reward systems to kick-start your own walking and talking. This will encourage the appropriate behavior and keep the inertia from settling in as you roll forward.

 

As an entrepreneur, do you typically act or react?  We’ll talk about the difference and why it’s important to distinguish between the two next time!

My Dad is a doctor. Not just any doctor, but a surgeon. A good surgeon. Nevertheless, my siblings and I sometimes had the gall to advise our dad on health related matters. For example, trampolines were of the devil in my family, but we jumped on one every chance we got. Even when I badly twisted my ankle, proving their evil nature, I wouldn’t be convinced that I could hurt myself.

I remember once when my sister got scraped and my Dad attempted to clean the wound and cut off dead skin. My sister gave a hissy fit and wouldn’t let him touch her, in fear that it would hurt. I recall the look of frustration on my father’s face (which almost comes as a sense of accomplishment for a kid).

Every now and then (call it karma), I get the same treatment. I am specially trained and keep up-to-date on internet marketing and SEO. Still, people (the very same who come to me for advice) have a natural tendency to either disregard, or supersede my advice with their own knowledge. Or lack thereof. It would be comical if it didn’t get on my nerves.

Here are the top reasons we don’t do the SEO that we should (and why we should get over it):

1. The perfectionist. Websites become an art-form. That’s fine; nothing is wrong with your website being pretty. Just don’t get so involved in the esthetics of your site, that it gets in the way of making practical business changes. A good-looking site means absolutely nothing if it won’t be seen by anyone, or convert to leads or sales. Make sure that you have a clear, noticeable call-to-action. And no whining if it messes up the “fung shui” of the website.

2. But this guy said… Most of the time, two opinions will agree with each other and be based off of good principals. Sometimes not so much. Some SEOs have outdated information, as the industry changes rapidly and constantly. Someone who read a book five years ago isn’t going to be as capable as one who stays abreast of industry changes. Also to consider, the advice from an SEO expert may not make sense when taken out of context.

3. It’s not that important. A lot of SEO tactics may appear small or insignificant. After all, how much difference will it make to change a single word on just one page of a site? Honestly, it won’t make a big difference. However, once you start adding up all the small things, they speak louder.

4. It’s too hard! First of all, it’s probably not that hard. There have been situations where I thought something would take hours, and a coworker shows me how to perform the work in a mere five minutes. Some web changes will be unavoidably inconvenient though. It’s not fun having to rearrange the whole site structure. Especially when it only helps a little bit. Now think long term. The benefits will last for as long as you keep the site. It might hurt now, but the advantages will be  noticeable.

5. It’s too expensive! On occasion, I begin working on a brand-new, fresh, out-of-the-box website, and have to tell the proud owners that their site is practically unusable for SEO. Having spent considerable money on design, they have a difficult time spending additional funds to resolve blaring SEO problems. In these cases, remember that the money already spent is a sunk cost. Consider the benefit of fixing the problems, and receive a return on the costs, rather than cry over the spilled milk.

I tend to be relatively active on Twitter, Facebook, and a few Blogs.  When it comes to these types of communication, people often refer to them as “Social Media”, “Social Networking”, or my least favorite, “New Media.”

Let me just throw a quick stone over at “New Media” before I get to the heart of my point: the name “New Media” implies that there was an “Old Media”, and that one is inherently outdated.  I believe that no mode of communication is, or ever will be 100% effective.  Your clients consume content in various ways.  Every medium has its place (though the market for interpretive break-dancing may be truly limited.)

What I really want to address however, is “Social Media” vs. “Social Networking.”  Are they synonymous?  I would answer, “No.”

The concept of “Media” is content.  The concept of “Networking” is a relationship.  It’s important to understand that what thinking of the different social networks and how to use them, and what to expect from them.

I ran a test earlier this week.  I have a similar number of friends on both Twitter and Facebook.  I put a message out on both, and asked people to please send me a direct message back if they read it.  no ReTweets, no Public Replies, no “comments” on Facebook.  The result? about 3% of my friends on twitter responded, and about 6% on Facebook did.  That was about what I expected.  Additionally, the Twitter responses were almost immediate.  The facebook replies were over a day and a half.  If I were to put a similar message on my blog, I would expect to get pretty good results, and spread over a longer period that either of the other two.

So this brings us two four factors of Social Media/Social Networking:

1- Attention to message

What is the likelihood that your target audience will even notice your message.  In the case of Facebook, people seem to pay more attention to rather or not their friends have any updates.  I don’t think that twice the number of my friends on Facebook cared enough to respond; I would guess that half as many of my friends on Twitter even saw my message at all.

2- Life of message.

How long is your message relevant?  On some networks your message stays around for days, weeks, or months.  On others, it is like the game we all played at parties, where you hit a balloon into the air.  As long as someone keeps bumping the balloon it stays flying and exciting.  If it goes neglected for even a moment it falls and is forgotten.

3- Intimacy of message.

The point is the real crux of “Social Media” or “Social Networking.”  to what extent does the consume feel that you have a real relationship, vs. to what extent you are really just publishing content?

4- Reach of message.

How likely is your message to become viral?  Who will read it that you didn’t explicitly attempt to reach?

---

In my opinion, I have found the following:

Twitter:

-Attention: Poor.  Just streams by for many people.  Often ignored for a period of time.

-Life: Poor.  If it doesn’t get read immediately, most people won’t read it at all.

-Intimacy: Variable.  Some people have intimate conversations and connections on Twitter.  It seems that most usage is trending away from this though.  You may see short bursts of intimacy, but generally it seems more like “micro broadcasts.”

-Reach:  Very good.  Through searching of Hashtags, searching for company or brand names, and ReTweeting, there is the potential that a well crafted message or campaign could really go viral here.  I think we have all heard stories of a person mentioning a product they are having a problem with, and having the company contact them over twitter to set it right.

Blogs:

Attention: Hard to quantify.  In my personal opinion it seems as if there are fewer people sitting eagerly in front of their RSS reader prepared to consume the content.  But, the content is often better written, and more fully fleshed out.  That combined with the longevity of the posts means that over the long haul there may be a lot of people reading the article closely.  But it does seem that Blogs have less of an “edge of your seat” aspect… where fewer people are eagerly awaiting your next update (But maybe I’m just not Seth Godin

Life: Excellent.  A blog post is a web page.  It can drive SEO, traffic, and interest for you forever.

Intimacy:  Again, variable.  Some people have very active and involved comments on their blogs.  I would say this is generally the exception however.  I believe that for most people blogs are not as good of a way to buid a “relationship” than Twitter or Facebook can be.  But, do to the fact that the reader doesn’t need to “friend” you, it does allow for someone to passively learn about you and build an affinity over time.

Reach: Potentially good.  Especially if you are playing the SEO game.  Easy to show up in Google Alerts, searches, etc.  Also, if you write well others will link to you and drive more traffic.  More than the other networks however, you need consistency to pull this off.  If your blog content sucks, then it is unlikely that the one gem you write will get much notice.

Facebook:

Attention: Pretty good.  It seems that the intimacy level tends to be higher on facebook, and many people pay closer attention.  Maybe this is party because it seems to be more about real updates and personal info than the 140 character Twitter “Micro Broadcast.”

Life: Better than twitter, worse than blogs.  your message lives a couple days instead of a couple hours.

Intimacy: Arguably the best.  If you use facebook well you can forge real relationships.

Reach: Not as good as the others.  You really don’t see people using the “ReTweet” type of concept so much on Facebook.  The platform could do it, but the usage pattern doesn’t seem to do it much.  If you leverage facebook you will probably reach fewer un-planned eyes than on twitter or your Blog.

---

So What’s the point of all of this?  Well, for starters, New Media is just an evolution of communication.  Don’t get used to it.  Today’s new is tomorrows old.  Communication will constantly evolve.  Don’t get to hung up or proud of how wonderful we communicate today, and how stupid the old ways were.  Everything has its place.

Social Media and Social Networking are not the same thing.  One is getting a message out.  The other is building a relationship.  You can do both at the same time, even on the same platform, and with the same message.  But different social networks are better or worse at one than the other.  ask yourself what your real goal is, and what helps you reach it best.

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to chat with Mark Hovind, of Job Bait, about this recession.  Mark is a numbers nut… he is very analytical and loves trends and crunching numbers and stuff like that.

We talked about a particular graph he developed showing the trends of the recession… I had seen this graph before but listening to him talk about various points, like times in history, what the trends mean, his predictions, etc. was fascinating.  It was one of those times I wished I had my JibberJobber family/users on the call.

Fortunately, Mark agreed to talk about it on a webinar - there is limited seats available so hurry and register here.  We will do this webinar on Tuesday, July 21at 11am MST (that is 10am PST, noon CST, 1pm EST, and I have no idea what time it is in Arizona - you’ll have to do your own math on that).

If you have any questions for Mark, please leave them in the comments on this blog post.  Otherwise, GoToWebinar will allow you to ask questions during the webinar, but I guarantee we won’t get through all of the questions.

Here’s the graph we’ll talk about (we might go to other graphs):

Finally, I didn’t know what to call this webinar… some of these came to mind:

• Where is the recession headed?
• When will the recession end?
• What should I do in my job search, career, or business, at this stage of the recession?

I guess it could all be summed up with “where are we at, where are we headed, and what does this mean for me?”

If you want to learn more about Mark you can check him out here:

• Mark Hovind (JobBait.com) on Brands, Tag Lines, and “Getting It” (JibberJobber blog post)
• Networking Doesn’t Work (JibberJobber blog post)
• Are you a “Fierce” Job Hunter? (Total Picture Radio interview)

Sign up for this webinar here, and tell all of your friends about it!

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning, the National Security Agency will be building a 1 million square foot Data Center at Utah’s Camp Williams.

The project got it’s first official round of funding last week when President Obama approved $181 million to get it rolling (as part of a war-spending bill.)

So fire up those tractor’s folks, this baby should be the size of the State Capital building, with nearly $7 million just in perimeter fencing, and require about 65 mega-watts of power (but how do we get that into the Delorean??)

So why here?  Well, of course the access to large quantities of Jell-o play a part.  But there’s more to it than just that: Perhaps the primary reason is decentralization.  The NSA has had it Data Center footprint in Fort Meade, Maryland thus far.  But after Sept 11, they have looked to be less of a single target in the event of a terrorist strike.  Additionally, there are two significant power corridors running through Camp Williams.  Add to that the long standing relationship that the NSA had with the Utah’s unique linguistic units, and you have a great spot for a data gathering, data storage and analysis hackers paradise in the middle of the Wasatch Front.

NSA is also planning a similar site in San Antonio.

There is a type of caterpillar called a processionary caterpillar, so named because one will establish a direction and all the others will fall in very closely behind and move in the same path. As a matter of fact, the followers’ behaviors becomes so automatic that their eyes become half-closed as they shut out the world around them and let the leader do all the thinking and decision making about which direction to pursue. Their behavior is rote and automatic.

An experiment by the French naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre demonstrated the rigidity of the processionary caterpillars’ behavior when he enticed the leader to start circling the edge of the large flower pot. The other caterpillars followed suit in a tight process, forming a closed circle in which the distinctions between leader and follower became totally blurred, and the path had no beginning and no ending. Instead of soon getting bored with the nonproductive activity, the caterpillars kept up their mindless search for several days and nights until they dropped off the edge of the flowerpot from exhaustion and starvation. Relying totally on instinct, past experience, custom, and tradition, the caterpillars achieve nothing because they mistook activity for achievement.

I believe that employees can fall into the trap of blindly following their leader easily. Innovation and creativity, risk taking, and strategy is lost when they act like a drone rather than an individual leader of themselves and an example to others. While the business may not suffer if an individual contributor’s behaviors are automatic and without direction, the business may see drastic performance improvement if they have their “eyes wide open.”

If you find your employees are “circling the pot,” here are a few helpful tips for leaders to increase their motivation and hold them accountable for higher performance.

• Delegate assignments that are especially interesting to an employee and empower them to take the lead and own the assignment.

• Recognize and reward good displays of individual leadership (innovation and creativity, risk taking, strategy).

• Teach team members about being accountable.  Help them understand what it means to be accountable and the power and freedom that comes from doing your best.

• When a team member fails to act as an individual leader, debrief the experience and discuss better behaviors, attitudes, and actions for future situations.

• Talk openly about the importance of fulfilling responsibilities, as well as exceeding expectations.

Often times when I visit the mall, I have the same experience. I park my car next to a store with an exterior exit. That’s important for me because I need to find my car when I am finished shopping. Once I enter the mall, I wander around looking for a map. Usually the malls have kiosks in the middle of the walkways with maps nicely coded with some crazy numbering system derived from a handful of advanced non-linear equations.

This is when my first-grade reading abilities kick in- the skill where pictures speak a thousand words. After walking around for a bit, bumping into people and finding some random store I never knew existed, I exit and realize I parked on the other side of the building. All the way back to my car I’m cursing under my breath, vowing that I will never return to this labyrinth.

My experience with malls is not much different from the way search engine robots might feel when visiting websites. We lay-out what we believe is a perfectly logical website. A search engine robot visits the site, and some weird anomaly in the navigation confuses it, causing the site to be abandoned after a partial index. After a period of having the site live, we realize not all of the pages are indexed in Google.

So, what do we do? Add a sitemap.

Unfortunately, a site map written in Klingon doesn’t help the search engines. Just as I need a readable map in a mall, search engine robots will usually index a site quicker if you have a sitemap they understand.

When optimizing a site, it’s important to include a sitemap in a format that Google and other search engines can navigate. One of the most common is the XML-sitemap.  Another option is the URL list, which includes a text file with one url per line, and is saved as urllist.txt. If you have videos on your site, you can submit a sitemap with all the videos. The same thing applies to sites that provide geo data, samples of code, and news. Google can also use RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0 and mRSS feeds as sitemaps. There are even sitemaps for mobile pages.  As each XML sitemap should contain no more than 50,000 URLs, multiple sitemaps are sometimes required to index an entire site.

As of last December, Google made submitting a sitemap easier. You no longer have to specify the file type. Google will detect the file type and handle it appropriately. There are three different ways to submit a sitemap- which I’ll discuss in my next post.

For the last couple of decades I have wanted to get a HAM radio license. I never got really serious about it, but it was always there in the back of my head waiting for “someday.”

Someday finally arrived. The stars aligned a couple of weeks ago and I decided to just go out and do it soon. I discovered that there was a test scheduled monthly in Salt Lake and I decided to study and take the exam during one of the tests this summer. I started studying from a library book – Now Your Talking – on Monday. I already knew that much of the knowledge was common sense rules about being considerate and so yesterday when I looked to see what dates the test was to be administered I discovered that the first one was that evening. Haven taken some practice exams and seeing that I almost always got passing scores with the little study I had done, I decided to take the leap and take my test yesterday rather than agonizing over the material for another month. I took the test at 7:00 last night and passed on the first try (you can have three tries in one sitting). They encouraged me to take the test for the General class and I got closer to passing that than I would have expected.

Today my callsign got assigned and published in the FCC database so I am now KF7DQE – a HAM without a radio. (Of course I’ll be on the lookout for an appropriate rig.)

As the buzz around Video Interviewing continues to build, HireVue COO Chip Luman answers questions on Sully’s Big Biz Show and HeadHunter Radio this afternoon.

Earlier this week Dr. John Sullivan at ERE predicted “that within a few years the ‘interview from anywhere’ approach will become the standard practice for all but final hiring interviews.” He’s of course talking about Video Interviewing. You can read more about what Dr. Sullivan has to say on the subject at http://bit.ly/10w4ma, and be sure to watch ERE next week for part two of his prognostications.

The buzz around Video Interviewing continues this afternoon at 2:10 PST on The Big Biz Show and later at 3:25 PST on HeadHunter Radio as Chip Luman, HireVue’s COO, answers questions about Video Interviewing, the impetus behind HireVue’s recent growth and how businesses can use HireVue to prepare for what Lou Adler is predicting will be one of the critical hiring issues facing businesses in 2010 - The Turnover Spike (see http://bit.ly/11FBox).

To tune in today to The Big Biz Show or for more information and access to archived podcasts of the show click http://bit.ly/UMkdr.

To Tune in to today’s HeadHunter Radio or for more information and access to archived podcasts of the show click http://bit.ly/5IhQo.

Enjoy the show.