Participative Government in the Making

President-elect Obama has charged his appointee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Senator Tom Daschle, with determining how Americans feel about health care reform. This is something the USA has been lacking for the past eight years--participative government.

Please take a moment to complete a short survey on the AARP website. If you have a personal story about health care, share it. The results of the survey and the comments will be shared with Senator Daschle and, ultimately, President Obama.

Please share your experiences with the health care system, with securing health care for the self-employed, with having problems being referred to a specialist, with trying to find a physician in a specific area from a very limited list of providers.

Parents may want to share how hard it is to find health care without insurance, waiting five hours in line with your child at the health department to get immunizations, being treated at the emergency room without health insurance, being haunted by collection agencies for past due health bills.

Seniors should share about having to choose between filling prescriptions or buying food, losing homes due to long-term health care bills, being victimized by prescription card providers, and feeling like a burden to the family instead of an honored elder.

President Obama is becoming captain of a sinking ship. Help him prioritize the life-saving measures to keep it afloat. Take five minutes to help change the state of health care in the USA.

Tags: health care, dividedwefail, aarp, health care survey, share health care horrors

Need a Job? Join LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 30 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. LinkedIn grew from 18 million members in 2008. Not surprisingly, new registrations were heaviest in sectors like financial, technology and media.

As the economy tanks, more people join LinkedIn to network and to find work. LinkedIn provides several levels of service that puts your qualifications, skills and experience in front of people who may be looking for a contractor, an employee or a partner in a joint venture.

First, you join and complete your profile. Next, you may import your contacts from mail programs like Yahoo!, Windows Live, AOL or GMail. Once imported, you may invite your contacts to join LinkedIn and join your network or to reconnect through LinkedIn if they are members. Then you may search for coworkers, colleagues, classmates and old friends, thereby increasing your network.

To show you how the powerful networking of LinkedIn works: I have six contacts (1st degree), they have 300+ contacts (2nd degree), so my network is 20,800+ (3rd degree). I joined LinkedIn to have one place to keep my professional profile online. I do not have a business account, have not used all the available applications to upload presentations, nor have I actively developed contacts or requested recommendations. Even so, if I were interested in employment, I would already have a job.

View my limited profile on LinkedIn or just Join LinkedIn. Use the power of the Internet to network to your next job.

Tags: networking, employment, linkedin

How to Lose Credibility as a Twitterer

Methods for monetizing Twitter is something about which everyone has a theory. I did not expect that to do so ad companies would want to take over our Twitter account. That is what Sam Lessin on DigitalNext has suggested.

How to Turn Twitter Into an Ad Network in Three Easy Steps - Advertising Age - DigitalNext

Every ad network needs inventory. In the traditional web, this means ad units next to content. In Twitter, this would mean the right to occasionally insert a tweet into a user's feed. To make this functional, all one would need to do is allow users to enter their Twitter name and password . . .

Of course, Sam Lessin is only suggesting one way that Twitter could be monetized. There are no plans at this time to implement his easy ad network.

Beware if you see something similar on Twitter. If you give an ad network access to your account, you would be dependent upon their screening the ad inventory for relevance to your message. Anyone who has ever let an ad network, like TextLinkAds, place advertising on their blog or website without approval, know that you wind up endorsing anything.

Allowing ad networks access to your Twitter account would be a mistake and a surefire way to lose credibility as a Twitterer.

Tags: twitter, monetize twitter, twitter ad network, digitalnext

On This Day, A Child Is Born . . .

Coupons on Cell Phones?

With the downturn in the economy and everyone trying to save money, it is Prime Time for Mobile Coupons.

From the article:

Mobile coupon users who sign up with Cellfire have several ways of using the offers sent to their phones. They can send texts to codes for specific offers, access the service directly or get SMS alerts when new coupons become available. Users get targeted coupon code offers based on their location, age and gender, which they can redeem at the point of sale.

Tags: mobile marketing, cell coupons, economy driven

Step Into Human Rights Abuse

Video from 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Medi Belortaja
Albania
http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/udhr60/exhibit.shtml


Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(Simplified version)

1. All Human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights.
2. All people are entitled to rights without distinction based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, opinion, origin, property, birth or residency.
3. Right to life liberty and security of person.
4. Freedom from slavery.
5. Freedom from torture.
6. Right to be treated equally by the law.
7. Right to equal protection by the law.
8. Right for all to effective remedy by competent tribunal.
9. Freedom from arbitrary arrest.
10. Right to fair public hearing by Independent tribunal.
11. Right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty at public trial with all guarantees necessary for defence.
12. Right to privacy in home, family and correspondence.
13. Freedom of movement in your own country and the right to leave and return to any countries.
14. Right to political asylum in other countries.
15. Right to nationality.
16. Right to marriage and family and to equal right of men and women during and after marriage.
17. Right to own property.
18. Freedom of thought and conscience and religion.
19. Freedom of opinion and expression and to seek, receive and impart information.
20. Freedom of Association and assembly.
21. Right to take part in and select government.
22. Right to social security and realisation of economic, social and cultural rights.
23. Right to work, to equal pay for equal work and to form and join trade unions.
24. Right to reasonable hours of work and paid holidays.
25. Right to adequate living standard for self and family, including food, housing, clothing, medical care and social security.
26. Right to education.
27. Right to participate in cultural life and to protect intellectual property rights.
28. Right to social and international order permitting these freedoms to be realized.
29. Each person has responsibilities to the community and others as essential for a democratic society.
30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms ser forth herein.

Disclaimer: Your rights made simple is given only as a guide. For an exact rendering of each principle please refer to www.unric.org. Due to difficulties in translation, the original Article 30 was used in all simplified versions.

May 2009 be the year that all rights of all people are cherished and protected, including the people in the USA.

Tags: human rights, freedoms, universal declaration of human rights

Internet Explorer Browser is Not Secure

If you use any version of Internet Explorer, please read this post on Advertising for Success blog. You must switch your browser now!

Tags: IE, browser flaw, trojan, malicious code

Guns, Spam and Cheap Bear are Recession Proof

This is an excellent article about recession-proof brands, including SPAM, guns and cheap beer. You will be amazed by some of the brands.

Book of Tens: Recession-Proof Businesses - Advertising Age - News

Also included were 10 Ways to Bounce Back Stronger From Tough Times

6. Be Accountable

Create A Culture Of Accountability And Partner With Finance, Research And Analytics To Measure Everything You Can. IBM'S Success Is Grounded In A Disciplined Process That Started With A Cross-Functional Marketing And Finance Team That Reviewed All Activities.

10. Be Socially Responsible

Do The Right Thing. Your Consumers Will Notice And Reward You For Giving Back. Jim Stengel, Former P&G Global Marketing Officer, Says It Is Time For Us All To "Go Beyond Cause Marketing Or Ideals-Based Branding And Have An Inspirational And Motivational Reason For Your Brand."

-- Bob Liodice
President-CEO, ANA

As you can see, my favorites were number six and ten. If big business and the government had followed these pieces of advice, the world would be a better place.

Tags: recession proof businesses, be socially responsible, be accountable

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

This is my friend, DeAnn's, kitty, Tica. She was adopted in Costa Rica and is now a proud American kitty. This is her first Christmas! She hit the mother load of Christmas with my friend. LOL

Tags: tica, kitty, christmas, costa rica, american

Millennials are Tech Savvy and Sociable

There are approximately 75 million members of the Millennial Generation, people born 1977-1998. This generation is the largest generation since the Boomers. Millennial will make as big an economic impact as that generation. The economic impact will be different as they look at the world very differently than Boomers.

Members of the millennial generation are technically literate like no other generation. They grew up with laptops, cell phones, the Internet and TV. Their use of social networks have been well documented and are, in large, responsible for the phenomena of MySpace and YouTube. This combination of technological savvy and sociability affects how they work and shop.

So, how to reach the millennial generation? Peer reviews, including comments on blogs, forums and social networks, will become increasingly important. Word of mouth (WOM) marketing will become increasingly important.

From the following article, Millennials’ Tech Affects Work, Shopping - eMarketer

Millennials reserve the actual shopping activity in the store because it’s a social activity for them . . . We know that they can’t make a decision by themselves. They need constant validation from their peer group that they’re making the right decisions—and they’ll seek out that validation.

The eMarketer article also talks of research by Accenture in which over half of respondents said mobile phones were their preferred means of communication.

With the evolution of handheld technology, where even the staid Blueberry has features and functions to rival the computers of ten years ago, the question continues to be how to monetize Third Screen.

I hate to think the only choice will be "let Google find what I need."

Tags: millennials, 10-31 year old, tech savvy, social networks

Neglecting Your Networks?

Power.com, based out of Brazil, is offering a system to view and synchronize all your social tools and your friends, followers, contacts, updates and photos in one place.

Power.com: One Ring to Rule All Social Networks? - BusinessWeek

This will be a boon to me if it does as promised. I find myself split between trying to visit and update all the networks to which I belong. To tell the truth, there are some networks I have joined that I just "let go." You may see me on these sites, sporting an outdated profile, unanswered friend requests and ignored shout outs. Try not to judge me too harshly. I try, I really do.

Tags: power.com, social networks, synchronize social tools