Rockland Web Design Blog

LinkedIn 201 Workshop - Saturday Nov 12, at 2 pm

2011-11-05T14:11:00.002-04:00

Our second LinkedIn Seminar will be at the Haverstraw Library this Saturday November 12, from 2 to 5 pm. Last week we had our first annual workshop on this topic, and went into the basics of creating a profile, filling out your profile, connecting with your business associates, and joining groups. (Please click here to download the PDF file for LinkedIn 101.)

This week we will be looking at the various applications that you can use through LinkedIn, such as Box.net, Slideshare, and other useful tools. We will also cover LinkedIn mobile, to allow you access to your connections from the road, as well as further discussing the psychology of posting to your profile.

Closer to God...through technology?

2011-09-24T18:46:00.001-04:00

A good friend and business associate of mine recently started creating podcasts of individual chapters of the Bible, and posts them at his website scriptures.podbean.com. I must say, he has a great voice for reading out loud. Everything is very clear to understand and enjoyable to hear...not an easy feat to say the least.
It also prompts an interesting phenomenon in our culture today, the use of technology to give and receive Religious and Spiritual messages. I find it very encouraging that people are using computers, phones, websites and more to stay close to God, regardless of Religious affiliation.
I'm no Saint. I have done my fair share of stupidity during my existence thus far, and I'm sure that I'll do more. But cool this like my friend's website help me to stay on target with the fundamental (not fundamentalIST, mind you) beliefs that I grew up with as a kid: 1. Believe in God 2. Obey God. Simple as that. The rest is training.
Here are some other things I use to stay on the Path:
+ RSS Feeds: I can keep up to date with my friends podcast, right from my phone.
+ YouVersion: Mobile Bible App you can download for your iPhone or Android device.
+ Facebook: There's a few good people that I've friended that update their statuses with Spiritual messages. Always good to see them amongst the 8000 messages about people doing laundry and some think our country sucks and blah blah.
+ Email subscriptions: I subscribe to some nice websites, like Tres Dias, Guideposts.
Again I must emphasize that I'm nobody special, and this post isn't intended to brag or push anyone. However it is to let you know that if you do have a basic belief in God (or even if you just feel the presence of a Higher Power...), and you want to stay reminded of that Faith, Presence, or stay on your rightly guided Path, consider using one or more of the tools described as above.

Wordpress 101 Whitepaper Available for Download

2011-09-17T16:30:00.003-04:00

For all of you who came to the Rockland Web Design Wordpress Seminar, we thank you. =)

In conjunction with our free seminar at the Haverstraw Public Library on September 17, 2011 at 2 pm, we have created a 38-page presentation which will act as a supplement to all the cool stuff we'll be talking about in the seminar.

You can download the Wordpress 101 guide here.

Stay tuned for more of our seminars. You can view some upcoming seminars by going to Rockland Web Design's site here. Also, if you have suggestions for other seminars, please let us know by calling us at (845) 877-7333.

2011-09-09T12:15:00.003-04:00

Quick blog post: Our Freebie Website offering for new businesses is gaining rapid steam! If you need more information on this great package for startup businesses with a very very small budget (nothing wrong with that, we've all been there), give us a call at (845) 877-7333.

Twitter: The Almost-Forgotten Social Network

2011-09-01T17:30:00.003-04:00

In between all the buzz about Facebook going IPO next year, LinkedIn gone public this year, and Google launching a new Social Network called Google+, we've nearly forgotten about our little friend Twitter.

Nearly.

Slowly but surely, over the past few years I have been following people here and there via @rocklandweb, primarily for entertainment purposes such as @DeathStarPR, @DanielTosh, and other funny users. But I also follow up on how Rockland Web Design's clients are growing and building their respective businesses. Primarily I do this using my laptop, but every once in a while I'll follow someone via mobile updates. Today I followed HP's Social Media exec brynaatp to see if I could get a hold of one of those tasty $99 HP Touchpads. So if Bryna posts at 3 am that they are getting a shipment in at 4 am that morning, I'm right on it!

For those of you that don't tweet via your mobile device but might have an interest, below are some really really easy ways to do so. Mind you, you do not have to follow everyone via your mobile, only specific people! This makes things a little more manageable.

You can find more information on using devices with Twitter here.

Twitter commands

Do more than Tweet! Send these commands to Twitter:

FOLLOW username: Start following a user
UNFOLLOW username: Stop following a user
ON/OFF: Turn all Tweet notifications on or off
ON/OFF username: Set Tweet notifications for a user on or off (you'll still be following them even if you set it to off)
GET username: Shows you the latest tweet from any user
RT username: Retweet a user's latest tweet
FAV username: Favorite a user's latest tweet
D username your-message: Send a direct message to a user

The @Font-Face Lift - An Easy Way to Pretty Up Your Website

2011-08-23T17:41:00.007-04:00

I don't know about you, but if I see one more website with an Arial or a Times New Roman font, I'm going to deeply stick a razor into the biggest vein on my arm.

Not that I don't find them useful. For many years, Arial and Times New Roman were the de facto standards for "web-safe fonts", which is a fancy way of saying that these were fonts

that would show up on pretty much any browser no matter what you're using: Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (or as we call that last one - the scourge of mankind that will not die). You could be in Yemen, on a foreign browser created by a Taliban warlord that just harvested and tested opium poppy seeds, and yup...Arial or Times New Roman!

Then there were a few fallback fonts: there was Verdana, which always sounded like a classier font, but the truth is that it is simply a fatter Arial. So if you ever

read a Verdana font that says "do i look fat??" respond back immediately with a vehement "of course not, sweetie."

Comic Sans: Honestly, my favorite font. I always thought it went well with our cartoon logo. But of course, it is cartoonish. So it might not be the best font for, say...a funeral home. You don't wanna go to find out when your loved one's services are about to transpire at Wally's Wild Water World .com or something. Go bury your loved one and get 15% off the mega water slide.

I'm probably getting a little irreverent at this point so I'll say for the record now;

I apologize if I have offended anyone. But I am pretty stoked about something I just saw on one of our client's blogs, which is a completely new font! You can see it here: www.vacationonyourmind.com. BTW Rockland Web Design can't take credit for that one,

Kathi Handt has a very talented relative that was able to set it up that way in her Blogger account, which unbeknownst to me is a new setting in the system. When I heard about this I checked it out and changed my own blog font.

So a little background just in case you are getting confused why this wasn't able to happen in years past: Every computer (including the one you are on) has a set of fonts installed inside. Then, when that computer goes to a website, the page that shows up tells the computer what font to use to display the text on the page. The problem of course, occurs when a certain font (such as Futura, Gothic or Amazing Grace) is not installed on a computer. Then all that shows up is nothing, or in most cases the backup font. Guess what that is? Yup, Arial or Times. Ugh.

What changed? A seldom-used technique called @font-face. I won't bore you with details, but essentially it makes the font in question hang out on the website, and when somebody goes to the aforementioned website, the pages will temporarily install that font on the computer that is being used. Pretty simple, huh? Unfortunately, few people used it up until now.

But designers are starting to catch on. And when something reaches a critical mass and starts getting used more, it reduces the cost needed to install on a website. This means that now, if you have a website, you can probably have an @font-face setup installed for just a few hours of work from your friendly neighborhood Spiderman (um, web designer). Wallah! Instantly, your website looks a little less vanilla, a little sexier, and more likely to attract people to stick around.

The reason why you want to do this is that it is a very easy way to change your entire website with very little effort. And when you change, update and modify your website often, it is a great way to have your customers coming back for more! Aesthetics definitely count, and if you pay attention to them, you won't end up with yet another customer leaving because he subconsciously got turned off by a fat arial. Rather, he (or she) will stick around - Amazing Grace is on the screen, and it is quite the bedazzling @font-face, one which certainly encourages a few extra clicks over to the shopping cart, contact form, or phone to give a buzz.

The Meaning of Customer Service

2011-08-13T14:52:00.003-04:00

You know, for many years I have heard people boast about "customer service" in their business being the thing that sets them apart. And I always thought that something like that should be pretty freaking Captain Obvious. But I'd like to share with you a story that will open your eyes a bit; it certainly has done so for me...

A few weeks ago I dropped into The Chuggin Rhino after work for a well-deserved drink. (They are located on the corner of route 45 and 202 in Pomona, just down the block from the Rockland Boulders Stadium)

I sat down at a table by myself, and the waitress promptly came over to take my order. I ordered my usual Sam Adams draft and a burger that is the size of a small country. (I've had them before at the Chug...they're good.)

Anyway after a few minutes I got kind of restless and wanted to read the newspaper. I asked the waitress if she had one in the back, and she said "Let me go check." A minute later she asked which one I wanted, and I said the Journal News. Then she was gone for about 5 minutes...

When she returned, she gave me what looked like a new newspaper. So I asked her "Did you go out and buy this?" She said yes. I was astounded - later I asked her why she did this, and she said that the owner, John Rodriguez has always emphasized making the customers feel as comfortable as possible. She also said that she knows that some customers don't always feel like talking to other patrons and there is usually a newspaper there. On this day, it seems someone discarded it already, so she went out and got a fresh one for me. (She also joked with a wink that she knows it increases her tip. She was very right and deservedly so!) I thanked her for being so courteous.

A few minutes later, I went outside to make a phone call. When I returned, I noticed that the burger I was eating was gone. Before I could ask questions, a waiter came back with it, put it on the table again, and explained that he put it under a heat lamp to keep it warm, while I was outside making my call!

Wow.

I'll tell you this: From this experience alone I have recommitted to the practice of giving good customer service for everyone who needs work from Rockland Web Design. For many years, I focused on various elements of building the foundation of the business: marketing, design process, seo, social media, administration, infrastructure, and a whole lot of other things that segment my time. And a lot of it involves numbers, numbers numbers.

But I've come to realize that numbers alone do not make a successful business. Everyone that encounters us has to come away from the experience with that same "wow" that I got at the Chuggin Rhino that day. They should all be smiling like they just got the best...burger of their life!

I won't be following up with a post on how we pride ourselves on customer service. I just hope we simply perform more acts in the future that allow us to continually improve, and be able to smile at our customers when they thank us at the end, responding with a "...no worries, hope to see you again soon."

I hope you do the same in your business. Especially if your business prides itself on customer service.

Wordpress 101 Whitepaper Available for Download

2011-06-28T10:36:00.003-04:00

For anyone who wants to use Wordpress to better promote their online business, we've created the de-facto guide for using it!

In conjunction with our free seminar at the Haverstraw Public Library on July 28, 2011 at 3 pm, we have created a 38-page presentation which will act as a supplement to all the cool stuff we'll be talking about in the seminar.

You can download the Wordpress 101 guide here.

9 Ways to Spot an Email Virus or Dangerous Attachment

2011-03-28T19:41:00.003-04:00

I just got a great email question from my friend David Reinhardsen of Hudson Photo Works. In it, he was trying to figure out if a chain letter email he got was legitimate. The text that was passed along read like this:

...You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled "Here you have it" If you open the file, a message will appear on your screen saying: 'It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful....Subsequently, you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your Name, e-mail and password...

I responded that a good way to check if an email chain is valid would be to verify using snopes.com. They are a good independent source to determine if you're getting your leg pulled, or worse yet - something else. :-)

In this particular case, the chain email was indeed a hoax, as verified here: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/lifeisbeautiful.asp

However it's always good to be safe rather than sorry. Generally it is a good idea to be careful of attachments and web links from strange places. When you get an email from someone, if there is an attachment or a link in the email, pay close attention to the following (color coded for your viewing pleasure):

1. Is the item addressed just to you, or to many, many people?
2. Is the link or attachment's contents clearly explained?
3. Were you expecting something from that person?

4. Do you know the person who emailed you?
5. Is the link or attachment's contents clearly explained?

6. Is the text of the email very vague, like "Check this out"
7. Is the text misspelled like it was done by a 1st grader?

8. Is the file attached an executable file (does it have a .exe. extension)
9. If you put your mouse over the link, does the address it shows look like a really, really weird link, like xdflihsefon.ne.efg.gu? (That's just an example)

The darker the color on the numbered items above, the more likely the danger. Items 8 and 9 are very dangerous!

If one or more of these things occur, stop before you open up the link or attachment. in that case, the best practice is to contact that individual (call or a new email - not reply back) and find out what is going on with that attachment.

As always, try to use your gut instinct.

Death to Internet Explorer 6

2011-03-10T12:30:00.001-05:00

For those of you on Internet Explorer 6, we encourage you to check this website out - straight from Microsoft:

http://ie6countdown.com/

Before I start ranting and raving like a lunatic, I'd like to thank Ryan Trotz, developer extraordinaire for pointing me to this website.

We at Rockland Web Design HATE (with a passion) Internet Explorer 6. It's 10 years old, and Internet Explorer 7, 8, and now 9 (for Windows 7) have come out. If you're worried about security, don't be -- the new browsers are just as secure (or more) than this legacy browser that does not even have support from Microsoft anymore. Imagine driving around an old car that doesn't have any parts available for it when something goes wrong on it. THAT is IE6.

Worse, web designers across the globe have to backwards code all their designs with the premise that someone, somewhere will be using this browser. It's nothing against them, but the downside for the customer is that new, innovative features that can be used in a website cannot be added, because IE6 will not support those new features.

If I sound passionate about this, you better believe it. One prominent developer recently indicated to me that he spends 20% of his time coding backwards for this awful, awful bane of our technological existence.

Anyway, PLEASE consider upgrading if you haven't done so already. Here are a few links to some fantastic browsers out on the market that you can put on your PC for FREE:

Google Chrome - My favorite. It is light, fast and very customizable.
Mozilla Firefox - This browser is the popular alternative for Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer - If you are worried about switching to another browser, don't. Just upgrade to one that was created during this decade! LOL

I really hope you click on one of those links. For now we will support IE6. But one day in the near future, the time will come when we can finally put that terrible web browser out of its misery...and ours. And on that day, I shall have a cold, frosty Sam Adams in celebration of a Brave New World.

Search Engines, Our Puny Human Brain...and Jeopardy??

2011-02-21T16:35:00.009-05:00

Last week, a giant leap forward in the world of technology occurred. No, Call of Duty: Libya Edition has not been released yet. I'm talking about the Jeopardy exhibition match between IBM's new mega computer, Watson, and former Jeopardy masters Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. While our carbon-based brothers put up a good fight, ultimately Watson and the programming geniuses at IBM walked away with the 1-million dollar grand prize, which will go to two charities.

What I found interesting was Ken Jennings' dissertation thereafter on Slate.com about his experiences with the IBM Super Computer on Jeopardy. He brought up a word that I find to be extraordinarily important in the world of Search Engine Optimization, and just good writing in general. That word is contextual.

Contextual information is data which unravels the overall or general meaning of a given topic.

So, for instance if you hear the word cheesy, you might think the term is referring to one of my awfully-timed jokes (I pray you are never a victim of my attempt to make you laugh......), until I brought up the term lasagna. Now the word takes on a whole new meaning; you've detected a pattern in the topic and begun to unravel the overall context of the root word or discussion.

In the case of his article on Watson and Jeopardy, Jennings stated that he saw very similar patterns between the ways that Watson unravels and responds to clues and that of his own methods:

That machine zeroes in on key words in a clue, then combs its memory (in Watson's case, a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge) for clusters of associations with those words. It rigorously checks the top hits against all the contextual information it can muster: the category name; the kind of answer being sought; the time, place, and gender hinted at in the clue; and so on. And when it feels "sure" enough, it decides to buzz.

Contextualization is soooo important for both humans and machines. It allows both the ability, as Jennings noted in both himself and Watson, the ability to get to that main point, and respond accordingly.

A funny thing to also note above is Jennings' view of how humans and machines think very much alike. Granted, there is a significant speed advantage for the computer, but the point is that if enough time were allotted, both human and machine would arrive at the same conclusion, especially since the machine is patterned after human engrams.

(Human engrams...anybody remember the M-5 from Star Trek? Daystrom? Sorry, cultural reference...)

Watson was a major step forward in the advancement of computers, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to glimpse into the mind of a machine that is geared toward searching for answers. Now, let's take a step back and think about search engines for a moment; are not Google, Yahoo, Bing and other engines geared to do pretty much the same thing? You type something in the search box, and Google will seek out the best possible answers to your query, all in a matter of milliseconds.

So what most people do in order for their site to rank well is to add content, and lots of it. Nothing wrong with that, but the writing is geared toward getting it ranked well by the engine, not developing the proper context of the article for the humans to consume and gain knowedge. This is all wrong, since as we noted above, the computer was developed with the likeness of the human, not the other way around.

I'm not saying this like this is new to all of us, I'm saying it more as a reminder. A lot of times when we are writing for our websites, blogs, social profiles, and other search-engine related material, we are writing with the hopes that the machines will pick up our information and present it to somebody sitting in their suit or pajamas and invite them in. The problem is that we've lost touch with the more important one to write our stuff for ---the actual human being seeking the information. Humans are not looking for a stupid search-engine optimized article with tons of keywords and weird heading tags that don't even seem to make sense, they're looking for a real article on how to solve their real problem.

Stephen Chapman of ZDnet today described an unsavory version of this as "article spinning", where you basically regurgitate an article you find on the web in your own words. The purpose, again, is to placate the search engines, with no regard for the humans that ultimately stumble upon it. It's a really awful practice, and the funny thing is that the net result is that it's not even useful. The humans that ultimately land on such a page won't even stay long enough for the content to matter, anyway.

When you write your content for the web, write as if you're talking one on one with somebody. It takes some knack, I admit. but if you can refine your practice, the most difficult part of adding unique content to your site will be 90% complete. Then go back and edit a little bit, sprinkle a few good keywords in there for the search engines (Maximum 5% keywords range), and adjust the tags of your site accordingly.

Above all, the most important endeavor is to make sure you've gotten the main point of your article across to the user - the context of the writing should be crystal clear, so that when the user moves on to a new topic, the one just observed is completely understood from your point of view.

In conclusion, don't try to think like a computer. You already are one. Since computers are trying to be built like you, there's no need to try to impress it. Rather, think like the human that you are, have an opinion, and welcome the opportunity for others to benefit from it when they visit your blog, website or social profile.

Social Media's ROI: CHANGE.

2011-02-12T10:37:00.003-05:00

For the last 5 years, I've heard the question "Where's the ROI" used in conjunction with Social Media more often than "Where's the Beef" back in the 1980's.

The problem is that most people try to take platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, and use them for some sort of direct Business or Financial gain. But as you've probably seen over the years, that rarely works.

Some have used the platforms as a branding tool. While this certainly has value, if the branding conversation is one-sided (i.e. the business throws a few posts per week at its followers, but doesn't directly respond to reply questions or discussions), then the net result can be a perceived lack of authenticity. This can kill a brand faster than a bad Groupon commercial:

I remember about 5 years ago I was talking with a trusted mentor of mine in the web development community, and I told him that Facebook was going to be a very important platform, and we should develop and integrate our websites in conjunction with it. He responded that he just doesn't see the value of Facebook and other Social Media, and it would be pointless to change anything we are doing, or try to develop any sort of interface that would be useful for our customer base at that time. In a rare divergence of opinion with him, I decided to use the platform to try and better connect with my community - obviously there was a business purpose, but I endeavored to do it in a more authentic, upfront manner than just putting up a post and expecting the world to respond to it. To this day, when I log on, I try more to see what others are doing rather than focus on posting my own things.

This week we've again seen just how effective Social Media can be as a communication tool. As a result of Facebook and Twitter, Egypt's Hosni Mubarek was removed from power. What happens next is anybody's guess, and hopefully the transition will be as peaceful as can be. But the point has been made, that when people organize around any cause that is near and dear to their hearts, significant change can be the result.

As a businessperson, this may not directly affect you, but you can certainly garner some interesting conclusions on what has happened in Egypt, and how powerful Social Media's influence can be in creating change:

1. If you are not listening to the voice of the people whom you serve, you and your business can become obsolete in short amount of time. Think about it...did we even consider Egypt just a few short weeks ago? Yet on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc., people were organizing and discussing issues, and came to the collective conclusion that it was time to change the system.

2. Even people with limited resources are able to connect, organize and ignite change using Facebook. Thus it makes more sense than ever to always keep these powerful voice in mind as you are growing your business.

3. On the Internet, money does not equal power. The will of the people equals power. Thus, you cannot directly attribute ROI to every online endeavor, rather steer your business in the direction of what best serves your audience.

4. Keep tabs on new innovations. My guess is that the Mubarek government had very little idea that such a revolution could occur in just a matter of weeks. When they realized, they tried to shut down the Internet, which backfired. In addition to listening to the voice of the people, it is very important to stay current on the latest technological innovations. Try out a new service each week, just to see if there is any value to it. If there is, it might help you, your business and your client base. (One that I recently became interested in is Convore - check it out)

I often talk about the reverse 80/20 rule, in which 80 percent of your time on Social Media should be spent listening, serving and conversing with others on random things that build connections with your friends and audience. The other 20 percent of the time is used on the ROI-building activities, such as discussing new services, advertising events, and other endeavors that are profitable. While the 80 percent may not bring direct results, it does wonders for you and your business in terms of reputation.

You may not ever have to deal with a revolution as monumental as that of Egypt, but you can certainly be a part of the community that creates positive change. To do this, consider embracing some of the ideas mentioned above. It will change your business, and more importantly...it will change you - in my opinion, for the better.

Finding Business Value in Those "Stupid Facebook Games"

2011-01-29T11:55:00.005-05:00

I hear it over and over again...

"I don't have time to waste on Facebook games"
"There's absolutely no point to playing Facebook Games"
"I can't stand getting 800 Facebook Game invitations"

Yeah, I admit it is kind of annoying after the 742nd time you get invited to play Mafia Wars, or other games that at the core hold no interest to you. Quite frankly, after playing Farmville on and off for a few months, I finally got to the point myself thinking "What's the point"?

After all, I ended up getting in a monotonous routine everyday of checking my farm for 15 minutes, harvesting the crops, planting new seeds, adding new farm equipment, making sure all the neighbors were visited. It was almost like I was married. :-D

So I took a hiatus, and ended my Farmville days for a good 4-5 months. I thought that I was done. But then my good friend Heather convinced me to jump back in the fold with a new game, Cityville. It's basically the same concept as Farmville except you are in control of building an entire city.

Along the way you deal with a variety of easy challenges, such as supplying the local business vendors with goods, collecting rent, building infrastructure, working together with your friends to help their cities, and making sure your consumer population is kept happy as much as possible.

Sound anything like what you do in business each day?

As crazy as it sounds, I have found real value in playing this silly game for a little while each day. (And I owe it to Heather for convincing me. Yes, Heather you can rub it in for as long as you want)

In addition to the game being a much needed quick break from the normal pressures we deal with at Rockland Web Design, it has also helped as a small set of reminders of the all-important basics in building one's business (or city - LOL). See if you find any below that might help you:

Planning: As your business grows, you need to continually plan ahead to make sure everything continues to run smooth, and it is growing the way you want it to grow.
Organization: Every once in a while you can notify your friends about special coin bonuses and other things that you can post to your wall. Because I don't want to annoy people that are not playing the game, I decided to create a special list in Facebook just for my friends that play CityVille. It only took about 10 minutes to build, and now I don't bother anyone but people that play the game, and are happy (I hope) to see updates on my wall.

We have a great video tutorial on our free Rockland Web Design Help Forum which shows you how to build lists in the new Facebook (as of Dec 2010. It'll probably change in 6 months).
Logistics: Sometimes you'll run low on supplies. You need to have shipments arrive or farm crops harvested to supply your local businesses, to keep customers happy.
Energy: If you do too much yourself, you'll run out of energy. (Sound familiar?) So you need to pace yourself, or try to get other neighbors to help you.
Helping others: When you visit and help other neighbors, you can actually gain energy, experience and a few extra dollars. It is probably one of the most important reminders of the game, that if you do unto others as you would want them to do unto you, it will benefit everyone in a Good way.
Growing: You'll also gain cash and property rewards (sorry, only virtual) for your efforts. But don't get too hung up on that part. As even Donald Trump said in "The Art of the Deal", he was never really that interested in money, except as a scorecard.
Fun: Sometimes if you give yourself a break and distract yourself with a silly game like this, it actually makes you feel better. Imagine that. :-) Oh and also it might make you more productive. A recent study by the University of Melbourne indicated that using Facebook or Twitter at work can help you and other workers more productive by 9%.

If you see anything in the list items above that might hold value to you, I encourage you to try out CityVille, or perhaps another game offered on the platform. Of course, I do urge a bit of caution --- anything not used in moderation can be detrimental. Here are a few quick tips before starting:

Talk with a few of your trusted friends about their favorite games. If you hear of one that may entice you, check it out.
Be careful of your privacy settings. As you probably know, many Facebook game makers (notably Zynga) take lack of Privacy to a terribly new level. Before starting, go to the Account >> Privacy Settings in the top right corner of your Facebook account and change or remove anything you don't like.

My best rule of thumb for privacy on Facebook is to never put any info (Your real birthdate, private email address or private phone number) on the platform that you don't want the world to know. I know it sound scary, but it isn't as long as you follow that simple rule.
Don't sign up for games that make you look bad. Not that I have anything against people that play Drug Dealer Shootout Part III (no that is not a game, stop looking for it), but I don't want to play something that might post to friends that I do business with. Thus, I don't play such games.

If you are in the public eye, just be careful what you sign up for. You never know when a fundamentalist radical, um...person might let the whole world think that you did something bad, even if you didn't.
Sign up for the game. Again, when you are told that the game will access some of your information, be careful not to give away anything you don't want to hand over. If you feel too uncomfortable, don't sign up.
Follow the basic game instructions. You'll likely be walked through a few quick tutorials on how to add friends, perform tasks and gain bonuses. This will be the enjoyable part, so just go with the flow. Likely you'll want to add some neighbors; seek out those that are already playing the game, or are cool with you inviting them. Don't send to people that you feel are not interested, it will simply piss them off.

Oh and a side note - you don't need to pay real money in most of these games. Yes the game will go slower, but again it is just a game. Work with your neighbors to achieve goals and you will advance anyway. (Disclaimer: I am not saying the game makers do not deserve money, they worked hard to develop it. If you truly enjoy the game, consider visiting the company's site and looking into making a small monetary, one time donation.
Give yourself a time limit when playing. Again, everything in moderation. I recommend about 15 minutes. Set some sort of timer, because these games can hook you for hours if you are not careful.

The browser Google Chrome has a great extension that you can add, called StayFocused, which automatically shuts off any website after you use it for an allotted amount of time. You can tweak the settings, add websites that you want to go easy on, and other things. It's very useful, and it keeps you disciplined to what you configured for your brain. :-)
Know when to end. At some point, you're going to start to get the feeling that you've mastered the game, you've learned all there is to learn, and there is really no point to playing anymore. Unlike real relationships - which God willing will always have a new dynamic to them until the day we leave this existence - we must remember that this is merely a game.

Thus, at that point you should really consider packing it in. In this case, do the polite thing and let your friends know that you are calling it quits. Then, if possible see if you can delete all your settings in the game, so that you don't leave any personal information with a company that has come to an end of its usefulness.

I hope this blog was useful to you. I always try to find some sort of reason for why we do the things we do. Some businesspeople will still look at this post and say "Are you nuts? There is still no ROI! Where's the ROI??"

To this I say that the investment you make is a little bit of your time, and the return is a new experience that, like many others that we encounter, help us to see life just a little more different than we perceived it before. After all, isn't that where the fun is?

Try it out. You might smile a little more today.

An Email to a Friend about Facebook

2010-09-14T20:03:00.005-04:00

A week ago I got an email from a good friend and business associate who asked some questions about Facebook. He wanted to understand how to effectively communicate on the Network, in a way that was both efficient, and more importantly, effective. I asked him if I may republish my email to him, and he agreed. I hope it is helpful to you as well.

Tom:

I notice you’ve made a lot of “friend” suggestions on Facebook to me recently. I was wondering if you have a particular strategy regarding the people you suggest?

I have a basic strategy, but I admit it is not a whiteboarded/heavily planned one.

I have several lists of friends. Personal, business1 (people I've personally met that do business in the region), business2 (they are business oriented but I don't know them personally), acquaintences, etc. When I sent suggestions to you , I sent ones of people that were on the business1 list. Further, I didn't send everyone I know to you , as I understand that not everyone might be a mutually advantageous friend on Facebook.

But sometimes I will recommend a friend or two that is simply an interesting soul. I believe Facebook is a place to expand horizons in many directions, including non-business. Even this can help business down the road. Remember Facebook started out as a college socialization tool. (by the way maybe we can all get together and go see "The Social Network"!)

I still don’t really get how I can use Facebook strategically (LinkedIn is an obvious tool for me).

Think branding and strategy, not instant sales and tactical activities. They are important too, but it's more about being an active participant in various communities, be they business, charitable or otherwise. If you participate, they remember you...

There are certain ongoing activities you should perform on a daily basis, such as:

1. Post status update (80% interesting articles, wise ponderings, interesting life experiences that you think people might comment back on) and 20% business message (hey I hope to see you at the networking group this week, etc.)

2. Comment on other people's posts: VERY VERY VERY important: after you post a status update, go to your Facebook news feed and comment / like other people's posts. It comes down to the rule "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care". Only comment on things that you genuinely have an opinion on, or you can simply click the like button if you like the post. Feel free to be a little humorous, quirky or unique. This is welcomed with most in the Facebook community.

If I were in a retail business or a B2C business, I could be “friends” with just about anyone. But I get confused by friend requests from people who I may have little or nothing in common with. If someone sends an invitation NOT from a suggestion of a friend (you) and I don’t know them and don’t seem to have common interests, I ignore it.

Believe me, I do get selective with adding people I don't know. Sometimes I'll send a message back asking who are you, how do I know you, why do you want to be friends, but generally speaking I don't put a heavy guard up unless I think they are potentially unsavory as a Facebook friend. You can generally get a feel for this by simply looking at what type of stuff they post on their wall, prior to friending them. If you see that most of their stuff is centered around making it to level 127 of the game mafia wars, run. :-D (Not that there's anything wrong with Mafia Wars - lol)

But when someone fitting that profile sends an invitation at the suggestion of a friend, I feel a little uncomfortable.

Feel free to always ask the person who originally sent the friend suggestion.

How do I maintain a balance between personal and business relationships on Facebook?

One word: lists. Start with a personal and a business list. If you are a more private individual, begin by simply communicating with your close family and friends, not business associates. If you use Facebook first to communicate back and forth with family and close close friends, you will eventually be comfortable with expanding outward into the Facebook business community, with a more well rounded understanding of how to effectively communicate with that demographic.

This is actually backed up by one of the ultimate core books "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", in which Stephen Covey states that we need to first work on our circle of influence (the people places and things that we can help make a positive difference in), and only then will our circle of concern (that which we WANT to be able to change) expand. If we apply that to Facebook communities, we should first be genuine with those we trust, and then we will be able to be genuine and comfortable with others.

Thanks for the great questions!

Tom

Social Media: Creating a Good Routine

2010-08-09T08:10:00.005-04:00

Good morning! (Wanted to start with that...)

So I'm sitting outside with my laptop responding to a few emails, etc. this morning, and I got a message from a friend mentioning that she is starting up with doing a little Social Media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. She has a great website that encourages people to navigate successfully through their midlife years with a variety of tools such as e-books, audio interviews and blog posts. Check her out here at http://www.midlifeunlimited.com/.

Anyway, since I am very big on Social Media I decided to give her some unsolicited advice about how to go about it successfully. Below is the message I sent her:

Social Networking: I recommend the book The Zen of Social Media Marketing, by Shama Kabani. I got it from the library last month and am just about done with it. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are all discussed, and ties in the importance of your website as the place where you want to attract people.

15-30 minutes a day in the morning, you should start by posting a status update, and then reach out to your friends, colleagues, clients and consumers (in that order) by simply saying hi and responding to their posts. Then, every week make sure you have a compelling offer that people see on their social about you...such as a sale, a new product or service or a new blog post / whitepaper. Add the link to your website or blog to bring them there and talk about it.

Wow that was so good I think I'll expand on it in a blog. Go tohttp://blog.rocklandwebdesign.com/ in like 15 minutes.

Aside from the last admittedly A.D.D. and slightly arrogant line, the information is sound. See, the problem with Social Media is that it is so easy to get sucked into it the wrong way - and instead of connecting with like-minded people that you can help and they can help you, you end up playing Farmville for 49 hours a week, and become addicted to responding to people that are ROFLing while 'doing laundry'. Oh the mirth of it all.

So what do ya do? Well the advice above, broken down a bit more, goes like this:

Every week, start out with a plan to offer something new and compelling - a sale, a blog post, an e-book, a video, something that you feel will benefit others, and to a small degree, yourself. (Note: As I get older, I realize it is not a bad thing to offer something that benefits oneself - However it should always benefit others as well. If it is not a mutual benefit, do not offer it. Uh, did I stress that enough? :-))
Now - go to your favorite Social site: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and start off the day with a nice basic post about something that is going on in your life. I don't recommend starting off with the offer. Hold it in your hand, like a good curveball that you can use when the time is right. So put something out there that is fun and interesting - not just doing the laundry. Post it across all Social Networks.
Here is the important part: After you post, go to your news feed of where your friends and colleagues are posting, and respond back with genuine interest. You don't even have to say anything intelligent, you can simply 'like' their post, which is similar to voting in their favor. And truly empathize with people if they are having a difficult time. This should only take 10 minutes or so.
Throughout the day, you'll get a smattering of emails here and there, with post updates from those you've commented on. You don't need to respond to all of them - just hit delete - but if there's any that you want to further the conversation on, click on the link to reply back.
Sometime in the week, you will want to use your curveball. I can't explain exactly when the time is right...everyone has their own unique instinct to feeling out when it is right. All I can say is that when you feel the time is right, don't hesitate. As the late Patrick Swayze said in Point Break, hesitation will make your worst fears come true. Just do it, gosh darn it!

So...curveball = post the message about your compelling offer. For instance, right now we are offering a new service at Rockland Web Design: Digitize Your Business Documents. However the time isn't right to mention it right now, perhaps sometime this week! ;-)

Oh, one more thing...as Shama says in the Zen of Social Media (great book), "Always attract people back to your website." That is the end point where you want people to be.

I am so glad I saw my friend's message today. She gave me the inspiration to write this new blog post. I hope it is useful to her, and others that happen to come across it.

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 877 - 7333

P.S. If you want an early preview of the Digitize Your Business Documents Service, contact us by going here. Mention your interest in the comments area. Thanks!

The Book of Eli: The New Matrix for Business Owners

2010-06-19T12:51:00.005-04:00

Last night I had the pleasure of catching up with my friend Joel Wachtel from Computer Troubleshooters, and after a great barbecue (thanks Joel!) we sat down and watched The Book of Eli. I gotta tell ya, this movie has it all for me; a plot that is a bit out of the ordinary, plenty of action, but most importantly...a message.

I won't go too deeply into the movie itself, but I highly recommend it to anyone that doesn't mind watching some controversial content in order to get to a truly inspiring message. But what I do want to emphasize is something that I happened to notice throughout the movie - a correlation to one of my favorite all time classics, The Matrix.

If you recall, Neo is given the opportunity to see the world as it really is, and ultimately learns the arts, skills and techniques necessary to accomplish his unique mission. The real world is a post-apocalyptic hell, in which most would fade from the challenges in front of them. Yet Neo through his journeys ultimately finds the confidence to carry on his mission, in the face of certain death. I won't tell you if he lives or dies - I don't do spoilers. But the bottom line is he fulfilled his mission.

In the Book of Eli, I see the same similarities. Eli, played by Denzel Wachington navigates through a wasteland, in which you see elements of past movies such as Road Warrior, 300, etc., but most importantly at the beginning of tense fight scenes you see the confidence of a man who truly believes in his mission, to carry a Sacred Book to an unknown place where it will be safe.

If you are a business owner that truly believes in what you are doing, you might be walking through what feels like a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a dying business environment, wondering how "The Formula" is going to work for you. What's funny is that you have already have the God-Given tools to accomplish the mission you've agreed to take on. All you need to remember is to Keep the Faith, Walk the Walk and Believe.

Nothing more to say here. If you kind of, sort of understand what I'm saying here, I recommend you pick up the Book of Eli. You won't be disappointed. Have a wonderful weekend. :-)

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

P.S. Check out this great post from another Blogger I found if you want to learn more about the movie and stuff

How to find God by Losing Your Car Keys

2010-05-29T12:45:00.010-04:00

I'm sure you're wondering...

But don't expect any miracles to be revealed in this blog post. The best that I can tell you is that you might think a little deeper about your own life experience, and perhaps find a bit more meaning than you previously had. Maybe not. But either way, let's get started.

The story begins like this: This morning I met with my Thursday networking group ProMetroNet. Immediately afterward, I struck up a conversation with a very nice gentleman sitting next to me, who I found out has a similar love for bike riding. At the conclusion of our talk, we neglected to exchange contact information. but upon our departure we both said (at exactly the same time) "I hope to see you again". Remember this for later.

After Irene and I finished the Coaching Corner radio show today (Thursdays on wrcr.com at 10:07 am), I mozied on down to my car, where I planned to head back to the office to get some Rockland Web Design work done. On the way there, I realized I didn't have my car keys on me! Now I admit, I deal with a lot of details on a day to day basis, as I'm sure we all do, and I sometimes misplace things like my keys. But usually I find them pretty quickly. This time I was at a loss. They weren't inside my car, they weren't in the radio station, and nobody seemed to know where they were.

I was getting increasingly frustrated. I had several deadlines to meet today and as usual, very little time to get it all done. I had my laptop with me, so I decided to head across the street to Panera Bread, where I logged onto the Internet and started to do some work. But I was mostly distracted by the worry that I couldn't find my keys.

Shortly thereafter, I came across a news article that disillusioned me even further. Stephen Hawking, the British Theoretical Physicist who wrote the book "A Brief History of Time", is about to release a new publication that theorizes God did not have a hand in creating the universe. According to his latest findings, his theories all point to the consensus that the laws of physics by themselves were able to create the universe from nothingness. Kind of like making a chicken without an egg or a chicken..

Why would a small news factoid like this depress me? Well I don't know about you, but when I have a bad day, hearing something that challenges my fundamental beliefs on life can be emotionally jarring. I grew up in a very devout Christian household, yet I was fortunate to be blessed (and still am) with a Mom that showed me many different ways, Faiths and Religions on contemplating / relying on the existence of God. This has been a source of strength for me thoughout my life, especially during the difficult stretches.

However, I also believe in the relevance of Science. I'm no genius, but I see the correlations between facts, numbers, some causes and effects. So to reconcile the two, I sought those geniuses that factored in the existence of a Higher Power in their theories (I mean if George Lucas and Peter Jackson did, why shouldn't I?). Stephen Hawking was one of those people. To hear him suddenly flip his theories around was similar to suddenly finding out that the Earth is no longer round -- it's now gone back to flat.

As I said, this story disillusioned me. And at that moment I said a prayer that -- if 'anybody' was listening would've probably sounded more like a Police A.P.B., but a very very silent one. At that moment, the bike rider guy I met this morning walked back into the restaurant...5 hours later from when I met him. We had hoped to meet again; we did not expect this to happen so quickly. Coincidence?

The subsequent 1 hour conversation I had with this gentleman spanned many topics, such as politics, business, life, bike riding and other things. And, without going into too much detail, we also discussed something that that might mutually benefit us and others in a very good, tangible and significant way. We exchanged information this time, and plan to follow up with each other in the coming days.

I hope you can relate to this - a chain of events that led to an effect that could never have happened in a million years, except for some strange, inexplicable set of causes that culminate in a new chain reaction result. Yes I can hear some of you right now saying "bah humbug" it's all cause and effect and absolutely nothing more...but think about it for a moment. Did you ever wonder about when two random events occur next to each other? Did you ever stop to think that there might be more to the random occurrences than just sheer coincidence? The prognosticator Nostradamus tended to associate such closely related writings, occurrences, and coincidences, using them to detect possible future outcomes. Some of his predictions have been strangely accurate, even ones related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the onset of world wars,um and I hope at least a few happy ones.

Before he passed away, my late Stepfather told me on his deathbed that there has to be a God, simply because there are just too many coincidences that occur in our lives. I see such occurrences so often that if I started communicating all of them to the general public, I'd probably be put away for some time (at least I'd get a break from answering emails for a while :-D) But even without such coincidence, I can do something as simple as looking at my hand, move it with my thoughts as normal, and remember what a miracle it is to be able to do so. When we were children we could stare at this miracle with such wonderment. Now as we retreat further into the logical side of our brains, we begin to take for granted that which was originally a miracle to us, including the one we spoke to before we went to sleep each evening. Whoever, or whatever created us...cannot be explained by mortal man. And quite frankly, at some point we should stop trying to do so and just accept it, the way we did when we were brand new.

Stephen Hawking is a brilliant Physicist, but today I am deeply disappointed that he has flipped his views on the role of God in the creation of the universe (BTW to be fair, I don't think he wrote that God does not exist, he simply stated that his theories do not lead him to the conclusion that God had a hand in creating the universe - the Laws of Physics did). Another lesser known scientist Fred Allen Wolfe (a.k.a. Dr. Quantum) , author of the book "Taking the Quantum Leap" once reported on a classical 1920's experiment that showed that the mere act of observation changes the outcome. If this is the case, is it possible that our attempt to seek the true nature of God could hide the Deity from our eyes?

Check it out for yourself...

I should mention that several months ago I met another gentleman at a party that prompted me to write a draft blog about the video you just saw. But I was so astounded that I couldn't put it all into writing, and saved it for future completion. Today is the day that I complete it, with a simple story that begins with losing my car keys.

I hope you see a point in all these ramblings I submit to you here today. If you don't, consider having a dialogue with other friends and family that you think may relate to this. It might open your eyes to something different that you did not notice before. My feeling is that sometimes you just gotta believe. It's as simple as that. And when you do - all sorts of things happen that open your eyes to a much different reality than is right in front of you. Yet it's up to you to take that first step. When you stop believing (which happens from time to time), that's when the universe of miracles, wonder and amazement collapse for the sake of the cold hard numbers, facts, laws and rules, the orderly and linear direct cause and effect that we've all socially accepted as the norm for our corporeal existences. But behind the scenes, there might be something, someone that can be found with a simple 'Dear God'.

The choice is yours.

Oh by the way: Later, after I left my conversation with my new friend, I found my keys. They were on top of the roof of my car.

:-D

Facebook: "Likes" will replace "Links"

2010-05-24T09:17:00.005-04:00

It's so cute, isn't it? :-) The little button to the right of this blog...that teeny tiny little 'like' button that makes you want to say "Awww! You are so CUTE! I just wanna take you home and squeeze you and love you and kiss you and push you until you like me back!" (Flashback to Elmira from Animaniacs, Gen-Xers)

Of course I'm exaggerating, and of course your feelings for the like button are not that deep; they are more akin to Sarah Palin - nice woman but a few bricks short of a henhouse. But you gotta admit, it is kind of cute (The like button, not Sarah...focus people!). You wanna push the button. Just so that you can join the others that all say that they like something, anything that validates our collective existences, right??

There's a lot more to Facebook's little like button than meets the eye. I watched Mark Zuckerberg's presentation at Facebook's F8 convention on the new Open Social Graph, and his plans to make the web a more social and connected society can indeed come to fruition, especially since he's got help from heavy hitters in the industry such as Microsoft and others.

Now that Facebook has over 400 million users (more than the U.S. Population, at least prior to results of the 2010 census), it wields a great deal of influence over the web. Sure, Google is the place to seek information, but when you're looking for a really good movie, aren't you going to also want to ask your friends, who have actually seen that movie? Or better yet...what if you went to the Iron Man II website, and actually saw right there that your friends like that movie? Wouldn't that give you a little more rationale for going to see the movie?

Facebook's boldest web strategy yet centers around this little like button, and the implications of it are as far reaching as Google's original strategy to organize the world's information online. I must admit that this is the first time in my life that I have been both excited and worried about a new online technology. In a nutshell, the reasons are these:

The button gives ordinary people with little or no knowledge of web development the ability to rank and organize the web according to its usefulness (Yay! Excited)
Businesses have a new social tool that allows them to gain popularity very quickly, as well as learn more about their user's interests (Yay! Excited)
However, Facebook now has a method for collecting immeasurable quantities of data on each user its social networking platform, no matter where they go online (Um, worried)

I'll explain each a little more in detail.

1. Ordinary web users can now rank and organize the web.

In the early days of Search Engines, it was recognized by web developers like us that one of the best ways to help our clients show up on Google, Yahoo etc. was to call up other businesses in their communities and ask them to place a hyperlink (www.example.com/etc) on their website to our clients. The concept, openly divulged by Google, was that the more high-quality links placed on other websites that point to a client's website, the higher it will rank with respect to its peers in the same category in its search engine.

I must tell you, it was and still is a tedious process. Calling the right people, asking them to place a link on their websites, and often walking them through the process of adding that link takes an enormous amount of time. No complaints, but there had to be a simpler way...

Enter Facebook.

Now, simply by finding and clicking the little like button on any website , you or anyone can instantly make any web page more popular, simply by clicking 'like'. In the short term, this will not do much except raise the number of people that like a given page. But over time, Facebook and partners will be collecting that data, and my hypothesis is that they will be creating a new 'social search engine' that ranks websites according to their popularity from the average user.

This also means that as a business owner, you can more easily spearhead a web campaign to get followers simply by having the like button placed on all your web pages, generating just a little online buzz, and letting it steamroll from there. If the content you are trying to get liked is of good quality, then the buzz will spread, and more and more people will be inclined to push the like button. The content will spread on its own.

But that's not all...

2. Businesses can use this data to find out what appeals to consumers.

Now fast forward a few months after putting some content out there on your website. You have 205 people that like your article on spaghetti, and 12 that like your article about wanting to do some oil-surfing in Louisiana (best example I could come up with). Using that data, you can get a clearer picture of what is wanted and needed by your target audience.

Additionally, you can get a much more accurate picture of who your audience is. If those 205 people that like your article on spaghetti happen to be people who like gourmet cooking, then you as a business owner can refine your future content to attract more of that demographic. In essence, the like button is a very powerful tool for focusing a business' marketing efforts in a more effective manner.

But, there is a price to pay...

3. Guess where all that data goes?

Here's where it gets tricky. In order to create Zuckerberg's vision of a social web, somebody's gotta retain, centralize, and crunch all that data. You can be certain it's not going to be Xerox.

I'd like to pose a hypothetical situation. Let's say your 10-year old kid goes through a phase of finding a lot of, well...controversial stuff on the Internet. And on each site he finds, he clicks on the like button, to let his online friends know that he is interested in this material.

A few websites may not hurt...but over the course of months or years, Facebook could theoretically collect this data, and offer it as marketing data to their 3rd party companies. Even at this point it may still be innocuous, but the point is that now the data has left its home base. And the fact that this information is out there for use by various companies could - in the long run - have as damaging an effect as a bad credit report. In short, it could be very harmful to click on various likes across the web without taking a moment to think about what we are placing our stamp of approval upon.

Conclusion

Facebook's vision of a Social Web is a grandiose one. However I think that it is entirely plausible. Social Tools such as the like button will give ordinary users the ability to give their votes of approval on any content that exists on the web. Within a few short years, the like button will hold as much power as a link from one website to another. It has already begun.

Businesses will be able to capitalize on these new features, beginning simply by having them installed on their websites, and finding what works best for their target audiences. If you would like assistance with adding these social tools to your websites, call Rockland Web Design at (845) 271 - 4488. Most plugins can be added within an hour's time, so it is a fairly simple and straight-forward process for most client sites.

But just as much as we advocate the usefulness of the Facebook Social Plugins, we subsequently argue that consumers will need to be educated on them as much, or possibly more than businesses. I think the greatest danger is to future generations that randomly surf websites and like, like, like, all day long. There needs to be some sort of safeguard, to protect them from being stereotyped as an advocate or purveyor of damaging, harmful or offensive information.

I for one will be researching Facebook's new social plugins, especially the like button, very intricately. I see enormous potential for these tools, especially for businesses, but as mentioned above I do believe that the general public needs to be educated on how to use them properly.

Speaking as a single man without any kids, I am looking ahead and imagining that I will need to make the time to consistently teach my future children (God willing) that they need to make intelligent choices when going online for any reason, and much like Stephen Covey's explanation in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, let them know that there is a space between stimulus ("wow this is a cool website!") and response ("I'm going to click on the like button") that gives them the freedom to make the right choices. And that choice can be as small as pointing a mouse toward the like button.

New Address for Blog

2010-03-27T12:27:00.002-04:00

Hey we've moved the blog to a new location, so it's easier for you to type it in your browser. All future posts will be at http://blog.rocklandwebdesign.com

See you there!

Why Blue Collar Contractors Really GET Web Marketing

2010-03-27T10:43:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I had a meeting with a local contractor about creating a website for his business. The guy had plenty of questions about what is involved in building a website, which we were happy to answer for him. At the end of the meeting, we both felt confident that his new website would be one that he would be proud to promote to his business community.

During the meeting, he also reinforced something that I've realized for the last year: Contractors, Construction Professionals and generally people that work with their hands in their own business really, really understand web marketing and advertising. The reason is that they don't bog down their message with fancy, flowery, and quite frankly, BS-style language that completely hides the primary message of an advertisement, marketing piece or website. It's cut and dry, to the point and easy to relate to.

This is in stark contrast to how many in the marketing, advertising and web community build their materials. While content is certainly king on the web, the primary reason for it is that search engines need material to latch onto, in order to understand what a website is really about. If (all other things being equal such as links, etc.) you don't add the keyword 'pizza' to your website that promotes your pizza restaurant at least several times, the next pizza store owner will do it, and Google will likely find that location before yours. But sometimes it can go too far, and your visitors will come to your site and get bored with the mission statement, list of clients, about us, etc. etc. Lost in all this is that they are coming to the site to order a damn pizza! :-)

But the contractors we have been fortunate enough to work with know differently. They know that a person that comes to their website is looking for one, maybe two specific things...and it makes perfect sense to create a message that is clear and to the point, directing them to the right location, and creating a good call to action that entices people to contact them. They don't need it fancy, they need it to be direct and compelling.

Another thing I noticed is that contractors generally like to use very bold, stark, contrasting colors. Bright yellows or reds contrasted with black lettering is something they know that is going to be picked by a viewer the moment he or she encounters the message. While the imagery can change, the primary message is wrapped in these big, bold colors for all to see. While it may be simpler than a fancy flash slideshow or a image background, the point is that the visitor is captivated the moment the advertisement, graphic or web piece is viewed. Bonus: It's easy to create, and is cost effective.

I remember my Grandfather Thomas Avenia (may he rest in peace), a bicycle store owner for 60 years of his life, used to have a simple sign in front of his store - "BICYCLES". When you drove past that sign, you knew that there was a store nearby that dealt with bicycles. You might not know if he sold them or repaired them or both, but that large, bold sign told the primary message with one, single word. And it worked! it may be a bit of a stereotype, but truly I believe that people work with their hands truly have a knack for creating this compelling but easy-to-understand message, because somehow they know that they only have 2-3 seconds to get the attention of their audience, and they make it count.

As you are building your message, advertisement or web copy, remember the words of my old boss Alan Shulman from Samsondale Furniture of West Haverstraw (may he also rest in peace): "You have seven words to tell your story. If you can't do it, don't bother."

Why I love the UNDO button

2010-03-26T17:43:00.002-04:00

So I was working on three contracts this afternoon, and I accidentally overwrote a LOT of information that I didn't notice, until about a half hour later! Luckily, MS Word saved by butt, because MS Word saves up to 100 UNDOs at a time. But for some reason in this instance I got to go back 184 UNDOs! Whatever it was...rockOn!

Twitter: Instant Search

2009-12-05T17:20:00.003-05:00

For those of you that are still unsure of how Twitter will help your business, take a look at http://search.twitter.com.

Looks a lot like Google, right? A simple search engine up at the top of the screen, where you type in the exact piece of information you seek. The difference is stated in their slogan "See what's happening, right now." Twitter is quickly becoming the source for real-time quick snippets of information as they unfold in everyday life.

A perfect example of this would be Tiger Wo...no I'm not gonna go that route because it's been way too overplayed. A perfect example would be to do a Twitter Search on "Kobe Bryant", which will bring up results from all us average, everyday Joes and Janes that will likely mention something about his miracle shot at the buzzer of the Lakers / Heat game on Friday night. (by the way it was absolutely amazing - check it out here). The point is that instead of waiting an hour or two (or even twenty minutes) for a news organization to post an article that Google picks up, it is now possible to search any term, and see how the general public feels about it...right now. :-)

This is an excellent parallel to Google's search engine, which favors information that has been posted for longer periods of time. In case you are thinking that Twitter is going to replace Google, it isn't. The former has already linked Friend Connect with Twitter, and that's just the beginning. My prediction is that the mass market will further embrace Twitter for their surveys of the landscape on breaking news (I hope somebody's watching tweets at the White House), while remaining loyal to Google as their main knowledge library.

To begin using Twitter's search engine, simply type in a term much like you would use Google. The same operators also work; for instance if you are looking for an exact term, put it in quotation marks like this: "Kobe Bryant". (A full list of operators can be found by clicking here)

How does this help you? Here's a quick suggestion: if you are looking for more business, try typing in a generic term that is relevant to what you do. For example - if you are a Realtor, type "looking for apartment". You'll see tons of tweets from people talking about their quest for new digs. If you localize your search using the advanced search tool, you can narrow your results by location. Quite frankly, most of the results right now are in NYC, but as this service continues to gain buzz, you'll get more results in the local area. Here are the tweet results: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+looking+for+apartment+near:"Suffern+NY"+within:50mi.

Rockland Web Design occasionally searches for tweets based on the term "need a website". The result is a list of some possible future clients. I know I'm giving out some information that other web development companies may use, but it's ok since we're all professionals looking to help the client.

Anyway, I hope this clears up a little of the mystery surrounding Twitter. I would certainly recommend to keep a close eye on the latest innovations that this young company creates around its service. It's yet another cool technological advance that we have at our disposal. RockOn.

The Power of Appreciation

2009-11-17T13:30:00.002-05:00

Recently I had a birthday. I'm not saying that to get any more well-wishes (please forward all checks to my P.O. box), rather I am reporting to you on what I noticed from the other side of the coin.

Usually I wax philosophical about how it is a really good strategy to give approbation and praise to those that you have as friends on Facebook. I call it "Social Capital". The idea is that if you congratulate, celebrate, empathize and relate with others in your network, they will do the same for you, and it will increase awareness of your business. More importantly, it makes others feel good.

But up until now I was simply guessing that such a practice makes people feel good. Then, on October 31st I opened up my Facebook to see a bunch of Happy Birthdays on my wall. I have to say, it really made me feel...well, special. And because I felt special, I wanted to personally thank each and every person for the birthday wishes. Since that day two weeks ago, I have had an even greater dialogue with each of those individuals. Some of them are business associates, some are acquaintances, and some are friends. All of them are people that I appreciate to a greater degree, simply for clicking a button or two and leaving a Happy Birthday message.

My point is that you can do the same for others. Follow the golden rule and give the same sort of appreciation that you wish to receive. Not only will it help your business, but it will make your day flow a little better as you find that people really do care.

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

http://RocklandWebDesign.com

P.S. Want to integrate all your social networks in a snap? Call Rockland Web Design! We have a simple, very low-cost solution that will save you time and effort, and help your business gain more exposure.

Example of Great Customer Service

2009-07-03T13:43:00.003-04:00

I just took a quick lunch break, and went deeper into a favorite book of mine, Zag, by Marty Neumeier. I won't bore you with the details, but it is a book about helping companies to establish a brand for themselves that are unique, and needed in the marketplace.

A great example is on pages 77 -78. A Middle Eastern couple has a coffee shop that they run every day except for Christmas. (Geez and I thought I worked hard) They worked night and day to make sure that their customers were well taken care of; they gradually developed a loyal clientele by giving out loyalty cards, as well as anticipating what their customers needed before they even walked through the front door. For instance, if they saw a customer's car that they were familiar with, the customer's favorite drink would be created before he or she even walked through the door. Customers would get to know each other, and the place turned into a popular coffee bar.

Then September 11th hit.

Ironically, a Starbucks opened up on September 12 right across the street. You'd figure that "9/11", "Starbucks" and "Middle Eastern" converged to put an end to their customer base...but it wasn't so. As a matter of fact, there was a line around the street corner of people who were showing their support for the nice Middle Eastern family, who put their hard work into making their customers feel special.

It just goes to show how important it is for all of us to work hard to take care of the people we serve.

Ok, back to work. :-)

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

Why We Are Still Lucky - Freedom.

2009-06-30T09:08:00.008-04:00

In the past few months, I've floundered in trying to come up with a suitable blog to close out the three part series "The Good, the Bad and the Lucky". First we talked about all the cool things that will begin to occur in 2009. Then we talked about the controversial changes that we will need to endure. Quite frankly, every time I re-read those blogs, I still could not come up with enough convincing reasons that would cause all of us - including myself - to believe once again that the good outweighs the bad, and we are still fortunate as ever to live in this great Country. I mean, with all the terrible happenings in the world, the difficulties we face on a daily basis, as well as the general negativity of our environments at this integral moment in time, how can we consider ourselves lucky?

I'd like to tell you a story.

A man named J____ was very prosperous in life. J had all the wealth one could possibly desire, as well as a beautiful wife, many sons and daughters, and a rich collection of family and friends with whom he could share his hopes and dreams. The man was also a very successful businessperson, and was well known for the quality of his products and services.

One day, two very powerful associates of J who held sway and influence in much of his life, had a private conversation, and debated who was more favored by this man. They then plotted to destroy his empire, and find out which one of them he ultimately sought for help. One of them volunteered to do the dirty work, the other just kind of kicked back and observed - hoping that J would be able to survive the treachery. First, the "bad dude" (yeah I know...you like my metaphors) set out to destroy his reputation as a good businessperson. Next he spread rumors that he was an unfaithful husband. When those tactics did not work, he finally resorted to assasination of family and friends. In the end, J had nothing left. His business went bankrupt, his wife left him, and his family and friends were gone. He was ruined.

That's when the bad dude started visiting, and tried to convince J to rely on him to help re-build his empire. He tried everything...documentation, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, threats, bribery and extortion, to make this man see that the very powerful indivdual that stood before him ultimately held the keys to his rebound in life.

In the end, it all backfired. J wouldn't listen to the bad dude's reasoning, and threw the man out of his shack. He then chose to seek out the dude that stayed away from involvement in the destruction of his empire, and was secretly rooting for him all throughout his trials and tribulations.

The gentleman altruistically helped J get back on his feet. He lobbied the press to reinstate J's good will with business associates, introduced him to new potential family members and friends. He remarried - this time to a woman that completely trusted him and believed in him. He developed new and stronger relationships with friends. He started a family again. Over time, reestablished his kingdom, which was now stronger than ever.

One day some years later, the Good Dude came to see J. As they reminisced about the good and bad times, J recalled that his friend did not appear during his toughest moments in life. When asked why he did not come to help during his trials, the dude said "I was always available to help you...but you needed to come to me of your own free will."

The story above is actually Biblical in nature. It is the story of Job (with some Footprints in the Sand thrown in for good measure), which in my personal opinion is the mid-point between the Old and New Testaments. Much like World War II vets often say when you speak to them about post-war America, I believe "Something changed after that point".

I don't claim to be a prognosticator, nor do I have any answers to life's complex questions. But I do know that the story above is likely something that we can all relate to at some point in our lives. Whether we are businesspersons, politicians, family people, or even just trying to keep our heads above water, we have all gone through tough times. I think it's safe to say we're all in such a time right now. On a National level, we can look through the last 200 years of our History and say that we have seen many integral moments come and go (American Revolution, Civil War, Great Depression, World Wars, Civil Rights Movement), each with the conclusion of a hopefully better future.

If you look at the litany of positives and negatives that I listed in my blog during this three part series, you'll see at least a few things to latch onto - perhaps creating a greener society for our children's children, or to figure out ways to protect our National integrity without damaging that of others, or to protect the innocent from harm.

The bottom line is this: The reason why we are still lucky is that we still have the freedom to align ourselves with those who want to make the world a better place. Much like Job did, he could see through all of the trickery, deceit and malice; he chose to seek out one who would genuinely help to rebuild his life, and empower him to continue to do good deeds during his existence. We need to be constantly on guard to ensure that we continually seek out such good people, genuinely inspired to help.

Who knows what the world will be like in 20 years? Will a Utopian, interconnected society with less poverty crime and war emerge? Or will it be a post-apocolyptic war zone? Scary stuff...the most troubling part of this is that we might not have a say-so in the outcome. But we do what we can; we still have the freedom to choose what is right for ourselves, our family and friends, our city, our country and even our international friends...we can make that small difference. But we have to care enough to work toward making that difference. The moment you give up on making such a difference is the moment that you'll be visited by that one dude who promises you the world, and ultimately has nothing to show for it.

And during those moments of indecision, remember that if you actively seek out good friends, family and associates...like-minded individuals who can aid you in your journey to creating that Utopian society we all seek, well then you're still ahead of the game.

Voltaire said it quite well in his book Candide: We must tend to our gardens. In other words, don't worry so much about what's going on out there in the world; concern yourself with the things that you have the ability to change.

I don't really know how to end this blog except to encourage you to never stop trying to make the world a better place, not just for yourself, but for others. If you do that, I can assure you that your are truly a lucky person. :-)

The Bad News About 2009 (Part II of III)

2009-03-30T13:13:00.001-04:00

In my last blog I began a three-part series entitled "The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky". In part I, I listed a few ways that we can be hopeful about 2009, including reasons such as innovation, volunteerism and environmentally sounder decision-making.

Since that blog, I've been labeled a traitor, a tree-hugging liberal, and several other derogatories that cannot be listed here, kids. However, I think this blog that I write now will balance things out...hopefully so that we can have a completely clear view of what to expect in the future, good and bad. I encourage you to send hate mail/comments if you disagree. No expletives, please.

Now - the bad news. Read on to learn about the downside of 2009.

The Bad: Part II of II

It's been over 2 months since a new administration has taken hold. Are we surprised that the world has not yet become a Utopian paradise as promised during the campaign?

Luckily, according to the latest Gallup Polls, Americans for the most part understand that our economic and cultural shifts will take time to implement. 60% of those polled still have a favorable view of this administration, and most of those do understand that the nation's current economic woes are not a direct result of the decisions made during the past 2 months...yet.

There are more downsides to 2009, not just economic. At the risk of inducing you to swig a few more shots of Pepto-Bismol, I encourage you to read through the following blog to understand that beyond our personal money and survival concerns, there are some other things to which we should devote our vigilance.

Economic seismic shifts - As we've already seen, the President has taken on the Financial Sector and the Auto Industry. In each case, massive downsizing and reorganizations have been put into play, in exchange for taxpayer funding in the billions. The most recent casualty is Richard Wagoner, CEO of GM (forced out of office in part by the Obama Administration). But the real ripple effect will occur within the UAW, the collective bargaining union that is responsible for the auto workers of American Auto manufacturers.

A little history lesson: according to Joseph B. White of the Wall Street Journal, the UAW's relationship with GM has prevented the car manufacturer from downsizing its operations for over 20 years. When Honda began making automobiles in the United States in 1982, their workers were primarily non-union, which led to a leaner, meaner organization on our shores. GM, in contrast, continued to capitulate to the wishes of the UAW, and subsequently has spent over $103 billion in health care and pensions alone for the past 15 years. Further, another $20 billion will be needed by GM to fund these plans beginning in 2010. Where will the money come from?...

The net result is going to be the same in every industry bailout - bloated, oversized organizations will partly or fully become the property of the United States Government, while it eliminates jobs, increases unemployment, and thusly puts pressure on other industries to remain solvent, primarily by driving prices up to compensate for lost revenues. Taxes will also rise - a lot. On this note I definitely do not claim to be an expert, but speak to any fiscal conservative and you will hear a resoundingly similar theme emerge.

According to latest analysis by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, this pattern will continue to occur for several quarters, potentially ending at the close of 2009.
Moral and Ethical Debates - The stage is set for several very contentious issues to come to the forefront of American Politics, again. Regardless of what side of the coin you fall on, your notions of right and wrong will be challenged. I do not write to change your mind one way or the other on these issues, however I will list a few to remind you of your need to be aware and potentially active in the ongoing national debate:

(Each topic is linked to pages on Wikipedia.org, which explains more about the subject matter. Nothing graphic or obscene is linked, whatsoever)

- Partial birth abortion (pregnancy termination in 8th and 9th month)
- Euthanasia of terminally ill or advanced age individuals
- Stem Cell research from human embryos
- Freedom to worship in a manner chosen by the individual
- Same sex marriages and adoption by same sex couples
- Capital punishment / death penalty
- Torture of detainees by US Government agencies

At the core of these issues, I believe the questions to ask are these:
- "Who is the individual?"
- "What rights are afforded to the individual?",
- "Should these rights of the individual be sacrificed for the good of the nation / world?"

Deep questions. Good luck.
National Integrity - A very sensitive topic during the 2008 elections had to do with as the famous / infamous Michael Savage describes; Borders, Language, Culture. As my Uncle and I argue about nonstop, there is a line that needs to be protected in order to maintain the cohesiveness of the United States. It is evident in our National policies toward immigration / national defense, our education curriculum, and our embrace of world ethnicity. But where that line should be varies, depending upon who you talk with.

Reverting back to history for a moment, The Roman Empire formally ended in 476 AD, after centuries of political debate, in-fighting with steadily approaching Germanic tribes, and a military establishment that grew too vast, not being able to change with the times (kind of like GM with swords and horses). Thereafter, until 1453, the Roman floundered as a second rate collection of nations, attempting to regain its former glory and maintain its political influence.

In a way, we can think of the United States as a modern day Roman Empire, what with all its years of expansion and contraction. The policies of presidents and administrations since the 1950's (when outgoing President Eisenhower warned of the expanding industro-military complex) have brought America to one side of the coin or the other - bend to the will of various nations of the world, or muscle other nations into agreeing with our policies.

It will be very interesting to see if the current Presidential Administration parallels the history of the Roman empire over the next few years. Hadrian's Wall might have already been built (think technology, folks). But has Diocletian emerged to lead our country, or perhaps another infamous emperor?

Conclusion

Obviously, In several parts of this blog, I've been free-flowing to get some ideas out there that might cause you in web-land to ponder our collective futures. The bottom line is that we don't know what is in store for the United States during the rest of 2009. Much of it is likely going to be stressful, and test ourselves and our businesses more than ever before. While I want to keep this blog on a cautious note - I will say that I am still optimistic about the Nation...and the World's future in the short and long term. In my next blog, I will discuss why we are "lucky".

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

The Good News about 2009 (Part I of III)

2009-01-24T16:13:00.013-05:00

Now that everyone has come down off their contact high with the groundbreaking election (dare I say a well deserved victory), we can all start doing our work to figure out what the heck we civilians should be doing to help turn things around. If you've been following this blog for the last few months, I've been posting advice on how to get everything done more efficiently in the world of web, tech, computers and sometimes your interpersonal relationships (hint: if you try to put your wife in Hibernate mode, it's time to take a step back from work).

Anywho, in my stream of consiousness way, I'd like to begin a three part series: The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky. Now I know all of you out there in Internet world want to get rolling right away with the lucky...but if you've earned your bones in business you know luck is something that is earned - not freely given. BTW Click here for an article from About.com about the scientific background of luck. So I encourage you to thouroughly read through the first two parts of the series, and then roll with the third. Think of it as your trip through Heaven & Hell on the way to the Truth of things.

So, let's begin...

The Good: Part I of III

Most of us saw history in the making two weeks ago. The election of President Barack Obama has given a decent number of Americans - and members of the International Community - that small slice of Hope that things are gonna get better in the coming years. Of course for some in Middle America, the concept of having a President in office that doesn't think that Jay-Z is a well marketed sneaker manufacturer might be new to some, but I imagine that over time, the culture shock of that revelation will sink in, and we will all live in better harmony with one another.

Beyond this, there are some really, really cool things that the President brings to office. I will cite three in this blog.

For a primer on the first item, please quickly check out this article: Obama's personal win: keeping the BlackBerry - Yahoo! News.

Special thanks to Linda O'Donnell from Home Instead Senior Care for providing this article.

Awesome thing #1: Yes folks that is correct - Mr. President will be bringing the concept of technology back into the Oval Office. It will start with the Blackberry that he often checks to keep in touch with friends and family (no, he's not TMing Abdimihniminiajed just yet), but if he sticks to his intent, we may just have the first President in history to have a laptop on his desk.

Seemingly innocuous as it sounds, that is a wonderful cultural shift for Americans in general. As noted in the inaugural speech, the President cited our responsibility to help to return our Nation back to a place that we can all be proud of once again. Part of that challenge to us involves embracing ideas and initiatives that can help us to overcome the latest supposedly insurmountable odds that have been stacked against us. To accomplish this, I feel that embracing technology as a whole will play an integral part of the picture moving forward. More people will get on board - and not just soccer Moms checking up on their kid's activities on Facebook (a good thing).

Just think about the devices you use on a daily basis. From GPS systems to mobile phones to your computer loaded up with Microsoft Office (probably 2003...but you just gotta try 2007 - it rocks), most of us already have all the tools we need to more intricately track the projects, prospects and profit that flows through our hands on a daily basis. And when the financial industry recovers from its severely flawed processes of indulgence, the phoenix rising from the ashes will be - as my good friend Sven from Valley Cabinets says - "leaner and meaner".

Additionally, new technologically savvy tracking methods, compliance and regulatory practices will be locked in, preventing the most affluent and wealthy of our society from taking more than their share...well, for the most part. I mean there will always be a few people who benefit from bucking the system and causing great harm, but in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always."

From an Intenet-based perspective, the picture is even brighter. Just looking at some of the current trends, we can already see a difference:

One survey cited 49% of retail respondents updating their web presence, either through design, development or search engine optimization
76% of those expect higher sales as a result of their initiative
In December of 2008, Facebook added 222 million new unique visitors, and has grown 10% each month since September of '08. It is gearing itself up as a marketing platform for a new generation of people - not just to throw a fake snowball at your friends list (ugh), but to let your crew know what you and your business are really all about. (Source: Advertising Age - February 2, 2009)
New kid trends on the block will continue to grow, such as cloud computing - which allows many to start businesses and use only the small amount of resources they need in order to get things done. a good example is Salesforce.com, which charges a monthly rate for Customer Relationship Management tools for the mobile workforce. This translates to a more measured way of doing business - akin to the concept of pay as you go mobile phones, which will open the doors of commerce to a new startup generation.

Positive shift #2 is that sharing and giving are back en vogue. For those of you who sympathize with Bernie Madoff, let me explain in very simple terms: The 2/3 of the world that don't have the advantages that the rest of us are blessed with NEED OUR HELP. And through the advent of new government-inspired programs, as well as truly good-hearted people such as Sensei Mike Malandra, those who suffer will not be forgotten.

Believe it or not, great rewards can be garnered from the simple child-like Faith to give. Take for example Mohammed Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. He took the concept of Microcredit and applied it to the financial industry, offering very small loans to humble impoverished souls who could not offer any collateral. Astoundingly, the loans were paid back, and Grameen continues to grow today. In 2006, Mr. Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Click here to learn more about Grameen Bank.

Even if you're sitting at home in your PJ's thinking "yeah whatever", let me put this out there for thought - I admittedly haven't had that much time on my hands this past year, working to organize Rockland Web Design into a business that can provide attractive, affordable and measurable website results (that's my 5 second commercial). However, one day after our radio show last year I was blessed with the presence of a woman who has struggled throughout her entire life. All she has wanted to do is make a difference...simple as that. And through our now weekly conversations, we're finding ways to keep that dream alive, even when it seems all hope is lost. (If you're reading this, ---------, I'll do my best to help you with the Anti-smoking initiative. ) My point is that you don't have to donate your entire life; just reserve some time each week to give back. Simple as that.

Cool thing #3 is that the world just got a little greener. :-) Over 50 billion dollars of the economic stimulus plan is reserved for energy efficiency projects, such as a smart electric grid, loan guarantees for renewable energy and more. This is a huge incentive for companies older than the first Christmas fruitcake to finally get on board, retool their manufacturing / production processes, and finally keep tabs on the environment.

One of my biggest pet peeves is paper. Way back when I used to work at Next Steps as a technology instructor, and I kept on pushing the staff to go completely digital. And while I do admit that paper has its purpose (recreational reading and quilted wiping), I still can't reconcile the unbelievable amount of paper waste that exists in this area even in light of our efforts toward recycling. So, I found a great tool that may help Rockland Web Design as we return from our networking and on-site Internet service efforts...the NeatDesk! It is a high speed scanning system that allows one to empty their pockets and desks of receipts, contracts and invoices, popping them into an Automatic Document Feeder and digitizing everything. When I saw it in action, I nearly cried.

Pardon the fuzziness, I needed to reduce the size of the embed coding.

Back to the point, a hopefully real green initiative means several things:

A new industry and opportunity for businesses to in which to grow, innovate, profit
A source of employment for Americans searching for the next growth sector
Less waste and more reusable materials to get our work done
Perhaps, just perhaps...the existence of a breathable Earth in 2050
and very, very cool cars - check out the Aptera, currently being tested in Cali

Conclusion

For those of you that are looking for more hard numbers to justify all the Faith and Hope that I've spouted out in this article, all I've got is links to lots and lots of resources which may satisfy the naysaying for now (Peter Griffin: "And for all you naysayers, I have one thing to say to you...Cmon...cmon!".) If you read the next blog: "The Bad, Part II of III", you'll probably relish its content much much more. But for those of you that still have a little spark left in you, those that wonder if tomorrow can actually produce believable, significant meaning in our and others' lives, for those who are ready to RockOn...I salute you. This is your time. Let's get to it.

See you next week. Bring your notebook.

Tom Ossa

Web Strategist

Rockland Web Design

Stony Point, NY

(845) 271 - 4488

How to Be More Automatic

2009-01-10T18:23:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, I patted myself on the back.

As 2009 rolled in, I realized that Rockland Web Design needed to change all of its forms, web-based materials and other important files with some updated company information. I was not relishing the idea of doing this; the vision of sitting at the desk until 2:30 am flashed through my mind a few times. Something like that should only be reserved for when you're hiding from the wrath of your significant other...wocka wocka.

So finally I convinced myself to start the project, and believe it or not - it took only a quarter of the time that I expected. Yay! The reason why is because I listened to some very important advice from my programmer friend Matt Galemmo of Deluge Interactive: "Always think automation." So, at the beginning of last year, I started

As most of us go through our workdays, there are 50,000 urgent little things that - at first glance - seem to look like the coming of the AntiChrist unless attended to within 14 seconds of first knowledge of them. And while you'll hear a few different theories on how to handle them, the truth is that they don't just magically go away - even after you take care of the most important, long-term tasks that will help your company grow, you will still need to go back to your "priority 3" tasks and start mopping up the mess.

So below are 5 techie suggestions to help you automate your daily tasks, and help you to deal with them in a more timely fashion:

"Think automation" in everything you do: Matt was right - if you start thinking about your urgent tasks in terms of how things could be sped up when encountered, you start considering very, very cool solutions for making your life easier.
Detect patterns: If you see or hear something once, no big deal. If you start hearing the same problem occurring over and over again, you have a real opportunity to make the situation easier to deal with, if you stop and consider the root cause. But first you need to detect the recurring situation, such as too many emails to answer, difficulty in generating contracts, filling out forms.
Take time to discover a solution to the problem: Face it, you are probably not laying out the technical schematic of a solution oriented module that will alleviate the designated core challenge. So the hell with it...just sit down at your computer and create something that will actually work, and keep tinkering with it until it is as close to perfect as possible. Just don't get too O.C.D. about it...as Irene Gutmann from Eagle Life Coaching reminded me recently, "we are not God, and sometimes good enough is good enough."
Create templates: For instance, if your forms need to be updated every year, perhaps you should be creating templates or re-usable documents that allow you to change the information once or twice in a few locations, and once saved, automatically changes all your other documents. Sweeeeet!
Deploy your new system: I just wanted to write the word "deploy". But what I really mean is to take your new system out for a spin. If it doesn't make your life easier, go back to steps 3 and 4 and work on it again. If it does, start plopping information into it. One thing I am planning for the office for the New Year is to use a paper-scanning system called NeatCo, which allows you to literally walk in the office, drop 35 or so paper items into a mega-scanner tool, and it all shows up on your PC. No more clutter on the desk, and once it gets in the computer each item can be quickly filed to the place where it belongs. rockOn!

Make sense? Good. Now try it out this week. Here's a few examples of places in your business life that you can start with the 5 steps:

Sales leads - Every time the phone rings, a new email comes in, or you return from a network meeting, do you have a place to put your stuff that you can easily access? If when a contact calls you and it takes you more than 15 seconds to find their information, the answer is no. Consider either creating an Excel Spreadsheet with all your lead information, or perhaps employ a web-based system such as Salesforce to enter information. If you need something a bit more customized for your company, Rockland Web Design can build a good web based system for you, which can be accessed from anywhere.
Financials - hopefully your company is doing this already, but I strongly recommend that you use an accounting software or web application such as Quickbooks to maintain every penny your company spends. And if you are inexperienced in using it, get an expert to help set it up. I used Karen Caccavo from Personal Money Manager. If you live in Rockland, Bergen, or Westchester County, give her a call.
Contracts - When a new sale is created, do you take a long time to write up your contracts from scratch? On Word Documents, there is a little-known function called "MacroButton". It helps you to add quick information to a contract in key locations, leaving the rest to be typed once and done. Learn more about MacroButton by clicking here.
Website - I don't need to toot our own horn here, so I won't. If you don't use Rockland Web Design currently, that is ok. But keep your mind open to suggestions from your web person to make many of your daily tasks as automatic as possible. A recent client of ours is very happy that we thought through some daily tasks of theirs with an eye on the long-term, so now they can log in and add their stuff quickly and easily.

There are plenty of other examples. Feel free to post your stories about how you automated your world.

Also, a great resource for thinking ahead Steven Covey's book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". The book changed my life about 10 years ago. I hope it will, or has done the same for you.

And finally, I'd like to say this; if you are frustrated, if you are saying "Oh my God I just can't take this anymore!"...it's ok. The only way we grow as businesspersons...and as human beings, is to go through the trials and tribulations of continuing to work to get it right. As Irene had mentioned, "good enough is good enough". So if you don't get it the first few times, keep trying to adjust. Just don't make the mistake of giving up on adjustments. If you do, I can recommend a really good Chiropractor to do it for you.

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

The Dark Side of Social Networking - Viruses

2009-01-04T20:45:00.005-05:00

No...I'm not talking about the viruses you can catch when you Socially Network in person.

If you're reading this, you're probably a web-savvy person. But even those that have a higher level of tech knowledge are getting hit by a seemingly innocuous threat...one which could spell great trouble if not avoided.

Several days ago, a very good friend of mine posted an item on my wall stating that she posted my profile pix on "Floatfaint-com". (You'll notice that I wrote a dash instead of a dot - that's because if it were a dot, it might show up as a link, and Facebook might detect it and try to remove the posting...also I don't want you to go there accidentally, because I care, dammit) Anyway, of course I wanted to check it out because I was curious. But once I got there, I was asked for my user name and password; a BIG NO-NO.

After checking around, I found a lot of my friends had the same problem. After doing some research I found out that there is a new wave of attacks by morally destitute hackers - this one was not as harmful as most, but is used to trick a person into submitting their email address and other information, presumably for the purpose of spamming. A blogger from the reputable security company Trend Micro found that the spammer owns several hundred domains, and is known to have links to cybercriminals.

There are other dangerous attacks that are occurring...one of them in recent months is named the Koobface Virus, which hacks into a profile to gather personal information, and potentially turn a victim's computer into a Zombie attacking computer, takes your cc info, etc. etc.

I quickly informed my friend of the situation. She was smart to quickly change her password, and also notify all of her friends that any such posts are NOT from her. Great job!

Here are five ways you can prevent a Social Networking Attack:

Check the source - a new website, idea or fun application is not necessarily bad. But in line with Bill Gates' motto "Trust But Verify", make sure you find out where this thing comes from. If someone recommended a site to you, check with that person before installing anything or visiting the site. If you receive an email, look at the email address very closely to ensure it is from a reputable source. And before you install anything with a .exe extension, double and triple check the source!
Protect your password like George Costanza - You remember that episode where he wouldn't give the password "Bosco" out to anyone...even his fiancee or a guy stuck in a burning ATM booth? That might be a bit extreme, but if your password or profile information is requested, be vewwwy vewwwy careful.
Don't install tons of third party applications - Let's face(book) it, we allow a lot of apps to access our personal info. But how many of them do we actually use? I do use a few like Superpoke, Test Your IQ and What Superhero are you (I was Professor Xavier), but we don't have enough time to use all of them. Therefore I suggest that you keep your apps down to...um let's say 10. And make sure others have used them so you know they are safe
Help your friends protect themselves - If you see something suspect on someone else's profile, let them know. If they don't respond right away you might want to even consider writing on their wall to ignore particular messages that may have been posted as a result of a hack. I did this when my friend did not respond right away, and I think she appreciated it. (If you don't hear from me in a week, it means she did not appreciate it, and she used a baseball bat to state her case).
This one is pretty Captain Obvious, but make sure you have good anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. I recommend AVG or Norton for Antivirus, and Spybot as an AntiSpy. Also check out Comodo - a free firewall that I've used for the last year. It is a paranoid little program, but my PC has been safe thus far.

Some additional resources regarding the latest Facebook Information:

Hey everyone...Happy New Year. I know some of you out there are worried about the economy and the state of the world, but remember that success isn't just measured in dollars and cents. Care for your fellow human beings, and the rest will take care of itself. God Bless all of you in 2009 and beyond. "rockOn!"

Sincerely,

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

(845) 271 - 4488

Don't be a DWIM (Drive While Instant Messaging)

2008-12-28T15:23:00.008-05:00

This is a short post, but I got the inspiration to do so as I was driving a few days ago. So I pulled my car over to the side of the road and sent this post to my Blog at Rockland Web Design. You'll notice that I said that I pulled my car over. And that is what I'd like to discuss with you today - how to stop Driving While Instant Messaging, or as I like to call it, "DWIM".

It's the biggest temptation since the advent of cellphones - DWIMming. I'm not sure if that's the way we should refer to the practice, but it seems to have a ring to it...just like the Simpson's foray into Webster's dictionary with the word 'meh'. I can envision a day when teens will be telling their friends "dude - you are such a DWIM." I mean, who wants
to be called that? It's almost like 'dweeb' but with an actual negative connotation to it that is rooted in reality.

Um, maybe I'm going a little overboard. But I digress...

I myself am a recovering DWIM, and I am quite ecstatic that our local government in Rockland County, NY is about to enact a law that bans the practice of driving while instant messaging. Don't ask how this law will be enforced; I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe your local neighborhood officer will now ask you to whip out your mobile device, physically inspect it, and determine what time you sent your last text message, to whom, and how frequently you responded. By the way, the correct response to that request is - "Officer, you are not my girlfriend". Not that I have any experience with that situation. None at all.

According to a recent survey by FindLaw.com observed that 47% of drivers 18-24 years old, and 27% of those from 25-34 have sent a text message, instant message or email while driving. So far, four states - New Jersey, Washington, Alaska and Minnesota - have enacted laws banning the practice.

I'd like you all to make the New Years commitment to stop the madness of Driving While Instant Messaging. Thusly, I've devised a simple 12-step program to help you to stop DWIMming. It is fashioned after the classical AA program --- after I wrote the above post from the side of the road, I finished it by going home and checking out Wikipedia's page on the 12-step program. From it, I believe we now have an anti-DWIM version of this well-known program. (Note: the original 12 steps are posted below in their original form to protect their creative integrity.)

So here it is - The 12 Step Program to Stop Being a DWIM:

Admit that you have a very, very bad habit of Driving while Instant Messaging ("Hello, my name is Tom...and I am a DWIM.")
Recognize that you do not have control over your mobile device anymore - it now has control over you
Give yourself over to a higher power and let go, man! (um, or woman)
Realize that people may actually wait more than 14 seconds for their message response from you
Be conscious of your tendency to reach for your mobile phone while driving
Notice any triggering thoughts, feelings or other stimuli that cause you to want to DWIM
Track your DWIMs...write down the daily, weekly and monthly running total somewhere (NOT while driving!) Focus on reducing your DWIMs each day, until you get to zero. Hopefully that will happen by later tonight...
Check your phone once before you put the car into drive, and once upon arriving at your destination
If you check at a traffic light while stopped, that is a grey zone, but realize you may be honked at by annoyed drivers and irritated skateboarders trying to cross the road
Turn off beeping/vibrating sounds your phone makes when you receive a message
If you must send a message, pull over to the side of the road and do it there. This is safer
Encourage other potential DWIMmers to also follow these steps, and make fun of them if they don't.

If all that is too much for you, try this: while you are driving this week, if you get the urge to whip out your phone and stare at the screen in the midst of oncoming traffic, remember this simple phrase:

"I will not be a DWIM".

Say it with me now:

"I will not be a DWIM".

And remember to post your DWIM experiences on our Facebook "Don't be a DWIM" group --- so others learn from our experiences, and make the commitment to stop DWIMming. Look for me on FB, or simply do a search for "Don't be a DWIM - Driving While Instant Messaging is BAD."

Safe driving!

Tom Ossa

Rockland Web Design

Stony Point, NY

(845) 271 - 4488

P.S. Contrary to pop culture criticism, AA has helped countless people turn their lives around. Aside from the slightly humorous tone above, I thought it to be a good idea to post the original AA 12 steps program:

We admit we are powerless over our mobile devices—that our lives are becoming unmanageable.
We believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Changing Landscape of Business

2008-12-15T12:33:00.005-05:00

I agree, ladies and gentlemen - it is lovely chart. Yet if you look at the fine print at the bottom of the graphic above, you'll notice that the numbers are fake. I wanted to point that out to you before we start so we collectively agree this is an overly optimistic chart.

But what about the charts that we've been reading over the past three months? It probably looks something like this:

As usual, the truth exists somewhere in the middle. Let's begin...

Over the past two months, we have been inundated with every possible scenario involving the recent crash of the financial industry, and the subsequent ripple effects that have affected businesses worldwide as a result. Just last night I was speaking with a very wise gentleman - a retired attorney - who predicts that 2009 is going to be a very difficult year for most of us.

As we absorb more gloom and doom, as well as hope and optimism, we start to gather a clearer picture of what will really occur in the coming year, and how these occurrences will change the landscape of business. I think you would agree with me when I say that this knowledge will be vital in helping us to not only survive, but thrive in the economic downturn.

Below are five predictions that we have regarding the changing landscape of business, from the perspective of a bunch of web geeks. We hope that this will help you to set your sails properly during the coming storm (I would say the "perfect storm"; but if you recall, George Clooney didn't fare too well during that whole thing...and we'd like you to make it to the other side of the shore).

The death of the corporate website - When I read this a few weeks ago, I started panicking and worrying that Rockland Web Design should start offering coffee and sandwiches as a side business. But the good news is that websites with social interactivity will thrive in the next 3 to 5 years. This means that you will hear less of "We pride ourselves in our outstanding customer service, and commitment to quality", and more objective reviews.
- Reviews of products and services by consumers (Increasing customer service by company)
- Testimonials from satisfied and unsatisfied clients (increasing company focus on quality)
- Collaboration: clients will be encouraged to interact on websites, thereby making them more involved with the parent company and subtly encouraging their brand

So I'm not worried anymore.
Networking: online and offline - At our last ProMetroNet event, we saw people networking that we hadn't seen in months, even years. The sudden seismic shift of the economic landscape has certainly lit a fire under the pants of business persons looking to find more business. Online, popular Social Networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook added new features that allow a more effective and efficient online experience. My new favorite is the PowerPoint tool, which allows your company to upload presentations to your LinkedIn profile using Google Documents (call me and I'll explain). My buddy Chris Keller from Liberty Tax was very jazzed when he saw this, and plans to upload a plethora of materials. So...are you doing any Social Networking these days? :-)
The (further) rise of the mobile workforce - Having a cool laptop and an iPhone 3G is just the beginning. Imagine a world where your workforce is spread out over thousands of miles, and any one of your (trusted) employees can log into a central location and access data to get their work done, as well as use the programs that help them to work. Impossible? Not any more. Buzzwords such as web video conferencing, data centers, cloud computing and unified communications will translate into a new work experience like we have never experienced before. It will also change the landscape of offices and production facilities, as there will be less need for office workers to make the two-hour commute each day to New York City; rather, they can put little Johnny on the school bus, go for a jog, have breakfast and log into the company's intranet at 8:30 am. It also means that this new workforce will need to be more disciplined than ever to get their tasks done each day. This means NOT spending more than the necessary time allotted for Facebook and LinkedIN.
Security - For you IT people that are worried about where your company's data is going (did little Johnny accidentally bring the company financials to show and tell?), new security protocols will help to ensure sensitive information and programs are kept on lock down, unless properly "checked out" by an authorized user. This also means that the network will need to beef up external threat monitoring procedures - your Norton Antivirus program probably won't be cutting it anymore.
Advertising changes - OK...now for the big one. We've been tracking the demise of the yellow pages for several years now. And while we won't see the print advertisement go away anytime soon, we will notice that companies such as ourselves to turn toward online advertising in droves. The reason can be summarized in two words: measurable results. Statistics software already allows company to track very detailed information such as user visits, most popular content on a website, keywords used to find a website, even the location of each visitor (not down to what part of the house they are checking you out from...that's too much - only narrowed down to city and state.

In a nutshell, businesses will be able to track their more popular products and services, and refine their marketing strategy based on the wealth of data - all for significantly less than the cost of a full page spread in the local newspaper.

For those of you that are still focused on the gloom and doom of the coming year, remember two things:

First, whether you love him or hate him, our incoming President is the first Commander in Chief to fully embrace the power of the web - considering it was a major factor in his election. And while you won't see Mr. Obama in a one-on-one online conference anytime soon, I imagine that this full embrace of the web will encourage businesses to adopt technologies that help them to stay competitive in the coming years.

Secondly, at the beginning of the industrial revolution many critics complained that our society will not survive the advent of machinery replacing humans for repetitive labor. Now, over 100 years later, we are going through a similar period of cutbacks. While economical workforce and business adjustments are necessary from time to time - don't just yet buy into the idea that our economy is wrecked beyond reproach and cannot recover. For every setback that does not mesh with your business model, find a way to embrace the advancement that has emerged in its place. Nothing is set in stone right now, including our business plans. Stay fast and flexible, and your company will thrive.

I will get off my soapbox now.

References:

The Case for Using Social Networking

2008-11-24T12:18:00.000-05:00

Quick Points:

Social Networking is here to stay
You as a business owner should embrace the concept
Remember that Google's idea of search marketing was considered silly 10 years ago
The business landscape is changing - Yahoo is researching how to reach social networks
Below are 5 essential activities to conduct on either Facebook, LinkedIN, or Twitter

For the past three or four months, I have heard rumblings and gripes from many of my colleagues, expressing their frustration with Social Networking, on venues such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN. Many have trouble embracing its business purpose, others consider it a waste of valuable business time, and some feel that it is a fad that will go away soon.

As a web designer for the past 10 years, I have seen many fads come and go ("that was so 15 minutes ago" was a term that was specifically created due to the advent of fly by night web trends), such as hamsterdance.com, flashing banner ads, and Flash games that drop more cookies on your PC than Santa on Christmas Eve. I can assure the skeptics two things: first - social networking is here to stay, and second - those that embrace the concept sooner rather than later will profit from the commitment. To understand why, let's rewind about 10 years to another nifty concept - search advertising.

Google rapidly rose to power despite critical opinion that there is no way to monetize search. 10 years later its advertising delivery system AdWords is still a force to be reckoned with, as Fortune 500's are aggressively making the switch to online advertising, both on Google and its vast partner networks. Just this past year, Proctor and Gamble, one of the most corporate-traditional cultures in the world agreed to an employee exchange program, which helped both Google and P&G profit from each other. The point is that even traditional companies are jumping on a bandwagon that the tech world has foreseen many moons ago.

This morning I was reading an article in Advertising Age, which discusses a study being conducted by Yahoo and several Social Networking startups. The theory is that consumers can be targeted much more effectively by relationships, rather than demographics. So if you are talking with Judy more often than Bill, it is much more likely that you will have similar tastes as Judy does.

What this means for you is that when you study your friends' likes and dislikes on Social Networking sites, you can better understand what they collectively need, and deliver those needs. It is the ultimate open research tool. Further, it is a direct way to develop good relationships with your client base online (as a supplement to in person relationships...not a replacement). As I often quote from Chase Bank, "the right relationship is everything"...a phrase which bears greater merit during our recent financial travails. It behooves you as a business to embrace social networking, so that when new methods of monetizing the concept emerge, you'll be ready to roll.

As I wrote a few weeks back on this blog, the best way to get started is to create profiles at Facebook and LinkedIN. The only initial cost is time, which unfortunately can be sucked from your day quite rapidly if you do not set proper controls and discipline to use the tools effectively. I recommend about 15 minutes a day to start - simply by logging on once a day and updating your status. If you can squeeze in the time, recognize that no man (or woman) is an island, and add a few friends that you know also have profiles. They will also help you during your learning curve.

Here are the top five activities I recommend during your power 15 minutes each day of Social Networking:

Update your status at least once a day
Add interesting content to your profile that people will read (blog)
Add friends that you can relate to on both a professional and personal basis
Take some time to read other people's profiles, and comment on their statuses
Introduce friends of yours to other friends that have similar interests

Try it out for a week. I assure you that you will enjoy it, but also consider how Social Networking can help your clients, and your business in the future.

Tom Ossa
Rockland Web Design
(845) 271 - 4488

More Networking Do's and Dont's - Some anecdotes

2008-11-14T12:46:00.001-05:00

Ok, so on November 13th we had our networking event at the Black Bear Saloon. (Blatant promotion: www.ProMetroNet.com). All went very well, and we hit our usual crowd of about 35-40 people. From the feedback I got so far, almost everyone enjoyed it.

However I cannot emphasize enough that there are certain things that one can do to increase the effectiveness of networking. A lot of it has to do with taking the time to get to know someone before shoving a business card down their throat. I see this all too often in networking circles, and while it might garner short term gains, it serves as the antithesis of networking's primary purpose - do develop long-term relationships. In order to do this, one must remove from brain the idea of networking being...gasp...a numbers game.

Moreover, let's face it - in the current economic climate, many are trying to get the word out there in as efficient a manner as possible. Unfortunately, efficiency and effectiveness don't always go together. Stephen Covey writes in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People about how a person in the woods was sawing down a tree, and when someone pointed out to him that he would probably be able to get the tree cut quicker if he sharpened his blade, the man said that he didn't have time for that sort of thing. So I ask you, people who think of networking as a "numbers game"...and I say this with love...if you took the time to get to know us before telling us more about your products or services, do you think you might have receive a more robust response?

Once we as networkers all come to terms with that cold-cock to the brain, it makes life a lot easier when dealing with people. Certainly we need to employ the energy, enthusiasm and hard work to put ourselves in front of suitable potential clients, to get to know them better, and to let them know (in a polite manner) how cool we and our life's work happens to be. BUT, we must always remember that most of our lives don't play out like the New York Stock Exchange, nor does it make it any more enjoyable to conduct oneself in such a manner.

Here are a few quick anecdotes regarding good networking.

My Stepfather Jim Hudick (R.I.P.) from American Management Association was the perfect example of how humans should relate to each other. He was kind, considerate, and most of all took a genuine interest in other people. The funny thing was...he was also kind of quiet. You had to ask questions to learn more about him, but each time you walked away from Jim, you got a really good feeling inside - that he was genuinely interested in you. At his funeral, you should have seen the out pour of emotion for this very fine man, who spent much of his life caring about other human beings.

Vincent Blehl from Green T just gave me a call, and he brought up an excellent point; while you are speaking with people, make mental notes of who in your current circle might be good contacts for him or her. In that way you are an instant service to the person, and although you may not reap the rewards immediately, you can be sure they will appreciate it and perhaps reciprocate in the future. Multiply that by the number of people you meet, and you have built a network of people who want to get to know you better...and are more likely to do business with you.

Kevin Kearsey of Montvale Mortgage saved me last night. While I was doing my 60-second infomercial at the ProMetroNet event, I suddenly paused in a manner worse than when former NY Attorney General Jeannine Pirro announced her run for Senate (“does anyone have page 10?”). Kevin subsequently used a few moments of his own presentation last night to do a quick rescue, endorsing me and letting the audience know that Rockland Web Design is working on his company's new website. Very classy move, Kevin; thank you.

There are so many more points that can be made here, but you're busy. Go back to work - but remember that networking should not just be about you. Remember the other person to whom you speak. If you see eyes roll over or attention wander as you are talking, ask a few questions of the other persons that help you to get to know them better, and don't make it about your product or service. Maybe it should be about the Jets game, or that lovely purse that someone is wearing, or something that makes it more enjoyable to speak with you, and remember you.

And to the number-crunching networkers out there...if you are reading this and think I am trying to offend, please don't feel that way. As a matter of fact I really am trying to help. I truly hope to talk with you again at the next meeting - and here's an icebreaker for you - my favorite band of all time is Led Zeppelin. What's yours? :-)

Tom Ossa
Rockland Web Design
(845) 271 - 4488

P.S. Check out some additional resources:

The Art of Networking - A Tutorial
What Makes Business Networking So Important
Small Businesses Turning to Social Networking

Also, feel free to comment on this article below.

Caring for Clients...Online.

2008-11-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

Hi, everyone. This week's blog is listed below. Here are some key advice points for those of you on the go:

Key Points:

Our work online isn't just to help ourselves, it is to help others.
Refer others while e-mailing people
Use websites like Facebook and LinkedIN to keep in touch with, and help your network of friends, family and business associates
Use your website as an advice forum to give others knowledge
Send e-cards or SendOutCards to people that are in need of consolation
Link your website to others...they will reciprocate.
These are only a few of the things we can do - but the point is to care for those we interact with online.

Caring for Clients...Online.

So I was just reading a great article in Success Magazine from Mr. Televangelist himself, Joel Osteen. While sometimes he migrates into cheesyland, I do have to say that nine times out of ten he has really good, sound advice that we as individuals, friends, family members and of course business owners can use in the ongoings of our daily lives. As a matter of fact I went to see him once at Madison Square Garden, and I have to say he really reaches out to people on a very good-hearted level. In short, he cares.

The Success Magazine article - click here to read an excerpt - was from my friend Leah Rosen of SendOutCards.com. In it, Joel discusses the "energy" that we send out to people ultimately comes back to us. Some things that stuck out in the article to me:

A teacher that worked for a tough inner city school lent one of her most troubled students $100 so that he could pay off his loan from a street gang. The stipulation: he had to pay it back at his graduation. The young man in turn worked hard and indeed made it to graduation, citing his teacher's faith in him as a prime motivator.
A young boy fell down a steep slope and started yelling for help. Every time he yelled "help", he heard another voice yelling back to him "help". He started insulting the voice as a coward for not rescuing him, and the voice responded back in kind. Later when his Dad ultimately found and rescued him, the boy found that the voice was only his own echo...but also a metaphor for life - what we send out comes back to us.
Rule: "You never bring out the best in someone by criticizing, condemning, or verbally beating down a person. You bring out the best by love. You bring out the best by showing people you care."
The final sentence of the article "If you make someone else's day, God will make yours."

The relevance to what we do online is simple. Every time we log onto our e-mail, someone else's website, Facebook, LinkedIN, ProMetroNet or other places where we interact with our business community, friends and family, we can be focusing on more than just trying to get more bang for the buck. Sure, we all need to survive by pulling in our daily bread, but at the same time we can be finding opportunities to assist people with the knowledge that we have as business owners to better other people's lives.

Several business owner friends of mine that just started a blog at the same time asked me what they should write about. I suggested they write about things that they are passionate about in their industry. Upon further reflection, I realize that I was only partially correct. The truth is we should be writing about the things that will help other people to live better lives. And like the advice in the article I mentioned, what you put out there will ultimately come back in kind.

Some tangible steps for taking care of your clients online:

Whenever you are reading through your e-mails, keep in mind the other trusted associates in your network that could possibly help solve some of your client's problems. I recently referred a client with a business plan question to my good friend Mark Cohen of PerformanceStream. While I may have been able to help the person myself, I realized that I couldn't do it as well as Mark ultimately did. The client was thankful, and so was Mark.
If you are on Facebook or LinkedIN, take interest in the stories of your friends network, and reach out to them with geniuine commentary when they are happy, sad or need help. I like the Guiliani rule: "Weddings are optional, but funerals are mandatory." This means that when someone needs consolation, you should be one of the consolers.
On your website, run an advice forum that allows people to ask questions of you or your business. You can accomplish this with a simple contact form, and update your website from time to time with your answers to those questions.
When someone is having a difficult time, consider sending them an e-card, or a SendOutCard. In addition to your consistent marketing efforts (you are marketing, right? :-) it is an added way of telling someone that you care about them. By the way, while we all need to prioritize our most monetarily lucrative clients to get the job done, that is no excuse to neglect those that are just starting out or struggling in their businesses. As a matter of fact they need your help the most. Thusly, devote time to also helping those in the middle, or even the bottom of your list. A very wise carpenter once said "The least shall be first". (paraphrased, of course)
Link your website to those in your network whom you trust. The more links that go to a person's website, the more likely their rankings will rise significantly in major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Also create links to articles from your friends that blog.

While all of this prompts most to respond who the heck has time to do all this, I say YOU. Every success guru out there, including Joel Osteen has said that if we focus time on the most important things, they will get done. (As a matter of fact I just got an e-mail reminding me that God isn't just about Sunday mass - for which I am terribily guilty.) But what I'm trying to say is that if we are taking the time and energy to impart our online wisdom to others that need it the most (even if they can't give us anything back right now), we will ultimately see a significant return in the web-based components of our business.

Just from a logical point of view, if we are putting more information our there for people to benefit from, search engines, social networking groups, web browsers, blog readers and e-mail recipients will start to pay more attention to us. That's not a bad return for the 15 minutes* a day we're spending helping others, is it?

Tom Ossa
Rockland Web Design
(845) 271 - 4488
www.RocklandWebDesign.com

* 15 minutes, minimum people!

Google and Flash - Friends Forever?

2008-07-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

Just in case you missed the news on Tuesday, Adobe, Google and Yahoo announced that Flash files will have the ability to be higher ranked in search engines, due to a new technology that will aid search engine results. Rockland Web Design is very happy to hear this news.

So why does this matter to you?

To fully explain, let's talk about how Google and Yahoo work for a moment. When you go to one of these search engines and type in...say "Sneakers", the search engine will find websites that are:

Popular (Lots of other websites link to them)
Have lots of content
Are closely related to the search that the visitor seeks

There's a lot of other factors, but we'll stick with these for a moment. Those of you who know the whole copy and paste routine can relate to this next question...think about how easy it is to highlight text, and place it in memory to move somewhere else. When this happens, the computer remembers the text and waits for further instructions.

However it is much more difficult to copy...say just a small part of a picture, or worse yet - an animation. Translate this over to Google / Yahoo, and you realize that it is very difficult to "rank" an animation - which is one of the strengths of using Flash. How can you rank the usefulness of a picture of a moving sneaker over that of a web page that says "We sell moving sneakers"?

Long story short, now Google and Yahoo will be able to rank animated Flash files, based on the content that they bring up on the screen. So if Nike, for example created a Flash animation of running sneakers (I know I'm wearing this analogy out), that might now sit right next to the text of running sneakers, rather than be buried on page 10 of the rankings.

So why do you care? Remember the jump from radio to television back in the stone age? This announcement can very well do the same thing for the evolution of the Internet, as you will not need to read through tons and tons of text to find what you want. More companies, including Rockland Web Design, will be charged with the task of creating animated and interactive Internet content. It will further increase the likeliness of the Internet's use as both an entertaining and informative medium for people to increase their knowledge about any subject under the sun.

Thomas Ossa
Rockland Web Design
62 East Main Street
Stony Point, NY 10980
(845) 271 - 4488

New iPhone: Positives and Negatives

2008-06-11T10:20:00.001-04:00

In September of 2007, during a networking meeting with the group ProMetroNet, a good friend of mine walked in with her newest toy - the first generation iPhone. After refraining from salivation, I composed myself and made it a mission to quickly purchase what was in my opinion one of the game-changing tech toys of the millennium, thus far.

I was right. Not only was the device fun and easy to use, I found it to have extraordinary benefits for Rockland Web Design. First, it was an instant attention-getter. I remember one Chamber of Commerce meeting where I admitted to a colleague that I forgot to bring my business cards, and then whipped out my phone to take down his contact info. He, and several others crowded around me and...salivated. Second, it has functionalities such as IMAP e-mail that make it very easy to run a Web Design business from anywhere. Third, the web apps that can be downloaded onto the phone, such as blogging tools, invoicing programs, and of course the Yankees scorecard make it more than a phone...rather it is a mini computer.

This Monday, the media was abuzz with the announcement of Apple's newest popularity tool: The 3G version of the iPhone. Critics and fans quickly lined up to comment on the benefits and detriments of the updated all-in-one device. Here is a quick scorecard of the new iPhone's positives and negatives:

Positives:

3G - Simply put, you can go online faster, download e-mail faster, and access data...faster.
GPS - An upgrade from Google Maps, now you can track yourself moving from Arkansas to Kansas, or the kitchen to the living room.
Microsoft Exchange Support - Enterprise level service for corporate employees that are considering making the switch from Blackberry to cool.
Display of more types of attachments, such as PowerPoint presentations. Imagine running a seminar from your phone.
Lower price points: $199 for 8 gigs (black only), and $299 for 16 gigs (white / black).

Negatives:

The plastic back - Probably the worst change, the burnished silver back of the phone is being changed to a hard plastic shell. I think it cheapens the look of the phone, and makes it more susceptible to scratches.
No video conferencing...yet - Rockland Web Design has been waiting for a video conferencing tool, which was rumored to be coming on this edition of iPhone. We'll have to wait a bit longer.
No video recording...yet - Another big disadvantage of the iPhone, but one day it will be corrected.

Overall, I am pleased with the new offering, but will likely wait until early August to make the jump, just in case there are any glitches that need to be fixed. That being said, I expect to be very satisfied with the new 3G iPhone.

If you have comments about the new iPhone, please write them on this page.

PDFs with Video! And Much, Much More!

2008-06-02T16:06:00.001-04:00

I just read a story that almost made me cry tears of joy. I hope you will feel the same.

Adobe has just announced it will soon offer users the ability to add video to pdf files!

According to the story, just released at 12:31 pm Monday, Adobe will be updating its Acrobat software with Flash functionality, greater collaboration tools, and a new web-based word-processing suite that stands above both Google and Microsoft online docs.

You can read the full story by clicking here.

I would imagine some of you out there in web-world are thinking to yourselves, "So what?", or "How does this affect me and my company?" Let me explain some advantages, from the beginning to end of your business process:

Potential clients will be increasingly impressed with your sales, recruitment, or educational presentations. They will be much, much more interesting and interactive.
Your existing customer base can offer more feedback based upon the documents you send them, so that you may refine your business model to reach the next level.
Your team will be able to share ideas with each other much easier, using online web meetings, comments and document sharing.
After a project is completed, clients can respond to your company with both regular text based, and video-based testimonials.

I can't say I'm surprised that this development has occurred, but I can certainly attest to my happiness at this moment in time. The business community has been in dire need for better tools to get their message out effectively and efficiently, and I believe this is a great step in the right direction by a highly reputable company.

Tom Ossa
Rockland Web Design
(845) 271 - 4488

E- Newsletters: A Business MUST!

2008-05-28T10:55:00.000-04:00

By Thomas Ossa
Rockland Web Design
May 28, 2008

There are plenty of reasons to not create a newsletter for your clients on a consistent basis. I hear plenty of excuses: "I don't have the time", "It takes too long to compose", "My customers will get annoyed", "I don't have a good list", etc. etc.

While I readily admit that many of the above concerns are valid points, the negatives in this case most certainly do not outweigh the positives. I can think of no other targeted message that can legitimately reach a mass number of people in a short span of time for the price. In other words, taking 1 hour to compose and send a newsletter to your clients once a week, bi-weekly, or even once a month is quite a valuable practice. In order for it to be effective, however, it needs to be done right.

Here are some tips for reaching your client base in a more effective way through newsletters:

Have a message, not a sales pitch: When you send out a correspondence, make sure your intent is not solely to sell. Your job is to educate. Rewards come later as a result, but they are quite beneficial.
Keep it short and sweet: If you are spending more than a half hour composing, editing and sending your newsletter, you've lost half your audience. Ask yourself this question as you write: "Is anyone really going to read this much?" Keep asking until you reach the answer "no", and then wrap it up. Use bullet points, like I am. They are much easier to read.
Don't oversend or undersend: There is no set standard for newsletter frequency. Each client list is different and unique, and each writer needs to feel out what is an acceptable and useful rate. A good rule of thumb is "no more than once a week, no less than once a month."
Get permission and feedback: Probably the most overlooked aspect of newsletters is finding out what your clients want to hear about. If they are interested in skin care products, and you are sending them tips on auto repair, you might see your client base shrink over time. A good opening newsletter would be "Welcome...what do you want to hear about?"
Create a call to action: Simply put, a call to action is an incentive for your readers to do something. It could be answering a survey, singing up for an event, or purchasing a product. While you don't want to sell stuff in the body of the newsletter, you certainly want to offer something that might be of value to the client. So add a little incentive, offer or otherwise, to generate interactivity between you and your people.

Resources:

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5 Reasons to Watch Google during the Recession

2008-05-12T12:13:00.000-04:00

There are many benefits to having one company in charge of all that is good online, and that one company is the juggernaut known as Google. While advantages are evident, there are obvious detriments that should also be considered as the public and private sectors increasingly favor Google and its wealth of valuable services.

Rockland Web Design has been monitoring the success of the search giant since their inception, and notes that there are some great reasons for businesses to embrace Google, especially in the apparent recession that exists today, but it will be interesting to note what position the company will be in as we emerge from the recession.

Below are 5 reasons to watch Google during the recession. They're not all bad, but there are some concerns:

1. Philosophy: Most people know Google's stated mission to "organize the world's information. On the way, Google's internal directive is, in my opinion, a great way to stay on the right track in order to meet that objective: "Don't be Evil". Apparently this is the company's way of stating that ethics and morals still hold true in our society. While I applaud this effort, I believe that in order for Google to remain faithful to this effort, the general public, as well as shareholders should monitor the company to ensure that top management creates policies that further embrace the "Don't be Evil" philosophy.

2. Ownership: Google is scarily purchasing everything that is vulnerable on the online landscape. A perfect example occurred 5 minutes ago, when I contacted what I thought was the number for a mobile web development company, and recieved a message that I reached a phone number for Google. How many more companies will be assimilated?

3. New applications: Google's home page is just the beginning of it's online world. Take a moment and click on "more". In there you will find Google earth, docs, research, hundreds of applications that make business and personal life more streamlined. Most cost nothing, just the favor of displaying tasteful advertising. More on that in a minute. But one particular application I'd like to mention: the Google Apps suite allows companies to collaborate through e-mail, run an Intranet, share documents and much more! Check it out at Google.com/apps.

4. Terms of Use: a while ago I sat down and read some of the terms of use for Google Apps. While it is a great suite, my concern is a little clause that states that google can essentially assume control of a domain, and make it their own. While the statement was somewhat vague and likely unenforcible, I would hate to think that one day the only way to get a website up and running is to go is to contact one almighty company.

5. Staying Power: Finally, the fact that Google has maintained a great degree of resilience during both the recession scare and the threat of a Yahoo / Microsoft merger speaks volumes to its staying power. I believe that this is a result of its multi-faceted strategy of creating more and more web applications in the interest of further its core competency...effective search advertising.

In short, buy the stock, use the services, and keep both eyes on Google for the foreseeable future.

Tom Ossa
Rockland Web Design
(914) 584 - 6882
Sent from my iPhone

Mobile Website: Marketing Techniques

2008-01-09T17:51:00.000-05:00

Studies show that the mobile website industry is about to gain significant momentum in 2008. If you plan on adding such a feature to your current web presence, you may be in for a boost in visits!

Example: Mr. 30-something executive sees your business card in StarBucks, is interested in your product or service, and quickly whips out his mobile phone to check out your site. This is in stark contrast to the individual who sees your business card, saves it in the pocket or purse for future reference, goes home, turns on the PC and remembers to go online to visit your website. It's simply a matter of giving potential customers the ability to instantly access information!

Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-01-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

Windows has some great keyboard shortcuts to use while you're working on your computer. Some of them are pretty obvious...you likely have heard of the [ctrl] + [c] to copy, and then [ctrl and [v] to paste.

But how about [windows icon] + [d] to minimize all opened windows, and quickly return to your desktop?

Try it right now as you read this. You should see this document disappear to the bottom of the screen and your desktop background appear. Now hit [windows icon] [d] again, and you should return to this screen.

Some more shortcuts:

Press	To
CTRL+C	Copy.
CTRL+X	Cut.
CTRL+V	Paste.
CTRL+Z	Undo.
DELETE	Delete.
SHIFT+DELETE	Delete selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle Bin.
CTRL+A	Select all.
ALT+ENTER	View properties for the selected item.
ALT+F4	Close the active item, or quit the active program.
ALT+Enter	Displays the properties of the selected object.
ALT+SPACEBAR	Opens the shortcut menu for the active window.
ALT+TAB	Switch between open items.
ALT+SPACEBAR	Display the System menu for the active window.
CTRL+ESC	Display the Start menu.
F5	Refresh the active window.
BACKSPACE	View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
ESC	Cancel the current task.

Finally, one of my favorites involves this: When you are viewing all of the contents of a folder, type the first few letters of the file or folder you are seeking. Windows will use these letters to quickly get you to the folder you need. A variation of this method involves using Google desktop, which we will discuss in future newsletters.

For more shortcuts, simply go to your Start menu, click help and support, and type in "keyboard shortcuts" in the search box. There are literally hundreds of shortcut variations, but I suggest that you only learn the most essential. If you are successfully able to use keyboard shortcuts in place of your most commonly performed functions, I guarantee an increase in speed and efficency while you are using your PC.

Renewable wind energy

2007-12-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

This is a great Bob Dylan commercial...it is a testimonial to renewable energy sources, such as Wind energy. Check it out...

Using Analytics to Learn More About Your Web Customers

2007-12-18T20:40:00.000-05:00

Adding web analytics to your site has many purposes:

- Track general visitors to the website

- Find how many people are viewing specific pages, such as product or contact pages

- Identifying where your customers are coming from

Watch this short video (Courtesy of Web Marketing Today) to learn more about web analytics:

Here are some quick tips for using Analytics to track your web customer's habits:

Load the Analytics code on the home page of your site, to track general web visitors.
Additionally, add code to each page that your company would like to see visitors come to, such as a specific product page.
Add code to your contact form, to track how many people are signing up for more information, vs. how many are leaving before offering their contact info.
As the video stated, write down 2-3 goals before checking your stats, so you know exactly what type of information your are searching for.
Check your stats at least once a week to detect trends and changes in web visits.
Set goals based on your weekly or monthly stats (new customers, signups or purchases).
Change the layout of your website often, to always keep your content fresh for visitors.

If you would like to have Web Analytics installed on your company's website, or receive training on how to use this powerful tool, contact Rockland Web Design at (845) 271-4488.

What's New on the Web for 2008

2007-12-18T17:35:00.000-05:00

A new year is right around the corner, and some very interesting emerging technologies are poised to make a splash. Here are some of many examples of what to expect in 2008:

Mobile Websites: Over 75% of existing sites have not prepared for visitors who browse their sites from their mobile phones. 2008 will change that.

Regular websites do not render well on small screens
A mobile site is designed to display the most important information in large format
Mobile sites can be added as a supplement to a regular site
Website home pages can be set up to detect visits from mobile devices, and redirect them to the mobile version of the website.
Mobile sites generally cost less to create than traditional website.

Check out this iPhone demonstration - notice how most of the sites this man visits are very small, and not optimized for the mobile phone:

Mobile Advertising and Communications: Text messaging just got more fun, and annoying! Businesses will focus heavily on targeting their messages to an increasingly mobile audience. But the wrong message could hinder their business.

A great way to communicate with a younger, or tech-savvy audience.
Quicker communications and less talk-time...just get the message sent and you're done.
Use proper grammar: Don't abbreviate and add the correct punctuation.

Online Meetings: Products such as GoToMeeting will help businesses run much more efficiently:

Users can hold meetings right from their offices, reducing travel time and expenses
Seminars and trainings can be conducted with 1 to 15 to 1000 individuals
The meeting can be recorded for future use, as audio or video

Better video for websites: YouTube was just the beginning. Now, organizations are creating tailor-made video presentations to help their clients through the buying process, and training them on how to use products and services.

Products such as Apple's Final Cut Pro, Adobe's Premier CS3 make quality editing within reach of most tech-savvy workers.
Slideshow Pro helps to load video online in a higher quality and better resolution.
Websites can easily be set up to accept video in various formats, such as .flv, .wmv or quicktime.

Here are some ways you can capitalize from mobile and video web:

If you already have a website, consider adding a mobile "minisite" with the most important information from your regular site
Experiment with text messaging. Try it out on a test client, and see if you get a response. You'll soon find it a very efficient way to communicate when not in the office. (Be careful to not use it after business hours unless absolutely necessary)
Purchase an inexpensive video camera, or phone with video capability, and take a few test videos of your products or services. Load them up onto YouTube and see how they look - then put them on a test page of your website, not viewable to the public. Send the page link to a few close associates and see what they think.
Sign up for a trial version of online meeting software. GoToMeeting and WebEx are the two most popular, but I prefer GoToMeeting for its recording capability. Contact us if you would like help setting up the service for a test spin.

Enjoy!

Inside AdWords: What's new with mobile ads

2007-12-18T14:03:00.000-05:00

Inside AdWords: What's new with mobile ads