Ten Best of 2013!

I went through my profile and collected ten of the most useful posts.  They are pretty much the hottest intel available on The Plus to date!

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/WHowKBmEyJ5

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/2Tu7jgJesyQ

http://davidamerland.com/seo-tips/931-semantic-search-and-google-plus.html

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/WPBUvYhB38y

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/GSF3JeQDgTE

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/CwDhof5vbrr

http://youtu.be/nJ1WrnMmGC8

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/hu1acMBKYTw

https://plus.google.com/117664509990264667788/posts/6bga15trB56

https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cli3lvrp8r37523109mc0p00ik8

PastForward:2014

It's hard to know what lies ahead.  It's easy to get stuck in the past.  This is the time of year when most people engage in some introspection; hindsight kicks into high gear.  We try to consider what worked and what did not in the year nearly completed.  We think about what we want for "next year."  This has always been a difficulty for me, because even as a child, I realized that the "New Year" is an arbitrary thing.  As a kid on Long Island, my birthday fell on Yom Kippur for much of the 70s.  I got the day off.  I've always been a grateful sort, so I did a little research and found that Yom Kippur is "The Day of Atonement," and what Jewish folk do before their New Year is wipe up all the bad blood spilled between family, friends, and anyone else--in order to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.  The process also serves as an inventory of what works and what does not in one's personality, affairs, and general worldview.  This I learned from Harold Robbins, Lord love him!

It's always good to keep looking up!

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions anymore.  The "Fly Jock" Tom Joyner helped me out with this.  He says that if you've waited until the last week of the year to map out what you want for the year upcoming, you are already too far behind to make it happen.  He recommends that you begin planning your new year in the final quarter--really, you should have things fleshed out pretty well by the third quarter of the year.  Then you can spend the fourth quarter doing the practical things to set your New Year's plan in motion.  It's simple, really.  I didn't do this.  I got bogged down in other stuff.  I did more of what I enjoy doing, and overlooked the things that would provide a clear plan of action for 2014.  I can't blame Malachi, although I'd really like to.  He wants to go on that trip, but he doesn't want to put in the work.  I've got about 90 days to make him.  I've never really had to ride herd on this boy, and he ain't gonna like it.  I don't care, since I know he has every intention of blaming me if he does not get to go.  I have blogged about pretty much everything that concerns me personally, and established my "social presence" for good or ill here on G+.  If the Hulkster wants me in his circles, I cain't be all bad.  Now it's time to focus this blog on Malachi, whether he likes it or not.  He is missing the opportunity that is G+, because he thinks I don't know what I'm doing. He thinks that because he isn't paying proper attention.  I can help him with that.  He's got to learn how to work hard for what he wants and overcome obstacles in order to get it.  So do I.  It's hard to get a teenager to pursue personal development with you.  It seems waaaay uncool.  I'm taking the long view.  Just as I look at a six-foot tall kid and always perceive a chirpy little butterball of a boy with a binky and a head full of golden brown curls, one day he will look back (Lord willing) on this time in his life and discern the heavy lifting that was done to move the stumbling blocks of  low wealth (and its concomitant poverty mind), low confidence, and submerged opportunity.  He will know the worth of it when he has to motivate his own crew of navel-gazers!

It's not easy for anyone to stay focused.  It's certainly difficult for a young man to do so.  It's fashionable to let kids find their own way these days, and for the most part, that's what I do.  I make exception in this case, because Malachi has a desire to go abroad that is so strong that fear of disappointment has him stymied.  I've got to act.  He has to learn to move forward in spite of appearances.  He has to learn to ask for help.  He must learn to receive it when it comes.  He must accept it graciously, and not as an indictment of his abilities.  I have got to do the very same thing.  Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

Happy New Year, everyone!

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

The House That Knowledge Built

http://www.biltmore.com/

"By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."--Proverbs 24:1, (NIV)

http://dstevenwhite.com/2012/05/28/the-foundation-of-the-u-s-knowledge-based-economy/

"We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technical and scientific advance, as well as rapid obsolescence. The key component of a knowledge economy is a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources."  

  --Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman, Stanford University

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2004. 30:199–220

doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100037

Copyright c 2004 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

If you are like me, your day starts with the comforting sound of the coffeemaker...and your hard drive.  You roll out of bed, hit the start button, and begin your day.  Even if you are going somewhere to stare at someone else's computer screen all day, you fire up your own knowledge boiler and get stoked before you arrive.  You don't feel as if you are on the cutting edge of revolution, but somehow, there you are.  The top tier of earners in America are now more likely to get all of their information from online sources.  They might watch television with the fam just to be sociable, but most likely, people who spend their day online are subjecting themselves to a tired rehash of events by 7 pm.

On the internet, like any place humans aggregate, things go in and out of fashion.  There are always people who are "ahead of the curve."  You know who those people are on G+.  You depend on them to mark the trail through the internet wilderness to the Frontier Town that is G+.  I've staked camp on the outskirts of town with the other neophytes.  It's called BLOGGER, but sometimes I feel like it must have been for my retired hippie of a mom at WOODSTOCK--a sea of humanity as far as the horizon, but the only familiar faces are the ones standing beside you--equally flummoxed by the unfolding frenzy before them.

Selling on The Plus is sort of like "carrying coals to Newcastle."

If you need something, you can call a drone.  The drone can drop knowledge on the fight between iSheep and DroidBores (I jest made that up! Yaaay ME):  "High Noon at the G+ Corral!"  As a former patent secretary, it makes me laugh to read flame wars about "new" technology.  The devices you all are ranting over were OLD NEWS in the early 1990's.

The patent cycle is fifteen years ahead of the most cutting-edge thing ANY of you people can lay your hands on today. 

So is just about everything else Google is offering you for free these days.  See, they know precisely how far below them you are in the Knowledge Base.  They know what you will need to buy from them, and what you will pay to get it.  They are just waiting for the right moment to roll it out. 

Top-feeders, this po' broke, n' lonely single mom has splashed down with a message. A maddeningly simple one.  Your conversion potential is on BLOGGER. BLOGGER.  I'll say that again:

YOUR MONEY IS PILED UP ON BLOGGER.

Stop turning up your nose at it, like it's the morning after Brussels sprouts.  Quit walking past it (whistling a cheery tune) on your way to another HOA with the "experts."  They're paying so much money to be on other platforms, they don't want to be SEEN on Blogger. Dumb and DUMBER.  Maybe they come here and read this stuff, maybe not.

Shame on them, the dupes.

If you come slumming around blogger, you are ahead of the game. There's some hip action in this seedy part of town.  Some likely types with their chairs tipped back in Ye Olde Saloon. I'm one of them.  I'm the fancy chick dancing on the bar top, jest 'cause ah feel lak et.  Harrumph.

 As soon as I am able, I will be paying people for their expertise.  The ones I will pay most, best, and SOONEST are the ones who shared what they know with me when I could not afford it!  Even the smartest have been bamboozled by BS.  There are hundreds of thousands of blogs on blogger. The folk who write these blogs range from soup to NUTS. All of them, just about, need your help.  You should be marketing to them, not pitying them.  They need you just a smidge more than you need them.  That's a recipe for revenue. Why are you ignoring it?  You should be positioning yourself as the trusted scout leading the way to the next level of the Knowledge Base, pardner.

People use the service because it's FREE.  They use a free service because currently, they need a free service.  As soon as they are able, they will join the ranks of the 'experts' paying out the hoo-ha for a tad more exposure.  They'll drink the WordPress kool-aid, because they've learned some HTML, and someone who appears to be making money online has told them it's the next step.  Even when I do rise to the level of throwing my money down that particular Black Hole, I'll be keeping my wigwam out here in the blogger hinterlands.  I enjoy being an outlier.  You see what's coming down the trail before it hits town.  I haven't checked out many of the other campers yet, but when I do, I'll be looking for the people on blogger who have a good product, idea, or service, but who cain't write.  They need me.  When they are ready to step up, I'll help them write content prose so polished you'll have to tip your monitor to keep the text from sliding right into your lap.  So many of you have advanced degrees and long histories in sales and marketing, yet you stride confidently past the GOLD MINE that is blogger every day, to chat up your cronies on The Plus and eventually form lucrative partnerships.  It's easy because you all speak the same business "language."  But just as you wouldn't want your golf buddy who reads "Dentistry Today" faithfully to perform your root canal, why are you congregating with people who barely need what you have to offer?  There are hordes of unwashed masses out here, waiting for you.  We clean up nice, and are simply waiting for you to notice.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass


http://www.stanford.edu/group/song/papers/powell_snellman.pdf

"I NEVER HEARD OF YOU."

Boydton, Virginia, USA

"I never heard of you."  No one wants to hear that.  It's dismissive, isn't it?  You worry.  Is there a problem?  I don't think so.  Times change.  The way business is done constantly evolves.  Yet brick-and-mortar persist.  How do we bridge the gap?  Part of what makes entrepreneurship so much fun is catching a lasting trend at its inception.  G+ is one of those business trends whose impact is only just beginning to be perceived by markets global and local.  "I never heard of you," could be the best news you've heard all day!  Why?

People who have never heard of you are the biggest pool of your potential customers!  

People who've never heard of you have no preconceived notions about you.  You can offer them your best, and if you are destined to do business, business will ensue.  Nearly all ongoing business must begin with someone who has never heard of you.  G+ has become a Global Crossroads, where can one can mix and mingle with society on a global scale.  Imagine that.  If you can find ten people you trust under these circumstances, I believe you'll do well.  I'm well on my way to finding the TEN PEOPLE in this madding crowd to whom I will give my limited, finite resources of time and attention.  The ten people who will help me create an ecosystem of value on the interwebs.  Google Plus is my incubator, and I don't mind telling you so.

There is a limitless supply of people who have never heard of you.

That's a good thing. Really.

You are currently swimming amidst a school of savvy marketing sharks from every field and background imaginable--on a global scale.  It takes all kinds--and if you dish it up, expect to get served now and then. Establishing yourself as a reliable online presence is no small task, to be sure.  Know your niche, and survey the terrain from there for a while.  You are a seller in a glut of sellers, marketers, and 'internet pirates'.  Me hearties, I am an internet buccaneer.  I'm here to discover the riches and wisely invest them for the future; and perhaps lay a few golden eggs of my own.

Whether I turn out to be a Golden Goose or an SEO Swan, you are reading this post, and
"I never heard of you," has just died a silent, stoic death.  Fallen dead.  From now on.

May it abide in peaceful repose.

So stop and think: the person who wants what you have the most does not know who you are, what you have, how it can be obtained, nor where he or she can locate you--on the internet.  Fortunately for humanity, everyone is somewhere.  Your revenue stream with long term potential may well be today's tech cowards-- the man or woman who has yet to screw up his or her courage and come online.  Or make a foray into social media.  Just recently, a gentleman I know introduced his lovely wife to The Plus.  She received a warm welcome.  Even people who use computers for a living will be new to the Global Salon that is G+.  If you have something worthwhile to offer, you will be a welcome avenue of entry for someone new to the technology marketplace--or the social media arena.  If you choose, you can become a life-changing conduit to a world of opportunity for a deserving human being. Or someone with the personal resources to make life better for people, on and off the internet.  Rich or poor, people fear life online.  Their fear is realistic.  There's some nefarious people on here!  But there's nefar-ity in the street.  On television.  Scandal. Deception. Betrayal. Pretty Little Liars. It's all there.

I'm sure it's all here.  I just stick to +ron tolbert 's survival skills.  If I need help, I can call on "The Godfather of Search," +David Amerland .  There are Mastery Groups forming.  They are a goldmine of cutting-edge technology intel.  Field tested every day.  You get to watch people grow.  Make mistakes.  Fumble their way through.  Get better.  Reframe other career paths and skillsets into something exciting and new.  A real adventure on the Wild, Wild Web!

Think of this blog post like a Treasure Hunt.  The landscape of G+ stretches as far as the mind can conceive, yet--"the map is not the territory."  Mapping your personal journey is the joy of Information Entrepreneurship.  Setting a course here can be challenging, chastening, enlightening and fun.  I am honored to have my opinions and conversation valued so highly here on The Plus.  I have always said that the internet restored my zest for personal development.  It's true.  A single detail of an aspect of online existence can generate enough passion for a lucrative career, if you know where to look.  Thank you to all the great contributors to the knowledge base.  You are doing the heavy lifting to build the Global Marketplace.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

"Who's Afraid of Joan Didion?"

Who's Afraid of Joan Didion? I am.

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear.” 
― Joan Didion, Essays & Conversations

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” 
― Joan Didion

“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” 
― Joan Didion, On Self-Respect

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 
― Joan Didion, The White Album
Source:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/238.Joan_Didion


I've been afraid of Joan Didion since I was a kid.  Something she said about becoming obsessed with gruesome news; the need to run it down to the ends of the earth in order to stop fearing it--and the subsequent fact-based terror generated upon finding out that the actual truth is a lot scarier than anything you imagined.  This resonated a little too closely to my own inner life, even then.  From fearing her I got the mental image I place before me when I am serious about writing something that will get your attention: Strong, fierce, beautiful, skinny Joan, reaching outward and upward from the pages of The White Album with a vise-like, blue-veined, alabaster eagle's claw to snatch you into its fathomless depths and drown you in unbearable truth.  I opened that book in the middle, read a few lines, and came as close as I ever want to arrive at a panic attack.  I still don't know what's in it.  I am utterly certain that were I given the chance to explain, the lady would advise me never to read it; I already know what's there.

My fellow JD has had a life that everyone wants to know about, but no one wants to live, like Job.  Yes, beauty.  Yes, intellect.  Yes, brilliance and talent. That's the story we want to live.  It's the heartache and the calamity we desperately strive to avoid.  You want to know how Ms. Didion feels about it, not how it actually feels to lose a husband and a daughter; to wind up right back in the cruel company of life's worst vulnerabilities--bereft of the life and family you fought to create.  Death came, sudden and unexpected, to cut the anchor of her equilibrium without a thought.  Not a thought for fame.  Not a thought for beauty and elan.  Not a thought for what she may have been expecting.  Just the unbearable truth of life's unfairness.

Everybody wants to tell their story these days.  Storytelling as marketing.  Storytelling as trust-builder. Storytelling as tribe leader qualification.  Storytelling as blah, blah blah.

There's a problem with story-telling as a substitute for marketing, trust-building, or anything else.  That problem is the unalterable human need to embellish a tale.

Marketing stories hide the flaws in a product, brand, or service.  Trust-building stories leave out the character flaws of the storyteller. Tribe-leader stories obscure that person's capacity for leadership with a good story about leading people.  Self-promotional stories conflate our self-delusion with our need for a viable revenue stream, and misrepresentation is the result.  I'm all for a good story.  I just don't want it to replace the actual truth here on the interwebs.

I try to keep in mind that a web is a trap devised by a clever predator.  

We admire its beauty and ingenuity--until we find ourselves a prey, struggling to free ourselves from its sticky, silken threads.

I hope I look this fetching when I become as well-seasoned and long-lived as this woman.

Miss Joan, I don't know whom to credit for these photos of you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

"LAST CALL!"

What happened to 2013? Where did it go?  It's that time again.  We are smack-dab in the middle of the last quarter of the year.  If you are just beginning to figure out what you want to do with 2014, you're kinda late.  Me too.  Like Michael Jackson, "You Are Not Alone."  I am here with you.

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC

I'm just starting to really think about next year.  How can I bring order out of what I am currently undertaking so that I can begin the new year with some kind of focused, well-contemplated effort?  It's funny, but most people don't get into the full swing of a new year until about March or April, at least in the US.  We're like crocuses.  We pop our heads up above the frost in February or March, but we don't really resonate as the miraculous proof that winter has passed unless some observant person takes note.  By then, we've lost the hibernation season as a time to reestablish our goals and priorities for the upcoming year. Certainly, a new year is an arbitrary point in time to reassess things, but most people do it then.  It's like a group consciousness.  Everyone is thinking about it at the same time--except maybe Jewish people and the Chinese.  They get a jump on the proceedings with a thousand-year head start, at least!

Procrastination can take on many guises.  Waiting until the last week of the year to figure out what's gonna happen next is a colossal capitulation to the vagaries of chance!  Our ability to influence outcomes is so limited anyway, why not do all we can to chart a course for the future?  On the other hand (said the Libra), I've come across two or three five-year plans that I painstakingly mapped out at different points in my maturation process.  They are all hauntingly similar--and I did not keep a single one of them in front of me as I went about my year.  Shewt.  Looks like all that work was for naught, for real.  Maybe not.  I hope that the process itself gave me some needed direction.  Looking back, it seems like busywork to me, but like a seedling, a bunch of stuff happens below-ground before it pokes its vulnerable head above the earth and into the light of day.

One of the things self-starters do so well is build accountability features into their life-plans.  They tell somebody what they're gonna do, and give that person or group permission to call them out when old patterns or habits begin to sabotage outcomes or implode enthusiasm
 

Comfort zones are comfortable until they widen out into a rut, or erode so deeply into our motivation as to become THE HOLE.  

The quickest way out of such self-inflicted ennui is calamity.  Nothing feels worse than to find yourself in the midst of an uproar that you KNOW could have been avoided.  Your hateful mind will take you accurately and unerringly back along the chain of events that precipitated the current mess, and show you every circumstance, situation, or scenario in which you zigged when you ought to have zagged.  We can let these shortcomings become the on-ramp to depression and defeat, or we can take a hard look at our personal culpability and do better.  You gain the respect of others when they see you doing this.  More than one person has come to me and admitted that part of the reason they were able to persevere through The Great Recession was because they knew I was getting by on far, far less than they.  "If she can do without it, so can I!" was the mantra of one of my very best friends, whose landscaping jobs simply evaporated during that time--leaving him with a thousand-dollar drop in his monthly earnings.  I'd no idea he was making so much money cutting folks' grass! He's now in the succumbing stages of lung cancer.  He was a smoker when I met him thirty years ago, and knowing that his life is winding down motivates me to establish myself.  I don't want him worrying about what's gonna happen to me when he isn't around to bail me out anymore.  The kindest thing I can do for Ellis is to get my house in order.  NOW is the time to make that happen.

I want to be in Napoleon Hill's "Massive Action" mode when Spring 2014 arrives.

These are FIVE GOALS that I have set for 2014:

1. Get a bank account

2. Connect that account to PayPal

3. Focus this blog on fundraising

4. Establish a viable online revenue stream

5. Have Malachi's trip paid in full by March 30, 2014

Feel free to hold me to account regarding these five things. 

The completion date for items 1, 2, and 3 is January 31, 2014.  Number four starts right now.

It's tough to admit to The Plus that I do not have a bank account, but the fees to keep my cash trickle in a bank became prohibitive in 2008.  I "pay as I go," and I'm a chick who hustles with all her clothes on, but now it's time to hold myself to a higher standard.  

If you want to come out of the closet with your most fearfully un-articulated goal, I'll be the first one to reach in and drag you out from beneath your self-inflicted clutter!  

Just let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass

"Collaborative Salvation"

+Doug Breitbart is responsible for such an eloquent means of expressing the profound difference people seem to be experiencing on G+.  Yes, it's social, but more than that, it's socially responsible interaction.  There's plenty of room for shenanigans, but even those have a level of sophistication that makes them enjoyable rather than offensive, most of the time.

Creative Tension + Organic Beauty = Collaborative Salvation.

Collaboration does not flourish in an atmosphere of mistrust.  Mutual respect is a vital component of any team effort.  Disagreement is not avoided, but welcomed when all parties respect each other.  Humility is essential; one may find that disagreement leads to a need for a change in personal outlook!  +Michael Josefowicz describes beneficial forms of disagreement as "a source of mutual learning and deeper connections."  +martin shervington has gotten to the top of the search pile by being open, generous, hardworking, and giving of his time.  

IF MY G+ SPACE WERE LAID OUT LIKE AN ELEGANT HOME, HOW WOULD IT LOOK?

http://www.cooleflorida.com/contemporary-and-elegant-home-interior-design-ideas-by-browns-interior-boca-raton

In my quest to organize my G+ life, I have been considering various means of categorizing and prioritizing what's important to me, as I build up my courage to truly begin fundraising for my son's trip to Europe next summer.  The one I like best relates to the curation of my personal "G+ Culture."

http://www.romanticasheville.com/biltmorechristmas.htm

"WHAT'S THE FLOOR PLAN?"

• LIVING ROOM = ACCOMPLISHMENT, ACHIEVEMENT
• KITCHEN = CREATIVITY, INSPIRATION
• DINING ROOM = CULTURE
• DEN = GOAL - SETTING
• BATH = CONTEMPLATION, RE-DEDICATION
• GARDEN = DEMOGRAPHICS, TARGET AUDIENCE
• LIBRARY = RESEARCH, MARKET ANALYSIS
• OFFICE = TARGETS, BENCHMARKS, METRICS, NETWORKING
• HOME THEATER = EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT, WORLDVIEW

• ARCHITECTURE = GOALS, PLANNING, PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
• LANDSCAPING = COLLABORATION, NETWORKING
• PLUMBING = SECURITY, MOTIVATION, INNER DRIVE, ADAPTABILITY
• ELECTRICAL = CREATIVITY, PASSION, INNOVATION

REVENUE GENERATION = COTTAGE or CASTLE?

• MORTGAGE = SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
• BANKING = AUTHOR RANK, INFLUENCE LEVEL
• FINANCE = NETWORKING, COLLABORATION, SELF - PROMOTION
• BUDGETING = TIME MANAGEMENT, FOCUS, SELF- DIRECTION
• RETIREMENT = LEGACY

If I organized my Plus Life along these lines, what would I create?  If my G+ home becomes part of a safe, known, welcoming community, how great would that be?
  

LaShandra Henry's Thanksgiving Pep Talk

G+ is fast becoming a social destination.  People come to The Plus for intellectual stimulation, informed conversation, and a few laughs along the way.  There is a real social consciousness that is not pushy, in-your-face, or preachy, and I like that.  The relationships that are formed here seem to be truly genuine.

"Influence Hoarding is a Sure Path to Failure" -- Mark Traphagen

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog. 

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass