Archive | May, 2009

More About Those Online and Offline Laid Off Camps

By on May 30, 2009 in Blogging, Business, facebook, Faith, LinkedIn, NING, Society, twitter, XING

Have you been following the news about various groups around the country hosting laid off or out of work camps? These are get togethers for people who have lost their jobs and are trying to get back into the job market. One of my LinkedIn groups, Out of Work Chicago, is mentioned in this Wall Street Journal post. I’ll be connecting with them when I get settled in our new digs.

This is the social networking version of a “meetup” which is common amongst us bloggers who want to meet the faces behind the posts. The economic situation has created a similar physical networking trend branched off of the virtual social networks for the jobless.

If the current crisis resembles you check out the nearest church or civic club hosting an event close to you. And of course, if you’re in a city large enough, there’s probably at least one social networking group of this type so search your LinkedIn, facebook, XING, NING and twitter groups for details relevant to your situation.

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Are You Using the P.I.E. Theory for Professional Advancement?

By on May 27, 2009 in Business, General Interest, Society, Toastmasters International

With all of my corporate grooming from high school through college how did I manage to miss this straightforward formula for success all of these years? I don’t remember anyone teaching this or any mentors recommending a book or website on the subject. The P.I.E. Theory posits that career success is based on Performance – %10, Image – %30 and Exposure – %60. This appeals to my analytical way of thinking about everything. The mathematical ratios make it naturally intuitive so I definitely get this.

It confirms a lot of general things I’ve hear through out the years. I suppose it’s possible that I didn’t really believe some of it early on. Or maybe it’s no more that the fact that I didn’t understand the proportions of each of the three factors. As you can see it’s not just who you know. It’s not only what you know. It’s a combination or ratio of both plus a good dose of perception thrown in the middle.

You’re expected to be excellent but that alone is not all there is to it. The rest pertains to knowing how to “play the game”. We’ve all heard that phrase before. But it’s never been illustrated – at least not for me – as well as with this PIE concept. Like it or not you have to master the total game in order to succeed. The second part, Image, begins to address this. Looking the part and dressing the part along with earning the respect of your peers are key.

Exposure wraps up the entire process. Making yourself and your excellent work known to key power brokers is the most significant part. It is necessary high end office politicking. Image and Exposure are the networking part. Become good at it now and these two will begin to feel more natural to you. You’ll definitely begin to notice how well they serve your purposes as you become more proficient with each.

Your golf and speaking skills will also help you immensely in these areas as will volunteering for high profile projects that will be seen by important people. If you are a college student take a golf glass for P.E. Also take a debate and or a public speaking class. Join a Toastmasters International club. I’m a member and I recommend it everyone. Walking in the door as a master presenter and a confident speaker in front of a crowd instantly puts you miles ahead of most people. I guarantee it will do wonders for your career.

If only I had known about this model early on. Oh well, I know it now and you my friends would also do well to learn it and apply it. Take a look at some of these links on the subject and watch your fortunes rise in due time.

Blacks Gone Geek
Geek Manager

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Honor, Duty, Sovereignty

By on May 25, 2009 in General Interest

On this Memorial Day 2009 I’m grateful and thankful for the Patriots who’ve given the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom over the years. Honored Memorial Day to their memories and a salute to those who serve today.

From Crispus Attucks and the Revolutionary founding fathers, to the Buffalo Soldiers and Rough Riders. From the Civil War to the Great War (WW I) Doughboys to the Korean War Veterans. From the greatest generation of WWII including the Tuskegee Airmen and Montford Point Marines to veterans of Vietnam. And to the warriors of the Gulf Wars and anti-terrorist war.

This list isn’t total but there is no less respect for all of those who served in other conflicts and in clandestine missions around the globe. God Bless your memories and Godspeed to a safer future.

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The Submissive Wife…and the Loving Husband

By on May 24, 2009 in Faith, General Interest, Society

I love dealing with the subject of the submissive wife because it’s such a hotly contested subject. Unfortunately it is so pitifully misunderstood and misinterpreted that it’s almost comical. And it would be just that if not for the impact the ignorance of the subject has on real people and real families.

You can tell people haven’t actually studied up on it when you have personal conversations with women or hear talk shows with women calling in to say they aren’t going to subjugate or reduce themselves to being a man’s servant or men’s slaves in general. That is not the point at all and shows a historic lack of knowledge by men and women on the matter through time. So how about we give some clarity and eliminate the ignorance and unnecessary volatility on the matter?

The most commonly referred to set of scripture on the subject is the fifth chapter of Ephesians in the new testament. Guess what ladies AND gentlemen? There’s nothing lopsided about the issue. In fact there is a section in the chapter for women and an equally important section for men. They cover different aspects (notice the title of the post) but part A and part B clearly explain the duties of the husband and wife to each other – not to the world, to each other.

There is no browbeating or door mat treatment involved. Notice the loving Christlike relationship that is prescribed in the following verses. First, realize that the analogy isn’t just a prescription for a proper marriage relationship but it also illustrates our relationship with Jesus.

Verses 22 – 24 not only explains that a wife should submit herself to her OWN husband but also introduces the spiritual nature of his role. Take a read:

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

It doesn’t end there. Fellas, in turn, verse 25 continues with how we are to relate to our wives – not all women – and the verses 28 and 29 tell us why that is so.

25 Husbands, love your wives. Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

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28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his his wife loveth himself.

29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishesth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

Verse 32 shows the ultimate spiritual nature of the previous text of chapter 5 and 33 summarizes both roles.

32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Although we get hung up on the modern definition of submission notice that the proper scope of things to be lived in our marriage lives is to mirror the Love of the Lord, our submission to Him and our reverence of Him. That’s part of the great mystery that Paul speaks of – there’s much more to it – but we can at least keep that much in proper context.

For those of you who aren’t Christians, I encourage you to get a copy of the Holy Bible and read the chapter in it’s entirety. Don’t cheat with a Bible web page. Get the physical text in your hands as a ready reference. This way you won’t be one of those giving a false impressions about how the Bible subjugates people (you know who you are).

For my Christian friends who’ve been slacking, do the same because it is commanded of you to be Biblicaly literate . This will keep you from being a week witness. Nothing more damaging to the faith than an ineffective believer who can’t defend it with scripture. When people try to put the “judgmental”, “hypocrite”, “all religions are basically the same” Christian guilt trips and lies on you, you will be able to counter with facts.

Blessed Sunday to you all and if you get a chance, share your favorite Sunday school and sermon lessons with us later today.

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Going Green and Saving on the Fuel Bill

By on May 21, 2009 in General Interest, Society

Ah, the smell of fresh cut grass. It’s spring time and the cutting season has begun. In honor of our wallets and bank accounts here are a few more ways you can introduce economic stimulus in your own household. You can do so by reducing your gasoline bill, reducing green house emissions and getting more exercise. How do you induce this threefer?

You start by buying yourself one of the old school reel mowers. This is a video for a German brand but anything you can get from your local home store or hardware store will get the job done.


Brill Razorcut 38 Push Reel Mower – Funny bloopers are a click away

If you have a well manicured lawn these bad boys are great. The tumbling blade path sheers the grass blades cleanly instead of ripping and tearing them like a power mower does. No more of that brown hue across your lawn from shredded grass blade tips. Your local law mower shop can sharpen the blades for you before each year’s spring cutting season begins.

Use the sling blade to whack away at anything too tall for the reel to bring down. Doesn’t matter if it’s a tall lawn that you’ve allowed to go too long or brush that needs to be brought down.

Sling Blade

Put away the 2-cycle hedge trimmer and pick up a pair of old fashioned two handled hedge clippers. Your arms and shoulders will be in great shape if you use these once a week.

Two Handle Hedge Clippers

For you really half-way old heads, remember the hand held edgers that look like scissors? They still make those too. Get down on your hands and knees and enjoy mother nature in a way that you can’t on the other end of your weed whacker.

Think about it. The fewer emissions we contribute and the more sweat we generate – What better cardio routine than yard work? – the better off we all are individually and collectively. Not only do you get out on the cheap with your hardware purchases but you’ll reduce your health expenses. Now, who’s ready for some fresh air?

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Here’s Why You Need A PayPal Account

By on May 21, 2009 in Business, PayPal

Did you know that you, average Joe and Joanne with no particular technical skill, could use PayPal in a variety of ways to take payments from the people you provide services for? With the basic level of computer literacy and an email account you can handle business like the big boys.

So you don’t have a web site for your business or your sideline right? Not a problem. As long as you and your customers have email addresses you don’t need a site. PayPal has an email payment feature to handle business for people like you. When the work is done for your one price job, send an email to your customer. They can pay you through a link in the message.

Baby sitters, painters, tutors, heck even doctor’s offices can probably take advantage of something like this. Are you keeping somebody’s kids and they didn’t have cash or the check book handy? No problem. Send them an email link. In fact if you’re on a regular care schedule with the little tykes, send an email at the end of each month and get paid in one lump sum. Do you paint or do other home repair specialties? After you give your estimate and start working, send an email when the job is done. Are you a student or teacher who tutors on the side? Send an email to your tutee or their parents if they are minors. No need to handle cash or plan for a trip to the bank. Let them send it to your PayPal account. And you medical practitioners can save paper and postage. Don’t send a bill through snail mail send a PayPal email and receive your funds in a timely fashion.

Here’s an option that works well for organizations. Are you conducting a membership drive or dues renewal? Email your club members a PayPal invoice. It expands on the email bill by allowing you to add multiple line items to the bill. If there are levels of membership you can indicate those. If there is a one time fee for new members you can line it out.

This can obviously apply to any type of business transaction. Mobile computer repair services can really max out this feature. If you’re a property owner you could send your tenants an email for the monthly rent or lease payment. Are you an outdoor adventure guide? Use PayPal to reserve a spot for your weekend adventurers.

There are other payment options that PayPal provides as well including request wizards for QuickBooks and for Outlook. Additional features include reporting tools for your business tracking purposes and a virtual terminal to accept payments via phone, fax, mail and in-person orders.

PayPal is also typically used as an option with other software like Eventbrite. If you’re a conference or event planner simply tie in your PayPal account to your eventbrite page to pay for conference reservations. It’s an all around tool used for businesses of every size.

As you can see PayPal is used for much more significant things than just the donate button on your blogsite. It’s used to handle your serious business in serious fashion. There are a number of other options and services I didn’t mention so peruse the site and see what’s appropriate for you. Then drop whatever you’re doing and create your account while you’re thinking about it.

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Who Wants to Develop a Cool Facebook Application?

By on May 20, 2009 in facebook, Programming/Coding

If you know some basic scripting and database coding you’re well on your way to creating your own social networking game craze. The next time you’re on facebook go to the bottom of the screen and click on the Developers link, then under the Get Started heading click on How to Build an App for the step by step tutorial.

The background says you’ll need to know PHP or some other scripting language that has a client library for the facebook API. You also should be familiar with the workings of the internet as well as SSH for secure encryption, MySQL for database control and the Unix operating system.

There’s the usual wiki and blog to share helpful hints, inspiration etc. If any of you have developed one of these cool apps how about sharing your story with the rest of us? And if any of my facebook friends reply back to me on that network I’ll comment here as well. Sound like a plan? Great. Now, let’s hear what you’re into.

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MartyBLOGs Site Updates

By on May 19, 2009 in Amazon.com, Blogging, facebook, LinkedIn, PayPal

Good morning actionists. It’s been a moment since I wrote but you can see that I’ve been actively tweaking the site with some features and mixing and matching widgets. Seems to make sense that all the social networking icons should be grouped together so people can contact me on facebook and connect to me on LinkedIn. Both of these are now in the right side column.

That leaves the income producers on the left. I added a PayPal donate button as well. If a music download or Amazon purchase doesn’t happen to tickle your fancy on a given day feel free to throw a few dollars at a poor college student and insure the continuance and improvement of quality blogging here at MartyBLOGs. As I’ve said many times on behalf of my previous employers, “We accept all forms of payment” – LOL. I’ll post on some of the cool features of PayPal soon. If you thought Amazon.com was impressive, PayPal will make you go humm as well.

We’ll see if this realignment helps increase the flow of revenues and social virtual contacts.

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Old School Friday Salutes Your Soul Train Favorites

By on May 8, 2009 in General Interest, Music, YouTube

I wonder if Don Cornelius imagined the audiovisual legacy he would leave to the world after pursuing his dream to put Black popular music on T.V. Today’s OSF meme is a tribute to that catalogue. The category is Favorite Soul Train Performance.

My pick for the day is the BT Express. This group helped epitomize great musicianship during the 70′s soul era. Notice the variety of percussion and brass instrumentation used to orchestrate a rich danceable sound. This was typical of the day.

This is one of their early hits from 1974, “Do It Till You’re Satisfied”, and it’s typical of their pulsing beat. Enjoy the clip. I bet you’ll save it to your YouTube faves when you’re done.

Yeah buddy, the days of string, percussion, brass and woodwind sections are sorely missed in contemporary music. But click thru the related links from this clip or search the YouTube archive for some of these other groups who have appeared on the show through the years.

And check out what some of these bloggers have entered as their Soul Train OSF favorites for the day and join in with us on the weekly reviews.

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Their Twilight Campaign Is Easy to Explain

By on May 7, 2009 in General Interest, YouTube

Pinky and the Brain is one of the most hilarious cartoons ever conceived. The over the top, stereotypical characterizations of the mad scientist and clueless goofball sidekick are just sidesplitting.

The title jingle is one of the best ever written. It alone hooks you and has you laughing from the start. Just listen to the totally ridiculous lyrics and try not to fall out of your chair.

You can find a few episodes from this YouTube link as well. They parody just about every brand of Hollywood shtick you can imagine. Enjoy and give yourself a few good laughs during the day.

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