You realize that by leveraging organic methods you can use the slower economy to gain mindshare. If you see a noticeable drop in clients, use any extra time to gain mindshare. So how do you do that?

Here’s a few ideas:

Look smart – go analytical. Focus on the details. Use this opportunity to solidify your landing page strategies. Review your clients analytics carefully to insure all the top ranking keywords have great landing pages. Produce charts and graphs that you might not otherwise have time for. Show these to your clients and create a page that helps sell your services when the budgets turn around.

Look fast – think of the recent projects that have gone smoothly. Build a new page on your site highlighting the des/dev/mktg process in a timeline that’s easy for potential clients to grasp. Helping clients understand your process and the time commitment can help seize more dollars from other areas of your client’s budgets like traditional newspaper advertising.

Look popular – get your company’s info on more social sites. Use life-blogging tools to enforce your brand and build the story of your company. Post the output on your site.

Be the best – if the greatest tool in your arsenal is you, improve yourself. Take some online video tutorials, like tubetorials or some step by step design or development tutorials. Listen to some professional podcasts on how to improve. Differentiate yourself further by joining trade associations. If you’re not the greatest tool in your arsenal become your most valuable asset.

Get Educated! – Seriously, if you’re looking for differentiation between yourself and your peers seeking the same job, show you have earned a certificate in standards-based education for web professionals.

This growth rate represented the eighth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates.

If you need help with an online ecommerce solution, I can help.

Thanks to Bill Cullifer and his World Organization of Webmaster I was afforded an incredible opportunity to speak on the technical requirements, testing tools, core technologies and virtues of “Web Services.” My favorite session was titled, “Rolling Your Own Web Service.” It apparently made sense to the attendees, coming from a guy in an aloha shirt in Hawaii.

This was around 2002-04, the air was thick with excitement and all the venues were filled albeit not as filled as the pre dot-com crash days of Flashforward. The “series of tubes” (thank you Ted Stevens) many thought would never work started to work again, Wall Street was recovering and we all gave life to the first new technology since the crash. A technology that made the biggest promises ever. To say some folks were skeptical would be a gross underestimation. So many people had lost their asses in 2001 that even years later, the vibe was palpable. This is probably how I was able to share a stage with so many web rock-stars.

The reason I’m sharing this is because we’re now taking another giant leap. Most likely you have no idea what I’m talking about. In the coming months I’ll be sharing some new thinking, again from faster and smarter folks than I, that make absolutely spin your head. I’ve never been more inspired by technology than this very moment.

Just as Web Services sprouted service oriented architectures, Web 2.0, iTunes, YouTube and ubiquitous/real-time communication platforms, newer technologies will now completely change everything.

“Digital” now being viewed by many as it’s own energy source, is evolving on a larger and faster scale than ever and you should be aware of the implications.

Important!
Web 2.0 isn’t merely about service oriented architectures. To learn more, take my online course titled, “Web 2.0 for Everyone.” More shameless plugs coming soon.

Watch this old video (2003?) to understand why Web 2.0 has been so exciting. You”ll recognize the change and soon I’ll share some of the progress we’ve made since this video was launched.

For many, individual tips to help you with your business are helpful. But how many of you sit around researching business tips regularly? I bet many more of you tend to go with what you know and what has worked in the past. I’m not saying tips aren’t helpful. In fact, my hot potato today is partially about multiplying the effect.

For example, delivering business tips to 50 of us at a time. Would that be better than 35? Or what if we could reach a hundred? Gee, what if we could get our hot potatoes out to entire groups of businesses?

Although we’re a powerful group, reaching our largest trade associations or entire workforces around the island could surely create more change than our small group.

Of course we know this to be quite easy. Many of us are already doing this with our own marketing messages. You just need their email addresses, right? The primary vehicle for reaching large audiences from email blasts and websites have become commonplace. Yes email, the killer app of the nineties is still the killer app for most.

But my business tip for today isn’t about using email. Those days are quickly waning. What I’m talking about is an understanding in the broadest terms of the impact the Internet has had on your business. Consider the role the Internet has played in your business and quality of life.

Now think for a moment where your business would be without the Internet? Without email, without PDFs, without online shopping, without online resumes, forms, banking or websites. Remember the thrill of sending a business proposal using an envelop and a stamp? Remember waiting 2 weeks for a reply. If it was positive and they wanted to learn more you could call them and follow up with a form to fill out and return with their partner or customer information? Does anyone even remember how long these conversations used to take? Does anyone remember when it was most efficient to just fly to meet the person and sign the contract. Of course we do. But the successes of the Internet are closely woven into the fabric of our existence. Do you remember you pants have pockets?

As our own Jeff Gray kindly points out, The Internet now carries more than traffic on your website. The Internet carries your data and your voice communications. Not just time saving but life saving information, every second somewhere. So when Jeff asks folks to join in the Hawaii Island Broadband Revolution, a lot is at stake.

Think of the impact Internet speeds could have on telecommuting from the island. Imagine working anywhere from anywhere. Imagine the impact on families.

Imagine stay at home Moms or Dads working from home instead of paying $300 a month for gas. Imagine these same parents taking care of their keiki and their kupuna instead of hiring professionals to care for their families at $300-$600 per month. Imagine these same parents saving another hundred dollars a month at the grocery just by growing some of their own food. One of my favorites is to think of a 3 day work week. Okay, you get the idea.

Now then, a couple statements to help you glean a tip or two in your business.

Statement #1 – Many consider the Internet to be in it’s infancy but growing quickly. It took television 12 years to get 50 million users. It took Facebook 2 years. The Internet is accelerating. It’s gaining momentum and users every day. It’s still sorting out job descriptions like webmaster, search engine marketer and web designer. It’s still reinventing the way we communicate across cultures across generations and around the world and it’s just a baby. It could even be considered a driving force behind the feelings of millions that we’re heading towards a global consciousness.

After listening to Sir Tim Berners-Lee make his second request in twenty years (his first request was that we all start linking documents on the web), my first bold statement is this.

Of 100% potential, the Internet has only reached 5%. Meaning, I believe the Internet will become at least 90% more effective at solving our world’s problems within twenty years.

Statement #2 – To create a global model for sustainability most experts currently believe our key indicators include food, water, shelter, healthcare and energy availability.

While these may be the current measurements of sustainability, food, water, shelter, heathcare and energy availability will all quickly become mere indications of our ability to effectively harness the Internet. 

At Green Collar Technologies we’ve started to help create a global model for sustainability which not only takes into consideration our offline sustainability practices but also our online sustainability. We’re engaging all generations but focusing on the youth to insure this happens at all levels well ahead of the Hawaii 2050 plan.

In these two statements I hope you’ll find a gem of insight you can use in your business. Remember what has worked best for you over the last ten years. Real-time conversations with your customers are happening everywhere from anywhere at once, right now. Carefully consider getting into that conversation and learning how this will impact your business and your community in the next ten years.

I’ll leave you with 2 bold statements from Sir Charles Darwin.

You may have heard this one,
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. ”

And you’ve probably heard this one,
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. “

Broadband is as it’s often referred to is an access speed currently possible and probably for rural areas. Boradband is also via for telecommuting and it’s wide-spread adoption could be considerd the corner-stone in a stronger digital economy for Hawaii Island.

I’ll do my best to keep updating these resources over time. If anyone is interested in managing a site with a “Broadband in Hawaii” focus, I’ll set you up.  

Broadband in Hawaii Resources

• Contact / Point person in the effort to proliferate broadband on Hawaii Island – Jeff Gray, Netcom Enterprises.

• Broadband Census Resources:

  • Hawaii Broadband Task Force web site
  • Hawaii Broadband Task Force initial report [PDF], December 2007
  • “Task force targets expansion of Hawaii’s broadband capabilities,” article, Pacific Business News, August 8, 2008
  • “The State of the Internet,” Akamai Report, May 2008
  • “17-member consortium to invest $500m in 20,000 km Asia-America Gateway submarine cable system,” Press Release, Telstra International
  • “Oceanic debuts turbo Road Runner in Hawaii Internet-service war,” article, Honolulu Advertiser, October 1, 2007
  • Federal Communications Commission Data on Hawaii Broadband(BroadbandCensus.com, August 9, 2008)
• June Meeting of Broadband Breakfast Club :  Spending the Broadband Stimulus - Technologies That Enable Universal Broadband Connectivity
• SpeedMatters.org speed test results for Hawaii (PDF) also visit SpeedMatters.org

Here’s a couple of his posts destined to become classics:

1. The Five Questions Companies Ask About Social Media
2. 7 Questions Some Brands Are Asking About Twitter

You may also want to monitor his site for Jobs for the Web Strategist.

Here’s a few of the factors that make it possible to now do hi-def video on the web.

• Mid-Range Video Cameras now shoot in HD and have storage methods to support the larger storage requirements.
  
• Editing tools like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro support HD. Editors can even buy complete non-linear solutions that do HD very well with real timecompositing.
• Video Sharing websites are starting to support HD. YouTube, Vimeo and others. Check your service for compatibility.
• Flash Plugin V10 – version ten supports h.264. You can also click the pause button, go get eat dinner (if you’re on the Big Island you may need to do this overnight or use a special video downloader  tool -watch out for versions with spyware) and come back to see if the video has cached. If it has cached and your connection hasn’t dropped, you can now watch it without interruption.
• Download speeds on the mainland have reached a point that most folks can and are willing to wait for a nice full-screen version of the video they’re trying to view.
• Monitors are now available in high definition formats which preserve the 16:9 aspect ratios. In the past 16:9 ratios were stretched into 4:3 aspect ratios or simply displayed at near full screen. The monitors also have access times that work well with online compression algorithms ie; they look good.
• Graphic cards on nearly all computers shipped in the last year support HD. Hard drives can also keep up, even on laptops and netbooks.
• Hard drives can now keep up.
• Your viewers are starting to expect HD more and more as their television experience becomes high definition.

Additional Resources to get your video specs into High Definition quality. The video is a good primer.

• Bigger and Better: Encoding for YouTube 720p HD
• Online video sites HD quality comparison
• How to make Youtube HD videos?
• Video : Tek Tip: HD Specs-tacular

An example of this in Hawai`i might be directories (for greenies on Hawai`i Island greenhawaii.com vs. greenies statewide kanuhawaii.org), tweets (twitterfall.com searches) and other localized blogs that you can find in Google Blogs.

So in addition to trying all those great new marketing avenues, don’t forget to fish where the fish are, “that you want to catch.”

• You often use okinas and kahakos in your blog posts
• You know basic html (can be very basic)
• You’re willing to compile and send us feedback regarding the beta
• You’re willing to sign a confidentiality agreement

This is an important project to us and we want to release the code when it is ready. If you believe helping bloggers accurately use the Hawaiian language in their blogs is important too, please let us know by filling out the form below. Mahalo

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Just trying to draw out the similarities between Web Accessibility and SEO so that more folks will pay attention to the Web Accessibility Guidelines.

Top Ten tips on the WAI page at the W3c

Accessibility Tip
1. Images & animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.

SEO Relevancy
Alt tags tell search engines what’s on your page.

Accessibility Tip
2. Image maps. Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.

SEO Relevancy
Make the the text in your image maps descriptive so you can get exposure for your releative keywords.

Accessibility Tip
3. Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.

SEO Relevancy
Captioning gets read by search engines.

Accessibility Tip
4. Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid “click here.”

SEO Relevancy
Screen readers read the links, so do searchbots.

Accessibility Tip
5. Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.

SEO Relevancy
Semantics H1 tags for headers H2 tags for subheads and so on. The structure of your page is reflected in your search results.

Accessibility Tip
6. Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.

SEO Relevancy
Long descriptions, yum.

Accessibility Tip
7. Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.

SEO Relevancy
Search bots can get confused by applets and plugins. Seaerch bots understand text. Use alternative text. See W3c recommendations for ways to add alt text properly.

Accessibility Tip
8. Frames. Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.

SEO Relevancy
This one drives me crazy. I hope we can all figure out how to stop using frames but if not, this will help search bots find their way around you frames.

Accessibility Tip
9. Tables. Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarize.

SEO Relevancy
Let’s try to stop using tables too but if you have to or already have a bunch, you can retrofit fit them for accessibility and search bots with the right text in the right place.

Accessibility Tip
10. Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG

SEO Relevancy
Also find the search engine and webmaster guidelines for all the major search engines and memorize them. Okay, maybe just read them. But do read them.

Google recently changed one of their quality guidelines from “Make pages for users, not for search engines.” to “Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.”

The takeaway…
Anyone can order these tips from the website on a slick vinyl reference sheet. They’ve managed to fit them all on a business card. really handy for design, development and for selling your services.

Additional Resources

WAI Guidelines and Techniques

(The link above hs just about everything you need.)

The bad news is that nothing is ultimately hack-proof on the web. The good news is that your site is either so large and important that you have a security team of professionals securing your assets. Or your site is so small that hacking it wouldn’t be of value to a professional hacker.

Getting hacked means more than losing data or getting spammed with links to porn sites. The worst part to me is the way Google penalizes you, the site owner, when you get hacked.

They put a message on your search results the read, “This site may harm your computer.” You may notice from the link that the folks that label you this way can’t even be found in the search results. Let this be a warning that it is neither easy or quick to get your site absolved when this happens.

8 Things you can do to secure your WordPress site

1. Version Control. Use the latest version of WordPress. Keep your site updated. Each time a major version comes out there seems to be security issues that follow. So you may want to wait for the dot-one version before upgrading to a major version. If you’re using anything other than 2.5.1now, consider upgrading.
2. Activate Akismet. Consider doing this first. You’ll need to get an API key from WordPress.com.
3. Manage WordPress security plugins. Install, run and follow the recommendations of the WP-Security plugin. Keep it updated.
4. Manage your comment moderation and comment blacklists. In 2.5.1, you’ll find this in the “Settings >> Discussion” area of your site. Here’s my comment blacklist to get started with. There are many others. (Oh, great, now the spammers know what I’m looking for! If I had any readers this might matter.)
5. Protect your blog from registration spam. If anyone can register on your WordPress site you’ll need protection from registration spam. Consider using a captcha or email reply before completing registration plugin requirement. Here’s an OpenID plugin to consider.
6. Change your WordPress table prefixes. Everyone knows they start with “wp_”. Stop that! here’s a plugin and additional security resources to help. Warning! Changing your table prefixes can cause  previously installed plugins to stop working.
7. Define roles and responsibilities. If you’re the only one accessing the site, why let anyone register? Can’t they just send you an email requesting that you set them up? If not, be sure to study the roles and responsibilities at WordPress.org and learn who should be able to do what.
8. Communicate Security. Security issues in WordPress are already being communicated to your client in the news and by your competitors. Don’t let WordPress take a bad rap for something that can be avoided. After all, WordPress is a target because it’s one the radar and being used by so many people.

If you found this helpful, come back.

Additional Resources

Fighting Blog Hacks: Preventing And Eliminating Intruders Mar 6, 2008 in Blogging Tips, The Net

Towards the bottom of Lorelle’s post on WordPress security you’ll find two important pieces of information:

1. How to keep your WordPress blog safe.

2. How to check your blog now for unwanted links and hacking attempts.

Read this:

WordPress Plugin for Security Checking:

If you’re managing one or more reciprocal linking campaigns you have your own best practices. That’s the point of this post by Eric Ward of SearchEngineLand.com.

Defining Link Building Best Practices by Eric Ward …has been in the link building and content publicity game since 1994, providing services ranking from linking strategy and private customized link building training. The Link Week column appears on Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

I didn’t really know how to answer. Now I think I do. Google, please correct me if I’m wrong. Here’s what I found in the Terms of Service,

“You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that Google has no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any Content that you create, transmit or display while using the Services and for the consequences of your actions (including any loss or damage which Google may suffer) by doing so.“ 

One other important thing I learned is there appears to be an absence of privacy covering your private documents. Meaning, although you may think your docs are private, this statement effectively removes the ability to keep your documents private, at least from Google,

“By submitting, posting or displaying the Content you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its Privacy Policy.” 

also elsewhere in the TOS,

“Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service.“ 

So it would appear that your Google Docs are neither secure or backed up? I must be missing something?
As with anything else, I suppose the rule #1 are still in effect:
Rule #1
Do not store anything online that you don’t want anyone to find.

Rule #2
Backup early and often.
Finally, if you’re wondering why I wrote this, I had a break in my normal work flow when I got this error message: