2007 CivilSociety Blog Entries
by Jon
Book Search Tools. Adam Witty's newsletter pointed out that about 85% of internet searchers use a search engine to find products and services. One of the newest tools to find or to promote books is the Google Book Search. Google Book Search (http://books.google.com/) and Window Book Search Live (https://publisher.live.com/) are easy to use to find contents inside of a book to see if you want to buy it, and it is a great way for authors and publishers to make more of their content available on the internet. As an example, I looked for the new book, Baghdad Believer. Google Book Search showed me the table of contents and quite a bit of the book content for the book. The next step is to get my own books listed.
Civil War or Family Feud: Iraq's Ethnic Groups. A free download of this eBook is available this week as a special offer after my talk radio interview with Valerie Connelly of "Calling All Authors."
Valerie interviews many fascinating interviews each week with authors and screenwriters. Listen to her programs (including my own interview on September 18), contact Valerie about your own book, and study her web forum that coaches you to get your book in print!
Magic Words that Make Books Sell
Diane Eble is a book writing and marketing coach, and this article describes how to develop a book/article title that will connect readers better to the core content of the subject matter. Diane's email list is an excellent resource guide.
Mobile Phones and Social Activism: Why Cell Phones May Be the Most Important Technical Innovation of the Decade, by Ethan Zuckerman. Mr. Zuckerman, "a Fellow affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law Schools in the United States, traces some trends in the use of the mobile phone around the world as an "activist technology". His core thesis is that mobiles are powerful because they're "pervasive, personal, and capable of authoring content." This article suggests that activists drawn together to demonstrations by short message service (SMS), or text, messages transmitted by cell phone have spurred political change, and prompted government blocking of text messaging when politically expedient.
Baghdad and Surge Effect. This interactive view of life (New York Times) in Baghdad gives insights not usually seen in tv coverage or static photos. Damage and destruction, but the tenacity of life. Hope?
Today, I was supposed to be in Atlanta for EntrepreneurDays 2007. This annual event is a weekend of cutting edge entrepreneurs demonstrating family-based business skills and offering their mentoring/coaching programs for sale. I may go tomorrow instead of today, and then spend an extra day in Atlanta to work on other networks of business development. As if I did not have enough to do already........
The Toshiba Satellite notebook computer quit. Battery would not take a charge, and the left click button would stick. MS Office would not install because it would not accept the official key that came with the new software package. Toshiba Tech support said to return the computer to the store. Took it back for a refund. So, my phone has no contact list, and my son still has no adequate computer for his work.
My Motorola e815 phone quit working, or rather the media functions quit working. Hardware problem. Returned for exchange. Lost all my contacts added since the last sync with my computer. Computer will not sync with the new phone. My son's 8 year old Powerbook computer won't work (we were told) for his internship at a web marketing internship next week, so we just now got back from buying a new Toshiba notebook for him. We're a Macintosh family, but had to have a computer this evening to reload his stuff to get ready to leave in the morning. He is now loading MS Office and all of the other stuff. I'm trying to figure out how to get all my contacts loaded into my new phone when it won't sync via bluetooth, and I can't find a usb cable that works with my phone.
Yesterday was a packed day. I spoke to a men's prayer breakfast about serving immigrants in our city, and being responsive to what needs to be done today instead of worrying about what might have to be done about immigrants in the distant future. Then I met with a church staff about an upcoming training my wife and I will be doing on building understanding between Christians and Muslims in our community.
A new proposal with a local business partner was to develop a teleseminar on how to communicate effectively in the emerging multicultural environment of the southeastern USA. I offered to present a talk-show format for 4 consecutive weeks, hosted by the local web-based activist. This might be a good thing, especially if linked to a radio call-in program to get a feel from the community of urgent gripes and complaints about "those foreigners." There is a not-too-low-key rumbling about the growing power of the Hispanic community that is displacing some of the previously lower-income communities. I guess I need to start refreshing my Spanish/Texican dialect.
Then, I launched the the "Heart of Dixie Real Estate Investors Association." This was really fun for me, as a luncheon event. The lead speaker was a lady minister who is buying up derelict crack houses in the crime center of Montgomery and using "mission teams" from other churches to rehab them, and then she use those houses as half-way houses for released prison inmates who are in vocational training programs and are showing good character development.
I connected her to investors and challenged them to join her in revitalizing the inner city. I had a big map up on the wall and asked everyone to consider joining in transforming our city to make a difference.
Another fun relationship for me to broker was a young student/investor/rehabber from Tuskegee that I connected to an elderly real estate broker who worked in Tuskekee in the 1980s and has lots of contacts there and knows how to work the system to get things done, and offered to help the young man work faster and smarter. Success!!
Then our family had dinner with two young men from Thailand who are visiting friends here. We learned a lot about Thai culture and customs and language. A full day of challenging assumptions.
Squidoo is a new web tool to promote my favorite books, travel, and other web resources. I created a lense, Heart of Dixie, that shows where I work and create and store resources. Create your own lense and share it with me.
Mac OSX Leopard. Leopard is almost available on the retail market. I saw demos of it recently and am looking forward to a faster operating system with more tools. Amazon is pre-ordering it. Prices are good!
I was again in Atlanta for a weekend with entrepreneurs, introducing my son to future-thinking, future-creating pioneers in the internet-based world of book publishing, public speaking, online real estate brokering, internet marketing, legal entity structuring, and procurement and management of loans and grants. It was a fantastic time to talk through business plans and strategies with my son, and to work together on analyzing the costs and benefits of different projects that were proposed. And, the opportunity for us to meet a lot of great people and have them give career insights to my son. It pleases me to watch successful business people take time to invest in sharing wisdom with young people who cannot immediately give them something back in return. Many of these "gurus" admitted that they were not really self-made success stories, but that somebody else took a chance on them when they were young, and that they were willing to give in turn to those just starting out.
Favorite speakers: Lou Castillo (Real Estate), Matt Bacak (Internet Marketing), Drew Miles (Legal structures for asset protection and tax reduction), Ray Edwards (Copywriting), Trent Lee (Corporate Credit development that you should use instead of personal credit for business funding), Adam Ginsberg (eBay selling).
Serving the Community. A local man needed to sell his home: he called "fastcash4houses" and gave basic info on his house for sale (2pm); the "fastcash4houses" owner sent the info to me (3pm); I called the man and received more info (3pm); I went to the house to look at it (4pm); I made an offer and wrote a contract (5pm); I wrote up a description and put it on eBay (8pm); I received offers (by 10am). This is providing a useful service to both buyers and sellers, and I find it fulfilling to be involved as it does good, and gives fast feedback. Unfortunately, in this case, the local man has not followed through by getting me a key to show the property to potential buyers, but I do have a contract on the house that will stand.
New Cell Phone. I did choose a Motorola e815 phone to replace my Sony-Ericsson T68i, and choose Alltel as my new provider. The phone has a lot of very fun tools, such as a GPS tool that can show a lat-long location. Only complaint: keys are small. It works and has great sound quality and reception. Giving up a GSM phone to use the CDMA network was not painful.
Real Estate--Montgomery. This weekend was the real estate investor's workshop in Atlanta. Led by Lou Castillo, the 25 attendees shared contacts and principles of doing good for a community by strategic investment.
One outcome was the formation of a real estate investment association (REI) for Montgomery, Alabama and East Alabama. Heart of Dixie REIA serves investors, brokers, agents, and any others who buy, sell, or use real property.
Terrorism. I am frequently asked to comment on the war in Iraq, and give audiences hope that an easy solution will be found to bring peace to that country. I usually answer that there is no simple cause for the war(s) and there is no simple solution. My standard comment is that the tribes have been conflict for thousands of years, and that the basic issue is that of power. Those people/family/tribe/clan/alliance with power want to keep it, and those without power want to take it away from those who do have it. Continue Reading
Selling land. My parents and I are selling some of our timberland near Wing, AL. It is very interesting to see the many options available to buyers and sellers, especially the growth of online real estate systems. I may set up my own pages later, but for now am using LoopNet. I like Zillow.com, but they require credit card data to validate entries, or sending in a copy of a tax certificate. I'll work on that later. Now, I need to find aerial photos, and also a few closeups of the land.
Re-integration. Our family is re-integrating into a white, middle class, protestant culture. We are not assimilating, but we are holding the parallel truths of local culture + our family culture. We are odd enough in our lifestyle and vocabulary and worldview that we do get a lot of opportunities to challenge assumptions about the outside world. I am aggressively networking to find niche opportunities to speak to groups of college and older people with (some) interest in the Middle East. There are a lot of colleges and universities in our city and I look forward to challenging assumptions in classroom and seminar presentations.
Biggest culture shift: learning to sit in a (to me) too-cold, large church auditorium, looking at the backs of heads in front of me, and being a passive observer of all that is happening on the stage. I live for interaction and discussion and do not sit quietly very well.
Fun experiences: the breakfast meetings where real action takes place in the business and non-profit communities. Many of the people I am meeting prefer to meet for coffee or breakfast, where we can talk as long as needed about work and projects and opportunities. This is great for me, since I am usually an early morning person.
Printer. I bought an HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One inkjet. $300.00 at Office Depot. Fast, reasonable ink cost, and it works wirelessly with my computers. Very easy to set up and use. The menu system works via a small lcd screen on the front panel. The wireless is the best part: any computer in the house can print without cables and without needing the printer to be attached to any computer. Regrets: the paper tray holds only 100 pieces of paper, and there does not seem to be a larger paper tray available.
Real Estate Systems. The feedback on my articles on Instant Wealth Systems and Marketing Support Services prompted me to start a new page on Real Estate Systems, giving an overview of how successful real estate investors build their systems. I will give reviews of my favorite resources and link to other sites that can help investors or buyers & sellers to learn more. Today I was introduced to a fantastic service for real estate valuation, 
Zillow allows you to see listing prices, actual sale prices, and comparable values in a community.
Wired Magazine often haw commentaries or articles that are superbly useful. The newest is a simple checklist for disaster preparation. There are storms and disasters of all sorts, including Avian Flu epidemics. Follow the guide at Wired and feel prepared to cope. The sidebar also has one of those fantastic spoofs of "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC."
I am looking for two new appliances: a network (wireless?) printer with very low per-page cost, and a cell phone. The printer choice will be easier than the phone choice. My Sony-Ericsson T68i has worked very well, but one of the buttons does not always work. Since I am on the phone a lot with Skype or with one of the long-distance cheap calling services, I am seriously looking at a wifi phone. Amazon.com has some great deals right now, so I may buy soon. Any advice on printers or phones is welcome.
Due to responses to my article on Instant Wealth Systems, I've been introduced to many more tools and resources that help to market and promote legitimate business products and services. Marketing Support Services is my new page that will be a place to describe what I learn, and to give some commentary. Most of these are US-based, and I look forward to seeing new services that can localize to help entrepreneurs in lower-tech areas to succeed. For example, online payment systems like PayPal simply do not work in some of the places where I am most engaged in training business startups. What options are there for countries that do not facilitate Paypal or Clickbank?
Don Norman is one of the foremost authors dealing with the relationship between learning and technology interaction. For significant insights into learning and technology interactions, especially to do with online education and distance learning, see the eLearn magazine interview, and his book, Emotional Design: Why We Love or Hate Everyday Things. See also the set of websites on the site design of online courses (My Favorite Tipples by Peter Maureemootoo) at the wonderful newsletter, FreePint. In the same issue of FreePint, see the article, "Distance Learning, ifs KnowledgeBank and Usability', by John McBurnie.
Centiq is the Netherlands' MInistry of Finance program that promotes intelligent understanding of finances for Dutch citizens. "CentiQ is a collaboration of organisations within the financial sector, the government, consumer organisations and science who deal with financial decisions of the Dutch consumers. CentiQ's ultimate objective is to achieve that financial consumers
- are well informed, educated, and interested
- play an active role in the financial markets
- can confidently make well-considered financial decisions.
" One of their partner agencies for implementation is the non-profit organization, Stichting Creating Abundance, led by Robert Oosthout. Stichting Creating Abundance trains children and adults in financial decision-making through lectures, seminars, workshops, clasroom presentations, and through the Cashflow board games.
10 Quick Steps. I really like the packaging of How-To books into short booklets, in eBook format. They are quick and to the point, and are cheap. A great variety of quality books can be found at the site by David Lawrence. Example: 10 Quick Steps to buying a car or truck, 10 Quick Steps to Blogging.
I finished another long article on ethnic relations of Iraqis. Civil War or Family Feud: Iraq's Ethnic Groups. This one is long enough so that I converted it into an eBook. Temporarily I posted info about it in the CivilSocietyIraq page. I will put it onto Amazon.com later on to get more circulation, but for now, contact me for the download, and send comments back.
Excellent MS Word to Acrobat conversion and formatting was provided by Northern Lights Press.
InstantWealthSystem This is my summary of how to extract jewels of wisdom out of the floods of muck of get rich quick schemes. I'm intrigued at this huge industry of highly-connected people who use the same jargon and techniques to sell products and services, and have learned a lot about the future of online marketing. There are great internet marketing programs that can help you start your own business, and I give my comparison and opinions on the programs that seem to give the most value for the cost.
SocialSoftwareKloos A recent thesis presented quite a good comparison of blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking software.
Martin Kloos assessed the impact of weblogs, wikis and social bookmarking on learning in communities of practice for his Master’s Thesis. The findings were related to a well-known architecture for learning by Etienne Wenger, a founder of the theory behind communities of practice.
<http://www.martinkloos.nl/thesis-M.Kloos.pdf>"Comm.unities.of.Prac.tice 2.0"
International Development was my major field of study in graduate school, but that term is still not very useful to people outside of this vocation. What is development?
"Teachers, trainers, students, facilities, ideas, infrastructure improvement to advance local problem-solving and innovation capacity"
May this expanded definition will help.
ChangeThis is a viral network of bloggers and writers who are activists, change agents, or anti-singularity forces.
"ChangeThis is aiming to disrupt the media pattern with powerful, rational arguments from leading thinkers. We know that we deserve better than what we've got. We know there's a thoughtful, caring, rational human inside every one of us. We're working with the brightest minds we can find. And we believe that bloggers are crucial to changing the tone of our collective dialogue."
They post very interesting articles and comments using a "Manifesto" format.
Convergence of Non-Profit and For-Profit. Stanford Social Innovation Review presents a refreshing reminder that the worlds of business and charity have connected and converged. Why refreshing?
"Globally, nonprofits earn 57 percent of their income from selling services and goods, but only 13 percent from private donations, according to Lester Salamon and colleagues’ book Global Civil Society: An Overview." Another interesting quote: "Nonprofits must learn from their for-profit counterparts how to build financially sustainable organizations with more professional processes."
The full report is available as a download at: http://www.ssireview.org/pdf/2007WI_feature_austinetal.pdf.
This link was from the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship newsletter.
Websavvywriter.com. I just found a new website/blog devoted to book promotion.
Some of us need a lot of help in getting our writing in circulation.
Patrice-Anne Rutledge lists some new tools to manage feeds and publicity.
For example, I had not heard of "pinging" multiple services at the same time,
although I had been doing it. Check out her links and other articles as well.
"Socialet Nederland". Financiale Telegraaf, 25 nov, 2006. page T25.
An editorial by Jaap van Duijn reports on the social welfare of the Netherlands. "After Denmark and Finland, the Netherlands has the least income spread in the world." The Netherlands is the richest land in the world according to the average income, and according to the welfare of the poorest people.
Publish Your Own Book. You have a book inside of you, waiting to be read by others. I recently helped a friend get his book together. Just as he is doing, you can publish your book quickly so that others can start reading. SelfPublish
Return Migration. The main connecting point in Europe for information on migration is the European Migration Network.
Their website has much information (see the downloads section) on migration and asylum in Europe, including clear explanations of national policies on asylum.
I was at a workshop yesterday sponsored by the Ministry of Justice/Immigration and Naturalization Service. The focus was on the Netherlands portion of the Europe Research Synthesis on Return Migration. On the EMN website, Downloads/Background, this process was an important part of a "establishment of a common migration and asylum policy throughout the EU. " The stuy specifications only called for synthesis for "better understanding, the exchange of more information and a better informed policymaking process" (Research Study III Return Specifications/Migrapol Doc 77, p. 3). "Common Policy" is different than synthesis.
The best outcome for me was to meet many leaders with a passion to provide humane and legal care for those without resources or capacity to take care of themselves. A great project was presented by Peter Gillissen of Stichting Wereldwijd (The English language link on the website did not work). His organization procides tools and some business training for those returning to their homelands.
ShopSafe Single-Use CreditCard. A few years ago I signed up for a single-use credit card utility, ShopSafe, through my creditcard company. Until today, I did not need it. I wanted to sign up for a subscription newsletter service that had a minimal service charge ($2.95), but was not very confident of the quality of the service. So, I logged into my ShopSafe account and created a single-use debitcard for the amount of the newsletter signup. The number they immediately issued was accepted by the merchant, and I received my first issue of the newsletter, and access to the website. Looking through all the articles on the website, I decided that there was nothing in the whole system that was worth any more money. But, I was relieved to know that a credit card number was not floating out on someone's web server when I would not be using their services again. The single-use card could not be used again by anyone (including me), and my real card numbers were not compromised.
I use also a single-use email address system that worked to sign up for one-time purchases when I would not want any further contact with the merchant, and would not have any spam coming to my inbox. Unfortunately, my other email addresses seem to be too common in spamlists.
Charity and Philanthrophy. Charity means giving immediate relief to human suffering without passing judgment on those who suffer. Philanthropy means "love of mankind," and is used to describe generosity that promotes human progress in any field. From Vartan Gregorian of Carnegie Foundation.
Hard Facts and Dangerous Assumptions. The book by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton powerfully strikes at the heart of decision-making. Assumptions and half-truths are the main issues in leading change, instead of facts. This is a management textbook, but should be re-written into a pamphlet for easier dissemination. This is a heavily-documented study of differences between decisions made on facts and decisions made on non-facts. Excellent! Skim it.
Blogging a Conference. Advertising Week is one of the biggest marketing conferences in the world and staff of CHIEF MARKETER decided to blog the event. Here are some of their findings.
- Pre-blog: they should have started before the event with simple posts, based on the conference agenda, people who were to be speaking, vendors, the NYC nightlife. This would have created an audience ready for the event.
- Don’t promise “Everything For Everyone”: Balance what your readers want: coverage of some sessions, some presenters, some exhibits, and a lot about interesting people and their ideas.
- Make It A Team Effort: A lot of intense coverage by different bloggers who see different things in different ways.
- Keep it simple, son! (or, “stupid!”): Blogging is all about quick hits, not award-winning essays.
Collaborate maleLand This page is an online, collaborative writing project open to contributors. The main ideas are on the outline, waiting for content. Scenario: The aging president-for-life of a weak military dictatorship promises wealth and honor to whoever finds a way to rapidly enhance the aggressiveness and strength of his elite honor guard. The chemical is found that gives much more aggression and strength and libido than was hoped for. And then....
Training in Grant-seeking and Philanthropy. Online courses are available on grantseeking, fundraising, proposal writing, and even ePhilanthropy, and there are even grant monies available to attend the courses free! The Foundation Center and Verizon Foundation are sponsoring these trainings.
cFares is a new travel search engine that offers the full range of GDS, meta-search, and also consolidator prices and schedules on air travel. From Guy Kawasaki.
Iraq: Failure vs. Catastrophe: A conversation with Tommy Franks, Stephen Biddle, Peter Charles Choharis, John Owen, Daniel Pipes, Gary Rosen and Dov S. Zakheim. This excellent article gives hope by defining terms of engagement in Iraq.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/
Iraq: It's not religion, it's not ethnicity, it is about power and exploitation, finds researcher. In-groups and out-groups: choose a cause and rally eveyone around a religious symbol or slogan or "poor me" attitude and you can win in Iraq. HowIraqisSeeEachOther2
Print on Demand / Self-Publishing and link to comparisons.
http://dehanna.com/print_on_demand.htm.
Why Print on Demand? To give an author full control over how a book is actually published, and when. Instead of the very long waiting times for traditional publishing houses to skim a manuscript before rejecting it, and then with the sales of the book depending on the author anyway, why not work with a smaller publishing company that works quickly in partnership with authors to get books into print and distributed as quickly as possible? Some of the smaller and less expensive services are only printers, and the authors must do all layout and design and formatting work, as well as warehouse all books themselves and then ship to individual buyers. Other services will provide everything that the author needs, including some promotion of the book.
Prices for 200 copies of a 200-page book range from $5.00 per book for only printing to about $13.00 per book for the full range of author support. With smaller shops, authors keep all the sales income (after paying for printing), but with full-service shops authors may receive only 20% of the retail price.
My favorites so far: MillcityPress. Excellent service, great prices (under $700 for a pretty good basic package), and good focus on helping an author become successful. One of their new books is Baghdad Believer, story by J Nealson about a Sunni Muslim shopkeeper in Bagdhdad who has an experience with God and becomes a peacemaker.
http://www.authorhouse.com. Good training in how to publish your own book. Good customer communications.
http://www.anauthorsdream.com. $595.00. wide listing of options; 40% royalty.
http://www.aventinePress.com. $399. custom cover $300.
http://www.blitzprint.com. No nonsense presentation with much useful advice.
http://www.diggorypress.com. Attractive incremental charges program. $6.70 minimum fulfilment price. $80 formatting. $100 for isbn & barcoding. $320 for custom cover design. $40 for ebook setup. $70 setup fees. Cannot resuse this layout or formatting or isbn with another publisher.
http://www.iUniverse.com. Active customer support and excellent resources on the how and why of self-publishing.
http://outskirtspress.com/rubypublishing.php. "Ruby" level of services. $599 package.
http://www.wingspanpress.com. $499 basic. $350 cover. per hour fees on extra services. they suggest retail price of $14.00, at cost of $4.40.submit to : new_author@wingspanpress.com.
A page full of links to self-publishing.: http://selfpublishing.lifetips.com/
Video Blog. Video blogs are fun to watch (sometimes). This site gives a search engine.
http://protopage.com/v2
A very easy to use web place to keep links, sticky-notes, feeds, and other dashboard-type events, and where friends can also add links.
EducationPhilanthropy
Rene Bekkers has published many article on the connections between educational background and charitable giving. Very interesting. On this separate page are some of his documents.
All content from 2006 is now at: Blog2006.
All content from 2005 is now at: Blog2005.
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