What is going to take to get the economy going in the right direction??

I took the day off from the corporate job to concentrate on my passion of helping professionals understand how social media can help them with their career aspirations.    I started the day at the weekly Acton Networkers networking meeting in Acton, MA outside of Boston.   Acton Networkers is a large and well-known professional networking group in the Metrowest of Boston.  I was asked to present the topic "Employment in a Social Media World" in front of around 45 people.  It was a well attended event and I met some great professionals and heard their 30-second elevator pitches.  There were many with great skills whom just cannot find the right career opportunity and some folks have been out of work for years.  It breaks my heart to hear that, thinking they have families and their livelihood at stake.

After hearing feedback from the crowd, I adjusted my presentation to be less statistics and more inspiring.  I provided some great tips on how to use LinkedIN to make real connections but also made the session very interactive, so everyone there felt like they were part of the event.  I encouraged them to use LinkedIN to build relationships since after all relationships is how the majority of people land their next great opportunity.  I stressed to the group that we are in a different economy now.  Gone are the days of living and dying by the company you work for, hoping that their supervisors drive their career success.  Also, the days of applying for what jobs there are, via the old job boards like Monster, Careerbuilders are not so effective anymore.  What is effective is taking advantage of what social media has to offer in relationship building.  What is effective is driving your own career and making decisions for yourself.  If everyone took the initiative to drive their own success, whether it is starting their own business or ensuring their skills are up-to-date so that they would always be in demand, less professionals would be unemployed.  Of course, it sounds easier said than done, but if everyone took advantage of the social media tools, networking and relationship building they would always be in a proactive state in their career success.

I personally have been laid off twice ironically while I was in the midst of building my business, AIMC Business Solutions.  I learned my lesson the hard way and I am hoping today, I was able to influence my audience to take advantage of their resource so we can all get the economy going in the right direction.

An Ocean of Issues - What is Happening in Rhode Island is Breaking My Heart

I grew up in Rhode Island, the smallest and most unique state of them all in the USA.    Rhode Island is a great place to live.  The beaches are beautiful, the restaurants and art are second to none and you get the sense that everyone is part of one great family.  You have great towns like Newport "Home of the America's Cup", Bristol "The Oldest Running 4th of July Parade in the USA" and Providence, "America's Renaissance City".    In Rhode Island, you don't need to drive hours to get anywhere.   You can go from ocean and tourist sites of  Newport to the woods of Burrillville in under an hour.  The major state airport is in the center of the state with a commuter rail station connected to it.  Not even Boston has that.  You can take a day trip to two of the world's most cosmopolitan and dynamic megalopolises in New York City and Boston.  Rhode Island has it all, so why is everyone leaving and moving to god forsaken places like Texas or Arizona.

There is something wrong in Rhode Island.  Unemployment is sky high, there is no trust in government and there is a sense of negativity that is beyond control.  You see it every day in the Providence Journal.  The people do not trust the government but they never change the government.  The taxes continue to climb, yet no new businesses are moving in.  Next to Massachusetts, Rhode Island looks pretty bad.  It is pretty embarrassing that Worcester overtook Providence as the second largest city in New England..   All of this breaks my heart, even though I have lived in Massachusetts for the past twenty years.

Rhode Island simply needs to let go of the past and bring in the new.  New leadership is essential for the state to get out of its rut.  New leadership will take a step back and realize what they have is the envy of a lot of other states.    Rhode Island has the ocean, convenience to Boston and New York, world-class universities and a tourism scene nothing like a lot of other places.  So who will be the next leader to make this change?  The first thing Rhode Islanders need to do is to take a chance and make a change and good things will follow.

Can I Pin You?

Have you been pinned?  Apparently well over 100 million have been pinned in the past year or so.

I am talking about Pinterest, the newest hot social media platform.  Pinterest is now the third biggest social media platform behind Facebook and Twitter.  It blew past Linkedin this past month.

Pinterest, like LinkedIn, has its own niche.   It is the most visual of all of the social media platforms.  Yes, Facebook has pictures, but the main focus of Facebook are those posts and pokes from your friends.  Pinterest is focused on pictures of all of the things you love.   If you like food, a beautiful tourist destination, or that great pair of boots, Pinterest is for you.  It is no wonder that the user base is almost 80% women.

So why is Pinterest so hot and what does pinning mean anyway.  Think of that bulletin board you go by at the local coffee shop.   It is a way to display a place, a product you sell, or that great new blouse you just bought.  Pinterest is a way to advertise your products free of charge and be accessible to millions of "pinners".  The site is organized like an online shopping site where you can look at pins according to a "department" such as fitness, where you can get access to exercise routines and videos on getting in shape.  This a department on kids where you have access to information that can help you raise your child.

So here is a site that originally was for pinning some nice pictures that you can share that has now become the social media platform that is organized like an online shopping store.   Pinterest distinguishes itself from Facebook and LinkedIN, unlike Google+.  That probably explains why Pinterest is blowing past Google+ in popularity.   Google+ is trying to be like Facebook, Pinterest is not.

So if you haven't started pinning yet, I invite you to check out my page and follow my pins.  The site is addicting and maybe someday you may spend more time on Pinterest than Facebook, if you can believe that.

Happy Pinning!

Social Media and How It Has Changed Our Lives

Social Media and How It Changed Our Lives....

250 million LinkedIN users.... 350 million Twitter users tweeting away..... the new kid on the block, Pinterest adding a million registered users a minute... and of course the granddaddy of them all, Facebook.. 850 million registered users with predictions of the billionth user by the end of this year.  With these numbers, Social Media has changed the lives of nearly a billion people, but how?

Social Media is exactly that... social.  You connect to old high school and college friends and know all about them, their families, their favorite book or movie, without talking to them in person for years.  You advertise social events and talk about your favorite movie or restaurant and receive feedback and comments from friends as if you see them everyday, but in reality the last time you may have seen this person, they had braces. More controversial, marriages and relationships get tested when a spouse secretly scopes out their exes on their Facebook page.  Social Media can also mean getting social with friends all across the globe.  I personally have friends in my Facebook friends list from Australia, England, Luxembourg and Italy.  Most of whom, I have met or worked with in person, but may never see in person again.  They great thing about Social Media, in particular Facebook is that you can chat with them free of charge and keep up on the latest in their life.

Social Media is also the new way of business and professional networking.  Think about the last job you got.  Was it a referral through a social media site like LinkedIN?  With sites like LinkedIN, you can ask questions, post topics, or simply connect to people that may help you in your future career endeavors.  You can follow your favorite companies on Facebook or LinkedIN.  You can connect with past co-workers in case there is a chance to work with them again.   You have access to hiring managers, human resource professionals that you would never have access to back in the days of rotary phones.  Are you starting a business?  The days of cold calling may be over.  You can network online on LinkedIN to scope out prospects for building your business.  Business building for shy people.

Social Media is your official news source.  The days of waiting for the 11pm news or your morning newspaper to get the latest news is dwindling.  Subscribe to your favorite news source Facebook or Twitter page and you will be able to get news and commentary that really is the latest.   Think about some of the recent news events, like Whitney Houston's death or the tornadoes in the Midwest.  The "breaking news" was getting posted on Facebook pages all over the world.  The great thing about social media sites is that you can subscribe to any news source.  Suppose you are studying abroad in Europe and would like to keep up with the news from your home town?  No problem, subscribe to your hometown news station Facebook page and you will be up to speed on all of the events.

With the necessity of smart phones and social media, the ways of communicating and looking up information is faster than ever and it has changed our lives forever.  I provided three examples.  Can you think of some ways social media has changed your life?

Social Media is the New Cold Call.

I am not a big fan of cold calling.

As an IT Manager, I always get cold calls from Technical Sales people introducing their company and products/services and wanting to take me to lunch and maybe a sports game.   I would listen to the three minute voicemail they leave me and proceed to not take the information down and promptly delete the message.

I have to hand it to the sales guy who is constantly getting rejected and ignored by people like me.  It is the toughest job on the planet and being in sales/marketing myself with my social media/ Internet marketing business, I still have that fear of picking up the phone and getting ignored and/or rejected by the person I am calling.

Around five years ago, this fad called Social Media came around.  You know, LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter and now Google+.  With Social Media and the ability to find out the background of potential business partners or clients,  your first contact may be a lot easier than simply dialing for dollars with the old way of cold calling.

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIN and Facebook and using the tools available to find companies that may need my services.   I'll repeat, I look for the companies that need my company's services.  If you know that, then that first contact would be a lot easier and the person on the other line may be more respective of what you have to say.  By the way, I still do not pick up the phone.  I may instead send an EMAIL or a LinkedIN introduction and hope that I get a response.  Yes, I fear rejection, but I think it still better to contact a potential prospect via EMAIL since it is less abrasive.  Well, it has worked, since I usually get around a 20% response rate using messaging versus cold calling.

Finally, since Social Media provides the tools to find clients that you did not have back in the days of phone calls, it is the new cold call.  

 I would appreciate any feedback you have on how to use social media as the new cold call.  I will share responses on my social media pages.

2011 - The Year of Weather Extremes in New England

For those who know me, you know I always wanted to be a weatherman.    I used to track the weather daily when I was a kid, by watching the weather on the news and the Weather Channel and track the local weather using charts just like they do on TV.  Even today, a day still doesn't go by where I don't connect to weather.com to check local and national weather.  If anyone asks me what the weather is in a certain part of the country, I am likely to know.   One of the reasons, I love living in New England is that the weather is very changeable.   As far back as I could remember, the New England area did not have a year like we have had in 2011.  Here is a review of this year.

The year started with one of the worst Januaries in terms of cold and snow in Boston history.   I was getting my daily legs and back workout digging out of numerous snowstorms that seem to hit every other day.  This year was the first year I had to even shovel my roof!  The snow blitz continued into February which prompted me and the family to take a road trip to Florida to feel what it is like to experience warm and sunny weather again.

The spring was relatively dry and warmer than past springs.  Nothing too hot, but I started to notice that the springtime thunderstorms were more severe compared to past years.  Other parts of the country experienced the biggest and most deadly tornado outbreak in history.  Raleigh, North Carolina, Joplin, Missouri and Alabama come to mind.    One thought I had was that the Southeast US was having warmer than normal weather while the Midwest was in a deep freeze into the spring, causing a clash of the air masses.

In June, it was our turn with tornadoes.  I remember June 1st like it was yesterday.  I was driving home from meetings in Boston and the weather reports were saying that conditions were favorable for tornadoes even as far east as Boston, which is very rare due to the ocean effect.  I noticed the sky becoming an eerie black/green color too in the distance.  Around 5:30pm or so, my biggest fear happened.  Numerous tornadoes touched down in western and central Massachusetts, including one that went through downtown Springfield.  The weather reports were saying the same line should be hitting the Framingham area. I have never been in a situation like this before and was thinking the worst, like where would we live after my house gets destroyed.   Luckily, the funnel clouds lifted up about ten miles west of me, so all we got was severe thunderstorms and the wildest clouds you would ever seen.

We ended up having three more days over the summer with tornado watches, but nothing like June 1st.


Later in July, we started having abnormally hot and humid weather.  On July 20th, Boston had its second hottest day ever at 103 degrees.  For those that don't know, Boston's airport is right on the ocean so it was probably even hotter inland.  We ended up having five or six more days around 100 degrees during the rest of the summer, which is rare here.


In late August, another rare weather occurrence was in the making.  Hurricane Irene was making a beeline toward New England.  For the first time since 1991, a Hurricane was going to hit New England.  The storm ended up downgrading to a Tropical Storm right before it made landfall but caused extensive damage in western New England.  We had a lot of wind in our area and I spent the aftermath cleaning up the tree damage.


September and October were warmer than normal.  There were still beach days well into September, but then in late October, yet another rare weather event happened, a big snowstorm.  Even though only 1-2 inches fell in Greater Boston, almost 2 feet of heavy wet snow fell in Central and Western Massachusetts.  Who would have ever though we would have a White Halloween.  It was weird seeing the trees still green with snow on the ground.  The storm actually caused more tree damage in the area than Hurricane Irene.


Since the October snow event, at this time, we have yet to see a snow flake where I live in Greater Boston.  The late fall featured numerous days well above normal temperatures and even a couple of short sleeve shirt days in December.  The grass is still green here a couple of days before Christmas.


It makes you think, what will we have in store for 2012?  We shall see.

I Think I Got the Guitar Bug Back

2011 was a crazy year from me.  The year started off losing my full-time job at Nokia and led to growing my internet marketing and social media business to a point where this year became my successful year in business.  In the middle of it all, I landed another full-time gig at Osram Sylvania.  But the one thing I regret in it all, is I lost time and desire to play guitar this year.  I actually was getting pretty good at it, up until two years ago.  But time got in the way and as hobbies go, they take a back seat.

That all changed on December 2nd.  My wife won tickets to the Mix 104.1 Not So Silent Night Party with 3 Doors Down, Gavin Degraw and O.A.R.   I was psyched since I think 3 Doors Down and Gavin DeGraw are great musicians.  I did not know much about O.A.R.   All three bands played an acoustic set, which I like since it really brings out the raw talent of the musician.   3 Doors Down had a ton of big hits in the 2000s, so it was pretty cool to see them in an intimate setting like the Lansdowne Pub in Boston.   I am hoping that they get back to being commercially successful again like they deserve.  Gavin DeGraw is the hot star now with the big hit with "All Over You".  He is the new Billy Joel, a New Yorker with tons of talent.   O.A.R was the big surprise.  They are a jam band with a lot of acoustic jams and the crowd knew their lyrics word for word which told me they have a great following. 

Needless to say, this is what I needed to become interested in playing guitar again.  I played this weekend a little and will need to practice to get to where I was in 2009.  I will be looking for lessons so if you know of anyone, please let me know.  Playing guitar is great for us middle age guys!