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  1. Documenting our conference podcasting efforts at Community 2.0
    2. 4 Jun 2008 at 1:10pm
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    pimg src="http://bryanperson.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/c20-logo.jpg" alt="Community 2.0 logo" height="96" width="450" //p p class="MsoNormal"At the a href="http://www.iirusa.com/community/event-overview.xml"Community 2.0 Conference/a in Las Vegas last month, I joined forces with a href="http://www.mzinga.com/jim"Jim Storer/a and a href="http://www.mzinga.com/aaron"Aaron Strout/a from a href="http://www.mzinga.com/"Mzinga/a (disclosure: my employer, Monster, is a Mzinga client) in recording and producing a series of podcast conversations with some of the event’s presenters and attendees./p p class="MsoNormal"I wanted to share some of the details behind our work./p p class="MsoNormal"strongspan class="sub"THE TOOLSo:p /o:p/span/strong/p ul style="margin-top: 0in" type="disc" li class="MsoNormal"strongRecording. /strongWe used the a href="http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916"Zoom H2/a, which can capture and split the audio of the interviewer(s) and guest(s) into separate audio channels (something that can really in handy as you’re editing). It also multiple options for pickup patterns and can record in both .wav and .mp3 formats. The user interface is reasonably intuitive, too. And if looks matter, the H2 ain’t nearly as hideous as its slightly more upscale uncle, the a href="http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1901"Zoom H4/a. pstrongo:p/o:p/strong/li li class="MsoNormal"strongEditing. /strongI went with a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/"Audacity/a, which is a free download and install for both Windows and Mac machines. I’ve produced more than 100 podcasts over the past two-plus years, and Audacity has been my editing tool of choice on all but one of those episodes. It’s easy to use, seldom fails, and enables me to edit and publish podcasts quickly – which was important for this conference.br / strong /strongbr / o:p/o:p/li li class="MsoNormal"strongFile storage/strong. We used both Mzinga’s servers and a href="http://www.libsyn.com/i"Libsyn/a, which charges a monthly storage fee but allows for unlimited downloads of your content (I pay $10/month for up to 250 MB of new audio files).strong /strong po:p/o:p/li li class="MsoNormal"strongThe blog. /strongOur podcasts files were embedded into posts on the a href="http://community20.blogspot.com/"Community 2.0 blog/a, which runs on the Blogger platform and was launched a couple of months prior to the conference.strong /strong po:p/o:p/li li class="MsoNormal"strongThe audio player/strong. We used the Flash-based a href="http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/"audio player from One Pixel Out/a. You’ll see a version of that player on many sites and WordPress blogs, including a href="http://bryanperson.com/"mine/a. There’s really no reason not to use Flash-based audio players, as they make streaming a podcast episode from within a web page drop-dead easy.strongo:pbr / /o:p/strong/li /ul p class="MsoNormal"strongspan class="sub"BEST PRACTICESo:p /o:p/span/strong/p ul style="margin-top: 0in" type="disc" li class="MsoNormal"strongDivide and conquer. /strongIf you’re one just one person trying to chase down guests, interview, edit, add show notes and mp3 tags, upload, publish with an associated blog post, and attend some of the actual conference sessions so that you have good material for your interviews, you’re going to be in for one heckuva challenge. Fortunately, we were three. Jim, Aaron, and I split the duties at C20 – they conducted more of the interviews; I did the bulk of the editing in Audacity; and we shared the blogging responsibilities.br / !--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--br / !--[endif]--strongo:p/o:p/strong/li li class="MsoNormal"strongCheck the acoustics. /strongI’m not a sound engineer, but I do know that some settings are better for recording than others. In one interview we conducted, for example, the muzak from an empty conference room came through louder than we had anticipated. Run some simulated sound checks in a few different spaces before you record for real.br / !--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--br / !--[endif]--strongo:p/o:p/strong/li li class="MsoNormal"strongPrepare the bookends. /strongTo save yourself loads of editing time at the conference – when you likely won’t have time to spare – you should pre-produce a generic intro and outro that you can dump into your audio editor and wrap around each podcast interview or segment. Here are the audio files I used, which feature music purchased and cleared for podcasts through a href="http://shockwave-sound.com/"Shockwave-Sound/a: 1) a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/C20-IntroMix.wav"C20 intro/a 2) a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/C20-OutroMix.wav"C20 outro/a (note: these link to .wav files).br / !--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--br / !--[endif]--strongo:p/o:p/strong/li li class="MsoNormal"strongHave a real plan./strong How do you intend to distribute and publicize the podcasts, and how will you use the content emafter /emthe conference, if at all? These are important questions to ask and answer long before you ever hit the record button with your first guest on the conference floor. Why? Because your answers will influence the format, tone and length of the podcasts; the potential impact of the long tail; the types of questions you’ll ask during interviews; and the level of satisfaction your listeners are likely to have.After all, publishing a quick-hit podcast that announces time changes or a bonus presentation during the opening day of the conference is helpful, as long as the attendees can find and listen to that content on your website or blog (or in iTunes) in a timely fashion. Listening to that same podcast three months later on a post-conference CD, on the other hand, wouldn’t be useful at all. But, you know what emwould/em be of value for participants on that same CD? An interview with the conference chair about possible themes for the following year’s event. (Check out a a href="http://au.autodesk.com/blogs/view/What_will_be_AU2008_theme/"conference podcast from st1:place w:st="on"st1:placename w:st="on"Autodesk/st1:placename st1:placetype w:st="on"University/st1:placetype/st1:place/a that does something similar.)strongo:p/o:p/strong/li /ul p class="MsoNormal"strongspan class="sub"IN THE END #8230;o:p/o:p/span/strong/p p class="MsoNormal"#8230; our download numbers aren’t very large, and that’s very much because there was very little promotion of our podcasting plans – or of the C20 blog itself, for that matter – leading up to or during the conference. But because this was more of a proof of concept on the content and marketing side, we’re OK with that. We can do a better job of laying the groundwork next year./p p class="MsoNormal"And as for the conversations themselves, I think they came out well and included a compelling mix of speakers, thinkers, and conference goers alike. You can have a listen yourself via the links below and let me know if you agree:o:p /o:p/p ul style="margin-top: 0in" type="disc" li class="MsoNormal"span lang="FR"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Rachel_Happe_C20.mp3"Rachel Happe, IDC/a o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Tony_Hsieh_C20.mp3"Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh/a/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Makool_Warburton_C20.mp3"Rachel Makool (eBay) and Matt Warburton (Yahoo)/a/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Dawn_Lacallade_C20.mp3"Dawn Lacallade, Dell/aspan /span/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/David_Weinberger_C20.mp3"David Weinberger, author and Harvard Berkman fellow/aa href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/David_Weinberger_C20.mp3"br / /a/li li class="MsoNormal"span lang="FR"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Charlene_Li_C20.mp3"Charlene Li, Forrester Research/a o:p/o:p/span/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://www.mzinga.com/media/podcasts/Bill_Johnston_C20.mp3"Bill Johnston, Forum One Communications/a/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/Betty_Sanchez_C20.mp3"Betty Sanchez, social media consultant/a/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/Melany_Gallant_C20.mp3"Melany Gallant, Ramius Corporation/a/li li class="MsoNormal"a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/Dan_Neely_C20.mp3"Dan Neely, Networked Insights/a/li /ul pspan style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'"a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/newcommroad/Dan_Neely_C20.mp3"/a /span/p p class="akst_link"a href="http://bryanperson.com/?p=33amp;akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_33" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow"Share This/a /pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?a=P9Bw3I"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?i=P9Bw3I" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?a=V77Uwi"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?i=V77Uwi" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?a=cwjYWi"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?i=cwjYWi" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?a=FqmC9i"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?i=FqmC9i" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?a=IlETYI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/BryanPerson?i=IlETYI" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BryanPerson/~4/304678218" height="1" width="1"/img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Brypercom/~4/304678222" height="1" width="1"/


  2. Monday Media Mareting Minute: Get marketing on your to-do list
    3. 28 Apr 2008 at 10:57am
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    pIn this week#8217;s episode, just under three minutes, learn the way to make marketing an automatic party of business-as-usual./p pemWant more tips like these?/em Sign up for Be Heard!,  the free weekly online newsletter for entrepreneurs, solo professionals, consultants, coaches and small business ownersbr / that will help you learn the secrets to attract more targeted clients and customers through publicity and promotions. a href="http://www.beheardsolutions.com" target="_blank"Go to http://www.beheardsolutions.com./a/p span class="UTWPrimaryTags"Tags: a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/entreprenur/" rel="tag"entreprenur/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/marketing/" rel="tag"marketing/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/monday-media-marketing-minute/" rel="tag"Monday Media Marketing Minute/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/scheduling/" rel="tag"scheduling/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/small-business/" rel="tag"small-business/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/solo-professional/" rel="tag"solo professional/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/start-up/" rel="tag"start-up/a, a href="http://www.startupspark.com/tag/startup/" rel="tag"startup/a/spanp class="akst_link"a href="http://www.startupspark.com/?p=493amp;akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_493" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow"Share This/a /p pa href="http://feeds.b5media.com/~a/b5media/StartupSpark?a=uBHgXr"img src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~a/b5media/StartupSpark?i=uBHgXr" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?a=80fXzG"img src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?i=80fXzG" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?a=TW4KRG"img src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?i=TW4KRG" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?a=Klcx5g"img src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?i=Klcx5g" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?a=FFm9OG"img src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~f/b5media/StartupSpark?i=FFm9OG" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.b5media.com/~r/b5media/StartupSpark/~4/279438907" height="1" width="1"/


  3. DMOZ Scandal, Badware at Revver, and a Class Action Lawsuit
    4. 29 Aug 2007 at 4:06pm
    pLisa Picarille and myself welcomed Kellie Stevens of AffiliateFairPlay.com to the latest Affiliate Thing show./p pTopics discussed included an update on an update on a class action lawsuit against ValueClick, Commission Junction, and Be Free, as well as Revver allowing Zango to monetize their videos./p pWe also discussed a new affiliate play on Facebook by Chitika, recap of Missy Ward and Connie Berg as Affiliates Against Cancer, an affiliate marketing survey from E consultancy, plus a whole bunch of free, instructional videos for affiliate managers./p pa href="http://media.webmasterradio.fm/episodes/audio/2007/THING082907.mp3"Listen to this episode now/a. The Affiliate Thing show airs weekly on Wednesdays at noon EST. Tune in at http://www.WebmasterRadio.FM./p pSubscribe to the a href="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/AffiliateThing"Affiliate Thing RSS feed/a or send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail./p div class="aizatto_related_posts"span class="aizatto_related_posts_header" Related Posts/spanullispan class="aizatto_related_posts_title" a href="http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/valueclick-commission-junction-be-free-cl ass-action-lawsuit-to-proceed/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: ValueClick, Commission Junction, Be Free Class Action Lawsuit to Proceed" ValueClick, Commission Junction, Be Free Class Action Lawsuit to Proceed/a/spandiv class="aizatto_related_posts_excerpt"/div/lilispan class="aizatto_related_posts_title" a href="http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/google-adsense-for-domains-sparks-lawsuit /" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Google AdSense for Domains Sparks Lawsuit" Google AdSense for Domains Sparks Lawsuit/a/spandiv class="aizatto_related_posts_excerpt"/div/lilispan class="aizatto_related_posts_title" a href="http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/class-action-lawsuits-against-cj-be-free- and-valueclick/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Class Action Lawsuits Against CJ, Be Free, and ValueClick" Class Action Lawsuits Against CJ, Be Free, and ValueClick/a/spandiv class="aizatto_related_posts_excerpt"/div/li/ul/divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?a=mlBoasks"img src="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?i=mlBoasks" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?a=oWGll94U"img src="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?i=oWGll94U" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?a=AhZ2bncV"img src="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?i=AhZ2bncV" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?a=Em2TI3CO"img src="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~f/AffiliatetipcomBlog?i=Em2TI3CO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.affiliatetip.com/~r/AffiliatetipcomBlog/~4/149783665" height="1" width="1"/


  4. How I Got Started in Affiliate Marketing
    5. 20 Mar 2008 at 3:36pm
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    pEpisode 49: Here#039;s a walkthrough of how I got my start in affiliate marketing (about 22 mins / 22 mb#039;s)/p piframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=Pc60e3a6cd77e2bd64a5edcdc600a8137Yl9wRVRE Ymt3amp;buffer=5amp;fc=FFFFFFamp;pc=CCFF33amp;kc=FFCC33amp;bc=FFFFFFamp;brand=1amp;pl ayer=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" /iframebr/br/a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/Pc60e3a6cd77e2bd64a5edcdc600a8137Yl9wRVREYmt3.mp3 "Download the mp3 File/a/p pWHAT SHOULD WE DO FOR EPISODE 50? Email me (sam@affiliatefortunecookies.com) or comment here with your best idea. Winner gets an hour of free consulting img src='http://affiliatefortunecookies.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' / /p pstrongShow Notes/strong/p pHow I Got My Start as an Affiliate Marketer/p p- Do Your Homework (read blogs, get in touch, listen)br / - Find Influencers and Pay Attentionbr / - Determine Your Nichebr / - Determine Your Site (static or blog?)br / - Get a Hostbr / - Start Making Content and Developing a Communitybr / - Join Affiliate Networksbr / - Join CPA Networksbr / - Do Research on PPC (worth it?)br / - Figure out Monetization Strategy - What Ads Will Go Where?br / - Find Merchants that Fit - Do They Have Aff Programs?br / - Apply to Programs that Fitbr / - Pull Code and Embed on Your Sitebr / - Keep Creating Contentbr / - Optimize/p pstronga href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=271230305"Subs cribe via iTunes/a/strongbr / stronga href="http://www.geekcast.fm"Visit GeekCast.fm for More Great Geek Marketing Podcasts!/a/strong/p div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?a=2I2m7TF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?i=2I2m7TF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?a=AgP5x6f"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?i=AgP5x6f" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?a=i6s5ICF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?i=i6s5ICF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?a=0gRRQ0F"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?i=0gRRQ0F" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?a=lEznKmf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/AffiliateFortuneCookies?i=lEznKmf" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AffiliateFortuneCookies/~4/255099051" height="1" width="1"/


  5. FAP683: Financial Literacy Expert Interview with Brad Barnett of JMU
    6. 5 Dec 2007 at 7:59am
    pFAP683: Financial Literacy Expert Interview with Brad Barnett of JMU/p pListen now: /p pExpert Interviewbr / + Brad Barnett, Senior Associate Director of James Madison University on financial literacy, a href="http://www.staffordloan.com"federal student loans/a, a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"private student loans/a, and marketingbr / + Key points: discretionary spending can be cut back; one of the biggest, easiest opportunities is reduce the amount you dine out to save moneybr / + a href="http://www.staffordloan.com"Federal/a and a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"private student loans/a are different creatures, and a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"private student loan/a marketing needs to be examined with a critical eyebr / + Always consult with a a href="http://www.financialaidofficer.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="financial aid officer" rel="external"financial aid officer/a to determine if you#8217;re truly getting the best combination of financial aid options for your situation/p pPromobr / + a href="http://www.studentloanconsolidator.com/private"Private student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com/a/p pbDid you enjoy today#8217;s show?/b If so, biplease consider subscribing for free to get it delivered to you/i/b. Subscribing for free means you don#8217;t have to remember to download it every day.br / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/email"Click here to subscribe for free by email/abr / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/itunes"Click here to subscribe for free in iTunes/abr / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/googlereader"Click here to add the Financial Aid Podcast to Google Reader or your Google Homepage/a/p pDirect MP3 file download: a href="http://media.financialaidpodcast.com/shows/20071205.mp3"Click here to download the MP3/a/p pRemindersbr / + a href="http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com"Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com/a.br / + Discuss this episode at the a href="http://www.financialaidforum.com"Financial Aid Forum/a!br / + a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com/abr / + a href="http://www.StaffordLoan.com"Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com/abr / + a href="http://www.studentloanconsolidator.com"Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com/abr / + a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com/abr / + The a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="financial aid podcast" rel="external"Financial Aid Podcast/a is a publication of the a href="http://www.StudentLoanNetwork.com"Student Loan Network/a./p pI want to hear from you! Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208./p pTechnorati Tags: a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financial+aid" rel="tag"financial aid/a a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financialaidpodcast" rel="tag"financialaidpodcast/a/p pa href="http://sharethis.com/item?publisher=5f141047-488f-42fd-a70b-e92c6fc75004title=F AP683%3A+Financial+Literacy+Expert+Interview+with+Brad+Barnett+of+JMUurl=http%3A%2F%2 Fwww.financialaidpodcast.com%2F2007%2F12%2F05%2Ffap683-financial-literacy-expert-inte rview-with-brad-barnett-of-jmu%2F"ShareThis/a/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=LcA3rG"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=LcA3rG" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=HGNAMUC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=HGNAMUC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=iXxm9uC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=iXxm9uC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=Io178vC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=Io178vC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=qcuvplC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=qcuvplC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=RcLQ3kC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=RcLQ3kC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=UsUYu4C"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=UsUYu4C" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=8qkoWrC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=8qkoWrC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=7KxgvTC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=7KxgvTC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=v1wsaBC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=v1wsaBC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=ENgX8dC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=ENgX8dC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=v1wsaBC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=v1wsaBC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=en8EopC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=en8EopC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=F0hmJAc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=F0hmJAc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=eieDKDc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=eieDKDc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=ywlHuYc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=ywlHuYc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=cWUB3Ac"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=cWUB3Ac" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=fT8qeWC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=fT8qeWC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=y0RJHzC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=y0RJHzC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=qnUmFvc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=qnUmFvc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=vr2PKmc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=vr2PKmc" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/StudentFinancialAidNews/~4/195507271" height="1" width="1"/


  6. Beginner Tips on Using Facebook for Business
    7. 7 Mar 2008 at 7:00am
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    pBy now you#8217;ve probably heard of Facebook, right? Taking the time to learn Facebook can help you market your small business.  And if you are going to use social networking sites like Facebook it is also important to know the proper etiquette./p pimg border="0" vspace="2" align="left" width="65" src="http://www.smallbiztrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/shama_hyder.jpg" hspace="6" alt="Shama Hyder on Using Facebook" height="65" title="Shama Hyder" //p pShama Hyder, Chief Marketing Expert and Founder of a href="http://www.afterthelaunch.com/"After The Launch/a shared pointers on how to use Facebook to market your business in a recent episode on emSmall Business Trends Radio/em. This is a emstrongbeginner#8217;s/strong/em tutorial covering: a href="http://www.jumpup.com/"/aa target="_blank" href="http://www.jumpup.com/"img border="0" vspace="2" align="right" width="100" src="http://www.smallbiztrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/jumpup21.jpg" hspace="6" alt="JumpUp" height="44" //a/p ul liThe differences between Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace;/li /ul ul liHow a great profile page on Facebook becomes your #8220;brand#8221;;/li /ul ul liWhy it is important to join Facebook groups; and whether Facebook Apps are worth spending time and money on;/li /ul ul liThe proper way to connect with others on Facebook, including writing on walls./li /ul pShama is a marketing consultant to independent professionals and professional service firms around the world. As Founder of After The Launch, Shama serves clients through her one-on-one consulting work, and through her company’s several online and offline marketing services. Get her free report #8220;a href="http://www.afterthelaunch.com/free-stuff/"101 Ways to Market Your Business/a#8220;./p pTo hear Shama#8217;s interview about using Facebook in business, click the red and yellow arrow below:/p p/p p align="center"emSponsored by: a href="http://jumpup.com" rel="nofollow" JumpUp.com/a by Intuit/em/p div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?a=7wzBWAf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?i=7wzBWAf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?a=8WwnqYF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?i=8WwnqYF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?a=zHCTIOf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?i=zHCTIOf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?a=w6G3UIf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/SmallBusinessTrends?i=w6G3UIf" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SmallBusinessTrends/~4/247393416" height="1" width="1"/


  7. PRJ019 Delivering the brand promise
    8. 28 Feb 2008 at 5:20am
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    pimg src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/images/prj_posts/people/SMU_radio_200712.JPG" alt="Recording studio at SMU" title="Recording studio at SMU" / /p pstrongPRJ019 — PR Junction Podcast — +1 (206) 905-9587 — Delivering the brand promise/strong/p pAn interview with Michael’s colleague, fellow a target="blank" href="http://leadershipmatterspodcast.wordpress.com/"Leadership Matters/a podcaster and a target="blank" href="http://johnadavis.typepad.com/"blogger/a, Professor John Davis (JD) who is an expert on branding, and heads up the Centre for Marketing Excellence at a target="blank" href="http://www.business.smu.edu.sg/faculty/marketing/johndavis.asp"Singapore Management University/a (SMU), and the consultancy a target="blank" href="http://web.mac.com/brandnewview/Site_2/Home/Home.html"Brand New View/a. Check out the show notes for links to some of the books JD has written./p pWe had a discussion on branding in Asia, experiential branding, and some very interesting current projects which JD and Michael are currently undertaking. Michael and Jon recorded this episode late last year at SMU radio station, on the first day they actually met after months of communicating online. Special thanks to JD for coming in on a Saturday, and to Michael and Terence for setting things up at SMU radio station./p pTo listen, click on the iTunes logo, below. Or, you can go to the end of this post, and click #8216;play in popup.#8217;/p p style="width: 90%; background-color: #eeede7; text-align: left; border: #000000 1px solid; padding: 5px"a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=217710984"img src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/wp-content/themes/default/images/itunes.jpeg" alt="iTunes logo" class="alignleft" //astrongSubscribe /strongto PR junction so you won’t miss future episodes. It’s free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Click on the iTunes image at left. Or, paste this feed into your favourite podcatching software: a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG"http://feeds.feedburner.com/ prjunctionpodcast/GZRG/a/p br/a href="http://prjunctionpodcast.com/audio/PRJ019.mp3"Download Free to listen/abr/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=S5ni26E"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=S5ni26E" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=pSnvQiE"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=pSnvQiE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=jCnMape"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=jCnMape" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=A56hrwe"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=A56hrwe" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=5KJtTnE"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=5KJtTnE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=8Ri8SPe"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=8Ri8SPe" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG/~4/242640596" height="1" width="1"/


  8. PRJ 003 Blogging PR in Japan
    9. 9 Mar 2007 at 11:29pm
    pstrong日本における『PR2.0』/strongbr/br / strongAn interview with Robert Pickard/strongbr / President, North Asia, a href="http://www.edelman.com" target="blank"Edelman/a/p pstrongPodcast Thursday March 15, 2007. /strong/p pimg src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/wp-content/themes/default/images/people/Bob_P_c ompressed.jpg" alt="Bob Pickard" class="alignleft" /A Toronto native and current resident of Tokyo, Bob Pickard is a founder and Representative Director of a href="http://www.edelman.jp/" target="blank"Edelman Japan/a, where he is building and serving the Edelman#8217;s expanding community of clients in Japan and Korea./p pBob was Managing Director of Edelman Korea, which was named Edelman’s international ‘Office of the Year’ in 2004 amp; 2005, and was also recognized as ‘Consultancy of the Year’ at PR WEEK’s 2004 Asia-Pacific PR Awards./p pBefore joining a href="http://www.edelman.com" target="blank"Edelman/a, Bob was Executive Vice President of Environics Communications, a PR agency he co-founded in 1994, and expanded into the U.S. market. Earlier, Bob was a Vice President at Hill and Knowlton Canada, where he fostered the development of the agency’s first technology practice./p pUntil 1989, he served on the staff of senior Canadian federal Cabinet ministers, including Canada’s 16th Prime Minister./p p style="width: 90%; background-color: #eeede7; padding: 5px; border: solid #000000 1px; text-align:left"a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=217710984"img src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/wp-content/themes/default/images/itunes.jpeg " alt="iTunes logo" class="alignleft"/astrongSubscribe /strongto PR junction so you won’t miss future episodes. It’s free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Click on the iTunes image at left. Or, paste this feed into your favourite podcatching software: http://feeds.feedburner.com/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG/p br/a href="http://prjunctionpodcast.com/audio/PRJ003.mp3"Download Free to listen- no login needed/abr/ div class="feedflare"a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=ai07Lvde"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=ai07Lvde" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=266SuloE"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=266SuloE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=VkOOubyU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=VkOOubyU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=RoqKV1Xw"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=RoqKV1Xw" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=hlvh2tnW"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=hlvh2tnW" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=S5D5Hktx"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=S5D5Hktx" border="0"/img/a/div


  9. PRJ020 Managing a Public Relations Firm for Growth and Profit
    10. 15 Mar 2008 at 10:29am
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    pimg src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/images/prj_posts/people/AlCroft.jpg" //p pstrongPRJ020 — PR Junction Podcast — +1 (206) 905-9587 — Managing a Public Relations Firm for Growth and Profit/strong/p pAn interview with A.C. Croft, author of emManaging a Public Relations Firm for Growth and Profit/em./p pA.C. (Al) Croft is a management consultant specializing in training, analysis, evaluation and critical and conceptual thinking for public relations firms. He provides confidential planning, evaluation and counseling services to principals of small and mid size PR firms. Formerly, he was senior vice president and Midwest general manager of Bozell Public Relations, responsible for the firm#8217;s Chicago, Minneapolis and Atlanta offices./p pCroft has more than 25 years experience in national public relations firms including 15 years in top management. He formed his management consulting practice in 1987. Before joining Bozell PR in 1978, Croft was vice president and director of public relations, Aitkin Kynett, Philadelphia, and vice president and group manager, Ketchum Public Relations, Pittsburgh. He is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and a former member of the PRSA Counselors Academy./p pCroft has written for such publications as the PRSA Strategist, the Holmes Report, PR Week, Bank Marketing, Marketing Week, Public Relations Journal, IPRA Frontline, Public Relations Quarterly, PR Reporter, Communication Briefings, Advertising Age and Sales and Management Marketing. He is a contributing editor of Public Relations Quarterly./p pa target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Public-Relations-Growth-Profit/dp/0789028654"img src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/images/prj_posts/managingGrowthProfit.jpeg" class="alignleft" //aThe second edition of his book, ema target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Public-Relations-Growth-Profit/dp/0789028654"Man aging a PR Firm for Growth and Profit/a/em, was published by Haworth Press in 2006. It has been called #8220;#8230;the ultimate #8216;how to#8217; book on PR firm management.#8221;/p pA frequent speaker to professional organizations, including annual conferences of the Public Relations Society of America Counselors Academy, Croft is the editor of Management Strategies, a monthly digital newsletter for public relations firm principals. He conducts in house account management seminars for public relations firms. In addition, he hosts the Sedona Round Table, a three day workshop for independent, non competitive PR firms held every October since 1992 in Sedona, Arizona./p pTo listen, click on the iTunes logo, below. Or, you can go to the end of this post, and click #8216;play in popup.#8217;/p p style="width: 90%; background-color: #eeede7; text-align: left; border: #000000 1px solid; padding: 5px"a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=217710984"img src="http://www.prjunctionpodcast.com/wp-content/themes/default/images/itunes.jpeg" alt="iTunes logo" class="alignleft" //astrongSubscribe /strongto PR junction so you won’t miss future episodes. It’s free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Click on the iTunes image at left. Or, paste this feed into your favourite podcatching software: a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG"http://feeds.feedburner.com/ prjunctionpodcast/GZRG/a/p br/a href="http://prjunctionpodcast.com/audio/PRJ020.mp3"Download Free to listen/abr/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=o2SQLtF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=o2SQLtF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=NFkdpkF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=NFkdpkF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=r1aGnQf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=r1aGnQf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=FtLnIvf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=FtLnIvf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=vEGLSOF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=vEGLSOF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?a=roZZ2Qf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG?i=roZZ2Qf" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/prjunctionpodcast/GZRG/~4/251983985" height="1" width="1"/


  10. Brain Storm! Business Podcast: Salon Business Strategy (And How I Walked Out ...
    11. 8 Mar 2007 at 6:28pm
    a target="blank" href="http://quikonnex.com/search/displayenc_pop.php?itemid=26205" h3Click here to listen to the podcast./h3/abIn today's a href="http://www.brainstormbusinesspodcast.com" target="_blank"business podcast/a, we will discuss what I have termed the "Salon a href="http://www.businesscasters.com" target="_blank"Business/a Strategy", or how beauty salons make great money by giving away "free" services./b BRBR Today's a href="http://www.brainstormpodcast.com" target="_blank"brainstorming/a session revolves around actual personal experience, instead of business news. A friend gave me a coupon for a "free" cut and color, which the beautician had given to her when she had the same service done for herself. I went in for a pre-coloring consultation and walked out with $100+ of hair treatments to "prepare" for the coloring. I knew what was happening, but was intrigued with the a href="http://www.businesspodcasting.info" target="_blank"business/a process I was participating in. (Plus, it was all money-back guaranteed if I wasn't happy with it, so I could take it all back if I wanted.) BRBR bI realized the power of getting your clients to bring you new clients by offering something of value for free, and making your money back by products instead of services./b BRBR So I wondered how this could be applied to the a href="http://www.BrainStorm-Podcast.com" target="_blank"Brain Storm! Business Podcast/a listeners, as well as myself. The bottom line was a multi-step strategy that, if thought through, could be helpful for many of us. The abbreviated version is: BRBR ul liOffer something of REAL value for free./li liGet your present clients to find new customers by giving this freebie away./li liOffer consumables that are peripheral to or required for your service./li /ul BRBR bWe also return to the "passion" part of a href="http://www.1stbusinesspodcasters.com" target="_blank"business/a, and the truth that people will pay for things they are passionate about./b BRBR I used my late birthday jaunt to Circuit City as an example of passionate purchasing. Whether it is car parts for a 56 Chevy or some new gadget for your computer, everyone has a hot spot, and they are willing to pay money for it. For others it is clothes, shoes, nails and hair. Find the right passionate target market, and things will go well for you.BRBR bAs the Eagles asked, "Did you do it for love? Did you do it for money?"/b BRBR The hot spots are money, love and health. If your business is in one of these areas, then it should be easier to convince people if your product or service is real and effective. Take the sales classes I bought because they were created by a guy with a 100% sales call success rate. Convince me you have the answer to my problem, and I'll fork over money, hand over foot! BRBR bSo listen in as we a href="http://www.brainstorm-podcast.com" target="_blank"brainstorm/a about what you can give away, how to get clients to give it away, and what you can sell them while they're takin' what you're givin'./b BRBR In the meanwhile, if you are interested in possibly getting some of the $5000 worth of goods and services being given away at the Online a href="http://www.InternationalPodcastingExpo.com" target="_blank"International Podcasting Expo/a, then head on over to the site and get yourself a ticket. What could you do for your business with $1000 worth of business services, like advertising or administrative help? Or what about a $1000 vacation? Yes, I'm not kidding... BRBR Until next week, this isBR a href="http://www.PennyHaynes.com" target="_blank"Penny Haynes/a, of a href="http://www.1stPodcastPublishing.com" target="_blank"1st Podcast Publishing/a.a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/26205" [COMMENT]/a


  11. FIR Interview - Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen BuzzMetrics: August 8, 2007
    12. 8 Aug 2007 at 5:57pm
    pIn this age of transparency, itrsquo;s harder than ever for brands to defend themselves. What companies can do is employ a href="http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/2006/03/defensive_brand.html"defensive branding/a techniques to defend and protect themselves in times of crisis./p pAs a prelude to a href="http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/webinars"Defensive Branding 101: Troubleshooting Your Brand in the Age of Consumer Control/a, a free webinar from Nielsen BuzzMetrics on August 10, a href="http://www.nevillehobson.com/"Neville Hobson/a and a href="http://blog.holtz.com/"Shel Holtz/a talked with strongPete Blackshaw/strong about defensive branding: what it is, what it means to companies and how to use it. Companies discussed or mentioned in the conversation were Comcast, Toyota, Gerber, General Motors, Dell Computer, and Dole./p pstrongAbout our Conversation Partner/strong/p pa href="http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/mgmnt_peteblackshaw"img alt="Pete Blackshaw" hspace="6" src="http://www.nevillehobson.com/images/pete_blackshaw.jpg" align="left" border="0" /Pete Blackshaw/a is chief marketing officer of a href="http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/"Nielsen BuzzMetrics/a. A former interactive marketing leader at Pamp;G and founder of consumer feedback portal PlanetFeedback.com, Pete co-founded the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (a href="http://www.womma.org/"WOMMA/a)./p pHe is a frequent speaker at interactive marketing industry events, serves as Ad-Tech advisory board member, and authors several blogs including a href="http://www.consumergeneratedmedia.com/"ConsumerGeneratedMedia.com/a./p pPete will be starting a new consulting group within BuzzMetric#8217;s new parent, Nielsen Online./p pNielsen BuzzMetrics is the global measurement standard in consumer-generated media. BuzzMetrics helps promote and protect brands by measuring CGM and listening attentively to the online #8220;buzz.#8221;/p pa href="http://ripple.radiotail.com/142/fir-pb3.mp3"img title="download for immediate release podcast" alt="download for immediate release podcast" src="http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/images/podcastlogo_dl_64x54.gif" align="left" border="0" //a/p pa href="http://ripple.radiotail.com/142/fir-pb3.mp3"Download the 32-minute conversation here/a (MP3, 14.7Mb), or sign up for the a href="http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/interviews-rss.xml"Interviews RSS feed/a to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you#8217;ll also need a a href="http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=" podcatcher??podcatcher/a such as the free a href="http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php"Juice/a, a href="http://www.dopplerradio.net/"DopplerRadio/a, a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/"iTunes/a or a href="http://podcasts.yahoo.com/"Yahoo! Podcasts/a, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as a href="http://www.feeddemon.com/"FeedDemon/a. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson amp; Holtz Report, sign up for the a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/forimmediatereleasepodcast"full RSS feed/a./p pIf you have comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, email us at a href="mailto:fircomments@gmail.com"fircomments@gmail.com/a; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments; or comment at Twitter: a href="http://twitter.com/FIR"twitter.com/FIR/a; or at Jaiku: a href="http://fir.jaiku.com/"fir.jaiku.com/a. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We#8217;ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show./p pPodsafe intro music - a href="http://audiopium.typepad.com/onapodcastinstrumentalmix.mp3"On A Podcast Intrumental Mix/a (MP3, 5Mb) by a href="http://audiopium.typepad.com/thatpodcastsong/"Cruisebox/a./p p(Cross-posted from a href="http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/"For Immediate Release/a, Shel#8217;s and my podcast blog.)/p hr /p style="float:right; font-size: 9px;"copy; 2007 - visit the a href="http://www.nevillehobson.com/"author/a for more great content./p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Nevillehobsoncom?a=KKoc2O"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Nevillehobsoncom?i=KKoc2O" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=jGZbXFUV"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=jGZbXFUV" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=hn3NA4zE"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=hn3NA4zE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=OAOiSVuw"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=OAOiSVuw" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=gIbIbaxf"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=gIbIbaxf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=YoJyICkT"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=YoJyICkT" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?a=xXPny3FT"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Nevillehobsoncom?i=xXPny3FT" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Nevillehobsoncom/~4/142142041" height="1" width="1"/


  12. Daddy, what do you do?
    13. 1 Nov 2007 at 4:19am
    pimg id="id" alt="Hey Daddy, what did YOU do at work today?" src="http://www.leehopkins.net/images/marcomdaddy.jpg" / /p pstrongOkay, sorry, a slight correction./strong /p pI#8217;m not going to bore you with a minute-by-minute description of what a business communications consultant does./p pBecause what *I* do might bear little or no relation to what a href="http://blog.holtz.com/"Shel Holtz/a or a href="http://www.NevilleHobson.com/"Neville Hobson/a or a href="http://andreaweckerlecopywriting.typepad.com/new_millennium_pr/"Andrea Weckerle/a or a href="http://hyku.com/blog/"Josh quot;theHykuquot; Hallett/a or a href="http://allanjenkins.typepad.com/"Allan Jenkins/a or a href="http://youngie.prblogs.org/"Paull Young/a or a href="http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/"Kami Huyse/a or a href="http://trafcom.typepad.com/blog/"Donna Pepsicola/a or a href="http://www.twistimage.com/blog/"Mitch Joel/a or a href="http://www.prworks.ca/"David Jones/a or a href="http://www.cc-chapman.com/"CC Chapman/a or#8230; [insert your favourite Comms blogger here] does each day. Goodness, some days what I did *yesterday* bears no relation to what I do *today*!/p pThankfully there are so many specialities within the Business Communication industry that no two folks are likely to be doing exactly the same thing, although there will of course be many cross-overs./p pBut it must be the Masters season at the moment because in the last seven days I#8217;ve been contacted by two Masters students#8212;a href="http://www.michaelallison.ca/"Michael Allison/a and a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/563/ab3"Sharon Rode/a#8212;and asked for my perspective on Business Communication./p pWith their permission here are their questions and my answers, including a small audio snackette I created for Michael and his project team./p pIt may give you some interesting food for thought as you approach your end of year celebrations. Or it may not./p p#8212;#8211;/p pstrongDo you work from home?/strong/p pYes, mostly, although sometimes I work within client sites. Certainly my office is at home and currently is shared as the living/family room of an evening.#xA0; No, I#8217;m not entirely happy about that, but every bedroom is full and the garage shed in the back garden is so large it would be very expensive to insulate and kit it out as an office./p pstrongFor your business structure, are you a sole proprietor/ partner/incorporated?/strong/p pCurrently sole proprietor. In a previous incarnation this business iwas/i incorporated (a Pty Ltd, limited liability entity) but I didn#x2019;t earn enough to warrant the extra expense of reports, fees, etc. An accountant friend of mine estimates that unless you earn over AUD$80k it#x2019;s not worth becoming a company. As I am still learning how to be better at managing money I take his advice. /p pstrongDo you employ anyone or have any partners or sub-consultants?/strong/p pNo employees; I occasionally sub-contract work out when required (usually around design, web building, database back-end work)./p pstrongDo you have a code of ethics, or certain standards and guidelines by which you operate? This includes social media ethics./strong/p pPersonal code of ethics as a Christian (for what they are worth) plus I also abide by IABC Code of Ethics./p pstrongDo you calculate an hourly rate, a daily rate, or a fixed fee rate?/strong/p pTaking my lead from the work of a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?search-type=ssamp;tag=psychan ge-20amp;keyword=Alan%20Weissamp;mode=books"Alan Weiss/a, I usually prefer to calculate a value-based fee, as in I take into account the value of the project#x2019;s outcome to the client. If the value to the client is high I charge appropriately. If the value is low I may well decide not to get involved (projects that are perceived #x2018;low value#x2019; by the client very often get railroaded, sidelined, mucked about, delayed#x2026; and so payment gets delayed. When the client is focused then things happen a lot more smoothly at their end, which helps me). /p pHowever, turning clients around who are used to receiving a #x2018;daily rate#x2019; quote can be hard, sometimes very hard. In those instances I charge a daily rate. Allan Jenkins and I discussed this at length in a couple of our podcasts (a title="Chat #21: PhDs and Value-Based Fees - these are a few of our favourite things" href="http://cafe.leehopkins.net/2006/11/23/chat-21-phds-and-value-based-fees-these-a re-a-few-of-our-favourite-things/" target="_blank"here/a and a title="Chat #20: Are we having an identity crisis?" href="http://cafe.leehopkins.net/2006/10/22/chat-20-are-we-having-an-identity-crisis/ " target="_blank"here/a)./p pI often charge less than others in a similar but not entirely the same field, but then I #x2018;compensate#x2019; by only travelling business class (at their expense). Those who really stick their heels in and say their policy is to only pay #x2018;economy travel#x2019; rates have my daily rate increased to cover my upgrade charges. /p pstrongAt what intervals do you demand payment from your clients?/strong/p p50% up front, 50% within 7 days on completion. They receive a 10% discount if they pay in full up front (saves me having to chase them for payment). If the project is a long one (lasting more than 2 months) I work out a 30% upfront, stagger interim payments monthly, and a 10% final amount on completion. /p pstrongHave you ever had any clients who have not paid? What have you done?/strong/p pYes, once. Repeated calls, letters and emails to them. When that has failed just write it off as a bad debt (and let my peers and friends know about it)./p pstrongWe know you use social media to market your services. Do you use any other marketing methods, and which ones have been most successful?/strong/p pI have tried writing articles for a business magazine here in South Australia, but despite an article a month for over a year no contact came of it except from an old school friend who recognised me and who subsequently turned into a client. /p pBecause South Australian businesses, in the main, are very hesitant and risk averse in terms of anything to do with the internet, my efforts are usually spent networking with interstate contacts. /p pI#x2019;ve not bothered advertising here in South Australia #x2013; I am very confident that it would be a complete waste of my money. /p pApart from social media I also put articles from my web1.0 website (a href="http://www.LeeHopkins.com/"LeeHopkins.com/a) onto a href="http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Lee_Hopkins"article directory sites/a for others to republish on their sites and in their newsletters, etc. This is good for Google Juice but little else. /p pstrongWhat gives you a competitive advantage over others in your field?/strong/p pI am the only full-time consultant and trainer in Australia on Social Media as far as I know, and definitely the only one focusing on Business Communication. I am unique (but hey, we all know that! {grin})/p pstrongWho are your primary clients? Are they in the public or private sector?/strong/p pBoth public and private, but at the moment leaning more to the private sector. That may change because of the numbers of Government employees who recently attended my Social Media Workshops in Melbourne and Sydney./p pstrongWho are your competitors? Do you compete with any big firms?/strong/p pAt the moment I am very fortunate to have no real competition in the Social Media space in Australia. No doubt the big firms may try and compete at some stage (I know a href="http://www.hillandknowlton.com/index/regions/apac"Hill amp; Knowlton/a in Sydney have set up, via a href="http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/stevennoble/"Steven Noble/a, a #x2018;digital#x2019; arm, but so far I haven#x2019;t heard much from them; I expect they are servicing and advising existing clients. /p pstrongDo you see yourself as a generalist or as a specialist? If a generalist, do you feel that providing a wide-array of services weakens your ability to command higher fees?/strong/p pBefore Social Media I purveyed my trade as a quasi generalist, with extended interests in Employee comms and Online communication. /p pSocial Media#8217;s takeup has allowed me to focus solely on Social Media, but with the added advantage that my experience in online and employee communication is able to inform my knowledge about Web2.0 /p pstrongThe websites /strong[a href="http://www.LeeHopkins.com/"LeeHopkins.com/a and a href="http://www.LeeHopkins.net/"LeeHopkins.net/a]strong are very informative, but it seems like you might be giving away a lot of quot;freequot; information #x2013; how do you close the deal or turn a web site visitor into a potential client? Moreover, do you consciously take any steps to keep from giving away free consulting?/strong/p pI work from the position espoused by a href="http://www.actionplan.com/"Robert Middleton/a, of being an #x2018;Information Guru#x2019;. Middleton suggests giving 10% of your knowledge away for free so that people can feel comfortable about your skills and abilities. /p pSocial Media and the web in general demand more than 10%, so I give away lots in the hope that by showing a lot of my thoughts and ideas any prospective clients can see that I have a long and focused background on social media, employee comms and online communication and so build up a level of trust about my abilities even before contacting me. /p pI used to do a LOT of free consulting in the hope that a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini"Robert Cialdini#x2019;s #x2018;Reciprocity Principle#x2019;/a would bring work and money back to me. I got burnt so badly by this that I now do nothing for free; I have found that people don#x2019;t ascribe any value to something they get for free. So even non-profits have to pay for my time and knowledge (sometimes at a reduced, #x2018;mates rates#x2019; price). My colleague-in-arms Mitch Joel commented to this effect the other day about Podcamp Boston2 and how a href="http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/podcamp-should-not-be-free-of-cost-to-a ttend-hint-it-never-was/"#8216;free#8217; seemed to mean #8216;of little or no valu/ae#8217; to attendees, guests and invited speakers who didn#8217;t show up and didn#8217;t advise anyone they wouldn#8217;t be coming (after having originally said they would)./p pstrongHow do you monitor the ROI from social media marketing in attracting clients?/strong/p pI don#x2019;t monitor it (gasp!). I do what I do because I genuinely love doing it (does my enthusiasm show?!? {grin}) and if I get to share that enthusiasm with others then even better! /p pBecause I am #x2018;supposed#x2019; to be focusing my energies on my Doctoral research I am putting my business on the back burner. Well, that was my intention, but in the last 2-3 months the interest in Social Media within the Australian corporate environment has grown and as the only one that is doing this full-time in the corporate comms space I am getting more and more enquiries. I#x2019;m not complaining, but my own doctoral research is suffering#x2026; /p pstrongCan you give us a brief description about your PhD. project on Second Life? Will the knowledge you gain help you become better positioned to help clients? Will you be considered an expert on Second Life afterwards?/strong /p p Me? Be #8216;brief#8217;? You kidding?? {smile}. Okay, here goes: /p pYou can gain a richer, more informed picture of my research from my uni page (a href="http://people.unisa.edu.au/lee.hopkins"http://people.unisa.edu.au/lee.hopkins/a ) but here#x2019;s a synopsis: /p pWe are in a mirror image of what happened at the advent of the world wide web in 1993/4: /p pIn 1994 corporations saw this new communication channel, didn#x2019;t know what to do about it but threw a few dollars and some staff at it, asking them to play and see what they could do with it. At the same time, solo entrepreneurs wondered if they could make any money out of it, giving birth to the ebook, making a lot of people (#x201C;infopreneurs#x201D;) very rich in the process. But SMEs (small-to-medium sized enterprises) could neither afford the money or the staff to #x2018;play see what shakes out#x2019; with it, nor could they suddenly start creating digital versions of their goods and services without risking massive brand dilution, which their PR companies and marketing consultants strongly advised them not to do. If asked if they wanted to have a website, they very often replied, #x201C;why would I want a website#x2026; I have a Yellow Pages ad.#x201D; /p pFast forward to 2007: corporations can throw a few $m at Second Life (using it as the most prominent example of a 3D virtual environment) and #x2018;see what shakes#x2019;, see what the new rules of communication are in this new virtual space. Solo entrepreneurs can create and sell digital goods again #x2013; this time digital frocks and socks. But what of the SME? They can neither afford the money or the loss of productivity from moving staff away from their core responsibilities to #x2018;play#x2019;, and they can#x2019;t create digital versions of their existing products and services (for example, what could a plumbing franchise or chain do in-world?) without risking the hoary ol#x2019; beasts of brand dilution and market confusion. SMEs that I talk to about Second Life say, #x201C;why would I want a Second Life presence#x2026; I have a website and a Yellow Pages ad#x201D;. /p pI#x2019;m trying to find ways that the 3D virtual environment ican/i provide value to SMEs, and my research will hopefully point out a few ways that they can profitably engage in these new spaces. /p pFor me the spin-offs from my research are two-fold: /p ol liI will be able to offer consultancy services to corporates and SMEs about business communication in a 3D virtual environment; /li liI will be placed at the forefront of the academic community about this (from a business comms perspective; there are already others who are #x2018;big names#x2019; in 3D/online communities within academia, but not from a business/marcom perspective). /li /ol pstrongHow do we define the role of the communication consultant today?/strong /p pThe role can be multifarious, dependent entirely upon the requirements of the client. For example, depending on our personal experience we can offer and provide advice#x2014;both strategic and tactical#x2014;on public relations, employee communications, marketing communications, print communication, online public relations, online marketing communication, online community relations#x2026; /p pFor me, with over two decade#x2019;s experience of employee communications and nearly 15 years of experience of online communication, I can responsibly offer only part of the whole #x2018;business communication#x2019; package. Those who are able to offer solid, experience-based insight and wisdom are highly sought after, highly paid and rare as hen#x2019;s teeth. Many a mid- or senior-level PR practitioner will #x2018;tell#x2019; you they can offer the entire mix, but it is the rare practitioner indeed who has got every base covered. /p pstrongWhat has affected the role of the communications consultant?/strong /p pThe explosion of internet-based communication and community building has created massive earthquakes through the consultant community. The a href="http://www.iabc.com/"IABC/a#x2014;the International Association of Business Communicators#x2014;is a great reflection of the Business Communication consultant in general; many of the IABC members have experience of the traditional tv, corporate video and print world but are complete novices regarding the online world. The result is that online communication has been #x2018;handballed#x2019; to professionals from other disciplines (most notably marketing and IT) without any consideration of the realities of #x2018;Communication#x2019; practices within the online world. /p pAs an example of this, consider any major corporate website: it is full of marketing-speak, full of #x201C;best in class, world leading, paradigm realigning#x201D; nonsense. It is full of obvious #x2018;stock photos#x2019; of bland corporateness, devoid of any real #x2018;humanness#x2019;. The site is also probably very technically adept, even laid out in an aesthetically pleasing manner via the designs of a corporate graphic designer. /p pBut it fails to #x2018;communicate#x2019; to its publics precisely because the Business Communicators have not had any input into it. Even if they imight/i have been invited to the early meetings, their lack of interest and experience meant that important decisions were left to the marketing and IT folks. /p pThe rapid development of the power of #x2018;community#x2019; and its #x2018;voice#x2019; (witness the turnaround of HSBC over student loan interest rates, and Cadbury over the removal of the #x2018;Wispa#x2019; bar) has taken corporations by surprise, and most are unable to find the #x2018;talent#x2019; to manage it. There is no lack of interest from younger members of their staff, but these staff members lack the overarching #x2018;Communication#x2019; training and experience. The older and more senior #x2018;communicators#x2019; in the company lack the experience and understanding of this new community power. Therefore corporations rely on the traditional methods of engagement and hope that this Social Media/Web2.0 world will #x2018;go away#x2019;, be just a fad, and that life can eventually go on as usual. After all, it could reasonably be argued, the investors are usually gray-haired or market savvy (or both) and so these #x2018;noisy uneducated masses#x2019; can safely be ignored. /p pWhilst the current #x2018;head in the sand#x2019; approach for small to mid-cap enterprises (aka SMEs) remains, it will only be the Fortune 100 and iFast Company/i-style companies who will embrace these new communication channels and realities. Thus the Communications Consultant can, in the main, still #x2018;get away#x2019; with only having experience of the traditional media. /p pHowever, eventually progress will catch up with the SMEs and Communication Consultants with proven experience in these fields will be in demand. Of course, vacuums get filled by all sorts of detritus and there will be many who will claim #x2018;Consultant#x2019; status who are little more than one-trick ponies. As if it has iever/i been any different in the b2b consultancy world#x2026; /p pstrongWhy would an independent communications consultant be more appealing than an internal (in-house) communicator?/strong /p pMostly due to the experience that the external consultant can bring to the table (assuming that the consultant#x2019;s experience was emactually/em valued and required, rather than a consultant being brought in to #x2018;rubber stamp#x2019; and #x2018;validate#x2019; the governing viewpoint). /p pWhilst an internal comms consultant should be very adept at managing the politics and understanding the culture, the external consultant can bring in a #x2018;fresh pair of eyes and ears#x2019; to the environment, offering new ways of looking at situations and experience with new tools. /p pNeither would, ideally, be more appealing than the other; in an ideal company both would work hand-in-hand to meet strategic goals in the most effective manner, a mix of cultural relevance and wider industry/technological experience. /p pstrongWhat skill sets and benefits should an entrepreneurial communicator offer in order to be competitive?/strong /p pThe required skill sets for which they are being hired would be a plus (no, I#x2019;m not being facetious here; I have seen too many expensive consultants who can only talk someone else#x2019;s walk). They would need to be up to date on the new technology, and whilst not needing to be involved #x2018;in depth#x2019; with every new tool, they would certainly need to be aware of the tools and what each tool#x2019;s strength and limitations are. In addition, they would need to be well connected so that they can bring in the #x2018;micro niche#x2019; or particular tool expert when required. /p pThe consultant shouldn#x2019;t need to be able to #x2018;build#x2019; the tools, but certainly know who can and have ready access to them. /p pI also believe that they should be aware of their own limitations and honest with their clients about them. It does nobody any good when expectations are not met and when disappointment leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. /p pA commitment to lifelong learning is a must; not only for their own professional development, but because their passion for their work drives them to learn and grow far above any monetary consideration of what a particular training course might mean to their resume (Bryan Person#8212;aka #8216;Bryper#8217;#8212;has a particularly good a title="Die, resume! Die! Die! Die!" href="http://www.bryper.com/2007/10/08/die-resume-die-die-die/"Social Media resume/a). /p pIn addition, the entrepreneurial communicator should be aware of what is happening in not only their own industry, but the industries of their clients. This is not just from a #x2018;broad#x2019; business perspective but also a consideration of what their clients#x2019; competitors are up to, what new threats or opportunities may be around the corner, what new legislation might mean. /p pstrongGiven the trends, what changes will have to be made both by businesses and communicators to stay competitive and current?/strong /p pAn understanding and embracing of Social Media imperatives and cultural drivers. None of the #x2018;old#x2019; stuff will go away#x2014;print, tv, video, radio#x2014;but the new online communication rules (still being shaped by us all) will add to the communicator#x2019;s #x2018;mix#x2019; of channels and responsibilities. /p pA recognition that Communications can and must support specialists. The day of the Generalist Business Communicator has passed (although their wisdom is still invaluable and should be sought wherever possible) and specialist communicators will populate the corporate communications environment. These specialist communicators will need to learn to work in partnership, where no one specialist has the final version of #x2018;truth#x2019;; PR, Marketing, Employee, Online#x2026; all will need to work together to produce a communications output that is coherent across all channels and publics, yet also relevant to each distinct group in their own way, speaking #x2018;their#x2019; language and helping to co-create the received #x2018;meaning#x2019; of the communication./p p#8212;/p pAnd here#8217;s a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/leehopkins/for-michael-allison-finalmix.mp3" target="_blank"the audio file/a I talked about at the top of this marathon post #8212; an introduction to myself, what I would do differently if I had my time over again, and what regrets, if any, I have [5.89mb / 6mins 20 secs]./p p#8212;#8211;/p div class="wlWriterSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:80a1fdee-6f37-4206-9105-82f1c3f1f2bc" style="padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; float: none; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px"span class= "technoratitag"Technorati tags: a href="http://technorati.com/tags/mitch%20joel" rel="tag"mitch joel/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/shel%20holtz" rel="tag"shel holtz/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/kami%20huyse" rel="tag"kami huyse/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/andrea%20weckerle" rel="tag"andrea weckerle/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/josh%20hallett" rel="tag"josh hallett/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/neville%20hobson" rel="tag"neville hobson/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/allan%20jenkins" rel="tag"allan jenkins/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/paull%20young" rel="tag"paull young/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/bryan%20person" rel="tag"bryan person/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/bryper" rel="tag"bryper/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/iabc" rel="tag"iabc/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/business%20communication" rel="tag"business communication/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/pr" rel="tag"pr/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/marketing" rel="tag"marketing/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/marcomms" rel="tag"marcomms/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/robert%20french" rel="tag"robert french/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/donna%20pepsicola" rel="tag"donna pepsicola/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/donna%20papacosta" rel="tag"donna papacosta/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/david%20jones" rel="tag"david jones/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/cc%20chapman" rel="tag"cc chapman/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/michael%20allison" rel="tag"michael allison/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/sharon%20rode" rel="tag"sharon rode/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/alan%20weiss" rel="tag"alan weiss/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/robert%20cialdini" rel="tag"robert cialdini/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/robert%20middleton" rel="tag"robert middleton/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/hill%20amp;%20knowlton" rel="tag"hill amp; knowlton/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/steven%20noble" rel="tag"steven noble/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/marcom%20blog" rel="tag"marcom blog/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tags/lee%20hopkins" rel="tag"lee hopkins/a/span/div p class="akst_link"a href="http://www.marcomblog.com/?p=286amp;akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_286" class="akst_share_link"Share This: email to others, bookmark to del.icio.us, etc./a /p


  13. Show # 122 - Global Trends for Marketing
    14. 6 Nov 2007 at 3:31pm
    div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"pa href="http://www.blubrry.com/engaging/"Show 122 of The Engaging Brand/aa href="http://www.podcasternews.com/programs/205/the-engaging-brand/"nbsp;/a podcast is ready, waiting for you - your own personal audio show aimed at helping you create that success in your career. The show is an insight into what the latest trends are in marketing withnbsp; a href="http://www.psfk.com/2004/06/about_piers_faw.html"Piers Fawkes/a who is one of the world’s leading trends specialists providing fresh ideas and inspiration for the readers of his sites and the clients of his consultancy business. /p pPiers publishes five web sites (a href="http://www.psfk.com/"PSFK/a, a href="http://if.psfk.com/"IF/a!, a href="http://www.marktd.com/"Marktd/a, a href="http://www.thepurplelist.com/"The Purple List/a andnbsp; a href="http://fashion.psfk.com/"fashion.psfk/a) aimed at introducing ideas and insights to an international audience./p pI ask Piers about some of the trends that are affecting us globally that I heard about at the PSKF conference in London this year - ideas ofnbsp; loneliness, simplicity, how gaming will develop, networking, marketing through causes and how we can stay up with the trends. /p pRemember to hop over to a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2378653172"The Engaging Brand facebook group/a -strongem and add your thoughts to the conversation!nbsp; /em/strongIf you have feedback on the show or want to contribute to the new leadership tip section then record an audio message by clicking on the recorder on the side of the blog or e-mail me at a href="mailto:anna@theengagingbrand.com"anna@theengagingbrand.com/a. /p pspan style="font-weight: bold;"How can listen to the Engaging Brand/spanbr / /p p1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just press the play button! a onclick="javascript: var rvgPlayer = window.open('http://www.blubrry.com/player/?p=337', 'RVG_Player', 'toolbar=0,status=0,resizable=1,width=640,height=450'); rvgPlayer.focus(); return false;" title="Blubrry player!" href="#"img title="Open Blubrry Player" alt="Blubrry player!" src="http://www.blubrry.com/themes/blubrry/images/player/PlayerBadge150x50NoBorder.jp g" //a /p p2) You can subscribe to the show via a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=152136283"iTun es/a or/p p3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the followingnbsp; span style="font-size: 0.8em;"a class="a" href="http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml"http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/ enbr.xml/a/span/p pspan style="font-size: 0.8em;"4) /spanOr if you don't want to subscribe, just want to listen to this show as a one off the go to the a href="http://media.podcasternews.com/enbr/http://media.libsyn.com/media/pcn/PCN2007-0 9-05-15732-205-014.mp3"podcast page/a and click download to save to your computer.br / br /strongMessage from Sponsor/strongbr / “Online Meetings Made Easy with a href="http://www.gotomeeting.com/podcast"GoToMeeting/a Try it Free for 45 days use Promo Code Podcast”/p/div div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?a=GW70jdB"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?i=GW70jdB" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?a=5qIMK7b"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?i=5qIMK7b" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?a=oAK4lZb"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?i=oAK4lZb" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?a=FWg9jJb"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheEngagingBrand?i=FWg9jJb" border="0"/img/a /div


  14. FAP557: Free Stuff Monday, Damning Lender Report from the Senate, Homeland Se...
    15. 18 Jun 2007 at 7:02pm
    FAP557: Free Stuff Monday, Damning Lender Report from the Senate, Homeland Security Money, PAB, Uncle Seth Student Financial Aid News + Back in the office and behind the mic - love the good mic :) + a href="http://www.banknet360.com/news/NewsAbstract.do;jsessionid=D0C7B938F42B1ED0C901D 92A8C60775D?na_id=9266amp;service_id=1amp;bi_id=5"BankNet360/a: Subprime borrowers faced more delinquencies and foreclosures during the first quarter compared to the previous quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. + Nearly 19% of all subprime loans were either delinquent by more than 30 days or in foreclosure during 1Q 2007, up from 17.9% recorded during 4Q 2006. About 140,000 subprime mortgages entered the process of foreclosure during the quarter; nearly 20,000 of those were in California. + The report also showed that the troubles in the subprime market have not yet spread to the overall prime mortgage market. At the end of March, 6.12% of all mortgages were either delinquent or in foreclosure, up slightly from 5.39% at the end of the year. + Mortgage rates this week reached their highest level in almost a year. The national average for a 30-year mortgage was 6.74 percent, up from 6.53 percent last week. + If you're financing a college education with mortgage products, seriously consider a a href="http://www.parentplusloan.com"Parent PLUS Loan from ParentPLUSLoan.com - no collateral required/a + a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/18/qt"Inside Higher Ed/a: Emerson College, in Massachusetts, has placed its dean of enrollment on leave Friday — the day after a U.S. Senate report found that he had received $36,000 from a loan company that Emerson recommended to students, The Boston Globe reported. According to the report, Daniel Pinch had a consulting contract with Collegiate Funding Services, which is now part of J.P. Morgan Chase. Pinch told the Globe that he didn’t think he had done anything wrong, and that he would cooperate with an investigation now going on. + a href="http://www.nasfaa.org/publications/2007/kennedyreport061507.html"NASFAA/a: Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a Committee staff report on marketing practices in the FFEL program and questionable behavior between student loan providers and schools last week. This is first in what may be a series of investigative documents examining evidence of abuses in the FFEL Program. + The Report on Marketing Practices in the Federal Family Education Loan Program details benefits and compensation provided to aid administrators in return for preferential treatment that can lead to increased loan volume. The report comes just one week before the Senate Education Committee is scheduled to take up the Higher Education Access Reconciliation Act and The Higher Education Amendments of 2007. + Pretty damning conclusions - a href="http://kennedy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Student%20Loan%20Report.pdf"read the full PDF for details/a + I'm going to a href="http://www.podcastersacrossborders.com"Podcasters Across Borders/a this weekend! + a href="http://www.podcastersacrossborders.com"img border="0" src="http://podcastersacrossborders.com/images/pab_horizontal_big.jpg"/a Scholarship Update + a href="http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2160"Chronicle/a: While university researchers are scrambling to find grants, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can't seem to give its money away. + The department has nearly $2 million dollars to pay for research into security-related video technology, and it hasn't been getting many takers, according to Jennifer White of the Touchstone Consulting Group, which is supervising the grant application process. For the last round of funding, she says, they had only 18 inquiries and nine actual proposals. "And only two of them were deemed acceptable, leaving us with more than $1-million that we couldn't give out." + They hope to do better this time around. The money is supposed to go for research into "interoperability": systems that can move video data from one agency to another or from one type of technology to another. The deadline for applications is June 25. + a href="http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com/New/2007-06-18.php"Details at our free college scholarship search site/a Free Stuff Monday + a href="http://www.jimmcgowan.net/Site/StickEmUp.html"Stick Em Up/a + a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/quicksilver/quicksilver-google-calendar-quick-ad d-171357.php"Quicksilver tutorial for Google Calendar/a + a href="http://blog.codahale.com/2007/01/15/tweet-twitter-quicksilver/"Quicksilver tutorial for Twitter/a + a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?root=%2Figamp;dpos=topamp;num=24amp;url=http ://www.onceyougonerd.com/google_gadget_awards/local_gas.xml"Google Gas Gadget/a + a href="https://www.expensr.com/"Expensr/a + a href="http://urltea.com/rdo"PodCamp Europe Gift Bag/a Promo + a href="http://www.podcastersacrossborders.com"Podcasters Across Borders/a Podsafe Music + a href="http://www.musicface.com/uncleseth"Uncle Seth, To Be An Angel/a + Music via the a href="http://www.podsafemusicnetwork.com" rel="nofollow"Podsafe Music Network/a Reminders + Join the a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2405120871"Financial Aid Podcast Loyalists on Facebook/a + a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=890555121"Make me your Facebook friend/a + a href="http://www.virtualhotwings.com"Buy Virtual Hot Wings, the Matthew Ebel live bootleg album!/a + a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com/a + a href="http://www.StaffordLoan.com"Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com/a + a href="http://www.studentloanconsolidator.com"Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com/a + a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com/a + a href="http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com"Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com/a. + The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the a href="http://www.StudentLoanNetwork.com"Student Loan Network/a. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208. AIM: FinAidPodcast a href="http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/itunes/"Add me to your iTunes by visiting http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/itunes//a Direct MP3 file download: a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/financialaidpodcast/20070618.mp3"MP3 file/a Technorati Tags: a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financial+aid" rel="tag"financial aid/a a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financialaidpodcast" rel="tag"financialaidpodcast/a pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=uGvG3T"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=uGvG3T" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=tdUD8zaQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=tdUD8zaQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=VodGOHgx"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=VodGOHgx" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=ing70RYu"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=ing70RYu" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=eCFuNIvM"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=eCFuNIvM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=WdHTI1nY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=WdHTI1nY" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=f30Nybb0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=f30Nybb0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=jsqHT6Ms"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=jsqHT6Ms" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=gVHTbZcb"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=gVHTbZcb" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=dslWfjOF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=dslWfjOF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=LhM3wzzK"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=LhM3wzzK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=dslWfjOF"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=dslWfjOF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=8hNctaIK"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=8hNctaIK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=nr7Tv82r"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=nr7Tv82r" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=l5nkgvR8"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=l5nkgvR8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=baw1q5jK"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=baw1q5jK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=yeuXBKWN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=yeuXBKWN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=ZtsmJRm7"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=ZtsmJRm7" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=5WGF7FrS"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=5WGF7FrS" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=qIyLmRsc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=qIyLmRsc" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/StudentFinancialAidNews/~4/125775426" height="1" width="1"/


  15. SmallBizPod #58 - Who’s Afraid Of The Female Entrepreneur?
    16. 20 Nov 2007 at 3:12pm
    pThis week a href="http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/podcasts/Sbp58.mp3"SmallBizPod #58/a, the small business podcast, focuses on female entrepreneurship with inspiring interviews recorded as part of a href="http://www.enterpriseweek.org/"Enterprise Week/a. The podcast takes a look at how women approach business, whether or not they face more or different challenges to their male counterparts and what motivates them to start and run their own businesses./p pRight click a href="http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/podcasts/Sbp58.mp3"here/a to download./p pstrongListen now:/strongbr / a href="http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/podcasts/Sbp58.mp3"Download audio file (Sbp58.mp3)/abr //p pIf you#8217;d like to subscribe free using an RSS feed or better still iTunes, just follow the a href="http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/podcast-faq"podcast screencasts/a to find out how easy it is to make sure you never miss an episode of SmallBizPod./p pFor those who#8217;d like to download SmallBizPod or listen to it now, right click on the download link or left click on the grey arrow button above to play now./p pstrongShow Notes/strong/p pstrongSummary/strong/p pIntro:/p pspan style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"•/span 00:00 Alex on what#8217;s coming up in the show.br / span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"•/span 01:13 Thanks to a href="http://www.sage.co.uk"Sage/a for sponsoring SmallBizPod.span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"/p pFeatures:/p pspan style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"•/span 01:30 strongInterviews/strong include: Jo Ray, managing director of Sage UK#8217;s small business division on its a href="http://www.sagepresscentre.co.uk/heartbeat"Heartbeat survey/a findings on women in business; Anne Duncan, serial entrepreneur and CEO of a href="http://www.yellowfin.com/"Yellowfin/a; Michelle Rosenberg, author of a href="http://www.crimsonpublishing.co.uk/08973654257489900588/inspiring-women.html"In spiring Women/a; Kerry Keeling of a href="http://www.awomanstouch.org.uk/"A Woman#8217;s Touch/a building services company; Karen Gill, co-founder of a href="http://www.everywoman.co.uk/"Everywoman/a; Caroline Newman of a href="http://caroline-newman.com/"Newman Consulting/a; Elaine Fairfax, founder of a href="http://www.animalfriends.org.uk/"Animal Friends Insurance/a; and Caroline Marshall Foster, managing director of a href="http://www.thewordhouse.co.uk/"Wordhouse Publishing Group/a./p pDiary:/p pspan style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"•/span 36:36 Diary of a Wantrepreneur with Kelvin Jones on goal setting, testing, market research and a useful survey website called a href="http://wufoo.com/"Wufoo.com/a./p pspan style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial"•/span 34.11 strongMusic/strong - Okno by a href="http://www.mono211.com/content/releases/mtkmp193.html"Ocbalt/a with many thanks to the Monotonik label. /p psmallstrongTags: /stronga href="http://technorati.com/tag/small+business+podcast" rel="tag"small business podcast/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tag/entrepreneurship" rel="tag"entrepreneurship/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tag/women+in+business" rel="tag"women in business/a, a href="http://technorati.com/tag/enterpriseweek07" rel="tag"enterprise week/a/small/p p class="akst_link"a href="http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/?p=102amp;akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_102" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow"Share This/a /pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?a=ZfQ06tB"im g src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?i=ZfQ06tB" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?a=i0OcKSb"im g src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?i=i0OcKSb" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?a=8Ac8YFb"im g src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?i=8Ac8YFb" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?a=9z9aq8B"im g src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?i=9z9aq8B" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?a=wdKTngB"im g src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Smallbizpod-TheSmallBusinessPodcast?i=wdKTngB" border="0"/img/a /div


  16. FAP687: A FAFSA Strategy Overview, State Financial Aid Cutbacks
    17. 10 Dec 2007 at 8:04am
    pFAP687: A a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="FAFSA" rel="external"FAFSA/a Strategy Overview, State Financial Aid Cutbacks/p pListen now: /p pStudent Financial Aid Newsbr / + a href="http://www.nasfaa.org/publications/2007/awwallets120707.html"NASFAA/a: #8220;A slumping housing market and skimpier sales tax collections will force as many as 20 states to go back and patch holes in their budgets in 2008,#8221; reports Stateline.org. #8220;Most states will muddle through the current economic slowdown, but if the country dips into a recession, then even more than 20 states likely will have to make cuts to their current budgets, Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association predicted. The stalled housing market is pinching states across the board, but it’s more severe for states such as Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida that rely heavily on real-estate taxes, Scheppach said. State spending is budgeted to grow a modest 4.7 percent in fiscal 2008. That’s far below the robust 9.3 percent growth states saw in fiscal 2007 and even lower than the 30-year average of 6.4 percent. States in 2008 also will have less money in their reserves than in the previous two years. After three years of bulging coffers, state balances collectively are projected to fall to $47 billion in this fiscal year, compared to nearly $63 billion the year before and a record $69 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the report.#8221;br / + What does this mean for you?br / + Expect rises in state colleges and universities tuitionbr / + Expect fewer state a href="http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="grants" rel="external"grants/a and a href="http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="scholarships" rel="external"scholarships/abr / + Expect schools to also pare back some servicesbr / + Get in the mindset of understanding that you#8217;re solely responsible for your financial aidbr / + Don#8217;t dare miss the a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a filing deadlines/p pa href="http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="scholarship" rel="external"Scholarship/a Updatebr / + Windstar Environmental Studies Scholarship Programbr / + The Windstar Foundation, co-founded by John Denver and Thomas Crum, has consistently sought ways, #8220;To inspire individuals to make responsible choices and take direct personal actions to achieve a peaceful and environmentally sustainable future.#8221; With this mission in mind, the Windstar Foundation is awarding two $500 scholarships for qualified undergraduates entering their junior or senior year of college, as well as one $1000 scholarship for graduate students entering their second year of graduate school.br / + Deadline June 1br / + a href="http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com/Detailed/Scholarships/Local_Scholarship s/United_States_Scholarships/Windstar_Environmental_Studies_Scholarship_Program_720.p hp"Details at our free college scholarship search site/abr / + Scholarship search has been completed, and distribution should start this weekbr / + 35 pages longbr / + 11 scholarship search secretsbr / + Happy holidays!/p pFocus on Financial Aidbr / + Your overall a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a strategybr / + The a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a is the a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"Free Application for Federal Student Aid/abr / + Controls federal grants, scholarships, and a href="http://www.staffordloan.com"federal student loans/abr / + Estimate your taxes now and fill out the IRS1040br / + Consult with a financial planner before year endbr / + Make any last minute finance adjustments before January 1br / + Fill out a sample a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a with the newly updated a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a worksheets at a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/aonline.combr / + Ask questions about sections you have trouble withbr / + Reserve a spot at a a href="http://www.collegegoalsundayusa.org"College Goal Sunday/a eventbr / + Look for a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA/a and scholarship seminars from the a href="http://www.studentloannetwork.com"Student Loan Network/a early next yearbr / + If you#8217;re a financial aid administrator, sign up to be a CGS volunteer/p pbDid you enjoy today#8217;s show?/b If so, biplease consider subscribing for free to get it delivered to you/i/b. Subscribing for free means you don#8217;t have to remember to download it every day.br / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/email"Click here to subscribe for free by email/abr / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/itunes"Click here to subscribe for free in iTunes/abr / + a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/googlereader"Click here to add the Financial Aid Podcast to Google Reader or your Google Homepage/a/p pDirect MP3 file download: a href="http://media.financialaidpodcast.com/shows/20071210.mp3"Click here to download the MP3/a/p pRemindersbr / + a href="http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com"Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidPodcast.com/a.br / + Discuss this episode at the a href="http://www.financialaidforum.com"Financial Aid Forum/a!br / + a href="http://www.FAFSAonline.com"FAFSA form tutorials and free help at FAFSAonline.com/abr / + a href="http://www.StaffordLoan.com"Stafford federal student loans at StaffordLoan.com/abr / + a href="http://www.studentloanconsolidator.com"Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com/abr / + a href="http://www.alternativestudentloan.com"Private student loans available at any time - visit AlternativeStudentLoan.com/abr / + The a href="http://www.financialaidpodcast.com" class="alinks_links" onclick="return alinks_click(this);" title="financial aid podcast" rel="external"Financial Aid Podcast/a is a publication of the a href="http://www.StudentLoanNetwork.com"Student Loan Network/a./p pI want to hear from you! Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com, or call 206-350-1208./p pTechnorati Tags: a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financial+aid" rel="tag"financial aid/a a href="http://technorati.com/tag/financialaidpodcast" rel="tag"financialaidpodcast/a/p pa href="http://sharethis.com/item?publisher=5f141047-488f-42fd-a70b-e92c6fc75004title=F AP687%3A+A+FAFSA+Strategy+Overview%2C+State+Financial+Aid+Cutbacksurl=http%3A%2F%2Fww w.financialaidpodcast.com%2F2007%2F12%2F10%2Ffap687-a-fafsa-strategy-overview-state-f inancial-aid-cutbacks%2F"ShareThis/a/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=2tlRQj"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=2tlRQj" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=oGvbz7C"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=oGvbz7C" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=XPVCJVC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=XPVCJVC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=cTRNGvC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=cTRNGvC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=xCZcfcC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=xCZcfcC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=aMOXTsC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=aMOXTsC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=UtRIz6C"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=UtRIz6C" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=4T534ZC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=4T534ZC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=8m4wlpC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=8m4wlpC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=cGPVspC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=cGPVspC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=o2pmfqC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=o2pmfqC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=cGPVspC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=cGPVspC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=uOCaPIC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=uOCaPIC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=7sJRQxc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=7sJRQxc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=6hRbK2c"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=6hRbK2c" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=nicLYjc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=nicLYjc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=v9shYXc"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=v9shYXc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?a=ZZVnW8C"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/StudentFinancialAidNews?i=ZZVnW8C" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feed