Stay Revelant with Online Education

The Internet makes it easier than ever to teach yourself a new skill. And best of all, it's usually FREE! With unemployment still uncomfortably high, especially among recent grads, it's negligent not to take advantage of this.

Find a topic that interests you or that smart people, like Seth Godin, recommend. A number of sites provide quality education on a broad range of topics. Even Harvard and MIT have joined forces and are at the forefront of delivering FREE online education.  Hang out with ivory tower scholars from the comfort of your couch!

For those who are tech challenged, I recommend W3 Schools to learn web development technologies. They offer easy-to-follow tutorials on HTML, Java, SQL and more. You can practice as often as you'd like and they have quick reference guides available too.

Learn something new and use it, use it and then use it more. Keeping your skills fresh is hugely important. If you lack the confidence to use them in the real world, you're wasting your time.

Get out there and have fun with it. Surprise yourself and stay relevant.

Avoid this email marketing miscue

When creating design and copy for email campaigns, remember that Gmail won’t initially display images (the user must manually change settings).

So while art typically leads the digital marketing dance, it’s essential to have killer copy at the top of the email.

With so many Gmailers out there, it’s important to test what your content will look like display-less.  Otherwise, you'll be deleted before you can say "call-to-action."

My bad...

Watching John Edwards deliver his phew...no jail for me speech, I felt compassion for the guy.

He was coming clean, taking all responsibility and acknowledging the hurt he caused to those who love(d) him. Johnny's only human after all. Haven't we all sinned? No sympathy for the devil?

For a few moments, I fell for the con. And of course that's the danger with crooked politicians, or anyone else skilled at the art of BS.

Words can be powerful, but ultimately it's about what you do. And Johnny is...

First Go 'Round w/ a CSA

We're excited about our first summer doing Community Supported Agriculture. We linked up with Lindentree Farm out of Lincoln, MA. Their vegetables and fruit are all organic and the owners have been at it for 22 years.

With a CSA, you pay for a share at the beginning of the season. It works out to be about the same amount we'd be spending on fruits and vegetables for the summer, but with the added benefit of  knowing where our food is coming from. And they deliver our share to the rad folks at Clover in Inman Square--so we only have to walk a couple blocks to pick it up.

Fun orienation at the farm on Sunday:

Blondie with heavy machinery

Blondie with the chicks

God's Pulling for Obama

If this extraordinarily mild winter tells us anything, it's that God wants President Obama to win the 2012 election. Hyper-religious right-wingers continually point to natural disasters as being an indictment of America's moral decline. So this cheerful winter must have them really nervous: obviously it's a ringing endorsement for Obama from the Big Guy in the sky.

God's well aware of the number one issue for voters: the economy. Always has been and always will be. A mild winter inflates GDP, inspiring consumer and business confidence. Here's what Raymond James economist Scott J. Brown, Ph.D. had to say:

"...an unusually mild winter appears to have had a significant impact [on econonomic growth]...boosting motor vehicle sales, construction activity and employment."


Oddly, Brown doesn't mention God in his commentary. But he doesn't have to. We know who's really behind this blessed winter.

Before you dems pop the champagne, realize the election's still eight months away. There's still time for religious conservatives to pray extra hard and put pressure on God to drum up  some last-minute atmospheric mayhem. (Pat Robertson not included, of course, since God already told him that Obama would lose the election).

Hey, Executives: This Occupy Thing Ain't Over...

Winter's blustery chill may have sent those Wookie Occupiers into hibernation, but just as the dingy turnip lies dormant only to re-emerge bright and ripe in the spring, so to will this Crusade Against Greed.

Executives: will you reign in your compensation packages before it's too late?

No, of course not. If we believe that the powerful will admit to and change the errors of their ways, then we deceive ourselves. And experience has taught us that government can't solve this problem because politicians have become pawns of the elite.

Most people know what needs to be changed, even if they're unsure about how to get it done. Ultimately this means revolting, by all means necessary, against the perceived problem. Good luck this spring, kids!