Friday, February 27, 2015

David Young Scam on Web Developers

I was wondering when this scam was going to hit my inbox for the 3rd time. I think when I was 18 - I would've been very excited to engage with this person even assuming they are scammers.


Google Analytics Update

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February 2015 Product Update

________

This month in Analytics: start Remarketing with Instant Activation, learn about the new Query Word Count dimension, recover from mistakes with Trash Can, take action on your Diagnostics, have a fresh look at your measurement plan and more. 

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New Features

Start Remarketing with Google Analytics Instant Activation

To help make it easier for advertisers to reach their most qualified customers, we’ve enabled remarketing with a single toggle. Instead of manually updating all of your site tags, simply use Instant Activation and get started with remarketing in four easy steps.

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Query Word Count dimension for AdWords search queries

Many advertisers have told us that they like to segment AdWords search queries based on the number of words used in the query. To help, we created a new dimension in the AdWords Search Queries report: Query Word Count. You can now analyze query patterns easily, without needing to classify them manually. 

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Introducing Trash Can: Data Recovery in Google Analytics

We all make mistakes, but the damage might seem irrevocable when accidentally deleting crucial reporting information from Analytics. To help, we’re pleased to introduce a new feature to provide a safety net each time you delete a view, property or account from your Google Analytics account: the Trash Can. 

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Tips & Best Practices

Google Analytics Diagnostics: Actionable Data Quality

Analytics Diagnostics frequently scans for problems. It inspects your site tagging, account configuration, and reporting data for potential data-quality issues, looking for things like missing Analytics tags,bad filters and more. Analytics Advocate Daniel Waisberg explores why you should care and how to get started with Diagnostics at his Online Behavior blog. 

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4 Steps to Measuring What Matters Most

While most brands have a digital measurement plan in place, it’s never a bad idea to take a fresh look at how you measure to determine if your approach is as strong as it can be. Even the best plans need realignment and there’s never a bad time to accomplish this. Analytics Advocate Adam Singer shares a summary of the 4 steps that matter most in his latest column on ClickZ.

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Events: Best Practices for Hierarchies and Naming Conventions

If you are looking to understand the actions that a user takes on your website, one of the best ways to do this is with event tracking. Events can include such actions as link clicks, downloads, scrolling, etc. Analytics Advocate Krista Seiden explores some quick best practices for getting all your events labeled properly.

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Event Calendar

February 25, 2015

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UK: Cambridge University Data Science Society

Whether you have a background in computing or statistics or if you are just interested in applying data analyses to solve real world problems, you have found the right place explore and learn about Data Science.

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March 1-3, 2015

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San Diego: Analytics with Purpose: Insights, Inspiration & Action

Join the American Marketing Association this March in San Diego to connect with the industry's top analytical minds from Google, The Procter & Gamble Company, AOL, Inc., Whole Foods Market, Hostess Brands, Charles Schwab and more.

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March 3, 2015

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Dayton, OH: SummitUp

The sixth edition of SummitUp is a full day marketing communications, public relations, and digital information conference being presented by a team of Dayton organizations.

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Thanks for reading our monthly update. Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us through the feedback link below. Tell us what you want to see in future updates!

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Happy Analyzing, 
The Google Analytics Team


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Managing Stress with the Lynda.com Video Course

I will be adding this to my LinkedIn Certificates area - what a great integration!

A little stress can be motivational; a lot of stress can damage your health and your relationships. The good news is that with the right management techniques, you can reduce the amount of stress in your life. In this short course, author and retired MBA professor Dr. Todd Dewett shares his tips for managing stress, including identifying your triggers, managing responses, and making positive personal choices.

Todd Dewett is a popular speaker in the United States, who inspires leaders and builds stronger teams. He is an author, coach, consultant, and Harley Davidson nut. After beginning his career with Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young, Todd spent a decade as a professor of management, until performing and coaching became full-time pursuits. Each year he speaks to and works with thousands of professionals around the world for Fortune 500 clients, government agencies, major conferences, and nonprofit organizations. His most recent book is Show Your Ink: Stories about Leadership and Life. His unique rock-star take on leadership has resulted in quotes in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, CNN, Investors Business Daily, Entrepreneur, MSNBC, and hundreds of other outlets. Visit his home online at www.drdewett.com.

I love that he ends with a modified Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

How Will Online Marketing Change This Year?

Content marketing has promised to be the number one outreach device in the coming year. The content for your website will serve as the number one purveyor of web traffic in your online marketing campaigns. Here are some of the basic things you need to know about content marketing you may not already know.

Original Content
Although there are plenty of third-party tools that will allow you to assimilate and syndicate the content of others, this is a short-term strategy at best. Major search engines are equipped to ignore and punish websites that are not publishing their own content. You may be able to use syndication for short-term sale, but in the long run, create avenues for original content.
Get Protected
Once you’ve gained a reputation as a content creator on your site, others will invariably try to steal it for their own benefit. Make sure you have legal and digital protections for your website so the search engines will come to your website first in order to index it. You can be sure to receive the most link juice if you spend money on protecting yourself now rather than later.

Go to the Right Place
Just because you are writing content doesn’t mean the correct people are seeing it. You must test the distribution of your content using tools such as adCore, which will allow you to view your website as if you are on different platforms and in different geographical locations. Find places where you can view it from new perspectives and always market to your target audience for content and articles.

Keyword Smarts
Keyword generation and organization is an incredibly important part of content marketing. Keywords serve as a sort of red flag that allow major search engines to properly index your content and make it seen by more people. A dental SEO company, Progressive Dental Marketing, says to use one of the many keyword tools to find out what your audience is searching for online. Create content that uses these keywords in a natural sounding way, being sure not to overuse them. There are many free keyword percentage checking tools online that will keep your keyword usage in balance with the rest of your content.

Companies today are doing their best to be on the cutting edge of content marketing. They want their material and business name to be known. Find out ways to work towards the audience you want to engage with. Whether it’s new social media platforms, or better, more creative content. Once you know what you need to improve, the rest will come easy. This year promises many changes for online marketing and your content should be the first thing you revamp.

Friday, February 20, 2015

The Puzzle of Motivation by Dan Pink

My wife sent me this Ted Talk and it is fully compatible with my management preference.


Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

Video Link : http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation?language=en



Biography


With a trio of influential bestsellers, Dan Pink has changed the way companies view the modern workplace. In the pivotal A Whole New Mind, Pink identifies a sea change in the global workforce -- the shift of an information-based corporate culture to a conceptual base, where creativity and big-picture design dominates the landscape.

His latest book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, is an evolutionary transformation of the familiar career guide. Replacing linear text with a manga-inspired comic, Pink outlines six career laws vastly differing from the ones you've been taught. Members of the Johnny Bunko online forum participated in an online contest to create the seventh law -- "stay hungry."

http://www.ted.com/speakers/daniel_pink

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Working Remotely

So far it's been pretty easy to work remotely with a new baby. His sleep schedule has been convenient that the middle of the day I'm able to knock out any morning projects and in the evening he lets me tackle anything left over.

Working remotely cuts out all of the unnecessary interactions and distractions that tend to pop up during the day. I'm able to isolate time that is key for completing tasks and will new objectives might come on the radar, when someone has to write an email they tend to think over what necessary aspects need complete. This leaves an email to be more concise and controlled so that the true objective comes out.

I do enjoy making my workplace anywhere that I want. The ergonomic furniture tends to make me more productive. I had asked for MacBook so that I could have a nice portable workplace.  It has been an absolute dream to use during this highly mobile time! 

I'm sure eventually I'll get tired of not having the direct human interaction. That might be in a few years, so for now remotely working is still a dream!

Elevator Pitch

Working with Lynda.com on my Elevator Pitch!

My background is in web development and project management. Right now I am the Virtual Services Coordinator of the large Metro Library in Toledo, Ohio. I love coordinating between various departments, but eventually hope to move into executive roles.

Example: 
"My background is manufacturing, mostly high tech, "and right now, I'm the general manager "of a large facility for GenTech. "We're an electronic components "company headquartered in Hong Kong. "I love being in the shop environment, "seeing things being created, "but eventually hope to move into executive roles."

Monday, February 16, 2015

A Serious Time Investment in the Gospel

The Joy of the Gospel was not what I was expecting. I was gearing up for a high level overview of the Gospel and the Joy it can bring to your life. Being a modern day citizen of the world, time is the most precious gift. My wife and I regularly attend Church and attempt to get the most of every mass. Sometimes I am tired and zone out during the homily. It's my fault - my mind might wander to what's bothering me with family, friends, or work (rarely work). My hope for this book was a way to reconnect with the Gospel.

That was not the case at all.

This book is written like Doctrine. For those who don't know exactly what that means let me borrow Wikipedia for a moment.

Doctrine (from Latin: doctrina or possibly from Sanskrit: dukrn) is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or belief system. The Greek analogue is the etymology of catechism. Often doctrine specifically suggests a body of religious principles as it is promulgated by a church, but not necessarily; doctrine is also used to refer to a principle of law, in the common law traditions, established through a history of past decisions, such as the doctrine of self-defense, or the principle of fair use, or the more narrowly applicable first-sale doctrine. In some organizations, doctrine is simply defined as "that which is taught", in other words the basis for institutional teaching of its personnel internal ways of doing business.

To bring it down to a simple summary of points where I felt the book really lost me:
  • The book identifies paragraphs in roman numerals which reminds you of a text book
  • A very high level of vocabulary is used
  • Scripture is reference without much context
  • There is no story, plot, or engaging narrative - it is purely informational with very little structure. I had hoped for at least a dialogue based book where I was learning more about Pope Francis.
Bottom Line: I would only buy this book if you really wanted to dive into the Catholic Theology.

Check out Blogging for Books!

Saturday, February 14, 2015

SEO Basics: How Online Marketing is Changing

The online marketing landscape has evolved immensely throughout the past few years. The age of stuffing websites with keywords and depending solely on Facebook for social media traffic is over. Businesses must adapt to these online marketing changes to achieve better search engine rankings and more online traffic. Be sure your company is taking part in these changes and that you know what to look for in your SEO program.

Content
In the past, Google and other search engines placed a premium value on keywords for search engine rankings. Today, Google now values content as a major determination for search engine rankings. Although the keywords in the content are important, the most valuable aspect is the quality of the content. Examples of online written content include blogs, sponsored articles, and press releases. A recent trend in search engine optimization is the emergence of visually based content like photos and videos. Essentially, search engines place a higher value on content that is engaging and warrants a discussion.

Social Media
For many businesses, social media networks are a great source of public relations. In addition, social media networks provide traffic to websites and helps with search engine optimization by providing social value to a business. While the standard social media networks include Facebook and Twitter, this may not be the case for every business. For example, a company that is based on business-to-business transactions might value LinkedIn as their best social media network instead. 

Link Building
External links on other websites is still a major part of online marketing. And while this can easily be achieved by submitting a website link to online directories and forums, this may not be the top way to achieve the best search engine optimization. Many companies are reaching their target audiences online by having their link, their content, or an advertisement, on a niche website. For example, CEO Bart Knellinger says in online Progressive dental marketing, this includes sharing your link on a dental related website.

Mobile-Friendly
The popularity of mobile usage continues to grow. It is therefore a standard in online marketing to have a website that is mobile-friendly. Some business might interpret this as a need to create a mobile application. However, this usually means creating a website that is responsive and will perfectly fit the size of the screen of any electronic device. Google values websites that are mobile-friendly. The more electronic devices that can comfortably access a website, the more traffic possibilities for your company website. 

Internet marketing is reaching an age where mobile is going to be everything. As online marketing continues to evolve, businesses must stay on top of the changes.

Friday, February 13, 2015

The Massive Growing Need for Micro Colleges

The Massive Growing Need for Micro Colleges – Every new technology creates a need for more training. Very often it ends up being niche learning that takes place in-house with existing employees. But we’re also seeing a growing refinement of industries driving the need for huge new talent pools that currently don’t exist.

Whether its virtual reality, specialized 3D scanning, 3D printing, mobile apps, Internet of Things, flying drones, or reputation management, the need for tech-savvy fast-to-adapt talent pools is growing, and growing quickly.

This is also an area where traditional colleges have missed the boat. Their attempt to put everything into a 2-year or 4-year framework has left the largest untapped opportunity ever for short-term full-immersion courses that help workers reboot their career.

The rapid growth in coding schools such as our own DaVinci Coders is only a tiny slice of a much larger Micro College pie that will get created over the coming years.

Follow Thomas Frey - your mind will open with new ideas through every article - http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2015/01/12-emerging-trends-that-everyone-missed-at-ces/

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Books for Bloggers - Joy of the Gospel by Pope Francis

I just received my book in the mail - Joy of the Gospel by Pope France.

Normally - I'm writing about technical aspects of my job or new technology, but this time I'm taking a step back because I am testing out my skills in reviewing a book.

I will be reviewing "The Joy of the Gospel" by Pope Francis in the next few weeks!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Google's Sitelinks Search Box: What You Need to Know



Posted on: Tuesday 03 February 2015 — 00:51
Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
Several months ago, Google announced a new sitelinks search box. Almost immediately, the sitelinks search box markup became one of the fastest growing Schema implementations on the web.
According to the folks at SimilarTech (part of the SimilarWeb family) the SearchAction markup now dominates all other Schema types on the top 1 million sites that they monitor.
Moving beyond the top million sites to the entire Internet, the SearchAction Schema is the 12th most popular Schema out of the 49 types that SimilarTech measures.
Despite such strong adoption, until now we have had very little evidence to understand the effects of the sitelinks search box. After Google dropped support for authorship photos in search results, many webmasters are weary of investing in each new initiative Google announces.

Sitelinks search box basics

The box appears in Google's search results for certain branded and navigation queries such as:
  • adobe
  • apple website
  • nytimes dot com
The box all allows users to refine searches to within a particular site, as in this example below when a user searches for "Moz" and refines their search to "keyword research".

Monday, February 2, 2015

The Host for Lechlak.com

Things like this make me thankful for my hosting provider - Veerotech based in Raleigh, NC.

Check out the regular upgrade of equipment that they consistently provide to their customers:

We’ll be starting off 2015 with some much needed hardware upgrades in our Raleigh, NC location. Over the next few months, we’ll be upgrading our existing Supermicro 1U servers to much larger 3U Supermicro servers on all virtualization nodes.

Dual hexa-core nodes coming to Raleigh soon.
http://www.veerotech.net/blog/upgraded-hardware-dual-hexa-core-nodes-coming-to-raleigh-soon/