An opportunity to serve

People joke about fearless leaders. But in our case, it’s true. Anyone acquainted with our CEO and founder, David McInnis, knows he makes things happen. It’s awesome to be associated with someone who finds a way to help when it may not be convenient, safe, or cost-effective to do so.

So I guess we shouldn’t have been that surprised (although we were) when he announced he would be out of the office for a while and when asked where the answer was, “Haiti.”

Events unfolding in Haiti are controversial. It’s a corrupt, lawless country made worse by a most tragic natural disaster. Recent days have raised questions about what can be done, who can help, how that assistance can be doled out to those who truly need it, and the dangers inherent in that process.

McInnis is in a unique position to help because he owns a powerful airplane that can land and take off on a short runway while carrying cargo. When he got a call asking for help shuttling supplies from Florida into a rural area of Haiti, he promptly said he would.

Some of us thought he was certifiable. Really? Haiti? What about fuel, accommodations, sanitation, or the occasional flying bullet. But David stopped us all with one quiet answer, “It’s an opportunity to serve.”

And with that he was out the door. Since it’s a cross-country flight just to get to the jump-off point in Florida, they stopped in Seattle to pick up a full load of rescuers also anxious to get there to help.

To David and his faithful pilot, we send loads of good thoughts and admiration.

We look forward to hearing their stories and seeing pictures when they return. Meanwhile, David is sending the occasional dispatch via Twitter at http://twitter.com/giantcranberry.

KnowEm empowers PeoplePond users to proactively protect their brands

As a PeoplePond profile user, you recognize the value and opportunity of building and promoting an online identity around your personal brand. You are probably also interested in protecting your brand and minimizing opportunities for others to use it elsewhere, either by accident or with malice. For example, if you are known everywhere as John W. Smith and have used the username johnwsmith for all your accounts to be consistent it would probably concern you if someone else was setting up accounts using the same name/brand on services you aren’t using. This poses a real opportunity to confuse your followers and for your brand to be associated with undesirable content.

A very useful service, KnowEm, is designed to empower you to proactively identify over 300 online services where either your brand is being used or not. If it is being used, you can quickly identify if you’re in control of it or not and if it isn’t being used, you can quickly establish an account thus preventing future confusion or hijacking of your brand.

We recommend KnowEm to protect your brand. Check them out today. They’re good people.

More information can be found on this press release.

WARNING: Long-Term Use of Recordable DVDs is Dangerous

No one is going to lose a finger or toe but you could lose something arguably much worse by using recordable DVDs for more than just a transitory medium.

If you believe the information found on DVD packaging, you shouldn’t have any concerns about placing your wedding video, important business documents, family archive photos, etc. on DVDs that use gold as their reflective layer or are a little more expensive and sold under the label, “archive DVD” (a bit of an oxymoron really… keep reading). You wouldn’t have any concerns about using such DVDs for long-term storage since their packages are emblazoned with claims of ten, twenty, fifty and even one-hundred -year life expectancy. You’d sleep well knowing your fondest, most important memories and information are securely preserved.

So why are people who make a living from storing crucial, one-of-a-kind digital data not following your lead? What’s keeping librarians, archivists, photographers and genealogists from running down the same path for their long-term storage needs? The best answer may be found in a presentation prepared by the Memory of the World Programme’s Sub-Committee on Technology. This provides detailed guidance on assessing the risks associated with storing archival data on recordable CDs and DVDs.

Read more »

The totally awesome PeoplePond online identity badge is ready for your blog

Bloggers rejoice! Now you can represent your online identity in style using the PeoplePond badge via the WordPress PeoplePond Identity Widget or the PeoplePond ADAM API. This badge is another example of PeoplePond’s continuing commitment to find more ways to extend the reach and value of your PeoplePond profile.

No longer are you stuck with a bunch of different badges from a variety of services in a variety of colors and sizes into your sidebar. Instead you get a professionally designed badge that includes:

• Your name and title just as you have it on your PeoplePond profile
• Your photo from your profile
• Your Identity Verification status
• Chicklets (little icons) linking to your presence at all the services where your blog visitors can connect with and discover more about you.

Some of you will notice this badge follows the same great look used in the PeoplePond Facebook profile badge.

Both the ADAM API implementation and the WordPress widget provide complete SEO benefits by providing clean links from the badge back to your profile and also from the chicklets, helping boost your online personal brand’s SEO and visibility up even more.

To install the WordPress PeoplePond Online Identity Widget, simply search for the “PeoplePond Online Identity Widget” from the Plugins – Add New page and click Install when the plugin has been located.

To install the ADAM API badge on a non-wordpress site, you can call the API directly in one of two ways:

http://adam.peoplepond.com/peeps.php?displayName=XXXXXX&widget=yes

http://adam.peoplepond.com/peeps.php?displayName=XXXXXX&mini=yes

And of course, if you still haven’t created your PeoplePond and CompanyPond profiles, what’s stopping you? Get started now. 

Operation SEO Santa 2009 Launched

You are invited to join PeoplePond as we push Santa Claus to the top of the SERPs in 25 days. This is a program based on collaborative SEO and social media sharing for the purpose of helping Santa Claus climb the SERPs to benefit various charities. This is a fun opportunity to flex your SEO muscles while helping worthwhile charities this holiday season.

Your friends at PeoplePond have created a personal SEO profile for Santa Claus including links to a few of his favorite charities. What would you do to help boost its rank in search results? Do you have SEO copy recommendations? Have you created some backlinks to the profile? Have you shared the profile with others on social media sites? It’s all good.

And as your reward for helping, you will receive a PeoplePond profile with a free full-service SEO and Identity Verification package subscription for one year (a $99 value) and your profile will be featured in the list of contributors. Check out the complete information and instructions for SEO Santa 2009.

Please blog, tweet, broadcast and share this information with your SEO and social media expert friends and anyone else who can help with this project. Let’s get Santa and some great charities the visibility they deserve at the top of the search results before Christmas Day.

Read the SEO Santa 2009 press release.