Match Made in Cyber
The tri-state
region went from chilly-spring to midsummer-like weather all in the month of
May. Soon summer love madness will be in
full effect before June is out. Do you
have your options to meet your spouse-to-be or a summer amour? Many people choose cyberspace to connect with
those special “someones”.
The pioneer of
web romance connections is Match.com.
Going live in 1995, Match.com still offers online and face-to-face local
events. Quantcast.com, the digital
advertising company, estimates 120.5 million Americans visit the site per
month. 77% identify as Caucasian; 9% as
African American; 9% as Hispanic; and 5% as Asian or Other. If a subscriber has challenges in waxing
dynamic statements to catch the imagination of prospects, Match.com has Profile
Pro® that assigns writers to be the Cyrano de Bergerac for them.
Chemistry.com is
Match’s sophisticated sister site.
Here subscribers take personality tests, write profile essays; and
receive Chemistry Coaching to improve social skills. Dr. Helen Fisher is the in-house
psychologist. While Quantcast.com
estimates “84.6 thousand Americans visit this site monthly”, Chemistry.com boasts
having “over 13 million people worldwide who completed the personality test.”
Apparently having
a psychologist on staff adds to creditability.
e-Harmony.com is founded by Dr. Neil Warren who established “the 29
Dimensions of Capability”.
PerfectMatch.com relies on Dr. Pepper Schwartz and her Duet® Total
Compatibility. Zoosk, the tidal wave that swept the online dating and social
networking scene in 2006, doesn’t trumpet a Ph.D. but uses “Behavioral
Matchmaking”. Why is Zoosk the tidal wave
? “Over 40 million people globally log
onto to it and it has 12.5 million Facebook Likes.
Zoosk is
“available in 25 languages and subscribers in over 70 countries”. As opposed to finding long-term, committed
relationships, Zoosk positions itself as “a fun and social online dating
experience”. Zoosk offers a Facebook
dating app, a Mobile dating app, a singles chat, and video messaging. These offerings can keep things flirty and
non-tactile.
Dr. Julie
Spooner, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, practicing in Brooklyn, recognizes the
value of such sites. “As a clinician I
have recommended it to people who have trouble meeting people. I don’t suggest it to everyone. If I see that the person can’t meet others,
[I present it as a means] to exponentially increase the number of people to
meet”.
If the income
levels and educational attainment of subscribers to four of the reviewed sites
are factual, then roughly 57% of subscribers have completed undergraduate
studies and did some graduate studies.
Most are prosperous with six-figure incomes. Is this truth or ‘rubbery’ truth?
Dr. Spooner
“encourages moving to the telephone and then moving to the face-to-face
meeting. You shouldn’t interact
exclusively online. The voice and facial
expressions are not there for intimate communication”. Zoosk tries to keep things transparent by
virtue of its parent Facebook. One need
only visit FB profiles. Dr. Lisa
Orbé-Austin, Ph.D., a partner in Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting,
LLP, also sees the value in online dating and has clients who share the good
and bad aspects of it. The bad being
where “some women are surprised by men that were simply interested in a
physical relationship. However, they
later realized that it’s a function of the particular site to which they were
subscribed”.
Some people
reject the online scene. Take Hapi
Kamenthu, Merr (director) of The Earth Center of Maanu, in New York. She believes it would be “disastrous” if
online dating were to eclipse face-to-face as the first choice in the initial
meeting between people. “It would be
disastrous because the modern educational system doesn’t teach people about themselves
and their roles in life. Traditionally,
[people] will do extensive family background checks”. Dr. Orbé-Austin doesn’t see it eclipsing
face-to-face but, “thinks that online dating will be one of the primary ways
that people meet. This is not a
conversation that I was having with my clients 10 years ago, but now it’s a
very normal part of the dating discussion.”
Labels: African Americans, business, Hispanics, marriage, online dating, social media, social networking
The Eyes on Cyber Life
By now, web and
mobile users know there’s no escaping advertising. With advertising comes consumer/market
research to ensure the right message gets to the desired customer. There is a sea of online market researchers
studying the blogs, tweets, clicks, and texts of online users.
Some agencies are
familiar faces to media consumers, while others, consumers will be surprised
that they are in the game. Take
Neilson.com--the agency known for making an average household a “Neilsen
Family” by installing a monitoring box to the television—is still keeping a
pulse on consumer behavior—now in cyber space.
Neilsen boasts
having “approximately 10 million consumers in 100 countries participating in
their research”. Neilsen.com website
claims the organization “studies the use of 181 million blogs, social networks,
and other media”. That other media
includes brick and mortar retail, TV, mobile, and web. The organization’s ace card is NeuroFocus™. It is a worn device that “measures brainwave
activity and eye tracking”, so their clients know what wording, colors, and
designs stimulate particular brain regions and result in making purchases.
Experian, one of
the three largest credit reporting bureaus, leveraged its global store of
consumer and business information to offer marketing services or “consumer
insights” to their clients. These
insights are accessed through Hitwise™ Hitwise Mobile™, Hitwise Audience Viewsm,
Simmons LOCAL sm and Simmons National Consumer Studiessm.. All three Hitwise branded services are fueled
on “the daily activity of 10 million consumers located in over 50 countries
across six continents on one million websites.”
Talk about statistical excess.
United Sample or
uSamp was an online research firm from its inception. The founders Gregg Lavin and Matt Dusig tag
uSamp “The Answer Network” specializing in online market research panels. The firm has 12 million survey respondents
residing in such countries as Egypt, Kenya, Trinidad, Jamaica, Mexico, and of
course, the United States. The panelists
give online and mobile feedback.
Since the global
panel is their gold, recruiting has high standards. The company recruits through “social media,
their global partners, and website publishers”.
uSamp prides itself in locating “the hard-to-find respondent” and
achieving “panel purity”. What is panel
purity? That is ensuring there are no
duplications in email addresses and mobile numbers nor people maintaining
multiple identities. Imagine! The things
people do to earn pre-loaded debit cards, sales discounts, and merchandise
samples.
Labels: advertising, marketing, media monitoring, social media, social networking
Capital Formation Options for Businesses, Traditional and Social Media
Whether it is working
capital the enterprise requires or funding for capital expansion, emerging and
established businesses must think creatively about capital formation. Prior to 2008, it was the business start-up
that sang the blues about being shut out from commercial bank loans. Now all
small businesses (businesses having 100 or fewer employees) feel the pinch.
There are other
avenues for capital formation to consider.
For emerging businesses, the most important thing is not to go out on a
limb without ,at the very least, holding a part-time job. Money fuels the business, so have a source. Before
reviewing some options, it is time that one myth gets its proper funerary rites—replete
with a mausoleum. That myth is foundations
fund business start up and expansion. No
they don’t. In fact, The Foundation
Center has a statement on its website to the effect, “…foundations don’t fund
business start up or expansion. Rather, there is giving to individuals for
research, artistic projects, or small community projects.” An entrepreneur can
still do due diligence to uncover where are the millions of dollars for
women/entrepreneurs at The Foundation Center near you.
There are places
that give grants to businesses; however, the awards tend to be small.
For example, visit www.womensnet.net to apply
for The Amber Grant (up to $1,500) and www.peachic.com to apply for a grant ($500
- $1,000).
Rather than small dollars,
stick with the tried and true models for funding start ups which include having
a job; applying for a revolving loan fund; securing lines of credit; loan or
bond guarantees; participating in a Su-Su, and having owner’s equity.
With a viable business plan, a business can
present itself to angel investors (silent investors) and venture capitalists (give
business directives) that will put up money for viable business models.
For more information about angel investors
and venture capitalist in New York, visit The Funding Post website at
http://www.fundingpost.com/angelgroup/newyork-angel-investors.asp
or Tri State Ventures at
http://www.tristateventures.com/about-nyc-angel-investors.html.
If a small loan
will serve your business interest, then contact ACCION USA or Women’s Venture
Fund. Both offer microloans with low
interest rates to fledgling businesses.
Getting certified
with NYC Small Business Services, NYS Empire State Development Corp, the Port
Authority of NY & NJ, and other governmental small business agencies as a
Minority-/Woman-Owned Enterprise brings many services to a business. New York City Small Business Services’
Compete to Win initiative provides several great programs to advance a
business, one being procurement assistance.
There is the annual procurement fair.
To make the best impression, bring the company’s capability
statement. While you’re chatting with an
agency ACCO, give her the capability statement rather than a business card.
There are
business plan competitions with cash awards in the thousands. Using Brooklyn as an example, the Brooklyn
Business Library has the annual PowerUp! Competition that awards $15,000 and the
Local Development Corporation of East New York’s Women’s Business Center
sponsors an annual business plan competition.
The funding mechanism
that has taken businesses like a storm is crowdfunding.
Crowd funding is the online funding platform
that permits many people to make small donations or awards to a project. This
form of capital formation has become a global phenomenon.
Some social media experts point to the 1997
online funding of British rock band Marillion’s US tour by their fans as the
starting point for crowdfunding.
Popular
crowdfunding sites in the US include Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com, Rockthepost.com,
and Rockethub.com. These sites fund art and media projects.
The first few crowdfunding sites focused on
the creative scene but sites like Rockthepost.com fund small businesses, entrepreneurs,
and nonprofits.
People choose to donate
to a cause, nonprofit or business because they connect to the pitch or they
want the reward attached to making the pledge.
In fact, there are three ways projects get funded through crowdfunding:
pledging donations, lending, and investing. A most recent entry into this arena
is MedStartr.com.
Launched July 24,
2012,
MedStartr serves the capital
needs of biotechnology and all healthcare companies.
Use
LinkedIn and
Facebook to fund the enterprise.
The process for LinkedIn is to establish a
page for the business and then, add a campaign. With Facebook a page is created
and shared with other people. Request other people to “Like” and “Share” the
page, with the goal of getting at least 30 “Likes” to access other tips from
Facebook.
Engage people to “Like” the
page by offering discounts, a free download, or a coupon for a free item.
An enterprise can also create a Facebook Ad
that's seen on other Facebook pages. This is much cheaper than other forms of
advertising.
LinkedIn has Direct Ads
campaigns that you can use to raise funds for your business.
Why use Facebook or LinkedIn to garner
funding, sales and build relationships?
There are 150 million LinkedIn users in over 200 countries and Facebook
has 845 million monthly active users.
Finally, Cash
Mobs are people agreeing to converge on a particular store for one day to shop.
The arrangements are done through social media. The members of the “Mob” agree
to a dollar amount each will spend at the place. Cash Mobs arose to support the
small locally-owned retailers feeling the crunch of the big-box stores.
To learn more about it, visit
http://www.cashmob.com/.
Labels: capital formation, crowd funding, social media, venture capital
Struggle Cultivates Quality
It occurred to me that in this time of misogyny, racism, religious dogma, and exploitation of children, there still exists strong forces to mobilize, unite, and just be present. These strong forces seek to reinstate balance.
1) Women do have the mental, moral, and physical ability to operate businesses and head offices. First Shirley Chisolm ran for the US Presidency in the 70s and in 2008, Hillary Rodham-Clinton and Barack H. Obama vied for the same seat. Now she is the US Secretary of State and of course, Barack Obama lives in the White House. Surely, Sojouner Truth, a 19th century black woman who emancipated herself, would see the light streaming through today's slats of apparent domination.
2) The Internet allows people across the globe to communicate with one another. People upload self-produced video to present their point of view.
3) Pacifica Broadcasting System still exists in the US and is accessed through the Internet. We struggle to maintain the life-affirming and honest use of the media.
4) The traditional ways of revering the ancestors and honoring the land are practiced around the globe in the face of pressures to adhere to the major religions. In fact, regardless of religion or philosophy more people work for a cleaner environment.
5) Though dark, highly-melaninated people are villainized, our talents rise to the top. We don't accept the subordination. In a crowd seeking to fit in, there are a few questioning and striving people.
6) PBS News Hour proves people will watch and listen to older news announcers and news analysts. Wrinkles add character.
7) Websites such as SignOn.org, Change.org, One.org, and MoveOn.org are the means to get average people politically active by explaining the issue and then giving the names and telephone numbers of politicians, prepared petitions and letters for signing and the means to give donations that are as little as $3.00.
These 2,012 years have been a challenge. People have been killed in wars; women have been slaughtered; children have been exploited; however the struggle to balance the situation continues. The human spirit remains alive. The struggle continues because quality and character are honed from adversity. Imagine 2,012 years and still we rise. Keep resisting.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham-Clinton, human spirit, Shirley Chisolm, social media, social movement
Publicly-Funded Can Stand Some E-Government
For at least three years, New York City's publicly funded child care providers have been on pins and needles about their existence. They're accused of not collecting parent fees, being under-enrolled and/or not hiring certified teachers quickly. Let's face it, if you were certified by the NYS Education Department, would you prefer being compensated the 40 odd thousand dollars running a public school classroom or $20 - $30,000 a nonprofit childcare center can afford? If you loved the work environment and the great one-on-one with parents, you'd do what many existing childcare center employees do: stay there and enroll in college. It takes four years to get a baccalaureate and two more for a graduate degree. True, recruiting retired teachers is another solution.
If it's true centers aren't collecting the parent fee, enforce the reality that the uncollected parent fee is their lost operating budget. If a center's budget is, for example, $100,000 and $25,000 is in parent fees, then to cover annual costs that money needs to be collected.
What's disturbing in this electronic age is under-enrollment. Enrollment is based on families being certified eligible for public childcare and the public being aware that publicly-funded childcare--home-based and center-based--is available throughout NYC. Certification involves different forms being completed by parents or guardians accompanied by certain documents. The material is sent to the Resource Areas for processing. Childcare providers and families say that the Resource Areas take several weeks--sometimes months--to recertify families. In the meantime, families' previous certification expires; then, they can't afford the market fee and the center can't afford to serve the family without payment. Enrollment drops because time lapsed in families' recertification.
Administrtion for Children's Services (ACS) instituted an online 'recert' process that permits centers to do the work online and transmit the application electronically. The hitch is application review is still performed by the Resource Area staff; therefore, weeks pass before a decision is made.
Maybe ACS needs to sidle up to DoITT to devise the means to connect recertification and new applications with various online, backdoor databases. This means as a family or childcare provider inputs the data into the system, it's being compared with Department of Labor, Social Security Administration and/or Human Resource Administration data on the same family. In nanoseconds an 'approve,' 'disapprove,' or 'more information needed' message would appear. Isn't this what the Department of Labor does to process unemployment benefit applications? Why should New York's children and families not get the same benefit of accurate, electronic processing?
The other factor in under-enrollment, public awareness, can be resolved through public service announcements through traditional and social media. Why doesn't New York City have PSAs on satellite radio, Internet radio, WNYE, WNYC, the daily papers and Web sites catering to moms? Transit advertising during the summer would work wonders.
Hmmm, Let me contact ACS and DoITT for their thoughts.
Labels: childcare, media, New York City, social media, technology
Getting Too Social on Social Media
This column has extolled the democratization of news, opinion and commerce through social media; i.e., everyone has a chance to sell their product and give a piece of their mind.
One,
Save Darfur,
Just 8 Bucks and
Current TV have been featured because of their taking-the-message-to-the-street approach. They take the message to the streets and ask the people to construct and launch the plan.
Current TV is the place to upload your news program, drama or music video, as is
YouTube.
MySpace is another social media. Many poets, musicians and singers use it to develop a fan base. Even dancers and health and fitness professionals are using it to showcase their practice. People get very creative with the photo galleries, music videos and wallpaper that dress their space. The issue there’s a lot of flirting happening that can lead to trouble.
MySpace is helps people find people. The search tool has a variety of demographic criteria to choose from—two being one’s marital status and sexual orientation-- and a user indicates whether she’s looking for friends, romance, networking or business opportunities. Some
MySpace pages are actually recruiting halls for prostitutes. They may explain that they seek dancers, models or extras for music videos. The true purpose is securing new faces, new bodies. Similar to flyers, newspaper and magazine ads, people have to be careful about what they respond to. This columnist has a
MySpace page and occasionally gets requests to be “Friends” with men who seek romance or friendship. My profile explains I seek to network.
The online world is very interesting because it offers boundless possibilities for immense good in the world. Petitions are sent around the world to stem hunger, poverty, disease and torture. Small donations from thousands of people have covered the cost of full-page ads in the world’s major newspapers. Using the words of a sergeant in Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there.”
Labels: DYI, MySpace, prostitution, social media, Web 2.0
Interacting with Your Peeps
It started with being "online, real time." Being on the Internet assured the latest information for you and from you. This computer science adjunct at Pace University chanted "online, real time" during the term of his course. This was in the early 1980's. Though I learned COBOL, I never quite got the meaning of it. Maybe I was somewhat of
a deer blinded by the headlights of a car. The good thing is I did jump over to the other side of the highway before the car hit me.
In 2007, it's "interactivity." I got it as soon as I heard the phrase. Making a website engaging enough that people responded to it. It was more than sending an email or completing a poll, though these are first steps. Interactivity can include changing the look of a website--just for you; revealing only the information that interests you; selecting the shape of the cursor; or choosing whether the website is a static experience or dynamic one using Flash.
George Clinton of Parliament Funkadelic fame gave you that choice: static or dynamic.
Level Wing Media, an interactive agency, displays its interactive capabilities as soon as you enter the home page. You choose the pages that come up on the screen. The choices cover mission, services, case studies, executive profiles and the press room. Instead of many web pages, Level Wing uses PDFs. That's sleek, minimal and fun. It's on the line of the "all about you" mentality.
For many, letting go over the brochure website is a hard thing. Time was spent getting the right photographs, color background, and text to explain who are and what you do and your added value and all the rest. I understand because my website is still brochure style. This interactivity bodes well for social cause agents. There's the reality of an
eNonprofit. What does that look like? Similar to a bank's website, an eNonprofit has services to offer and they can be offered 24/7.
The eNonprofit offers downloadable city agency forms, official instructions and insider suggestions for application completion. Community calendar of events are regularly updated. FAQs responding to the departments of the organization allow people to get answers anytime of the day. This means a housing group's FAQ provides Q & A for responding to a 72-hour notice of eviction. A merchant association's FAQ explains web marketing or discounting merchandise.
If getting people out to a meeting is a challenge, then try teleconferences.
Queen Afua's Heal Thyself Center has weekly City of Wellness conference calls and monthly Global Village Sacred Woman calls. There are people all over the country are "bridging onto" the calls.
The key issue is seeing that you need to change how you communicate and, then, being willing to do a couple of changes. Sometimes the headlights keep us blind, so blink.
Labels: interactive, nonprofit, social media, teleconferencing, web
2007 NYBA Annual Meeting Pinged
New York Biotechnology Association held its 2007 Annual Meeting, April 10, 2007 at the New York Marriott Marquis. Stodgy and staid is was NOT. It was a gathering of New York state's vital and pumped researchers, physicians, investors, nonprofits, lawyers and businesses dedicated to quality-of-life and life extension. The Executive Director Nathan Tinker put on a great show designed to stimulate thought, networking and best practices. His boss, the board chairman Robert Van Nostrand had high praises for Tinker. Van Nostrand described Tinker as the person who championed nanotechnology as a viable advancement in computer hardware. Tinker explained that the annual meeting takes one year of planning and coordination to make it as useful as it was.
Attendees had the choice of delving into panel discussions about corporate governance, funding, patent law, venture capital, medical breakthroughs and research park strategy. The
How to Get Your Message Out to the "New" Media was loaded with apply-now strategies for publicizing biotechnology and your particular company; connecting with other professionals; demonstrating your product or method using streaming media or just venting frustrations surrounding intellectual property. Tom Miale, Global Accounts Manager, Streaming Media for MultiVu was panel chairman. He explained that blogs, podcasts, wireless communication, and My Space were examples of New Media and gave statistics about how people are getting their news and information from blogs and on demand video, the decline in broadcast TV sales and the rise in web video market sales.
Miale along with Be Seen. Be Heard President Doris Gilman, PR Newswire Association's David Weiner and MultiVU's George DeTorres gave visual examples and easy-to-follow steps to set up blogs, use RSS feeders and how to measures audience. Between the four of them, the audience became aware of "Delicious," a social bookmarking site; "Technorati," a blog search engine; "Blog Pulse," a blog metrics service; "Second Life," online alternative worlds and "Digg," sort of a populaity contest for blogs.
It appeared that this very mature audience was following the ins and outs of social media. One attendee queried how to get the highest tiered executives on board with social media. David Weiner offered to do a presentation at his or any firm that required an outsider's persuasion. I enjoyed the panel to the extent that I implemented many ideas on return to the office.
As for Tom Miale: He's knowledgeable. He loves his job. He
must work on chairing or moderating a discussion. He frequently imposed himself on the panelists' presentations to the point that George DeTorres couldn't present a prototype biotech site. It was meant to be the culmination of everything previously stated. It sems George is good-natured. It will be used another time.
Labels: biotechnology, ego, events, productivity, social media
