A great friend of mine just introduced me to a wonderful website, Khan Academy.  As wikipedia puts it…

“The Khan Academy is a non-profit^[2] educational organization, created in 2006 by American^[3] educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT. With the stated mission of “providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere”, the website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,100 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, microeconomics and computer science.^[4]“

I love this website and I have to say, I’m pretty jealous.  If something like this was around when I was in school, it would have been so much better!  I just love it.

Check it out, doesn’t matter if it’s something you want to learn or something your kids are struggling with, the lessons are GREAT!!!

I totally admit that I am a Gleek – (a huge fan of the show Glee) – and an even bigger fan of the newest member, Darren Criss. So, of course, I had to do some research and what I found is that this young kid began his road to fame via the Internet.

I know, I know, it’s a story we’ve all heard before but his is just a little different – let me share.

He attended the University of Michigan and majored in theater. He is a huge fan of Harry Potter (you know, I still haven’t read those books!) anyway, he found several other members of the theater department were also fans so, as a fun project, they decided to create a musical about Harry Potter. They based the musical on the first book. And since the majority of the students were from all over the country they decided to film the play and put it on Youtube so their family and friends could see.

Well…….

It went completely viral! So much so that they created a sequel (based on the second book) and that was even a bigger hit on Youtube. They’ve now presented productions in Chicago and may go on tour.

From that success they created the production company Starkid – have created another musical called Starship and began working on a “threequel”.

Of course, Darren Criss played Harry Potter and he wrote much of the musical so his success on Glee now may interfere with these plans but – 10 years ago – this would have never happened. His road to success would have taken much longer and could have gone a completely different path.

I know what you’re thinking – I’m an attorney, I’m not a singer or actor. What can all this exposure on something like Youtube do for me? Let’s see if I can give you some thoughts on that…

1) According to the New York Times – Youtube is the 2nd most used search engine in the world. So, there’s no denying the fact that there are people on Youtube – so the issue now is how to use it.

2) Entertainment of course gets a large audience on Youtube but so do “how to” and “information” type of videos.

3) Of course, combining the two would be the best type of video. This is where creativity comes in. If you’re not a creative type of person – consider visiting your local art school – the creative students there would definitely be an asset to creating your video campaign.

4) What information do you have that your audience would want or need? Present this in a simple, concise video.

5) Don’t be afraid to share. If anyone thinks that they have information that is not available online by someone else – well, stop thinking like that!!!! If you don’t share your knowledge and expertise, believe me, someone else will. (and they will benefit by getting clients)

6) Don’t sell – educate! You’re not making a used car lot commercial where all you talk about is “come on down” and how great you are. Let the audience make that decision, don’t tell them how great you are, show them how great you are.

7) The Internet is all about sharing and giving. And isn’t that the lesson we all learn throughout life? Give and you will get.

Enjoy the video – watch the whole play – it’s quite good (and if you know me – you know I’m not a fan of the theater so it’s quite a compliment).

It doesn’t matter what religion you are (or aren’t) – this video is funny and so relevant for a nerd like me!  Thanks for sharing this with me John Miller!

So, this year I’m working with a great business coach.  He’s helping me to shape Eckweb for the future.  One of the topics we’ve been discussing lately is communicating with clients.  His advice is to “talk” to clients on a regular basis.  You know, pick up the phone and talk.  My response is “I wish I had the time.”

So, we’re working on that.

But, I have to say, this issue has always been a dilemna for me.  I mean, my job as an seo webmaster is to get my clients used to working with their websites and the Internet.  I’m often dragging them there, away from their phones and fax machines!!  I know all this technology is still new for some folks but frankly, they have to learn it.

If a business has a website and they don’t use it, what’s the point?  They’re missing out in a very big way and the truth is, in just a few years, they may very well be out of business because they’ve gotten so far behind in technology.

I stress to my clients that the best way to contact me is via email.  The reason for this are several…

1) Having clients across the country means clients are in several different time zones.  Instead of holding off until “tomorrow” to make the call to get an answer to the question, sending out an email can often mean that the answer will be there waiting for the client when they come in the next day.

2) Running a small business (and I’m sure many of you can relate) means that I wear many hats throughout the day.  Needless to say, I’m extremely busy.  And the type of analytical work that I do as an SEO webmaster means that I’m often buried in some complicated program or coding.  Stopping to answer the phone is not just a time issue, it’s a problem getting back into the program I was involved in. Imagine taking apart an engine, all the pieces are in front of you but now you have to put it back together.  There are steps you have to take and if you’re interrupted at step 3 and step 5 and then again on step 9, you’ll have to take some time to regroup your thoughts to get back into that project for that particular step.  SEO is just like that.

3) The time!!  Most clients keep me on the phone for at least 20-30 minutes.  I’m sure it’s because they don’t often  get me on the phone but there are days that I could literally go from phone call to phone call and that just is not the most productive way to manage my time.  What I often find is that the client just wants to “talk” to me.  They want to know that I’m there (I guess).

4) Cryptic emails.  What I find most often from the clients who call me the most is that their emails are cryptic.  You know, they type in one question with no details and I’m supposed to guess what they’re talking about.

Have you ever played the game Taboo?  You’re supposed to try to get your team members to say the word that is on your card but there are certain words you can’t use (which are listed on the card).  So,  if you’re trying to get your team to say the word “airplane” you can’t use the words “flying” or “pilot” or “travel” or “stewardess”.  So, instead you often end up describing it.  So, your speech to your team would be something like…”this is something that you take when you go far away and need to get there fast”.

Some people have a very hard time with this game.  Instead of describing the word they just use another word.  “sky”  “clouds”  “hawaii”

That’s how cryptic emails are.  Just a few words but no details, no substance.  So, I email them back asking some questions and I usually get something like, “just call me – it’s easier”.

Yes, it’s easier, but the truth is, this person owns a website.  And the communication through that website is email.  Is that website owner going to call every single person who emails him a question?  Or emails a comment with their order?  We would all love to be able to do that but businesses can’t survive that way.  We need to learn how to communicate effectively via email and chat and social media.  Otherwise, we’ll be left behind.

So, I completely understand what my business coach is trying to tell me.  I know it’s important for customer service to “talk” to clients.  I would love to have the time to chat with them.  But the truth is, I don’t get paid when I chat.  I have to do the work which I am getting paid for, that’s where my time needs to go.

And my clients need to work with me to embrace this new technology they are so desperately fighting.  The Internet is not going away, social media is not going away, in fact, it’s getting stronger as the mobile market gets stronger.  So, embrace it.

I suppose, in the end, we’ll come to a compromise.  But,I just wanted to share my thoughts with you about this subject.  If you have any comments, just let me know.

I am an SEO webmaster and I run my own online business so as you can probably guess, I’m on the computer about 12 hours every day (yep, every day!).  My husband, friends and neighbors will attest to that!

So, when I say I Hate Computes – you know that I’m coming from a place of experience!  But, I truly do love the Internet!  But, how can one live without the other?  I haven’t figured that out yet.

I mean, even if you use a mobile device to get to the Internet you’re still using a computer of sorts.  Anything that holds programs (in my humble opinion) is a computer.

Why do I hate computers?  Programs don’t match other programs, programs need multiple updates, ongoing maintenance, wires, wires, wires!  It’s a constant update, update, update process and frankly, I’m pretty sick of it.  I do hope that Google’s OS (which is supposed to be launched in 2010) will help to alleviate some of these problems.  Wouldn’t that be amazing?

What are your thoughts?

So, yesterday I got an email from a fellow SEO webmaster who sent me an article about Name Tags.  I was wondering why would he send me this article?  So, I emailed him back and asked him.

His response was that he remembered that I had a client who sold name tags and he thought I might be interested in what this website owner was doing for his own site.

Funny thing is, it was an article written by my copywriter FOR my client!  I thought that was kinda funny.  It’s so nice being discovered!

Just in case you want to read the article on Metal name tags, check it out!