therealmac.net

Thinking about long-term career aspirations right now.  I’m currently between jobs an looking diligently at positions that would cater to both my educational background and career interests.

2001-2008 I went to college without taking a break, initially working two part-time jobs, then full-time and going to night classes, juggling both the needs of my professional life and academia. Over the years, I’ve learned that an Executive MBA is not the end, but the beginning.

There are inherent obstacles in any type of effort whether it be switching careers, completing a degree, marketing a new business.  Dealing with the challenges help define who we become over the long term.  I use the power of rejection to refuel my resolve to become better at what I do.

I am only two courses away from a M.S. in Management.  As good as it sounds to have another degree under my belt, I had to take a serious look at the costs vs the rewards.  In this economy, experience often trumps academic credentials and the answer was simple to me.

I majored in Business because I had a natural interest in companies that were doing good things in the world, wanted to develop a set of skills applicable to multiple industries and achieve as much as I can from a personal standpoint.

Recently Project Management is an area that has sparked my interest.  My inspiration did not stem from the TV show The Apprentice (though I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a high entertainment value from that show), but more so how I’m wired from a physiological standpoint.

Some reasons why I’d be a good PM:
-I believe the ability to pool together resources quickly to achieve a specific goal is profound and applicable to all types of companies.
-I can be very analytical in decision making, looking at a problem from varying perspectives and assessing the pros and cons.
-I’m also constantly thinking about what is next in terms of how resources can be utilized.
-Background in Customer Relations.  Experience dealing with people, being professional and working with tight deadlines.
-Passionate about technology.  You need someone to demonstrate the deliverables to the client in a way they can understand and maximizes the impact.  I believe I could have a major positive impact in that area.
-Vision.  Look at the big picture and putting the pieces together for what I and my team can accomplish.

The ideal track this time in my career would be the:
Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) 

“PMI’s Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)^® is a valuable entry-level certification for project practitioners. Designed for those with little or no project experience, the CAPM^® demonstrates your understanding of the fundamental knowledge, terminology and processes of effective project management.”

Professionally my interest is in a Project Coordinator function where I can gain experience in project management and develop my abilities in areas such as budgeting, creating schedules, reports and communicating back and forth with all parties involved to ensure the end result meets expectations.  I would like to take the exam before the 4th anniversary of completing Grad school, January 2012 but only if my budget dictates it.

Short term this week I plan to complete:
1.  A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge by the Project Management Institute
2. The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, which I’m halfway through.
3.  A New Earth – Eckart Tolle

Next week I would like to tackle:

The Portable MBA in Finance and Accounting , which I have owned for years but has sat on my shelf waiting to be assimilated.  Something about a 384 page book that can be a bit intimidating.

I’ve long held a belief that 80% of the information people digest falls under the category of noise, or not particularly useful to improving their lives.  A lot of social media and television falls under that category.  The rest is more structured, but often doesn’t get processed at all by those who need it the most.  Stay tuned…

I’m adding Google Analytics to my websites.  Google Analytics:

• Allows site owners to track visitors from referrers such as search engines, pay-per-click networks, e-mail marketing and links within documents.
• Allows you to see which pages / links are clicked the most.
• Is very easy to install.  Several years ago I created a GMail account.  All I had to do is create a new website profile for this domain (http://therealmac.net) and tell the Google Analytics plug-in for WordPress to sync with that profile and instant monitoring.  Typically a piece of JavaScript is inserted into the HTML pages for a website.  For example :

  <script type="text/javascript">
  
    var _gaq = _gaq || [];
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-10930373-3']);
    _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
  
    (function() {
      var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
      ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
      var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
    })();
  
  </script>

• It’s free.  I didn’t pay a dollar to use the software and it’s extremely reliable.
• Integration with Google AdWords and AdSense.

It can be blocked easily too with browser plug-ins or other settings, so it’s not an end-all and be all for site tracking.

By being able to see where traffic is coming from, you can better optimize your online campaigns and determine what kind of content will attract more traffic.

As you can see by the Dashboard, there are lots of ways to measure your traffic using Google Analytics. It’s the tip of the iceberg but a tool I believe many webmasters should be utilizing.

The most effective projects begin with a plan in mind.  You don’t need to be a Project Management Professional or Digital Marketing Specialist to come up with strategies to be successful at SEO.  Modeling what others have done and tweaking their approach to meet your needs is the quickest way to achieve results without wasting valuable time.  Of course not everyone wants to learn and if this is not an option, hiring someone from the outside to handle SEO can offer a huge return on investment.

Tagging : Using Meta-Tags to describe pages and have crawlers recognize what the purpose of a site really is.  Title and description.

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mac Geek with an MBA</TITLE>
<META name=”description” content=”Just random ramblings from a Mac Geek with an MBA, ranging from SEO strategies, to technology and automotive news”>

<META name=”keywords” content=”mac, geek, mba, seo, strategies, technology, automotive, news”>
</HEAD>

Content: Content should be new and applicable to your audience.  When content isn’t updated frequently, rankings on search engines will take a hit.

Links : Make sure links aren’t broken during site migrations or any kind of upgrades.  A broken link doesn’t rank well with search engines and for goof reason.  There are a few different strategies that can help create quality back links.  The primary one I would say is through writing articles and linking back to your website.

Map : We’ve heard of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), but what about XML?  XML (Extensible Markup Language) is similar but has different rules.  Without going into too much detail, creating an XML site map through a site like XML Sitemaps Generator, uploading the file to your site and submitting those to search engines can improve rankings.

My site, therealmac.net is built largely around WordPress, a great blogging platform but doesn’t make SEO particularly easy.  I found a solution in a plug-in called:

All in One SEO Pack

Remember whatever platform you’re using, there are tools that can make your life a lot easier.  Utilize them.

SEO is an ongoing process, just because your site has been optimized this month doesn’t mean 3-6 months down the road won’t have to be made.  Though I am not selling any type of product or service right now, I can firsthand that it’s incredibly easy to let content stay stagnant, let a domain name expire and have a domain name squatter take over.  Think about the business impact there if your customers are directed to a website promoting your company and all of a sudden the content is replaced by something offensive in nature.

I’m not new to reading personal development material.  There was a time in the past where I fell victim to hearing from too many voices and believing 100% in everything I read but experiencing none of it.  Today I’m a little bit older and wiser, questioning whether ideas make sense to me and if they can actually be implemented into my own life.

One of my mentors suggested I read a book that I heard of some years ago but never got around to reading.  Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles was originally published in 2005 and I think the lessons will prove valuable for the rest of my life.

The intro…”This is not a book of good ideas. This is a book of timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history. I have studied these success principles for over 30 years and have applied them to my own life. The phe- nomenal level of success that I now enjoy is the result of applying these prin- ciples day in and day out since I began to learn them in 1968. ”

If that doesn’t strike you as profound, I’m not really sure what would.

This is the 1st part of a series of blog posts I’m composing to both clear my understanding of SEO and communicate with others who may be unfamiliar with what it’s about.

As new technologies emerge, so too do new ways of capitalizing on them. One technology I will mention briefly in this blog post is SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Simply put it refers to specific strategies/practices to improve a website’s rankings on the major search engines.

There are a number of companies in the space of helping individuals and businesses better market themselves on the Internet. One local company that impressed me is Globe Runner SEO.  Instead of simply looking at words to focus on, Globe Runner SEO has adopted a much more holistic approach by acting more along the lines of a business consultant.

While almost all of us understand how to use a search engine, what goes on behind the scenes is a little bit more complicated. Programs have been written by search engine companies called crawler, spiders, and robots which literally catalog data on various websites and write the data to a database.

The ranking of data on the search engine is heavily dependent on multiple factors such as location (where a term appears on a page may cause it to rank higher), frequency (if a word is used 5 times in the page is most likely ranked higher than a page that mentions it once), links (links to the site and links leading back to the site and links within the site, the number of relevant links plays a significant role), and clickthroughs (the number of clicks for particular search terms can result in those terms having a higher ranking).

Some common strategies for improving SEO rankings are as follows:

-using meta-tags (Part of the HTML code that search engines pick up on to provide additional information about a site), content, graphics, and keywords

-getting other relevant sites to link back to your site

-using popular keywords that apply to your site and having people click on your site through usage of those keywords

-submitting your website to search engines manually, essentially planting a seed in their directories

Ideally a website should be written from the ground up with SEO in mind. Flash-based content or anything else requiring a plug-in is  much more  and challenging to rank high than combinations of text, images and video.

The business case for SEO is profound. If a company has a product it’s trying to get people to buy, optimizing search engine results for the product can drive more qualified traffic to its website. The same can be said for individuals such as writers, artists and any other type of professional trying to make a name for themselves.

I read the transcript of a Bill Gates Speech back in 2005 on The Future of Computing.  May have mispronounced some bits, but I find it interesting to see where Bill thought computing was going before Cloud computing and widespread adoption of 64-bit hardware.  Some observations… Longhorn failed and Microsoft dropped the ball on mobile / music, but XBox and Windows 7 have been a home-run.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Internet’s ability to pull people together and bring ideas to fruition. My desire to connect with people began back in the late 90s. in my spare time I briefly did some software and hardware reviews for an downloadable e-zine / website called RealMac Magazine  in the late 90s and later did work for a startup called Spunk Network in the early 2000s right after the.com bubble burst.

From those experiences I learned that without motivation from within, projects rarely get completed. For some it is a monetary incentive, for others it’s the feeling of learning or giving to those who are less fortunate or unable to do the work on their own.

The reason why I have registered two domains, elliotrobinson.com (2006) and therealmac.net (2003) largely has to do with personal branding. At a very basic level, we identify with our birth names. It is a unique identifier for dealing with the outside world. Unless you have a very common name or wish to be completely shut out of the world of personal branding on the Internet, it makes sense to see if your name has been registered. if the.com has already been registered, look at other top level domains  such as .net, .org, to see if they are available.

As the popularity of different social media websites comes and goes, I have control over what content goes on my websites. If I decide to delete my Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts tomorrow, I can still have a central space on the Internet to voice my thoughts. So long as my data is hosted and the domain stays registered.

Search engine optimization is also a major selling point for having your own website. If I happen to be a really talented artist in the middle of a farm town in Idaho and have built a portfolio of work I’ve done, it’s much easier to illustrate that on my website instead of a mishmash of different websites or through traditional local media.

Along with search engine optimization is the ability to track visitors to your website using a service like Google analytics.  Seeing what areas are most popular and what conversion rates are if selling a product or service can be highly useful for assessing strategy.

It’s cheap to get a hosting account setup and the pros far outweigh the cons.  Stand out from the crowd, make a name for yourself in your industry.  Whether you’re just starting out or been doing it 20 years.  Make an impact.

Got to ride in a Porsche GT3RS with my friend Nugget (macnugget.org) at Cresson Ranch, it’s an experience I will never forget. An intense rush of adrenaline and amazement at the same time.  The equivalent of being on a roller coaster on the ground.

3.8L V6 at 450hp.  I felt a little underwhelmed getting back into my 175hp car afterward.  My car is more ‘green’ at least.  Yeah that, better for the environment…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE_qH4DHrUU

Three months from now, my beloved Nissan Altima is turning 4.  2008 model, took ownership January 2008.  Below are a few of the videos I’ve recorded over the last few years and a commercials I like.  Currently slightly shy of 57k miles on the odometer and owe only $800 on it till I’m freer and clear.

I never met Steve Jobs and I never worked at Apple (though I did apply to work in a Retail store 8 years ago).  I was sold on Apple products since around 1989.  My first exposure was in Elementary School with the classic Apple ||/c and II/e models.

Imagine never having used a computer and not even really know what one was.  Then being exposed to something pretty revolutionary at the time.  A machine capable of performing calculations that would make all of our lives easier.  Less paper, more accuracy, taking the human element from highly repetitive tasks.

In 1994 my family got its first Macintosh system, a Performa 550 desktop that by today’s standards had a fraction of the storage capacity of an iPhone.  I was sold on the rich GUI, multimedia and the external world of eWorld and later AOL.  The machine was noisy, the screen was small, keyboard noisy and modem slow.  Even with limitations at the time, that machine brought out a piece of me that I never knew existed.  A level of curiosity that simply reading books alone simply would not have provided.

Since then, Apple products have permeated my life.  Desktops, laptops, iPods, iPhones, I’ve had them all.  I was drawn to the level of detail and sophistication of Apple products, the notion that such effort went into designing a product that was different and designed to work the way I thought.  Before I even knew it.

The brain, the man behind this revolutionary company was Steve Jobs.  He attracted talented people at Pixar, NeXT and Apple who got more talented people and eventually build world-class companies.  He was a great businessman, a philanthropist and just all-around a person many of us younger folks looked up to.

One quote I will remember is this:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma–which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Rest in Peace,  Steve.