Innovating Search at Warp Speed

When I got into search and SEO a few years back, the focus was on creating a great web page or site and to build that up over time through links, conversions, improving copy and promoting the hell out of it.

Today this is the last thing that I would recommend to a new site. The reason is we are focused on the now, or rather on time. Let's take the recent Iran election as a quick example. If I typed in "Iran elections" into Google, what do you WANT it to return?

You want Google to tell you what is going on in real time over in Iran. You wan the latest news stories - even yesterday's news is really irrelevant due to how fast things develop. If a site that had been optimized over the last few years for the key phrase "Iran election" came up at the top of the rankings, you would be disappointed and would need to keep looking.

Knowing this, Google, and more than a handful of new search applications are moving to a real time web. Perform that search for Iran election (even though as I type this it is now a few days old) and you will see blended results:

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The top photo shows recent Google News selections. These are time updated and crawled to show you the most up to date news on the key phrase. You can also see that organic results from Wikipedia display headlines for the 2009 election. The number one result from Boston.com is from June 15th, 2009 and #2 The Guardian is from June 14th. This gives the searcher the most relevant "new" information on the topic.

The bottom photo shows you blog posts that are being spidered for the terms and are also fresh posts. Lastly you see related searches. These terms are derived from searches that others are making in real time on Google.

Now take into consideration all the Social Media stuff and ways to search topics and keywords on these sites. A Tweet from yesterday, even if super powerful and helpful, is no longer relevant. An article that hit Digg's homepage on Monday is long forgotten by Friday.

How does search keep up?

One cool thing that Google has done is given its searches "search options." On Monday I am going to be giving you guys an awesome video that walks you through Personal and Company branding implications for these "search options." Sorry to make you wait, but the video is awesome and has some cool backend stuff.

What about other engines?

One of the most relevant search engines in today's world is Twitter Search. Josjua Odmark from Search Engine Journal wrote this about Twitter Search yesterday

We all know how important keywords are in content thanks to Google. Twitter is teaching us how important these keywords are in our Tweets. Relationships are created via the keywords that are in the Tweets and people are finding Tweets based on those keyword searches.

He also listed some problems with Twitter search, some that can even be implied into other engines:

• Punctuation - not returning results that have ! and ? at the end of words. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
• Absolute Matches - Singular and plural forms of words are counted as not the same. Although a trick would be to search for the plural and the singular would be returned as it is part of the plural word. Thus searching for iPhone will not return iPhones but a search for iPhones will return iPhone because it is part of the root.
• Word recognition and typos - Twitter search does not make the distinction between health care and healthcare being the same. It is not getting Google smart and showing "did you mean" when you mispell a word.
• Timing - While you want relevant searches, Twitter only returns the Tweets based on phrase and time. Spammers are taking advantage of this, by putting keywords and phrases into Tweets while promoting affiliate products and the like.

Where do we go from here?

So Twitter Search is certainly not the answer (yet) as the web has so much going on outside of Twitter - videos, photos, news, products, articles, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I found a real time social search engine courtesy of my trusty old source Mashable yesterday - Collecta. This shows results in real time for stories, comments, updates and photos. This gives you a good picture of what is going on right now on the web. Here is a sample search for Gen-Y. You can see it picked up 23 results in the last 2 minutes.

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What about Bing?

So I am not going to say I have played around in Bing like I live in Google, but I did a few searches and here's what I saw. I performed the search for Iran election and below is the screen shot.

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You can see that the related searches on the left seem relevant. The news results at the top are very real time (indexed only between 1 and 2 hours prior to this search). The organic results show a mixed of long time trusted links and new sites. The one I find interesting is IranElection.org. They are a new Meme tracker that popped up during the election process. I think this is a great real time source for information.

Not bad Bing, not bad. (I feel like I am talking to Chandler from Friends everytime I talk about Bing).

So Where Does This Leave Us?

Honestly, for the average person - not much of this is relevant today. The search engines do a fairly good job of displaying a mix of "real time" data and highly optimized content (you know - old school organic, great content and on page stuff, incoming links and Google trust factors). For the techie and geek people, we can expect more experimentation from the Search Engines and new applications and add ons to enhance our user experience.

For SEO types and site owners, the formula is the same, but magnified. If people are looking for content in real time, you need to produce content in real time. If someone wants a video on gardening, that is less than 4 minutes long that was made in the last week, well if you are a gardening site, you need to have content to match that. It means more work if you are going for organic rankings.

Don't panic or go on a content rampage, but some things to consider may be:

• Instead of releasing 10 videos in the same day, spread them over the next 2-3 weeks so you always have fresh videos.
• Properly tag, title and describe things. Tell the search engines what your stuff is about.
• Look in your analytics and see when search engine, twitter and social media traffic is coming to your site. If you see a lot of Twitter traffic coming in the early morning, it would be wise to Tweet at those times with your keywords.
• Get on a regular schedule. Makes it easy to manage.
• Build stronger brand awareness. This way they are doing branded keyword searches rather than generic searches. Much easier for someone to buy from you when they search for "your company name" vs "what your company dies."
• Give your clients/customers/web viewers ways to share your content. Even on static or product pages, let your people share your videos, content, etc and Digg it, embed it and email to a friend.

Search is getting smarter and in turn you need to get smarter too. There is much to gain from search and social media traffic and they are quickly blending together.

Question to ponder:
What do you think of the current state of search? What would you like to see? How is social media effecting your traffic from search engines?

Remember to check back on Monday where we have an awesome video on using the new Google stuff for Personal and Company branding. I think you are going to like it.

-Greg Rollett

Homeless Lifestyle Design Part 1

(photo by ep_jhu)

In helping others become Rock Stars and living a life they can be proud of, there needs to be a concept of lifestyle design, or at least a mental realization that change can be made and consistent effort to make that change. Working on the challenge that most people do not want to be changed, and the fact that if you take a look at how hard it is to motivate yourself - you can see the challenges that are in front of you when partaking on implementing a lifestyle design program for others.

Now add the state of being homeless to the picture. An entire new mind frame is put into place and new barriers to encounter. We started to figure this out last year during resume and job prep training classes for the homeless. We held these classes every other Wednesday in the downtown library. What started as an optimistic mission ended up serving only 1-2 people at each session, and slowly dissolved from there. This was clearly not the answer.

The first step towards cultivating a lifestyle change, or embarking on a new adventure (whether career, business, family or whatever), is not necessarily a physical journey, but a mental transition that needs to occur. Thus resumes were not the answer. Neither are cover letters and you can throw out job fairs.

The Success Story

There have been numerous success stories out of the Rock For Hunger camp. The most memorable came from a middle aged homeless man, Phil. Phil visited us at one of those resume sessions, but it wasn't the resume that changed his life. After starting with going into his work history, something clicked. We started to connect with him on his core level. The level where he felt comfortable opening up to us about his life, his feelings, his past and his accomplishments. This led to a sort of counseling, or therapeutic session, where he was finally breaking free from the reality that he had to be homeless for the rest of his life.

Phil went on to work on his resume that evening with new intent. The results was a rich history in catering and banquet work, with experience, references and a clear path towards his next move. The following day we took Phil to a career fair and with his new found motivation he had the confidence to not only talk to employers, but impress them enough to give him an interview for an unadvertised Banquet Management position. BTW, he got the job and we saw him last week downloading apps onto his iPhone while walking around downtown.

Instant Gratification

We all have this infatuation that we need instant gratification in life. The Internet Millionaire. The weight loss transformation. Life changing stock trades. Microwave meals. You know, all that good stuff.

These things happen, but generally they are still not the result of overnight success, but hard work coupled with timing and mental preparedness are what make these instant gratifications seem real to us. Leo from Zen Habits today wrote this about his personal fitness:

This is what gets many people — they expect to see results immediately, within the first month or so, because the magazines they read make it seem so instantaneous. But real fitness rarely happens this way — it’s a process and a lifestyle change. I started out in really bad shape, really overweight, and all I did in the beginning was to quit smoking and start running. A year later, I ran a marathon and was a vegetarian — but I was still kinda fat. A year after that, I was still exercising regularly, and had made a lot of progress, but I still had a ways to go. Now, 3.5 years later, I’m in great shape — slimmer and more muscular and much healthier

His statement redefines the motto of consistent efforts and mental success. While to the present eye, it looks like we transitioned Phil into an overnight success, it was actually years of hard work, schooling and business sense to get his skills and references up to par. What was lacking was the mental and inner confidence to see he had what he needed all along. Phil found his core influence and thus looks like an overnight rock star. The appearance of over night success is what helps organizations grow and businesses explode with PR.

Preparing Your Confidence Levels

(Music as a form of creativity, feeling and faith)

There are a few things that I have learned that help you walk with that "thing" in your step, that chest out, balls to the wall confidence that says, "I own this."

The first is having faith at some level. On Business Backpacker last week, Brooke Ferguson wrote about trusting our intuition and feelings:

The challenge with moving forward on instinct is that often times, our results are not guaranteed, the resources are not currently available, and we have no reason whatsoever to know it will work.

I am not a church going person at this point in my life. But I have faith. Faith that things are working the way someone planned them to. Faith in my abilities to work with less fortunate individuals. Faith to teach businesses and other young professionals in how to promote themselves to get ahead in life. Faith that will some effort everyone has the chance to break free from whatever crap they are going through and enjoy their life. Everyone needs a little faith.

The second confidence booster is community. You need the people around you that are going to impact your life for the best, listen to your ideas, contribute to the success of others in the community and as a result everyone grows better because of it. This community can come from a church or religious group, it can also come at your house on a Sunday afternoon chatting with friends about life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

Community can happen online, with blogs, forums and social networks. It can also happen offline at meetups, sporting events, public counseling and through associations. But I really feel that you need community to grow. You need to feed off ideas and get your thoughts out in order to express them.

The last (for today) is accountability. You become confident through consistency at rocking something. I am confident that I can rock any presentation on personal branding, SEO, Gen-Y, whatever, because I consistently practice, educate and write on these topics. I am also help accountable by my peers, readers, clients and critics. If I just wrote and said what I wanted with no consequences and public court, well then what makes me better than any other Joe Schmo talking about the same stuff. Your actions need accountability and that comes from your community.

These steps all act together. You need to have faith in order to find a community that believes in your ideals and lifestyle journey. You need to have the community to be held accountable. And you also need to use your faith and hold others accountable in order for your community to grow.

Addressing the Homeless

(Chris and me on a Monday night food sharing for the homeless)

Chris and I were talking on Monday about what drives us to do what we do, in our own lives and with Rock For Hunger and the giving side of our personalities. In this talk we got started on how we can only help those that want to be helped. Let me explain a little.

We both have ambitions of going on mission trips all over the world. We began to ponder the differences between helping a village in Africa or South America and performing the same tasks for a group here in Orlando.

In Africa, they would stop their entire lives to help us out in building a new water well or teaching them about communication technology or education. They take pride in making their community better so everyone can benefit and improve their living conditions.

Here in Orlando (and I would bet most of the U.S.), people are not as open to these situations. Most would watch as others did the work for them, expect something for nothing, or would be a no-call, no-show to training or education sessions. This is a frustration where we say that we can only help those that are willing to take the steps to actually change their lives, a lifestyle design plan to end their current situation and enter a more appealing, more satisfying existence.

We are the Community

(We need to be part of the community - earn trust, listen and create bonds)

The support system is broken for the homeless. There is no online network, blog or family system for them to take part in. The homeless shelters act as band aids, and are overcrowded. The resources are on waiting lists and the people working for these government programs are working for the paycheck, not to help anyone improve their life and contribute back to our country as a tax paying citizen (as evidence by the phone hold times, the no call backs and short non-informational email responses).

We are the community that they need. We are the support system. By building trust, or faith and by offering a community of like minded people and by holding this group accountable (both for positives as well as negatives), we can make an impact and give them their rock star moment.

Over the next few weeks, I am involved in creating what is to be known as the Homeless Lifestyle Design Course. In many ways it is much like the Lifestyle Design sites and blogs I read everyday. The race for freedom, independence, financial stability and metal clarity. The life hacks, building tools and resources to enable a stable structure for living the way your mind has intended, except we are working with the homeless. The forgotten few (or many) that society has written off. Very similar to a cubicle dwelling soul that longs for Tuesday surfing and running a business remotely, this group is looking for direction and purpose. It is time that someone gave it to them.

Closing This Up

If anyone has any thoughts on this piece (wrote it on a whim today as I was exploring the first module), would like to contribute to this body of work (financially, through research or helping produce content) to just learning more or using the course in your own life (this is for the homeless, but can be used by anyone looking to improve their lives), then please get in touch, leave a comment, retweet this or pass it on to someone who may. Thanks for your time and I look forward to rocking with you all as we grow together.

-Greg Rollett

This Saving the World Thing is Hard

photo by jaygoldman

Orlando is beaming with excitement right now. In the midst of an NBA title run for the first time in 15 years, we are a few shots and stupid, stupid mistakes from being up 3-1. The town has been painted blue and white. There are posters, signs, huge wall murals, Superman capes and cheezy t-shirts everywhere you look. And while Orlando and Central Florida are optimistic about a title run (even though Kobe might have us in check now) the city is still not ready to accept social change.

With the launch of Talk For Hunger publicly 2 weeks ago, it has been eye-opening and humbling to hear the stories of the vendors in their first weeks of changing not only their lives but the views of the homeless in our community. The vendors, along with Chris and the interns, have heard everything from "I don't support the homeless, they are all lazy panhandlers" to cold shoulders, fake cell phone conversations to down right "NO."

The Struggle For Local Social Change

It has been a bitch to get people to listen and open their minds to new ideas of improving our community. The local Orlando Chamber told us to get a membership and call the Coalition. When pursuing local advertisers we have heard words so downright awful it makes it hard to go into the next establishment. Here's a quote you can use

I hate the homeless, they come in and fuck up our bathrooms.

So how does anyone begin to implement new ideas and change society?

It starts "one by one." One person that opens up and walks in the door, goes out in the world and talks and then that talking, over time, becomes a tribe.

With blogging, we all work hard, write cool stuff and promote our posts to gain new readers one by one. Some achieve this feat faster than others and some just like finding one new reader a day, a week maybe even one new person a month who wants to hear their views, opinions and ideas.

With a business it starts with one patron at a time. You can't pack the house until that first customer walks through the door. That first customer brags about the service, food, products, etc, and that spreads to the best kind of business you can possibly have.

With your career, it starts with one job at a time. You get that entry level BS job at the firm that is supposed to suck out your life for 40 years, only to see that you are gaining skills, building relationships and preparing yourself for your next career move. Then you start building your career, your brand and your life based on one opportunity at a time.

With Talk For Hunger we only sold more than 10 issues in 1 day once. That's a shot in the gut for us, when we looked at models from South Florida and Chicago where individual vendors were selling 100-200 a day. But one-by-one we are building the brand, spreading a message and letting the readers, businessmen and women and everyone in between know that we are there making a difference.

Being the New Kid on the Block

photo by miskan

It doesn't matter if you are starting a business, helping the homeless or becoming a rock star, the beginning is both fun and shitty. It is exciting to see people like Jun Loayza stay on track despite living week to week. It is inspiring to see someone who panhandled his way to $20 a day, go out and create a life for himself while only making $10 a day. It is awesome to see someone challenge themselves to quit their day job or travel the world all while paving the way for others to do the same.

It's scary to see people leave conformity and comfort in the pursuit of an ideal lifestyle. It's hard to start a mission to save people the world has forgotten about. It's tough to give attention to anyone but yourself when faced with economic stress.

Being the new kid on the block with a mission to enhance lives, including your own, takes some balls, it takes character, planning, determination and will power to see the outcome to the end. That's a lot to ask of anyone, especially one with so many ambitions.

This year I made it a personal goal to employ 50 homeless in Orlando. I made it a goal to make a living doing the stuff that I love to do with the people and companies that I choose. I made it a goal to go overseas and teach technology and communication to the people that can benefit from it most. It is still going to be hard, but who the hell said saving the world was going to be easy?

I'd like to meet that guy.

-Greg Rollett

Makings of a Rock Star - Talk For Hunger Article

The following is my contribution to Issue #3 of Talk For Hunger. To learn more about Talk For Hunger and watch the sales process, please check out the Rock For Hunger Blog. If you would like a 12 issue subscription to Talk For Hunger, please click here.

The Makings of a Rock Star

Let’s start off by looking at our good friend Wikipedia and checking out the definition of a rock star. They say a rock star is “a member of a rock band, or a solo artist in the genre (the term usually implies celebrity status, or ‘stardom’).”

Let’s tweak that a little and give a better sense of the term. I define a rock star as someone who has the qualities to live their dreams, the skills to devote to the actions of those dreams and the confidence that comes with living and believing in those dreams.

Modern day Rock Stars include Oprah, Bono, Jay-Z and Barack Obama. You may attribute these individuals to their celebrity status, but it is in the believing that they can change the world through their dreams that makes them the rock stars that we know and believe in. None live a perfect life and some have even been taken off the positive path throughout their journey. All have traveled different roads with different backgrounds, but ultimately have followed their dreams to get to the position in their lives today.

Rock stars do not have to be celebrities. Anyone can dream and anyone can take action to turn that dream into a reality. Whether that is attaining financial security, career development, climbing the corporate ladder, bringing a product into society or helping another in need, we all have the abilities to be rock stars. Becoming a rock star is not an overnight process. Daily tasks and motivation are key factors in the process to attain “rock star status.”

Musicians practice diligently in their garage to perfect their craft. Then they spend months in studios recording it. Then comes playing shows, winning over fans and ultimately leveraging their network to attain their “rock star status,” it is no easy feat.

You too can become a rock star or help someone become a rock star. Help a child to read or solve math problems. Teach someone a new skill or learn a new one yourself – playing an instrument or learning how to use a new tool. Build a personal brand and put yourself in the same room and playing field as the big guys.

Dream big and take action on the little steps to start seeing that dream come to fruition. Our community is full of rock stars; they just need a stage to shine upon. How can you build the platform and life that you want?

Through Rock for Hunger, we have been able to create Rock Stars from our own community. Finding inner passion, training for skill sets and rediscovering dreams that impact an individual’s future are the types of missions and agendas that lie in our ability to impact the community.

Contact Greg at greg@rockforhunger.org and help make someone a Rock Star today!

Please consider buying a 12 issue subscription to Talk For Hunger. For $20 you get 12 issues mailed to your home, the electronic version of all 12 issues and a small donation to help pay for uniforms, badges and other operational costs. Stop Talking about the problem and be a part of the solution.

Get Them Young Get Them For Life

(photo by ojimbo)

Going into my feeds for the first time this week (man how is it Thursday already) I came across a post by Carol Phillips, writer of the Millennial Marketing Blog and a professor at Notre Dame. In it she describes the feeling in the room at a recent presentation on Millennials that was presented by Millennials towards 70+ CMO's.

Carol states:

Millennials are the 'target of the future' and what better way to start to understand them than to listen to the Millennials in your own organization. While many of their tastes and habits are age-related, many others are generational. These differences will shape their lives as consumers for many years.

Here's my two cents.

Companies that focus on gaining the trust and brand affection of younger patrons now with undoubtedly have more affect on long term growth and profits. Want examples.

Rock For Hunger.
At our nonprofit we aim to attract volunteers and donors from the college crowd. Our goal is to get into the mindset of the new freshmen coming into UCF. Why? I mean they have no money and no authority.

The reason is that over their 4-6 years at UCF they are going to develop, find career paths, skill sets and networks that can help any organization grow. If you get them early enough you will have them forever (or until they leave for a great opportunity). So over the next 4-6 years we get a devoted volunteer, one who shows up every week, makes small contributions, but more importantly, tells their friends about our shows and events, uses their network to help find sponsors and uses their skill sets to help us grow.

Under Armor.
I love this company and their branding. They came quasi-mainstream when I was in high school and our entire team was fitted in their gear. As their marketing grew, they started to reach every level of youth activities. Want to know what happens next? When I have kids and they play sports do you want to know what I am outfitting them in?

Yup, Under Armor. So not only did they get me to buy some undershirts, but I am going to continue to buy them and then pass it down a generation so my kids can become rock stars in their Under Armor gear.

So...
You see, if you treat Gen-Y great today, you will be rewarded with life long advocacy and loyalty. Talk smack to us and decide that you don't care, then we are just going to find the brand that does, and guess what they probably have a better product than you anyway. One that uses more efficient manufacturing, supports a social cause, goes green and tastes better and is better for us.

Pay attention folks, us mean old, self-serving Millennials want to make the world a better place and really there is no stoping us.

-Greg

Eric's Rock Star Tale - From Intern To Internet Rock Star

In life you have the opportunity to do a few things. You can help someone that is looking for help, or you can ignore it and go on with your life. My wife tells me I do too much of the first, always looking to help someone out, teach them the things in my head and help them with their problem(s). Yea, she's probably right. Today I wanted to share a really cool rock star tale with you guys about a good friend and also someone that took the things that came out of my head and totally rocked the entire social media world in a way I never imagined.

It all started...

about a year or so ago in our first office in downtown Orlando. At this point we were just starting out the agency thing and had just merged Rollett Marketing into Endagon Innovations (to make a long intro short). In this process I came along a college student with an incredible internship at a local record label, Eric. Our first chat was about a site we had in concept and he thought it was cool and he said he may have some family investors that would want to get involved. All he wanted was to learn some of the SEO and Social Media stuff I was using for my personal brand as well as for some of our early clients.

I was an asshole.
After a few weeks on board, Eric was now a full member of the EI Team and had been immersed in a few of my trainings, swipe files and tools. Our first client together was the now locally fabled Orlando Ichiban. Eric got the sale and was hot to make them a new site, start creating new media content and run out of the gates. With his questions came my rudeness and ultimately an awesome web copywriter was born!

There is no secret that money is tight in a start up agency and when student loans come knocking, you need to go get yours. An opportunity came around to Eric a few months ago from the affiliate network Clickbooth. After a tough decision, Eric headed out to Sarasota to begin a journey as the Social Media Superstar in their organization.

Always one to put his personal brand aside for the greater good of his clients and company, Eric has killed it over there. Take one look at the Clickbooth Blog Design and you can see how far he has come from his Blogger beginnings (yes, that's even a jab to my own site - I know, I know, switch it over already!). Eric has been able to bring it and rock it with top affiliates like Shoemoney, Johnathon Volk and others and really made an impact to getting the word on affiliate marketing into a fun and positive light. He even let me shine over there, writing a post on not forgetting about the youth market in your affiliate promotions.

From Intern To Rock Star

So how did Eric do it? Well here is one thing to note: Eric is not working for himself. IN fact he works for a company. One that he loves, one that he doesn't mind waking up for in the morning or staying in the office late with.


Eric found something that he was passionate about and found an employer that believed in his mission, his skills and his idea of a great job. Some other things that I think helped him along the way include:

Patience. Eric wanted to jump into everything right away but he saw that a personal brand and developing relationships is not an overnight thing. It paid off nicely.

Practice. For all the long nights we spent working on SEO, HTML stuff, link building and content writing - he has come out stronger. Being a rock star requires practice. Rehearse, regroup, brainstorm and make yourself better every time.

Commitment. This dude was on it like no one I have ever seen. He knew what every Social Media superstar was up to at any given minute, every campaign, why things worked, why things didn't and how to fix them. He lived and breathed it and you could really tell there was a passion there.

Intangibles. There are some things that no one can teach, we'll call those the intangibles. In order for you to be a Rock Star you do need to possess some things that help, motivate and display rock star qualities. Eric had them (and could play a mean bass too).

Now the Sales Pitch
This Rock Star tale is one of many that I have been so lucky to be a part of and through building this relationship, I know have a great friend and someone that I can learn from. I have been 100% intrigued with affiliate marketing from the get-go in my Internet World and now Eric is giving me the extra kick in the ass that I need to make a few extra nickels and dimes. If you are looking to get involved with affiliate marketing I strongly encourage you to check them out, I can say they have been amazing and if you ever have any problems I know where their social media guy lives.

Blatant affiliate link to Clickbooth.

Check it out and if not, well, hopefully you can see a transformation beginning in yourself from "whatever you are now" to "rock star!"

-Greg Rollett

Liberation, Freedom and A Job Title Called Ass Kicker

(photo bydavidking)

Waking up at 9am, looking at the sand, the waves and the Corona in your hand may be a fantasy for a Tuesday, but for some it really is their Tuesday. And I'm not talking about movie stars and musicians. I am talking about those that have created businesses and lifestyles to make their time work for them and not the other way around. Freedom businesses if you will.

In the 20-something market there is lots of chatter on entrepreneurship or branching out, starting these businesses that you can work from anywhere, make a great living and be free from cubicle hell, or something like that, all while creating a purpose or mission in your life. Disclaimer aside, this is my mental path as well.


There are some awesome bloggers and writers in this space that get me going every morning and today I found a really cool manifesto by Jonathon Mead called, "Join the Liberation Revolution." As good as it was I found it even more interesting that it was part of Clay Collins's Project Mojave Team and launch. I had heard that Johnathon joined his team, but wasn't sure on the level - according to the Project Mojave Team Page Jonathon is the Director of Ass Kicking. That is wicket sweet. This 20-something page "Manifesto" is really well written and has even a better design around it - it comes highly personally recommended (even for you cubicle dwellers).

So why am I sharing this?
This one sentence is the reason I want to share this:

So for the sake of clarity, all of your reasons for hating your boring, lifeless job are valid. It doesn’t matter if you think someone else has it worse off than you. It doesn’t matter if there are starving children is Somalia. You’ll be in a much better position to contribute and make a difference in this world if you’re doing something you’re passionate about, or at least interested in.

That's a great piece of writing right there Mr. Mead. I would like to clarify a bit further. You DO NOT NEED to ditch the cubicle. You DO NOT NEED to switch fields, careers or locations. You NEED to change your mindset. Not an easy thing to do. Sometimes that does mean that you need to change careers, jobs, location, partners, whatever.

Personal Freedom and Personal Rewards as a Young Pro

I have been teaching the Personal Branding and Career Development thing for almost 2 years now and never really knew it. In the process I have been coming up with ways to really define what makes you tick, or better yet get up in the morning. I wrote about wanting to save the world while driving a $400,000 car that emits shitty gasses and toxins. The cool thing is that this is possible, in fact, it's more possible today than ever in our lives. What it takes is action.

3 Actions to Start your Personal Freedom Today

1. Google your name and determine if you like what you see. It's a weird way of looking at yourself in the mirror. When I Google my name I see this site, which has a lot of work to go towards becoming the brand I truly want, not what I thought I wanted. I then see Rock For Hunger, and Twitter and EG and other things that make me really proud. What does your Google results page make you feel?
2. What is the number 1 thing you want to start doing in your life and name the top 3 road blocks in your way. Start knocking out those road blocks right now. For me, I want to surf on Tuesdays. Roadblocks include the chain on my desk, no board and scared to death of sharks and the damn shark attacks keep happening in new Smyrna. Step 1 get rid of the chain.
3. Go read the "Manifesto" I opened this post up with. The idea is to start thinking outside the box even if you like living your life in it. Start giving meaning to what you do everyday. Download it here and it would be wise to opt-in to get more of their stuff.

Are you enjoying your Tuesday?

-Greg Rollett

Make the Most of Your 30 Seconds of Fame

(Greg, Patrick and Chris on the set of the Daily Buzz)

Last Friday I had the pleasure of hanging out in the Daily Buzz studios on the Full Sail campus at 6am. I was up early with Chris and Patrick getting ready to talk about Rock For Hunger and some of our initiatives including Talk 4 Hunger and my personal RFH project the "Homeless Lifestyle Design" course.

Over the last few weeks I have been fortunate to be on a bunch of live news stations talking about everything from Personal Branding to Advanced Online Job Seeking to Digital Dirt and Rock For Hunger across a bevy of networks including the CW (Daily Buzz), ABC and FOX. On these live-on-air opportunities I have learned some very valuable lessons that have increased my confidence and appearance on the networks and helped to spread the message that I want to connect with the audience. These tv segments are quick yet can be very powerful to collect new leads, get sales or increase exposure about you or your company (and it looks great on the resume). Here is a list of my 6 biggest takeaways from being live on the news.

Match your style to location. When getting dressed make sure you look at yourself in the mirror while sitting down, or outside or in a crowd or whatever environment you will be in. Knowing your settings is crucial to looking natural and authentic. In one interview on FOX I had a suit on and the jacket was a little large...and you could totally notice. Had I knew it would have risen so high I would have stuck with just a shirt and a tie. Knowing where you are going to be for the interview is key to looking great on camera.

Guide the interviewer. Most quick tv interviews throw softball questions at you and they know little to nothing about you or what you are going to say. Generally we hear:

• Tell us about your organization
• How did you get started?
• Where did the idea come from?
• Tell me about those programs
• How can we get involved or more information
  

The key is to guide them to get to the main point that you want to portray. With Rock For Hunger, we have been doing a brief explanation of how we started and go right into the program we are trying to promote, getting the interviewer to lead into questions about the program.

Rehearse your points. This is one that should be common sense, but you need to have a game plan and know your stuff. When the lights are in your face and the teleprompter is distracting you, the more you have rehearsed and played it out in your head the better off you will be. I have my personal branding and Rock For Hunger elevator pitches down so well that I can deliver them with any distraction in my way because I deliver them often and I practice them before every big speaking gig.

Know your timing. News stations are on top of things and know to the second how long segments are going to last. If you know how long you are given for your segment you can begin to tailor your message to fit the allotted time. Trust me when I say that you have way less time than you think. The FOX News segments I did lasted close to 2:30, then you look at the Daily Buzz where Chris and I split less than 2 minutes.

Ask for drops (or plugs). Drops are what the news anchors say coming into and going out of commercials. For the job fair we promoted in April we were on the news Monday - Thursday for a total of 10 minutes. However from 6am - 9am before every commercial break the news plugged the event and told the audience about the story / interview coming up. This is vital as it helps to brand what it is that you came on the show to talk about. If you have the opportunity, ask the anchors or producers to say your name, your company and what you are talking about. For instance on the Daily Buzz before commercial break we had the anchor say,

"Get ready to rock...for hunger with Greg and Chris who are going to be talking about how they use music to help the local community. Check out Rock For Hunger after the break."

This is very effective for brand awareness and keeps butts in the seat waiting for you to come on their screen (or at least hit the DVR), but you need to help guide them if at all possible.

Call the viewer to action. Stay on topic, stay focused and deliver a call to action. The news is going to direct the viewer to their website so you may need to throw in your own call to action to get people to your site and skip the middleman. Be respectful and thankful, but by being on tv you have the opportunity to speak to the very market that can buy your stuff, support your cause or come to your event. Don't forget the mission and purpose of the press opportunity.

Now that I have had some great press opps I hope to share some really valuable stuff with you guys including:

• How to get on tv
• The responses and affect of being on tv
• Direct response marketing of tv advertisements

If you have any questions about live tv interviews, please ask and share in the comments.

-Greg Rollett

Rock Star Newsletter

This has been a long time coming for this site and well while sitting in the airport awaiting my flight to Vegas, I decided to get it started! Here's the dealio. Any growing business likes to communicate with its customers, community members and people that are just dropping by. With Internet businesses and people online, email is super effective and creates a great way for you to get cool information when you want it. So please opt-in below, tell your friends and you will start to see some cool stuff from me and the Rock Star Lifestyle Team.

Rock Stars hate SPAM, so we don't send it, nor do we sell your information or any of that jazz, just good ol stuff from me and the gang helping to put my stuff together. Opt-out at any time!

Thanks and have a great weekend.

-Greg

You Don't Have To Be Creative To Be a Rock Star

(photo by juicystyle)

Over the last week I have given 2 presentations to a group of homeless and severely low income individuals in Orlando on how to leverage the Internet to find a job. The courses I taught were not about jobs. They weren't really about careers either. I was talking about confidence, realizations and actions to create the life you want now, as opposed to the life you are supposed to have given your circumstances.

Be honest now...the best personal brands on the Internet are:

• Marketers (Dan Schawbel)
• Social Media Gurus (b/s terminology btw)(Chris Brogan, Robert Scoble)
• Writers (Penelope Trunk, Tim Ferriss)
• PR Peeps(Brian Solis)
• Entrepreneurs(Jun Loayza, Ted Murphy, Guy Kawasaki)

The best personal brands on the InterWeb are not:

• Construction Workers
• Nurses
• Doctors
• Lawn Care Companies
• Pizza Makers
• You Get My Drift

But why not?

After getting to know the crowd I let it fly and started thinking of ways that blue collars, trade professionals and small business owners can capitalize on being an industry rock star, something that is more valuable than the marketing rock stars, the gurus, the egos of the web.

If small businesses and trade professionals jump on the personal and business branding bandwagon NOW - they can control their own destiny and grow their business or reputation.

Is your construction company in the dumps? What are you doing in your marketing to help you get that new contract in the area? Are you really doing everything you can and relying on every resource that you can? Are you expanding your network? Looking for joint ventures? Looking to consult other companies across the globe? Looking to be the first to know about new funding, local development and government regulations?

Here are some things that I told the class to do:
Secure your name online. Sounds obvious, but I can count on a few hands how many local Orlando businesses know what is said about their company online and I can count on 2 of those hands the companies that know what to do with what they see. If all you do is use Google, do a few searches, then you have done more than 95% of your competition in the small business market (*NOTE - that 95% data is make believe, I performed no "real" survey but it's pretty damn close).

Write down 3 things that you can teach someone right now, without having to do any research, but the skills you have in that big ol brain of yours. (Print this and write them down)
1.
2.
3.

Write down 2 things that you can do better than anyone you know. This one was a shocker. Even if you do not know everything about a field, you probably know more than someone who is just getting started, or you may have a secret that even the pro's and experts can utilize. (If you printed this in the last step, then this should be easy!)
1.
2.

I asked the group to write down who their hero is. Then I asked why. This will tell you a lot about the qualities that you CAN see in yourself with the right refinement. (No excuses, your printer is awaiting your print job!)
Your hero is:
He is your hero because:

Lastly, I asked them to decide where they want to be in 6 months from now as well as 1 year from now. The point was to start acting, talking and educating yourself like you are that person right now. Why wait till someone gives you permission to be the best insurance salesman? Why can't you learn from the best and implement innovative strategies now and close more business and be the best you can be today? (Again, you should print this article - its not too tough - and write your answers down)
6 months from now I will be:
1 year from now I will be:

Here is a quick recap of some things that I learned from this group of non-20-something, non marketing, non creative and poverty stricken local Orlando folk, who have never heard of a blog or Twitter before last Thursday:

• I am creating an online portfolio of every construction site I have worked on. I always take a picture at the end and at the beginning. I have pictures of tools, machines, cranes and people.
• I subscribed to every blog on AllTop that had to do with Cooking and Food. I am commenting and hopefully will learn from them and bring that knowledge into a job interview with a local catering company.
• I used that Google Reader thing and got channels for Google News about Orlando Hotels.

That is awesome!

How can you be the Rock Star of your niche?

-Greg Rollett