What I Am Thankful For And A Hint At What The New Year Will Bring

As we end the year and start reflecting on the year that has passed and the new one on the horizon I want to take some time to acknowledge the things I am thankful for. Some of these may seems small and inconsequential to some but they are things I give thanks for everyday.

1. My wife - who works two jobs so that I can go to school and pursue an online business.
2. My kids - who remind me every day how lucky I am to be a father
3. My health - sure I had back surgery 2 years ago and it still hurts to this day but some people can't walk at all or have cancer and would give everything they have to be in my condition.
4. The roof over my head - it is not a mansion and many people I know live in bigger homes but it is better than 90% of people in the world. I have A/C, heat, and clean water and billions of people don't even have that.
5. My friends - the real ones and the online ones
6. My Macbook Pro - It may seems small to you but access to this one tool has opened up a world of content creation that I didn't even know was possible with my PC.
7. Being able to attend Full Sail Online - I have them to thank for #6 and for helping me line up the resources to finance my education.
8. The internet - the sheer amount of information that is available online today is staggering and having access to it has changed my life forever.
9. Our car - it is 10 years old but it's paid for and it is far better than walking
10. My online contacts - ok this is a lot like #5 but LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook have given me access to some awesome people that I feel privileged to have known.
11. My gift for writing and learning - Over the past year many have commented on my writing. This is amazing to me, since I never really thought of myself as particularly good at writing. I also have a knack for learning new things and actually enjoy the process of learning something new.
12. Being selected as a blogging intern at Sparkplugging.com - This was an enjoyable experience and the access to some awesome materials that came along with it have been instrumental in the new project that I am launching.
13. Internet Marketing This Week - an excellent podcast that has taught me so much about the internet marketing space.
14. The 30 Day Challenge - Ed Dale's annual challenge to make $1 online has helped me learn how to actually make money online.
15. Marketing Over Coffee - another podcast giving away so much marketing knowledge they should charge tuition.


A few days ago I sat down and watched the movie "The Secret". I had seen it many times and know most of the concepts taught in it. Knowing the concepts is very different from putting them into action. I decided to actually put them into action and starting reflecting on what I have that I am grateful for. This list above is what a came up with in less than a minute. You see once you see all that you have been given and reflect on how lucky you are to have those things it puts you into a better mental state. This will attract more things to you, if you believe in what the movie teaches. It also helped me realize how to tap into a niche that has been right in front of me for months that I have completely overlooked. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet, but it will be launching soon.

Take a look around you an figure out what you have to be thankful for. You may be surprised.

Christopher Johnston

Personalized Search

This makes shady SEO practices even less effective and I'm all for it. It has never been more important to produce good quality content for your target audience.

How To Get Back Overdraft Fees From Your Bank

After experiencing some of these outrageous overdraft fees myself, in one case the charges were 3,240% of the amount charged, I look on YouTube for more information. Here is a video I found.

New Orleans Is Great, Its Just Not For Me

I have been wanting to write this post for a while but I have not for fear that I was going to offend a few people. I'm going to write it anyway.

A few days ago I applied for a job in Columbus, Ohio at Ohio State University. It is a very interesting looking job and will be great for my career if I get it. The interesting thing is the reaction I get from some people when I tell them about it.

No one has given me a positive reaction. I've gotten amazement and puzzled looks and people asking "Ohio, really?". I did a couple of hours research on Columbus before I even applied just to see if it somewhere I would like to live. It has its high points but this post isn't about Columbus.

I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA and I've lived in the area for all my 37 years. I love the food and Mardi Gras is great but I would rather leave town than hang around for it. The traffic gets unreal and I really hate dealing with belligerent drunks which always seem to accompany Mardi Gras.

I currently live in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans in neighboring Jefferson parish (the Louisiana equivalent of a county). I belong to several groups like Social Media Club New Orleans, Net Squared New Orleans, and in the past was a member of NOLA Yurp and Young Leadership Council. These organizations have all their meetings in downtown New Orleans. Honestly, I don't like going downtown. I hate driving around for 10-20 minutes to find a parking place on the street and then having to feed a meter or pay some huge amount to park in a lot. I always wonder if the car is still going to still be there when I come back with all of its contents still inside of it.

I meet people at every meeting that extol the virtues of New Orleans and make claims that the cost of living is lower here citing housing as an example. As a former real estate agent, I can tell you that aside from a few major cities like L.A., San Francisco, New York, Miami, Las Vegas, etc (you get the point, BIG cities) New Orleans is not that cheap. Houston, TX approximately 350 miles to our west has much cheaper homes and rental prices for an equal sized placed in New Orleans. Then when you add in much higher auto insurance, flood insurance, and school tuition of 4K to 10K a school year (because the public schools in NOLA have improved but they still have along way to go) it doesn't seem like such a bargain.

Look I'm not saying it isn't a great place to live if you like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest and can afford to live in the affluent areas near Audubon Park or in the Garden District (which also has the best public school in NOLA). I guess I'm saying that it has never felt like home to me. In college I spent a little bit of time in places with names like Sheridan, Missoula, and Bozeman. Places where traffic was non-existent and you were greeted with incredible mountain views in every direction.

I guess I'm saying I prefer the mountains of Missoula to the Mississippi delta and Frontiers Days to Mardi Gras. A log cabin on 40 acres is more appealing than a mansion on St. Charles Ave and spending the weekends backpacking in the Grand Tetons is way better than strolling through the antique shops on Magazine St.

Photo Grand Tetons Barns courtesy Jon Sullivan, PD Photo

Dove - Evolution Commercial

Kinda makes you wonder what else you see is altered.

Impending doom

As we sit here in New Orleans trying to determine if Hurricane Ida will continue on her current track or wander a little further west, it gives us time to ponder our options. To be honest before Hurricane Katrina I didn't even sweat Cat 3 hurricanes and now I'm worried about a small Cat 2 in November! I'm actually considering where we might need to evacuate to.

Christopher Johnston
cmjrvp on Skype
@chrisjohnston on Twitter

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How Do We Go From Ideas To Action

At the last Net2NO meeting we were in a new venue and it seems that along with new venue we took on a new focus. Where earlier we were about bringing together technologist in the city it seems that now we want to use the minds and skills of these brilliant individuals to enact social change in the city.

We had a few 5 minute brainstorming sessions and I copied down some of the ideas that emerged from them.

Get City Council to support local small businesses
Volunteer in schools to teach the teachers to use the technology available to them
Get community organizations to collaborate and share information or at least aggregate everything they know and publish it in one place on the web.
My contribution was to turn vacant lots all over the city into vegetable and herb gardens. The harvest from those gardens could be sold in community farmer's markets. (Turns out that Hollygrove is already doing this)

While all these ideas are great, the one thing we need before we can make any of them work, is buy-in from the people that live in the community. The ideas are useless if the people in those communities don't want them.

Ok, so we know that we need great ideas and we need buy in from the community to implement those ideas, but there are two critical steps missing.

How do we, or more correctly stated, who do we get to bring these ideas to the community? Then, once the buy-in happens, how do we organize and get people to show up to implement the ideas.

The first one is the biggest problem. Unless we have a framework for moving from ideas to action we just had great evening engaging in intellectual masturbation but didn't accomplish anything for the people and communities we claim to care about.

I'm not saying that the concept is not noble I just see flaws in the execution. I want this to succeed. I want us to accomplish real results. Do you, the three people reading this, have any ideas you would like to offer? I'll give you the credit and I'll do the work just help me make it happen.

Christopher M. Johnston
Social Media Consultant
@chrisjohnston on Twitter
504.208.1766 Google Voice
Facebook.com/chris.johnston
http://socialmediaforrealestateagents.com

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Untitled

Edited with Photogene

Chris Johnston

Social Media Consultant

(504)208-1766 Google Voice

http://twitter.com/chrisjohnston

http://socialmediaforrealestateagents.com

Sent from my iPhone, but I'd rather be on Android. I apologize ahead of time for spelling, brevity, and/or grammatical errors :-)

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This will make me leave the iPhone

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My new books for next month's classes

Chris Johnston
Social Media Consultant
(504)208-1766 Google Voice
http://twitter.com/chrisjohnston
http://socialmediaforrealestateagents.com

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Why I Think You Need An Attorney

Some of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I wanted to go to law school. I may never get to pursue that dream due to my personal finances but I learned a lot about the legal system over the last few years. I was recently involved in a civil case related to an auto accident I was in. We never went to court and settled the case in arbitration.

Due to injuries I sustained in the accident I had to have back surgery and shoulder surgery. The other party paid to fix my vehicle, for both of my surgeries, a small amount of pain and suffering, and no lost future earnings. I live with back pain that exist every hour of every day of my life. I also have intermittent shoulder pain that is sometimes severe.

I tell you this to understand where I am coming from. I have witnessed first hand how this system works and why the services of an attorney are vital. Our legal system has huge flaws. I also know that with its flaws compared to what people have in other countries it is the best in the world.

It sucks that you need a $200/hr attorney when you have a problem that needs to be rectified in the court system. I also know that without one I would have not been able to afford the over $250,000 of medical care that gave me the somewhat limited mobility I enjoy now.

If you know me, you probably think "he looks fine to me" but if you have known me a long time you notice the difference. Those closest to me know it more than anyone else.

This video show that when you are involved in a criminal matter your very freedom is at stake and the services of an attorney are vital. What surprised me most is that anything you say to the police can be used AGAINST you but it CANNOT be used FOR you.

This video is long and I urge you to watch Part 1 AND Part 2. Part 1 is from the perspective of a law professor and former defense attorney and Part 2 is from the perspective of a police officer and 3L law student.

Seesmic Web Application Using Fluid (Mac Only)

This is just like the feature in Chrome that lets you create application specific windows for websites that you go to frequently. I have downloaded Fluid to my Mac but haven't actually run it yet.

Very cool looking iMac

I so want one like this.

Originally seen on twitpic http://twitpic.com/kc046

Christopher Johnston
@chrisjohnston on Twitter
facebook.com/chris.johnston
http://SocialMediaForRealEstateAgents

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Not good news if you are a home seller in New Orleans

I was testing Google's new real estate search feature and in testing I created this map. This all homes for sale in the Greater New Orleans area that Google has in its database. Keep in mind that there are properties that are not in the database that aren't on this list. I also think that this may include some Google Base data that is not alwaya removed after a sale or updated to reflect that sale.

Christopher Johnston
@chrisjohnston on Twitter
SocialMediaForRealEstateAgents.com

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Why You Need To Go To TribeCon

I shot this short video to tell you why you should be at TribeCon. Since you are not watching this on YouTube here us the TribeCon registration link and the discount code is NOLABLOGGER

Ken Burns National Parks: America's Best Idea

I have to admit that the first I heard of Ken Burns it was from the "Ken Burns Effect" in iMovie. So a few weeks ago when I saw commercial promoting the new documentary by Mr. Burns titled National Parks - America's Best Idea I was intrigued.

I have spent the last 2 days and approximately 10 hours watching 5 of the 6 two-hour episodes. It was one the best examples of wildlife and landscape cinematography I have ever seen. When that is mixed with the history of the parks and Burns excellent storytelling ability it becomes something that every American should see.

It covers the parks from their very beginnings up to the 1980's. I was amazed to learn that many of the original parks were all acquired as the result of wealthy individuals buying the land and donating it to the US government. In fact its first director Stephen Mather was a very wealthy and successful businessman who agreed to take the job for one year and ended up running it for 12 years.

The parks were also initially focused just on spectacular views and gave very little concern to the wildlife in the parks. This was changed by another wealthy individual and park employee, George Melendez Wright, who self-funded the first survey of wildlife in the parks.

The full episodes are only available online until the end of today (10/09/2009) but if you can afford it, buy the DVD. If you can't afford it, hound your local library to purchase it and then borrow it. If you are really fortunate I would urge you to buy an additional copy and give it your local school. This would be an excellent addition to any school library.

Photo courtesy of brian-m on Flickr.

August 2009 browser stats: IE continues its slow decline

Net Applications, a great resource for watching market share trends, recently changed the way it weighs the data it gathers for browsers. We waited a little bit until things settled down before posting our next browser share roundup. Despite the slight changes, the main browser usage trend is unchanged: though its lead remains large, Internet Explorer is still losing ground to all other browsers. Firefox is steadily gaining, Safari remains in a nonthreatening third place, Chrome is happily carving out a small niche for itself, and poor Opera can't seem to budge from fifth place. In August, all browsers except for IE and Safari showed positive growth.

Between August and July, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 0.71 percentage points (from 67.68 percent to 66.97 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.51 percentage points (from 22.47 percent to 22.98 percent). Safari remained steady at 4.07 percent while Chrome once again moved further away from Opera: it gained a worthy 0.25 percentage points (from 2.59 percent to 2.84 percent). Opera budged 0.07 percentage points from 1.97 percent to 2.04 percent. Although IE's decline seems to be unceasing, the real shame is that the old versions still dominate (we can only hope that when Windows 7 becomes generally available next month this will start to change since the OS sports IE8 out-of-the-box):

• Internet Explorer 6.0: 25.25 percent
• Internet Explorer 7.0: 21.10 percent
• Internet Explorer 8.0: 15.10 percent
• Firefox 3.0: 12.48 percent
• Firefox 3.5: 8.88 percent
• Safari 4.0: 2.55 percent
• Chrome 2.0: 2.50 percent
• Internet Explorer 8.0 - Compatibility Mode: 2.46 percent
• Opera 9.x: 1.76 percent
• Firefox 2.0: 1.37 percent

Data source: Net Applications

You can see the market share pie for August 2009, according to Net Applications, at the top of this post. The graph just above shows how things at Ars are very different: Firefox continues to dominate, but the default browsers for Windows and Mac OS X still show their strength. Chrome's lead over Opera is much more significant at Ars. With Safari 4's release, the browser has managed to finally surpass Internet Explorer on our site, despite having one sixteenth of IE's share worldwide.

via feeds.arstechnica.com

Yeah! IE usage continues to drop. It is astounding how many people are still using IE 6

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