WEEK #2 - Still getting caught up

Discovery Excercises from Lesson #1 on Business Resources... The Answers...
1} Peter Klein. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Klein spent 13 years in corporate finance in the Seattle area, primarily in the communications and technology sectors. This included senior roles at McCaw Cellular Communications; Orca Bay Capital, a private equity firm; and several startups, including Homegrocer.com, where as the Vice President and Treasurer.
2} Ideas found to sell crafts online in the database were ebay or websites like www.craftmall.com. Names of several craft fairs such as Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area or the American Craft Council Craft Show in Baltimore was also found if you wanted to sell crafts in person. There was a book entitled How To Market & Sell Your Art, Music, Photographs & Handmade Crafts Online: Turn Your Hobby into a Cash Machine. I found a cool article about a group of woodworkers that made guitars to donate to the Guitars for Vets (G4V). G4V is a Milwaukee (WI) based group that supplies free guitars and instruction to veterans as therapy for PTSD. My husband and I own CZAR of GUITARS in Palmer. It has been a dream of mine since opening the guitar shop in 2008 that some day we may be able to create a branch of G4V here in Alaska. It is always inspiring to me to read about this valuable program. I was glad I stumbled on this article in my search of the SBRC.
3} The full text versions of the NOLO guides are a great resource on SBRC. Oftentimes, our copies of these popular books are checked out; it will now be nice to a have another way to get these resources into the hands of our patrons.
4} Landlords must supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water and heat at all times AND if requested by the tenant, provide and maintain locks and furnish keys reasonably adequate to ensure safety to the tenant's person and property. Examples of scams:
Phishing: "Phishing" occurs when Internet fraudsters send an email or pop-up message that claims to be from a business, organization, or even a government agency that you may deal with. The message states that there is a problem with your account and directs you to a website that looks just like the legitimate organization's website. But it is a fake website designed to trick you into revealing your account information, passwords, or other personal information.
Pyramid schemes: Participants in a pyramid scheme are led to believe that they can make money from the "investments" paid by new recruits into the program. Participants are promised huge returns in a short period of time. The pyramid promoters will often go to great lengths to make the program look like it is a legitimate multi-level marketing program or they will say it is a legal "gifting" program. The schemes often have names like The Dinner Party, Friends Helping Friends, or the Airplane. The fraudsters use the money coming in from new recruits to pay of early investors, and at some point the pyramid will collapse because the promoter cannot raise enough money from new investors to pay off early investors, and many people will lose their money.
Consumer reports can be filed with the Better Business Bureau.
5} My community of Palmer has 1212 female workers with the State of Alaska as the top employer.
6} Stages of Small Business: Think, Launch, Grow, Reinvent, and Exit. A Checklist for Starting a Small Business can be found under Tools at the ASBDC wesite.
7} Broadband Policies for the North: A Comparative Analysis, Heather E. Hudson, November 2011,35 pp. & Rural Broadband: Opportunities for Alaska, Heather E. Hudson, November 2011, 35 pp.,presentation to the AFCEA ( Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association). Small Scale Modular Nuclear Power has been considered as an option for Alaska. I was amazed at all the information available right at your fingertips on the ISER site. I think this could definitely be helpful to patrons looking for detailed statistics regarding Alaskan economics.
8} The library I work in (Wasilla) is one of the busiest in the state located in one of the fastest growing communities in the state. We get patrons with questions about starting a business in the local area; it will be nice to be able to direct them to these online resources. Wasilla is fornate enough to have one of the offices for the Alaska SBDC. Oftentimes,I send patrons down the street to the SBDC office but now it will be nice be able to hook them up with these other online sources too.

Now, onto the assignments for this week... stay tuned...

Intro 2 AK Digital Resources - WEEK #1

Lesson 0 complete! Not sure if I should feel a sense of accomplishment or not... I'll get back to you next week.

OK, I'm Busting Out the old Blog Again!

It has been several years since I used this blog. Last time I used this blog it was for a 2.0 training session. I decided to just add onto my experience here... now it will be used to track progress in my newest endeavor... Introduction to Alaska Digital Resources. May the journey begin!

It's A Party

I have finally reached the FINAL thing! I went to Listen Alaska and downloaded some music to put on the MP3 player. I was disappointed when I noticed all the music files in Listen Alaska didn't list MP3 as an option. I thought I would try it any way - I downloaded the files into the Windows Media Library from there it was easy to transfer onto the MP3 player. I was able to get Hula, Hula, Hula Luau Party by The Molokai Ten onto the player. I also tried to download some music by my friends The Whipsaws from the internet but was not able to do it from their myspace page or webpage. Maybe I'll be able to figure all this out when I have more time with my own Ipod - When I win it in the drawing next month - I hope I win - I've always wanted one and now I know how to use it!

Until then, remember:
Life is a Luau, Don't forget to Hula once in awhile !

And the Award Goes To...

I really enjoyed sifting through the list of web 2.0 award winners. I checked out MANY of these sites. Pandora Radio is now my favorite internet radio station - I tune in all the time - it is a lot of FUN! If I was single, I thought the Last.FM site could be a perfect tool for the next rage in internet dating - finding potential mates based on the music they listen to! Sounds like a perfect match to me. I already used Craigslist a lot - it definitely is easy to use - easy to find stuff & relatively easy to post on too.

My greatest discovery from this "thing" was the site "Upcoming.org". It is a Yahoo based website that allows you to post up coming events you may wish to publicize for free. Since it is a Yahoo site you do need to be registered with them (I already had one from previously), this is easy to do. Then you just fill in the fields with necessary info and add pics if you want (pretty easy to do except you may need to format original to square size for best results). It will automatically generate a beautiful listing complete with map and directions to your event. I have used this site now a couple of times to publicize the events for the guitar shop. It works pretty slick - It is easy to use & FREE! Also, since it is a Yahoo based site many times a search in a search engine will pull up your results in the first page - a good thing for a new business starting out! I will definitely use it again for any future events. I think the library should consider using it for any events it has.

Check my event out:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1853723/

I said NO, No, no

TechNOrati... Another one of these "things" I just didn't find much of a use for... I added a link into my igoogle page to keep a eye on what gets talked about - thinking it might help me understand the redeeming qualities of this site. It still didn't help much but I did find myself clicking a couple links that popped up there that have helped me understand trends in the 2.0 world. I did go in several things and check out the "top blogs" and looked around a bit in the "Music" catergory. Amy Winehouse is big news today with her being charged with assalting a fan - That woman is a TRAINWRECK although entertaining to watch!

Internet Safety in a 2.0 world

This was yet again another time I said to myself "So glad I don't have kids" - I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep track of your kid these days. There is so much information available and it so easily accessed. It is relatively easy to be anonomyous if you choose to be. The internet has completely changed all aspects of our lives. I think it is the parent's responsiblity to track their child's use of the internet. I checked a couple of the tracking softwares suggested in resources for this "thing" - it is amazing the amount of information that can be tracked with this stuff and it is inexpensive. Although, it makes you wonder about internet security if it is as easy as purchasing this software to be able to track communication and get passwords... Yikes!