Tuesday Tactics

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In the 147th Edition of Tuesday Tactics (5/15/2012): Scott's Thoughts: There's No There For Your Clients: CommonSenseMedia.org Vid.ly: Your Video Sharing Solution on the Go Frrole.com: The Future of the Social Newspaper? Humor: Tough Recommendations Catch Up!: Links to Last Week's Articles Instant $20 OFF coupon code from Oakley Signs & Graphics!

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Scott's Thoughts: There's No There

“There's no there. That elusive 'there' with the job, the beach house, the dream, it's not out there. There is here. It's in you right now.”

Brian Kenny, Sportscaster for ESPN at the Commencement Speech at Ohio Northern University, 2007

In this month's brand new My Real Helper collection, we featured a website which contains some of the most inspirational commencement speeches ever given. We figured it was a good time to share the resource with our members and even write the letters they could use to connect with their contacts who knew of recent graduates.

While browsing the site myself, I came across this excellent quote and speech from Brian Kenny of ESPN. The entire speech is great, but it was item number three on his "Top Eight to Help you Enter the Rest of Your Life" which caught my eye.

His advice was taken from Gertrude Stein, and I wanted to share some of it with our readers this week:

"There's No THERE, THERE. That's from the writer Gertrude Stein. She's right. There's no there. That elusive "there" with the job, the beach house, the dream, it's not out there. There is here. It's in you... right now. That real happiness, real contentment has to be IN you regardless of professional achievement and amount of wealth. It's not magically appearing with a job and a paycheck. When you're young and struggling it's easy to think; "If I could just get that job... get that girl... get that guy... that car... that house...that salary..." "If I could just get THERE... I would have it all." I could finally be happy."

He goes on to describe champion boxers he's met who always thought that success would change their life, and how "arriving" at their championship moments did not produce the life-altering shift they expected. In fact, he says:

"Achievement and wealth were not an elixir for his problems. No there. Remember that. You are THERE, now."

I love this. You are THERE right now. Go through your day with this thought in mind, and you might find yourself in better spirits. The trophy is today.

Photo credit: Julie Rybarczyk

Here's to your continued success,

Scott Levitt
President, Oakley Signs & Graphics

For Your Clients: CommonSenseMedia.org

Here's something you can share with your clients to make a thoughtful connection that will also help protect their children.

Understanding which movies, apps, websites, and television shows are suitable for your kids can be a full-time job. In fact, your average parent has almost zero time between work and running a household to stay on top of the media children consume on a daily basis.

Wouldn't it be great if parents had a resource that would review media and provide parents with a thoughtful analysis of what's "out there"?

Well, that's exactly what CommonSenseMedia.org does. From their mission statement:

"Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology.

We exist because our nation's children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development . As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume."

Share this resource with your clients and contacts and let them know that you're concerned about how our communities are raised in the digital age. It's a great way to show you're thinking about them, and they'll probably appreciate the tip.

(Feel free to copy and paste from this short article if you'd like to share it in your email to clients or on your Facebook page, etc.)

Vid.ly: Your Video Sharing Solution on the Go

Our smartphones give us just about everything we need to shoot video these days. It's quick and easy to take a clip of a soccer game, take quick video evidence of damage for an insurance claim, or even send a nice video greeting back to a prospect.

But how do you quickly and easily share those videos through your phone? And how do you know the format you use to record the video will be visible to your audience on the other end?

Vid.ly solves the problem of encoding video into multiple formats and displaying the right one automatically for your audience. It also creates a simple, short, shareable link that you can use to instantly post on social media, text messaging, and email.

The service is completely free for up to 10 "active" Vid.ly links per month. For most people, this is plenty for sharing a handful of links as-needed with others. (If you need more than the free option, there's a very simple price calculator on their website.)

Frrole.com: The Future of the Social Newspaper?

Twitter may not be the most accurate form of breaking news, but one thing is for sure: It's one of the best ways to catch headlines as they happen.

The 140-character social media service distributes information in real time and has chronicled (and even enabled) major political movements such as the Arab Spring, as well as real-time community organization around social movements, celebrity news, and fundraising efforts. (Even the actions of Seal Team 6 were reported on Twitter during the taking of Osama Bin Laden, when someone in the Pakistan neighborhood heard the helicopters!)

With so much information moving so quickly across Twitter, it makes that someone would try and use the power of internet technologies to organize and that information in a format you could more easily digest.

Enter Frrole.com, a website which is trying to be the first "social newspaper" based almost entirely on Twitter's trending topics. By scanning Tweets and organizing them by city, you can now browse your "local edition" of the Frrole newspaper. Even better, that local info is further broken down by categories, such as Headlines, Sports, Travels, Jobs, Entertainment and more.

While "your mileage may vary" when it comes to the overall utility of Frrole in these early stages, it can be an enlightening and helpful way to get breaking news without manually scanning Twitter. It's also useful if you're traveling to other cities and want to be current on some of the "chatter" around what's going on at your destination.

Test Frrole out for yourself: http://www.frrole.com

Humor: Tough Recommendations

Diplomacy is a fine art, especially when you find yourself asked to make recommendations for people you wouldn't necessarily recommend. In that spirit, we've hunted down some subtle (and we think funny!) ways to cloak your real feelings with what sounds like a glowing recommendation.

(Disclaimer: Of course we don't mean for you to seriously use these, but they are pretty good.)

1. To describe a person with unimpressive credentials:

"All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate, or recommend him too highly."

2. To describe someone so unproductive it would be better not to hire anyone:

"I can assure you that no person would be better for the job."

3. To describe someone who is completely incompetent:

"I enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever."

4. To recommend a truly lazy candidate:

"In my opinion, you will be very fortunate to get this person to work for you."

5. To describe an ex-coworker who had problems getting along with others:

"I am pleased to say this candidate is a former colleague of mine."

6. To describe someone who is not worth further consideration:

"I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer."

Catch Up! Links to Last Week's Articles

Did you miss last week's edition of Tuesday Tactics? Accidentally send it to the trash? No worries, we have featured articles from last week available on the Tuesday Tactics Website:

Scott's Thoughts: Watch the Traffic
http://www.tuesdaytactics.com/scotts-thoughts-watch-the-traffic/

Vinyl Banners from Oakley Signs & Graphics Now Available
http://www.tuesdaytactics.com/vinyl-banners-from-oakley-signs-graphics/

How to Use Canned Responses in Gmail
http://www.tuesdaytactics.com/how-to-use-canned-responses-in-gmail/

Wisdom of the Ages: 30 Lessons for Living
http://www.tuesdaytactics.com/wisdom-of-the-ages-30-lessons-for-living/

Humor: A Son-in-Law in Real Estate
http://www.tuesdaytactics.com/humor-a-son-in-law-in-real-estate/

Your Own Professional Copywriter for Only $9.95/mo. (My Real Helper!)
http://www.myrealhelper.com/join/