Much of what we do on social media sites is completely frivolous, but we all know how powerful they can be when directed in the right way. Whether it’s raising money, awareness, or a volunteer force, there’s no better medium than the Internet for pushing a specific cause. Causes is a San Francisco, CA based company that wants to be the place that people go to when they want to “discover, support and organize campaigns, fundraisers, and petitions around the issues” that matter to them and their communities.
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When it comes to search engines, rankings are based on a wide variety of factors. Having content relevant to the query is probably the most important thing, but right after that comes links. Sites and pages with more incoming links (especially from sites and pages that have lots of incoming links) tend to rank better. Wikipedia gets a ton of links from all over the web, and as a result their pages rank well in almost every search result for which they have relevant content. They don’t even have to worry about getting links to rank well, they just do. But lots of smaller sites struggle to reach a wider audience through search engines because acquiring links can be really hard–especially in certain niches. TextLinkBrokers is a Mesa, AZ based company that services the “needs of professional SEM agencies and individuals looking for high quality link development.” In other words, they help site owners get more links.
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Have you ever caught someone talking about you behind your back? Whether they’re saying something nice or something mean, it can be pretty awkward. Still, it’s nice to know where you stand with people. For brands it’s a bit different. The awkwardness isn’t as much of a worry, and the information gained from hearing what people have to say can have tremendous business value. The problem is that overhearing a conversation isn’t a reasonable way to compile actionable information. That’s why newBrandAnalytics has developed “a social media monitoring and online reputation management tool that transforms online reviews into operational social intelligence.” The company is based in Washington, DC, and it helps companies pinpoint ways that they “can excel in customer experience management.”
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Washington DC,
web development
At this point you’ve spent a lot of your life in a classroom. Do you think you’d be better off if you spent more or less? I lean towards saying less, but only if I would have put that time to good use. I tend to think that a lot of today’s kids are overworked when it comes to school, but that’s probably because I went to a very competitive private school. There’s a lot of research that shows that more time in school leads to better outcomes, and The National Center on Time & Learning is a Boston, MA non-profit that “is dedicated to expanding learning time to improve student achievement and enable a well-rounded education.” Even though it pains me to say it, The National Center on Time & Learning probably has it right.
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InvestmentNews is our sponsor this week, and they would like to tell you about their NextGen Virtual Career Fair on November 8th. It’s an awesome opportunity for students and interns to network and find finance jobs on the spot.
I haven’t seen snow yet, but I did experience some sort of frozen precipitation while I was in Michigan over the weekend. It’s hard enough to accept that summer is over and that the shorts need to be put away, but it’s really difficult to come to terms with the fact that winter is coming (especially when you live in Chicago). It’s even worse because almost everything that I love to do is better with good weather (fishing, playing beach volleyball, grilling, walking the dog). Yet for some people it’s almost the opposite. These are the type of people who buy gear from Black Diamond Equipment, a Salt Lake City, UT based company that is “all about climbing and skiing.” In fact, Black Diamond Equipment makes it possible for people to enjoy weather that might otherwise keep you stuck indoors with a bad case of the shack nasties.
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My knowledge of anatomy is a mashup of what I learned in my college Meat Science class (it’s amazing how similar animals are to humans when it comes musculature) and what I’ve picked up from reading about professional athlete’s injuries. Luckily, I’m not a doctor and don’t have any intention of being one. Otherwise I’d have to hit the books hard. Firecracker would probably be my best bet. They are a Cambridge, MA based company that has built the “most advanced learning platform for the next generation of Physicians.” If you guessed that it’s not made with dead trees, you would be right. Firecracker is also the name of their app that can help you prep for both Pre-Med and Med School.
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science,
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unpaid
Nearly every tv show that we watch is sponsored by a number of companies, yet we never would think to thank the sponsors. The same can be said for websites. It’s pretty rude of us, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we be more grateful for all of the things that we get in exchange for a little bit of attention? Maybe we should, but we’re not going to be. The one exception is events. When a corporate sponsor puts on an event, I feel that I owe them something. That’s probably why Mirrorball believes that “if you want to move the needle, then first, you need to move your consumer.” Mirrorball is a New York, NY based consumer engagement agency “that connects brands and people through a fusion of social media and live experience.” Experiences are engaging, and if you can create them win the right way, you can reach people with messages that they might ignore in other settings.
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When social media started picking up steam as an essential business tool, it was mostly tech brands that were investing in it. They the huge national brands started tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming. Now it’s time for the local brands to jump on the bandwagon. Social Media Beast is a Chicago, IL based agency that is helping some of Chicago’s most notable brands do social right. Much of the cost in hiring a full-time social media person are centered around training and managing the individual. Why would a small business waste resources doing that when they can just hire an agency like Social Media Beast?
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Illinois,
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What do hipsters love? Brooklyn and things with suggested prices/contributions (you can feel like a full paying customer without being a full paying customer). They also like artsy stuff. I have to imagine that the Brooklyn Museum is a hipster’s paradise, but then again it’s probably paradise for a lot of people considering that it’s “one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country.” They have more than half a million square feet of space and an amazing group of collections “that range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world’s principal cultures.”
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I may be a dog person (this is my puppy Garçon), but I love big cats. They are the ultimate land-based predators, which is why I hope to one day see a mountain lion in the wild (from the safety of a car though). The problem with big cats is that there is one predator higher up in the food chain: us. Whether it’s protecting livestock, killing them for their fur, or infringing on their habitat, humans have had a severely negative impact on populations of big cats across the world. It’s time to make up for an ugly past, and that’s why Panthera exists. They are a New York, NY based non-profit that “is the world’s leading conservation organization devoted exclusively to the protection of wild cats.” Panthera got its started in 2006, and since then has been working to protect 37 species of wild cats.
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writing
Yesterday was a day to celebrate our freedoms. Being able to speak and express ourselves freely is the most important in my book. Even though we have that right, there is no guarantee that anyone will listen or pay attention to us. If you want to be heard, you have to promote your voice. That’s what See.Me is all about. They are a New York, NY based company that has built a platform that allows artists of all kinds to “share the best of what [they] do and gain recognition and support within [a] vibrant international community.” It’s a place to get exposure, meet other artists, and even earn financial contributions from those who want to support your work.
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If you haven’t had one of your social media accounts hacked, you certainly know someone who has. It’s pretty obvious that the social-ification of the web has made the Internet a much more dangerous place. Not only can malware spread more quickly and efficiently, but hackers have access to far more personal data–and that allows them to abuse the trust that you have in your online social connections. While this is kind of scary on an individual level, it’s much more frightening for large companies and organizations. Riskive is a Baltimore, MD based company that sees what’s happening. That’s why they’ve built an “enterprise grade security technology dedicated to identifying, monitoring and preventing risk across the socially connected enterprise.”
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web development
Sales is all about relationships. Whether you’re trying to convince someone to make a one time purchase or enter a ten-year contract, you need to build a certain level of trust and empathy (the level is much higher in the latter case). Sometimes it only takes one conversation, but it often takes many more. A sales person has to be organized to ensure that his or her communications are continuously moving towards a sale. The tools for doing that used to be a rolodex and a notebook, but that has obviously changed. What hasn’t changed is the need for mobility in a customer relationship management system, and that’s exactly what Base CRM offers. They are a Chicago, IL based company that “is paving the way by building the next generation of CRM software.” They realized that most competing software is a burden (not a useful tool) for salespeople, so they decided to build something that people would actually want to use.
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If you’re taking your job search seriously, you’ve probably read at least one article that advised you to start monitoring your personal brand online. Most people who spend time doing this face the sad reality that nobody is talking about them. Still, it’s nice to get a notification when your name does pop up. For many brands this kind of tracking is a necessity. The tools that you or I might use can’t keep up with the volume, and that’s why Brandwatch has grown so quickly. They’re a Brighton, UK based company with a growing New York, NY office that is “all about monitoring what people say about your brand, products, competitors, industry or any related topics.” If someone is saying it on a publicly accessible website, they’ll find it.
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united kingdom
I’m getting married tomorrow! Amy and I are extremely excited to share such a special event with so many friends and family, but we’re both a little nervous… about the weather. There are thunderstorms in the forecast, and I have a bad history with lightning. Whether it rains or not, the wedding will go on, it will be great, and people will take lots of pictures. We have a great photographer who will capture many of the special moments, but our friends and family will do their best to supplement him and his crew. We decided against using an app to collect photos from friends, but we definitely considered it. Wedding Party is a Palo Alto, CA based company that offers an app that allows you to “capture all the amazing photos from your wedding.”
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There used to be three places that you could buy video advertisements: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now there are millions. Nearly every website has the capability to sell video advertising, though very few have a team to sell the ads the way a tv station would (and that’s not even the best way to do it necessarily). SpotXchange is a Westminster, CO based company that makes buying and selling video advertising easy. In fact, they claim to have “the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory, reaching 110 million unique visitors each month in more than 35 countries.” It allows publishers and brands to link up that might never have connected without SpotXchange.
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I’m headed to Colorado for my bachelor party this weekend. We rented a ranch, and we’re planning on hiking, fishing, and eating meat. My hope was that we’d get shorts and t-shirt weather, but it’s looking more and more like we might need to bring along something from The North Face. It’s not that we’ll be doing any hardcore mountaineering during the trip–it’s just going to be cold. As much as we all know that The North Face, which is based in Alameda, CA, is about pushing “the boundaries of innovation so that you can push the boundaries of exploration,” we also know that a lot of their gear is purchased to keep suburban kids warm while they wait for the school bus. That’s not a slight The North Face. It’s just that when you make high performance clothing and outerwear that looks great and is relatively affordable, people are going to use it in all kinds of situations.
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When I was a kid, making t-shirts was a big thing. We had fabric markers and some sort of glittery paint in a squeeze bottle. The end result was always a huge mess and a t-shirt that I would be embarrassed to wear. Then there was tie dye, which is even messier and more embarrassing to wear. My mom once had a photo t-shirt made for me, and that was awesome, but there was no way that I could do that on my own. Things have changed. Lumi is a Los Angeles, CA based company that has developed “a revolutionary photographic print process for textiles and natural materials.” It’s basically Instagram, but your photo ends up on a t-shirt or pretty much any other appropriate surface.
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One Day One Job is hiring! Learn more here.
Personal finance and the job search go hand in hand. There’s plenty that you can do to get your financial life in order before you start working, but you can’t really start taking control until the paychecks start hitting your bank account (even though that’s probably the most tempting time to lose control). As I’ve learned from Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, personal financial success is about behavioral change, and changing your behavior is hard. That’s why I was intrigued to learn about a “financial wellness” tool that was designed with the help of behavioral economists. The company behind it is called HelloWallet, and they’re based in Washington, DC. Their goal is to “boost the wealth of workers by democratizing access to honest financial guidance – something only 20 percent of Americans have access to today.”
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I made it from seventh grade through college with a single TI-83, who wants to touch me? Maybe it’s because I went to a private school where people were careless with $80 devices (they’re about $95 on Amazon now), but I swear everybody I knew either lost, broke, or had theirs stolen at least twice. While the need for students to have a graphing calculator hasn’t changed, the need for a standalone device has. That’s why we’re going to celebrate Pi Day by looking at Desmos (on past Pi Days we’ve looked at Pi Media, The Mathematical Association of America, and Orbotix–one of my favorites). They’re a San Francisco, CA based startup that offers a free online graphing calculator for students, teachers, and anyone interested in math.
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I have a favorite Yankees blog, and I occasionally participate in a Cornell Hockey forum. I follow a few athletes on Twitter, and sometimes get into sports debates on Facebook. I’d imagine that I’m a pretty typical sports fan in terms of my social media and web use–my attention is fragmented across a lot of different sites. LockerDome is a St. Louis, MO based startup that offers a social media platform to help “professional athletes, brands, media personalities, and other sports properties” reach their fans wherever they’re consuming content online. The idea is that LockerDome acts “as a social hub [for athletes and brands] to amplify their overall social media strategy.”
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Job searching and looking for love can be similarly painful. There’s the fear of rejection, the lack of useful feedback, and the constant pressure to make something happen from family and friends. While there’s no holiday that makes being unemployed feel like being alone on Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of day to day reminders that you need to get a job (hopefully these e-mails are a positive reminder). I think that one of the reasons that people struggle to find both love and jobs is that they try to do it alone. What if you had a few friends to help you along the way? That’s what Grouper is proposing. They’re a New York, NY based dating startup/social club “that sets up drinks between 2 groups of friends.” They don’t even use the word “dating” on their homepage, and I think that’s a brilliant branding decision–it’s all about meeting new people. I’m especially fond of Grouper because they’re running with the fish theme.
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As I see it, there are two kinds of jewelry. The expensive kind that a guy might buy for a girl (reminder: Valentine’s Day is in three days), and the kind a girl might buy for herself. I realize that is an arbitrary distinction that doesn’t cover a lot of jewelry buying activity, but it’s a quick mental model that works for me. (I believe the more formal distinction is fine jewelry vs. fashion jewelry.) BaubleBar sells jewelry that falls into the latter category. They’re a New York, NY based company that was started by two friends who realized that “fashion jewelry was the one accessory that had yet to capture meaningful space in [their] closets.” They identified a number of things that were wrong with the market, and decided to build a business where women can “buy high quality pieces without a high price tag.”
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sourcing,
style,
unpaid,
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This morning I read an article called Lawmakers Gone Wild in Chicago magazine. It’s about how many Illinois politicians are using their campaign funds as a tax free slush fund for personal expenses. The abuses are rampant, but only the most egregious offenders are prosecuted (and it’s often by the federal government). Much of the research for the article came from the Better Government Association, a Chicago, IL based non-profit that “works for integrity, transparency, and accountability in government by exposing corruption and inefficiency; identifying and advocating effective public policy; and engaging and mobilizing the electorate to achieve authentic and responsible reform.” Considering that the BGA has been around since 1923, you really have to wonder how bad things would be if they never existed.
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What would you do if you got $3.8 million tomorrow? If you didn’t answer “Buy a Super Bowl ad,” then I’m a little disappointed in you. That’s the going rate this year, and many of the usual suspects are expected to pay the price. The word on the street is that the E*Trade talking baby will be making another appearance. That’s good news for Grey because they’re the ones who taught the baby how to talk. Grey (also known as Grey Group) is a New York, NY based marketing and advertising agency has been “famously effective since 1917.” Their football street cred goes way beyond a talking baby–they also do work for the NFL. Want something more socially conscious? TED is a client. It’s hard to believe how many major brands hire Grey; in fact, Grey works with a quarter of the Fortune 100.
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I didn’t have a teacher accept an e-mailed assignment from me until my Senior year in high school. When I went to college all of my classes were supposed to be on Blackboard, but most of the professors didn’t use it because it was a terrible piece of software. Even by the time I graduated, most of my professors weren’t using much technology beyond e-mail to communicate and interact with students. I hear that’s changing, and I’ll bet that a lot of it has to do with how far technology has come over the last decade. We’ve all seen teachers try to get a video to play in class. When classroom technology doesn’t work, it brings learning to a screeching halt. Schoology is a New York, NY based company that does the opposite–they provide teachers with “the tools and connections to engage students more efficiently and improve educational effectiveness on both a large and small scale.”
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Yesterday we looked at WCG, a strategic communications firm that helps brands embrace “the positive future of communications.” Today we’re going to look at another company that helps brands achieve similar goals but with a very different approach. Percolate is a “thoughtful technology company that’s building a new kind of technology platform.” They’re based in New York, NY and they provide software to “help brands create content at social scale.” I have enough trouble keeping my own Twitter feed interesting, so major brands are able to develop compelling content for dozens of profiles across dozens of networks. Percolate takes a lot of the busy work out of community management while providing tools that spark creativity. It seems like a huge win for companies that do social media on a major scale–brands like IBM, GE, American Express, Ogilvy, and Budweiser (all Percolate clients).
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A few weeks ago I was reminded of how annoying car ownership can be. I got a flat. Luckily I was parked on my street and they weren’t doing street cleaning that day. I called AAA to have them help put on my spare, but it ended up that the spare was rusted in place on the bottom of the car. Then I had to call a tow truck to take the car to a tire shop where I spent $500 on new tires. Overall it wasn’t too bad (I wasn’t stuck on the side of the road in a bad neighborhood or anything), but the experience reminded me that there’s a price for all of those times that having a car is super convenient. Getaround is a San Francisco, CA based company that changes the car ownership equation. They offer a platform for peer-to-peer car sharing that allows car owners to earn money by renting out their cars and the carless to enjoy the convenience of owning a car when they need it.
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Amy, my fiancée, and I communicate a lot over the course of the day. Beyond talking in person, we typically talk on the phone, we e-mail, we Gchat, and we iMessage. It works for us, but I could see how someone might want all of those communications in one place. Others might want to participate in some online PDA without the P. Either way, Pair is a solution. It’s an app created by a company called TenthBit in San Francisco, CA that is “for just the two of you.” Its features include “texting, sharing, videos, photos, sketching together, thumbkiss and more.” It’s a little overkill for me, but I can see why some couples love it.
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I’m going to a wedding this weekend. I’ll wear the same black Bonobos suit that I wear to every wedding. All I have to think about is what tie to wear. I’d never even consider buying a new outfit for a wedding other than my own or one I’m in. But it’s not an uncommon thing for a lot of women to wear a different dress to every wedding they go to. That can get expensive, unless you choose to Rent The Runway. Rent The Runway is a New York, NY based “community designed to fill the needs of women who know and love high fashion, who want to look glamorous for all their nights out, and experiment with new brands without the anxiety of investing in piece after piece.” (Use this link to try it for $20 off.) The company was started by two women (Jenn and Jenny) who met at Harvard Business School, and it’s taken off since as the “Netflix for fashion.”
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