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Great blog post by Pamela Wilson on how images market more than words; identifies resources, too. istockphoto.com: This is the site I go to first. The search capabilities are great, the selection is vast (and growing) and you can even search by color and composition. (If you want to run your text along the right side of a photo, you can search for photos that have open areas along the right side, for example.) shutterstock.com: Another excellent (and vast) collection of high-quality images. dreamstime.com: I haven't used this much, but it looks promising. It claims to have the least expensive stock photos, and the quality looks good. Free stock photos stock.xchng: The granddaddy of free stock photo sites. The free offerings are shown along with tempting paid offerings from a sister site, but if you can resist the urge to upgrade to paid, there are plenty of good images here. morguefile.com: Don't let the name fool you. A morgue file, as I learned in art school, is where one keeps photo and image references to be used in the future. This is the Internet's morgue file, and is assembled by creative people and freely shared.

Very helpful blog post by Beth Hayden, Copyblogger,on how to use Pinterest to market your business. We need to read and adapt these ideas for WLS.

"Something successful entrepreneurs should aim to have: Conviction. Being an entrepreneur is not the easy road to success. Sure, you're your own boss-making the conversation in which you ask for a raise far less awkward-but the hours are long, the market always crowded, the naysayers plenty. There will be discouraging news. But the ability to stand behind your decisions is essential. No one else can tell you what you want for your company, and don't let them try. Drive. As an entrepreneur, time is not on your side. The best-laid plans are those that are executed as swiftly as possible. Don't sit on an idea or wait until you've had a chance to "sleep on it." Act now. Innovation. The original brainchild might have been the thing that got you excited enough to take the leap into entrepreneurship. But longevity will depend on continually coming up with new ideas, from products to ways to market them to which audiences to target. Not all of these ideas will be winners. But having them is not optional. Inspiration. You may be your only employee. Or you might have a team that looks to you to engage them, foster their talents, and involve them in the bigger picture. Those employees who feel excited about, and part of, the overall vision will be encouraged to grow alongside you, and work hard for you. Focus. Establish your daily, weekly, quarterly goals and go after them. Connect dots on a daily basis. Avoid distractions, and distracting people. Independence. It's a lonely road, entrepreneurship. Though your goal is to foster community within your company, there will be days when you wish everyone else would be willing to work as hard as you are, to want it as much as you do. But realize that your company's success does mean more to you than it does to anyone else. Be willing to go the road alone on those days when everyone else has seemingly pulled off for lunch. That's what'll make the difference."

"Content marketing is more than writing blogs. Way more. If you're just getting involved in content marketing, the first thing you need to do is launch your blog and start writing. Then, when your blog is established and purring along, try throwing in a new type of content. I predict that you'll immediately see a difference - fresh traffic, targeted visitors, higher conversion rates, and better SEO."

Great article on inability of big data marketing brokers failing to regulate themselves by Kate Crawford, January 28, 2014. Individuals can do little to protect themselves or opt-out.

interesting observations on Susanna and Jonathan Gebauer's reflections on blogging for six months (March 23, 2015).

blog by Eli Dourado on March 6, 2013 on binge learning. Excerpt: A combination of technology (DVRs) and market service providers (Netflix, Hulu, On Demand) have transformed how and when and where we watch "television." I suspect that students want the same things. Technology and market forces appear to be reshaping how and when and where we learn. Perhaps we education providers should pay attention. But the kind of bingeing that people might like to do with online courses is entirely different. Most people who sign up for an online class at Udacity or Marginal Revolution University want to take the class for its own sake, not as a requirement for some broader credential. The point is not to learn and forget-it is to indulge an interest. This seems like a more natural way to learn than traditional educational structures can offer: develop an interest and mercilessly indulge it until another interest supersedes it. It is a method that conserves the mental energy associated with willpower, leaving more of the brain's resources to focus on the material itself. Since it relies on the student actually being interested in the class, it is hard to fit into a physical schooling environment, where classes have to begin on a schedule, go slow enough for everyone to keep up, and run in parallel with other classes. Online education also saves the resources associated with context switching. Humans are notoriously bad multitaskers. Each time a high school student has to change classes, she has to quickly stifle the thoughts and questions raised in previous classes to focus on the current class. She has to expend mental resources remembering where the previous session of the current class left off. And when she returns to the class that stimulated the thoughts that had to be stifled, she may not recall them. Far better to focus on-or even to binge on-one subject until she is at a good stopping point.

Although this article concentrates on content curation for marketing, there are some great tips to remember such as identifying your audience, focus your sharing, make sure your curation is of impeccable quality, curate consistently, brand yourself not your company. Love this quote: " Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer publicly states his Twitter strategy is "find good shit and share it.""

Very good article by Glenn Llopis in Forbes, 6/13/2011, on importance of authenticity in diversity management. Not a numbers or compliance game but a real effort to get the most from everyone in an organization in order to serve/sell/reach out effectively to markets, communities, customers, and clients.

article written by Jason Forsythe for participating advertisers in the NYT, 2004. Yet it explains what Eli Lilly, CIA, and Ford do to use affinity groups (also called networking groups) to bring together employees based on country of origin, religion, physical disabilities, military service, age, sexual orientation and other parameters to organize their own learning events, attract business candidates, and marketing services/products to like communities.

useful suggestions for branding and markeing

Very interesting Slideshare on finding the juicy problems of your customers that they will pay you to help solve. Should go into our marketing resource group. Offers a leanstartup validation board from customer hypothesis to problem hypothesis to solution hypothesis to design experiment (get out of the building) to validate what you plan to offer.

Interesting cultural studies piece in the NYTimes about unwanted email. The law is that marketers and businesses must have an option to let you unsubscribe, but fledgling businesses or friends' businesses fall through the cracks. What to do about it? Some new software, hitting delete, creating an email account you never use or view.

from the Blog Tyrant: online marketing strategy Blog about Chris Drucker's new book Although he has over 300 employees and speaks at high profile gigs around the world, he is still very approachable and has helped me out a number of times when most people just wouldn't have replied.If you're at all interested in outsourcing to grow your business then his website and podcast are two things you should really be checking out. And so is his new book.

Makes me feel better about having Kristin do some work for us, and makes the point about concentrating on what you want to do and are good at doing.

Yes, it reassured me, too, to know that the market is moving to buying promotion.

Traditional formats in Word or PDF are still preferred even by advertising and marketing executives

good tips on blogging by Chris Brown, 12/2014, Digital Current, conversion driven SEO & digital marketing agency

Katie Bascuas on recent email surveys on usage, importance of short subject headings, etc. AssociationsNow, June 18, 2015

A great post on effective blogging by Lynn Serafinn that we are try to execute

very good article on how to interpret the statistics on your blog, September 2015, Lynn Serafinn

Useful tips for job searches