ha media group

The unbearable price of my morning coffee…

Inna Hardison — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:48:43 +0000

This morning I got angry at my little one for oversleeping, hence making me drive him to school, instead of just dropping him off at the bus stop. There were no emergencies to deal with or conference calls that would have needed to be changed, just a hot cup of coffee and my morning 20 minutes of quiet that were now lost. I don’t get to say I am sorry for another 3 hours from now. I wish I could take it back. I also wish I could honestly say that I will never go off at my loved ones for something as insignificant as an unplanned 20 minute trip and having to wait for that all important cup of morning coffee. The truth is, I most likely will.

A few days ago at our local supermarket there was an old lady with a kid (her grand-kid, it turned out) who was buying a few minor things and using two separate food-stamps cards to pay for them. She was a few bucks short, nothing huge. I was with my little one doing a huge weekly shop, and we were in the checkout line right behind her. I paid what she was missing – without even thinking. My little one asked why I paid for someone else’s groceries, and if daddy would mind. I remember telling him that daddy would have done the exact same thing, and that I wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t that kind of person. My little one, reassured now, tells me that he wouldn’t trade us as parents for the world, and that he too is “that kind of person”, and would have covered that lady’s bill…

Jeff Turner shared a post recently that does a much better job of talking about this very thing than I ever could, which you can read here>>

How do I reconcile the two of me in the eyes of the amazing child I’m raising?

my sweet child...

How do I explain to him that little things he does sometimes drive me crazy, and I might yell at him for no reason at all, and yet I am thoughtful and generous to a total stranger? That I would drive that same stranger to a hospital without even thinking about it, if asked, while begrudging him a tiny bit of extra sleep on a school morning?

I’d very much like not to have to…. I am hoping that if I simply take a few seconds to breathe before I unleash a barrage of words on my loved ones, I’ll see the immense love and kindness and generosity of spirit that binds me to them more than DNA alone ever could, and maybe, just maybe next time the kiddo oversleeps, I’ll share my 20 minutes of quiet and my first cup of morning coffee with him, and then drive him to school, singing along to his Spotify list.

I’d like to think that over time those moments can add up and help rewrite some of our collective narratives…

From the archives: in search for a bit of courage…

Inna Hardison — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:11:01 +0000

Last night I stumbled upon a postal crate of copies of a magazine Jon and I published locally every month for some four and change years. As I sat there sifting through the satin pages, there was one story that begged revisiting, the one that statistically affected the least number of people, but one that meant the most to the human in me. I’ll link to the reprint of it in its entirety shortly, but first, a little background.

This week, more than any other time in the last decade and change, I wished I had faith in some higher power to make things ok for a few people that I care about and who are having a heck of a time now for various reasons. I spoke to someone who is losing her spouse to cancer, and who at the age most people should be enjoying retirement will have to work 16 hour days to simply stay in the home that she shared with her husband for so many years. I was hoping to offer help, and was turned down, but instead, I was treated to a most remarkable display of strength and courage and calm.

Then, two days ago, a person I have admired greatly for some years now and was finally lucky enough to meet in person at #RETSO, Jay Thompson, suffered a massive heart attack and yet, this crazy big bear of a man was posting to FB and Twitter from ICU, post surgery, to assuage the fears of his friends.

If I am being honest, I am pretty sure that if anything like this happened to me or my loved one, I would curl up in a fetal position somewhere, unable to move or act, never mind do anything even mildly meaningful. I can barely see myself finding the strength to survive things happening to other people I know…

Which leads me in this strange, roundabout way to the story of Bob Lynch. I was one of a few dozen people to interview him years ago at a chance encounter at our local marina. The resulting story to this day breaks through the melancholy and helplessness I feel when I can’t change something that must be changed. It’s my own personal bit of inspiration, and the greatest gift I could have asked for from our four-year venture.

Few weeks ago I got an email from Bob asking about my family and letting me know he is still alive and kicking and rowing, and I realized that for as long as he can keep doing what he does, against staggeringly lousy odds, I have no excuse. Non of us do. Thank you, Bob, the most courageous man I know, for still being here, and for still touching me like few can.

Here is the story in its entirety: teamhardison.com/in-my-heart/row-bob-row-revisited

PS: For any of you who know Jay, there are two Pinterest boards I am aware of that were started to show him love and support here, and one for pinning healthy eats and drinks to here.

We Love Jay Thompson Pinterest Board

Feel free to also tweet your well wishes to him using the hashtag #getwelljay

Row Bob Row Revisited…

Inna Hardison — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:59:46 +0000

Battling the Waves & Cancer

(republished from July 2006 edition of our magazine, Palm Coast Lifestyles)

somewhere on the water there will be two white row boats, slicing through the waves, less vulnerable to the elements than one would assume because of their occupants’ adamant wish to beat the odds…

Two slender row boats were gingerly pulled out of the water at Palm Coast Marina. The boats were identical, save for the names “Attitude” and “Inner Voice”. Palm Coast was one of the stops in a 200 mile journey from Melbourne to Jacksonville. A journey designed to help fight a rare form of blood cancer.

Bob & Cork on the water...

Bob Lynch, one of the two boaters, looks like an average 50-something year-old, except that he is entirely bald and sports a walrus moustache that accentuates his grin. I am loathe to call any person ordinary, but relying on the standard details, Bob’s life could seem entirely ordinary. Bob grew up between homes in Cape Cod and Fort Lauderdale, though the accent is definitely Cape. After college, Bob moved to Florida for good, establishing a modest career, and rowing every chance he got for exercise and for the ability to reflect on the day and relegate it to the past. He was happily married, had close friends and was doing well enough to not worry about much. Life was maybe not grand, but definitely good. At a routine physical in 1995 Bob was told he had an incurable disease with a life expectancy of 3-7 years if he is lucky, and even that would require multiple sessions of chemo therapy. The name of the disease was Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia, a cancer of the blood and immune system so rare that is affects only 6.1 men per million. The good news was that this type of cancer attacked slowly. The bad news was that the medical community did not know enough about either the causes or treatment options. There is always the chemo, indiscriminately attacking all cells in the hopes to bring down the enemy. After 18 months of chemo the high levels of a dangerous protein in his blood went down, the hemoglobin went up, and mathematically speaking, his blood looked much better. Physiologically speaking, Bob was feeling very much like the enemy was himself, and that the all out war was killing him, so he stopped taking chemo against medical advice and hoped for the best.

One day he realized that he missed rowing and decided to give it a try. He rowed only a few yards, and his wife, Sue, had to pull him out of the boat as he was too weak to make it on his own. He could hardly stand up, yet there was that glimmer in the eyes; a tiny ray of hope. Every day from that point Bob would row for as long as he could handle it, eventually taking trips that were a few hours long. He noticed that he was feeling better, though the blood tests indicated otherwise. His numbers were off the charts, and according to his doctors he should not have survived with protein levels being where they were. As if to spite them, Bob was very much alive and rowing every day now. At 47 years of age, Bob was not ready to give up. He was too much in love with Sue, and the thought of leaving her made him angry. He smiles now, when explaining to me the emotional roller coaster that they were both on. Bob turns 59 this year.

One day, he was having lunch with a friend who nonchalantly asked: “Now that you are going to die, Bob, is there anything that you didn’t get a chance to do that you wish you had?” There was that something that came clear into view, impossible now to achieve… Rowing the length of the Florida Keys. Almost a hundred miles of rowing on the open water was hardly the task for a cancer patient, but it was so tempting.

Bob recalls asking his friend if he would sponsor him by the mile, and got an amused ‘yes’. That trip, Bob raised $30,000. Suddenly, there was a goal. Until that moment, rowing was just something Bob had always done, almost a matter of habit, like jogging or biking for some, and while thoroughly enjoyable on a good day, it was rowing for the sake of rowing. The thought of combining this passion with helping fight cancer quickly progressed to a plan of action. Bob would row the entire East Coast of Florida and get people to sponsor him by the mile, with all proceeds going towards finding the cure. This current trip, which started on the 11th anniversary of that first diagnosis, is the fourth survivor row for Bob and completes the first quest, spanning over 700 miles.

Bob opens a bottle of cold beer, a small reward after a difficult day of rowing and examines his newly acquired blisters. Sue, the group’s self-appointed nurse, skillfully treats and bandages the wounds as Bob, wincing, denounces any claim to being a hero: “I really am just a big baby when it comes to pain,” he says, as his wife nods in ascent. The other member of the group, Cork Friedman, puts away his digital video camera, and joins in the conversation. Bob met Cork by chance, while rowing of course, some six years ago, and Cork has been accompanying Bob on his expeditions ever since. A videographer by trade, Cork tapes their journeys and is working on a documentary on Bob. He is next in line for blister treatment, some of which he claims formed a topographical map of Florida on the one place he prefers we don’t photograph (caused by friction with the seat). It elicits a hearty chuckle from Bob, as do most things nowadays.

He laughs unabashedly through the entire interview as I struggle to reconcile the man and the circumstance.

Sue drops the first aid kit into the back of their yellow Xterra and helps secure the boats to the trailer. When Bob and Cork are on the water she trails them by land, arriving at the next destination before they do, and spends the time in between nursing their wounds, repairing their equipment and preparing the travelers for the next leg of the journey. She doesn’t seem to mind this behind the scenes role one bit. Seeing Bob doing what he loves is rewarding enough, and, given that so far he has beaten the odds by quite a few years, she expects that he will be around for a while longer. There are of course those moments of uncertainty when they scrutinize hundreds of numbers of the latest blood work printout. Bob will inevitably get a call from his oncologist urging him to do chemo again. He tells me that should he get worse, he will consider that option, but he doesn’t put too much stock into it. Why he is still alive may be a mystery for his doctors, he tells me, but he doesn’t mind that.

There is optimism in Bob’s voice and his whole demeanor. He tells me that he does not think of himself as someone who has cancer. He tells me that fear is capable of killing one faster than any cancer could, and he tries not to be afraid.

If anything, he is afraid of being too sick to row, but for now, he will be doing this for as long as he can.

They mention future plans that include rowing to Maine. I tell them that I think of it as crazy. Bob wipes the sweat from his face with a bandana, takes another gulp of beer and proceeds to give me a bear hug, content now that I questioned his sanity. So far, Bob Lynch and company raised over $110,000 towards finding the cure, and they hope that maybe Bob will be one of the people that money helps. In the mean time, Bob takes every free moment he has to talk to people all over the state about his battle with cancer in the hopes of inspiring people to fight and not give in to fear, no matter how grim the diagnosis.

The next leg of this journey was slated to start from the Palm Coast Marina in the morning, so the weary travelers set off to a hotel for a good meal and a night’s rest.

Next morning, Bob and company pulled up to the ramp and within twenty minutes the two boats and their passengers were in the water rowing due north. We noted how helpless and small the two boats looked compared to motorized giants going by at full speed. They rowed expertly, and Sue did not seem the least bit worried about the boys, as she affectionately called them. She was already examining the map that will take her to their next stop at Devil’s Elbow.

This row was almost over, and while we were told that there would definitely be more to come in the future, they tend not to row through the same place twice, so we may not see them in Palm Coast again. But somewhere on the water there will be two white row boats, slicing through the waves, less vulnerable to the elements than one would assume because of their occupants’ adamant wish to beat the odds.

If you would like to get to know Bob better, visit his site at: rowbobrow.com

Things I learned at #RETSO

Inna Hardison — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:38:12 +0000

None of these will provide meaningful insight into the so many awesome presentations. You can hunt for those soundbites on Twitter at #retso. These are my personal little takeaways, in no particular order:

Spotify is a must on long drives. Nothing better than singing along to some 132 songs with the hubby while navigating a mostly boring I-75
There is a humongous Confederate flag some 65 or so miles into Georgia, making it seem like we were driving South, not North.
Jeff Turner is the best hugger in the world, and has his own gravitational pull. For well over a year now I was hoping to meet this man and when he was standing right there in front of me, I realized that we already had met. One of the amazing gifts of social media.
Feeling the Love @Retso
Jay Thompson can still rock a t-shirt, even if he is now a Zillow man. He is also a big softy, and another one of the people I felt we’ve already met many times.
Real Estate pros can down an inordinate number of Tequila shots, if the Tequila is good, and still walk in a straight line.
A Ford Focus can fit 8 adults (and that’s after lunch), so long as one of them is in the trunk.
8 adults, one in the trunk.
It’s totally cool to engage in good ole’ college style pranking in a public place, like a restaurant, and get away with it.
one shot of 151 is all it took...
Learning again that my husband is indeed a remarkably funny man, and he can still rock hot pink and a Sombrero.
another fake birthday at Retso
Marc Davison is a very kind and gentle man (and a dapper dresser). He is also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and one of the most genuinely curious human beings out there.
My PW3 girls are just pure awesome. Kelly Mitchell is my new soft squishy. We hugged and smiled till our faces hurt. Suzanne and I talked each others ears off, and the ever smiley and happy Geeky Girls were everywhere at once at all times.
Honorary brothers are the best. I found one of those in @clicknfinance Jeff Chalmers. If nothing else amazing happened during this trip, this alone would have made the journey totally worthwhile.

There are people in this very small world of ours who we should simply be related to because they feel like family should. Best part of #retso – meeting some of those people face to face.

Farewell dinner...

This recap would be incomplete if I didn’t list a few regrets: I wish we got to spend a bit more time with Jeff Turner (but I know there’ll be a next time).

Would have been great to actually talk to Matthew Shadbolt, and not just get a hug, (although he is a great hugger), hang a bit with Gahlord (who is not the least bit anti-social and I’d love to hang out with him some day), and have a conversation on something other than polygamy with Rob Hahn (but at least I got to hear him laugh), and chat again with Bill Lublin…

For anyone planning to go next year: the Arena Tavern is great for drinking, but the food is better elsewhere, as we discovered. Luciano’s (great Italian Food), Marlows (American food, great staff, who tolerated our shenenigans with a smile), Taqueria los Hermanos (fantastic and very affordable Mexican) and I’m sure there are a few other places around.

#Retso shuttle is awesome and will save you the headaches of choosing a designated driver.

A huge thank you to Mike Pennington and Brad Nix (and the rest of #RETSO crew) for all you do.

And another personal thank you to our crew of trouble makers who kept us laughing till our sides hurt throughout the conference: Nikki Beauchamp, Suzanne Roy, Kathleen Seide, Coleen DeGroff, Jeff Chalmers, Carol Farrar, Kelly Mitchell, Seth Price, Peter Toner, and my sweet, funny hubby.

On bugs, sense of purpose and our hopes for #RETSO

Inna Hardison — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:30:40 +0000

Where we live, we have these bizarre grasshopper-like creatures that climb out from their nests in the ground during the last week of March. These buggers go from itty bitty nothings to grown up and flight-capable in a span of the journey through a few inches of soil. They spend the rest of their short life-cycles making themselves pretty with brilliant colours to acquire a mate and make other itty bitty nothings that will come out in March of next year. Watching these little critters alight on a specific plant, deliberately, knowingly – as if they’d been doing just that their whole lives got me thinking on the power of the sense of purpose; at least when it’s based on a biological imperative, one they can’t be deviated from, one that seems to be hard-wired. I wonder, if we ripped out their plants by next year and replaced them with something else, would they still hatch in our yard? Would they care that their world has changed, or still manage to pull through? Better yet, if we planted some brightly coloured sweet-smelling flowers next to their plants, would they get distracted from their path?

My weird bugs and their lifecycle, photos by Jon Hardison

Sometimes I think we are alive for far too long not to forget that our time is finite. It always seems that there are too many tomorrows waiting patiently for us to make up our minds about who we are supposed to be, or what we are supposed to do. Which branch are we supposed to alight on that will feel just right?

At almost 40, I am realizing I have no idea where that branch is for me. Sure there are a few things I know with certainty – I am still in love with my husband, and we have amazing kids. I also know that I genuinely enjoy what I do for a living. And yet, what if my life cycle just got shorter? I don’t have a bucket list. I feel far too young to want to make those kinds of plans. I am also realizing lately that I am not as brave as I once was.

There are a few projects out that have been in various stages of development for a while now (for us, not our clients), and yet never quite got to see the light of day. A few ideas that demanded that we take the plunge and execute and release to the world, but I’m finding we are easily stuck at each of the many “what if’s” that inevitably arise with any new venture.

In a few days, we get to go to #RETSO where we’ll meet some amazing people face to face for the first time. I am hoping that drinking at the well of their collective wisdom will point a bit more clearly to that all elusive branch for hubby (and my business partner) and I. I am hoping, too, that we’ll have the courage to take the leap.

Have you found your branch?

On prophesies of doom & gloom and survival of the shiniest…

Inna Hardison — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:36:16 +0000

The last few weeks my many news streams were exploding with scary headlines on all things web and seo related, courtesy of Google’s latest algo updates, of course. Headlines like SEO is Dead, and this little gem, No Corporate Website? You Don’t Need One. Welcome to the Post-Web era got me thinking on just how easy it seems to be to sway the herd in whatever direction the wind blows, even if only for a few days, weeks, months.

It seems that the wind for these and so many IM gurus is swinging rather solidly in the direction of a new world full of bright and shiny objects and social spaces. One where curated content strategically clipped to Pinterest can and apparently should replace a corporate or business website; one where search will be done solely from within our social circles and where by virtue of our reliance on a complex and ever-changing ecosystem made up of a myriad of social communities we will all magically be immune from a slap by Google’s Panda or some such, and our businesses will forever be secure.

Photo Courtesy blathleam via flikr

And so the herd not only takes all this to heart, but spread these posts and messages within them to their readership, and in some cases to their marketing clients.

I have neither the time nor, frankly, the patience to battle any of these claims. That they are baseless should be evident from the choice of titles alone, but I am seeing ordinarily reasonable people swallow the sentiments voiced whole, if only because some of these blogs are considered reputable. And this brings me to the actual point of this diatribe.

Where do we draw the line between what we accept at face value based on the source and things we should evaluate independently? How do we indeed figure out who to trust in the ever changing guru-scape?

No, I don’t have an answer that’ll work for everyone. What I’d like to see more of is thoughtful conversation. If advice of any kind is dished out to readerships even in the most trustworthy of pubs, we should still be able and willing to look at critically. Taking anything at face value when it comes to how you run and promote your business can be a very costly proposition. Just ask the owners of those very sites that are getting delisted as we speak – they took link-building advice at face value. Chances are some of the people who peddled those nifty link farms are now peddling social media as panacea to all business ills, no matter what your actual service, product or niche is.

So if you must follow the thought leaders, choose them wisely. And by that, I simply mean follow thinkers, not preachers. Follow people like Jeff Turner @jeffturner, Matthew Shadbolt @corcoran_group, Scott Stratten @unmarketing, AJ Leon @ajleon…. Yes, this is a short list and is only meant to point you in the direction of places where absolutes are rare and thoughtfulness abounds. You won’t find any catchy titles, or how to guides. But you just might accidentally stumble on a string of thought that leads you to a discovery worth making. And I would trade that for all the how to books in the world.

Your thoughts?

I’d give anything to believe that human beings are not scum, but…

Inna Hardison — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:06:16 +0000

Last Saturday my almost twenty year old son got into an accident. He was riding his little Yamaha 49 cc scooter to go see a friend, and hit a wild boar that was laying in the middle of the road. This particular road happens to be a few miles of dark and winding terrain, with woods on both sides. The kiddo was thrown going roughly 40 mph and landed in the middle of the road. Before anyone freaks out, he is ok, or I wouldn’t be writing this here. But I am writing about it because something in this experience made me lose what faith I had in the inherent goodness of man.

So back to a kid, who got very obviously thrown off his motorbike, laying in the middle of this two lane road, the scooter a few meters away from him and still running. There was an SUV a few hundred or so yards behind my son. Whoever was driving it didn’t so much as slow down or swerve, coming within inches from hitting my kid, who was as yet unable to move. As my son was crawling to the side of the road, doing his best to get away from lights of other cars behind him, two more cars zoomed past him without giving any of this a second thought. For the next twenty or so minutes, he crouched in a painful ball on the side of the road, trying to flag down a car with the one hand that wasn’t completely scraped and bloody, so that someone could make a call and get help. It took that long until finally somebody stopped.

I know it’s dark there, and probably scary. I guess I can even almost understand the apprehension that we may feel if we are out driving, especially if we are by ourselves, about pulling over in cases like these. But I can’t for the life of me fathom not slowing down and at the very least calling 911. That doesn’t even require getting out of the car.

So this weekend my son lay helpless on the side of the road. My son, who may have seemed like some punk to some of you people, who blew past him without so much as slowing down; just some teenage kid who doesn’t merit your consideration. Maybe pulling over would have made you late for that dinner date or getting home to your family. Maybe you were racing to an emergency that just couldn’t wait… Maybe. But some of you almost killed my son, and some of you just didn’t care enough to dial a phone number. You are my neighbors. Some of you have kids or grandkids or nephews or nieces. Some of you have probably been in an accident before, and felt scared, and hoped that someone would pull over.

The kid you left there is enrolled in music production at DBS. He plays jazz piano at local gigs. He writes music and poetry. He dreams. He still hugs his parents. His 11 year old brother thinks the world of him. He is also a kid who would stop for anyone in trouble. He’d have stopped for you…

He learned his lessons: not riding at night on a dark road being one of them, and that he must wear gloves when riding, even if it’s really warm out. He also learned a few things I wish he didn’t have to. The scars on his hands and knees will heal in due time. He’ll ride again. He’ll play jazz. He’s happy he is alive and knows how lucky he is. But above all, he is heartbroken at the callousness of people who went on their way, as if he wasn’t there… There is no Band-Aid or pill to heal those.

I hope that the few people who read this, should they ever find themselves driving by an accident of any kind, consider this… I hope that we still have it in us to do the right thing. It could be someone you know and love in that ditch some day, but when not, it is always somebody who is loved and someone who will be missed.

Thank you so very much to Richard Barnes who not only stopped but stayed with my son until the paramedics got there, and talked him through his fears. Thank you to the other two people who pulled over and whose names, sadly, I don’t know, and thank you to the EMTs who were called to the scene for being so very human to my son and for keeping his spirits up.

New Facebook Timelines for Business – nightmare or a blessing?

Inna Hardison — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:46:17 +0000

There has been an awful lot of chatter in various circles about new timelines release for business pages. Some people are cursing at the changes (literally), others are taking it all in stride. In the spirit of perpetually testing new shiny things, we threw up our new cover last night, which will quite possibly be replaced many times in the next few months.

Our New Facebook Cover

Being able to drastically change such a large piece of real estate is appealing enough in its own right, and of course it helps to have this much space to put across a message of some kind.

[if you are wondering, the space you have is precisely: 849 px X 313 px].

A few other positives, at first glance:

Ability to message the page admin directly from within the page is a really cool feature. No need to hunt for info through the about page.
Ability to pin a particular story to the top of the timeline, where it will stay for 7 days. Yep, that’s pretty darn nifty, if you ask me. Use that space wisely, peeps. Last thing you want to do is pin a listing to that space. Find something worthwhile or don’t pin, and let nature take its course (in case of FB timelines, nature = chronology+interactions)
Twitter tab – theoretically, looks like a positive. So far we can’t figure out how to connect this tab to corporate instead of personal twitter accounts though.
Ability to highlight or hide a post or a story from the timeline (yep, same as what we are now accustomed to on our personal timelines).
Rules with respect to Timeline cover image. A lot of complaints about this one, but for what it’s worth, I think this is long overdue. Whether or not Facebook will be able to enforce their new rules remains to be seen, but I like the direction and the not so subtle message to brands and businesses that Facebook is for interaction first, selling last if at all.

[Here are those rules, if you are curious:

Covers may not contain:

Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”]

Negatives:

Messaging function through business pages needs to be fixed. As it stands right now, the only way for an admin of the page to know that someone messaged them through the page is to login as that Page and then they’ll see notifications. This makes dm’ing through business pages not at all real time. I get the logistical issues associated with notifications for pages (considering so many pages have multiple admins), but they should really consider giving us the ability to set a default admin for the purposes of these notices and not require us to change how we are logged in to Facebook to see these messages.

Other than that, I can’t think of any, other than possibly the impact on people who specialized in developing those custom landing tabs. Facebook with these changes to business pages is taking control of what a person lands on away from marketers. No more of those default landing tabs for visitors, or reveal tabs, or whatever euphemism you want to use to describe them. Anyone visiting your Facebook business page after March 31^st will land on your timeline by default, whether they liked your page or not.

Those tabs you may have had are not gone though, just relocated to top right, directly under your cover photo, and now may be as good a time as any to rename those, if it makes sense to do so.

All in all, I think this a step in the right direction. Use the enormous amount of space you were granted wisely, and then use Facebook for interacting with your clients and prospects. Start conversations. Engage your audience, and pay it forward any chance you get. And if you must sell – buy some Facebook ads and target intelligently. It’s that simple, and I can’t wait to see how this unfolds.

What are your thoughts?

WordPress Real Estate Site Design – a case study of a phoenix site evolution

Inna Hardison — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:02:14 +0000

WordPress has been pitched to real estate professionals for years now as the platform of choice, the magic blue/red/pick-your-color pill for your real estate business, and with good reason. But not all wordpress sites generate the same results. This particular case study details the evolution of http://forsalephoenixhomes.com – a site that was originally built on wordpress and relied on Diverse Solutions IDX for IDX integration.

Here is the home page of the original site:

home page - before

This is what we in the biz refer to as a navigational cluster****. In layman’s terms, an average user would have no idea what to click on and what to expect from anything that they might click on. Just as importantly, Google and other search engines are going to be just as confused about what sort of content is on the site and how and if any of it is connected to each other.’

Here are the stats for the last time period before the redesign:

google analytics before

For the redesign, we chose to build a brand new site on the same domain instead of attempting to restructure existing elements. We stayed with Diverse Solutions IDX and exported the same content, which was then restructured to make sense to both, the search engines and visitors.

Here is the new homepage, and of course feel free to click to go to the live site:

forsalephoenixhomes.com homepage - after

As you can see, the important elements from the user perspective are front and center, with quick home search in the most prominent visual position. An average user will not be easily confused as to what they should click on. Additionally, we restructured all of the content on the site, down to the level of renaming categories and tags and addressing link structure issues, so that all of the posts on the site could be found by both, users and search engines. The new site went live at the end of December (last few days really), and we connected Google Analytics to the site on January 2nd.

Here is a screen shot of the current time segment (30 days) from Google Analytics:

Google Analytics segment after

So in less than two months, with the same IDX and essentially the same content, the site went from under a 1,000 visits to over 6,000. It is also now showing up on pages one and two of Google for some of the important communities that this broker services (Desert Ridge, for example).

I am not going to go through too many other details here about exactly what we did and how we did it. Suffice it to say that we approach website design for real estate slightly different from most other shops. We approach everything we do from the perspective of the consumers you are trying to target. Every CTA, every title of every page and even every custom search or results links in the IDX are thoroughly researched. The interface and site design are based entirely on what your visitors will be expecting based on the visual pictures they already have in their heads of what your hood or town looks like and feels like.

The rest of it is then is up to the client – and Bob Hertzog has been a great student. Thanks Bob for letting me publish the details, and for being an awesome client and a friend.

If you want to chat about your real estate website design – give us a call or contact us here.

Follow this link for a few additional case studies of our wordpress real estate designs>>

I am an unapologetic bitch, and it won’t ever change.

Inna Hardison — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:51:30 +0000

Yep, you read that right.

Over the course of an average day I am asked to provide oodles of advice to people, generally on subjects I am intimately familiar with. Whether online or off, my posture is always to be blunt and not sugar coat anything. There are practical reasons for that, of course, most important of them being lack of time to worry about phrasing. And then there is an inherent personality trait that I’ve struggled most of my adult life with – lack of filter. I seem to be utterly lacking the mechanism for self-censorship. Some people are born with it, and are inherently diplomatic. I am just not one of those people.

photo courtesy: by Bernt Rostad

Having spent quite a few years trying to trick my brain into developing that all important filter, I finally realized that it’s simply not going to happen.

I can’t bring myself to say something that I don’t fundamentally believe in, no matter what’s at stake, and that’s just the way it is.

So perceptions being what they are – I am a bitch. I am not proud of it, but I am not apologizing for it either. I’ll take it one step further and say that if you are looking for honest advice and opinion, it’s better for you to deal with someone who doesn’t filter what they say than someone who does when it comes to business strategy advice or marketing. Here is why:

In any business, your prospects will have some 30 seconds or thereabouts to form an initial impression of your business, service or products on first contact. They will have to do so without the benefit of filters of any kind, and in the largely online world of commerce and communication, you won’t know what effect any of the stuff you throw out there will have on that all important perception of your offerings’ worth or value.

Consumers don’t tend to send businesses notes saying that something or other in your branding, message or service left them cold. They simply walk away and go elsewhere.

If your advisers sugar coat when advising you instead of impulsively and honestly stating their reactions, you will proceed down the false trail under false pretenses. At the end of the day, your ego will be the only beneficiary.

So next time you see me state something publicly or to you in person that you think comes off a bit harsh, it’s not done out of malice or to deflate your ego. I am doing you a favor by putting myself into the shoes of your prospect and giving you unabashed commentary to help you navigate to the trail that is right for you, and to do so with eyes wide open. It also saves all involved a crap load of time that we can all spend reading to our kids or sipping a nice beverage with our significant other or doing nothing at all.

I’d like to do more of that last thing some day.

For now, if anyone wants to pick my brain in any forum, by all means, but please don’t ask me to take it easy on you, or to use gentler (or smaller) words, expressions etc. It’s too damn hard, and I’d rather spend my time helping those whose egos are not so easily bruised and who understand the value of unfiltered, honest commentary.

For the rest of it, I’d rather volunteer my time to places where it can make an actual difference.

ha media group

The unbearable price of my morning coffee…

Related Posts:

From the archives: in search for a bit of courage…

Related Posts:

Row Bob Row Revisited…

Battling the Waves & Cancer

Related Posts:

Things I learned at #RETSO

Related Posts:

On bugs, sense of purpose and our hopes for #RETSO

Related Posts:

On prophesies of doom & gloom and survival of the shiniest…

Related Posts:

I’d give anything to believe that human beings are not scum, but…

Related Posts:

New Facebook Timelines for Business – nightmare or a blessing?

A few other positives, at first glance:

Negatives:

Related Posts:

WordPress Real Estate Site Design – a case study of a phoenix site evolution

Related Posts:

I am an unapologetic bitch, and it won’t ever change.

Related Posts: