Category Archives: ideation

My handout on social networking from Our Community University session 1: 7/22/10

Here you go!  Feel free to share this http://tinyurl.com/albertideationhandout

Albert

Our Community University: Thriving in a Changing World: Class 1: Thursday, July 22nd, 10am-3pm

Our Community University: Thriving in a Changing World

In the spirit of sharing our creative energy and knowledge with one another. I have gathered together with Michele Brooks, David Franklin and Noelani Rodriguez to bring you part one of Our Community University.  We all have interesting and important skills to share and I intend to create a series of gatherings for that purpose.  Since many of us have daytime hours free it makes sense to use that time to learn, compare notes, network, and grow ourselves and get better at what we do.  Here is the first offering.  I hope you will join us.  If you’re not able to come, please pass this invitation along to others who might benefit from 4 hours  of interesting information-sharing, networking and skill-building.  Also, if you’d like to become a presenter in this series, please let me know.  Here’s to our emotional, spiritual, and mental growth and thriving, in a changing world!

Day 1
Thursday, July 22nd, 10am-3pm (1 hour for lunch)
Cost: $10 per class or $35 for all 4. (come for one talk or all four) (checks and cash accepted)
Location: 1823 NE 13th Ave. (close to the 8, 9 bus and Red and Blue Max lines) (just north of the Lloyd Center, parking is easy)
Wi-Fi available
Tea available
Please RSVP to albertkaufman@gmail.com

Class 1: 10am-11am Albert Kaufman: Albertideation:

The Who What Where When How and Why of using Social Networking and Email marketing to promote yourself, your ideas and your business.  Albert teaches businesses and individuals how to use social networking to organize and promote ideas, causes, and improve your bottom line.  With 14 years of high-tech business he is familiar with a variety of software and how they can be networked for greater success.  To see what Albert is up to on a given day, find him @ work thinking @ http://albertideation.com

Class 2: 11am-12pm  Michele Brooks:

The life and times of an economic refugee or how to make money in South Korea.  Michele Brooks: http://abundancecompany.com/michele_brooks.htm

Lunch: 12-1pm (please bring your lunch, or there are many places nearby to pick up something to eat)

Class 3: 1-2pm: David Franklin: Radical Presence: Creating Authentic Community in the Midst of Global Change

In these rapidly changing times, we are being called into deep integrity. We have an opportunity to move beyond the addictions, distractions, and suffering that keeps us in separation, and to learn how to love one another.

Our modern times call for spiritual practices and lifestyles that serve both the self and the collective. It is time to move beyond our individualistic, fear-based ways of living, and come together in community to support one another. In order to do so, it is essential to learn and engage in practices that create relationships that are sustainable, co-creative, and call forth our gifts.

In this experiential presentation, we’ll talk about the shifts that are occurring in our society, and how they are creating an opportunity for us to show up more powerfully and thrive. We’ll also learn and practice ways of being in authentic presence and community with one another. You’ll leave with a sense of new possibilities, hope, and connection.

David Franklin is a spiritual activist devoted to creating a new paradigm for masculinity that includes living the embodied path of spirituality, sexuality, leadership, and presence. As an experienced facilitator and ordained minister, he is masterful at creating and holding safe space for transformative experiences that utilize practical, body-centered modalities and down-to-earth spirituality. For more information, visit http://www.RadicalMen.com

Class 4: 2-3pm  Noelani Rodriguez: The Quickest Way to Double Your Sales

These days, businesspeople are resorting to new strategies to attract customers in the New Economy–many are promoting Classes and other Promotional Events. The quickest way to double your sales is to double the effectiveness of your “Irresistible Offer,” or the way you describe your business. Whether you want to promote a class, a service or a product, you can sell yourself with an irresistible offer that no one can refuse.

As a Google Certified Consultant and $1M selling marketer, I have a proven track record with over 1 million ad clicks in the top 1% of ad profitability. Let’s have some fun as I show you how to double the effectiveness of your “9 second elevator speech,” honing it into an irresistible offer. Let’s play at doubling the effectiveness of your offer to double your sales!

Lani’s website: http://ebooks.thebestever.net/

3pm: schmooze, network, talk, compare notes, over tea, wine and bisquits

Offering my services: Social Networking

I’ve been working with clients in the Pacific Northwest for the past 2 years and I’d like to remind you of my services to the community.

I advise people and small businesses on how to make the best use of social networking.  Within 1-2 hours, I bring my clients up to speed on Facebook, Facebook fan pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, setting up a blog, how to link various social networking efforts to save time and explain why these are useful tools for helping businesses succeed.  I also use Constant Contact (email marketing) and can guide you through this application as well.

The social networking and promotion arena is constantly changing.  New tools are being developed daily and there is a huge potential for using these (mostly free) services to get the word out about yourself, your business or your cause.  If you or your organization would like to work with me, please get in touch.  I’d be glad to do a brown bag lunch talk for businesses, consult in person or over the phone on projects.

For a little background on what I’ve done with one of my clients, please visit: http://albertideation.com/wileyware/

I also publish a monthly e-letter where I discuss tips about social networking, highlight my clients and share my thinking on world change. I invite you to sign up – http://tinyurl.com/TheEleven-signup

I  appreciate referrals.  If you know me, and know my work, please send this note to your friends.

Thank you!

Albert Kaufman
albertkaufman@gmail.com
http://albertideation.com
For a free Constant Contact trial account: http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp?pn=albertkaufman:

The Love Art! Gallery

I had a great time last night talking to a group of about 15 artists who are part of the Love Art! Gallery in Sellwood.  The group was very receptive to information about how to use social networking to help their sales, outreach and follow-up and hopefully leave them more time to do their art.  Also along for the ride was my good friend, Aaron Trotter, who is working on some great drawings of street scenes and local haunts for a greeting card series that he’s putting together.  I can’t wait to see what he puts together, but he’s got a show at Enterbeing on Last Thursday on Alberta this month.

How to reach me

albertkaufman@gmail.com
My Resumes
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

why do we continue to grow grass seed in Oregon?

For years I have been encouraging people to remove their lawns and plant food instead. As the economy continues to sour people are growing more of their own food, but for a long while I’ve been wondering about Oregon as a whole, and what we grow. After watching Food,Inc., I was again reminded about our State’s food production system, or lack thereof. The soil of the Willamette Valley is considered some of the best farming soil in the world – and in it we mostly grow grass seed and Christmas trees.

As the article “Bean Man” in the Winter 2009 issue of Edible Portland points out “Today 95% of what’s grown in the Willamette Valley is non-edible”.

Ellen Jackson writes: “As recently as 50 years ago, the assortment of fruits, vegetables, and grains produced in the valley provided the region with the means to feed itself, an important measure of social and economic stability. The once robust regional food system has floundered in favor of planting profitable non-edible crops like fescue, rye grass seed, and Christmas trees”

Beyond the questions raised by groups like Food Not Lawns about how growing grass leads to pesticide use and pollution of our waterways there’s the question of grass and allergies. During the grass cutting season many complain of a constant state of sneezing, headaches and other symptoms, and the experience seems to worsen over the years. This is great news for the makers of anti-allergy medicines, but why are we willing to grow something that people are allergic to?

Food Security. Then there’s the question of peak oil. If it’s true that we’re running out of oil, then it behooves us to start growing more of our food closer to home rather than paying to ship it from far away. In this regard, Jackson writes:

“Changing agricultural philosophies over time has meant a loss of experience and expertise in growing beans, grains, and other valuable food crops in the valley, which is two generations deep in grass seed farmers, many of whom are at least 60 years old. The Bean and Grain project recognizes that reclaiming the region’s past agricultural knowledge and reviving previous growing techniques are critical steps to breathing new life into the regional food system. Converting large parcels of grass seed acreage into plots for organic beans, grains, and edible seeds is the next order of business.”

I think we should follow the lead of the Bean and Grain project which is the work of farmer Harry MacCormack:

“The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project is a step by step strategy to rebuild the local food system by increasing the quantity and diversity of food crops that are grown in the valley, evaluating deficiencies in the food system infrastructure, building buyer/seller relationships for locally grown food, incorporating the culture of community into the fabric of the food system, and compiling resources on organic and sustainable agricultural practices specific to this region. As the name of the project implies, central to the task is stimulating the cultivation and local marketing of organically grown beans and grains to provide a foundation for year-round food resources in the valley.”

As much as I’ve appreciated the Oregonian’s support for an end to grass-seed field burning during this legislative session, I think the real issue is growing grass-seed in the first place. I look forward to a healthy state-wide discussion of how our rich farmland is used and what makes sense long-term as we take into consideration changing fuel realities, global climate change and the need to strengthen our local food supply.

Oregon’s number 2 crop, Christmas trees, is also a crop that has a lot of problems associated with it – pesticide use (local watershed pollution), shipping trees in refrigerated trucks around the country, the carbon sequestration that is lost when the trees are harvested, erosion, the costs to municipalities to discard the trees (landfills…). This is another crop that needs a look at going forward. Considering that the planet is heating up, we might do well to pay Christmas tree farmers to just let the trees grow rather than cut them down as this article in today’s Seattle Times suggests for federal forests.

Quotes

I’m adding a new page to my site, Quotes, which I’ll update periodically. Please feel free to suggest great sayings – thanks! Albert

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Maragaret Mead

“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind” – Winston Churchill

“Collaboration is one of the best kept secrets of creativity” – John Briggs

“Imagination is more important that knowledge” – Albert Einstein

“Big thinkers are the most valuable human beings on earth because they can unlock our imaginations” – Joey Reiman

Living in a house of social networks – a new frame for social networking

I was working with a client yesterday and came up with a great metaphor to frame how social networks are helpful.  Each kind of social network is a like a room in a house. How might each one help us with our work and play?

Facebook (or Myspace, Friendster, or what have you) to me are the rec or living room.  These networks are colorful, full of pictures and are great places to entertain – you can create an event and see who is coming or post something you’d like to share such as an article, music or video – something that typically would be experienced in one’s living room.  The space is somewhat cozy, friendly and a good place to find friends, old and new.  It’s becoming more of a place to find collaborators for projects, but still leans heavily on the casual and recreational.

Linked-in and Biznik are places to network on work-related topics.  I think of them as the office, in my case, the home office!  These sites are all about business and the posted profiles are basically our resumes, though there is a softening of the edges as more participants add non-work-related links and streams to their blogs or Twitter feeds..

is this your house?

Twitter is the attic.  It’s a creative and private space, or at least has that feeling, though anyone can find out what you’re tweeting at anytime. It reminds me of a place one would retreat to use their ham radio – a private, quiet space for learning with a dash of madness.  Twitter, like all of these networks is still finding its feet, and I think most would agree that all of these networks are not really sure what their use is yet, though there are plenty of signs they may become more useful in the future.  Twitter, to me, seems to be on the cutting edge of something – and that something seems to grow daily.  So far Twitter has taught me a lot about succinct and brief comunication.  Another use was seen on election day,  Twitter feeds  with anything on Obama or Merkley streamed across the Oregonian website ..and these streams were updated at a maddening pace. They are a great way to see who in your town cares about politics or any other subject as much as you do.  Using Tweetdeck or another Tweet aggregator is a great way to find people who are engaged in a topic or cause that you’re interested in.  My cause is population growth, so I have a Tweetdeck stream that constantly searches the Twitter universe for anyone that uses that word combo.

Then there’s the kitchen – and I guess any of the networks above could also serve up the kind of fun and interesting gossip and stories that one would share over a cup of coffee and some apple crisp.  But my favorite social network (could also have the aspect of a bedroom) in this respect is still Tribe.net.  The kinds of conversations and tribes found there are a bit more edgy and folks that push the envelope have longer talks about the issues that interest them.  Where Facebook feels scrubbed clean, Tribe.net has more of a late night anything goes kind of feel.

And there are more parts of the house, I’m sure – feel free to suggest more to me on this blog or Email me

Welcome to your home of social networks!

Albert Kaufman is the owner of Albertideation, a company specializing in helping individuals and business owners with their social networking needs.

Voting

We had a great voting party here last night.  About 25 people and a reporter and photographer from the Oregonian. Can’t wait to see how the story turns out. Today had a neat meeting with Marc of Opening to Life Studio to work on his website and make some improvements. And in the afternoon met with Robin Denberg to discuss helping him with his website and marketing his real estate agency. Also on the phone to Tim of the Tummy Temple to discuss next steps as an on-line marketer for his business, so it’s been a busy week.

Regarding my various ideas I’ve been following up with the City on the telephone opt out idea and they provided some information on how I, as an individual, could opt out – great.  Working on it.  The Portland City Council reaffirmed its 4-0 vote against changing the zoning of Colwood Golfcourse, thus making the path to a new urban farming training institute one step closer to reality.

The sun is blazing out right now, so I must go outside and watch squirrels move apples to and fro.  More work tomorrow, I’m sure.  Oh, and recruiters seem to be anxiously and actively finding me via Monster and elsewhere and promoting me to various area companies, so I’m imagining that something good this way comes.  enjoy the sunshine!

Just back from the Beaming Bioneers in Seattle

Beaming Bioneers - Seattle 2008

Beaming Bioneers - Seattle 2008

We traveled to Seattle for the Beaming Bioneers conference. Once again, got inspired and am refreshed by a plethora of new ideas and connections.  There is nothing quite like the Bioneers to wake you up and get you ready to change the world for the better.  I’m considering organizing the 20th anniversary Bioneers conference (Beaming version) in Portland for 2009.  Until then, I’ve gotten started with a new website which mirrors what has been done in New Mexico (where the offices of Bioneers are) on mapping out a green energy future. dreamingoregon.org coming soon to a world wide web near you!