Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Real Meaning of Peace

There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them. One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest — in perfect peace.

Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?

“Because,” explained the king, “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.”

Collecting Valuable Information using Social Media

Certainly everybody understands that social media has become a very important public relations and advertising tool. In fact, one of the most powerful advantages of using social media is the ability it provides with regards to monitoring your brand. You can use search engines in Twitter or Facebook to find how many times your company has been mentioned. There have even been applications developed that will deliver this information in real-time to your desktop. However, this kind of information really only tells you about the visibility or reach of your brand without telling you anything about how people perceive your brand, use your brand, or feel about your brand. If you want more specific feedback, you have to get more proactive. Social media can be used to gather specific information from clients or potential clients about your business, new products and services, the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and other issues. The following are a few ways that you can harness the power of social media to gather detailed information about your company.
Use your Website or Blog to Post a Survey Surveys have become commonplace on many websites. If you visit a news site you might see a survey about your favourite sports team or movie and in fact you can get quite a lot of information about site visitors with a survey. Indeed, feedback forms have evolved from the cards you get in restaurants, for example, to short surveys on websites and they can be easily adapted for use without any programming knowledge. One service that allows you to create any kind of form, including open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, or polls with radio buttons, is WuFoo. Once you create your survey it is easily embedded on your website or blog with a simple cut and paste function. Moreover, you can log into your WuFoo account where you get immediate reports on the outcomes of your questionnaire or survey and you can even update your polls as you go.

Create a Facebook Poll Many businesses nowadays are aware of the impact of a Facebook page. With millions of users around the world, Facebook represents one of the easiest ways to reach a wide audience quickly. If your company or brand uses a Facebook page, you can add applications to keep your "friends" engaged and interested in your brand. By adding applications like polls to your Facebook page, your friends are not only giving you some information but they are also communicating their interest in your brand to other friends. This means, you not only have an excellent opportunity to gather information but you can increase your audience as well.

Twitter Polls Using Twitter allows you to share links to your webpage or blog and likewise to any polls you may have posted. Once you have used a service like WuFoo you probably want to attract as many people to the poll as possible. Sending out a link to your poll on Twitter allows you to bring your Twitter audience to your web page and subsequently gather information from them. In addition, there are even feedback applications that have been designed specifically for Twitter. This gives you immediate information. All you need to do is set up your account with a company like PollDaddy, create your question or pole, and then questions are automatically tweeted to your followers. Likewise, TwtPoll, is another Twitter polling service that has a built-in feature that allows respondents of your poll to further tweet the poll question to their followers. This vastly expands the size of your audience and gives you more realistic information about the perception of your brand (really, if you always ask your followers what they think, you might not get the most honest feedback...imagine what would have happened with Vista if Microsoft only polled people who love Vista).

Don't Forget YouTube Posting a YouTube video comes with two major advantages. First, you can reach a wide audience with whom you can share your company and brand information. YouTube is becoming more and more popular and because it's free it can be a great place to expand your brand's reach. In addition, YouTube allows for more detailed responses to your brand. YouTube users can watch your video and share detailed comments about what they think and feel about it. Also, you can cross-link between your video and your webpage or blog thereby increasing traffic to your website and to your video so you gather more information from more users.

Be Responsible Social media provides businesses with low-cost and efficient solutions for gathering information from customers. You can easily post information about upcoming products or services and you can inform a large audience about your brand. Conducting market research has never been easier but there are some drawbacks that come from using social media to conduct market research. Namely, using social media means you are putting information out on an open platform that almost anybody can access. For example, imagine your company has been working for years on a revolutionary new product and you want to ask your customers what they think. Posting a poll on Facebook means that everybody can access information about this new product and you are essentially broadcasting sensitive information to your competitors. As such, social media market research should be designed carefully as to help you gather the information you need without unveiling the details of your market strategy.Moonrise Productions is a full services web design company offering complete design services, social networking website development, ecommerce development and more. With New York, San Diego, San Francisco and a Los Angeles presence no matter where you are, we've got people to serve you.

Graduated

Graduated in 1999, I has been working for 10 years. I started in Zhongrun as a SALES, and then promoted gradually to account manager, director of client, media director, all the way to senior project manager. Through the process, I successfully transferred my role from TOP-SALES to a middle level managers. I also witnessed the changes for the companies from start-up to enlistment. All the challenges and setbacks in the years become my biggest treasures in my career. That is the summary to my development in the last 10 years, and the start point for my future career. Those experience make me brave to face any challenges and opportunities in the future! I hope this is a cornerstone to mark a new career in my life

Courses

Courses with the numbers 800 or above are open only to graduate students.Certain courses,generally those devoted to introductory material,are numbered 400 for undergraduate students and 600 for graduate students. Courses designed for students seeking a professional degree carry a 500 number for undergraduate students and a 700 munber for graduate students.
A full-time graduate student is expected to take courses which total ten to sixteen credit hours. Students holding assistantships are expected to enroll for proportionately fewer hours.A part-time graduate student must register for a minimun of five credit hours.

Symphony of Sounds

The music starts to play
And I escape away
To the mellow beat
It’s my secret cheat
On how to leave it all behind
I clear my mind
Let my muscles relax
Erase my mind of the facts
That surround me
Right now, I’m free
By these beautiful sounds