CodyStaub dot com

In what appears to be the largest mass-prize giveaway in blogging history, David Airey is celebrating his blog’s one year anniversary by giving away over $4000 in goods and services. David is a great logo designer and blogger, but how he managed to get all these services and bloggers involved seems a small miracle in the making to me. You can check out how to enter for yourself Here. Now, take a look at this list of prizes!

• Professional logo from David Airey. Add a touch of professionalism to your business with one of my logo designs.
• Custom WordPress theme design from Nate Whitehill of Nate Whitehill dot Com. It’s vital to set yourself apart from the crowd, and Nate will help a great deal with your very own custom WordPress theme. By the way, Nate Whitehill is the one who recently redesigned both John Chow and Shoemoney’s blogs.
• Personal marketing / advertising plan from Maki of Dosh Dosh. Maki is an expert where blog advertising is concerned, and he is kindly donating his time to help you make the most of your new custom blog.
• One year’s hosting and blog setup from John Boardley of I Love Typography. John has kindly donated his time and will do everything you need to get your new custom blog hosted on one of Media Temple’s dedicated servers.
• Signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress. David bought this book himself, and it contains excellent blogging tips for beginners to pros.
• A second logo design from Tara Roskell of Graphic Design Blog. You only need to visit Graphic Design Blog to realise that Tara really knows a lot about great design.
• Website critique from Randa Clay of Randa Clay Design. If you want some expert advice on how to improve your website design, you won’t be disappointed by this offering.
• One hour SEO consultation with Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO. Lyndon will conduct a Skype consultation with the winner of this prize, and he comes highly recommended for search engine optimisation and linkbaiting.
• $60 of books from Amazon courtesy of Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. Is there a book you’ve been meaning to buy on Amazon? How about getting it free? A great donation from a professional blogger.
• Logo / blog header design from Jonathan-C. Phillips of Smart Wealthy Rich. Jonathan has donated his expert skills to help your blog stand out from the crowd.
• One hour blog optimization consultation with Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips. This consultation will cover design, SEO, monetization and blogging strategy, from the author of one of blogging’s most useful resources.
• Revolution Premium WordPress theme package (personal package) from Brian Gardner, WordPress designer and consultant. Brian’s WordPress skills are second to none.
• Blog review and email interview published on Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak. The man to ‘make it great’ will critique your blog and feature you on his very own PR5 blog.
• Behringer Podcastudio USB Podcasting Kit, kindly donated by Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog. Looking for a new way to express yourself? Ever wanted to be a famous producer? Then podcasting is the answer and the BEHRINGER PODCASTUDIO USB bundle has all you need to make high-quality podcasts and home recordings.
• $25 via PayPal courtesy of Gayla McCord of Mom Gadget. Free money! Who doesn’t want free money? Very kind of you Gayla.
• 2GB USB storage key x 3 courtesy of Jamie Clague at Terinea Weblog. Three USB sticks will make up three separate prizes, with free worldwide postage. Jamie, Edinburgh Computer Services, has also kindly donated his valuable time to helping with the prize draw administration.
• Full blog review with deep links and images published on Blog-Op with Chris Lodge. Chris knows how to piece together an excellent blog review, giving you an added insight into the impression your website is giving.
• Blog review from Aaron Russell of miLienzo. Aaron has been coding WordPress themes for a while now and certainly knows his stuff where blog design is concerned.
• Expert WordPress blog help from Lakshmi Mareddy of Chilligavva. Have you ever had any ideas for your blog that you haven’t been able to incorporate? Lakshmi has kindly agreed to offer her WordPress skills, helping you out with either code or graphics.
• Blog review from Hock Ng of Marketing Tools Review. Hock will focus his review on your blog content, design, SEO and usability.
• Blog makeover from Charles Jordan of The Queer Chef. Charles is proficient with design for the Blogger platform, and can also design WordPress. He’ll tantalise your taste buds with one of his blog makeovers.
• Blog writing consultation with Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog. Ben has offered his expertise to review 3–5 of your articles, providing tips and giving suggestions on writing, plus a quick guide to social media and how you can benefit from it.
• Two 45 minute coaching consultations with Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking. Mark specialises in coaching creative professionals, and is a real expert in his field. The first session will involve goal setting, with the second session reporting on progress and making adjustments.
• 4 hour business growth consultation with Rebecca Caroe, via telephone / Skype, or face-to-face in London / Cambridge. Rebecca is a business growth consultant for creative agencies, so if you’re looking to expand your company then this is the prize for you. If you want Rebecca to visit your offices simply pay her travel expenses.
• Tele-Coaching with Tammy Lenski. A one-hour, private telephone consult with professional mediator and conflict coach Tammy Lenski. Figure out how to deal with a challenging client, strengthen your contract negotiations, or confront difficult conversations with more confidence and success. Free call within the U.S., via Skype outside the U.S.
• One hour product launch consultation with Design Translator (DT) of Design Sojourn. Whether you’re launching a line of t-shirts, custom furniture, electronics, or any other product, DT will lend you his product launch expertise.
• Blog improvement or monetization advice with Easton Ellsworth of Business Blogwire. You choose, do you want to generally improve your blog or do you want help making money from it? Easton has kindly offered his help.
• Two premium quality books designed and produced by David Hyde of david the designer. John Hinchcliffe, internationally acclaimed designer-maker, is the subject of the richly illustrated first of two quality books. Crafts in the 20th Century is the second book kindly donated by David.
• Copy of Brand Aid by Brad VanAuken of The Blake Project. Brand Aid is a practical how-to guide on building winning brands. Derrick Daye was kind enough to offer this great prize.
• Watercolour print from Ed Roach Watercolours. Ed has quite a talent, and will graciously ship your favourite print from his watercolour studio.
• 728px by 90px banner ad for 30 days above the fold on The Blog Experiment, courtesy of Sara. This is quite a new forum for bloggers, but already there are approximately 5,000 posts! You must supply your own artwork.
• 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Smart Wealthy Rich. An excellent donation from top blogger, Jonathan.
• Ad icon located site-wide in the top left of Blog-Op, courtesy of Chris Lodge. Another kind gift from a fellow blogger in Scotland.
• 30 day text link ad shown site-wide on Contest Blogger. This is a great way to advertise your very own blog contest. Blogging is about giving something back, so get your contest featured.
• 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Freelance Folder. Another superb offering from Jonathan a.k.a Smart Wealthy Rich
• Lifetime membership to the paid membership site that Andy Beard, WordPress SEO and Niche Marketer, will launch on Andybeard.eu (eta and value yet to be determined). If the prize winner already qualifies for membership (some people will), then Andy will kindly come up with an alternative prize.

Do you ever get frustrated with how tied to your computer you are? Unless you tote your laptop around with you EVERYWHERE, more than likely you’re constantly in a state of wishing you had something from your home computer with you. Well, I think I’ve got just the solution for you. It’s called PortableApps. No this isn’t a paid post, nor is it sponsored in any way. I just tried this last week and really like it, so I’m spreading the word.

What is PortableApps? It’s a set of open-source software that installed onto a flash drive. Some you may have heard of, like Firefox, some you may not have, like Nvu or GIMP. All of these free softwares perform like software you’re already familiar with: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Notepad, Outlook, and many more. All these apps run right from the flash drive, no need to install them on a computer. The best part of all, you can store all your personal information on the flash drive without leaving any behind on the host computer. That’s right, all your bookmarks, settings, and files are saved on the flash drive as well. All you do is plug in and have access to all your files and programs without leaving a thing behind on the host computer.

I did this last week just to try it out. I went to Wal-Mart and got a 2GB flash drive for $15. The whole PortableApps folder takes up about 325MB of space, so I have over 1.5GB of space left on the drive for files and settings to be saved. This is nice because I can carry this little drive around anywhere, it’s only about an inch long, and I have everything I need anywhere I go. The only downside, the PortableApps suite only works on Windows. Even so, I’d encourage you all to go out and give this a try.

I wish I had the time to post this sooner, but I just didn’t. However, I just wanted to let everyone know that I did survive sky diving…and it was AWESOME! I just want anyone who is thinking of going sky diving to know that it’s something they’ll never regret doing. So here’s how it went down:

Me and some co-workers from the ER went down to Skydive Ogden in Ogden, Utah (www.skydiveogden.com) for a dive booked around 4 pm. Since there was four of us jumping, it cost $170 per person to jump. There was a LOT of people there, more than they had expected even, so our jump was actually delayed until 7 pm. Although that put us getting home rather late, it was worth it because we got to jump with the sun setting…cool experience. Anyway, back to the story. We all jumped in tandem, which means you’re attached to an instructor for the jump and they control every aspect of it. On the ground you get basic (really basic) instruction on how to exit the plane, what to do in air, and how to land. Since the tandem controls everything, there’s not much to remember. Then you’re geared up with a harness and a cap/goggles and loaded on a plane for a 20 minute flight up to about 13,000 feet (in our case). We had a rear-exit plane, so jumping was literally just walking off the edge…nothing to it really. Now I have to tell you, the only part that was rough for me was immediately after stepping off the plane. I think it’s best described as like diving into a cold lake. Not only was the air kind of chilly (I dove in plain clothes), but the initial shock is almost the same. I just took a couple deep breaths and I was totally fine after that. The view falling to earth from 13,000 at 120 miles per hour is amazing. You’ll never see another thing like it. We were in free fall for about 60 seconds before my tandem pulled the chute and he began to teach me the basics of steering and speed control, then kind of let me take the ropes. Landing was a breeze and no one was hurt on our jump.

I bought a dvd to go with my jump, so I’ll write another post and put the movie up as soon as I get it this week. If anyone has questions or is thinking about going, just ask me. It’s an experience I’d do again (and probably will) in a heart beat.

Update: Here’s a few pictures of the outing. I’ll still make a new post when I get the video in the mail.

Sky Diving Pics! (click here)

Well this weekend should be a very exciting one for me. After working my 12 hour shift in the ER tonight, I’ll be headed down to Utah to go skydiving tomorrow afternoon (Saturday). This is my first time trying this and, little fun fact, I’m terrified of heights. But, I figure I need to conquer my fears. To get over my fear of needles, I volunteered as a guinea pig for a phlebotomy class and donated plasma/blood…I guess this is kind of the same thing? Anyway, don’t anyone try and scare me out of it until AFTER tomorrow.
To add to the excitement going on this weekend, I’ll be releasing a few sites into the wild before Monday, 3 to be exact. One is my first stab at a site designed solely for affiliate marketing, another is the home site for my new media network (I had to give all these random sites a name and purpose right?), and the third is the project site for a local organization (which I mentioned in this post). I also plan on releasing a photo section right here on this site, so you lurkers can all get a personal shot of my life.

And to top off all this excitement, school starts Monday, adding insult to injury in my already-busy life. Well I can’t complain too much, it’s one year closer to getting that silly degree they make you earn to be a doctor!

That’s right, I’ve laid my first trap…kinda. Kumiko over at CashQuests.com is having an advertising deal that was entirely too good to pass up: a link in her blogroll, with any anchor text you choose, until September 10th. A whole month for $10 on a fairly well-known site. So if you’re visiting from CashQuests, Welcome! I want to take this opportunity and direct your attention to a few specific areas.

• Cool Music Tuesday and Free Link Friday! These are my two weekly features to the site. Cool Music Tuesday is where I reveal some really cool, lesser known groups to my readers. Free Link Friday is where I write a mini-review of sites I frequent and am impressed with.
• About Me Of course feel free to check out the about me section. After all, how fun is a blog to read if it’s not personal right?
• A Parable of Two Businesses Part I and Part II I’m no business major graduate (yet), but I’m fairly proud of myself on these two articles, so check them out.
• My dog Kenya So I’m a fanatic when it comes to my dog. Shoot me. I’m sure you’ll fall in love with her too.

What’s this site really about though? Well I do tend to ramble a lot about what’s floating on my mind, but hopefully I’ll help someone, like me, just starting out in the online world to get a little farther. More on that bit tomorrow, so be sure to come back!

Oh, and for entertainment purposes…the inspiration for this post title…listen carefully!

[youtube]tCPjXRaP9no[/youtube]

Last week I wrote a little tale about two separate corporate entities I’ve worked for in the last couple of years. If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll want to check out A Parable of Two Businesses: Part I before reading any further.

Lesson 1: Treat your employees right

Looking at the overall morale and working environment of each company, I can guarantee that it’s traceable back to one thing: how the employees are treated. At the ALF, the employees aren’t necessarily treated poorly, but they sure aren’t made to feel like they’re of importance to the company. Employees are paid on the low end of competitive wages, incentives aren’t given for going the extra mile (although it is expected), and about the only time the company spends money on employees is for a Christmas party. The hospital, on the other hand, has a pretty intense program based on employees making the difference going on. We’ve also had a lot of fun activities since I’ve been there, including a picnic in which they rented out a whole family fun park for. It seems like most people there see their co-workers as family away from home.

Other companies do this as well. Let’s take ohhhhh….Google, for instance (hey why not?). Google is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing companies of our time. Ever seen a story about the inner workings of Google? It almost certainly will focus on how “Fun” it is to work there. Employee benefits abound the sprawling Google complex. In fact it was named by Fortune as the best employer to work for 2007.

So why do employers want to go to all the effort, not to mention expense, of making their work environment fun? It costs a lot of money, generally, to find and train new employees. If you’re employees aren’t enjoying their working environment, most likely they’ll leave it. As your turnover rate goes up, so does your cost of doing business. Making work fun also improves employee productivity. If your employees are more productive, then you’re making more money. Enough said.

Lesson 2: Make your jobs everyone’s dream job

When I had my orientation at the hospital, the chief financial officer (who was once the temporary CEO of the hospital) said that when he started working there you could hardly find a person to say one good thing about this hospital. In fact most employees were afraid to admit they worked at the hospital. What was done to change this? They made the hiring process stricter. Instead of hiring any old shmoe off the street who met the qualifications, you now had to prove yourself to the company that you’re a valuable asset. For example, my hiring process took about 3 months to complete, from the time of the interview to the first day on the job. That doesn’t include applying for the job. Now the ALF that I worked for still hires just about anyone that qualifies because they are short staffed, after all turnover is really high in that field. Perhaps they should adopt the hospital’s policy, and I’ll explain why this is a good policy.

• Quality workers make working easier. Have you ever had to pick up someone’s slack at work? What does that do to your morale as an employee? It makes you want to start looking for a new job most likely. Hiring quality employees makes everyone happier and employee retention will stay up.
• Everyone wants the unattainable. What does every car-enthusiast child want growing up? What is every child’s dream job? Most likely it’s a Ferrari, Lambourghini, or Porsche in the car category and probably something like an astronaut or a horse jockey. And what guy here has seen a picture of Kate Moss or Heidi Klum on a spread and not thought….well you know what you think. Why is this? Most of us will never be able to afford a high-priced supercar, most of us will never become an astronaut, and I’m pretty sure that no one reading this will ever be able to get into the same bed as Kate Moss (there’s a challenge for you). The answer is simple. We as humans strive for, or at least dream about, the unattainable. Now, if your company becomes that unattainable dream for most people, you can really start to pick your employees can’t you? And you get to pick the best of the best because everyone wants to work for you.

Lesson 3: Be involved It’s no secret that being involved in the community is a company’s fastest route to a good PR standing (public relations, not PageRank you nerds). And to be honest, I don’t think it matters what your motivations are. After all, any true company’s top priority goal is to make money. Why else form a company? And giving back to your community can be a prime investment. The ALF I spoke of puts on community barbecues, sponsors floats in parades, and hosts other family events. This directly affects the occupancy of the residence because people from outside come in and get to see how much fun the environment is (even if it’s just a show sometimes). The hospital sponsoring a health fair shows the community that the hospital really cares about the health of community members, so where are you going to go when you feel sick? It’s all about the money baby, but you can make it look like it’s not ;).

I’m sure there’s a lot of valuable lessons I’ve overlooked here, but feel free to give some input. What other great lessons in business can we learn?

Since high school I have really only had two jobs: one with an assisted living facility (ALF) for almost that full two years, and one at an ER/trauma center in a hospital for the last three months. Realizing that I’ve only had three months to compare the two, I’m astonished at how differently each corporation treats its employees. There’s a few lessons to be learned here, so I’m gonna share my story.

The Assisted Living Facility

When hired at this facility it seemed well enough. The atmosphere was cheerful and the managers/staff are easy to get along with. As time progressed, however, I began to see the working of the corporation on a national scale. The company provides decent health insurance that is fairly affordable. They provide employees over 21 years of age a matched 401k plan. Yearly performance-based raises are given based on peer and manager reviews, but have a maximum cap. Advancement is a possibility, as even a management position requires no real experience, only certification of a state course (paid for by the company). There are basically no minimum requirements to do this kind of work, although CNA-type experience helps. Due to the nature of the field (caring for the elderly), the employee turnover rate is fairly high. A lot of times this company is forced to hire less-qualified or less-responsible individuals. Budget cuts are becoming more common due to the fact that this corporation is a publicly-traded corporation recovering from a recent bankruptcy-merger-reindependance process. Community involvement is encouraged so long as it promotes business (in the form of direct customers).

The Hospital

Ten years ago you would have had a hard time finding anyone to say a good thing about this hospital. Today, at least in my department and what I’ve seen of management, the atmosphere is good and the hospital has a strong reputation in the community. A position at the hospital is perceived by many as “hard to get”. In fact when I was hired, several people said “you must be really good to get a job there”. The benefits are awesome: matched 401k over 18 years of age and 30 days of employment, full benefits (medical, dental, vision, disability) after 30 days with many options to fit different needs, free physical therapy sessions, etc. Bi-annual raises are given based on quarterly reviews. The hospital and its separate departments provide several employee activities, which has been at a rate of at least once a month so far. Patient-first and cheerfulness are pushed as a priority in the working environment. The hospital also spends a great deal on things which do not necessarily make it money. For example, over $100 million a year in goods and services is given away to people who cannot afford their treatment because of a no-refusal policy. This corporation (that owns the hospital) has also gone through a recent change: from being publicly traded to privately owned.

Now I believe there are a few very important business lessons that can be learned from comparing the workings and attitudes of these two companies. Feel free to comment about what lessons you’ve picked out already and I’ll be back to post what I’ve learned from this experience tomorrow.

I’m finally home and unpacked from my trip to Maryland. I had a pretty good time visiting and a suggestion for anyone else, Carroll County in Maryland is a beautiful place, like driving through a rain forest. While I was there I stopped at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, played in the ocean at Bethany Beach, Delaware (actually there were dolphins probably 50 feet from us), and visit a lot of my relatives that I haven’t seen in way too long. I think I ended up taking about 400+ pictures so I can’t post them all, but I’ll show you a few. Enjoy!

Read the rest of this entry »

Right now I should be sleeping, but you know how it is the night before you’re supposed to go on vacation right? Yeah…too much to do. Well I’m writing this post to let people know that I will be enjoying myself (mostly) computer free for a week. No worries, I’ve stashed a few posts away to keep you entertained (don’t forget Cool Music Tuesday! and Free Link Friday!). This post is also to anounce that I have a new toy on the site. It’s a plugin called wp-quotes. So, while I am gone (and perhaps permanently), every time you visit the site you will see a new motivational quote to help keep you going. I know, you’re welcome.

Enjoy everyone! I know I will!

While browsing around I found out that iTunes announced last week that they are now selling a DRM-free version of certain titles (I assume all will be added soon) called iTunes Plus. The Plus titles cost 30 cents more at $1.29 a pop, but you are free to put them on as many devices as you want. Did Apple really crumble and give-in to all those that whine about DRM not being fair to users? Not exactly, there’s a catch. Whenever you buy a song from the iTunes Store, your information (email, username, etc) is tagged in the file for the DRM to work correctly. The drawback with iTunes Plus, although it is DRM-free, is that all that information is still stored within the file. This means that if you share your music with a friend and they share with a friend and so on, you’re also sharing all your information. Kind of a neat trick huh? This lets you have the freedom to put the music you purchase on any device you want, but unless you want your info out there for everyone to see, you’ll keep it to yourself.

Personally I agree with this strategy, but I’m sure lots of people will be raising hell over it. Already I’ve read one article that seems to be against Apple’s new format, but if you read his user’s comments you’ll find a lot of them take the same stance I do. Read the article here: iTunes Plus: DRM-free, but Invades Your Privacy.