Archive for the ‘Training’ Category

Invitation to the Tecnifícate conference on June 4th, 2011. (In Spanish) from Ariel Coro on Vimeo.

Three major conference within the next month will either be completely produced by a Latino organization or have a major Latino component – BlogWorld 2011 in New York, Tecníficate in Santa Clarita, CA, and the Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) Latino2 conference in Silicon Valley.

The word is out, Latinos are connecting online in high numbers, which is important for advertisers like Google. Mark Lopez from Google will be presenting at the #LATISM Latino 2 Conference.

Also, the myth of Latinos as pure consumers will be debunked at BlogWorld New York when #LATISM announces the results of its massive Latino bloggers survey.

En Español

The Tecnifícate conference in Santa Clarita on June 4th will be one of the largest tech conference in the US that is completely held in Spanish. I spoke at the last Tecnfícate event at LA Mission College in January and there were over 150 attendees. The Santa Clarita conference will be at College of the Canyons and 500 attendees are expected. I’ll be presenting at the June 4th Tecnifícate conference as well.

Technologist Ariel Coro, head of TuTecnologia, is the primary organizer and driving force. he is widely know for his morning appearances on Spanish language technology segments on Univision TV and on Despierta America. His Tu Tecnologia online network has 6900 members.

I was extremely impressed by the Tecníficate attendees and their commitment to technology. When was asked, more than a third of the attendees indicated that they were small business owners. The June 4th event will focus on technology, economic development, and job growth in technology. I look forward to meeting you!

Register

BlogWorld New York – Register May 24-26, 2011

Tecnifícate – Register – June 4th 2011, College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA

LATISM’s Latino2 in Silicon Valley – June 11th


The following video is a quick look at the last Latino2 conference held in Los Angeles.

I avoided paying attention to QR codes. Some of my Twitter friends were obsessed with them and I hadn’t investigate them enough to see the full value. Now I do.

QR Codes are a great way to connect mobile devices to print, signage, clothing, and much much much more.

• > Jump to the “How to Add A QR Code To Your Blog Video

Best Uses

Some of the best uses of QR codes come from online companies that are part of the mobile application ecosystem.

The Appsgeyser mobile development site for Android apps uses QR Codes to prompt developers/users to download apps.

OpenAppMarket is a mini app store for HTML5 applications. You can get to the apps from the URL, by posting via phone, or by accessing the QR code.

Best Buy’s QR code labeled price tags. How many times do you go buy something then wish you had a computer so you could look things up? Happens to me all the time. I don’t carry my laptop around while shopping but I always have my smart phone.

Photo credit: Travelin’ Librarian on Flickrlicense

QR Code Scanners

I did a little Twitter crowdsourcing a couple of weeks ago and asked tweeps what their favorite QR Code readers were. I expected to hear crickets but QR Code lovers came out of the woodwork. These are some of the apps they mentioned.

1) Qrafter - Free: Not bad but the ads are pretty obvious and it has a couple of extra steps to actually get to the URL. The app had trouble recognizing some on screen codes that my favorite ones were able to read.

2) Microsoft Tag reader – Free: Had trouble recognizing tags. I stopped testing it after it missed a couple of tags.

3) AT&T Code Scanner – Winner! Free: This app is great and it’s the one I started using on a regular basis. I also used it to test out my Create Your Own Code application.

How To Add A QR Code To Your Blog

Related reading:

Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes? [INFOGRAPHIC] on Mashable

WordPress announced its new Learn WordPress.com site.

This online tutorial is ideal for beginning and intermediate WordPress.com bloggers and for folks who are migrating over from other blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad.

NOTE: For those of you who are not familiar with the WordPress platform, there are two flavors of WordPress – WordPress.com the free site and WordPress.org blogs which are custom install versions. You can get more information on the differences here.

The Learn WordPress.com tutorial breaks down the blog learning experience into 10 sections and also has an easy-to-print version (66 pages of learning fun). The site is well organized and does an admirable job addressing the gazillion ways in which people can blog.

Screenshot of Learn WordPress.com site

As you may know, I have my own Getting Started With WordPress.com online class as well (launching soon). As far as I’m concerned, the more options to learn blogging, the better. My blog class includes my direct feedback and guidance on blogging topics, for those who need a little bit more than 100% self-serve learning.

I’m honored to have one of my WordPress.com video tutorials as part of the official WordPress.com curriculum. WordPress links to my “Using slideshows on WordPress.com” tutorial on its “Get Flashy” page.

Check out the Learn WordPress.com site and let me know what you think.

Here’s the Using Slideshows on WordPress.com video to get you into the WordPress.com learning mood. Enjoy!

If you liked this blog post, you may want to sign up for the RSS feed, email, “Like” and share the post, and join us on Facebook.

Photo Credit: @tiabel on Flickr, by special permission.

I’m pleased to announce that I am now a business consultant for the Economic Development Collaboration in Ventura County (EDC-VC). I’ll be helping small businesses in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties formulate and clarify, their marketing, technology, and e-business planning.

This past Monday I did a presentation at the Moorpark Community Center as part of the Small Business Forum entitled “Marketing Your Business for Success.” I presented to almost 30 small business owners plus the Moorpark Mayor Janice Parvin, City Councilwoman Roseann Mikos, Ph. D., and Patrick Ellis, President of the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce. It was a great way to step into the role. I’m glad everyone was awake and energized at 7am! Thank you Daylight Saving Time!

What I love most about this opportunity is that I get to do what I love – working with small businesses and organizations. Additionally, services are free to the businesses. These are your tax dollars hard at work. Strengthening existing businesses and growing new enterprises is an important part of our economy’s engine. I’m proud to be helping with this endeavor.

This is the end of the personal part of the post. If you’re a small business owner, or in the process of starting one up, then you really should read on, no matter where you live in the U.S..

————

Small Business Development Center – SBDC

The EDC-VC also hosts the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The national SBDC program assists more that 1.3 million businesses through over 950 Service Centers. The SBDC is funded by the Small Business Administration. The EDC-SBDC center provides free consultations and low-cost training sessions in these key areas (I highlighted the areas in which I’ll be counseling):

• Business planning
• Start-up assistance
• Capital sourcing
• Government contracting and procurement
• Financing/Loan packaging assistance
• Human Resources
• Legal issues
• Marketing/Sales
• International trade
• Managing a business
• Technology
• E-commerce
• Social Media

Small Business Forum Events – Also Free!

The EDC-VC and SBDC offers a host of small business forum events. There’s an upcoming presentation on Planning & Financial Management Tuesday, November 16, 2010 in Moorpark. Click here for more information.

These are great networking events and extremely informative.

Need business advising?

For businesses and start-ups in Ventura and Santa Barbara County, you can contact the EDC-VC here:

EDC-VC
1601 Carmen Drive, Suite 215
Camarillo, CA 93010
(805) 384-1800
info@edcsbdc.com

Join the EDC-VC email list for updates on business events throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Follow the SBDC LA Twitter account. This covers the Los Angeles SBDC area which includes the Ventura County Center.

Call to make an appointment. It’s not really a drop-in type of center. Tell them what type of support you’re looking for and they will set up an appointment for you to meet with an adviser. If you need support in one of my areas of expertise then they will schedule a time for us to meet, either at the Camarillo center or at your business site. I’ve started working with some of the other advisors and they’re amazing. You will be in good hands. Please tell them you heard about the Center from me, Jesse Luna.

Centers throughout the country



You can find your nearest SBDC center via the Small Business Administration SBDC Locator tool.

I love sharing information, including technology trends, social media How To’s, breaking and local business news, and information on advocacy groups. On Twitter, I’ll share 5-10 items per day, sometimes in a rapid fire method. On Facebook I’ll “Like” or “Share” several posts a day. Multiply these activities by the number of Twitter and Facebook users and you have an unprecedented amount of sharing and re-sharing.

So why limit the scope of your message? Let it run wild!

Here are five tips to help you set your message free.

Give Your Email Legs

Ok, so you spent two weeks working with a team to create the perfect email message. Maybe you’re about to launch a new product, announce a new conference, drive donors to your non-profit site, or share your latest video creation.

There are three important items to add to your email deployment checklist:

1. Do you have an online version of your email with a link to that page on the email? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a juicy email that I want to share with the world and struggled or have been unable to find the online version. If I don’t have a link, I can can’t share it with my online network. What a missed opportunity.
   
   If you do have an online version, please think clearly before deciding to host that content on the email management tool’s site. Do you want to drive content to Constant Contact’s site or to your site, for example?
2. Do you have a Twitter or Facebook share feature on your email? This makes sharing one step easier. With the click of a button, your message can flow to two of the most supercharged sharing sites in the world.
3. Is it easy to forward the email to a friend? Some email messages have nifty “Forward to a Friend” features that make it easy to share content. I rarely use this feature but there are some people who like it, especially if it is from an authority site like a news agency or major publication. If the email is breaking news or highly relevant to your personal or business contacts then this could help your message take off.

This Kodak email has an online version and ways for users to subscribe to Facebook and Twitter. The email could be enhanced with actual tweet buttons that automatically format the Twitter and Facebook messages, so posting is only one click away.

Let’s look at this from a numbers perspective. If you send out your email message to your permission-based list of 10,000 contacts and you don’t add any sharing features, then your message is limited to the number of recipients plus the number of times your email is forwarded to other contacts. Let’s be generous and say that 100 of the emails were forwarded to contacts. That’s a reach of 10,100.

If you add a link to your online content and have a Facebook and Twitter share then the numbers shift. Your initial contacts receive the message and can then re-post the message to their followers via Twitter or Friends on Facebook. If I tweet about an item, the message is instantly available to over 8,400 followers! That’s almost double the reach from ONE contact. Factor in retweets and other people sharing and the reach can get to 100,000 very quickly.

From your Website to the World

1. Add a Tweet button and Facebook Share and/or Like feature to your Web pages and blog posts. Yes, this is the same tip as for your email messaging but it’s important to give your site/blog readers a way to share content with their networks Clear a path.
2. Do you have a compelling image on your web page or blog post? A good photo or graphic will catch a persons attention and make it more share worthy. On Facebook, the image will show up as a thumbnail picture. Your Facebook friends will be much more likely to Like the post and to re-share it.
   
   Note: if you don’t select a photo to go with your page/post and someone “Facebooks it” then they will either get a selection of random image options (icons from your sidebar or unrelated content) or they won’t have any option.

(Link to The Spice Spoon blog.)

Review

We just reviewed how to clear a path for your important messages. If your message is clear, relevant, and timely then these tips can help your message spread like wildfire.

Do you have any other design tips to help your messages spread?

Photo Credit: Vestman on Flickr – License

Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) is proud to announce San Luis Obispo as the second stop on the Latino2 California Tour.

Come join us on December 4, 2010, at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. California’s Central Coast is the birth place of “La Causa”, the Latino civil rights movement. The conference will focus on the theme “Community and Collaboration in Central California: Then and Now.”

• REGISTER for the Latino2 conference (FREE)
• Tune into Latino2 conference details on the official site

Getting Excited?

The video below is a compilation from the first Tour stop in Los Angeles. Many thanks to Gina Ruiz (@ginaruiz on Twitter) and Deldelp Medina (@deldelp) for sharing pictures and videos!

Picture credit: lastorset on Flickr