Berlin is surely the coolest city on earth. Erika La Tour Eiffel (AKA Erika Mauer) was my next-door neighbor for a while in Berlin.  She is an Objectum Sexual and here is her story! (You can watch all of the episodes here):

Don’t let the unique nature of her sexual orientation to turn you off to her.  She’s a badass and have accomplished amazing things in her 37+ years. She is coo, she is creative, and she is unique, for sure! I like her, she’s cool and doing cool things and definitely living her life her way.

Erika “Aya” Eiffel is authentic, amazing, and a world-class Olympic archer and was trained in Japan in the art of the Samurai sword and was actually conferred a world title in Soga-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu, san-dan (3rd level black belt) in Toyama-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu, and san-dan in the Zen Nihon To-Do Renmei:

From Erika “Aya” La Tour Eiffel’s Bio

I always had a fascination for weapons. Strange you say? Strange enough, that it lead me to start martial arts. I wanted to learn to use the Japanese katana. My plight eventually took me to Japan to study with the true masters of Japanese sword fighting. A few years ago my back nearly won the battle but after seven months of rehab, I returned and won a World Title and became the youngest instructor in the art of Soga-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu. I continued my love of the Japanese sword and earned the rank of san-dan (3rd level black belt) in Toyama-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu and also achieved san-dan in the Zen Nihon To-Do Renmei. I know, I know, I need start a webpage just dedicated to my other life as a swordswoman in Japan!

How cool is that?  Amazing!  Well, it doesn’t stop there… Erika “Aya” Eiffel transitioned away from swordsmanship to becoming an Olympic archer using her beloved recurve bow, Lance:

Archer Spotlight on Aya La Brie By Steve Ross

Having only started her archery career four years ago in 1999, Erika “Aya” La Brie had a tremendous year competitively in 2004. She was part of the Women’s Compound Team that took home a gold medal and new world record at the World Target Championships in New York City this past July. At the NAA Nationals, she shot both recurve and compound taking 10th and third place respectively. Aya also shoots the modern Longbow, traditional Japanese bow and is skilled in martial arts. I managed to catch Aya during an archery “holiday” due to a mountain bike accident.

USAA: I heard you recently had a serious mountain bike accident. What happened and will it impact your archery plans for the rest of the outdoor season?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: Well, I prefer to commute on my mountain bike as a form of cross training for my archery and last Wed. was no different. I was crossing a street on the walk signal and a truck came from the outside lane and turned in front of me. He sent me sailing when I tried to veer and brake. I flipped twice and crashed in a heap in the middle of the street. He paused only long enough to see if I was alive and sped off once I sat up.

I ended up with three mashed ribs, elbows, knee and ankle and large scrapes on my back. Fortunately, I always wear a helmet, which cracked. Otherwise, I have no crippling injuries. However, it did put a damper on the IBO Worlds, which I had to fly to the next morning followed by a five-hour drive. I managed to shoot but was in a lot of pain the whole weekend. Since my return, my training has been put on hold for the next few weeks to let my ribs and knee heal. I have never taken more than two weeks off from training and will have to rely on mental imagery until I can shoot again. Mental training helped me earlier this year when I was hospitalized for two weeks. All the experience gained from this year will help put together a good regimen until I’m ready to hit the range again.

USAA: I’m glad you’re ok and will only need a short break. You have had a fantastic year; shooting on the women’s compound team that shot a new world record must have been great.

Erika “Aya” La Brie: “Fantastic year” is more of an understatement to describe the year I’ve had! I started archery with recurve in 1999 and shot for one year before an injury forced me to shoot with a release if I wanted to continue shooting. So I picked up compound and shot for a year until last year when my hand healed and I could shoot fingers again. I switched back to recurve and made the U.S. World Field Team and alternate for the World Indoor Team. However, after shooting the Vegas Shoot this year with compound and recurve I decided I wanted to shoot both bows for NAA ranking. I had already decided I would shoot both bows at the Target Nationals, so I needed to divvy out the USAT events between both to meet the requirements. Indoor Nationals was the first step for my compound and decided the AZ Cup would be the second. The rest of the season would be recurve. Famous last words…

USAA: Tell me about shooting at the World Target event; do you treat it any different than just a normal FITA event?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I was still in a dream-like state when I arrived in New York after making the U.S. Compound Team. I never ever imagined I would win the FITA and OR at the Arizona Cup, Texas Shootout and Gold Cup! Now I was standing on the shooting line at the World Target Championships!

All my FITA’s up to that point, I had trained myself not to fear the consequences of my shooting because I shot only for me. If I shot poorly, surely I would not shrivel up and die. Now for the first time I felt the weight of being on a team and representing the USA. My teammates were all experienced veterans and after having some difficulties on the first day of the FITA, I was afraid I would not be permitted to shoot the team round as the coach and other members questioned my experience. I pushed myself even harder and achieved several personal bests in the FITA and the matches. Now I felt that I had to prove myself to my team and to my country. To my greatest relief, the coach chose me to be the starting shooter in the team round. Since I was a rookie and had no expectations other than to shoot my best, I feel very blessed that I share a world record and have a gold medal.

USAA: Did you do any special training?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: Two weeks prior to the World Target, I moved to the Archery International Training Center in Carbondale, Ill. I worked on my backup bow and practiced shooting matches and having to deal with equipment failure etc. Good thing because I had to use my backup bow for one of the team matches. But not all my training was for the Worlds. I also had to train for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games, which was held just prior to the worlds. The Games required a speed setup and also a considerably faster shooting style than I use for target.

USAA: I don’t know of many archers who in the matter of just a few years are competing at the level you are. Do you credit some of this to your background in martial arts?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I have made two world teams in four years with two different bows. I guess it is not common, but I have always felt my archery was a continuation of the martial arts I started many years prior to picking up a bow and arrow.

USAA: From what I understand you were a serious student of Japanese swordsmanship and Kyudo (Japanese archery). Can you describe this training?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: When I started martial arts, I quickly realized that contact martial arts was not a field I should explore if I wanted to preserve my kneecaps. So it seemed reasonable that I should fall in love with weapon’s work. The Japanese sword became my top choice from an arsenal of amazing traditional weapons. Along with training to draw, block and cut, I learned the value of becoming “one with your weapon.” This approach to fighting is where I found the most valuable tool for the mental game I currently use. Being so in tune with my katana definitely facilitated my way to winning the World Cup seven years ago. The katana was not a choice weapon for women. The training was rigorous and dangerous as we used live blades and actually cut in practice. Ask me how dangerous someday!

When I started Kyudo, I found myself getting very frustrated because of a handicap in my right shoulder. Regardless of how much I practiced, my shoulder refused to relinquish the flexibility I needed for certain motions in the shooting sequence. I shot four hours every day on a rooftop range at a Shinto shrine in Kamakura with my Japanese bow (yumi). Six months later I beat my entire school at a dojo tourney. I also was the first female non-Japanese to be inducted into the Ogasawara School of Mounted Archery. However, I knew that the beauty that made Kyudo an art would never be found with the imperfections in my form. I never even cared if I hit the target. I only wanted to shoot with beautiful style and form. I most definitely credit my training in martial arts to my advancement in archery. My bow is NOT equipment but an extension of my own being, just as my katana and my yumi were. My form, also unorthodox in many ways, is a style of my own and one that I am committed to.

USAA: You shoot Olympic style recurve, FITA compound, and various traditional bows. As for tournaments, you participate in NAA, 3-D, FITA and NFAA. Am I missing anything?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I am still new to 3-D but have competed in a couple ASA and IBO tournaments each. I would like to shoot more 3-D but most are on the other side of the Mississippi. Since moving to Colorado, I have enjoyed shooting in CSAA (Colorado State Archery Association) tournaments and have broken nine state records since last December with all three bows. I am also new to the NFAA this year and was surprised to find a whole different organization with a different approach to target and field shooting as compared to the NAA.

USAA: Do you find it difficult switching between styles?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: This is the most frequently asked question. I learned recurve from a coach in Japan, but I taught myself to shoot compound and recently, modern longbow. Strange enough, my styles are so different from each other that I do not find it hard to switch, even in the same tournament and on occasion, the same shooting line. I find it a challenge to shoot all three bows at the same event, kind of like an archery triathlon.

USAA: Do you have a personal coach?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: When I started recurve archery in April of 1999, I had a wonderful coach for six months: Tastuo Nobori. He was my only coach and was very strict about mental and physical conditioning. But the foundations that he laid, I still use today. I’ve never had a compound coach. I just wanted to continue shooting so badly that I figured out how by applying what I learned with recurve to compound.

USAA:What is your training schedule like?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I try to shoot four hours every day with focus on repetition of my shot sequence. At the end of training I usually do stamina exercises with my bow followed by a short run. I also cross-train by riding 30-50 miles or more a week on my mountain bike. I also jog 5 miles/run, a couple times per week. Every night just before bed I take a hot shower and stretch for 20 min. NO exceptions! I also do a lot of visual training using former pressure situations as the model.

USAA: Would you like to mention anyone in particular for giving you support this year?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I never dreamed I would have the support that I do in archery. My greatest being from the Lord above. My sponsors are TechnoHunt, Doinker, Sure-Loc, Golden Key Futura, Carter and Specialty Archery. I would like to thank Hoyt USA for making great compound and recurve bows.

USAA: What are your compound and recurve setups?

Compound: 60# Hoyt UltraTec XT3000 Cam 1½, Easton X-10 500 Spin Wings, SureLoc Supreme, Specialty Super Scope 6X, Doinker² Stabilizer,

Recurve: 44# Hoyt Avalon+ and FX Limbs, Easton ACE 570, SureLoc FITA Extreme

She is also on the 2009 National Team for Archery, Recurve Bow:

The 2009 Senior USAT Team includes:

Recurve

Men       Women

Dan Schuller – Mercer, PA   Karen Scavotto – Enfield, CT

Joe McGlyn – Floral Park, NY  Erin Mickelberry – Bothell, WA

Jason McKittrick – Holton, IN  Stephanie Miller – Naperville, IL

Dakota Sinclair – Ridgecrest, CA  Lori Cieslinski – Howell, MI

Ted Holland – Westminster, CO  Kendra Harvey – Rio Rancho, NM

Jake Kaminski – Edgewater, FL  Erika “Aya” Eiffel – Suisun, CA

Timm Hines – Kent, WA   Amanda Nichols – Cheyenne, WY

Tyler Domenech – Holtwood, PA  *Jennifer Nichols – Cheyenne, WY

*Vic Wunderle – Mason City, IL  *Khatuna Lorig – Los Angeles, CA

Here are some more newspaper articles you can check out:

Woman with objects fetish marries Eiffel Tower

Erika La Tour Eiffel, 37, a former soldier who lives in San Francisco, has been in love with objects before. Her first infatuation was with Lance, a bow that helped her to become a world-class archer, she is fond of the Berlin Wall and she claims to have a physical relationship with a piece of fence she keeps in her bedroom.

But it is the Eiffel Tower she has pledged to love, honour and obey in an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of friends.

She has changed her name legally to reflect the bond.

Before returning to Paris for her first wedding anniversary, Mrs La Tour Eiffel visits the Berlin Wall, where her affection for what many Germans see as a symbol of repression leads to an uncomfortable encounter with a member of the staff at the Checkpoint Charlie museum.

She explained that she feels an affinity with the wall: “I am the Berlin Wall. Hate me, try to break me apart, but I will still be here, standing.”

‘I married the Eiffel Tower’

Imagine a world in which people seem hostile while inanimate objects appear friendly – even affectionate. Imagine dreading the touch of another human but longing for a passionate encounter with a large public structure. This is the strange world of the “objectum sexual”– a group of people, mainly women, whose intimate lives revolve around objects with which they say they share romantic and sexual love.

As a documentary film-maker passionate about exploring psychological aspects of human nature, I have made films about bigamists, domestic violence and co-dependent anorexic twins. Modern society is a never-ending source of these stories. It is still exceptional for a father to lock up his daughter for 24 years in a cellar, but scratch the surface and it seems that good personal relationships are rare. To fill their emotional needs, people are increasingly turning to a variety of substitutes: from internet virtual reality and food to… well, objects.

On first meeting, Erika La Tour Eiffel appears extraordinarily ordinary. An ex-US Army soldier, the 36-year-old lives in San Francisco. She is also a former world champion in archery – propelled to success, she believes, by her love for Lance, a bow. She now claims to be married to the Eiffel Tower, following a ceremony with friends last year in Paris, at which she promised eternal love to the iron monument and changed her name legally to reflect the bond. “There is a huge problem with being in love with a public object,” she says sadly. “The issue of intimacy – or rather lack of it – is forever present.”

She is currently married to the Berlin Mauer, which is why her name has changed to Erika Mauer.

If you have not been keeping on top of all of the great comments streaming in to the AH Poll entitled “If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be competent to be President?” you are really missing out! Some of them are the most insightful, thoughtful, and brilliant collection of thoughts representing the best and the worst of the right and the left! Roll up your sleeves and batten your hatches because you’re going to have one hell of a ride. Oh, also, these comments are in reverse-chronological order so the most recent are at the top. If you want to keep track of them live, please go visit them where they love and breathe. Read below for the most amazing Sarah Palin comment thread of the Internets!

And, here’s an embed of the poll, if I’ve piqued your interest by now:

As you can see, I have been writing about Sadie Allison for years now — Dr. Sadie Tickles My Fancy with TickleKitty and See Sexy Dr. Sadie With Your Own Two Eyes On TV This Sunday — and just recently received 5 copies of Sadie’s new book, Ride ‘Em Cowgirl: Sex Position Secrets For Better Bucking. She’s a friend of mine — and she’s super cute and knows what she’s talking about! OK, I am sort of crushing.

Before that, Sadie penned three sex-help books, Tickle Your Fancy, Toygasms!, and Tickle His Pickle — but she has outdone herself with this book! Oh, and on page 97, the G-Spot is finally demystified! Come on fellas, you’re really missing out if you haven’t sorted out some of the magic little bits and pieces of lovemaking. Definitely a worthwhile endeavor for the both of you!

Here’s some of the stuff I have been able to steal from both Amazon and the Tickle Kitty website:

Enjoy an entire lifetime of sexual enrichment for the cost of a couple of cocktails!

• Fully illustrated to guide you. Over 100 tasteful point-n-play illustrations help you visualize your exciting new moves together
• Easy and fun to read. You’ll feel inspired by Dr. Sadie’s conversational style and hands-on encouragement
• Filled with secret touches. You’ll explore all the strokes, squeezes and sensations your lover wants (but isn’t telling you)
• She’ll start coming like crazy. Many of Dr. Sadie’s tips are designed to ignite the woman’s orgasms—including the wild and elusive “during intercourse” orgasm
• You and your lover are invited. Come discover how to reposition your bodies together for the most satisfying, fulfilling, mind-blowing lovemaking ever!

Product Description
Why is this today s best sex position guide? Instead of twisting you into impossible pretzel poses, Dr. Sadie illustrates hundreds of ways to shape your favorite sex positions into a more passionate orgasmic fit for the two of you. Comfortably! Even better, Dr. Sadie s fun, empowering hands-on coaching inspires intimate new explorations and sensational erotic touches. You ll reveal your lover s deepest sexual desires (and yours, too!) while triggering powerful orgasms like never before especially hers! Whether you re newly intimate together or long-time lovers ready to take the monotony out of monogamy this is the one lovemaking guide ready to create a lifetime of excitement, passion, confidence, supergasms, and un-wipe-offable smiles every morning after. Try it! And read it together…in bed!

Check out what’s inside Ride ‘Em Cowgirl!:
1. Your Passion Cocktail—How to shake awake your lovelife
2. Supergasms—The secrets to supercharging your orgasms
3. The Art of Penetration—Sensual entry secrets just for him
4. The Art of Being Penetrated—Sensual entry secrets just for her
5. Missionary Possible—New pleasure angles when HE’S on top
6. Doggystyle—Enjoy new come-from-behind victories
7. Ride ‘em Cowgirl!—Exciting moves when SHE’S on top
8. Spooning—Rediscover the world’s most romantic position.
9. Clitilicious—How to arouse her orgasm trigger every time
10. The G-spot—Finding and stimulating her deep pleasure spot
11. Backdoor Boogaloo—Why couples now say yes to this old taboo
12. The HE-spot—Finding and stimulating HIS hidden pleasure spot
13. Voluptuous Loving—Positions designed for our larger lovers
14. Pregnant Poses—Exciting positions for the soon-to-be-mom
15. Outercourse—An exciting alternative of good messy fun
16. Location! Location! Location!—Reasons to skip the bedroom
17. Vive La Difference—Exciting new ways to fit your lover to you
18. Sexy Playthings—Choosing the right sextoys for you

Appendix: Safety First—How to practice safer sex every time

Position Index—So many positions, so much time!
Excerpts from Chapter 9: “Clitilicious”

As opposite as the sexes often seem, women and men share one important sexual similarity—the workings of their sexual pleasure centers. Here’s why:

• The clitoris is micro-clustered with millions of the same type of erotic nerve endings found in the head of the penis.
• Men become erect during arousal—and so do women! As the clitoris swells with blood, it swells in size. Next time, feel it grow from small and subtle to round and firm as foreplay
  heats up.
• There’s rarely an orgasm without direct stimulation to the head of the penis. Likewise, there’s rarely an orgasm if you ignore the clitoris.
• The clitoris and the penis respond best when slippery-wet. Did you remember to pick up a good sex lube?

By understanding these similarities, it’s easy to see why it’s vital to stimulate the tiny but powerful clitoris directly, especially during intercourse. Guys…please read that last sentence again!

20 ways to supercharge intercourse

Between the two of you, you’ll find 20 warm, soft, active little clitoral stimulators that you’ll never misplace, need no batteries, and can lift the woman to the highest orgasmic peaks on earth.

They’re your fingertips—just add sex lube!

The fingertip secret is to touch the clitoris with slow, gentle caressing motions, matching the pressure and pace to the level of her arousal. Just be sure there’s lots of lubrication, start slow and soft, and you can’t go wrong.

Whoever is doing the arousing, vary your fingertip motions till you find a pattern that works: up ‘n’ down, side-to-side, round ‘n’ round, or even figure eights. For a real treat, try these motions with the tip of the penis.

About the Author
When you need answers about lovemaking, look to Dr. Sadie Allison, founder and CEO of Tickle Kitty, Inc., and ticklekitty.com. Dr. Sadie is a leading authority on human sexuality today, and author of the award-winning bestsellers Tickle His Pickle, TOYGASMS! and Tickle Your Fancy. She appears frequently on TV and radio, including E! Entertainment Television, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, Dr. Drew s Loveline and the Bob & Tom Show. She is a sought-after speaker, and is often quoted in national magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook and Men s Health. She s a Licensed Doctor of Human Sexuality, having earned her degree from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She s also a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors & Therapists (AASECT). Her Tickle Kitty brand of sex-help books, sensual pleasure kits and sex lubricants enable her to assist more individuals and couples find greater joys in sexual pleasure.

Editorial Reviews
Review
YEE HA! for Ride Em Cowgirl!, Sue Johanson, host of TV s Talk Sex –Sue Johanson, host of TV s Talk Sex

Read this together and enjoy the pleasures to come., Ian Kerner, Ph.D., Author, She Comes First –Ian Kerner, Ph.D., Author, She Comes First

Dr. Sadie Allison combines sex education with erotic temptation so everyone can learn and enjoy. She s one of the great emerging sexologists of the 21st century., Dr. Ted McIlvenna, President, The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality –Dr. Ted McIlvenna, President, The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality

I have known Beth Kanter for what seems like forever. We spent many many years online back in the 90s in Online Virtual Communities. Well, she is still at the bleeding edge of technology, strategy, social media, online communities, online education, and online fund-raising — but with a unique focus on nonprofits, not-for-profit organizations, and other charity organizations. Organizations are generally left in the wake of the world of social media coaching and consulting for budgetary reasons so Beth is a godsend. Please check out Beth’s Blog over at Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media.

Chris Abraham is a Founding Partner and the President of Abraham Harrison, LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones. Via LinkedIn

Chris Abraham’s Specialties:

online business intelligence, corporate and pr blogging, online brand intelligence, online brand promotion and protection, online buzz and relationship marketing, online education, online messaging, online social networks, online technology strategy, rss syndication strategy, search engine optimization strategy, virtual community building

Chris Abraham’s Experience

• President and COO

  Abraham Harrison LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — Present (1 year 6 months)

  Abraham Harrison, LLC, is an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones.

• Blogging Instructor

  The Writer’s Center

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Professional Training & Coaching industry)

  February 2006 — June 2007 (1 year 5 months)

  •Instructional courses on blogging, from introduction to advanced techniques
  •Marketing, promotional, and SEO strategies for writers and business people
  •www.appliedblogging.org developed to support blogging students

• Sales Representative

  Visible Technologies

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  Sales representative for Visible Technologies’ TruView and TruCast software solutions. TruView is the most effective service for individuals and companies to manage their reputations via what appears in the top search engines. TruView is the first corporate solution that helps organizations manage and protect their brand in the Blogosphere and other “consumer-generated media” communities.

• Associate

  crayon LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  crayon will help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today’s dynamic and complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards marketing communication.

• Consultant

  Comteg

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  December 2006 — May 2007 (6 months)

  COMTEG.COM is a consultancy focused on Online Advertising, Media Measurement and Publishing. Our consulting services are Strategy Formulation, Market Entry and Industry Political Initiatives. We operate globally with offices in Europe, The Middle East & Asia.

• Blogger

  Self-employed

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Publishing industry)

  January 1999 — March 2007 (8 years 3 months)

  Blogging strategist with a focus on PR blogs, corporate blogs, publicity blogs, grassroots blogs, SEO blogs, brand blogs, and media blogs. Current personal blog is Chris Abraham – Because the Medium is the Message (http://www.chrisabraham.com). Experienced blogging trainer and guest-blogger.

• Senior RSS Consultant

  Hinchcliffe & Company

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — February 2007 (2 months)

  Senior RSS Consultant at T. Rowe Price on behalf of Hinchcliffe & Company. Research, design, develop, and deploy T. Rowe Price’s client and prospect RSS syndication strategy.

• Consultant

  Abraham PR

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  October 2006 — January 2007 (4 months)

  Chris Abraham is a web strategist, focusing on search engine optimization (SEO), search engine markeing (SEM), online buzz marketing, online advocacy, blogger relations (BR), blogger outreach, and word-of-mouth marketing. Chris consults clients on new media public relations solutions, delivering strategy documents that include an analysis and audit of the current web strategy, recommendations, and next steps. Consulting, training, and client services are available and tailored to client needs, according to the next steps and client need.

• Consultant

  BoldMouth

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  August 2006 — September 2006 (2 months)

  •Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
  •Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
  •Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.31 install
  •Monetization of blog, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
  •Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog

• Senior Account Supervisor

  Edelman

  (Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  May 2006 — August 2006 (4 months)

  •Direct client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging
  •Spearheaded Working Families for Wal-Mart blog, newsletter, and activation list
  •Developed online word of mouth outreach for Taylor Hicks webcast from Wal-Mart shareholder’s meeting
  •Co-produced “Exposing the Paid Critics” website for Working Families for Wal-Mart
  •Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and Wal-Mart Realty
  •Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns

• Technology Strategist

  New Media Strategies, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  September 2003 — May 2006 (2 years 9 months)

  •Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
  •Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
  •Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and supress negative conversation on popular search engines
  •Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
  •Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts
  •Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads

• Guest Lecturer

  Columbia University

  (Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  October 2005 — October 2005 (1 month)

  Lectured on the topic of blogging and viral marketing strategies for the Executive Masters in Public Affairs Program, for Advanced Management concentrators, at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.

• Photographer

  Corbis

  (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Photography industry)

  August 1990 — 2004 (14 years)

  Contracted stock photographer.

• Director of Sales

  eResources, LLC

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Networking industry)

  September 2002 — September 2003 (1 year 1 month)

  •Managed sales force and new business for the ITonDemand™ and the eResources Content Management System products

• Senior Web Developer

  National Legal Aid & Defender Association

  (Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Alternative Dispute Resolution industry)

  February 2002 — September 2002 (8 months)

  •Developed Web applications and content management system (CMS) developer using Zope, Python, and MySQL

• Managing Director

  beehive North America

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 2000 — February 2002 (1 year 8 months)

  •President, co-owner, and co-founder of beehive North America, the North American office of Berlin-based beehive elektronische medien GmbH
  •Sold and marketed software Zope application development training and services
  •Clients included College of Exploration, The Nature Conservancy, and Space Telescope Science, and Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD)

• Online Community Builder and Linux System Administrator

  Caucus Systems, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 1999 — June 2000 (1 year)

  Linux/Unix system administrator and online community and event facilitator for Internet company focused on developing enterprise-level virtual online events and conferences.

• Senior Information Engineer

  US Department of Treasury Chief Information Office (CIO)

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Executive Office industry)

  July 1997 — July 1999 (2 years 1 month)

  Senior application and web developer for the Office of the CIO for the Department of the Treasury. HTML, scripting, programming, graphic design, management, development, and deployment of the CIO intranet and public website.

• Online Creative Writing Instructor

  Online Creative Writing Course, EFA/Kalamazoo, MI, Public Schools

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Primary/Secondary Education industry)

  August 1996 — May 1997 (10 months)

  Co-teacher of the first fully accredited virtual online highschool creative writing course. Education for the Arts (EFA) was an magnet program for highschool kids in Kalamazoo, MI. The program supplied laptops and dial-up access to the students. Course did include face-to-face four times a year as well as several field trips to conferences.

• Software Engineer

  Proxicom

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

  May 1996 — August 1996 (4 months)

  Web developer for the seminal web application and development company formerly called Proxima, now Proxicom. Amongst other projects, worked on Owens Corner and Garfield official websites.

• Technical Customer Support

  Picture Network International

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Publishing industry)

  June 1993 — December 1995 (2 years 7 months)

  Industry’s first online stock photo agency with dedicated dial-up ISP-based client called “Seymour.” PNI was an online stock photography service with more than 30 stock houses supplying images. It had more than 250,000 images in its library.

• Vice President

  Pacific Rim Productions, Ltd.

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  October 1994 — November 1995 (1 year 2 months)

  Vice President of multimedia production company. Primary role as producer, photographer and script writer. Clients included General Motors and Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

• Photographer

  Abraham & Dunn

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  May 1983 — July 1988 (5 years 3 months)

  Family-owned photography company. Have been shooting corporate and travel photograhy since I was 13-years-old.

Chris Abraham’s Education

• George Washington University

  BA, American Literature, August 1988 — May 1993

  Activities and Societies:

  Phi Kappa Psi, Crew Team

• University of East Anglia

  American Studies September 1990 — June 1991

  Activities and Societies:

  Crew Team

Additional Information

Chris Abraham’s Websites:

• My Blog
• My RSS feed
• My Company

Chris Abraham’s Interests:

RSS, blogging, Blogosphere, emergent systems, emerging technology, futurism, buzz marketing, blog, blogs, content management, rowing, sculling, biking, running, blogging, nlp, writing, reading, lecturing, driving, new technology, emergent systems, emergent technology, new media, Internet, viral markeing, memetics, systems theory, emergence, politics, popular culture, culture, trends, programming, news

Chris Abraham’s Groups:

Renaissance Weekend, Viral and Buzz Marketing Association, VBMA, Howard Rheingold Associate, HHWinc, Haft, Harrison & Wolfson, Inc., Urban Institute Communications Advisory Board, DC Zope Python User Group, zpug, da Vinci Group

Chris Abraham’s Honors:

Most Likely to be Famous, Saint Louis School, Honolulu, HI, 1988

I am really proud of the work we at Abraham Harrison are doing on behalf of Jerry White’s new book, I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, and new organization, SurvivorCorps. So excited am I that we really created a gorgeous Social Media News Release (SMNR) for the project, for both I Will Not Be Broken and SurvivorCorps — and I wrote about it over on Marketing Conversation — and here it is below:

When we work with clients, we tend to create what are called Social Media News Releases. During out promotion of the new book by Jerry White called I Will Not Be Broken, we created the following SMNR. You can see a CMS version here and the official static version here. The inline version is pasted below — as you can see, it pastes pretty well, which is important when you’re expecting bloggers to “steal” code, content, HTML, links, photos, and graphics directly from the SMNR and into their blog via coppy-and-paste into their rich-text editor. One can surely use too much style and CSS fu that could result in a difficult-to-integrate into a blog. Also, when I get the press kit from the client, it is essential to boil down — reduce — the content into web-friendly content: PDF and Word needs to be converted to PNG, GIF, JPG, and HTML — that’s all that matters online. Finally, try to pre-size the images into post-friendly sizes because most bloggers don’t have the sort of set-up that would allow them to convert “press-ready” portraits and “full-size” images into smaller, thumbnails, for a website: do as much of the premastication and blog-ready HTML as possible and make it a simple matter for your blogger. The easier, the better. Be a valet to your blogger — a facilitator!

I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis
by Jerry White

Copies of I Will Not Be Broken Now Available Online and at Stores Nationwide

Leveraging personal experience and a lifetime of wisdom, landmine survivor Jerry White outlines a very specific five-step program to coping with disaster; to achieving strength and hope; and to turning tragedy into triumph

News Facts

• I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White went on sale April 29th, 2008.
• The official I Will Not Be Broken web site http://www.iwillnotbebroken.org launched May 1, 2008.
• I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White will be available as an Audiobook
• Jerry White, author of I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, is available for blog, podcast, and vlog interviews.

About I Will Not Be Broken, a Book by Jerry White

From a leader of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning movement to ban landmines and founder of Survivor Corps comes an astoundingly effective guide to recreating a happy and fulfilling life after catastrophe strikes—a book that Bob and Lee Woodruff call “a road map for the individual and their family to re-enter the land of the living.” In I WILL NOT BE BROKEN, Jerry White reframes the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” and asks, given that bad things do happen, how do people absorb the blows and move through them?

Tragedy happens to everyone. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a painful divorce, or a serious injury, we all face unavoidable moments that divide our lives into “before” and “after.” These events take a heavy toll on everyone, but there are those who have muscled their way through tough times and emerged stronger, wiser—even grateful for their struggle. Jerry White is one such example. In 1984, he lost his leg—and almost his life—in a landmine accident, and has personally endured the pain of loss and the challenge of rebuilding.

As co-founder of Survivor Corps, White has connected with thousands of victims of tragedy, and in I WILL NOT BE BROKEN, he shares their collective wisdom, which he distills into an effective five-step program for turning tragedy into triumph:

• Face facts
• Choose life
• Reach out
• Get moving
• Give back

In their own words, his fellow survivors share their stories—a group that includes the well known like Lance Armstrong, Elie Wiesel, and the late Princess Diana, but also everyday people including soldiers and veterans of the military. With compassion, White takes readers through the process of not only enduring tragedy and victimhood, but going on to thrive.

Book Digital Downloads

Download the Introduction to I Will Not Be Broken Download Chapter 1 of I Will Not Be Broken Download Intro & Chap 1 of I Will Not Be Broken Combined

Reviews and Testimonials

“In I Will Not Be Broken, Jerry White brings his insight and experience to bear expertly for those facing life’s unexpected challenges. He embodies the spirit of survivorship.”
Lance Armstrong, co-author of Every Second Counts

“We can choose happiness, even after the worst of times. Jerry White offers an excellent guide to navigating and overcoming the traumas we face in our lives.”
Deepak Chopra M.D., author of Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment

“This is an important book. Jerry White shares lessons learned from his experience recovering from a landmine accident to help trauma victims recover, survive, and thrive.”
Jane Goodall, author of Harvest for Hope

About Jerry White

Jerry White is a global survivor activist who has dedicated his life to helping victims of violent conflict. While camping in Northern Israel in 1984, he stepped on a landmine, and he spent nearly six months in Israeli hospitals learning to walk on an artificial leg. Since then, he has become a recognized leader of the historic International Campaign to Ban Landmines (winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize), and a co-founder of Survivor Corps. He has testified before the US Congress and the United Nations and appeared in hundreds of media interviews and profiles.

The Five Steps of I Will Not Be Broken

1. Face Facts. One must first accept the harsh reality about suffering and loss, however brutal. “This terrible thing has happened. It can’t be changed. I can’t rewind the clock. My family still needs me. So now what?”

2. Choose Life. That is, “I want to say yes to the future. I want my life to go on in a positive way.” Seizing life, not surrendering to death or stagnation, requires letting go of resentments and looking forward, not back. It can be a daily decision.

3. Reach Out. One must find peers, friends, and family to break the isolation and loneliness that come in the aftermath of crisis. Seek empathy, not pity, from people who have been through something similar. Let the people in your life into your life. “It’s up to me to reach for someone’s hand.”

4. Get Moving. Sitting back gets you nowhere. One must get out of bed and out of the house to generate momentum. We have to take responsibility for our actions. “How do I want to live the rest of my life? What steps can I take today?”

5. Give Back. Thriving, not just surviving, requires the capacity to give again, through service and acts of kindness. “How can I be an asset to those around me, and not a drain? Will I ever feel grateful again?” Yes, and by sharing your experience and talents, you will inspire others to do the same.

On Strength: “They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s not quite that simple. I believe you have to decide it will make you stronger. Experience has taught me that happy endings can never be taken for granted. They must be chosen.”

On Surviving and Recovery: “We are surrounded by survivors who have gone before us, and their examples will help mark the way forward. Their experiences show us that, with the right support, everyone can recover and thrive. As we overcome hardship, there is laughter and hope and love waiting for each of us. But it is crucial for us to want those things.”

Growing Stronger from Crisis: “Is there really a way to grow stronger in crisis? You bet there is. I am convinced we not only can toughen under pressure, but also soar. Why? Because I did. And I have watched thousands of others transform tragedy into growth.”

The Bell Tolls for Everyone: “Because life will happen to all of us. Violence and terror can be visited upon just about anybody these days. Life explodes, and nothing is ever quite the same. I’m not just referring to a personal injury or illness, but also to the world where headlines of terrorism, violence, and natural disaster assault us with increasing frequency. Some of us seek consolation in the belief that tragedy is happening somewhere else, far away. But, eventually, the bell tolls for you.”

How to Move Forward After Tragedy: “I hope my story, and those of friends I’ve met around the world, will flicker light in the dark tunnel where too many people feel trapped in pain. Even better, the survivor stories in these pages can teach all of us about moving forward. All of us need to learn to manage life’s explosive moments. Life may change in an instant, like mine did in Israel, but instead of dreading them, I want to encourage all of us to honor our toughest dates—the tragedies that bind us—in an effort to transform victimhood into survivorship.”

Moving from Victimhood to Survivorship to Thriving: “Over the past twenty years, I have met and talked ‘survival’ with everyone from the famous—Diana, Princess of Wales, Elie Wiesel, King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, John McCain, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lance Armstrong—and the not so famous but equally strong—Katie, Ken, Elizabeth, Colleen and others. Each has something to teach us. They don’t just get by. They thrive. That’s what I aspire to do.”

The Path to Survival: “This book illuminates the path to survival—five steps that can guide a person from tragedy toward a new life of renewed purpose and hope. The steps are not always sequential; they can be taken simultaneously. They can also spiral, skip and repeat. Survivorship is different for each individual. But anyone who has overcome adversity and learned to thrive has come to understand the power of each step.”

Princess Diana on Survivorship: “Princess Diana understood that to survive means to endure something that could have killed you or ‘taken you down.’ Like the loss of a son or daughter. Like stepping on a landmine. These are experiences terrible and terrifying. Such trauma presents a threshold. The outcome, positive or negative, is not pre-ordained. We can do things to foster resilience and strength going forward. Can you recall your date? Your own before-and-after moment, when life is cut in two by horrible pain or shocking news?”

Facing the Facts to Move Forward: “This terrible thing has happened. It can’t be changed. So, now what? There’s little point wishing you hadn’t gotten into that car, or gotten the tumor, or been fired from that job. We must face some brutal facts of the here and now. It’s normal to question, but you will never get a satisfactory answer, and you’ll only waste time. The past is the past, and facts are facts.”

Your Emotions are Facts: “Emotions are facts too. But it is quite common to deny the initial experience. This is not happening to me. I will wake up from this nightmare soon. It is also quite common to feel the most intense range of emotions after a loss or crisis.”

How to Survive a Catastrophe: “How can we use the facts that confront us with unpleasant truth to help us survive catastrophe? Facing facts is so hard because it demands that we come to grips with our worst fears. It means admitting what we really think about disability, deformity and death—all scary stuff. Most of us would prefer to look away and carry on our merry way without thinking about these things. But without a closer look in the mirror, examining the wrinkles of our traumatized life, we can’t make sound decisions, and then proceed to change and grow.”

On Crisis and Pain: “Crisis and pain can hold us hostage for a time, but we still have a choice in how we will respond to our circumstances, no matter how dire. When something disrupts our life, how do we move forward? I’ve seen it time and time again in my work with victims of war atrocities—there are those who fight for their lives after devastating loss and those who succumb to their suffering. Why the difference? To truly thrive, we must consciously choose for our lives to go on in a positive way. I have had to do it more than once. Most of us have, or will.”

Choose Life: “By choosing life we step across the second threshold of survivorship. It may be one of the hardest steps. It requires imagination and perspective in the midst of pain. It comes on the heels of brutal facts and a long look in the mirror to see who we are and where we stand. How do you choose your way forward with scars and bitter memories? You don’t let your situation define you. You reframe how to think about it. You choose humor and connections and love—you choose to live. One of the essential ways we start to embrace life is by reaching out to others.”

It Takes a Village to Survive: “No one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone either. Yes, you might feel an excruciating loneliness after one of life’s hurtful blows. But we are simply not built to survive solo. Isolation will kill us, not protect us. We humans are social animals made for community. Even when family and friends annoy the hell out of us, they remain an essential part of our survivorship.”

Calling to God and to Faith: “Sometimes it feels as if we have no instruments, we have no leader, we have nothing. That’s when many of us call out to God. For many it takes a crisis, but in our darkest moments, most of us will reach out spiritually. It’s a cry for divine help. We need someone—anyone—out there to understand. Our prayers reflect an existential plea for empathy in the universe. I believe this is a great and useful thing. I can’t encourage people enough to pray, and then pray some more. Call out. Reach out. Your questions and search for meaning are enormously important. They reflect a desire to Choose Life and Reach Out simultaneously. Whatever you believe, religion can offer a positive source of social and spiritual oxygen.”

On John McCain: “I am always impressed by the strong bond among veterans, including well-known American prisoners of war in Vietnam such as John McCain. Their military code of conduct inculcates an attitude of mutual survival, with duty to country and to family. When I first met Senator McCain over lunch in the Senate dining room, I was immediately struck by his stubborn survivor spirit. McCain credits his five-plus years of perseverance in the face of torture to his sense of duty to and camaraderie with his fellow navy men and prisoners, and a sense of honor instilled in him by the military careers and character of his father and grandfather.”

Surviving and Thriving: “There is a difference between surviving and thriving. Thriving requires tapping into our gratitude and drawing on this well to give to others. Studies on gratitude and giving are starting to proliferate. Why? Because people are catching on to the secret of happiness—giving, not getting. It turns out that by giving we end up getting as well. It’s a loop. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.’”

We Benefit from Community: “We benefit from belonging, from contributing to a bigger thing called community. We all have a role, with talents and gifts to deploy. Each act of generosity seeds good will. Even by listening to another person tell their tale of woe—thereby affirming their path—you can help build community. Each of us is born with talents and gifts. And they are meant to be deployed, not for simple survival, but for the good of the community. A body is also a metaphor for community, and if any one part is hurting, the whole body is weak. We need to shore each other up and make sure we acknowledge with appreciation people who pray, forgive, connect the unconnected, and serve the more vulnerable among us.”

On Victimhood and Surviving: “Why do some people stay victims? Well, it’s strangely comfortable—a kind of defense mechanism after disaster strikes. We welcome sympathy in our hour of need. And then we invite it. Eventually, we must break the victim habit and resume taking full responsibility for our future.”

Survivors are Everyday People: “I’m here to tell you that survivors are everyday people in the car next to you, behind you in the grocery store, next door mowing the lawn. I meet these people everywhere, from every walk of life, on every continent. I only wish I could share more of their stories. I hope their examples will teach and inspire you to want to thrive. Just think: if someone can overcome that level of crisis or abuse, then maybe I can hang in there too, just long enough to get through my crisis.”

Life Experiences Nourish Us: “Life experience will nourish and make us stronger. For example, studies of emergency personnel indicate that having survived one traumatic experience increases resilience and, in a sense, inoculates workers who will face subsequent traumas at work. Most of us can point to early life experiences that afford us at least some practice in building resilience.”

Survivors can Survive Anything: “Josephine Hart observed, “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.” Every time we come through tough times, we should feel some sense of pride and achievement. After all, getting through the experience may have been the hardest thing we’ve ever done. And we might be surprised to discover an inner voice and competitive spirit coaching us: I refuse to be taken out by what happened to me. I will not be defeated by this. I still believe in the possibility of the future. Even when our loss is the death of a beloved, and we may not feel like going on without them, we still honor their memory by healing and living strong.”

Empathy Etiquette: “What do survivors say has been helpful during their tough times? I call it “empathy etiquette”—the way to support survivors in crisis by putting yourselves in their shoes. The good news is we can learn empathy etiquette, much like we can learn resilience. When we are going through something for the first time, neither we nor our friends know exactly how to behave. Nothing seems normal or real in a life-threatening storm.”

On Reading People in Need: “Just be ready to pick up on the hints people in crisis my give as to what is needed at any particular time. Try to make it about that person and not your own hang-ups or past traumas. Maybe your friend wants you to come by every day. Maybe it’s just once a week. You must assess and reassess the situation. Be open. Be kind. Bring food. Then run the vacuum and wipe down the kitchen counters after putting the leftovers away in the fridge.”

Grace is a Key to Surviving: “I think grace, in part, is what allows survivors to bring meaning to our stories. It’s available to all of us—moments of awakening. Without meaning, you may survive, but you will never inspire. And without meaning, you cannot ultimately thrive. Finding meaning in our lives is a way to dispel darkness and break through the barriers that imprison us.”

On Heroism and Being a Hero: “We don’t always have to look for larger-than-life heroes. We can be heroes for each other. We are just ordinary folk wanting to endure and live life well, even during the rough patches. But we can all benefit from role models who not only overcome adversity, but find the wherewithal to give back and serve the broader community. This is how we complete the cycle of survivorship, transforming our tragedy and blessing others in the process.”

Heroes Don’t Call Themselves Heroes: “None of the survivors interviewed in this book would call themselves heroes, or particularly courageous, for that matter. They simply did what they had to do.”

Thrivers Are All Around Us: “Thrivers are all around us, not distant in history or geography. They are most often applied optimists. Pessimists can also thrive, but they have to work a bit harder to push through their tendency toward negativity. Similarly, introverts sometimes find it harder to thrive than extroverts, given the need to reach out for support during and after a crisis. The key is to know yourself so you can work with or compensate for your natural tendencies.”

Final Words On The Five Steps: “The Five Steps on our survivor journey offer a way not just to recover, not just to survive, but to thrive. Step by step, we find power to convert our dates—the days that change us—to become more than we were before the illness or the accident. We understand survivorship is anything but linear: it’s a process that involves three steps forward, a flashback or two, and then a leap ahead. Each of us is a mixed breed of survivor and victim. Some days we can exhibit healthy survivor behavior and then reveal less attractive victim behavior the next. No one is perfectly resilient or consistent. But we progress, day by day, step by step, if we want.”

About Survivor Corps

Around the globe, people are inflicting harm on one another on an alarming scale with alarming ease. There were approximately 250 wars throughout the 20th century. Today, there are more than 39 conflicts raging in the world –from armed conflicts in Latin America to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to genocide in Darfur.

More than 35 million people have been displaced from these conflicts—innocent people who have been robbed of their dignity, their homes and their livelihoods. With no hope or tools to rise above their circumstances, far too many victims lash out, seeking revenge for their plight and perpetuating the cycle of violence and suffering. Something has to be done to break this downward spiral.

Survivor Corps operates under the credo that no one is better equipped to change the world than those who have been most scarred by what’s wrong with it. There is a way to break the cycle of violence, and it begins with showing survivors a new, more hopeful way forward.

What is the Survivor Corps philosophy? No one is better equipped to change the world than those most scarred by what’s wrong with it.

Whom does Survivor Corps you serve? We serve people who have been injured by global conflict, primarily through training and support of the organizations that serve conflict survivors at the local level.

Where does Survivor Corps work? Wherever communities are experiencing or recovering from conflict – currently in over 50 countries.

Why should I support Survivor Corps? We have a ten-year track record of results, improving health, creating economic opportunity, and changing laws & policies for survivors of conflict.

How does Survivor Corp work? We work across the spectrum of issues and organizations that affect the lives of survivors.

Can Survivor Corps really solve this problem? Yes. We believe that by showing survivors a new, more hopeful way forward, we can help break the cycle of violence.

Survivor Corps provides the tools and support survivors need to rise above their injuries and give back to their communities. Learn more at http://www.survivorcorps.org

For more information about Survivor Corps, visit: http://survivorcorps.smnr.us

Contacts

For Press Inquiries:
Contact Daniel Krueger at dkrueger@survivorcorps.org

For More Information:
Contact Elizabeth Miner
eminer@landminesurvivors.org
202-250-3929
2100 M St. NW, Suite 302
Washington, DC 20037

	Download Jerry White’s Headshot
	Download the I Will Not Be Broken Book Cover
	Download the Introduction to I Will Not Be Broken Download Chapter 1 of I Will Not Be Broken Download Intro & Chap 1 of I Will Not Be Broken
	Download the Survivor Corps Logo (525 x 652 px) Download the Survivor Corps Logo (222 x 275 px)

Additional Resources

Buy I Will Not Be Broken on Amazon.com

Buy I Will Not Be Broken from Barnes & Noble

Watch Jerry White on Landmine Accident

Join the I Will Not Be Broken Official Facebook Group

Add to del.icio.us | Digg it | Google Bookmark | reddit | StumbleUpon | Twit This

Tags

Survivor Corps | landmines | war | cluster munitions | assistance for war veterans | Jerry White | I Will Not Be Broken

Every once in a while Abraham Harrison gets a great activist client. Clients like Jerry White and the gang at Survivor Corps really make it easy to be the World’s Best Boss, because my staff loves public affairs and non-profit work, that’s for sure — clients who do good works and work to change the world for the better. Last time was when we helped pass the Energy Bill in 2007, 35 by 2020, and now we get to rally our passion and help Jerry promote the launch of Survivor Corps, which coincides with I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, which is now on sale nationwide.

Anyway, we have put together a social media press release for both I Will Not be Broken and Survivor Corps and you should check them out. Feel free to read excerpts from the book and be my guest and enjoy the introduction and chapter one as a PDF download — sort of a “try before you buy.” We’re going to be doing a blogger outreach starting this weekend and we’re excited about it — we’re motivated and dedicated. Wish us luck!

I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis
by Jerry White

Copies of I Will Not Be Broken Now Available Online and at Stores Nationwide

Leveraging personal experience and lifetime of wisdom, landmine survivor Jerry White outlines a very specific five-step program to coping with disaster; to achieving strength
and hope; and to turning tragedy into triumph

Quick Links: News Facts | About I Will Not Be Broken | Reviews and Testimonials | About Jerry White | The Five Steps | Various Excerpts | About Survivor Corps | Contacts | Multimedia Elements | Additional Resources | Join Our Mailing List

News Facts

• I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White went on sale start April 29th, 2008.
• The official I Will Not Be Broken web site will be launched on the week of April 28.
• I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White will be available as an Audiobook
• Jerry White, author of I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, is available for blog, podcast, and vlog interviews.

About I Will Not Be Broken, a Book by Jerry White

From a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace and founder of Survivor Corps comes an astoundingly effective guide to recreating a happy and fulfilling life after catastrophe strikes—a book that Bob and Lee Woodruff call “a road map for the individual and their family to re-enter the land of the living.” In I WILL NOT BE BROKEN, Jerry White reframes the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” and asks, given that bad things do happen, how do people absorb the blows and move through them?

Tragedy happens to everyone. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a painful divorce, or a serious injury, we all face unavoidable moments that divide our lives into “before” and “after.” These events take a heavy toll on everyone, but there are those who have muscled their way through tough times and emerged stronger, wiser—even grateful for their struggle. Jerry White is one such example. In 1984, he lost his leg—and almost his life—in a tragic accident, and has personally endured the pain of loss and the challenge of rebuilding.

As cofounder of Survivor Corps, White has connected with thousands of victims of tragedy, and in I WILL NOT BE BROKEN, he shares their collective wisdom, which he distills into an effective five-step program for turning tragedy into triumph:

• Face facts
• Choose life
• Reach out
• Get moving
• Give back

In their own words, his fellow survivors share their stories—a group that includes the well known like Lance Armstrong, Elie Wiesel, and the late Princess Diana, but also everyday people including soldiers and veterans of the military. With compassion, White takes readers through the process of not only enduring tragedy and victimhood, but going on to thrive.

Reviews and Testimonials

“In I Will Not Be Broken, Jerry White brings his insight and experience to bear expertly for those facing life’s unexpected challenges. He embodies the spirit of survivorship.”
Lance Armstrong, co-author of EverySecond Counts

“I have visited landmine survivors around the world with Jerry White. I have seen him reach out to others and walk with them on the path from victim to survivor. His courageous personal experience is a beacon for all who are searching to recover and reclaim life.”
Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, author of Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

About Jerry White

Jerry White is a global survivor activist who has dedicated his life to helping victims of violent conflict. While camping in Northern Israel in 1984, he stepped on a landmine, and he spent nearly six months in Israeli hospitals learning to walk on an artificial leg. Since then, he has become a recognized leader of the historic International Campaign to Ban Landmines, co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace; and a cofounder of Survivor Corps. He has testified before the US Congress and the United Nations and appeared in hundreds of media interviews and profiles.

The Five Steps of I Will Not Be Broken

1. Face Facts. One must first accept the harsh reality about suffering and loss, however brutal. “This terrible thing has happened. It can’t be changed. I can’t rewind the clock. My family still needs me. So now what?”

2. Choose Life. That is, “I want to say yes to the future. I want my life to go on in a positive way.” Seizing life, not surrendering to death or stagnation, requires letting go of resentments and looking forward, not back. It can be a daily decision.

3. Reach Out. One must find peers, friends, and family to break the isolation and loneliness that come in the aftermath of crisis. Seek empathy, not pity, from people who have been through something similar. Let the people in your life into your life. “It’s up to me to reach for someone’s hand.”

4. Get Moving. Sitting back gets you nowhere. One must get out of bed and out of the house to generate momentum. We have to take responsibility for our actions. “How do I want to live the rest of my life? What steps can I take today?”

5. Give Back. Thriving, not just surviving, requires the capacity to give again, through service and acts of kindness. “How can I be an asset to those around me, and not a drain? Will I ever feel grateful again?” Yes, and by sharing your experience and talents, you will inspire others to do the same.

On Strength:

“They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s not quite that simple. I believe you have to decide it will make you stronger. Experience has taught me that happy endings can never be taken for granted. They must be chosen.”

On Surviving and Recovery:

“We are surrounded by survivors who have gone before us, and their examples will help mark the way forward. Their experiences show us that, with the right support, everyone can recover and thrive. As we overcome hardship, there is laughter and hope and love waiting for each of us. But it is crucial for us to want those things.”

Growing Stronger from Crisis:

“Is there really a way to grow stronger in crisis? You bet there is. I am convinced we not only can toughen under pressure, but also soar. Why? Because I did. And I have watched thousands of others transform tragedy into growth.”

The Bell Tolls for Everyone:

“Because life will happen to all of us. Violence and terror can be visited upon just about anybody these days. Life explodes, and nothing is ever quite the same. I’m not just referring to a personal injury or illness, but also to the world where headlines of terrorism, violence, and natural disaster assault us with increasing frequency. Some of us seek consolation in the belief that tragedy is happening somewhere else, far away. But, eventually, the bell tolls for you.”

How to Move Forward After Tragedy:

“I hope my story, and those of friends I’ve met around the world, will flicker light in the dark tunnel where too many people feel trapped in pain. Even better, the survivor stories in these pages can teach all of us about moving forward. All of us need to learn to manage life’s explosive moments. Life may change in an instant, like mine did in Israel, but instead of dreading them, I want to encourage all of us to honor our toughest dates—the tragedies that bind us—in an effort to transform victimhood into survivorship.”

Moving from Victimhood to Survivorship to Thriving:

“Over the past twenty years, I have met and talked ‘survival’ with everyone from the famous—Diana, Princess of Wales, Elie Wiesel, King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, John McCain, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lance Armstrong—and the not so famous but equally strong—Katie, Ken, Elizabeth, Colleen and others. Each has something to teach us. They don’t just get by. They thrive. That’s what I aspire to do.”

The Path to Survival:

“This book illuminates the path to survival—five steps that can guide a person from tragedy toward a new life of renewed purpose and hope. The steps are not always sequential; they can be taken simultaneously. They can also spiral, skip and repeat. Survivorship is different for each individual. But anyone who has overcome adversity and learned to thrive has come to understand the power of each step.”

Princess Diana on Survivorship:

“Princess Diana understood that to survive means to endure something that could have killed you or ‘taken you down.’ Like the loss of a son or daughter. Like stepping on a landmine. These are experiences terrible and terrifying. Such trauma presents a threshold. The outcome, positive or negative, is not pre-ordained. We can do things to foster resilience and strength going forward. Can you recall your date? Your own before-and-after moment, when life is cut in two by horrible pain or shocking news?”

Facing the Facts to Move Forward:

“This terrible thing has happened. It can’t be changed. So, now what? There’s little point wishing you hadn’t gotten into that car, or gotten the tumor, or been fired from that job. We must face some brutal facts of the here and now. It’s normal to question, but you will never get a satisfactory answer, and you’ll only waste time. The past is the past, and facts are facts.”

Your Emotions are Facts:

“Emotions are facts too. But it is quite common to deny the initial experience. This is not happening to me. I will wake up from this nightmare soon. It is also quite common to feel the most intense range of emotions after a loss or crisis.”

How to Survive a Catastrophe:

“How can we use the facts that confront us with unpleasant truth to help us survive catastrophe? Facing facts is so hard because it demands that we come to grips with our worst fears. It means admitting what we really think about disability, deformity and death—all scary stuff. Most of us would prefer to look away and carry on our merry way without thinking about these things. But without a closer look in the mirror, examining the wrinkles of our traumatized life, we can’t make sound decisions, and then proceed to change and grow.”

On Crisis and Pain:

“Crisis and pain can hold us hostage for a time, but we still have a choice in how we will respond to our circumstances, no matter how dire. When something disrupts our life, how do we move forward? I’ve seen it time and time again in my work with victims of war atrocities—there are those who fight for their lives after devastating loss and those who succumb to their suffering. Why the difference? To truly thrive, we must consciously choose for our lives to go on in a positive way. I have had to do it more than once. Most of us have, or will.”

Choose Life:

“By choosing life we step across the second threshold of survivorship. It may be one of the hardest steps. It requires imagination and perspective in the midst of pain. It comes on the heels of brutal facts and a long look in the mirror to see who we are and where we stand. How do you choose your way forward with scars and bitter memories? You don’t let your situation define you. You reframe how to think about it. You choose humor and connections and love—you choose to live. One of the essential ways we start to embrace life is by reaching out to others.”

It Takes a Village to Survive:

“No one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone either. Yes, you might feel an excruciating loneliness after one of life’s hurtful blows. But we are simply not built to survive solo. Isolation will kill us, not protect us. We humans are social animals made for community. Even when family and friends annoy the hell out of us, they remain an essential part of our survivorship.”

Calling to God and to Faith:

“Sometimes it feels as if we have no instruments, we have no leader, we have nothing. That’s when many of us call out to God. For many it takes a crisis, but in our darkest moments, most of us will reach out spiritually. It’s a cry for divine help. We need someone—anyone—out there to understand. Our prayers reflect an existential plea for empathy in the universe. I believe this is a great and useful thing. I can’t encourage people enough to pray, and then pray some more. Call out. Reach out. Your questions and search for meaning are enormously important. They reflect a desire to Choose Life and Reach Out simultaneously. Whatever you believe, religion can offer a positive source of social and spiritual oxygen.”

On John McCain:

“I am always impressed by the strong bond among veterans, including well-known American prisoners of war in Vietnam such as John McCain. Their military code of conduct inculcates an attitude of mutual survival, with duty to country and to family. When I first met Senator McCain over lunch in the Senate dining room, I was immediately struck by his stubborn survivor spirit. McCain credits his five-plus years of perseverance in the face of torture to his sense of duty to and camaraderie with his fellow navy men and prisoners, and a sense of honor instilled in him by the military careers and character of his father and grandfather.”

Surviving and Thriving:

“There is a difference between surviving and thriving. Thriving requires tapping into our gratitude and drawing on this well to give to others. Studies on gratitude and giving are starting to proliferate. Why? Because people are catching on to the secret of happiness—giving, not getting. It turns out that by giving we end up getting as well. It’s a loop. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.’”

We Benefit from Community:

“We benefit from belonging, from contributing to a bigger thing called community. We all have a role, with talents and gifts to deploy. Each act of generosity seeds good will. Even by listening to another person tell their tale of woe—thereby affirming their path—you can help build community. Each of us is born with talents and gifts. And they are meant to be deployed, not for simple survival, but for the good of the community. A body is also a metaphor for community, and if any one part is hurting, the whole body is weak. We need to shore each other up and make sure we acknowledge with appreciation people who pray, forgive, connect the unconnected, and serve the more vulnerable among us.”

On Victimhood and Serviving:

“Why do some people stay victims? Well, it’s strangely comfortable—a kind of defense mechanism after disaster strikes. We welcome sympathy in our hour of need. And then we invite it. Eventually, we must break the victim habit and resume taking full responsibility for our future.”

Survivors are Everyday People:

“I’m here to tell you that survivors are everyday people in the car next to you, behind you in the grocery store, next door mowing the lawn. I meet these people everywhere, from every walk of life, on every continent. I only wish I could share more of their stories. I hope their examples will teach and inspire you to want to thrive. Just think: if someone can overcome that level of crisis or abuse, then maybe I can hang in there too, just long enough to get through my crisis.”

Life Experiences Nourish Us:

“Life experience will nourish and make us stronger. For example, studies of emergency personnel indicate that having survived one traumatic experience increases resilience and, in a sense, inoculates workers who will face subsequent traumas at work. Most of us can point to early life experiences that afford us at least some practice in building resilience.”

Survivors can Survive Anything:

“Josephine Hart observed, “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.” Every time we come through tough times, we should feel some sense of pride and achievement. After all, getting through the experience may have been the hardest thing we’ve ever done. And we might be surprised to discover an inner voice and competitive spirit coaching us: I refuse to be taken out by what happened to me. I will not be defeated by this. I still believe in the possibility of the future. Even when our loss is the death of a beloved, and we may not feel like going on without them, we still honor their memory by healing and living strong.”

Empathy Etiquette:

“What do survivors say has been helpful during their tough times? I call it “empathy etiquette”—the way to support survivors in crisis by putting yourselves in their shoes. The good news is we can learn empathy etiquette, much like we can learn resilience. When we are going through something for the first time, neither we nor our friends know exactly how to behave. Nothing seems normal or real in a life-threatening storm.”

On Reading People in Need:

“Just be ready to pick up on the hints people in crisis my give as to what is needed at any particular time. Try to make it about that person and not your own hang-ups or past traumas. Maybe your friend wants you to come by every day. Maybe it’s just once a week. You must assess and reassess the situation. Be open. Be kind. Bring food. Then run the vacuum and wipe down the kitchen counters after putting the leftovers away in the fridge.”

Grace is a Key to Surviving:

“I think grace, in part, is what allows survivors to bring meaning to our stories. It’s available to all of us—moments of awakening. Without meaning, you may survive, but you will never inspire. And without meaning, you cannot ultimately thrive. Finding meaning in our lives is a way to dispel darkness and break through the barriers that imprison us.”

On Heroism and Being a Hero:

“We don’t always have to look for larger-than-life heroes. We can be heroes for each other. We are just ordinary folk wanting to endure and live life well, even during the rough patches. But we can all benefit from role models who not only overcome adversity, but find the wherewithal to give back and serve the broader community. This is how we complete the cycle of survivorship, transforming our tragedy and blessing others in the process.”

Heroes Don’t Call Themselves Heroes:

“None of the survivors interviewed in this book would call themselves heroes, or particularly courageous, for that matter. They simply did what they had to do.”

Thrivers Are All Around Us:

“Thrivers are all around us, not distant in history or geography. They are most often applied optimists. Pessimists can also thrive, but they have to work a bit harder to push through their tendency toward negativity. Similarly, introverts sometimes find it harder to thrive than extroverts, given the need to reach out for support during and after a crisis. The key is to know yourself so you can work with or compensate for your natural tendencies.”

Final Words On The Five Steps:

“The Five Steps on our survivor journey offer a way not just to recover, not just to survive, but to thrive. Step by step, we find power to convert our dates—the days that change us—to become more than we were before the illness or the accident. We understand survivorship is anything but linear: it’s a process that involves three steps forward, a flashback or two, and then a leap ahead. Each of us is a mixed breed of survivor and victim. Some days we can exhibit healthy survivor behavior and then reveal less attractive victim behavior the next. No one is perfectly resilient or consistent. But we progress, day by day, step by step, if we want.”

Around the globe, people are inflicting harm on one another on an alarming scale with alarming ease. There were approximately 250 wars throughout the 20th century. Today, there are more than 39 conflicts raging in the world –from armed conflicts in Latin America to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to genocide in Darfur.

More than 35 million people have been displaced from these conflicts—innocent people who have been robbed of their dignity, their homes and their livelihoods. With no hope or tools to rise above their circumstances, far too many victims lash out, seeking revenge for their plight and perpetuating the cycle of violence and suffering. Something has to be done to break this downward spiral.

Survivor Corps operates under the credo that no one is better equipped to change the world than those who have been most scarred by what’s wrong with it. There is a way to break the cycle of violence, and it begins with showing survivors a new, more hopeful way forward.

What is the Survivor Corps philosophy? No one is better equipped to change the world than those most scarred by what’s wrong with it.

Whom does Survivor Corps you serve? We serve people who have been injured by global conflict. Primarily through training and support of the organizations that serve victims of conflict.

Where does Survivor Corps work? Wherever communities are recovering from conflict – currently in over 50 countries.

Why should I support Survivor Corps? We have a ten-year track record of results, improving health, economic opportunity, and changing laws & policies for survivors of conflict.

How does Survivor Corp work? We work across the spectrum of issues and organizations that affect the lives of survivors.

Can Survivor Corps really solve this problem? Yes. We believe that by showing individual survivors a new, more hopeful way forward, we can help break the cycle of violence.

Survivor Corps provides the tools and support survivors need to rise above their injuries and give back to their communities.

For more information about Survivor Corps, visit: http://survivorcorps.smnr.us

Contacts

For Press Inquiries:

Contact Daniel Krueger at dkrueger@abrahamharrison.com

	Download Jerry White’s Headshot
	Download the I Will Not Be Broken Book Cover
	Download the Intro & Ch 1 of I Will Not Be Broken Download the Introduction to I Will Not Be Broken Download the Chapter 1 of I Will Not Be Broken Download the Chapter 2 of I Will Not Be Broken Download the Chapter 3 of I Will Not Be Broken
	Download the Survivor Corps Logo

Additional Resources

I worship Hill Holliday. They have their required Flash “brand presence” with all the fancy “interactive” requirements, and that takes up 800×600. Were that all, I would blanch and spit on the ground.

I hate Flash because I am highly textual. So, go to Hill | Holliday and then… wait for it … scroll down. Yes, the entire Hill Holliday corporate site is a simple header on the top of a powerful and admired blog. A powerful and admired vertical and industry blog. Brilliant! Bravo!

Here’s why this is all so important: Google and the other search engines don’t see Flash-based sites: they’re invisible. Read this…

Make Your Invisible Graphics-Intensive or Flash Site Highy Visible to Google

Chances are that your corporate website is beautiful and expensive. Beautiful websites tend to be rich in graphics, images, photos, and Flash content. They also tend to be shallow with few pages and very little copy. Sites like this are almost impossible for Google to find. If Google can’t find you then neither can your customer. Until now. This article helps you turn your invisible corporate website into a high-profile and highly-effective medium for communication.

This article is designed to help you turn your stealth website into a big, loud, impressive, bomber of a website with plenty of payload capacity, the payload being your company, your message, your products, your services, and your story.

Corporate websites that are highly graphics-intensive or are built using Macromedia Flash or Shockwave rich content are pretty much invisible to every search engine because search engines want nothing more than lots and lots of descriptive and rich content. In general, the prettier the site, the more impossible it is to actually find unless you know just where to look.

Websites are delivery vehicles and their payloads are your company message, your products, your services, your brand, your culture, and your story. Is your company website an F-117 stealth fighter, only visible to people who know where to look and only carrying a small payload, or is your company a C-130 Hercules, filling the sky with its size and noise and carrying a massive payload.

There are some important things to consider when optimizing a web site for search engines, using Google as the gold standard. SEO requires three things, two of which most web developers and companies do good jobs: rich textual title content, rich textual metadata content (in the form of meta tag keywords and description), and rich body textual content.

Most websites suffers from a strong lack in rich body textual content because they are in general built like brochures: very shallow and very graphical. Sites that rely heavily on either image files or Flash content suffer disproportionately when it comes to search engine ranking. Why?

Because search engines can only index the content that web sites offer them and the only content that the search engines can use is plain text. Although handsome, graphically-rich sites don’t have either the diversity or the sheer volume of keyword phrases that text-rich sites have. In addition to pure volume, search engines also need to find all keyword variations of your service – all variations of the service that your potential clients might use. Search engines also care about what is called “keyword density?? which means that the most readable of copy isn’t necessarily the most findable.

Keep Pronouns to a Strict Minimum

First, never use pronouns. Keyword density is essential to how Google ranks you. Second, use variations on search terms. To illustrate the first two points, I will take a bit of copy and optimize it for search engines and their love for keyword density. Instead of this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential strategy for every firm. It has become as essential to small and large firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, it has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.??

Try this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential marketing strategy for every marketing firm. Viral marketing, also known as relationship marketing, buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, conversational marketing, and passion marketing, has become as essential to small and large marketing firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, viral marketing has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.??

Yes, you’re appalled by its inefficiency and wordiness. Your boss would never approve, nor would your writing coach. Tough. This is not about winning the PEN/Faulkner, its about arousing Google’s algorithms. Of course, I am exaggerating in order to make a point. I removed all the pronouns and made sure that everything is completely contextualized – not for your visitors, but rather for the search engines.

For my example, I made sure that there was a broad diversity of all the ways people might search for this content. In addition, I made sure that I also mentioned all the buzzwords and key terms that I could imagine. Brainstorming with your sales and communication team or looking at the kind of words and wording your competitors use is always a great idea.

The Controversial Image ALT Tag

Although there is much debate over whether Google pays any attention to ALT tags for images, I always recommend adding ALT tags to all image files, even when the web page is made up of a “sliced image.?? The only ALT tags that exist are usually in the banner of the site. No other parts of a highly graphical or flash-based main page are usually textualized using image ALT tags.

Your company slogan, tagline, phone number, guarantees, products, services, the menu choices (navigation) should be included in the image ALT tags. Even if Google doesn’t care about ALT tags like the rumors say, the site will be way more navigable, especially to the blind and seeing impaired – and don’t they deserve a break? don’t they need your services, too?

Google’s “Eyes” Focus on Where Your Eyes Do

Google give favor and weight to headers and emphasized text. No matter what anyone says, Google cares about formatting. Strong, Bold, Emphasized, Italicized, and Hyperlinked text is favored by Google. Also, Google looks at header tags, too. Header 1, Header 2, Header 3, and Header 4 are important to use. This is especially important because when the same desigers who have you that “sliced” graphics-based site, they might have designer the CSS style sheet without concern for these thing. CSS styles can change the look of regular HTML tags as easily as they can customized DIVs, SPANS, and STYLES.

Corporate Blogs

Corporate blogging is essential to the growth of online properties for a number of reasons, including access to the blogosphere and its interested and passionate community of bloggers and blog-readers. Blogs offer built-in useful tools such as RSS syndication, comments, outgoing links, blogrolls, trackbacks, a richness of text and textual content, and the ability to build celebrity and personality online through a first-person relationship with said blogosphere, current, and future customers.

Since potential and future clients are clueless as to how the company works, how you have grown the company, why you chose to go into this business, and what your vision is, this is a great opportunity to share yourself as the owner, as someone who has his finger on the pulse, and also to directly respond to the curious and the unconvinced. It would also allow you to accept and then publish shameless testimonials from real fans like me. It would also allow you to publish any and all positive or neutral mentions (testimonials or otherwise) about the blog or your official corporate website.

Corporate Blog as SEO Strategy

The Search Engine Optimization of your official corporate website will aid in the site’s “findability?? in Google, MSN, and Yahoo!. There are other things that Google and the other search engines consider in addition to the textual completeness of the entire web property. The most important are the depth of the site (more pages are better), number of links and interlinks to and from the site (can be within the same site), and the frequency with which the site gets updated. A traditional corporate web site is shallow, poorly-linked (especially to external sources) and can oftentimes go for months without being updated. If Google can figure out that your site isn’t changing, it passes it over for constant indexing. It does this because Google has a finite number of resources and will revoke any resources it can in order to preserve them. Since the Internet is vast, Google give priority to web sites and web pages that are constantly-updated such as blogs. Blogs are constantly-updated, deep, many-paged sites that are constantly being updated and constantly being spidered by search engine robots.

Corporate Blog as Community Outreach

No matter how many cool offers there might be online and no matter how much of a your company’s products and services might be, a real angle in the entire blogosphere and blog world is in not only letting your service speak for itself but also that people are even more attracted to story, personality, and the behind-the-scene experience of both the people who run companies and their clients than they are to the services themselves. If you have the time, passion, and wherewithal to put the time and energy into really reaching out to the blogosphere and the community of readers and bloggers, you can get quite an amount of influence and sway – real impact and market penetration – by just building a relationship with the blogsavvy, wealthy, young, and the professional – people with money, in other words. These types of people, 25-45, are the same sort of people who spend a lot of time reading blogs.

Blog Community Outreach

One powerful technique for building community on blogs is to first find a compelling item about your industry, products, and services then search for the blogs that are already talking about it on Technorati. It is much easier to message on blogs that are already having friendly conversation.

Technorati as Strategic Tool

Spread the word online: People are already talking about how busy they are, how awful their places look, and so forth — tell them about your company, your culture, your history, your story, your products, and the services you offer – and do it openly and honestly and place your own name, your own email, and either the URL of your web site or the URL of the blog itself. Here’s how:

1) Go to Technorati.com, a blog search engine.

2) Type in one or more of the keyword phrase in your Meta Tag keywords

3) Go to the blogs that are talking about your company, industry, products, and services

4) Where appropriate, leave a short note about your company or your corporate blog

5) Come back the next day (or as often as you can) and do the same thing but be sure to follow-up with the conversation because dropping a message without coming back is considered spam and in the blogosphere, an ounce or prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Submit your Blog and Website to Search Engines

I personally use Dynamic Submission, but there are a bunch. Web Position Gold is another fave. I choose Dynamic Submission because it allows me to spider my entire blog to within an inch of its life and then submit not just the site’s arteries but also all the way down to the site’s villi as well. In my opinion, search engines are lazy. They have only so many resources and so many nanoseconds in the day. They need to put first things first. So what I do before I spider the blog is set the index page of the blog to view 365-days of posts, or maybe a bunch of weeks, so that I can spider most of the blog from one “Import from Web.” When the import is complete, I change it back to showing only the last 7 days. I even maintain a separate box on which to host the Dynamic Submission tool because it’s such a processor hog. And then let it go. Seems to work like a charm. Why? Well, not because I am doing anything unseamly but rather just because Google and the rest sometimes miss something and I want to make sure that all the engines get everything. Every little dumbass link.

The Services You Might Want to Employ

Although I have not used the services, one respectable way of increasing your link popularity and prestige in Google is to use a service like Text Link Ads. What Text Link Adss offers is a link-buying service that does double-duty. The double duty is as follows: in addition to creating clickable links on the popular sites that can choose and afford, it will also allow you to legally create Google bombs that will heighten the probability that your company website or your corporate blog will turn up when people search for your company, your industry, your market, your products, and your services.

Employing “localized” Google AdWords, content-based Google AdWords, and search-based Google AdWords is a no-brainer. There are other advertising solutions available now, including finding the advertising networks that might be placed on some of the blogs you find the most focused or relevant, including BlogAds, etc.

Okay, I hope that helps. I am tired of writing but if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask me questions below in the comment section and I will both answer them and also use your questions, comments, feedback, and suggestions to fuel future articles.

I collected all of my personal blog articles to-date on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and have been handing them out to folks who still believe that SEO is snake oil and I thought I would share them with you, too, since most of you students of blogging actually want your words, your passion, and your voice to be heard.

Make Your Invisible Graphics-Intensive or Flash Site Highly Visible to Google

Until now. This article helps you turn your invisible corporate website into a high-profile and highly-effective medium for communication.

This article is designed to help you turn your stealth website into a big, loud, impressive, bomber of a website with plenty of payload capacity, the payload being your company, your message, your products, your services, and your story.

Corporate websites that are highly graphics-intensive or are built using Macromedia Flash or Shockwave rich content are pretty much invisible to every search engine because search engines want nothing more than lots and lots of descriptive and rich content. In general, the prettier the site, the more impossible it is to actually find unless you know just where to look.

Websites are delivery vehicles and their payloads are your company message, your products, your services, your brand, your culture, and your story. Is your company website an F-117 stealth fighter, only visible to people who know where to look and only carrying a small payload, or is your company a C-130 Hercules, filling the sky with its size and noise and carrying a massive payload.There are some important things to consider when optimizing a web site for search engines, using Google as the gold standard. SEO requires three things, two of which most web developers and companies do good jobs: rich textual title content, rich textual metadata content (in the form of meta tag keywords and description), and rich body textual content.

Most websites suffers from a strong lack in rich body textual content because they are in general built like brochures: very shallow and very graphical. Sites that rely heavily on either image files or Flash content suffer disproportionately when it comes to search engine ranking. Why?

Because search engines can only index the content that web sites offer them and the only content that the search engines can use is plain text. Although handsome, graphically-rich sites don’t have either the diversity or the sheer volume of keyword phrases that text-rich sites have. In addition to pure volume, search engines also need to find all keyword variations of your service – all variations of the service that your potential clients might use. Search engines also care about what is called “keyword density??? which means that the most readable of copy isn’t necessarily the most findable.

Keep Pronouns to a Strict Minimum

First, never use pronouns. Keyword density is essential to how Google ranks you. Second, use variations on search terms. To illustrate the first two points, I will take a bit of copy and optimize it for search engines and their love for keyword density. Instead of this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential strategy for every firm. It has become as essential to small and large firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, it has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.???

Try this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential marketing strategy for every marketing firm. Viral marketing, also known as relationship marketing, buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, conversational marketing, and passion marketing, has become as essential to small and large marketing firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, viral marketing has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.???

Yes, you’re appalled by its inefficiency and wordiness. Your boss would never approve, nor would your writing coach. Tough. This is not about winning the PEN/Faulkner, its about arousing Google’s algorithms. Of course, I am exaggerating in order to make a point. I removed all the pronouns and made sure that everything is completely contextualized – not for your visitors, but rather for the search engines.

For my example, I made sure that there was a broad diversity of all the ways people might search for this content. In addition, I made sure that I also mentioned all the buzzwords and key terms that I could imagine. Brainstorming with your sales and communication team or looking at the kind of words and wording your competitors use is always a great idea.

The Controversial Image ALT Tag

Although there is much debate over whether Google pays any attention to ALT tags for images, I always recommend adding ALT tags to all image files, even when the web page is made up of a “sliced image.??? The only ALT tags that exist are usually in the banner of the site. No other parts of a highly graphical or flash-based main page are usually textualized using image ALT tags.

Your company slogan, tagline, phone number, guarantees, products, services, the menu choices (navigation) should be included in the image ALT tags. Even if Google doesn’t care about ALT tags like the rumors say, the site will be way more navigable, especially to the blind and seeing impaired – and don’t they deserve a break? don’t they need your services, too?

Google’s “Eyes” Focus on Where Your Eyes Do

Google give favor and weight to headers and emphasized text. No matter what anyone says, Google cares about formatting. Strong, Bold, Emphasized, Italicized, and Hyperlinked text is favored by Google. Also, Google looks at header tags, too. Header 1, Header 2, Header 3, and Header 4 are important to use. This is especially important because when the same desigers who have you that “sliced” graphics-based site, they might have designer the CSS style sheet without concern for these thing. CSS styles can change the look of regular HTML tags as easily as they can customized DIVs, SPANS, and STYLES.

Corporate Blogs

Corporate blogging is essential to the growth of online properties for a number of reasons, including access to the blogosphere and its interested and passionate community of bloggers and blog-readers. Blogs offer built-in useful tools such as RSS syndication, comments, outgoing links, blogrolls, trackbacks, a richness of text and textual content, and the ability to build celebrity and personality online through a first-person relationship with said blogosphere, current, and future customers.Since potential and future clients are clueless as to how the company works, how you have grown the company, why you chose to go into this business, and what your vision is, this is a great opportunity to share yourself as the owner, as someone who has his finger on the pulse, and also to directly respond to the curious and the unconvinced. It would also allow you to accept and then publish shameless testimonials from real fans like me. It would also allow you to publish any and all positive or neutral mentions (testimonials or otherwise) about the blog or your official corporate website.

Corporate Blog as SEO Strategy

The Search Engine Optimization of your official corporate website will aid in the site’s “findability??? in Google, MSN, and Yahoo!. There are other things that Google and the other search engines consider in addition to the textual completeness of the entire web property. The most important are the depth of the site (more pages are better), number of links and interlinks to and from the site (can be within the same site), and the frequency with which the site gets updated. A traditional corporate web site is shallow, poorly-linked (especially to external sources) and can oftentimes go for months without being updated. If Google can figure out that your site isn’t changing, it passes it over for constant indexing. It does this because Google has a finite number of resources and will revoke any resources it can in order to preserve them. Since the Internet is vast, Google give priority to web sites and web pages that are constantly-updated such as blogs. Blogs are constantly-updated, deep, many-paged sites that are constantly being updated and constantly being spidered by search engine robots.

Corporate Blog as Community Outreach

No matter how many cool offers there might be online and no matter how much of a your company’s products and services might be, a real angle in the entire blogosphere and blog world is in not only letting your service speak for itself but also that people are even more attracted to story, personality, and the behind-the-scene experience of both the people who run companies and their clients than they are to the services themselves. If you have the time, passion, and wherewithal to put the time and energy into really reaching out to the blogosphere and the community of readers and bloggers, you can get quite an amount of influence and sway – real impact and market penetration – by just building a relationship with the blogsavvy, wealthy, young, and the professional – people with money, in other words. These types of people, 25-45, are the same sort of people who spend a lot of time reading blogs.

Blog Community Outreach

One powerful technique for building community on blogs is to first find a compelling item about your industry, products, and services then search for the blogs that are already talking about it on Technorati. It is much easier to message on blogs that are already having friendly conversation.

Technorati as Strategic Tool

Spread the word online: People are already talking about how busy they are, how awful their places look, and so forth — tell them about your company, your culture, your history, your story, your products, and the services you offer – and do it openly and honestly and place your own name, your own email, and either the URL of your web site or the URL of the blog itself. Here’s how:1) Go to Technorati.com, a blog search engine.

2) Type in one or more of the keyword phrase in your Meta Tag keywords

3) Go to the blogs that are talking about your company, industry, products, and services

4) Where appropriate, leave a short note about your company or your corporate blog

5) Come back the next day (or as often as you can) and do the same thing but be sure to follow-up with the conversation because dropping a message without coming back is considered spam and in the blogosphere, an ounce or prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Submit your Blog and Website to Search Engines

I personally use Dynamic Submission, but there are a bunch. Web Position Gold is another fave. I choose Dynamic Submission because it allows me to spider my entire blog to within an inch of its life and then submit not just the site’s arteries but also all the way down to the site’s villi as well. In my opinion, search engines are lazy. They have only so many resources and so many nanoseconds in the day. They need to put first things first. So what I do before I spider the blog is set the index page of the blog to view 365-days of posts, or maybe a bunch of weeks, so that I can spider most of the blog from one “Import from Web.” When the import is complete, I change it back to showing only the last 7 days. I even maintain a separate box on which to host the Dynamic Submission tool because it’s such a processor hog. And then let it go. Seems to work like a charm. Why? Well, not because I am doing anything unseamly but rather just because Google and the rest sometimes miss something and I want to make sure that all the engines get everything. Every little dumbass link.

The Services You Might Want to Employ

Although I have not used the services, one respectable way of increasing your link popularity and prestige in Google is to use a service like Text Link Ads. What Text Link Adss offers is a link-buying service that does double-duty. The double duty is as follows: in addition to creating clickable links on the popular sites that can choose and afford, it will also allow you to legally create Google bombs that will heighten the probability that your company website or your corporate blog will turn up when people search for your company, your industry, your market, your products, and your services.

Employing “localized” Google AdWords, content-based Google AdWords, and search-based Google AdWords is a no-brainer. There are other advertising solutions available now, including finding the advertising networks that might be placed on some of the blogs you find the most focused or relevant, including BlogAds, etc.

Okay, I hope that helps. I am tired of writing but if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask me questions below in the comment section and I will both answer them and also use your questions, comments, feedback, and suggestions to fuel future articles.

Control Your Google Listing

I control all the aspects of the following return — title and description (and maybe even placement). You should too!

How did I do that? Well, I just wrote some code and pasted it into my blog template, above the opening tag, between the and tags. Simple but mightily effective!

Holler!

If you optimize your blog you can control the way Google shows your site to the world.

Be sure to add a “description” meta tag as Google uses it in search returns (and you can control Google’s description of your site). If you don’t want to top there, you can continue with the whole lots of meta tags.

If you want to see what meta tags I use, they’re listed at the bottom of this article. I will paste my tags at the end of here for you to enjoy. Also, make sure you give “alt” and “title” tags to all of your images and “title” tags to all of your links.

(For you newbies, the meta tags all go within the header tags in your blog template. So you will need to do some template editing.)

Four, find a Google Sitemap plug-in and use it.

Five, submit your blog as though it were a traditional website. I personally use Dynamic Submission, but there are a bunch. Web Position Gold is another fave. I choose Dynamic Submission because it allows me to spider my entire blog to within an inch of its life and then submit not just the site’s arteries but also all the way down to the site’s villi as well. In my opinion, search engines are lazy. They have only so many resources and so many nanoseconds in the day. They need to put first things first. So what I do before I spider the blog is set the index page of the blog to view 365-days of posts, or maybe a bunch of weeks, so that I can spider most of the blog from one “Import from Web.” When the import is complete, I change it back to showing only the last 7 days. I even maintain a separate box on which to host the Dynamic Submission tool because it’s such a processor hog. And then let it go. Seems to work like a charm. Why? Well, not because I am doing anything unseamly but rather just because Google and the rest sometimes miss something and I want to make sure that all the engines get everything. Every little dumbass link.

Quick Blog Search Engine Optimization Tips You Can ControlGoogle, Yahoo!, and MSN already love you, blogger, so just write, write, write. If you have more time and an inclination you can continue reading.

Without doing anything to your blog, you have an advantage which is lots and lots of text that is generally topic-centric and frequently updated. You are already ahead of the game. Add to that that Google loves you and cares about keeping up with the blogosphere and you can safely stop reading now and be fine. Just make sure you write something twice a day.

Although the most important part of SEO is getting Very Important People to link to you, there is a lot you can do on your own that I will go into below (I also go over how I think Google works in How Google Probably Ranks Your Site in My Opinion).

First, never use pronouns. Keyword density is essential to how Google ranks you. Second, use variations on search terms. To illustrate the first two points, I will take a bit of copy and optimize it for search engines and their love for keyword density. Instead of this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential strategy for every firm. It has become as essential to small and large firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, it has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.”

Try this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential marketing strategy for every marketing firm. Viral marketing, also known as relationship marketing, buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, conversational marketing, and passion marketing, has become as essential to small and large marketing firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, viral marketing has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.”

Yes, you’re appalled by its inefficiency and wordiness. Your boss would never approve, nor would your writing coach. Tough. This is not about winning the PEN/Faulkner, its about arousing Google’s algorythms.

Third, optimize your blog as though it were a traditional website. Be sure to add a “description” meta tag as Google uses it in search returns (and you can control Google’s description of your site). If you don’t want to top there, you can continue with the whole lots of meta tags. I will paste my tags at the end of here for you to enjoy. Also, make sure you give “alt” and “title” tags to all of your images and “title” tags to all of your links.

Four, find a Google Sitemap plug-in and use it.

Five, submit your blog as though it were a traditional website. I personally use Dynamic Submission, but there are a bunch. Web Position Gold is another fave. I choose Dynamic Submission because it allows me to spider my entire blog to within an inch of its life and then submit not just the site’s arteries but also all the way down to the site’s villi as well. In my opinion, search engines are lazy. They have only so many resources and so many nanoseconds in the day. They need to put first things first. So what I do before I spider the blog is set the index page of the blog to view 365-days of posts, or maybe a bunch of weeks, so that I can spider most of the blog from one “Import from Web.” When the import is complete, I change it back to showing only the last 7 days. I even maintain a separate box on which to host the Dynamic Submission tool because it’s such a processor hog. And then let it go. Seems to work like a charm. Why? Well, not because I am doing anything unseamly but rather just because Google and the rest sometimes miss something and I want to make sure that all the engines get everything. Every little dumbass link.

Six, make sure you use a ping server. If you don’t know a thing, start with filling out Pingomatic as best you can. That should be good enough for now. Blogger and WordPress.com offer a checkbox you can use to send out the ping. You can probably build it into your submission using the WordPress “Update Services” under Options/Writing, then scroll down. On MT it’s in Settings/New Entry Defaults/Publicity/Remote Interfaces. I use a long list that I will post under the Meta Tags below:

Ping Server List for ChrisAbraham.com

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping

http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping(I was Inspired by BBC’s More Blog Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks)

What is a Ping Server?

Whenever you post a new entry to your blog I am pretty sure you tell all your friends. It is also important to tell blog search engines and news aggregators so that they too can check out all your new content. Telling them you have fresh content is called pinging them.

According to the definition on Feedster, “A ping server is a bit of software infrastructure, a server program to be specific, which lets a feed tell us ‘I’ve just updated; please index me now.’ What it receives is a small tidbit of information from a blogging or publishing tool which is called a ‘ping’. Hence the name.”

The simple solution is to make sure you visit Ping-o-Matic every time you publish a new blog entry. I have already published a comprehensive list of available ping servers and I will discuss other solutions in future articles.

Depending on which blog service or which blog software you use, there are simple ways to automate the act of pinging all of the ping servers.

I plan to delve much more deeply into this very very soon.

Search Engines Favor RSS Feed Supported Sites

To paraphrase Lee Odden, “RSS feeds get blogroll, inclusion in RSS directories assist with link popularity, Updated RSS feeds are indexed more frequently, RSS output contributes to your freshness, The format of most RSS feeds provides content that’s easier for search engines to understand.”

Basic SEO for Bloggers Comes a Little Short

Thanks to Darren for the link to Basic SEO tactics for bloggers. That said, it is too basic.

It doesn’t talk much about SEOB (Search Engine Optimization for Blogs) so much as just how to architect your blog. There are so many other tips and tricks.

I am opening up a text page right now to start writing my own Basic SEO for Blogs because if I am going to tell you that this article is severely limited, I had better suggest something better, right?

I Have Power Over Algorithmic Search Engines

“Some time ago, I realized that I have power over google, yahoo and other algorithmic search engines. I can choose words and phrases. And then I can get top ranking for those words in search engine results.” Me too, and I couldn’t say it better myself. PC4Media via ProBlogger.

How Google Probably Ranks Your Site in My Opinion

Google indexes web pages and then ranks them based on three distinct and equally-weighted aspects.

The first aspect is a trinity which is based on the content of each page: page title, page description and keywords (meta tag data), and page full-text content. A page that has similar content wording (and density) is considered to be legitimate. If a web page has all three components it generally a reliable resource.

The second aspect is that Google favors web sites that are continually-updated; therefore, a blog is always indexed more often and considered more timely than a static “brochure” web site.

The final and most-important aspect Google uses to favor (and thus rank higher) web pages is each page’s (and site’s) link popularity. Link popularity is basically how many other sites link back to a site; in addition, Google goes one step further and considers a number of things to insure that the link popularity isn’t abused: prestige.

If an old, high-prestige, high link-popularity web site (or sites) links to a site, it is more beneficial to the site’s link popularity than if a host of insignificant sites link to a site. Old, popular, and well-trafficked sites always lend their prestige to the site to which they link.

The three taken together result in the ranking of the site based on a typical Google keyword search.

You need the content (flash-based and highly graphical pages without well thought out meta tags are virtually invisible to Google), you need the link popularity, and when it comes to it, you need to have new content to show up in the top-ten on Google.

A popular upstart blog or message board can oftentimes achieve better ranking than a big corporate website, especially if that website is new or has changed the architecture of its website recently (Google considers the sudden and complete change of the architecture and file-structure of a web site really fishy).

Never Use Pronouns When You Blog

First, never use pronouns. Keyword density is essential to how Google ranks you. Second, use variations on search terms.

To illustrate the first two points, I will take a bit of copy and optimize it for search engines and their love for keyword density. Instead of this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential strategy for every firm. It has become as essential to small and large firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, it has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.”

Try this:

“Viral marketing is now an essential marketing strategy for every marketing firm. Viral marketing, also known as relationship marketing, buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, conversational marketing, and passion marketing, has become as essential to small and large marketing firms alike, both for its relative affordability and its potentially high effectivity. With the advent of the Internet, viral marketing has become amazingly efficient: all you need is a laptop and a compelling message.”

Yes, you’re appalled by its inefficiency and wordiness. Your boss would never approve, nor would your writing coach. Tough. This is not about winning the PEN/Faulkner, its about arousing Google’s algorythms.

Invest in Google Sitemap as a Tool for SEO Analysis

Investing in Google Sitemap is worthwhile. For example, the top search query for chrisabraham.com is ladder theory and the top search query click is nicole richie diet.

Brand Protection on Blogs

Andy Sernovitz is spot on when it comes to how to control and manage brand online, especially when it comes to online brand protection.

It boils down to this:

Blog search engines such as Technorati, Feedster, and BlogPulse only really care about the last word. If you can reply to a negative, hurtful, brand hit, then you can dominate the conversation and win the debate, in most cases.

Google cares about everything but the latest word isn’t always indexed yet, so therefore, in the world of Google, the better indexed site always wins. Learn about SEO and Google Sitemaps if you want to compete here.

You can’t control online conversation unless you participate. The only way to get indexed by Google or to show up on Technorati, Feedster, and BlogPulse is to be an online opinion leader who has a site that has made it out of Technorati, Feedster, BlogPulse, Yahoo!, MSN, and Google’s sandbox, and has an SEO and a Blog Search Engine strategy.

You have to initiate membership, become part of the conversation, build street cred, have an SEO and blog strategy, and become a respect online opinion leader before something goes awry.

To quote Mr. Sernovitz, , “you’ll never be able to control the blogosphere conversation. Don’t even try. You’ll never be able to manage your blog coverage like you manage the press. Don’t even try. But what you can do is participate, earn respect, and tell your story. Jump in, join the conversation, and be a part of it.“

This is my response to a very brilliant and spot-on article. I have nothing to say in contest to it, so stop reading me and go read WOM Tactics: Blogs are Upside Down.

Built like a woman should be!

Katharine Hope McPhee (born March 25, 1984) is an American singer who is a finalist on the fifth season of American Idol.

Early career

Born in Sherman Oaks, California, McPhee has been singing since the age of two. Her mother, Peisha Burch McPhee, a vocal coach and accomplished cabaret singer, recognized a talent for music in her daughter and started training her. McPhee graduated in the class of 2002 from Notre Dame High School after which she attended The Boston Conservatory for three semesters with a concentration in musical theater. She left because she met a manager who wanted her to try out for parts during the television pilot season in Los Angeles. She did a pilot and an independent film.[1] At the Cabrillo Music Theater in Thousand Oaks, California, she performed the title role in a musical theatre production of Annie Get Your Gun. In June 2005 she played Anna Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a musical by Scott DeTurk and Bill Francoeur, based on the book by R.A. Dick, at NoHo Arts Center in California.

Trivia

* McPhee lists Whitney Houston and Brian McKnight as her favorite artists.
* McPhee has a sister named Adriana, who is one year older.
* McPhee is left handed.
* McPhee is 5’7″ (170 cm).
* McPhee was rumored to be a Scientologist. In the past, McPhee had attended and completed two individual courses in Scientology.[2] However, according to an May 12, 2006 interview on Los Angeles radio station KROQ 106.7, McPhee stated she “dabbled in Scientology” because of a former love interest but is not a Scientologist; according to her, she was “quickly out the door.”[3]
* McPhee has a dog named Lily.
* McPhee has a goddaughter who was born during McPhee’s run in Hollywood.

During her initial audition for American Idol in San Francisco, she sang “God Bless the Child.” Judge Randy Jackson said she was the best voice he had heard so far that season, judge Paula Abdul praised her looks, and judge Simon Cowell said she was amazing and “current.” McPhee’s mother had gone with her to the audition, and Cowell made a comment about the possibility that the elder McPhee was a stage mother.

In the final cut-down show for the Top 24, McPhee was the first to be put through and, in excitement, kissed all three judges on the lips. She cried both when she passed her initial audition and when she made it into the Top 24.

In the first round of the semi-finals, she sang Barbra Streisand’s version of Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell for You,” again earning high praises as Cowell said that out of the four “very, very good vocalists” of the night, she was the best.

During the week leading to the third round of the semi-finals, where McPhee sang Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” she was rumored to be quitting due to pregnancy. However, during the performance show on March 7, 2006, she denied this accusation, later attributing it to a poor choice of clothing. Host Ryan Seacrest, with tongue-in-cheek, asked about her and fellow Idol contestant Kevin Covais.

During the week preceding the top 3 show, McPhee visited her former high school for her hometown celebration.[4]

On the May 23, 2006, edition of NBC’s Today Show, Katie Couric mentioned news reports saying that Katharine’s greatest assets are her looks and strong fan base, while her greatest liability is the fact that her performances suffer when she is under pressure.

Performances

Semi-finals

* February 21, 2006 – “Since I Fell for You,” Barbra Streisand version.
o Cowell said that she was the best singer of the night.
* February 28, 2006 – “All in Love Is Fair,” Stevie Wonder
o The judges stated that they thought this performance fell victim to poor song choice, but Abdul thought that she was “still a star.”
* March 7, 2006 – “Think,” Aretha Franklin
o The judges stated that they loved this performance because she “had fun with it.”

Finals

* March 14, 2006 – “Until You Come Back to Me,” Stevie Wonder
o The theme was Stevie Wonder, and the judges stated that they loved this performance. Jackson said that the McPhee he “met during the auditions” was back. Cowell compared her gaining of momentum to Kelly Clarkson in the show’s first season.
* March 21, 2006 – “Come Rain or Come Shine,” Ella Fitzgerald
o The theme was 1950′s, and once again the judges were very impressed. Jackson noted that it wasn’t her best vocal performance, but it was still great. Abdul agreed wholeheartedly. Cowell noted that it was the performance that made her a star.
* March 28, 2006 – “The Voice Within,” Christina Aguilera – (Bottom 3)
o The theme was songs of the 21st century. Jackson thought she should have changed the performance up to make it her own. Abdul said she wouldn’t change a thing. Cowell said it was the best that night so far, and almost as good as Aguilera. During the results show, however, McPhee was placed in the bottom three, and Cowell stated that upon viewing the playback, she wasn’t nearly as good as he thought.
* April 4, 2006 – “Bringing Out The Elvis,” Faith Hill
o The theme for the night was country. McPhee was the eighth of nine performers that night. Jackson said: “Kind of bluesy country, yeah? I like it. You sang it very nice, very nice. Good job, dawg, good job.” Abdul said: “That is your style; that’s your niche. You look sexy, hot. You’re cool.” Cowell, looking a bit bewildered, said: “I don’t know what to say anymore; I really don’t. That song was just so peculiar.” At this point McPhee spoke up and said: “Simon, you just don’t like country music. It’s okay. Just say it,” with which Cowell agreed, saying: “You’re right, I don’t, I don’t. I hate it.”
* April 11, 2006 – “Who Wants to Live Forever,” Queen
o The theme was songs by Queen, and McPhee performed fifth out of eight contestants. The judges’ reactions were as follows: Jackson said: “This is your element, I mean a little Broadway, big song, kind of big voice. It was a little pitchy in spots, and I thought at some points it was a little big for you, but you did a good job, I think, all in all.” Abdul said: “You made the right decision to just stand there and be glorious, with your glorious voice. I mean it’s a song that big singers like Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand take on; and you, Katharine McPhee, can handle it, and you did a great job.” Cowell said: “Katharine, I mean that was almost the moment. You know, I agree with Randy [Jackson], I think there were some tuning problems at parts. I think you owe a big kiss to the director and the lighting director there, because they made you look amazing — I mean really good. But overall I think it was probably one of the strongest tonight. Yeah. Very good.” McPhee then responded, “Thank you, I know, I do. Thank you, guys,??? in response to Cowell’s comment about owing the directors a kiss, as she turned and thanked them.
* April 18, 2006 – “Someone to Watch Over Me,” George Gershwin
o The theme was “The Great American Songbook” by Rod Stewart. McPhee performed last that night. Jackson said that McPhee was in her “element.” Abdul believed that she picked the perfect song and told her that it was like watching her for the very first time, and that she had fallen in love with her all over again. Cowell said that she made the others look like “good amateurs.” He told her she was the best of the night, and that she was elegant and sang like a returning pro. Rod Stewart himself told her that he believed she was born to sing the Standards, and that he couldn’t think of anything else to say about her, other than the fact that she was brilliant.
* April 25, 2006 – “I Have Nothing,” Whitney Houston – (Top 2)
o The theme was “Greatest Love Songs.” Jackson said that it was a good song choice but it was too big for her. Abdul said she was stunning but believed it was too pitchy. Cowell said that by coming out and singing that song she was saying she is as good as Whitney Houston. Seacrest jokingly remarked that McPhee would get votes from anybody with the volume turned down. The following night, Cowell took back his statement, saying that when he watched it back, it was a good performance. Jackson also apologized by saying that he had been a little bit “too harsh.” McPhee was among the top two vote getters on elimination night along with fellow contestant Chris Daughtry.
* May 2, 2006 – “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)”, Phil Collins; “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” KT Tunstall
o The theme for the night was for them to pick a song from the same year they were born, and a song from this week’s Billboard charts. For “Against All Odds,” Jackson thought her performance may have been in the wrong key for Katharine’s voice, but it was OK. Abdul said it wasn’t her favorite song choice for her. Cowell said that in parts the song was a mess, and that it ran away from her. They all thought she looked stunning in her dress. For “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” Jackson liked seeing the old McPhee back. Abdul loved the intimacy and the choreography. Cowell said the song choice was great for her and it really showed her personality. He liked how her toes matched her top.
* May 9, 2006 – “Hound Dog/All Shook Up” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, Elvis Presley – (Bottom 2)
o The theme was Elvis Presley. For “Hound Dog/All Shook Up”, Jackson asked if she forgot the lyrics but Abdul said she handled it well and that the performance was “really fun”. Cowell said it was a “desperate manic audition” and that the song was also “shrieky” and for him, he just thought that it “wasn’t a great performance”. For “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” she received mixed reviews, as well as Abdul commenting that she preferred “Katharine having fun” and Simon noting the song as being “pitchy.” On May 10, 2006, McPhee was in the bottom two with Chris Daughtry. Daughtry was eliminated from the competition.
* May 16, 2006
o Clive Davis chose R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” for McPhee. Jackson thought she did well, but the song choice was bad and she wasn’t “that singer.” Abdul, after some pause and inspiration from an audience member, said that McPhee was incredible, and that she looked fabulous. Cowell enjoyed the performance.
o Cowell chose “Over the Rainbow” (originally made famous by Judy Garland) for McPhee. Jackson was blown away, calling her “a hot one,” and declaring that she had the best song of the season. Abdul was also impressed, saying that song was her “element.” Cowell said that he was very happy for Katharine and, putting the fact that he chose the song aside, he thought it was the best performance of the competition to date. He also added that it was brilliant.
o McPhee chose Ella Fitzgerald’s “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues” for her final song. Jackson said it was good, but not to the extent of her second song. Abdul agreed, once again saying that McPhee’s second song was her “element.” Cowell said it was okay, and he wished America had seen her second song last instead. McPhee made it to the final two, along with Taylor Hicks.
* May 23, 2006
o McPhee’s first song was Black Horse and the Cherry Tree from the Final 5. Randy Jackson said it was better than the first time. Paula Abdul said that Katharine was brilliant. Simon Cowell said it was good, but not big enough for this event.
o McPhee’s second song was Somewhere Over the Rainbow from the Final 3. Jackson said it was amazing and hot. Abdul said it was great. Cowell said it was her best performance of the season.
o McPhee’s third song was an original single called My Destiny written by singer/songwriter Hanne Sorvaag. Jackson said McPhee looked and sounded amazing, but she was better than the song. Abdul agreed that Katharine sounded amazing. Cowell said that this song made her go from “brilliant” to only “quite good”, but her second song was where she truly shined.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.