I got the below item from Chris Andrews at City Buddha today (disclosure: City Buddha is a client) :

I would like to take this last oppourtunity to remind all of you about the fundraiser we’ve been having here at City Buddha.

We’ve joined forces with some of our fellow downtown business’ to help provide a little support to two very important organizations here in the Wilmington area. We’re accepting womens and childrens clothing, as well as personal type items for the Domestic Violence Shelter and Services. In addition to them, we’re also accepting pet items for the Pender County Humane Society(a no-kill shelter), pet food, collars, used blankets(can be used as bedding), as well as monitary donations for either group.

We know it’s tuff times for all of us, but please consider those who are less fortunate then us, and let’s try to pitch in. In return for helping out, we here at City Buddha are willing to give you 5% off your entire purchase for every item you donate, up to 8 items(or 40% off). Also for every purchase you make with donations, we’ll give you an entry for a chance to win a free nite stay at the Wilmingtonian B & B, a gift certificate at Caffe’ Phoenix, and a gift basket fillied with goodies for you to enjoy! Other partcipating business’ include,

Dog Gone Crazy

Edge Of Urge

Finkelsteins

So you can also go into any of these business and take advantage of various discounts with them as well. The drawing for the above mentioned prizes will be held this Sunday, Dec.21st, at 3:00pm at Slice of Life, 122 Market St. and Mayor Bill Saffo will be there to draw the lucky winner!

So again, you have thru this Sunday,to take advantage of this discount reward, and a chance to enter the contest. But more importantly, let’s try to help these people and animals out.

Chris Andrews / City Buddha

… and testing to see if I broke things.

I need to test the image upload as well, so this is my new twitter wallpaper… feel free to take and use as your own.

That’s me looking like I just broke into my own truck on Google Street View. Man, how did I shut the door on my seat belt?

Wilmington (as well as a heck of a lot of other places) has been added to Google Street View. Real Estate Agents, rejoice.

Clicky Here

I was browsing through the racks at Barnes & Noble one evening when this guy standing next to me strikes up a conversation.

Stranger Dude: “One of your parents is Japanese, right?”

Me: “Um, yes. My mother is.”

And so we talk a little bit. He was of Japanese descent and worked as an engineer at one of the local manufacturers in town. ‘Seemed like a nice enough guy. I though maybe he just struck up the conversation because we had something in common. Then he gave me his card and said,

“I’ve got this side marketing business that I’m starting. Give me a call sometime. Maybe we can meet and I can go over it with to you.”

I was instantly deflated. I think I might have thrown his card away on the way out the door because I knew that “marketing business” was code for Amway. They would never say it was Amway because the training literature told them not to, but it was still Amway.

Here is the problem with participation in most all Multi-Level Marketing; It forces you to turn every single one of your personal relationships into a mark,  it reduces your friendships to potential clients, and it makes you look at strangers as revenue streams and not as human beings.

I’ve got to confess that many times I feel the same way about some people that I see marketing their wares on Social Media sites.

It’s not that I have a problem with people mentioning things about their business or throwing in the occasional link to something that they are trying to sell. What bothers me are the abusers; the ones that are on social media sites not because of the human interaction, but solely for the chance to make some money.

These people are easy to spot. They sign up for Twitter accounts and start out following over 1000 people before they make their first tweet. They never respond to a message unless they can throw a link in to something and they never disclose that they are getting a percentage of the sale on that new product they are recommending as the solution to your woes.

It’s all very schlocky and it has nothing to do with the spirit of community that is such a large component of what makes social media successful. It’s neither genuine nor honest.

It’s my belief that all good marketing tells a story and marketing online is no different. We get enough of “Buy now and change your life!” from the TV-Industrial complex. Shouldn’t Social Media be something different?

Please tell me that I’m not the only person completely creeped out by this commercial. If my thumbs start to read what I’m texting, I think it’s time for professional help & some serious meds.

I got a email from Ty Downing last month asking me if I was willing to participate on a website review panel at this month’s SEO meeting. Without hesitation, I said “yes”… not realizing at the time that it meant I would have to get up in front of people and actually try to sound intelligent.

I think I might have pulled it off at least half way. I was ok until near the end when someone asked a question about all Flash websites. Suddenly, I became a raving lunatic.

I don’t consider SEO to be my strong area. There are some things I do as a designer to make my sites more search engine friendly like avoiding table based layouts and using the proper tags in the proper places. However, I really consider that as a base for guys like Ty to come in and work their magic.

A big high five to Ty and the other panel members (Jason Conway &  Megan Criss) for organizing this and passing along some very good information to those who attended.

If you’re interested in attending future events, check out the Wilmington Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing Group on meetup.com.

Once again, there was an excellent turnout for the Wilmington Blogger Meetup organized by the Star News this month. No Wayne Sutton this time, but a lot of new faces and interesting discussions about blogging for money and how that influences the perception of what you are writing.

The next meetup is going to be in January. Date yet to be determined.

Side Note: Man, you know the economy is getting bad when the coffee shop puts up a sign saying no more free refills because the cost of the beans is so high.

Beautiful clouds from James_Burden on Flickr.

… because it might just end up somewhere for everyone else to see:

StarNewsOnline: Talk & Squawk: What’s on the community’s mind

Not that it’s bad (that’s the whole point of social media, no?), but I’m going to start tweeting about how everyone should send me a dollar in the mail.

I get several calls each year from mystery companies in India offering bargain basement prices on programming. The calls usually start out a little something like this:

“Yes, Mr. Perry. We saw your website and we are interested in offering our programming services to you. We are cheap, cheap, cheap and can enable you to take on larger projects at minimal cost. Did I mention that we were cheap?”

And my response usually goes a little something like this:

“Um, no thanks.”
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There are a lot of reasons why I have absolutely zero interest in dealing with these companies and let me stress that these are my personal feelings. What others do with their money and time is strictly up to them. If you can save a few bucks this way then bravo for you.

• First and foremost; I don’t need them.
  I’ve got an absolutely awesome local programmer that I work with. Everything that I hand to him comes back 120% better than what I outlined. He’s quick and he’s right around the corner so we can meet face to face and brainstorm over projects. It’s been a mutually beneficial relationship that we’ve cultivated over the past year. Plus, I just like working with the guy.
• Second: It’d be pretty hypocritical of me to throw money in their direction.
  I’m a local business. Nearly all of my clients are local businesses. Times are tight right now and somehow, I’d feel like I was selling out and not truly supporting the local area if I farmed out my programming to a company that is half a world away.
• Third: I absolutely hate getting support calls routed to India.
  Any of you that have dealt with tech support and/or customer service calls like this know exactly what I mean. It’s bad enough having to straighten out health insurance enrollment with linguistic challenges. I can’t imagine having to explain how a database needs to be interacted with while jumping the same hurdles.

There’s a common thread through all of this. Social media and electronic communication are all great, but the ability to look someone in the eye and do business is still a important thing, especially to local businesses. I know my contribution to the local economy is small, but I feel that it’s important to put my money where my mouth is.

So, if you’re browsing over my site from some call center in India, please don’t call. I don’t particularly enjoy telling people no, but I promise you that you’re not going to be making a sale here.