Author: David G. Johnson

I have owned and operated Grow The Dream in Sarasota, Florida since 1998. We are a strategic consulting firm focused on small to mid-size organizations, and we specialize in making things grow!
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FTC Guidelines for Bloggers and Social Media Influencers

The Federal Trade Commission has put together a fantastic set of FAQs for Endorsement Disclosures to satisfy its criteria.

If you are a blogger, influencer or other paid endorser (including someone who receives free products, incentives or “in kind” compensation), you’ll definitely want to review them.

If your company sends products or other compensation to bloggers, social media influencers, or other paid endorsers, it’ll also be worth reviewing—you may have responsibilities where educating or monitoring your influencers are concerned.

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Cool Email Trick from AWeber

So AWeber has been working hard to create buzz around a big announcement they’re making on October 20th.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been paying close attention, but it appears that they’re going to be introducing some new features or perhaps an update to the UI/UX in their system.

The “benefit” they’re touting is that you’ll be able to “do more with email.”

I’m interested. We’ve used and recommended their system since 2007, if I recall correctly.

But the email they sent me this morning—which, again, endeavors to build anticipation for next week’s announcement—had an interesting twist: a live Twitter feed.

Who could resist?

I blasted out this tweet:

Then… kinda forgot about it. (Shockingly, I was busy doing other things.)

A little later, I came back to my email and, on a whim, reopened the message from AWeber. Here’s what I saw:

So… that’s cool. A live Twitter feed in an email!

Apparently, they aren’t the first to do this. But… if they make this available to their users as a feature, they just might be the first ESP to do so.

Either way, this is cool. Unless, of course, your hashtag gets taken over in a negative way…

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Chronic Pain from Sitting Too Much

So… working as a consultant who does a great deal of writing, training, and research online, I sit at my desk a lot more than I’d like to admit.

I’ve had great advice some phenomenal people in my life, especially my chiropractor, about how to sit (or really how not to sit), and thankfully, I’ve made some ergonomic adjustments.

But the fact remains that I sit far too much, I stand up far too little, and my posture as I work is still not too great.

[And as an aside: that’s most definitely not me in the picture accompanying this post. My desk is nowhere near that clean. And I’m usually not in a suit when I sit at it. But I chose the picture just because his posture will make my chiropractor physically ill.]

So, I was thrilled to learn that one of our clients, whom my wife & I actually consider a friend as well, has completed significant training and is now certified in the MELT Method.  We’ve worked with her a great deal in the past, and benefited from her expertise in STOTT PILATES® and Applied Functional Science®, among other things. And given her propensity for extensive research, I was not surprised that she had hunted down the solution to her own chronic pain problems (hers were, alas, caused by overuse as opposed to underuse, which was more likely the cause of mine).

In any case, I think we’ll plan to attend some workshops and get better acquainted with MELT, but in our little “preview” session with her, Shannon gave us an understanding of some of the basics, and it was remarkable the degree to which we experienced results in just a few minutes. More to come on this one!

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Privacy Implications of Listening Devices

A post (warning: offensive language) made it to the top of the /r/technology subreddit on reddit.com today that highlighted a disturbing statement from the Samsung Smart TV Privacy Policy:

Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

For the record, I don’t own a Samsung Smart TV. And this sentence doesn’t say anything that any of us wouldn’t have guessed… had we thought about it.

But… how many devices do we own today that are listening all the time? And exactly how much of what we say is being recorded and sent to 3rd parties for “voice recognition?”1

I can think of a handful of other devices which are actively listening all the time and are often found in our homes (like the Xbox One / Kinect) or even on our persons (e.g. Google Now on Android — “OK Google” anyone?) and in newer automobiles.

Samsung’s privacy policy is the first instance I can think of wherein I’ve actually read a warning that your “personal” or “sensitive” information may actually be leaking to 3rd parties.

Unnecessary Cause for Alarm?

I would imagine that the bulk of information being transmitted out of our living rooms via Samsung TVs is largely uninteresting to anyone.

But what are the policies that govern the storage (long term or short term) of this data? How sophisticated are the tools that interpret speech? Are transcripts of this speech stored separately or together with audio recordings?

What government agencies have or will gain access to either audio recordings or speech transcripts?

Perhaps the data doesn’t get stored by anyone for any longer than it takes to decide if you’ve issued a command to your device. And maybe there is no reason to even question what happens to all of the information scooped up by these listening devices.

I don’t want to sound like a conspiratorial alarmist. But on the other hand, maybe keeping some tinfoil close by isn’t such a bad idea…

Photo Credit: frank peters via BigStock

1Geek moment: “voice recognition” is likely a misnomer. It is quite commonly and quite incorrectly used to refer to technologies that recognize speech. True “voice” recognition is a much different technology than “speech” recognition, and involves identifying who the speaker is rather than what he or she is saying. If Samsung or its 3rd-party vendor does have “voice” recognition, that’s a completely different cause for alarm.

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New Small Business Podcast

I’m really excited about a new project I’m working on with Rod Thomson and Josh Muccio: The Growth Show is a podcast focused on helping small businesses grow.

Each of us comes with a little different perspective: Rod is 30-year veteran journalist who specializes in helping businesses understand and work with media, Josh is a young entrepreneur who has already flipped his first company after building a fantastic presence online with local SEO tactics. We published our first episode on Friday, and it promises to be a lot of fun!

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New Social Tool

Recently I started experimenting with a new social tool called Known.

Using webmentions and other fun innovations that seem to be originating with IndieWebCamp, Known gives content creators powerful features that allow them to syndicate their content to multiple platforms and pull in interactions (“likes,” “retweets” and so on) back to their own sites in order to maintain a permanent copy that is under their own control.

You can see more of what I’m playing with by checking out my personal Known site: social.thedavidjohnson.com.

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Sarasota Named 2014 Google “eCity” for Florida

Screenshot: Google Recognizes Sarasota as its 2014 eCity for Florida

This “big little city” that we call home and affectionately refer to as “Paradise” has been recognized by Google for having the, “strongest online business community,” in the State of Florida.

The award represents Google’s belief that businesses in Sarasota are embracing new technology to find and connect with customers.

Google uses its own data, including Search, ad revenue (both fees paid to Google by advertisers and fees paid by Google to publishers), and Ad Grants (provided by Google to non-profits) to estimate the economic impact of Google on each area. This forms the basis of its determination that local businesses are embracing technology.

ABC 7 reported on the reactions from some local businesses following a ceremony yesterday with the Mayor and City Manager.

The Herald-Tribune apparently also reported on the award, but their absurd paywall prevents us from accessing the article, so we won’t bother to link to it.

Congratulations to all of our local businesses who have endeavored to build out a presence online, use social media and other tools, and effectively generate a return on investment with digital advertising tools.

This is one more reason we love this city!