Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

Wow! My wife and I just got back from snowmobiling all day in yellowstone. Buffalo blocking the road, an eagles nest, elk, geysers, steaming hot pots, snow, just flying down the road! A private guide! One of the greatest days of my life.

Love you all! Happy New Years!

Now for dinner and fun in a one horse town!

My wife and I are sitting in the middle of Eastern Utah in a snow storm snuggled up in a Fairfield Inn. Pretty comfy. I am not a master of driving in snow, and it was pretty intense driving up from Vegas.

When we got here the snow was blowing horizontally. I crouched behind the car and watched it fly over me in the light. It was a truly beutiful moment.

I wanted to take a minute away from my precious time with my wife to comment on this past year.

The internet business world, all you guys, have been so kind to me over the past year.

I even had people wait in line to talk to me and get a photo at Pubcon. Pretty flattering.

I know I will forget a lot of names, so I will only throw out a couple.

In order, I have been massively helped by The Webmaster World Gang, Danny Sulivan, Matt Cutts, Pamela Lund, Neil Patel, Jeremy Schoemaker, the BOTW crew, the Azoogle crew, the Ninjas, Epiar, and then all the rest of you too numerous to mention in my blurry semi concious state. I can not thank you guys as a group enough.

Purpose Inc. has become well known, and for the most part well thought of this year.

Target one completed.

I think we also helped our friends and sponsors a ton too which was very satisfying.

I honestly love you guys a lot.

In the future I would love to see us use our power as a group, this power we have to show the world information, and use it more and more to promote what is good and wonderful on this planet!

Merry Christmas!

dk and the purpose inc. crew!

A few weeks ago I spent the better part of two days with a gentleman who is one of the most powerful people on Digg talking about future business opportunity. I have also been meeting recently with a company who has just started doing millions of dollars in revenue per month. One of the largest affiliate companies in the world, is including my events as part of their budget next year. I also just set up an event for the Elite Retreat which will be one of the biggest interfaces between internet marketers and a huge online company this year.

But none of this meant anything to me until I won the Streko award.

Early last week I recieved a red velvet envelope, with an invitation inside. A man in a simple blue suit arrived in a limosuine and handed it to me personally. It was an invitation to the most respected and talked about event in the interent business world, the Streko awards. The man in the suit whispered that I was in contention for the presegious top 20 list.

When I attended the awards all the usuals one would expect were there. What impressed us all the most, was when Mr. Streko arrived, walking with a slight limp and a cane (recovering from a recent hunting accident in Borneo), he walked slowly onto the stage, looked into the auidience and cried. He then lead the audience on a 2 hour journey of his love for humanity, his personal quest for human rights, and his passion for saving the Borneo rainforest.

What held our attention so much was not just the amazing stories he wove so full of passion and hope for the future, but mostly the delicate and articulate language he uses. I looked to my left at Sugar Rae, who tilted her glass of champagne, a tear in her eye, and said simply, “hear! hear!”

Shoemoney and Aaron Chronister both utterred a chuckle when they met in the lobby, Jeremy wearing his new all white long coat with tails, white pants and whit top hat, and Aaron in his usual all black coat and tails, with his black top hat, one the negative of the other.

I kept my acceptance speech to a minimum to show respect to all of those who have helped me and supported me so much.

The evening ended with Pamela Lund singing Frank Sinatra’s I Get a Kick Out Of You, to a standing ovation.

As anyone who has won an Oscar, the Nobel Prize, or a Streko can tell you that it comes with a curse. It is a celebration of a lifetimes achievement. An honor so high that the only direction one can go is down.

Shoemoney campaigning for a possible place on the Streko top 20

So, I have enjoyed my moment at the top, and will now enjoy the plummet from grace accompanied by all of those who will hate me as a result of my award. As I grow old, no one will be able to rob me of the moment that Michael gave me by awarding me the P.W.D.S.

Thank you!

I get complaints sometimes that the theme of my blog rambles. Well, get ready for more!

Hold Still. Talk Softly. Smile and don't move

I am prepping for Yellowstone, and recently found out they have grizzlies. It appears that they are all hibernating right now, but ya know what? I think it would be worth knowing what to do if a bear attacks.

If you were at thinktank and heard Orie’s story, you would know why you don’t want to get caught by a bear in the woods! I’ll just say it was the most graphic animal story you ever heard. If you search twitter well enough, you might find it! I am afraid that somehow that inspired our upcoming trip.

So, first off I found someone who knows the scoop, the Bearman! It appears that he sells Bear Spray on his site, so if you are looking for Bear Spray, check him out! (I also have gotten sick of looking at commercial sites with no real content on them, so want to direct some traffic over to some good data!

So here is the scoop according to the Bear Man! (My interpretation of his suggestions)

If you get attacked by a bear and the below doesn’t work, send me an e-mail and I will send you a free t-shirt! (Only half kidding, but really I have no idea, so don’t follow my advice and listen to someone who knows like the bearman!)

This replaces my previous advice which was, if attacked by a bear, lie down and be eaten.

If attacked by a bear!

1. Find out if it is a Black Bear or a Grizzly! (If you don’t imediately know then read the label by the tail.)

2. If it is a Black Bear go ape S#&t and try to scare or fight it off, as it might want to eat you!

3. If it is a Grizzly stand still and face it, don’t scream and run off into the woods. They run something like 14 feet per second and will chase you!

4. Don’t try to climb a tree or the Grizzly will follow you and they climb up to 30 feet up!

5. If the Grizzly comes at you he is probably feeling threatened by you. He just wants to knock you down and maybe scrape your back, or bite your skull for a second, but not eat you. Here is the fun part, hold still! Some people claim talking softly to the Grizzly also may help your chances. Try saying things like “I used to watch Gentle Ben growing up” or “Yogi the bear is my favorite cartoon”.

So in summary it’s easy, if a black bear attacks you fight him, yell etc.

If a Grizzly attacks, stand your ground, but be calm and don’t move or yell. If he attacks and chews on your skull, hold still as he will probably leave you alone. If he doesn’t stop with the chewing, he probably thinks he is a black bear, so go back to number 2 above and scream or yell, then recomend that he subscribes to my RSS feed, so he gets better educated before his next encounter.

For a change, I am going to take some time off. My wife and I are heading north. It is pretty funny because she is from Norway, and totally used to the cold. I have no idea what to do. Once when she asked me to climb on top of a big snow drift, I asked her if it was possible to fall in the center or if it would hold me up?

The plan, still subject to change, is to drive to Vegas, stay at the Wynn a few nights, then head north. Off to Aspen, to ski/snowboard for half a week, then drive further north to Yellowstone. You can’t drive a car into yellowstone during the winter, so we have arranged for these cool snow cats that carry you in on. Their bottoms have skis and tractor belts.

Once we are in yellowstone, we have reservations for a few nights in these little cabins in the middle of nowhere. It turns out there are still grizzly bears in Yellowstone. I thought they were extinct. I am just imaging wandering outside the cabin at night with grizzly bears.

Then we have a private guide to take us on snowmobiles around yellowstone.

It will be pretty adventurous. The funny part is that you realize that hundreds of years ago, native Americans lived there, grizzlies, snow and all. The only way you could survive was with what you could find in the woods. They did have thermal ponds which they could use as jacuzzis which I am sure made it much easier to get through the winter.

We’ll see how the city/surfer kid does in the snow.

Stay tuned!

Joe Laratro get’s interviewed by Vanessa Zamora at Search Engine World.

Joe really taught me a lesson my first year speaking at Pubcon, when I totally bombed, and he showed me how to really get the audience’s attention.

In this video, Joe, a very creative online marketer, does a beautiful job of getting my interest by talking about my talk during Pubcon on local. In fact I didn’t even really talk, but you can hear Joe discuss it.

I have consistently learned that one of the simplest, most effective ways to get someone’s attention, and get links from them, is simply to talk about them. Linking to them gets their attention even more, (hint – hint).

Remember, most of us who are active on the internet have wordpress blogs that let us know if you link to us. Even if your blog has no value, no pagerank, you will still get someone’s attention if you link to them.

These guys have a blog on Scottish Whiskey as well as other types. I don’t even drink, so never would have found their new blog if they hadn’t linked to my site from their blend of whiskey stories. Their site has a page rank of 0, but I found out about them because they linked to me. Want to have someone famous know about you? Link to them! Then you will have people like Brent Chase, Neil, Shoe, and the most important pair in the internet marketing world know about you. Then, maybe they will link to you one day? Then one day, you might even be noticed by the real power player in the internet business world, Barbara!

Remember, once you have a bit of clout, (Page Rank) it costs you to link out to others. But when you have a blog that is garbage, it costs you nothing to link to others, and lets them know you exist. If you link to a specific page on their blog, they will notice it much easier, than if you just link to the blog in general, since it will show up as a comment that needs to be approved.

Want me to notice you? Might as well link to me! It just makes sense!

A plane crashed real close to my house today. Real Close. We didn’t even hear it take place.

It was pretty amazing. My wife and I were sitting at our dinning room table planning our Christmas vacation. We are going skiing/boarding in Aspen, and spending some other days exploring the Rocky’s.

So while we are sitting there discussing the trip, and making reservations, this poor pilot is crusing out over the Pacific with a bad engine.

The Marines airport, Miramar, where they filmed Top Gun, is around 2 miles from the ocean. Real close to where we live.

This pilot is out over the ocean and his engine goes bad. I believe he was flying an F/A 18 hornet.

He had taken off from an aircraft carrier and was on his way to the airport by my house.

I hear one of his engines went bad.

So you are flying this multimillion dollar aircraft and you have a few options. I don’t know if they were his options, or his seniors. Regardless of what he was told, it ultimately was still his choice, he was flying the plane.

He had the option of ditching the plane over the ocean, ejecting, and hoping he gets picked up. The ocean is currently around 60 degrees, and you can survive in it for I am sure at least an hour, if not a lot longer. I know because I go surfing in it frequently. The other option is trying to save the plane and landing it at Miramar. The downside of that is you have to fly over my house.

He chose flying over the houses and landing at the airport.

From what I heard he was aiming down our canyon, the same canyon I occasionally go mountain biking in. At some point, around a quarter mile from the beginning of the military base his plane hit the ground. He had ejected a way back, parachuted down and landed in a tree. His plane hit a house, and killed at least a few people. I still don’t know if I know these people or not.

Imagine the guy who made the decision, and what must have gone through the pilots mind. From the Navy website it sounds like the plane costs around 50 or 60 million. They must have been weighing the costs and risks of the pilots life, the pilots training which I have been told by jet pilots costs around 1 million dollars, the risk of life of civilians which is bad, and also bad PR for the military, the cost of the plane, and the probabilities of which of the outcomes would take place. Meanwhile all of these things are taking place, really, really fast.

From watching them, it looks like it takes these planes less than a minute to get from the ocean to the air field. Remembering the Blue Angels fly over our house, so close that you can see the condensation form off the wings, I bet takes them more like 10 seconds to make that flight.

So you have very little time to make a decision that could take your own life, the life of others, and possibly cost the government 50 or 60 million dollars.

In the end the pilot, and possibly his senior, decided to shoot up the canyon and try to make the airport.

They didn’t make it.

Came fairly close to my house too.

My condolences to the friends and surviving family of those killed. Happy to help in any way I can.

The poor pilot survived. Landed in a tree. I am guessing he is going to feel really bad about what happened. I might even know him.

Decisions sometimes need to be made in split seconds, and the results can be massive. I have found that the business decisions I make today, can have a huge effect on my business, myself, and my family for years or more to come.

In the internet industry we have a lot of power, and effect the opinions of thousands or sometimes millions of people.

As we get closer to Christmas may I invite you to look at what you are doing, and the consequences it will have months, years, and generations down the road.

Maybe make a change now, so when the time comes, you can avoid that last minute decision?

I’ve made some changes for the better because of this, and I enourage you to join me in helping to make this a better planet.

Last year I had a guy who wanted to sponsor our poker tournament. He was not your average guy. He is a guy who has spent a good part of his years on the road. The only person I know to attempt the Pacific Crest trail, a guy who has built up some significant internet properties, and is the only one in the internet business world to pose in more pictures with girls/women in the industry. That guy is Patrick Sexton.

This picture is so you don't click out and read on instead

Last year at Pubcon I bumped into this very smiley, very friendly, guy at the Microsoft party, then got a good photo of him at the Poker tournament. I ran into him again at SES on the street outside the Internet Marketers charity party well past midnight, where we ended up selling discounted tickets to late arriving attendees on our own determinism. Guy just stands out from the RIS (Random Internet Stuff) crowd with his beaming smile and warmth. It’s not that other people don’t do it, it’s just that Jim Boykin does it more.

Last year at Pubcon, I ended up sitting across from this beautiful red head at the Wynn, the same time I met Aaron Chronister (The Mad Hat). I saw here again the next day at the Pubcon Pub part, and she appeared to know everyone, very, very connected. She also carried a real camera with her, which in my book at an event like Pubcon gave her a lot of credibility in my book. I was also lucky enough that SEO Rhea Drysdale attended our first Think Tank in September.

Lisa Barone is someone who just keeps popping up. I see her on Facebook, on Sphinn, on blog after blog. She is social media. Hardly know the girl, but she is my friend on Facebook! and for that I am proud!

These people have come together recently to make the Ninjas of We Build Pages. Their skills are as diverse as their personalities. I expect to see an amazing amount of creativity, uniqueness and innovative things to arise out of their New York office.

One of my favorite people, a great friend, a brilliant accountant, and loyal confidant of mine is Fajar (Smoochi). Fajar is well known as being a guy that a lot of companies trust with large amounts of money, especially when cash is involved.

Fajar with some of the inmates

Fajar comes originally from Indonesia. He is the warmest, most honest and gentlest guy you have ever met, but remember he has a Black Belt in Thai Kwon Do. Fajar was nice enough to head out to Vegas to deliver the money in person.

Jim wanted to be a sponsor of the Poker Tournament and asked what charities he could give money to. I told him about one that I like a lot, which is Heaven Can Wait. I love this charity because it is low overhead, meaning that most of the money you give them goes to helping.

Heaven Can Wait Personnel Cutting Through the Paper Work

They do a ton of spades and neuters to prevent unwanted puppies and kitties from being born. They also have tons of dogs and cats they take care of to prevent their being put to death.

They also have a way cool program where they put dogs into prison, not as inmates, but to keep the inmates company and the inmates train the dogs. Often these are dogs who are not as social and need a little extra help before they are released into the general population. Heaven can wait also has foster programs where they place dogs and cats. All in all, they have come up with some creative ways to give the animals productive lives where they can contribute, and avoid untimely deaths.

All these people, cultures, personalities and animals came together this past weekend. We Build Pages made a large donation to Heaven Can Wait as part of the Poker Tournament, Fajar drove out to Vegas to give them the check, and it all is summarized in these pictures taken when Fajar went, gave em the money, and got to meet some of their newest applicants for homes.

Fajar giving the We Build Pages Check to Heaven Can Wait

If you see anyone in the photos you would like to add to your family, just let me know and I will get you in touch. These are highly qualified aplicants looking to be placed in the right household, (or prison) to serve and protect, or at least eat and lay in the sun and maybe occasionally go fetch a ball!

If you want to toss them a few bucks, I promise that they will put them to good use!

Heaven Can Wait Banner

Jim, Pat, Rhea, Lisa and Rita, thank you for your donation and for the thousands of purrs and growls you will allow to take place in the future! Fajar, thanks for delivering the dough and getting the great pics for the blog!