Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

Last week I had dinner with Michael Jenkins of Market Leverage, Chris Hedgecock a super star programmer, designer and marketer and about 20 other folks including Shoemoney at Switch, a new 5 star restaurant at Encore in Vegas.

When Michael, Chris and myself got up after finishing dinner, we looked at our watches and saw that 5 1/2 hours had passed.

We covered a lot of ground, and Chris schooled me good.

First we discussed business and travel. Michael told us the stories of climbing Kilimanjaro in Africa this year and also about another 23 thousand foot peak in Argentina. Michael proudly announced a new technology they are using on their site whereby you click what appears to be a regular link in green, and up pops a video that teaches you about that subject. In a way it what hyperlinks were originally designed for. You can see these “Green Links” now on the Market Leverage site. I will get to why I bring this up in a sec.

So I grew up in a very middle class family, but went to schools in areas with lots of gangs, drugs, massively mixed races, like a salad, and definitely was not in a family that was connected to politics. As a result of this I have been of the mindset of jumping up and down and screaming about global injustices, but never really have been able to do anything about it.

Chris on the other hand comes from a family where he got to meet a lot of the biggest politicians in the world, and a family where if they disagree, they do something about what is going on.

So I was telling the story of how I sat in a little diner in Lake Shasta eating breakfast a few years ago reading the San Francisco Chronicle’s story about how the U.S. was now torturing prisoners of war. I got really sad. I told Chris and Michael about how at that moment I lost my pride in being an American. Chris was on me immediately and told me how sad that made him.

Chris in his own way, and with his own words shifted my mindset to allow me to realize what a wimp I was being, and that something could be done about it. Wow. That’s right, we are a democracy, we can as individuals and collectively make change. Wow. Thanks so much for that Chris.

With my mindset changed, what then ensued was a discussion amongst the three of us about the constitution, the founding fathers, what could be done for the good with all this internet money, and the time and hours flew like feathers in the wind.

I have a good sense who reads this blog. You guys influence the minds of billions of people collectively through what we do online. This is it. This is the moment for our country. We are the guys who can change it. And that means you!

We have a new slate opening up tomorrow. A reset button, to power down and boot up again. It’s an American Defrag, Virus Scan, and reboot all taking place.

What is a recession? It is simply not enough production and commerce taking place right? What caused it? Overvalued homes? B.S.

It was beat up, demoralized Americans. It was Americans who as individuals feel responsible for losing at the global superbowl. One way or another a bunch of us got killed on 9-11. More of us have gotten killed in Iraq, and we have as a nation killed in Iraq. I am part of the responsibility of all of it.

I am an American.

Sick of it? Ready to do something? Ready to make a change?

How bad is the stock market anyway, one of the major factors looked at in evaluating the economy. The S and P 500 where most of my money has dropped back to 03 levels. Big deal. The stock market has always gone up and down and always will. But lets not sit at 03 levels any longer.

So how do we get out of this? I’m not talking a trick. I’m not talking about printing a bunch more monopoly money, or trying to feed a village with a stone. I’m talking that old Clint Eastwood, John Wayne Cowboy way. Where the town get’s together as a group and kicks some ass.

It’s time to stop trying to outsmart the next guy and and time to stop takeing without giving. What each of us needs to do is make enough loaves of bread, cars, homes, computers and whatever is needed, so that there is plenty to go around. If there is plenty made, then everyone can afford one, they buy, the money flows and the economy fixes itself.

I am sure Obama is going to do his best with social welfare programs and seeded money to try to jumstart the economy. But we can do it. We are America. We are Obama whether you voted for him or not. You and I know how to influence minds. We know how to sell.

We can get America to get off the couch tune out, and turn on! their computer and get to work.

We can sell, so why not sell success, hard work, the U.S. constitution, and good values to work hard and work ourselves out of this mess. Think Will Smith and friends at the end of Independence day.

If we work hard, produce our tails off, and market the heck out of our production the country could turn around in weeks with the stock market soaring!

So for me this is time. We have a clean slate, with no excuses. If we can elect a president, who of all things is Hawaiian, our country is capable of anything

So with no bullshit, and no rah no rah rah, would you be willing to help me and our new leaders get the show on the road? Blog about it, yell about it, twitter about it.

Are you ready again to be proud of your country, and proud to be an American?

Let’s do this thing! Let’s work hard and proud! Let’s go to sleep exhausted after working so hard all day. Let’s encourage the masses to do the same. Let’s be fair, and honest, and true to our own ideals.

That will solve it.

And if you wonder what I am trying to sell you?

Your future.

So if you give even half a rats ass about me I would like you to help.

I want you to blog about it.

I want you to write a blog so far out of your comfort zone it makes your chest thump and your stomach ache when you hit the publish button.

I want you to ask all of your readers whether they are a dozen or a million to work harder, be true to their ideals, and to tell their boss or themselves, I know the work day is done, but I am going to work a little harder and a little later to get the job done.

Could you blog about that for me? In your own words? With your own ideals?

Let me know when you do, and I will love you even more for it.

Peace and prosperity!

dk

So I was over at Neil Patels house today visiting him and his parents.

I knew Neil was going to meet someone and had to leave at 2:30, so before I left he said CK Chung, and a friend of theirs who is a well known writer from L.A.

After giving Neil a little hint he invited me along.

It was great to see CK and I met their friend Francisco Dao. Fransico is from San Jose, of Vietnamese decent, but was named Francisco after his parents new home, San Francsico!

Francisco claimed to be the only Francisco Dao in Google, and sure enough he is.

We talked a lot about conferences, attracting people, social media, and how to really apply it for a result and not just gum flapping.

So after we all met, I hooked up with my wife again and went to dinner at our sushi place at Irvine Spectrum.

When I got home, I went to check my database to see if my staff had been doing their job updating things.

I kid you not, I went to the most recent entry and there he was, the one and truly only Francisco Dao.

My staff at met him at Pubcon, gotten his info, and shot a photo, just as they were supposed to do.

Not only are they doing a great job networking, the original social media, but they are out there on the front lines meeting important guys like this before I even get the chance.

Good job guys! And great to meet you Francisco!

Francisco Dao lives in L.A., is a social leader in the tech scene, is a past writer for Inc and Fast Company magazines and currently does life coaching for L.A.’s best and brightest!

One of the things I am most proud of from the Purpose Inc ThinkTank are the relashionships that were built last August. I was thrilled when Brian La France organized the dinner the night before Affiliate Summit West. Showing up at the restaurant, I realized it was not just an SEO get together, but actually looked like a ThinkTank reunion. I found out about yet another big business arrangement that came about at the ThinkTank, that now is an ongoing money making business for a handfull of the attendees. This is exactly what I was hoping to create from the ThinkTank.

The ThinkTankers carried on as a group throughout the entire Affilate Summit. I kept seeing them as a group, and joined them when I could. My staff, Whiteshorts and Cobra went out with them on two different evenings when I was unable to go. Often I would get a text or e-mail, where are the girls? Where are the girls? It makes me proud that in a town of many, many girls, my staff were in high demand. I know they are cute, but I am sure it is also because of their intelligence, and unrivaled kindness and warmth.

Between me and my staff we met literally hundreds of new people at the affiliate summit. Many of them had heard of the ThinkTank, and many of them had not. I found it facinating that in the internet world that often contains a bit of negativity, so far  other than our lack of a schedule the first year and a few people who did not like the bikini and sponsor t-shirt contest , I have not heard a single complain or bad rumor about it.

I am sure as the event grows in size and becomes more and more known it will generate its own enemies. In fact due to the fact that so many positive people are associated with the event, it will not surprise me when the haters of the world rear their head. But for now we can bask in the sun of group love.

So to each of the ThinkTankers I really love you guys. I am proud that we have formed a real group, and that many of you if not all of you, are making more money as a result of the ThinkTank.

Based on how many people have found out about it I expect the event will sell out very quickly this summer. I am still working on the exact date, but expect it to be late summer probably in August. I will probably allow a few more people in this year to accomodate the demand.

For now I am polishing on my day of this years Elite Retreat. If you don’t know I am in charge of the third day. Our itenerary is still being finalized but it will include a fun lunch, a field trip to facebook, and dinner at one of my strangest and most favorite restaurants!

Jeremy, Shoemoney, has now moved from a business contact into one of my closest friends. I am very grateful to him for letting me organize the third day of the Elite Retreat.

I’ll just end off by saying I love you guys, and I am just thrilled to get to roll with the big boys!

Fascinating day. My staff, Cobra and Whiteshortz kicked butt today. I got to meet some amazing new people and was fully indoctrinated into the affiliate world.

Jeremy, being the amazing friend that he is basically took me around and made sure I was well connected with the top people in the affilate space.

Out of the blue I was offered a potential big SEO gig to do, that sparked a little interest.

Deena invited me to the Market Leverage dinner at Switch at the Encore (new Wynn hotel), and I managed to squeeze in Chris Hedgecock too.

I finally got to meet Michael Jenkins, CEO of Market Leverage. Chris and I sat next to him during dinner, and had I kid you not, a 5 hour dinner with non stop amazing conversation. I was shocked when I looked at my watch and realized that what had felt like an hour or two had been a five hour dinner. We had everything from oysters, to foi gras, and I even went wild and ordered rabbit. I had never had that before.

Chris, Michael and myself covered everything from Michaels new video training on their blog for begginner bloggers, to his climbing a 23 thousand foot mountain in Argentina and the trouble it takes to breathe there, to Chris’s sites, the ThinkTank, and our shared love of the U.S. constitution and early American history and what we can apply from it today.

It was a memorable dinner, and will not be forgotten.

It was a very long table, and at the other end, about 40 feet away, Mr. Shoe held court and entertained, with people like Zac Johnson, Andrew Wee, the UBD crew and internet marketing blogger Daniele Nagami in between.

Sorry everyone, I am too tired to link or post photos for now, but I thoroughly enjoyed the dinner at every level. Deena, thank you again so much for inviting us and thanks to our host for one of the great dinners of my life!

Of course thanks again to Shoe for continually getting me in the door and getting me a seat at the big table.

I’m in vegas for actually the third time in three weeks. Are you kidding me?

I also spent the day at Word Camp and got to hang out with Matt Mullenweg, the powerhouse behind wordpress and a fine photographer

To feel a little clean and refreshed after so much cigarette smoke, I am throwing off my poker theme and putting on a clean set of word press classic.

There is a big dinner tonight organized by Brian La France

Now in the spirit of vegas for some spammy giveaway promotion thingy.

Shoemoney is shooting for a big target of twitter followers.

Here is how you can help, and win a video camera or a mac computer.

Just follow these simple steps.

So here is the deal. We are going to giveaway ShoeMoney Flip Mino’s on February 27th. And these are the High Def ones not the cheapass ones!

So what do you have to do to win?

1) Follow @shoemoney on twitter.
2) simply tweet “Just entered to win a flip minoHD. Just follow @shoemoney and retweet. http://xr.com/fliphd”

I will be at affiliate summit the next three days, mostly hanging out with Shoe and meeting with big shots and little shots. If you see me come give me a hug and say hello!

In the internet marketing world those you see on the front lines are not always the ones with the power.

Many of us are a lot of fluff, waving our arms up an down to get others to look in our direction, while we rely on the brains and experience of hidden advisors.

I have many of the best advisors around, guys that have quickly helped me to become well read, and shockingly known in the internet marketing world. In fact I am better known than some of my advisors.

One of these guys is not someone you will hear speaking at the conferences. See he doesn’t need to get himself better known, or to pick up clients because he has allready “made it”.

I met Andy Liu at the Elite Retreat. Shoemoney told me that he was one of the lessor known speakers, but that he was a genius in start ups, and Venture Capital. He is also a techy programmer guy originally.

Andy also is incredibly positive, straight forward and willing to help.

I now consider him an advisor and friend.

If you end up having the guts to contact him and ask him questions, I predict you will find him amazingly accessable compared to a lot of the superstars in the internet world.

Andy has now started blogging, giving everyone a little bit more access to what he is up to.

Andy is the founder of Buddy TV which according to Alexa gets half the number of views of abc.com or cbs.com.

Check out Andy’s blog on start ups and see what tips you can pick up. My advice is to ask your questions too, before the blog becomes so busy that your voice will get lost in the crowd.

Me and the wife doing something interesting on new years eve (today!).

I am writing this not just as an internet marketer, but also as a consumer.

One of the first great pieces of advice I ever got on internet marketing, was to do something which will draw links naturally to you, instead of linking, then hoping traffic will come. This has worked well.

Scott Skinger, I believe, just won the auction for Shoemoney’s contest to wear Scott’s companies shirt “Train Signal” to the affilate summit. This was smart of Scott and he deserves a link for doing something out of the box to promote his computer training.

Shoemoney always does random, fun, outrageous, cool, or controversial stuff, so deserves links.

Jeremy and Dave developed their Shoemoney Tools which took a ton of work. That deserves a link!

These guys took me and my wife on a private tour of yellowstone today, animals, geysers, wilderness, the whole shot! and gave me one of the best days of my life. They deserve a link too!

So go out, and get yourself a picture of you, your wife and a buffalo while wearing pseudo moto-cross snowmobiling outfits, and you might just get a link too!

Happy link building this year!

And as a consumer, stop giving me a bunch of crap on the internet that is just ads, and give me something interesting to read, o.k.?

Happy New Years!