This is a photo I took at about 9,000 feet near the Hoover Dam. Thanks to Papillon Helicopter Tours for the awesome experience.
There’s Cake in the Breakroom! (audio) Freakonomics podcast
-In a study of Chinese call workers, those that worked from home were 13% more productive.
Should You Hire VAs Overseas for Cheap or Keep it Local? (video) Rise to the Top
-The Philippines is an excellent place for outsourcing tasks.
–Onlinejobs.ph is a good place to find workers in the Philippines.
-Start with outsourcing something that you know well and do yourself.
-Use Payments.ph to pay VAs in the Philippines.
Stuck in Customs’ Photostream
-If you haven’t checked out Trey Ratcliff’s amazing photography you are missing out.
Boomerang Gmail Plugin
-A useful tool for scheduling emails to go out in the future.
New High-Quality Free Fonts Smashing Magazine
-Some great free fonts.
MozCon 2012 Presentations
-You can download all the slide presentations from the 2012 Mozcon conference in Seattle.
The Water Rich Versus Water Poor Infographic
-A neat infographic showing the gap between the water rich and water poor in the world.
Infogr.am
-A useful tool mentioned at Mozcon that makes it easy for you to quickly create an infographic.
Udemy
-A marketplace of free and paid courses taught by experts.
Udacity
-Take 11 college courses online for free from intro to computer science to artificial intelligence.
edX
-An online education platform offering free college courses from Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley.
Free Online Courses
-Free online courses from the University of Washington.
Geekwire Startup List
-A comprehensive list of startups in the Seattle region.
10 Simple Tips for Getting Hired by the CIA
-If you liked the Bourne Legacy, check out these tips for how to get hired by the CIA.
10 Online Tools To Help College Students Get More Done The College Puzzle
-Focus Booster is freeware that uses the Pomodoro Technique of 25 minutes of focus and a 5 minute break.
Online Marketing
Are you using Chrome to the best of its ability? Seer Interactive
-If you type Youtube in the search bar and hit Tab, you can search within YouTube.
Lead from Within: 10 Strategies to Become a Successful In-House SEO SEOMoz
-Politely correct people when they call you an “SEO guru” so you don’t create expectations that can’t be met.
Transitioning to a Content Strategy Ross Hudgens
-Look to sites that crowdsource high quality content for free like the Huffington Post and hire them for content/guest posts.
Jobs.inbound.org
-A new job board for online marketers.
21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012) SEOMoz
-Find top influencers in your niche on Followerwonk.
-Accept the guest posts of others.
Matt Cutts and Eric Talk About What Makes a Quality Site Stone Temple Consulting
-Matt would not surprised if Google discounted infographic links to a certain degree.
Why Webmasters Aren’t Replying To Your Outreach SEOMoz
-Stand out with a personalized outreach message.
-Keep the message short.
The Ultimate Guide to Startup Marketing Kissmetrics
-One of the best tactics online is to influence the influencers.
Rand Fishkin’s top 11 startup tips to earn free customers GeekWire
-Global spending on SEO is probably under $5 billion per year (far less than traditional advertising).
50 Skills Every Marketer Should Have Sujan Patel
-Being an introvert doesn’t excuse you from being a great speaker.
-A good marketer loves to teach.
How to Learn SEO SEOMoz
-“You never really understand the subtleties of something until you’ve done it.”
-Successful technical marketers can recall specific details.
-Get exposed to people who are really really good at something.
What the Panda and Penguin Updates Mean for the Future of SEO Search Engine People
-The need for SEO may be increasing due to the need of quality content.
-Focus on providing readable content rather than keyword stuffed content.
Does optimization ever end? How we grew Crazy Egg’s revenue by 510% Conversion Rate Experts
-You can’t have a page that is too long, only one that is too boring.
-Customer hesitation is the death of sales.
50 Ways to Make the Web a Better Place SEO 2.0
-Write reviews for your favorite restaurants.
Keeping Amazing People on the Team Rand Fishkin
-It is cheaper to keep existing talent than acquiring new talent. Seomoz provides employees $3000 per year for their vacation.
Networking PSAMA-syle isn’t as hard as you may think PSAMA Blog
-Arrive early. It can be intimidating to enter a group discussions after they have been formed.
Happiness
Why Killing Time Isn’t a Sin Zen Habits
-Think in terms of “how can I best enjoy this moment?” rather than “how can I be more productive?”
Gratitude In Teens Linked With Being Happier: Study Huffington Post
-Grateful teens were more likely to be happy and have better behavior.
6 things I do to be consistently happy Joel Gascoigne
-Waking up early can help you be productive and feel good.
-Exercise is a keystone habit that supports growth in other areas.
-Helping people each day can boost your happiness.
-Set goals for physical activities (like improving your mile running time) so you can have a win if other things aren’t going well.
Books I’m Reading
I recently got around to start reading In The Plex by Stephen Levy. I also picked up Brainfluence by Roger Dooley, an interesting book about the intersection of brain science and marketing. I also picked up Optimize by Lee Odden and the new updated version of Web Marketing All In One for Dummies by Ian Lurie.
This is an excellent talk by author and Stanford lecturer Kelly McGonigal about the research on willpower and factors that affect it.
Flickr photo credit.