Month: December 2021

How to Be Kinder to Yourself and Others

How to Be Kinder to Yourself and Others

You don’t screw-up where I grew up. You dub-up. If you’ve never heard ‘dub-up’, you’re didn’t grow up in Central Maine. You’re from away. I’m here to help.

Image or peeling paint. Harsh is corrosive.

Illustration:

I dubbed-up yesterday.

Sometimes I write Monday’s post on Sunday afternoon. I schedule it for 6:31 a.m. Yesterday I dubbed-up the date and time. It went out Sunday at 6:31 p.m. (I don’t have a rational explanation for 6:31.)

Dubbing-up is kinder than screwing up. Friends dub-up. Strangers and idiots are screw-ups. When a friend backs the hay wagon into the side of the car, he’s a dubbah. If you can’t speak Mainiac, you say dubber. But the hard ‘err’ at the end feels harsh.

Explanation:

Somewhere in the mysterious past, folks from Maine rejected the ability to pronounce an ‘er’ sound at the end of words. We can pronounce ‘er’ just fine. It’s not a speech defect. It’s intentional.

If you’ve ever said ‘ahh’ for the doctor, you can learn to speak Mainiac. Maine folk say mothah. People from away say mother.

Mothah pahked the cah in the yahd. Translation. Mother parked the car in the yard. Understanding this means you’re smaht.

I tried to teach the grandchildren how to speak Mainiac during vacation in Maine. But they weren’t motivated. I suppose it’s not as melodious as an Irish brogue.

Are Mainiacs ashamed? I flaunt my ability to not pronounce Rs at the end of words. You might think it’s nothing to flaunt. But that’s all the more reason to do it, if you’re a true Mainiac.

Lesson:

You probably aren’t getting the point. I’ll spell it out. It’s more fun to be a dubbah than a loser. Don’t be so harsh. Be a dub-up, not a screw-up.

High expectations don’t have to be harsh.

Tip: Maybe if you don’t point out your dub-ups, people will think you’re smaht.

How might leaders have high expectations without being harsh?



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The Best Remote Support Software – 2021 Review

With the right remote support software, you can create a customer support experience that feels like a technician is right there with customers every step of the way. This software saves time and provides an excellent customer support experience without high support costs or sending techs out on the road.

It can be hard to know which system will work best for your business needs, niche, or size. To help your support experts diagnose, solve, and validate customer issues through a great remote support experience, this guide covers the five best software on the market to integrate into your support workflow.

The Top 5 Best Remote Support Software

  1. Zoho Assist — Best for unattended remote access
  2. TeamViewer – Best for efficient remote support
  3. BeyondTrust – Best for extra security enforcement
  4. AnyDesk — Best for fast, user-friendly remote desktop support
  5. Pulseway — Best for personal use

There are the five remote support software tools I recommend. In this guide, I dive into the pricing, tools, and standout features of each system to help you make the best decision to strengthen your business’s customer support efforts.

#1 – Zoho Assist — Best For Unattended Remote Access

  • Just one person required
  • In-depth diagnostics tool
  • Assign permissions to teams
  • Starts free

Get it today!

Zoho Assist makes it easy for you to administer unattended remote access support from anywhere.

Once you install Zoho Assist’s unattended remote agent onto your devices, you can use its bulk deployment feature to maintain and update any device without the presence of anyone on the other end.

The diagnostic tools give you an overview of the status of hardware, software, printers, and…

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Episode 1581 Scott Adams: Things Are Getting Interesting Out There. Let’s Talk About it

Episode 1581 Scott Adams: Things Are Getting Interesting Out There. Let’s Talk About it

Content:

  • COVID perpetual business model emerging?
  • Ex-CIA Director believes multiple HOAXES?
  • Do Billionaires own media to control voters?
  • Abortion, jet fuel for the Fake News Machine
  • Russia’s concern over Ukraine in NATO
  • VP Harris, worst advised candidate ever?
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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How Can SEO Help Your Business in 2022?

SEO is vital for any business, but how exactly can businesses use it to drive growth?

Search traffic is historically the best web traffic you can hope for.

Google has been the single most powerful traffic driver for ages, and while its power has been slowly declining of the years, no other traffic channel has come close to organic traffic:

Here’s how SEO can help your business in 2022:

Understand Your Customers Better

One of the immediate benefits of starting an SEO strategy is an ability to better understand (and relate to) people’s journeys around the web.

What is your target audience struggling with? What kind of questions are they asking? What drives their purchasing decisions?

A well-defined keyword research strategy can answer all those questions and enlighten your whole team.

Ahrefs is one of my favorite tools to perform keyword research because it offers so much useful data including, common modifiers, popular questions, SERP features and more:

You can also run your (or your competitor’s) domain through the tool to see your current positions in Google.

This can give you a more holistic understanding of your keyword rankings, and tell you how people are finding your business (or your competitor’s business) across multiple platforms.

Build More Detailed Buyers’ Personas

Customer personas (also referred to as customer avatar) are people you make up to describe your ideal customers.

Personas make digital marketing more streamlines and understandable by making your buyers easier to relate to. 

When creating a persona, you assign some human traits and features, like gender, income, occupation, etc.

Personas also help you create a customer-centric business model, the only business model that will make your business successful in 2022 and beyond.

To build a persona, you need some kind of data, and that’s where SEO-driven web analytics somes very much in handy. Google Analytics comes with detailed demographics data that will turn very useful for persona creation:

As a business owner, you are, of course, prioritizing your customers. Thus, their feedback is important for you to improve your product or service. In order to learn from your visitors, install Google Analytics tool that collects feedback so that you can analyze it and listen to your customers in order to make your website better. 

No matter how many professionals work on your website, visitors’ feedback is the most qualitative measure of your success. Using conversational forms on your site will help you collect even more data for your SEO campaigns and create more detailed personas.

Take Control of Your Buyers’ Journeys

Buying journeys have become more complicated over the years. Equipped with diverse devices and tools, a consumer may start their journey on one device and continue on a different one. 

They are likely to turn to Google multiple times throughout that fragmented journey, and if your business shows…

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Top 5 Best Video Surveillance Systems – 2022 Review

Video surveillance systems help protect personnel and assets by providing you with advanced alerts of security breaches. You can install video surveillance systems on the interior and exterior of your home or office for complete protection. 

The Top 5 Best Video Surveillance Systems 

  1. Arlo Pro 4 – Best for high-resolution observation
  2. Deep Sentinel Wireless DIY Camera – Best for surveillance by real people 
  3. Wyze Cam v3 – Best for nighttime surveillance 
  4. Maximus Answer – Best video doorbell
  5. Argus 3 Pro – Best battery life 

Continue reading for our in-depth reviews on the top five best video surveillance systems on the market today. 

1 – Arlo Pro 4 – Best For High-Resolution Observation 

  • 2K HDR video resolution
  • 160-degree viewing angle
  • Built-in spotlight for night vision
  • One-click emergency response

Get it for only $199.99

The Arlo Pro 4 camera by Arlo is one of the best video surveillance systems on the market today, as it has one of the highest quality video resolutions. 

You can use the Arlo Pro 4 either indoors or outdoors, as it’s weather-resistant and offers crystal clear details and colors in a 2K HDR video.

With a 2K surveillance camera, Arlo Pro 4 will protect your household by letting you stay better informed with zoom-in features that you can use on all moving objects. Object detection knows the difference between a person, animal, vehicle, and package, so you can receive smarter alerts that won’t send you into a panic. 

You also get a wider 160-degree viewing angle, ensuring you have the best view of your property, no matter where you place the surveillance system or how big or small your space is. 

When it comes…

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Do Video Games Damage Your Mental Health? Research Reveals Complicated Truth

How video games affect children’s behaviour and development.

Fears about what video games are doing to young minds have been growing for years — not least because now 97% of teenagers play them.

They’re said to reduce socialising with real friends, damage psychological adjustment and the violence depicted in many games may be corrupting.

On the other hand, some studies have suggested benefits like improved thinking skills, hand-eye co-ordination, perhaps even greater attention and creativity.

What should parents — and society at large — make of all this conflicting talk?

Cautiously positive

Now a study, conducted by Oxford University psychologist Dr Andrew Przybylski, of almost 5,000 young people in the UK has looked at both the positive and negative effects of video games together (Przybylski, 2014).

The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, are cautiously positive about video games, but still support the old saying: everything in moderation.

Across the children, who were between 10- and 15-years-old, the results showed that the best adjusted children did play video games, but usually for less than one hour a day.

These children were most likely to report:

  • Being more sociable.
  • Being more satisfied with their lives.
  • Having low levels of hyperactivity.

Doing worse on these measures were teens that didn’t play any video games and those who spent at least half of their daily free time on video games (over 3 hours).

For moderate players of video games — those who indulged for somewhere between 1 and 3 hours a day — there were no positive or negative effects on their psychological adjustment.

Moderation

However, even the negative effects of playing video games too much were relatively insignificant compared to the effects of material deprivation or family conflict.

Dr Andrew Przybylski explained:

“These results support recent laboratory-based experiments that have identified the downsides to playing electronic games.

However, high levels of video game-playing appear to be only weakly linked to children’s behavioural problems in the real world.

Likewise, the small, positive effects we observed for low levels of play on electronic games do not support the idea that video games on their own can help children develop in an increasingly digital world.”

By the same token, there was little evidence that playing video games was doing children that much good.

Przybylski continued:

“Some of the positive effects identified in past gaming research were mirrored in these data but the effects were quite small, suggesting that any benefits may be limited to a narrow range of action games.”

So, despite all the worry and hype, this study at least suggests the effects of video games on teenagers’ psychological adjustment are relatively neutral.

.

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Level 3 of the Customer Value Journey with Dave Albano [VIDEO]

Dave Albano, one of our ELITE Coaches, goes over the third level of the Customer Value Journey.

In this video Dave explains the “Advocate” and “Promote” stages of the CVJ like you’ve never heard it before. Dave’s unique outlook and success in utilizing the CVJ makes this a lesson you wont want to miss!

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/davealbano

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https://digitalmarketer.com/



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Buzzwords Smart People Won’t Say in 2022

Buzzwords Smart People Won’t Say in 2022

Image of an old typewriter. Worn-out expression: Think outside the box. Anyone who says,

When I grew up we said cool things like:

  1. Far Out: This is a souped-up version of cool.
  2. Boogie: Dancing.
  3. Right on: I agree.
  4. Dig, dig it, or can you dig it: I understand or do you understand.
  5. Groovy: Another word for cool only more cooler.
  6. Out of sight. Beyond cool, groovy, or far out.
  7. Psyche: I was joking. This is a serious post. Psyche!

Buzzwords smart people won’t say in 2022:

  1. New normal. (No comment.)
  2. Synergy. If you plan to work together say, “We’re working together.”
  3. Circle back. The translation of, “Let’s circle back on this,” is, I don’t want to talk about this, and I don’t plan to.
  4. Take this offline. Give me a break. We do everything online. The only thing you do offline is go to the restroom. Oops, I take it back. I bet you take your phone to the restroom. You’re never offline.
  5. Pivot. How important do we have to sound? The word is change or adjust. The only place to pivot is in a horror movie.
  6. Unprecedented. Nothing is unprecedented. Compared to the Spanish Flu, Covid is precedented.
  7. Think outside the box. Anyone who says, “Think outside the box,” isn’t groovy.
  8. Bandwidth. I don’t have enough bandwidth. You’d have more bandwidth if you stopped using stupid words.
  9. Deep Dive. I’ve used several of the expressions on this list. Thankfully, I haven’t stooped so low as to take a Deep Dive into ridiculous buzzwords.
  10. Thought leader. This one is a cousin to influencer. I’ve been asked if I’m a thought leader. I don’t know, I’ve never thought of referring to myself as a thought leader.

What’s the most annoying buzzword that should be retired in 2022?



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Top 5 Best Commercial Fire Alarm Systems – 2022 Review

Personnel safety should be every organization’s number one priority. People and buildings need protection from hazards like fire, carbon monoxide, external threats, and more. Commercial fire alarm systems solve this problem by quickly detecting danger and notifying everyone that’s potentially involved.

The Top 5 Best Commercial Fire Alarm Systems

  1. Siemens Desigo Mass Notification – Best for Emergency and Event Response
  2. Honeywell HS-81 – Best for Industrial Fires and Gas Leaks
  3. Kidde VM Series – Best for Customizing Your Alarm Systems
  4. Bosch Fire Alarm Systems – Best for Advanced Detection Methods
  5. Kidde FX Series – Best for Small Buildings

To help you determine how to keep your people safe, we thoroughly reviewed each of these five products below. 

#1 – Siemens Desigo Mass Notification — Best For Emergency and Event Response

  • Alerts for fires, weather, active shooters, and more
  • Several unique warning methods
  • Targeted alerts for different individuals
  • Connects multiple buildings

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While this post is focused primarily on fire alarm systems, we’d be doing you a disservice if we didn’t mention the Siemens Desigo Mass Notification system. The system can connect multiple buildings, and it provides fire and life safety, building automation, enterprise communications, and security. 

It helps with routine and emergency situations, and it can send customized information depending on the individual, group, building, or target zone. This comprehensive system meets NFPA 3000 active shooter and event response standards. It can alert people of things like tornado warnings, fires, active shooters, bomb threats, seek shelter warnings, and evacuation orders. 

If a panic button is pressed, security guards are alerted immediately. The guards can then pull up the entire campus, individual building, and floor…

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