Blog - Page 31 of 202 - Sam Harrelson

Patron Saint of Pit Bulls

Every morning, Flatt wakes up compelled by that simple mission: He has to save a dog—especially ones that everyone else has given up as lost. June received reconstructive surgery for her injuries and joined the ranks of damaged creatures salvaged by Friends to the Forlorn (FTTF), Flatt’s Dallas, Georgia–based animal rescue operation, which has worked with every canine breed from Chihuahuas to Mastiffs but specializes in pit bulls. He takes on the fighters and the biters, the blind and the deaf, and any other special-needs case rejected by other organizations or sentenced to death row at the pound. One dog had been frozen to the ground during an ice storm; another had more than 60 puncture wounds; one had been tortured with a shock collar. Flatt even offers a sort of hospice care, taking in dying dogs and easing their final days with steak and ice cream.

Source: Atlanta’s patron saint of pit bulls – Atlanta Magazine

I’ve kept a journal for years. It’s wonderful to pull my old notebooks off the shelf and flip through them. I frequently do a “what was I thinking or working on last year or 5 years ago at this time?” check.

I’m flirting with the idea of using Day One next year as a leap into the “digital journaling” realm. We’ll see.

This is exactly why I journal (and blog here) for both personal and business reasons:

Sarah Kauss, the founder of S’well Bottle, journals every day. In an interview with Fast Company, Kauss said one of the rewards of journaling daily is being able to look back and see the challenges she was facing a year ago and realize that now it’s no problem at all. This ability to look back with perspective can summon an incredible amount of momentum and confidence when moving forward.

Source: Day One in Depth — The most detailed guide to Day One available today

Satyagraha and Climate Justice

Love this connection from Matthew Klippenstein… we have much to learn about justice, and especially climate justice, from our neighbors and our own history…

Articulating a hopeful, abundant vision of what the future could be has helped climate activism gain widespread support across Canada, and even from a strong majority within Alberta’s energy sector. With the province facing a crisis, our movement may benefit from affirming solidarity with the many who face uncertainty, before we criticize the few who got them there. With luck, and working together, we can craft a “sacred yes” so inspiring that instead of revisiting old wounds anew, Canadians from coast to coast to coast can together create an abundant future “pour tout.”

Source: Three climate justice metamorphoses and a lesson from Gandhi | National Observer

The Apps You Should Really Be Concerned About with Your Privacy

After examining maps showing the locations extracted by their apps, Ms. Lee, the nurse, and Ms. Magrin, the teacher, immediately limited what data those apps could get. Ms. Lee said she told the other operating-room nurses to do the same.“I went through all their phones and just told them: ‘You have to turn this off. You have to delete this,’” Ms. Lee said. “Nobody knew.”

Source: Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret – The New York Times

Everyone is afraid of what Google and Facebook “know” about them and how much information they’re sharing with these services because of poor media coverage.

While those two services need to be investigated and questioned, it’s the “bottom half” of the advertising industry connected to seemingly innocent apps that you install on your mobile device to give you the weather or locations of gas or local sports scores that are really the most alarming in how they treat your personal location data.

Good report here by the NY Times (we need more of this type of journalism in the tech-sphere).

The God of Progress

An intriguing essay on a point that has been made repeatedly about American religion, particularly its inextricable connections to cultural materialism and scientific progress…

Our modern world tries extremely hard to protect us from the sort of existential moments experienced by Mill and Russell. Netflix, air-conditioning, sex apps, Alexa, kale, Pilates, Spotify, Twitter … they’re all designed to create a world in which we rarely get a second to confront ultimate meaning — until a tragedy occurs, a death happens, or a diagnosis strikes. Unlike any humans before us, we take those who are much closer to death than we are and sequester them in nursing homes, where they cannot remind us of our own fate in our daily lives.

Source: Andrew Sullivan: America’s New Religions

Tackling Tech Bias for People with Disabilities

Fantastic post… every organization, nonprofit, and church could gain valuable insight from the takeaways here:

The best path ahead is to seek out the affected stakeholders and work with them towards a fair and equitable system. If we can identify and remove bias against people with disabilities from our technologies, we will be taking an important step towards creating a society that respects and upholds the human rights of us all.

Via Venturebeat

The future of computers

In-ear devices will be the way we interface with our “computers” (AI assistants) within the next decade…

Kuo reportedly says that AirPods are Apple’s most popular accessory ever, and predicts that the company will go from selling 16 million in 2017 to more than 100 million by 2021.

— Read on www.theverge.com/2018/12/2/18122232/apple-airpods-upgrade-first-quarter-2019-ming-chi-kuo-rumors

You’ve already been hacked

Yet another reminder to change your passwords, use Two Factor authentication when you can, keep up with your credit and debit card statements, and don’t think for a second that all of your information isn’t already “out there”…

For 327 million guests, the information exposed was strictly personal: birthdays, passport numbers, email and mailing addresses and phone numbers.While some credit card information, card numbers and expiration dates, may also have been compromised, it was stored using a more advanced encryption method. Still, Marriott said it had “not been able to rule out” the possibility that card information had also been stolen.

Source: Marriott discloses a massive data breach affecting up to 500 million guests – The Washington Post

Churches, We Need to Talk About Website Accessibility (and Discrimination)

Open Door to a Church

“Failure to comply with Section 508 of the Department of Justice’s ADA (American with Disabilities Act) Standards for Accessible Design could expose your company to hefty fines, the risk of expensive criminal and civil litigation as well as a reputation for being unfriendly to the disabled.” https://userway.org/

I’m going to make a rant here. Forgive me (or just don’t read if you’re not up for a Sam Rant™).

Cheap website builders really upset me. For a number of reasons.

We’re working on a couple of large church website revisions for clients this week. These are content-heavy sites with numerous pages that are all info-dense with text, video, audio, podcasts, galleries, and just about every measure of content you can imagine. They are both complicated builds with lots of moving parts. So, we are constantly doing checks and QA (quality assurance) tests to make sure everything is working. Building websites of this scale might be sold as an easy thing to do on Super Bowl ads, but they are definitely not easy or “quick” things to do if you want to do them right.

One of the pitches I make to clients like this when they want to know what Harrelson Agency does differently that they couldn’t get done if they just used Wix or Squarespace or Weebly or one of the many other “website builder” apps is the care and attention we give to details such as Search Engine Optimization, mobile user experiences, payments and online giving (those %’s really do add up when you start receiving online donations), and security. It’s not that the website builder apps don’t offer those services, but items like SEO or mobile experience and especially website security tend to be the last things that someone volunteering to build your site checks (if at all). Plus, there are just better tools that last longer if you know what you’re doing, which is a cost saver over time. That’s especially true of security in 2018 and 2019.

However, one of the newer pitch items I’ve been including out of my own interests and passion is accessibility. I’ve always been interested in the subject, but that became especially true during my time in the classroom as a teacher. I frequently became frustrated with books or apps or computers or websites that students were forced to use but designed specifically with no regard to accessibility or usage issues. Over the last few years running Harrelson Agency and working heavily on website builds and designs with companies, individuals, churches, and nonprofits I’ve noticed that accessibility definitely takes a back seat to other concerns. That’s ESPECIALLY true with resource-strapped and budget limited churches and nonprofits.

However, that should not be the case. In my mind (that’s admittedly full of “too much righteous indignation” as a mentor once chided me), churches and nonprofits should be leading the way to make their websites true open doors to the public in a way that does not discriminate against anyone, including those who need usage, visual, or auditory accommodation to participate in that invitation.

1 in 5 Americans experience permanent or temporary usage, auditory, or visual disability
7.6 million Americans are auditory impaired
8.1 million Americans are visually impaired
2.2 million Americans suffer seizures and epilepsy
2 million Americans are blind
19.9 million Americans are motor impaired and cannot use a computer mouse

Technology is most powerful when it empowers everyone.

Apple is one of the most forward thinking and acting tech companies when it comes to raising awareness of accessibility issues for users. It’s one of the reasons I truly love that tools such as iPad are available for students and all people who seek to participate in the global experience that is the world wide web.

https://www.apple.com/accessibility/

Why aren’t churches talking the similar language and instead forcing everyone to fit through a very narrow door and definition of visitor abilities? We wouldn’t do that in the physical world. It’s time to take the digital world just as seriously and stop passively discriminating because of poor website build decisions.

Take your website’s functionality seriously and allow it to empower and welcome ALL. It’s a matter of mixing philosophy with theology with technical know how. And the trick is that it won’t even cost you that much, but you’ll gain so much more and perhaps share the love of God with someone who is looking for a real open door.

Instagram Stories Maker (for Churches, Nonprofits etc)

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Just this past week I was having coffee with a friend who volunteers to manage all the social media and website duties for his church (bless them). They’re savvy and very good about getting their church on Facebook Live each Sunday and creating shareable content throughout the week.

I brought up Instagram Stories during our conversation and remarked at how “hot” Stories are from a marketing point of view compared to the FB Newsfeed or Instagram’s photo feed and how more churches need to be hopping on the bandwagon to increase engagement (if that’s your sort of thing).

I just happened to stumble across this iOS app today to make creating Stories easier… will have to give it a shot this week!

Templates You can choose from 40 templates of many different styles. All are 100% editable. · Text Styles There are 50 different texts styles you can add to your stories. All styles are beautifully animated. You can customize fonts, colors, sizes, positions and alignments. · No Account Required…

Source: ‎Mojo – Create Video Stories

It’s not a bucket – Seth Godin

Drip by drip is how we build things, but we can’t see it. One more “no,” one more failure, one more lesson learned.

— Read on seths.blog/2018/11/its-not-a-bucket/

Keep your WordPress Site Plug-ins Updated

Now more than ever…

After its removal from the WordPress plugin repository yesterday, the popular plugin WP GDPR Compliance released version 1.4.3, an update which patched multiple critical vulnerabilities.

— Read on www.wordfence.com/blog/2018/11/privilege-escalation-flaw-in-wp-gdpr-compliance-plugin-exploited-in-the-wild/

Apps for Remote (or Non-Remote) Teams

I love these sort of lists and directories. I have my favorites in each category that we use for Harrelson Agency, of course. I’ll try to make a list when I get a chance.

A repository of handpicked tools for remote teams – https://remote.tools

Being a Productive Dad That Works From Home

I intentionally work from home most days. I’ve had an office on Main Street in a big high-rise, I’ve tried co-working spaces, and I’ve had my own building… but working from home is the greatest.

HOWEVER, it’s not without its ongoing challenges that you must tackle and figure out if you’re going to run a business and be successful. Here’s a great post…

So you’ve made the decision to work from home. Whether that be an opportunity to work on a new business project of yours, or maybe you’re just fortunate enough to enjoy the ability to work where you want due to your career—working from home is an incredible experience.

But that doesn’t mean it’s as easy and fun as everyone thinks.

Source: 7 Ways to Be More Productive While Working from Home

Mailchimp Rebrand

They’re based in Atlanta…

The email marketing company Mailchimp, which today is announcing a complete rebrand, could have easily given up the quirkiness that defined its branding as a young company the way many other giants have. Instead, with the help of branding agency Collins, Mailchimp is doubling down. It’s keeping its logo-cum-mascot Freddie the Chimp, for starters, and using an analog typeface from the 1920s as its new wordmark, and illustrating its new brand with a series of almost childlike drawings that look unpolished and rough by design. Weird branding is alive and well in Silicon Valley.

Source: Mailchimp rebrands as an anti-tech company

Instagram Stories for Churches and Nonprofits

More and more of my clients on the nonprofit and church side are asking about Instagram Stories and experimenting with them in some form to help with outreach. Like anything on the web or mobile, it’s always fun to dive in and try things out. But there’s no need to reinvent the wheel if you’re looking to make the most of your time (especially given that most nonprofit marketing is done on a volunteer basis!).

Here’s a handy guide that makes some of the same points that I do with clients… shoot vertically, don’t take yourself too seriously, don’t be afraid of stickers, be afraid of hashtags, and (most importantly!) PLAN PLAN PLAN with a calendar that you’ll stick to…

Consider treating your Story like a TV network with scheduled programming for the week, or even recurring “episodes” that happen on certain days. Thinking in advance about what kind of content you’ll be sharing and how your Story will flow will help you craft a more addictive and consistent experience for your viewers.

Source: Instagram Stories: Everything Businesses Need to Know

NASCAR’s Marketing Decline

I’ve been a fan of NASCAR since I was a small child (runs in the family) and got to experience the peak of the sport in the early 2000’s. Sponsors and money and TV deals were rolling in and it was just an exciting time to follow races despite the gimmicks that NASCAR leadership started introducing to keep the numbers growing.

The last few years have been difficult for me to watch from a marketing point of view. Major long term sponsors have abandoned the sport and its top drivers as costs of sponsorships skyrocketed (at least $25 million a year for a top team) and returns began to decline. Sponsorship is difficult to give firm ROI numbers for generally, but requires more than just writing a check… there’s the notion of “activation” of branding that has to be done at the track or in special events that tie in with the billboard cars moving at 200mph. In the mid 2000’s, races were destination events in themselves complete with large areas of entertainment and vendors provided by the same companies sponsoring teams. “Win on Sunday, sale on Monday” was a real and measurable metric. That’s just not the case these days. When I go to races and see the anemic amount of vendor stands and trailers, it makes me miss the fun times from the last decade.

With an aging fan base (the oldest of any sport in the U.S.) and historically low ratings, it looks like the marketing angle is not going to improve any time soon for the sport…

Kyle Busch‘s win ranks as the lowest rated and least-watched NASCAR Cup Series race since at least 2000. The previous lows were a 1.2 (multiple races) and 1.99 million (New Hampshire last year). Six of the ten lowest rated and least-watched races have taken place this season alone.

More races have had less than a 1.5 rating this season than in the previous 17 seasons combined.

— Read on www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/09/nascar-ratings-lowest-years-richmond/