Last month I was selected as the winner in Michael Kwan’s E3 Expo Swag Contest! Normally I don’t enter very many contests as my luck is less than stellar, but entry in this contest was very easy so I went ahead and threw my name in the hat. I had actually forgot all about the contest when I got the news that I had won heh.
Thanks again to Michael for hosting this contest. Now I just need to find some time to check out Battlefield 1943 
Online communities like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster have totally revolutionized the way we keep in touch with friends and family members online. While this is great and all for leisure and entertainment, these sites don’t really offer any benefits for business-minded people. Its this void that sites like LinkedIn aim to fill.
LinkedIn is an online community for business professionals to meet, share ideas and keep in contact with each other. Networking in any business setting is essential if you plan to grow and expand your company. As I have said before, its all about “who you know”, especially in the tech industry. You really do need to know as many people as you can and get your name out there. You never know when having the right contact will benefit you.
The site is free to join and once you have created an account, you can begin to set up your profile. If you have worked with any online communities, you should already be familiar with most everything.
Your profile page is more or less an online resume. You can list previous jobs and your education background, as well as provide as little or as much detail about each as you wish. You can even receive recommendations from others on your connections list, like a business reference or a letter of recommendation. Stuff like this goes a long way when job hunting!
The meat and potatoes of LinkedIn, however, is the networking. A powerful search tool is provided which makes it pretty easy to find contacts you have worked with. Once you have established a contact, you can look at their connections list to find others you might know or have done business with. You can request that a friend introduce you to a new contact or elect to initiate contact yourself.
LinkedIn also offers a ton of other features, like job searches and a very neat question and answer section where you can post questions to your contacts or the community in general.
I joined LinkedIn last year but just recently started making a heavy push for new contacts and it is already starting to pay off as a few new business opportunities have developed. If you are already on LinkedIn, feel free to add me as a connection. See you there!
Many of us focus 100% of our marketing efforts in the online venue, but it is equally as important to build your brand and get your name known offline as well. Whether you realize it or not, there are a ton of offline promotional ideas out there. Some can be a bit more expensive than others, like t-shirts for example. But, you can still find some excellent promotional items for next to nothing - enter BICPromoPens.com.
The team over at BICPromoPens.com specialize in one thing - yep, you guessed it: BIC promotional pens! Promotional pens are a very cost-efficient way to advertise nearly anything - your business (both online and offline), blogs, or just about any other service or product that you can think of. Unlike a business card, a flyer or an ad in the yellow pages, useful items like pens and t-shirts won’t be tossed in the garbage and will be used frequently… each time, reminding the user of your business / product!
BICPromoPens.com sent over 20 of the BIC Tri Stic Promotional Pens you see above. Like all of their pens, you can customize it by specifying the trim and barrel color, as well as adding up to four lines of text. This style of pen can be had for as little as $.54 each!
Next up is the Brite Liner Grip Highlighter, again, fully customizable with four lines for your message and of course, your choice of ink color. These highlighters start at $94.each, with bulk orders receiving a nice discount!
If you have a bit of a bigger budget or want to really impress and showcase yourself as a professional, the BIC Executive Carbon Fiber Pen is what you are looking for. This is an extremely high-quality pen and it writes just as elegantly as it looks! This will certainly be replacing my current pen for use at my desk.
BICPromoPens.com even included this nice Polo style shirt! Talk about a complete package - I won’t need to purchase another pen for a very long time… well, that is until I order some for my tech site and this blog.
Founded in 1945, BIC has stood the test of time and are the most well know pen manufacturers in the world, so you know they offer a quality product. If you are in need of some offline marketing material and are on a budget, I would certainly recommend you check out BICPromoPens.com. They have literally hundreds of different models and styles of pens to choose from!
The only question that remains… is, what am I going to do with all of these pens?
Seems like I just keep running across new contests to enter lately. The latest one is over at Stephen’s Blog, where he is giving away an iPod Nano! Oh, and he is giving away his beloved Flip Flap! How could he?!!
Surely I will win SOMETHING soon, right? (probably not)
I was reading over at Affiliate Confession and they are also holding a giveaway for some cool Market Leverage gear, very similar to the one John Chow is hosting! Both Marketing Leverage and Vat19 are on board for this giveaway. I was not familiar with Vat19 before this giveaway. They sell a wire array of unique and usual gifts - many of which actually look pretty useful.
Good luck to me! hah
My buddy John Chow just started a new promotion with Marketing Leverage where he is giving away a ton of cool freebies to one lucky winner!
Marketing Leverage will be supplying a bag full of blogger-related goodies as well as an iPod Nono, USB drive, Flip video camera and a $200 Marketing Leverage Amex Rewards card! Head over to John’s blog to get your entry in today! Or, don’t, that way I have a better chance of winning
We just launched a new feature on the site / forum, our Member Photo Gallery. We have several categories where you can share photos of your computer, hardware, tech toys, cars, anything you want really (within reason, of course). To help celebrate the opening of our photo gallery and stir up some excitement, we have teamed up with Tagan to give away one of their CS-Monolize Super Tower Cases!
To enter, you need to post at least 10 photos and comment on 5 other photos to get your name in the hat! Head over to the OCIA.net forums to get started today! Good luck
OCIA.net has teamed up with one of our sponsors, NZXT, to give away a sweet computer case to one lucky winner.
All you need to do to get your name in the hat is post a photo(s) of your computer case / workspace. You are required to show the PC on with OCIA.net loaded on the monitor, so we know you didn’t just find a random junker PC in a dumpster or something. We will judge who has the crappiest rig and is most needing of a brand new NZXT Tempest and select a winner!
There is only one week left to enter, and the best part (for you) - there aren’t many entries yet, so you have a really good chance of winning!
Head on over to the OCIA.net forum and get your entry in today!
Last July, we did a total revamp of my tech site, OCIA.net… with the exception of the forums. We received a ton of praise about the new design and spent the better half of last year fine-tuning everything.
Now, with the main site set, we focused our attention to the forums. We switched to a new forum software and also totally reworked the layout to better match the main page.
So now, it’s time to celebrate, and what better way to do that than to give away a ton of free stuff to you, our readers?!! We have teamed up with several of our sponsors and put together a prize package worth over $1,300 !!
What are you waiting for - head over and get your entry in today!!
“NEW YORK (CNN) — Airborne - the herbal supplement company that once claimed to help fight off colds - will pay $23.3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against the company for false advertising, according to one of the groups that joined the suit.
“There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment,” said CSPI Senior nutritionist David Schardt. “Airborne is basically on overpriced, run-of-the-mill vitamin pill that’s been cleverly, but deceptively, marketed.“”
Courtesy CNN.com
If you purchased Airborne and would like to sign up for a refund, you can do so by going to this website. You can claim up to six product refunds without showing any proof of purchase.
I dunno about you, but this seems like a HUGE mistake for Airborne. I can’t even begin to imagine how many people, most of whom have never even used the product, will claim six refunds.
I used Airbone during our trip to CES, but since Josh purchased it and not me, I will leave it to him to claim the refund.
Have you ever used Airbone, and will you be claiming a refund (or six)?
