Digitizer Group LiveJournal

Your "League of Extraordinary Minds" Free Webcast...

"Fast-Tracking Your Business: Accelerators That Drive
Rapid and Soaring Success"...

Is Happening TONIGHT!

>>CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BROADCAST<<

Dear Experts,

Your next free Web Broadcast of "Fast-Tracking Your
Business: Accelerators That Drive Rapid and Soaring
Success"... is happening TONIGHT, Thursday, January 7th.

This breakthrough "discovery session" will cover
this critically important business success factor...

"Fast-Tracking Your Business:
Accelerators That Drive Rapid and Soaring Success"

You can access this free "League of Extraordinary
Minds" Webcast online at 8:00pm tonight (YOUR
Local Time), Thursday, January 7th at this web
page:

>>CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BROADCAST<<

The expert panel for "Fast-Tracking Your Business:
Accelerators That Drive Rapid and Soaring Success" session includes:

• Become invaluable to your customers...
• Succeed by changing your assumptions...
• Take your business to ever increasing heights...
• Position your company to execute and make things happen...
• Overcome obstacles in the way of clarity, focus and execution...
• Determine what the best use of your time is right now...
• Stop your entrepreneurial spirit from driving your business off a cliff...

Introducing:

Tony Jeary: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Tony Jeary

Tony Jeary, America’s “Master Strategic Facilitator”, has personal experience with both success and failure. Tony made and lost several million dollars before he was 30.  Today he walks the talk and practices the distinctions that characterize Communication Mastery and Strategic Acceleration, both personally and professionally.

Tony developed Strategic Acceleration, a leadership methodology that combines awareness, operational practices, and powerful informational resources.  It is designed to produce “strategic  speed” and superior results within time frames that exceed traditional expectations.

Tony’s latest book, Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life, details a methodology that will help you get clear, stay focused, and efficiently execute relevant, high-value activities… thereby getting you the results and success you really want …. faster!  It is destined to become the ultimate success guide for corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes and other individuals seeking success.

Tony Jeary’s  thinking is sought after and used by the presidents of the world’s top companies, like Wal-mart, Bridgestone-Firestone Diversified Products, Qualcomm, and even the U.S. Senate. Many of the world’s top achievers fly to his back yard to learn from him on how to make things happen.

Tony was raised by entrepreneurial parents who thrived on identifying and pursuing new opportunities to serve others. Tony’s father taught him the powerful principle that has driven Tony’ professional and personal life: “Always give more than expected.” Exceeding expectations is the common thread that every Tony Jeary client experiences first-hand.

Greg Hicks: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Greg Hicks

Greg Hicks is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of happiness.  Along with his business partner, Rick Foster, their extensive and acclaimed research has taken them to six continents where they spent years interviewing people who are thriving and happy, even under the most adverse circumstances. Their early findings culminated into a  system of nine choices, which are continually being studied by mind-body researchers at leading institutions, including The Mayo Clinic.

Greg’s LeaderShock — And How to Triumph Over It, which revealed a new brand of behavioral leadership, was chosen as the #2 Best Business Book of 2003 by Amazon.

With a reputation for dynamic and transformational presentations on health, happiness, leadership and team productivity, Greg has taught the Brilliant Health program to over 10,000 doctors and nurses, to patients battling serious illness, and to countless others in organizations such as G.E., Mercedes-Benz, Wells Fargo, and AXA-Financial and are on the faculty of the Health Research and Educational Trust Fellowship programs.

Hicks and Foster are often sought out by the media for their advice and have appeared on numerous national T.V. and radio shows and featured in such magazines as Health, Fitness, Self, Good Housekeeping, Fit, Working Mother, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Readers’ Digest.

Herb Cohen: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Herb Cohen

Herb Cohen has been called “the world’s best negotiator”  and is internationally renowned as a corporate and governmental consultant on negotiating strategy, commercial dealings and crisis management.  As a U.S. presidential advisor, he has helped formulate policy on hostage negotiations and terrorism.   His clients have included business executives, entrepreneurs, sports and theatrical agents plus large corporations as well as governmental agencies, such as The Department of State, F.B.I., C.I.A., The U. S. Conference of Mayors and The U.S. Department of Justice.

Cohen’s analysis, insights and humorous view of many of these high-level happenings have appeared in many international publications, and he himself has been the subject of articles in Time, People, The Economist, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and even Playboy magazines.  He is considered “America’s foremost convention speaker, presenting serious subjects with such humor and dramatic flair that they become pure entertainment”.

He is the author of You Can Negotiate Anything, which was on the New York Times Bestseller List for almost one year and has been translated into twenty-one languages.  His latest book, Negotiate This! By Caring But Not T-H-A-T Much is written in the same humorous style as his first book.  Critics have said, “It’s a must read for not only business people, but parents, politicians and consumers”.

Cohen has lectured at many educational institutions and enterprises, such as The Harvard Negotiation Project, Yale Law School, The Kellogg School, Wharton, the University of Wisconsin, the University of California-San Diego, McGill University, UBC and the Columbia University and Chicago University Schools of Business.

Barry Schwartz: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz explores the social and psychological effects of free-market economic institutions on moral, social, and civic concerns. In his book, The Costs of Living: How Market Freedom Erodes the Best Things in Life, Schwartz finds that market values undermine morals and community-building.

His more recent work, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less is More, examines the often-paralyzing effects on consumers of a marketplace offering a bewildering array of choices.  He explains at what point choice (the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish) becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being.

In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice – from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs – has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution.  By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter-intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives.

Schwartz, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, has been awarded several grants by the National Science Foundation over the last three decades.  In addition, he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and the American Psychological Society, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Paul Schoemaker: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Dr. Paul Schoemaker

Dr. Paul J.H. Schoemaker is the founder and Executive Chairman of Decision Strategies International, Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in strategic management, executive development and multi-media software.  He also serves as Research Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches decision making and strategy as a part-time professor.

Dr. Schoemaker took an extended sabbatical with the scenario planning group of Royal/Dutch Shell in London, and has since worked with over a hundred organizations around the world.   He’s written more than 100 academic and applied papers, including multiple articles in the Harvard Business Review. He’ has also (co)-authored of several books, including Profiting from Uncertainty and Chips, Clones, and Living Beyond 100: How Far Will the Biosciences Take Us?

His 1995 article, “Scenario Planning”, was the second most reprinted publication in the 42 year history of the Sloan Management Review, and is listed by among the most highly cited scholars in terms of academic publications in business and economics. Paul Schoemaker is also an active private investor in new technology-based ventures and serves on the Board of Directors for several of these, including the Decision Education Foundation.

His hobbies include tennis, golf and piano. He lives with his wife Joyce in Villanova, Pennsylvania and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the winter; they have two kids just out of college.

Paul Zane Pilzer: League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Paul Zane Pilzer

Paul Zane Pilzer is a world-renowned economist, a multimillionaire software entrepreneur, an adjunct professor, and the author of eight best-selling books and dozens of scholarly publications.

Pilzer completed Lehigh University in three years and received his MBA from Wharton in 15 months at age 22. He became Citibank’s youngest officer at age 22 and its youngest vice president at age 25. At age 24, he was appointed adjunct professor at New York University, where he taught for 21 consecutive years.

Over the past 30 years, Pilzer has started and/or taken public, five companies in the areas of software, education and healthcare. He is the Founder of Zane Benefits, Inc. and Extend Health, Inc., the nation’s two leading suppliers of individualized health benefits to corporate America.

He was an appointed economic adviser in two presidential administrations and warned of the impending $200 billion savings and loan crisis years before official Washington was willing to listen—a story that he later shared in Other People’s Money, which was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and The Economist magazine.

Pilzer is a prolific author, and in one of his most recent books, The New Health Insurance Solution he sets forth a bold new direction for U.S. health insurance and explains how individuals can now get affordable health insurance independent of their employer.  This book also explains how employers can end their health insurance nightmare while still being able to hire great employees by providing the same health benefits for less than half the cost they are paying today.

And MUCH More!

************************************************

See you on the Webcast! And get ready to take
LOTS of notes…

>>CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BROADCAST<<

 

Brought to you by:

It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.

Stuff you liked

• Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work.
• We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
• Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
• Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
• After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
• Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.

You got your fix

• We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
• In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
• At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.

Paid features you enjoyed

• In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
• This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
• When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
• How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted. We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry in paidmembers or check out the FAQ.

Mixed reviews

• The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
• This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
• We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
• We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.

Missing Inaction

• We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.

Stumbling points

• Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
• A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
• That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.

Full steam ahead!

As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!

 

Your "League of Extraordinary Minds" Webcast...

"Fast-Tracking Your Business: Accelerators That
Drive Rapid and Soaring Success"...

Is Happening TOMORROW 

**Free Access Details Below**

Your next real-world, game changing, business-
transforming, free Webcast of "The League of
Extraordinary Minds"  is happening tomorrow,
Thursday, January 7th.

This breakthrough "discovery session" will cover
this critically important business success factor...
"Fast-Tracking Your Business:
Accelerators That Drive Rapid and Soaring Success"

You can access this free "League of Extraordinary
Minds" Webcast online at 8:00pm tomorrow,
Thursday, January 7th (YOUR Local Time) at
this web page:

**Click HERE to Register**

During each of these "discovery" sessions, our
expert panelists will focus completely on YOUR
challenges as a small business owner. They will
address the most vital aspects YOU need to focus
on to succeed in today's challenging economy.

On our "Fast-Tracking Your Business: Accelerators
That Drive Rapid and Soaring Success" Panel session,
we will be joined by these world-class business
experts:

 

- Dr. Paul Schoemaker

... discussing why you can't
just deal with the symptoms of a problem...

 

- Herb Cohen

... revealing how YOU can become a
masterful negotiator...

 

- Greg Hicks

... shares 9 behaviors leaders MUST
adopt to reduce stress...

 

- Barry Schwartz

... discussing why offering as
much variety as you possibly can will LOWER sales
drastically...

 

- Tony Jeary

... on dealing with distractions so
you can be more focused with your efforts and get
better results...

 

- Paul Zane Pilzer

... sharing why every
entrepreneur needs to see themselves as one link
in a chain...

And MUCH more!

Go and register now, so you don't miss out on even one minute of
what this high-level group of "business-building
power" has to share with you... for free!

**Click HERE to Register**

Brought to you by:

2amtomorning
If you find yourself at the crossroads of insomnia and insanity, this is the place to channel those demons that keep you sleepless. Vivid pictures, poetry, ruminations, and confessions from the nether hours between dusk and dawn. Originally formed to celebrate the city at night, there's a strong urban theme.

green_future
Dedicated to promoting global sustainability, this community offers a forum for discussing current environmental news, research, and issues with tips on how to make positive, pro-active changes to reduce carbon impact. You'll also find information on how to get involved in eco-activism and learn about events near you (i.e., act local; think global). Offering a wealth of data on earth-friendly products and practices, you'll be inspired to don an organic bamboo cape and save the planet.

wtf_sexism
Self-described as "a little community with a lot of rage," you can soak up impassioned vibes and read blistering exposes detailing sexist attitudes in the news, pop culture, and science! A must-join community if you are, or love, a feminist. (NB: the topic of whether a "man" can be a feminist is outside the scope of this spotlight, but will probably wind up on the Writer's Block.)

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to help more Experts and Advisors promote themselves and their expertise to the World.

So, if you are one of the Experts on LivePerson, Experts-Exchange, Guru.com or Mechanical Turk – these videos are for you.

Back in 2008 I started a new Social group on Dailymotion.com. The goal of the group is to help all Experts of the World to promote themselves globally.

Join our group if you are an expert in your field and would like to get more exposure. Here’s the direct link to where the group is located:

http://www.dailymotion.com/group/digitizergroup

Here’s the newest additions that I made to the group today:

David James is a Spiritual Advisor with 17,000 plus reviews on LivePerson. He's gotta be doing SOMETHING right, don't you think so?

Join our group if you are an expert in your field and would like to get more exposure. Here’s the direct link to where the group is located:

http://www.dailymotion.com/group/digitizergroup

Terry is a sensitive and compassionate Professional Counseling expert who will help you break through whatever roadblocks you might have in your life.

Join our group if you are an expert in your field and would like to get more exposure. Here’s the direct link to where the group is located:

http://www.dailymotion.com/group/digitizergroup

Jamie is a LivePerson Expert in Technical Writing services. She can help you in writing professional reports, research papers and develop presentation slides.

Join our group if you are an expert in your field and would like to get more exposure. Here’s the direct link to where the group is located:

http://www.dailymotion.com/group/digitizergroup

Richa is an Expert in Physical sciences with specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, physics, general science as well as life sciences.

Join our group if you are an expert in your field and would like to get more exposure. Here’s the direct link to where the group is located:

http://www.dailymotion.com/group/digitizergroup

As I mentioned earlier, one of my New Year’s resolutions for this decade is to help as many Experts as possible – in as many ways as possible.

So if you are interested in creating your own video, audio or need any marketing help whatsoever – please feel free to visit us at: http://www.liveperson.com/digitizer-group

We’ll be glad to help…

MANY HAPPY RETURNS TO YOU IN THE NEW DECADE!

Keep smiling,

/Val Slastnikov/

Brought to you by:

renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.