I had the fortunate opportunity to deal with a Calgary 911 operator today, Calgary Fire Department and Calgary EMS. I say fortunate not because of the situation, but because of the level of service and professionalism that I witnessed.

Lately the Calgary 911 operators have come under attack for poor service. Today it was the exact opposite. Let me give you some background. I was at work and heading to the washroom. Upon opening the door I noticed a guy squatting beside the garbage can coughing and seemingly struggling to breathe. I casually asked “are you OK man” fully expecting the “yeah I’m cool” response. Instead he replied “NO!” Holy crap; time to enter back into ‘life saver’ mode. I continued to ask him if he’d like me to call someone or an ambulance or what I could get for him. He said that “someone needed to get him help quickly.” That’s all it took and I immediately called 9-1-1 and told him I was doing so. He told me someone had gone back to the call center to talk to someone to have them call. Ummm, last time I checked one of the first rules was to NOT leave someone having difficulty breathing alone. Conversely, if you’re having difficulty breathing DO NOT leave a public area in favour of a private space like a bathroom. You’re less likely to get help where nobody is around.

I stood in the doorway of the men’s bathroom with it propped open while the guy continued to cough and gasp as the phone rang once and was promptly greeted with “9-1-1 operator, for which city?”

“Calgary” I replied, immediately wondering if it was outsourced all of a sudden before resigning to the fact that it probably services all the surrounding communities too like Airdrie, Cochrane, Strathmore, Okotoks, etc.

“What’s the nature of your call?”

That was easy. I told him this guy was busy turning different colors of red and white, having problems breathing and complaining of chest pains. The dialogue went back and forth between myself, the 911 operator and as required the guy on the floor. I kept the door open waiting and watching for people to come by. Finally, after I already had confirmation from the 911 operator that the fire department was en route did the first guy show up and start dialling 911 with a cell phone. Seriously! WTF?!?!? He wasn’t my concern; it was that of the guy on the floor. I know his name, but I don’t want to release that as it still is a bit of a privacy matter. I want him to deal with his issues in private or public, but allow him that choice.

Building security quickly showed up, along with two of the guys team leaders. I sent one downstairs to greet the Calgary Fire Department when they arrived. Security was also on the radio with his colleague and confirmed that CFD was in the building and on their way up. The gave the guy some oxygen, checked blood pressure and listened to his lungs all while getting him to calm down and start breathing more of a natural rhythm. It wasn’t until they arrived the very nice guy at the 9-1-1 facility released me from the line…the other guy was let go pretty quickly once I mentioned to the operator we had multiple calls going in. All this happened in under 10 minutes…15 from the time the first guy came into the bathroom.

About 5 minutes later Calgary EMS showed up to further asses the patient. I’ll now call him a patient as they decided that they were going to take him to the hospital. CFD left and wished him luck after giving a very detailed briefing to the paramedics. It was easy for them to come in. Again, communication comes into play for life and death situations.

Long story short, EMS continued their assessment and loaded him on the gurney for transport and they left. A few things to note from the incident though that I thought would make sense to bring up:

• Don’t leave anyone in duress alone. Open the door, scream for help, or call from the cell phone in your pocket.
• As mentioned above, if you’re in duress, go to a very public, populated place. Someone will help you, I promise.
• When I sent the guy to wait for CFD I got him to repeat back to me what was needed. I also told the operator the floor and area we were in the building in case the guy failed to return.
• Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Yes I said it three times but it’s vital. The three departments communicated to each other but they can only communicate what is given to them. Give it all. As much as you can. The 9-1-1 operator asked questions which I had to ask the guy. It was hard for him to answer, but I wasn’t going anywhere so had the time to wait. By taking that time it made EVERYONE’S job easier; even mine.

Now a quick bit about the guy. He was just diagnosed with asthma last week and had taken two puffs from his ventolin inhaler prior to my arrival with limited benefit. He had smoked for the last 10 years. He was only 25.

Today helped me to realize just how easily life can be taken away. I’m sure he’s fine, though I’m not sure right now but will update once I do. I’ve been calling 9-1-1 on a needed basis for almost the last 20 years (I’m only 32) starting with my dad having an asthma attack. I’d like to think I’m experienced in an area I’d rather not be. The Calgary 9-1-1 operator was by far the best I’ve had to deal with…so cut them some slack.
photo credit: Steve Snodgrass, sfxeric style=”

I’ve got something going on in my head. Most people consider that obvious, but to me it’s thought. And I’m starting to think a little more. I’m in the process of working on a new site at Marshall Stevenson.ca and have determined that it will be a little more professional in nature while keeping the 360aday.com site more personal. I know, it’s probably not the way you’d think it makes sense, but it’s how it makes sense to me as I work to personally brand myself a little better.

I’m wanting to try something a little different…even though it’s been done before to some extent. I’m going to focus on people I know and have met in the SEO & SEM industries to start. It’s an area of interest to me and one that I’m passionate about. In fact what I’d like to do is a few interviews with them. That’s where you come in.

I’m looking to find out

• Who you’d like me to interview
• Questions you’d like me to ask
• How often you think I should bug them
• And anything else

I’m headed to SMX Advanced in Seattle at the beginning of June and there will be a lot of key people there…and I plan to chat with them.

I know you have questions and now’s your time to ask them. Please leave your questions and interview nominees as a comment or tweet them to me. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask but I hope you’ll help.

Thanks in advance.

I can’t take credit for this thought, but it did strike a solid chord with me and it makes perfect sense. It was in an email that I received this morning from a friend and I figured it was something I truly needed to share. It makes sense no matter if you’re Canadian, American, Australian or any other nationality. The ideas are clearly and easily transferable to impact any country’s economic outlook.

What would happen to our trade and economic growth if we all bought Canadian???????

A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn’t slow a train very much, a billion of them would. With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good Canadian.

Good idea . . .everything from one light bulb to vehicles at a time . . . .

Check this out. I can verify this because I was in Lowe’s the other day for some reason and just for the fun of it I was looking at the hose attachments. They were all made in China. The next day I was in Home Hardware and just for the fun of it I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in Canada. Start looking.

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else – even their job. So, after reading this email, I think this lady is on the right track. Let’s get behind her!

She said: My grandson likes Hershey’s candy. I noticed, though, that it is marked, ‘Made in Mexico’. I do not buy it any more. My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico now. I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything.

This past weekend I was at Wal-mart. I needed 60W light bulbs. I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off brand labelled, “Everyday Value.” I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats – they were the same except for the price. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in – get ready for this – in Canada in a company in Ontario.

So throw out the myth that you can not find products you use every day that are made right here.

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in Canada — the job you save may be your own or your neighbour’s!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying Canadian, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!

(We should have awakened a decade ago…)

Let’s get with the program…help our fellow Canadians keep their jobs and create more jobs here in Canada.

If President Obama insists on a “Made in America” policy, which is commendable of him to support American workers, we should do likewise.

BUY CANADIAN! Read the labels. Support Canadian jobs.

So that’s my thought. I plan to start looking to buy Canadian. I’m amazed there’s not a “buy Canadian” website out there yet…or maybe there is. I honestly haven’t looked yet.

EAVB_TNXJBJZNYL – that’s the code that I need to verify that my blog is actually my own blog in this new social media game called Empire Avenue (www.empireavenue.com). I’m typing this on my new iPad as well just to see how well the keyboard functionality works. So far not bad.

Empire Ave is similar to an idea that I had with a few colleagues a few months back but that the stock was actually co-workers and management. I still think there’s an opportunity for it but we’ll see what Empire Avenue turns in to. If you want to get in, you’ll need an invite. Luckily I’ve got a couple. Just let me know.

Last night while I wasn’t working, I was doing some reading on a number of changes to how the web and social media are evolving.

The first is an article geared more at SEO, which truly is everyone’s responsibility, in that Google searches are getting longer. Gone are the days of trying to rank for just a corporate name or single keyword term. People are getting more and more specific in their searches and these are things we’ll need to take into consideration as we move forward with web copy writing and our SEO strategy.

The other two were interesting and directly tied to social media. How Facebook plans to take over the web – more specifically Google, is a very interesting read that will no doubt have an impact on our channels and sites. The other is on a new plug-in that Facebook just released around what they’re calling recommendations. This one will truly change the web and is something I think we should get on the road map to implement soon. Essentially, without getting too technical, it will show personal recommendations to users via Facebook. This gives us more exposure in a user’s timelines on Facebook (which we all know had more traffic than Google last month) and actually should helpb with some basic link building from an SEO perspective.

I’d love to hear thoughts on implementing any of the above, as well as comments or thoughts on how Facebook might actually change the way we surf…and market our sites. EAVB_TNXJBJZNYL

I figure that it’s been almost two months since I wrote my 2010 goals out for all to see, so I decided that today would be an appropriate time to check in on them. After all what good is it to write down your goals when you never review them. It makes it much easier to ignore them, that’s for sure. That’s not what I want to do. I made them to move forward and make some progress.

So “on with the show” as they say. A review of my 2010 personal goals begins:

• Raise $20,000 for the Tom Baker Cancer Centre & Alberta Cancer Foundation through the 2nd Annual Tight ‘n Bright event to be held March 20, 2010.
  Well we got nowhere near it. In all honesty I haven’t added up all the numbers yet because I’m a little depressed on how low it is. I mean locally we can raise over $20k for something like Haiti relief, but when it’s something in our own backyard we tend to feel there’s no importance. This years event has caused me to re-think the model for next year—if we have a third-annual. Check the Tight ‘n Bright website for final dollar figures…soon.
• Generate $80,000 through legal online activities like affiliate sales, products & services by September 15, 2010. Roughly 236 days remain, so that would equate to $338.98 per day…if I start making cash NOW!

  To date I’ve made $203.26 from online affiliate sales. Roughly 155 days remain until September 15 so that would mean an average of $514.82 starting today. It’s possible and totally achievable I know for sure. I just launched a site geared towards the Adobe Creative Suite 5 release that will generate some sales. I’ve also been working through the Shoemoney System and getting even more ideas. If you feel it’s too pricey for you, then why not try the FREE ShoemoneyX out for a while – like the 12 weeks it is?!

• Run a full marathon under 4 hours by December 15, 2010.
  Still working on this. I met with a guy I’m calling my running coach and he gave me some great advice and training tips. Just a few days ago I went for a 10 mile run in about 1:50. I haven’t run 10 miles since the start of this year. I’ve registered for the Manitoba Marathon’s Half at the end of June and am contemplating the Calgary Half Marathon as well. I haven’t targeted my full for the year, but worst case I fly to Honolulu for a few days and run there again.
• Launch BlueBinder by March 1, 2010 with full e-comm capabilities.
  Can you say nope. Haven’t touched it. I think about it A LOT but haven’t touched it.
• Launch Phase 1 of OoberScoop by February 1, 2010.

  Sort of, kind of, but not really. You can sign up to get an invite right now and that’s about it…but the development stuff I’ve got looks good too. My business partner and I are reconvening this week to set some firm goals around it.

• Launch Workshops Everywhere by February 1, 2010 to the Calgary market as detailed in Phase 1 of the plan.

  It launched. I think it was closer to March 1, 2010, but it still launched. Now we’ve observed a number of its weaknesses and are looking at a developer to completely customize the solution for what we need. Watch out for Phase 2 soon.

• Travel to three new destinations by December 31, 2010.
  It’s quite surprising that I haven’t traveled much of anywhere in 2010. I went to Vancouver in February for the opening weekend of the Olympic games and to Winnipeg to see my family as well…but that’s it. Definitely nowhere new, though we are talking about Turks & Caicos or Barbados in October, so either of those would be new.
• Speak at a minimum of one conference by November 30, 2010.
  This one hasn’t really been a focus at all. I’m targeting PubCon in Las Vegas in November, but who knows what things will come about. Honestly when I launch the above sites, there’s a strong chance that I’ll definitely be speaking about something at PubCon.
• Support and love Monica, Ava and the other members of my family on a daily basis.
  I think I’m on target for this one. Sometimes probably over achieving.
• Help Monica launch her site to the best of my abilities around her time line.
  It’s back on the radar again and I’m so happy about it. Still waiting and I can’t share too much, but you know once it’s launched it’s going to kick ass.
• Blog a minimum of five times per week through to June 30, 2010.
  Ummm…yeah. That hasn’t happened really now has it?!
• Live everyday and enjoy and appreciate what I have.
  I’d say for the most part I do this regularly. I still complain about some things (like work, lack of cash, etc) but I try to not dwell on them nearly as much as I used to.

After looking at the above, it’s actually not as depressing as I thought it was. There’s still plenty of time left in 2010, 262 days or so, to make it an amazing year. I’ll review the review in a month or two…on a casual basis to see how I’ve done again. Until then I’ll probably waste more time building out sites, trying new things, and just genuinely trying to enjoy life. Thanks in advance for reading and for any comments you feel like leaving.

photo credit: nDevilTV

Today I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time out of my busy work day and get a sneak peak at Adobe Creative Suite 5 – or CS5 as it’s affectionately known. I showed up a little late but wasn’t too concerned as I knew there was still plenty of amazing content to cover. I sat through a preview of the Web Premium section and a little on the overall Master Collection and was amazed. They’ve got a great CS5 comparison chart on the Adobe website I recommend you check out.

The one feature in Photoshop CS5 that amazed me was the content aware fill. In the demo they took a man in front of a brick wall and made him disappear—no more clone tool. Apparently I missed the demo earlier where they made a horse disappear from a movie snippet in a meadow using the same technology. HOLY CRAP that’s amazing and will save a bunch of time.

Speaking of saving time, how about the ease of Adobe Flash Builder in the Web Premium package. It looks like they’ve really made it easy for essentially anyone to do some basic Flash animations. And the other cool part around the Flash export was there’s now an iPhone option as an export. It’s a well documented fact the iPhone doesn’t support Flash so this had the group talking. Well a little further investigation (into the demo) and it was briefly indicated that in fact it compiles it as an application. I just hope that Apple is ready for all those new apps that will hit the store for approval.

Now of course the biggest question was “what is the Adobe CS5 release date?” And of course there was no answer in the demo however the most accurate rumor that we could find, and it hasn’t been confirmed, is that Adobe will release Creative Suite 5 on April 30, 2010. That just means a few more weeks and we’ll truly see.

Pricing on CS5 starts at $1,299 for the Design Standard up to $2,599 for the Master Collection. Production Premium, Web Premium and Design Premium go for $1,699, $1,799 and $1,899 respectively. Considering that the value of the applications if purchased individually would range from $2,466 to $6,987 it definitely makes sense to get Adobe Creative Suite 5 in a creative suite bundle. So, have you got your copy ordered yet? If not, then order today!

I’ve been meaning to write this review and insight of the ShoeMoney System for quite some time, but have felt as though I’ve been too busy to actually put any thought into a quality post. Something I’m trying to do more of. Quality over quantity (which goes somewhat against my 2010 goals). There’s no doubt that you’re probably wondering “what is the ShoeMoney System” and more importantly, why do I care.

Let me backup a little bit and give you some history. Just over a year ago I joined Twitter and began adding friends and just getting lost in various users through other peoples tweets. I stumbled across this guy who went by the name “ShoeMoney” and was intrigued. I read his bio (always something good to have if you want Twitter followers), and clicked through to his website. Well it was at this point in seeing his Google Adsense check for $132,994.97 that I realized I’d seen this bum guy before when doing some research. I started reading his blog and found out a little bit more about him. I got so lost and mezmerized that I almost forgot to follow @ShoeMoney on Twitter.

It all made sense on the “ShoeMoney” name. Jeremy Shoemaker, who coincidentally doesn’t make shoes, was a money making machine. Jeremy Schoemaker (the correct spelling of his last name) and I had several conversations on Twitter about a few things here and there. If he only knew how excited I was that an “online celebrity” was tweeting with me in conversation (kind of like what just happened with Lisa Barone & Rae Hoffman).

Well I’ve followed him ever since and in November of 2009 had the privilege to meet him and have a quick chat at DK’s Purpose Inc. poker tournament at PubCon Las Vegas. (I really actually need to thank my friends Lyndsay Walker & Lyndon Reid for making that trip happen). It was a quick, but friendly chat. Shoe, as his friends apparently refer to him (not sure I can get away with it—yet), was friendly and approachable. I’m glad that my gut instinct was right through only some select tweets.

Fast forward to a few months ago and Jeremy was getting ready to launch the ShoeMoney System. The teaser videos were awesome and because I had the chance to chat with Jeremy in person, I knew that any content he would produce would be first rate. I was hooked. I watched the previews, signed up on the mailing list, joined a webinar and even signed up as an affiliate to promote the ShoeMoney System. YES, I was sure it was going to be that good. The price came down and calculating it with incentives and bonus gifts, Jeremy was actually going to be paying me to take the ShoeMoney System. Only 500 students were going to be accepted so I was going to act fast. Alas I had to cough up some cash up front, which makes perfect sense, but I wasn’t in a position to do so. It’s not that expensive—just $197USD a month for twelve months. That’s a screaming deal…but I just wasn’t there.

A couple of weeks ago some clients of SPRY had finally paid up their account and to my surprise the unthinkable happened. The ShoeMoney System was re-opened to new students. NOW was my chance to get in on the content the ShoeMoney System could offer. I didn’t hesitate and signed up right away. There was no chance the system was going to fill up and close without me being in it for a second time.

It was one week ago today that I got on board. I blew through the first couple of videos as I’d seen one as the teaser and the other was fairly high-level. I was eager to get more videos and they seemed quite slow. That is until now that I realized it’s only been one week and I’ve had an extra two. The pace seems good with a “real job” going on, family life, travel, etc. I’ve got a bunch of experience in the web design/development area and have briefly touched on some affiliate marketing concepts (yes, the site is about winning blackjack strategies) and even a bit of SEO (again, thanks Lyndsay). I eagerly await a new video and email from the ShoeMoney System every day so that I can work towards my goal to generate $80,000 online by September 15.

I’ll be keeping you posted with my progress and any information that I feel like sharing. I know that with Shoemoney and his team creating and testing the content, that there’s no better course out there for a beginner or advanced user or anywhere in between. My recommendation to you is to figure it out, get the cash and just enroll in the ShoeMoney System TODAY! Tomorrow, you can thank me for it.

To my almost 600 Twitter followers, I appreciate that you take a moment out of your busy day to possibly see something I’ve written or asked. I do have one simple question to ask you that I’m in desperate need of an answer to though:

Why do you follow me?

It’s a simple question and I’m sure the answer will be simple as well and I’m OK with that. Is it because you’ve met me in person either at work or a conference? Do you think I’m a funny guy? Do you hang on every single word I say to make you laugh? Do I give you help and/or advice? Just a few ideas for responses, but please let me know. Either send me a tweet or leave a comment below…please. It’ll take 5 seconds.

Thanks in advance.

I’m busy working on an idea, and it keeps growing and evolving each day. I’ll essentially be creating a portal of information, for lack of a better term. For this example lets go with running only 2 TLD domains. Something along the lines of region.com & city.com should work. These are not my domains, but illustrate the example I’m going after.

When the visitor goes to region.com they will be presented with a landing page that has information for that particular region. I live in the province of Alberta, so let’s use that as a reference point. Some of the information will be aggregated information from the city.com category. I live in Calgary, so think of it that way. Now I do say category because I’m that this will all be one WordPress install, with multiple domains. The URL structure would be region.com/city/another_category/article.html on the main site. ( alberta.com/calgary/events/event-1.html) What I want to do is have someone that goes to city.com be directed to the /city/another_category/article.html portion, however the resulting URL would appear as city.com/another_category/article.html (calgary.com/events/event-1.html)- as it’s own domain.

I’ve explored WordPressMU and I’m not completely sold on it as the solution. I know that it can do domain forwarding with it’s sub-domain settings, but I still don’t believe it will populate correctly.

The other option would be to still have region.com with links to categories, but it would then link off to city.com, city2.com, city3.com, etc as needed.

The other issue is that each city might not have a domain. So city2 (let’s use Airdrie) might not have a domain. Without airdrie.com it would then be alberta.com/airdrie/events/event-1.html but if they decided to get a domain at some point, I’d want to be able to utilize that. I was initially thinking of simple domain forwarding (i.e. calgary.com would just resolve to alberta.com/calgary/) but don’t really feel that’s the best solution for branding and definitely SEO.

Thoughts on this? Am I clear? Am I off my rocker on what I’m trying to do? Does this make any sense at all? Oh, and of course I need a solution basically yesterday. Thanks in advance for your input.

Edit: I just came across Examiner and it’s similar to what I’m looking to do…but NOT what I’m doing, so I still need a solution.