Turns out this was incredibly hard to prepare! Why? Because the territory of social media is now so wide and so deep. It is not just about FB and TW, though I did my best to confine my comments there. But even with just FB, I find so many organizations are not yet ready to engage with volunteers. Will my audience survive the first 20-30 minutes, as I talk about getting your own house in order? Note to Self: Remember to Smile. A Lot. It helps when delivering that oh-so-curative medicine.

Scroll past the presentation slides to see a few of the tweets from today’s session!

In any case, here is my presentation. Links will be added after the fact, as I collect them during my talks so I have a complete list. I am actually very happy about this presentation. There are lots of takeaways that can be implemented immediately, along with some rather deep strategic tools that can last a lifetime. I saved the entertaining videos for the end.

UPDATE: Edited my file; it is complete except for the videos. Contact me if you want more!

You are invited to join us in the Twitter and Instagram conversation at #SocialVol, you know, for social volunteering. Mahalo to those who have done this already. Here are links:
#SocialVol on Twitter
#SocialVol on Instagram

Two good examples of active Facebook pages with volunteers galore:
‘Āhihi- Kīna‘u Natural Area Reserve
Special Olympics Hawaii

DOWNLOAD the handout here. (Updated!)

DOWNLOAD the presentation slides as a PDF here.

Let’s plan for next November! #GivingTuesday

Connect on Facebook:
Hands on Maui
Bare Feet Studios
Beach Walks with Rox
Add yours in the comments so I can find you and Like you!

Share. RT. VOLUNTEERS ROCK!!! #niquerazzi #socialvol @roxannedarling @handsonmaui twitter.com/niquelicious/s…

— Nicole Allen (@niquelicious) April 19, 2013

“@alohakim: Learning about #givingtuesday here with #socialvol w/ @roxannedarling.” I’d love to get @htimms out here to Maui to launch us

— Roxanne Darling (@roxannedarling) April 20, 2013

@roxannedarling great presentation on volunteers & social media #socialvol Taking good ideas back to @halemakua

— Hannah Humphrey (@hannahkhumphrey) April 19, 2013

Just #awesome crew today! #socialvol #maui #nonprofits#instagramhi instagram.com/p/YT7IkOs1GF/

— Roxanne Darling (@roxannedarling) April 20, 2013

Short term editorial calendars, esp for events. Great idea. My attempts at long term ones usu fade out. #socialvol

— Christina Stout (@CPStout) April 19, 2013

Roxanne is answering our questions. #socialvol

— Robert A. Collesano (@MauiHealth) April 19, 2013

#EpicThanks #Twestival #YouTubeChannels … all info we can use. #socialvol Thx, @roxannedarling

— Haku Baldwin Center (@HakuBaldwinCtr) April 19, 2013

RT @alohakim Looking forward to hearing @roxannedarling #SocialVol twitter.com/AlohaKim/statu… /hi Kim! :)

— Liza Pierce (@AMauiBlog) April 19, 2013

At #socialvol social media training with the beautiful Roxanne Darling (@ Cameron Center) on #Yelp yelp.com/biz/cameron-ce…

— Tera L.H. Paleka (@tpaleka) April 19, 2013

“@alohakim: Learning about #givingtuesday here with #socialvol w/ @roxannedarling.” GREAT!! Thanks

— Henry Timms (@htimms) April 19, 2013

Learning all about hashtags from @roxannedarling #socialvol

— HaleMakuaHealthSvcs (@halemakua) April 19, 2013

We three speakers have 45 minutes (repeated three times so all students get all presentations) to communicate our message. I am joined by Kainoa Horcajo and Jonelle Kamai of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association. Alongside our talks will be career counseling sessions, and Instagram contest, and a Jeopardy-style game at the end, using facts and figures from our talks!

I’ve been challenged to think about what can I share in 45 minutes to young people who are likely very mobile-savvy yet may not know all the moving parts of a successful social media campaign. Do I give them some history so they “grok” what this really means? Do I give them local Maui examples of who is doing it right (and do I dare mention examples of not so right?) The good news, with som much potential material, I won’t run out of things to discuss! Do I talk about the brain stress caused my multi-tasking?

What Do You Consider the Most Important Takeaways for Social Media and Tourism?

I’d love to hear your comments. Of course feel free to share any links as well; your own work is welcome!

I hope you will join our conversation on Twitter and Instagram. We will be using the hashtag #mauiaoht – for Maui Association of Hospitality and Tourism. The event is this Friday, January 25, and runs from 8:30 am to about 2 pm. Let’s show the young peeps how to have a lively and diverse conversation!

Over 20 Maui tourism-related businesses will be on hand. So there won’t be a lack of people to chat with! Here are a few to get you started:

People:
@JonelleKamai
@princesspomai
@roxannedarling

Companies:
@HawaiianAir
@HonuaKai
@FairmontKealani
@MauiVisit
@TheWestinMaui
@OldLahainaLuau
@OceanicCable

Here on Maui, we love and support each other so much, we call it one big ʻohana – that means family. Maui is also very techy and entrepreneurial – we have leaders in green tech, really hip venture folks, and the food? Why even Oprah has just taken out papers to start organic farming here! But before her, we have many organic farms, our favorite home delivery of locally sourced food from Kula Fields, and the most delicious (for all of the senses) outdoor pop-up dinners hosted by Kupu Maui!

The FTC blogger guidelines don’t get invited to the party on many occasions, so here is a quick reminder about the federal law and why I think it is GOOD thing to disclose!

Read the full federal requirements for disclosing compensation here.

Read a terrific summary from Edelman Digital on the practical application here.

Edelman learned the hard way early on: Their Walmarting Across America earned them a spot in the Fake Blog listing on Wikipedia. To their credit, they have become leaders in creating open, transparent best practices between bloggers and brands.

As someone who has hired bloggers for my client the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau, I insisted the writers disclose their free travel and per diem. There are so many benefits to this, beyond the fact that it is required by law:

• I provide a custom graphic – another way to visually get the client’s brand out there.
• I provide a custom link – so I can track activity from the blog posts, tweets, etc.
• It gives the bloggers support and cover – it protects my team! It goes hand in hand with their contract which also states they have full editorial freedom to write whatever they want. I do not edit or restrict their reviews in any way.
• It informs the readers, that yes, the writer did get free stuff – keep that in mind as you read the review.

If you have a great brand, transparency is your best friend. Bloggers do have influence and reach – that is why you want them on your team. And bloggers and social sharers, you have a responsibility to disclose when you receive something for free. On Twitter, I often use #client when I am actively promoting a client’s message. My partner Shane also suggests the very simple #fcftc, “For consideration, via the FTC.” I hope you will join me in raising the professional standards of how we support each other locally, keeping in mind that our voices are being heard globally!

If you are hiring a social media team: Be sure to give them specific goals, tell them who and what to disclose as the client so you are in control of that message, and interact with the team online – don’t leave it all up to the bloggers!

If you are a social media messenger: Be sure to ask your client for the campaign goals so you can be as effective as possible, insist on disclosing to protect your brand and your blog, and above all remember to include your audience in the fully transparent conversation!

Related: Tweeting for Free?

I have been writing about this since 2008. Just search this blog for “FTC” to read more of the history and best practices! Please do me a favor too: share this with your colleagues so I can close this topic by the end of 2012!

Aloha,

It just seemed “about time” to feature this topic at our quarterly meeting of the Social Media Club of Hawaii to bring together the stakeholders and do some brainstorming. I seeded the discussion with a few random ideas and we had six presenters who gave us their insights. It was a very inspiring event! Look at the range of ideas, many of which included the first stage of building out web assets:

Hawaii: A New Generation of Storytellers #HawaiiFamilies #SMCHI #Tourism via Tara Coomans @taracoomans Reference Link: http://pinterest.com/taracoomans/hawaii-a-new-generation-of-storytellers/

Maui Locals as Social Media Catalysts #MauiCatalyst #SMCHI #Tourism #MauiSMUG via Liza Pierce @amauiblog

A Maui Scavenger Hunt for Visitors & Locals #MauiScavenger #SMCHI #Tourism #MauiSMUG via Chris Norberg @maui Reference Link: http://mauiscavengerhunt.com/

Listen & Engage for the Long Term #TourismConvos #SMCHI #Tourism #MauiSMUG via Laura Kinoshita @lkinoshita

Building a Strong Social Media WorkForce #SMworkforce #SMCHI #Tourism #MauiSMUG via Pomai Weigert @princesspomai

Promote Maui Art & Artists via HD Video Interviews #mauiARTtv #SMCHI #Tourism #MauiSMUG via Shane Robinson @shane
reference Link: http://mauiart.tv/

And now for a few of my random ideas:
Napkins @HawaiianAir imprinted with TW/FB accounts; use for social sharing & contests #HawaiiSocial #SMCHI (via @roxannedarling)

Maui Social Media Airport Greeters monitoring OGG checkins on @Foursquare and @Facebook #MauiCheckin #SMCHI (via @roxannedarling)

eBook on Maui photo tips delivered via hotel reservation confirmation, content by Maui peeps, #MauiPhoto #SMCHI (via @roxannedarling)

QR Code Bulletin Board at OGG; go green, share eco activities, #MauiQR #SMCHI (via @roxannedarling)

Summaries and Related Links

I uploaded the slides to SlideShare, where you can view them and share them.

Presentation Slides | Social Media & Tourism via SMCHI: PDF

Download the Hashtag Report (PDF; 5.5 MB) See a list of all tweets tagged #SMCHI past 24 hours.

The Link to the recorded livestream video is here.

Article in Pacific Business News by Stephanie Silverstein

I hope you’ll leave a comment here, or on Twitter (use the hashtag #SMCHI and my name @roxannedarling so we see it!), or on our Facebook page.

Photo Credit: “We are all connected in this world” by Maui photographer, Chris Kompst. I was so excited to find this image and receive Chris’ permission to use it – it fits so perfectly with our discussion! Mahalo Chris.

And many thanks to all of you who attended, here on Maui, on Oahu at our satellite event, or via the live video stream!

Aloha,

Lies, Consciousness, and Social Media: What an utterly odd cocktail this is, you might be thinking. I agree! First the lies. Jerry Sandusky still claiming innocence after eye witness reports. The exposure of Lance Armstrong as not just a sports doper but the major domo who required his team mates to similarly use banned substances, after years of forceful denials.

It all got me thinking. There have always been liars amongst us, though I would guess the majority of us are more truthful than not, and have some assumption (rarely tested to this degree!) that powerful people must be telling the truth. They wouldn’t lie really, would they? Well, it turns out, yes they would. I consider myself an “innocent” of sorts – I have to work really hard to lie. I usually start laughing even when trying to pull off a teeny manini white lie as humor! But I have this visceral desire to want to believe others are truth tellers. Historically it was from fear, not consciousness though.

Social media meanwhile has amplified both the so-called lies and so-called truths being told every day. Anyone, and I mean that literally, can start a false rumor that spreads rapidly. Fortunately, we now have armies of fact-checkers to rebut these things. But “First!” still matters when it comes to a lot of news consumption, and numerous studies are showing that we really easily reject data that does not conform to our previously defined worldview.

There are so very few absolute truths or lies – which is what encourages the liars and frustrates the truth seekers. “Find me some stats I can twist to my point of view.” But also, hardly anything is true “in all cases.” Life is about CONTEXT. It’s not easy to be “completely wrong” but it happens. The more we know someone, the more forgiving of them we are when they fail. The less well we know them, the more easily they become the them to our us. Social media that strives to reach across cliques is a powerful change-maker. You can’t force the other person to see your point of view, however you can add more information.

Information is a tonic. We move so quickly that sometimes key details are not shared. Sharing more of the facts behind your positions can go a long way towards persuading people to your point of view. I think this is relevant – not to be more partisan but in fact to create more understanding. The result is that each still may retain their opinion but the animosity and vitriole are dissolved. The energy has shifted, and it is the energy that matters. At the end of the day it is not the facts that matter most, it is the energy with which they are delivered. I think it is now our opportunity to cultivate an understanding of how energy works, because we sure can’t rely on “facts” to be reliable.

It is this native ability we each have to detect discrepancies, and to take the “something doesn’t add up here” as a truth (or lie) in progress. If you learn to trust your own inner guidance system, you come to rely less on others for the information that is critical to decision-making. It’s more than just a gut feeling – it is a deep, cultivated sense of knowing that is supported by your prior knowledge and experience, and that is not unduly influenced by your known trigger points of fear, prejudice, suspicion, etc. It’s like intuition, gut feelings, and maturity all working in synchrony. Consciousness is being able and willing to pay attention to the energy while understanding how the energy works within us and in others. Animals do this quite instinctively which is what allows them to have inter-species relationships that appear counter to the rules. They can read the energy, know their own abilities, and proceed accordingly. See photo above! (Same for effective managers.)

With consciousness, you educate yourself about the choices, you read testimonials, and you also consider the source. What is their agenda? In the end, you synthesize this and let your reading of the energy of the situation be your guide. Trust me, it changes everything. For the better, with more ease, less angst, no matter what is going on around you.

Not all messages are created equal. The good news is that we each get to decide for ourselves the truth we want to support, the energy that makes sense to us. Want to know how to read the energy? Just ask!

Aloha,

Photo Credit: Kid, Bella, and Ziggy by adlpated on Flickr.com

In general, each of these major updates is to help Google answer real questions from its users. You know, when we search, we want to see a real business or a real answer, not some spam site trying to sell us crap or embed a virus on our computer!

Included in the new guidelines are not only the carrot recommendations (DO) but increasingly Google is using the stick on those sites it perceives to be gaming the system (DON’T). If you do not make a habit of looking at your site analytics, you can easily check your Page Rank now and then. Page Rank is a logarithmic scale used by Google to rank the quality and validity of websites. It ranges from 0-10; each number jumps by a factor of ten. That means it is much harder to jump one level from 4 to 5 than it is to move from 1 to 2.

Most sites start at a 0-2 (Google loves WordPress!) and very few ever make it to a 10. Even Apple.com & NYTimes.com currently get a PR 9. Since it is an order of magnitude in difficulty jumping to the next level, losing 2-3 levels in a Google update can be painful. Here is a free online tool to check your Page Rank. Remember it is only one measure, but it is a simple one you can track. Keep reading! I have more free site analyzer tools at the end!

Current Google Search Optimization Recommendations

Having duplicate content on the web.
Some content management systems allow you to have multiple websites with unique URLs that are all served from the same database (e.g. Drupal). This confuses Google because it doesn’t know which one to rank first. If it detects that these dupe sites are pretty much direct copies, you will get a big penalty in their rankings. They consider that now a type of web spam.

The exception is if you have the same site at different top level domains, say a .com site and a site in Germany (.de) etc as they recognize the desire to serve the same message to different languages. You can have as many (keyword-dense!) domains as you like, but better to have a 301 redirect on all but the main URL, whereby the others point to the main URL.

Using a keyword more than 1-2% on a page, including metadata
The keyword or phrase should ideally be in the h1 or the title of the page, then in the first paragraph, then scattered throughout but not too much. If you read your content and it feels pushy or over-bearing to you, Google will probably agree. (See the tools at the end to easily measure keyword density on your pages.)

Really big or long pages
If you have really long pages, this might be a challenge. Google may consider it “too big.” It looks at the size of the page, measured in kilobytes. It’s no coincidence that this also affects your human visitors. Large-sized pages take longer to load and that affects your visitors. Large pages can be split in tow or three and this allows you to optimize for several more targeted topics and keywords and helps prevent your visitors from having to scroll a mile to find what they want. Learn more about what contributes to large page size here.

Optimizing too many pages for the same keywords.
Google says, why are all these pages about the same thing? So it actually becomes more useful to pick a unique keyword or phrase for each page, and play to that nuance as best you can. Use the AdWords Keyword Tool to assist, even if you are not buying AdWords.

Too new or Too old
A web site that has little history (and likely less content) will not earn a high page rank for (I hope) obvious reasons. You just have not earned your cred yet. Google in some respects really likes to see relevant, older content – it is a measure that you have been around doing dood stuff. But if nothing has changed for years, the tables begin to turn. Is anyone still home or has the site become abandoned? It is another reason I love WordPress. By adding fresh new content all the time without deleting or over-writing old content, you build not only an archive of your business’s activities over time (which helps you) but you also build increasing cred with Google. (Assuming you are not breaking any of these other rules.)

Link Schemes
Setting up other sites that only link back to you or using excessive cross linking on your own site. This used to be a classic SEO “trick” and not best practice, but easy and fast to do because of the amazing ability of blogs. We now call them “splogs” or spam blogs. They don’t send email spam; they create inbound link spam.

Hidden Text or Links
Don’t use hidden text or links that are the same color as the page so they appear invisible. Google can now detect that! Who wants to be sneaky like that anyway….

Here is Your Do List for Organic SEO

Inbound Links
On the plus side, still THE best thing you can do is to have high quality inbound links. What makes a link high quality? These are links on someone else’s site that point to one of your specific pages. Aim for these:

• it is coming from a site that has a higher page rank. Google says, if this good site is linking to you, kudos to you!
• the words that are the front side of the link, the regular English, have your name or one of your keywords for that page in the text.
• the URL being linked to from your site, also has the right mix of keywords in it.
• the link code also has a relevant title tag included. You can’t force people to add that but you can create a page and badges that encourage people to link you and give them all the code to copy and paste. Here is an example: Badges for Podcamp Hawaii fans
• you can accomplish this somewhat by adding a comment on a high value site and including your URL (even to a specific inside page) when you fill out the form. However, because this can be manually manipulated, it is not as valuable as the link to you in the body of the article. And some blog owners code their site to use the “nofollow” tag, which tells Google to ignore any links in comments.But heh, be a friend and leave a blogger a comment! It’s not always about SEO.

Publish date of the page. Newer is better.
One advantage to moving a lot of things to a blog would be that you have a lot more fresh content as far as Google is concerned. Updating existing pages is perhaps easier for you, but it doesn’t show that you are adding new stuff. When a page is published there is generally a publish date included in the meta data.

Go Social.
Google definitely values and tracks “shares” on the leading social networks, such as Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. Make sure every page of your site has the sharing links so readers can give their vote of approval to your pages and help you in you search results on those pages. WordPress maakes it easy to add these sharing plugins, one more reason to love it! (Hint: use them at the end of this post!)

Bounce Rate
Independent of all this is to look in your Analytics for the bounce rate: how many people leave the site without clicking through. If it is high, that is one area we could talk about some different strategies for the main pages people land on. Which is the second thing – creating campaigns to target selected inside pages. If you buy AdWords or do other marketing, don’t always send people to the home page and make them look – send them directly to an inside page that has the information or products you want to share. Bounce rates vary widely depending on many factor, so start by looking at trends over time.

Free SEO and Google Analytics Tools For You

Check your visible keyword density on the page here.

Keyword Analyzer: See if you keyword shows up in the right places, plus check your page size

Simple view of the keywords on your page and their relative percentages

SMCHI-Setting Up Google Analytics WordPress Developed for our Social Media Club chapter by Rob Bertolf

SMCHI-Setting Up Webmaster Tools Developed for our Social Media Club chapter by Rob Bertolf

My current favorite: WordPress SEO plugin

Be sure and checkout our Bare Feet Biz Pro Blogs if you are looking to add or update a WordPress blog (Google’s favorite publishing platform) to your web operations. I also invite you to search this site for things like “google” and “seo” to find previous articles on the topic.

Photo Credit: Penguin Small Group by Antarctica Bound on Flickr

Would you like to take a class on putting this into action? Please drop me an email and I will keep you posted.

Aloha,

I’ve been first in many trends most of my life. Initially I just thought I was weird and often tried to dampen my curiosities or justify them. Now we have the term: early adopter! So I am going to share some of my history with you to make the case that even if you think using quantum energy to support your business is weird, I have a well-established track record of being at the front end of some of the major trends of the past 40-50 years! Enjoy the ride… and click the thumbnails to see larger versions of historical me. Good for a few laughs!

I was one of the first to wear a mini skirt in high school; I also sewed and recall that I only needed 14″ for the length. As Guy Kawasaki would say, Holy Kaw! At the boarding school I attended in North Carolina in 1968, I had to pin a strip of paper to the hem to pass muster on some days. Twiggy was my role model. I also was the first female surfer in our Myrtle Beach , SC community. My dad secretly had a custom Hobie board built for me when I was 16 (1968) and I was the “it” girl that summer.

In 1974, I was in the first graduating class at UC Berkeley that allowed students to write their own major. I got a Bachelor of Science, and my field was Marine Ecology – a combination of traditional biological sciences, a study of ecology (from the biologist’s point of view) and environmental studies. I was one of the first female teaching assistants in the University’s Research Scientist SCUBA certification course – 10 weeks of near hell, designed by a Navy Seal. The course was required to dive on university research projects and be covered by campus insurance. When I first took it, I was sure I was failing, only to be asked to be a TA the next semester.

Can you even imagine going to college now and NOT writing your own curriculum?

Skip over a few careers and I owned the first aerobics studio in Santa Cruz, CA, after taking classes with Jane Fonda at her Beverly Hills studio – barefoot! – before aerobic shoes had been invented. In 1984, I taught the first ever low impact aerobics class at the first ever international aerobics convention. Two years later, I taught the first Mind-Body session, sold out well in advance with several hundred in attendance. A few years later I was the first to introduce mind-body fitness in Japan through the Japan Aerobics and Fitness Association and later in Germany and Switzerland. I went on to be on the team that wrote the exam for the first ever international fitness certification, now called the ACE exam, writing the first fitness certification prep book, called No Train, No Gain. I went on to be a lead instructor for the first time the American College of Sports Medicine took their certification outside of the US – in Tokyo. I was one of the first 20 instructors featured by Reebok as their evangelists and product testers. And I wrote the Judges Manual and was head judge for the first ever Crystal Light Aerobics Championships. (So, not rocket science but ground-breaking!)

Aerobics continues, almost 30 years later, and yes, many said it was “just a fad.”

I was “late” to being an Apple computer customer – I got my Macintosh 512K in 1986. Though remember I was an aerobics instructor…not exactly the target market! Nonetheless I promptly re-wrote my book in one of the first desktop publishing programs, Ready, Set, Go. I also installed Filemaker 2 and built my first database, storing all of the contacts from the fitness courses I had taught in 37 states and numerous countries. I somehow discovered Compuserve and was using email around 1992; then graduated to AOL in 1993 because I could make my own address instead of the batch of numbers CS automatically assigned us! I had my first laptop in 1997, and had to stop on the stairs of the duomo in Italy and write, so overwhelmed was I by the energy in the air!

In 1997 I built my first website using Claris Homepage. I cried when I clicked the Submit button – I could tangibly feel the potential connection I just made to people all around the world. From that moment, I realized that the internet was a huge spiritual gift to us – the power to be connected independently of geography, the ability to discover other people and ideas without any specific cause or linear explanation

I discovered there was magic in them there tubes!

I began weaving back and forth between science and humanity, between fitness and self-esteem, between technology and business, between spirituality and psychotherapy. I met Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra in the early 90′s, I realized I had an unquenchable thirst for not just knowledge, but for happiness and freedom. I was one of the early students of Jack Canfield – taking his 10-day course long before he became the successful publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I developed a series of workshops and coined the term, Body Esteem. I created a recovery event in Santa Fe that was featured in a CNN documentary: it generated over 30,000 calls to the network – remember this was 1992 (or 1993?) before most people used email!

In 1997, I traveled to southeast Asia for 6 weeks, sending and receiving emails via my Apple Newton and my trusty AOL dial-up connections. In December 1999, I changed my name to ride the wave of liberation that I sensed was rolling in with the millennium. Bye bye Mary Anne Benton, hello Roxanne Darling! I was surprised to learn how many others I encountered had done the same thing. It was the beginning of realizing that there were many here on the planet who were soul adventurers, willing to break the rules of their families and their tribes, as they sought a more authentic life experience.

I may be in the minority, but I am not alone.

So naturally I attracted my partner Shane Robinson in 1999, who also was an early geek but also an artist, a person who also left his home in Iowa to explore different career frontiers. But first! In 1993 I began consulting a channeler in Santa Fe. The entities that talked to me blew my mind by pointing out discrepancies in both my energy and my logic. Me being me, I talked to them a lot about business! And how to manage so-called difficult clients and how to give a more compelling presentation. I was still working in the health arena and one day I said something like “Well, everyone benefits from exercise!” as I had been taught, and was teaching. To which they replied, “Actually no, not everyone. For some people, exercise disrupts their energy and they find it quite disorienting.” If I had learned anything in biology, it was that every trait we can observe exists along a continuum between two extreme points. So of course this made sense.

More profoundly, they helped me to see that smoking is ok for some people. That there is no such thing as one size fits all or one formula that everyone should follow. (Yes, of course this made tremendous sense! How had I not seen and actually applied it before??) They continued to show me that we live in a subjective universe, not an objective universe. Perfectly reasonable people disagree about everything! And so I began my journey of discovering what are my true inner desires? How do I tune out the immense pressure of protocol and other people’s opinions that had built the high fences around my life for so long? It was immense.

One thing I knew was that I wanted direct access to this insight from out there.

And in late 2008 it appeared. I was laying on the sofa, surfing on my laptop, and somehow found a website for divine openings. Everything there made perfect sense and lined up with how I had been living my life, how Shane and I had built our business together, and how we were growing into a relationship. It was possible for me to communicate directly with this vast source of knowledge in the universe, this vast reservoir of energy – whose vibrations I could surf to all sorts of new destinations! I pursued it and in April, 2009 became one of the early divine openings givers. It took me a few years to really believe it was real. I danced on the edges of it, despite having interacted with non-human spirits for over 15 years! You see, the benefits just kept accruing. I sold a house on Oahu in March 2011, making a very large profit despite being in the so-called bottom of the market and having my first open house the day after the Japanese tsunami that literally had us very shook up here in Hawaii. We had not one but two buyers; the house was sold in 10 days for asking price.

I know that is because we were tapped into “the field” of universal intelligence.

My sensitivity to protocol has kept me from talking about how we mix business and spirituality. Silly though actually! I was involved in one of the early Business and Consciousness conferences out of Santa Fe, in the late 90′s – long before TED. In 2010, I read about an ad exec in New York City who is a shaman on the weekends. He too was concerned “What will my clients think?” But if social media and the internet has taught us anything, it is that we can show up as we are, quirks included. In fact, the more authentic we are, the easier it is for like-minded people (including buyers and sellers) to find us. The logic of the past, the division of personal life and business life, is now turned on its head!

Why would we do anything but show up as our whole, transparent selves?

So I have launched my divine openings website where I am a consciousness connector working with spiritually inclined entrepreneurs and executives who want to use the latest technology and spirituality to achieve inner happiness and business success. I have had clients from Botswana and London, and all across the US and Canada. There are indeed forces in the universe that we can access to move things out of the way, to conceive of solutions that come from beyond direct experience, and that can produce for us in ways that we literally cannot imagine. This is perhaps my favorite early adopter adventure of all, because it is truly out of this world!

If you want our generic business services, we offer them gladly. But now you can also add a divine opening with that and get a turbo boost of support and input from the universe itself! The universe: that larger part of all of us that has been hidden away in an amnesiac phase of existence.

I have taken the time to lay out a sample of my history – to demonstrate my repeated positioning at the head of many trends that have gone mainstream. (I’ve skipped over the last 7 years as you can see all that already on the blog.) I’ve woken up enough in my own consciousness to realize that I am standing at the beginning of yet another huge shift in how we live. This time, I can happily and safely invite you to join me in the future, right here, right now. Start by getting on my email list; then consider joining the Divine Openings for Business LinkedIn group, liking my Divine Openings with Rox Facebook, and following @divinerox on Twitter. I know that I am a conduit. Imagine unlocking that with your talents and ability – we can accomplish unimaginable things! I am excited to see what all develops as we de-mystify the mystical and create tangible practical results by getting out of the way and letting grace assist.

If you actually made it all the way here, WOW! Mahalo for your time and your attention. Please share something with me now, about you.

Aloha,

1) Have links you want to share prepared ahead of time, preferably with your favorite URL shortener. I love Bit.ly, and they just keep adding more and better features.

2) Attend the chat at www.tweetchat.com. This – in my opinion – is the only way to keep up with the fast moving conversation! Plus, it automatically adds the hashtag for you – so less typing. I find it nearly impossible to attend a Twitter chat on my iPhone – though an iPad works fine. The conversation just moves too fast for my thumbs to keep up on the small screen! You can follow it though, and favorite tweets that you want to follow up on later.

3) The chat moderator will usually have 6-10 questions prepped in advance, and ideally has shared the general topic a few days in advance. The enables people to tell others who have something to contribute. For example, Islands Magazine recently had their weekly chat focus on Maui. A few of us learned about it in advance (Thanks @MauiPhotoFest!) and were able to get up early (yes that is normal in Hawaii) to join in at 7 am and share all our favorite places and things to do.

4) When you first join the chat (whether early, on-time, or late – it’s all OK!) please introduce yourself briefly and why you are there. This helps you get into the conversation and also helps others steer relevant questions or comments toward you.

5) The moderator will post discussion questions formatted with Q1, Q2, and so forth. “Q1: What is your favorite beach on Maui?” If you have a response, start it with A1. “A1: Baldwin Beach in the morning for sunrise with my dog! Few people, lots of magic.” This helps everyone track the conversation, as there are typically lots of comments interwoven.

6) Do retweet a comment that you find really valuable; this also allows your followers who are not on the chat to see that message.

7) Give shoutouts and recommendations to others. The Maui discussion on #IslandsChat was so much fun as we were a firehose of mentions of all the cool Maui people and businesses! This is where the prep comes in again too. I was caught off guard, as I hadn’t thought ahead about what the questions might be. So I had a few browser windows open jumping back and forth to grab twitter handles and web addresses to share!

8) After the chat, go follow some new peeps – you just had a great opportunity to interact with people first hand, so build your network based on the people with whom you had a connection. Plus, check your new followers, as you are sure to gain a few assuming you have contributed to the conversation.

9) If you want to see (or share or report on) the results, wait about an hour till after the chat has wound down, and head over to www.hashtracking.com, and get a full report of all the tweets, and the top tweeters. This is time sensitive – they pull from within the past 24 hours, so don’t delay! I always do a print command and save as a PDF so I have an archive when it is going to be part of my reporting. Here is the archive from #IslandsChat about Maui.

10) If you want to find hashtag chats on topics of interest, there is a public Google doc you can reference. Be sure to check this before you start a new hashtag chat, to make sure you are not overlapping with one that is similar! And if you do create a new chat, be sure to add yours to the doc. They are usually offered once a week, every other week, or once a month. It’s great to add that tag to your Twitter bio if you are the moderator, and ideally have an informational web page about the chat that you include with the chat announcements every week.

A few tweets from #IslandsChat, all about Maui!

Don’t forget, tomorrow is all about #Maui at our #islandschat at 1:00 PM EST. Don’t miss the conversation and Island giveaways!

— ISLANDS magazine (@islandsmagazine) August 8, 2012

You’re invited! join #islandschat w/ @islandsmagazine today 7am-8am Maui Time Zone w/ @erikblair @amauiblog @roxannedarling

— Maui Photo Festival (@mauiphotofest) August 9, 2012

RT @roxannedarling: A3 To learn all about food on Maui, follow @daniaediblehi; and try to attend farm dinner @kupumaui! #islandschat

— Ocean Vodka (@OceanVodka) August 9, 2012

RT @adventureisepic A8. I like Waihe’e Ridge 5 miles & Haleakala’s Sliding Sands to Switchback (13 miles) #maui #islandschat Via @raatz

— Erik Blair (@erikblair) August 9, 2012

@mauiphotofest @oldlahainaluau Amen! @lhccmatt and his crews do awesome work there! #Islandschat

— J. Smookler (@DJSMOOK) August 9, 2012

Q9. What do you think differentiates Maui from the other Hawaiian islands? #islandschat

— ISLANDS magazine (@islandsmagazine) August 9, 2012

A9: The laid back vibe, friendly people, shaka \m/Maui no ka oi! RT @islandsmagazine: Q9.#islandschat

— RobRob (@RobZonie) August 9, 2012

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Aloha,

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