Talk with Knowledgeable Business Professionals Both in-person and virtually May 3-5

SteveMiller, a business placement coach and successful entrepreneur, will be sharing his experiences and expertise to visitors at Atlanta’s “Start a Business Weekend” at The Marriott Waverly Hotel in Cobb Galleria May 4-5 (and virtually May3-5.)

The “Start a Business Weekend” is sponsored by The Entrepreneur’s Source (TES), a global leader in business and franchise coaching. Network coaches like Steve Miller help people build rewarding careers, take control of their lives and create financial freedom. TES’ unique discovery and education process empowers their clients to explore alternative career options outside of the traditional job market in franchising and business ownership.

The expo will have over 60 business opportunities represented and dozens of knowledgeable new business professionals where you can discover options and secrets behind funding proven business concepts. Visitors will receive complimentary educational materials about franchising in general as well as specific business opportunities.

The Entrepreneur’s Source success is consistently recognized by Entrepreneur magazine within their annual Franchise 500 rankings and by the International Franchise Association trade organization.

Steve Miller started his career in the health care industry for Baxter Healthcare, Advantage Health Systems and Norrell Health Care, where he was Director of Franchise Development. His first business was sold to a publicly traded company in 2000 and is now owned by Invacare Corporation. In 2003 he purchased and started a restoration services franchise in Atlanta, Certified Restoration Drycleaning Network (CRDN), which he sold in 2010. CRDN of Atlanta was the sixth largest CRDN franchise worldwide.

Steve is currently the managing partner of Affirm Global Development, a company providing social beneficial products to create economic opportunities for high-potential individuals in developing countries.

About “Start A Business Weekend”
“Start a Business Weekend” in Atlanta is an event presented by The Entrepreneur’s Source for people to discover opportunities for their future.  For more information on the “Start a Business Weekend” visit http://www.startabusinessweekend.com/sabw2/?smiller   The event is being held at Marriott Renaissance Waverly Hotel, 2540 Galleria Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30330 Friday 9:30AM to 4:00PM Saturday 9:30AM to 3:00PM

About Steve Miller
Steve Miller is a Business Coach with The Entrepreneur’s Source where he coaches business owners as well as advises individuals, through a free discovery process, who are interested in self-employment.
For more information on Steve Miller visit http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-miller/17/870/45a

A video about the event is available at: http://youtu.be/34xmdv3HBa8 or viewed below:

5 Shortcuts to Maximizing Your Social Media Presence

The post speaks about how busy small business owners can fit social media engagement in along with all of the other activities they do to keep their businesses up and running. The three of the five tips include: Eliminate or reduce the non-performing marketing efforts, focus on the two places online where the majority of your target audience is most active and take advantage of the many free tools available that will track the online conversations about your business.  Read the rest online at Open Forums

WordPress Now Available For the BlackBerry PlayBook

The all new WordPress for PlayBook™ app allows you to write posts, edit pages, and manage comments on the go. Both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.9.2 or higher) sites are supported. Download the app and start blogging on the go in no time.  Read the rest online at Mashable

Revel Wants To Bring iPad-Powered Point Of Sale Systems To The Hospitality And Retail Industries

The addition of the iPad into the point of sale system or cash register isn’t a new trend. Many small businesses are swapping out traditional cash registers for iPads and credit card processors like Square. I’ve personally used the Square with an iPad at a tradeshow for a client and it was great. We were able to easily accept charges, provide an emailed receipt (collecting email addresses) and keeping track of our sales that weekend.

But large restaurant chains and other establishments still need a complete front-to-back-of-house (i.e. a system that can send receipts to the kitchen) solution. Revel Systems hopes to be the go-to iPad-powered, comprehensive POS platform for restaurants.  Read the rest online at TechCrunch

Who’s the Audience?

Every association has different organizational goals. Defining the goals will direct your social media strategy.  Is it advocacy-related goals (reaching the general public) or providing a collaborative work space for members – most associations has a combination of these goals.

What is your on-line Visibility?

In order to be a full participant in the community you need to be, not only present but, engaging, adding value and building authority and trust. What may be obvious to some is not to others. The biggest tool out there now is LinkedIn and its groups for business related associations. But, one size doesn’t fit all. You have to be aware of what works best for those involved. Other sites include:

• Facebook – Fan Pages and Business Pages
• Twitter – Creating Lists and building followers to help the association membership
• A branded YouTube channel with testimonials and quick Q&As with members (or Vimeo, Daily Motion or self-hosted videos)
• Check-in sites like Foursquare, Facebook Places and Google Places should be claimed or developed – optimized and content true.
• The new Pinterest social site
• Tumblr, WordPress
• Bookmarking sites like Digg and reddit where members can share information
• Mobile friendly websites
• Slideshare, Scribd or Issuu.com to share digital publications

Where is your content coming from?

The fact that associations are “niche” by definition is an asset. Creating shareable content that is SEO friendly and compelling means that your specific content should rise up in Google and Bing searches. Like anything else consistent and carefully planned schedules work best here. For example, people should expect:

• Their Monday morning email from your organization every week at the same time
• Relevant links to that week’s news (using sources like AMEX Open Forum is fine)
• Links to your own strong online content
• Announcements to upcoming meetings, seminars, webinars, etc.
• RSS Feeds from industry pages to your homepage
• Your own RSS feeds
• Video blogs, podcasts and blogs (with multiple member authors)

How are you measuring success?

So you have your social sites and your content. What does it mean and how can you use the results from it? You must be able to track and understand your user’s interaction with your group. When you do that you can continue to evolve your association into a stronger organization.

• track what your members care about
• check what links are clicked on
• what events and workshops have more activity
• what is being discussed on-line

We are all social creatures – some more than others. We all know that one of the primary reasons for companies to join a business association is to network, have access to resources and to grow their business. Make it easy for them.

ez2BSocial has been a company I’ve been interested in launching for the past year. I’ve spent my life developing marketing campaigns and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to own and manage my own firm. The timing is ideal and I’m receiving a great deal of encourage, advice and introductions.

ez2Bsocial offers integrated marketing and public relations services specializing in digital and social media. Specifically, the agency focuses on marketing strategies for driving online visibility, social media branding, implementing social media campaigns and engaging in online conversations with key audiences.

Currently, ez2BSocial represents two client accounts, Dr. Jules Nabet Cosmetics and Imagix Dental and Affiliates of North Atlanta. These clients represent two diverse areas of interest for my company.  The company’s specialty areas include: health and wellness, leisure/travel, financial services and home & building. We also provide creative services.

For more information on how ez2BSocial can increase online visibility and strengthen social brand awareness for your company contact me at rico@ez2bsocial.com or tweet me @ricofig

The post talked about the pros and cons of the technology, similarity to Facebook’s facial recognition-photo tagging technology earlier in the year and smart technology and app uses.

What caught my interest was the last paragraph:

“One of the ongoing problems with online payment transactions has been identity theft and the ransacking of people’s checking accounts,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If the future that many people are forecasting for mobile transactions is to come to fruition, there will have to be significantly better quality and security of features.”

This is where significant interest will be down the road and will no doubt impact mobile marketing and in-store use in the coming year. Imagine the company Square, a credit card acceptance service that works through your smartphone, utilizing this. Google I believe still wants to become the world’s charge card service and this is one way for them to do it.

The data brief found that about 53% of employed adults went online in the past 12 months for health information, compared with about 41% of unemployed adults.

In addition, the data brief found that adults with incomes at or above 300% of the federal poverty level were more than twice as likely to have sought health information online in the past 12 months as adults with incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level.

Results are based on data from the 2009 National Health Interview Survey, which collected information from 27,731 U.S. adults ages 18 and older.

What does this mean to you?

The internet is a major place where people begin their healthcare research. They also ask their family and friends. The internet is becoming an area that healthcare providers can reach out and join the conversation – or, at least be available for consultation.

Women were more likely than men to have used the Internet for health information in the past 12 months for each age group except 65 and over (Figure 1).

The percentage of adults who used the Internet for health information was highest among women aged 25–34 (65.8%) and lowest among adults aged 65 and over (under 25%).

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics

Although “Network Interference: A Legal Guide to the Commercial Risks and Rewards of the Social Media Phenomenon” does not focus on FDA regulation it does provide a broader array of  legal matters that might arise with advertising and marketing; commercial litigation; data privacy and security; product liability; securities; trademarks and other areas of interest.

In their sidebar, Bottom Line—What You Need to Do, the company sums it up this way:
“It is of the utmost importance to have strategy in place in order to best protect your ownership of intellectual property. By aggressively policing your trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrights, intellectual property owners will be in the best position to prevent claims that they have waived their ability to enforce their ownership rights, while at the same time discouraging others from any authorized use of your marks and works authorship.”

Download the full Social Media Legal Guide here.

Below are the Georgia Hospitals involved in Social Media.

Athens Regional Medical Center - ARMC, Athens, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ LinkedIn 4square ____
Atlanta VA Medical Center, Decatur, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ ________ 4square ____
Augusta VA Medical Center, Augusta, GA
WWW _ Q C | _______ Facebook Twitter ________ _______ ____
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
DeKalb Medical, Decatur, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook _______ LinkedIn 4square Blog
Emory Healthcare, Atlanta, GA
WWW _ Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ ____
Emory Johns Creek Hospital, Johns Creek, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ LinkedIn 4square ____
Grady Health, Atlanta, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ ________ Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
Gwinnett Medical Center, Lawrenceville, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
Houston Healthcare, Warner Robins, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter ________ 4square ____
Marcus Autism Center, Atlanta, GA
WWW _ Q C | _______ Facebook _______ ________ 4square ____
MCG Health Children's Medical Center, Augusta, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook Twitter ________ 4square ____
MCGHealth, Augusta, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
Memorial University Medical Center, Savannah, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter ________ 4square ____
Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ LinkedIn 4square ____
Shepherd Center, Atlanta, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 4square ____
South Georgia Medical Center, Valdosta, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook _______ ________ 4square ____
Southern Regional Health System, Riverdale, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ ____
St. Francis Hospital, Columbus, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ ____
St. Joseph's / Candler Hospitals, Savannah, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter ________ 4square ____
Tanner Health System, NA, GA
WWW _ Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ Blog
University Health Care System, Augusta, GA
WWW U Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ ____
WellStar Health System, Marietta, GA
WWW _ Q C | YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn _______ ____
Willingway Hospital, Statesboro, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ ________ _______ ____
Winn Army Community Hospital, Fort Stewart, GA
WWW U Q C | _______ Facebook _______ ________ 4square ___

The iPad is simple. The moment you turn it on you are drawn into a very intuitive environment,  one that can take you from website to photo album and from videos to apps and music. My seven year old sat in the Apple store playing with the iPad2 for 45 minutes and never asked me how to use. It is simple – and that’s what doctor’s love. It’s no wonder that seventy-five percent of U.S. physicians own some form of Apple device, such as an iPhone, iPad or iPod, this  according to the new Taking the Pulse® U.S. v11.0  study from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.

Just one year after the iPad first hit the market, adoption has reached 30 percent of U.S. physicians and an additional 28 percent plan to purchase an iPad within the next six months. Why? Imagine that light weight device giving access to electronic medical records (EMR), online patient-physician communication, images and notes from the last visit and access to doctor peer-to-peer forums.

The precursor to the iPad, the iPhone, surged to dominate the physician smartphone market in 2011 as the number one smartphone platform used by physicians in the U.S.

The Pharma industry is another area that the iPad has taken hold of. The light weight, 1.5 pounds is easy to carry. The battery life – of 10 hours can be handled in a long shift. The hundreds of professional medical apps don’t hurt either.

Bottomline? The iPad and its competitors will continue to drive electronic and social media acceptance in a field that doesn’t always take change well.

*The new Taking the Pulse® U.S. v11.0  study from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.

We all know that the Internet has become crucial tool for gathering health information. A new report finds 80% of Internet users look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit following using email and a search engine.

Research by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) has found that people’s networks are expanding to include online peers, particularly in the crucible of rare disease. Health professionals remain the central source of information for most Americans, but “peer-to-peer healthcare” is a significant supplement.

Eighteen percent of internet users say they have gone online to find others who might have health concerns similar to theirs.

The most striking finding of the national survey is the extent of peer-to-peer help among people living with chronic conditions. One in four internet users living with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions, cancer, or some other chronic ailment (23%) say they have gone online to find others with similar health concerns. By contrast, 15% of internet users who report no chronic conditions have sought such help online.

According to the research, the most likely groups to look online for health information include: caregivers, women, whites, younger adults, and adults with at least some college education. The groups least likely to look online for health information include: African Americans, Latinos, people living with disability, older adults, and adults with a high school education or less.

Some of the most notable interactions involve people who meet online for the first time. There were numerous examples of these powerful long-distance connections in our online survey of patients and caregivers who take part in rare-disease communities. One adult living with a rare condition described how she connected with another patient online, bonded, and then enriched the friendship with in-person encounters:  ”The first time I met another patient, face to face, I sobbed. I was overjoyed and began to communicate with them on a regular basis and my network grew.”

Find the full report on Peer-to-Peer Healthcare at the Pew Research Center website.