There is nothing more important to achieving your ski racing goals than what you do in training. It is during training that you ingrain the physical, technical, tactical, and mental habits that will come out in races. If you establish good habits, you’ll have a good chance of having a good race. But if you instill bad habits, those will come out and you’ll have no chance of achieving your goals. Here are five tips that can help you get the most out of your training:

1. Have a goal and purpose. You must have a clear goal about what area you want to improve as you head out to training. For example, a good goal might be to shift your weight forward so you’re not caught “in the back seat.” You must also have a clear purpose for training each day. A purpose identifies specifically how you’re going to achieve your goal for the day. Returning to the example I just cited, your purpose might be to drive your hands forward between turns or bring your hips up to get your weight forward.

When I’m working on the hill with racers, I will often ask them what their goal and purpose is. If they don’t know, I don’t let them train. I know that sounds harsh, but think of it this way. If you don’t have a clear goal and purpose, you won’t be working on anything to improve. You will not only not be getting better, but you will be making it harder to improve. Let me explain. When you’re not working on something, you are practicing and further ingraining old habits. The more deeply ingrained those old technical, tactical, and mental habits get, the harder it is to change them. So, by not having you train if you don’t have a clear goal or purpose, you may not be improving, but, at least, you’re also not making it harder to improve.

2. Train like you race. When I ask coaches and racers whether they should train like they race or race like they train, the vast majority say race like you train. Their answer seems reasonable because if you could race in the same relaxed state as when you train, the chances are you’d ski well.

The problem is that racing like you train is impossible. Why? Because there is a big difference between training and races: races matter! So I say train like you race. Think about everything you need to think, feel, and do in a race and then replicate that in training. By doing so, you will practice and ingrain the skills and habits that you need to ski your best in races.

When I say train like you race, I don’t mean trying to ski as fast as you can every run of training. The reality is that there are times in training when you will be focusing on technique or tactics rather than speed. When I say train like you race, I mean putting 100% effort, focus, and intensity into whatever you are working on.

Admittedly, you probably won’t be able to train at 100%, but if you can up your efforts from, say, 70% to 90%, when you get to race day, you’ll have little trouble kicking it up to 100% because your mind and body know that it’s time to race.
By training like you race, you won’t need to do anything new or different. And races won’t feel like a big deal because you’ve been skiing at that high level in training. All of those great skills and habits that you instilled in training will naturally come out and you’ll be able to ski your fastest.

3. Use keywords to maintain focus. Perhaps the greatest challenge you face in improving the technical and tactical aspects of your skiing is maintaining focus in training. In fact, ski racing may be the most difficult sport in which to focus because there are so many things to focus on (e.g., course, terrain, snow conditions) and so many thing trying to distract you (e.g., speed, homework, people). For example, in the starting gate of a training course, you may be totally focused on, say, keeping your hands up. But, as soon as you leave the gate, you find you have a lot more important things to focus on, such as survival!

As soon as you lose your focus, you lose your ability to work on that thing you were focusing on in the starting gate. Here’s a simple rule: If you don’t focus on it, you won’t work on it. If you don’t work on it, you won’t learn it. And if you don’t learn it, you won’t be able to use it in a race.

The best way I have found to maintain focus on a training course is to develop and repeat a keyword that will remind you to focus on and practice what you are working on to improve. Returning to my example of keeping your hands up, think up a simple keyword (best to have it one or two syllables and active), such as up, drive, press, or forward. Then, in the starting gate and during the entire training run, repeat the keyword to yourself (out loud if necessary). If you’re saying the keyword, you have a much better chance of not being distracted, keeping the focus on the technique you’re working on, actually practicing it the entire training run, and ingraining it so that it is automatic.

4. Make mistakes. One of the most frustrating aspects of developing as a ski racer are the mistakes that you make as you work to improve. Unlike in other sports, the consequences of mistakes in ski racing are dramatic and sometimes painful, in the forms of blowing out in training courses or crashing in races. Yet, racers often don’t realize that mistakes are an essential part of becoming a better racer. In fact, many racers view mistakes as failure; if they didn’t have a perfect run, they’ve failed. In fact, many racers I see bail out of courses at the first hint of trouble. But mistakes only mean failure when you give in to them, don’t learn from them, and keep repeating them.

Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process and offer you valuable information about what you need to work on. Mistakes are actually positive signs in ski racing because they mean you’re taking risks, moving out of your comfort zone, and working to improve. If you are not making mistakes, you’re just not pushing yourself to be your best.

Rarely has there ever been a perfect race run, even by World Cup racers. The best ski racers in the world make mistakes, so if you’re not at that level, you shouldn’t be surprised that you make mistakes too. What makes World Cup racers different is not that they don’t make mistakes, but rather how they respond to them. Instead of getting frustrated, angry, and depressed when they make mistakes, the best racers stay positive and motivated. And, importantly, they learn from their mistakes so they don’t make them again. To ensure that mistakes mean success, immediately after a mistake, identify what exactly you did incorrectly, decide what you need to do to correct it, and focus on the correction on the next run.

5. Have patience, persistence, and perseverance. Two significant barriers to achieving your ski racing goals are frustration and discouragement. Let’s face it, ski racing is filled with obstacles, plateaus, and setbacks, and it’s easy to just want to give up. I think it’s especially hard for young racers these days because all of the messages they get from popular culture is that success should easy and they shouldn’t have to work that hard to get it. But that’s just not the way the real world works. Gosh, pursuing excellence is just plain difficult. That’s why most people never get there, because they quit when it gets hard.

I read a research study once that said that it takes 2,000 repetitions of a skill to ingrain it fully. The problem is that you can’t just make that many repetitions to really learn something. Rather, you have to have 2,000 quality repetitions, which means you may need to do several thousand more to get to that number. Also, other research shows that those who achieve excellence have put in thousands of hours of practice.

If you’re going to achieve your ski racing goals, you need the 3 Ps of training. The first P is patience, really understanding that there is no magic and there are no quick and easy paths to success. You must be willing to accept that it will take a long time to reach your goals. The second P is persistence, which means keeping up maximum effort even when you are tired, bored, cold, and wishing you could somewhere else. The third P is perseverance, which involves facing and overcoming those obstacles, plateaus, and setbacks that are an inevitable part of the climb up the steep mountain to your goals.

Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Watch my 2010 Winter Olympics Discovery Channel interview on fear in high-risk winter sports here.

Dr. Jim Taylor drjimtaylor.com,
knows the psychology of ski racing! He competed internationally for
Burke Mtn. Academy, Middlebury College, and the University of Colorado.
For the past 25 years, Dr. Jim has worked with many of America’s leading
junior race programs as well as World Cup competitors from many
countries. He is the author of Prime Ski Racing Triumph of the Racer’s Mind. Dr. Jim is also the author of two parenting books and speaks regularly to parents, students, and educators around the U.S..

Originally posted 2010-12-28 05:08:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Article source: http://www.skiracing.com/?q=node/9119

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If your holiday gifts included an engagement ring, congratulations. Now it’s time to get to work.

There’s a wedding to plan, a dress to buy and countless details to attend to.

We’re here to help with online guides to dress shops, venues and more.

Go to www.courierpostonline.com/attractions and search “bridal shops” for local stores and contact info. You’ll also get leads on where to find dresses for members of the wedding party.

Search “reception sites” for more than 80 venues in South Jersey and Philly, from traditional halls to unconventional places such as the Philadelphia Zoo and the Spirit of Philadelphia cruise line.

And check our calendar at www.courierpostonline.com/events and search the keyword “bridal” for a list of upcoming bridal shows where you can discover the latest fashions, see vendor exhibits and win prizes.

Article source: http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20101227/NEWS/12270337/Hey-brides-Borrow-our-wedding-resource-guides

Facebook Just Overtook Yahoo! in unique visitors and you Still Have no Social CRM Strategy?

Facebook just overtook Yahoo by a comfortable amount to become the third largest website in the world according to comScore. The world’s leading social networking site attracted 648 million unique visitors in November 2010 and this compares to just 630 million for Yahoo.

It is obvious the growth of social networking is not slowing down any time soon and as more and more commerce is being initiated based upon social network chatter; the need for companies to monitor and participate in these online conversations grows by the day. Yet with all the growth in the market, social CRM is something most companies aren’t focusing on in a concerted way.

Some have Twitter accounts and others have set up LinkedIn and Facebook pages but social media is driving more sales every day and in many cases a single negative and unchecked customer interaction can travel through social networking sites and search engine result pages rapidly and subsequently cause companies to lose large amounts of business.

To improve your social CRM strategy for 2011 consider focusing on/doing the following:

1. Meet: Have regular social networking meetings to keep your marketing, product management, branding and executive teams to keep them on the same page.
   
2. Monitor: Be sure you are on top of relevant keywords via hashtags and keyword search on social networking sites as well as search engine alerts. Don’t forget to focus on your competitors’ keywords as well to see what the world is saying and if you can potentially leverage these comments as a competitive differentiator. Go to hashtag.org to learn more.
3. Measure: Is your social networking strategy working? Are you being mentioned more or less as time goes on and is the chatter positive or negative? Where is it trending? Why?
4. React: What is being said about your company and what are you saying in return? Was a customer unhappy with an experience in your retail store? If so, what are you doing about it? Did you send the angry customer a gift certificate and apologize? Furthermore, did you address what actions you have taken as a result? For example, did you change your return policy? Did you decide to keep the store open longer during the holidays, etc?
5. Participate: Be proactive. Share tips, coupons, news and information which could be of interest to your community.
6. Network: You will find there are people who love you and those who hate you online. Encourage those who love you with direct messages and engage with those who hate you. It is far more difficult to trash a company online if you receive regular and personalized communications from the entity you love to flame.
7. Integrate: Get social networking into the arteries of the organization. Determine transparency guidelines and be sure everyone knows how to engage with existing and potential customers.
8. Dialogue: Encourage reaction. Try polls and asking questions to get your community to engage with you and your brand.
9. Don’t Over Promote: Find a balance between objectively educating and engaging with your market without being a 24×7 salesperson. This is a crucial point.

At the risk of running afoul of this last point, you may want to consider attending TMC’s second Social CRM Expo February 2-3, 2011 at the Miami Convention Center – collocated with ITEXPO. Social CRM Expo had a strong buzz earlier this year in Los Angeles and the second event will have additional and great speakers you didn’t get to hear from last time.

I hope to see you there.

Disclosure: I am the chairman of ITEXPO and Social CRM Expo.

Article source: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/call-center/9-social-crm-tips-for-2011.html

After writing this post in attempt to make some lighthearted points as to why you shouldn’t worry about using the meta keywords tag within your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy to rank on the Internet, I was bombarded by a few folks who were adamant about setting me straight in regards to usage of the meta keywords tag. Thanks to those rather colorful individuals (you know who you are), I thought I would set the record straight and further clarify a few things.

Keywords: A Cornerstone of SEO

First and foremost, keywords are a cornerstone of SEO. They are categorically necessary and not once did I intend for my previous post to come off at all as though I don’t understand the critical importance of them (keywords, that is). Perhaps the day will come when you can rank first-place for a competitive keyword based solely on synonymous copy (e.g. ranking for “funny” or “comical” when all you’ve targeted on- and off-page is “humorous”), but that time is certainly not here and now. (To note, Google does pay attention to synonyms). Even still, if such a day does come, then keywords will *still* be a cornerstone. You have to establish relevance with your content somehow, right? Ergo, the importance of keywords cannot be stressed enough. The only reason I mention this is because one of the individuals who prompted this response from me started divaricating into keyword-related territory outside the boundaries of just the meta keywords tag (which is all I was focusing on). As I’ve said previously, keyword research should be the foundation of your SEO strategy.

Meta Keywords Tag: Internet

To start, it’s not going to hurt you if you populate your meta keywords tag… that is, unless you’ve done extensive keyword research and you place those keywords within it on every single page of your site (I see people do this). A populated meta keywords tag makes competition analysis much easier (right-click, view page source and done). Don’t underestimate the value of a good keyword — especially if you’re in a competitive market/niche! Having said that, feel free to populate your meta keywords tag with keywords you’ve got on the page or with generic keywords relevant to your page. Maybe it helps provide a reference to page meaning for you or maybe it makes you sleep better at night, but if there were only 10 matrices with which to rank a page, the meta keywords tag would undoubtedly be the most irrelevant of them all. Google has 200+ of such matrices with which to rank pages… and that’s just what they’ve noted publicly. Care to guess where the meta keywords tag falls within that list?

So, by all means, feel free to utilize your meta keywords tag, but don’t do it out of hopes that it will help you rank higher for the keywords you populate it with. It won’t. And also be aware that you could very well be doing your competition a favor. You would benefit exponentially more from having exact keywords in the page title (2, maybe 3) and throughout the copy of a page, then building a “dofollow” link (the more, the merrier) with exact anchor text pointing to that page. At that point, you’re already far beyond anything the meta keywords tag would ever do for you (as it stands now, at least).

And should the day come when using the meta keywords tag will actually behoove you, you can without fail count on someone within the SEO industry discovering it and making such knowledge public. And if that happens, then you simply go back and populate the meta keywords tag using the time it would have taken you to do as such in the first place. Easy peasy!

If anyone cares to test out the meta keywords tag to see if something will rank based purely on it, create a blank index.html file and populate it with a HEAD/HEAD section that contains *only* the meta keywords tag with one keyword that has no competition; preferably, something random like “viauwnvraiwunv.” Don’t use the keyword as anchor text and don’t include it *anywhere else* (in the URL structure, on your Web site, et al). Create some links to the page via Facebook, Twitter, a link from your home page pointing to that page, etc. Use only the full URL for anchor text wherever you place the link (i.e. http://www.heresthesitemystuffison.net/index.html). That should kick you off to a good start to seeing if a page will rank for a keyword strictly based on its existence within the meta keywords tag (though you may need to add a paragraph or two to the page making sure to not use the keyword anywhere within it — just to give the spiders something more. But at that point, we’re trespassing upon the grounds of a page not ranking if all it contains is meta keywords, so… take that for what it’s worth).

Meta Keywords Tag: Intranet

Ah, yes. Now we’re at the part that I intentionally didn’t say word-one about in my original post: using the meta keywords tag for an Intranet site (that is, an internal network of pages not intended to reside on the Internet — ergo, not indexed/ranked in Internet search engines). The fundamental difference between Intranet and Internet where the meta keywords tag is concerned is the methodology of establishing relevance for your content. On the Internet, search engines must establish relevance based on what a page is *actually* about; not just how it’s defined solely within the meta keywords tag. Additionally, once an Internet search engine establishes relevance, it must then compare it to other pages and rank accordingly. On the Internet, a search engine has everyone’s best interests at heart; not just yours and yours alone.

On an Intranet, however, *you* are the one who establishes relevance for your content and the search engine platform your Intranet utilizes (whether it’s a full-on platform like Google Search Appliance or the built-in search functionality of something like SharePoint) filters content based on how *you* specify in all the places you can specify it (here again, platforms differ, but they all give *you* the keys with which to drive). In other words, if you take a site that’s set up exactly the same way and you stick one version of it on an Intranet and the other on the Internet, the way it will perform will be drastically different. After all, if there’s a page on the Internet that’s more informative than yours and more popular, why should you outrank them? But we’re talking about Intranets here where your only competition is your own pages (hence, it’s still important to correctly qualify your content page-by-page).

So, is it useful to populate your meta keywords tag for your Intranet site? Well, that depends on the platform you’re utilizing. Some look directly at your meta keywords tag and others expect you to define your keywords in a location they specify within their documentation. With that in mind, you may well find it’s equally as useless to populate the meta keywords tag on your Intranet pages as it would be if they were Internet pages! Or, you may find that it is *exactly* where you need to place your keywords so that people can internally search and find their way to your content. Either way, just make sure you read the manual and I promise you will be all set up.

Conclusion

To close, I’d like to touch on something I said in response to one of the individuals I gave a shout-out to earlier: I don’t know everything there is to know about what works with SEO. Far from it, really. Having said that, I do know plenty of things that don’t work… or, at the very least, provide such an infinitesimal amount of value that their implementation is questionable at best. As an SEO, there are actions/methods you may choose to forgo in the interest of productivity and personal preference. For me, populating the meta keywords tag is one such method. Thanks for reading and I hope you had a wonderful holiday!

Any questions or comments? Please feel free to reach out via the comments section below!

-Stephen Chapman
SEO Whistleblower

Article source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/seo/meta-keywords-tag-internet-versus-intranet/1745

The Google AdWords Blog announced a few new features they recently added to the opportunities tab within the AdWords Console. Those features include first page CPC ideas, more robust statistics for your keyword ideas, bid ideas for ad groups, and a way to export your ideas.

The AdWords blog offers more details and screen shots:

(1) First page CPC ideas: First page CPC ideas help you adjust your bids so that your ads have a better chance of appearing on the first page of search results. If you have first page CPC ideas in your account, these will appear in your Opportunities tab above your keyword, bid, and budget ideas.

(2) More robust statistics for your keyword ideas: Until now, we’ve provided ‘estimated monthly searches’ as the primary statistic upon which to evaluate the potential impact of your keyword ideas. Now, in addition to search estimates for each keyword, you’ll also see estimates for impressions, cost, and clicks whenever these statistics are available. These new statistics can help you make more informed decisions about which keywords you apply to your account.

(3) Bid ideas for ad groups: Bid ideas can now be found at the ad group level in addition to the keyword level.

(4) Export your ideas: If you have a lot of ideas in your account, exporting these to a .csv file can be a good way for you to review optimizations before you apply them. Exporting your ideas is as easy as clicking the ‘Export all ideas to .csv’ link. While you can see all the other features in the Opportunities tab now, this last feature is rolling out to all advertiser accounts over the next few weeks.

Article source: http://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-adds-new-features-to-opportunities-section-58295

Delivery of today’s Enterprise to stores and homes will be delayed by the snowstorm. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our e-Paper,  an exact replica of the print paper, with clickable ads and links and other features, will available free by noon on  Monday.

E-Paper will read aloud every story from today’s paper, including obituaries. It’s a great way for anyone with vision problems to stay in touch.

E-Paper will translate text into a dozen languages, from Chinese to Russian.

It’s easy to read and navigate and search, and allows you to save and e-mail stories and pages. Web links in stories are searchable. Ads open to display netter.

You can read it right on your desktop or laptop, or choose from other  formats including mobile, Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook, iPhone or iPod.

And the price couldn’t be more reasonable. Print subscribers only pay $10 more a year. Non-subscribers can get the e-edition for $60 a year.  New subscribers may also choose home delivery AND the e-edition for an iontroductory rate of $131 a year.

Read headlines and flip through pages just as you would the newspaper. Quick, easy navigation helps you make the most of your reading experience.

With just a click of button, you can view articles, photos, games and comics. Keyword searches allow you to find any topic, person or event instantly. Search one day or check the archives for past editions.

Read the E-Paper on your schedule at home, work or on the road. Use it anywhere in the world.

Retrieve, save or distribute articles, advertisements and information through printing, emailing or pdf options. We help you to stay connected.

Article source: http://www.enterprisenews.com/topstories/x1682036374/E-PAPER-Todays-snow-edition-available-free