Digital Marketing Has Different Meaning to Different Sectors

The primal nature of connectedness ensures it crosses all boundaries

Digital Capitalizes on Connectedness

When you are running your own small business, understanding demographics, mindsets, finances, and culture all affect how you can reach people. Digital marketing budgets are continually increasing, but in terms of reaching specific sectors digital won't be pinned down. Digital marketing embodies the whole shift from outbound interruptive marketing (TV, print ads, radio spots, billboards etc.) to inbound, customer-focused marketing (online ads, blogs, wikis, social media, websites, e-marketing, video etc.). Knowing how your customer views connectedness can make or break your ability to draw people in to find out more about your offering. If people engage, they will probably buy later - and it's all coming from the fact that connectedness is natural, it's primal. Marketers can use it, but connectedness came before marketing.

Embracing the Coolness of a Millennial Mindset Has a Lot of Appeal

In my view there is no real digital divide when trying to promote your products and services, just infinite new ways of understanding and reaching your customer. Millennials invented and own digital, but boomers may remain a large target market that they'll continue to mine data on. A 2013 report recently released by Pew Internet and American Life Project, Demographics of Internet Users, wrote that internet use among boomers has increased, and 77% of 50-65 year olds are online. For baby boomers who spent their teen years in the early 70s dancing en masse in public parks with bongo drums in the background, embracing the coolness of the millennial mindset has a lot of appeal. The inherent connectivity within the digital world feels familiar, like a lingering unconventionality.

Getting Up to Speed by Learning Digital 

Since I run my own part-time business and came to marketing at a late age, I decided to get up to speed on the field "for real" by upgrading my education. This Digital Marketing Management program is one of the best resources available, and these instructors are fantastic, to say the least: Michelle Pellettier, Tyler Calder, Jean George and Dan Mariani.

Humidity at Home Helps Reduce Viruses in Winter

Keeping your home humid helps reduce viruses that flourish in dry environments

Reduce Cold and Flu Symptoms Related to Dry Environments

Sometimes it's easy to forget that if you are experiencing more sore throats, colds, flu and allergy symptoms once the heat is on in your home, it's because the air is too dry. It has been said that many viruses actually flourish in dry environments.

You can alleviate these effects by using a humidifier. According to the Effects of Dry Air on the Body, studies have shown that dry air has four main effects on the human body:

1. Breathing dry is a potential health hazard which can cause such respiratory ailments as asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, and nosebleeds, or general dehydration since body fluids are depleted during respiration.
2. Skin moisture evaporation can cause skin irritations and eye itching.
3. Irritative effects, such as static electricity which causes mild shocks when metal is touched, are common when the air moisture is low.
4. The "apparent temperature" of the air is lower than what the thermometer indicates, and the body "feels" colder.

Maintain Wellness By Maintaining the Right Humidity in Your Home

Humidity is an important element in our wellness. Maintaining the right humidity in your home can prevent health problems. Last night I went to my local hardware store and bought two humidifiers for our home. It's hard to describe how much better I felt just breathing the air afterwards, and I noticed this morning that I'd had a better sleep too.

Read more about the negative effects on health caused by a lack of humidity.

The Dangers of Visceral Fat

Is belly fat the same as visceral fat?

Is It Belly Fat or Visceral Fat?

The dangers of visceral fat are becoming known, but what isn't always known is how to tell the difference between regular fat and visceral fat. Subcutaneous fat, which is stored between the muscles and the skin, is regular fat. That's the fat that we can grab a hold of, say around the stomach or thighs. Here is a good comparison between the two fats:

"In comparison to visceral cells, subcutaneous cells are greater in number. But the visceral cells are actually larger in size per cell. And they get to be so big that they atrophy themselves—at which point they constantly, 24/7, produce cytokines. Cytokines are a hormone with known inflammatory properties. "They promote atherosclerosis, tumor growth, aging, oxidation, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease."

Visceral Fat is Linked to a High-Fat Diet

Science suggests that visceral fat is linked to a high-fat diet. According to Dr. David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, "'Visceral fat may seem to be an inert lump of lard, but it's actually highly active and constantly pumping poisons into the bloodstream.' Visceral fat is known to cause inflammation in the colon and the artery walls, and is a major cause of heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer. Research even suggests that visceral fat affects mood by increasing production of the stress hormone, cortisol, and reducing levels of feel-good endorphins. So, along with killing you, visceral fat, it seems, can make you feel low."

Sounds scary, doesn't it?  So how can we keep our visceral fat low? By eating low-fat foods and doing regular, moderate exercise at least 30 minutes per day. Other things to be aware of are:

• portion size
• more fruits and vegetables
• more whole grains
• more lean protein
• less refined-grain pasta and breads

A few years ago I noticed that during my yearly medical checkup it became routine for my doctor to measure my waist with a seamstress tape. I wondered why she was always picking the part of my waist that stuck out the most. It turned out that to properly measure visceral fat, or the dangerous fats stored around the liver, you have to measure one inch above the belly button. I was surprised at where my measurement was in relation to the 35 inches considered normal for women.

So I've started taking regular exercise of between 30-60 minutes per day very seriously. If you are concerned with your level of visceral fat, it's not too difficult to do something to reduce it.

Classroom Discussion: Benefit or Detriment?

Taking the Discussion Outside the Classroom Keeps it Real

Does mandatory classroom discussion dumb down lecture content for students?

From research of the many over-40 classmates I've studied with during the past year, the consensus among boomers is that enforced discussion in college or university classrooms is dumbing down lecture content. At the typical college age, we were all "serious intellectuals" taking the discussion outside the classroom creatively and independently on our own, while receiving a full hour or 2-hour lecture from the prof as well. There wasn't a problem remembering the content. In most eras, students naturally discuss what they're learning in nightly gatherings outside the classroom, every era and place having its own hangouts. The dress and aspiration is also era-specific - perhaps young men in black leather bomber jackets and Lenin caps sit beside freedom-fighting women in earnest hippie dresses, all having written or with plans to write their novels or journal articles... or whatever. The main point is that outside the classroom no discussion occurs to get a better mark.

Institutionalized Discussion Curbs Creativity in Learning 

What causes a professor to institute discussion with students during a lecture that I'm paying for to learn knowledge from him or her? Does a prof condone the conformity in holding particular opinions as well, that used to be free to roam in a cafe without any institutional shaping whatsoever? Where no opinion is shaped by a need for a mark or a grade or a reference, but each idea just feverishly fascinating to learn about for its own sake? Why can't students just discuss on their own without the guidance of a prof? And leave the lecture to being a distilled, creative expression of a senior expert's interpretations and ideas on the topic we're learning about that they reference and allude to?

The Most Verbose Students Are Rewarded

At my own university course about a fascinating literary topic, I have decided to drop the course and continue studying the subject on my own. I dislike having to listen to other students for half of the lecture time at my university. It feels like a controlled, herded, prescribed group experience. Perhaps it is a conditioning for the conformity expected of everyone from the working world, where "collaboration" is now mandatory, which often means a quiet tyranny by the participants who like to talk the most. Preference isn't given to the proven participants who know the most or execute the best and most efficiently, but the ones who talk at and in the highest volumes.

I have decided I value a real college or university lecture, and don't want it dumbed-down or cut in half, to make room for currently mandatory classroom discussion. Just as I seek quieter "doers" in my professional environments who walk the walk rather than just talk the talk.

Cure Flat-Footedness With Ballet Exercises

It is possible to cure flat-footedness by building strength through ballet exercises

High Arches, Low Arches, or Flat Feet?

Since I've been walking to work for over a month now, I am very aware of having flat feet. And although I studied ballet for 16 years many years ago, I never knew that ballet is actually recommended to fix flat-footedness. Ballet exercises and stretches the foot and ankle - and to some degree, strengthens the arch. This can lessen the pain in feet when walking long distances.

Practicing Relevés Builds Foot Strength

Practicing relevés is the best way to build strength in feet. To perform a relevé, start with your weight evenly distributed between the balls of your feet and your heels. Slowly lift your heels and roll onto the balls of your feet, resisting the floor as though you are peeling each muscle away from the floor one by one. Then slowly lower your feet to the floor. Do this 10 times each day to build strength in your feet.

The Peroneus Longus Muscle Needs to Be Strengthened to Cure Flat-Footedness

The peroneus longus is the muscle responsible for maintaining the foot arch. If this muscle hasn't been used, it has to be strengthened. It is best to use the whole body to condition it in a wholistic way. One simple thing to correct is to be aware of where your weight is when you stand. If it's on your heels, try to correct this by balancing your body weight more on the balls of your feet.




Other tips for strengthening feet are:

• toe running
• toe walking: walk without touching your heels to the ground
• spread out toes of both feet and hold for 15 seconds
• point your toes and hold for 10 seconds, then release - do 5 times each day on each foot
• roll your feet inwards to stretch the muscles on the outer sides of each foot
• go barefoot as much as possible
• try pointing your toes without curling them

Even for professional future dancers, it is possible to correct flat feet. Check out these young dancers discussing their flat-footedness. Yoga Tuneup has other interesting resources on correcting flat feet.

Back to School Resolutions

Back to School Resolutions are the product of the mental reset button we feel each September

Back to School Resolutions Are All About Going Forward

Forget New Years resolutions - Back to School resolutions are the ones I always make. They do not necessarily relate to being a parent either, since my son is almost finished university and doesn't need me buying his clothes or packing his lunches anymore. They are about my own return to school, my own wellness over 40, and my own improvement in achieving wellness goals and maximizing life in a new age zone.

What are back to school resolutions, anyway? They are the product of the mental reset button we have from decades of closing the chapter of summer and embarking on a return to school. They are from our childhood excitement about starting a fresh new grade each September with a fresh new pencil case full of sharpened pencils and a new 3-ring binder with paper, dividers and a box of reinforcements on hand. (hmm, what I really mean here is a new laptop, cell phone, music and clothes...)

Being a Better Everything

I still get excited every September about starting something fresh! But now my resolutions are about passing to the next proverbial grade of life, not about passing from grade 7 to grade 8. I still think that my current resolutions are influenced by a mindset from three or four decades of deciding to be a "better everything" in order to have a good year - the year from September to June, that is.

Here are 7 quick ideas to kick start your own career, financial, environmental, or wellness aspirations:

• Whether you're a new grad or facing a working retirement, pursue the next level of your career by upgrading your skills in a way that's relevant to the marketplace as well as your own personality

• If you really want to get to work feeling grounded and able to take charge of your own productivity, walk at least part of the way to work

• Buy fresh food and cook it

• Whether you have kids yet or not, think about them and their kids of the future - reduce your car usage and if possible get rid of your car and use transit

• Save money painlessly by managing your personal cash flow

• Consider chemical-free skin care products - it's hard to believe that many of us smoked cigarettes at our office computers in the 80s; well, in the future people will look back incredulously at the amount of chemicals we put on our face daily when there were other alternatives out there

• Try something out of character and take up dancing

Health Benefits of Swimming

The health benefits of swimming include providing a good cardio workout and building core strength

Swimming Results in Trimmer Hips and Waistlines

Whether you swim in an outdoor pool, lake or indoor pool, the health benefits of swimming cannot be overlooked. Swimming not only builds lean muscle and boosts metabolism, it also gives a killer cardio workout if you do the freestyle stroke.

Swimming makes us feel and look younger

What I like about swimming is that it's a relaxing form of exercise and it's free.

It's hard to find an unhappy person at any outdoor swimming pool. There's something natural about using every muscle in your body while having a surreal weightlessness. It's one place that we can experience the sensation of floating.

Since swimming is good for every age group, it's also an activity that's multi-generational. It's not unusual to see retired people, business people, family people, children and babies all playing together in the middle of the city.

Swimming Reduces the Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes and Stroke

Beyond the alleviation of stress and its relaxing effects, swimming has other hard-core health benefits:

• reduces our risk of getting heart disease, diabetes or stroke
• prolongs life
• improves flexibility and coordination
• improves balance and posture
• low risk of bone, joint or muscle injury due to weightlessness in water
• low-impact
• builds lean muscle and boosts metabolism
• builds core strength
• results in trimmer waists and hips
• makes us feel and look younger