When you buy locally there are a few advantages. First, you cut back on the amount of pollution caused by transportation of the item. Many items we buy are shipped from all over the U.S. and the rest of the world through various forms of transportation. Local products do not travel as far, if at all, and therefore do not have the same impact that a national supplier may have. Buying locally also helps stimulate your local economy. You are contributing to jobs and the welfare of people who live in your community. And finally, in the case of produce, you get a fresher product. If a fruit or vegetable doesn’t have to be trucked across the country it’s going to be a lot fresher when you get it.

How Can I Find Local Products?

There are a few ways to find out what’s available in your area. First, and probably the easiest, would be to check with your local grocery store. See if they know if any of their products or produce are from a local farm or vendor. Another option would be to go to a grocer that you know specializes in holistic living or local farming. Henry’s Farmers Market, which is the store I frequent, actually labels local products and produce. In fact the chain has devoted itself to helping support local growers and suppliers. Another grocer, Whole Foods Market has become a very big name in the holistic community and offers a number of organic and sometimes local products.

Farmers Markets

Another way is to support local growers and suppliers directly through farmers markets. Farmers Markets are often held on a regular basis in communities and they are a direct connection between farmers and the public. They are great way to not only get fresh produce, but another great way to support your local community and the environment.

Community Supported Agriculture

But perhaps the most interesting way of supporting local growers and suppliers is through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). CSA allows people to invest in small farms through a subscription or membership and in turn they receive a weekly or monthly delivery of produce, flowers, fruits, eggs, milk, meats, or any sort of different farm products. Again this provides you with fresher food since it comes straight from the farm. You also save a substantial amount of money on produce because you remove the middle man from the business. You pay the farm directly and don’t deal with the price hike you see at grocery stores. Finally you decrease your impact on the planet. Smaller local farms tend to use fewer chemicals on their crops and often use organic farming practices. They also grow a smaller amount of crops because they have a more predictable number of consumers to sell to, which cuts back on packaging and on wasted crops.

For more information on farmers markets in your area and Community Supported Agriculture, visit LocalHarvest.org. There you can search for farms and farmers markets in your area. You can also get more information on Community Supported Agriculture and farms in your area that you can help support.

The site which originally allowed you to only create a mix and share it with friends via various outside social platforms such as Facebook or Myspace, took a step to make itself more social in late July when it added friend/fan capability.  I quickly added my few real life friends that were using the service, but following the addition of some outside fans I realized that the Mixwit site was severely lacking in something; the ability to communicate with other mixers.

Following the closure of Muxtape I gained a couple of new fans on Mixwit following a comment I made in one of Michael Wiegand’s plurks about alternative services to Muxtape.  The downside is that Michael and I aren’t friends outside of Plurk.  I have no way of sharing my thoughts on his mixes unless I go on Plurk and tell him.  This troubled me a bit because I really enjoyed a couple of his mixes.  So late last week I shot a quick note to Mixwit using their feedback page with the following, “I love your service I use it almost daily to trade mixes with a co-worker.  But I was thinking that it would be cool if you could leave comments on peoples mixes.  Obviously they should be able to be moderated, but I thought it would be kinda cool.  Just my thoughts…”.  I was excited to find a response in my e-mail on Saturday from the Mixwit co-founder Radley.  The response read, “it’s something we have planned to release soon…”  If this is true and they follow through with this we will soon have the ability to add comments to other people’s mixes, which I think will add a totally great element to the service.

I can only hope that “soon” in terms of upgrades to their service runs in a similar fashion to replies to their feedback since Radley’s response was VERY timely.  If you haven’t checked out Mixwit I highly recommend it.  I’ve created over 40 different mixes with varying themes and probably won’t stop until people stop listening to them or the site pulls the plug.  Feel free to check out my mixes.

Let’s be honest here the concerns people have brought up about the fact that profit is being made off of what is posed as a charity are warranted. But at the same time IT’S ONLY $2! And are we forgetting that you are getting something in return? You get a link back to your website AND you help the planet that we live on. Nobody is losing here people! So what if this guy is making a little bit of money, at least he’s doing it in a way that benefits the environment.

Some will argue that if you’re trying to help the environment why not do so directly through the Arbor Day Foundation? Well, because the Arbor Day Foundation isn’t going to give you a link, and let’s face it, most of the people going to this site are not doing so because they are hoping to plant a tree. Furthermore, a number of the people who would buy a link probably wouldn’t think to donate to this cause. In this instance the site capitalizes on those who seek out links while benefiting their charity of choice. So again I ask you, what is there to lose?

An additional concern that Jeremy brought up in his post that wasn’t part of the original debate was what kind of stance Google would have on a site that is essentially selling links. And honestly I think they are going to look the other way on this one unless someone makes a big stink about it. First off they are not promoting the site as a site that sells links. They are simply providing a link to those who donate. The site is also trying to direct its efforts towards bettering the planet, and Google is clearly an eco-friendly company.

The biggest kicker about all of this is the fact that this site and the stories related to it were so quickly shot down by various outlets. Sphinn.com quickly took down the site saying that it was no relevant to SEO. Then Jeremy’s post which was sphunn was also taken down, followed by the debate that continued on twitter after the bashing on Sphinn. There are bigger fish to fry and I don’t think that slamming a guy who is trying to provide a means to sustain the environment while making a couple bucks is really who you should be attacking. How about the spammers, hackers, and various other internet scammers that aren’t providing anything of value through their sites or services? If you’re helping the environment who doesn’t profit from it? It’s one more way to sustain a greener planet for generations to come.

Pizza Hut sent out an apology letter today following a mass e-mail that mistakenly left it’s servers Wednesday.  The e-mail which was sent to the chains current e-mail subscribers list, offered a sports promotion of 2 Medium pizzas, 1 one-topping and 1 specialty or up to 3 toppings. The e-mail was apparently sent during some testing that the pizza delivery chain was doing to better their e-mail functionality. In the apology Pizza Hut says, “It was not theintent of Pizza Hut for this email to besent to you. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused. We value your relationship with us and understand that communicating with you via email is a privilege not to be taken lightly. We have identified the cause of the mistake and have taken steps to make sure this does not happen again.”

In addition to the apology Pizza Hut mentions an update to their privacy
policy in the e-mail. However, whether or not the update was in relation to the
accidental e-mail is unclear. My question is, where’s my free pizza? And do you
suppose they will start offering spam on their pizza’s?

Are you ready to call out action?
Ready for quiet on the set?
So we can finally play this out the way it plays out in your head
Is this the part where I’m supposed to leave?
Or is this where we share a warm embrace?
With all these recent revisions I’m having trouble keeping pace

You’re the one directing tell me how and who I am
In this scene am I acting as the husband or am I the guy falling for his friend?
Quick tell me please I’m struggling to follow the lines that you have scribed
I’m quickly falling out of character and quickly losing sight of mine

Should I take this next scene improv?
Work on the story you’ve composed so far?
Should I take her by the hand as we run away beneath the stars?
She’ll leave hers and I’ll leave mine we’ll start our stories new
It leaves it open for a sequel, but in the script no role for you…

So this time I’ll play the Alpha and you’ll be a beta
Isolated with your reflection to find comfort in yourself
Those who still care will feed you I’m sure
Not knowing you can’t be trusted, unaware it’s over her

I didn’t come here for a fight
Don’t you see I’m not a threat to you?
I’ve laid my weapons down and again I walk away
There’s no prize to be won here, and no glory that’s at stake.

In the end the spoils of war are never as grand as they appear
I already have what I need and it’s not something tangible you can take
So we can continue the round and round and you can continue to bare your arms
Or we can simply go our separate ways we’ve already caused some harm

What you seek isn’t going to be found in the spoils of this war
It’s already right in front of you, but you can’t see it through the smoke
See the it, is really she, and she is not something you can win
In fact she’s something you already have, but fail to appreciate from within.

When I think of reputation management the first thing that comes to mind is what others are saying about a person or their business. What clients are saying, what competitors are saying, and what other media sources are saying. But what most people probably don’t consider, is what it is they are saying about themselves online.

If you have friended or followed me on any of the various social profiles I manage, you probably know that I am a very candid person. I’m not sugar coated, I’m not filtered, and I don’t mind cracking jokes; even if they are at someone else’s expense. The fact of the matter is, I am who I am. I do this because even though I want people to see me as a professional, I also want them to see who I am as a person.

With social media becoming such a vital part of small business it’s important to properly represent yourself. You never know who may be looking at your business or profile; potential clients, potential partnerships, perhaps potential employees. If you portray yourself in your various social outlets as the serious sophisticated corporate type, yet you run your business in a casual mom and pop fashion you are already starting off your online relationships on the wrong foot. You are giving people a false sense of who it is they are dealing with. You would never market yourself as an orange salesman if you were selling apples, so why pretend to be what you’re not? Sure by showing your true colors you may scare off some of the higher end prospects, but in doing so you are capturing those who are most interested in what it is that you actually have to offer.

The value in this is that you in turn capture those who will work best with your business model and your personality. In my personal experience this has lead to some incredible collaborative efforts between me and my clients. Furthermore, it makes the overall process more comfortable for both parties. Your business relationships are much like your personal relationships, and if you can’t start out on a common ground there’s bound to be some bumps in the road.

In the end the most valuable take away from being yourself is that you know that the people you are interacting with are doing so because of who you are, not because of who you are pretending to be. By faking it you risk others seeing through your fake personality, and if you fall victim to your own faults, you risk tarnishing your online reputation and your business. Even more harmful would be exposing you’re a fraud in your face to face interactions. I know that I have developed opinions and ideas about certain people I interact with on social sites, and I know that I would be disappointed if at some point I met them in person and their online personality turned out to be nothing more than a façade.

One final thing to realize is that while being yourself you still need to keep a sense of professionalism. A lot of us use social media both professionally and personally, so there will be times when the two may cross paths and sometimes may even cross the line of appropriate. Rest assured this probably isn’t the end of the world. I have dropped my share of F-bombs and bad jokes on Twitter and Plurk and have still managed to maintain what online presence I do have. But it is still always something you need to be aware of.

Managing your reputation is an important aspect of running your business, but no one can destroy your reputation more than yourself. It doesn’t matter if all of your clients have given you high marks on their blogs and websites. If you misrepresent yourself their words are useless. People will take their personal experiences and opinions into consideration long before the ideas and opinions of others.

Social media involvement has to be monitored to make sure your company goals are the focus.

I think this was a great post, and though ‘Audrey the Quotable’ again was in the running for this plurk. I wanted to go in a different direction this week. This weeks Social Media Moment has a great topic and I think any added feedback or thoughts you would like to share on this plurk would add to it’s value.

Finally, I remind you that you can alway feel free to contact me on Plurk or Twitter and let me know about something funny or interesting that you feel should be featured. I can only see so much, other users can be a great outside set of eyes.

I don’t know that it really needs an explanation, but if it does feel free to contact me and I’ll explain. I mean really Google…

“…been losing karma”, “…thinks my karma is stalled”, and “…getting close to going over 70 karma points” were all plurks that graced my timeline at various points today, all of which resulted in numerous responses about other people’s karma and their disappointment or excitement about it. But in the end what dose karma actually provide us? Sure you get some perks, but how many of those actually add value to the user experience.

Perhaps the most useful karma reward is achieved at 10 karma points. At 10 points you have the ability to personalize your timeline title. From a personalization aspect I think this is valuable, much like adding your age, location, etc., it gives you the ability to give other users an idea of who you are.

At 25 points you are rewarded additional emoticons, while these can add some fun visualization to the plurk timeline I really don’t think it adds any real value to the service. Furthermore the dancing banana was only funny the first 5 times.

The emoticon perks repeat again at 50 and again if you invite 10 of your friends to join. Again these simply add more flare to your posts and in some cases infect your timeline just as much as karma plurks do.

But perhaps the most useless, and in my opinion the one perk that could negatively affect your Plurk experience is achieved at 40 karma points. At 40 karma points you are given the ability to change your plurk display name. To me this is the most baffling concept to come out of a social site. You establish yourself as a specific individual with a specific display name for the first 40 karma points, and then can suddenly change your identity on a whim.

How might this hurt you? For starters anyone who friends you after you’ve changed your display name probably only knows you by that name. Because of this they are probably unaware that you were once JoePlurk, since your current display name is MightyJoePlurk. In turn they may use @MightyJoePlurk when they reference you, which sadly does not link back to your profile. Which brings us to another problem. Let’s say that someone wants to visit your profile, and they only remember you by the name MightyJoePlurk. If they use that in the profile URL they will be sent to a friendly screen featuring our friends in the A-Team.

Sure it’s amusing, but not when you are trying to find someone.

Clearly there is room for Plurk to rethink their karma rewards and provide something that can potentially enhance the user experience. First and foremost if you are going to allow people to choose a alternate display name, then at least make it so that if someone uses @displayname it links to the persons profile, the same should apply to the user URL.

Some additional ideas that stemmed from a plurk posted by bloggeries asking what people would want to see as added perks after 50 karma points included adding additional qualifiers to choose from, customizable qualifiers, and the ability to share karma with friends.

I think of these perhaps the most valuable from a user standpoint would be the additional, or customizable qualifiers. The qualifiers always make it easier to fit what you have to say in 140 characters by saving you a few characters at the beginning. In addition it allows you to express yourself in more ways. I think the ability to share karma, though a friendly gesture, would add to the karma whoring that already plagues people’s timelines.

I think the current perks provided to Plurk users add to the experience of plurking, but the value in them lacks. Especially when you look at the shortcomings of things like changing your display name.