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Social Media, Gamification And Gaming Statistics

February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Facts on gaming from the ESA… I am looking forward to hearing Mario Herger speak at Enterprise Gaminfication Conference 2/8 in Santa Monica, CA.

Gamers include millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds. In fact, nearly three-quarters of all American households play games. This vast audience fuels the growth of this multi-billion dollar industry and helps bring jobs to communities across the nation. Below is a list of the top 10 entertainment software industry facts:

  1. Consumers spent $25.1 billion on video games, hardware and accessories in 2010.
  2. Purchases of digital content accounted for 24 percent of game sales in 2010, generating $5.9 billion in revenue.
  3. Seventy-two percent of American households play computer or video games.
  4. The average game player is 37 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.
  5. The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 41 years old.
  6. Forty-two percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).
  7. In 2011, 29 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.
  8. Fifty-five percent of gamers play games on their phones or handheld device.
  9. Seventy-six percent of all games sold in 2010 were rated “E” for Everyone, “T” for Teen, or “E10+” for Everyone 10+. For more information on game ratings, please see www.esrb.org.
  10. Parents are present when games are purchased or rented 91 percent of the time.

Video games are now a mass medium, widely enjoyed on a variety of platforms by a diverse audience. The ESA’s 2011 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry show that 72 percent of American households play computer and video games. The research also reveals other interesting demographic facts about today’s gamers and the games they play, including:

  • The average gamer is 37 years old and has been playing for 12 years. Eighty-two percent of gamers are 18 years of age or older.
  • Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry’s fastest growing demographics.
  • Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).
  • Twenty-nine percent of game players are over the age of 50, an increase from nine percent in 1999. This figure is sure to rise in coming years with nursing homes and senior centers across the nation now incorporating video games into their activities.
  • Sixty-five percent of gamers play games with other gamers in person.
  • Fifty-five percent of gamers play games on their phones or handheld device.
  • Ninety-one percent of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented. Ninety-eight percent of parents are confident in the accuracy of the Entertainment Software Rating Board ratings. Seventy-five percent of parents believe that the parental controls available in all new video game consoles are useful.
  • Parents also see several benefits of entertainment software. Sixty-eight percent of parents believe that game play provides mental stimulation or education, 57 percent believe games encourage their family to spend to time together, and 54 percent believe that game play helps their children connect with their friends.

According to data released by The NPD Group, a global market research company, the video game industry posted strong sales in 2010, generating more than $25 billion in revenue. Sales of game software and content, including games made for consoles, portable gaming devices and PCs, as well as digital full game downloads, downloadable content and social games, accounted for approximately $15.9 billion of that total.

The most popular game genre in 2010 was “Action,” which accounted for nearly 22 percent of all games sold. In addition, of the games sold in 2010, approximately 56 percent were rated “Everyone (E)” or “Everyone 10+ (E10+).”

Are you in? Learn, Share, Grow! @drnatalie

New Book on Facebook: Like My Stuff – How to Monetize Your Facebook Fans With Social Commerce & A Facebook Store
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
website/blog: www.drnatalienews.com/blog
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Vendor & Apps For Facebook F-commerce or Social Commerce & Mobile

February 6, 2012 By 3 Comments

Wondering which vendors and applications to work with to set up a Facebook F-commerce or Social Commerce Store? There’s a range from 8thBridge, SortPrice, Ecwid, BigCommerce, Usablenet, Storefront Social.com, www.x.com, MagentoCommerce, NorthSocial, ebay, Payvment and PayPal’s Adaptive Payments API, Zong, TheFind and ALUC-it.

This post looks at these types of vendors and their applications (apps) and how you can use them for Social commerce and Facebook Commerce.

How to Display a F-commerce Store on Facebook
To display a f-commerce page in Facebook, there are two options. A brand can use iFrames or a Facebook app.

iFrames
With iFrames, a brand can create, host and display its own content in Facebook page in the middle column. The advantage to iFrames? The creation and maintenance of the content and site can be done in-house by the business itself. And it tends to offer the most seamless customer experience for consumers. As many of us have experience as customers ourselves, the ease of use and simplicity in the shopping experience is critical to engaging and retaining customers to follow through and not abandon their shopping cart.

 

Facebook Apps
The other choice is to use Facebook apps. One of biggest advantage of using an app is the increased amount of space a brand has to show their content and merchandise. An app gives you 760 pixels but iFrames only allows 520 pixels. However, Facebook apps are complicated and do require a development team such as:

8thBridge
8thBridge allows brand to provide social shopping experiences that are portable, personalized and participatory. The experience across a merchant’s social shopping channel is consistent with the merchant’s existing website because 8thBridge leverages the merchant’s existing shopping cart, payment processing, and order fulfillment systems. This means there is little IT support required from a brand’s tech team. 8thBridge monetizes social media for some of the largest merchants in the world including 1-800-Flowers.com, Lands’ End, Delta Air Lines, Hallmark, HauteLook, and a division of Avon called mark

SortPrice
With SortPrice’s free Merchant Store application for Facebook, merchants both big and small are running Facebook storefronts. The stores are powered by SortPrice technology combined with the product datafeeds. This allows the product information to be easily updated, so new products and price changes are synchronized. Each Facebook store application has an integrated Wishlist which allows Facebook users to save products and share them with friends. Over 1,500 small, medium and large brands have stores. Among them are OfficeDepot, PetSmart, Loews and Adobe.

Ecwid
Ecwid focus since 2001 has been commercial open source PHP shopping cart software. One good thing for small to midsized brands is that it’s also free. The software can be easily integrated to any existing site in minutes and the store can be mirrored on many sites at the same time and managed from one place. Because the store integrates with social networks, brands can run their own store on Facebook. No PHP knowledge is required, and there are no code changes or hosting expenses. Brand include Embe, K&K Photography Gallery, Hello Magpie, RedZero Printing, US21, Cafe Grumpy and Mammamiu!
Usablenet

With Usablenet’s integrated Facebook application, brands can offer any product, service, feature, and functionality currently available on your website within Facebook. Customers can purchase a product, book a reservation, pay a bill, review products and share them with their friends, or provide feedback – without leaving Facebook. Customers include ASOS and JCPenny.

BigCommerce
BigCommerce provides e-commerce software to online retailers and merchants. Brand that want to do business on Facebook can use the BigCommerce free application, SocialShop 2. The retail platform shows up as the “Shop Now” tab on the Facebook page. It allows customers to share products with their Facebook friends and buy products within Facebook. Examples are Southern Jewlz and BabyAndMeGifts.com and Etitude’s.

Storefront Social
This software enables retailers to connect their e-commerce store to Facebook. The brand can upload the storefront banner, choose from a wide variety of templates, feature/highlight products for special promotions, etc… After building the storefront, the connection wizard allows the brand to easily install the storefront to Facebook. Example brands that use this software are Livescribe and Zumba Fitness.

NorthSocial This is what I used to create my Facebook Store. It is great for adding a product showcase to your Facebook Page. The Show & Sell app allows you to display up to 10 featured items with unique “Buy Now” links and social commenting plug-ins. Viral functionality of the app ensures your products are spread wide, increasing sales, and social engagement with your brand. With their “buy now” button you can add links to your eCommerce site so your Facebook fans are one click away from your online store.

www.x.com/
If you sell on ebay, you’ll want to watch to pay close attention to this group of vendors. X.commerce is a group of trusted, global leaders in the commerce space—eBay, PayPal, Magento, GSI Commerce, and other best-of-breed partners that have come together to deliver the first end-to-end, multi-channel commerce technology platform with all the pieces, including e-commerce, marketing automation, mobile transactions and payments… In Robert Scoble’s video interview of the CEO of ebay, John Donahoe, explained that ebay is creating this app ecosystem so as well as be able to ask their Facebook friends if they should buy it.

For merchants X.commerce is a single platform that makes the most current commerce technologies easy to access and deploy. For developers X.commerce is a robust, open ecosystem that empowers integrators and innovators with the most complete set of commerce-related tools and capabilities in the world. Developer’s now have access to eBay Inc.’s resources through one entry point giving them access to hundreds of millions of consumers and merchants who are hungry for better end-to-end commerce experiences. There is a conference on X.commerce to learn more.

MagentoCommerce
Magento is particularly attractive to small to medium-sized businesses. Magento is an open source, ecommerce ecosystem. With Magento and x.commerce within a hour you can take a small physical retail store and build a online store website and a shopping cart, they can start selling. The great thing here is if you are a developer, there is the opportunity to make money if you can come up with the next social commerce killer app.

ebay
ebay merchants made $60B last year and only 45 percent was in the US. This means shopping has gone global. Twenty percent of the commerce is cross boarder. For ebay power sellers, eBay is betting that more and more people will be pulling their shopping experience into a social media context. They are building apps to empower ebay merchants. For instance if friends, who are shopping on ebay, can ask their social graph, “Should I buy this jacket or that jacket?” So ebay is connecting to a customer’s Facebook social graph via direction from Facebook executives like Katie Burke Mitic so with a post, customers can get their friend’s opinion and decide and buy.

And ebay is developing a visual search social mobile application. It can take a picture of a jacket you see in the store or that a friend is wearing and then search and find similar things for sale on ebay and then buy it. The ebay apps will put ebay merchants store content on iphones and ipads. They are partnering with geo-location companies, so that if ebay merchant had a store and a person saw something they liked on line, they could find the store location. ebay also powers Facebook’s virtual currency system where customer’s can use Facbook credits to buy things on Facebook.

Payvment and PayPal’s Adaptive Payments API
Payvment may be a great choice for small to midsized businesses because it’s also free. Payvment originally was a web service that allowed a site owner to integrate a shopping cart into their e-commerce by adding one line of code to the site. The software allows retailers to create Facebook storefronts. Customers can use credit cards and PayPal. The new paid versions of the software include advanced analytics on Likes, comments and Tweets on a product-by-product basis. Example Facebook shops are CHiASSO, Amoeba Music, Molly Sims, Hooked on Phonics, AdultSwim UK, Gibson and Lakers Nation.

Zong
Mobile payment platforms is another category to consider. Choices for brands range from using Zong, Square, to Boku, to Mopay. Google Inc. and Intuit Inc are working on mobile payment platforms. The ability to pay on your mobile phone along with being able to access a Facebook store and/ or ask your Facebook social graph about products will provide an all-in-one social mobile Facebook commerce.

The adoption of smartphones, 3G/4G networks as well as the increase unlimited data plans has accelerated mobile media use. Brands are realizing that another venue to reach customers is through mobile browsers, apps and SMS. As technology advances, advertising will most likely play a major role in the development of the mobile ecosystem that Facebook users count on. In fact, according to comScore’s U.S. study on mobile advertising, they found that the number of advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years.

In another study from comScore revealed that 6.7 million U.S. mobile subscribers used location-based “check-in” services on their phones in March 2011, representing 7.1 percent of the entire mobile population. Location-based apps allow brands to interact with customers by providing special deals and incentives in real-time on their mobile device.

The next trend will be brands that allow full f-commerce via smart phones. One often overlooked aspect is how often a product is forwarded to a friend or posted to Facebook, These actions are quite common within mobile applications, with 4-9 percent of users doing it regularly. Brands need to start thinking about how to reach their mobile audiences while they are shopping. Through Facebook Mobile texts consumers are able to receive notifications, and send and receive SMS.

An example of mobile payment is Zong. eBay just acquired Zong for $240 million. Zong’s customers are social gaming and virtual world companies, including Zynga Inc., IMVU Inc., Walt Disney Co.’s Playdom and Zwinky. Zong’s strong suit is its relationship with 250 mobile carriers around the world. These relationships enable users to charge ecommerce purchases to their mobile bill via Zong. Those partnerships give Zong access to 3.2 billion mobile users.

TheFind
Who has surpassed Yahoo and the second most popular shopping site? TheFind, according to comScore. TheFind’s mission is to help every shopper find exactly what they want to buy, and to help every merchant, large and small, to reach those shoppers. TheFind is a vertical search engine for shopping that puts every product, every store, every sale, coupon and discount, right at the customer’s fingertips. It provides an in-depth Facebook integration called “Shop Like Friends.” What that does is allows customers to sign into the site with Facebook Connect. It then taps into the preferences of their Facebook Friends and pages that their friends have “liked” on Facebook. It then it maps this to stores and brands.

ALUC-it
In addition to the platform to build a Facebook store on, brands need to start to look at the mobile platform that they want to build their shopping and interaction apps on. A smart thing to do is to consider one that is a customizable mobile application that can also connect to their CRM or Customer Service software. ALUC-it is one of the many choices. Brands that build on this platform can connect that mobile commerce platform to Genesys Customer Service /CRM Software.

One of the issues of social mobile shopping is the fear that if people are doing comparison shopping, say with an app like TheFind while in a store, they might leave. The compelling value proposition for ALUC-it: You keep customers IN THE STORE.

With this app they scan the product’s QR code, or image and the apps does some comparison shopping and offers a coupon or a special deal to prevent the customer from buying the product elsewhere. With respect to Facebook, the consumer can instantly find who in their network has bought that product and LIKE’s it, or thinks it sucks. They can also share questions with their friends, “So these shoes make my butt look big?”

The advantages of this mobile platform is to flexibly enable smartphone users to:
• Easily find information about a product and associated offers
• Personalize the purchasing experience
• Fast-track customer service interactions after purchase
• Provide a single point of integration for all product-related conversations.

 

With respect to retailers and manufacturers, it’s a mobile platform to flexibly enable to:
• Provide up-to-the minute personalized information about products and associated offers to customers who use their smartphones as connectivity devices
• Track customer purchasing habits and experience
• Increase efficiency in customer service interactions related to particular product
(My friend Charlie Isaacs (twitter.com/charlieisaacs)  developed this app! He is truly a social media rocket scientist… one of the few in the #SCRM community who is actually writing code!!)

Learn. Share. Grow!
@drnatalie

For more info on Social And Facebook Commerce, check out my Kindle book at: Like My Stuff – How to Monetize Your Facebook Fans With Social Commerce & A Facebook Store

And Follow me at: Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
website/blog: www.drnatalienews.com/blog
YouTube Videos: On ROI of Social Media
G+ : Google Plus posts
White Papers: Social Media RO

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Demystifying the ROI of Social Media: Real Case Studies On Social Media Monitoring & Analysis

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Title: Demystifying the ROI of Social Media: Real Case Studies On Social Media Monitoring & Analysis
Location: GTM
Link out: Click here
Description: Demystifying the ROI of Social Media: Real Case Studies On Social Media Monitoring & Analysis
Start Time: 13:00
Date: 2012-02-23
End Time: 14:00

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Facebook Social Commerce For Small Businesses: Case Study Ettitude

January 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

Social Commerce isn’t just for big brands. Facebook commerce or f-commerce can help any size business sell more and monetize their fan based. And big companies can learn from what smaller brands are doing. Ettitude is using Facebook commerce to provide a range of premium and unique eco-friendly products in a quick, convenient, online shopping environment. Because they have such a compelling store, it is a natural for people wanting to share this among their social graph.

Who heads up this great strategy? Green Entrepreneur, Chief Ettitude Officer and Social Media for Positive Social Change Enthusiast, Phoebe Yu

Ettitude is an Australia-based company that sells environmentally friendly products made from bamboo and organic cotton. Ettitude was founded on the simple idea that everyday products, such as clothing, bed linen, towels and stationery, could be made much more responsibly, and contribute to making the world a better place and at the same time, look good and are affordable. Their goal is to give people who care about their family and the earth the ability to easily adopt a greener, more socially responsible lifestyle.

When I was on the Ettitude website to do some research for this book, I was impressed with their use of their traditional website as a “Facebook sharing moment.” Here’s how this works: I was on the About Us page, Figure 1, and I went to highlight some words on the site and a widget popped up and enabled me to share what I highlighted with my Facebook connections.

Ettitude Option to Share Valuable Connect With Fan's Social Networks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1

This is a brilliant word of mouth strategy to create awareness for the brand and because their marketing message is something people can get behind, i.e., being more socially responsible, the ability to share that website information may even translate into shopping cart dollars.

When you click on the Facebook icon, to share your highlighted information, it asks the customer to allow permission to connect to Facebook and post the share on my Facebook page.

Ettitude's Click to Connect To Facbook To Post the Content

Fans Sharing On Facebook About What They Liked On Ettitude's Website

The ability to allow your customers to find things they like about your company and post to their friends can be a very good PR and Marketing awareness tool. Especially for a company like Ettitude, that has a very share-able brand story around social and personal responsibility.

Phoebe was able to combine exciting content, promotions and contests has helped her online retail store Ettitude create a shopping domino effect that leverages peer–to–peer influence and drives home 10% Facebook purchases every month. She’s done this via:
• Making use of Facebook APIs to enhance the e–commerce offering
• Structuring the Facebook store and installing plug–ins to improve user
experience
• Mirroring traditional e–commerce sites for ease and security
• Combining social campaigns with F–commerce to extract the maximum benefit

Here’s Ettitude’s Facebook Storefront:

You can find more examples like this in Dr. Natalie’s Book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans With a Facebook Store and learn how to use social commerce for your business!

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is a social media business and ROI business adviser. You can find her here:

New Book on Facebook: Like My Stuff – How to Monetize Your Facebook Fans With Social Commerce & A Facebook Store
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
website/blog: www.drnatalienews.com/blog
YouTube Videos: On ROI of Social Media
G+ : Google Plus posts
White Papers: Social Media ROI

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A Facebook Commerce Pop-Up Store- Social Commerce For Small Business: Rachel Roy Jewelry

January 21, 2012 By 1 Comment

How to use a Facebook Commerce Pop-up Store / Social Commerce For Small Business and Monetize Fans

Social commerce is the addition of shopping to social networks. Small business can profit from Facebook Commerce. But if businesses aren’t careful, social commerce has the potential to ruin social networks. That’s why it’s important how brands fulfill on f-commerce. It will directly affect the success not only for their own individual brand, but as an industry as a whole. If social networking shopping sites are not delivered in the spirit of what the customer wants, it will fail. If they are delivered well, social commerce can succeed. If not for this point alone, brands need to pay attention to f-commerce as an example of how shopping can be integrated within a social network.

English: American fashion designer Rachel Roy.

Image via Wikipedia

An example of someone who really gets social commerce? That would be Rachel Roy. Rachel used a pop-up store– a Facebook commerce store to create engaging social merchandising experiences that increase a brand’s fan base while driving transactions. By creating immersive brand experiences that fully integrate shopping as well as the shopper’s wider social network, the brand increased their social currency with those fans and customers. And a pop-up shop is a great way for brand to test the f-commerce waters without going into full-scale  shop.

Rachel Roy launched a pop-up store on Facebook, giving fan’s a shopping event that included early access to Roy’s new jewelry line which was a collaboration with British R&B artist, Estelle. Rachel Roy provided a limited edition, time sensitive offering that helped drive sales without having to offer a discount.

The pop-up store lasted three days and boosted Rachel Roy’s fan base by 25% in the first day and 100% by the end of the campaign. The Facebook Page acquired 1 fan every 1.5 seconds. The exclusive, limited edition piece sold out in six hours.

Rachel Roy

Image by Rubenstein via Flickr

 

 

 

The Rachel Roy pop-up shop was built on a software-as-a-service solution created by Fluid Social Fan Shop of the Fluid Agency. This is an e-commerce firm whose clients include Diane von Furstenberg, Nine West, Theory, Vans and Coach.

6 hours: Time it took for the Rachel Roy Facebook jewelry store to sell out.

3rd highest: daily sales made by Rachel Roy, the day it opened its pop-up f-store.

Bravo to Rachel Roy for being a social commerce diva!!

 

You can find more examples like this in Dr. Natalie’s Book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans With a Facebook Store and learn how to use social commerce for your business!

@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow!™

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is a social media business and ROI business adviser. You can find her here:

Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
website/blog: www.drnatalienews.com/blog

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PROTEST SOPA & PIPA BILLS

January 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The bills known as Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) were created with the intent to stop copyright infringement and protect intellectual property belonging to media makers. While we do not condone using copyrighted material, the legislation seeks to destroy the Internet by censoring sites and content distributed through channels like YouTube, Google, Craigslist and basically any search engine or web publishing tool.

On Wednesday, January 18th, Socialmediaclub.org along with dozens of other sites including Reddit, Wikipedia and Craigslist, ‘went dark’ in protest of some legislation that seeks to strangle our beloved Internet.

We are proud to stand next to organizations like Google, Facebook, Mozilla and hundreds more to protest this legislation and encourage you to contact your local Congressional representative to voice your opinion as well. You can do this the old fashioned way by looking up their phone number and calling them – or you can jump over to Public Knowledge website, fill out their short form and let them do it for you.

English: , member of the United States Senate....

Senator John Cornyn

As of 3pm EST on January 18th, the AP reported several SOPA and PIPA proponents like Marco Rubio (FL), Representative Lee Terry (NE) and Senator John Cornyn (TX) were withdrawing support of the bill.

English: Official portrait of US Senator Marco...

Senator Marco Rubio

“Earlier this year, this ball passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and without controversy. Since then, we’ve heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.”  via Senator Marco Rubio

SOPA and PIPA are hardly over though, we still encourage you to contact your local Congressional leaders to tell them to vote AGAINST PIPA on January 24th!

This post originally posted on socialmediaclub.org

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Using F-commerce or Facebook Commerce in Small Businesses

January 7, 2012 By 14 Comments

Chile Monster provides New Mexico Chile products for, as they say, “For the Chile MONSTER in all of us!”

What’s interesting is their site, www.chilemonster.com, directs customers to buy the products on their Facebook shop. Unlike many brands that have awareness and interaction pages in Facebook and their e-commerce and shopping cart on their website, this brand has all their e-commerce in Facebook.

Chile Monster's Website Points Customers to Their Facebook Store

When you click on the website button, Shop Now, it takes you to the Facebook Store and provides special prices for customer’s that “Like” the brand.

Chile Monster's Facebook "Like" Button

If you click on “How to Shop” that provides you with various way s to get the products, including chile products on their Facebook store and the merchandise through zazzle.com

Chile Monsters Facebook Store

If you click on the SHOP CHILE MONSTER, it takes you to this page where there is a Groupon deal and many other products.

CHICAGO, IL - JUNE 10: The Groupon logo is di...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Chile Monster's Facebook Products With a Groupon Offering

The customer picks the chiles they are interested in and that page posts. It contains more information about the product, the price, buttons to share the product and price with a customer’s social network, and a buy button.

Paying for Chile Monster Product on Facebook

Once the customer hits the buy button, they are taken to a secure check out page:

Chile Monster's Facebook Checkout Page

If a customer wants to purchase merchandise with the Chile Monster logo, they can click on LOGO MERCHANDISE STORE on the main Facebook page:

Chile Monster Facebook Merchandise Page

The customer clicks on the product, say the hat, and that leads the customer to the zazzle storefront for Chile Monster:

Chile Monster Zazzle Merchandise Site

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Frequent Flier Miles Given To Charity

January 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This post is about how donating frequent flyer miles to charity keeps on giving back.

I was talking to my friend Molly on Facebook and I learned about something that inspired me and I wanted to share in it in the spirit of the new year and thinking differently. I posted about donating all the soaps I had gotten via my travels this past year to Chrysalis as part of my new year’s resolutions. They help put people back to work. If you are wondering how to give back or searching for New’s Resolutions– perhaps this blog post will inspire you and give you some new ideas….

Molly does amazing work in the world, but that takes money and there’s not always all the money required to do good work. She is the founder of Women With Drive: http://www.womenwithdrive.org/

Molly was able to attend the Business Innovation Factory (BIF7) conference in September, where she was able to connect with Willow Creek Ministries in Chicago. Their congregation of 20K has a cars ministry that helped Women With Drive to streamline their model of processing/intake of vehicles in order to provide not only cars to their applicants, and also revenue to fund the operations. Molly would have NEVER had a chance to meet with Willow Creek –at such high-level without the access to the conference. HERE’S THE POINT: Miles she used to get to the conference were donated by an executive of The HON Company in Muscatine http://www.hon.com/

Molly also attended the NextGen:Charity Conference in New York City. There she was able to facilitate a roundtable with some amazing women, among them Tiffany Dufu, the VP of The White House Project. She was also able to talk with Craig Newmark

English: Photo of Craig Newmark.

Image via Wikipedia

about honing their “elevator pitch” and attracting funders (Craigslist and Craigconnects). Attending this conference she was able to talk to people that she probably would not have had the chance to and make the difference she makes in people’s lives. http://craigconnects.org/

HERE’S THE POINT: the miles for that trip were donated from two sources, Lou Imbriano, author of Winning the Customer and CEO of TrinityOne (@LouImbriano) and a board member of the Community Foundation of Greater Muscatine. The board member is the mother of her first and best childhood friend. (Leah died of a brain aneurysm NOV2010 and her mother donated Leah’s miles gained through her extensive travel for Sylvan Learning Centers). Even in death, her childhood friend helped her reach her goals.

HERE’S THE POINT, both trips would not have been impossible for me without the donation of miles. Their budget simply could not accommodate it.

So business travelers, if you are wondering what to do this New Years… What resolutions or donations you can make, then give this post some thought. And then take some action. Reach out to Molly — You’ll be glad you made a difference!

Molly M. Cantrell-Kraig
Founder, Women With Drive Foundation
129 W. Second Street
Muscatine, IA 52761
follow us on twitter! @WWDr1ve
“Like” us on facebook

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Ending Poverty, Homeless and Skid Row… New Year’s Resolutions

January 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

This post is about how to give soaps to a charity can end poverty. Its that time of year to reflect, to make choices and to make decisions! As I look back on the previous year, I want to thank the people who were there for me– who helped me in my journey’s to be smarter, think faster and be a better person — to be all I can be as a person, a colleague and a friend! Part of what I am looking at in 2012 is to help end poverty, homelessness and skid row. How about you?

Short Note to Say THANK U!

Happy New Year to you all! Thanks for being part of my life and this, wonderful journey!

Thanks also for being an inspiration by just being you! Here’s to www.changelives.org and www.invisiblepeople.tv for giving back, for helping America and Los Angeles and everywhere (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18736424) aid in the job search and end the situation with skid row!

How are you giving back this year in 2012? One way I decided to give back- its a small start… is to collect all the soaps I don’t use from the hundreds of miles I traveled speaking and give them to my local Chrysalis Center -www.changelives.org- they put people back to work!

And here’s to a year of making the world a better place!

Here’s where I’ve been:

Oh the Places You Will Go! Dr. Suess Couldn't Have Been More Right! Speaking Badges From Around the World!

Here’s where I am going…  donating time and energy to the Chrysalis Center… It’s a small thing, but as I travel the world, I want to help to change it by being my “best” me, but also by remembering those who are in the process of making their life all it can be and remembering that they need help… and remembering to give back!

Soap, Shampoo, Lotions... Helping to Clean Up America's Jobless Situation!

Thanks to all the hotels I stayed at for their soaps and lotions! They are going to a great cause!

I want to remember and acknowledge the great work that people like Mark Horvath @hardlynormal are doing via www.invisiblepeople.tv He is using social media to make a difference in people’s lives! http://invisiblepeople.tv/

Be all you can be and make a new years resolution that will be remembered and have an impact!
@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow!

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More information at Chrysalis:

Mission: Chrysalis is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals by providing the resources and support needed to find and retain employment.

History: In 1984, at 22 years old, John Dillon arrived in Los Angeles to work on Skid Row, assisting the area’s homeless population. What he saw was an emerging crisis and an urgent need to help the homeless. He founded Chrysalis as a food and clothing distribution center, serving men and women living on the streets of Los Angeles’ Skid Row.

As the agency grew, it became clear that long-term solutions were needed in order to eradicate poverty and homelessness. Chrysalis developed an effective and nationally recognized program to help homeless and low-income individuals become job ready so that they may find and retain employment.

Learn about our first 25 years of fighting poverty & homelessness through our digital timeline. Click here to view the PDF.

Philosophy: Chrysalis’ philosophy is that a steady job is the single most important step in a person’s transition out of poverty and onto a pathway to long-term self-sufficiency. Offering a hand up, rather than a hand out, Chrysalis empowers its clients to complete a self-directed job search.

Transitional Jobs Program: Since 1991, Chrysalis Enterprises has provided transitional jobs for our clients with the greatest barriers to employment. By providing valuable work experience, Chrysalis Enterprises helps clients gain the necessary skills needed to re-enter the job market. In 2010 alone, Chrysalis Enterprises created over 218,000 hours of employment and generated $2.5 million in wages.

Centers: Chrysalis operates three centers that are located where homelessness and poverty are most pervasive: on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and in the Pacoima area of the San Fernando Valley.

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More Information About Invisible People http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/about/

Mark Horvath Interviewing a Homeless Person In Chicago at Sobcon Conference 2011

A Story from Mark:

“I once heard a story about a homeless man on Hollywood Blvd who really thought he was invisible. But one day a kid handed the man a Christian pamphlet. The homeless guy was shocked and amazed, “what! You can see me? How can you see me? I’m invisible!”

It isn’t hard to comprehend this man’s slow spiral into invisibility. Once on the street, people started to walk past him, ignoring him as if he didn’t exist… much like they do a piece of trash on the sidewalk. It’s not that people are bad, but if we make eye contact, or engage in conversation, then we have to admit they exist and that we might have a basic human need to care. But it’s so much easier to simply close our eyes and shield our hearts to their existence.

I not only feel their pain, I truly know their pain. I lived their pain. You’d never know it now but I was a homeless person. Fourteen years ago, I lived on Hollywood Blvd. But today, I find myself looking away, ignoring the faces, avoiding their eyes — and I’m ashamed when I realize I’m doing it. But I really can feel their pain, and it is almost unbearable, but it’s just under the surface of my professional exterior.

For years I’ve used the lens of a television camera to tell the stories of homelessness and the organizations trying to help. That was part of my job. The reports were produced well and told a story, but the stories you see on this site are much different. These are the real people, telling their own, very real stories… unedited, uncensored and raw.

The purpose of this vlog is to make the invisible visible. I hope these people and their stories connect with you and don’t let go. I hope their conversations with me will start a conversation in your circle of friends.

After you get to know someone by watching their story, please pause for a few moments and write your thoughts in the comments section, or maybe email them to a friend and link back to this vlog. By keeping this dialog open we can help a forgotten people.

The invisible guy didn’t intend to become homeless. I didn’t plan on living on the street. Everyone on the streets has their own story, some made bad decisions, others were victims, but none of them deserve what they have been left with, and it is a reflection of our own society that we just leave them there. Please always remember, the homeless people.”

Here’s to GMC for donating a Truck To Mark’s cause as part of Sobcon 2011- Via Liz Strauss’s amazing leadership for her small business conference, Sobcon!! And to Murphy Gas for donating gas to power the Truck! Yeah to Liz, Marla Schulman, Connie at GMC and all the people at GMC and Sobcon who made this possible!

Liz Strauss Paying tribute to InvisiblePeople.tv and Mark Horvath's Work to End Homelessness

Mark Horvath and the Dontation from GMC for his Mission to Help The Homeless at Sobcon 2011

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