Business Branding Resources | Find Your New Groove

by Jennifer on February 3, 2012

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There are really cool and fun parts of building your business brand ? picking out your logo, designing business cards, figuring out how you want to show up (visually).

Then there are the parts that just aren?t as fun. In fact, those steps are real work (the dirty little secret of being in business for yourself). Keeping it real and keeping it fun can be done in balance, though, and this week?s grab bag are all about doing just that!

I first came to know about Chris Brogan years ago when I started my first online business (decades in Internet time!). He is a master at social media with an updated version of the highly-reviewed The Zen of Social Media Marketing(affiliate link) coming out in March. But, in this post on branding, he is focused on a book written by John Morgan. As the editorial summary puts it ??Brand Against the Machine offers proven and actionable steps for companies and entrepreneurs to increase their visibility and credibility, and create an indispensable brand that consumers can relate to, creating lifelong customers.? John?s Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition? (affiliate link) very much stands on its own with great Amazon reviews (plus it has my kind of writing style ? short and with a sense of humor!).

Storytelling can help you create and build your brand amazingly fast. It gives you a way to connect ? through words and pictures ? with your customers in a way that straight-forward copy and advertising just cannot. One of the best resources for entrepreneurs to get started is GetStoried.com. There is quite a bit of focus on using your bio (whether it be on your website?s About page or the many social media sites), but all of these tips can also be used on other aspects of your business. And, if that?s not quite enough to get those juices flowing, check out this Fortune article which has Eight Master Storylines for Business Storytellers.

Entrepreneur.com has more branding resources for starting your business than you can shake a stick at! (Sorry for the throwback cliche but it so fit?) There are all kinds of really serious articles that focus on mechanics (and venture toward the boring side), but you can find plenty of those on your own. Here are my top picks to get started on the not-so-serious side. In this video interview, YouTube star iJustine talks about what she does (and you get a little peak into how she?s building her brand). Then you can check out how this business owner put kilts on her window washers to build her brand. And what brand romance wouldn?t be complete without a look at the Cebu Pacific Airlines flight attendants singing to Lady Gaga?

That?s it for this week?s grab bag. Let me know in the comments 1) which one of these resources hit home for you and 2) how you are going to use it in your business branding.

Source: http://findyournewgroove.com/business-branding-resources/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=business-branding-resources

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Contraception mandate outrages religious groups (AP)

The Obama administration's decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception.

The regulation, finalized a week ago, raises a complex and sensitive legal question: Which institutions qualify as religious and can be exempt from the mandate?

For a church, mosque or synagogue, the answer is mostly straightforward. But for the massive network of religious-run social service agencies there is no simple solution. Federal law lays out several criteria for the government to determine which are religious. But in the case of the contraception mandate, critics say Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chose the narrowest ones. Religious groups that oppose the regulation say it forces people of faith to choose between upholding church doctrine and serving the broader society.

"It's not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further," said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, representing some 600 hospitals.

Keehan's support for the passage of the Obama health care overhaul was critical in the face of intense opposition by the U.S. bishops. She now says the narrowness of the religious exemption in the birth control mandate "has jolted us." She pledged to use a one-year grace period the administration has provided to "pursue a correction."

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department adopted the rule to improve health care for women. Last year, an advisory panel from the Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government, recommended including birth control on the list of covered services, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies. The regulation includes a religious exemption if an organization qualifies. Under that provision, an employer generally will be considered religious if its main purpose is spreading religious beliefs, and if it largely employs and serves people of the same faith. That means a Catholic parish likely would qualify for a religious exemption; a large church-run soup kitchen probably would not.

Employers that fail to provide health insurance coverage under the federal law could be fined $2,000 per employee per year. The bishops' domestic anti-poverty agency, Catholic Charities, says it employs 70,000 people nationwide. The fine for the University of Notre Dame, the most prominent Catholic school in the country, could be in the millions of dollars.

HHS says employers can appeal a decision on whether they qualify for an exemption. But Hannah Smith, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said, "The mandate vests too much unbridled discretion in the hands of government bureaucrats."

Mandates for birth-control coverage are not entirely new for religious groups. Twenty-eight states already require contraceptive coverage in prescription drug plans. Of those states, 17 offer a range of religious exemptions, while two others provide opt-outs of other kinds. However, opponents of the HHS regulation say there is no state mandate as broad as the new federal rule combined with a religious exemption that is so narrow.

Even in states where the requirement already exists, the issue is far from settled.

Wisconsin's 2009 contraception mandate did not include a religious exemption, but allowed an exception for employers who self-insure. While some dioceses in the state were able to self-insure, others couldn't afford to do so. The Diocese of Madison, Wis., ended up offering a policy with birth-control coverage, but asked employees to follow church teaching and not use the benefit. Local bishops continued to lobby state lawmakers for an exemption. But leaders knew a national health care overhaul was in development and hoped the federal law would be an improvement, said John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state's bishops.

In California, whose religious exemption served as the model for the Obama administration, dioceses and some church-run agencies were able to self-insure, said Carol Hogan of the California Catholic Conference, but that option is for the most part unavailable under the federal health care law. Church-run groups could have stopped offering insurance to their employees, but considered that option unfair to workers.

The bishops have responded sharply to the regulation, launching a nationwide campaign against the mandate.

Bishops in more than 140 dioceses issued statements that were read at Mass last weekend. Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., called the requirement "a radical incursion on the part of our government into freedom of conscience." Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh wrote that "the Obama administration was essentially saying `to hell with you,' particularly to the Catholic community by dismissing our beliefs, our religious freedom and our freedom of conscience."

The Becket Fund had previously filed two federal lawsuits over the regulations on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic liberal arts school near Charlotte, N.C., and Colorado Christian University, an evangelical school near Denver. Both challenge the mandate as a violation of several freedoms, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government cannot impose a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. The fine for Belmont Abbey would be more than $300,000 for the first year, and more than $500,000 for Colorado Christian, Smith, the Becket Fund counsel, said.

Many conservatives are also supporting legislation by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., that would codify a series of exceptions to the new health care law on religious and conscience grounds

For religious-affiliated employers, the requirement will take effect Aug. 1, 2013, and their workers in most cases will have access to coverage starting Jan. 1, 2014. Women working for secular enterprises, from profit-making companies to government, will have access to the new coverage starting Jan. 1, 2013, in most cases.

Workplace health plans will have to cover all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ranging from the pill to implantable devices to sterilization. Also covered is the morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex and is considered tantamount to an abortion drug by some religious conservatives.

There is no mandate to cover abortions. But that is little comfort to Catholic leaders, since the regulation violates other church teachings.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the administration will not reconsider the decision.

___

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120203/ap_on_he_me/us_birth_control_religious_fight

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Facebook is not such a good thing for those with low self-esteem, study finds

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2012) ? In theory, the social networking website Facebook could be great for people with low self-esteem. Sharing is important for improving friendships. But in practice, people with low self-esteem seem to behave counterproductively, bombarding their friends with negative tidbits about their lives and making themselves less likeable, according to a new study which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"We had this idea that Facebook could be a really fantastic place for people to strengthen their relationships," says Amanda Forest, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo. She cowrote the new study with her advisor, Joanne Wood. The two are generally interested in self-esteem, and how self-esteem affects the kinds of emotions people express. People with low self-esteem are often uncomfortable sharing face-to-face, but Facebook makes it possible to share remotely.

In one study, Forest and Wood asked students how they feel about Facebook. People with low self-esteem were more likely to think that Facebook provided an opportunity to connect with other people, and to perceive it as a safe place that reduces the risk of awkward social situations.

The researchers also investigated what students actually wrote on Facebook. They asked the students for their last 10 status updates, sentences like, "[Name] is lucky to have such terrific friends and is looking forward to a great day tomorrow!" and "[Name] is upset b/c her phone got stolen :@." These are visible to their Facebook friends, the people in their network.

Each set of status updates was rated for how positive or negative it was. For each set of statements, a coder -- an undergraduate Facebook user -- rated how much they liked the person who wrote them.

People with low self-esteem were more negative than people with high self-esteem -- and the coders liked them less. The coders were strangers, but that's realistic, Forest says. In earlier research, Wood and Forest found that nearly half of Facebook friends are actually strangers or acquaintances, not close friends.

Forest and Wood also found that people with low self-esteem get more responses from their real Facebook friends when they post highly positive updates, compared to less positive ones. People with high self-esteem, on the other hand, get more responses when they post negative items, perhaps because these are rarer for them.

So people with low self-esteem may feel safe making personal disclosures on Facebook -- but they may not be helping themselves. "If you're talking to somebody in person and you say something, you might get some indication that they don't like it, that they're sick of hearing your negativity," Forest says. But when people have a negative reaction to a post on Facebook, they seem to keep it to themselves. "On Facebook, you don't see most of the reactions."

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120201181459.htm

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The latest from Jimmy Carter in Nashville

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Source: http://askjimmycarter.blogspot.com/2012/02/paul-mccartney-to-be-joined-by-tony.html

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Medivation prostate cancer drug well-tolerated in trial (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Medivation Inc's experimental prostate cancer pill caused fewer serious side effects in clinical trial patients than a placebo treatment, according to full results from a pivotal study announced on Tuesday.

Medivation and partner Astellas Pharma Inc reported in November that the trial had been stopped early after it became clear that the drug, MDV3100, improved median overall survival by 4.8 months compared with a placebo.

Researchers said the trial of 1,199 patients with advanced prostate cancer showed that serious side effects occurred in 28.4 percent of MDV3100 patients, compared with 33.6 percent of the placebo group.

Five patients, or 0.6 percent of the treated group, experienced seizures, said Dr. Howard Scher of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the trial's lead investigator. An earlier trial of MDV3100 found that 1.5 percent of 198 treated patients had seizures, and some observers were concerned about the drug's safety profile.

The results will likely position MDV3100 as the first treatment for use after patients have stopped responding to chemotherapy, according to Scher. The drug is also being tested in patients with earlier stage prostate cancer.

The full trial results will be presented this week in San Francisco at a meeting sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang, an oncologist at the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada and chair of ASCO's communications committee, described the Medivation trial results as "unprecedented," adding "this is going to definitely change the way we take care of patients every day in the office." He was not involved in the study.

MDV3100 is one of a new class of drugs, known as androgen inhibitors, designed to interfere with the ability of testosterone to bind to prostate cancer cells.

Prostate cancer kills about 250,000 men a year globally and is the second most common cause of cancer death in men in the United States, after lung cancer.

Since November, Medivation shares have soared on hopes that MDV3100 will be a commercial success.

IN TALKS OVER FDA SUBMISSION

Other serious side effects from MDV3100 included fatigue, cardiac disorders, liver function test abnormalities and myocardial infarction, said Medivation Chief Executive David Hung, noting that all were more prevalent in the placebo group than in the treatment group.

"The number of seizures is too small to make any conclusions as to whether or not there is even a causal relationship," he said.

Hung said Medivation is currently in discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding a new drug application.

Wall Street analysts, on average, have forecast MDV3100 sales of $846 million by 2016, according to Thomson Reuters.

New details of the trial included data showing that 54 percent of MDV3100 patients experienced a 50 percent or more decline in levels of prostate specific antigen, or PSA, while just 1.5 percent of placebo patients saw that much of a drop.

The median time to PSA progression was 8.3 months for the MDV3100 group and 3 months for the placebo patients.

Shrinkage of soft tissue tumors was seen in 28.9 percent of MDV3100 patients, compared with 3.8 percent of placebo patients.

This week's ASCO symposium will also feature full results from a trial of Alpharadin, a prostate cancer drug being developed by Germany's Bayer and Norwegian biotech Algeta.

The drug, which has already been submitted for U.S. regulatory review, is designed to deliver minute, highly-charged doses of radiation to secondary tumors in the bone.

Full results of a trial involving patients with advanced prostate cancer that had spread to the bone showed that Alpharadin delayed the time to a first skeletal-related event, including fractures, to 13.6 months, compared with 8.4 months for standard care.

Serious side effects, including anemia, were largely balanced between both arms of the trial.

Wall Street analysts have forecast Alpharadin sales of $485 million by 2016

(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/hl_nm/us_medivation_prostatecancer

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Puppet dictator? Syrian satirists mock Assad

BEIRUT?? Throughout 40 years of Assad family dictatorship, one thing united Syrians ? the culture of self-censorship, fear and paranoia.

But the uprising against President Bashar Assad has unleashed a burst of blunt irreverence and black humor that would have been unthinkable before, when any satire had to be indirect or hidden.

"The type of expression has now shifted, the subtlety has gone," said Rime Allaf, associate fellow at London's Chatham House. "Today, for the first time in recent Syrian history, people are able to get out and say it openly."

Watch YouTube video of Assad puppet show

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Opposition Syrians are pouring contempt on Assad using whatever medium they can, with a humor that also helps them get through the death and destruction in a crackdown that has killed more than 5,400, according to the U.N.

The Internet provides a layer of anonymity, which is vital when retribution is a real danger, but the creativity has also spilled into the streets in the banners, signs and songs of the protesters.

Slideshow: Struggle in Syria (on this page)

"Top Goon: Diaries of a Little Dictator" is one of several new online shows. It was created by 10 young professional artists inside Syria. It uses finger puppets that impersonate Bashar Assad ? nicknamed Beeshu in the series ? and his inner circle.

World Blog: Latest violence could signal new phase in Syria conflict

In one episode, Beeshu competes against Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi on "Who wants to Kill a Million," a play on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

His final question: Will you be able to crush the protests? He answers yes. When he's told that's the wrong answer, he flies into a petty rage, wrecking the set.

Video: Clinton: 'Syria belongs to its citizens' (on this page)

In another, he consults with two devils about how to deal with the uprising. They suggest he kill a single protester to scare the others. He proclaims he will kill 30 protesters a day, torture children and shell cities.

"You are completely insane," the devils shriek, running away. "I want to get the hell out of here."

Story: Clinton: Syria not another Libya, political solution needed

The director of the series, who goes by the online name of Jameel, says the idea is to "break down the wall of fear."

"When you see the shabih (pro-government militiaman) or the president as puppets, you can't take them seriously anymore," he said, asking that his name and location not be used to protect him from retaliation.

More simply, it "elicits a little laugh" from people who are suffering from the crackdown, he said.

'Every protest is a thrill'
Even in the darkest places, Syrians seem to try to extract some fun. The central city of Homs has been one of the worst hit by the regime's crackdown. But as in many rallies, giant protests there often saw crowds dancing, linking arm in arm and doing a sort of joyous simultaneous hop, along with circles of the traditional "debke" dance.

The song "Yalla Irhal, ya Bashar!" ? a simple yet powerful rendition which translates into "Come on, Bashar, leave" ? is often heard shouted by exultant protesters to the beat of a drum.

It's the most popular, but an entire catalogue of protest songs has arisen, full of puns and references to members of Assad's inner circle.

"We are discovering ourselves for the first time," said a 28-year-old Syrian who goes by the name of Samer Lathkani, from the coastal town of Lattakia. "The uprising has awakened patriotic sentiments among young people, now every protest is a thrill."

Kfarnebel, a rebellious village in northern Syria, has become famous for coming up with colorful, amusing banners.

"Aleppo will not rise even if it took Viagra," said one recent banner, criticizing Syria's second largest city, where anti-government protests have yet to take hold.

Some have paid the price for taking it too far.

In August, Syria's renowned political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, 60, was beaten by gunmen who broke his fingers and dumped him on a road outside Damascus after he posted cartoons satirizing Assad on his website.

Ibrahim Qashoush, a Syrian firefighter who wrote the "Come on, Leave, Bashar" song, was murdered in July, his vocal cords cut out and his body dumped in the river in the city of Hama.

Interactive: Young and restless: Demographics fuel Mideast protests (on this page)

Syria had a flourishing theater and comedy scene in the 1970s and 1980s, despite the autocratic regime of strongman Hafez Assad, which his son Bashar inherited in 2000. Syrian productions were popular around the Arab world for their black, satirical humor.

But it had to be indirect and confined to certain limits.

In one of the 1970s' most famous Syrian political plays, "Kasak ya Watan," or "Toast to the Homeland," the country's top comedian Dureid Lahham kept his satire broad.

His character, swigging from a liquor bottle, has a dialogue with his dead father who chides him over the failures of his Arab generation, particularly the failure to free Palestine.

They get into a debate over which is better, Heaven or Earth, and Lahham argues, "We don't lack a thing here ... Just a little bit of dignity."

It's a far cry from a blunt banner at one recent protest: Assad's face plastered on a pack of Marlboros, reading "the Syrian regime is a main source of cancer and heart and lung disease."

Donatella Della Ratta, a PhD fellow at Copenhagen University and the Danish Institute in Damascus, said the uprising has changed Syria dramatically.

"The sacredness of the leader has been broken. Even widely considered taboo topics such as the Hama massacre of 1982 are openly mentioned and desacralized using dark humor," said Della Ratta, who is focusing her research on the Syrian TV industry.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46216153/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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NFL Communications - NFL Introduces Communications System For ...

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Source: http://nflcommunications.com/2012/01/30/nfl-introduces-communications-system-for-super-bowl-xlvi-ticket-holders/

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