Summer Is For Play

adminuser — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:53:38 +0000

The past two weeks have provided numerous opportunities for recreation for me. I started with a weekend in Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa taking in their annual “Omaha Railroad Days”, a celebration of all things related to trains. For railfans, Omaha and Council Bluffs are natural destinations. The headquarters of the largest railroad in the country is here, there are several museums located here that celebrate trains, and the Dodge House is also located here. I didn’t have time to see all that’s available, but I do plan to go back in the next few weeks and finish my tour.

A quick video of one of the garden railroad exhibits I visited at Lauritzen Gardens is here:

There is more in a series of posts I have started over on Researching the Railroad.

My next opportunity for recreation came in the form of a four-day vacation. My parents invited me to visit the Black Hills on a trip they were planning. I gratefully accepted their kind invitation and returned to the Black Hills of South Dakota for the first time in about twenty years. Much has changed, but many things remain as I remember them. Bonus: Our tour of the Badlands inspired the new header image.

I thoroughly enjoyed my last couple of weeks of leisurely summer fun, and I’m looking forward to a few more enjoyable breaks before fall. To my folks – thank you, the invitation came at the perfect time and it couldn’t have been any better.

Summer Is For Play is a post from: shannonehlers.com

LinkedIn Tips

adminuser — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:18:26 +0000

My favorite social networking tool by far is LinkedIn. I like it because it provides large returns for my efforts, it lacks the “juvenile” features of other networks, and it really does work if you work it. I use it daily, and it is slowly replacing email as my regular, go-to app. I wanted to post up a few handy tips for my growing collection of newly “LinkedIn” friends who read this regularly.

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Below is a video produced by the helpful folks at LinkedIn to help newcomers understand the whole bit a little better.

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

From Chris Brogan

Next, I wanted to recommend one of Chris Brogan’s many excellent posts that discuss LinkedIn and making your LinkedIn profile work for you. He gives specific tips on making the profile that is displayed publicly much more functional for both employees and freelancers. There is much more useful info on a host of social media topics at http://www.chrisbrogan.com, as well.

A Related Note

While reading and commenting on a post on Chris Brogan’s blog, I met the guest author, Becky McCray and she ultimately asked me to write a guest post for her own blog, Small Biz Survival. She suggested discussing how LinkedIn can work for small town professionals. The resulting five tips were published last month on http://smallbizsurvival.com (thanks for the opportunity Becky!).

Other Resources:

http://www.linkedin.com the main site

http://www.linkedintelligence.com a helpful site for users

http://blog.linkedin.com/ the LI blog

LinkedIn Tips is a post from: shannonehlers.com

shannonehlers.com » 2008 » July

Summer Is For Play

LinkedIn Tips