Central Perk

miercuri, 21 decembrie 2011

VIDEO: President Obama Highlights Historic New Mercury Emissions Standards

December 21, 2011

President Obama Highlights Historic New Mercury Emissions Standards

Protecting American Families and the Environment from Mercury Pollution

By Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

Today marks yet another historic day in the Obama Administration’s efforts to protect the health of American families and our environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized the first-ever national standards to reduce mercury and other toxic air emissions – like arsenic, acid gas, and cyanide – from power plants, which are the largest sources of this pollution in the United States.

This crucial step forward will bring enormous public health benefits. By substantially reducing emissions of toxic pollutants that lead to neurological damage, cancer, respiratory illnesses, and other serious health issues, these standards will benefit millions of people across the country, but especially children, older Americans, and other vulnerable populations. Cumulatively, the total health and economic benefits to society could reach $90 billion each year.

When fully implemented, these new standards will, on an annual basis, help prevent:

Up to 11,000 premature deaths;

2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis;
4,700 heart attacks;
130,000 asthma attacks
5,700 hospital and emergency room visits; and
540,000 days when people miss work or school.

Notably, today’s announcement has roots that trace back more than two decades, when Congress passed landmark, bipartisan legislation requiring the United States to limit toxic air emissions from the nation’s biggest polluters. Yet that legislation was only a first step. Today more than twenty years later, mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants remains unchecked. That is, until now.

These sensible new standards were developed with extensive input from the public as well as industry and can be implemented with widely available and cost-effective pollution control technology. The United States is a global market leader in the design and manufacture of these technologies, and American companies and workers will provide much of the equipment and labor needed to meet the substantial investments in pollution controls that these standards will generate.

To be sure, in the weeks and months to come, there will be some in Congress that will try to prevent these important standards from being implemented. Some will argue that these standards will negatively impact electric reliability across America, even though an independent analysis from the Department of Energy shows clearly that is not the case. Others will claim that there is not enough time to comply with these standards, despite the fact that these rules have been in the works for 20 years. Finally, some will say this step is too costly and we should opt for even more delay, despite the fact that for every one dollar we spend to reduce pollution under these standards, American families will see up to $9 dollars in health benefits.

In conjunction with the release of the rule, President Obama also issued a Presidential Memorandum which underscores the health benefits of the rule and directs EPA Administrator Jackson to use flexibilities built into the Clean Air Act where needed, and to work proactively with states, industry and other entities in a transparent manner to implement the rule in way that delivers the health benefits of the rule while addressing reliability concerns.

At the end of the day, President Obama believes that Americans have waited long enough for these common-sense standards and that it is now time to do what is right for the country.

Get Updates

Stay Connected

This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com
Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com
Sign Up for Updates from the White House
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Be the CEO of More Than Just Your Job

Posted: 20 Dec 2011 01:12 PM PST

Posted by randfish

Almost two years ago, Brad Feld put up an excellent blog post called "Be the CEO of Your Job" based on an interview with Mark Pincus of Zynga by the NYTimes. I loved the concept and have tried to apply it even since before I had a name for the attitude of independence that great companies tend to grant their team. From Brad's article:

Pause and ponder the idea. Assuming you are in an entrepreneurial organization, are you being the CEO of your job? Is this culturally (and functionally) acceptable? Do you get rewarded for taking risks and succeeding (or failing) like your CEO does? If not, would you be more effective if you did?

Now, if you are the CEO of an entrepreneurial organization, do you encourage everyone in the company to be CEO of their job? Is this culturally (and functionally) acceptable? Do they get rewarded for taking risks and succeeding (or failing) like you do? If not, would they be more effective if they did?

At the Mozplex, "CEO of Your Job" has come up in a few exec meetings and several hiring discussions, too. When it does, it's always as a positive quality we're seeking, e.g. "How can we empower so-and-so to be CEO of their job?" meaning "How do we remove restrictions (imagined or real) so that so-and-so can work on this independently, execute and take pride in that accomplishment?"

But in the last few weeks, I realized that there's a nuance to the logic behind being "CEO of your job" that can cause strife and frustration if it's not well-understood by the entire team. Here's an illustration that (hopefully) says the thousand words I'd rather not type:

CEO of More than Just Your Job

Owning your job is awesome. Empowering people to make decisions on their own and giving them flexibility is, too. But a danger arises when multiple people or teams are being CEOs of their job to the exclusion of the larger organization. This can happen at two-person startups or huge enterprises equally. Heck, I'm guilty of it myself! I get passionate about a particular aspect of the business at Moz (for example, this blog), and overinvest my own time in it, along with those of folks I manage or influence (which is quite a good number at this point). That pulls resources off other mission-critical projects and, potentially, hurts the company's ability to accomplish all those things that desperately need doing.

Mike King recently dropped by Seattle for our mini-Mozcation/charity bake sale (he gave a killer presentation called "What Being an Indie Rapper Taught Me About SEO"). On our walk to dinner after the event, I mentioned to him that it embarrassed me to say that, in the past few years, I've knowingly prioritized projects over SEO, social media or other inbound marketing efforts during our roadmap meetings at Moz. I know.... I complained for years about how the companies I advised as a consultant didn't put SEO first, and then, when I have the power to change things at my own organization, I put other projects first. I'm a hypocrite!

But, I'm also responsible for the success of the whole business, and sometimes that means stepping away from being CEO of just your job to seeing the bigger picture and knowing when your projects deserve to be on the backburner or even when something you're working on needs to be scrapped entirely in favor of a new direction or wholly new task. Autonomy and freedom to kick ass at your work is a great power, but also a great responsibility. If you put your job CEO-dom ahead of the broader goals, things can get messy.

p.s. Hopefully, this post can also help in-house, agency and consultant marketers who get frustrated with executives for not pushing through their agendas with the speed or passion we'd put behind it. Sometimes, especially if resource allocation is a roadblock, it might actually be the right decision (rarely, though). :-)

Do you like this post? Yes No

Introducing Branded Keyword Rules and Metrics!

Posted: 20 Dec 2011 03:33 AM PST

Posted by Karen Semyan

Looking at your site’s aggregate organic search traffic is a bit like docking a boat without a depth sounder: Sure, you can gauge where you need to go, but you’d be wise to have more details before you head in.

On that same tack, we should have more detail about our overall search traffic before we use it to make decisions. First and foremost, this bucket of attention can be divided into two groups that we need to watch differently: branded and non-branded traffic.

Why segment your branded traffic?

By segmenting your branded and non-branded traffic, you get a clear picture of two important indicators of success: how visitors interact with your brand, and how they find you with generic, non-branded keywords. This information can help you can take action to target the keywords you care about. This split is also a useful metric to educate your organization or client about your brand pervasiveness and overall visibility.

That’s why we’re excited to roll out a new feature today: Branded Keywords. Now you can group your brand-related keywords together and see related branded data in-line with your reports.

What branded and non-branded traffic tells you

Keywords related to your brand tend to show up at the end of the conversion funnel, when visitors are already aware and interested. They’re more specific and unique, often based on company and domain names, key products, and variations/misspellings of those names and products. They aren’t subject to the fluctuations caused by search algorithms in the same way that non-branded keywords are. This makes them useful as indicators of long-term strength and popularity. For that reason, most sites should see a decent portion of traffic coming from brand-related keywords.

With new brand rules, you’ll be able to track that branded traffic clearly, and uncover any problems with branded keywords that aren’t ranking as well as they should be.

Things get really interesting when you remove branded numbers from your search traffic numbers and focus on your non-branded traffic. Now you have an clearer picture of the generic keywords that currently work hardest for you, which ones you should be targeting and are not, and which content is most effective.

A quick cruise through the feature

You can add brand rules for existing campaigns under Overview > Manage Brand Rules. Specify brand-related terms, and we'll filter all keywords that contain those words.

You can also add brand rules for new campaigns during setup. Once campaign setup is complete, your rules will be applied to any additional keywords you add.

Define brand rules for new campaigns

Add or remove individual keywords once rules are set up. At any time, you can label individual keywords as branded or exclude one from the “branded” filter under Overview > Manage Keywords.

Add or remove individual keywords once rules are set up

If your campaign is hooked to Google Analytics, you’ll see your historical traffic data split into branded and non-branded metrics.

View brand-related traffic data

You can get better insight into how people arrive at your site with in-depth metrics on top ten search sources, landing pages, and nonpaid keywords, including PPV, bounce rate, time on site, and more.

See in-depth metrics with your traffic data

See traffic data for brand-related campaign keywords when you filter branded keywords in your ranking report.

View brand-related traffic for campaign keywords

More options for managing your keywords include improved list filters, the ability to view all keywords in the list, and a new label filter for adding keywords.

And there’s more coming in the new year! You’ll see .PDF and .CSV reports added for traffic data. We’ll also start showing you your top keywords that send you traffic, so you can have the option to start tracking them.

Please let us know what you think or if you find something you don't expect to see. You can comment to this post or email help@seomoz.org. You can also go to the feature request forum to share a feature suggestion and see what other people are requesting. As always, we love to hear your feedback!

Do you like this post? Yes No

"$40 is big money for us"

Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011

"$40 is big money for us"

Yesterday we asked what $40 meant to you. Thousands of Americans have responded and we wanted to make sure you saw some of those responses:

I can buy lunch from the cafeteria for almost a whole month for my twins, I can buy food, or pay for gas.I can save it for my daughter’s prescriptions deductibles. To some people $40 is nothing, but $40 is big money for us.
L.A., Hamden, Connecticut

$40.00 a paycheck will allow me to continue to pay co-pays to doctors for necessary medical treatments needed to control debilitating disease.
J.R., Arlington, Texas

Our cable internet bill is $49 per month. If we lose this payroll tax cut then we will have to give up either or internet access or possibly our 'Friday Family Pizza' night. Either way, we will lose something that brings us together as a family.
K.Z., Frederick, Maryland

Tell us what $40 means for you and your family, and see what it means for other Americans.

Have questions about the payroll tax cut? Today at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Brian Deese, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, will be on the @WHLive Twitter account - join in the conversation using the hashtag #WHChat.

Photo of the Day

Marine One approaches the South Lawn of the White House during President Barack Obama's flight from Joint Base Andrews, Md., Dec. 20, 2011. President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden attended a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews marking the return of the United States Forces-Iraq colors to the United States. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

SEOptimise

36 Social Media Sharing Resources for Business People

Posted: 20 Dec 2011 05:18 AM PST

Sharing is the key activity when it comes to proper social media participation and beyond. When you don't share anything on the web today, you can't compete with those who do. They get all the attention, links and ultimately sales or whatever they are after.

So where are we sharing online?
How do you actually share?
What tools help you with sharing?

I compiled a list of 36 Social Media sharing resources that cover a variety of content types, such as how to articles, statistics, tools for business people.

How to share

Most people, it seems, have lost the ability to share. Instead, business social media users in particular tend promote themselves. They have to learn that on social media you don't promote yourself directly but you share instead. You share content provided by others.

Statistics

Some statistics show that most sharing online still gets done via e-mail, as in the early days of the web before social media. Facebook comes first or second, depending on the source. Google+ or automated sites such as StumbleUpon, which claim to bring more social media traffic, are far less important than you might think judging from the press they get. Some social media statistics show much more detailed insights into how sharing is going on.

Infographics

Most statistics and other social media related data tends to be a bit overwhelming. Some social media infographic do a great job at visualising what's going on and putting things into perspective.

Tools

Beyond the usual suspects everybody uses, i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, there are lots of tools out there that can simplify, streamline and analyse your social media activity. I won't add the numerous social media analytics tools, but only those focusing on sharing.

Facebook

Facebook is still the number one when it comes to social media or rather social networking. It has added numerous features and manifold changes recently. Using Facebook to share is already a science of its own. Especially dealing with the Facebook algorithm that decides who sees your shares is intriguing and complex to say the least.

Google+

Google+ has received lots of attention, especially compared with its real size. Google is too omnipresent to let Plus fail. Thus I'd like to show you how Google adds features strategically to get the social ranking signals it needs, because clearly Google+ is not just a Facebook competitor but part of a bigger plan to get people to stay and share in Google’s own eco system.

All these resources will help you to plan and practice sharing on the social Web, the most basic part of your social media presence. Without sharing you don't have such a real presence - you may practice customer service on social sites but as long as you don't share anything beyond your own content you're just doing promotion without truly participating.

* CC image by ryancr