Cody High School in Detroit had a graduation rate of around 20%. It was selected with a few other schools in Detroit to be good targets for a “turnaround”. Cody has since been split up into 4 different schools based on area of interest: Medicine and Health, Public Leadership, Critical Thinking, and Technology.
“The Small Schools at Cody are supported by the Greater Detroit Education Venture Fund, which was created by United Way for Southeastern Michigan. United Way is a leader in high school turnaround, and provides funding, advocacy, and other supports in five metro Detroit turnaround high schools.” ~United Way
DE is helping out at Cody this year by volunteering time and resources for an afterschool technology lesson each week. Deb (Customer Experience Manager) and I (Sales and Marketing… Superhero?) met with some students a week ago to gauge interest and find out what types of things they’d like to learn about. Six kids were at that initial meeting. We put up some fliers and told them to spread the word.
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Now that Facebook has digitally entrenched itself in every aspect our society, even the slowest to adapt are picking up the habit.
“No, Grandpa, I’m not joining your mafia– I don’t care if we’re family…..and stop poking me!”
This shift has allowed Facebook to move from a tool for marketing to college kids, towards an media that can touch everyone. For businesses, the process starts with creating a “fan” page. A Facebook Fan Page is a great tool for drumming up new business as well as keeping current clients —potentially.
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The Facebook ad system is based on a supply and demand bidding system. It can be tricky (and expensive) to get the results you want from your Facebook ad campaign. Here are some tips to get your costs down and results up:
Paying for your Ads – CPC vs. CPM:
CPC you pay for each click. CPM you pay for each 1000 times your ad shows up on a profile. I recommend “Cost per Click” for beginners. The only way CPM will be cheaper is if your ad beats the average click through rate.
Bidding: During peak times the suggested bid is very high. It dips in the middle of the night. To get more clicks for less money, post your ad around 4am.
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Planning to travel this holiday season? Taking your laptop along for the ride? Here are some tips to make sure you aren’t asking Santa for your data back.
Before you Leave
Run software updates 2 days before you head out: Installing updates can rejuvenate your machine and help protect it from the latest viruses. However, sometimes an update can have a negative effect on performance. Run it two days in advance to test it out. If things aren’t running smoothly, you can remove it manually and return to the previous version. Microsoft will eventually fix the glitch and you can reinstall it at a later date.
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Raise your hand if you still use a yellow book to look up phone numbers….
No one? Well than what has replaced this staple in our everyday lives? We all know its Google. Google has become more than just a $190B company– It has become a verb synonymous for internet searching. Googling is our go-to method for finding…anything.
When someone googles a business, one of the top 2 results is usually the Google Places Page. This page is available for every business that has been indexed by Google. Brand new businesses may not have one yet. Google Places is the new improved “yellow book listing” for the internet age. This is where people go to find your contact information when they are interested in doing business. But who creates this page and who’s responsible for its accuracy? The answer to both questions is… You do.
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Today, even industries like trucking rely heavily on strong computer networks.
Recently, a large distributor in Metro Detroit called us for emergency support. All their servers were down and they had a lot of angry customers. We had not worked with this client in the past so we were essentially going in blind.
The AC had broken in the server room days earlier causing overheating and a forced shut down. This problem could have been easily avoided, but no one was monitoring the servers for warning signs.
To compound the problem, the server cluster had not been set up following “best practices” standards. So when the cluster of servers went down, the active directory controller also went down. This turned what would have been a relatively simple fix, into a major outage.
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