2008 – Year of the Intelligent, Selfish Rodent

Happy Chinese New Year!
Are you proud to be a Rat? You should be!

For Western cultures, the rat is a symbol of filth, deception and skullduggery. To be called a “rat” is an insult, and to “rat on someone” is to betray them to the authorities for a misdeed that they committed. The Black Plague was at one time believed to have been caused by rats, but was actually transmitted by fleas, that infected both rats and humans. While the modern wild rat can carry diseases that can be transferred to humans, these conditions are rarely found.

Some people actually keep rats as pets. This species of rat originated from the grasslands
of…wait for it…CHINA, and spread to Europe, and eventually to the US. Rats are sociable, intelligent animals than can be trained to use a litter box, come when called, and perform a variety of tricks. Get this, rats laugh and giggle. It was discovered that rats emit short, high frequency, ultrasonic, socially induced vocalization during rough and tumble play, and when tickled! In a study, rats chirped when wrestling one another, and before receiving morphine or having sex…not necessarily in that order.
According to Wikipedia, “In Indian tradition rats are recognized as the vehicle of Lord Ganesh and a rat’s statue is always found in a temple of Ganesh. In the northwestern Indian city of Deshnoke, the rats at the Karni Mata temple are held to be destined for reincarnation as Sadhus (Hindu holy men). The attending priests feed milk and grain to the rats, of which the pilgrims also partake. Eating food that has been touched by rats is considered a blessing from god.

While the Chinese culture falls short of inviting their rats to the dinner table, they do not generally associate as much negativity to the rat as do Western cultures. The Rat is the first animal of the lunar zodiac, having beaten all the other animals in a race to determine the calendar sequence. According to legend, the wily Rat tricked the Tiger by telling it the wrong date and won the race by crossing a river on the back of the Ox, which finished second. The Tiger swore to kill the Rat for generations after being fooled, and thus was born the animosity between the two
animals. The story demonstrates the character of the Rat, and people born in the Year of the Rat, which is smart, likeable, and lucky but also can be selfish, cowardly, and manipulative.

Comments? Questions? Send an email to
info@mychinacityguide.com.

Scott Thurman – 3 Places to Find Me

The Good news is that in less than a week, I’ve cracked the top 10 on Google and Yahoo! The bad news is that they’re only showing my Linkedin profile and this wordpress blog! I want people to find my for profit business web site www.mychinacityguide.com. According to a Google diagnostic report, the site is blocking the Google web crawlers attempts to catalog the site because of a file called “robot.txt”.  I’ll be damned if I can find that file. The designer/programmer that built my site said that he added some code to fix this, but it hasn’t helped.  I guess I’ll have to get my hands dirty and figure it out myself.

On the assumption that somebody is looking for me, here are the 3 places that you can find my profile:

1. MyChinaCityGuide.com - Personal Assistant Services in China

2. Linkedin Profile

3. WordPress MyChinaCityGuide Weblog

Oh, and here is my PSEOI (Personal Search Engine Optimization Index – I just made that up), which is an index of where any information related to me shows up on Google, Yahoo, and MSN:

Google: #8 WordPress Weblog

Yahoo!: #5 Linkedin Directory, #7 WordPress Blog

MSN: I still don’t exist to the folks at MSN…but I’m working on it.

Note: I won’t look any further than 20 spots.

If you find me, will you email me?  …send me an email?   I need more confirmation that I really do exist.

If You Can’t Google Me, Do I Exist?

I am totally and completely stealing this idea from somebody else (see “Kent Lewis – 15 Places to Find Me“), albeit with much less wireless cred and internet real estate to be found at.  Of course, we all have to start somewhere, and I’m starting at very near, social marketing’s ground zero.  Understandably, people in the internet marketing industry are very interested in where they, and/or their businesses rank in Search Engine results. More specifically, where do you rank when you Google or Yahoo your own name? Now, understand that Kent has been at this for awhile…it’s his business to get you good Search results.  Afterall, he started his own Search Engine Optimization services company, Anvil Media. He rightfully, and proudly boasts that the bio he has posted on his company’s website is ranked #1, when you Google “Kent Lewis”.  In fact, he’s just being modest…reference to thee Kent Lewis of Portland, Oregon, shows up in the first 7 of the 9 listings on the first search results page!

Of course I had to see where in the Top 10 Scott Thurman listings I ranked, and how many listings Scott Thurman of Portland, Oregon received.  In stark contrast to the Kent Lewis results, there wasn’t a single direct reference to me in the first 10 pages!  After that, I stopped looking. I mean if you can’t find yourself in the first 10 pages, you have to wonder if you really exist.  They listed Scott Thurman the “…award winning actor, director, writer and teacher of acting.” I’d never heard of him either. I had heard of Uma Thurman, who of course had several listings. I don’t begrudge cousin Uma her notoriety, but it’s not like her middle name is Scott.  And Thurman Thomas of NFL fame.  But there were a few other surprises; like the Scott Thurman of “One Life to Live” fame.  Maybe he’s the same actor, director, teacher Scott Thurman in the first link.  Or how about the Scott Thurman who filed for Patent #272480, the ventilated Toilet Bowl…or Doctor Scott Thurman who wrote the deeply penetrating article entitled, “Urinary Incontinence Following Prostate Cancer Treatment“. I guess I should be thankful that I’m not one of the several Scott Thurman obituaries.

Onward and upward. My next blog will prove, without question, that I do indeed, exist!

The First of Four Pillars of Internet Marketing

I had lunch this afternoon with my friend Kent Lewis. Kent is, among many other things, the founder/owner of Anvil Media, Inc., a search engine marketing company specializing in keyword research, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) management.  Every time I meet with Kent I am at once, reinvigorated by fresh ideas, yet overwhelmed by the HUGE task ahead of me.

Last month, I launched MyChinaCityGuide.com, which promotes a Personal Assistant service for people travelling in China. My priorities on getting this started appeared obvious; 1) Build a web site, 2) hire some Chinese people.  Done!  This took me about a month, and I was quite pleased with myself. My web site came in way under budget, and I found a great group of young Chinese students who were eager to be part of my new business. But now what?  This isn’t “Field of Dreams” (“If you build it they will come.”). How do you get people besides you, and your immediate family, to go to your web site?

Which brings me back to Kent and this blog.    I hope I’m not giving away any trade secrets, but Kent’s first recommendation?   Blog.  Apparently it is 1 of the 4 pillars of Internet Marketing. So here I am, blogging.  I’ll save the other 3 pillars for another time, but for now, I’m trying to figure out how to end this.