VancouverGo.com - your Vancouver BC Canada online information hub

Have you ever fallen asleep when listening to a speech or presentation? Sometimes a little nap during a presentation can boost your energy for the rest of the day. Speakers- if you want to be the one to send your audience to sleep, so they will be fully alert for other people’s presentations follow these ten tips.

1. Make sure that your material is dry and boring. Make sure that your material is either highly technical or complex. If at all possible fill your speech with specialized academic content that is not easily understood without prior study and research.

2. Do not include any explanations or illustrations to make the content understandable to the average person in your audience.

3. Schedule your speech to be at the end of a long day or after a big meal. This will give added incentive for drowsiness and lethargy.

4. Speak softly and avoid any expression or vocal variety that might distract or interest your audience.

5. Stand still behind the lectern for the entire speech. Any movement or sudden gestures could wake up your audience.

6. Avoid any variation in style in your presentation. Do not change from talking to using a flip chart, PowerPoint or any other kind of visual aid or prop that will attract attention.

7. Do NOT include any humor or stories in your speech that might illustrate the important points you wish to communicate.

8. Do not keep to the topic of the speech. Spend a large amount of time rambling about subjects or personal experiences that are boring and totally off topic.

9. Speak about a topic that is very familiar to your audience. Keep your content to things that they already know.

10. Provide highly detailed handouts, so that your audience will not miss out on any important information during their snooze. Make sure that you do not say anything that is not included in the hand out. For best results, just read the handout word for word.

Hopefully, by following carefully the ten tips outlined here, you will have the satisfaction of seeing an entire audience snoring quietly and happily throughout your entire presentation. If you do not follow these tips you may be alarmed to discover that your audience is alert and interested in what you have to say.

written by Barbara White
The founder of Beyond Better Development has a passion to inspire and equip others to experience more success in their life. She is a speaker and trainer in personal development and communication skills in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

An important aspect of good leadership is the ability to work and relate with others. When creating and building your unique leadership style consistently developing relational skills is a priority. There are ten qualities that characterize successful leadership in the area of relating and communicating with other people.

1. Availability
A good leader is available and in touch with people. An important leadership skill is the ability to recognize needs and be able to respond to them quickly and in the moment.

2. Facilitating Harmonious Relationships
A good leader realizes the importance of harmonious relationships and is proactive in creating a harmonious atmosphere. Successful results are born out of harmony rather than conflict. Good leadership will prioritize keeping conflict and disharmony to the minimum.

3. Approachability
A good leader is approachable and has an open door policy. Good leadership creates an environment where openness and honesty can occur in an atmosphere of fairness rather than judgment.

4. Appropriate use of authority
Sensitivity to the proper use, and conversely the misuse, of their authority is the whole mark of good leadership. A good leader will not use their position of authority for self gratification and promotion or in a controlling and domineering manner. Successful leaders use their positional power with wisdom and sensitivity to the appropriateness of the circumstances.

5. Confidentiality
Good leaders conduct conferences and meetings in an atmosphere of trust. They display appropriate confidentiality and respect towards others and about others.

6. Self Motivation and Development
Good leaders set and use goals to motivate themselves and others. They understand the importance of personal and professional development. Successful leaders do what is necessary to upgrade their knowledge and skills and be on the cutting edge in their field. Successful leaders not only motivate themselves in personal development but also motivate those around them.

7. Supportive
Good leaders are able to provide emotional support for those for whom they are responsible. They recognize the importance of encouragement and inspiring confidence and also give recognition of a job well done.

8. Maintaining Motivation and Team Spirit
A good leader provides incentives and motivators to improve the performance of their employees to challenge them to maintain quality results.

9. Clear Communication
A good leader is an excellent communicator. Their leadership involves communicating clearly the objectives and procedures required of a task. They set clear, attainable, and measurable goals.

10. An Understanding of Group Dynamics
A good leader understands the dynamics of group relationships. Successful leaders have the ability to lead groups without aggravating conflict and minimizing disharmony. They are inclusive and skilled in creating a sense of team unity. They are adept at balancing the strengths and weaknesses of the group for best results.

It is of prime importance to develop good relational skills as a leader. The way a leader connects and communicates with people will determine the level of success in achieving the desired results. A good leader is able to create in his team a desire to follow his leadership wholeheartedly.

Take these ten characteristics as a checklist to determine the strengths and weaknesses in your leadership style. Celebrate your strengths, focus on your weaker areas and start to work on them. In this way a good leader can develop into a GREAT leader.

written by Barbara White
The founder of Beyond Better Development has a passion to inspire and equip others to experience more success in their life. She is a speaker and trainer in personal development and communication skills in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

The most sophisticated way of establishing rank order so far devised by humans is by means of wealth, in all its manifestations. To be sure, there are many other activities endeavoured by mankind such as warfare, politics, organised religion, bureaucracy, sport, artistic fame, entertainment, and even who wears the trousers in marriage but the quest for wealth has the most potential for either widespread prosperity or disaster. Humans have even dedicated an entire discipline to the study of the origin and interaction of wealth and abundance with their opposites, poverty and scarcity: the Science of Economics.

Economics, therefore, is best studied by watching what happens to wealth. And the economic discipline best suited to watch wealth, in Capitalism, is that where wealth is primarily created and consumed on a daily basis: Real Estate. This is so, because real estate location and selection - particularly when it comes to residential units - are the main social markers of status. Real Estate is more important, far more important for establishing rank within society than the other competing field where wealth is created and consumed: the Stock Market. One can own the largest single package of IBM’s shares, and still the impact on his peers will not be as dramatic as the one of living ostentatiously in a multi-million dollar mansion.

Moreover it can be added that although establishing rank order by means of wealth manifestations is common to all societies everywhere on the planet, in North America specifically this peculiarity unique to the human progeny has taken a somewhat overzealous connotation, by combining the twin concepts of the saga of the self-made man or woman and the fantasy of home ownership. America’s love affair with houses is the principal indicator of our cultural idolatries.

This concept is indeed fully and clearly conceptualized by Prof. Marjorie Garber, the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University, in her book entitled Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses. From the opening paragraph her thesis is clear: real estate has become a relational substitute in the lives of many Americans. She begins, “What do college students talk about with their roommates? Sex. Twenty years later, what do they talk about with their friends and associates? Real estate. And with the same gleam in the eyes. Real estate today has become a form of yuppie pornography”.

The connection between sex and real estate, two fields otherwise light-years apart, is made to the extent that they both serve and satisfy status rank to its best fulfillment through wealth. This is indicated and summarized by a somewhat blunt quotation of Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who married two of the most famous women in the modern world - Maria Callas, the opera diva, and Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of US President John F. Kennedy - who died in 1975, when he said “There is no point in being rich unless you can have sex with beautiful women.” So when we are talking about the male urge for status rank, or the female urge for a dependable partner who will give her financial security and good progeny, we are really talking about two facets of the same concept: wealth. On the other hand, as humans tend to equate values, when it comes to housing and real estate, the equation is:

achievement + independence + comfort + prosperity + accomplishment + success = wealth

There is so much money around, and buyers want to flaunt it. They will swear and they will protest and say they do not want to show off, but they do. They want a house that makes a clear, undeniable statement that ‘I am rich’, ‘I have prosperity’ and ‘I have style’. Architectural styles of new constructions are changing and evolving, with the ever increasing round looks of exteriors that reflect feminine sensuality and the use of glazed windows and conspicuous steel beams - male machismo at its best. On the inside, the skillful blend of colors, woods and design elements promotes feminine harmony, warmth and balance with char green, sand, white, red, black, dark brown and all colors of nature at the top of the line whereas, if contemplating a hardwood floor, mahogany is the wood of choice since it enriches the environment by rendering a sense of abundance, and slate flooring and polished concrete walls help create a natural masculine feeling, especially if combined and contrasted with the glacial looks of stainless steel appliances.

The link between sex and real estate is the catalyst to emotional engagement, as important in our social interactions of status and rank as it is in our manifestations of wealth.

written by Luigi Frascati
Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled to the Real Estate Chronicle at realestatechronicle.blogspot.com

Presentations and seminars become all too familiar in the business world. Jim Speaker is there with the overhead projector and PowerPoint slides-each with four or five points. Hours later the seminar is over. Seminars are informative but can be deadly. Just give me the handout and I’ll read it at home!

It takes a dynamic presenter to step out from behind the lectern and shake up and motivate their audience.

Facts touch or mind, but it is the power that comes from stories that touch hearts.

Everybody loves a story. Stories give us insight life and human nature. They can make us laugh and they can make us cry. Story telling will go beyond the bullet points and will make a memorable impression on the heart that can change a life.

As a speaker, how can you use stories to give your presentation the impact that you desire:
* Tell inspirational stories to persuade, motivate or entertain. Use stories to illustrate the point you want to make. Try to find stories that are relevant to the audience. For example, for software engineers, tell a story about the young engineer who started a company in his garage and how Microsoft changed the world.
* Tell a story from your own experience. Make a habit of keeping a story journal and record your day’s experiences. You will have a rich supply of unique experiences to draw from to illustrate your point.
* Use gestures and acting techniques to bring your story to life. Don’t just tell your audience about a difficult client; get up and show them. Actions have a greater impact on the point you are making.
* Use description and dialogue. Take your audience into the story by using description and dialogue. Help them visualize and feel that they are part of the experience.
* Practice your story until it’s natural. Use the pacing and rhythm to communicate your message to your audience. Listen to a tape recording of yourself. Check how you have varied the tone of your voice and your speed to create the biggest impact in your story.

Remember it’s not about you; it’s about your audience. You have a great story and an important message to convey. By concentrating on your audience, you will become more confident and relaxed. This will result in your audience feeling comfortable and more receptive to your message.

written by Barbara White
The founder of Beyond Better Development has a passion to inspire and equip others to experience more success in their life. She is a speaker and trainer in personal development and communication skills in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

Backcountry skiers near Golden, British Columbia travel high into the Rocky Mountains in the warm comfort of snowcats. Traveling in groups of 12, lead by two qualified guides, skiers and snowboarders are carried to elevations of almost 10,000 ft., to ski and ride on a glacier or down great alpine bowls. The views across North America’s continental divide are spectacular. Soft powder snow and fresh tracks is the expected norm, every run, every day. The small group of 14 skiers and riders make a small mark on the vast landscape.

Intermediate and expert skiers wanting a very special powder snow holiday experience generally have three options: backcountry touring, snowcat skiing and heli-skiing.

Backcountry touring is slow-paced and as relaxed as your want to make it. It usually requires quite a bit of time, a high level of physical fitness, considerable experience and specialized clothing and equipment.

Snowcat skiing is adapted to short holidays and many operators offer 3-day and 4-day full-service tour packages. Snowcat skiing is not normally weather-dependent and there is no “down-time”. Every day is a good ski day. Good physical condition always makes a tour more enjoyable, but there is none of the climbing and walking of backcountry touring. Snowcat skiing provides a relaxed vacation that requires no prior experience or special equipment.

Heli-skiing is the “Cadillac” option for backcountry skiing. It is also the most expensive, being about twice the cost of snowcat skiing. It is also weather-dependent. To allow for “down-days”, tours tend to be a few days longer than cat skiing tours. Heli-operators usually offer a guaranteed minimum amount of skiing. Significant additional cost can result if guests exceed the minimum, which often occurs with good weather.

Efficient operation of helicopters is an economic necessity for operators and helicopters are usually shared among groups. This can result in a pace of skiing influenced by factors other than the individual needs of each group. Unless guests pay for a dedicated helicopter, there is little opportunity to “sit out” a run. Typically, skiing groups can be as small as 4 and as large as 12, depending on the type of helicopter used.

Snowcat skiers enjoy a dedicated cat that moves according to the needs and ability of the group. Snowcat rides are warm, quiet, relaxed and very sociable. They give guests an opportunity to converse with their companions, to rest for the next run, and to adjust clothing. Guests wanting a longer rest can sit out a run and visit with the cat driver on the ride back down the mountain. Lunch is grazed on over the course of the day. Guests can leave extra clothing in the cat and adjust what they wear each run. If a guest wishes to quit early for the day, a staff member will take them back to the lodge on a snowmobile.

Heli-skiing operators use vast tenures covering many hundreds of sq. kms. This permits great access to “good” alpine snow under a variety of conditions. Snowcat operators use much less terrain. However, in Western Canada there are a number of snowcat operators that have tenures as large as 130 sq. km. These operators make effective use of the land and have more than enough area to provide consistently good skiing and “fresh tracks”.

A number of operators have remote backcountry lodges. These offer a unique wilderness experience. Guests ride to the lodges in helicopters, by snowmobile or in snowcats. Lodges are very comfortable and typically offer double-occupancy bedrooms with private bathrooms, excellent cuisine, a games room, a well stocked bar, hot tubs and massage facilities. The first run of the day is nearby and guests often ski to the lodge door at the end of the day.

Remote lodges help guests relax and enjoy their vacation. Guests are isolated from telephones, TV and the bustle of civilization. Soaking in a hot tub, with refreshment in hand, guests watch the drifting snow or the last rays of sunlight leave the surrounding peaks. It’s a relaxing way to cap a full day of powder skiing. The problem of the day becomes whether to have a massage before or after the hot tub (or perhaps to do the hot tub twice). Lodge life is very informal and there are no decisions about what to wear to dinner. You only brought one pair of sweatpants!

Most snowcat operators cater to 12, 24 or 36 clients, who ski from independent snowcats. Skiing tenures are sufficiently large that groups often won’t see one another in the course of the skiing day, even at a distance. Each group determines its own pace. While keeping their group together, guides are expert at finding “lines” to challenge more competent skiers/riders while leading others on a more “mellow’ path. Guides set the bounds on every run leaving guests ample opportunity to find “fresh tracks’. Safety is always the first priority.

Some guests organize their own group of 12 skiers, so they are ensured a compatible skiing group of people they know. Many operators offer group organizers a significant discount for their efforts. However, most clients arrive singly, or in pairs and operators work hard to find compatible skiing groups for everyone. New friends are made very quickly.

Most cat skiing operators recommend their clients be at least “strong intermediates”. However, depending on the nature of their terrain, some operators can accommodate less experienced intermediate skiers who are in good physical condition. Potential clients should discuss concerns with operators.

Backcountry skiing usually offers consistently soft powder snow. Sometimes, areas of “wind crust” or “sun crust” will develop, but guides try to avoid these and quickly find better snow. There is no tracked and “lumpy” snow to contend with, and “moguls” are unheard of. The short, fat “powder skis” rented by operators are forgiving and easy to turn. People having little “off-piste” experience find they learn very quickly. Again, fitness is a great asset.

“Tree skiing” is a fixture of all backcountry skiing. When the weather is stormy, snowcat skiers and boarders just head for the trees, where the protected snow is softest and deepest and the visibility is best. Skiers with little experience “in the trees” find that the consistent snow and the powder skis not only allow them to “do it”, but that it’s great fun. Many cat skiers prefer tree skiing to the open alpine slopes.

Snowcat skiers in North America tend to ski between mid-January and the end of March. However, excellent skiing and reduced rates can often be found in December and in April (when longer spring days can mean more skiing). While a few cat operators offer day-trips, most provide multi-day full-service packages. These require a booking at least a year in advance, although shoulder-season tours can be booked on much shorter notice. Cancellations also accommodate short-notice bookings, sometimes at a reduced rate.

The amount of skiing done in a day depends on the group. Typically, 9 to 15 runs will be skied for a “total vertical” between 9,000ft. and 16,000 ft. Individual runs vary in vertical drop between about 800 ft and 2000ft. Long cat rides are usually broken up into a number of short “hops” that provide short rests between runs but keep guests active. The lack of any skiing “minimums” allows guides to focus on the needs of their group and on finding the best skiing. There is no need to “rack up the vertical”.

Overseas visitors might consider combining resort skiing with snowcat skiing. For example, visitors to Kicking Horse Resort in Golden BC could break their visit with a 3-day or 4-day tour at nearby Chatter Creek Mountain Lodges (http://www.chattercreekcat skiing.com/). Also, visitors to Whistler-Blackcomb can do cat skiing day-trips with Powder Mountain Catskiing. Many other snowcat operators are located near excellent ski areas.

The Chatter News Web site (http://powder-skiing.blogspot.com/) provides a client’s view of snowcat skiing at Chatter Creek. This photo journal provides many pictures and descriptions of different aspects of cat skiing and boarding.

In Western Canada, the BC Helicopter & Snowcat Skiing Operators Association (http://www.bchssoa.com/) lists snowcat skiing tour operators who operate under its stringent safety guidelines.

written by Lockie Brown
Cat skier for about 10 years, he is taking groups of 12 and 24 friends to different cat ski venues in British Columbia. For more information, please refer to the Chatter Creek Web site at http://backcountrywintervacations.com/

The most sophisticated way of establishing rank order so far devised by humans is by means of wealth, in all its manifestations. To be sure, there are many other activities endeavoured by mankind such as warfare, politics, organised religion, bureaucracy, sport, artistic fame, entertainment, and even who wears the trousers in marriage but the quest for wealth has the most potential for either widespread prosperity or disaster. Humans have even dedicated an entire discipline to the study of the origin and interaction of wealth and abundance with their opposites, poverty and scarcity: the Science of Economics.

Economics, therefore, is best studied by watching what happens to wealth. And the economic discipline best suited to watch wealth, in Capitalism, is that where wealth is primarily created and consumed on a daily basis: Real Estate. This is so, because real estate location and selection - particularly when it comes to residential units - are the main social markers of status. Real Estate is more important, far more important for establishing rank within society than the other competing field where wealth is created and consumed: the Stock Market. One can own the largest single package of IBM’s shares, and still the impact on his peers will not be as dramatic as the one of living ostentatiously in a multi-million dollar mansion.

Moreover it can be added that although establishing rank order by means of wealth manifestations is common to all societies everywhere on the planet, in North America specifically this peculiarity unique to the human progeny has taken a somewhat overzealous connotation, by combining the twin concepts of the saga of the self-made man or woman and the fantasy of home ownership. America’s love affair with houses is the principal indicator of our cultural idolatries.

This concept is indeed fully and clearly conceptualized by Prof. Marjorie Garber, the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University, in her book entitled Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses. From the opening paragraph her thesis is clear: real estate has become a relational substitute in the lives of many Americans. She begins, “What do college students talk about with their roommates? Sex. Twenty years later, what do they talk about with their friends and associates? Real estate. And with the same gleam in the eyes. Real estate today has become a form of yuppie pornography”.

The connection between sex and real estate, two fields otherwise light-years apart, is made to the extent that they both serve and satisfy status rank to its best fulfillment through wealth. This is indicated and summarized by a somewhat blunt quotation of Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who married two of the most famous women in the modern world - Maria Callas, the opera diva, and Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of US President John F. Kennedy - who died in 1975, when he said “There is no point in being rich unless you can have sex with beautiful women.” So when we are talking about the male urge for status rank, or the female urge for a dependable partner who will give her financial security and good progeny, we are really talking about two facets of the same concept: wealth. On the other hand, as humans tend to equate values, when it comes to housing and real estate, the equation is:

achievement + independence + comfort + prosperity + accomplishment + success = wealth

There is so much money around, and buyers want to flaunt it. They will swear and they will protest and say they do not want to show off, but they do. They want a house that makes a clear, undeniable statement that ‘I am rich’, ‘I have prosperity’ and ‘I have style’. Architectural styles of new constructions are changing and evolving, with the ever increasing round looks of exteriors that reflect feminine sensuality and the use of glazed windows and conspicuous steel beams - male machismo at its best. On the inside, the skillful blend of colors, woods and design elements promotes feminine harmony, warmth and balance with char green, sand, white, red, black, dark brown and all colors of nature at the top of the line whereas, if contemplating a hardwood floor, mahogany is the wood of choice since it enriches the environment by rendering a sense of abundance, and slate flooring and polished concrete walls help create a natural masculine feeling, especially if combined and contrasted with the glacial looks of stainless steel appliances.

The link between sex and real estate is the catalyst to emotional engagement, as important in our social interactions of status and rank as it is in our manifestations of wealth.

written by Luigi Frascati
Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled to the Real Estate Chronicle at realestatechronicle.blogspot.com

Today there is a lot of information available on the web about how to get good search engine rankings, some information is good and some information is bad. Over the few years search engines have been around, some myths have developed. Some of these myths are actually just out dated techniques and some are misunderstandings because the web is such a new medium.

Below I have explained the top seven myths I have seen floating around the net.

Myth 1: $45 will get you #1 position

This is my number one pet peeve. The ads that say for $45 you can get a top page listing with Google, Msn and others. This is not a myth it is an out and out lie. It’s absolutely impossible to guarantee any rankings. All you can do is have someone optimize your pages, apply an Internet Marketing Plan to your website and hope for the best. It is also a lot more complicated then paying for your listing. If that’s the case the highest bidder would receive the highest listing.

Myth 2: Multiple submissions help your rank

The truth is submit your website once, if in a few months your website has not been indexed then submit it again. Chances are that your site will be indexed by Google (indexed pages are pages that a search engine has added to its list of pages it has already looked at and uses when a searcher performs a search) and Yahoo and many other search engines because the search engines want to supply as much relevant information to the searcher, therefore they need to have more indexed pages. That’s the bottom line. Also, if submitting your website to the search engines is something you are doing yourself, then think about only submitting to a few of the important ones that feed the other search engines, this cuts down the time.

Myth 3: It’s all about meta-tags

First I’ll explain meta-tags. They are HTML tags that can be used to define the HTML specifications a webpage follows, keywords and description of the page, etc.

The most common use of a meta-tag in online marketing is the keyword and description tags, which tell the search engines that index meta-tags what description to use in their SERP (search engine rankings page). Meta tags are good, they definitely can’t hurt. Unfortunately they are not everything the search engine uses to determine the topic of your site or it’s ranking. There are many other key factors you need to consider. The best thing to do is not to cram 50 keywords in your meta tags. The best practice is to put one or two per page with, each page having different keywords relevant to the page. The truth is that most meta-tags aren’t particularly important and aren’t used by search engines at all. Google has already stated it ignores most meta-tags. They can be useful to show the description that comes up after your listing in the SERP.

Myth 4: Page Rank is God

Page Rank is definitely not God. Although, it is a good tool. As a web designer, I like to use it determine whether I would like to trade links with another website. Again, there are many things search engines use to determine rankings. Page Rank is not the only thing used to determine your placement in the SERP. There are a load of other factors that come into play. Basically Page Rank is over rated by a lot of people. For example I searched Google for “purple monkey” and the first page on the SERP had a Page Rank of 5 and the second result has a Page Rank of 5 and the term “purple monkey” was in the url. The third page had a Page Rank of 7. Therefore higher Page Ranks do not necessarily mean higher listings but, it does help.

Myth 5: All website designers and developers understand search engines.

The answer is no, not all designers understand search engines. Just because they can create websites doesn’t mean they know how to optimize them. Some designers tend to show off what they can produce, such as a fully flash site with all kinds of “bells and whistles” and no text for the search engine to read. Before you hire a website designer/developer or SEO expert ask for some case studies of sites they have optimized.

Myth 6: The more links the better

The truth is the more relevant links the better. You can add your site to a gazillion free directories and it’s not going to help your SERP ranking. What helps your rankings is relevant links. Links from sites on the same topic or a site that would be relevant to your visitors.

Myth 7: Search Engine Optimization is technical, boring and time consuming.

It takes a lot of time in front of your computer and knowledge of how search engines work. It is something you can do yourself, but the easy and cost effective way would be to hire an expert. SEO is one of the most cost effective marketing strategies you can use for your business.

The bottom line in Search Engine Optimization is it’s time consuming, hard work and it has to be done by a human. If you are a small business and have a little knowledge you can do it yourself, as long you have a lot of time on your hands. If you don’t have a lot of time to waste, hire an expert.

written by Alicia Harper
Professional website designer and internet marketing expert. She lives and works in Vancouver BC. Her company, Be Seen Web Design specializes in creating search engine friendly websites

Unfortunately getting your website up in the Search Engines is not as simple as paying someone $45 to submit your site to a gazillion search engines. Those advertisements you see all over the internet, that tell you they can submit your site to a gazillion search engines for the low cost of whatever the price is. They might be able to submit them but will the search engines actually consider them? The answer is, they might but, chances are the search engines they are submitting to might not be of any use to you. It’s just a clever ploy to get your hard earned cash. The best way to go about it is do it the hard way. Now everyone has heard about Search Engine Optimization and has or knows someone who has employed a SEO company, and their site either got up on the search engines with good rankings or not. My personal experience is the company I hired was able to get my site on the front page of both MSN and Yahoo but, no Google and all for the price of $1200. If you are a small business owner, as I am , then you know that $1200 for advertising is a lot of money. The truth is the best way to get your site up on the search engines with good rankings is to do it yourself. It might be hard and time-consuming but worth it in the long run. A lot of SEO companies trick the search engines into listing your sites high but in the end your website might be banned for using those tricks, so why take that chance? Through a series of articles I am going to show you how to get search engines to list your sites and how to get good rankings.

Before you can understand Search Engine Optimization you must first learn how the search engines work. First you need to know the definiton of a few terms that are used to describe how we get the search results. You need to know the difference between a search engine, a directory, a search site and search system. There is a lot of confusion among these terms. The good news is I am about to de-mystify it.

Search Engines:

They obtain their information from a database that has been feed to them by a search system. When you enter a search term, for example:” small business in Vancouver” the search engine sends out robots or spiders to scour the database for those words. They use complex algorithms to hopefully give you the most relevant information first. A search engine also provides you with information that was in individual sites as opposed to information about the site. For example I searched in Google for “small business in Vancouver” and the third listing that came up was “Soho.ca - Grow your business- small business medium business. The most popular roundtable event in Vancouver. Last month sold out.” Soho.ca - Grow your small business is the title of the website and the rest is actually text from within the site.

Directory:

A directory is usually broken into categories. You can submit your site usually to directories by entering your site’s information and choosing an appropriate category. A Directory supplies information about the website as opposed to information that is in the website. An example of a directory would be the BC business directory. I searched it for “website design” and one of the results I received was “Destination University- An educational resource website designed by an Abbotsford student for Canadian high school students looking for higher education in Canada”. This result told me who made the site and who its target audience was but, not any information from within the site.

A Search Site:

A search site is a website that allows you to search through an index or directory of websites. It could let you search through multiple indexes or directories. The difference between a search site and a search engine is that the search site usually uses the results of a search engine, not its own results.

A Search system:

A search system is an organization that uses software and hardware to index or categorize websites on the world wide web. An example of a search system would the Open Directory Project.

Now that you understand the terms used and what exactly they mean, we can move on and show you why this all matters. People on the web use Search Engines, this is fact and why not? This is an extremely easy way to find information you are looking for at your fingertips.Everyone has heard of Google, MSN, Yahoo and AOL. Let’s look at how they get their results when you search from their sites.

Google has its own search system. It is the largest search engine and its results actually feed other search engines such as, AOL, Netscape and Ask Jeeves. Now you know when you search AOL where your results are coming from. They are coming from Google’s search system. AOL also gets results from the Open Directory Project. MSN has it’s own search system on top of getting results from Yahoo. Yahoo also has its own search system and gets results from the Open Directory Project. The bottom line here is that The Open Directory Project is a very important search system because it feeds a lot of other smaller search engines. Although not that many people have heard of it getting your site listed in it would be a high priority. Google also would be priority to have your site listed in. Yahoo would be one of the top search engines to be listed in as it currently only feeds MSN but, is still very competitive and many people use it.

Now I know you are wondering what about some other the smaller search engines. The truth is don’t bother with them as they are feed by the larger search systems and if they get listed then they will be automatically included in the smaller search engines anyways. You may be thinking, why do I need to know all this? Trust me, you do if you would like your site to rank high and if you are doing it yourself. Knowing this information will make it easier for you to understand how to get your site up in the search engines and you’ll need visitors for your website, and what a better way to get them but FREE.

written by Alicia Harper
Professional website designer and internet marketing expert. She lives and works in Vancouver BC. Her company, Be Seen Web Design specializes in creating search engine friendly websites.

Vancouver, BC is the largest city in the province of British Columbia and the third largest city in Canada. It is surrounded by water on three sides and is nestled alongside the Coast Mountain Range.

In addition to a spectacular natural scenery and a bustling metropolitan core as well as boasting one of the mildest climates in Canada, Vancouver records one of the heaviest rainfalls in the world. Typical rainfall monthly patterns average 169 mm each in November and December and 135 mm in February and March. In Vancouver anything can happen to you, but dying of thirst is not one such thing. Vancouver, furthermore, holds one other record, although this one is very seldom publicized on tourism websites: it is the leaky condo capital of Canada.

To be fair to my hometown, Vancouver is not by any means the only place in the world to have experienced this kind of problem. Toronto and Winnipeg have suffered of the same calamity, and so have Chicago and London, England. The problem here, however, is that a lot has been said and very little done to correct building envelopes imperfections common to so many high-rises, until the aggregate estimated cost of repairs to leaky condos has exceeded CAD $1 billion. Engineering, now, has come to the rescue changing things finally for the better with a new advance in building envelope construction and repairs. It is called Rainscreen Technology.

Most of the high-rise towers have been built using face-sealed outer wall assemblies. Developers refer to “cladding” as the material or component of the wall assembly that forms the outer surface of the wall which is, thus, exposed to the full force of the environment. Face-sealed outer wall assemblies have invariably relied on a strategy for rain penetration control based on the elimination of holes through the cladding. As face-sealed walls are designed and engineered to deal with exterior moisture, in the form of rain, by sealing the exterior of the wall and preventing water from penetrating past the face of the cladding, if water does penetrate past the cladding it cannot readily drain out of the wall and remains, therefore, stagnant within the assembly. Here water can damage moisture sensitive material and components. It is, therefore, essential to insure that no water penetrates the outer cladding.

The water management strategy created by face-sealed outer wall assemblies can work in certain conditions where the wall is in a protected location and receives little exposure to wetting. However, as we have so disgracefully learned first-hand here in Greater Vancouver, in most situations face-sealed walls do not perform well. This is so because it is extremely difficult to fully seal the exterior cladding and ensure that no water will enter. The increased exposure experienced by high-rise buildings further limits performance expectations for this type of wall.

In contrast, rainscreen walls manage water in a different fashion. The exterior cladding is still intended to deflect most of the water that contacts the wall. However, a cavity is provided behind the cladding. If water does penetrate the cladding it reaches the cavity and cannot move further into the wall assembly. Instead water in the cavity will drain down on the inside face of the cladding or on the waterproof membrane at the other side of the cavity, and it will be deflected out of the assembly at a cross-cavity flashing. In practice the cavity acts as a capillary break to remove the capability of water to stagnate inside walls. The end and most important result of all this is that with rainscreen walls it is not essential that the outer cladding be completely sealed. Imperfections are acceptable, and this will surely make a lot of developers happy and a great many condo owners even happier.

written by Luigi Frascati
Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled to the Real Estate Chronicle at realestatechronicle.blogspot.com

Today Qigong is most often referred to as any set of breathing and Qi circulation techniques that are capable of improving health, preventing illness, and strengthening the body. Qigong is slow meditative exercise for the body, the breath, and the mind.

‘Qi’ is the vital force behind everything, everything is ‘Qi’ at differing densities; quoting Einstein, “matter = energy times the speed of light squared”. ‘Gong’ is cultivation, effect, attainment. Qigong can be translated as ‘cultivation of vital force’. It regulates the balance of Yin Yang energy returning the body to a balanced, normal physiological state.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the human body is treated as an integral system of interrelated networks with different physiological functions. This integral system uses the energy pathways to link the organs and other human systems into a unified whole, making the communication and interaction between parts of the body possible. The energy that flows in the energy pathways is called Qi. It extends internally to the organs and externally throughout the body, completing and interrelated system of networks.

Traditional Chinese Medical Qigong is a compilation of effective preventative, healing, and strengthening exercises derived from a long history of the Chinese peoples experience with nature and living in harmony with it.

Qigong is studied not merely for the health and strength of the body, but as an attempt to understand human nature and its interactions with the environment and the universe as a whole. Realizing that humans are part of nature, any attempt to understand human physiology inevitably involves the study of wholism.

From commoners to scientists, martial artists to government officials. Qigong studies span the masses of the Chinese population.

Supporting Research into the Health Benefits of Qigong

Qi Gong is a practice which combines relaxing movement, breathing and visualization. It is a tool to make Qi circulate in order to preserve one’s health, cure diseases and prolong life. The consistent practice has been shown to foster development of a profound inner calmness and non-reactivity of the mind, allowing individuals to face, and even embrace, all aspects of daily life, regardless of circumstances.

Science has proven the complementary healing effects of Qigong in medical science. Qigong can relieve chronic pain (including low back (6)), reduce tension, increase activities of our immune system (even at the genetic level (2)), improve heart health, mediates neuroendocrine responses (10), improve eyesight, and influence blood flow & biochemistry (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10). There is also proof of its positive effects on depression (4), and stabilization of the autonomic nervous system and the emotional state (5). It induces a state of relaxation via the induction of alpha brain waves and the release of serotonin (8). Jang & Lee randomized study put forth Qigong as an effective complementary therapy for managing the symptoms of PMS (9). It has also been concluded that visualization was an effective intervention for long-term smoking cessation and abstinence in adult smokers (3). The Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies, Harvard Medical School, study of the ‘Use of mind-body medical therapies’ stated that ‘much opportunity exists to increase use of mind-body therapies for indications with demonstrated efficacy’ (11).

The cultivation or preservation of ones health through the complimentary practice of Qigong plays an integral part in any persons path to wellness and the accomplishment of their goals. Join a class, read a book, buy a video.

written by Spence Pentland
Fertility specialist; the President of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Association of British Columbia (TCMABC), and practices at Acubalance Wellness Centre (http://www.acubalance.ca/) where he treats only Men’s reproductive health mens.health-info.org and Women’s fertility issues infertility.health-info.org.