Breaking Dawn Has the Single Most Important Aspect of Marketing

On the 8th of August, I got up at 7 am and drove to Barnes and Noble to get a copy of the much anticipated “Breaking Dawn” Vampire book by Stephenie Meyer. I had been following the book since last summer when my sister, Becca, finally talked me into reading the series. She had been following Stephenie since before her major popularity with the book “Twilight”. I went home and sat on my couch from 8 in the morning until about 4 pm (which my husband was not too fond of, he doesn’t understand the relationship I have with books when I am reading). The book was very long, but I think amazing, mainly because of the background of the author and her ability to keep my attention for 8 hour spans.

Now I have read the reviews of the last book in the series and have some serious issues and opinions about what took place in this last book, both good and bad. I have the right mind to write them all down at this very second, but then thought, it has all been said before. Every single person has their opinion, positive and negative, and that is what makes the book a keeper. What I am most interested is about this author. I have done a ton of research on this woman and she is a complete unknown, stay at home mom, who had a dream, an idea and took it to the next level. Her idea was that that had been done before, a vampire book. When my sister had begged me to read this book, I was not going to do it. I was a “Buffy” and “Angel” fan (very embarrassed to admit) but another book about vampires, come on! But this book had something that marketing entrepreneurs need to capitalize on, something Kim Power Stilson calls, “The Grapevine”. This book had stay power because every single person you talked to said, “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK”. Hello, this is the sure power of tell all communication and recommendation. I think that any business can take from what Stephenie Meyer had to offer and see that the real power of advertising isn’t through complicated and expensive giant billboards and commercial advertising, but producing something that people talk about. Talk is cheap. And on the side note, don’t forget to listen to me live every Friday at 1 EST on “The Debbie Cluff Show”, we can talk about breaking dawn, we always do.

 MARKET YOUR COMPANY STEPHENIE MEYER STYLE IN JUST 24 HOURS WITH THE HELP OF KIM POWER STILON AT WWW.POWERSTRATEGIES.TV. DON’T FORGET TO GET THE FREE EBOOK!

SIDE NOTE ABOUT BREAKING DAWN AND EDUCATION

What are the educational benefits of this book? 
Besides just getting kids to read—and these are real page turners—the books can be used
educationally by looking at questions the texts themselves bring up (why are they so popular and is it good for girls to be identifying with Bella?) as well as linking them to other things we might be teaching, like religion and mythology.Bella’s character, what she is modeling for young women, is a good thing to explore.  On the one hand, she seems to represent a step backward in terms of role models. She will marry very young, she is willing to exchange her humanity for an eternity with her boyfriend, she gets pushed around quite a lot, and she needs to be rescued frequently.  On the other hand, she has redeeming qualities including her intelligence, her willingness to put her life on the line to save her loved ones, and her total acceptance of people society would label monsters (

By Amrisa Niranjin — School Library Journal, 8/1/2008)

Add a comment August 14, 2008

Found this Interesting

Going High-Tech with Tracking Student Progress
State education officials are looking to use an online system to track student progress.  This way, students, parents, teachers, and administrators will be able to see attendance, grades, and test scores for a particular student or whole groups of students with just a click of a button.

Iron County School District was the first district in Utah to pilot the system starting in 2005.  And the results look promising: 

“I feel like we have moved light years in terms of looking at individual students,” said Iron District Superintendent Jim Johnson.

Thirteen districts in Utah have already used or will be using the system. They are: Iron, Wasatch, Beaver, Cache, South Sanpete, Kane, Garfield, Provo, Duchesne, North Summit, South Summit, Rich and Daggett.

If used properly, this new system for tracking student progress will empower parents to know how their kids are doing and help schools focus more on the needs of individual students.  It could also be instrumental in implementing merit pay programs and increasing school accountability.

For more info…

• Schools to go high-tech with education records>>  Deseret News, August 4, 2008

Add a comment August 11, 2008

Kim Power Stilson, Does it Again!

I finally finished and here we go!  I call it Make, Bake, Shake, Rake & Fresh and it is the story of how a Woman turns 17 year dream into solution for small businesses.

July 26, 2008—Woodland Hills, UT & Dunmore East, Ireland

Kim Power Stilson, mother, at home entrepreneur and dual-citizen releases new education guide to give small business owners competitive edge to marketing their products online.

Kim Power Stilson literally delivered her third child while working in the corporate world.  She wanted to spend more time at home with them so she developed a solution that helped her company gain 150% increase in name awareness taking them from 126^th in the industry to top 3 in nine months, coming 60% under budget, bringing in $50 million in ordered sales and funding and  . . . the real success, a promotion which “allowed” her to work from home a few days a week. 

Hearing of her success her small business owner friends asked for her marketing help she knew there had to be a way for them to promote their products without the high corporate staff and price tag. 

Kim came up with a plan she simply called, Make, Bake, Shake, Rake & Fresh and used that strategy to help her company, her clients and her friends succeed.  Kim went on to become one of the first women to pioneer Internet talk radio and she helped over 107,000 people promote their products online.   During this time her goal was always to find time to write a guide which would allow her to help thousands more.  Today she is pleased to announce the release of her two new marketing guides and a workbook which allow any small business owner to quickly have a marketing strategy and the tools to promote their business online and traditionally. 

Her guides, “24 Hours to Zero Down Marketing Strategy Guide and Workbook” and the “Get online Blog, Ping, Pod, Stream, Bookmark, Blast, Release, Wiki, Widget, Web, Link, Avatar, Tag and Twitter!  What is it and how do I do it?” are now available with a FREE excerpt at www.powerstratgies.TV . 

According to Kim, who now works at home very successfully with teenagers in the house says that every person can choose the life they want to lead and make money while doing it by marketing their business. 

“Marketing is essential but it does not have to be expensive rocket science,” said Power Stilson.  “Women and family-owned business can make money by marketing their products online and offline without a large budget and while at home.  I worked through labor and delivery of one of my kids and my goal in life is to prevent any women from ever having to do that! I promise this will help.”

Both guides and the workbook are offered in Green-style online in a PDF  version, as well as, a robust video, audio, Internet, Web, Social Media & Marketing certified education course.   (Prices range from $240 – $2400 with certification.) For Free Media trial contact:  Jack Brian or Anne Roberts Jack@powerstrategies.TV  or anne@powerstrategies.com or 801-473-9174. 

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About Kim Power Stilson:

Kim Power Stilson, award-winning marketing strategist and first women to pioneer Internet talk radio, is a social media and Internet marketing strategist who has helped over 100,000 small businesses promote their products online.  Founder of Power Strategies, Inc., she is the Internet talk radio, host of “My Best Friends are Dogs and Bloggers” on Planetary Streams (Log on and listen at www.planetarystreams.com) and “Power Strategies, market your business to better bottom line!” talk radio show on MyExpertSolution.com.  She is the founder of the Bluebird Sisterhood and her blog is www.myheartisinireland.wordpress.com and www.powerstrategies.tv.   She loves to watercolor, play tennis, snow ski, write and be near the sea. She divides her time between California, Utah & Ireland. 

Kim Power Stilson is the author of Women Buy Everything (Fall 200 24 Hours to Zero Down Marketing Strategy Guide and Workbook and Get online Blog, Ping, Pod, Stream, Bookmark, Blast, Release, Wiki, Widget, Web, Link, Avatar, Tag and Twitter!  What is it and how do I do it? Her professional marketing background includes over 17 years experience and a proven track record of success. She has created marketing positioning campaigns based on her own copyrighted Make, Bake, Shake, Rake & Fresh marketing strategy to build name awareness and speed up the sales process hundreds of companies delivering award-winning campaigns to national and international audiences for at 60% savings over costs, with an 140% increase in name awareness and delivering ordered sales of $50 million plus. http://www.powerstrategies.tv.

About Power Strategies, Inc:

Power Strategies is a Social Media, PR, Web & Internet Marketing Strategies Company providing Education, Marketing Consultation and Public Relations Services to women and family owned businesses and corporations in the United States and Ireland. www.powerstrategies.TV. Google.

Add a comment July 29, 2008

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Each Mother’s Day the Boys and Girls in our congregation stand up and sing, “I know a name, a glorious name, greater than any other”. This song came to mind while I was advised to read the book by Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by a wonderful associate. In this book, there are two entire chapters dedicated to the tactics and techniques in getting people to like you all based on remembering a person’s name. Mr. Carnegie speaks about President Roosevelt’s ability to recall the names of his entire staff and the secret behind Andrew Carnegie’s success simply being to remember names of everyone he met. He states, “The executive that tells me he can’t remember names is at the same time telling me he can’t remember a significant part of his business and is operating on quicksand.” These chapters got me thinking about how names and people have impacted my life.

When I was in the 11th grade we had to do a report and I choose the topic, “Etiquette”. I remember that the queen of Etiquette, Emily Post, had spoken of the importance of remembering a person’s name. To this day, I always try and spell the person’s name in my head upon introduction or/and if I don’t remember somebody’s name when I am introducing a person I say, “He/She has the most interesting name, can you please spell it for so and so” It seems to work great, unless they have the name Sam or Bob, then I think they catch on to my lack of remember their name. If Emily Post, President Roosevelt and Dale Carnegie strongly suggest the importance of remembering names, then there has to be something to it.

When I was teaching elementary school, one of the most effective ways to teach a child is to learn and use their name daily in the classroom. While I was teaching 1st grade, I made sure to say each students name, 3 times a day, I have to add that I did tally for the first couple of times, but then it became habit (Yelling or Scolding the Student didn’t count). It was fun to have parents of the shy students come into the classroom because they always would tell me that their child loved being in my class, and I would simple tell the parents that they really just liked the attention and positive reinforcement of me saying their name repeatedly throughout the day. My kids LOVE it when I say there names and I secretly think they like to mimic me and overly use my name in vain.

So how important is it in remember names? Today I took the challenge to call every person I met by their first name because how important is a name?

I started off the day on a bad note. I was calling for my daughter Audrey to come downstairs and pick up her toys and on repeated occasion (which I seem to do over and over again) I kept yelling my 2 year old Emma’s name instead. Finally Audrey looks at me and says, “Mom, I am Audrey”. I instantly flashback, to my mother, who had 10 children, and would always get our names wrong, not only would she get the name wrong, but she would call us up to 7 names before she would look us in the eye and say, “You are the one”. The name calling would go something like this, “Katie, Beth, Christina, Jacob, Rebecca… whatever your name is, I am looking at you, get over here”. I have to confess that sometimes I call my son, Ben, my brother’s names… “Matthew, Jacob, Justin, Mike, Nick, BENJAMIN!” Audrey did eventually clean up her mess, but then she does give me that look… the “not again” look that I am sure I gave my mom.

I then get a call from my cousin, Julie, and she instantly says, “Hi Devin” (Devin is her husband) we laughed and she corrected herself. The rest of they day I greeted people by their first name, remembered to say, Thank you Liam, to our waiter and even got to know the window cleaner, Blair. I met Tyler at Mavericks who takes my money for soda and Chris who gave us dessert after our date night. I asked everyone I met, “What is Your Name” and with a HUGE smile they would tell me.

I sat back and wondered if, by saying their name, I had made an impact in their life (my husband did say I most likely had made them feel all warm and tingly inside, but he does have a sarcasm history) or if they thought I was a crazy lady going to stalk them in the future. I will never know the impact of knowing the names had on the people I met at this exact time, but you can bet that I am going to keep it up and try to aspire to the greats by remembering the names of people I encounter. It is a great habit to get into, putting others first. I have to remember that people like to feel important and a name brands them with who they are and what they want to become. Everyone wants to aspire to be wonderful and maybe by having a strange lady at the drive through know just a little about you can inspire confidence to be better. So going back to the song the kids sing in the congregation at Mother’s Day, “I know a name a glorious name, sweeter than any other”, I can truly say that I know a lot of names and each name is sweeter than the next.

1 comment July 12, 2008

Classroom Arrangement

The set up of a classroom is very important to how a classroom is being managed. The teacher needs to make sure his/her classroom is arranged for the students to be productive. The teacher also needs to make sure their classroom has a positive environment for the students as they enter the classroom. Another key fact a teacher needs to consider is that their classroom needs to be ready for learning everyday. This is because in order to manage a classroom with proper discipline, a product and active classroom set-up is important. The students need to be placed in an arrangement that will keep them focused on the lesson and not deter them from learning. In this paper, we will discuss and provide ways for a lower elementary classroom to be set up.

Classroom Arrangement

Our map shows the classroom is arranged in centers. The students will sit in groups of six in four different groups. The reasoning behind the groups is that the students will be able to learn how to work with others. The students will also be able to motivate each other to do their work. The desks are arranged in the middle of the classroom so it will allow the teacher to walk around the room freely. Plus the teacher will be able to control the students in a more compact area. The setting of the desk will also help students to stay on task.

Reading Corner

In the corner of the classroom is a “cozy” reading nook which will contain the classroom library. This area will provide a “home” feeling and help the students to feel relax when they are in this area. The reading nook will also be a place for students to go to when they have completed their work and want to read a book in a cozy are. If a child is able to feel at home in the reading nook this can cut down on behavior problems for the teacher. In the reading nook, this area is a quite place. The reading nook is not located in the same area as everything else in the classroom. By having the reading nook in the corner of the classroom, it will help to promote reading in the classroom.

Centers

The listening center and computer station will be placed on the outside of the classroom. The centers will be facing the walls because the students will be rotating to the varies centers within the classroom. Plus, while students are at their centers they will need to be able to concentrate on their work. Also, located on the outside of the classroom are the storage areas for Science, Math, Art and Writing materials. This storage area allows the students to have a centrally located area to receive and place materials for Science, Math, Art and Writing. Plus, this area will help the teacher to keep his/her classroom organized.

The student’s desk will also serve as centers. During center time students will be able to move around the whole room to gain information. At each group their will be a different theme for students to learn about. By having the centers on both the inside and the outside of the classroom will enable the teacher to focus the students’ attention to their center activity instead of just rotating around the room. This will keep the flow of the classroom and will not give the students time to mess around maintaining classroom structure and discipline.

Teacher’s Desk Location

The teacher’s desk is located in the back of the classroom. The reason of this arrangement is that this will help the teacher to promote a student – centered classroom. By having the desk located in the back of the classroom the teacher will have full sight of his/her entire classroom at all times. Plus, the teacher will only use the desk for paper work. The rest of the time the teacher will be in the same area as the students.

Print Rich Environment

Not only is the arrangement of the desk important to the classroom but the motivation the classroom has to offer the students. To have a print-rich-environment, the teacher needs to have posters and signs that help to promote literature in the classroom. By having posters and signs on the classroom walls and bulletin boards will help the students gain a great deal of experiences with the different types of literature. Plus the students can do a read around the room, while sitting in the reading nook. By providing a print-rich environment, the students will be placed in a positive learning atmosphere that promotes learning thus preventing classroom misconduct.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the arrangement of the classroom is a very key part of how well the students will learn and interact with their classmates and their teacher. If a classroom is disorganized and clustered, then it will be kind of hard for a child to work and learn new skills. Plus, the teacher needs to take time to make sure his/her room is set up for learning because no matter how well your lesson plans are completed and ready to be presented. If the students do not feel comfortable in the room then the lesson plan will be presented in a way the teacher wanted it to.

Add a comment May 25, 2008

Resources for Parents

An educational phenomenon has begun in the world of learning for students in K-12th Grade who are seeking additional resources in reading, math, and writing. Online Tutoring, virtual tutoring sessions where the students are instructed from the comfort of their own home, are becoming more mainstream as an alternate learning tool. Once informed about resource, parents are grasping onto this technologic capability of enhancing their students learning levels and demanding further attention be brought to the importance of this online tutoring ingenuity. Tutoring sessions are now not just available to those that can afford private training, but to anybody who has access to a computer in their own home. Online Tutoring makes sense and parents need to become aware of the positive effectiveness this convenient tool can have on their child’s education. Online Tutoring is the key to the future of our children’s education because the sessions are presented in a non-threatening situation. “Online Tutoring allows students to learn in their home setting rather than a public institutional setting. Students learn best in this non-commercial, familiar, stress-free environment” explains Debbie Cluff, CEO of Links for Learning, an online tutoring site. She goes on to say, “Parents need to become aware of the positive educational resources available to them right in their own home”. Parents have the ability to be present during all tutoring sessions and reinforce the ideas presented during the sessions. Parents can then discuss the online tutoring session during a private chat with their online tutor or via email. This builds the necessary tools to create a structured learning environment for students because it involves the three aspects of gaining an education. These three aspects are the co-relation of the parent, the student, and the teacher.

During the online tutoring sessions, the students are in the comfort of their own home, learning in a positive atmosphere. The tutoring session have unlimited access because in the online sessions, “the world is your oyster”. Students gain confidence and a better understanding of their problem area because of the unique style of learning the sessions present. Online tutors are able to plan each lesson around the individual students needs and are not limited on the resources they have because of working online. Online students feel certain about what they are learning and how they are learning. Learning in the home is the ultimate learning experience.

Online tutoring is available at many different sites. It is important to find an affordable and convenient site that has specific teaching credentials. Some companies offer online tutoring for a low price, but are not really willing to work with both the parents and the students. Also, some sites offer tutoring sessions that do not have credentialed teachers working as their tutors. Some sites do hire tutors that do not live in the same country that the students live in, which is hard to tutor because of the different language barriers. Make sure that you feel comfortable with the tutor that you are going to have your most priced possession dealing with. Homework Help is offered at some sites which is another great resource to enforce the online learning setting. This is a great resource for working parents because it enables their student to have access to a tutor 24/7, a tutor who can help with homework questions.

Online tutoring is the new phenomenon that is sweeping through the educational world. Colleges have invested in this idea and use online tutoring in most of their beginning English courses. Parents need to now invest in this idea and help it to become more mainstream in the educational society.

Add a comment May 22, 2008

Students Who are At-Risk!

Add a comment May 16, 2008