For those who live in the Ottawa area, you have likely seen on the news the desires of an ill 8 year old boy who would like to win the Guinness Book of Records for the most birthday cards received.

His name is Shane and he will be 8 in May, so the idea is for everyone to send him a birthday card and make sure it is there by May 30th (which is his birthday).

To verify this is not a hoax, you can view a short video about Shane’s story or by checking various hoax sites such as:

• Urban Legends at About.com
• Snopes.com
• Wikipedia - while not a valuable resource in and of it’s own, it verifies the above information

To send your birthday card:

Shane Bernier
P.O. Box 484
Lancaster, Ontario
K0C 1N0

Drop a comment or trackback to show that you sent a card!

What are your site goals for 2007?

We have many ambitions for 2007 including more regular posting starting tomorrow :-) Check back to learn about my online shopping experiences this Christmas…and maybe I’ll even throw in a couple of in store shopping experiences :-)

Happy New Year!

Darlene

I just came across a slide show entitled “10 Ways Companies Can Save the Environment“.

With due credit, I’d like to mention that I first found this on Duct Tape Marketing.

Some ideas for greening your business (these ideas can be applied to basement entrepreneurs just as easily as Fortune 500’s):

1. Eliminate unnecessary photocopying and reuse packaging for shipping.
2. Get an energy audit and in the meantime install timers to turn lights off automatically.
3. Go Paperless. Encourage e-mailing. When paper is necessary, photocopy on both sides and use old letterhead for scratch. I have started doing this thanks to the fine example set by my friend and colleague Kelly from Online Authority.
4. Consider the commute. Larger companies can provide preferred parking for carpoolers or offer transit passes to employees who take the bus or subway and bike racks for cyclists. Smaller businesses can carpool with other small business owners when both attending the same function downtown or consider taking the bus when meeting a client. Let workers telecommute.
5. Curb business travel. Teleconference instead of traveling. For must-go trips, keep track of the miles driven and flown and buy “carbon offsets” from a nonprofit like Carbonfund.org to make up for the greenhouse gas emissions.
6. Buy Green. Make the environment, and not just price, a factor when purchasing.
7. Detox. Many offices have toxic substances, such as used batteries and copier toner, on hand. Talk to suppliers about alternatives to toxics, and make sure you properly dispose of the ones you can’t avoid using.
8. Rethink Transportation. Consider the petroleum it takes to ship and receive products. Evaluate the impact of products you buy or sell, and find ways to mitigate those impacts.
9. Get the employees involved. Create a team to lead the company’s eco-efforts and determine where you can have the biggest impact for the least amount of money.
10. Communicate. Inform suppliers and customers about your efforts. And get in touch with local regulatory agencies, many of which offer financial incentives to businesses that clean up their acts.

Not every business is ready to act on all 10 suggestions listed above but we can all act on 2 or 3 of these.

DriveTraffic would like to challenge businesses small and large to implement as many of these or other recommendations. Post your plan as a comment here and on January 2, 2007 we will announce the winner for the most creative ideas…the winner receives a FREE website audit to determine how you can improve your search engine traffic!

Know of environmentally friendly businesses where we can buy green products? Post those businesses here as a comment!

Tomorrow is Friday and in lieu of a good search engine marketing post I’d like to remind everyone to wear red on Friday to support our troops ;-)

I’d also like to let the Americans know that many Canadians are overseas as well and Canadians are also wearing red on Fridays to show the wives and families of military that they are not alone.

Want some red music? Listen to and download the song “Wearing the Red” by Roger Thornhill here.

Doug Champagne, co-wrote and performed “We Wear Red“, a song dedicated to Wear Red Fridays and to Canadian troops and their families. Please visit TheLegacy.ca to download your copy of “We Wear Red”.

Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends and Happy Columbus Day to our US Counterparts ;-)

I have a good reason for not blogging recently. Ok I can’t explain why I haven’t blogged in over a month, but I do have a good reason for not blogging last Friday…

I was kayaking in the Thousand Islands with the Cardcommunications team! Those hardworking email marketing gals and I took the day off to join myself and Sean of 1000 Islands Kayaking Company on a tour of some very cold water, colder weather and huge homes!

Resident photographer Allison took some photos so hopefully we’ll have a link up for those shortly!

Back to business this week…we’ll have a real blog posting for you this week ;-)