Inspired by the call of President Obama to engage more Americans in service, a group of individuals from the technology, marketing and public sectors came together to build an open source application that allows you to find and share volunteer activities. All for Good lets you browse activities and find events based on your location or interests. The site is governed by Our Good Works a nonprofit organization that was formed by some of the people who initiated the project and who support the product’s growth.

I Stumbled upon the link to www.allforgood.org on Twitter when I was doing some updating of my TweetDeck today.
Yes, I’m a big follower of President Obama’s and I think that, as a politician, he is the only one that actually makes sense. President Obama not only managed to combine knowledge that relates to all people but he also inspires people to take a step back and look around. We are not different from each other – we may look different but we all have the same needs, hopes and dreams. So why can we not work together to build a better future for everybody?

Didn’t History Class teach us something?

I’m a history and politics geek; I’ve grown up with it, and often it seems like politicians don’t like to look into the past or even talk about it. It also seems like often laws and taxes, that would help the majority of people suffer cuts. What I don’t understand is how the politicians can allow this, and why they don’t understand that if you are rich and just try to get richer without giving as many people as possible a good standard of living that the system will break?
How can somebody afford to buy your fancy new car if he does not have any money, job or security?

• Did history not show that if the power is focused on just the few people in power serving their own interests, it does not work? e.g. Monarchy
• Did history not show that creating a high standard of education will bring a high standard of living?
• Did history not show that if people work together to reach one common goal they are unstoppable?

As Senator, Mr. Obama asked the people of the United States of America to spend their own time volunteering to help rebuild America. A group of volunteers created an online platform that made it easy for everyone to volunteer and to contribute.

Our core team is made up of volunteering enthusiasts from places like Google, Craigslist Foundation, UCLA, YouTube, FanFeedr and Aha! Ink. As a contributor to the All for Good project, Google is hosting the All for Good website and products. Several Google engineers worked on All for Good as a 20-percent project (Google lets engineers spend a day a week on projects that interest them), collaborating with a broader team to build the product.

I personally think that is one of the best ideas for an online platform ever, and I think it should be extended to the whole world. I would even suggest to build a fund that covers expenses for the volunteers, and people and organizations can donate.

Help yourself with helping others?

Many people don’t have a job at the moment but they want to do something, so why not help them to pay the bills and let them work on different projects in their community? I know so many young people who would love to go to other countries and help there. Everybody can do it. An example would be the  Trümmerfrauen of Germany, which was one of the major forces behind the the Wirtschaftswunder.
Okay they didn’t really have any choice but do we? What is left of us?

Lets work together and help each other! Lets make All Good!

I will make a start, I will give 5 non-profit organizations a free SEO site review. Just use the contact us form with the subject “I want a free SEO site review for my non-profit organization”.

I would love to get some feedback from you, leave a comment.

When I created the idea of Green Hat SEM, I didn’t think much about the environment and how it could relate to the system. On Sphinn for my “What is Green Hat SEM” post “Onreact” comment this:

“Good idea, bad explanation. Using “green” without any environmental meaning seems obsolete in today’s business world.”

Since I love to get feedback from others on my ideas, I thought about that for a moment. I do think that it is a bit fatal to look at everything Green just from an environmental prospective but here are 5 tips on how you can make your Online Business greener. At the end the same basic idea as Green Hat SEM, “If you do something do it right and do it with passion”.

1.       Make your office paperless

The first prediction of Paperless offices was made in 1975 by Business Week. Until then, a lot has changed and there is so many more reason why a Business should switch to paperless office. If you are not familiar with the concept of paperless office, I recommend reading the Wiki Article about it and Siemens did a white paper on “Moving to a Paperless Office – Is it Just About the Cost of the Technical Solution?”

I personally use Google Apps combined with MyTorch.com to securely store, organize and share my documents with my clients. With reducing the amount of Paper trail in your business, you don’t only save a lot of space and cost but you also reduce the amount of Trees that die every year for us humans so we can file some piece of paper away that is never looked at again.

2.       Change your hardware and monitor your energy consumption

Computer hardware and electronics in general have made huge improvements in saving energy over the last few years. With technology like the intelligent energy saving EDU from Asus or the Dynamic Energy Saver from Gigabyte can save you a lot of energy in a year. Also, with turning off your computer when you leave it, you can save a lot of energy. If you are planning to buy new hardware, do something useful with your old hardware; either give it away to Schools or non-profit organizations that need computers or recycle them correctly. Even though there have been a lot of changes within the last few years, many older PC’s have hazardous waste inside. In Europe, regulations for lead-free computing such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), are designed to reduce the effects of hazardous waste.

Also, look at www.energylens.com it is easy to use and cost effective software that monitors and reduces energy consumption in your company.

3.       Look for green hosting

Carbon neutral hosting is a great thing to do if you really care about the environment and if everybody helps, the cost for green hosting will reduce soon. DreamHost, as an example, already went completely green without charging more for it. Also, using WebClouds rather than dedicated server can reduce the amount of energy that your company is wasting daily.

4.       Recycle and reuse

When I moved to Vancouver, I was amazed on how much less recycling is going on here compared to  Berlin. When I went to Miami in 1999, I was shocked by the fact that there was no system what so ever in place, at least where I was staying, for separating paper from house waste or even glass. By separating and recycling all waste that we have, we can reduce the amount of waste lying around. Did you know that we have the technology to recycle and reuse most of our waste?

How much do you recycle?

5.       Cut your packaging

If you are packaging your products, it cost money and it creates waste. I am sure that if you do a survey with your customers about your packaging, you will see the part of your packaging that is really needed, can you not cut that stupid extra plastic packaging that everybody hates anyway? You could also make sure that you’re sticking out from your competition by using recycled paper for your packaging or maybe you can make your product completely package free by putting it online.

Summary

I hope these 5 tips will give you some ideas on how you and your company can save the environment one step at a time. I personally try to never use the free plastic bags from the stores; I think it is shameful to actively destroy our environment as what the big supermarkets are doing. Ask your cashier what they do at the end of the day with all the plastic bags, I think you will be surprised by the answer, I was.

Green Hat SEM is an advanced way of thinking how to make money in a long run on the Internet. By focusing on providing more value to the customer you indirectly focus on making more money.

Everybody knows about the discussion of Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO. I think it is the same as the discussion about fakers and real people at the end of the 90^th in Internet Chats. It’s a question of opinion, it’s a question of integrity but most of all, it is a question of what is working for you. I am not a fan of spamming; I do not like when I come to a site and find myself confronted with millions of ads. I think that the real problem about link buying is that it is just about money, if you have enough money you can buy yourself to the top. However, the Internet is different; the basic concept is free information for everybody. In addition, search engines want to provide the most relevant information to their customers and not the most unnaturally made relevant page.

What is Green Hat SEM then?

Simple, it is a way of thinking, putting all unnecessary useless things to the side and focusing on what is important, making money. With focusing on relevance and providing value to visitors and into the community, your site will create more brand awareness and thus becoming more trusted.

Many people try to keep up with algorithm changes and track their ranking on a daily basis. They are spending too much time on useless and mindless tasks. Many webmasters are scared to take the risk of trying new things with their site. Others do everything to get as many links and traffic as possible.

However, does that really work? Some spammers make a lot of money, others do not. On the other hand, some people do not make the money that their site could generate. The Internet is just polluted with useless links and ads now a day. Instead of focusing on providing a great service or tool they just think of making money, but most of them fail.

How do you set your mind to Green Hat SEM?

Stop thinking about rankings, stop thinking about how to get as many as possible links, stop doing mindless tasks and focus on relevance. Don’t try to rank for the keyword that has the most traffic in your industry if you don’t have any relevant pages for it. Stop promising things you can’t deliver. Stop being scared of reviews; if you are doing what you said you do; you should not be scared at all, right?

Green Hat SEM Summary

Green Hat SEM is a way of living, a way of thinking about the Internet not in how to manipulate it, more on how to make it more relevant. With focusing on being relevant and providing value, you focus on making money without being focused on it. Soon you will be wondering why you are making more money and why you are getting more and more referrals from your existing customers. Green Hat SEM is focused on the most important element of e-Business: the customer. A happy customer has more impact on your traffic than any link to your site. Conversion is King, Content should be the Priest and ranking is useless if you are not relevant for the keyword you are ranking for.