Disabled Parking Stickers Make Me Crazy

I'm pissed about disabled parking stickers.  Specifically their abuse.  It seems that if you have one, you can park anywhere you like for as long as you like!

We live in a medium sized apartment complex.  The entry road in is wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass safely.  Things are a bit trickier when vehicles park legally on the south side, the side away from the front of the building.  A tighter squeeze, but manageable if taken more slowly.  On the north side, there is no 'parking'.  This is clearly indicated by multiple signs.  Pull up, drop off, move on.

Recently however, an individual has taken to parking his vehicle on the north, no parking side.  And not just for short periods.  Often on weekends, his vehicle is parked 'illegally' from Friday till Monday!  He gets away with it because prominently displayed on the dashboard is a disabled parking sticker.  The result is major inconvenience and potential safety hazzard for everyone in our complex with the roadway reduced to one lane only!

I've spoken to him on more than one occasion.  He ignores me.  Oh, I neglected to mention that he is NOT disabled.  Nor are any of the others I've seen with him in his car.

The City of Toronto enforces parking on the south side but turn a blind eye to this vehicle parked on the north side.  Just one of the perks of having a disabled parking sticker...and misusing it!

I feel bad for those vehicles that use their disabled parking stickers responsibly to save an extra step or park close to a ramp.  This is truly a case of how one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch!

Until next time...

Chris

Chris Morales Author

In high school we had to take a 'Creative Writing' class.  I didn't enjoy it.  Having to write 'creatively' seemed ridiculous. All writing is a creative exercise. Telling a story, fiction or non-fiction is 'creative'.  I didn't right much but I had stories swirling in my head!

In broadcast school at Conestoga College we learned that before we could speak we had to write.  That was true for the newscasters as well as the radio DJ's. At my radio gig in Guelph, I learned to write what I planned to say before I flipped on the microphone.  Great experience! 

In 2005 I took up blogging.  It was the dawn of Social Media and online blogs were all the rage. My first posts were awful!  Thank you to those of you who endured my early ramblings.  But I stuck at it.  Writing allowed me to get stuff off my chest.  

Writing this third book, 'Growing Up:  Canadian Jamaican' was cathartic!   It's raw!  Writing the stories was the easy part...pulling the trigger on publishing it was hard.  I hope you enjoy reading the stories from growing up in Jamaica and Canada.  I'll be ecstatic if I can help even one person!

Until next time...

The Art of Personal Branding

What do you stand for?  Do prospective employers and or clients know what you do?  More importantly, what you can do for them?

Branding 101:  The value of your brand is determined by your customers!  How they perceive what value they get from you and your services.  This applies to businesses and individual.  Build your brand from that starting point.
 

 

Until next time...

Chris Morales

 

Branding Exercise Concluded - Now What?

The 8 week exercise to improve my Online Profile concluded last week.  Now what?

I confess to feeling a bit empty since all my online profiles are running on autopilot.  Oh I check in with my BrandYourself account regularly to see what's happening.  And it's good!

Moving forward it's constant monitoring, updating my various online profiles with new content and staying vigilant for anything negative that could affect the positive results to-date.

One important activity that will launch in the upcoming weeks is my video series on how to teach like a pro.  In this series I'll be sharing my insights, tips and suggestions from my teaching at George Brown College over the past 3 years.  

Managing your online profile is never really over.  And it requires effort.  That's life in the digital age...or at least since you did your first Google Search!

Until next time...

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Chris Morales

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 8 Update

Here we are at Week 8, the final week of the exercise to improve my online profile.  And...results are looking good!

Reputation results have stabilized in the 'Good' range.  I'm pleased with that.  I didn't want to be a slave to the algorithm and am please to only have to spend about 10 minutes every couple of days on maintenance.  The highlights of the activities that led to this result include:

1. Optimized LinkedIn Profile:  Headline and Summary.  Packed with relevant keywords that speak to the benefits I deliver:  Chris Morales LinkedIn
2. BrandYourself Profile.  This was key.  It's a user-friendly service that walked me through optimizing all of my online profiles:  Twitter, LinkedIn, Personal Website, Facebook.  I definitely recommend this service.

My Page One Search results have stabilized with the top 3 now showing 'Chris Morales' correctly.  I still have some work to do with images.  That activity will begin shortly and will be ongoing.  I'll share the results of those strategies and tactics in future blog posts.  If you want more information, contact me directly.

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 7 Update

I got distracted this past week.  My plan had been to focus on getting my images to show up on the Search page.  I started out OK but quickly ran into a roadblock:  I didn't have enough places on the web where I could post my image.  I tagged all the images I could find (and could get access to) but it just wasn't enough to get my images to show up for 'Chris Morales' images already being served up.

A setback yes but not all was lost.  A chance conversation with a Social Media Marketing expert led me down another path. One that could be even more effective in improving page 1 ranking for 'Chris Morales'.  

He suggested creating and posting more content.  His rationale was that Google loves new and relevant.  And it turns out that I have a treasure trove of relevant content currently hiding behind firewalls.  It's time to dig up and open the chest!

 

The source of this content is the book I wrote and published last December on Kindle, How To Teach Like A Pro.

The strategy to help improve ranking is to share the content of the book directly on multiple online platforms.  I've got three:

1. My YouTube Channel
2. How To Teach Like A Pro website
3. Blog on Chris Morales website 

Starting next week I'll be posting a video on my YouTube Channel with content from How To Teach Like A Pro.  I'll continue until I've published and shared the entire contents of the book.  So if you've ever wanted to learn the ins-and-outs of teaching at a Community College, make sure to tune in!

 

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 6 Update

When I started 6 weeks ago my reputation score was 350...'Poor'.  Now 6 weeks in it's up to 591 and showing 'Good'.  Yes I've fallen for the online reputation game but in the process I've cleaned up and focused my online profile to highlight more of the things I want to focus on.  

In first page rankings, 'Chris Morales' is now solidly on Page 1 above the fold.  Images are still now where they should be...this will be the focus moving forward.

 

For the next week the focus is on Images...getting them to show in Google searches.  The strategy is to upload more images and alt tag each one with my name, 'Chris Morales'.

Chris Morales

chris@chrismorales.ca

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 5 Update

As I rolled through week 4 I got some tips on how to further improve my Chris Morales Online Profile.  Thanks Mike!  He suggested I focus for the next few weeks on tagging my public/online photographs with alt tags, Chris Morales.  That will be the focus for the upcoming week.

 

Since last week, I've moved to Premium on both LinkedIn and BrandYourself.  I've experienced a positive lift in exposure on LinkedIn and seen my reputation move from 'Average' to 'Fair' on BrandYourself...both positive. For next week I'll continue curating my online reputation on BrandYourself with the goal of moving from 'Fair' to 'Good'

Chris Morales

chris@chrismorales.ca

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 4 Update

The dog days of summer...that's what it feels like this week.  Maybe it's time to take a vacation especially with the hot weather we get to enjoy this week in Toronto!

But wait...

Online results are improving.  'Chris Morales' now appears consistently in the top 3 page one search results!

 

The goals next week:

1. Update to Premium on LinkedIn for 1 month to improve the visits on that platform
2. Update to Premium on BrandYourself to clean up my Social Media profile and Online Reputation.

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 3 Update

I'm 3 weeks into this exercise to improve my online profile and must confess that this past week has been a drag!  Yes I completed the tasks I set for myself (Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 2 Update).  But because I didn't see any immediate results, I was bummed out!

 

Things turned around when I got an email prompt from BrandYourself (Chris Morales profile).  It suggested some updates and revisions to my LinkedIn profile and with 20 minutes to spare, I got at it.  A few days later when I searched again for 'Chris Morales', I got the above results:

1. My LinkedIn profile showed up for the first time in the #1 position
2. My biography on George Brown College ranked #2
3. No images showed up on this search

I'm very pleased with the progress to-date.  Since starting this exercise with a flurry of activity (about 2 hours work), I'm now spending only about 30 minutes each week to tweek my profiles, AboutMe, BrandYourself, YouTube and LinkedIn.  Next week, more of the same.

Chris Morales

 

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 2 Update

After 2 weeks I am pleased to note that one of my image is now showing at the top of the search results page! It's nice to get confirmation that I'm moving in the right direction...and I'm super pleased with how little time it takes to get results.

In my last update I had two tasks to get done:  Clean up my Twitter profile and work on YouTube.  I got Twitter cleaned up but ran into a challenge on YouTube:  I had two personal profiles and spent a large amount of my allotted time deleting one account.  In the process I did not get as far as I wanted with tidying up the remaining YouTube account.  That will be rectified this upcoming week with these set tasks:

1. Finish cleaning up my YouTube account
2. Update my About.me profile
3. Update my BrandYourself profile 

I'm still following the tips and suggestions in How to Improve your Personal Online Reputation.   So far the recommendations seem to be working.

Chris Morales

Chris Morales Online Profile - Week 1 Update

I'm week 1 into this 8 week program to improve my online reputation and Page 1 of Google search for my name, 'Chris Morales'.  See last week's post, 'Your Reputation Precedes You'. Here's where I am after 1 week:  

• Online Reputation still mostly 'Neutral'.  
• No Images showing
• Page 1 Search Results improving:  
• 3 results
• Website now showing above the fold

 Here's what I did over the past week:

• 'Cleaned up' my personal website, chrismorales.ca 
• Added a photo
• Added key words related to my business experience
• Created an about.me profile, morales.chris
• Edited my Google My Business profile
• Removed previous business acronym, 'MMG' and replaced with my name, 'Chris Morales'
• Added photograph

For the next week, week 2 I'll be working on the following two online profiles as recommended in the article, How to improve your personal reputation:

1. Clean up and update my YouTube Channels
2. My Twitter profile (alt tags and key words)

 Chris Morales

Your Reputation Precedes You

Back in the day people checked references.  Employers, prospective clients asked for 2 - 3 references to check background, reliability, character.  Fast forward: Now you are just a click away from giving up all the information about yourself that you've shared online:

• Online search results
• Social Media profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (to name the Big 4)
• Google Reviews (and every other 5 star online review site)

In my case, here's what comes up when I search my name, 'Chris Morales':

These search results are generally positive for my Employment position:

• Position #2, 7 and 8...all above the Fold
• LinkedIn is prioritized...this makes sense since I spend the bulk of my energy on curating my profile
• My Part-time Teaching position in at #8 is a surprise...I don't actively promote this...I think it is a function of the high traffic volume on the George Brown College website (and interest in the Continuing Education Courses)

There are no negative results.  My Online Reputation would appear to be 'Neutral'.  What are the things I could do to edge it toward 'Positive'?  A little research led me to this excellent blog post, How to improve your Personal Online Reputation.  Here are the top 4 tips:

1. Create online profiles and optimize them for SEO
2. Get your own personal website
3. Start blogging
4. Increase your click-trough rate by setting up the Google Authorship Markup

I already have a personal website and have been blogging for years.  What confuses the Search Engines though is that I have multiple online profiles.  Some that conflict with my name, 'Chris Morales' and thus reduce my profile and dilute the sentiment.

What I want is to have a positive online reputation and dominate the page 1 search results.  Over the next 8 weeks I'll be applying the tips above.  I'll be posting updates about the results and sharing my learning.

Onwrds to improved online reputation!

Chris Morales