Rucker Park, arguably the most famous street basketball court in the wold, has embraced in its history many of New York City's finest basketball players both pro and amatuer. During the late sixties through the mid seventies the court at 155th and Fredrick Douglas Boulevard inspired a community that included pro start like Dr. J, Wilt the Stilt, and local phenoms such as 'The Fly', 'Goat', and Pee Wee Kirkland. Imagine during a hot summer in New York City, crowds of people, some sitting in trees, others hanging on fences, all there for the true love of the game and to watch the best players invent and utilize an arsenal of prolific moves that is the foundation of the real 'Showtime'.

The Rucker Pro Tournament represented to a city of hoopsters that what really mattered was respect and talent. Basketball players from all around frequently showed up to test their skills against the best. Rucker Park was and still is a proving ground for some fo the all-time greats of NYC basketball. This collection is inspired and dedicated to what was one of the most profound exceptions in the world of sports.

RUCKER PARK N.Y. BASKETBALL GEAR

THE HISTORY OF STREET BASKETBALL....

Circa 1998

Holcomb Rucker - "Each one, Teach one"

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I am thankful for my family, friends and my health.  This year has been a year filled with things for which I can be grateful for.  So many people have shown me the true meaning of friendship.  If you had asked me in 2010 the day before Thanksgiving where I would be a year later I would have been wrong.  The journey is the blessing and for those that are only in search of the goal you just might miss the most important things along the way.  Look around, be grateful for each day.

"If you have something to say to a loved one, don't wait until tomorrow.  Too late comes sooner than later." - Nick Welton (excerpt from the book 5 - Where will you be five years from today?)

A video to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving

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I was recently asked to provide some training on the use of Social Media. The group I was working with ranged from enthusiasts to newbies. It was really interesting because the students also spanned several generational groups, ethnicities and there was an even mix of genders.

My goal was to help introduce the tools and best practices that I have become familiar with over the last several years. This is no easy task, compressing 3yrs worth of experience into a couple days is a challenge.  I Introduced key concepts and performed basic training on Posterous, Wordpress, Twitter and other tools.

I knew that turning them into Super Hero Thor-like social media gods would be a leap.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly several students picked up on the basics. In no time the group was posting blogs, tweeting and sharing meaningful content on popular sites.  I kept reminding them to keep the content they produce authentic and interesting.

The real test will be over the coming months to see if they can take this basic training and start to produce meaningful results. I will be keeping tabs on them and helping to promote any good content that the invidual students create.  I know that it will take time but given the strides they made in a short period of time I am confident they will be successful.

If you are interested in Social Media training or consulting you can contact me here

http://www.cloudpwr.com/contact_us 

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You should check it out if your in Olympia, WA. http://www.wrightrunstad.com/for-our-tenants/1500-jefferson.aspx

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Some have grumbled that it will show when you unfriend someone but let's face it you unfriended them for a reason right.  Social Media is about engagement and just like life sometimes you need to end relationships.  I found it interesting to scroll down and see that some of my most recent milestones were clearly shown in bold visibility.
Whether you end a romantic relationship, change jobs or just unfriend someone who is annoying you online it will show in your timeline.  You can hide or remove updates so if you really don't want to be blatant about unfriending someone just make sure you hide or remove that update.  I am sure there will be a whole new raft of privacy settings as Facebook rolls out the new view to everyone.

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Klout is a social media metric and analytics website that tracks a person’s social influence on the internet.  So what does that mean and “why is it important for anyone to be influential on the internet”?

It is very important if you are a business selling a product or service or an individual trying to promote your expertise in a particular field.  A good example would be if you find yourself recently unemployed and you are marketing yourself in pursuit of a job.  That is a pretty relevant topic in today’s economy, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics tracks the unemployment rate at 9.1% as of July 2011 and it gets worse depending on your geographic location.

This is the information age and if you are trying to get ahead in today’s market you must be visible on the internet.  One of my favorite authors and a widely accepted guru on the topic of Social Media is Gary Vaynerchuk.  In Chapter X of his book Crush IT, Gary writes “Any topic can be turned into a profitable, sustainable social-media-driven business”.

No one should consider starting a business or expect to increase sales for an existing business without advertising.  There is an age old maxim; spending more on marketing results in more sales.  Of course it has to be the right marketing to the right audience at the right time.  Historically you would either advertise in the yellow pages, your local newspaper or maybe even a radio or television spot.  The bigger your audience the bigger your budget for marketing and if all goes well the higher you’re sales for a product or service.  Today you can spend almost no money and get similar results to what you would have achieved in the 1980’s using traditional advertising and media.  What is not free is the time needed to craft a message, promote the message and turn that message into an actual business opportunity.

I realized in the fall of 2008 that social media was not a fad and it was going to be as important to business as the personal computer or cellular phone.  I embarked on a quest to completely reinvent the way my company managed its marketing.  I embraced the idea that every employee should have a LinkedIN® account.  This was big because previously I was scared to death that our competitors would use LinkedIN to steal our employees.  What I had to affirm is that our company was a great place to work.  We provided a strong company culture, competitive compensation and quality benefits so why would an employee want to leave.  I was willing to take the chance and furthermore I felt it was a good way to test what kind of leader and manager I was.

None of the employees left to take jobs at competitors.  One year later our company was receiving Google® search results on the first page using keyword searches relevant to our market.  First page results are the holy grail of marketing and advertising.  Employees were engaged in blogging, Twitter® and Facebook® and I began speaking at public seminars on the subject.  The results spoke for themselves, more visibility led to more leads which in turn led to more sales.  The company also received very positive feedback from vendors which created an increase in marketing funds. 

When Klout was first introduced many in the social media community scoffed at the idea that meaningful results could be produced based on tweets and your follower count.  But Klout is gaining momentum, adding more algorithms to their scoring engine and they are getting noticed by the mainstream media.  Based on a recent article in the New York Times - Got Twitter? You’ve Been Scored your score could influence an employer’s decision to hire you or a retailer’s decision to give you a special price.  Could it help you get a reservation at the best restaurant in town?  I don’t think we are there yet, but I can tell you that online reach and influence can be an advantage.  I was recently invited to submit a guest post on this website: Fierce Content Management.

I am not a professional writer but I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others.  Because of my experience building a social media strategy I knew that I could promote the article using social media.  The results are in and they are good, very good.  I received an email from Ron Miller, letting me know that my post was doing well in terms of views and comments.  One thing I always do is make sure to promote a post using twitter and to engage with people who comment or retweet.  Ron noticed this and sent me another email as recognition of my efforts; he invited me to submit another post.  It was not easy to get my first post approved.  I was rejected the first time, but I took Ron’s advice and wrote a new post, which was approved and published.

I am confident that my efforts are paying dividends and that people around the world are listening to what I have to say.  That is influence and what it means to a potential employer, competitor or retailer is that I am engaged.  I have the ability to make a difference.  If you can’t make a difference than what makes you stand out from the crowd?  Based on my experience I believe that Klout is a real metric and getting better every day.  It isn’t easy to use social media to gain influence and it is not a get rich quick scheme.  It takes hard work and consistency in order to produce results.

Comments appreciated and welcomed, let me know what you think.

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Jax first ramp riding. His Uncle Josh aka 'Dr Air' would be proud!!

IMG_2250.MOV Watch on Posterous

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I came to New York City today.  I paid my respects on behalf of my family.

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This is an alagory that has been told in many ways, many different times.

As I was passing the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.
 
I saw a trainer near by and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” he said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
 
I was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
 
Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?
 
How many of us are being held back by old, outdated beliefs that no longer serve us? How many of us have avoided trying something new because of a limiting belief? Worse, how many of us are being held back by someone else’s limiting beliefs?
 
Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve!

A great book to read on how good health and a strong spririt can overcome anything is "Elephant's Rope and the Untethered Spririt" by Lynne Picard

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I started using release candidate as soon as it was available for download.  Not the best experience but it was a early beta release and Microsoft had not yet worked the bugs out of their latest Browser version.  Many of us have had this experience with MS software but what happened next was truly extraordinary and very customer service oriented.
 
I was frustrated at one point and tweeted the following:

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"Great Teams find a way to follow and lead together without compromise or lack of wisdom"

old.tek #youronnotice

>

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Phong Hoang and I took off from Seattle at 1am on Monday 3/7/2011 headed to Vietnam.  The flight was uneventful, comfortable (thanks EVA) and went by pretty quickly.  I had downloaded several movies to my iPad Tablet and stocked up on Magazines – Wired, Fast Company and GQ.  I watched Episodes of East Bound and Down, the movie Predators, All Star Superman and listened to some music before falling asleep for 7hrs.  Meals were served and eaten and before you knew it we were arriving in Taipei to wait for our next flight to Saigon.  Flying into Vietnam I noticed that most of the outlying roads were a reddish dirt with lots of agriculture and shanty towns.  As we got closer to the City the density picked up and I could see lots of people moving about on scooters and bicycles.  The canal systems were very visible for transporting goods and water for crops of rice and lots of other vegetation.

We arrived in Ho Chi Ming City around 11am on Tuesday, I guess that’s why they call the modern airplane a time machine.  We arrived rested and alert, next up was security and immigration.  It was pretty simple process although I had to kind of push my way in to get my paperwork processed.  It was not terribly efficient and there didn’t seem to be a lot of scrutiny, you never know when you travel to a foreign country what to expect exactly.  My impression was they were glad to have me and the American dollars I would be spending.  $25 bucks cash stashed in a metal filing drawer along with a bunch of other currencies and not organized in any way whatsoever, just took the money and threw it in the drawer.  “Have a nice day Mr. Shadrach” is all they said.  The immigration officer barely looked at me, stamped my passport and off to baggage claim we went to collect our bags.

We jumped in a taxi and took the 25 minute ride to our hotel, Renaissance Riverside Hotel Saigon.  I posted a video of the cab ride to Facebook.  It is a nice hotel and is situated in the tourist part of town and close to some of the Tech company locations.  Phong and I checked in, got cleaned up and had some lunch in the hotel.  The food was good and very normal, not what you might expect.  Next we took a walk around the area, making sure to leave passports, wallets and any other valuables in our room safely locked away.  Apparently pick pocketing is very popular here, so we kept hold of our smart phones and our cash.  We stopped in at a local the bar, the ZanZBar Saigon and had a couple of beers, Phong had water he doesn’t drink.  We talked about our plans and what we would cover with our software development staff over the next couple of days.  Then we headed back to the hotel and we both crashed out, hoping to catch up on our time travel.  All in all a great first day in Nam.

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I have been and active participant in the Social Net for almost 3yrs now.  I started with MySpace but never really used it, then I heard about LinkedIN on an Alaska Airlines flight to San Jose in 2007.  At first I reacted like most employers do and saw it as a threat to retaining my staff and tried to block access at the firewall.  Then a colleague Kevin Ells working in our marketing dept. started teaching me about SEO so I started embracing it a little more.  Then I read CrushIt by Gary V. and turned 180 degrees the opposite direction.  I started leading my company as an executive sponsor for the complete embrace of Web2.0.  We encouraged everyone to join and participate in FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIN and our newly minted company blogs.  We did webinars, workshops and still do an occasional and informal lunch time learning hour to get people involved.  We have significantly increase our natural rankings for keywords related to our industry.  We appear on page1 as a natural hit for many of the most searched terms in our industry.

BLOGS
Nexus ECM: http://nexusecmsolutionsconference.wordpress.com/

ECM Project Managers: http://ProjectManagementForECM.wordpress.com

ECM Systems Engineers: http://ECMTechnicalExpertise.wordpress.com

ECM Solutions: http://IndependentIntegratorsOfECM.wordpress.com

ECM Developers: http://SoftwareDevelopmentForECM.wordpress.com

ECM Products: http://ProductsAndSolutionsForECM.wordpress.com

ECM Support: http://ECMTechnicalSupport.wordpress.com

ECM News: http://newandgoodinecm.wordpress.com

Twitter
Nexus ECM Twitter feed http://twitter.com/nexusecm
ImageSource Twitter feed http://twitter.com/imagesourceinc
ILINX Capture Twitter feed http://twitter.com/ilinxcapture
ECM Support Twitter feed http://twitter.com/ecmsupport

Facebook

http://facebook.com/imagesourceinc

http://facebook.com/ilinxcapture

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/imagesourceinc

I have seen my personal attitude towards engagement and privacy ebb and flow with my other social activities and life experiences.  I don’t think it’s all or nothing, on or off.  For me it depends on business cycles when I am super busy and there is lots of sales or management related activity I am less engaged.  When I have more down time my activity spikes.  I think the same could be applied to what you may be going through personally in your family, marriage, raising kids, emergency or life altering events.  Being social on the net is just as dependent on your current life circumstance, mood and interests as it is in the real world.

My Links

http://www.linkedin.com/in/shadrachwhite

http://twitter.com/shadrachwhite

http://facebook.com/shadrachwhite

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Can you spot Jax ?

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For several weeks now the new airport screening procedures have been fodder for the news cycles. As a frequent business traveler I have been there and seen most of what the TSA has to offer in the wake of 9-11 and throughout the first decade of the 21st Century. Mostly I have been irritated at the robotic and meaningless manner in which most TSA employees go about their job, typical Union style Government Cheese type of attitude.

I Especially hate taking my shoes off, I would like to punch Richard Reed in his big fat ugly nose for that one. Not to mention he didn't look suspicious at all, yeah right(?) - that's not my point, just my rant.

Someone at the TSA has either gotten the message or I just experienced a total fluke. I just went through screening at the #Seatac #TSA - very smooth, very courteous, they rerouted lines to make it more efficient. I stopped and made a positive comment to the Supervisor, I know I have complained plenty so I figure I better pipe up if I have a good experience. I don't know what consulting firm the TSA hired but they seem to have done a good job at SeaTac.

I will be coming through #SNA on my way home with my family on Sunday. We will see how tye John Wayne - TSA does on the way back. They have traditionally been very slack and inconsistent. Hope to have a good experience, wish I could leave my shoes on though.

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Once a year ImageSource hosts a technology conference in Bellevue, WA., Nexus®.  This year the theme for the conference was 'ignite your information'.  Several independent blogs have been posted about the event by Jeff Shuey, William Higgins and Janalyn Voigt.  During the last day of the event I presented a keynote on Mobile technology.  The focus was the impact that mobile is having on retail business and how the successful use cases can help form a roadmap for Commercial business and Government to adopt mobile strategies.  The goal was to give the attendees a vision of how mobile devices can and will shift business operations by extending the reach of the workforce, enhancing brand visibility and providing access to information anywhere, anytime.  At the end of my presentation I unveiled a Mobile Tablet Device embedded with our flagship content and image management product ILINX® Content Store.  More information can be found http://ilinx.posterous.com

 You can watch my keynote here

Feedback and comments are welcome.

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I told him that he can't mix the parts up with the Legos because they don't fit right and when your free building new things it gets frustrating. He just looked at me like Dad 'get a life', it's not that critical, just get me the toy I want for my birthday. He even offered to go to Target with me to show me which aisle it's on "Dad it's right down from the Ben-10 action figures!"

Kids are the best!!!

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