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Most of us think of college as just school. We go there to get an education. However, at its core, a college is a business. It has to think about its bottom line. The economy has been rough on almost all types of businesses and colleges have been no exception. In order to improve their bottom line, many colleges are starting to make use of direct mailing lists.

Direct mailing lists are commonly used by businesses. They allow the business to target the individuals who are most likely to be interested in buying their services or products. Upon receiving a direct mailing list, a business will send out advertisements or offers to the people on the list. If the list is a good one then a high percentage of the people on the list will then become new customers of the business.

Colleges are using direct mailing lists to recruit students to their campuses. Colleges may be particularly interested in targeting the students that have been least likely to stay enrolled during the recession. For example, low-income students that can’t afford college without financial assistance might be recruited by a college which offers a good financial aid package. The college would get a mailing list to find these students and then send them information about financial aid at the school. In this day and age all businesses need to be smart about their marketing; that includes colleges!

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There are some jobs that are as old as time. Doctors, for example, have been around since the very first people started to get ill. Of course, they were called healers then and they were educated differently than today’s doctors are but the job wasn’t a whole lot different at its core than it is today.

And there are jobs that fall at quite the other end of the spectrum. There are jobs that have only just started to become popular. Many of these jobs didn’t even exist until the late twentieth century because the technology that they revolve around wasn’t invented until then.

Consider, for example, document imaging companies. These are companies that provide software or hardware solutions to people who need to scan their documents and keep them in a digital or virtual format. Document management software providers couldn’t exist until there was scanning technology and computer technology capable of doing this type of work.

Neither type of job is inherently better than the other. Jobs that have been around forever carry a sense of tradition and respect with them. Twenty first century jobs bring a bit of energy and innovation to the career world. Both can be great things. It’s just interesting to note the difference.

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I was just thinking how much team sports have changed, even since I was a kid.  My little sister was in gymnastics when we were kids, and there wasn’t anything very hi-tech about it then.  Coaches and gyms communicated with parents via letters and flyers sent home with the kids, or good old-fashioned phone calls if an immediate response was needed.

The kids I babysit for are in team sports, so I have a good perspective of modern team sports.  These days, some teams still communicate via phone calls and notes sent home to the parents, but others have moved into the age of technology.  For instance, many teams use team management software, also known as group management software.  This allows coaches to send emails to parents about upcoming events, request RSVPs, keep track of everyone’s information, etc.

I think it shows how much things have changed since our parents’ generation, or even since my generation.  I can’t even quite remember what I did before I could research a subject on the Internet, communicate instantaneously via email or even chat, keep tabs on old classmates online, etc.  Was there really life before the Internet?

Kids these days almost take it for granted that we have these things.  But those of us raising, teaching, or training the kids…  We’re old enough that we can recognize how much easier technology has made our lives!

Technorati Tags: group management software, gymnastics, team management software

Teaching children is one of my passions, and I have been a teacher for nearly twenty years.  There have been some great times over the last two decades, and I would like to think that I have made a difference in my students’ lives.

Recently, our school board has decided to change its’ mandate to include teaching children about energy conservation.  The goal behind this move is to help give kids an appreciation for the environment and empower them to make a difference.

We have been covering many topics in this area including how to conserve water, recycle paper and even how changing all of our light bulbs in our house to fluorescent light bulbs can have a positive impact on the world.

My grade six class decided that they were going to try to convince the school to switch the outdoor lighting to high pressure sodium to make it so the school was taking an environmentally friendly stance.  They prepared a presentation and presented it to the school board, and thankfully that change has been implemented.

It is just nice to see kids responding well to the fact that they need to do their part to help take care of the world.  It just puts a smile on my face to know that I can see the difference that we can make if we work together.

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When I set up my very first website, I used a web hosting provider that was recommended to me by a friend.  It was supposed to be free hosting, but what I didn’t know at the time was that they then charged way too much for domain name registration.  Not to mention the server space and bandwidth quotas sucked, and of course they overcharged for any additional space and traffic allowances.

But the real kicker was that their email servers were blacklisted for sending spam, which meant that my emails were going into my clients’ junk mail boxes — not a good thing when your business and your income is dependent on being able to communicate with your clients!  As a result I ended up switching hosting providers.

I learned some pretty important lessons in my first experience with web hosting.  For one thing, make sure the FTP server space and bandwidth you are allotted are enough for your purposes — not forgetting to take into account that your site might grow over time, of course.  Also, make sure that the hosting provider has technical support that can ensure you don’t run into problems such as having your emails flagged as spam, particularly if you depend on your email for client communication!

Technorati Tags: blacklisted, FTP server space