Targeted therapy proves effective against brain tumors in preclinical studies

Dec. 21, 2012 ? Researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) have published findings from a preclinical study assessing the effectiveness of a small-molecule inhibitor, CFAK-Y15, in treating some brain cancers. The paper, published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, demonstrates for the first time that inhibiting the protein focal adhesion kinase (FAK) with CFAK-Y15 is an effective approach to controlling growth of glioblastoma tumors, especially in combination with the standard chemotherapy agent temozolomide (Temodar).

FAK is overexpressed, or produced in excessive amounts, in tumor cells, and has been shown to play a key role in survival of cancer cells. In this study, a team led by Vita M. Golubovskaya, PhD, an Associate Professor of Oncology in the Department of Surgical Oncology, found that animal models treated with CFAK-Y15 demonstrated significantly prolonged survival compared to the control group. CFAK-Y15 provides FAK kinase-specific inhibition by upstream targeting of autophosphorylation sites on the FAK protein. It belongs to a class of 'two for one' compounds that also inhibit the oncoprotein Src by inhibiting its autophosphorylation.

"We found that CFAK-Y15 significantly decreased the viability of the glioblastoma cells, and in many cases appeared to cause tumor shrinkage -- especially when CFAK-Y15 was given in combination with temozolomide," noted Dr. Golubovskaya, the paper's first author. "These compounds target FAK signaling, which is critical for cancer cell and cancer stem cell survival, especially in invasive and metastatic cancers."

"We're eager to see this research move to the clinical phase because of the great need for more effective treatments for glioblastoma," noted senior author William G. Cance, MD, FACS, Surgeon-in-Chief and Chair of the Department of Surgical Oncology. "The potential impact is great because glioblastomas are such an aggressive tumor, and because we know they produce FAK in especially high quantities."

The authors also included researchers from the University of California at San Diego and faculty from the Department of Pathology at RPCI. CFAK-Y15 is being developed by CureFAKtor Pharmaceuticals LLC. Drs. Cance and Golubovskaya, both of whom also serve on the management team of CureFAKtor, were part of the team that first identified CFAK-Y15, in research published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in 2008.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Roswell Park Cancer Institute, via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

  1. V. Golubovskaya, G. Huang, B. Ho, M. Yemma, C. D. Morrison, J. Lee, B. Eliceiri, W. G. Cance. Pharmacological blockade of FAK autophosphorylation decreases human glioblastoma tumor growth and synergizes with temozolomide. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2012; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-12-0701

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/17DYWmhiS9w/121221123323.htm

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Apple seeds OS X v10.8.3 beta to developers

Apple has released a new developer beta for OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.3 to registered Mac Dev Center members. The new build was identified as 12D43. Apple has stated the new software contains no known issues and is advising developers to focus on AirPlay, AirPort, Game Center, graphics drivers, and Safari.

Developers can visit Apple?s Mac Dev Center?to download the OS X 10.8.3 beta.

Source: http://www.technologytell.com/apple/109711/apple-seeds-os-x-v10-8-3-beta-to-developers-2/

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Miss Washington shows military support at holiday event

Mandy Schendel, who was officially crowned Miss Washington 2012 in July, has spent the better part of her life serving others.

At 11, she started her own nonprofit organization, focused toward helping children and teens discover leadership potential within themselves through volunteer projects with their local communities.

In high school, she said, she involved herself in ?everything under the sun.?

So one might assume Schendel would fit in well among military men and women, who live a life of voluntary service to country.

The pageant beauty, who leaves for Las Vegas Jan. 2 to vie for the coveted Miss America title, paid her first visit to a military installation Dec. 15 when she stopped off at the Hillside Youth Center for its annual Holiday Fest event.

Though she only spent a few short hours meeting with service members and their families, it was a stint the 22-year-old considered her ?ideal holiday.?

?Sincerely, it?s just an honor,? said Schendel, sitting, all smiles, at a table stacked high with wrapped gifts for children, a box of photos intended for autographs laid out before her. ?I walk beside military men and women all the time, and I am always so compelled to just thank them.

?I have a huge love for the military, for what all the men and women do.?

She explained that, for an outsider, it?s typically harder to gain access to an installation, especially one the size and capacity of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. But where stories of military life and the understanding of what it takes to serve are concerned, she?s not much of an outsider at all.

?I come from a long line of military family,? she said. ?My mom was an Army brat growing up, so all of her stories from her childhood come from being on a military base.?

Her grandfather retired from the Army, and her father served for five years.

?The dynamic with my dad and my grandpa was that they were very structured, both having been in the military,? she said.

Schendel frequently travels to schools across the state, working to inspire youth as part of her pageant platform, ?Do something: enriching youth, cultivating leaders.?

The goal of her platform, she explained, is to help young individuals grow through volunteer work, most of which stems from a particular passion of theirs. Some, she said, just need some sort of outlet.

?Maybe they?re passionate about music, and they don?t think that they can really do much with it,? she said. ?Well, maybe we?re able to put together a team and let them lead that team to go and sing at an elderly home.?

?The goal is kind of this bettering of society as a whole,? added Schendel, who also described that she was often a target for bullying in high school after making strict decisions to avoid drugs, alcohol and sexual activity. ?The more we have an ability to help others, I think we eliminate so many of the issues we have in society today.?

But most of the young girls who went up to see Schendel weren?t exactly thinking of a subject that complex. For them, the role model they saw in a happy, smiling woman in a tiara was enough.

Sydney Flores and her younger sister visit with Mandy Schendel, Miss Washington 2012

Sydney Flores (far right), 8, and her younger sister visit Dec. 15 with Mandy Schendel, Miss Washington 2012, at the annual Holiday Fest event offered by the Hillside Youth Center on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. It was the first trip onto a military installation for the 22-year-old pageant beauty, who explained that it was an honor to bring a little dose of cheer to service members and their Families. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord

?I really like her,? said 8-year-old Sydney Flores shortly after taking a photo with Schendel. ?She?s very interesting and very pretty. She always smiled.?

?Girls like to see somebody beautiful, because they want to be like that,? said her mother, Isabell Flores, an Army spouse who brought Sydney and her other two daughters to the event.

?They thought she was a princess, with the crown,? she said, adding that her girls were delighted to have a photo taken with Schendel. ?I think that was a really good thing to see themselves in a picture with someone they?d probably like to be.?

Flores? husband is currently deployed to Afghanistan, where he?ll remain through the holiday season. It?s the first of her husband?s combat tours she?s experienced.

But Holiday Fest allowed a time to relax a bit ? to ditch her stress.

?The kids enjoy it, and they?re having a good time,? she said. ?If they?re having a good time, I?m having a good time, too.?

The event offered numerous craft booths, a station where children could make their own wooden ornaments, a rock climbing wall, a dance booth, a holiday backdrop for family photos and a game that had children kicking or throwing a football through an inflatable goal post to win a prize.

But this year marked the first time a distinguished visitor has ever come to Holiday Fest, said Emmy Niemczyk, the facility director for the youth center, which its frequenters refer to more intimately as the ?Teen Zone.?

It?s also the first Holiday Fest she and her staff have held at their new location on Lewis-Main, which opened for business Sept. 10.

The old center, Niemczyk said, comprised little more than a computer lab and a gym. The new one, however, boasts seven activity rooms ? to include separate homework, computer, art, music and videogame rooms ? and a gym two to three times larger than the previous one.

?This is the first time that we?ve had this nice, new and big environment for us to do this event in,? she said, manning a table where she handed out a gift to each child who showed up. ?It?s just nice to see the kids and the parents come out and to put a smile on their faces.?

Meanwhile, next to her, Schendel did her best to bring her own smiles to the faces of some of her younger fans.

?Thank you, sweetheart. Nice to meet you!? she said to a young boy asking for her autograph.

?So cute,? she laughed as he walked away.

?To be here, and to be able to just be around these families that work so hard and give ? it is a tremendous thing, and there?s no other word than it?s just an honor to be here,? she said.

?I?m just fortunate that it worked out today, and hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future.?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2012 at 9:00 am and is filed under Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/YouBigMouthYou/~3/PDKX9VTyl7U/miss-washington-shows-military-support-at-holiday-event

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Magnetism Confirmed to Control the Flow of Heat

A validation of a long-predicted quantum effect points the way to tiny, highly efficient heat engines or information carried by heat exchanges instead of electrical ones


magnetic field Electricity can run between two superconductors even through electrically insulating barriers (yellow). Now researchers have found that a magnetic field (curved arrows) can switch the amount of heat that flows from a hot side (red) to a cold one (blue). Image: Nature magazine

The strange world of quantum mechanics just got a little stranger with the discovery that a magnetic field can control the flow of heat from one body to another. First predicted nearly 50 years ago, the effect might some day form the basis of a new generation of electronic devices that use heat rather than charge as the information carrier.

The research stems from the work of physicist Brian Josephson, who in 1962 predicted that electrons could 'tunnel' between two superconductors separated by a thin layer of insulator ? a process forbidden in classical physics. The Josephson junction was subsequently built and used to make superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), which are now sold commercially as ultra-sensitive magnetometers.

In the latest work, Francesco Giazotto and Mar?a Jos? Mart?nez-P?rez at the NEST nanoscience institute in Pisa, Italy, measured the devices? thermal behavior ? that is, how the electrons inside them transfer heat. The duo heated one end of a SQUID several micrometers long and monitored the temperature of an electrode connected to it. A SQUID consists of two y-shaped pieces of superconductor joined together to form a loop, but with two thin pieces of insulating material sandwiched in between (see figure); as the researchers varied the magnetic field passing through the loop, the amount of heat flowing through the device also changed. The effect was in line with a theory put forward by Kazumi Maki and Allan Griffin in 1965.

The device worked by partly reversing the heat transfer, so that some would flow from the colder body to the warmer one. ?This is completely unintuitive,? says Giazotto. ?People are used to thinking of heat as disorder, so how can you impose quantum order on it? Amazingly, a device with Josephson junctions can do that.?

Legal violation
This apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics ? which states that heat will always flow from a hotter to a colder body ? is, in fact, perfectly legal, says Giazotto, because only part of the total heat flow is subject to the phase variation. When you also take into account the heat transferred by single electrons, as occurs inside normal metals, the net flow is still from the hot to the cold end.

Like its electrical counterpart, this variation in the heat flow can be explained in terms of the superconductors? 'phase' ? the position of the peaks and troughs of the wavefunction that describes the superconducting electron pairs in the SQUID?s loop. The greatest heat flow occurs when the peaks inside one half of the loop line up with peaks in the other half, whereas the flow is at a minimum when peaks meet troughs. The magnetic field shifts those phases relative to each other, thus modifying the heat flow.

Teun Klapwijk of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands describes Giazotto and Mart?nez-P?rez's research as ?cute? but ?not very surprising?. He also doubts that it will have significant practical applications. ?The only possible area would be solid-state refrigeration, which would replace cryogenic liquids,? he says.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=62b093fa95e0b341831edb6e83a04332

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Is It Time to Buy A Rental Property? | Columbia SC Real Estate ...

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Today, we want to look at the opportunities that single-family rental units present for the small investor.

With house prices inching up and rents skyrocketing, this may be the perfect time to invest in single family residential real estate.

If you do, you won?t be alone. According to the National Association of Realtors? (NAR) 2012 3rd Quarter Metro Area Report:

?Investors?accounted for 17 percent of all transactions in the third quarter.?

More than one out of every six houses sold are purchased by an investor. In the most recent MarketPulse Report by CoreLogic, their Principal Economist, Sam Khater, wrote on the subject in a story titled Roll Tide, or The Rise of the Single Family Rental Market. The major takeaways from the article are:

  • The single-family rental market remained very active in the late summer of 2012 with increases in demand, tightening inventory and rising rents.
  • Nationally, rental leasing volumes were up every month for two years. In August, they were up 7% over last year.
  • Supply was down 11% over the same period.
  • This tightness in supply has caused rents to increase.
  • Rent growth is expected to increase at a ?strong clip? late in 2012 and in 2013.

If a private investor is looking for a great hands-on opportunity, perhaps purchasing a single-family house to rent out makes sense. Check with your local real estate advisor to uncover the opportunities in your region.

To read the original article as published on the KCM Blog on 11/14/2012, please click here.

Tags: buyers, Columbia, investing in real estate, investment property, landlords, property management, real estate, real estate market, real estate transactions, rent increases, rental property, rental property market, rental units, SC, single family rental property, South Carolina

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Source: http://www.themathercompany.com/blog/is-it-time-to-buy-a-rental-property/

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Created Beings

The Pantheon: Post Cataclysm

Gods rule the cosmos and all that is within. As one of these elite beings how will you run the world? What will you create? (Accepting New Characters)

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Health Workers Killed Trying to Deliver Polio Vaccine in Pakistan

Gunmen in Pakistan have killed six people and wounded several others?who were working on an anti-polio vaccination program, amid accusations that the campaign is part of a Western?conspiracy against Muslims. The five health workers were shot in three?separate?attacks on Monday and?Tuesday,?presumably?by Taliban fighters who have previously denounced their efforts to immunize millions of children across the region.

RELATED: Pakistan May Be Standing in Way of Polio's Eradication

In response, the United Nations and the Pakistani government have suspended the eradication program in Peshawar province and in Pakistan's second-largest city, Karachi. More than 24,000 polio workers were participating in the three-day long campaign to deliver the vaccinations.

RELATED: Should the U.S. Threaten to Invade Pakistan?

The latest incidents underscore the dangers of using NGOs as a cover for intelligence operations.?In 2011, the CIA set up a fake vaccination?program?in Abottabad, in the hopes of obtaining DNA samples from members of Osama bin Laden's family, who were in hiding there. After bin Laden was killed in an American commando raid, the Pakistani doctor who helped to orchestrate the ruse was given 33 years in prison, and has?allegedly?been tortured?for cooperating with a?foreign?government.

RELATED: Quiz: Bush's Iraq or Obama's Libya?

While the plan was part of a successful intelligence operation, it only fed distrust of Western organizations among regular citizens and fueled rumors about more nefarious plots involving the U.N. and other relief?organisations,?like the belief that vaccinations are made from pig?products?(which are forbidden by Islam) or are part of a scheme to?sterilize?Muslims. Not only do the rumors undermine the program's effectiveness, they obviously put real health care?workers?in danger.?

RELATED: Five Best Tuesday Columns

Despite being nearly eradicated throughout most of the word, four nations?Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan?have seen a major resurgence in the disease, in part because of?resistance?to vaccination programs. There have been at least 200 cases of children in Pakistan being paralyzed by polio in 2011, the worst outbreak in 15 years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/health-workers-killed-trying-deliver-polio-vaccine-pakistan-122501766.html

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Medical teams in Iraq to help treat Talabani

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Foreign medical experts rushed to Baghdad on Wednesday to assist Iraqi doctors treating ailing President Jalal Talabani, who is said to be in a coma but improving after suffering a stroke.

Talabani, a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, was taken to the hospital late Monday and doctors worked to stabilize him into the following day. His illness raises new concerns about Iraq's stability, which is being tested anew by a recent spike in tensions between the central government and the Kurds.

Questions remain about the graveness of Talabani's illness. Hospital officials and his office have released few details to the public.

One government official and a medic with knowledge of the situation said he is in a coma. Another official said the president is suffering from a partially comatose state, suggesting he may be responding to some stimuli. All insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the president's condition with reporters.

Deputy Health Minister Issam Namiq said medical teams from Iran and Germany arrived to assist with the treatment, and additional experts from Britain are on their way.

He told reporters the president is getting better, though he offered no details about the severity of the illness.

"His condition is stable. And I underline here that there is an improvement in his condition compared with yesterday," he said.

Talabani's doctors have not formally said that the 79-year-old statesman suffered a stroke, though several government officials have publicly confirmed that is the case.

Doctors are considering whether to send Talabani abroad for treatment, but no decision has been made, Namiq said. Neighboring Turkey has offered to send an air ambulance to transport him for care elsewhere.

Talabani is overweight and has undergone several medical procedures in recent years, including heart surgery in 2008 and knee replacement surgery this year.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad expressed hopes for a speedy recovery. Word of Talabani's illness trickled out on Tuesday, which also marked the anniversary of the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq.

Talabani's official powers are limited, but he is seen as a rare unifying figure able to rise above the ethnic and sectarian rifts that still divide the country.

Iraq's parliament has the authority to choose a new president should Talabani's office become vacant. The Kurds would likely insist on retaining the presidency to maintain the government's power-sharing balance.

Before he fell ill, Talabani was actively involved in trying to mediate in a crisis between Baghdad and the Kurds, who have their own fighters and considerable autonomy in their enclave in northern Iraq.

The two sides last month moved additional troops into disputed areas along the Kurds' self-rule region, prompting fears that fighting could break out.

Last week Talabani brokered a deal that calls on both sides to eventually withdraw troops from the contested areas, though there was no timetable for how soon the drawdown might take place.

___

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

___

Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at http://twitter.com/adamschreck

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/medical-teams-iraq-help-treat-talabani-112426531.html

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Rocking Non-Profit Social Media ? with Mazarine Treyz

Mazarine Treyz

Today, I?m glad to welcome author and non-profit development expert Mazarine Treyz for our next Learn from an Authority interview.? I talked with Mazarine to learn about how charitable organizations can more effectively use social media.? Mazarine is the author of The Wild Woman?s Guide to Fundraising and the recently released Wild Woman?s Guide to Social Media.

1. Mazarine, one of the biggest questions I get from non-profits worldwide is, ?what can social media do for me??? How can being active on social networks benefit a non-profit organization?

Joe, thank you so much for interviewing me!

Non-profits can use social media to become known as having solutions in? their field. They can become a trusted authority, which can lead to more opportunities and donations. You can get more e-newsletter signups, which helps remind donors what you are doing, and that allows you gain a groundswell of support.

Social media has helped me grow my business enormously, and I know it works for lots of nonprofits. This is why I wrote my book, The Wild Woman?s Guide to Social Media.

Take, for example, Wildlife Direct.? They were featured in Beth Kanter?s The Networked Nonprofit. They help preserve wildlife and wild places in various African countries. They raised $350,000 through social media, with people giving who were never going to see the programs. How did they do that? Well, believe it or not, they made 72 blogs, one for each kind of animal that they were protecting.? You can see those 72 blogs here.

I can hear you asking, ?who WROTE all of these blogs??? The answer is volunteers and program staff working with them across the globe. You don?t have to create 72 blogs for your non-profit.? But think about making a blog for each of your program areas.

2. Should every non-profit be using social media, or are there some organizations that should simply focus on other things?

I think every nonprofit should use social media, but you should get email nailed first. And you need to create a marketing budget for social media. You have to invest in it to get a benefit from it. Don?t just treat it like a ?free? marketing channel. It?s not free. It takes time to make it work. And it could be 18 months before you see a donation from it. But it?s a wonderful way to engage your supporters, keep reminding them that you exist, and that you have fun chances for them to get involved. Nonprofits need to focus on stewardship? and social media can help them do that.

3. For a new organization or one that is not yet on social networks, how do they get started with social media?

Start with your e-newsletter. Create a communications calendar and send out one e-newsletter per month. This will help you start to build consistency in your communications. If you?ve already done this, then start to post a link to your e-newsletter on a facebook page or twitter page. Once you?ve done that, think about starting a blog for your nonprofit, highlighting your services, your volunteers, your beneficiaries, your donors, and more.

4. Let?s talk about gaining traction online.? Some non-profit organizations I?ve spoken with are having trouble gaining followers on Facebook and Twitter.? They? are on there, they post and Tweet regularly, but they are showing anemic numbers.? What can non-profits do to boost their follower counts on social media sites?

If you want to increase your Twitter follower count, one tool that I have used is called TweetBig. It?s not free, but it?s pretty cheap, and it tells you what people care about, (so you can find people who care about your cause) and how likely people are to follow you back, as well.

Another thing you can do to increase your follower count is to have conversations on Twitter. Participate in hashtag chats, like #smNPchat run by Pamela Grow, or the #fundchat.? And you can always start your own cause-specific chat as well.

I would recommend dropping Facebook altogether, unless you know for certain that people come to events or volunteer because they saw your event on Facebook. This is why it?s important to do a survey of people who give, as well as your volunteers and event attendees, because then you know which channels are working for you, and which ones you can drop.

What about LinkedIn? I managed to get attendance at a nonprofit job fair up from 500 to 1,500 people in one year through social media outreach, as well as radio, a banner, and TV ads. However, this wasn?t a major fundraising event, this was free to attendees. We raised our money through sponsors and vendors, and only raised about $45,000. Most attendees who came said they found us through LinkedIn. I think this is a special case, because it was a career fair, and Linkedin is the perfect place for people to look for jobs. However, if this is something that your nonprofit does, I would recommend that you go to LinkedIn to promote your events. The vendors at our career fair said it was the most qualified pool of applicants they had seen in years, AND they called it the best career fair in 8 years. So that was gratifying.

The main thing to do is to survey your donor list and see where people are active. Are they on Twitter, are they on Facebook or Linkedin? If not, then don?t worry about trying to reach them in those places. It?s better to keep the donors you have, and email them on a regular basis, than it is to try to find new donors on these social media channels. The level of noise is so high on these social media channels that if you don?t mention someone by name, they are apt to forget that your nonprofit twitter account even exists. I?ve followed a lot of foundations and discovered that their tweets were not improving my life in any way, so I unfollowed them. You can still keep foundations you?re looking for funding from in a list, but you don?t have to follow them to do that.

You need to get email nailed before you try to do social media platforms. Why? Because email is where people start their day.

Want proof?

Start-Point

5. Many non-profits that have tried to be active on social media become frustrated when trying to turn that activity into financial support.? What is the best way for an organization to use social networks for fundraising?

The thing they should remember is that these sites are going to go away. So the best thing to do is to drive people to sign up for your nonprofit e-newsletter, and every activity you do on any social media platform, whether it?s LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc, is to drive people to do that.

If you are driving people to Facebook and to Twitter, you are building their businesses, not your own nonprofit audience. For example, Facebook is going to start charging you for access to your own fans now so you have no way of interacting with them unless you?ve gathered their email addresses.

Nonprofits should have a social media strategy, and a way to benchmark that strategy to see if they are achieving their goals, as opposed to just tracking how many followers or likes they have.? Are you sure that your social media efforts are effective?? If you?re relying simply on follower counts, you may be missing am more important metric: action.

For example, BJ Mendelson, who has 735,000 followers on twitter, announced he was going to do a fundraising campaign, and asked each of his followers to give $5, to help him raise a million for a cause. And then, he raised $1. So he wrote a book called ?Social Media is BS.? Even Beth Kanter, who has almost 500,000 followers, tried to raise money for two months on Twitter, and managed to raise $16,000. So?. $16,000 isn?t bad, but is it worth two months of strenuous effort?

Social media is an excellent way to keep in contact and thank your supporters, it is excellent for stewardship, if your donors are on the site anyway, but again, you need to make sure that they are there, and that they don?t mind being thanked there. Some people want to be anonymous.

6.? How long should a non-profit be spending per day on social networking sites?

Try to spend 15-30 minutes, just checking in. You can use HootSuite to schedule tweets/facebook posts/linkedin posts weeks or months in advance, and if there are influencers that you?d like to gain the attention of, you can use the free tool If This Than That to automatically post their blog posts to your Twitter stream.

Influencers, in my world, are people who have over 2,000 twitter followers, and who have a large audience for their website. How can you tell if they have a large audience? Install the free? SEOBook plugin for Firefox, it will show you how many incoming links a website has. The more incoming links, the more popular the site is. For example, my site, which has 21,000 monthly readers, has 54,000 backlinks. You can see the evidence here.

7.? You?ve put together a great resource for non-profits in your new book, Wild Woman?s Guide to Social Media.? Are there any other projects you are currently working on that you??d like our readers to know about?

Yes! I?m working on a place for people to go and get fundraising help, resources, gain community and more, it?s under wraps right now, but I?ll be announcing it in 2013 so stay tuned!

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Google+

Source: http://www.thefundraisingauthority.com/learn-from-an-authority/rocking-non-profit-social-media-with-mazarine-treyz/

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Paging Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones is still getting mail (photo: UChicago Admissions)Indiana Jones is still getting mail. (University of Chicago admissions department)

Last week, a mysterious package arrived at the University of Chicago. Addressed to Henry Walton Jones Jr., the brown-paper-wrapped package featured Egyptian postage and was tied with old-fashioned string. At first, the University's admissions department didn't know what to make of it?there was no Henry Jones on staff. But then a movie buff pointed out that that's the name of the great (and fictional) archaeologist, Dr. Indiana Jones.

So, why the heck was Indiana "Don't call me Junior" Jones getting mail at the University of Chicago? It turns out the package was actually a replica of a journal written by "Raiders of the Lost Ark" character Abner Ravenwood. This particular replica was created by a "Raiders" enthusiast who then sold it online. Apparently the journal fell out of its box at some point (it was supposed to go to a buyer in Italy), and the mail service assumed the decorative package was the real thing. (In the films, Jones attended the University of Chicago, where he met Ravenwood.)

The department's Tumblr account described the book/prop's craftsmanship: "The book itself is a bit dusty, and the cover is teal fabric with a red velvet spine, with weathered inserts and many postcards/pictures of Marion Ravenwood (and some cool old replica money) included. It's clear that it is mostly, but not completely handmade, as although the included paper is weathered all of the 'handwriting' and calligraphy lacks the telltale pressure marks of actual handwriting."

Also included: photos of stars Harrison Ford and Karen Allen (who played Marion Ravenwood, Abner's daughter), maps and a host of other Indiana Jones treasures. University spokesman Garrett Brinker said the props usually sell for around $200. "Apparently, it takes [the creator] two weeks to make one of these replicas, and then he sells them to people all over the world," he said.

Oddly, the package was delivered even though it had no real postage. The stamps were photo-copied replicas. We like to think the U.S. Postal Service could tell the? fate of the Ark of the Covenant was hanging in the balance. And we can't let the Nazis get it now, can we?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/indiana-jones-hates-snakes-loves-mail-215146844.html

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