A4 Thanks to social media, people with innovative ideas, disabilities have gotten a stronger voice #bufferchat

— Creativity with Kay (@creativitywithk) May 25, 2016

In the process of researching The Virtual Handshake, I had the pleasure of meeting scientist, researcher and disabilities activist Gregor Wolbring and discussing this topic with him at length. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3. Keep in mind as you’re reading this that it was written back in 2004:

Tim Berners-Lee, one of the creators of the Internet, said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” When you are meeting people virtually, disabilities that would hinder or prevent face-to-face social interaction can become a nonissue.

Dr. Gregor Wolbring

Dr. Gregor Wolbring is a biochemistry and bioethics professor at the University of Calgary and founder of the International Centre for Bioethics, Culture and Disability. He offers information worldwide through his Web site, virtual discussion group, and online courses. He develops most of his contacts virtually.

A wheelchair user himself, he says, “I find online interaction very empowering because it allows me to reach more people and help more people than I would ever be able [to] without it. I just hope it will become more broadly available and the digital divide for disabled people becomes smaller.”

Wolbring sees virtual interaction as a social equalizer for disabled people in five key ways:

1. It allows disabled people to interact with so-called nondisabled people without having to reveal their nonnormative body structure or functioning. This allows disabled people with low self-esteem and with high fears of rejection to communicate with the world.
2. It allows disabled people to interact with people all over the world, even if they are not able to travel because of financial or mobility restrictions.
3. Virtual learning allows the teaching of disabled people who otherwise have no access to education. Less than 2 percent of disabled people in developing countries are in regular schools.
4. It allows for dissemination of knowledge that would be too expensive for disabled people to obtain otherwise.
5. It allows for more efficient advocacy.

He notes that every Web site designer should be aware that many Web sites and Internet tools are still not disabled accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium provides free accessibility tips and tools.

How has social media impacted your life in this context? Has it opened up new possibilities and relationships for you? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear your story.

But I always — always — pay attention to the headline, and if it’s grammatically incorrect, I don’t share it. Period.

Now, I’m really not a grammar nazi, but if you can’t even take the time — or don’t know how — to get your headline grammatically correct, I’m not about to subject myself to 500 to 1,000 more poorly written words.

Maybe that’s not fair. But in a world moving at internet speed, you have to make some snap judgments. And I know I’m certainly not the only one who feels this way.

So if you want people to share your content, at least get your headline right!

So, if you’re looking for the real #ScottAllen, you’ve found me.    I’m also on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Instagram, Empire Avenue, and just about everywhere else on the social web.

I am NOT…

• K. Scott Allen aka @OdeToCode (I consider myself an ex-coder)
• The 1964 Olympic bronze medalist in men’s figure skating (I took lessons at Ice Capades when I was 8…does that count?)
• Director of the United Heritage Center at The Dell Diamond (though I live right around the corner)
• A Seattle architect (though my cousin is)
• An investigative reporter for The Boston Globe (though I used to be a Guide for About.com)
• A killer rock guitarist (I try, but…)

Those are all very fine other Scott Allens who you’ll easily find on Google. But they’re not #ScottAllen (sorry, guys — I call dibs!).

Seriously, though…if you haven’t started laying claim to your name and started making your fame, better hop in the game and get on your way to #HashtagFame.

OK, that was #lame.

Anyway… #GetThePoint? #WhatUGonnaDoAboutIt?

I kinda miss #FollowFriday…looking to make some new connections. Who are YOUR top people to follow on Twitter?

— Scott Allen (@ScottAllen) June 14, 2013

Empire Avenue is a social stock market game that yields real business benefits. People (and businesses) buy and sell “stock” in other people and businesses, and those stocks pay dividends based on the social media activity of the person or business. It’s great for several reasons: first of all, it encourages people to be really, truly active and engaged in their other social media channels, not just in the game. As a result, the people who play it become more influential in social media.

Of course, there’s the benefit of social interaction with the other players, but the real payoff comes in missions, in which you can use the in-game currency (“Eaves”) as a reward for social actions — likes, tweets, comments, YouTube views, and so on. It does require some initial investment, but there’s a model of significantly increasing returns. Social media moguls like Chris Pirillo, Kim Garst and Chris Voss are using it to boost their social activity. It’s also become popular with several network marketing leaders, including Art Jonak, Randy Gage, Eric Worre and Orrin Woodward, just to name a few. I’ve been using Empire Avenue for both myself and my clients for about a year-and-a-half, and it’s one of my best, if not particularly well-kept, secrets.

I’m always looking for ways to optimize my Empire Avenue strategy, and this week I had a major breakthrough, based entirely on a shift in buying strategy. My investing strategy that I’ve worked out is to invest in a mix of stocks based on 3 main criteria:

1. High-yield
2. Promising newcomers (because you can buy them cheap)
3. Buying back stocks of those who have invested in me (encourages them to hold your stock)

This week, I tried something different:  I invested in stocks I didn’t previously own, and that hadn’t invested in me, based primarily on two factors only:  their average shares held and that they’ve been recently active on Empire Avenue.

The results?

My account:

Client 1:

Client 2:

To be clear — this was based on my normal daily buying volume, not a big spend saved up over several days. I also didn’t ask for them to reciprocate — they just did automatically.

You’ll notice that in the last one, the impact isn’t as dramatic — as you can see, though, it also had a significantly higher growth trajectory already.

If you want to give it a try, I use insideEAv for my portfolio management. Once you’re registered, you can use this query as a start. You should just need to set how much you want to invest and run the buy. If you try it, let me know your results.

P.S. – I’m not going to completely drop my other buying strategies, because they all serve their purpose, but I will be allocating a lot more of my funds to this strategy.

HootSuite put together a nice, short video to explain the new feature (well, sort of — no details, really — it just works):

So what does this mean for Buffer? The tool has been gaining popularity for its automatic scheduling of social posts, but it seems to me that HootSuite pretty much assimilated their primary functionality with a single feature. I feel bad for the folks at Buffer, but personally, I’m glad to have one less tool to have to deal with — it works much better for me as a feature for an app I’m already heavily vested in using.

And if you don’t already have HootSuite Pro, get it. For $10 a month, you get unlimited social profiles, unlimited RSS feeds (did you know that HootSuite can auto-publish your RSS feeds to your social profiles), and much more. Take it for a 30-day free trial.

One of the biggest challenges as you expand your online influence is how to manage your attention. If you follow people back on Twitter, for example, pretty soon you’re trying to drink from a firehose.

ifttt to the rescue!

In this post I show how to auto-curate Twitter lists of a) people who engage with you publicly via @ messages or retweets, and b) people who participate in a particular hashtag chat.

It’s a great way to help focus your attention and support on like-minded people who are willing to support and interact with you.

Noise to Signal Cartoon