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There are certain products and services you might never need, but if it turns out you do need them, they are the most important thing in the world. So it’s important to be aware that they exist. For example, a worldwide air ambulance service would be a good example. If you need medivac services 24 hours a day anywhere in the world, whether it’s an emergency or not, AeroCare Air Ambulance Service can help you. They are specialists in operating air ambulances, so that means they have people with the medical expertise that implies– that includes flight nurses and flight medics. You can get quotes online, or give them a call for more information.

Sponsored by Aerocare

Here’s a practical and potentially very useful post: Ten Ways to Avoid a Google Reputation Management Nightmare. Let’s say you google yourself to see what a potential employer might find, and the #1 result is someone’s story about that time in college you mastered the beer bong. Doh! The post lists a bunch of different tips for getting your own positive content to rank well in google so that you can push deeper down any stuff you might not want a casual browser to stumble upon.

Marketing yourself begins with finding what information is out there about you right now, so googling yourself regularly is the best place to start.

One of the great things about the web as a shopping tool is that you can find stores dedicated to pretty much anything you’re interested in. For example, let’s say you really want to impress the wife with Tahitian pearls, the black pearls of the South Sea. These make for unique and absolutely stunning jewelry, and you’re not going to find anything like it at the local mall. But Pure Pearls has them, along with lots of information. All of the products come with a GIA appraisal, so you know you’re actually getting what you paid for. They’ve been featured in prominent magazines, but luckily the prices are still good since they deal directly with the pearl farms, cutting out the middle man. It’s the internet at it’s best, delivery value on products you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

Sponsored by Pure Pearls

Duct Tape Marketing has an insightful post pointing out that Posting relevant comments on blogs is networking. When you comment on others’ blogs, you’re not only contributing to the conversation, you’re also earning backlinks to your own site. What a great deal. Give something, get something. Plus, you make another blogger feel good that someone other than spammers is finding his or her site.

Commenting is a great practice, it’s networking in the biz 2.0 world. I’m always surprised to see traffic coming into my site through comments I left months ago. Who woulda thunk…

If you’re looking to promote yourself, brochures are nice, and websites are essential, but you can really pump things up by adding some video. If you have a well-done promotional video, there are lots of places you can use it — put it on YouTube, make it available on your website, run it in a loop at tradeshows, mail it to customers. The trick with video is that it has to be done well. Amateur often looks very bad, even embarrassing. If you are in the market for New Jersey corporate video production services, check out Aurora Coast. They have professional production talent on staff, and can work in a variety of media. Everything from documentaries to promos. Check their site for lots of samples.

Sponsored by Aurora Coast Productions

What’s the most reviled industry these days? Let’s take a look at a few top contenders:

• Oil industry– raking in the kabillions and costing me $40 to fill up my tank.
• Airlines– friendly skies? Yeah, right.
• Music labels– keep prosecuting teenagers for downloading a few songs, way to build up that customer support.
• Wireless carriers– ooh, here we have a great one. Limit your choices, lock you in by contract rather than making you want to stick with them because they’re awesome, keep the US on ancient cellphone technology, inhibit features of handsets… the list goes on and on. Wired has a post on 10 Reasons To Hate Cellphone Carriers which is a great walk down misery lane.

If you are a first-time home buyer or otherwise not too knowledgeable about housing finance, you would do well to get familiar with the fha mortgage. This type of mortgages may be able to help you buy a house. The rap on FHA loans used to be that they required tons of documentation, but that has changed, although there still are particular requirements different from ‘normal’ mortgages which you should be aware of. The linked site has loads of information on FHA mortgages, including lending articles and help guides. If it happens that you’re already in an FHA loan, they provide info on refinancing which might be of interest (especially when credit has tightened up lately). There’s even a blog which you can keep an eye on from day to day to see what’s new.

Sponsored by FHA Mortgage Center

The great blog Consumerist has probably the world’s most thorough and detailed post on what to do when customer service goes bad. Check out The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back (Revised Edition). Unfortunately, one thing that is for certain is that this post will come in handy for tons of people!

Way back in January, I posted on my terrible experience with the NFL Fieldpass program (Cancel my !$%&!# account!!!). I find it sad but amusing that when I look at my site traffic logs, I see that people pretty regularly find their way to that post through Google. So clearly I’m not alone…

With the holidays on the way, there are different ways you can motivate your employees. Sure, there’s always the path of a big stick and a pink check. But how about motivating them with incentives and prizes? How about a shiny new beach cruiser as a way to get them fired up to perform for you? XYZbikes has a number of different models for less than $100, which makes this a great prize item.

Sponsored by XYZBikes.com

Now here’s a good post for other bloggers (and anyone who writes for the consumption of others): Six Common Punctuation Errors that Bedevil Bloggers goes over a bunch of common errors. I’m picky about punctuation and spelling, so I can really identify with this post. It drives me crazy to see poorly written material, whether it’s online or in print. I’ve always felt that’s like hanging out a sign which says “Not That Smart.”

It’s one thing if you’re not a native english speaker. In that case, I have sympathy for you– you’ve really got your work cut out for you. But if english is your mother tongue, get with the program.

Just last week I was at a trade show where I noted one company which had a big sign in their booth with a mispelled word. Doh! These days, with spellcheck installed on every computer, you don’t even need to know how to spell yourself– you just have to take the time to let the computer fix your mistakes.