Apr 18, 2011

Update: Greg’s initial goal was $1,000. It is 3:54pm EST and $1,385 has been raised. Thanks to everyone who is and has been sharing this and helping Jeremy.

Update 2: Nationwide has contacted Jeremy and added lots of details in the comments (please read).

Most of you know Jeremy Smith or @jeremysaid on Twitter. I’ve known Jeremy for a while, but we currently serve on the Triangle AMA Board together.

While most were lucky enough to be out of the recent NC tornado’s path… Jeremy’s house was not.

Jeremy’s house was condemned and is being demolished.

To add to that, his Nationwide Insurance (@nationwide) had recently expired. Full details in the comments, but this was not a malicious act by Nationwide.

Please help Jeremy

Greg de Lima started a ChipIn widget that I’ve embedded below (his original post, but not so original blog theme :). Any penny will help. Please keep Jeremy in your thoughts and prayers.

Why should you come see Scott Stratten in Raleigh?

For those of us that know Scott (@unmarketing), this is a dumb question… but if you don’t… check out the video below. You’ll find out:

Who is Scott Stratten?
What does he do?
Why did he write his book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.”?
What will we learn on September 16 when Scott talks in Raleigh?

Register before September 10th to lock in a discount.

When and where is Scott speaking?

September 16, 2010 at 11:30am EST at Brier Creek Country Club

How do I register?

Simple. Go to the Triangle AMA registration page and we’ll even throw in a free lunch. :)

Everyone Needs A Dumb Guy: The Video

For everyone that remembers, Ignite Raleigh 2 was an awesome event with over 700 people.

I was fortunate enough to be voted up by the community to present my concept, “Everyone Needs A Dumb Guy.”

A few notes before the video:

I say “dumb guy” a lot intentionally because it is tongue-in-cheek (is a “dumb guy” really dumb?).
I’m a big believer in providing customer focused products.
I dig Pragmatic Marketing and much of their framework guides my thoughts around getting market feedback.

Ignite Raleigh 2 in less than 4 hours

Over 700 people from the Triangle and surrounding areas will be gathering together tonight to hear some great 5 minute presentations.

I’m excited to present Everyone Needs a Dumb Guy, and even more excited to hear the other presentations. It is setting up to be a great event.

As soon as the videos are posted, I’ll add them to a blog post.

If you can’t make it tonight, the goal is for the presentations to be live-streamed at www.igniteshow.com. If that doesn’t happen, you can keep up with all the buzz and chatter of Ignite Raleigh with this Tweet Archive.

See you soon!

If you don’t know what Ignite Raleigh is, check out www.igniteraleigh.com.

Sex offender tries to volunteer at Athens Drive High School

Hard Candy.

Thank you Technology! A computerized lobby system at a local high school prevented a convicted sex offender from “volunteering.” Read this excerpt from ABC11:

WAKE COUNTY (WTVD) — Wake County school officials say they have technology to keep their students safe.

Last Friday, Raleigh Police say a registered sex offender tried to get onto Athens Drive High School’s campus, but a machine alerted them and they were able to call police.

The kiosk inside Athens Drive High reads drivers licenses, then runs a quick background check. If everything is okay, it prints a badge with your name and picture.

If you are flagged, the badge won’t print and it notifies school officials.

That’s what happened when police say 30-year-old Marcus Johnson tried to volunteer at Athens Drive High School. When he signed in using the school’s computer system it flagged his name.

Johnson is a registered sex offender convicted of incest and statutory rape.

“You’re putting a perimeter out there that really is keeping the worst kind of person off of your school grounds,” Kevin Allen said.

Allen is the president of LobbyGuard. They design and manufacture the machine. It’s inside 30 Wake County schools and it’s what kept out Johnson.

“If you’re a parent or guardian you don’t often have the luxury of running a three week background check on that person if they’re picking up a child,” Allen said. “You need something instant you need something effective and that means sex offender background checking and they get it back in less than a half a second.

In a split second a person’s information is cross checked with a database of more than 500,000 registered sex offenders.

Schools can also check for visitors who may be red-flagged for any number of reasons.

“It caught people that were not supposed to be here, so it’s working,” student Chris Wolfe said.

“Were very fortunate in this area to have very good schools obviously schools conserved with the safety of children and who is coming in and out,” parent Mike Close said.

Wake County is working to buy more of the kiosks for other schools.

Meanwhile, as technology becomes more advanced the machines will be able to run more extensive background checks, for things like a violent or criminal background.

(Copyright ©2009 WTVD-TV/DT.)