Videos are a wonderful way to expose your businesses products. Naturally there are lots of other marketing approaches around which include content writing to blogging, from public relations to RSS. Nevertheless, nothing says “cool, connection, and creative” like a video commercial.

Each week more and more organisations of varying sizes are generating Internet videos about their services. They’re not only just adding them on their company websites, but they are putting them on their official blogs. To gain worldwide 24/7 publicity, short format videos are being posted to numerous video-sharing sites like that of YouTube and Metacafe. And why not ? it is economical, easy to undertake, & can have a great difference, in some cases, on the traffic it brings to your website.

There are various other reasons why Web videos are a wonderful way to promote your business.

Video commercials benefit from an extensive circulation: Videos by their own nature are simple to “package” which means they are suitable to be added to a range of different distribution channels. You can put them on your companies website or blog, otherwise you can put them onto your laptop & show them again & again at a chosen show. You can post them to scores of World Wide Web video-sharing websites. You can copy them onto CDs and give them away or sell them. You can even distribute them by email.

Promotional videos are a superb way to communicate. As our understanding with technology changes, so do the methods in which firms like to interact with others. Most people are visually oriented meaning that is how they best understand & work with their world. This makes online videos the ideal company strategy to speak with today’s consumers.

These are just a couple of the countless reasons why videos online might be a useful way to advertise your businesses products. Find out more about this area to see how you may use your precious time, assets, & energy to communicate to your target industry in an innovative and appealing way. Visit the Vidify website for cost-effective video production and distribution solutions.

Staff training that is really meaningful and has high impact can be difficult to achieve

The sorts of issues that keep coming up in schools such as behaviour management, inclusion, differentiation and so on are issues that have been around forever … but often under different labels. Nevertheless, it remains as important as ever to get fresh ideas and new ways of tackling old problems.

The big education shows

There are many different ways in which schools can manage their staff training days. Some take advantage of the large exhibition/conference type events like the Education Show or Special Needs London where they can attend the exhibition for free and then pay for the seminars they wish to attend. This is very cost-effective, but there is the difficulty (and added expense) of taking staff out of school and paying for cover.

Small, one-day, topic-focused events

Organisations such as Afasic, the National Autistic Society, NASEN, NDNA put on half and one-day events dealing with specific topics such as speech and language difficulties, Asperger’s syndrome, inclusion, making ‘Birth to three matters’ work for you, education in the early years and so on. These are usually held in hotels or teachers’ centres, are quite intensive and can be good value for money. Some also have follow-up sessions (often twilight) that teachers find very useful.

Cluster groups

Not so long ago, training in cluster groups became popular in some areas. This involves a cluster of schools in an area getting together and organising a training event for all staff in three or four schools. Costs and organisation are shared and where they do follow this practice, it seems to work very well. Which makes it very surprising that it’s not followed more widely. In a slightly different format it is very popular in other organisations such as childminders where they get together in regions to have meetings, share experiences etc.

Running your own training day at school

For many schools this is still very common. A department, or the SENCO, is given the job of organising a training day on a particular topic. Sometimes staff with expertise do the training themselves. More often, though, a specialist is sought. Most subject specialists in secondary school belong to a subject association like the Maths Association or the Geography Association, for example, and it’s not particularly difficult to find specialists in these areas. The difficulty arises when it becomes necessary to find speakers to talk to staff about issues that most teachers find particularly challenging - such as motivating difficult children, dealing with children with ADHD and attention difficulties, managing behaviour, managing autistic children in a mainstream setting, speech and language difficulties, specific learning difficulties, SEN and the Code of Practice in the early years etc … etc …

Getting speakers

Given the responsibility of finding speakers and organising the day can be a bit daunting, especially as it is so often given to the newly qualified teacher to organise! Well, help is at hand. Very good speakers dealing with the issues outlined above are available … and quite easy to get details about. The topics are listed in the Speakers’ Corner section of the QEd website http://www.qed.uk.com

Speakers’ Details

The speakers have provided contact details, the topics they cover, length of sessions available and, most importantly, how much they charge.

Author details

Colin Gallow is a publisher, and owner of QEd Publications. QEd publishes early years resources, practical books for teachers, structured activities for children, support for special educational needs, and helpful guides for parents. For more information visit http://www.qed.uk.com

Robert Burns, a poor man, an educated man, and a ladies’ man, is representative of Scotland, much like whisky, haggis, bagpipes, and kilts. He lived a life shortened by rheumatic heart disease, 1759-1796, but his life journey through poverty, informal education, disappointed love, nationalism, and literary and financial success can be identified by all Scots and common men the world over. He has become almost a national symbol of all things Scottish. His life is like a love story with a happy ending.

The Poet, Robert Burns

Robert Burns’s family raised seven children on sparse, rented farmland on the west coast of Scotland. The family cottage still stands as a proud tourist attraction. The family farm was not successful and the family moved from farm to farm. Life on the farm in western Scotland was harsh and Robert worked long hours with his father.

Burn’s father recognized the value of education and he managed to hire a local teacher to tutor Robert. He was an extremely bright student, mastering Shakespeare, current poets, French, Latin, philosophy, politics, geography, theology, and mathematics. His father read the Bible during the evenings around the cottage fireplace and Robert became an expert on the Bible and a devout Church member.

Robert Burns wrote his first poem at age 15. The poem was called “Handsome Nell” and was about his first love for a girl named Nellie Blair. Throughout his life, Burns was a charming and witty man, attracting the attention of numerous women. A dozen or more women can be identified as the inspiration for various poems. Burns wrote many famous love poems, including “A Red, Red Rose” and “One Fond Kiss.”

Here’s an excerpt from “Handsome Nell.”

“O once I loved a bonnie lass,
Aye, and I love her still;
And whilst that virtue warms my breast,
I’ll love my handsome Nell.”

Burns, in a later comment on this poem, stated that he had “never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart.”

The Turning Point

In 1786, at age 27, Robert Burns went through a major turning point in his life. He suffered a disappointing love affair with Jean Armour, who was pregnant with his twin sons. The local community and Armour’s father were outraged by the affair and her father rejected Burns’s offer of marriage.

Dejected and depressed, Burns made plans to leave Scotland and sail to Jamaica in the West Indies. To finance the trip, Burns submitted a volume of his poetry for publication.

The publication of 612 copies in a simple, unbound volume was called “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect,” also sometimes known as “The Kilmarnock Edition.” The poems were well received in Edinburgh by socialites who were enchanted by the poems and amazed that a poor farmer could write so well.

So, instead of planning his escape to a new world, Burns planned a trip to Edinburgh. His confident manner, ingratiating style, and his obvious wit and intelligence brought Burns popularity and admiration. Soon, a second publication of his work was executed in Edinburgh.

The Growing Popularity

During his stay in Edinburgh, Robert Burns met printer James Johnson, who planned a project to print all of the folk songs in Scotland. This project enthralled Burns and embarked upon a journey throughout Scotland to collect as many folk songs as possible. Burns collected over 300 songs and wrote a few himself, including “A Red, Red Rose.”

One of the results of his travels throughout Scotland was that Robert Burns ingratiated himself to everyone he met and he rose to national prominence and popularity.

The collected songs were published by Johnson in six volumes and by George Thomson in a five volume set.

Another happy outcome of this turning point in Robert Burns’s life is that he was able to return home and marry his beloved Jean Armour, now with the blessing of her family.

Robert Burns continued to collect and write songs for The Scots Musical Museum, an anthology of traditional Scottish lyrical poems, until his untimely death from rheumatic heart disease in 1796.

Within a few years of his death groups of Robert Burns’s friends and fans gathered to promote his memory and to celebrate his life. By 1801, five years after his death, groups met on the anniversary of his death, but later they began to meet on the anniversary of his birth, January 25. Now there are many Burns clubs and societies who celebrate his memory with dinners, including haggis, and readings of his works.

The Poem, “A Red, Red Rose”

One of the most famous songs that Robert Burns wrote for this project and first published in 1794 was “A Red, Red Rose.” Burns wrote it as a traditional ballad, four verses of four lines each.

“A Red, Red Rose” begins with a quatrain containing two similes. Burns compares his love with a springtime blooming rose and then with a sweet melody. These are popular poetic images and this is the stanza most commonly quoted from the poem.

The second and third stanzas become increasingly complex, ending with the metaphor of the “sands of life,” or hourglass. One the one hand we are given the image of his love lasting until the seas run dry and the rocks melt with the sun, wonderfully poetic images. On the other hand Burns reminds us of the passage of time and the changes that result. That recalls the first stanza and its image of a red rose, newly sprung in June, which we know from experience will change and decay with time. These are complex and competing images, typical of the more mature Robert Burns.

The final stanza wraps up the poem’s complexity with a farewell and a promise of return.

“A Red, Red Rose” is written as a ballad with four stanzas of four lines each. Each stanza has alternating lines of four beats, or iambs, and three beats. The first and third lines have four iambs, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah. The second and fourth lines consist of three iambs. This form of verse is well adapted for singing or recitation and originated in the days when poetry existed in verbal rather than written form.

A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

O my luve’s like a red, red rose.
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my luve’s like a melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my Dear,
Till a’the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’life shall run.

And fare thee weel my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

About the author:

Garry Gamber is a public school teacher and entrepreneur. He writes articles about real estate, health and nutrition, and internet dating services. He is the owner of http://www.Anchorage-Homes.comand http://www.TheDatingAdvisor.com

I was busiy submitting some articles I ghost wrote for a client to some
web portals late one night, when I was struck by a message a web site
editor left for visitors. I won’t tell you the actual site name, or mention the company that they are targeting with their message in order to protect their privacy. But the message went something like this. “STOP! If you are submitting articles from article factory, we do NOT publish them on this site.”

Hire a Professional Writer to Make Work Publishable

This made me pause. I’m a writer by trade and I was submitting original
material. I would never even dream of doing otherwise. Many
professionals, even the most seasoned in their respective fields, cannot
write well. So, they usually hire somebody like me to polish their
thoughts, and edit their material to make their work publishable and
syndicate it on the internet.

Don’t Buy Unoriginal Material

Then there are the other crop of professionals, who pay large sums of
money to “article factories” who sell them mass produced material.
Obviously, “article factories” sold these same articles to others as well.
Professionals are eager to purchase articles such as these, because
they are not experienced writers and feel they cannot do it themselves.
Search engines are text based. So, keyword rich articles syndicated on
the internet and published on a company home page is one of the most
effective strategies of driving the right kind of traffic to a web site.

Site Editors Know Quality Material

Web portal editors who regularly recruit original articles are getting wise
to “article factories.” Editors are enraged by the massive repetitive
submissions they receive because it wastes their time to have to weed
through the crap. Many are just beginning to fight back. If you are guilty
of purchasing articles that are sold to large numbers of individuals -
stop it now. It won’t get you anywhere. Editors know when they are
being dumped on. And they won’t publish this work on the world wide
web. They will remember who sent it to them, and not in a positive way,
either.

The Creative Idea is Currency

I tell my writing students at University of North Carolina Asheville, that
we live in a world starved for creative ideas. Ten years ago, the phrase
that swept through corporate America was: “thinking out of the box.”
Now it’s the “idea person” who has the most currency in a company.
But you can’t just be an “idea person” — you have to know how to
execute, too.

The Expert Interview

In my company, http://www.sidhecommunications.com, we take an
original approach to article writing and syndication. We’ve developed a
tried and true method of working with professionals who do not have the
time, or the expertise to write well. I call it the expert interview. This is a
technique that writers all over the world use everyday.

Syndicate Original Ideas

Here’s how the expert interview goes. I telephone the mortgage
company I work for and ask the gentleman who is a partner in the
company what strikes his fancy for topics this month. He replies, “I’d like
to write an article about stated income and no doc loans.” I know
nothing about mortgages, or this type of loan, but I’m about to learn a
great deal. I ask him questions and take copious notes. Sometimes, he
will e-mail or fax more information to me. I develop an article based on
this interview. The client then approves or edits the article. Then I post it
to 20 sites which editors regularly visit for free content for their web sites,
e-zines, or print publications. In 3-6 months, this article is all over the
internet. In one year’s time the article is still alive and being published
even more widely on the world wide web, because it is professionally
written and communicates valuable ideas.

Receive the Accolades and Qualified Leads

The client receives the byline. He or she also basks in the glory and
accolades from this educational writing. The client has admirers on-line,
and he or she answers the telephone or e-mails coming from qualified
individuals interested in purchasing his or her product or services.
When the client answers the telephone, he or she has to have some
idea about the topic that’s been written on. It’s not something that can
easily be faked. The expert interview ensures that he or she does have
this knowledge.

It’s the client’s expertise and their idea that made the story. Because of
this, I feel the client does deserve the byline. They also deserve the
stream of new business they receive from geographical areas they
could not otherwise afford to penetrate.

If you’re buying articles from places like article factory: stop it. It’s better
to proceed with original ideas. This way you can earn yourself a great
‘virtual reputation.’

Elizabeth Kirwin has published work in national magazines and
newspapers. She is co-owner of Sidhe Communications http://www.sidhecommunications.com in Asheville NC. She develops web
sites, newsletters, brochures, and internet marketing plans for
businesses, non-profits, and health care ogranizations nationally. For
more information, e-mail ekirwin@bellsouth.net.

Want your articles to get picked up and reprinted by top name brand ezine publishers?

While there is no shortage of authors willing to give their articles away for free with hopes of attracting ezine publishers who will pick up your article to send to their list as supplemental content or ‘guest expert’ - there is a gap between two very different types of articles:

Type 1: Those That Get Reprinted
Type 2: Those That Get Passed Over

Article marketing can help you achieve fame, traffic, credibility, sales, referrals and much more, but not if your articles don’t make it into viral distribution.

Here are the top 5 factors that ezine publishers look for when they decide which articles to publish:

1) Does the article have zero self serving links in the article body? If so, good.

Loading up the body of your article with affiliate links or other obvious self-serving links is a liability. Your short-term thinking or scarcity based thinking (that you need to get an immediate return from your article) will keep your article from ever seeing top results.

2) Does the article have no more than 2 self serving links in the resource box? If so, good.

Your resource box at the bottom of your article should be short, sweet, succinct, to the point, and be less than 10% of the total word count of your article. Ezine publishers don’t mind giving you name credit and a link for sharing your article with them, but they don’t want to look like a fool by being required to reprint a short novel about all of your websites and accomplishments.

3) Is the article short (250-700 words)? If so, great.

We live in a ’sound byte’ economy. No one has time to really go deep when it comes to reading email newsletters. It’s proven that the shorter articles achieve a much higher distribution than the longer ones.

4) Does it deliver quality original content with numbered lists, bullet points or easy to glean information that their audience would find valuable? If so, good.

Key point: Make sure your articles are 100% original content. Anything less is really an insult.

5) Is the author well recognized or respected within their market niche. If so, excellent!

Ezine publishers have an ego just like you do. They want to use articles in their email newsletters that make them look good. The more you use your articles to help yourself gain credibility for your unique expertise within your niche, the greater the chances you’ll find your articles getting picked up by your ezine publishing peers.

Hint: You’ll need to write at least 100 or more articles before a top dog takes your credibility seriously. The greater majority of authors think they can put 1-6 articles into distribution and that’s all that they will need to make it big. How erroneous their thinking is… You can quickly separate yourself by putting 100 more articles into distribution before this quarter is over. Yes, it is possible; Yes, it has been done; and Yes, you can do it.

There are many other considerations that ezine publishers look for, such as:

About The Author:

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ directory. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links in tact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/

Copyright 2005 - Christopher M. Knight. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, give author name credit and follow all of the EzineArticles.com posted terms of service for Publishers.