Is the daily work grind or the continual schoolwork bringing you down? Is your wanderlust inner voice telling you you’re ready for a travel vacation? Yet this year you want a different travel objective, not the typical vacation, designed around personal pleasure and leisure. This year you also feel a desire to get involved with some worthy cause, to challenge the power elite status quo and make the world a better place to live. Well, if travel AND social activism are your interests, I have the 2012 travel tip solutions that will please both your traveling and social activist desires.1. My first recommended travel destination for 2012 is Chantilly, Virginia, USA host to this year’s annual Bilderberg meeting May 31st – June 3rd. Chantilly, Virginia, at the Westfield Marriot Hotel, was the host for the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.Chantilly, Virginia is within close proximity to Washington, D.C.; the nation’s capitol offers a unique historical, cultural experience as well as a great place to voice dissent! Fortunately too, for the budget traveler, Chantilly has a youth hostel on the outskirts of the Washington, D.C. area. Why not book your reservations now, and enjoy the beautiful Virginia countryside and Washington, D.C. cultural activities while also vocalizing your displeasure to a passing banker, politician, or corporate CEO? Your opinions and discussions may plant the inception seed activating a pang of conscience that will eventually lead to less harmful world policies. If you discover the overt sidewalk protests are less successful, may I suggest an alternative, stealth approach: position yourself as a well-dressed hotel patron in the lobby where the Bilderberg members are staying. Act as an unassuming gadfly, listening for telling conversations from Bilderberg meeting attendees.Granted, such intimate access may prove to be difficult; however, for the determined spirited social activist, the challenge enhances the adventure and the success sweetens the reward.Are you ready for summer outdoor fun, a freelance journalist’s dream, and a proud sense of moral accomplishment? That’s what I experienced when I planned my fall 2000 vacation in Europe to coincide with the scheduled IMF / World Bank meeting in Prague. A well-organized anti-globalization protest was waiting for the banking attendees, similar to the successful anti-WTO protest in Seattle, November ’99, which I attended. I wanted to continue being a part of this proud movement.I’m certain at the Washington, D.C. youth hostel, and around town, you will meet kindred spirits who are also knowledgeable of this Bilderberg meeting event (global citizen individuals and various NGO members). As I had experienced during the Seattle ’99 and Prague 2000 protests, you will form lasting friendships with these fellow travelers / activists.2. To start your summer season, I recommend planning a visit to Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico for the annual G-20 meeting, June 18-19. What fun you will have mixing summer outdoor fun with social activism. Cabo San Lucas offers scuba diving, fishing, nightlife, and so much more. Even though the rich elite will be staying at expensive resorts, there are ample inexpensive lodging options at Los Cabos, including youth hostels. You can even pitch your tent near the beach!3. To start your fall season, I recommend a trip to Switzerland for the WTO public forum meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, September 24 – 26. A good central location for fine nearby skiing, autumn color hiking, and a piping hot cappuccino next to a roaring fireplace as you listen in to some powerful banker’s insidious plan.4. Continuing your fall season travels, I recommend visiting Tokyo, Japan for the IMF / World Bank meeting, Oct. 12-14. Enjoy social activism by day and exotic bustling Tokyo nightlife by night.For budget accommodations, Los Cabos, Geneva, and Tokyo, all have several hostels in the city and nearby vicinities.Last, for those planning on traveling through California, I recommend an outdoor excursion north of San Francisco. Besides marvelous vineyards, inspiring redwoods and dramatic coastline, there’s also an elite power broker retreat called Bohemian Grove nestled in the redwoods near the town of Guerneville and the Russian River.
The retreat of course has security ( as I discovered many years ago) so an undercover role as a naive hiker is a good start. While peering through the redwoods, you may find an influential politician or CEO performing some decadent, hedonistic ritual in a yellow chiffon dress! Don’t forget to bring your camera!I hope you find these travel tips useful for your future 2012 travel plans. You may even come across yours truly, the author. Happy travels!
2012 Travel Tips for the Social Activist
Are You Ready to Hire the App Marketing Agency for Your New Application?
App marketing being one of the most important factors deciding the success of your mobile application has to be employed in the right manner, and thus the most right of times so as to hit the iron hard just when it is hot. With the technical expertise and professionalism that most of the mobile app marketing companies claim, the main point of concern remains the right time of the employment of the app marketing strategies.Based on various studies, it is suggested that companies should opt for an early employment of app marketing services so as to get an advantage of creating an audience base prior to the launch of the application. On the other hand, there may be many demerits of early deployment of these services, which may include an unplanned move towards marketing and thus failing to achieve the marketing goals due to lack of readiness. As a result, each organization has its own list of factors that decides its readiness towards the concern of right time of deployment of mobile app marketing services.Effectively tracking the importance of the concern through an explicit analysis, we here guide you through the various parameters that help you know the right time of hiring an app marketing agency for your new business application. These parameters are-1) Market Research:One of the most important parameters that decide the appropriateness of the time you choose to start with your marketing campaign is ‘Market Research’. If without a proper market research of your app market, you opt for an early hiring of the marketing agency, you are likely to face a failed marketing campaign and loss of investment. The market research factor includes knowing the-
Target audience
List of keywords to be focused
Popular categories
USPs of your competitors over you and vice-versa
With this analysis in your hand, you are now ready and can discuss the marketing strategy well with your app marketing service provider.2) Dedicated Centre of Ideas:Before hiring a mobile app marketing company for your business, you need to decide – who will be the main dedicated centre of ideas? Whether you have your list of ideas to be implemented by the marketing agency or you want them to create and implement the marketing ideas for you? These questions need to be well thought and answered before making the hiring process. Here generally the firms with long-term marketing business partners generally let their partner decide and implement the marketing ideas. While if you are hiring a new marketing company your prior market research will help you discuss your marketing ideas with him.3) Readiness of Your Team:Before you go for the mobile app marketing services you need to know whether your team is ready for the change and will support the required marketing operations on their side. With this, you also need to judge the technical expertise required by your team to add a functional support to the marketing campaign and ask the agency to train them for the same.4) Coordination between the App Marketing team and the App Development Team:Often overlooked, there needs to be a strict coordination between the app development and the marketing teams so as to know the effective intervals of promotion and the USPs that needs to be highlighted. Here, businesses providing a one-stop solution for both the app development and marketing services promise a high success rate for your business application.5) Knowing the actual App Release Date:In order to target the mobile app market with a well-scheduled marketing campaign, you need to know the important dates like the actual app release date. A prior decided app launch date can help you with announcements in the Tech World and earn enough space for the popularity of your app prior to its actual release. With this, you can hire the preferred mobile app marketing company at the time of Beta testing, where you can get hold of the customer feedback and judge the values of the app based on the genuine customer feedback. Here a professional team based on the feedbacks can develop the marketing strategies for your business application and implement them accordingly at the right time.
Real Estate Market Trends in Asheville
What do you need to know about Asheville real estate? Buying a house in this North Carolina city requires knowing a little bit about many parts of life.What Are House Values Like?Homes tend to retain their value better in this city than in the state as a whole. During the latest housing crash, for example, home prices actually stayed fairly consistent instead of plunging dramatically like many cities around the state and country. What’s more, home prices tend to be tens of thousands of dollars higher than the state median.What Are the Homes Like?And according to one real estate website, the median age of homes is about 15 years older than the national median age of 1974. Similarly, the median square footage for homes there is just over 1,300, roughly 200 square feet less than the U.S. median.That is not to say there isn’t a good selection of newer and larger homes available. Approximately 10 percent of the city’s real estate has been built since the year 2000, so there are still plenty of newer houses within the market.How are the Schools?If you are moving a young family, you will undoubtedly want to know about the school system in town. There are plenty of well-ranked elementary through high schools in Asheville, with many of the private schools receiving the best reviews.What is it Like to Live?The cost of living is less in Asheville than on average in the United States. According to the 2008 cost of living index, Asheville carries a 91.3 reading, while the U.S. average is 100. If you are making a decent income while living there, that can mean life is a little easier to pay for than elsewhere. Be aware though, that as of the 2000 census, the median income was almost $8000 less than the state’s median.One thing to consider is that crime rates tend to be slightly higher than the state average.Outside the crime data, it may be comforting to know that the temperatures in the city stay in a fairly mild range all year long, although it is more humid than the national average. And Asheville’s risk of being hit by a tornado is slightly lower than the state average and 16 percent lower than the U.S. average.Once you have decided that this is the city for you, local real estate agents can be some of your best resources in determining where and when to buy.