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I was recently given the opportunity to interview someone who runs a stylish co-working environment in Montreal, Quebec: Station C.

Patrick is one-half of the partnership who founded the workspace. In this interview he discusses why you might choose to co-work over working from home and how you can make the most of your co-working experience.

Could you introduce Station C to Anywired readers?

Station C is a coworking space opened two months ago in Montréal, Canada. It’s an open loft space with 16 (soon to be 18) desks, 2 meeting rooms, a “lounge” area and a small kitchen.

We have resident members who have full time access and a reserved desk as well as Flex members who buy bundles of points that they use at their leisure over 6 months. (We just switched to that format to better fit demand).

Why do you think co-working beats working from home?

It provides a better separation between life and work. It’s also a great way to get some social interaction, to work alongside cool people you can collaborate with, have a coffee with or have a quick talk to take a break.

You don’t get as many distractions or, when you do, they are from other people working and being creative, not the cat jumping on the keyboard. For a lot of people it’s a much more dynamic, creative environment.

What should self-employed people be looking for in a co-working environment?

Like minded people. It’s important to know what existing members have in mind, how they use the space. If you can’t work at all with noise around you and every other member enjoys the occasional chat and many use the space to collaborate, it might not be the best fit. When it’s a good fit though coworking places can be a fantastic place to work from.

What kind of work goes into running and maintaining Station C?

We haven’t been open for that long and we have had quite a bit of media coverage so we’ve spent a bunch of time showing the place around to visitors. In recent weeks we’ve also had 5 events so that takes time to organize. Normally though, it’s keeping the place clean, invoicing members and receiving payments as well as answering the phone (people need to buzz in and the buzzer rings on our phone).

It’s not time per se but, like almost all coworking spaces, we couldn’t make ends meet if we paid someone to open the space so Dan (my business partner) and I split the days to open for Flex members and it’s been an adjustment to be there at 9 most morning vs the “no schedule” schedule I was on.

Why did you decide to start Station C?

Because we needed it. We needed a place to work from, a place to meet clients that was calmer than cafes and we saw a number of opportunities for small events and needed a space to hold them in.

But really, it’s the office aspect we needed most and a good way to collaborate and work alongside all the interesting freelancers we’ve been meeting around town.

Do you have any tips for successful co-working?

Bring headphones. As fun as it is to have a lively place, you need to be able to tune out the noise for the couple of times a day where there’s more action and you need to concentrate.

Use the occasion to try and separate work from life. Use the commute to “turn the lights off” on work. Not only is it healthier overall, it’s also a good way to enjoy coworking because if you enjoy your work, the coworking space becomes where you “get” to work and home is where you get to relax.

The first time you see someone new, introduce yourself. As per tip one, most people have headphones on but when they get up to make an espresso or wave when you come in, walk up to them and introduce yourself. Makes for nice encounters and for a friendlier place.

Thank you to Patrick from Station C for agreeing to be interviewed!

This is a guest post from Josh Garner, a practicing SEO professional. He’ll be sharing some of the things small business owners and the self-employed should be wary of when looking to hire an SEO.

As an Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), my job is to make use of a number of methods in order to help a site rank higher in the search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.).

I’ll save you some of the boring parts, but SEO is a pretty important aspect of any serious business venture with an online component. However, my business is also a pretty strange one. It requires a lot of experience, research, and patience to effectively get a website to rank highly. Because of this, a lot of what I do is still a mystery, even to clients I’ve had for over a year.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of “SEOs” out there taking advantage of the unknowing site owner, leaving a bad taste in their mouth about what SEO is and how it can help. With this post, I would like to give you a few signs that someone is trying to rip you off. These are seven signs of SEO scams.

1. We can rank your site in 48 hours!

Boy, I wish this was possible. It sure would save me a whole lot of time slaving over my computer like a maniac, pouring over search term trends, conversion reports, traffic and ranking reports, etc. I wouldn’t be spending hours on end modifying and optimizing content until my SEO fingers bleed. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. It takes hours to find the right search terms. Depending on the size of a website, it can take days to implement changes. It takes weeks to see the initial effects. It can take months to get things going in the right direction. If you’re being promised results in a few days, your being offered a money pit and little more.

2. We sill submit your site to 1,000 Search Engines!

Put aside the fact that I’ve been doing this job for years, and I can only name about 10 search-engines without cheating. Instead, consider the fact that I haven’t submitted a site (personally or professionally) to a search engine in over three years now. Even the guidelines of the search engines themselves tell you it doesn’t really do anything for you anymore. The major search engines have also been in this business for years, and they’ve gotten pretty good at finding sites themselves. No need to submit, let alone pay someone to do so.

3. We will get thousands of links to your site!

This claim is usually paired with an incredible time frame, but the sheer number of links promised alone is beyond amazing. First, it’s not the number of links coming to your site that makes a difference. It’s the number of QUALITY links. Second, where are all of these links coming from? Probably what’s known as a link farm: a large number of websites set up in order to link one site. The search engines don’t normally appreciate this practice, and it can lead to penalties. Third, it’s more likely a straight out lie. Even scammers don’t waste their time with link farms. It takes too much more time to set all that up than it does to just take your money and disappear.

4. Have your site optimized and promoted for only .95 a month!

In my first point, I hinted at the amount of time and work I put into a single website. Not only making the changes, but keeping up with the site’s progress, promoting it through links and thinking of ways to drive traffic to the site. Consider the countless hours I’ve spent learning what it takes to rank a site. Consider also the returns a proper SEO campaign offers a site. Ranking well for a competitive search term can yield some pretty nice rewards. Think we would do this for .95 a month? Not to sound crass, but I wouldn’t even open my laptop for that much money. If you’re serious about your site’s success, expect to spend no less than a few thousand dollars, and that’s low end. There are some SEOs that charge 00 an hour for consulting, and they are worth every penny.

5. We can’t tell you what we are doing: it’s a trade secret.

Other than a few tid bits you find after years of doing this kind of work, there really isn’t a whole lot of “secret” information. We aren’t paid because we have some incredible secret wrapped up. We are paid because of the experience we have in dealing with the search engines, and the success we can bring to the site’s table. If someone makes this claim, they either don’t want you to know how poor the service is, or they have no idea what they are doing.

6. We know a guy at Google.

I love this one. Mostly because I know a guy at Google. I also know a guy at Nissan, but I still make monthly payments. I know a guy at Sprint, and I still pay a monthly bill. I know a guy…well…you get it. Think of the search engine ranking factors as the closely guarded secret formula for Coke. You have to get pretty close to the code to have even a clue about what goes into it. The guys and gals that do know for sure what the factors are also fully understand the legal implications of giving away such secrets to some guy charging you .95 a month to rank your site in 48 hours (like how I tied all those into that one?).

7. We guarantee page 1 rankings!

Nobody can do this. Nobody. In SEO, there are no guarantees on rankings, traffic, or any other measure. Think of SEO like advertising (that’s really all it is, just online). The best marketing guys don’t guarantee anything either. Neither do doctors or lawyers. You hire these professionals based on the questions you’ve asked them, their past successes, experience, etc. SEO is no different. Good SEOs are good SEOs because they have spent years learning and testing, and know of the measures most often needed to produce results. So if anyone guarantees anything, they are only guaranteeing that you will be wasting your hard earned money.

Bonus

So how do you find a good SEO? Well, leave some comments on what you think about this post, and let Skellie know you would like to hear more. If so desired, and accepted by Skellie, I’ll return with a post answering that question.

About Josh Garner

Josh is an SEO from Jacksonville, FL who has been involved in the SEO industry for more than 4 years, and offers his services to small and medium sized businesses on a freelance basis.

This morning my cousin tagged me in a FaceBook note. Although I’m already pretty familiar with the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, I wasn’t made of aware of his code of ethics until today. With that I think it’s a great piece of work that I’d also like to share with you – my readers.

NAPOLEON HILL’S CODE OF ETHICS

I. I believe in the Golden Rule as the basis of all human conduct; therefore, I will never do to another person that which I would not be willing for that person to do to me if our positions were reversed.

II. I will be honest, even to the slightest detail, in all my transactions with others, not only because of my desire to be fair with them, but because of my desire to impress the idea of honesty on my own subconscious mind, thereby weaving this essential quality into my own
character.

III. I will forgive those who are unjust toward me, with no thought as to whether they deserve it or not, because I understand the law through
which forgiveness of others strengthens my own character and wipes out the effects of my own transgressions in my subconscious mind.

IV. I will be just, generous, and fair with others always-even though I know that these acts will go unnoticed and unrewarded in the ordinary
terms of reward-because I understand that one’s own character is but the sum total of his own acts and deeds.

V. Whatever time I may have to devote to the discovery and exposure of the weaknesses and faults of others I will devote, more profitably, to
the discovery and correction of my own.

VI. I will slander no person-no matter how much I may believe another person may deserve it because I wish to plant no destructive
suggestions in my own mind.

VII. I recognize the power of thought as being an inlet leading into my brain from the universal ocean of life; therefore, I will set no destructive thoughts afloat upon that ocean lest they pollute the minds of others.

VIII. I will conquer the common human tendency toward hatred, envy, selfishness, jealousy, malice, pessimism, doubt, and fear-for I believe
these to be the seeds from which the world harvests most of its trouble.

IX. When my mind is not occupied with thoughts that tend toward the attainment of my definite goal in life, I will voluntarily keep it filled with thoughts of courage, self-confidence, goodwill toward others, faith, kindness, loyalty, love for truth, and justice-for I believe these to be the seeds from which the world reaps its harvest of progressive growth.

X. Because I know that my character is developed from my own acts and thoughts, I will guard with care all that goes into its development.

XI. Because I realize that enduring happiness comes only through helping others find it, and that no act of kindness is without its reward, even though it may never be directly repaid, I will do my best to assist others when and where the opportunity appears.

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As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S. – WSJ.com

As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.
In Moscow, Igor Panarin’s Forecasts Are All the Rage; America ‘Disintegrates’ in 2010

By ANDREW OSBORN

Igor Panarin

MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media.
[Prof. Panarin]

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he’s been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. “It’s a record,” says Prof. Panarin. “But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger.”

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it’s his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin’s views also fit neatly with the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” he says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin’s ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country’s top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin’s apocalyptic vision “reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today,” says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. “It’s much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union.”

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin’s predictions. “Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people,” says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin’s theories don’t hold water.

Mr. Panarin’s résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB’s successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are “classified.”

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

“When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise,” he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. “They didn’t believe me.”

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

“It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time.” A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. “It’s not there for no reason,” he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia’s biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt “a pyramid scheme,” and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington’s role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he wrote. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

The article prompted a question about the White House’s reaction to Prof. Panarin’s forecast at a December news conference. “I’ll have to decline to comment,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino’s response was significant. “The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully,” he says.

The professor says he’s convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union — 15 years beforehand. “When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him,” says Prof. Panarin.

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