Well, I don't think it will be the best format for everything, but the new book & video combo from Atria, a division of Simon and Schuster, is certainly intriguing. The vook is a new platform that can be read on a computer, iPod or iPhone screen. It uses high-quality, professionally produced video to illustrate the information in nonfiction works, while for fiction vooks, the text and video are used interdependently to advance the plot and enhance the sense of place.

Read More...

There’s an interesting article in Wired Magazine by Clive Thompson called "Live in the Moment." He talks about the difference between Google-style web search, which relies on the authority ascribed to sites by complicated algorithms, vs. the community based effort of real-time search, typified by Twitter. The real-time Web is all about happenings and trends of the day, and Thompson suggests that it will “ create a society “where we have an omnipresent sense of the moment.” He quotes Edo Segal, a pioneer in real-time search, as saying, “Google organized our memory, but real-time search organizes our consciousness.”

And what is this consciousness, I ask, but a celebration of our interrelatedness and a dedication to living in the now! Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that people, especially the younger ones, were already moving into unity consciousness and present moment awareness, and needed tools like Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In to connect them and serve this new consciousness (plug intended)?

Read More...

Judith Sherven & Jim Sniechowski (otherwise known as Judith & Jim ) are giving a FREE 2-PART SOFT SELL TRAINING SERIES this Wednesday and Thursday (Sept 2 & 3).
These gurus approach "Selling as Spiritual Service," and are recognized experts in Soft Sell, heart-based Internet Marketing - exactly the approach you are most likely to feel comfortable with!

They are offering a no-charge, 2-call Q & A tele-series AND you'll even get tips from a panel of Soft Sell experts – as they share their successes using this heart-based approach to increasing sales and profits in a Soft Sell way!  

When you register you can submit your questions for Judith & Jim and their guests to answer during the calls and ask them your most important questions about Internet marketing.    

To check it out, click here.             
These No-cost Soft Sell Marketing Tele-calls are this week Wednesday and Thursday Sept 2 and 3 at 6 pm PST/9 pm EST.

If you can't be on the calls, they will be recorded, and as long as you are registered for the calls, you will get the audio files.
This is a gift from the heart of Judith and Jim, and having read their book, I think you'll get tremendous value from it. 

Berrett-Koehler Publishers have just release the paperback edition of The Compassionate Life, by Marc Ian Barasch.
 
Originally published in 2007, the revised paperback offers new insight into the nature of compassion. Since the publication of the hardcover, Marc has gone on to found a global charity, the Green World Campaign, which is helping to restore the ecology and the economy of the world’s poorest places. He describes it as "green compassion," and is partnering with Berrett-Koehler
Publishers to give something back to the Earth with this revised
paperback edition. A portion of each sale will fund the planting of trees in
environmentally damaged areas around the world through the Green World
Campaign initiative – www.greenworld.org.

"The need to turn away from cynicism and toward each other has never been clearer," says Barasch. With a keen balance of hope and skepticism, he sets out on a journey to the heart of compassion, discovering its power to change who we
are and the society we have become

    With unfailing curiosity, Barasch poses vital questions: What can we
learn from exceptionally empathetic people? Can we increase our kindness
quotient with practice? How do we open our hearts to those who do us harm?
What if the great driving force of our evolution were actually "survival of
the kindest?" And he comes up with challenging, ultimately inspiring
answers.
Marc Ian Barasch is a writer, editor, and television producer. He has been
an editor at Psychology Today, Natural Health, and New Age Journal (where
his emphasis on leading-edge coverage of political and cultural issues won a
National Magazine Award) and has been short-listed twice for the PEN
Literary Award. He is the author of Remarkable Recovery, Healing Dreams, and
The Healing Path. www.compassionatelife.com

 As a unique way to launch their new interactive conferencing company, Maestro Conferences is offering a month of free teleseminars from world-class leaders of the New Consciousness such as Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson, Gregg Braden, Bruce Lipton and John Gray (full list below). The trainings in health, personal growth, business, spirituality and societal change include 16 NY Times bestselling authors, all helping you to unleash your full potential.

The folks at Maestro are sponsoring this extraordinary event so you can be one of the first people to experience the beta version of their learning platform. If you find it valuable, they're betting you'll spread the word about their service. There is thus no "catch," just free learning for a full month from inspiring Maestros.

Read More...

I had the pleasure of interviewing Larry Dossey the other night, and did our first video interview with the Flip camcorder. What fun to pull it out of your pocket, point and shoot. It downloaded perfectly, but now I am learning the new technology of video editing, trying to get titles onto the footage, and splitting it into shorter segments. I am fervently hoping to finish this before his next book... wish me luck.

Some of the most highly respected holistic magazines in the US – Common Ground in San Francisco, Whole Life Times in Los Angeles, Chicago Conscious Choice and Seattle Conscious Choice – were part of the Conscious Enlightenment Group, which was acquired by Gaiam in 2007 and closed down in April, 2009. Gaiam was the latest in a series of well-intentioned owners who tried to make a commercial business out of what had been somewhere between a passion and a mission for its founders.  The good news is that three of the publications are making a comeback through buyouts from management and former editors, and going back to their community roots.  
Chicago Conscious Choice has reemerged as Mindful Metropolis, headed by Richard McGinnis; Rob Sidon carried on with the publication of Common Ground in San Francisco, while still in negotiations with Gaiam; and Abigail Lewis, one of L.A.’s Whole Life Times' original editors, plans to revive it. While Seattle Conscious Choice has closed, it’s original publisher, Krysta Gibson, was cajoled back into service a few years ago by local readers, and her new magazine, New Spirit Journal, has been a big success. We wish them all well.

Running such magazines is a labor of love, even at the best of times. In this climate, one is in awe of the dedication of these publishers who are continuing to serve the conscious community as they have in the past - some of them for 10, 20 years and more. They, along with the progressive and metaphysical bookstores, deserve to be patronized and supported in every way possible, especially in hard times. It is no exaggeration to say that they are the spiritual pollinators of their communities, spreading the mind and spirit expanding works that energize consciousness evolution. Losing them could be the spiritual and intellectual equivalent of a Silent Spring. We need them as much as they need our business, so please support them in every way you can.

Our life is a gift that we offer the universe. Every lesson we learn, each bit of knowledge we acquire is absorbed into the universal mind. Advances in our own consciousness  lead to the evolution of consciousness as a whole. Even our mistakes are gifts, and the pain they cause us are the labor pains of birthing wisdom.

Well, we've managed to stagger through 2008, and I just know that 2009 has to be better. I'm not a Pollyanna, mind you, but I do see glimmers of hope in the current gloom. In fact, I see some definite gleams. Gleam number one is that we came together from every sector of society to elect a president running on a platform of intelligence and integrity. How's that for a big change? Gleam number two is that the Wall Street debacle has uncovered the clay feet of the idol of capitalism. The "Masters of the Universe" who have been playing craps with our pensions have been unmasked and can now be seen as the parasites they really are. Some of them have been accused of stealing outright, but too many of them have been skimming outrageous salaries and bonuses off the top, without contributing any growth in value. Indeed the growth of stock values and of real estate values seems to have been a bubble inflated completely by hot air. We've been hearing about the Ponzi scheme that Madoff pulled off, but in a sense, the whole stock market is a Ponzi scheme where only the brokers, insiders and earliest investors make money. It is amusing to see the panic and confusion among the TV pundits paid to keep us mesmerized by the numbers. Some among them are actually going back to look at the underlying value of the companies - what they make, how well they make it and where their market is. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to being proud of one's work or one's company because what you did made life better or nicer for others? Well what's stopping us? Let's do it. Let's resolve to do only good things in 2009. If our workplace doesn't permit this, change it. If you can't change it, do your own thing. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." 2009 will be a year of change, so let's envision the most outrageously wonderful year we can, and make it so.