I just saw this and had to share:
An English professor wrote the words “A woman without her man is nothing” on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All of the males in the class wrote:
“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
All the females in the class wrote:
“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
Punctuation is powerful!
If you just have 30 seconds: If you live in Oakland or the Peninsula, please check out http://Build.org – they need you!
If you have 2 minutes: BUILD.org is seeking awesome mentors to work with a new crop of students. BUILD is an innovative four-year business development program for under-resourced, under-represented high school students, which bridges the divide between youth and the business and intellectual resources of the Bay Area. Its mission is to provide real-world entrepreneurial experience that empowers youth from under-resourced communities to excel in education, lead in their communities, and succeed professionally. 100% of BUILD graduates have been accepted to college. This is only possible due to the amazing mentors who work with their students. BUILD has just launched its mentor recruiting efforts for the 2009-2010 school year, and needs to recruit over 150 new mentors on both the Peninsula and in Oakland.
If you’re in the Peninsula or Oakland, I highly encourage you to take a look at this organization and see if you’re able to give just 90minutes of your time every week. You can email Hilary (hillary@build.org) to get more info or express your interest.
If you have some time to kill – here’s my personal experience w/ BUILD:
Four years ago I was introduced to an amazing organization called BUILD.org. I was looking for an opportunity to volunteer a little bit of my time. When I learned that this organization worked with students that come from under-resourced and underprivileged communities that were seeking a better life through education and entrepreneurship, I was immediately interested. What I didn’t expect is how this organization and the students that I have worked with would change my life. It amazes me that 4 years have flown by and I am even more excited about this organization, its staff and students than I was on Day 1.
This is a quick snapshot of what I did:
Year 1: Worked with 4 incoming freshman and supplemented their in-class education about business with real-world examples (followed a syllabus provided by BUILD). During their 2nd semester students were responsible for coming up with a business idea and writing a business plan for a business plan competition at Stanford University. My group of students won the written b-plan competition and received seed funding.
Year 2: My students, called Young Sprouts, registered for a business bank account, worked with a venture capital advisor, created a strategy, identified executive management amongst themselves and began building their business. Young Sprouts creates websites and provides marketing for small businesses in the East Palo Alto area.
Year 3: Young Sprouts grew their business – participated in a business far, attended business council meetings, partnered with other startups and all while focused on getting good grades to stay in the BUILD program. One of my mentees, Christian Abrego, was recognized by National Federation of Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) as Young Entrepreneur of the Year!
Year 4: The business winds down so that the students can focus 100% of their time on college – applications, SATs and scholarships. Some students like Christian decided to continue on with their business while applying for college.
More info:
BUILD is an innovative four-year business development program for under-resourced, under-represented high school students, which bridges the divide 
between youth and the business and intellectual resources of the Bay Area. Our mission is to provide real-world entrepreneurial experience that empowers youth from under-resourced communities to excel in education, lead in their communities, and succeed professionally. 100% of BUILD graduates have been accepted to college. This is only possible due to the amazing mentors who work with their students. BUILD has just launched its mentor recruiting efforts for the 2009-2010 school year, and needs to recruit over 150 new mentors on both the Peninsula and in Oakland.
ENTREPRENEURS 1 (E1) MENTORS
E1 Mentors provide guidance and facilitate teams of 3-5 students (freshmen) in their efforts to define a business idea, write a business plan, and create an accompanying slide presentation. The year culminates in a business plan competition before a panel of judges drawn from leading Bay Area academic, business, and investment communities. Mentors work in conjunction with BUILD staff and teachers to round out the business learning and projects that the students undertake.
Time commitment: 1.5 hours per week from 5:30-7:00pm from October – May
Evening of the week: Your choice, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
Location: Partner school campuses (we are partnered with schools on the Peninsula and in Oakland) Oakland has two schools that offer a 3:30-5pm schedule
INCUBATOR MENTORS
Incubator Mentors work with a team of 3-5 students (sophomores or juniors) who have completed E1 and are eligible to receive funding to implement their business ideas. Mentors serve as active advisers in their company’s initiation and growth.
Time commitment: 1.5 hours per week from 5:30-7:00pm from October – May
Evening of the week: Your choice, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
Location: The BUILD offices, located in Oakland and on the Peninsula
SENIOR (E4) MENTORS
Senior Mentors work with our seniors to complete their college applications, including college selection, personal statement revision, as well as financial aid and scholarship applications.
Time commitment: 1.5 hours per week from 5:30 – 7:00pm from October – May
Evening of the week: Your choice, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
Location: The BUILD offices, either on the Peninsula or in Oakland
THE BUILD EXPERIENCE
Being a BUILD mentor is a chance to truly connect to your community. While mentoring a youth business team puts you in a position to make a real difference in the life of some very talented and entrepreneurial teenagers, you’ll also be joining a diverse team of highly motivated business professionals from all industries in the Bay Area.
“My mentors taught me to have hope and dreams, because if you work hard enough, they can become true.” — Laura Monje, East Palo Alto High School
“What makes the BUILD experience stand out is the personal connection with the students. In past experiences, I felt like I participated, but did not make a significant difference. With the BUILD students, I really feel like I have the ability to affect change and to open their minds to new opportunities and experiences.” — E1 Mentor
TO LEARN MORE
Please contact Hillary Fernandes, hillary@build.org, (650) 353-4094, or visit http://www.build.org
There is such a thing as the Midas touch when it comes to Twitter and @GuyKawasaki, @Scobleizer and @Mashable possess it. If you are ever lucky enough (or unlucky if it’s negative) to be mentioned in a tweet or blog post that has your name in it, there’s a good chance you’ll get new followers interested in what you have to say. But for those who are curious – what happens when ALL 3 of them promote the same tweet/post? The Kawascobashable effect. Case in point:
I was recently spotlighted as one of 17 ‘Techies, Entrepreneurs, and Biz Folk’ to follow on Twitter (I’m honored but not sure exactly why or how I made the list, considering there are so many others more qualified). Within 2 days of the Midas touch this is what happened to my Twitter follower count:
Twitter Tip: I’m a big fan of manually checking out new followers to see if I’m interested in following back. However, when you wake up to find several hundred new emails from Twitter about new followers, checking each one becomes near impossible. As a tip, I recently learned that Tweet Later has a service that allows you to automatically accept new followers BUT can vet them beforehand. It’s definately a tool that I would highly recommend for those that are looking to streamline your follow-back process.
Are there are any other tools or practices you use to manage and maintain your followers? Would love to hear about them!
I’m currently working on a brand spankin’ new startup that I’m extremely excited about. My passions lie in spotlighting young success, introducing people to those that can make a difference in each others lives, and creating things that can be a catalyst for change. This new startup, YOPROCO, does all of that and more. 
I have an amazing team of 25 that includes a rockstar developer, talented creative director, and a team of ambitious copy editors and staff writers that all share the same passion for innovation and change as I do. What we’re missing is a UI designer that can help bring our creative design and back-end coding to life.
If you or someone you know is a talented UI Designer and is looking to work with a great team of young professionals on what we think is a game-changing idea, please get in touch!
I asked my developer for the technical specifics and this is what he said:
We need somebody who can convert photoshop mockups into prototype pages. Their core competencies should include solid usability principles as well as experience in writing valid HTML, CSS (with libraries like YUI CSS and BluePrint), and Javascript (with frameworks like jQuery and Dojo).
The UI designer’s responsibilities will include reviewing design mockups, making recommendations on the user workflow based on their knowledge of the technical limitations of web design, and converting the mockups into a static HTML/CSS/JS prototype.
Important to note, everyone single one of us either works full-time or goes to school full-time. We do this in our ’spare hours’ because we truly believe in this idea. I’m happy to provide more details for those that are interested. If you’re local (in the SF Bay Area) would love to grab some coffee with you and see if there’s a good fit.
I can be reached at sumaya@yoproco.com or http://www.twitter.com/sumaya.
Thanks!
