On Tuesday, January 26th we launched Viajamos.com.br, a Brazilian travel social network. We created this site for Azul, a Brazilian airline.
The site was launched at Campus Party, a huge technology event in Sao Paulo 11 days ago. Since that time, we have seen exciting viral growth. Within the last hour, the 30,000th person registered to be a member of Viajamos.com.br.
Members are also actively engaged with the site. For example, 63,000 photos have already been uploaded to the site, nearly 1,600 topical user groups have been created, 1,500 blog entries have been posted, 500 events have been added to the site, etc.
Posted on February 6th, 2010 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Internet Marketing, Online Communities, Social Networking, User-Generated Content, Viral Marketing, e-Business | No Comments »
About 14 years ago I tried to start a 
Brazilian adoption program. I worked to help a U.S. couple adopt a little baby boy. In the end, the adoption could not be completed because of Brazilian adoption policies.
Sonia and Everaldo, dear friends in Brazil, adopted the baby boy and named him Miguel. The Brazilian adoption program closed.
A few weeks ago I visited Sonia, Everaldo and their family in Aracaju, Brazil. I spent a delightful time with Miguel, now 14, who is pictured above with his adoptive mother.
Miguel wants to be a chef and open his own restaurant some day. I’m teaching him how to make Mexican food because there are no Mexican food restaurants in his city.
Everyone loves Miguel. He has a huge heart. Miguel has a great family who loves him. Sonia told me how grateful she is that the U.S. adoption of Miguel fell apart. At the time the Brazilian adoption program fell apart it was a huge set back for me, but the next year Adoption.com was created. Much more importantly, Miguel was adopted by the right family, and is exactly where he’s supposed to be. I’m so grateful that things went wrong with the Brazilian adoption program, but turned out perfectly right.
I need to remember this important lesson to help me keep perspective when other things go wrong in my life.06
Posted on January 14th, 2010 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Adoption, Faith, Life Lessons | No Comments »
A few months ago I built GenealogyWise.com for one of my clients. GenealogyWise is a social network for people interested in researching and sharing their genealogy or family history. In just a few months, this social network already has 3,000+ member-created groups on genealogy topics, 14,000+ registered members and large amounts of user-generated content.
One of the keys to successful launch of this social network was that a list of “key influencers” in the genealogy sector was developed. Then, we reach out to those key influencers when GenealogyWise was in beta and invited them to be the first members of the social network. Not only did many of those key influencers join, but they also invited their friends, posted on their blogs, and told others about it on other genealogy communities. Read more…
Posted on September 30th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Online Communities, Social Networking, Viral Marketing | No Comments »
“Approximately once a decade, a radical new technology emerges that fundamentally changes the business landscape. In every case, regardless of prior competitive dynamics, businesses that understand and appropriately adopt the technology win, while those that fail to do so lose. In the 1970s, this was mainframe computing. IN the 1980s, it was the PC. In the 1990s, it was the Internet. And today it is the online social graph.” (Clara Shih in The Facebook Era)
The social graph is the world wide web of people. It is the map of everyone on the Internet and how they are interconnected. The social graph is for people what the Internet is for interconnected webpages. Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are helping to construct this social graph.
Each of these radical technology evolutions has been punctuated by a cycle of innovation, commercialization, emergence of new applications, and then large-scale impact on business. The online social graph is following this cycle, and is facilitating a “new, more nimble, and more efficient class of businesses that outcompetes those using technology from the previous era.” (Clara Shih) Read more…
Posted on September 8th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Business Management, Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Monetization, Online Communities, Social Media, Social Networking, User-Generated Content, e-Business, e-Commerce | No Comments »
For years, one of my goals has been to help create one of the 100 most popular web properties. Since last August I have been privileged to spend much of my consulting time working for a client named FamilyLink, the world’s largest family-related social network. FamilyLink operates the We’re Related Facebook application, which is the 6th most popular Facebook app. Through this application, it’s iPhone application, its ad network, its websites and other projects, FamilyLink helps to connect families. FamilyLink has only been around for a couple of years, but already has more than 40 million registered members and delivers hundreds of millions of ad impressions per month.
Today FamilyLink became the #99 most popular US web property, according to Quantcast:
http://www.quantcast.com/p-86YkM5oSeBMSE#summary
Congratulations FamilyLink for your phenominal growth. Thank you for letting me part of this amazing ride.
Posted on June 25th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Business Management, Innovation, Viral Marketing, Web Analytics, e-Business | 1 Comment »
I was recently meeting with Scott Lazerson, the President of Interface Foundation, an amazing organization that helps connect celebrities with great causes.
In the meeting Scott shared with the the Millennium Development Goals that were established by 187 nations during the United Nations Convention of 2000. The goals are as follows:
- Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality & empower women
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
Even though these goals have been in existence for about 9 years, I have never heard of them. However, I am passionate about these goals and hope to do my little part to achieve them with social media.
Posted on June 17th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Charity, Education, Ending Poverty, Giving Back, Global Orphan Crisis, Hunger, Social Enterprise | No Comments »
Spiritual abuse occurs when we mistreat another person in the name of God, faith or religion. David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen, in their book “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse”, describe spiritual abuse:
“It’s possible to become so determined to defend a spiritual place of authority, a doctrine or a way of doing things that you wound and abuse anyone who questions, or disagrees, or doesn’t ‘behave’ spiritually the way you want them to. When your words and actions tear down another, or attack or weaken a person’s standing as a Christian [or standing in any faith]– to gratify you, your position or your beliefs while at the same time weakening or harming another – that is spiritual abuse.”
Characteristics of Spiritual Abuse
According to the “Spiritual Abuse” article from Wikipedia, Spiritual abuse can include:
- Psychological and emotional abuse
- Any act by deeds or words that demean, humiliate or shame the natural worth and dignity of a person as a human being
- Submission to spiritual authority without any right to disagree; intimidation
- Unreasonable control of a person’s basic right to make a choice on spiritual matters
- False accusation and repeated criticism by negatively labeling a person as disobedient, rebellious, lacking faith, demonized, apostate, enemy of the church or God
- Prevention from practicing faith
- Isolation or separation from family and friends due to religious affiliation
- Physical abuse that includes physical injury, deprivation of sustenance, and sexual abuse
- Exclusivity; dismissal of an outsider’s criticism and labeling an outsider as of the devil
- Withholding information and giving of information only to a selected few
- Conformity to a dangerous or unnatural religious view and practice
- Hostility that includes shunning (relational aggression, parental alienation) and persecution
Read more…
Posted on June 7th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Abuse, Faith, Life Lessons | 3 Comments »
Last weekend Crystal and I went sand duning with our friends Matt and Michelle at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in southern Utah. The park is comprised of 3,730 acres of breathtaking pink coral-colored dunes, surrounded by red sandstone cliffs, blue skies, and deep emerald forests. Imagine pink sand dunes and lush pine trees. At first glance it feels like an oxymoron of nature.
This picture shows the four of us in Matt and Michelle’s Sand Rail. This vehicle took the dunes with power and speed and had enough momentum to do whatever the driver wanted to do on the dunes. (We wore helmets and had 5-point restraint systems in addition to roll bars.)
Later in the day, Matt and I took quads out and Matt taught me the concept of dune “bowling”. Some of the large sand dunes were shaped as crescents or partial “bowls”. In sand dune bowling, the quad rider builds up momentum then climbs straight up one side of the sand dune. As the rider nears the top, and before momentum is lost, the rider turns to one side, and rides along the inside ridge of the sand dune bowl. However, bowling only works if the rider keeps momentum. If momentum is lost, the rider must quickly turn the quad down the sand dune to regain momentum. If momentum is not regained, the rider and the quad may tumble down a steep sand dune. Read more…
Posted on May 12th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Business Management, Leadership, Life Lessons, Self Improvement | 3 Comments »
I just finished reading a Jeff Benedict’s book “How to Build a Business Warren Buffett Would Buy: The R. C. Willey Story
.” If you don’t live in Utah, Nevada or Idaho, R.C. Willey is a chain of home furnishing super stores that dominates the markets it serves in those states.
R.C. Willey is famous for not being open on Sundays. When Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest investor, purchased R.C. Willey, this home furnishing chain only had stores in Utah. After the purchase Bill Child, the CEO who remained with the company, wanted R.C. Willey to open a store in Idaho. Up to that point, the only R.C. Willey stores were located in Utah. Warren Buffett refused, believing that the closed-on-Sundays policy would make expansion outside Utah unsuccessful. Bill Child believed in the Idaho expansion so fervently that he offered to front all the cost for the land and the new store personally. If the store was not successful, it could be shut down and R.C. Willey would not lose any money. If the store was successful, R.C. Willey could purchase the store from Bill Child at a price not much higher than what Bill had invested. Warren accepted, the store in Idaho was built, and it was so successful during the “soft” launch that by the grand opening, Warren Buffet jokingly took credit for the Idaho expansion idea. R.C. Willey has since expanded to Nevada with similar success.
One of the recurring themes of this book that stood out most were the defining moments in the history of R.C. Willey, and Bill Child’s leadership and decision-making during those moments. R.C. Willey had many situations where the future of the company hinged on a single decision. Many people look back at success that could have been and say “what-if.” Bill Child lead the company through many defining moments that could have made or broken R.C. Willey, and traded “what-ifs” for a world-class success. Here are a few examples: Read more…
Posted on May 6th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Book Reviews, Business Management, Leadership, Mergers & Acquisitions | 2 Comments »
I love how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is using innovative strategies to try to find innovative solutions to some of the most serious issues on the planet, such as poverty, hunger, disease and a lack of education. This foundation just announced that 81 projects will receive $100,000 grants for 5-year health research projects such as:
- Growing tomatoes to be an anti-viral drug delivery agent.
- Developing an inexpensive device to diagnose malaria.
- Using lasers to enhance immune response from vaccines.
- Infecting malaria-causing mosquitoes with a fungus that inhibits their ability to smell humans.
These grants are given to encourage scientists to pursue bold ideas that could result in breakthroughs related to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.
The Gates Foundation also announced that it will be spending $73 million to help small farmers in impoverished countries. This money will be used for a variety of different projects, such as developing drought-tolerant corn, implementing more efficient irrigation, and helping women develop agricultural training programs.
I wonder if God blessed Bill Gates to become one of the world’s richest people because he knew how much good Bill and Melinda would do with the money.
Posted on May 4th, 2009 by Nathan Gwilliam
Filed under: Charity, Giving Back, Global Orphan Crisis, Hunger, Poverty, Social Enterprise | No Comments »
