If your New Years resolution has to do with losing weight, working out, or saving money, check out http://www.livestrong.com/ – I dare you.

This is a great tracking site for those of us who need someone to check on us to make sure we’re doing our homework. Also great if you just need a friend to commiserate with you.

The basic premise is DARE to change your life. And take your friends with you. Lance Armstrong seems to recognize that it takes strength to make change in your life, whether that’s coming back from a life-threatening disease or paying off your credit card. Either way, you need support from friends and strangers. And here it is, in a bright, friendly website with easy to use web 2.0 tools. No excuses. It’s been around for a while, but they just launched an iPhone/iPod touch app that syncs with the website.

Make your resolutions, folks. I dare you.

A friend of mine recently questioned the validity of http://www.truthfightsback.com, an admittedly partisan website supported by John Kerry to help Obama and other Democratic nominees fight negative smears launched against their campaigns.

His exact words included a reference to the vast left wing conspiracy, which he thinks controls most of the media. I can’t believe people really think that owners of TV and newspaper organizations – which are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills without turning to 100% advertising content – are conniving to support their chosen candidates. It seems silly to me.

Nevertheless, there are numerous non-’media’ sites working to be sure that the truth gets out there.

• One of my favorites is http://www.factcheck.org/.
• And http://www.snopes.com/
• There is also http://www.propublica.org/

Keep in mind, though, that every source has a sponsor, even if it is the webmaster’s parents who keep a roof over his/her head.

Inform yourself with a variety of sources. Listening to just one radio station, TV station, or reading just one newspaper or website is like putting yourself behind a wall, or iron curtain, and allowing one editor or station manager to determine what you should hear. Freedom of the press is a great American institution. Exercise it by changing the channel and turning the page every now and then.

And be sure you are registered to vote!
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting/Register.shtml

"Did you feel it?" – That is actually a link on this map, from the US Geological Survey, which charts the earthquakes around the world in the last 7 days.

You can report an earthquake if you felt it, through that "Did you feel it?" link, or zoom in from global to local on earthquakes around the world, to get details on the magnitude of the earthquake, its time, date and proximity to populated regions. There are also links to local earthquake measurement centers, or tsunami information for water-covered areas.

Another revolution in SMS text messaging – you can subscribe to a text service that will notify you of earthquakes and aftershocks in your defined area. The notifications are available within 5 minutes in the US, within 30 minutes outside the US.

Of course these notifications would be more helpful 5-30 minutes BEFORE the earthquake, but one assumes they are working on that.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

Making a change? Make a list.

I’ve just read a great reminder about John Kotter’s 8 errors frequent in organizational change efforts. I’ve always liked to turn these around into a ‘to do’ list, instead of a ‘don’t’ list…

1. Prevent complacency.
2. Create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition.
3. Accept the power of a new vision.
4. Communicate the new vision clearly.
5. Let no obstacles stand in the way of the new vision.
6. Create short-term wins.
7. Declare victory when it is won, and not before.
8. Anchor changes firmly to the corporate culture.

As my fellow blogger Jason points out, these ideas can be useful for whatever change you’re making, whether your ‘organization’ is a relationship or a mega-corporation.

Working at my record store, and hanging out at nightclubs promoting shows, I ran into a lot of kids that worked on ‘street teams.’ Basically, if you were a big enough fan, and really wanted to be a part of the music biz — and I mean REALLY — the band’s label would send you stacks of stickers, postcards, CD samplers and flyers to distribute around town. Street teams are supposed to be the grassroots tentacles that know the local areas (which stores are cool, which skate shops will let you stack CDs for handing out) better than a label does, and then when the band makes it big, the street team will get their pay backs. We hope it happens for them.

The problem is there are tons of street teams for tons of up-and-coming bands and our record store always had lots of leftover CD samplers of no-name bands that we couldn’t pay people to take away.

The success was there however. And somebody somewhere made some money using street teams. And now, those people are old and don’t want to go running around town, but they are willing to post something on their blog. Or at least, these folks are hoping I will.

Darn, I just did.