Rather than showing a scribbled sticky note with my learned knowledge for the week, I decided to show my decoration for Mardi Gras.

• A color photo of a new air filter for my car is not going to compel me any further to have it replaced when all I wanted today is an oil change.
• Watching the Stadium Series game played at Chicago’s Soldier Field, the home of football’s Bears, between hockey’s Chicago Blackhawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins was a lot of fun, even as I was watching it on TV. With the snow falling, it gave me a déjà vu moment to a few years ago when Boston University played Boston College at Fenway Park a week after the pro-hockey game there. In this case, I was there in stands at Fenway for this amazing experience.
• If you find yourself in New York City and need a good laugh, check out my friend Andrew Cornelius’ Web site to see when he is next performing.
• In the process of troubleshooting a technical problem with my podcast app on my mobile device, I unsubscribed to all 6 of the podcasts I had in my queue. Rather than resubscribe at once, I decided to subscribe as I had time to listen to something new. First I subscribed to No Agenda and after several weeks I finally subscribed to another, The Voicemail. Not sure when I’ll get back to 6 or what my number will be.
• I almost snorted my coffee out of my nose the other morning when reading my favorite Web comic, Questionable Content when Angus called out Faye for saying ‘wicked.’ The comic takes place in Northampton, MA, not far from where I grew up and a tell-tale sign of a “Masshole” is if they say wicked a lot.
• Life won’t be the same in my house after the DVD for the movie Frozen comes out on March 18.
• Not a meeting goes by where someone is saying they are looking at something from their ‘perspective’ or that of their team or function. But who is looking at the big picture?
• Not a day goes by when I am not telling someone about the blog Leadership Freak by Dan Rockwell. Each day he posts extremely usable prose on leadership, all under 300 words. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t subscribe to it by email or RSS. Special thanks to Dr. Dietmar Schloesser for being the source of knowledge on this great blog.
• Tickets are now for sale for the Spring Benefit for Chicago’s South Loop Elementary School on Friday, May 16 at 6pm at the Hyatt Chicago Magnificent Mile. This year marks the silver anniversary of the school, and the red carpet will be rolled out for all who wish to have a great time while supporting this great community school.
• In preparation for their activities at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas which starts today, my friends a Name.com wanted to show how they will promote small businesses at the conference, so they used me as an example. Jared, their social media director, is an amazing actor and video producer as well as keenly in tune with the needs of their community and made this awesome video which is embedded below or you can watch on the Name.com channel on YouTube. And when I say friends, I mean it – it is because of a personal connection that I learned about Name.com over 6 years ago and their team applies the personal touch, plus strong business and technical acumen, to all they do. And I am not just saying this because Jared pronounced Maddaloni correctly.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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As taken down on a piece of paper from my daughter’s bedazzled notepad...

• Now that the temperatures in Chicago actually reached above the freezing mark for a “significant” period of time (2 days) and some of the snow has melted, I have noticed a by-product of the frigid temperatures – frost heaves. Very few sidewalks have not been affected by it, and there are many uneven paths around the city. This is on top of the potholed-ridden streets. My guess is these sidewalks will either not be properly fixed or will just be ground down to make then somewhat even.
• My friends at the amazing design studio Visible Logic are conducting a Web Design Survey. It is open to anyone, and I am sure they would love to hear from people who are not in the Web design and development business, and that means you! You can take their survey here; it is short, to the point, and if you give them your email they will send you the results of the survey. While you are on their site check out the great work they have done for their clients.
• Your idea, no matter how well thought-out and articulated, always sounds better when it is said by someone more senior than you, and is sold as their idea.
• I heard about something called the 5 Love Languages where ideally each person in a relationship takes the survey and compares what they want and how they say it. It’s free and doesn’t take long to complete.
• The idea of the media “spoiler”, though it is annoying when you hear of something you haven’t watched yet, is an increasing reality that we will have to deal with. Unfortunately I have seen details of the second season of House of Cards on Twitter and results of Olympics competitions on screens in building elevators before they were broadcast in the US. With more and more real-time information abound and distributed media channels, this will only increase, and we will have to come up with ways to manage it.
• This week I had a flashback to the time I designed a QA lab for a company I worked for years ago. It was a very comprehensive lab consisting of computers and operating system versions to cover all of our customers realistic scenarios. I also remembered the pushback I received from some of my colleagues, which was later taken back as the lab helped troubleshoot and prevent many errors. It was only a flashback, and unfortunately not a déjà vu moment.
• It’s been a while since I have been out at a tech networking event, and thanks to the people at Tech in Motion for hosting a great event in Chicago this past week. I met some great people including the entire team behind Dryv.
• I need to get out and see friends more often. By accident this week I found out my friend Elliott Bambrough is not the full-time co-host of the TV show Chicago’s Best on WGN-TV. Elliott is not only extremely talented but a great person as well. You can see him in action in this segment from a recent episode of Chicago’s Best and I have also embedded it below.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Today, December 30, marks the 7th anniversary of the very first blog post on The Hot Iron, appropriately titled, Hello World.

Rather than getting mushy about the past, I’d like to thank you for reading, whether this is the first time you have read something I have written, you for some reason have been with me for the past 7 years or you are somewhere in between.

It has been an up and down journey, but aren’t they all? This past year I have gotten re-energized about blogging, and I hope to keep it up in the coming year. Only time will tell.

As I have in the past, I have wanted to have some photo to accompany the years, and this year I chose Heaven on Seven, an amazing New Orleans-style restaurant in Chicago. If you come to the Windy City, you must try it. They have 2 locations – one on the Magnificent Mile and one on Wabash Avenue, where this sign is located in front of. Go to the latter – the feel is more authentic.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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There were screams of joy across the Land of Lincoln (or at least in my corner of it) as I received an email inviting me back into the affiliate program for Amazon.com called Amazon Associates. So why not join me in celebrating by clicking the link below to buy this beautiful Platinum Cushion Cut Blue Sapphire And Round Diamond Pendant?

A Little Background

Residents of the state of Illinois were tossed out of the program back in 2011 upon the state’s passing of the Main Street Fairness Act. The law recognized affiliates of Amazon and other online companies, those who did not have a physical presence in Illinois, as the physical presence of those companies, and thus required purchases made through affiliate links and Web sites to be taxed with Illinois state tax. I wrote about this back then in an eloquent piece called Pat Quinn Screws Entrepreneurship In Illinois By Signing Amazon Tax Bill.

The intent of the law was to “level the playing field” – and I am quoting the politicians who supported it, including Illinois governor Pat Quinn – between brick and mortar stores across the state and online retailers, the latter who have been taking business from the former. Where the intent was good, the law did not do anything to make anything more fair for anyone. As quickly as Amazon dropped its affiliates, it never missed a beat in its own sales. Residents of Illinois were still buying from Amazon, and as a result choosing to not buy from local stores. It actually had a negative effect as people and businesses who were affiliates – from myself to other bloggers to coupon companies like Coupon Cabin – either lost money or were chased from Illinois to neighboring states like Indiana and Wisconsin. And as these people and companies pay taxes on their affiliate earnings, the state lost out on that tax revenue.

Welcome Back

In October, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the Main Street Fairness law, paving the way for the return of the program. Just hours before I wrote this post, I got an email from Amazon Associates inviting me back into the program, and the text of the short but to the point email is below.

Hello,

We're pleased to announce that the Amazon Associates program is again open to residents of the State of Illinois. We're now able to re-open the program because the Illinois State Supreme Court recently struck down legislation that had forced Amazon to close the program to residents of Illinois. Amazon strongly supports federal legislation like the Marketplace Fairness Act that’s now pending before Congress, which is the only constitutional way to resolve interstate sales tax collection issues.

Residents of Illinois who would like to participate in the Amazon Associates program can submit an application here:

http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/apply/main.html

Thanks for your past participation in the Amazon Associates program. We hope to see you again soon.

What it means to myself and others

The return of the program is definitely good news for those who run affiliate programs or are seeking to monetize their Web sites. The world of affiliate marketing is vast and, in my opinion, fascinating and too much to talk about in this post alone. For myself and this little corner of the Internet called The Hot Iron, I am certainly not looking at the return of the program as a cash cow. In the past links to products – namely books and electronics – were affiliate links to Amazon, and if anyone purchased them, I would get a percentage of the cost.

This is why I am welcoming back the program with what I found as a very beautiful piece of jewelry, let alone pricy. The affiliate earnings for this pendant would pay for a nice vacation, or a couple of months of my daughter’s daycare. I will admit I never got rich off the program in the past, and I don’t see myself doing so in the future, as links on The Hot Iron were never obtrusive and hopefully a compliment to the site.

I also welcome your thoughts and questions on Amazon Associates in the comments to this post. I am curious if the return of affiliate programs like this one will impact you or not, or if you even knew they went away to begin with.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Editor's Note: I am no longer collecting Box Tops, and the email address has been removed from this post.

Have you seen this symbol?

If you have and you don't cut them out and just discard or recycle them, may I ask you to send them to me? Why? Your unused Box Tops for Education will benefit my kid's education.

Yes, really.

The Box Tops for Education program places these small symbols on various consumer goods and products, everything from Scott toilet paper to Cheerios. Each one is worth US$.10, and some products can have multiple symbols or even unique codes to redeem online. My kid, who now attends one of the finest schools in the universe (name purposely omitted) is collecting them to benefit that very school. And those little symbols can add up - last year the school raised nearly US$1,000, and I think they can do better than that, but we will need your help.

How to help

If you would like to offload these symbols to me, please email me. I will send you a postage-paid envelope for you to send them back to me. As well, if you have any products with codes to redeem online, you can send them to that email address as well.

Thank you

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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