On that day, more than 170,000 people across Canada came out to run to raise money and awareness for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Being part of that group made me proud to be a Canadian.

Seeing all those people coming together for a good cause for one day truly moved me. It inspired me and made me know I made the right decision to become a philanthropist and help out my community.

That’s why I’ve decided to put Team Pink back together this year and head out on Oct. 2 for the 2011 Run For The Cure.

Last year our team was the highest fundraiser in Edmonton – bringing in more than $31,000 to help out the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The team, composed of my friends, my co-workers and myself, hopes to do even better and raise even more money this year.

The reason we will do so is because the fight against breast cancer is one of the most important battles in our lifetime. Every woman we know has to live with the threat of breast cancer hanging over her every day of her life.

The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation helps fight this by working hard to prevent, treat and eventually cure breast cancer.

That is a very noble goal – and one that I think they will realize. Every day we get closer to finding a cure, but organizations like the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation can’t do their important work without our help.

They need people to help them raise money – and even more importantly, they need people to help raise awareness for the good work they do.

That’s why I’m encouraging everyone to come out and do something on Oct. 2 to help support the 2011 Run For The Cure. If you can’t donate money, you can come out and run and help inspire other people.

If you won’t be running, you can still come out and watch and cheer on the people who are out there pounding the pavement. And, if you can’t come out that day at all, you can write about the Run For The Cure on your blog, talk about it to your friends, family and co-workers and help spread the word.

Breast cancer deserves to become a distant memory. Let’s work together to make that happen. Peace out.

There’s just one problem – some of the time, the information you find isn’t true.

That’s why you have to double and even triple check every bit of information you find online, even if it is from a generally trustworthy source.

Let me give you an example. A little over a year ago, The Washington Post published an article saying that the rap group Public Enemy had written a song saying the 9/11 terrorist attack was a “joke”.

Of course, they hadn’t done any such thing. What they had done was to release a song in 1990 – 11 years before 9/11/01 – saying that the 911 emergency response system in the poorer neighborhoods of many major cities is a joke.

Yet, many people to this day believe that Public Enemy had made fun of the tragic events of 9/11, and it has severely damaged their reputation.

Here’s another example. The Onion is a satiric online newspaper. It states in bold letters on its home page that their stories are jokes and, often quite simply, not true. Yet, last month when they did a story saying that Planned Parenthood wanted to build an $8 billion “abortion theme park” and shopping mall, hundreds of thousands of people believed them.

People posted the story as a fact on their Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds. Planned Parenthood started getting angry phone calls and letters – all because people didn’t bother to check the story out and realize it was satire.

The only good that came out of this is that it did spark some bright people to launch the site Literally Unbelievable, which now collects amusing examples of people who believe stories published in The Onion.

Perhaps the most disturbing recent example of “fake news” that some people believed occurred earlier this month. On July 4^th, the Twitter feed of Fox News was hacked and began posting tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated.

Obviously, for a period of time, people were retweeting the “news” and devastated that a young president had been gunned down. If, however, they had simply checked any other news source, they would have discovered fairly quickly that the tweets were a hoax.

These are just a few examples of “news” that people have believed simply because they read it online. What they all have in common is they prove that while there is a lot of information available online about nearly any subject, not all of it is true.

Before you make a decision based on any news item, do a little research. It could save you from making a costly mistake based on false information.

Over the years the west has tried to impose democracy on these regimes. Sometimes we have done so through legal sanctions; at other times we have tried to bring democracy through military force. Neither of these methods has produced any real, lasting results. But now, that is starting to change.

It’s not happening because of anything we’ve been doing. Instead, it’s coming from the inside. People have grown tired of the limited opportunities tyrants have brought them. They have decided that the time has come for democracy to grace their land.

It started in Tunisia, where a popular revolt quickly ousted unpopular dictatorial rule. Seeing this tremendous success, the Egyptian people have taken to the streets to end the 30-year unchallenged reign of Hosni Mubarak.

For days now, people have been protesting and Mubarak has barely been hanging onto power. He fired his entire cabinet. Then, for the first time since he has been in office, he appointed a vice-president. Most recently, he announced that he wouldn’t stand for re-election.

Still, this is not enough for the people. They are going to continue to put pressure on the government until he finally steps down.

There is little to stop the protestors. Many police officers have already defected to their side. And the Egyptian army has announced they will not shoot or arrest any of the protestors, no matter what their orders are. This means the power is now in the hands of the people – and their will needs to be satisfied.

Already, their efforts are beginning to spread through the Arab world. The King of Jordan has started to put more democratic policies into place, and other Arab rulers are considering the same. The result is that there may soon be a domino effect of emerging democracy throughout the Middle East.

What’s interesting is the lesson it teaches us: You can’t impose democracy from the outside. Democracy happens because eventually people get tired of tyrants and then take care of business themselves.

Take mastercard.com, for example; you would think one of the biggest credit card companies in the world would have protection so strong that they would be immune to attack.

You would be incorrect.

Last week, members of the /b/ group at www.4chan.org, who call themselves “Anonymous,” managed to take MasterCard down for hours, stopping people from being able to charge items on their cards and blocking their SecureCode payment authentication service.

This all happened in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. The result was that a lot of people ended up using their Visa cards instead of their MasterCards, which resulted in lost revenue for the company. It also left a lot of people with a bad feeling about MasterCard, because it was embarrassing to have their cards suddenly declined. Beyond that, it left people wondering just how secure their purchases with MasterCard really are.

Here’s how it happened. MasterCard had been allowing people to use their cards to donate money to Wikileaks in support of their mission to release classified documents to the public. When the media started talking about it, MasterCard caved into political pressure and blocked payments to Wikileaks.

The people at /b/ who call themselves “Anonymous” got angry and launched an all-out Dedicated Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This essentially means that they bombarded MasterCard’s site with so many hits, it was pushed beyond capacity and simply collapsed.

There are many ways that MasterCard could have avoided this situation. They could have had stronger firewalls to protect against the DDoS attack. They could have had backup servers installed. Given the size and reputation of their business, they should have had a plan in place to prevent DDoS attacks altogether.

But they didn’t, and so for a few hours things went very wrong for them. And it didn’t have to be that way. For example, “Anonymous” attempted a similar attack on Amazon.com the next day. That DDoS failed because Amazon had anticipated this type of attack, and had the technological tools in place to defeat it (including backup servers and cloud-based web hosting.)

So, my advice to you is that you need to figure out ways to protect your site from the worst-case scenario – like Amazon did – and not simply hope that you never get attacked.

A few days before Christmas, I’ll be heading out with a member of my staff to distribute food hampers to 15 less fortunate families in Edmonton through the Christmas Bureau, one of Edmonton’s longest running and most respected nonprofit charitable organizations. This is one of the largest local charitable initiatives I have become involved with.

The food hampers have everything needed for a traditional Christmas dinner including turkey, ham, vegetables, potatoes, cranberry sauce, oranges, soup, coffee, peanut butter, cookies, candy, jam, stuffing and butter.

The families I will be delivering food hampers to have been selected by the Christmas Bureau, which works regularly with families in need of support in our community.  I am very excited to go deliver their hampers personally to them, which I think is really cool and rewarding.

I’m very happy to be part of this initiative. I believe that everyone in our community deserves to have a healthy traditional Christmas meal. Yet, I know that poverty has struck many of our friends and neighbors and the cost of a turkey and trimmings are out of reach for many large families. Most of us have fond memories of huge Christmas meals with our families. The fact that there are children out there who are at risk of not being able to have a nice holiday meal really saddens me.

Remember, people don’t choose to live in poverty. For many families struggling to make ends meet this can be the difference between having a Christmas meal and not. Can you imagine being a parent on Christmas day with no gifts or festive meal for your kids? Think of how stressful that would be.  This is a reality for many Edmontonians.

This is why I’m working with The Christmas Bureau to help provide Christmas dinners to people who need our help. I hope you will think about doing the same.

Merry Christmas

Being ethical in all of your business dealings should be your number one priority.

That also should be second nature, but many people fail to understand this simple idea, especially in the online marketplace. They’d never lie to someone in person and if they ran a brick and mortar operation; they’d be honest because they’d have to look their customers in the eye. But, the anonymity of Internet marketing seems to create a distance that makes many of us forget we are dealing with real people, and not just a bunch of electronic wallets.

It can be all too easy to behave unethically online. Bad people and scammers have created a lot of software that makes it simple to hide IP addresses, disguise where your email is coming from or simply disappear when a customer has a complaint.

But, taking advantage of any of these tactics is a really bad idea. Sure, you might get some short-term benifits; but you will hurt your company and your business in the long term. Don’t forget that it costs a lot more time and effort to get a new customer than it does to keep making money from a repeat customer. If you rip someone off, you generate one sale. If you treat them honestly, you have the potential to make dozens of sales. Now, which option do you think is better for your business in the long term?

Beyond that, the number of online companies that behave unethically puts us all at risk. Do you really want the government to feel like they have to step in and saddle us with a lot of expensive regulation and oversight? Each and every time you follow an unethical business practice, you bring the entire online marketplace one day closer to that happening.  Furthermore, behaving unethically exposes your company to the risk of being heavily fined by the government.

Large multinational firms have been fined tens of millions of dollars for unethical behavior. Don’t think that just because we work online we are not at risk of the same types of penalties.

So, when you do business, treat your customers the way you’d want a company to treat you. Be honest. Don’t exaggerate in your ads. Don’t spam people from phony email addresses. Make your pricing and terms of service easy for your customers to understand. Don’t ever take advantage of people.

It’s not only the right thing to do as a human being – it’s the right thing to do if you want to be a good businessperson.

Because I’m a young businessman, people are sometimes surprised to learn that I support charities.  After all, most believe that the only mindset of my generation is, “What’s in it for me?”

Although a tempting mindset to settle on, I try not to think that way. I know that I’ve been very fortunate in my life, and I’m proud of my success. But, I also know that not everyone grew up with the advantages I had or has been as lucky as I have. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t had the support of my family, or if I had been born into abject poverty.

That’s why I look for charities that help children at risk. I believe that if you can help break the cycle of poverty at a young age and create hope, you can change lives.  And I want to be a part of that.  Today, I want to talk to you about a charity I donate to that does some really good work helping poverty stricken children.

Samaritan’s Purse is a non-denominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to children people around the world. Their name comes from a Bible story where the Samaritan rescued a hurting man whom others had passed by, and Jesus told His followers, “Go and do likewise.”

The organization targets children who have been hurt by the ravages of war and poverty and helps them with tangible support. They give children food, shelter and clothing to help their lives be a little better. They support hospitals in areas where there would otherwise be no reliable medical care.

They have also started a great new campaign called “Operation Narnia.” As you may or may not know, the latest Narnia film – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – will be released this December.

As part of this operation, the organization is asking people to bring shoeboxes filled with food and Christmas presents to the movie theater when it comes out. They envision this as one of the largest faith-based charitable efforts in film history.

If you’ve read the Narnia books, you know that Reepicheep the mouse does not survive the Dawn Treader’s fateful voyage; but with the help of Samaritan’s Purse, thousands and thousands of children will live to see a better tomorrow.

I think the brave little mouse would approve.

I’m going to take another break from writing about my thoughts/ideas on Internet Marketing to talk about what I believe to be an important cause.

I’ve said before that I think children are our future. As the song goes, “teach them well and let them lead the way.”  That’s why nearly all of my charitable donations have been centered on helping organizations that make a difference in the lives of children both nationally and internationally.  One of the most important and successful of the organizations I support is Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Canada.  I cannot say enough about the good work these dedicated people do for our community.

The biggest challenge faced by children in poverty or other at-risk situations isn’t financial – it’s the negative influences that can steer them into the cycle of alcohol, drugs and crime.  Children are impressionable and the villains of the world know this.  Left unchecked they will tempt children into gangs, drugs, prostitution and other criminal forms of making “easy money.”  They will convince children that education is a waste of time because the odds are stacked against them anyway.  Many children in poverty lack strong role models.  When all the adults they see in their community are living off the welfare system or engaged in crime or addiction, it can seem that this is the only life path available to them.

Big Brothers/Big Sisters breaks this cycle. Their volunteers go into the community, partner with at-risk youth and provide them with a positive role model to counteract all the corrupting influences of the “street corner boys.”  By doing so they demonstrate to these children that there is another way – and that they can get out of the cycle and make the right choices that will lead to a better life. When young people realize that crime, despair and addiction are not their only options, a whole new life is opened up to them.  School becomes more important.  They channel their aggressions into healthy outlets like sports, music, and art instead of violence.

In short, one by one, step-by-step, Big Brothers/Big Sisters helps change communities and works against all of the negative peer pressure and temptations of the world.  That’s why they have my support and should be commended for the good work they do.

Working together with SwipeAuctions  (a company I founded in 2009), we’ve committed to sponsor 1 new child through World Vision each day.  Currently we are sponsoring 114 children and counting.

About World Vision:

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

“We serve close to 100 million people in nearly 100 countries around the world. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.”

“Wherever we work, our prayer is that our efforts will be used by God to heal and strengthen people’s relationships with Him and with one another. We do this by demonstrating God’s unconditional love for all people through our service to the poor — which includes providing for daily needs, working to build peace and promote justice, and partnering with churches and individuals to encourage spiritual transformation.”

“We are blessed with staff who are experts in a broad range of technical specialties, ranging from hydrology to micro-enterprise development to public health. And we are inspired by the ways in which they use their God-given abilities in conjunction with existing community resources.”

Of the more than 40,000 staff employed by World Vision, 97 percent work in their home countries or regions. Familiar with the culture and language, they bring to World Vision a deeply personal understanding of how best to assist local children and families.

“The millions of people we serve include earthquake and hurricane survivors, abandoned and exploited children, survivors of famine and civil war, refugees, and children and families in communities devastated by AIDS in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”

“Our extensive global infrastructure enables us to respond where the need is greatest, anywhere in the world.”

The excellence of World Vision’s work has earned the trust of more than 3 million donors, supporters, and volunteers; more than half a million child sponsors; thousands of churches; hundreds of corporations; and government agencies in the United States and around the world.

“We are thankful to God that through these collaborative efforts, we are able to be a part of breaking the cycle of poverty for those in need in our world.”

A Special Thanks to SwipeAuctions Customers

On behalf of SwipeAuctions, I’d like to thank the great customers that made this sponsorship possible.  Through your bidding and purchasing products on our site, we are able to sponsor children at the rate that we currently are (1 child per day, and continuing to do so for the next year).  This is our commitment to World Vision, and our thanks to our loyal customers.

See: SwipeAuctions Commitment to Give Back.