It is with a heavy heart that I write about Father Joseph McGlone, a retired Catholic priest from the Boston area, who passed away earlier this year. I just found about this news by chance when I was performing some Web searches. Allow me to take a diversion from my usual writing to remember a great man and leader.

Fr. Joe, as he was known to everyone, was the pastor of Corpus Christi Church in the village of Auburndale in Newton, Massachusetts. He was there for over 30 years, which is rare for a priest. I was fortunate to have been a member of Corpus Christi when I lived in the Boston area and was honored to have had him marry me and my lovely wife several years ago.

Fr. Joe had a unique appeal; unlike many priests this good Catholic boy had known over the years. He was very real and down to earth. He welcomed you into his church and made you feel at home. He prayed for the issues that many other priests would jam down your throat! As a result, Fr. Joe made Corpus Christi a truly welcoming church, and it certainly wasn’t a chore to go to his church every week. This is not to say Fr. Joe was not assertive or a leader. Even when he used his great sense of humor, he was making a point. There was a period of time I had not been regularly going to church. When I did finally start going back, one week I brought my family with me and he made sure I knew I hadn’t been there and how much I missed and how much I was missed. He jokingly let me had it, all the while welcoming me back.

As the sex abuse scandal was exposed in the Archdiocese of Boston, it took its toll on everyone, including Fr. Joe. When the Archdiocese announced that churches would be closed, he pointed this out one week in his sermon that church expenses weren’t being met my offerings and this was not a good sign for Corpus Christi. This must have been tough for him to say as he never asked for money. But the next week, offerings nearly doubled and maintained that level. I also remember asking Fr. Joe how he was doing throughout the scandal, especially as many of those priests were in surrounding towns. His response was, “I am a woodcutter.” When I asked him to explain, he said if anyone asked him what he did for a living, he would say he is a woodcutter and not a priest. That was on par with his style.

At the time of the almost heartless church closings taking place in the Archdiocese of Boston, Fr. Joe was asked to retire, to which he refused. Everyone was ecstatic he stood his ground! Here was a new archbishop coming in from out of town and wanting what was right about the church to leave? A few years later, after I had moved form the Boston area and Corpus Christi had merged with another church, he was asked again to retire and did. Though I cannot speak directly to the circumstances after I was away, I did hear he remained active in the church close to his hometown where he was a member after retirement, and I am sure they were fortunate to have him.

Right before I moved to Chicago, I lectured one last time at Corpus Christi and Fr. Joe was the presiding priest at the mass. At its conclusion he surprised me by announcing to the congregation that both my wife and I were leaving for a city where he had once studied once in his career at Loyola University. His thoughts were touching as he recalled our wedding and wished us well. That was one of the last times I saw Fr. Joe and a great memory of a great man, along with the many others I have of him from over the years.

Rest in peace, Fr. Joe.

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The next likemind will be Friday, August 20, 2010 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more on likemind, read this great article on likemind Chicago from the Newcity and likemind from the New York Times.

No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

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At Dunkirk Systems, LLC we are proud to have brought many clients to the Web for the first time. With the launch of the Web site for charter fishing service Spartan Charters we continue along this great tradition.

Spartan Charters is a full service charter company servicing Cape Cod, the Islands, and Southeastern Massachusetts and is a complete fishing guide and charter service. With their fleet of great fishing vessels and 2 experienced captains, Spartan ensures you have a quality and great fishing experience. As they say, they target big fish.

For this project Dunkirk partnered once again with Visible Logic, Inc. to great a highly functional Web site with a great design. The home page design is compelling to draw users to the various sections within the Web site, plus all navigational links are stylized text links, rather than images. A custom-developed content management system (CMS) powers the Web site allowing the Spartan Charters team to modify all Web site content. They are also embracing social media with their Facebook page and Flickr account with a wide variety of photos from past trips and catches.

Whether you’re a seasoned fisherman or looking to entertain clients or guests with a fishing experience, Spartan Charters is the one to call… or contact through their new Web site.

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Believe it or not, there are times you want to directly link to something from your Web site but you cannot. Despite this, there are ways you can still promote what it is you want to link to.

What Possibly Are You Talking About?

The following are a few scenarios where you cannot directly link to something on the Web.

• The publication’s Web site does not post its articles online
• The publication’s Web site requires registration or payment to view the article
• The article is no longer on the publication’s Web site

There are all real-life scenarios and have happened to clients as well as myself.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Whenever you are referencing content belonging to someone else on the Web, it is always a good idea to get their permission. In some cases you may not be able to mention specifics, such as a company or publication name or even the title of the work or article, but you’ll want to find out as much as you can about what you can mention.

Here’s a real example, and names have been changed to protect the innocent. A client of mine wants to link to articles she writes for a cooking magazine on her Web site, and in some cases she even wants to republish full or partial copy from the article. The published does not post articles online, and does not want her to post any of the articles on her own site. However, she can mention the name of the magazine, issue date and number, article title and page number. She can even show a thumbnail of the magazine cover. In this case, we posted all of this information, plus the photo, with a link to the magazine’s Web site.

If, for example, the article is available online but only to online subscribers, we can still link to it, and below the link we can mention this is behind a login which requires signup and payment. This brief disclaimer will show goodwill to the magazine, all the while promoting the fact the client wrote in it.

Striving for the Win-Win

In-bound links to a Web site are always desired and welcomed by a site owner. Depending on your business relationship with a Web site may dictate how you can present a link to promote yourself with their name. If the situation arises, seek out the method where you can present the most you can, and as a result creating a win-win situation.

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It is with some sadness that I listened to the last ever episode of The M Show today. For over 5 years, my friend John Wall hosted a cutting-edge, concise, 10 minute podcast around marketing news and information, sprinkled with a little entertainment news. But like all good things, this one is coming to an end.

John is also the co-host with Christopher S. Penn of Marketing Over Coffee, a weekly podcast about marketing online and offline, which as a result covers all aspects of business. Recorded weekly at a Dunkin Donuts in Natick, Massachusetts, it is a very successful show with thousands of listeners/subscribers. With its success, John’s focus has changed, and thus The M Show has become a reality of that change.

The M Show set a standard for the perfect podcast. It had lively music, short in duration, informative, well-edited and human. Many podcasts out there sound like a never-ending monologue or duologue. This style has been carried over to Marketing Over Coffee, though it is about 30 minutes in duration, but is still packed with useful information.

If you never listened to The M Show, the feed remains live. His post on the end of the show on his blog Ronin Marketeer sums up the show well. I was honored to be a guest on a number of shows, and one was recorded in my home office a few years ago when John was here in the Windy City at a conference. He has said something new will be coming down the pike, so watch the feed as I am sure it will be great!

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