Noozhoo just launched a completely new design and some really cool new features. Here are the top 3 coolest new additions:

1. Add your Noozhoo stores to your own website, blog, and Facebook fan page.

Instead of having your members jump to different pages, you can now integrate your Noozhoo store directly on your organization’s website or Facebook page for people to shop in one place! Setup takes less than 60 seconds. Click the “Add to Website” and “Add to Facebook” buttons at the top of your store admin page for instructions.

2. Simple new sign-up process for student leaders vs. student members

On the home page, we’ve broken up the sign-up process for shoppers and sellers to make it easier to create an account on Noozhoo. With that, the user interface design and experience is much more simple and direct.

3. Connect with Student Members and Alumni

Current members: It’s super easy to download a list of your store members and send a mass message to everyone about a specific product, dues, or event that links directly back to your Noozhoo store on Noozhoo or your website or Facebook page. One organization at Baylor sold $9,500 in merchandise in just 9 days to alumni allowing the organization to triple their annual budget in little over a week!

Alumni: I ran D3 cross-country and track at Lawrence University and have no idea what’s going on currently with the program. I would LOVE to buy LU cross-country and track gear to support the team, but there is no way for me to do that right now because of the disconnect between current students and alumni. Noozhoo can bridge that gap while raising funds for the team to help buy supplies and gear.

Questions? Reach us via email at support@noozhoo.com or go online to chat Live!

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “social”? I bet that if I asked people on the streets of NYC this question, 9 out of 10 would say “Facebook”. I think it’s not just because of the movie “The Social Network”, but rather because Facebook itself requires an active state of “social” and vice-versa.

We hear the term just about every day from many different contexts: Facebook, our company “Noozhoo, the Social Marketplace”, social security number, government leaders needing to be socially responsible, the social need for Charlie Sheen to be locked away, and even country dance socials.

What does social even mean? According to Webster’s dictionary, “social” can be used as either a noun, defined as a gathering of people for an informal purpose, or as an adjective describing actions that involve companionship. However, “social” is not a verb and therefore not an action unto itself. So, when someone says, “we are social beings”, social describes a state or type of being.

But with new human actions increasingly becoming co-dependent with technology, can these interactions in spaces like Facebook and mobile devices make “social” become a verb? I understand that you can transpose “social” into “socialize” to become a verb (such as, ‘I socialize on Facebook’), but what if instead of saying “The Social Network”, it becomes just “social” and the Network part becomes redundant and self-evident?

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly living in, navigating, negotiating, and co-dependently defining Networks.  People are only part of what makes a Network. In order to function, it also needs nonhumans: technology, techniques, objects, emotions, energy, flora and fauna.

When humans and nonhumans “social”, something interesting happens and forms what sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour calls “sociotechnical agencements”.  Basically, this is a protean (fluid, continuously changing) network where both humans and nonhumans have agency (the ability to act) and define each other.  However, identity is not static, but is constantly changing depending on how and where the entities are formed and the perspective of the observer.

For example, let’s take “poke” on Facebook.  From one perspective, it’s a nonhuman entity that has programming code behind it and does not have the power to act (agency) unto itself.  However, just by looking at “poke”, we, the human entity, receive an automatic reaction to it whether it’s curiosity of what it is, what you do with it, what it means, who sent it, etc. and can even invoke humans to exercise their own agency to “poke back”. From another perspective, “the poke” is a human entity because it took a human to create the idea, implement the code, and get other people to use it.

“Poke”, as is the verb “social” in the above situational context, are human and nonhuman, social and technological, and completely dependent on networks. How to define “poke” and “social” becomes complex and multiplied when we shift perspectives.

So what do we do to not get frustrated and confused?

Stop trying to categorize entities into dichotomies of either subjects or objects, natural or social, social or technological, and instead relax, and open your eyes to the beautiful world of networks.  Realize that the object is not to find the one right way to describe or do something, but rather, as philosopher Michel Foucault argues, stay in a state of confusion and seek multiplicities.

Many people love the New Year because of the opportunity for new beginnings.  The previous year’s mistakes can be learned from and forgotten, and now is the time to strive for an even better ‘you’ from working out for that fabulous body, spending more time building relationships with friends and family, being wiser with spending, and keeping a positive mind and attitude.

But what a lot of people don’t put on their list of New Year’s resolutions is something that doesn’t help themselves, but rather others in need of their own New Beginnings.

The Home of New Beginnings (www.homeofnewbegginings.com) is an organization in Bangkok, Thailand that helps young women get out of the sex trade by offering them shelter, guidance, and education. As alternative way to make money, the women sell handmade scarves, handbags, and notebooks.

Recently, the organization joined Noozhoo to help sell their items to students and supporters in the United States!

Bonita Thompson, Founder of Home of New Beginnings, said “Our energies are spent in their recovery and training and we do not have the time, resources, or skills to market our products or handle the details. Noozhoo is just amazing! It has lifted the marketing burden off our shoulders. The whole idea of having our own on-line market set up in a couple of hours where we can both tell our story and sell our products on campuses in the U. S. is an enormous gift! We are so grateful.”

Please support this wonderful organization by donating money or buying their handmade merchandise on their Noozhoo store today!  Click this link to join the New Beginnings Store on Noozhoo: http://www.noozhoo.com/invitation.php?store_id=11

The Noze Brotherhood, a secret society at Baylor University geared towards comic irreverence for collegiate people and organizations with power sticks up their bums, recently joined Noozhoo. You can now buy two of their t-shirts for only $5.00 by going to their Noozhoo store!

The first shirt is a vintage 2010 Christmas shirt with “Noze” on the front and an image from the movie Home Alone with “Celebrating an inoffensive, non-denominational holiday” written below.

The second item is the “DiadelNozo” shirt that features a depiction of Mount Rushmore on the front with “This year is going to be Monumental” written below. The back has “Get it? …Monumental…”.

You can now purchase Noozhoo T-Shirts for only $19.95 by visiting the Noozhoo Store! Men and women shirts are available in sizes Small-XL and come in the fashionable color of black. As Henry Ford used to say, you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.

Don’t have a Noozhoo account yet? It’s FREE and Quick, unlike QuickBooks. Go to www.noozhoo.com to join today!