I've been told that, with a strong wind, I can really get going. To me, learning is an ever-changing weather pattern. For me, learning is the most amazing, exciting, frustrating, intoxicating, messy, beautiful experience - and it's what makes me feel alive. Others ponder the question: IPT520 Debra's E-Learning Adventure Langwitches Canadian Chalkboard What does learning mean to you? Your students?
Selected by mikesansone
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Angela Maiers Educational Services
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What Does Learning Mean to You?
21 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am -
Chalk Talk - 11/20/09: The Augmented Reality Edition
20 Nov 2009 | 7:13 amChalk Talk Friday represents conversations and brilliance I've discovered traversing my way through the Blogosphere. From professional to personal development, these are the posts and links have in some way touched my head or my heart. One thing that has been on my mind a lot this week (besides 'What time do we land?') is Augmented Reality (#AR). Some people I trust, including my son, say this is going to be big! Laptop Magazine: What is it, How we use it, What it will Become Esquire Magazine dedicates their current issue to Augmented Reality: Here are a few video examples of… -
I'm Outta Time, All I Have is 2 Minutes
19 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pmWe're strapped for time. We face budget cuts, which makes time all that more important. But what if... What if all we had was two minutes? Two minutes a day. Two minutes to change the world? What could you do? What if... -
Real Readers are Driven By Real Life Meaning
18 Nov 2009 | 4:06 amI picked up the drivers manual book and found it extremely difficult. It is a procedural text, it’s technical, the vocabulary is incredibly advanced, it’s sophisticate and is at times, inconsiderate writing. It is not organized and it’s a thick book. My son recently began preparing for driving by reading this text. On his own, he got a team of kids together. Created a study group, created methodologies, employed advanced skill sets, devices, and techniques to get that content without any of my help. Do you know why? Because of the urgency, and gravity and privilege -- the life-changing… -
Great Readers Have Strategies
17 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am"The process of reading is not a half-sleep process. It is in the highest sense an exercise; a gymnastic struggle that requires the reader to do something for himself." - Walt Whitman There is no ONE way to define comprehension (unless it's that comprehension is NOT a commodity), but the past two decades have produced for us a very substantial body of research on the habits and behaviors that exist inside the mind of a proficient reader.(Pressley) We can with great confidence and conviction state that great readers have very identifiable and definable behaviors.
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The Marketing Minute
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A creativity whack for your head...and your iPhone!
19 Nov 2009 | 4:57 pmRoger von Oech is responsible for whacking me upside the head more times than I can count. 20+ years ago, he created a fantastic creativity tool called A Creative Whack Pack. It's an illustrated deck of 64 creative thinking strategies that will whack you out of habitual thought patterns and enable you to look at your life and actions in a fresh way. It's an awesome way to think different, to see something fresh and to get yourself unstuck. Well, it's 2009 and so of course Roger has created an iPhone/iTouch app for thiscreativity powerhouse. And...he's… -
You can put a dash of brand just about anywhere
15 Nov 2009 | 2:51 pmThere's nothing less interesting or more standard than a bar code, right? Not according to the people at Design Barcode, where the status quo is anything but!Check out these jazzed up bar codes. (click on the images to see a full-size image in a pop up window) Lest you think this is a new idea, apparently Rick Tharp was doing it (see his version) way back in 1986. (Hat tips to Beverly Koehn and Beth Wampler for sharing this Fast Company article on the bar code designs) -
Calling all art directors, designers and logo creators - win $250
13 Nov 2009 | 5:24 amI will try to make this brief. Last spring, I was approached by a company in the UK called Logo Inn who creates logos and identity packages online. They wanted to do a contest, demonstrating their services.So I did a series of posts on logo design and offered one organization a chance to win a free logo....as long as the entire process could unfold here on the blog, so we could all learn from it.The series looked like this:. We talked about 5 tips for designing a new logo Announced the contest and gave the rules Shared a creative brief, with questions you should ask yourself… -
Turn your sales letters into workhorses!
11 Nov 2009 | 10:24 pmNeil Sawers, a 25+ year corporate writing veteran can show you how. In his new book, How to Write Proposals, Sales Letters and Reports, he spells it out in easy to understand, follow and learn examples and guidelines.But don't take my word for it. Listen to what the Midwest Book Review (one of the most respected reviewers out there) had to say:"Examples, recommendations of common tools to organize one’s thoughts, and a sprinkling of solid business advice fill out this superb, easy-to-use guidebook recommended for business writers of all skill and experience… -
5 ways to promote internal training and events
10 Nov 2009 | 11:18 amI had a meeting with a client this morning and one of the topics on the agenda was how could they better promote an internal training event that was optional for the employees.When I asked how they would normally promote it, they said...we'd make up a flier with all the information and attach it to an e-mail. We'd send it out to everyone. We might send it out a couple times or ask their supervisors to also send it out.There's nothing wrong with what they're doing. But, there's not enough right. You've got to toss a lot of messages and media into…
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Logic+Emotion
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Why Serendipity Is Underrated
21 Nov 2009 | 7:03 amA nice reminder from Chris Brogan. I recommend watching the entire talk—it's only 10 minutes. Here's what you need to know: as an observer and active participant of the social web for several years, I've seen the power of serendipity influence how business gets done. Business leads coming in through Twitter because the person inquiring somehow stumbled upon you via the web and after following you for a while, they decided it was time to talk business. It's like life. Some of you reading this right now have done business because you sat next to a person on a plane and struck up a… -
KeepVid: Download videos from Google, Youtube, iFilm, Putfile, Metacafe, DailyMotion! [del.icio.us]
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Tweeting at the Speed of Scale
15 Nov 2009 | 7:59 pmOriginally posted on the CollaboratoryFrom a holistic perspective, we talk about the need for organizations to become more socially calibrated—able to adapt and respond to changes both externally and internally. The three areas where emergent outcomes can manifest are, participation with your customers, collaboration between your employees and optimization in the interactions/transactions between your business and its partners. Digging into customer participation, it’s clear that in a networked economy customers demand engagement, information, support and ultimately, value and ecosystems… -
Overcoming The Obstacles To Social Business
13 Nov 2009 | 8:06 amOriginally published on Harvard BusinessWhile social media often commands favorable media attention, the less often told story is that successful initiatives are rare to come by and that there are still a number of organizational roadblocks that managers need to overcome in order to make progress. Still, we are seeing signs of progress in the form of new efficiencies, more direct ways to connect with customers, and ways to make products and services better. From my experience working and talking with people in large, complex organizations, here are a small sample of obstacles to look for with… -
7 Visualization Groups On Flickr to Find Inspiration | FlowingData [del.icio.us]
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Conversation Agent
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Twitter and Google Reader Aren't at War
20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amThere have been conversations recently about abandoning RSS readers, and specifically Google Reader in favor of using Twitter as a human filter for information. The idea is that if you follow smart people, they read good material and will pass that along to their network - you. Part of me says, maybe. Somehow I think that if you come across a really good post filled with juicy information that will make you look good when you implement it, you'll probably keep that more to yourself. Maybe use it to build on when you write on your own blog. How far off am I? Others, are in favor of continuing… -
What is Your Purpose for Blogging?
19 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amPersonal Branding In A Wired WorldView more presentations from Valeria Maltoni. That is the first thing you need to think about if you're planning to be strategic about your blog. Then, instead of focusing on success, focus on the path that will keep you on purpose. Why? Because success changes and stays in the future - be honest, you keep upping the ante. While the path, part of which is a process that will help you stay productive, is the here and now - the decisions you need to make tonight, every day and every week. Dan Pink quotes the recently departed Russell Ackoff (emphasis… -
Architects, Meet Collier Ward, Content Creator
18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amAs an architect, he writes, I believe that, even in the current economy, there are institutions, firms and individuals which could benefit from professional architectural consulting and design services; even if only to be poised for the next construction cycle.Collier Ward is a member of the architecture and author community - and of this community. He shared his thoughts on the About You page and returns with us for a more in depth conversation__________ Why are you online? Collier: Being online maximizes the number of meaningful connections a person can make. I took the opportunity of being… -
Is Social Media a Marketing Thing?
17 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amIn the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about leveraging content to start or continue a conversation with your customers or prospects. Offering something of value in exchange for attention towards a mutually accepted goal or direction goes to the heart of communications. There is still plenty of unrealized opportunity for B2B companies to unlock this value through social media. That's because the greatest value to the organization that gets involved in social media is not the cool promotional glitz. We talk about customer support regularly. What about customer acquisition and real… -
Customer Contributions Build Preference
16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amDuring our conversation at the Inbound Marketing Summit, we talked about writing engaging content for the next web and the socializing of information. One of the slides in my deck visualized the customer contribution part of content, which we said gives you permission to connect. I stack ranked the ideas in order of complexity - with the simplest being a "like" button.I think many companies are not implementing that on their Web sites because they're somewhat anxious that nobody will like their pages. So why, oh why, is the site still static and displaying the same stale content? What if you…
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Jeremiah Owyang
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Social Technology Impacts Every Customer Touchpoint
20 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pmForbes CMO Network, An Insightful Resource For Marketing Leaders I’m serving CMOs by teaming up with the Forbes as a regular contributor. My goal? To guide marketing leadership on how to leverage disruptive technologies and meet business goals. At a more detailed level, this blog will continue to aim at providing nitty-gritty breakdowns, frameworks, and insights. Use these two resources in tandem to both develop strategies, and then implement best practices across the organization. [Companies Must Develop A Holistic Strategy, As Social Technologies Impact Every Customer Touchpoint]… -
Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies
18 Nov 2009 | 8:44 amAt the Altimeter Group, I cover Customer Strategy, which encompasses not only marketing, but also support, expect our discussion to grow as social technologies impact the whole enterprise. The Social Support movement is afoot (see opportunities), and more companies will be connecting existing marketing and support systems with the social web. Many companies, like Comcast, Wells Fargo, Intel, BestBuy, JetBLue are responding to customers and in some cases, supporting them in near real time. The challenge is that these teams are unable to scale, even a support team of ten full time folks at… -
Breakdown: Lego’s “Digital Box”, an Augmented Reality Kiosk
16 Nov 2009 | 3:51 amAugmented Reality provides brands with an engaging experience that merges both the digital and the real world. This 30 second video shows how a 3D animation on the product box enabled me to understand the assembled product. Lego’s “Digital Box” Provides Customers with an Interactive 3D Digital Experience This weekend, I went to the local Lego store here in Silicon Valley (Hillsdale) to see a practical version of Augmented Reality. I was previously briefed by Metaio, the technology vendor that empowers the software for the Augmented Reality kiosks called, Digital Box. This… -
Personal Goals and #OperationBluewater
15 Nov 2009 | 7:58 amMost people miss out on life because they don’t have a strategy around personal goals. Most Lack a Personal Goal Strategy Let me lay out some the observations I’ve noticed from some of the smartest folks I’ve watched achieve success in their lives. Often they first tell me about the challenges, that most people don’t even have a personal goal strategy. 1) Most people don’t even have personal goals, seriously try it, ask folks you work with: “What’s your personal goal?” 2) Most people think the end goal is a at 65 and do all their… -
Is Your Company Trusted or Do You Have a Digital Comb Over?
13 Nov 2009 | 7:15 amMany companies are entering the social/green/community space, with hopes of impressing customers, yet despite their best intentions, they could come across as inauthentic, and be damaging their own brand. Companies should first take a self-assessment of their brand to see if they’re ready before they decide to enter the social space. Companies should first assess their culture and ask: Is the company ready to talk about the good –and bad– with the market? Is the internal culture ready to embrace customers on their own terms? Is the culture ready to make changes based on…
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Copyblogger
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The Art of the Paragraph
20 Nov 2009 | 6:11 amAnyone can write a paragraph, but not everyone knows how to write one that other people want to read. You’ve seen it: You open a book, and the whole page is one long block of text. Each sentence in the paragraph makes exactly the same point, said in a slightly different way, and you wonder why they didn’t just say it once and be done with it. Every paragraph is the same length (five lines, maybe?), whether it makes sense or not, and it gives the piece a monotonous rhythm. The paragraph makes a point without telling you why that point is important, and you can’t help… -
How to Persuade People to Accept an “Unfair” Offer
19 Nov 2009 | 6:36 amEver heard of Charley Hill? He seemed like an average, ordinary guy. He lived in a mid-sized town with his wife, two children, and a dog. He went to church on Sunday, coached Little League, and drove a pickup truck. He was friendly but quiet, the sort of guy you could walk by on the street without noticing. But appearances can be deceiving. Charley Hill was one of the most successful farm equipment salesmen in the Midwest. People would travel hundreds of miles to see Charley, even when there were plenty of dealers much closer to home. What did Charley have that other salesmen didn’t? Not a… -
Free Report: How to Become a Creative Entrepreneur
18 Nov 2009 | 8:58 amI’ve written another piece of extended content, this time for Lateral Action. Rather than sending you over there, I’ll just tell you about it here. It’s a free 31-page PDF report (don’t worry, it reads fast) called The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. It’s probably the most personal I’ve gotten about my history, but it’s still heavy on actionable, real-life examples. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why I quit my cushy law firm job and turned to online publishing. How I failed miserably. How I then succeeded miserably. How I… -
Landing Page Makeover Clinic #20: TantricSexforBusyCouples.com
17 Nov 2009 | 6:14 amThis is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work. Is it hot in here or just me? Diana Daffner and her husband want to help people find a renewed sense of joy and connection in their intimate relationships through tantra. Their business, IntimacyRetreats.com, offers couples retreats throughout the year, but realizing not everyone can attend a retreat, they also want to promote their books and media products. The URL referenced above is actually the “/shop page” off their main site. Diana would like to use the page as an… -
What I Learned From Writing 42 Guest Posts in 7 Weeks
16 Nov 2009 | 7:12 amBefore you get too impressed, hear this: I did it all in self-defense. Let me give you some quick background. I have extreme Tourette’s Syndrome, as Sonia noticed recently. Tourette’s makes people move or vocalize involuntarily and occasionally results in unspeakable awesomeness. My motor tics range from eye blinking to punching myself in the face to even stranger things. My phonic tics range from clearing my throat to hooting and yowling and snarling and slobbering and screaming like the Tasmanian Devil. Did I mention that I work in a quiet library? There are only a couple of things that…
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Dangerously Irrelevant
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UCEA Week 01: I gave a bad presentation yesterday
19 Nov 2009 | 8:01 amI gave a bad presentation yesterday. It wasn’t bad because I had poor content or delivery. It was a bad presentation because I didn’t sufficiently account for the needs and understandings of my audience. Let me explain… I’m in Anaheim, California for the annual conference of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), which is the primary association for educational leadership faculty members at large research institutions. In other words, UCEA is the organization for professors that prepare school principals and superintendents. I currently serve as UCEA’s… -
"You're fired. I only want people who already know how to do their jobs."
16 Nov 2009 | 3:09 amBack in July I said that I was concerned that we never seem to hold folks accountable for being self-learners. I also noted that In many job sectors, employees are expected to keep up with relevant technologies or risk job loss. When do we require that of K-12 and postsecondary educators? At what point do we say to them “No, we’re not training you how to use this. It’s easy enough for you to learn on your own. And if you don’t, we’ll find someone else who can.” Many of you chimed in and shared your own thoughts on this topic. Apparently, now Dilbert has too: When will we,… -
3 MINUTE SURVEY: Why isn't your school organization making more progress?
13 Nov 2009 | 3:51 amWhy aren’t schools making more progress when it comes to effective implementation and integration of digital technologies? Here’s what K-12 educators usually tell me when asked (list is in no particular order): Lack of adequate funding Unsupportive state / federal legislators Teacher / union resistance Lack of professional development Ineffective leadership Lack of time / space within curriculum Accountability demands of NCLB Parent / community resistance I’m curious about your own situation. So I created a 3–minute survey! Simply click, drag, and drop the items to reorder them. Take… -
The (un)certainty of professional persistence
6 Nov 2009 | 7:13 amThere has been a lot of good discussion on my post about the future of books, libraries, librarians, and schools (thank you, everyone). In addition to the comments on the post itself, there are some excellent thoughts elsewhere as well: Flat World Library Corporation Dangerously irrelevant libraries Ten hard questions Random questions on future libraries by Scott McLeod I was struck, however, by something that Erin Downey said in her own post: What has, does, and will distinguish us from [coffee shops, community centers, and Internet cafes] are LIBRARIANS. Your barista doesn't know… -
Data-driven decision-making resources from CASTLE
4 Nov 2009 | 3:32 amI have done a lot of work over the years on various data-driven decision-making projects. I've taught courses, given workshops, delivered multi-day institutes for state departments of education and corporate partners, and written book chapters and white papers.I collected some of the highlights of that work on my new DDDM page here at Dangerously Irrelevant. Resources include some of the products from my work with Microsoft, the American Psychological Association, the Chicago Public Schools, the Minnesota Department of Education, and others. I hope these are useful to you. Happy reading!
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The Viral Garden
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Social media tool roundup!
18 Nov 2009 | 11:22 amI wanted to share with you a few tools I've come across in the past few weeks that might help you out as well. Over at MackCollier.com I recently did a review of Monitter. Monitter is great for local/retail businesses because it lets you do location-based searches on Twitter! Instead of just monitoring Twitter for relevant terms, think of adding the additional layer of only finding people that are tweeting about those terms, but in a specific zip code! Great way to identify potential customers for a small, local business!Another tool that looks interesting is a blog platform created by… -
Twitter traffic flattening, but Bit.ly surging
11 Nov 2009 | 4:42 pmFor the second straight month, Twitter's traffic has declined, according to Compete. The micro-blogging site had just over 23 million visitors in October after peaking at 23.5 million monthly visitors in August. Now to be fair, Twitter's traffic has only been down fractionally since August, falling only 2.11% since September. But it does indicate that the site meteoric traffic rise is finally leveling off. Twitter's traffic is still up a staggering 577% for the year.Facebook continued to chug right along, growing its traffic by 3.5% in October and posting just under 129 million visitors for… -
Is your blog losing its identity?
11 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am"Individuality is fine, as long as we all do it together." - Major Frank Burns, M*A*S*HIn Google Reader, I get new posts and articles from over 100 blogs and sites every day. I get dozens of shared items well. For the past few months I've noticed that the majority of the posts fall into two categories:1 - They are 'Guide/How-to/Steps-to' posts. Here's the formula: The (Celebrity/Fictional character) Guide to Better/More Effective (blogging/tweeting/etc). Or "X Steps to Better (social media term)".2 - Echo posts. It seems like every couple of weeks, a blogger (usually a popular one) will hit… -
#blogchat update and how you can be involved!
7 Nov 2009 | 6:09 amAs many of you know, for several months now we've been meeting on Twitter every Sunday nite at 8pm CT for #blogchat. This is where we discuss various topics concerning blogs and sometimes other forms of social media.The chat has become very popular (thanks to you!), and that's gotten me to thinking about how that popularity can relate to this post on how we need to find ways to focus on new voices.You see, one of the things that's been sorely missing from #blogchat is someone that can do a recap of each week's chat. I simply don't have the time, and it's really tough for any one person to… -
Stop asking the wrong blogging questions
2 Nov 2009 | 6:47 amWhether you are a new or seasoned blogger, many of you likely have many of the same questions:"How do I get more readers?""How do I get more comments on my posts?""What about blog subscribers? How do I get more of them?""How can I use Twitter to drive more traffic back to my blog? Or Facebook, or Friendfeed?"Notice that all of these questions are focused on YOU, the blogger. How YOU can get something.What if you instead asked this question: "What superpower will I give my readers?"I'm totally channeling Kathy Sierra here, but think of your blog as a telephone booth, and your reader is Clark…
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Moving at the Speed of Creativity
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Oklahoma Bears, Tar Pits, Mountains, Girls Circles, and Marriages of 70+ years
20 Nov 2009 | 6:31 amCross-posted to the Storychasers blog. This week Oklahoma educators participated in our 29th “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” workshop since 2008, and created some fantastic digital stories about the history, geography, and people of our great state. Did you know Oklahoma is home to a growing black bear population and just had its first open hunting season for bears this year? Brad Hill used photos from his own game camera to create the 1 min, 17 second video, “Bears of Leflore County.” Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices! When you think of tar pits, you… -
Thoughtful teachers need to engage students collaboratively across the web
18 Nov 2009 | 6:31 pmThis is an excellent thirteen minute video of ideas from Alan November about transforming our schools into the learning spaces we need in the 21st century. Find more videos like this on NL Connect Among many things, Alan says: We need to redefine learners as contributors. This requires a fundamental shift in our thinking about schools. The toughest part is not teaching teachers to use technology… What I can’t do in an afternoon is help people become comfortable with shifting control… Global communicator, global researcher, tool builder, and internal collaborator (with Google… -
K12Online09 LAN Party #3 Tonight! (22:30GMT/ 3:30pmPST/ 4:30pmMST/ 5:30pmCST/ 6:30pmEST)
18 Nov 2009 | 2:02 pmPlease join educators worldwide TONIGHT/TODAY on November 18, 2009 at 22:30GMT/ 3:30pmPST/ 4:30pmMST/ 5:30pmCST/ 6:30pmEST for a live event of the 2009 K12Online Conference On November 18, the K12Online Conference is hosting a LAN party from 6:30PM to 8:30PM EST. We invite everyone to gather at the LAN party site with colleagues in order to view two past conference presentations and then engage in lively discussions in the EdTechTalk chatroom. The following presenters will be in attendance. 6:30 – 7:15pm Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds – Panel Kevin Jarrett… -
We must re-imagine our school cultures and end the madness of high stakes testing / standards-based reform
18 Nov 2009 | 12:50 pmGreg Thompson in his post, “The Landscape of Educational Culture” has it right. We must re-imagine our schools and end the madness of high stakes testing as well as “standards-based” educational reform. He writes: We can’t have both. We can’t create a thriving, innovative, creative, vibrant learning environment and pair it with common standards supported by textbooks and assessed by standardized tests. The two ideas are diametrically opposed. To waste time and money attempting to force these two into a relationship would be as futile as Romeo and Juliet’s parents… -
Google Buys Gizmo5: More VoIP calling and videoconferencing power headed our way soon
17 Nov 2009 | 9:46 pmLast week Tom Krazit reported for CNET that Google has confirmed its purchase of Gizmo5. This was confirmed on the official Google Voice blog the same day. The old Gizmo Project website (www.gizmoproject.com) now directs to Google (www.google.com/gizmo5) and new memberships have been temporarily suspended. According to Tom’s article: Gizmo5 is a Web-based VoIP client that lets you make phone calls over the Internet, similar to programs like Skype. It’s based, however, on an open standard called SIP that fits a little better into Google’s worldview, rather than Skype’s…
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How to Change the World
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The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read
6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pmInc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop. -
How to Get Found
4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pmThe reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff. -
How I tweet
2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 amBy popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices. -
Current Twitter Demo Script
28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 amThis is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this. -
How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness
26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pmOver at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.
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Presentation Zen
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Using Kuler to create color themes
1 Nov 2009 | 5:21 amAlthough scores of good books on color theory have been written — many even for non-designers — most working professionals just do not have the time to delve deeply into a study of the complexities of using color. The good news is that there are online resources that can help you create harmonious color themes without requiring advance knowledge in color theory. There are a few really good online resources such as ColorSchemer and Colourlovers, but my personal favorite is Kuler. Kuler is a web-based color tool from Adobe that has thousands of community-generated color themes from which… -
Presentación Zen: Por fin! La versión en español ya está disponible
28 Oct 2009 | 10:04 pmI'm happy to announce that the Presentation Zen book is finally available in Spanish. The book follows the same design and layout as the original English version. Spanish was the most requested translation so we're delighted that it is finally on sale. I'm not sure exactly where you can get the book in your area, but here is info on the Pearson Educación website. Above: A photo of the front and back covers.The Presentation Zen DVD on Amazon and elsewhere also includes Spanish (and Japanese and English) subtitles. Thanks to everyone at Pearson for their hard work and to everyone across the… -
The art of control without controlling, doing without doing
26 Oct 2009 | 3:01 amAs a leader — in business, education, or design — how much control do you need? How much can you give up? Is control even the right word? Is it possible to lead without leading? Here is a great TED talk that will get you thinking that has applications for leaders of all types. Former conductor Itay Talgam today runs workshops to help people develop a musician's sense of collaboration, and a conductor's sense of leadership. In this excellent talk at TED Oxford, Itay touches on the art of creating perfect harmony without saying a word by showing the unique styles of six great 20th-century… -
Tokonoma and the art of the focal point
20 Oct 2009 | 7:14 amEvery good design needs a focal point. This goes for the design of interior living spaces as well. In many Western homes, the mantel place in the living room is often a focal point from which other interior design elements are added in a more or less symmetrical fashion. In traditional Japanese homes or modern homes containing a washitsu (Japanese-style room) it is the Tokonoma (床の間) that serves as the subtle focal point for the interior. The tokonoma (lit: floor/bed + space) is a raised alcove in which Japanese art such as a hanging scroll (Kakemono) or a flower arrangement is… -
Sumi-e, color, and the art of less
5 Oct 2009 | 11:00 pmA fundamental design and life lesson from the Zen arts is to never use more when less will do. This goes for the use of color as well. The problem with most slide presentations is not that visuals contain too few colors, it's that they contain too many. A common practice is to use several different vivid hues (colors) in presentation slides when even a single hue in various shades or tints would have been more effective. The ancient art of Japanese brush painting called Sumi-e (墨絵) provides a powerful lesson concerning the use of color, communication, and restraints. Sumi-e was brought to…
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Micro Persuasion
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The Apple "Tablet" and Chrome OS are Meaningless - the Phone is the Future of Computing
19 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pmIf you're paying any attention to the techosphere today there are two stories dominating the headlines. Both involve non-shipping products. First, Google showed off the first demo of its Chrome OS. Download Squad does a nice job breaking it down.... "So what exactly is Chrome OS? It's an operating system based on a web browser called... Google Chrome. The idea is that you won't have to (or be able to) install a single application directly on your PC. Rather, all of your apps will be run from the web and all of your data will be stored in the cloud." Second, a mythical unicorn called the Apple… -
Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History
17 Nov 2009 | 6:43 pmEarlier this week Oxford University Press declared "unfriend" its word of the year. This got me thinking... now that we are entering an era of media reforestation what common phrases could soon be history? Here's 10 that I came up with. You may disagree but I believe all of these have faded or will be gone soon. (All images are from Flickr via Creative Commons and are credited.) Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Google Fast Flip Nearing Launch?
15 Nov 2009 | 4:29 pmGoogle Fast Flip appears to be nearing a full integration into Google News. I wasn't able to replicate this in other browsers so right now this appears to just be a cookie test. Stories from Google Fast Flip started appearing at the bottom of my page - even when I logged out of my account. In addition, Google News searches now show links to Fast Flip results at the bottom of the page. This is visible to all users. Update 11/16/2009 - Chris from Google News notes in a comment below that this is indeed a test. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Reviews Stripped from Google Search Options
15 Nov 2009 | 3:13 amI make heavy use of Google Search options in refining my queries. I was surprised this morning to see that the "reviews" option is now gone. This was one of the more handy features. Anyone have any insight here? Search Options before (image via Search Engine Land). Note under that "Reviews" is the last link under "All Results." And now today... Permalink | Leave a comment » -
The Next Big Trend? It's All About Curation
13 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pmFact: Information sources are exploding. More information will be created in 2009 than all prior years. Fact: Attention is finite. We're becoming media agnostic, but when we're interested in something we dig down into our interests. This is why I and others like Robert Scoble are really excited about digital curation. Facebook and Twitter lists are one level of curation. However, there are others. Posterous and Tumblr are fantastic platforms for soliciting contributions from groups of people around a shared interest. And they're platforms that will enable all of us to curate together. Here…
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Meryl's Notes at meryl.net
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Links: One Week until Black Friday 2009 Edition
20 Nov 2009 | 11:45 amCongratulations to Dawn Herring for winning The Last Will of Moira Leahy! Never fear… Thirsty is still up for the winnin’. Also, please vote for your top 25 books on writing. Articles full of brain goodness… Oxford Word of the Year: 2009: I had to unfriend someone on Facebook who abused the “Join this Page” button. Other terms listed include hashtag, sexting and Obamaisms. Copyright Essentials for Writers: It does matter. For example, if a pub puts your article into a book, you could get paid for that — but not if you sell all rights [Link: Jessica… -
11 Reasons Why People Don’t Follow Back on Twitter
19 Nov 2009 | 7:38 amImage from Twitlogo.com You do everything right in Twitter. So why are some people not following you back? It’s not you. (Well, maybe in the rare situation when someone truly doesn’t like you. Even the nicest people don’t have a fan in a person or two.) Doing Twitter right means you … Mix up your tweets (retweets, replies, original messages and links). Take care in promoting your own stuff. Don’t spam. Have a nice follower and following ratio. Share insights. Spotlight others in a genuine way. Have a complete profile that includes a bio, avatar, link and… -
Congratulations! You’re a Mom and an Author!
18 Nov 2009 | 5:23 amWelcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas. We’re honored to be a stop in Kristin Bair O’Keeffe’s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour. I first met Kristin through Christina Katz. Since then, I’ve read her book, exchanged a few tweets and emails and absorbed her column in Writers on the Rise. (Stay tuned in this post if ya wanna win this book!) About Kristin Bair O’Keeffe Kristin Bair O’Keeffe is the author of Thirsty and an American who lives in Shanghai, China. She is also a voracious reader, a happy… -
Game du Jour: Week of 15 November 2009
15 Nov 2009 | 5:56 amThe following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games: Sun. November 15th: 60% off on Zombie Bowl-O-Rama Mon. November 16th: 50% off on Party Planner Tue. November 17th: 50% off on Imperial City: The Crown of the King Wed. November 18th: 50% off on Hexagonal Chess Thu. November 19th: 50% off on Byzantine Circular Chess Fri. November 20th: 50% off on Jack’s Home Sat. November 21st: 65% off on Gardenscapes -
Links: Veterans Day 2009 Edition
13 Nov 2009 | 6:53 amMeryl's dad in USAF: Yes, that's a ciggie. He quit smoking not long after. Thanks to veterans everywhere for defending our country at all costs. Two of the most important men in my life served in the USAF: My dad and my husband. Also, thanks to the brave soldiers at Fort Hood who put their lives on the line to capture the shooter. Win Therese Walsh’s captivating novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, and Vote for your top 25 books on writing… Articles full of brain goodness… The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening: I love the examples shared in this…
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Chris Brogan
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The Serendipity Engine – Web 2 Expo Speech
20 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pmThis is my favorite keynote speech yet. It’s just 10 minutes long, and I feel pretty good about it. You’ll recognize bits of my storytelling from the last several conferences tucked into here in a new way, I hope. Enjoy this video. (Can’t see it? Click here) -
How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Media
20 Nov 2009 | 5:33 amHow much time should you spend on social media? In some ways, the answer is: “how long is a piece of string?” And yet, you can set up some simple guidelines. They might be a bit different than you think. By the way, I’m writing these from a business perspective, but remember that I think of religion and nonprofits and all kinds of other applications as business-related, too. Here’s how I look at it: Social Media Time Management The way I’d do it is to break it up into 4 chunks, and then you decide the amount of hours to devote (2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST… -
Start a Moving Business – Overnight Success
18 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pmIn this episode of the Overnight Success series, I’ve got an idea about what makes one successful: moving. But it’s not what you think. If you can’t see the video, click here. What do you think? -
Stop Humping My Leg
18 Nov 2009 | 9:13 amDear people trying to sell me on something new: stop humping my leg. You know what I mean. You’ve seen dogs do this, right? That’s what it feels like when you jump on me breathlessly to share your new product or service when you don’t really much know whether I’m the right guy for your services. I was recently leg-humped at Web 2.0 Expo, by someone I like, and who I think is smart and has a lot of good potential. The thing is, I politely declined a demo, and he persisted. Immediately, I shifted to my back foot. I felt defensive. I rolled up my interest and tucked it… -
Prioritize Your Social Media Efforts
17 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThere aren’t enough hours in the day for all the chores that social media puts in front of us. The best writing I’ve found on how to manage your time in social media is via Amber Naslund’s social media time management series. Her efforts in crafting this should become a little ebook that you hand around to everyone. If you skipped over that link, go back, click it to open a new tab/window, and then read it when you’re done with this (or skip mine and read Amber’s- it’s that good). If you’re still with me, here’s what I want to say on the matter.
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Seth's Blog
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Benefit of the doubt
21 Nov 2009 | 2:11 amIt's almost impossible to communicate something clearly and succinctly to everyone, all the time.So misunderstandings occur.We misunderstand a comment or a gesture or a policy or a contract.And then what happens?Well, if we're engaged with someone we like or trust, we give them the benefit of the doubt. We either assume that what they actually meant was the thing we expected from someone like them, or we ask about it.If we're engaged with a stranger or someone we don't trust, we assume the worst.The challenge, then, is to earn the benefit of the doubt. How many of your customers, prospects,… -
The amateur scientist (that's us)
20 Nov 2009 | 2:41 amMany people buy a car (probably their single biggest discretionary purchase) based on slamming a door, kicking a tire and judging the handshake of a salesperson.We choose a surgeon based on the carpeting in his office and a politician by his hair cut.During the first week of swine flu vaccines in New York, most parents (more than half!) chose to keep their kids out of the program.Interviewed parents said things like, "I'm not sure it's safe," and "I wanted to see if it affected other kids..."No mention of longitudinal studies or long-term side effects. No science at all, really, just rumors… -
Embracing lifetime value
19 Nov 2009 | 2:46 amIf you walk into a company-owned cell phone store to sign up for a contract, what are you worth?Given the huge gross margins at AT&T and Verizon and the standard two-year contract, I think it's easy to figure on more than $2000 in lifetime value.If you ran a business where a customer represented an additional $2,000 in profit, how would you staff? How long would you make someone wait? If staff costs $25 an hour, how long would that extra person take to pay off?Few businesses understand (really understand) just how much a customer is worth. Add to this the additional profit you get from a… -
Some books for November
18 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmRandom thoughts from all over for those of us hungry for new ways to think. This month's list is here. The previous list was blogged in September. -
The reason they want you to fit in...
18 Nov 2009 | 2:03 amis that once you do, then they can ignore you.
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ReadWriteWeb
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Weekly Wrapup: Google Chrome OS, Obama's Twitter, Blogging Statistics, And More...
21 Nov 2009 | 5:00 amIn this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we report on President Obama's (non)-use of Twitter, take a look at the past decade in the media industry, review the latest statistics about blogging, question if Oxford Dictionary should've chosen "unfriend" as its word of the year, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs). Sponsor Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup You can subscribe to the… -
3 Great Light Blogging Tools Compared
20 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pmOnce the service for those serious enough to pay for the privilege to post, TypePad recently released a free "Micro" service. The company made the decision to offer a free product realizing the demand for a platform more formal than Twitter and less formal than Wordpress or Typepad's original product. ReadWriteWeb compared TypePad's Micro against 2 other leading light blogging tools. Below are our thoughts: Sponsor TypePad Micro: In addition to being able to blog via email, iPhone app, "Blog It" bookmarklet and the general WYSIWYG dashboard, this tool also allows users to cross post to… -
An iPhone Visualization App That Syncs with the Cloud
20 Nov 2009 | 3:50 pmRoambi announced a pro version of its iPhone application this week that syncs with Salesforce.com and other cloud-based services or on-premsie sales environments. It's a visualization application, providing mobile workers with a pretty cool way to see sales information. Integration is by far one of the most significant trends we are seeing in the enterprise space. It's a wave, really, marked this week by Salesforce.com and its move to turn the Force.com development platform into a service that makes all of its applications social. Sponsor A good example of this trend are small companies like… -
8tracks to Launch Playback API and Developer Program
20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmIt appears that the time for freemium music services in the US has passed. Earlier this week streaming music site Imeem sold to MySpace for under $10 million dollars while laying off a large number of staff. For a company with all four major record labels signed, more than 15 million uniques a month and well over 5 million tracks in its catalogue, it came as a sobering blow to the industry. While many companies move to a subscription model, 8tracks continues to forge along in what some describe as a convenient loophole. As of this weekend the company is publicly launching its API for Boston's… -
Memento: Protocol-Based Time Travel for the Web
20 Nov 2009 | 11:45 amThe Web constantly changes and evolves. That, of course, is what makes the Internet so exciting, but it also means that finding older versions of a website is hard. The current push towards the real-time web is making this problem even more apparent. Memento, a project based at Old Dominion University, wants to make it easier to access older versions of a web page without having to go to the Internet Archive. To do this, the project is using a relatively obscure feature of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Sponsor The Memento project wants to give browsers a 'time-travel' mode.
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dy/dan
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What Can You Do With This: Dan & Chris
19 Nov 2009 | 11:29 pm[click everything to enlarge] The last few weeks have been pretty profoundly discouraging on all three of my professional fronts. I'm sure it's just the ebb tide of education but it's worth mentioning that I'm specifically losing my mind over this WCYDWT thing, which is just a thing and may be much less than that, some form of digital wankery, I don't know. It's like when you were a kid and you whispered the word "football" over and over again until the compound word separated and both parts seemed weird and meaningless all at once, that's something like giving three conference sessions on… -
Weekend Reading: Crisis, Questions, College, Post-Its
14 Nov 2009 | 11:55 pm1. Ben Blum-Smith inspires a new anti-jargon edu-slogan: … what happens is that when kids reach a point in their mathematical education where they are asked to prove things, they find that they have no idea how to accomplish what is being asked of them, and that they don’t really get why they’re being asked to do it in the first place. The way out of this is to give them a crisis. We need to give them problems where the obvious pattern is not the real pattern. What you see is not the whole story! Then, there is a reason to prove something. Create crisis. I have become convinced,… -
The Blue Students
10 Nov 2009 | 10:22 pmThese are my people, my students this year. They're averaging just a bit above a 1.5 GPA. I tried to graft a structure onto this post but nothing stuck. Topical bullet points from the failed drafts: a description of what happens to the blue students next, of their regrettable slides further leftward and their occasional, triumphant slides rightward. tortured musings about correlation and causation. (ie. "if I take some credit for their progress, must I then accept some blame for dot dot dot et cetera.") a description of effective motivators for my blue students, none of which include teacher… -
Good Morning America
8 Nov 2009 | 2:55 pmI was on Good Morning America yesterday, one third of a segment called "The Art of Beating Long Lines." Click through to view embedded content. -
Clever Hans
7 Nov 2009 | 4:17 pmBen Blum-Smith: Take-home lesson: never underestimate your ability to fool yourself into believing your students understand something when really what they are doing is watching you. To force them to engage the material it is often necessary to restrict their access to you or systematically confound the signals they get from you. I think this is a central issue for modern math teachers. We need to explicitly develop ways of question-posing and interacting with our classes and individual students that hide or disguise our intentions for how they are supposed to respond. This needs to be part…
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Drape's Takes
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Those Content To Lurk
14 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amI've added a comment to my recent post about online participation (or lack thereof) that deserves a little focus time on the stage:Upon thinking further about this topic, I've decided to add a few important words to my second category of educator. Originally it read:2. Those content to lurk but still hesitant to contribute.I've edited it to read:2. Those content to lurk but still hesitant (or unable, for whatever reason) to contribute.The fact of the matter is that there exist a very large number of effective educators that are simply not able to contribute in any significantly recurrent… -
Smart Rooms
11 Nov 2009 | 8:53 pmDave Weinberger was right: The smartest person in the room, IS the room. -
Librarians: The Three Types I Still See
10 Nov 2009 | 5:04 pmOne week later, and I'll admit: I'm concerned.Scott McCleod has posted a list of ten incredibly important and equally complex questions about books, libraries, librarians, and schools.Doug Johnson has begun to react to Scott's questions, by stepping back as a (very good) librarian himself and challenging his peers to step up to the plate....how we respond to folks like Scott says a lot about us. Can we explain our values and mission and realities without sounding defensive, self-serving or reactionary? Read the responses to Scott's post, put on your classroom teacher, principal, or parent hat… -
Why I Share
20 Jul 2009 | 6:59 pmDavid Wiley:For me, for my students, and for the informal students who looked in on or participated in the course outside my university, this “open teaching” was better than a two-for-one. It was a thousand-for-one. When the costs of “open teaching” (freely allowing people outside the university to view course materials and informally participate in the course) are so low, I ask myself a question. Do we professors, who live rather privileged lives relative to the vast majority of the planet’s population, have a moral obligation to make our teaching efforts as broadly impactful as… -
Formally Learning Informally
27 Jun 2009 | 7:15 pmWe have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth of a new world is at hand.Thomas Paine, February 14, 1776In reflecting over today's version of EduBloggerCon, I'm struck by how important informal learning is to the educational experience of people - regardless of age, race, and socioeconomic status. Strange that it took an EduBloggerCon to help me see it.Nonetheless, today's didactic experience - for me - was a very good one (and it wasn't because of the "sessions"). Rather, the…
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Fred Wilson
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Protecting Business
21 Nov 2009 | 6:30 amI went down to city hall yesterday to participate in a hearing on net neutrality. I realize the NYC city council has no oversight on this issue but the lobbyists were coming out in force so I figured I might as well show up too. They were live streaming the event. My testimony is about 26 minutes into that stream. But this post is not about net neutrality. It's about an issue that came up during the questioning. A councilmember mentioned the idea that we should help infrastructure providers protect their businesses. I am all in favor of the survival instinct in the marketplace. All companies… -
The Story Of My Avatar
20 Nov 2009 | 2:39 amI saw this tweet when I got up this morning:hey @fredwilson - whats the story behind ur avatar? While longtime readers know it, I figure many of you don't. So here it goes. Starting about four years ago, Howard Lindzon started commenting actively on this blog. He was funny, he was smart, and I enjoyed our banter in the comments. One march vacation, our family made a short stop in Phoenix, where Howard used to live. He emailed me and offered my son and me two tickets to the Suns game. We took him up on that and that's how we met for the first time. It turned out Howard was hatching an idea… -
Anatomy Of A Big Day On AVC
19 Nov 2009 | 2:30 amI generally take a quick run through audience stats every morning. I saw this chart and thought "hmm, big day yesterday, why is that?" So I went to google analytics, which confirmed the big day.And then I went to the makeup of the traffic:Like most big days on AVC, it was referring traffic that caused the bump. Search and direct traffic are very consistent at about 2,500 visits per day. But referring traffic can be as little as 1,000 visits on a slow day or as much as 5,000 visits or more on a big day. Yesterday was such a day.Here's where it came from yesterday: The twitter traffic is… -
Ten Meetings Per Day
18 Nov 2009 | 3:45 amI was explaining how I go about finding deals yesterday to a friend of mine and I thought I ought to explain it to everyone.I write this blog. It's like a broadcast channel of "what is interesting to me." I market it every way I know how and I get somewhere between 70k to 100k unique readers of it every month between web, rss, and mobile.As a result, I figure entrepreneurs and others have a pretty good idea of what I want to see and what I don't. And I believe they can self select. And for the most part, they do a great job of that.Given that dynamic, I take meetings, as many as I can. I went… -
APIs In The Late Afternoon
17 Nov 2009 | 3:06 amAfter our weekly team meeting yesterday afternoon, I hopped into a cab to the far west side of manhattan to attend the Business of APIs conference. In the cab, I opened socialscope on my blackberry to check into twitter and saw this tweet from my partner Albert:Love APIs -- so excited about @foursquare's announcement http://bit.ly/1Zswju As I sat down with Quentin Hardy to talk about APIs, I wasn't sure where the conversation would go. Fortunately Quentin is a good interviewer and we had a great chat. We talked a bit about the foursquare api, and I mentioned that I am most excited about cool…
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Teach42
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Mobiles to Help Learning? High School in UK says OK
25 Oct 2009 | 10:30 amImage via Wikipedia Via @TerryFreedman: Looks like Notre Dame high school in the UK is taking the bull by the horns and moving forward with an initiative to allow the use of mobile phones for educational purposes during class time. Assistant headteacher Paul Haigh said mobiles, MP3 players and gaming devices were “untapped resources” for teaching and learning. “We realise as a comprehensive state school we could never afford to buy every student all the IT and mobile devices we would like them to have. He added: “But most students own many of these devices anyway… -
If you Tweet, will anybody hear it?
20 Oct 2009 | 10:10 amImage via Wikipedia I think that many people (myself included) that share sites like Twitter at conferences inadvertently do our attendees a disservice. In the effort of attempting to demonstrate how wonderful, simple, powerful and dynamic it is, we make it seem much more effortless than it really is. For example… How many times per day do you see somebody say, “Give a shout out to the people in Nepal who are attending my presentation about social networks about using the Luge to teach physics!” And then 30-40 people reply with a hearty “Hello”. So attendees… -
Ted Talks… for Kids
13 Oct 2009 | 8:01 amLooks like TEDxSMU has organized the first ever Ted Talks for kids. TedxKids was the first of its kind and invited local students to share their thoughts in the TED format, as well as attend presentations. The organize of the conference had this to say: “It’s important to get kids interested at an early age and one of the hopes is that TEDxKids will be a meaningful experience for both us and other kids.” The event was a couple of days ago and as of now, there haven’t been any videos released from it, but I did find this blog post mentioning it. On Friday, the TEDxSMU team also… -
WAVE to the ITEC conference
12 Oct 2009 | 7:57 amNot sure if this is going to work, but going to try to embed in a Google Wave for following the ITEC conference. Unfortunately, yes you do need to already have a Wave account to see it, but them’s the breaks. Looks like it works! If you can’t see it, I apologize. But these are the eggs we’re cracking to learn how to make an omlette! -
CDWG presents: Dembo and Davidson on Web 2.0
9 Oct 2009 | 9:53 amSpeaking of tools (no pun intended), Hall and I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Discovery’s green screen studio recently to create a series of videos focusing on Web 2.0. They’ve been released as part of CDWG’s Conquering Technophobia mini-site, which has the videos we created as well as a slew of resources for teachers who are looking to learn more about new technologies. I have to admit, we had an absolute blast creating these. Hall is a creative genius and really had some wonderful vision for how to make these fun yet informative. We broke Web 2.0 down into 6…
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Free Technology for Teachers
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New Moon on Shmoop
21 Nov 2009 | 5:32 amIn case you haven't heard, Stephenie Meyer's New Moon has been released as a new movie. Meyer's books are widely popular with teenage girls (boys read it too, but in much smaller numbers). So if you work in a high school or middle school setting you probably have students who have raved about the book and or went out late Thursday night to see a midnight showing of the New Moon movie. However, if you haven't had time or desire to read the book, you probably don't know what all the fuss is about. Fortunately, Shmoop has made it easy for those of us who haven't read New Moon to quickly figure… -
Weekend Workshop - Make a Wiimote Whiteboard
20 Nov 2009 | 1:47 pmIf you would like to have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom, but your school can't afford one of the commercial offerings (those things are wicked expensive) don't despair because there is a very affordable alternative. Nintendo's Wii remote can be used to create an interactive whiteboard. The first time I saw a Wiimote Whiteboard was in a TED Talk given by Johnny Lee. The videos and links below will provide you with what you need to know to build your own Wiimote Interactive Whiteboard.Here's Johnny Lee introducing the Wiimote Whiteboard at TED.Here's Johnny Lee showing you how to… -
Week In Review - The Most Popular Items
20 Nov 2009 | 12:55 pmLast week when I wrote the Week in Review post I said that I was looking forward to watching the Celtics beat the Hawks. The Celtics are playing again tonight, but I'm not making any predictions for fear of jinxing them again.As I do each Friday, I've compiled a list of seven most popular items of the last week. If you've been busy and not able to keep up with your RSS reader or email, the week in review provides a good chance to catch up on the posts that were most popular with other readers.Here are the seven most popular items in the last seven days:1. 6 Ways for Students To Publish Their… -
The How-to Series
20 Nov 2009 | 8:50 amBack in August I ran a series of five how-to posts. Those posts gave directions on how to use six Web 2.0 tools that can be used in any classroom. Because that series ran in the summer, a lot of teachers may have missed it. Therefore, I've put those posts in the list below.1. Using Wikispaces2. Setting Up a Blog (directions for Blogger, WordPress, and Edublogs)3. Drop.io - Easy Media Sharing (1o Things You Can Do With Drop.io) 4. Building a Classroom Website (Using Yola)5. Using Animoto and VoiceThread -
Curt Bonk's Flat Classroom Keynote
20 Nov 2009 | 5:54 amI've mentioned how much I like Professor Curtis Bonk's new book The World Is Open a couple of times in the past. You can read those posts here and here. Today, on YouTube I found a video of Curt Bonk in which he gives a quick and entertaining overview of the concepts and people discussed in his book. If you've been considering purchasing his book, watch this video and decide for yourself if you want to read the book. After watching the video I think you will want to read it.FTC Disclosure: I did receive a free copy of Professor Bonk's book "The World Is Open" and a copy of his book…
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Teaching That Sticks
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Class Tools
11 Nov 2009 | 7:08 pmJust this morning I had an excellent experience using an exciting interactive site called Class Tools which allows you to create games, activities, and diagrams in Flash (without knowing a thing about Flash!).While covering an eighth grade social studies class, I informed students that they would be creating review games for an upcoming test. They were less than enthusiastic (and those of you who are familiar with the typical enthusiasm level of eighth graders will know that causing them to be even less excited was something of a real feat).Hoping to rescue the moment, I asked if some of them… -
Multiplicational
1 Nov 2009 | 7:30 amYou've probably seen this before, but it's new to me! While some math teachers might think it's gimmicky, I think a great exercise for students when confronted with any gimmick is to figure out how it works. And, does it always work?Multiplicational. @ Yahoo! Video -
Questionaut: Out of This World Game
30 Oct 2009 | 7:54 amTucked away in the BBC Bitesize KS2 Games section is a quirky little game called Questionaut. It has no flashy intro and no instructions, and that's precisely the way its creator intends it.Questionaut begins with a placid enough scene: a strangely hairy, organic shape floats freely in space, accompanied by some funky synth music. A fish jumps in a pond, a creature sitting in a tree weaves a basket, and a small blue figure wearing pilot's cap and goggles dangles his foot over the pond. But nothing happens. So instinctively, the user moves the cursor about, looking for some clues. When placed… -
What Student Writing Teaches Us: The Blog Tour
29 Jun 2009 | 5:17 pmToday I have the pleasure of hosting Mark Overmeyer's Blog Tour for his Stenhouse publication What Student Writing Teaches Us. This fabulous new book (see my full review in the post below) answers many of the questions teachers have about using formative assessments to improve student writing. I also challenged readers of this blog to send in questions for the author which might not have been addressed in the book.(For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, you'll find the full book online at the Stenhouse site).I was surprised at the in-depth responses Mark provided for the questions… -
What Student Writing Teaches Us
5 Jun 2009 | 7:01 pmWhen conducting my How to Teach a Novel workshop, I’m frequently asked how to best assess reading. I’ve recently noticed, however, that participants ask just as many questions about assessing student writing. For that reason alone, I’m pleased to participate in the Blog Tour for Mark Overmeyer and his Stenhouse publication What Student Writing Teaches Us. This extremely practical yet highly informed book answers many of the questions I’ve asked myself over the past 20 years, or heard from my colleagues in teacher workshops.Prior to Mark’s visit here on June 29th, I encourage you to…
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Brand Autopsy
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File Under: MISSED OPPORTUNITY
17 Nov 2009 | 6:23 amSomething doesn’t make sense with this poster ad on the DFW Airport skylink tram. Do you see what I saw? If I’m advertising a “treat yourself” occasion at the airport during the hullabaloo of holiday travel, I’m choosing something more treat worthy than a low-fat soft pretzel. There are lots of "treat yourself" opportunities at DFW Airport that out indulge a basic pretzel. -
Beloved Companies Make The Right Decisions
11 Nov 2009 | 2:22 pmAs a customer loyalty-focused marketer, Jeanne Bliss has been in the marketing game with some notable brands: Lands’ End, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Microsoft, and Mazda. She has seen how making the wrong decisions can lead to forging customer disloyalty and how making the right decisions lead to fostering customer loyalty. I’ve known Jeanne for a couple years. Smart gal. And her latest book, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY DOG, is a smart read for businesses wanting to earn loyalty from customers. (Since Jeanne is a friend, she gave me a copy to read. Friends are nice that way. Thanks Jeanne.)… -
Business Lessons from a Soda Jerk
8 Nov 2009 | 11:45 amJohn Nese is a modern day soda jerk. He’s passionate about “flavored water with a lot bubbles.” Soda makes him smile, makes him happy. He’s the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. His store sells about 500 different sodas from small, independent-run soda makers. His business is a prototypical purple cow, worthy of word-of-mouth. Watching the video below will not only make us smile and happy, it will make us smarter about business strategy and jealous we don’t have the same passion for what we do that John Nese does. We’ll become smarter because we’ll see… -
No More Starbucks Gold
6 Nov 2009 | 8:04 amLots of chatter online about the revamped Starbucks “rewards” program. Starbucks will discontinue its Gold Card program it began a year ago. The Starbucks Gold Card program was designed like many membership rewards program where customers pay a yearly $25 fee and in return they receive free refills on brewed coffee, free wi-fi access, and 10% off on all purchases. Beginning December 26, Starbucks will replace its Gold Card program with a "My Starbucks Rewards" program offering customers a free beverage after 15 purchases. (There are a few other small perks in this program but it's… -
WOMMA's Creating Talkable Brands Conference
31 Oct 2009 | 5:01 am*** My WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. It’s a few weeks until WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands Conference (Nov. 18 – 20, Las Vegas). Sign-ups have been strong. And for good reason — the agenda is strong. There are over 40 sessions with 4 learning tracks and 4 keynotes addresses (.pdf agenda). For each of the breakout sessions, WOMMA is pairing up a Brand with an Agency. So you’ll hear both perspectives, the brand-side and the agency-side, in each breakout. To help make sense out of the packed agenda, I’ve been sharing highlights from Day 1 and Day 2 on the ALL THINGS WOM…
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PR, Social Media, and Marketing Mentor ?
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2009 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Submission Deadline Extended to Thursday, September 10th
Each year, the Society for New Communications Research presents the prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. The deadline for application submissions for this year's awards has been extended from September 7th to Thursday, September 10, 2009, to allow applicants who are away for Labor Day Weekend to finish and ... -
Some Social Media Humor for Summer Vacation…
Occasionally in social media training, some humor is called for, and The Onion Newsfeed video clip above takes on the big issue of search engine privacy rights—specifically, while using the ubiquitous Google—and gives us a tour of "Google's Opt-Out Privacy Village." And then, there's this HubSpot spoof on Twitter ... -
Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — Where is the Web Going, and What is the Semantic Web?
Sometimes, the best way to learn about something is without using words. Here's a creative example of a video explaining the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0, by the clever Not in Words producers: Now, back to words and some basic drawings, as we move on to Web 3.0 and beyond. ... -
Join us at NewComm Forum and Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco!
The 5th Annual New Communications Forum April 27th - 29th, 2009 The Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, California I just wanted you to know that there are still a few seats available for next week's NewComm Forum 2009. Don't miss this special opportunity to participate in a highly-interactive, exclusive gathering of the most notable ... -
Flutter
OK, I haven't posted here for a while, due to being SO busy, I've barely had time to eat, sleep or recuperate from one of those annoying seasonal colds that seems to drag on while you're doing everything else. So, even though social media is central to my work (the ...
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The Blog Council
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Upcoming SMBC events
20 Nov 2009 | 7:35 am12/2 Razorfish: Social media metrics and the “Fluent” survey (Private member call) Click here 12/16 Word of Mouth Supergenius: Learn to be a fantastic word of mouth marketer with 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’ll learn practical, hands-on techniques to get started, grow your program, and earn amazing word of mouth. (Public event) Click here Share: -
Social media research: Facebook is business' favorite social network
19 Nov 2009 | 7:35 amBusiness.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study of 3,000 North American businesses reveals 83% of participants favored Facebook as the best social media platform to connect with customers. Other findings from the study include: 69% of participants use webinars and podcasts to obtain business information Marketing professionals and consultants use social media websites the most as a source of business information, while IT professionals use them the least. Companies in the study used, on average, seven different social media enterprises, with 65% staffing the campaigns… -
NHL uses Twitter lists to help fans connect
18 Nov 2009 | 7:35 amCorporate Social Media Case Study: The NHL Using Twitter’s latest feature, lists, the NHL is asking fans to tweet them with their favorite team to add them to special team lists. Lists are groups of Twitter users that anyone can create and can be followed by other Twitter users with a single click. NHL’s lists make it easy for fans to find fellow fans on Twitter, as well as follow relevant conversations about their favorite teams. Since starting the project earlier this month, the NHL has listed more than 1,000 of their followers on over 20 individual team lists. Learn More:… -
Dell's Michael Buck on how social media is a core brand strategy
17 Nov 2009 | 7:35 amCorporate Social Media Case Study: Dell In an interview with Marketing Magazine Group, Michael Buck, Dell’s Director of Global SMB Online goes into how Dell integrates social media as a core component of their overall brand strategy. At Dell, social media isn’t a budget or revenue question, explains Michael, it’s a listening question. He goes on to say that their foremost objective is to listen and make it easy for the customer to engage them, and that one of the beauties of social media engagement is that there’s much less resistance to it (or need for SPAM-like… -
Honda uses Facebook to show off brand love
16 Nov 2009 | 7:35 amCorporate Social Media Case Study: Honda Through Facebook, Honda is working to prove their theory that everyone knows someone who loves a Honda. Called simply, “The Experiment,” fans can participate by either declaring they love a Honda (past or current), or by announcing that they know somebody who loves a Honda. By accessing fans’ Facebook networks, The Experiment promises to show how Honda love connects people around the world, to offer the opportunity for fans to learn more about why people love Hondas, and to help Honda lovers meet other Honda lovers. Learn More:…
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The Thinking Stick
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Make students your fans!
17 Nov 2009 | 8:12 pmTeachers face a dilemma with Facebook. Do you or don’t you become fans with students past and present? It’s a topic that has come up in some of my sessions and a discussion that we’re having here at our school at the moment. But, I think I’ve found the answer to having your private Facebook stay private with your friends and family and also allow students to connect to you in the most popular social-networking site to date. The solution: Start a fan page Jeff Utecht on Facebook It’s rather easy to do and it allows students to still feel connected to you, their… -
When kids lead the way
17 Nov 2009 | 12:21 amI believe that part of my role, or any role of a teacher with a Personal Learning Network, is to use that network to spread the word when good things happen with your students. The Operation Smile group here at ISB continues to find ways to spread their message about their trip, about what they learned, and what you can do if you want to take part. Last weekend Ciel, a student on the trip sat down and decided to create a video. But as she said on the Women of the Web 2.0 podcast “I put it on YouTube because I wanted to spread the message.” This is the now third video created by… -
Why Facebook is Unblocked at ISB
12 Nov 2009 | 11:07 pmI thought I would share an e-mail that was sent from our department today to a parent who had raised a concern about Facebook being unblocked at school. A very well thought out e-mail from the group. Chad Bates did most of the work with Dennis, Kim and I adding our two cents in as well. Dear Parent, Thanks for your email, you raise an issue that schools, teachers, parents and workplaces are currently grappling with i.e. weighing the benefits of social networks against the concerns. When considering the relative merits of Facebook, there are some very obvious negative uses as well as positive… -
When did content trump learning?
9 Nov 2009 | 7:09 amI know it sounds like such a stupid question….and maybe content has always trumped actual learning but I continue to find myself in conversations that end with: “I’d love to do so much more, but we have to cover all this content and I just don’t have time.” Why is that? Why is content…which is now available anywhere and everywhere still what we feel like we have to do as teachers. I hate to say it but I think I got out of the classroom just in the nick of time. I would be considered a horrible teacher today. We use to go off on tangents in my classroom that… -
Videos that speak to the heart
9 Nov 2009 | 3:38 amSupport Operation Smile and the 6th Graders at ISB by donating here http://www.tinyurl.com/isboperationsmile There are days like yesterday when everything comes together technologically that allows you to create some of the most amazing artifacts. Yesterday The Thinking Chick (my wife) sat down at around 2 o’clock and started working on a video that she wanted to create about her recent Operation Smile trip to Surin, Thailand with 9 middle school students. 8 Hours later she had created what I truly think is an amazing video capturing students feelings and reflections about the trip. I…
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StickyFigure
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ROI in Social Media – Where Does it Belong?
21 Nov 2009 | 8:44 am“What’s the ROI of Social Media?” I hear that question all the time, and it drives me crazy. What’s the ROI of your cell phone? What’s the ROI of using a computer? What’s the ROI of breathing? At one point, it was legitimate to think about the ROI of, say, a cell phone. But no more. It’s simply an assumed part of doing business, and living. You might think about the return on a specific model or plan, but you don’t wonder any more if you should use a cell phone or a smartphone. It’s about as much a question mark as getting dressed in the… -
Connected Dots in My Opportunity Network
11 Nov 2009 | 2:55 pmToday, I’m in Orange County, California, at a small, focused workshop on the use of social media in business. There’s a story behind this, which has everything to do with encouraging you to create your own opportunity network. Here’s the tale… At some point in the distant past (maybe 1.5-2 years ago? don’t remember exactly), I came across Kirsten Wright in the blogosphere. I liked how she was writing, and I sensed something that I try to stay attuned to – young, budding entrepreneurs who use social networking and “get it.” We commented on each… -
Are You a Kool-Aid Drinker?
5 Nov 2009 | 5:53 amI am. Let me explain. We tend to talk about “true believers” as those who have drunk the Kool-Aid, with the obvious tie-in to Jim Jones and his followers. It’s an apt analogy, however unfortunate the original incident – one who has drunk the Kool-Aid actually, in this sense, is so convinced of something, that they move forward with conviction where others would hold back. Now there are people who abandon all common sense and do ridiculous and harmful things because of “true belief.” No matter how much Kool-Aid you drink and how sincere your belief that… -
Shaking Things Up
3 Nov 2009 | 10:39 am<rant> Over the years, I’ve attended many, many conferences – some awful, some forgettable, and a few outstanding. I’m getting impatient. I’m impatient with thinly-veiled sales pitches from sponsoring companies during sessions. If you’re going to have sponsoring companies, set aside a specific time in the event when they can present their solutions openly to the audience. I’m impatient with speakers who think their role is to walk through a series of slides and do a verbal data dump. If you cannot spark interest, tell engaging stories, use helpful… -
When Statistics Have Faces
30 Oct 2009 | 4:11 amI’ve had my heart stirred in very unexpected ways this week. I’m used to having my mind moved – I often gravitate toward ideas, facts, and numbers. But sometimes you’re confronted with human faces, and the statistics fade into obscurity, where they often belong. As with many others in the social media community, I was profoundly moved this week by the tragic death of a young mother (Jamie Loveless) who died of multiple organ failure after pneumonia triggered, most likely, by the H1N1 virus. Please read the story here. I’m a husband and a parent, and I cannot even…
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Visual Business Intelligence
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Feature Lists Make Us Comfortable, but Sometimes Make Us Dumb
16 Nov 2009 | 10:18 amA few days ago I noticed a blog posted by Boris Evelson of Forrester Research titled “How to Differentiate Advanced Data Visualization Solutions.” Forrester is one of the leading IT research and advice companies. Along with its larger rival, Gartner, these companies serve as trusted advisers to thousands of organizations, helping them make decisions about all aspects of information technology. Although it’s convenient for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to subscribe to a single service for all the advice they need, is this approach reliable? It depends on whether we… -
Stacey Barr’s Performance Management Blueprint Workshop
6 Oct 2009 | 9:42 amIn my work at Perceptual Edge, I help organizations analyze their performance and present what they find in tables and graphs, which often involves dashboards. People who attend my courses in dashboard design often ask for help in figuring out how to measure the performance of their organizations. Until you know what aspects of performance to measure and how to measure them, you can’t even begin to develop a dashboard. I don’t cover this important aspect of performance management in my work, but others do, including Stacey Barr, the Performance Measurement Specialist. -
Malcolm Gladwell, modern problems, and the analytics age
21 Sep 2009 | 11:43 amI had the great pleasure last Thursday of hearing Malcolm Gladwell, journalist and author of the books Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point, speak at SAS Institute’s Innovators’ Summit in Chicago. I gave one of two keynote presentations in the morning and Gladwell gave the keynote in the afternoon. I believe that Gladwell is one of the great thinkers and communicators of our time, and his words on Thursday afternoon led me to believe this even more fervently. Gladwell’s topic was well-chosen for a group of people who spend their time making sense of data (mostly… -
Data Visualization: Keeping the Story Straight
14 Sep 2009 | 11:01 amNot long ago, BusinessWeek published a story titled “Data Visualization: Stories for the Information Age” by Maria Popova (self-described as a “digital anthropologist, cultural curator and semi-secret geek aggregating the world’s eclectic interestingness”). The article featured the work of Aaron Koblin of Google’s Creative Labs (self-described as an “artist/designer/programmer”). Popova and Koblin bring fresh perspectives to data visualization, but they are newcomers to the field and have both made statements about it that demonstrate their lack… -
Head First Data Analysis
26 Aug 2009 | 11:53 amI recently took a look at a new book from O’Reilly Media that’s a thoughtful introduction to the general concepts of data analysis. Unlike most books on data analysis, this is not software-specific and it does not focus on some complicated aspect of statistical or financial analysis. The book is Head First Data Analysis by Michael Milton. In its Head First series, O’Reilly is trying to provide books that introduce computer-related topics in a way that speaks to the way our brains learn. These books teach the material using real-world scenarios with lots of activities to…
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John Jantsch
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QuickBooks 2010 Expends Beyond Accounting
20 Nov 2009 | 8:59 amQuickBooks 2010 Expends Beyond AccountingThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing The latest version of QuickBooks is a big step outside the box for the leading small business accounting software. Building on Intuit’s Connected Services Strategy announced last year, QuickBooks connects to several new online services that enable small businesses to extend the power of their information already in QuickBooks QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2010 feature the all-new Intuit App Center, providing users access to scalable, Software-as-a-Service business applications directly from within QuickBooks. -
What the Heck is Integrated Marketing Anyway?
18 Nov 2009 | 7:07 amWhat the Heck is Integrated Marketing Anyway?This content from: Duct Tape Marketing When I first started my business, several decades ago, I was determined to tell people that, mine was an integrated marketing firm. To which, I generally received polite nods and the occasional more truthful – “What the heck is integrated marketing anyway?” Well, c’mon I would mutter, “everyone knows it’s a management strategy and meta-discipline focused on the organization-wide optimization of unique value for stakeholders[1].” Right, see the problem with the term was… -
Is Social Media Changing Selling?
17 Nov 2009 | 8:44 amIs Social Media Changing Selling?This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Mike McLaughlin (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes Social media has certainly changed marketing, but few people are addressing just how dramatically it’s changed sales. In this interview we hit that subject pretty head on. My guest for this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is Mike McLaughlin. He’s the author of Winning the Professional Services Sale, which offers professional service providers, business development managers, and… -
3 Tools to Make Twitter Lists Even More Useful
16 Nov 2009 | 7:37 am3 Tools to Make Twitter Lists Even More UsefulThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’m a big fan of the newish Twitter List function. I wrote about it last week – 5 Reasons to Use the New Twitter Lists Feature Now that I’ve you pumped up about using lists, I want to talk about a few tools that I think can make the feature even more useful. Twitter List Widget - (example above) this is a homegrown Twitter feature that’s pretty well hidden. Scroll to the bottom of your Twitter homepage and look for the link called Goodies. Then click Widgets, MyWebiste, ListWidget. -
Winner of the Social Media Library
15 Nov 2009 | 6:02 amWinner of the Social Media LibraryThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing In case you missed my post on Friday I offered one signed copy of One these seven books: Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel, Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik, Duct Tape Marketing by well, me, Whuffle Factor by Tara Hunt and CrushIt by Gary Vaynerchuk to the person that most creatively answers the following: I get the biggest return for my business using social media when I [fill in the blank] – Here’s the original…
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Dan Pink
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Are you ready to, uh, Drive?
20 Nov 2009 | 12:34 pmTruth be told, writing a book doesn’t yield many moments of exhilaration. But for me at least, there’s always one: When you see your baby for the very first time. That moment always makes me giddy. (And believe me: giddy is an instrument rarely heard in my emotional orchestra.) So here, for your viewing pleasure, is the very first copy of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us to roll off the presses. As you see, the truth really is surprising. If you’re in the mood to be surprised yourself, go ahead and pre-order from this link or the ones to the right. You can also read… -
Quote of the Day: Right and wrong
17 Nov 2009 | 6:34 amManagement theorist Russell Ackoff passed away late last month, leaving behind a lifetime of memorable insights. Here’s one of my favorite, reprised in a good WSJ story about Ackoff’s life and legacy. “All of our social problems arise out of doing the wrong thing righter. The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter! If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better!” -
Factoid (and peeve) of the day
15 Nov 2009 | 11:56 amDuring last year’s presidential campaign, both McCain and Obama endlessly broadcast ads that promised “good middle class jobs.” And whenever an ad intoned that phrase, up popped an image like the one below, which comes from an Obama campaign stop: burly, 50-something (mostly white) guys wearing dirty uniforms.What drove me crazy about these ads is that this isn’t what “good middle class jobs” look like in this country — and hasn’t been for about 30 years. For the latest confirmation, check out this report on union membership issued by the Center… -
Emotionally intelligent subway signage
14 Nov 2009 | 10:01 amRodney Martin send this example of emotionally intelligent signage from — of all places — the New York City subway. Instead of simply issuing an edict about block doors, the sign tries to explain the reason for the rule and maybe stir a few molecules of empathy.I’m not convinced, this will be effective in the hothouse of underground New York. But as they say, if emotionally intelligent signage can make it here, it can make it anywhere. -
Factoid of the day: No (work)place like home
10 Nov 2009 | 1:17 pmHome-based entrepreneurs “account for more than half of all U.S. businesses and employ more people than venture-backed companies. Jointly, homepreneurs employ one in 10 private-sector workers, or a total of 13 million people.”(Source: Emergent Research via the Kauffman Foundation)
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Life Beyond Code
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NaNoWriMo – Making a Dream Come True
20 Nov 2009 | 10:11 pmThis is story about a story that was made possible by NaNoWriMo. This is a THANK YOU post for NaNoWriMo and the wonderful people behind it. First, some background. For those of you who have followed me for a long time, you know that I started my writing journey when my first book (a murder mystery) was published a while ago (read story here). I have been fascinated by fiction for a LONG time. My first four books were fiction (murder mysteries, spy thrillers etc.) In the recent past, I have written business books and created a DVD program ( Beyond Code, Upbeat, TH!NKtweet and The Fulcrum… -
Wherever you are, you can make a difference
17 Nov 2009 | 3:33 pmTake a look at this cool video of a flight attendant on Southwest Airlines. Now, it’s hard to beat that for sure. Have a great day! ---Related Articles at Life Beyond Code:Ways to distinguish yourself – #118 Make a difference, however small it is…Difference between ordinary and extraordinaryDifference between a discovery engine and a search engineWays to distinguish yourself #106 – Increase investments in personal growth -
Thoughtfulness 101 – Robert Scoble
17 Nov 2009 | 2:29 pmI have written about thoughtfulness on this blog (1, 2, 3, 4) before. You don’t have to do groundbreaking things to be thoughtful – it can be little things but with a lot of care. Let me illustrate this with a simple example I heard from Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) on Twitter that Loic LeMeur (CEO of Seesmic) was switching the Seesmic platfrom from Adobe Air to Microsoft Silverlight. Being a semi-geek, I was curious to know more – especially the reason for the decision to switch. So, I sent a query to Robert to see if he could share more. Here is my tweet: Robert responded… -
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #206 – Thank Powerfully!
12 Nov 2009 | 12:57 amNote: Thanksgiving is coming soon but I wanted to share this way before that date. You will see why as you read the post. Everyone knows that an attitude of gratitude is important to grow. In fact, you might remember your parents telling you to be thankful to people that help you. Yes, I subscribe to the above views whole-heartedly. You are where you are today because of MANY people who helped you get here. It is easy to forget the people that helped you. Sometimes you might think most of your success is because you are smart and of course you did some get a little help here and there. In… -
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #205 – Dis-Engage When Your Work is Valued Less
9 Nov 2009 | 10:26 pmPhoto Courtesy: psyberartist on Flickr Marketplace is right most of the time. It will set the price for what you bring to the table – based on the supply and demand equations that exist (all the time) Smart people sometimes hit a roadblock when they don’t get what they truly deserve. What they don’t realize is that in many cases they are the ones to blame for that situation. Here is a typical scenario: As you become an expert, it takes you less time to complete a task in your area of expertise. As they grow their expertise in the area, the time takes keeps shrinking. Now,…
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Remarkablogger
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WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org – The Definitive Overview for Business
19 Nov 2009 | 6:31 pmDo you feel as though blogging is more complex than it’s been made out to be? When you’re new to blogging, choosing a blogging service or software is overwhelming. Many people never even learn that there’s a version of WordPress you can put on your own domain. The dot com version of WordPress is the first thing they encounter and off they go. If you are aware there are two versions of the world’s most popular blogging software, you’re now faced with a decision–one you don’t feel qualified to make. You feel there’s a lot riding on this decision,… -
How to Bake a Blog
17 Nov 2009 | 3:40 amI’m not exactly the Ace of Cakes. I’m a decent cook, but I’m no baker. Knowing this about myself, but wanting to bake a birthday cake for my step-daughter’s birthday, I did what any normal man would do: I bought a cake mix and a can of frosting. You’d think it would be foolproof. All I had to do was follow the instructions on the box. Water, vegetable oil, three eggs, a bowl, a mixer, and a 9″ x 13″ cake pan. How hard could it be? I mixed it all up, poured the batter into my cake pan, and tossed it into the oven (which I had even remembered to… -
Headway 1.5 Now Available
14 Nov 2009 | 8:34 amPeople have been asking us for weeks now when the new version of Headway is ready for download. I’m happy to announce that it’s ready, and you can now get it. I’ve been showing you some of its capabilities over the past few weeks, and the comments and tweets have been really encouraging. Briefly, though, let me outline the main improvements from 1.0 to 1.5: True WYSYWIG Layout in the Blog Theme: The Layout Editor is now the Visual Layout Editor, and it is truly visual: you work directly on the blog page as though you were viewing it on the web, and you can simply click on… -
WordCamp NYC is the Place to be this Weekend
11 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pmHave you heard of WordCamp? Not word as in writing, but word as in WordPress. They happen all over the world, and they’re a great place to learn all things WordPress. The ones in the bigger cities are, well… bigger. WordCamp NYC looks like it’s gonna be a good one. I’m going to be there, so if you’re around, be sure to say hello! You can still get registered to join and it’s NOT expensive. There are educational tracks for beginning, intermediate, and advanced WordPress users, so there’s something for everyone. This will be my first time in Manhattan,… -
How to Really Understand Marketing
10 Nov 2009 | 3:50 amIn spite of everything you read about marketing, do you feel as though you still don’t have a solid overall picture in your mind about it? You’re not alone—far from it. The way we consume information and learn online is a fragmented experience: a blog post here, another one there, an ebook about a singular topic out of context… this is how most of us learn about marketing online. Does that sound like your experience? No matter how good the information, you’re only getting bits and pieces of the puzzle. It’s like trying to read The Lord of the Rings in…
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Junta42 blog
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10 Corporate Blogging Tips and Strategies
18 Nov 2009 | 5:33 amAmbal from Click Documents asked me if I had any tips/strategies for corporate blogging. The presentation below is a corporate blogging basics presentation useful for beginning bloggers. That said, here are the main takeaways. For more indepth understanding of a content marketing strategy, this content marketing white paper will help. A blog is just a tool, nothing more, nothing less. BUT, it can be a powerful tool to distribute consistent and valuable information to your prospects and customers. Be sure to focus on the informational needs of your customers, and… -
Custom Publishing Council Announces 2009 Pearl Awards
16 Nov 2009 | 6:41 pmHad an outstanding time last Thursday at the 2009 Custom Publishing Council Pearl Awards (Junta42 was a sponsor of the event). A sign that the recession may be over? - many more attendees at the awards event this year over last year. A great site to see.Finally, congrats to Junta42's parent company, Z Squared Media, on their silver place best blog finish in association with Razorleaf Corporation. Here are all the winners below:Winners are listed by category, title, custom publisher and client name, included in parentheses. DESIGN | Best Cover Less Than 50,000 Gold: Lamborghini Desk… -
Create Content that Sleeps, Creeps and Leaps
13 Nov 2009 | 9:10 amI had a great conversation today with Dr. Sandra Bauman from Bauman Research about start-up companies. She shared with me the idea about "sleeps, creeps and leaps." In the first year of a business launch, the brand sleeps. In year two, you start to see the company creep toward success. But it's in the third year that the business leaps and really begins to grow.Fascinating concept.The same principle can be applied toward corporate content marketing.As the corporate content program starts (let's say with a blog, white paper, enewsletter strategy), success… -
Top 10 Twitter Basics Questions Answered
10 Nov 2009 | 5:51 amJust about every day I answer a question about using Twitter, the microblogging tool. I've put them together in this handy post. Enjoy, and, if you like getting information on content marketing, feel free to follow me @juntajoe. Question #1What is the easiest way to find someone's @ name? If I read an article or hear them speak, how do I easily find their Twitter call sign. Use Twitter Name Search Question #2What are other ways to find twitter names? If Twitter Name Search doesn't work for you, try Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages. Question #3What does the # mean and how… -
Custom Print Magazines - Why Can't MasterCard Produce Inc. Magazine?
4 Nov 2009 | 7:00 amI don't know about you, but I've been reading more print magazines lately. Seems odd at first, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. I spend most of my business day and night on the computer. When I'm on my computer, I need to get things done. But when I want to relax and engage in an inspiring story, print is my choice...books and magazines. At the top of the list is probably Inc. magazine. This month's article about how 37Signals founder Jason Fried spends his day was priceless. Speaking of "priceless", shouldn't MasterCard be producing an Inc-type…
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Flooring The Consumer
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Listening To Women Customers
18 Nov 2009 | 5:44 amHow do you go about listening to your customers, particularly your women consumers?I'm focusing on women because women make or influence over 80% of the purchase decisions in the United States. That means that they - and what they say - really matter to retailers and to flooring retailers in particular.Listening is one thing, though. The more challenging task is interpreting what you hear, making sense of it so that you can truly deliver a memorable experience for your customers.Thanks to a Tweet from Learned On Women's Andrea Learned, I came across this article by Mary Lou Quinlan titled… -
Higher Calling For Retail Brick-and-Mortar Stores
16 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amDid you catch the 9/28/09 article from AdAge titled Boost, Microsoft market via bricks, mortar [registration required, but here is link to pdf of the full article]? It's mostly about cell phone providers, with a dash of banking thrown in, but it includes significant insights for flooring and non-flooring retailers alike. Particularly those with brick & mortar stores!More specifically, according to Wachovia Bank research, "brick-and-mortar investment was the single biggest contributor to customer acquisition, outpacing advertising..."Now, that does that capture your attention? It did… -
Meet Bethany Richmond, CRI Communications Manager
12 Nov 2009 | 4:58 amI met Bethany Richmond, Carpet and Rug Institute [CRI] Communications Manager, at Surfaces 2009 when we got to talking about writing and communicating stories, particularly as they related to flooring and carpet.In the back on my mind, I thought I might convince Bethany to get involved in the Carpetology Blog... as a break from the technical writing she was doing. I never imagined that she would become my client.I'm not surprised, though, that she is as critical a content creator for the Carpet and Rug Institute Blog - which just celebrated its 6 month anniversary [see The Carpet and Rug… -
Arthur Corbin's Retail Wisdom
9 Nov 2009 | 5:02 amThe following post comes from Arthur Corbin, talented retail & lighting wizard and faithful subscriber. He wrote it in response to Behind The Retail Scenes & Anticipating The Holidays and graciously agreed to share it here. In this article, Arthur addresses inventory, story telling, value at retail, social media, the retail experience, lighting, online and why local retailers will thrive. In other words: retail wisdom!----------------------------Retailers (ideally) complete their Christmas planning and buying by late June. Many finalize their Christmas plans in January. Retailers use… -
Simple Marketing Now - October 2009 Update
6 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amI'm late issuing the October 2009 Update for goings on at Simple Marketing Now...Blame it on getting ready for my very exciting User Friendly Thinking Radio interview taking place tomorrow, Friday, November 6, 2009 at 1pm EST with Paul Chaney and John Munsell from Bizzuka. I hope you understand... It's going to be great fun and I'd love it if you would tune in.Back to the October Update...If you are new toFlooring The Consumer, I also write theSimple Marketing Blog where I discuss marketing strategy and creative, practical, simple marketing approaches and best practices - many of which may be…
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Marketing Profs Daily Fix
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Paul Williams: Three Ps For Better Leading: Pace, Process, Pulse
20 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amOne of the characteristics of a great leader—no matter whether that leader is a person, a brand, or a company - is the ability to stay "tuned-in" to the needs of their audience. Are they still "with" you? Do they get where you're going? Do they have confidence in the direction? Out of college, my first job was at Walt Disney World in Orlando. I was a tour guide at the "Listen To The Land" boat ride in Epcot's Land Pavilion. I led Guests on a 20-minute journey through farming methods of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It was one of the easiest "leading" jobs I've ever had. I didn't have to… -
Stephanie Miller: Are Email Preference Centers Worth It?
19 Nov 2009 | 3:40 amAdd global compliance and cultural custom to the list of why email preference centers are really hard to sell internally and build well. I had a meeting this morning where we started to list out all the different country and local laws governing choices across various brand service agreements, and it quickly became overwhelming. It was no help that the database guy kept saying, "That'll cost you more."No wonder the director of marketing looked at me and said, "Is this really the best way to spend our precious time, energy and IT resources?!" So many email marketers say that they know a… -
Ann Handley: Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation
18 Nov 2009 | 5:06 amThis is a guest post by Eric Zeitoun, president of Dragon Rouge USA, a leading independent brand and design consultancy. While we struggle to emerge from a full-blown recession, marketers know all too well that advertising and (unfortunately) innovation are the first budgets that are most likely to get cut. So how can marketers continue to innovate?Before we answer this question we need to go back to the definition of innovation since it has become a very popular and often misinterpreted topic. There are four distinct types of innovations: Product optimization (which seeks to optimize a… -
Elaine Fogel: Cash-for-Grades Fundraiser Just Another Marketing Incentive
17 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amWhat's all this outrage for North Carolina school principal, Susie Shepherd, for supporting her parent advisory council's innovative use of marketing incentives? Who are we kidding? I used to teach, so I know how some schools operate like they're in the third world, without proper books and resources. This school was just looking for creative ways to raise much-needed money.In my opinion, the outpouring of disdain is hypocritical. The days of doing well in school for the intrinsic value are waning, as more parents offer reward systems. Read Barbara Coloroso. The kindergarten sticker turns… -
Ted Mininni: Taking a Bite Out Of Apple
16 Nov 2009 | 6:10 amIndications are that Apple--long admired for setting the bar high when it comes to beautifully-designed, innovative, game-changing consumer products--may be facing some stiff competition. According to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey: “Apple is under threat on the brand front in a way they haven’t been in recent years.”A recent Brandweek article: “Amid Transition, Rivals Are Descending on Apple,” questions whether the company’s competitors are finally launching products that might take a bite out of Apple. Apple’s response doesn’t seem reassuring, either. New ads have…
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Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Media
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Behind the Work: Jack Schulze goes deeper into Nearness [del.icio.us]
RFID Rube Goldberg machine -
MySpace Strives to Recover Its Cool [del.icio.us]
Interesting move, but is it too late? MySpace still is the leader in music, but can they get traction again? -
Where you at, Matt?
15 Oct 2009 | 8:09 amA number of you have noticed that I have been scarcely around the blog and Twittersphere over the past couple of months. I have a lot going on and wanted to step back and gather my thoughts. I just wanted you to know that I am not gone, I am just on a short hiatus. I have a couple of big announcements coming up as well as a little branding overhaul for Techno//Marketer. Long story short, I'm going to be back soon, better than ever (I hope), so thank you for reading and I'll be back in the conversation with you very soon. If you liked this post, you can subscribe to the Techno//Marketer RSS… -
Facebook Connect Goes Mobile [del.icio.us]
Facebook is extending its Connect data portability technology to developers of mobile sites and applications, following its launch six months ago for iPhone developers, the company announced Thursday in an official blog. -
Want better digital strategy, ban seven dirty words
8 Aug 2009 | 2:13 pmIf you love strategic planning as much as I do then I am sure that one of your biggest pet peeves is when people jump to tactics straight away in a planning meeting. Despite your most desperate attempts to steer things back on course, and define what the overall strategy looks like, you die a little when someone blurts out "Let's set up a YouTube channel and Tweet about it!". How do you get around this? Here is what I have started doing in my initial planning sessions and it seems to be working well so far. I've banned what I consider the seven dirty words of digital strategy. They are:…
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Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog
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So ya wanna start a blog...
18 Nov 2009 | 5:48 amJust a friendly reminder that I'll be co-presenting a free blogging basics webinar tomorrow afternoon (11/19/09). The event is hosted by Target Marketing magazine and sponsored by Compendium Blogware, and takes place online at 2pm ET. There's still time to register (or refer your clients and friends who could use a primer), and I hope some of you will be able to tune in. My portion of the agenda explores the building blocks for creating a compelling, sustainable corporate blog that the people you're looking to reach will actually want to read (basically an updated version of my Blog DNA… -
Tim Goggin: looking for love in all the social places.
9 Nov 2009 | 9:28 amMeet Tim Goggin. He's a single 32-year old entrepreneur who is (if you believe his pitch) the "most interesting man in San Diego." He's also pretty frustrated with the tried-and-true dating scene and thinks social media may be good for more than just a poke. A couple of months ago, Tim created a mock-infomercial and posted it to YouTube, in hopes of attracting the woman of his dreams to a site where she might claim her "free date." Now, I'm not all that interested in single guys in San Diego but I am interested in some of the creative, low cost ways individuals--and by association… -
Upcoming speaking: free blogging basics webinar
4 Nov 2009 | 4:23 amYou're probably not a blogging n00b but you probably know someone who is -- a client, a coworker, someone new to the industry or your mom perhaps. If so, you should let them know that I'm taking part in a free blogging basics webinar at 2pm ET on November 19th. Target Marketing magazine will be hosting an hour long conversation (part presentation, part Q&A) featuring Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott and me sharing everything we know about how companies can get started with corporate blogging and what this means for their SEO programs. Look for practical tips about how to get one of… -
Podcaster J.C. Hutchins has killed the president
27 Oct 2009 | 2:30 pmNot the real president and not in real life. And technically speaking, J.C. didn't do the deed -- but he dreamed up the child/assassin who takes down America's main man in the opening lines of his sci-fi thriller 7th Son: Descent.Regular readers know that I have a bit of a mancrush on J.C., who has the social media chops so many brand managers can only dream of. His last print novel, Personal Effects, was a participatory, multimedia tour de force (learn more) and with 7th Son he does it again.Now, for those of you who haven't been poking around the social media space for the past few years I… -
What's the price of five dollars?
22 Oct 2009 | 8:57 amThat wasn't meant to be a trick question, but rest assured the answer isn't five dollars.Here's the scoop. I drive a Nissan Altima and I've been reasonably happy with it. It's neither the best car I've ever owned nor the worst, but I'm not a car guy so if it gets me from point A to point B safely without costing me an arm and a leg in gas money I'm satisfied. The Altima more than fits the bill.I don't mind telling you that the lease runs me about $315 per month and I'm pretty diligent about paying right on time, almost always by check through the good ol' U.S. mail. This month though, I…
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CK's Blog
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B2B Social Media Objections: Meet Fear, Irrelevance and Overwhelm.
15 Nov 2009 | 11:51 amSince I've written on building the B2B business case for social media and penned key tips for breaking through the knowledge barrier, it's only fitting that I take a post to focus on the main B2B objections to social media, and some strategies for overcoming them. Because even in this all-digital, always-on world I hear objections a great deal. And it's imperative that those of us who have been working and participating in social media for years take a BIG step back and remember that this space is still brand new to most B2B companies... and change takes time (and comes with… -
B2B Marketers: If Your Markets' Needs and Behaviors Have Changed... Why Hasn't Your Marketing?
3 Nov 2009 | 6:15 pmReports, statistics and factoids are marketers' best friends. After all, data gives us information from which we glean intelligence to build our business models, marketing strategies, plans to increase market share and programs to cut through clutter. And rock-solid data is the fuel we need to drive change within our departments and across our organizations.Devoid of statistically sound findings, however, we're left relying on gut feelings and our personal views of how we perceive things to be... which can turn out to be perfectly correct or miserably myopic. So research gives us… -
Social Media Marketing Collection: Where in the (Web 2.0) World To Start?
2 Oct 2009 | 12:24 amClients and colleagues often ask me "Where in the (Web 2.0) world to start?" when they're looking to learn about marketing with social media, the profound shifts taking place with their target audiences and the new best practices they need to grasp. So instead of sending them a long list of links, I've compiled a collection of posts, presentations and series into this slideshow... as it seems a better format for marketers to pick and choose where they want to begin. And you might just enjoy it, too. The slideshow is below (and is best viewed in full-screen format). RSS and… -
Building The B2B Business Case for Social Media Marketing: A 10-Benefit Slide Show for B2B Professionals.
19 Sep 2009 | 1:38 pmI've written and spoken plenty about the tremendous benefits that B2B companies can yield by leveraging social media. And while more B2Bs are integrating social media into their marketing mix, many are still not convinced that these game-changing media apply to their businesses. What do they need to make this leap? Rationale. B2Bs need the business case explained to them in a way that speaks to the unique objectives, needs and challenges of B2B companies (vs. those of B2Cs). To that end, I've developed this presentation for "Building the B2B Business Case for Social Media."… -
Web 2.0 Rule #8: Social media gives people more control over brand messages... but marketers (still!) ultimately influence what those messages will be.
30 Aug 2009 | 9:30 amNote: This post is part of a current series that explores 10 (Essential!) Rules That No Marketer Should Pass The "Web 2.0 Go" Without. All posts in the series are archived here. In this post we illuminate: Web 2.0 Rule #8: Social media gives people more control over brand messages... but marketers (still!) ultimately influence what those messages will be.The tools of social media are empowering because they give everyone with access to the Web a voice. From corporate professionals to college students, seniors to teens and everyone in-between,…
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Servant of Chaos
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Seeing the Trees in the Social Media Forest
19 Nov 2009 | 4:30 amWith each passing day there are more and more case studies, examples and justifications for brands to use social media. There are best practices emerging (or easily found with a Google search), thousands of “how to” blog posts explaining every aspect of social media (or perhaps the same aspect repeated 1000 times) and agencies devoted to social media as their core competency. But it seems to me that we are beginning to swim (or is it drown?) in data. Because our social media interactions are digital, we can measure plenty of things – the time you spend on our sites, the things you click… -
Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week
15 Nov 2009 | 9:54 pmIn the last week there have been a plethora of posts looking at short term futures – what’s ahead of us, what it takes to get there and even some suggestions of how real change takes place. There’s Plenty to read for marketers on the client and/or agency side. In this Ad Age article, Jacques-Herve Roubert suggests that Digital Agencies are Ready to Lead when it comes to engaging clients, creating campaigns and building their clients brands. Neil Perkin explains that it could just be social media that saves mainstream TV. In The Socialisation of TV, Neil suggests that scheduling and… -
Can Curating the Crowd Work?
12 Nov 2009 | 10:29 amHaving worked on two, and heading into the third Age of Conversation book (bringing together hundreds of thought leaders in a single, crowdsourced book), not to mention our recent efforts around The Perfect Gift for a Man (30 crowdsourced stories reinventing manhood), I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on crowdsourcing and its potential. But can it work for advertising? Will it work for agencies? And, perhaps, most importantly, will it work for the communities which emerge almost spontaneously to become part of a crowdsourcing project? Unilever are putting this to the test. Via Idea… -
One Wish - The Charter for Compassion
12 Nov 2009 | 6:45 amIf you had a wish, what would it be? Would you direct it inwardly or towards others? Would it be personal or would it be communal? Would it be larger? Would your wish be transformative, transactional or fanciful? Could you name it, nail it down, write it on a sign? Is it something you could share or would it remain a personal secret? Would you wear your wish upon your sleeve or swallow it like a burning truth? Karen Armstrong has a wish. The TED Prize winner’s wish is as follows: I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a… -
Ten Ways to Kill Community
9 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pmSometimes the best way of understanding HOW to do something is to think how NOT to. In this fantastic short presentation, Marilyn Pratt steps through the 10 things that you can do to kill off the community that has begun to grow around your brand (or products, services etc). There is some great insight that can be applied to any business’ community – and each point is backed up with the hard won experience of working in, building up and evangelising a large corporate community. Marilyn is one of SAP’s community evangelists and knows first-hand what works (and doesn’t) – but does…
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Escape from Cubicle Nation
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10 ways to stimulate the economy with your brain
5 Nov 2009 | 10:58 amI don’t know about you, but I get mighty tired of reading newspaper articles and blog rants about the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of stimulus money on our economy. What makes me frustrated is that we waste hours a day fighting with each other about things outside of our control, instead of using our own brains to do something about our local economy. So here is my list of 10 things you can do, right now, to stimulate a small corner of your local economy without spending a dime: Mentor a new business owner. If you know how to build an effective website or display goods more… -
Spreading the addiction of the TED conference one city at a time
30 Oct 2009 | 2:24 pmThere are few things that get me fired up late at night like watching TED videos. For the uninitiated, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and is a conference that takes place once a year. The videos from TED are shared free on their website, and the talks are enough to get you standing up with your fist in the air, clutching your heart with tears streaming down your cheeks, or doubling over with laughter. TED is undertaking a new initiative which is to encourage local communities to sponsor their own events, called “TEDx.” We are hosting ours here in Phoenix,… -
Last chance to attend live Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop in 2009
28 Oct 2009 | 4:20 pmThe fabulous and enthusiastic crew from last week’s Escape from Cubicle Nation Workshop in London. Photo by the handsome and talented TMSRuge. I communicate on Twitter so frequently that I just realized some blog readers may not know that my last live Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop will take place on Wednesday, November 4 at the Hotel Belamar in Southern California. I will be joined by the fabulous and talented Colleen Wainwright, otherwise known as Communicatrix, who is an amazing resource for branding and social media. This will be my last workshop of the year, and the last… -
Response to Chris Brogan about Overnight Success
25 Oct 2009 | 4:05 pmSitting in the Dallas airport after having spent the weekend speaking and participating in Milana Leshinsky’s Coaching Millions Super Summit, I watched Chris Brogan’s 3-part video series on Overnight Success and felt my heart melt. I related to so much of what he talked about, since I have spent so much time this summer on the road, promoting my book. Getting out in front of people is critical, spreading the message of hope and connection through entrepreneurship is imperative, and creating a powerful business model that serves people well and provides well for my family is a… -
The beauty of dirty laundry
19 Oct 2009 | 2:38 pmAt the management conference I attended in Pärnu, Estonia last week, we had a speaker from Denmark, Morten Lund, a long-time entrepreneur who had, among other things, made good money investing in Skype. As he launched into his presentation, he said: “I have founded over 88 startups. And at the moment, I am bankrupt.” Due to a failed investment in a newspaper business in his native Denmark, he had lost a lot of money. But, he said, he actually was feeling quite good. He was spending lots of time with his four kids, whom he obviously adored. And he remained passionate about…
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Six Minutes
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Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-11-21]
20 Nov 2009 | 11:06 pmOn Saturdays, we survey the best public speaking articles from throughout the public speaking blogosphere. This review features topics including: fear of public speaking; keeping your audience’s attention; storytelling tips; facilitating small-group discussions; PowerPoint in the classroom; and Steve Jobs is human too. In Review: Six Minutes 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them Pinpoint your guilty thoughts and eliminate them with the help of guest author Marjorie Brody. Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right? Learn to match the size of your gestures to… -
8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them
19 Nov 2009 | 9:51 pmMany speakers are guilty of making faulty assumptions about their presentations, and their ability to deliver them well. Sometimes even seasoned speaking professionals like me fall victim to this behavior. How about you? In this article, you will learn: 8 common faulty assumptions you might be making; the subsequent result on your presentations; and how to fix your flawed thinking. 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions Eight common faulty assumptions that speakers make are: Deep knowledge of a topic alone will enable me to present ideas on it. My audience members are mind readers. I can present… -
Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right?
16 Nov 2009 | 3:36 pmBy now, you know that you should be complementing your speech with gestures. But do you know how big these gestures should be? In this article, you’ll learn to match the size of your gestures to your audience and venue. What is meant by gesture size? Just as your voice can be loud or soft, your gestures can be large or small. For example, consider the spectrum of hand and arm gestures. Gestures involving your fingers only are small gestures. Gestures pivoting at your wrist are a bit larger. Gestures pivoting at your elbow are larger still. Finally, gestures pivoting at your shoulder are… -
Ultimate Twitter List of Public Speaking Bloggers
11 Nov 2009 | 11:35 amLooking for public speaking experts on Twitter? Two years ago, Six Minutes compiled an extensive list of public speaking bloggers. Now, we’ve enhanced the list to include Twitter accounts for those bloggers. As of this writing: Twitter List — 73 bloggers listed: @6minutes/public-speaking-bloggers On Six Minutes — 117 blogs listed: Public Speaking Blogs You can follow Six Minutes on Twitter here: @6minutes Similar Articles You May Like...Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-11-21]Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-11-07]Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review… -
Public Speaking Tips: Weekend Review [2009-11-07]
6 Nov 2009 | 10:15 pmOn Saturdays, we survey the best public speaking articles from throughout the public speaking blogosphere. This super-sized review features topics including: new public speaking books; writing a eulogy; eye contact vs. eye communication; speaking with notes; tools for slide color schemes; the validity of learning styles (are they a myth?); moderating a panel; and being successful as an introvert. Resources for Speakers – Public Speaking Books Check out these recently released public speaking and communications books: Presentation S.O.S.: Persuasion in 9 Easy Steps by Mark Wiskup Talk…
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ChangeThis Newsletter
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The Upstarts Are Here!: What Can You Possibly Learn from Entrepreneurs in Their Twenties? Plenty. by Donna Fenn
11 Nov 2009 | 3:02 pmClick here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. “We’re smack in the middle of ‘perfect storm’ conditions for young entrepreneurs, which means that if you haven’t already noticed that the CEO down the road may look more comfortable at the local skate park than in a board room, you will soon. And if you have noticed the trend, you may be asking yourself who these young people are, why they seem to be starting companies at an accelerated rate, what kinds of companies they’re starting, and if they’re really so different from the young entrepreneurs of the past couple… -
Meaningful Digital Strategy: The Next Evolution of Marketing by Bob Gilbreath
11 Nov 2009 | 3:01 pmClick here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. "Four years ago, I grew frustrated with the lack of brand investment in digital marketing and set out to understand the fundamental reasons why this promising new space was still only attracting a small sliver of marketers’ multi-million-dollar budgets. I discovered that the issue was bigger than tiny click-thru rates and cautious organizations. Rather, there was a need for an entirely new way of approaching marketing strategy from the ground up. The interruptive, tell-and-sell model of slick ad copy and buying eyeballs by the… -
Social Response Capitalism: Today and Tomorrow by Bruce Piasecki
11 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pmClick here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. "I believe we need something no less than a new kind of leader. Most social commentators today, from Sarah Palin to Barack Obama, note that we need leaders we can trust, leaders who can compete on price, quality and social needs—from avian and swine flu, to new forms of energy, and better cars, computers and homes. We need to combine the best that MBAs get with what Masters of Public Administration know and get in their experiences of a lifetime. How is this possible? And where will they work? This essay explores what I mean by… -
The Freak Factory: Making Employees Better by Helping Them Get Worse by David Rendall
11 Nov 2009 | 2:59 pmClick here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. "If conventional approaches aren’t working, then what should we do? Instead of attacking people’s weaknesses, we need to find the strength that is hidden inside their apparently negative characteristics. It is time to stop trying to create well-rounded and balanced employees. We need employees that are unbalanced. We need employees that are freaks. It is time to build a freak factory." -
Healthcare Reform: It’s Our Debate, Too by Zane Safrit and the Triiibes Community
11 Nov 2009 | 2:58 pmClick here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. “We need our help. Together. Together we can create a healthcare system that could in all honesty earn the title 'Best healthcare in the world.' But right now, our current healthcare system is on life-support. We pay to sustain its life-support, in big ways and in small, with expensive health insurance premiums or expensive emergency room visits, with expensive prescriptions with jack-in-the-box side-effects, with a growing percent of our GDP, with a growing number of personal bankruptcies that result from high costs of…
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Connie Bensen
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Should you Accept the Job Offer?
29 Oct 2009 | 8:53 pmYour dream is to work in social media. You’ve been blogging, building your brand and know your stuff. After doing all the right things you have a job offer, so now what? As with any potential new job there are many questions & many unknowns in regard to one in social media. And to make it worse, I believe that there are many more because the space is so new. I have been advising both employers and job seekers for quite awhile. Here’s a review of practical things to consider when you’re on that emotional high of having received a job offer: 1. job expectations? Do you know what your… -
In San Francisco next week
27 Oct 2009 | 3:22 pmIt’s a busy time of year! Next week I’ll be in San Francisco for two events. I’m doing a 3 hour workshop at Enterprise 2.0 on Frameworks for utilizing social media. The diagram in my last blog post outlines the potential that a community manager offers an organization. I will share how to use social media to: Build brand & PR, social media marketing, business development & collaborations Connect with customers in terms of customer service, peer support, product development Augment sales by shortening sales cycle, new forms of prospecting (reducing cold calling) I was really… -
Community Manager + Sales Funnel = ROI
20 Oct 2009 | 7:25 pmThis diagram summarizes what I have learned over the past year about how my role as a Community Manager influences the sales funnel. We are in agreement that social media efforts need to be measured. I will contend that the role of community manager or social media specialist requires you to show how you contribute to your organization’s business objectives in order to justify your presence (and paycheck). I created the diagram to help us as practitioners describe our position and influence in the sales funnel. The concepts apply to B2B sales as much as to B2C. Too often I think that… -
Seven Business Objectives and their ROI for Monitoring Social Media
8 Oct 2009 | 9:43 pmMichael Leander Nielson of Oslo invited me to present a webinar on Business Objectives for Social Media Monitoring. It’s a popular topic and we had great attendance! I covered the following: Which objectives to consider when defining your social media monitoring (SMM) strategy What types of tools are available How to make sense of the data that is gathered The ROI and benefits of social media monitoring During the webinar it was interesting the exchange of Twitter usernames transition to requesting to continue the conversation in a community. It underlined how people with a… -
THE REASON You Should Be At Blogworld 09
3 Oct 2009 | 9:06 pmNot too long ago I was in a traditional professional job. Ironically that same job is what introduced me to Web 2.0. Fast forwarding finds me deeply entrenched in working online and advocating for the role of Community Manager and working remotely. THE Reason You Should Be At Blogworld 09 is the people. As much as I enjoy working remotely there is a huge value to meeting people in person. The power of connecting face to face is incredible. Last year’s BlogWorld was a turning point for me. I had the opportunity to meet many of the people who had influenced my work & inspire so many of…
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Weblogg-ed
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What Does “Getting It” Mean, Anyway?
19 Nov 2009 | 5:09 pmWhile my trip to Australia this last week and a half was primarily pleasure with my family, I did get a few days to work with teachers in Brisbane and throughout Victoria (a la our PLP cohort there), and I had some great conversations about the state of the education world with some good friends. Since the trip also came on the heels of my annual two-day visit to Skywalker Ranch as a GLEF board member, these last couple of weeks have provided a lot to think about, but between travel and exorbitant internet fees and surfing expeditions, not a lot of time to write. (As usual, these days.) One… -
Teachers as Learners (Part 32)
4 Nov 2009 | 3:06 amRecently at the beginning of a day long workshop, I used a Google form to get feedback on this question: If there was one part of your personal learning practice that you wanted to focus on today, what would it be? What questions would you seek to answer? Now I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a perfect question in terms of trying to get some sense of the personal learning lives from the teachers who were participating. But in the context of a discussion we’d been having about the passion-based learning opportunities that the Web now affords, I was hoping to learn what… -
Teaching, Testing and Counseling
23 Oct 2009 | 2:58 pmIt’s no secret that many of us who had high hopes that the Obama administration would start a meaningful conversation on re-envisioning education are feeling sorely disappointed these days. All of the hoopla over “The Race to the Top” as a catalyst of real “reform” is getting a bit much to take, and to be honest, I’m surprised that more educators aren’t voicing their displeasure at the idea of being paid based on the scores their students make on standardized tests (among other things.) But I have to tell you, David Brooks’ column in the Times… -
On Common Standards
16 Oct 2009 | 5:18 amSo without bemoaning in the fact that I haven’t been able to find any time of late to get to this space to do some reading and thinking and synthesizing and extended writing and that I feel like a truly important part of my life is being slowly and painfully left behind and that there is a post that I really need to write about that at some point sooner rather than later… Tom Hoffman has been bugging many of us to blog about the English Language Arts Standards that are being written by Core Standards group as an attempt to provide some national standardization for ELA (and… -
Don’t, Don’t, Don’t vs. Do, Do, Do
20 Sep 2009 | 6:11 amRecently, I presented at a school on an opening day for teachers where the first thing that greeted everyone on the table in the lobby was an 8-page Acceptable Use Policy which staff members were picking up as they filed into the school. I picked one up too, and when I had a moment I started paging through it, looking at all the ways in which students (and teachers) could get themselves in trouble on the school network. The middle three pages were filled with an A-Y double spaced list (guess they were saving room for one more rule next year) which spelled out the many transgressions that were…
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Holy Kaw!
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How to save time
21 Nov 2009 | 9:25 amHere’s a great tool: Sue Shellenbarger, over at the Wall Street Journal, has test drove three time management tools for us, so we don’t have to try them ourselves. Talk about time saving. The three tested methods are: • Getting things done. • The Pomodoro Technique. • Franklin Convey’s Focus. Read the article to see what she found. We’ve got lots more ways to get things done and hack your life, too. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
How to re-imagine the color of your room with no paint
21 Nov 2009 | 9:14 amWant to see what your room would look like with different paint? Check out colorjive.com, a really cool site that takes your pictures and changes the colors of the walls in just a few easy steps. It's fun! And it could save a lot of fails. More cool design sites. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Common mistakes in social media and other insights on impact
21 Nov 2009 | 9:03 amOver on SmartBlog, Mary Ellen Slayter interviews Olivier Blanchard (above), a seasoned brand strategist at BrandBuilder Marketing. Blanchard delves into his perspective on how businesses can maximize their return on social media. He shares, for instance, three common mistakes companies make when trying to measure the value of social media: Focusing too much on digital measurement. Not understanding the difference between nonfinancial impact and financial impact. Not establishing clear goals and objectives when launching a social media program. How can you avoid this fate, and what other… -
A geography of BBQ
21 Nov 2009 | 8:38 amAs a newcomer to DC, people keep telling me that my BBQ education is about to begin. Though complete strangers and close roommates have preached the glories of BBQ, this article is the clearest introduction to the sauce I’ve seen yet. Did you know there are at least four kinds of sauce? Kansas City Style Sauce Texas Style Sauce North Carolina Style Sauce South Carolina Style Sauce Check out the article to see just how each of them differ. Hungry for more? There’s much more about food and recipes. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
France vs. Ireland controversial goal video
20 Nov 2009 | 10:58 pmIn case you haven’t seen the controversial goal in the France versus Ireland game, here you go. Total coverage of soccer. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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SmartBrief: Social Media
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Social nets pose real IT risks
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmSocial media escapes oversight at many companies, providing security vulnerabilities that can threaten an enterprise network, -More- -
Each e-contact worth $948 to IBM
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmIBM is embracing social media, but unlike many other firms, it is backing up its efforts with numbers. -More- -
Don't spam LinkedIn groups with links
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmNewbies to a LinkedIn group need to establish a reputation before they post links, or they will be considered spammers, Doron -More- -
Game consoles don't quite integrate social sites
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmFacebook and Twitter are now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the way the tools are implemented renders them useless, Gus M -More- -
Twitter reports end of Oprah's show before it's official
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmTwitter was abuzz Thursday with news that Oprah Winfrey would announce the end of her longtime talk show this morning. -More- 11 Advanced SEM Strategies Are your SEM costs up, or conversions down? Ben Brutsch explores strategies that can help, such as: - Deep funnel analysis - SEO and SEM synergies - Campaign Fencing Download Now
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SmartBrief: Leadership
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Was heart disease the real Mummy's Curse?
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThe ancient Egyptians may not have had fast food or boardroom burnout to contend with, but they were far from healthy, scient -More- Business Development Manager Blackbay -
The best innovators are those who share their ideas
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmInnovation is all about learning -- but the best innovators are just as focused on teaching, writes William C. Taylor. -More- -
Why Detroit finally went on a diet
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmGM, Ford and Chrysler have long been seen as Toyota's flabby, out-of-shape siblings -- but industry experts say the Big Three -More- -
How much does the U.S. really owe?
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThe total volume of debt being generated by the U.S. -More- -
The 12 paths to power and profit
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmTo maximize profits, writes Mia de Kuijper, your company needs to identify its "power node" -- the unique source of strength -More-
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Smartbrief: American Association of School Administrators
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School board officials in N.J. want parents to pay for detention
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmMembers of a New Jersey school board have proposed a district policy of fining parents when students are consistently sent to -More- -
Column: School funding in California fails on every level
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmCalifornia schools are among the most poorly funded in the U.S., and state officials lack efficient and effective policies fo -More- -
Watch a video about the 2010 National Conference on Education
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmSuperintendent Jerry Weast of Montgomery County in Maryland discusses why all schools leaders should attend the AASA conferen -More- -
Pa. official calls for districts to end risky investment deals
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmPennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner is calling on the state Legislature to ban school districts from participating in ri -More- ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: Strategic Thinking About School Improvement Funding Learn how leading superintendents plan to make the most of ARRA and other funding sources available to you. This session focuses on: • Wisely spending new federal resources • Focusing student data to provide targeted instruction • Using technology to benefit schools as a whole. Click here to view now! -
3 school districts, charter group win teacher-quality funding
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThree school districts and a coalition of charter schools were selected to receive $290 million in grant money from the Bill -More-
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Smartbrief: Accomplished Teacher
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High expectations are a key ingredient in closing achievement gap
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmLeroy Anderson Elementary School in San Jose, Calif., has been successful at closing the achievement gap between minority stu -More- The 3 Habits of Highly Successful Reading Teachers starts with the premise that every student—even those that struggle the most—can learn to read. It guides teachers in providing daily practice with high-frequency words, letter sounds, and word-solving strategies, and using formative assessment to inform instruction. Preview the entire book online! -
Utah bill would extend provisional status for teachers
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmUtah lawmakers are considering a bill that would extend provisional status for teachers from three years to five years -- giv -More- -
What is the role of the classroom teacher?
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThe role of the classroom teacher should be ever-changing, and the time-honored traditional lecture does not go far enough in -More- -
Teacher: National Board Certification in music is beneficial
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmAn Oklahoma school district's teacher of the year is one of only a few in the state working toward a National Board Certifica -More- -
National Wildlife Federation offers outdoor-learning tips, resources
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThe National Wildlife Federation is offering resources for teachers to get students outdoors, including an outdoor guide to t -More-
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Smartbrief: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
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Meep Learning Curve on Discipline
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThere has been a lot of news lately regarding zero-tolerance policies and how effective they are at changing student behavior -More- Principal- Honor National Heritage Academies -
Independent-study charter gives California students a fresh start
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmA new independent-study charter school in California's San Diego County is using personalized instruction to offer a fresh ac -More- -
Number of school closings related to swine flu drops
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm-More- Boost the academic progress of your students affected by poverty! Jim Grant's in-service workshop, Differentiated Interventions with Poverty in Mind, is chock-full of low-prep, high-impact strategies K-12 teachers can use immediately. Improve behavior, attitude, and attendance. Call an SDE On-site Consultant today for details: (877)-388-2054. -
Report: High-school students' efforts may not reflect their goals
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm-More- -
Teachers weigh in on debate over selling lesson plans
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pmThrough a Teacher Leaders Network online discussion, teachers are debating who owns lesson plans and class materials. -More-
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Social Media Explorer
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Learn Word-Of-Mouth With The Supergeniuses
21 Nov 2009 | 6:30 amWhen I got home Thursday, I had a package waiting. It was from Andy Sernovitz, the Word-Of-Mouth guru. Andy has invited me to speak at a one day event he’s putting on in Chicago Dec. 16 called, “Word of Mouth Supergeniuses.” You can learn more on the event website, but keep reading first. The package contained a yellow T-shirt. I unfolded it and read the front. It’s a shirt customized for me, saying I’m speaking at the event and giving out my event discount code, “JASONISMYHERO,” which gets you $101 off the price of admission. This is an outstanding… -
Determining Your Friends
20 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amI’ve been pondering the value and validity of the term “friend” lately. Until a few years ago, we all probably had a couple hundred friends, give or take. Social networking not only incrementalized that number, but changed the definition of the word for many people. I have 1,300 or more “friends” on Facebook. I’ve probably met and spoken with more than you think, but not all of them. There are 18,000 or so people who follow me on Twitter. I follow most of them back. We are “friends” in a sense, too. But online friendships are very different than… -
Sysomos Adds Facebook Feature To Social Media Monitoring Solution
19 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amWhen businesses are looking for social media monitoring services these days, they normally hone in on two or three capabilities. Because Facebook is this year’s blog, monitoring messages on the platform is a big one. While all social media monitoring services have the same access to Facebook data (it’s all dependent upon what Facebook makes public which is dictated by their terms of service), more creative ways to position Facebook data are surfacing. Image via CrunchBase Social media monitoring service Sysomos launches a new version of their Heartbeat product today which has a… -
The Four Spheres Of Social Media Strategy
18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amA crowd of 80 or so attended yesterday’s social media boot camp hosted by the Kentucky chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Social Media Club Louisville. I was honored to serve as one of the presenters along with the undisputed queen of measurement, Katie Paine, and The Bad Pitch Blog man himself, Kevin Dugan. Rest assured, lots of learning was had, even if you just count my experience. Part of my presentation, which was focused on developing strategic plans for social media marketing, included my Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy. Until… -
New Study Reveals Surprises In How People Share
16 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amWe’re starting to see an interesting by-product of cool social media tools emerge: Research pulled from user data. One such effort, a new study released by SocialTwist, makers of the content share widget Tell-A-Friend, reveals some interesting facts about how people share information online. You can see the report in its entirety on the SocialTwist website. First, let’s set the expectations appropriately. The data behind the study is collected from anonymized user data for people who click on the Tell-A-Friend widget where it is used on blog posts, newspaper websites and more.
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Community Guy - Jake McKee
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Ant’s Eye View acquires Wabash & Lake
18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amIt seems hard to remember, but it’s only been a year since I merged Ant’s Eye View 1.0 with Sean O’Driscoll’s CGT Consulting to create Ant’s Eye View 2.0. This time last year, Sean and I were just starting to talk through the details of our pending merger. Flash forward to today: Sean and I have built an amazing time, truly world class people generating world class results. Our team is growing rapidly, and today I’m incredibly proud to announce yet another landmark in the short, but rich history of our organization. We’ve acquired Wabash & Lake. -
Ant’s Eye View is hiring!
9 Nov 2009 | 11:09 amHere we go again! One of my colleagues at Ant’s Eye View just posted a new job opening on the Community Guy Job Board. That’s right, we’re hiring a Senior Consultant. Interested? Check out the job post, or see the details below. Ant’s Eye View continues to grow and we are looking for the next ant to join our colony. The open position is a Senior Consultant in the Seattle, Washington area to lead client engagements, build out project deliverables, and contribute to internal business operations/processes. Successful candidates will meet the following criteria: 5-7 years… -
Visit us at the Social CRM Virtual Summit
6 Nov 2009 | 7:57 amAnt’s Eye View is sponsoring a pretty cool event next week. It’s all virtual and it should be all awesome. From the official AEV blog post, here’s the details: This year there have been a lot of online discussions on Social CRM – what is it? can it work? who is doing it? Now is the time to hear from the informed and thoughtful on how Social + CRM enable new business opportunities. The Ants are proud to be a sponsor at the Lithium Social CRM Virtual Summit on Tuesday, November 11 – the largest online conference for Social Media and CRM professionals. The Social CRM… -
Apparently I’m a Supergenius
4 Nov 2009 | 7:11 amIf you’re a fan of awesome conferences and events, never pass up a chance to go to one put on by Andy Sernovitz. He’s a master of the fun time. Andy invited me to speak about my LEGO experience at Word of Mouth Supergenius in December, and it’s sure to be one hell of a good time. Here’s the official event description: Word of Mouth Supergenius is where you’ll learn to be a fantastic word of mouth marketer with 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’ll learn practical, hands-on techniques to get started, grow your… -
The Amazon community team is hiring
3 Nov 2009 | 7:45 amSometimes a job description comes across the Community Guy Jobs Board that I simply can’t help but share it’s so cool. As a long time Amazon fan (I remember when the site was a solid tan background and only sold books), I’ve been so very impressed with the way their site and their community efforts have developed over the years. It’s disappointing that they don’t get more credit for the sheer volume of community/social features each and every page of their site has. If you’re looking to be part of an impressive team and an impressive product, check out this…
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Dan Zarrella
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Interview with Craig Newmark: How the Craigslist Meme Spread
30 Oct 2009 | 7:00 amOne of the most ubiquitous and disruptive websites to emerge in the last 10 years is Craigslist. Impacting industries from real estate, news paper classifieds, careers and auctions the site has for the most part remained entirely free to use. A great example of organic, word-of-mouth spread I’ve always been interested in how the meme of Craigslist spread from city to city to become one of the most popular uses of the web. I was lucky enough this week to get a chance to ask the site’s founder, Craig Newmark a few questions about exactly that. Here are his answers: Dan: I think the social… -
Weekends and Afternoons Show the Highest Twitter CTRs
27 Oct 2009 | 4:18 amWant more clicks? My new data suggests that you should Tweet your links in afternoons, evenings and on weekends. Continuing the study of Twitter clickthrough rates I started last week, I added over 100 more of the most followed Twitter accounts to my database and indexed click data on over 20,000 bit.ly links Tweeted by those accounts. In all of the data below, I measured CTR as the number of clicks a link received, divided by the number of followers the sending account had on the day it Tweeted it. As I noted in my other post, this number can be over 100% due to ReTweets that may use the… -
Modeling ReTweet Dynamics
26 Oct 2009 | 6:39 amEarlier this year I read a paper called “Modeling Blog Dynamics” in which they propose a method of modeling the spread of links through the blogosphere using zero-crossing random walks and exploitation vs. exploration applied to a logical flowchart model: The authors suggested that the model could be used in influence maximization algorithms which aim to identify key, influential individuals in a given social network for the purposes of viral marketing. I was intrigued by the possibilities and have been tossing around a possible flowchart model of how individuals decide to ReTweet… -
Want More Clicks? Tweet Less
21 Oct 2009 | 3:40 amTweet Much? Don’t Expect a High CTR. New data I’ve been working on seems to indicate that the more frequently you Tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get. I’ve been working towards a statistical model of how an individual makes a decision to ReTweet a specific Tweet and in that process, I came across an interesting problem: before someone ReTweets something, they have to notice it. If you’re anything like me, you’re only able to actually read a small percentage of the total activity in your friend’s timeline, which means that very few of the Tweets I’m technically… -
To #SaveReTweets, Make Sure Everyone Knows How to ReTweet
19 Oct 2009 | 6:11 amI wrote a little while ago about how Twitter’s plans to mangle ReTweets with its Project ReTweet, and the danger that poses to the crowd-invented functionality. After having several conversations on the topic and wondering what we could to do save ReTweets, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is make sure that everyone knows how to ReTweet the original way. Then, once (or if) Twitter goes ahead with Project ReTweet, we can all continue to use the old format. If you like ReTweets, help save them by spreading this post around to ensure that everyone understands the…
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The Social Customer Manifesto
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Fly The Evil Skies
20 Nov 2009 | 8:33 amOn the subject of frequent flier miles, Gary says:"Miles are evil. They create apathy on the end of the service provider." The he asks the real question:"Have decades of frequent flyer programs instilled institutional apathy on the part of customer facing employees? Perhaps we are talking about apathetic DNA across entire corporations or even within the entire airline industry. If one believes customers won't leave even when treated poorly, where is the incentive to 'step it up?'" Back in the late 1990's, I was flying weekly between Chicago and Palo Alto. 1,846 miles out on Monday, 1,846… -
Kudos to Seth
11 Nov 2009 | 1:09 pmKudos to Seth Godin on fixing the most very broken thing about his 2005 book "All Marketers are Liars." He convinced the publisher to change the cover on future editions, and the book is now called "All Marketers Tell Stories."Seth says:"So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a different one. When you find a story that works, live that story, make it true, authentic and subject to scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers, only the losers are liars."I was fairly harsh when I read the book in 2005, and while some of those criticisms still stand,… -
Twitter's "Trending Topics" Bridge Neighborhoods in Social Networks
11 Nov 2009 | 11:12 amHad a blast chatting with danah boyd this morning on this week's SupernovaHub Network Age Briefing (disclosure: Supernova is a client). The link above is to a rebroadcast of the call, which ran about an hour and covered "Class and Connection in the Network Age." We also had some great conversation with @nwjerseyliz and @evanwolf the others who joined live in the conversation. One of the big "a ha" moments in talking to danah was the fact that, as has been noted in many other places, we typically hang out (more-or-less) with "people like us"… -
The Laws of VRM
5 Nov 2009 | 3:21 pmIn conjunction with this week's Internet Identity Workshop, a number of folks including @dsearls @deanland @joeandrieu @judico @juliangay @dariusdunlap and others have been thinking a lot about ProjectVRM. As part of the conversations, an activity this group was doing was trying to distill down to its essence what "makes" something "VRM" (or VRM-like, at least). We came up with a couple of core concepts, the first of which is that in a system that is VRM-ish, the following holds true: "VRM Law #1: The individual is the point of integration." In other words, instead of myriad… -
Thought of the Day: Single-Sign Off
5 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pmLots of folks have looked at integrating online identities, and there are various types of "single sign-on" (cite) systems around. Thought experiment for today: what would single sign-off look like? In other words, what would happen if an individual had the ability to conceptually "unplug" from the Network?
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah
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Social Technology Impacts Every Customer Touchpoint
20 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pmForbes CMO Network, An Insightful Resource For Marketing Leaders I’m serving CMOs by teaming up with the Forbes as a regular contributor. My goal? To guide marketing leadership on how to leverage disruptive technologies and meet business goals. At a more detailed level, this blog will continue to aim at providing nitty-gritty breakdowns, frameworks, and insights. Use these two resources in tandem to both develop strategies, and then implement best practices across the organization. [Companies Must Develop A Holistic Strategy, As Social Technologies Impact Every Customer Touchpoint]… -
Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies
18 Nov 2009 | 8:44 amAt the Altimeter Group, I cover Customer Strategy, which encompasses not only marketing, but also support, expect our discussion to grow as social technologies impact the whole enterprise. The Social Support movement is afoot (see opportunities), and more companies will be connecting existing marketing and support systems with the social web. Many companies, like Comcast, Wells Fargo, Intel, BestBuy, JetBLue are responding to customers and in some cases, supporting them in near real time. The challenge is that these teams are unable to scale, even a support team of ten full time folks at… -
Breakdown: Lego’s “Digital Box”, an Augmented Reality Kiosk
16 Nov 2009 | 3:51 amAugmented Reality provides brands with an engaging experience that merges both the digital and the real world. This 30 second video shows how a 3D animation on the product box enabled me to understand the assembled product. Lego’s “Digital Box” Provides Customers with an Interactive 3D Digital Experience This weekend, I went to the local Lego store here in Silicon Valley (Hillsdale) to see a practical version of Augmented Reality. I was previously briefed by Metaio, the technology vendor that empowers the software for the Augmented Reality kiosks called, Digital Box. This… -
Personal Goals and #OperationBluewater
15 Nov 2009 | 7:58 amMost people miss out on life because they don’t have a strategy around personal goals. Most Lack a Personal Goal Strategy Let me lay out some the observations I’ve noticed from some of the smartest folks I’ve watched achieve success in their lives. Often they first tell me about the challenges, that most people don’t even have a personal goal strategy. 1) Most people don’t even have personal goals, seriously try it, ask folks you work with: “What’s your personal goal?” 2) Most people think the end goal is a at 65 and do all their… -
Is Your Company Trusted or Do You Have a Digital Comb Over?
13 Nov 2009 | 7:15 amMany companies are entering the social/green/community space, with hopes of impressing customers, yet despite their best intentions, they could come across as inauthentic, and be damaging their own brand. Companies should first take a self-assessment of their brand to see if they’re ready before they decide to enter the social space. Companies should first assess their culture and ask: Is the company ready to talk about the good –and bad– with the market? Is the internal culture ready to embrace customers on their own terms? Is the culture ready to make changes based on…
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Common Craft
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Video: Cloud Computing in Plain English
11 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pmToday we published a new video called Cloud Computing in Plain English: This title has been one of our most requested and for good reason. Cloud Computing is a subject that has an explanation problem - people have a hard time understanding it because it's difficult to explain quickly. Like Social Media, it's a subject that is very broad and lacks broad consensus in terms of clear explanations. Our hope with this video is to lay bit of groundwork so people can see the big ideas. We asked a number of people for input on the video and I want to thank: Tony Wright, Chris Savage, Uri… -
Cloud Computing in Plain English
11 Nov 2009 | 7:56 amCloud Computing in Plain English Check out all the videos in our "Computer Basics Pack" pack: Cloud Computing in Plain EnglishComputer Hardware in Plain EnglishComputer Software in Plain EnglishPhishing Scams in Plain EnglishWeb Search Strategies in Plain EnglishWorld Wide Web in Plain English Cloud Computing in Plain English -
Libraries and Online Video - Free Online Seminar with TechSoup
10 Nov 2009 | 11:37 amI'm excited to be participating in a free online seminar with TechSoup, an organization that helps non-profits with technology. Details below: Tech Training Made Simple with Online Videos Wednesday, November 18, 11 a.m. Pacific time Wouldn’t it be great if complicated technology concepts were explained in a simple way that’s easy to understand? Imagine how something like this could assist you in training sessions for patrons or staff. Well look no further, Common Craft creates explanatory videos “In Plain English” that cover topics like green, money, society and… -
Video Licensing: The Business of Permission
28 Oct 2009 | 12:18 pmAlmost anyone can make a video and put it online, but there are relatively few good models for earning a living from online videos. We've been experimenting over a couple of years and believe more than ever that video licensing is a model that has huge potential. The Current Options Of course there's the advertising model. A video is made, it attracts eyeballs, eyeballs are distracted by ads. A tiny percentage of people click the ads and the video host and video owner make a bit of money. It can certainly work and we've experimented with it, but it can be a long, hard slog. For… -
2010 Census "Count on Change" - Explained by Say It Visually
27 Oct 2009 | 8:57 amSay It Visually!, a member of the Common Craft Explainer Network, recently published this video that explains the impact of the 2010 Census on communities and focuses on encouraging participation among people of color. This format is a new one for Say It Visually and it's great to see them taking video explanation in new directions. I think the hand-painted style fits really well with the voice-over and music by Keb'-Mo'. It has a heart-felt feel that may have been hard with animation. What do you think?
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louisgray.com
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Embrace Our Twitter Ad Overlords, Assuming Relevancy
20 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pmThose of you who have some history with the blog know that I am not a huge fan of advertising. I skip commercials on my TiVo. I don't click on banner ads online. I switch stations when listening to the radio, assuming I am not listening to my ad-free iTunes library or ad-free Sirius XM radio app. I once said, to some controversy, that most bloggers don't deserve any ad revenue at all, and also took considerable effort to report many Facebook advertisements as being offensive. But despite all this, with official word from Twitter COO Dick Costolo coming that the service will indeed include… -
The Chrome OS Release Is Not About Now, It's About Next.
20 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pmYesterday, as most tech outlets noted, Google previewed their much-awaited Chrome Operating System - and in parallel released the code for the operating system to the open source community. By the end of the day, sites like Gdgt had compiled virtual machine capable installs of the early alpha system, and geeks, including me, were tinkering with the system. Unsurprisingly, there were near-immediate reviews, and some calling the news a disappointment. But for me, the news was not so much about Chrome OS being ready to go, but instead Google delivering on a promise, and showing its cards, before… -
Technology, Community, Relevancy: The 3 Social Pillars
20 Nov 2009 | 2:06 amWhy do some social sites thrive while others fail? Why do you find some networks have you dedicating hours every day to participate, while others couldn't get you to raise an eyebrow? And why don't your friends see with you eye to eye on what the best services are, even after you've told them about your favorites time and again? The more I am exposed to new sites and social services, it becomes clear to me that there are three core elements that need to be solved to deliver a killer social service - and falling short in just one can mean rapid closure. Meanwhile, even if all three of these… -
Open Web Foundation Speeds Protocols' Legal Contracts
18 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amOn Tuesday, the Open Web Foundation released an agreement aimed to speed new specifications' ability to be adopted by downstream users, with the intent of spreading open tools throughout the Web. Though occupying the always-complicated intersection of both the legal world and the tech world, the agreement is very interesting. The non-profit organization, featuring leading geeks from many of Silicon Valley's best known and most-respected companies, is hoping to promote data portability and open Web standards, no matter their source. Tuesday's agreement makes it easier for others to implement… -
How Facebook's News Feed Failed Me (And My Family)
17 Nov 2009 | 11:32 pmAs more and more people are turning to social networks to share their information, practically all of us are connecting to an ever-increasing number of people, and for the most part, we are updating more frequently, and sharing content from different sources in multiple places. The resulting increase in velocity, often termed noise, has led to practically all tools to try and assist us to find the "most relevant" data, or the "best" information, based either on activity from others in our social graph, or through our own past activity. Sometimes, this works very well, helping to make signal…
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Speaking about Presenting
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How to present with Twitter and other backchannels
19 Nov 2009 | 8:20 pmPresenting with Twitter can be challenging. Just about every week a new story of a speaker getting roasted on Twitter makes waves in the blogosphere. I’ve written a free eBook “How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels)” to help you avoid that fate. There’s no sign up required. Just click and read. I asked my trusted and expert community to review the book and say what they thought of it: “Fantastic eBook! Outstanding information and well worth the read.” Jeff Hurt, @JeffHurt and MidCourse Corrections “Wow! I really enjoyed this book. Very… -
7 ways to keep audience attention during your presentation
17 Nov 2009 | 2:46 pmReference: Hartley J and Davies I “Note taking: A critical review” Programmed Learning and Educational technology, 1978,15, 207-224 cited by John Medina in Brain Rules Keeping audience attention is more important and more difficult than grabbing audience attention. A reader emailed me: “What can I do to keep the audience’s attention through the whole of my presentation. There are always people who don’t seem to be listening.” A one-way presentation is one of the worst possible ways of transferring information from person to person. It requires discipline and effort to simply sit… -
How to craft a memorable key message in 10 minutes
10 Nov 2009 | 2:48 pmA key message is the number one thing you want your audience to remember or do as a result of your presentation. Some experts call it “the big idea”, the core of your presentation or the proposition. Start planning your presentation by deciding on your key message. It will make the rest of your planning easy and straightforward. Steve Bent, one of my readers, said in a comment on a previous post: “…[T]hat’s when I had the Eureka moment of the key message for that particular presentation. Then all previous thoughts, notes and parts of the presentation were easy to classify in terms… -
Powerpoint Twitter Magic – now you can tweet from PowerPoint
2 Nov 2009 | 12:23 amIn my post 10 tools for presenting with Twitter, I lamented that there was no easy-to-use way of posting tweets from within PowerPoint. Timo Elliott of SAPWeb2.0 has now created an add-in for PowerPoint 2004 and 2007 which does just that. It’s called AutoTweet. Thank you Timo – you’re a star! Go to Timo’s PowerPoint Twitter page to download the add-in. Open PowerPoint, and click on the Add-in ribbon. Then click on Autotweet – highlighted in this screenshot: You’ll get this Dialog box: Then type your tweet into the Notes pane of your PowerPoint slide. Type… -
The two best alternatives to Twitter as a presentation backchannel
27 Oct 2009 | 10:36 pmNote: This post was updated on 30 October to reflect TodaysMeet introducing Twitter integration. The advent of the backchannel is a tremendous opportunity for presenters. The backchannel is an online conversation that takes place at the same time as people are talking live. Audience participation didn’t use to scale easily beyond a small group. Now, the backchannel allows every audience member, whatever the size of the group, to be an active participant. However, if you plan to use a backchannel proactively in your presentation, it may be better to use a backchannel tool other than Twitter.
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The Engaging Brand
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The Web of Intrigue
20 Nov 2009 | 4:44 pmThe web intrigues me. It intrigues me because although people see it as a way of providing solutions...I think it is best when it provides the framework of a web - for you to fill in the gaps. I tend to think that....Engagement on the web is not about finding a solution but providing a web of discoverIf you take Facebook for example...it is not an answer per se, it is an intriguing question which asks you to solve for yourself. What happened to, who do I know, who have I lost touch with....The web for me is not about a solution because...rarely is there a generic solution which fits all. It… -
Heart to heart - why its good to feel in business
19 Nov 2009 | 5:40 pmCommunication has always been the lifeblood of society and the need for communication never changes. Look at me tonight sat by Nana's bedside in hospital and every now and again despite her massive stroke, her eyes tell me she needs love, she needs comfort, she needs me to hold her. Her tool is not social media, it is her eyes than convey that emotion in a way which creates engagement.Communication is vital and social media has in many ways made communication easier. My worry though is two-fold Because there are tools to make it easier, that does not make communication better. In fact I would… -
When You Truly Understand Engagement
18 Nov 2009 | 3:31 pmWhat is engagement? ...a question which I get asked often and this week I have truly understood the meaning of the word. For those who don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I have not being posting or editing podcasts as my nana had a massive stroke and I have been at her bedside since last Friday - not sure at the moment who looks worse me or her!But during this time I have realised that engagement is just about two words....time and caring. The nurses have been wonderful here at Scarborough hospital, not because they have loads of money to spend on making us comfortable, not because of… -
The True Meaning of Life
12 Nov 2009 | 9:04 amLearning happens, not only through reading and in classrooms, but in everyday life. This week I have had boiler problems (insert your own joke here!) and today a wonderful British Gas engineer came out, as always I got into conversation with him and found he had traced his family tree. At this point he said something which made me take stock of leadership, of marketing, of branding...well of life. He said"When you look back at your family tree, it is not what they did, it is how they lived which teaches you the most"There were three lessons for me You can learn from reading, from teaching but… -
Show 270 - How to cope with change
10 Nov 2009 | 11:15 amShow 270 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcastis ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post and don't forget GotoMeeting hold your meetings online for just $49/mo. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days Today I have a fascinating interview with the wonderful Jim Clemmer who "for nearly 30 years have been inspiring action and achieving results in the area of practical leadership". For more learnings from the book you can sign up for a free webcast on December 3 hereWe talk…
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Lava Row
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Holiday open house: Stop in and have a drink
20 Nov 2009 | 7:15 amThis evening we’re opening our doors from 5:00-7:00pm during the East Village Holiday Promenade. Please stop by and have a drink with us, and don’t forget to RSVP on Facebook. Happy Holidays! -
The power of surprise in Detroit Metro Airport’s light tunnel
13 Nov 2009 | 9:46 amDuring a layover at Detroit Metro Airport (DTW) I had the pleasure of traveling through the light tunnel, an ambient, subterranean sound and light experience that connects the concourses. I’m featuring it here on the blog because it was such a pleasant (and relaxing) surprise. Below is a video I captured inside the light tunnel. My FlipCam didn’t do the best job capturing the colors, so here’s a great photo taken by pallid7 and shared on Flickr.com: My friend Greg Swan also blogged about the tunnel a few weeks back. Here’s a great photo set on Flickr (courtesy of… -
Twitter rolls out Project Retweet
10 Nov 2009 | 11:07 amLast Friday I discovered that Twitter’s new retweet feature had been activated in my account. Much like Lists, they are slowly rolling this out to all users, so be patient and you’ll discover it soon. For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a quick video description and howto on the new feature. What are your thoughts on the new retweet functionality? What interesting things could you build with this being integrated into the Twitter API? -
Lava Row Camp social media seminar: What’s next?
28 Oct 2009 | 11:47 amBack in late September we announced Lava Row Camp (a recurring series of monthly educational social media seminars). After our first event we decided to re-tool the format in order to make it more accessible to more people — we’re moving the event time from the noon hour to 5:00pm, shortening the overall content to allow for more Q&A and interaction, waiving ticket fees and (here’s the best news) incorporating cocktails! For the next installment of Lava Row Camp, we’re ditching the 101 slides and focusing on what’s next for the future of social media marketing… -
How to get serious about public speaking
27 Oct 2009 | 7:59 amPhoto credit: Terry Anderson Photography Two years ago, public speaking isn’t something I imagined doing a lot of in my career, or even enjoying. Fast forward to today, and in fact quite the opposite has happened: I do a significant amount of it and I actually look forward to each and every engagement. For those who are considering getting more active with public speaking, or maybe even thrust into a situation where it’s required of you, I wanted to create a post that serves as a guide for getting comfortable, getting better, and getting more gigs. Let’s get started. Do it…
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Presentation Zen
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Using Kuler to create color themes
1 Nov 2009 | 5:21 amAlthough scores of good books on color theory have been written — many even for non-designers — most working professionals just do not have the time to delve deeply into a study of the complexities of using color. The good news is that there are online resources that can help you create harmonious color themes without requiring advance knowledge in color theory. There are a few really good online resources such as ColorSchemer and Colourlovers, but my personal favorite is Kuler. Kuler is a web-based color tool from Adobe that has thousands of community-generated color themes from which… -
Presentación Zen: Por fin! La versión en español ya está disponible
28 Oct 2009 | 10:04 pmI'm happy to announce that the Presentation Zen book is finally available in Spanish. The book follows the same design and layout as the original English version. Spanish was the most requested translation so we're delighted that it is finally on sale. I'm not sure exactly where you can get the book in your area, but here is info on the Pearson Educación website. Above: A photo of the front and back covers.The Presentation Zen DVD on Amazon and elsewhere also includes Spanish (and Japanese and English) subtitles. Thanks to everyone at Pearson for their hard work and to everyone across the… -
The art of control without controlling, doing without doing
26 Oct 2009 | 3:01 amAs a leader — in business, education, or design — how much control do you need? How much can you give up? Is control even the right word? Is it possible to lead without leading? Here is a great TED talk that will get you thinking that has applications for leaders of all types. Former conductor Itay Talgam today runs workshops to help people develop a musician's sense of collaboration, and a conductor's sense of leadership. In this excellent talk at TED Oxford, Itay touches on the art of creating perfect harmony without saying a word by showing the unique styles of six great 20th-century… -
Tokonoma and the art of the focal point
20 Oct 2009 | 7:14 amEvery good design needs a focal point. This goes for the design of interior living spaces as well. In many Western homes, the mantel place in the living room is often a focal point from which other interior design elements are added in a more or less symmetrical fashion. In traditional Japanese homes or modern homes containing a washitsu (Japanese-style room) it is the Tokonoma (床の間) that serves as the subtle focal point for the interior. The tokonoma (lit: floor/bed + space) is a raised alcove in which Japanese art such as a hanging scroll (Kakemono) or a flower arrangement is… -
Sumi-e, color, and the art of less
5 Oct 2009 | 11:00 pmA fundamental design and life lesson from the Zen arts is to never use more when less will do. This goes for the use of color as well. The problem with most slide presentations is not that visuals contain too few colors, it's that they contain too many. A common practice is to use several different vivid hues (colors) in presentation slides when even a single hue in various shades or tints would have been more effective. The ancient art of Japanese brush painting called Sumi-e (墨絵) provides a powerful lesson concerning the use of color, communication, and restraints. Sumi-e was brought to…
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slide:ology
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Visualizing the Sun Food Agenda with Michael Pollan
12 Nov 2009 | 10:09 amDuarte had the distinct pleasure of working with bestselling author Michael Pollan to turn his ideas about sustainability and food systems into a visual presentation for the PopTech conference last month. Plan to eat your lunch in front of the computer today so you can enjoy his presentation: It’s rare that we’ll work with such a gifted natural storyteller. You can see Michael speak sans visuals here and here. So, to take advantage of Michael’s comfortable, engaging speaking style, we built into the presentation some key moments, opportunities for Michael to really connect… -
Book Review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
6 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pmSource: Business Week I l-o-v-e-d this book. It’s officially in my Top 5 favorite presentation books. You should definitely crack open this book every time you have a high-stakes presentation to give. Carmine Gallo has studiously observed Steve Job’s presentations and has cracked the code! The book is much deeper than just Job’s delivery style, Gallo has codified it into practical lessons and insights around content construction and corporate theater. He covers insights from Steve’s entire journey at Apple. Gallo also sprinkled in non-Apple examples that help you see how you too can… -
Duarte is more than great pumpkins… we’ve got great costumes, too!
6 Nov 2009 | 11:43 amPumpkin carving is fun, but what’s Halloween without costumes?! In addition to the Annual Pumpkin Decorating Contest we share with the public, we also hold a costume contest that you don’t get to see. Below is a slideshare presentation of (almost) all of our employee costumes… comment and tell us which is your fave! Duarte Halloween Costumes 2009 View more presentations from duartian. -
Book Review: Six Pixels of Separation
5 Nov 2009 | 9:23 amMitch Joel is president of Twist Image, a agency with offices in Toronto and Montreal. I met him at TED two years ago. It’s nice to read a book by another CEO who is running an agency and taking on the role of author—I can empathize with the challenges. Mitch did a fantastic job encapsulating the entire online ecosystem. I wish this book had been published a year ago when I dove into social media, it would have been like having a mentor. No wonder Six Pixels of Separationis on Seth Godin’s reading list and received fantastic reviews and on the “popular book” list at 800-CEO-read. In… -
Stanford Keynote Open to the Public
2 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pmIf you’re in the South Bay around lunchtime tomorrow, grab a bite to eat and head over to Stanford! Tomorrow at noon Nancy will deliver a keynote at Stanford’s Bishop Auditorium, the South Building of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Hope you can make it!
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Ethos3
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Presentation Wisdom – We All Need a Mr. Miyagi
18 Nov 2009 | 8:40 amSometimes we all feel like a losers. Whether you are the new kid in school, the new girl on the job, the single person at the movie or single person at the wedding, we all feel out of place and overwhelmed from time to time. In the classic film Karate Kid, Daniel moves to a new community in California that seems to be a world away from his rough-around-the-edges, East Coast childhood. No sooner does Daniel fall for the class babe than he is confronted by a group of teen thugs who specialize in bullying – Karate-style. Daniel realizes he’ll have to beat the bullies at their own… -
A Presentation They Can’t Refuse
12 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pmSure a cold-blooded Mafia kingpin like The Godfather trilogy’s Michael Corleone might seem like an unlikely hero for a presentation geek, but we at Ethos3 would beg to differ. As honest-to-goodness presentation geeks we can assure you that one could do far worse than turning to the shark-like, youngest son of the Corleone clan for advice on knockin’ ‘em dead at your next presentation. Although he is better known for his persuasive powers behind-the-scenes, no one can deny the man’s overwhelming charisma. How many times does Michael get whole rooms of grown men to jump… -
Presentation Food – What to Eat on the Road
3 Nov 2009 | 9:58 amWhat are three things that rock stars, over-the-road truckers, hippies and presenters have in common? Give up? Breakfast, lunch and dinner. All of these folks have a tough time finding anything that resembles such simple categories when they are out on the open road. You may love the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. You may have a thing for map reading and finding out-of-the-way treasures. You may have read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road when you were in college and never quite got over it. Whether you were born to be wild or acquired your wanderlust as a blessing or a curse,… -
Experience Presenting: 3XPERIENCE
29 Oct 2009 | 11:48 amLong before De La Soul informed us that 3 was a magic number, savvy presenters understood the power of breaking a pitch down into three distinct, compelling, powerful points, creating an overall message that inspires and engages. However, even the most well-crafted presentation can’t knockout the room simply by relying on this fundamental organization. All too often a really well-crafted pitch suffers from a hum-drum, unimaginative delivery that simply shows-and-tells but never really connects with and moves the audience. Welcome to your 3XPERIENCE… it’s a new style we are… -
Reading Your Presentation – When, Why & How
28 Oct 2009 | 9:02 amMonth after month we fill this blog with updated content, every bit of it designed to make you the most engaging, dynamic person to ever power-up a PowerPoint presentation. From technical tips to personal pointers, we are really dedicated to helping you make your presentation a memorable, charismatic event. That’s why I’m now going to suggest that you should just stand in front of the room and read your next presentation. Huh? Seriously? Yes! Of course, most of the time, reading one’s speech or presentation is clearly one of the worst ideas you can imagine. However, there…
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Idea Sandbox » Blog
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Stickability: 95% Of Ability
17 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am -
Off-Site Meetings: Last Century Technology
16 Nov 2009 | 4:43 amDid use an abacus or slide rule to build your FY’10 budgets? To prepare and distribute information about next year’s Marketing Plan did you use a typewriter and make a duplicate with a layer of ink paper? Or did you hand crank copies on a Ditto (or Verifax) machine? Of course you didn’t. That would be crazy and inefficient. We have invented better and more efficient tools. With that said.. while we are in the 21st century… there is a tool that is stuck somewhere in the mid-1900s: The Off-Site Meeting. It is interesting we don’t perceive meetings as a… -
Rules Of The Garage
9 Nov 2009 | 1:23 am[The garage where Hewlett and Packard started HP, 1939 photo Founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard had the right idea when they first built their company. They believed if you had passion for what you did – and did it with quality – the money will follow. This was a pretty radial idea back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Their approach to business became known as the “HP Way.” And later the title of the book David Packard wrote about building HP. (The HP Way). They started their business in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California. (That garage has been dubbed the… -
Catch More Fish With The Right Lure, In The Right Waters
6 Nov 2009 | 6:05 amA couple of fishermen are hanging out in their local bait shop. One has a new product idea for out-of-town visitors. Sell a lake map and fishing lure combo. Take specific fishing lures and tape them to the different lakes on the map. This way the out-of-towner will know the proper bait to use at each particular lake, and will lead to a more successful fishing experience. If you’re at Watermans Reservoir and want to catch a Northern Pike, you need a spinner lure. At Worden’s Pond after Jackfish? Use a fish-imitation lure or cut bait.* Here comes the business segue… We… -
How To Peel A Tomato: Using The Right Tool
5 Nov 2009 | 3:59 amLast week I prepared a recipe for an Italian dish that calls for fresh-peeled tomatoes. I have a vegetable peeler… nice and sharp with a rubber grip. I’ve used it for carrots, potatoes, zucchini, squash… However, have you ever tried to peel a tomato? No matter how careful and patient you are, the peeler hacks up the tomato. Luckily I remembered my “how to peel tomatoes” lesson Chef Dad taught me: Blanching and Shocking. If you put whole fresh tomatoes in a pot of boiling water for 15 to 30 seconds (blanching) followed by a pot of iced cold water for 15 to 30…
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Slides that stick
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Keep your text trapped in its box
19 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pmThe elaborate tornado illustration of this ad is pretty, but it looks like there was not much time left to think of a good place for the punch line and the dates of the event. Eyes and brains do not like reading text over fluctuating backgrounds.Via Ads of the World. -
Richer color textures for presentation design?
18 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pmColors for computer screens and printers are created by mixing primary colors. (See this background article about RGB (adding primary colors for screens) and CMYK (filtering primary colors for printers).In theory, it is possible to create any color you want using the right RGB codes (more about the color wheel here). Still, I find it almost impossible to recreate the colors that some of the great painters are using in their paintings. Obviously they did not use tools such as kuler, but rather relied on mixing colors on a palate by hand.Take this painting as an example: The Arnolfini Portait… -
Tilt those Google maps
17 Nov 2009 | 7:20 pmGoogle Earth is a wonderful tool to produce maps in your presentation. Select the area you want to cover, do a screen dump and crop your image in PowerPoint. Make sure to make the best use of the power of Google Earth. Tilting the map to a level that the horizon becomes visible adds a nice additional perspective to the chart. Especially when you visualize paths. -
Chart concept - "Stuck!" (redux)
16 Nov 2009 | 7:10 pmThis ad uses a visual concept which I discussed in an earlier post. The easiest way to recreate it in PowerPoint is to stick to simple shapes with numbers, similar to the original puzzle with 15 pieces. You can go one level up and use an image (like in the ad). To do this, re-read an earlier post about slicing up PowerPoint shapes.Via Ads of the World. -
Frans Hals: 27 shades of black
15 Nov 2009 | 7:55 pmIt is thought that Vincent van Gogh once admired the Dutch painter Frans Hals (1580-1666) for using 27 shades of black in one painting. If you study the works of the Dutch masters carefully, you can see that they actually do use very little color. (Here is an example from Rembrandt: black, red, yellow) Part of this is due to space limitations on the color palette. Pink skin tones take a lot of space, leaving not much room for other colors.Painting above: Frans Hals, The regentesses of the Old Men's Home in Haarlem, 1664, Oil on canvas, 170.5 x 249.5 cmThere is a similarity to designing…
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TEDTalks (video)
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TEDTalks : Tom Wujec demos the 13th-century astrolabe - Tom Wujec (2009)
20 Nov 2009 | 6:29 amRather than demo another new technology, Tom Wujec reaches back to one of our earliest but most ingenious devices -- the astrolabe. With thousands of uses, from telling time to mapping the night sky, this old tech reminds us that the ancient can be as brilliant as the brand-new. -
TEDTalks : Devdutt Pattanaik: East vs. West -- the myths that mystify - Devdutt Pattanaik (2009)
19 Nov 2009 | 7:32 amDevdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West -- and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about God, death and heaven help us consistently misunderstand one another. -
TEDTalks : Fields Wicker-Miurin: Learning from leadership's "missing manual" - Fields Wicker-Miurin (2009)
18 Nov 2009 | 7:17 amLeadership doesn't have a user's manual, but Fields Wicker-Miurin says stories of remarkable, local leaders are the next best thing. At a TED salon in London, she shares three. -
TEDTalks : Mathieu Lehanneur demos science-inspired design - Mathieu Lehanneur (2009)
17 Nov 2009 | 7:34 amNaming science as his chief inspiration, Mathieu Lehanneur shows a selection of his ingenious designs -- an interactive noise-neutralizing ball, an antibiotic course in one layered pill, asthma treatment that reminds kids to take it, a living air filter, a living-room fish farm and more. -
TEDTalks : Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology - Pranav Mistry (2009)
15 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pmAt TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.
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Be Excellent
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Start 2010 Off Right - With Six Disciplines
20 Nov 2009 | 6:08 am2010 - another new year awaits us all. What will the new year bring in terms of your business? What will you do differently in 2010 to ensure success?Consider adopting the Six Disciplines approach to strategy execution. Think of these six disciplines as a series of annual, quarterly, weekly and daily repeatable cycles which, with each successive pass, helps leaders and their teams to more effectively execute in their pursuit of enduring excellence. Six disciplines are all it takes—but leaders and their companies must stick with them. Change initiatives generally don’t last, especially in… -
Coming To Your Organization in 2010: More Change!
19 Nov 2009 | 9:40 amAre you satisfied with the way your business is performing today?Specifically, what are you doing to make 2010 a banner year for business improvement?What are you going to do differently? What are you going to do - to change? The challenge is how to change, not if.Following are seven steps for effective organizational change in 2010:Create a commitment to change. Define a shared vision of what you want to commit to it. Without a clear commitment, you'll create chaos for the change you want to achieve. Creating the commitment brings you back to what you want to achieve and allows you to… -
What Companies Should Look for in a Business Coach
19 Nov 2009 | 7:36 amThe business coaching industry, which is getting more exposure these days, is still filled with contradictions. Coaches themselves disagree over why they’re hired, what they do, and how to measure success. Here’s what you should know.A few months ago, Harvard Business Review conducted a survey of 140 leading coaches in order to find out more about the business coaching industry. Despite the widespread use of executive coaches, little is widely known about who they are, what they do.Here's what the coaches who were surveyed said companies should look for in a coach:65%: Experience of… -
Why Do Most Companies Fail? Hiring Is At The Core
17 Nov 2009 | 4:57 amWhy do most companies fail?Most companies fail primarily because they don’t have the right team of peopleThe CEO might not be right, or the CEO hasn’t chosen the right people in the right positionsUnfortunately, most new CEOs don’t understand the talent level required at each position and the teamwork needed to build a successful company.To have a successful company, most businesses need key people in several categories including research & development, manufacturing, IT, finance, marketing, sales, and HR. BOTTOMLINE: Hiring right (from position description, to sourcing, to… -
Why Trust Is The Key To Execution
16 Nov 2009 | 5:04 amMuch has been said recently about trust being a foundational principle for organizations to get the right things done.Warren G. Bennis has said: "Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work."Collin Powell has said: “You've got to trust people…you've got to let people make mistakes and not ground them off about it.”Stephen M.R. Covey, the author of the the best-seller "The Speed of Trust" offers a free download of "The 13 Behaviors of a High Trust Leader".
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Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life
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The 7 Signs of a Leader - A Must Read
19 Nov 2009 | 11:49 pmWe all need leaders in our lives: mentors, people to look up to, people that simply get it. Leaders inspire us, help us accomplish our dreams, and teach by example. Leaders make us better people and give us an ideal to strive for.The measure of leadership is always influence; leaders have an amazing ability to influence our lives. Leaders lead wherever they go; they lead at work, at home, or wherever they happen to be.So after that intro, it's easy to conclude that being a leader is not an easy task; it requires a collection of very important skills that have to be ingrained into your daily… -
Seven Ways to Create More Time In Your Day
18 Nov 2009 | 1:05 amDo you ever feel like you have way too much time on your hands, and far too little work and life to fit into it? Unless you're a teen on summer break, I reckon it's unlikely! Most of us would love to have an extra couple of hours in each day. With two more hours, we could find time to exercise, to read some of the books that are gathering dust on our shelves, to spend time with the kids...But, unless you're lucky enough to find a magic genie who can stretch your days to twenty-six hours long, you're stuck with the same twenty-four hours per day as the rest of the world. So how can you create… -
The Bruce Lee Approach to Valuing of Money
16 Nov 2009 | 11:56 pmBruce Lee lived his life through action; he was a man who lived what he taught. Many people don't know that he wasn't just a great martial artist but he studied, amongst other things, philosophy at the University of Washington. He was deeply interested in life and and all that encompasses, including money.From the book, 'Striking Thoughts' Bruce Lee talks about money as a useful tool, nothing more. Here are some of the lessons:The Nature Of Money"Money of itself has no explicit nature. Money is what one makes of it"Many of us believe that money holds a certain power. This is wrong. Money… -
7 Healthy Foods That Will Fill You Up and Prevent Overeating
13 Nov 2009 | 3:47 amDavid A. Kessler, the author of “The End of Overeating”, explains very well how people become addicted to foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt. Like addiction does, this causes people to crave so they eat more and more foods that are loaded with unhealthy ingredients and many times, completely devoid of any nutrients.So, as the process goes, people are instructed to stop eating sugar, fat, and salt. However, many times, those instructions are not supplemented with healthy replacements and it's left to you to do the research, which is no simple task. As Michael Pollan says in “In… -
Frugal Fun: Five Ways to Be Social and Save
12 Nov 2009 | 5:21 amLiving in San Francisco, one of the most expensive places in the country, I have learned a lot about budgets. First lesson: I need a budget. Recently, I kept track of my monthly expenditures and was shocked by the number in my “entertainment” column; no wonder my paychecks disappear so quickly.There are obvious alternatives to nights on the town, like socializing at home. However, sometimes we’re obligated to go out—a friend’s birthday, for example, or the need to leave the house and indulge ourselves a little. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to cut corners and still have a…
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Productivity501
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Messing with Other People’s Time Management
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amI write a lot about how to be more productive, but what if that really isn’t your thing? What if you don’t like productivity? What if your goal in life is to ruin productivity for other people? In an effort to expand our readership to people striving for unproductivity, here are six things you can do to guarantee that your co-workers get as little done as possible. Productivity501 takes no responsibility for the results of actually implementing any of these ideas. Randomly put entries on their calendar like: “1:30 meeting with John White Important!” or “Call… -
International Travel Tips
18 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amI’ve done a lot of traveling in the past, so I wanted to share some of things I’ve learned (many times the hard way) that make international travel easier. You should try to get as much information as possible about the country you are visiting, but this list of tips should give you some good starting points that are relevant for most any destination. A couple great sources for safety information on foreign countries are the CIA World Factbook and the US Travel Advisory site. Take Copies - Having a copy of your drivers license and the first page of your passport are very handy in… -
Tuesday’s Tip: Removing Superglue
17 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amHave you ever gotten superglue all over your fingers and had to live with it for two weeks as it wore off? There is a simple way to take it off, but first, let me tell you a story. When my wife worked in the ER of a large county hospital in Dallas, she saw a lot of very strange cases. One of the most interesting was the guy who came in with his eyes closed. Evidently, his wife had accused him of looking at other women and they got into a fight. Somehow, he decided that he could prove that he wasn’t looking at other women by super-gluing his eyes closed. (I am not making this up.) After… -
11 Steps in Becoming Educated for Your Dream Job
16 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amI had quite a few comments about taking classes online in my post “17 Things You Should Stop Doing“. When LifeHacker linked to the article, they had even more comments from their readers. Many of the comments were negative, saying that you shouldn’t take classes online. So, I wanted to take some time to talk about the best way for college to fit into your career. First, here is a little background about my education to give you an idea of where I’m coming from. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music composition (both taken at physical… -
Facebook
12 Nov 2009 | 9:40 pmYou can connect with Productivity501 on Facebook by becoming a fan of the Productivity501 Page. Please consider helping promote the site by becoming a fan. Thanks! Follow Productivity501 on Twitter.. ---Related Articles at Productivity501:FacebookFacebook Fan PageFacebookFacebook for KidsiPod Shuffle Facebook Giveaway
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Zen Habits
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The Simple, Ridiculously Useful Guide to Earning a Living from Your Passion
16 Nov 2009 | 6:20 amPost written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter. So you’ve followed the Short But Powerful Guide to Finding Your Passion, and have chosen something you’re passionate about. Now you need to make it a career — but are perhaps a bit lost. I have to admit I was there, only a few years ago, and three years later I’ve successfully done it, even if I’m a bit battered from the attempt. It’s not easy — I’ll tell you that up front. If you hope to make a quick buck, or a fast million, you’ll need to find another guide. Probably one with lots of… -
How To Focus On What Truly Matters
13 Nov 2009 | 1:32 pmEditor’s note: This is a guest post from Sid Savara of Analysis Driven Personal Development. In my life I’ve gone through periods of intense, driven productivity – months where everything fell into place, and my goals almost seemed to accomplish themselves. At the other extreme, there have been times in my life where I was completely overwhelmed, burdened by my different projects and responsibilities – and frustrated because so many of them not only challenged me, but didn’t matter to me. There were days when I asked myself how did I end up here? How did I end up… -
The Short but Powerful Guide to Finding Your Passion
11 Nov 2009 | 1:49 pm“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.” - Arnold Toynbee Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter. Following your passion can be a tough thing. But figuring out what that passion is can be even more elusive. I’m lucky — I’ve found my passion, and I’m living it. I can testify that it’s the most wonderful thing, to be able to make a living doing what you love. And so, in this little guide, I’d like to help you get started figuring out what you’d love doing. This turns out to be one of the most common… -
The Little Rules of Action
9 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am“The shortest answer is doing.” - Lord Herbert Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter. Too often we get stuck in inaction — the quagmire of doubt and perfectionism and distractions and planning that stops us from moving forward. And while I’m no proponent of a whirling buzz of activity, I also believe people get lost in the distractions of the world and lose sight of what’s important, and how to actually accomplish their Something Amazing. And so today I’d like to humbly present a few little rules of action — just some small reminders,… -
Low-Stress Ways To Move House and Declutter Your Life
6 Nov 2009 | 12:55 pmEditor’s note: This is a guest post from Annabel Candy of Get In the Hot Spot. Did you know that moving house can be one of the most stressful times in your life? It’s right up there with losing your job, divorce or the death of a loved one, as one of the biggest causes of stress. I’ve been there. In 2007 my husband and I sold our house along with most of our belongings and moved from New Zealand to Panama with our three young kids. We ended up spending 18 months in Central America and lived in Costa Rica for over a year during which time we moved house three times. Moving…
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Mind Hacks
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Cold asylum
20 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amNew Scientist has a gallery of striking photos taken from Christopher Payne's book that details his photographic tour of abandoned asylums in the US. In both the UK and the US, and, I suspect, in many other countries, there are numerous unused decaying mental asylums that have become obsolete as 'care in the community' has become the flag under which mental health services have been reformed or ignored. The NewSci gallery captures the faded grandeur of some of these impressive buildings and has photographs of the devices and technology from a psychiatry of a bygone era. As we discussed… -
Feliz Día Nacional del Psicólogo en Colombia
20 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amColombia has an official Day of the Psychologist and you might be forgiven for thinking that it's a self-declared promotional event by the psychology association here, but it isn't, the day is established by law. Article 92 of Law 1090 establishes 20th November as the official celebration. Psychology departments around the country usually celebrate the day with conferences and parties. I was kindly invited to give a talk on the 'Neuropsicología de Alucinaciones' at the four day conference (wow) at the University of Antioquia, so many thanks to everyone who attended. Later on, there is a free… -
2009-11-20 Spike activity
20 Nov 2009 | 12:00 amQuick links from the past week in mind and brain news: -
Time-space fusion
19 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amNeurophilosophy has an excellent piece on 'time-space' synaesthesia where affected individuals experience units of time - such as hours, days, or months - as occupying specific locations in space relative to their own body. The image on the right is taken from a BBC News article on time-space synaesthesia and was drawn by one lady to illustrate how days of the week appear to her. However, Neurophilosophy piece covers two new studies, one on a person with synaesthesia who experiences months in the space around her body in the form of a '7' shape: Michelle Jarick of the Synaesthesia Research… -
Selecting for kuru resistant cannibals
19 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amNew Scientist reports on a new study on how a gene that gives protection against the deadly brain disease kuru became more common in people exposed to the condition through their cannibalistic tradition of eating the bodies of dead relatives. Kuru is a prion disease, meaning the damage is caused by a poorly arranged or folded protein molecule which can trigger the same damaging changes in other proteins it comes into contact with. The condition is related to what we know as 'mad cow disease' and causes a distinctive form of shaking, brain degeneration and eventually leads to death. It was…
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Chaos Scenario
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The Value of Y-O-U
19 Nov 2009 | 7:30 amRecently I read Value-Based Fees: How to Charge and Get What You're Worth by Alan Weiss. I've coveted this book since I wrote Innovation by the Hour last year. After I worked through my rather large (and growing) stack of reading material, I finally was able to get my hands (and eyes) on it, and I am glad I did! (Thanks to Lisa for the recommendation).Many, if not most, people in service industries bill for time and material. This is problematic in industries whose output includes ideas, for who is to say when (or on whose dime) ideas were generated? Who owns the idea formed in an employee's… -
What is "The Fun Theory" really worth?
13 Nov 2009 | 6:23 amA couple of people took note of VW's campaign "The Fun Theory." Most recently Corley suggested it "further's VW's corporate social responsibility." Ultimately, I believe she is correct in saying that, but it's a broad statement begging to be unpacked.To be sure, this campaign isn't about VW being socially responsible. It's about VW wanting others to associate the word "Fun" with VW. The campaign is simple, unexpected, concrete, and each of the demonstrations have the trappings of a story, and presumably the effort is designed to get people excited about the possibilities (emotion). Together,… -
Happy Birthday, U.S. Marine Corps
10 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amRelated PostsA (Marine) Corps of MarketersHold and DieLest We Forget...Some Gave AllFollow @USMC on Twitter. -
Have a Solemn "Freedom Appreciation Day"
9 Nov 2009 | 7:10 amFor the East-bloc countries and those bordering them, there was a long buildup to November 9, 1989 -- now recognized as the day the Berlin Wall fell. Those of us living in West Berlin were abuzz with anticipation because the cries for freedom began to crack the Iron Curtain.Still, if you'll pardon the pun, nothing was set in stone. In February of that same year, Chris Gueffroy and Christian Guadian, believing the standing order to shoot those who tried to escape had been lifted, made an attempt to breech the wall. Guadian was captured, and Gueffroy was shot dead. The border guards fired 10… -
Beware of Zombies
20 Oct 2009 | 6:21 amFacing a deadline for my contribution to the Click Here blog, I finally settled down on a subject. However, it was a bit different from the one I previously said I'd write about. John Keehler asked to see it before I posted it, so I took the opportunity to tell him that I had changed subjects, but -- not to worry -- he'd love it."Is it about zombies," he asked.And I thought about it. No, it really wasn't, but it with a tweak here and an insertion there -- it very well could be. Or at least I could use them as an analogy to make the point.Home pages have historically been a hotbed of…
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PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement
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6 Types of Time: Which Are You Missing?
20 Nov 2009 | 11:08 amImage Courtesy of Jimheid/Flickr I spent last weekend on retreat, taking 48 hours out of my life to get away to a secluded countryside retreat center where I could have a chance to rest, relax and reflect. This opportunity made me think about what types of time we have in our lives: all hours are not necessarily equal, and time management advice doesn’t always address this. These are six key types of time which we need: Creative and productive Physically energetic and active Playful and entertaining Learning and developing Reflective and spiritual Restful and relaxing Do you have a gut… -
8 Reasons We Don’t Do Things We Should and How To Break the Mould
19 Nov 2009 | 11:29 amOur lives are full of things we “should” do but for a range of reasons we don’t do them. Whatever it is – exercise, healthy eating, saving money – most of the time we choose to take the easier road, the road well traveled. While I’m certainly not immune to this, there are plenty of things I don’t do that I know I should, I feel that understand the why is the first step to making real progress. 1. Being Comfortable (and Lack of a Burning Desire) It all starts with how we feel about our life. How we feel greatly affects our motivations. Most people are… -
Breaking Free From the Pattern Trap
17 Nov 2009 | 9:16 amImage Courtesy of Vogue Jill Gets Ambushed, Again The knot condensed like a heavy weight in Jill’s stomach. Suddenly gasping for air, she recognized she had been here before. Yet again, just when she thought she had finally put it all together, something had sabotaged the fulfilling life that she dreamed about. “Not again,” she announced silently as she looked forlornly at her scales, “I can’t believe I’ve gained the weight back.” Jill could feel the power to change her life slipping through her fingers – it had not been the first time. Taking responsibility for her life and… -
The 5 Signs Your Diet Plan Will Last
16 Nov 2009 | 9:24 amIf you’re ever going to achieve your ideal weight, you’re going to have to develop a diet plan that you can do “forever.” Of course, people often get excited when they first start a new diet plan, but this excitement often wanes within a few weeks. They say “success leaves clues;” people who consistently follow their diet plan have several things in common. I’ve written this article as a way to identify the signs of a good diet plan. If these signs are not present in your current diet, you may want to make some adjustments to your plan. Here are the 5 Signs That Your Diet Plan… -
4 Ways to REALLY Make Time Work For You
12 Nov 2009 | 8:56 amI’ll bet you’ve got a number of started or almost-started projects that you’d love to do. Perhaps you dream of starting your own business, writing a novel, learning a foreign language, or taking a qualification. Or maybe you want to get the attic cleared out, organise your files, or repaint the hallway. It could even be that you know you need to take the time to exercise, meditate or journal … but you never get around to it. The problem is, your life is already full, and you end up busy with all the day-to-day things, unable to find time for what you really want to do. Here are…
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THE M.A.P. MAKER
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The power of the crossroads of possibility
19 Nov 2009 | 8:15 pmEach and every moment, you are at a crossroads with an infinite number of paths. Make one choice, and you head one direction. Make a different choice, and you zip off in another direction. When you look at it that way, the potential malleability of life is mind-boggling. And yet most of us fool ourselves into an artificially narrow view of possibility. We make assumptions about the way things are and - poof! - a path of possibility disappears. We persist with limiting beliefs that have no basis in our current reality. Poof! There goes another path. What would happen if you really and truly… -
Will you affirm the Charter for Compassion?
19 Nov 2009 | 10:05 amA while ago I posted about the upcoming Charter for Compassion. As I write this, 17, 710 people have affirmed it. Will you? Watch this video and visit the Charter for Compassion site. Clicking on "affirm" is easy. The challenge - and the potential goldmine - is incorporating the ideas more deeply into your life and spreading the ideas to others. If you want to make a difference with the way you show up in the world, this is a great place to start. -
Experiment: Do a news toxicity test
17 Nov 2009 | 7:53 amMuch of how we experience the world comes from the lens through which we view it. If that lens is weighted towards a sense of hope and possibility, that's the frame of reference we'll use as we go through our lives. If it's weighted towards fear and negativity, we'll experience more of that. That lens can have a profound impact on the life we create. Hope and possibility open doors to potential. Fear and negativity limit us. One way we create our world view lens is through what we choose to reinforce on a regular basis.That's why the news can have such a toxic effect. Every day we're… -
Increase your potential with trips off the beaten track
16 Nov 2009 | 11:12 amLeave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. ~ Alexander Graham Bell Habit and routine play a positive role in life, to be sure. They help us move forward without wasting energy on mundane recurring choices. But too often they take on a life of their own. When habit and routine define your path rather than enhance it, it's easy to get bogged down in a rigid, limiting rut that ultimately narrows down your possibilities. Every day becomes a carbon copy of the day before. With no new inputs, the potential for new… -
Visual Self-exploration: Your Life in Pictures #2
16 Nov 2009 | 5:23 amWelcome to this week's installment in the Your Life in Pictures series. In this series, you will find photos to use as a point of departure for self-exploration. This week's photo: [Click on the image to see it full-sized.]Q: What insight does this picture offer about your career? About your life? Pictures have great potential for self-exploration, because they provide a point of departure for asking, "how does this apply to my own life?" There is no specific meaning to any of these pictures. They are simply here to give your brain/intuition/creative mind/etc. something to bounce off. Your…
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The Rapid eLearning Blog
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Here’s How to Get Past a Screen Full of Bullet Points
17 Nov 2009 | 12:41 amThe tendency when working with PowerPoint is to start with the template structure. This works fine if you want to create quick presentations. The problem with that approach is you tend to get slides full of bullet points. To get the most out of PowerPoint and build the best elearning courses requires thinking of PowerPoint in a different way. You have to think outside of the template and bullet point box. In a previous post, I showed how to expand your PowerPoint skills by creating custom illustrations. In today’s post we’ll build on that. I’m going to show… -
5 Ways to Use Silhouette Graphics in Your E-Learning Course
10 Nov 2009 | 12:38 amIn a recent post, I showed how to easily create your own silhouette characters. Today I share show some ways to use those silhouettes in your elearning courses. Something to keep in mind is that the silhouette doesn’t need to be confined to people. You can use them on objects, as well. Create a Progress Meter As a visual cue, use silhouette characters or objects to create a progress meter. As the learners advance, the silhouettes change to real images. This lets them see their progress through their course and where they’re currently at. Create Section… -
3 Ways to Define Interactive Rapid E-Learning
3 Nov 2009 | 12:21 amThere’s a lot of debate about interactivity in elearning. You have some people who think elearning is not valid unless it has a high level of interactivity. Anything that’s not interactive is just a “boring click-and-read course.” On the other hand, there are a lot of people who equate interactivity with nonsensical games. So to them, any interactivity is just extra time and expense. I’ve worked with clients who thought interactivity was adding a rollover or slick animations. They’d “ooh” and “aah” over the dumbest things. It was… -
The Project Management Tip You Can’t Ignore
27 Oct 2009 | 1:51 amManaging elearning projects requires good communication between the instructional designers and subject matter experts. In most cases, this communication happens via email. Thus, better email communication ultimately leads to better project management, which most likely means better elearning courses. At a recent ASTD conference, I ran into Mike Song, the author of The Hamster Revolution. It’s a book on how to effectively manage emails. Mike gave me a free copy which I skimmed through on the plane flight home. It’s a quick read and very practical, but I’ll have… -
These PowerPoint Experts Can Make You a Star
20 Oct 2009 | 1:35 amSometimes we get so busy that we lose sight of the great resources available to us. It’s not until you pull your head up from your desk and look around that you realize what’s available. That’s why it’s important to be connected to other people who have similar interests or do similar work. You’ll learn from them and have access to all sorts of information. If you think about it, there’s really not much that you know (if anything) that you didn’t learn from someone else or because of someone else. Last week I was at PowerPoint Live 2009 in Atlanta where I…
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Rambliings From A Glass Half Full
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Exclusive: Chris Garrett Reveals His Secrets of Success (and More) in The Starbucker Interview
15 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm(From L to R) Chris Garrett, Leticia Pruitt, Me, Zena Weist & Jason Falls at SOBCon09 (cc) Shashi Bellamkonda Social Media Swami Network Solutions Chris Garrett makes it quite clear that he’s in the “business” of blogging and new media- it’s right there on his very popular web site, ChrisG.com. And if you are ever fortunate enough to spend any time with him, it’s also quite clear he is a person who knows a LOT about those things, and is one of the most valuable learning resources in the blogosphere. But there is more to Chris than this knowledge and business… -
Wanna Be a Success? Turn Over a Few More Rocks
7 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pmToday I’m launching my new site design (thank you Thesis and Jesse Petersen!). It was just time, given that blog platforms are evolving faster than Twitter is gaining new users (well, maybe not quite that fast). This “rock” needed to be turned over and examined. Not because there was something so wrong about how my site looked – it was because I just wanted it to be better. A little less busy (I hope you agree!). I had been thinking about looking under rocks for several weeks lately – I always worry about complacency, and it was a perfect analogy for… -
10 Leadership Battles – And How To Win Every One of Them
1 Nov 2009 | 3:28 pmIn our quest to become great leaders we take on a constant stream of internal battles. Each and every day we choose our sides and try to do the right things, with the objective of achieving something great. There are 10 confrontations in particular that can make or break us, and we need to consistently be on the winning side of every one of them to reach the pinnacle of success. People vs. Process - It’s as simple as this: a process is only as good as the people executing it. Focus on the people first, and while you’re at it, make sure your charges truly understand the… -
The Most Important Blog Post You’ll Ever Read
25 Oct 2009 | 3:26 pm….is out there somewhere. You just need to find it. And in a land of over 100 million blogs, how is that possible? And besides, blog posts don’t change lives, right? Wrong. They can, and they have. I’m living proof of that. One day in June of 2006, I found my way to a blog written by Liz Strauss called Successful Blog. I found her by way of a link on someone else’s blogroll (Phil Gerbyshak) – I was just starting my blogging adventure and was just looking around, trying to get comfortable with this new world. What caught my eye was a post she wrote about how… -
All Great Content Is An Intersection: The Brian Clark Interview
18 Oct 2009 | 3:49 pmBrian Clark is a writer who loves to write about his craft, and it shows. His blog, Copyblogger, is one of the most popular sites on the Internet for writers and fellow bloggers of all stripes. The site has also been his launching pad for several other successful online ventures designed to help others improve their skills and online presence. He is a much sought-after speaker on the Social Media circuit not only because of his know-how, but also because of his quick wit and insightful observations. I recently caught up with Brian to ask him a few questions about the craft he loves, his…
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Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist
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This is what it looks like to have a hard time making a change
19 Nov 2009 | 10:28 pmSome days I look through old posts, reminding myself of posts that I've written that I like and that I should link to. Often, this process serves to let me procrastinate writing while pretending to be engaged in writing. If I were a body builder, this would be me looking in the mirror instead of lifting weights. Yesterday I was trolling for posts, and I remembered this one, about hiring a babysitter. I never link to it because I can't read it. I get physically ill. It was a short, stinging moment during an absolutely terrible time in my life. But a part of me likes that sting. -
How to know if you'll be good at sales
19 Nov 2009 | 10:39 amIt’s clear to me that emotional intelligence is the most important skill for success in adult life. And the consummate career application of emotional intelligence is the sales department. So I’m fascinated by sales. I used to think I’m not that good at sales. For example, I’m an open book—I have very little ability to bluff or play my hand close to my—actually, what is that expression? I don’t even know the expression. But then, when I told one of my mentors that I’m not good at sales, he said, “Of course you’re good at sales. You’ve gotten three companies… -
What makes a blog successful?
17 Nov 2009 | 6:10 amI have always thought that blogging is a way to reach your career goals. It’s hard to write a blog if you don’t have a goal. You need to know what blogging success looks like to you, so you know what you're aiming for. Like most goals in life, my definition of blogging success has shifted as the circumstances of my life have shifted. 1. Post regularly without messing anything up. My first goal was simply to understand how to get my writing onto the Internet. All the buzzwords overwhelmed me: feeds, trackbacks, SEO. I understood none of it, and it took weeks to get up the nerve to… -
Don't be a snob about career advice
16 Nov 2009 | 7:53 amI have found that the best way to manage myself is by asking for a lot of help. The question is, how do you know who to take advice from? The answer is not always intuitive. For example, you'd think that if Bill Gates wants to give you career advice, you should take it, right? I mean, the guy’s had a pretty decent career. The problem is that if he doesn’t care about your career, he’s going to give you generic advice. Here are five other counter-intuitive principles I have used to figure out who to listen to when it comes to my own career: Listen to people who hate you. People ask… -
How to make business travel manageable
11 Nov 2009 | 9:29 pmLast year I traveled almost every week. Some weeks I traveled to three different cities. If you are excited about business travel, thinking it’s a free ticket to see the world, you should stop reading now. But if you are having trouble maintaining your personal life in the face of tons of travel, these tips from a cynical traveler will make life easier for you. 1. Stick with your priorities. When people travel to another city, why do they throw out their to do list for sightseeing in random museums? If you have on your top three things you want in life: go to the gym, stay in touch with…
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All Things Workplace
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HR & Social Media: What Would Jesus Do?
20 Nov 2009 | 8:07 amAre you an HR person wrestling with how best to use social media?You've got plenty of company.At this week's IQPC Corporate University sessions there was an entire two-day track dedicated to Social Media. Speakers included Sharlyn Lauby and Jessica Lee, HR pros who know their way around the online community and the tools available to best do that. The questions from the audience surprised me since I've been online for some time: 1. Do we need legal regulations before we start using social media? (This was the starting point for a lot of people; their management wanted to nail down any… -
Men and Achievement: More Romantic Than Engaged?
17 Nov 2009 | 7:28 pmEureka, I've found it! Business-related research that finally allows the kind of cheesy headline to attract readers from all genres while losing my core group in the process. Please say you'll still love me in the morning. The headline in Science Daily reads:Men Choose Romance Over Success Men may be more willing than women to sacrifice achievement goals for a romantic relationship. This according to a new study by Catherine Mosher of Duke Medical Center and Sharon Danoff-Burg from the University of Albany. The findings challenge preconceptions that women are more likely to prioritize people… -
Five Good Tips For Busy People
16 Nov 2009 | 7:35 am"Unless you are an hourly worker in America, boundaries between work and leisure are dead. Work bleeds into life, and life bleeds into work. People have the smart phone, aka the “digital leash”. Work will never be the same. It’s already gone." Kris Dunn, VP of People, DAXKO, The Blurring Line Between Work and Life___________________________________________Kris and the group speak the truth. We all know it although we may not like it. So, what do you do to "mesh" the elements of your life without it becoming blurry. I'm not a fan of blurry; clarity yields a more… -
The Paradox of Choices
13 Nov 2009 | 6:20 amThe rallying cry of product managers and politicians is "Choices! We offer choices!"My observation? We really don’t like having too many choices. It makes us a little nervous. Every option leads to a chance to foul something up. Heck, a lot of people are more worried about not being wrong than about being right. So, we allow our experiences and habits to narrow our options to just a couple of familiar ones. It reduces the anxiety and relieves stress.So, how do you make genuine changes faced with the siren song of habits?The first move is to re-capture your sense of conscious choice in… -
Too Busy Doing Business to Do Business?
12 Nov 2009 | 8:58 amYesterday I met with a corporate Executive VP in New York City. I'll call him Phil. Phil said his division was struggling. But instead of leading the charge to turn things around, he was being called into meetings regularly to make lengthy, detailed, Powerpoint presentations explaining what was wrong. He was too busy doing business to be doing the business. Interestingly, one of his recommendations was for the company to get out of some of its operations because they were draining money and other resources. He explained that his people were spending too much time on things that no longer…
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Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel
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“Twitter #in” — Better Than Peanut Butter And Chocolate?
21 Nov 2009 | 4:15 amIf you missed it this week, Linkedin added some new functionality this week. Now you can sync up your Linkedin and Twitter profiles to share content you chose with either network. From the Linkedin blog: Now you can tweet your LinkedIn status to your Twitter followers or automatically post your tweets as your LinkedIn status. Make your Twitter account visible on your profile Use #in to share posts from Twitter to your LinkedIn status (#li also works) Choose which LinkedIn status updates you share with Twitter This is big news for your personal brand. It is becoming increasingly easier to… -
Personal Branding Interview: Scott McGrew
20 Nov 2009 | 7:23 pmToday, I spoke to Scott McGrew, who has 20 years experience as a television reporter, 10 of them as a technology reporter. His work has been seen on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and the BBC. He has been nominated for 10 Emmy Awards and reports on technology on the Bay Area’s NBC. In this interview, Scott goes over his impression of personal branding, why he has a website in addition to his NBC content, and then talks about authenticity. What’s your take on personal branding? I think people vastly underestimate the importance of managing their online presence. We’re all familiar with… -
Are You Qualified to Write a Book?
20 Nov 2009 | 1:17 pm“I don’t know whether or not I’m qualified to write a book!” The process of helping others write books to build their personal brand often starts by addressing a curious paradox: Published books establish their authors as experts in their field BUT, What qualifies someone to write a book in the first place? Unfortunately, many otherwise-qualified individuals question their “right,” or “qualifications,” to write a brand building book to promote their career or build their business. These individuals are sabotaging themselves before they even… -
A Quick Way To Measure Your Personal Brand Using Twitter Lists
20 Nov 2009 | 4:15 amUse Twitter Lists to see how people are branding you on Twitter. Are the results what you expect? A simple branding test One of the nice things about personal branding is the ease of verifying your efforts- just ask people in your target audience what comes to mind when they think of you: If their answers match up with your personal branding, good job! Keep doing what you’re doing and look for ways to reach more people. If their answers don’t match your personal branding, try to understand why so you can decide what action to take. Is this really necessary? What if this… -
Secrets to Getting More Referrals – Part 1
19 Nov 2009 | 4:15 amAssessing Your “Referability” Factor Do you need new customers or clients but can’t seem to get enough of them? People generally want to make referrals when they can. It feels good to be able to connect those who can help with those who need that help. But, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. We’re all busy, faced with too much on our plate and not enough hours in the day, so the more painless you can make it, the greater your chances of getting the referrals you want. Here are four key questions to ask yourself to test the strength of your “referability.”…
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growing changing learning creating
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Forecasting the flip
20 Nov 2009 | 10:12 amAnother way to assess the likelihood of scaling an innovation eluded my searching yesterday. This morning I found it in Chapter Four of the book: Disrupting Class - How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns by Clayton Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson. In the words of the authors: It turns out there is a way to forecast the flip. ... one must plot on the vertical axis the ratio of market shares held by the new, divided by the old (if each has 50 percent, this ratio will be 1.0). Second, the vertical axis needs to be arrayed on a logarithmic… -
Will your innovation scale?
19 Nov 2009 | 10:42 amYesterday I was thrilled to discover, via LinkedIn, the announcement of a competition for business plans in the education space. So much of what I've explored in this blog could be restated as a business plan. I spent most of yesterday contemplating how I could reformulate my writings about disrupting higher ed into a scalable solution to the college dropout problem. The First Annual Milken-PennGSE Education Business Plan Competition defines it's parameters as: Educational entrepreneurship business plans should outline the problem they address, offer a solution, and discuss scaling… -
Formulating a total solution
17 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pmWhen we've developed an innovative product or service, the marketplace may not want it yet, understand it on their own terms or see any use for it in their personal contexts. They may be asking: What good is this to me? Why should I want to acquire this? How can I be the judge of the quality of this? Why should I trust what the sales pitch says about this? Those adventurous types that buy something before the herd has a clue that it exists, may be disappointed with their purchase of the innovative product or service. It may not work as promised, not function in the way they had hoped, or took… -
Inducing realizations
16 Nov 2009 | 8:41 amWhen we're presenting, authoring, teaching or designing instruction, we're relying on a field-tested theory about learning. We may assume that the only things coming to the minds of the learner are from us. We may otherwise assume we're competing with many other things that come to their minds besides what we're presenting. When we assume we're in control of what comes to learners' minds, we're inclined to think that we can make learning happen. We've simplified our world view to include so few variables that we're overconfident about our role in the complex interdependencies. We presume to… -
Leveraging your empathy for the learners
12 Nov 2009 | 7:21 amWhen we already know the material we're going to present, our minds become free to know the learners. We can spend time understanding them in ways they understand themselves. We can prepare to speak their minds and picture them in ways that induce more learning. This cultivated ability to empathize with the learners can be leveraged into more effective instructional designs, learner experiences and disruptive value propositions. When I've spent time "learning the learners", here's some of what I've discovered: There's a range of different expectations about what I will do for them, with them…
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Occam's Razor
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Web Analytics 2.0 Book: In Stores Now!!
13 Nov 2009 | 1:38 amI am absolutely thrilled that my book Web Analytics 2.0 has been released and is in retail stores now, online and offline! Hurray!!Even with a broken right hand I can’t help but write this post!The waterfall of positive feeling stems from the fact that this book was very hard to write.I only had one job, at Intuit, when I wrote my first web analytics book. I now have several full time jobs, plus this blog, plus speaking around the world, plus a family, plus… so much more.It took weekends of writing and nights of editing and days of research combined with practicing the preaching… -
Analytics Becomes Intelligent. Hello Insights!
26 Oct 2009 | 1:24 amA while back I walked into a meeting and said:“You know what… web analytics tools like Site Catalyst, Yahoo! Web Analytics, WebTrends, and yes even Google Analytics, are mostly glorified data pukers. Each tries to outdo the other in trying to collect ever more data and regurgitating it. For all the math they do, it is astonishing how little intelligence they have, how little actual smarts are applied.”Silence for a a few mins.Awkward glances.Then this: “What do you mean, and what can we do?”Me: “I wish the tools would use an algorithmic approach to… -
Web Analytics Success Measurement For Government Websites
12 Oct 2009 | 1:45 amIf you know what the desirable outcomes are from your website, it is not hard to measure performance of the website for you and your customers.Measuring top line success of ecommerce websites is not very complicated, all the sweet revenue based outcomes are there (at the least).Measuring non-profit websites is a bit complicated, but not really all that hard because we can, with a small amount of love, figure out outcomes to focus on (donations, # of sign-ups for the protest in DC, # of petitions signed, volunteer applications, etc).Measuring government websites is a bit more complicated, if… -
Brand Measurement: Analytics & Metrics for Branding Campaigns
29 Sep 2009 | 1:34 amOne of the ultimate excuses for not measuring impact of Marketing campaigns is: “Oh, that’s just a branding campaign.”Admit it, you’ve heard it.I suspect you’ve even used it liberally!! : )Before we go any further I must clarify that I love branding campaigns just as much as the next guy.I love campaigns that Visa runs. I love watching the IBM ads (with the Linux kid perhaps the best of the lot). I loved the I’m a PC ads from Microsoft (and I am a proud PC!). I loved the Wario Land: Shake It ad from Nintendo on YouTube (now that’s creative!). I love a… -
Web Analytics Books!
14 Sep 2009 | 2:07 amYes, books with a s. : )It is with immense excitement that I am sharing the news that I have just finished writing my second book!Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability & The Science of Customer CentricityIt is a long title ain’t it? The good news is we are going to refer to it simply as Web Analytics 2.0.In this post I wanted to share thoughts about the book, the process of writing it (and doing three rounds of edits!) and outcomes.The BackgroundSince mid-2008 Willem Knibbe, my wonderful Acquisition Editor at Wiley, was very kindly encouraging me to update my (best…
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Principled Innovation
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Prepare your association for 2010!
1 Nov 2009 | 6:56 pmOn January 6, 2010, from 2 pm-3:30 pm EST, I am holding a Principled Innovation Briefing webinar on “Top 2010 Trends for Associations.” You will find the event detail from the registration site below. P.I. Blog readers are invited to register at a 10% discount (until December 1, 2009) by using the link above. This is going to be a great webinar, so I hope you’ll join me on January 6 and help prepare your association for 2010! EVENT DETAIL FOR JANUARY 6, 2010 P.I. BRIEFING WEBINAR 2009 has been a very tough year for associations and their leaders. 2010 can be better, but… -
P.I. Podcast: Interview with Tim Brown of IDEO
17 Oct 2009 | 6:31 pm“We need new choices.” I’m thinking this is the perfect mantra for association leaders as we approach 2010. Associations face complex challenges, and the current options for tackling them don’t really inspire too much confidence in our ultimate success. Not only do we need to think about our problems in new ways, but we literally need different strategies for solving them. In other words, we need new choices. Tim Brown’s excellent new book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, is all about how mindset and… -
What relevance isn’t
16 Oct 2009 | 4:26 amLast month, my friend and fellow blogger Jamie Notter wrote an excellent post on why relevance is not enough for associations. In his post, Jamie graciously mentions my continuing pushback against the relevance-oriented thinking (ROT) that is still framing the way most leaders in our community approach crucial decisions about the future of their organizations. We need to cultivate a fundamentally different leadership point of view, and this is what I think it should be: +Relevance isn’t a purpose–How will your association’s pursuit of relevance nurture an authentic… -
My Top Ten Favorite Things About #BIF5 Day One
7 Oct 2009 | 8:54 pmSitting in my hotel room in Providence, I’ve been thinking about the first day of the BIF-5 Summit. Wow, what a day! I missed BIF-4, and in my two-year absence, I think I forgot about the incredible richness of this experience. I’m inspired, and I’m thinking about even more new possibilities for my work. I’d like to share some of the experience, so here is my quick top ten list of favorite things from BIF-5 (#BIF5) Day One, with some help from my fellow Twitterers. (FYI, I’m @pinnovation) Thank you all for being so terrific. 10. We talked openly about… -
Live tweeting at #BIF5
7 Oct 2009 | 5:22 amI’ll be live tweeting for the next two days at BIF-5 in Providence. You can follow the hashtag on Twitter at #bif5…there will be many other people tweeting, blogging etc. so be prepared for lots of great stuff!
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Lateral Action
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The Lateral Action Entrepreneur Course is Now Live
20 Nov 2009 | 9:33 amHey gang. Just a quick note to let you know the Lateral Action entrepreneur course is now live and accepting enrollments. You can immediately check out all the details of this 18-topic intensive course. It’s what we wish we had 10 years ago starting out, and it’ll provide you with the guidance you need to succeed. We’ve got a great Charter Member offer — you save 50% off the 2010 enrollment fee, plus enjoy free access to the additional features we have coming. Get all the details by clicking here. If you haven’t read the free Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a… -
Free Report: How to Become a Creative Entrepreneur
18 Nov 2009 | 8:40 amAs hinted at last week, we’ve got some special extended content for you. It’s a free 31-page PDF report (don’t worry, it reads fast) called The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. Here’s what you’ll discover: Why I quit my cushy law firm job and turned to online publishing. How I failed miserably. How I then succeeded miserably. How I learned my lesson the hard way. The allure of the global microbrand. The rise of the “feeder” business. Why small is beautiful (and powerful). The 37signals approach to market research. Real-life examples of creative… -
The Story of a Reluctant Entrepreneur
12 Nov 2009 | 11:12 pmImage by Hugh MacLeod I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just wanted to write poetry. Twenty years ago I would have told you “Business Is Evil”. I associated entrepreneurship with people like Gordon ‘greed is good’ Gekko. I was so ignorant I didn’t know the difference between an entrepreneur and a Wall Street trader. To me, they were the same thing. So I went to college to read English Literature. I thought it would help me as a poet. It was a creative disaster. I ended up blocked and bored of literature. Time to change direction. I never wanted to be a… -
Marla Mentors Jack on the 5 Critical Components of Creative Entrepreneurship
11 Nov 2009 | 7:13 amWhen we last saw Jack, he was just about to sign a deal with Lou to start a business. But suddenly, Marla showed up at the last minute. Did Jack do the deal? If so, why is Marla giving Jack entrepreneurial advice? And what do these 5 elements have to do with starting a successful business? Create (Don’t Compete) Lead (Don’t Manage) Communicate (Don’t be Shy) Automate (Don’t Duplicate) Accelerate (Don’t Stand Still) You’ll have to check out the latest Lateral Action animated video to find out. If you’ve missed the previous episodes, check ‘em out first: Episode 1: Lou… -
T.S. Eliot’s Unique Selling Proposition
5 Nov 2009 | 1:50 amImage by Muffet If you think the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is something only marketers need to worry about, have a look at this snippet from a letter to T.S. Eliot, by his boss. Geoffrey Faber is explaining why Eliot was the ideal candidate to take charge of poetry publishing at Faber and Gwyer, the firm that eventually became famous under the name Faber and Faber. In you we have found a man who combines literary gifts with business instincts, who has a wide circle of literary friends, and who is quite as much at home on the lower levels as on the lonely peaks. (Geoffrey Faber, from a…
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eLearning Technology
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eLearning Conferences 2010
19 Nov 2009 | 6:33 amClayton R Wright just sent me his incredible annual list of eLearning Conferences. Clayton publishes this as a Word document but does not publish it as a web page and so we’ve somewhat established a pattern of published in here. You can contact him at: crwr77@gmail.com. December 2009 December 1-4, 2009 New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Distinction Hotel, Rotorua, New Zealand. http://www.nzare.org.nz/ December 2, 2009 Security and Defence Learning: International Forum on Technology Assisted Learning and Training for Defence, Security and Emergency Services, 5th, Hotel… -
SharePoint Fear and Loathing by Learning Professionals
18 Nov 2009 | 7:55 amI was surprised by the fear and loathing expressed around SharePoint yesterday at LearnTrends 2009. I don’t think it’s the best tool out there, but it likely is the best tool being adopted by your IT department and is part of the Enterprise 2.0 plan in your organization. My belief is that it’s going to be a big part of eLearning 2.0 for many workplace learning professionals. SharePoint 2010 looks to be a much better product. As such, I’m always looking for people who want to discuss how they are using it. Certainly we’ll be doing more sessions like SharePoint… -
Innovation Awards 2009
17 Nov 2009 | 1:56 pmWe’ve just announced the innovation awards associated with LearnTrends 2009. The session was fraught with technical difficulties, so I thought it would be worth capturing a bit about each of the four award winners here. CUDA Business Brain CUDA technologies is a small software firm within the Hi Performance Learning and IQ Business Group in South Africa, the United Stated and Australia. In 2007, they launched the CUDA Business Brain as an integrated Workplace Performance Support Solution. It provides a blend of learning management and performance support. Because they operate in bandwidth… -
Be Ready to Take Advantage of Opportunities
16 Nov 2009 | 9:53 amI participated in a session at DevLearn that I mentioned last week in my posts Missed Opportunities and Enough Tools for Now. The session was conducted where we broken into discussion groups around different topics each their own facilitator. My group discussed that as learning professionals we need to put ourselves in position to be able to serve learners and internal/external clients through the best possible solution we can design and create given the constraints that exist. This might mean improving our capabilities around existing offerings. It also means getting ready to offer new kinds… -
Dilbert Warns Me About Work Literacy
16 Nov 2009 | 9:01 amShould the following Dilbert worry me about Work Literacy? Much of the idea of Work Literacy is to help people who need to keep up with how technology impacts knowledge work. Maybe reading blog posts about the topic is okay :) Tool Set 2009 Work Skills Keeping Up Top-Down Strategy Better Memory Information Radar Processing Pages with Links Networks and Learning Communities Collaborate Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool Search Browser Short Cuts Work Literacy Workshop eLearning Technology Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.
