31 days to a Better Blog
Recently I purchased “31 Days to Build a Better Blog, by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. It has been my intention here for some time to get more focused and have some clear cut goals around my blogging activities. I have been spending more and more time writing and trying to explore the edge of social media, community, and emerging technologies. That being said, I know that I can make some huge improvements. So over the course of the next month I expect to be updating you on my journey as well as share the things I am learning so that maybe you might be able to pull some learnings as I move forward.
If you are interested in picking up 31 Days to Build a Better blog for yourself you can get it here. I am looking forward to the challenge, and delivering you more valuable content in the future!
How Cool Would it be? A Crowd Sourced Trip…
This is Part One in a two part series called “How Cool Would it be? ACrowd Sourced Trip… In post number one I will share my ideas, while in post number two I will take your ideas as well as mine and show how this could be implemented strategically.
In about three weeks my wife and I will be heading on our delayed honeymoon. She is a teacher and we wanted to wait until she got out of school to do our traveling. So this post is an idea that hit me. Not one that I will obviously put in fully during our trip, but an idea none the less.
A Crowd Sourced Trip
How cool would it be to do a fully crowd sourced trip? Say for instance I am heading to Montana. I have always wanted to visit montana as I am an avid outdoorsman and fly fisherman (See above pic). What would the possibilities be for not only crowd sourcing where I will eat, fish, sleep, and sightsee but also for advertisers and local businesses in the area?
Possibilities
So lets continue on this dream trip to Montana. I’ll set up a blog or maybe even do it here on this blog of the things I like to do, the foods I’d like to eat, and so on. I would keep a digital log of the events as well a take crowd sourced suggestions as to where I will head next, how I would get there and what there is to do. Tools like twitter would be amazing for getting instant feedback, meeting possible locals and making friends.
How about the commercial possibilities?
Would this crowd sourced adventure become a meme? Would people be interested to check in and view photos, comment, and live vicariously through me? I know that if one of you was taking a flyfishing adventure to Montana that I would be checking in at least daily if not more often to see photos and read about the State they call Big Sky Country. Here are some other commercial possibilities:
- Gear that would be sponsored by Orvis, Sage, LL Bean or any of the other large suppliers.
- Local restaurants, hotels or outfitters that might be interested in putting me up knowing that I will be very public about what I am eating and how I am fairing.
- Local Fishing Guides that might want to gain publicity through media created via short video clips or photographs.
- Local and State chambers that might want to add valued content to the site to help sell the experience and possibly gaining targeted travelers to their state.
The list is really endless! I have never seen anything like this done besides on sites that were 100% dedicated to travel and had a semi-famous host. Is this a good idea? Or am I off my rocker on this one? Do you have any ideas on how this would be useful to targeted advertisers?
Who will send me to Montana??????
Will there be no Hiding from the Mainstream Entertainment Garbage?
You Tube, the once criticized and bashed nemesis of the mainstream press, news organizations and television is now the new diamond in the eye of mainstream entertainment investors. Cynthia Brumfield, an industry analyst at Emerging Media Dynamics is sounding more and more like a fresh study of social media rather than a Madison Avenue Suit. Brumfield says “If you’re going try and lure in tomorrow’s viewers you really need to be where they are today”, something the internet early adopters have been forecasting for years. Media giants like NBC who a few months back were suing You Tube are now throwing large sums of of money at the internet video giant owned by Google to strike strategic Partnerships.
You Tube is Hemorrhaging Money!
It is also being said that Google/You Tube is buying in on this massive amount of mainstream media attention and is planning to offer premium placement on the site to any mainstream publications that decide to publish their content on You Tube. Frankly, I can’t blame the company because the success in traffic increases over the past few years have been the bain of it’s existence with bandwidth becoming a commodity. Bear Sterns has reported that You Tube had revenues last year of 15 Million dollars, meaning that the company was paying out nearly 100 times that in operational costs. I don’t care how much money you have behind you, there is no sustaining that kind of business model.
How about the independents?
What does this mean for the independent content producers? With Google/You Tube offering so many incentives to mainstream press will the chances of an independent being seen drop to insurmountable odds? Are the days of an artist sharing their creative process through home edited movies drop away to some reality TV, internet MTV crap mashup? Will we be flooded with news that we ran from mainstream TV and newspapers to get away from? Shit! These people are like leeches. They are going to try and deliver their bad, sad, and inflated news to you any way they can!
Power to the People
The one glimmer of hope we have as internet junkies, RSS subscribers, and blog readers is that we understand the principal of ‘Opting In’ This gives a small amount of power back to the people. If we don’t let them shovel crap down our throats and we don’t subscribe to their content they will fail a miserable death the same way they have on the Tube and in the Rags. However, I don’t hold out much hope after seeing the most popular stories on Digg.
Lemons to Lemonade
I am almost never a negative person, and this might be the first negatively toned blog post I have ever written! So lets make lemonade here people. Give me some hope. What is the future for independent content producers? How will we “The people” continue down the path of regaining controll and maintaining a voice? With Google owning the lions share of search both in text and video is there a chance that the system will not be ‘gamed’ by ever blood sucking Madison Avenue agency? Is there a chance that the internet will remain a democratic society r will it be overun by our children filling the shoes of the current entertainment executives? Will we need a new frontier to explore or is the digital realm the last unchartered water?
I know this is a lot to think about, and i will be back to my normal self tomorrow, but I sure hope i don’t look back on this post in five years and say……I told ya so!
The Passion Promoter - 1
Be a promoter of Passion!
You getting ready to throw up in your mouth the next time someone tries to sell you a “How to use twitter Book“?? I know I am! I am a passionate guy! I love my job, I love my Family, and I love to share! Every once and a while I am going to share a passion of mine as well as those that I have found to be mentors or just folks with the same kind of passion!
Photography
I am really passionate about photography. My father was a photographer and I seem to have been bitten with the bug in the last year. One of the things that I find alluring about photography is that I will never stop learning! That excites me. Here is a picture I took at the 2009 Lockport Relay for Life. They had a release of butterflies to signify Life.
As I said, I love to promote, facilitate and encourage passion. Here are some photo works by some friends and Mentors:
John Piercy (@JohnCPiercy) - An amazing image processed in photomatix pro.
CC Chapman (@CC_Chapman) - It’s all about texture baby!
Todd Jordan (@Tojosan) - Not sure exactly what it is. I just know it’s cool! Great Shot!
Damon Cortese (@dacort) - The space needle over Seattle. Beautiful!
Some great Photography Resources:
Digital Photography School
This Week in Photography
Scott Bourne & Photo Focus
What’s your Passion? And how are you integrating it in your life and work? Do you live every day with passion?
Crack the Fishbowl and Flourish
This blog Post is also available in Audio Format. Click Play Below:
The Fishbowl
If you’ve spent any time in the social media space you were bound to hear of the ‘Fishbowl’ or ‘The Fishbowl Effect’. This term is a way of saying that we, The Digerati or Early Adopters are basically talking and marketing to ourselves all day. That the only people that comment on blogs, tweet on twitter, listen to podcasts, and get involved with all of this general geekery are swimming in a big fishbowl talking to themselves all day. In this article I’d like to explore the many reaches of the fishbowl and maybe even talk about how you can smash the fishbowl to create further success in your business.
A little 101
Something that I talk about a lot, yet seems to be lost on many marketers and companies getting involved in the social media space is this simple rule.
Never approach your network or the individuals in your network with a selfish one sided agenda!
I’ve spoken about this time and time again, but I truly believe that nothing good comes out of being ‘That Guy‘ This being said, it does not mean that you cannot generate great business leads and contacts using social media tools. You can!
What’s Wrong with the Fishbowl?
I beg to ask the question that if your business focus is in emerging technologies, digital marketing, publishing, and a slew of others….What’s wrong with the fishbowl? This area contains like minded people, valuable conversations,research, customers, resources, and opportunity that you might not otherwise see in your day-to-day offline business. They say, fish where the fishes are right? However remember the rule from above and become a resource for others. That’s real where opportunity lies.
Is it a fishbowl? or a Membrane?
I’d like to say that the social media space is more like a membrane. New people are arriving every day to dip their feet in the waters. Some take to it like fish to water while others just don’t get it. It’s o.k. that this happens as for it is part of the overall evolution and learning process. Others jump in for a while seemingly swimming with the fishes and then hop out of the water never to be seen again. Lastly, there are folks who hear about the social media membrane pass through and generate massive amounts of value to the community and contribute for many years. With this analogy, I feel it is more a porous membrane than the hard glass of a fishbowl.
Stuck in a fishbowl? Break it!!!
So you’ve been swimming in the social media waters for quite a while now posting videos to YouTube, Blogging and Twittering. What have you learned? Have you seen things that have worked in your business or in the business of others? Have you seen the power of sharing your story and process with others? Have you gotten so drunk on the social media cool-aid that you have forgotten that there is a corner store and that you don’t need to make all of your purchases online? Break the fishbowl and get your ass out into some different spaces. Social media is a hot topic! Twitter is making news headlines and your Aunt Millie is friending you on Facebook. There is power in that!
Suggestions to break the Bowl
Like I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with having a good firm grip in the social media space, but opportunity lies everywhere! You just have to open your eyes to it. Here are some suggestions on how you can blend the online and offline worlds in your business.
-Seminars - Have a seminar talking about social media to your company or to companies that you recognize are dipping their toes in, but not ready to swim yet. Rent a room at a local restaurant and charge a few dollars a head to talk to people who have heard of twitter and blogging, but really have no clue how it might help them. This may lead to suggestion #2.
-Private Business Consulting - So one of the companies that attended your seminar was interested and wants to learn more. This is an opportunity to step outside the fishbowl and change teh way a traditional brick and mortar, or even technology based company seeks out opportunity, hires and recruits, and structures their marketing.
-Niche Groups and Independents - Most small business owners, artists, Real estate Agents, and people involved with local niche businesses have a great story to tell. Many big companies right now like Ford, Best Buy and Citrix are getting involved in the social media space. However, I think the power of being able to tell a genuine story and sharing artistic and creative processes for small companies and individuals is where the main body of power lays in the social media spaces. Who doesn’t love a true rags to riches success story? Who doesn’t like to root for the underdog? Teach people how to share of themselves in the online world to convert successfully in the offline world!
-Integrated Business Plans - True story! I talked to a local shop owner in my neighborhood that sells yarn. She told me that her business seemed to be dropping due to the fact that many folks are finding cheaper deals on the internet. After a bit of chatting we talked about twitter, the possibility of opening her own online shop, and some other things that might help her close the gap on the percentage of sales that she seems to have been losing. She has decided to do a video podcast of some of her knitting techniques as well as open a twitter account. Her plan is to have sheets that ask people to follow her on twitter and they will be direct messaged a link to a coupon page. She will be able to track hits to that page as well as coupons coming back in the store. I will do a feature on her as soon as she sets it all up. (A few days)
This is just a quick foray for this yarn shop owner into digital marketing. We will test how things work and make changes as needed. Can you think of any niche small businesses in your area that might benefit from something similar? (Full Transparency: This woman is a close friend and I am doing this for free as an experiment for my blog as well a to help her get her feet wet.)
I’d like to hear some other suggestions and ideas! How can you break your fishbowl to gain more success in your business or expand your reach. Please leave a comment!
Photo Credit: The Wu’s Photo Land
Blog Walks - What’s the ROI of Your Health?
Today, I have episode #1 of Blog Walks. This is a regular feature that I am planning on doing here on the blog. This project has a few goals:
1. Help get my butt in shape, and hey maybe you’ll join me!
2. Follow through on my goal to get out a video Podcast where I address common questions that I get in the social media community.
3. Create community discussions on topics that will help us all navigate this new emerging landscape for personal, business, and any other motivations that you might have.
Enjoy Episode one, with the disclaimer that this is my first real foray into video editing. It’s no hollywood production, but I hope that you get value from the video and the discussions that will hopefully follow 
Please feel free to answer the question in the comment section below. I would love to hear your thoughts. Also, please feel free to suggest further topics for my blog walks. The more I do, the quicker I will reach my health goals!
The State of the Youth Address
So, most of you who are readers of this blog know that I am always exploring the edge of business, social media and emerging technologies. Today, I want to lighten it up a bit and give you the “State of the Youth address. Being that it’s fathers day, I thought this would be appropriate for any of those fathers that are currently raising teenagers and a bit of foreshadowing for those that WILL be parents of teenagers some day.
This young lad is addicted to World of Warcraft and seems to have had his gaming activities taken away by his mother. Check out this reaction:
The Take-away: Marketers remember to market to passionate groups of individuals. I sense some passion here
Happy Fathers Day!
Relay For Life - Support LHS NHS
This is a guest Post by my wife Michelle. She is going to tell you a bit about her history with The Relay For Life. Michelle has been a high school Math teacher for 9 years at Lockport H.S in NY. I am extremely proud of the work that she does as well as ll the unpaid charity work that she is involved with.
The Relay For Life
An excellent event by the American Society that celebrates the life of those who have survived a battle with cancer and also remembers those who lost their life while battling. I have taken a team of 25 students to the event for the last 5 years. I am taking our entire Honor Society which consists of 80 students this year. Students from my Honor Society will be walking the track at our local middle school all evening to raise money for the event. The event is extremely emotional it begins with a Survivors lap all people who have beat cancer and/or who are currently battling, and is followed by a care givers lap those who take care of cancer patients.
Why I Love to do it!
The Relay for Life is an event that makes you realize how lucky you are. Everyone at the event has dealt with cancer in some way and is celebrating life. Our students enjoy the event as well and ask to come back to do it again event after they have graduated. The luminary ceremony is breathtaking and probably my favorite part of the event!
The Reach of your Donation
Gifts to the American Cancer Society fund research and offer free programs and services to improve the quality of life for people facing cancer. You can Donate to the LHS NHS (Our Team) by going to the Relay For Life official page.
Thank you for any contributions you can make.
-Michelle
We will post photos on flickr as well as here to the blog. The tag will be #LHSNHS
One to One “Skype is my Twitter”
Today, I had a chat with a friend and peer about the social media space and some of the changes that are happening in the business, marketing and media sectors. I do this frequently. In fact, I believe that true on-to-one relationships that utilize real human interaction through voice, video r in person is WAY more powerful than a few hundred twitter followers.
Value in Connecting
It’s funny. I hear a lot how I have helped someone after a quick 15 minute call on skype, or by cellphone. (I use skype because it’s free/cheap, high quality, and convenient) I am often called when people are facing issues in the new media space with work, strategy, or just general thoughts on how they might improve. This is AWESOME and I love helping. I think the majority if not all of the folks I connect with get a lot of value out of our short conversations. However, to be so bold as to say that I am selfish would be true! I get just as much out of helping others as I do when I have to call one of my mentors for help. (How do you think I got the idea for this post?) Sharing, ideas, stories, trials, tribulations, and wins with others is how I too learn about the space! I hear many folks that say they leave their skype turned off unless it’s absolutely necessary. Heck, I leave mine on all the time, and if I am too busy to connect with you at any point in time, I will get back to you sooner rather than later! The value is in Connecting!
Highly Valued Connections - HVC’s and the 500/1 Ratio.
The 500 Half of the ratio- I have talked before about the importance of blogging and utilizing the interactive technologies that we have to connect to consumers, peers, customer, and colleagues. However, I believe there is a 500/1 ratio here of making highly valued connections(HVC’s) vs. acquaintances. You know the kind! These are the kind of relationships where you share intimate business details, and you refer that person over anyone else because you know their reputation and so on.
Example: You have an acquaintance on twitter or facebook, and you pass them by and give them a virtual wave or tip of the hat almost daily. In Fact, lets say you NEVER miss a day, and you always give that virtual nod. This would equal 365 virtual waves each year. Also, Lets say this person is a blogger and makes media of some kind every day as well. You love their material and you never miss anything that they write or produce. This is rare, but for arguments sake you add up the contacts that you have had with this person over the course of a year. 365+365=730 Contacts.
In terms of my theory and ratio that would mean that it would take approximately 8 months before you felt comfortable and had enough interaction with that individual to call that person a trusted advisor that you would be willing to recommend in their field to almost anyone! This of course is not scientific, but rather based on experiences I have had over the last two and a half years.
The 1 Half of the ratio - As we discussed in the first paragraph, connecting to folks one-on-one is very important! This in my mind not only is better for more valuable interaction but also blows the number of virtual connections that are needed to be made for HVC’s. For instance, One short phone call, free consulting session, or brainstorming meet can be as powerful as 500 virtual waves! Think about that! I have made it a point to connect with at least one new person via skype, cell phone or face-to-face every week for more that a year and a half! I have made some of the most valuable friends and reaped more value from these connections than in any virtual environment!
Example: Last year I connected with a senior manager of a trade show on twitter. Not long after that he and I connected on skype and we just discussed our views on social media and maybe a few ways he could implement some of these ideas in the trade show he was promoting. Not soon after that he connected me with the president of the company and they asked me to fill a consulting and strategy role temporarily for the show that was coming up in just a matter of months. I am not using names and places here as I have agreed to play a back end role in this process. However, that is not the point. The point is that if I don’t connect with these folks one-on-one….that opportunity never comes about! A few tips of the hat on twitter and a half a year of reading my blog and the event would have been over and gone.
All of these new tools, quick bytes of information, and fly by night social media companies are great and have their place. However, don’t forget to make REAL connections. Count your network by HVC’s rather than meaningless twitter followers and you’ll find yourself in a much better place!
Please feel free to tell your stories on how social media has helped you connect and create HVC’s in your life and business. Please link back here with your article or feel free to post your story in the comments below. I’d love to hear about them!
AT&T and Apple Fail to Embrace Community
It was back in February that I went to my first ever South by Southwest conference in Texas. Not only did I have the most amazing time, but I made more genuine contacts there in 1 week then I had ever made at ten other conferences combined. The who’s who of social media, emerging technology, gaming, mobile, and computing were there. If you missed it, you must make it in 2010! However, this post is not about extolling the virtues of SXSW but rather to talk about the HUGE FAIL of AT&T to support the needs of it’s customers.
The Meeting of the iPhones!
So, I was standing outside one of the more prominent Hotels in the city of Austin when I was approached by a woman with an iPhone asking me why the heck all of a sudden she can’t get any service. After all she lives in the area and needed to call her husband for a ride. I must have looked official with my SXSW badge hanging off my chest as I told her that the geeks of the internet had converged on her city and pretty much taken the AT&T network down with their heavy bandwidth use. I lended her my Blackberry on the T-Mobile network and she was able to make her call. This was probably the most iPhones ever to converge on one city for the whole of more than a week!
The AT&T Fail!
That evening when I returned to my hotel room I noticed the top trend on Twitter seemed to be a PR Nightmare for the folks at AT&T as thousands of well connected geeks aired their grievances with the giant telco provider. I remember AT&T was saying something about bringing in mobile towers of some sort, but the problem never rally seemed to resolve itself. In fact over the course of the next couple of weeks the bad press continued to flow out of the blogs, twitter, and networks of the web. Nothing but disgust from the digerati over their horrid mobile experiences while at SXSW.
The Word Spreads Fast!
Funny. The iPhone has enabled some of the most powerful ways to stay connected on the web. Folks can update everything from their Blog, to Facebook to Twitter as they are walking down the street, sitting on a bus, or heck…..bored at work. (That never happens) It’s fairly obvious that AT&T seems to be oblivious to this and I can’t say much better for Apple in having made an exclusive deal with a bunch of clueless suits! COMPANIES: EMBRACE YOUR PASSIONATE USERS DON’T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM!!!!! WTF
Momma always said, “Don’t make the same mistake twice!”
AT&T didn’t listen to their users at SXSW, so why should they listen to them now? This afternoon at WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) Apple announced the coming release of it’s new iPhone 3Gs. The word out from the iPhone users early on was that they couldn’t wait to go but the new sleeker, faster iPhone. Then reality sank in! In fact… It looks like they are going out of their way to bend their most passionate users over and give them the preverbal shaft! Here are snippets of text taken from the fine print on the Apple website describing the policy for upgrading to the newest iPhone 3GS announced today 6/8/2009:
- Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers
- For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)
- Visit www.wireless.att.com for eligibility information. Service may not be available in all areas or at the signal strength, rates, speeds, or bandwidth as demonstrated
Holy Crap!
Are you seeing what I am seeing? Seems to me that the translation is: If you have currently supported Apple and AT&T by purchasing an iPhone, we plan to give you the shaft by calling you ineligible for the less expensive upgrade price, but rather will charge you full boat for the phone! On top of all that AT&T seems to be creating it’s own PR nightmare a second time in the same places (Blogs, twitter, Facebook, Word of Mouth) as last time! Frankly I don’t get it. Here is some common messaging coming out of twitter in real-time, from previous iPhone customers.
This is the sentiment across the board and more can be easily spotted like a rolling ticker at Twitter Search
The Takeaway
Look, I understand that companies have to be profitable and they can’t just go around making everyone happy all the time… haha. However, in my opinion AT&T and Apple are in a unique position to leverage the always connected iPhone and it’s passionate social media community! I’m not going to get into how to here, but I ask you one question. What would the difference be in terms of promotion, evangelism and good press if all of the negative mentions were turned positive? How much better a situation would AT&T and Apple be in if they were to harness and embrace their communities.
As David Meerman Scott says, you want to create a “World Wide Rave” …. not a “World Wide Rant!””
Post Amendment: Case in Point! People have created a twitter account called ScrewATT. Frankly I feel a bit sorry for them.
