In the online world, Content is King….and everyone wants a turn on the throne. Competition for eyeballs is fiercer than ever, and with such an influx of information hitting everyone all the time, it can be pretty discouraging for the average content creator like you and me to even know where to start. How can I even compete with the top sites out there? How is anyone even going to know about my blog or podcast, let alone stay interested in it? It’s enough to make even the most prolific media maker want to go back to just passively watching re-runs of LOST and CSI Miami on the couch. So how do you rise above? How do you make sure your content is kick-ass enough to get noticed? Well, there are plenty of articles and seminars out there that will show you how to get the eyeballs you desire fast. Some of them have valuable tips, but others, I find, are focused on the wrong things. Like anything in new media, it’s not about how many eyeballs you get, it’s about the quality of those eyeballs. Stop with the viral, already. There are plenty of companies out there that will tell you that they can help you make the next viral video. They guarantee you 20,000 views in 1 week, or your money back. They tell you that they, and only they, have the secret formula for getting everyone in the world to see what you’ve got. These people are nothing but glorified spammers. Run away, run away! There are inherent problems with companies who claim to be able to make “viral” content. The fact is, viral videos are not made, they happen. Do you think that the Evolution of Dance guy intended to get 141,000,000 views on YouTube? Do you think anyone tried to make Susan Boyle an Internet sensation? Of course not. Content becomes popular because people can relate to it, and because when content moves people, they are compelled to share it with others. Evolution of Dance worked because what that guy did was pretty original, and it spoke to several generations at once. Susan Boyle worked because she has a great story – the ultimate underdog with an incredible, and unexpected talent. Compelling content makes popular content. It’s that simple. Get over yourself. I swear, if I hear one more person try to tell me that they “don’t have anything interesting to say”, I’m going to snap. Everyone has a story, including you. It can be a challenge to draw out exactly what that story is, and being able to tell stories naturally takes practice. So how do you figure it out? Well, I just went through an exercise a few weeks ago that was insanely useful. I was put in a position where I had to trace back my working life to the beginning (I mean, like when I was 11 years old), and then figure out all of the highlights of my professional life to date, including work accomplishments, awards, and community involvement. It was a really daunting task, but as I started working on it, I realized that I was telling a story. I was digging up memories of past experiences and people that I hadn’t thought about in years. And once I was finished, and was reviewing it, I was able to see very clearly where my strengths lie. I knew my story, and I was able to extract from that some new things to share. You can do this too – it’s a great way to learn about yourself, and you’ll get more ideas than you know what to do with, I promise. Stop telling yourself that you have nothing to contribute. Just sit your butt down, turn on that video camera, or start typing, or start painting, or go take those pictures. Do the things that speak to you (notice I said “things”). Don’t get hung up on the technology. Go to wordpress.com or tumblr.com and post your stuff. Tell your Facebook friends about it, if you’re on Facebook. Tell you Twitter pals, if you’re there. Or just email your Mom and your best friend with the link. The process of publishing content and then having others read it (even if it’s only a handful of people to start) is a little nerve wracking at first, but you get used to it. Eventually, it becomes extremely rewarding and even exciting. So, starting now, no more excuses. Butt in chair. Hit Record. Type. Click. Publish. Contribute. It takes time. There’s no quick fix, no easy route to “getting” people to pay attention to your content. But that doesn’t mean you should give up if only 3 people (your Mom, your best friend and your spouse) are reading your blog or looking at your photos. I’ve been blogging since 2008 and I can tell you, my Mom and my husband (well, maybe not even him!) were the ONLY people who were reading my stuff for at least the first 6 months. But I kept doing it, because I was enjoying the process. Eventually, others started to take notice. Imagine my excitement when I got my first comment from a complete stranger! Along my path of content creation, I was learning a TON about how all these different tools worked, and I was figuring out how to connect all of my efforts. I was reading other content voraciously, and that was giving me new ideas, and new things to experiment with. Does it take a long time? You’re damn right it does. If I had a nickel for every time Greg says to me, “Are you STILL on the computer?”, I’d be a rich woman. There’s no “I want to do” in new media. There’s only “I am doing”. The people that you see succeeding in touching people with their content are not sitting around talking about publishing content. They are doing it. A LOT. If you think you don’t have time,
CONTEST! It’s a Girl Thing
On Tuesday night, I’m attending It’s a Girl Thing, a fundraiser being put on by United Way/Centraide Ottawa. This lovely evening of pampering is taking place at Third Avenue Spa, and we’ll be hanging out with the lovely and talented Kimothy Walker from CTV News, having mini-massages, mini-manicures, Aveda makeup demos, cocktails, and the chance to bid on some great silent auction items and some freebies too! Oh, I also heard that blues guitarist Steve Marriner will be on hand to give us a private concert! You could use a night of pampering, right? I thought so. Well, the amazing Stacey at United Way/Centraide has given me TWO tickets to give away (a $100 value)! All you have to do to enter the contest is tell me, in the comments, why YOU think you deserve to be pampered. I’ll give the pair of tickets to only one winner, so they can bring a friend. I’ll select the winner on Monday evening. Good luck!
Media Makers Go Mobile
As some of you may know, hubby and I did our annual road trip to Indiana at the end of March to attend the Horrorhound Weekend convention. That convention, for us, is about so much more than movie screenings, shopping at vendor booths, and spotting the odd celebrity. It’s in a big way, an opportunity for us to see some of the fantastic friends we’ve made over the past few years. One group in particular, is a team of podcasting friends who produce a show called Night of the Living Podcast. Dubbed as “a show dedicated to all things horror”, NOTLP is a weekly romp through horror, news, pop culture, and general hilarity. The 5 hosts (Freddy, Amy, Andy, Erica, Kelley and Chiseck) all hail from Cincinnati and bring equal parts of movie knowledge, horror culture and random silliness to the show. It’s hysterical and entertaining and totally Not Safe For Work (which makes it even more lovable). Greg and I have been fans for years, and we’re fortunate to have become good friends with this amazing group of people. People who let two complete strangers who they met on the Internet into their home 3 years ago. Complete strangers who wanted to make a documentary about them. That involved re-enactments of bludgeoning and other ghastly things. People who spend a good majority of time watching horror movies (so they should know better). But, Cincinnatians are known to be kind, welcoming and generous people. And they figured, “Heck, Greg and Sue are Canadian. There are no psychos in Canada, right?” Heh heh. Which is why the review I’m about to post is completely and utterly biased. A few weeks ago, NOTLP released their iPhone app. I personally love, love LOVE when podcasters release iPhone apps. I think it’s one of the most effective ways to distribute (albeit to a “closed” audience of iPhone users, but NOTLP knows their audience!). I’m more inclined to listen to their show on a whim now, when I’m waiting in line, in the car, etc. because it’s literally there, at the push of a button. No loading iTunes, no waiting for syncs. Plus, they’ve included some great features, like the Episode Extras, that includes Wallpapers, a Web Site Link, Tell a Friend, and my personal favourite, Play in Background. There are also lots of contact options, including email, Twitter, Facebook but also the “Call The Show” button, which puts you through to their Viewer Feedback line. I can also star my favourite episodes (which is useful for NOTLP since they’ve done 178 shows). Now, the App is $1.99 at the iTunes store. Some people grumble a bit when podcasters start charging for things. After all, I can download and listen for free at iTunes, right? The thing is, in this case, you’re not paying $1.99 for the content – you’re paying for the method of distribution. iPhone apps are designed for convenience. I’m one click from the content now, instead of 10 clicks and a sync. To me, that convenience means a lot. It’s one of the main reasons I own an iPhone. Not to mention, the NOTLP app itself is gorgeous, and the user experience for me is a big part. But if paying for apps is not your thing, yes, you can still get the whole shebang for free at the iTunes store. It’s your call. More media makers need to consider their distribution methods. With the trend towards new interfaces (like tablet computing), it’s going to be more important than ever to find new ways to distribute content. NOTLP are a small group of podcasters from the Midwest who are, in my opinion, crushing it in the media making space. We should all learn from the great example they are setting.
How To Get a Fresh Start This Spring
This year I’m turning 40. I think that number might be a bigger deal to my parents than to me (What? Your youngest child is 40???). I actually think it’s kind of cool that I’ve made it this far! I sure as heck don’t feel 40. I don’t really look 40 either, or so I’m told. Some days I feel 40. Most of the time I just feel like me. But this milestone year has me thinking about certain behaviours I’m prone to, and I’ve made some changes along the way. Every now and again I slip up a bit, and start to slide back into old habits. We all do. One thing I do to counteract this is, I step back and re-evaluate periodically. The change of seasons is the perfect time to do this. We often look at the beginning of the year as a time for fresh starts. We diligently make resolutions, and vow that this year is going to be different. If you’re human, many of these resolutions have long fallen by the wayside, and now we’re back in the mire of the day to day, struggling to manage and keep up and stay sane. With Spring in the air, we all have a chance to do some re-evaluating, celebrate the successes, and continue to work on the things we’re struggling with. It’s an opportunity for a fresh start – so here are some thoughts on where to begin. Reduce the clutter. Over my past couple of posts, I’ve talked about de-cluttering. Whether it’s your schedule or your inbox, it’s important to wipe the slate as clean as possible, so you can see what’s hanging you up and where you may need to make adjustments. Block out some time in the next few days to actually clear out those 99,648 unread emails in your inbox (even if that means hitting “delete all”.) Get up close and personal with your calendar and to-do lists, and figure out where your time is going, where you need to focus more, and what you need to say “no” to. And finally, but perhaps most importantly, clean your desk. Throw out/donate/file/recycle anything you don’t need. Your mind will be clearer and you’ll be ready to focus on what you need to do. Move every day. Many of us work on computers all day long. We sit and sit, then finally get up, stiff and sore, realizing we haven’t moved around for about 4 hours. This is even more true for those of us who work from home. It seems at an office, there’s more reason to get up and move, whether it’s to trek to the washroom or go see a colleague. If you’re not moving enough, you’ll know. I get twitchy when I’m not moving enough. I think that too many people believe that exercise has to be a big deal. They go out and spend $75 a month on a gym membership, sign up for $100 worth of yoga classes (not to mention the $300 to buy all the fancy clothes and accessories), then feel guilty because they aren’t making it to their workouts often enough. Exercise does not have to be complicated or expensive. If you have a pair of running shoes and a door, then put the shoes on, open the door, and put one foot in front of the other for 30 minutes a day. You can even go fast (run) if you’re inclined. Then come back inside and download the YogaMazing podcast for the low low cost of FREE, and breathe and stretch. Move around some every day. Put it in your calendar so you’ll do it. It is good for your body, and your mind. A half hour a day, and you’ll be more productive and less stressed, I promise. Re-evaluate, and adjust. If you’re like me, you probably came up with some goals at the beginning of the year. I wrote them down, and created a path to achieve them. I looked at them again the other day, and realized a couple of things. First, some of the goals had changed. Some of the stuff I thought was important 3 months ago actually turned out to not be that important after all. Second, lots of the paths had changed. I’m still on track to reach the goal, but circumstances have dictated that I need to take a slightly different path to get there. It’s important to stay focused on your goals, but it’s equally important to revisit your goals often and adjust the paths if necessary. In my experience, the path to a goal is never what you think it’s going to be. Situations can change on a dime. A single phone call or email or chance meeting can flip things in an instant, for better or for worse. Being able to be resilient and being open to making adjustments on the fly is critical to staying on track. Don’t resist what comes into your life at any given moment. Embrace it, and figure out how it fits in. What it’s really all about. I’m at my best when I am rolling along with life, as we all are. It’s hard for me, because I’m pre-disposed to control-freakedness and compulsive worrying. Every day, I do my best to wake up in a mind set that I’m going to allow the events in my life to unfold before me, rather than trying to control my circumstances all the time. When I can get into this mind space, something remarkable happens – things unfold exactly as they should. What’s even more remarkable is, when I’m busy worrying and trying to control everything, things…well they unfold, exactly as they should. So if things are going to happen exactly as they should anyway, why bother worrying about them? Why not just focus on what I am doing every moment and let the rest sort itself out? Reduce the clutter in your life. Move every day. Re-evaluate,
Bust Some Stress by Getting Control of Your Email
While we’re on the topic of order amidst chaos, I want to talk about email. I hear so many people complaining about being crushed under the weight of their email. At least 10 times a day I see my friends on Twitter talking about how they have no time for their email, that they have 12,000 unread messages in their inbox, that they have emails that are 3 months old they have yet to reply to. To those people I ask: at what point is the tool just no longer effective for you? Maybe I’m just weird, but I actually LIKE email. I get a lot of good news in emails – new work opportunities, birth announcements, invites to parties – why wouldn’t I look forward to seeing those things? Sure, sometimes bad news comes in emails, but if I were to average it out, my inbox is usually a source of good stuff. At this point in the game, I probably get about 50-150 emails a day. I figure I’m about average, or maybe slightly below average. I’m happy to even be way below average, because I think that some people consider the volume of email they get to be some sort of badge of honour – a gauge as to how busy or popular they are. And that’s plain ridiculous. In fact, I used to get a whole lot more email. But I’ve started doing some simple things over the past 6 months or so that have dramatically cut down my volume and made email manageable for me again. Control the flow. I think the first step to regaining control of your inbox is to stop receiving so many emails. First and foremost – unsubscribe to all those frickin’ automatic notification services and newsletters you never read. Every time you sign up for something or order stuff online you end up on a mailing list. Eventually, your inbox becomes a holding cell for every special offer, email newsletter, and “Tip of the Day” email going. Go through all of those emails in your inbox and unsubscribe to every single one that isn’t relevant, then delete them! That ought to solve about 10% of your influx right off the bat. Second, if you subscribe to a lot of blogs via email (say, more than 5) consider switching your subscriptions to a news reader. I like Feedly (which works with Google Reader) but there are lots of others out there too. Using a news reader lets you control when you look at your blogs, so your inbox isn’t jammed with 100 unread blog posts. Third, change peoples’ behaviour. This one takes some doing, and you can’t change everyone, but there are some ways to approach it without coming off like a jerk. First of all, when you send emails to large groups (say, over 5 people), don’t use CC:. That only encourages everyone on the list to hit Reply All, just to say things like “sounds good to me!” or “count me in!” I have had email trails 40 emails long in the past of one word Reply Alls. It drives me bananas. Also, if you are on a copy list for an email, and you only need to acknowledge the email to the sender (i.e. “count me in!”), then don’t reply all! You’re just cluttering up other peoples’ inboxes and encouraging bad reply all behaviour from others on the list. If you must have a large group conversation, seriously consider moving that conversation over to a tool like Google Wave. We’re using it for the Thoughtwrestling blog and I use it to communicate with my web developers. It works like a charm. A final way to stop receiving so much email that is often overlooked is to stop sending so much darn email! Many people use email as a chat tool, or to send short messages like “don’t forget to print the report” or “Do you want to go for coffee next week?”. I significantly reduce the number of emails I get by using other methods of communication to send short messages. I use SMS extensively, especially with my team and my business partner. I use Twitter DMs as well, and I actually use Twitter and Facebook often to talk with my Mom and brother. Some people like the phone too, but I personally am not a phone fan. I have trouble hearing my cell in loud places and I always forget to check my voicemail. But if it works for you, and saves an email, then try it! Manage what you’ve got. Ok, so some of those things might help you reduce some of your email. But you’re still going to get email, so learning how to manage it is essential to your sanity. Here are some suggestions. First, when you sit down to check your mail, deal with each one at that moment. If you have 20 new messages, go through each one and do what I call the 5 second scan. If it’s an ad, a newsletter, or junk, delete it (or unsubscribe from that list). If it’s a reply to a question you’ve asked, read it and immediately make a note of what to do next (i.e. add action item to your to do list, put it in your calendar, etc.). Deal with anything urgent right away. Once you’ve dealt with an email, by replying or writing down the action item, either delete it or file it, but do NOT leave it in your inbox! I have an extensive folder system. I use it all the time. I never have to search for emails for more than 30 seconds. Anything you can’t deal with immediately or that you are waiting for more information before you can reply, leave it in your inbox, and mark it as read, so you can differentiate it from new emails that come in. That way it won’t go missing. I rarely have any more than 20 active emails in my
Get a Grip – Staying in Control in the Midst of Chaos
Do you have a zillion things going on? Yeah, me too. Work, school, side projects a-plenty, friends, family, house stuff…I’m swamped. And I don’t even have kids – so I have no idea how you parents do all this stuff AND manage little ones. Kudos to you on that! I’m often asked how I manage it all, and I’m telling you, it’s not easy. But I’ve learned over the years, especially after suffering stress-related health issues in the past, that having control in the midst of chaos is critical to not only my success but is directly linked to my sanity. We are all extraordinarily busy. We all want to have the time to focus on what’s important in our lives. We don’t want to be slaves to our inbox, or our telephone. But when information is being hammered at us every hour of every day, how do we keep from losing control altogether? You are what you eat. Oh, my Mom’s been telling me this for YEARS. My biggest downfall (and the biggest contributor to my waistline) is that when I get too busy, I don’t eat properly. I work and work and work, and put off eating until I’m famished, then because I’m starving I make poor choices (i.e. PB and J or boxed mac and cheese for supper instead of something green). Day after day I continue to eat poorly, and then suddenly I start having trouble. I feel tired all the time. I lose concentration. My tummy troubles flare up. I get anxious for no reason. Then I realize that I haven’t eaten a vegetable in 5 days, and it all becomes clear. It’s hard to prepare food and eat well when you barely have enough time to get a shower in the morning. But I’m getting better, and it starts with planning meals for me and my husband. I like to cook, but I hate cooking when I don’t know what to make. By laying it all out at the beginning of the week, then grocery shopping based on the list, I’m able to actually enjoy preparing meals again. The tools are simple (and it’s not about the tools). I use my desktop calendar (iCal) to write in the meal for each day. Then I use ShopShop on my iPhone to poke in the grocery list based on what I need to make the meals. Meals that we like get put into a list in Evernote, so when I make my weekly meal plan, I can refer to that list for ideas. My parents have done a low-tech version of this for years. And you know what – it totally works. We’re eating less takeout because we’re not stuck at 4pm trying to decide what’s for dinner. Live and die by your calendar. I’m a spontaneous person, and that’s a good thing, but sometimes it causes havoc in my schedule. I double book, or end up with six 15 hour days in a row without a break. Mostly, that happens when I fail to write stuff down. So, I’ve started a system of incessant scheduling. I write something in the calendar as soon as it has a date associated with it, even if it’s tentative. I even schedule exercise. (e.g. 4pm walk the dog, 6am do yoga). It’s the only way that important stuff gets done around here. It also helps me to balance my weeks – I work from home a lot of the time, so booking “meeting days” helps me to balance my ‘office’ time with my ‘out and about’ time, so I’m not always racing back and forth to things. Get your calendar in shape – it doesn’t matter whether you use a paper daytimer or an electronic calendar, but what is most important is that you have a calendar you can carry with you all the time. Because if it doesn’t get in the calendar the minute you think of it, chances are you’ll forget and double book. And, once it’s in the calendar, you can forget about it. One less thing on your already busy mind. Write it down. I think one of the major causes of stress is that we have so many things we need to remember to do on a daily basis. And if those things are all fluttering around inside our head, we’re having to revisit them mentally over and over again until they are done. Have you ever had a bunch of daily errands, one of which was to take your pants to the dry cleaners? And while you’re out running around, all you can think is “I’ve got to get these pants to the dry cleaners”. Then, when you finally arrive back home, you hop out of the car, look in the back seat, and there are your pants? Ironic, eh? The very thing you obsessed about doing is the very thing that didn’t get done. The solution to getting more accomplished is to write it down on a list. The secret to succeeding with lists is to be specific. Don’t just write “Go to dry cleaners”, or “Work on marketing plan”. That’s not detailed enough. If you just write “work on marketing plan”, then your mind will still be occupied with “I’ve got to first get the strategy down, then decide my vehicles, then the timeline etc.”, before you even get started! Be specific. Write down EXACTLY what you need to do. “Take pants to dry cleaners”, “Write the strategy and timeline for my marketing plan”. Not only will the task actually get accomplished once you set out to do it, you’ll be able to forget it entirely until it’s time to do it. Your mind will be clear for other things. You’ll be more focused. Try it! Keep it clean. I like things to be tidy, but sometimes it gets away on me. My desk starts to resemble a tornado zone, with papers and books piled up so high they are
What Are You Afraid Of?
A few weeks ago, I showed this video from Gary Vaynerchuk to my class. It’s about cold calling, and if you’ve ever been hesitant to pick up the phone and ask someone to do business with you, then you should watch it. You might just get up the guts to do it. Or not. You see, Gary’s the kind of guy who just does things, like picking up the phone on “live” video and calling someone out of the blue. He’s one of the most incredibly self motivated, outgoing, and uninhibited people I’ve ever met. A lot of other people, even though they are very outgoing, still have HUGE issues with cold calling. I keep that video nearby, so I can look at him when I need to be reminded of what I’m aspiring to be. All this, and a brief conversation with my friend Kneale Mann this morning, has gotten me thinking about these issues we sometimes have with getting out there, picking up the phone, standing in front of a room full of people, or walking up and introducing ourselves to strangers. It all stems from the same issue – fear of rejection. When you really take a moment to think about what fear of rejection really is, you begin to see how silly it is. Schoolyard follies. I wasn’t one of the most popular kids in school. I was often the new kid, because I moved around quite a bit. I always had some issues fitting in at first, as most kids did. I had my share of scuffles in the schoolyard (sorry Mom), and was teased quite a bit because I was shy and not overly outgoing. I was easy fodder for the cliques. Oh sure, I ended up making friends after a while, but it was hard for me. I’m sure if I asked around to many of my colleagues and friends today, they’d have similar stories about fitting in. My point is, fear of rejection is ingrained in us early on. We try to fit in with our school chums by being ourselves, and if they turn us away, it sticks with us. As we grow up, it only stands to reason that being ourselves equals rejection. And so it begins. Tell me about yourself. We get out of school, and into the workforce. If there’s any place you have to be able to fit in, it’s in a work environment. It starts with the job interview. Going in to meet a total stranger, and trying to impress them with not only your skill set but your outgoing personality can be daunting, to say the least. And since we’ve already been taught that it doesn’t take much to be rejected, the fear becomes pretty intense. And then, if the dreaded rejection actually happens, and you don’t get the job, then you’re right back to your days of crying in the schoolyard. However, if you DO get the job, you’re equally screwed. Because now you have to be the new kid again, fitting in with your co-workers, and proving to your boss that you are actually capable of the things you said you were. Every day you get to be on the cutting edge of rejection. Fun, eh? So why is this silly? The past is the past. We really do spend SO much time dwelling on our past problems and identifying with them. New Kid Syndrome runs rampant, and it’s a primary reason why many people don’t succeed at their goals. They spend so much time thinking, “Well, I can’t do this because I’m shy”, or “I won’t try because they’ll probably just say no”, that we end up just not bothering at all. We don’t pick up the phone. We don’t walk up to that person we admire and say hi. We sit in the sidelines, taking the easier road. Do you ever watch those shows where people have really bad phobias, of water or spiders, or flying, and the cognitive therapist treats them through exposure to the thing they fear? Well, what if you tried that? Expose yourself to the things you are scared of, like picking up the phone and calling a potential customer or advertiser, and just do it. If you screw up, no matter. Just try again. There’s lots of potential customers and advertisers out there! And I guarantee, if you introduce yourself to someone at an event, and stumble on your words or forget what you want to say, they aren’t going to laugh in your face. It’s not the schoolyard, after all. So forget your past rejections, right now. You can make that choice. Go ahead, do it. It won’t hurt a bit, I promise. We’re all in this together. We often think that we are the only ones who think we are afraid of the things we are afraid of. Therefore, we are kind of embarrassed by it, and we keep it to ourselves. We don’t want people to think that we have fears, so we do nothing, lest we be seen as vulnerable. And none of us want to be vulnerable. That would give the impression that we’re human, or something (gasp!). I had a wonderful phone conversation with a very kind man last week, someone who has been in the same business as me for more than 30 years. When I told him that I was afraid that I was approaching something the wrong way, he told me that essentially, we are all in the same boat. No matter how long you’ve been around, we’re all up against the same things. It’s how you choose to take the opportunities that are in front of you that makes the difference. Let’s face it. We are all afraid of being rejected, but my wise colleague is right – if we just stop and realize that we are not alone in our fears, that everyone is afraid of something, and that not letting the fear take
Three Things I Wish I’d Been Told In College
This week was the last week of classes for me and my students. They are off on field placement now for the next 6 weeks, then they graduate. For me, it’s the end of the school year, and it means seeing off a group of students that I’ve been with for the past 2 years. Back in 2008, when this group started, they were new, green, and wide-eyed. Some were just out of high school, and trying to navigate the new terrain of college life. Others were on their second pass of college, having tried other programs before landing on the one that was the best fit. Still others were more like me – having worked for a number of years in various fields, now taking a chance and changing paths midstream. For all of them, it was a bit scary and new. There was so much to learn, so far to go. So many sleepless nights ahead of them. I know. I took the program. You don’t sleep much. Flash forward, present day. They’ve spent two years learning, refining, and working really, really hard. The achievement is significant…they are ready now, to be web developers, designers, writers, video makers, and project managers. Some will specialize, and others will take it all, mould it to the best fit for them, and go forward. Some will go to work for companies, and excel. Others will turn their passion into their own business, and succeed. I wanted to write this post for my class, to share with them a couple of things that I may not have articulated well enough in person. They are things I wish I’d been told when I graduated college and wasn’t. If you are my student, and you read this and get something out of it, then great. If not, no worries, I appreciate you taking the time to read it. If you’re not my student, and you get something out of it too, then fantastic. The learning doesn’t stop here. It begins. Yep – you’ve just gone through two years of learning learning learning, and yep, it’s finally over. But actually, it’s not. Not even a little bit. This is where it starts. I went to college twice, and each time I graduated I walked out the door thinking I knew everything I needed to know. But boy, what a harsh realization it was when I discovered that in fact, I didn’t know everything. You don’t need to worry about this, though. You have come SO FAR. You DO know a lot! But what will make the difference between success and failure in your first few jobs (and the rest of them, for that matter), is knowing that you don’t know everything, and that it’s okay to not have all the answers. What is most important is your willingness to keep learning, keep searching for the answers, and not being afraid to keep asking questions. As long as you are still learning, you’re still moving forward. 80% of the game is just showing up. Ok, so you’ve got all these new skills, you’re ready to go out there and take on the world. But the phone is not ringing. The offers are not piling up like you thought they’d be. Damn. So, what now, then? Get a job in retail to pay the rent, consider going back and taking Advertising next year? Well, ultimately, that decision is up to you. But if you want that phone to start ringing, you HAVE to get out there and start meeting people. Sending out resumes is not going to get you a job. Getting a solid presence online, and getting out there and meeting people (virtually or in person) will. So, seek out people who are doing the things you want to be doing. Start conversations. Find events to go to. Things like Third Tuesday meetups and GenYOttawa and Podcasters Across Borders (if you live in Ottawa, but there are probably similar events in your town if you don’t). Get out there and go to them. Meet people. Not sure where to start? Read this from Chris Brogan. Shy (like me)? Then read this one from me. Then go do it. Just show up, and have a fantastic attitude. Be confident with what you have to offer the world. The rest will begin to fall into place. You’re in charge of your career, not your boss. I worked for many years at jobs where I felt uninspired, under-challenged, and over-stressed. I did it because I thought I had to. Then one day I realized that, while it’s all fine and well to be responsible and have a job that pays the bills, there’s more to it than that. That maybe, just maybe, if I spent some time figuring out what my goals were, I’d be able to eventually find the kind of job where I could do what I love AND pay the bills. So, yes, get a job that pays the bills. But if it’s not exactly what you want to be doing, don’t settle. In the off-hours, spend time on defining and revisiting your goals. Come up with an action plan on how you’re going to achieve them. Then put that plan into action. Work really really REALLY hard at it. You will get there. Respect your bosses, for sure. You can learn a lot from them. But remember, you’re the only one who can make the decision about where you want to go in life. You have ultimate control, at all times. Well that’s it. I wish I’d been told these things in college. It may have saved me some time and some grief. But, at the same time, I had to walk my own path, just as you have to walk yours. I wish you all oodles and oodles of success beyond your wildest dreams. Welcome to the whole world.
What Marshall McLuhan Knew About Social Media
I came across a great article on Brain Pickings.org the other day, featuring the Canadian icon of media thought, Marshall McLuhan. You may know McLuhan best for his famous quote “The medium is the message”. I’ve studied McLuhan for about as long as I’ve been involved in media and communications, and if you’re a media maker and communicator, you need to study him too. McLuhan was a man well before his time. He pioneered new ways of thinking about how we communicate. I often wonder how McLuhan, who died in 1980, would have reacted to the Internet and new media. I think he would have been amazed, and probably would have done a fair bit of “I told you so”, too. Watch the video below, it’s 8 minutes of vintage CBC gold, and listen carefully to what McLuhan says. Interesting, eh? Did you think you were listening to someone from the 21st century speak? I did, the first time. I had to remind myself that piece was filmed in 1964. But what McLuhan says still holds today. Check it out. It’s all about tribes. McLuhan brings up the concept of Tribes early on. He talks of us “banging the tribal drum” and how these new media (which at that time consisted of radio and TV) enabled us to have a voice and share our messages to wide audiences. TV and radio were the birth of one-to-many communication. When electronic media came along, the tribal drums started banging and we never looked back. Seth Godin talks of building Tribes around things that we are passionate about, and that those tribes will spin off other tribes, and that’s how people change the world. McLuhan heard the drums 50 years ago. Today, they are banging louder than ever. You can hear them, right? Senses. In McLuhan’s book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (the book from which the famous quote comes), he talks about how different forms of media enhance our senses differently – how film enhances our sense of vision, and that due to that enhancement we don’t have to work very hard to make up the rest. Radio, audio – similarly enhances our hearing sense, and our brain is able to attach the corresponding pictures to the sounds. But just look at the Web. Audio, video, text, every combination therein, coming at us all at once! It’s an intensely sensory experience, and it’s enhancing everything at once sometimes. No wonder it’s been challenging for people to find the best ways to communicate and connect in this space. There’s so much to offer the senses, but as McLuhan says – people’s understanding of the message is as much about how it is conveyed as the message itself. Chew on that for a bit. He was right. Think differently. McLuhan goes on to talk about how electronic media affects us – “…the media is at the heart of our lives, because the media affects our senses.” He believed that media was not on the fringes of life, but that it was central to our lives…whether books, TV or radio, we got our ideas about life from what we read, watched or heard. And that the influence of media caused us to think differently. It had a profound effect, good or bad, on everything in our lives. How has the Internet affected your life? Yeah, I thought so. Add the Web on top of the influence of traditional media, and thinking differently isn’t just a side effect anymore. It’s simply the way it is. There’s no turning back from or tuning out of the Internet. It’s here to stay, in some form or another, and it’s affecting everyone, every day. Thinking differently isn’t a suggestion, it’s mandatory. McLuhan…you’re three for three! Digital natives. That’s a new term for a concept McLuhan was talking about in 1964. At the end of the video (which unfortunately is cut off), McLuhan starts to describe the difference between a teenager and an adolescent (which in my estimation he means young adult – 19-25 ish?). Young adults in the 1960s were born at a time when TV was still new. Teenagers at that time had never known life without TV. This created a difference in the way they perceived and dealt with the medium. Today, we are living in a time where the digital natives and GenY’s are the same as the teenagers and kids of the 1960s. They were born into a world with computers. Some were not alive before there was an Internet. The rest of us, the GenXers and Boomers, had to come into it. We remember well a time before we had the Web. My 9 year old nephew has never known life without mobile phones and email. What does this mean? Well in McLuhan’s estimation, it means we’re going to have to think very carefully about how we’re making tools for the generations coming up behind us. They don’t have as far to travel on the road as we do. Just like TV was second nature to me when I was a kid, the Internet is second nature to them. And perception is everything. And McLuhan? Well, he was right again.
A Simple Reminder About Real Life
I am not fond of the term “In Real Life (IRL)”. As far as I’m concerned, everything I do is my real life. Some people that I consider good friends are people I’ve never met in person – amazing people like Becky McCray, Jason Falls, Jason’s Dad Chillie, Deb Brown – aw, heck, I could go on for a week. I’ve only met my friend Jon Swanson in person once, last year, for about an hour, at lunch. Before our short meeting, I called him, as we were about to pass through his town. I realized until that moment when he picked up the phone, that I’d never actually talked to him before. Our entire year long friendship, until that second, had happened through written text alone. These people are my friends. I’ve grown to care about them deeply over the past few years, as much as I care about people that are in my physical space every day. I think they might be a bit put out if I thought that they weren’t part of my “real life”. So, maybe I can make a deal with you…how’s about we stop using “in real life” to describe our offline relationships? It’s not respectful of our online friends. Cool? That said, this post is really more about the offline world, as opposed to the online one. Call it my feeble attempt at being ironic. Where everybody knows your name. Every Friday afternoon, a whole gaggle of geeks converge on a pub downtown for what is affectionately known as #FridayOffice* (go ahead, search the hashtag on Twitter – you’ll see.). It was started by my friend Tom (@wtl), who is a home-based working type of guy, as a way for him to get out of the “office” for an afternoon, have some lunch, and possibly get caught up on a few things. Tom is the fixture of the event, he takes up residence mid-morning and stays around the whole afternoon. Other people drop in and out, grabbing some lunch, maybe a beer, and often hauling out their laptops for a while too. It’s evolved from one guy getting a change of scenery to a weekly tradition. But #FridayOffice is about much more than beer and lunch. It’s not really that much about work. What it’s really about is community. We go there to get a break from our busy weeks, to socialize, and to connect. Oh sure, lots of us spend time together online during the week…often we’re all floating in each others’ Twitter streams and Facebook walls. We’re reading and commenting on each others’ blogs, and sometimes we’re even working together on projects. But the in-person meet up is a different dynamic altogether. Why? Because it’s real-time. I mean REAL real-time. We get to talk, laugh (and boy, do we laugh!), collaborate, and learn. There’s lots of energy in play, so it’s a place where we can openly discuss issues, come up with ideas, and check in with how people are REALLY doing. Every time I go to #FridayOffice, I come away with something I didn’t have before. I get a lot out of those couple of hours every week. Others do too – that’s why we keep showing up. Reach out and touch someone. As much as I love connecting to people online, my goal is always, someday, to meet my online friends and colleagues in-person. Why? Because once I’ve had the experience of being in the same room as someone, somehow, our relationship changes a bit. I mean, it’s okay if I don’t get to meet you in person. It doesn’t mean we’re friends any less. But every single time, without fail, that I’ve met one of my online friends in person, I get a whole new perspective on them. They say something like 80% of communication is non-verbal. That means, if I’ve never talked to you face to face, I only sort of know you 20% (and likewise, you only know me that much). Now, it turns out that’s a pretty important 20%, right? After all, I’ve got whole friendships based on that 20%. But once we’ve met, shaken hands (or, more likely hugged, ‘cuz I’m a hugger), and have had some time to SEE how each other is – the way our voices sound, our mannerisms, facial expressions, how we tilt our head to the side or that nervous leg twitch – we get the rest of the story. Instantly, our relationship goes to a different level. We get the full picture of each other. Meeting in person certainly does NOT discount the friendship we’ve built to that point. But it does add a new layer, and an important one. In person is the reason why the geek community here in Ottawa is so tight knit. We make a point of having meet-ups, and tweet-ups, and going to Third Tuesdays and Social Media Breakfasts and #FridayOffice. We know that our online interactions are critical to making connections, building our friendships and finding new opportunities to do business together. But like my friend Eden (whom I HAVE met in person) says – face to face trumps online, every time. So…it pays to get out from behind the computer screen once in a while. For as much as your real life can exist here on the Web, the “rest of your life” exists out there. What are you waiting for? — #FridayOffice is a registered trademark (well, sort of) of What The Lemur?