Earlier this week I had a small accident, which has resulted in a pretty banged up rib cage and has left me no choice but to remain essentially horizontal on the couch, unable to work or do much of anything. I’ll be fine in a few more days, but the experience of laying on the sofa watching daytime TV is something I haven’t done in a while, and it’s been a curious experience. The majority of my media consumption happens online these days, with the exception of the 6pm news and one or two “guilty pleasure” shows that I take in occasionally. Even my movie and TV series watching happens on iTunes or Netflix mostly these days. I control what I see, when I see it, and how I view it. The experience of consuming daytime talk shows over the past few days has been an interesting one, and at times has been intensely frustrating. The first thing I have noticed is the abundance of overly chipper, bouncy hosts. Their squeaky voices (yes, even the men) are at times piercing, and the giggling is often out of control. Throw a couple of co-hosts in there, and you’ve got the daytime TV equivalent to a gaggle of teenage girls gossiping about the cute boy in math class. The content is weak, the hosts talk over each other and it often seems that they don’t even realize the viewers are watching. And then there’s the subject matter. Look, I’m all for lighthearted news stories – there’s too much bad news out there, we need to balance it with something fun – but I’m shocked at how dumbed-down daytime TV has become. The questions the hosts ask their guests are so basic that even a 5 year old could sound more intelligent. The topics discussed these days are so generic and seem more designed to sell products than to actually give away any relevant information. I find this trend unfortunate and a bit disconcerting. I mean, I’m all for lighthearted entertainment, but when I as a viewer am being essentially ignored and when topics are being discussed are at a 2nd grade level, it’s not only boring but disrespectful to the audience too. So, I turn off the TV, and retreat to my safe online spaces, where I get to choose my own adventure. I get to find the sources that I find entertaining and informative, where the audience is respected as intelligent with informed opinions. Media is changing, and it’s changing fast. Television is not what it used to be, to be sure, and as it grasps and grapples to maintain relevancy, I fear it’s getting lost in a sea of self-serving, dumbed down, generic fluff that doesn’t give its audience enough credit, and that is worrisome. What’s more worrisome is that this may well be what people want. Thoughts? Photo Credit: Melissa Segal via Compfight cc
Five Things to Think About
Weekends are always a great time for unwinding and reflection. Here are a few topics for you to ponder as you head into the end of your week. 72% of Adults Use Social Media Pew Research recently came out with some new social media usage stats, and found that 72% of adults in the U.S. use social media. This is a change from just 8% in 2005. That’s astounding. It’s s true testament to the boom that social media use has seen in the past several years – and it only continues to grow. So, how’s that social media plan for your business coming along? 🙂 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Rest of Us We all know one – someone who live their computer life virtually mouse or trackpad free – they whiz around the keyboard using mysterious commands and seem 100 times more productive than the average mouse-clicker. My colleague Tony Gamble is one of those guys, and whenever we work together I’m amazed at his keyboarding prowess. Lucky for us, Tony’s Tech Tip on Jester Creative’s web site this week discloses several Mac and Windows keyboard shortcuts that will save you time and make you the envy of your friends and colleagues. You can read all of Tony’s weekly tech tips here. 3 Ways to Harness the Mental Power of Writing If you’re a writer you’ll understand this – there’s something about the physical and mental activity of writing – of putting pen to paper or keys to screen – that hits us on a deep, psychological level. I write to clear my head, to sort out my thoughts, and sometimes even to figure out what I think about things. This great article from my favourite blog, Dumb Little Man, addresses what it is that makes our writing brains work the way they do, and how we can use writing to solve problems and achieve our goals. Wait – Life is Good Sometimes you meet someone and you feel like you instantly have a connection with them, like you’ve known them forever. I feel this way about my friend Diane Brogan. She and her husband Steve are two of the kindest, most generous and thoughtful people I’ve ever known, and not only that, they write a wonderful blog over at MomPopPow. Diane’s post this week is about not sweating the small stuff. We all have frustrations in our week – the kids act up, the cat barfs all over the bathroom (true story, BTW), the water heater breaks, you get a flat tire. All annoying, and we get so worked up. Read Diane’s post, and you’ll understand why, in spite of these things, many of us still have a lot to be thankful for. Bass Dogs Some of you may know that I bought a very cool new guitar this week. It’s a rare 2001 Gretsch Historic Series G3601 for you guitar geeks out there. It’s toured around the world and been well played and well loved by many talented people. I absolutely love it and am looking forward to learning more from Justinguitar.com and getting my calluses back in shape. I was looking at a lot of guitar stuff online this week and I came across this, which to me, is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Ever notice how when you see photos of famous bass players like Geddy Lee, John Entwistle or Gene Simmons playing their guitars, they look like they’re tickling dogs? No? Well, that’s about to change when you see this site. Give yourself a good half hour to go through it all. It’s a riot. That’s it – enjoy your weekend everyone, and share any great things you found online in the comments if you like!
Zen and the Art of Not Trying Too Hard
It wasn’t so long ago that I went through a turning point in my online behaviour. I used to be so hungry for information – it seemed like I couldn’t get enough new stuff, and I felt under immense pressure to always be “on” – writing a great blog post or sharing awesome content so that I wouldn’t get left behind. To be honest, I burnt out on the whole thing. I stopped really looking at anything, because I was overwhelmed by too much information. My writing output suffered immensely. I felt deflated. I knew something needed to change. These days, I go online most mornings, check in on my social sites, read a bit of the latest buzz, and share a few thoughts of my own. To be honest, many days, I take a somewhat lackadaisical approach to the morning check-in. I say hello to the usual suspects, and often rely on Twitter to serve me up a few good nuggets to read, usually before my first cup of coffee has really taken effect. I keep my information consumption to a relatively high level at this time of the day, saving things that require more in-depth thinking for a later time. Backing off the continuous flow of information has re-inspired me creatively, as has setting up a posting schedule. Now, I don’t feel guilty because I haven’t written in weeks, because every week I know what I need to do. And my mind is now clear of the clutter so I can do just that. I’ve regained peace with my creative process. Stop the FOMO Madness! FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a real thing, and it affects almost everyone. It’s human for us to want to feel like we are a part of things – to feel the need to always be up to date, in the loop, and not left in the dust. What happened to me, was that my FOMO got so severe that it froze me in my tracks – instead of being able to take in the information I so longed for, I turned away from it. I simply couldn’t process things well anymore. I felt like everything I saw was just more of the same. I craved new ideas, but they wouldn’t come. The problem is, social media preys on peoples’ FOMO. The stream is there, all the time, whether we are or not. We don’t want to miss something important, so we fill our heads with the stream until there’s no room left for our own thoughts and ideas. We try so hard to keep up, and the more we try, the further behind we get. We need to overcome our FOMO. We need to realize that it’s not the end of the world if we don’t see it all, experience it all, and know it all. We need to stop the madness. Take a Breather Want to know a secret? The chance that you’re going to miss something super important and life altering that’s posted on a social network is slim to none. Sure, news breaks on Twitter – but if you don’t see it the instant it happens, and it’s truly important to your life, the news will reach you eventually. If you don’t get that blog post out this morning, because your kid kept you up all night or just because you’re just feeling uninspired, the world is not going to end (client deadlines and paid work notwithstanding). You don’t need to read every new post that appears in your news reader every single day. In fact, you should probably go in and purge all the feeds you’ve subscribed to that don’t interest you anymore – they are just creating unnecessary noise. You can take a break from all of this. You can breathe. You can step out of the stream and life will go on as it always has. If something is truly important, if there’s something you really have to know about, the information will find you – trust me on this one. Stop Seeking and Be Repeat after me – it’s not about the end result. It’s about the process. Anything worth doing in life takes hard work – we know that. But how often do we do the hard work while being focused only on the end result? It’s always about the journey, and that’s something many of us don’t fully appreciate. “Start blogging today, and your company will be super successful!” is a phrase I see all to often on the so-called “expert” sites. The thing is, I don’t know a single blogger who planned from the beginning to become insanely successful in business by blogging. Blogging is typically something successful people do because they want to share their thoughts and ideas with the world. Driving readership and audience and visits and new business leads is a secondary benefit. People who are truly successful leveraging social media are not completely motivated by the end result. Often, they do what they do out of a love of helping other people, and out of a need to create. If you’re putting a social media strategy into play, that’s great. A plan based on measurable outcomes is essential to its success. But don’t forget to just be in the process. Enjoy the flow of creating new things, and the feeling of making a great new connection with another human being. Be in awe of how simple it is to share your thoughts and ideas with someone on the other side of the planet in an instant. These are the important things. This is how we stop trying so hard, and just enjoy the process. Take a step back from the fear, and learn to lean into only the most important things. You’ll soon find that your experience will be that much richer for it.
Five Things to Think About
Weekends are always a great time for unwinding and reflection. Here are a few topics for you to ponder as you head into the end of your week. Microsoft is Teaching Kinect to Understand Sign Language Microsoft’s Kinect is an interactive gaming interface that responds to body movement. It works remarkably well. So well in fact, that science is coming up with all kinds of neat ways to use it that don’t involve playing your favourite video game. Check out what some scientists in China are doing – they are developing a translator for Sign Languages. Basically the Kinect becomes the interface through which hand gestures and signs are interpreted to another language (in the video shown here you see Chinese Sign Language translated to Chinese, and American Sign Language translated to English). A very cool use of Kinect technology that has all kinds of positive implications. Retirement Age Adults Take Classes to Learn Facebook I can tell you for a fact that seniors are big on social media. My own parents both use Facebook and Twitter, and my Dad runs his own WordPress web site too. Well, some community centres in Massachusetts are becoming technology training grounds for seniors. Grandmothers are becoming Facebook mavens, one status update at a time. It’s being promoted as a way to stay connected with friends and family, especially to keep up with grandkids and great grandkids. Not only are they learning how to post a photo, they are learning how to stay safe online. And I think that’s a great thing. Choose Rest This post from Erin Feldman really hit home for me. I have a tendency to burn the candle at all three ends, and go go go until I can’t go no more. I feel guilty if I’m doing nothing, but I know sometimes that nothing is all I should do, if I want to be ready to face life head on. In this post, Erin tells us how it’s not just okay to rest when you need to – but that you MUST rest. Great advice here. It’s Not That Hard To Listen Online My friend and one of Jester Creative’s digital marketing instructors, the erudite Bob LeDrew has some wise words for anyone who wants to do a better job of listening online. He lays out some simple steps you can take to ramp up your ability to listen to the conversations online that matter to you and your business. Don’t get left behind! Listen to Bob, and become a better listener. 78% of Canadians Don’t Leave Home Without Their Smart Phone One of my frustrations as a teacher of digital marketing is finding good Canadian stats to include in presentation and training materials. Well, my friends at Thornley Fallis just helped to solve that, by giving a great overview of some of the Canada-specific stats around smart phone use. What really intrigues me about these numbers is how many Canadians are using their smart phones for shopping – from looking at their smart phones while in stories to looking up product info and making purchases. It’s an interesting trend and one that business owners in Canada should be watching very closely. There you have it – 5 things for you to think about as you head into the weekend. Did you come across anything interesting in your online travels this week? Share it in the comments below!
The A List Conundrum
In a recent post, Chris Brogan put forth some great thoughts on the nature of online connections and the impact they can have. I read the post, flipped to the comments section and started typing. After about 300 words, I stopped, cut the text, and pasted it here. Sometimes, a comment becomes the thing you should be talking about on your own blog. Thanks to Chris for the inspiration. Internet celebrity is a curious thing. I often sit back and watch how guys like Chris and Gary Vaynerchuk deal with their “public”. They have a lot of demands and expectations put on them – sometimes, people are downright rude, too. They call out the A Lister because they haven’t replied to a tweet, or retweeted something. They whine and complain and take their toys and go home. I find it frustrating to watch this childish behaviour, and it makes me glad I’m not an A Lister (I hear the D List is making a comeback, anyway ;). It all gets me wondering – when will the mentality of “If I could only get an A Lister to retweet me, my business would THRIVE!” end? Probably never, but a girl can dream. Attention Deficit One of the most powerful opportunities that social media presents to us is the ability to get peoples’ attention. I still find it amazing that I can write on this blog, put it out to the Universe, and sometimes SEVERAL HUNDRED people will see it (sometimes). The other night I sent a tweet to Gene Simmons of KISS, asking him a question I’ve genuinely wondered about since I was 5 years old: And to my utter shock and amazement, he replied: What did this get me? A smile on my face, a 38 year old question answered, the envy of my big brother and a bit of fun with my friends on Facebook. That’s it. Attention happened, then nothing happened. I’m not going for coffee with Gene Simmons anytime soon, and I’m down with that. Attention is the commodity of the Web, and everyone is scrambling to get more and more of it. But tweeting an A Lister and expecting that their response or their retweet is going to change your life? That’s just misguided. Great Expectations I’ve been retweeted by A Listers. While I always appreciate a shout out from a friend with a large audience, ultimately, it’s no big deal, and here’s why. When you get retweeted by someone with a large following, it’s fun for a while to see the traffic spike. But that traffic is very, VERY fleeting. You get to ride the wave for the rest of the day, watching the retweets stream by, checking your analytics to see how many people have checked out your post. But I promise you, by tomorrow, you’ll be back down to your normal levels. People will have moved on. You’ll be just one of dozens of things they read that day. You might be memorable. You probably won’t be. The expectation that you’re going to become an instant “Internet Sensation” just because Chris Brogan or Robert Scoble or whoever noticed you and liked what you did enough to share it with their audience is simply incorrect. It doesn’t work that way. It will never work that way. The Real Payoff Here’s what you do, in the event that someone who is popular online shares your content. Pay very close attention to any new people that come along as a result – people that comment on your post, or share it themselves, or mention you. Focus on those people first. Follow them, and thank them for stopping by. Check out their web sites, profiles, and other things online. Be genuinely interested in them. You’ve been given an opportunity to start a new relationship, so start it. Your payoff won’t be thousands of new followers. It likely won’t even be hundreds, or tens. But that’s okay, because you know what? It only takes one great connection to create an opportunity, right? So stop being so desperate to get the attention of the A List. Just be yourself. Produce good content, and put it out there, consistently. If it’s really good, the A Listers might just notice. Or they might not – stop caring about that. Forget about building your audience on the backs of the Chris Brogans and Gary Vaynerchuks of the world. Build YOUR audience. Find YOUR true fans. Ultimately, those are the relationships that really count.
The Power of the Network
11 weeks ago, the kitten you see in this photo was malnourished, flea-infested, with a serious eye infection and likely a broken femur. At just 3 weeks old she was found, having been abandoned on the streets of Sacramento, California. When she was found, she probably had less than 24 hours to live. Now, just a few short weeks later, she is a happy, healthy, well adjusted, rambunctious little cat, living in Ottawa with me and my husband, along with our other 2 cats and 70lb lab mix. She has travelled more miles in her short life than I have travelled in 10 years. How did this all happen? The network. I met Jennifer Johnston via Twitter in 2008. We became friends in text – our entire friendship, in fact, was built via 140 character snippets. About a year later, we finally met in person for the first time, however, it seemed as if we’d been spending time together forever. Eventually Jen moved to Ottawa and we were able to spend a lot more time together. Then, earlier this year, Jen moved to Sacramento to follow her passion – working for an animal rescue agency. It was someone at Jen’s agency, Red Rover, that found the little 3 week old kitten. Jen fell instantly in love and decided to foster her. She cared for her and nursed her back to health, chronicling the adventures of “Cuddy” the kitten on her Facebook page. My husband and I watched with interest. This little girl was adorable, and funny, and her personality latched onto our hearts. I hoped and prayed that little Cuddy would find a good home. Then one day, I learned that Jen was making a business trip back to Canada. She’d be heading to Halifax first, then to Toronto for a few days. And at that moment I knew. I looked at my husband and said “Jen is coming to Canada. Should we get her to bring the kitten?” He said, without hesitation, “Yep.” I messaged Jen and simply said, “Bring the cat.” And it was done. Jen travelled thousands of kilometers to bring this kitten to our home. Now, as Cuddy (who we’ve renamed Cali, as an homage to her home state of California and her Calico colours) sleeps peacefully next to me, I am astounded not only at Jen’s generosity and passion, but at how the network enables us to do such incredible things. Hope for Hope My friend Amber Naslund was in San Francisco on business last week when she saw a Facebook post that a beautiful pit bull in Los Angeles was looking for a forever home. Something spoke to her when she saw the photo of this scared, timid pup – probably the same thing that spoke to me when I saw Cali/Cuddy for the first time. She needed to help this animal. She needed to give her a second chance. You can read the whole story here, but essentially what happened was, Amber wanted to rescue this dog. She had no idea how she was going to first, complete the adoption (a myriad of tests and applications had to be completed in short order), and second, get this frightened pup from L.A. to her home in Chicago without any further trauma. Amber did the only thing she knew to do – she went to the network. Within the span of about 48 hours, Amber had secured offers of both air and ground transport for the dog from amazingly generous people. While it looks now like she’s going to go by car (less traumatic for the dog), it presented another issue – ground transport won’t be available until next week. As the shelter could not keep her, this meant finding a foster for the dog, but not just anyone – someone with experience with timid dogs who understood what she needed to feel safe and secure. Someone trusted. I watched as this story unfolded, and as Amber reached out to the network. It occurred to me that I knew the perfect person to help with this. I knew that my friend Jen in Sacramento had the resources to be able to help, and was geographically close enough to be able to help directly, and I knew that Amber needed a safe place with experienced people. The two women were only distantly connected, so I made a direct introduction. Now it looks as if Amber’s beautiful dog Hope will have a place to go until her ride arrives. It’s unlikely these two stories could have unfolded as they did, if not for the power of the network. It’s likely that both of these helpless animals would have died, if not for the coming together of generous and caring hearts, connected by the electronic thread that ties us all together. If you’re still skeptical that a bunch of bits and bytes and tubes and wires can truly change lives, you are sorely mistaken. The network is immensely powerful, and it can and does change lives every single day. If you still think that people cannot make real connections based on real emotions in 140 characters, think again. The network is real. The network is powerful. The network is here to stay. How are you going to use it?
5 Ideas to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing This Summer
Ever have one of those days when, no matter how hard you try, the ideas just won’t come? Yeah, me too. I find this happens to me more in the summer, when the pace of life slows and the back yard patio calls longingly to “come, sit, relax a while.” However, just because the warm summer breezes are tempting you away, doesn’t mean you should stop creating. Your community waits for no one. If you simply dry up and blow away in the summer, you’ll have a lot of work to do when things ramp back up in September to recoup what you may have lost. Have you ever noticed that there are some people who seem to have ideas continuously, all year round? That no matter what, they are always putting out something new and inspired? Want to be more like them? Here are a few ideas to keep those creative ideas flowing even during the dog days of summer. Consume to Create. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about becoming a better writer, with a section called “Read to Write”. The point of this is, if you want to be a better writer, you need to take cues from other writers. Notice their style and approach, and strive to emulate the good things. Well, the same holds true for creativity. If you hope to have any sort of output, you need input. This could be in the form of reading, but it could also be any number of things. Maybe listening to music can work for you, either while you’re working or separately – I’ve often come home from a really great live music performance and sat right down at the computer to start writing. The point is, you need to find things that inspire you, and surround yourself with them. Give yourself sufficient and consistent levels of inputs, and you’ll soon find you’ll have plenty of output. Keep a List. The best way to always have something to create is to keep a running list of ideas. You don’t need any fancy tools for this – just a notebook and pen will suffice. I use the Notes App on my iPhone, because it syncs across all my devices. Then, whenever I get inspired, wherever I am, I can jot down an idea for later. Once a week or so, I’ll sort through my list of ideas and schedule some things in to write about. Then, when I sit down to write, I don’t have to stress about it. The ideas are already there, because I’ve put the work in earlier, when inspiration hit. Change it Up. Some people think they need the exact right circumstances to create. The perfect type of music (or no music), the perfect type of $30 notebook, the perfect app on their computer – it must be just right or creation cannot happen. Maybe it’s true that having a level of comfort with your surroundings can help you to be inspired, but don’t be afraid to try something different. If you’re a keyboard person, try taking pen to paper for a change. If you normally work at night, try setting your alarm for 5am and get up and create and see how that changes things. If you usually need silence, challenge yourself by going to a noisy coffee shop to work on an idea. You never know what kinds of new things might surface just because you’ve challenged your body and mind to a new set of circumstances. Talk to Someone. While there are times when our team does spend considerable amounts of time together working on projects, I work alone quite a bit too. I find that, if I’m spending too much time alone, that my creativity takes a hit. We need human interaction and outside stimulation, it’s just part of who we are. And I mean more than chit chatting on Twitter – actually going out and seeing people in their “protein forms”, as Mitch would say, is critical to sparking creativity. So, when I find that I’m in a downswing of creativity, I make a point of getting out to see people – having coffee with a friend, and spending time with my family are both great ways to spark ideas. In fact, I rarely come out of a conversation with my friends or family where I don’t have a blog post or a song or a project idea in my head. The worst thing you can do in a creative dry spell is sit and stare at a blank screen, or even worse than that, keep hitting refresh on Facebook all day. Leave your house or office. Go meet up with someone who inspires you, and see what happens. Don’t Anticipate. Most of my best ideas come to me within the first 10 minutes of waking up. It makes sense, because it’s the time of day when my brain is most clear, before thoughts and to do lists start to creep in. Nobody ever created anything worthwhile by sitting down and saying “I’m going to make something now, ok, inspiration, hit me!”. The most creative ideas come when you least expect them, and often when you’re thinking about something totally different. The creative process cannot be forced. If you sit and try to come up with an idea, you probably won’t be able to come up with anything good. But if you take your mind off the creative process itself, it tends to open up easily. Keep your mind and options open. Allow yourself time to consume, dabble, and be patient with the process. Your creative brain works best when it’s not taxed with the task of being creative. Most of all, be patient with yourself and with the creative process. Like I said, you can’t force a great idea – it just sort of happens. Try a few of these things out, and let me know if it helps those creative juices start to flow!
4 Ways to Avoid Social Media Fatigue
My wise friend Geoff Livingston put out a great post this morning called “A Bad Case of NOMO”. It plays off the term FOMO: Fear of Missing Out – that drives much of peoples’ behaviour online. In Geoff’s post, he describes NOMO as “No More” – in other words, complete and utter fatigue from social media. Go read the post….I’ll wait. Social media fatigue, as Geoff says, is a real thing, and it causes real concern for a lot of people, who are already overloaded and stressed. We have so much to do in a day, and now we have to keep up with our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIN, blog reading, and Pinterest accounts too? I’m tired just thinking about it! While it’s true that keeping up with the online world is a lot of work, you definitely don’t need to be all things to all people in all places at all times. The best part about social media is it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure game. You get to choose the experience you have, and reap the benefits YOU want from your time here. Filter, filter, and filter some more. I can’t stress enough how important filtering is when it comes to controlling the flow of information. I follow a ridiculously high number of people on Twitter (3,000+). This has happened in large part just because I’ve been using the tool since 2007, and I often will follow people because they serve a purpose at the time, then I just don’t bother unfollowing later. I absolutely don’t spend all day trying to read tweets from three thousand people. I have a filtered, private Twitter list that has about 300 or so accounts on it. These are the accounts of friends, family, clients, some local businesses, celebrities that I find amusing, and a few very select news sources. I don’t read every tweet, but this filtered list helps me zero in on the conversations I want to see. A lot of the noise just fades into the background. I add and remove accounts from the list all the time, based on my current interests. It’s the best way I know how to get the most from Twitter. You can do the same with other tools too – Facebook for example lets you create lists based on interests, and it lets you remove anyone from your main stream (or just limit the number of updates) – so you no longer have to be annoyed by that high school friend who posts every detail of their lives on Facebook (and you don’t have to suffer the wrath that may come if you unfriend them). Control notifications. Notifications are a funny beast. I float somewhere between the Mitch Joel extreme (he has NO notifications turned whatsoever on any device) to wanting to see everything. I like to have notifications in front of me at certain times, like if I’m in the midst actively participating on social networks – it helps me keep up with the conversations. Other times I switch everything off so I can focus on work, and check in periodically (especially on client accounts, where monitoring is part of my job). For email, I use Apple iOS’s VIP List extensively, so I only get on-screen email notification from those that I need to see right away (my work team, family members, and close friends). Otherwise, I don’t look at it. The point is, just because notifications for social accounts and your devices are turned ON by default, doesn’t mean you need to keep it that way. Get rid of all unnecessary notifications – you don’t need to get an email every time someone likes or comments on your status on Facebook. You don’t need an email whenever someone mentions you on Twitter. And if you get anywhere over 50 emails a day (like most of us do) then you definitely don’t need your phone chiming every time something new comes in! Keep your close friends closest. I have been using Path for a little over a year now. It’s a very closed, very small social network that not a lot of people talk about, other than those who use it. I have about 25 friends on there, and I plan to keep it that way. Because it’s made up of close friends, it’s part dinner party, part group therapy. It’s never about selling or marketing or promoting – heck, people don’t even promote their blog posts in there. It’s purely about connecting and sharing and giving/getting advice. And it’s the one network where I get a tonne of value. When the noise of the Web seems too loud, but I still want to feel connected, I retreat to Path. It’s a bit of solace in an otherwise overcrowded world. Fight FOMO and NOMO. Turn it off. Ultimately, there’s always a choice – the choice to just shut it off and walk away. Some people have an easier time doing this than others. But when you choose to, the power button is right there. I know people who actually shut off their modems altogether, or use an app like Freedom to become Internet-free for a while. If you have an issue like FOMO (and many people do), it can be hard at first. You might even feel withdrawal-like symptoms. But persevere – because time away from the stream allows you to relax your mind and get clear. It allows the bitterness associated with over-sharing friends and hard sell marketing fluff to subside. And it even allows you to overcome NOMO, if you do it for long enough. Don’t worry, we’ll be here when you come back – and we’ll fill you in on anything you’ve missed that’s important. Which may not be much, as it turns out.
Five Things to Think About
Weekends are always a great time for unwinding and reflection. Here are a few topics for you to ponder as you head into the end of your week. The Ideal Length for the Perfect Blog Post At long last, the Holy Grail! An article that will tell me how to create the perfect blog post that will generate tonnes of hits, thousands of instant fans and buckets of money! Well…not really. Don’t let the title fool you. This article is however chock full of interesting stats on how Google ranks post length and the results might surprise you. But remember, there’s no secret sauce to the perfect blog post – it starts and ends with compelling content! How To Ditch Marketing and Make Friends This insightful post by Ron Faris, Head of Brand Marketing for Virgin Mobile is a must-read if you’re working in the traditional or digital marketing world. In it, he compels “old school” marketers to stop thinking like a studio – solely pushing out ads and TV and radio commercials and hoping your message sticks – and start thinking like a marketing newsroom – what is your daily commentary about your brand? I’ll let Ron make the case, but it’s one of the best articles geared convincing the C-Suite to adopt social marketing that I’ve read. Online Habits – Is Less Really More? That lovely gal Gini Dietrich is at it again…she’s over on Spin Sucks being a super smarty pants. In this post she’s talking about how her online habits have shifted of late – she spends less time on social media and more time on other aspects of her business – and she’s noticed some interesting changes. A great conversation happening over here, jump in with your take! How the Internet of Things Will Work We all wonder if, in our lifetime, the Star Trek-esque home of the future will be a reality. Rooms that automatically set themselves to just the right temperature and lighting and cars that drive themselves seem to be within reach now. But there are some definite challenges to getting smart devices to talk to one another – from conflicting protocols to making devices intuitive. This article takes a deep dive into some of those issues and highlights people who are trying to solve those problems. Oh, and it has a reference to THHGTTG. If you know what that acronym means you’ll appreciate it. 🙂 Eight Simple Steps to Powerful Measurement Tools My friend, colleague and self-proclaimed measurement geek, Bob LeDrew, wrote a great piece this week on the importance of measuring social media. Did you know that only 22% of communicators profess to have a social media measurement strategy in place? In this article Bob provides some great resources and common sense advice to getting measurement on track. Oh, and he’s also teaching a course about it on July 25th and 26, in class if you’re in Ottawa or online if you’re anywhere else. Sign up here, and learn from the master! Did you come across a thought provoking article, video, image or conversation this week? Share it in the comments!
Bringing People Together on the Community Couch
In the hustle and bustle of daily life, we often forget the people around us. How often do you strike up a conversation with someone in line at the grocery store, or say hello to someone you pass on the street? The people around us might be strangers, but they all have stories to tell and contributions to make to our lives, if only we’d offer them space in which to do so. Well, the Community Couch is changing all that. The brainchild of three creative Ottawa entrepreneurs, “The Couch”, as it’s affectionately being referred to now, is popping up in locations all across the Ottawa region. Its goal? Not to sell things. Not for charity. Nope. The Community Couch brings people together to share moments. That’s it. And it’s wonderful. I got the chance to talk with two of the masterminds behind this unique community project – creative ninja Shawn MacDonell, and photographer Dwayne Brown. Suze: What was your inspiration to create the Community Couch? Shawn: I was inspired by Rainn Wilson and Soulpancake’s ball pits. It’s about getting neighbours to interact with one another. We pass the same people everyday on the street, we order food from the same waitress, we pay the same cashier all the time so why not get to know them a little bit better? Where do you sit and chat with your friends? In your living room. Since we didn’t think people would take us up on opening the front door and yelling come on in we figured we would take the living room to them. Dwayne: My inspiration is always the people I get to meet when I’m doing my photography – The Community Couch project puts me out in various communities meeting folks I wouldn’t perhaps get to meet and chat with. My other inspiration is to give people an experience that might be a little out of the ordinary from what they were expecting when they were stepping out for their day. The Community Couch project is really just a fun mini event project that us as organizers and the participants get to experience together. 🙂 Suze: Who are you people, anyway? Shawn is a professional ass kicker who finds excitement from stirring the pot and working on anything creative and unusual. Shawn is a serial entrepreneur with his main venture being Creativision. Dwayne is a commercial/corporate photographer who’s been shooting for almost 30 years, working on advertising campaigns, annual reports, marketing initiatives and web projects – all of those with a strong focus on authentic people photography. Patti has spent her career inspiring and supporting new ideas and thinking. As an entrepreneur, educator and constant innovator, she has assisted those striving to innovate and change and who, like herself, want to make an impact. Patti is a consummate community builder both online and off and is on the hunt for those looking for new ways of doing great work. Suze: Where has the couch been spotted most recently? Shawn: The community couch last landed at Suzy Q’s Donuts where dogs and humans alike sat on the couch and enjoyed a yummy treat. Dwayne: We’ve taken the Community Couch to some familiar neighbourhoods for us – The Glebe, WellingtonEnd (Hintonburg) and Westboro. Suze: What do you hope to achieve with this project? Shawn: That people smile. That neighbours and strangers remember that it’s ok to turn to someone and say “hi, how are you doing?” and mean it. Dwayne: I agree with Shawn, to make people smile – that’s gold for me! Suze: What do you want people to take away from the experience of being on the Community Couch? Shawn: Hearing each others’ stories and remembering that is ok to be a bit different and to play a little. Dwayne: For me I’d like people to take away that it’s okay to be photographed just as themselves – having fun as their everyday selves. Suze: How will I know if the Community Couch is coming to my neighbourhood? Shawn: Follow along on Twitter @communitycouch. Then when you have found us check back on communitycouch.tumblr.com to see all the awesome pictures and videos being posted. Suze: How long do you plan to keep on doing this? Shawn: Who knows. Until the next spark hits? Until the couch falls apart? Until the couch gets sold (gasp)?, Suze: Anything else you’d like to add? One of my favourite parts of this project is taking the time to listen to strangers’ stories. The most precious thing we have as humans is time and we can CHOOSE to make time for others. Sometimes the stories are great and fantastic, interesting and inspiring, but sometimes the stories are really shitty and boring. However, all the stories are stories and they all mean something to someone and that is precious. Doing projects like this means I get to meet some really amazing people, people I would never have a chance to meet otherwise and that is always fun and inspiring. It is what motivates me to continue to do the things I do. Finally being unusual and doing something just slightly out of the ordinary brings great joy to those around you and to you so don’t ever be afraid to be a little out of the ordinary. Kind of like these folks: Class Dublin Taxi Driver Dancing in the Streets Dwayne: Shawn said it all so perfectly! Thanks guys for sharing your story, and for the rest of you, be sure to keep an eye out for The Community Couch, coming soon to an Ottawa neighbourhood near you!