Archive for February, 2007
Barbara Gavin Nails Made to Stick
Here’s a great example of what they mean by “concrete” in the MADE TO STICK book. Really cool, and thanks, Barbara.
Reputation
Chris Brogan…
The purpose of this page is to provide people who don’t know me personally with some information from friends about who I am, or what friends say I might be able to help you with. Basically, if you wanted to know what I’ve done or can do to be helpful to you, I hope to build this page into a place to share that information.
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Christopher S. Penn [website]
Know Chris From: PodCamp Co-Founder
Chris Brogan is the guy you talk to about how to build a community and keep it strong. He’s not called the Mayor of Podcasting for nothing. He’s good for those situations when you have an idea or a movement and you need to get connected to people with similar or complementary resources to make things happen.
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Whitney Hoffman[website]
Know Chris From: Works for Chris at Grasshopper New Media and on Consulting Gigs
When they say Chris Brogan is the Mayor of Podcasting, people do so for many reasons. Most of them are based on Chris’s ability to connect with people in a genuine way, and then know precisely the people they might also like to speak with, building more bridges, conversations, and ideas. He has the pulse of New Media in his hand, while being a genuine, caring guy. Chris is one of those rare people these days who does exactly what he says he’s going to do, and you can take that to the bank. He is willing to go to bat for those he knows, and has developed an intensely loyal fanbase, by just being Chris.
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Laura Allen [website]
Know Chris From: First PodCamp
Very simply, Chris Brogan is the guy you are going to see on the cover of Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes (and all sorts of other publications that don’t start with F.,) in the next few years and I’m willing to bet he’ll still take your phone call even after he’s a household name.
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Michael Bailey [website]
Know Chris From: First PodCamp
Chris Brogan might be like a doorman at a hotel, but more than that.
The hotel could be named “Hotel eMedia” and he is consistently holding the door open, encouraging people to come on in and give it a try.
So as the lobby of the hotel fills up, Chris calmly passes by and pairs up like-minded people so that they can venture off to other parts of the hotel and expand their knowledge.
He’s also the concierge - the person who you seek out when you are feeling a little lost in a new city. Or the person to ask directions from when you know your destination, but you are not exactly sure how to get there.
I have never heard him say “You cannot get there from here”, as he always comes up with several possible paths to take which will let you arrive at your final destination.
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John C. Havens [website]
Know Chris From: First PodCamp
Chris is the guy you want to talk to if you need succinct, warm, and dead on advice. He’s good for immediately ascertaining a situation, assessing up to 14 different solutions, and saying the one solution that will likely, if not always, work out best. It’s actually a bit scary (in a good way) and he’s someone to not only look up to, but to try and emulate. Not to BE Chris (there’s only one) but to try and encapsulate the notion that being smart is not as valuable (at least to me) as being empathetic to help build a relationship.
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What would you say about Chris Brogan? Email him here.
Friendsourcing Needs- Can We Work Together
I woke up wanting to do three things, two of which will require your help. First, I will try out a “snacking” addition to my posts, labeled SNACK at the beginning. This means stuff you can read quickly and come away with a little something.
Second, I want to build a reputation page on my site. This will allow YOU to answer the question, “Chris Brogan is the guy you’d talk with, if you wanted to talk about ______. He’s good for ______. ” The idea came from receiving a nice write-up on LinkedIN, and then realizing that no one reads those. (I will gladly recreate the experience for your blog).
Finally, I want to relaunch the New Media School video show, and that requires some more “professors.” With my job life, I wouldn’t be able to keep a very consistent schedule on this. The criteria is that you consider yourself reasonably decent at both doing stuff with new media, and then teaching others about new media. I’ve had some interested parties in the past. This time, I’ll give you credentials to an upload account, and we’ll start building up the video.
I’ve got a blank canvas started at New Media School the blogsite. What do you think works best? The Rocketboom “one show on a page” and then archives look? Or do you want to see a down-scrolling view of all the videos we put up? Love your thoughts on this.
For those of you unaware: New Media School helps you learn and understand how to use new media tools to reach larger communities to share conversations and exchange ideas.
Okay. You’ve got the assignments. One, I’ll implement on my own. The other two, I’ll need your help. Let me know.
Track Live Band Gigs with ShowClix
Alright, Lynsie here has started a new gig called ShowClix, where she’s offering tons of info on all the live bands and their gigs. She and Josh have launched their site, and now are looking for thoughts and opinions.
As I have a few band friends in Uncle Seth and +Nurse (currently staying active with my blog), I thought I’d have you and others go over there, take a look around, and give Lynsie feedback.
Here’s the site. Let her know, and be nice. She’s a friend from PodCamp Pittsburgh.
Things to Do After a Conference
I’m freshly back from PodCamp Toronto, and I’ve learned that there are a lot of things to do. Basically, what I did was put together all the technological ties to people I met socially throughout the event. And with Video on the Net on the way in 3 weeks, I thought I’d share the list of things I got done after I got home.
- Handle your business cards- In my case, I just bought a scanner, but before that, I’d enter the contact info by hand into my Mac Address book. I’d then throw as many into my gmail account, too. Why? Because if I’m without my computer, but have access to the Net, I can get those addresses everywhere.
- Send a few emails- I like to drop as many emails as possible to people I met at an event, so that they remember the context of how they know me or met me. I use a personal message to each one, if there’s something we spoke about in person. If not, I at least try to drop a few lines about where we met, so that we might reconnect again.
- Fulfill any promises- I often tell people I’ll do ___ for them when I get home or to my laptop. I try hard to get that stuff done quickly, because otherwise, I forget what I said I’d do. (In the case of Toronto, I think I did most of it, but know I forgot a few parts).
- Connect via my social software accounts- This means connecting people via LinkedIN, Flickr, Twitter, sometimes MySpace, and wherever else makes sense. This is good for me, because it lets me expand the network of people I might ask questions to, and also the people I can reference, should I find work that needs doing to match to the experts I meet out and about.
- Search blogs and add comments- This one goes a little further than most folks. I like to search on the event I’ve just attended, and comment on as many blogs as possible mentioning the event (only if I have something specific to add to the conversation). This is yet another way to remind folks of our meeting, and also to stay connected to the after-effects of the community experience.
- Post your media- Nowadays, we’re all the press. We’ve got digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 recorders. We’ve got media to post that will further tell the story to folks who couldn’t attend, folks who couldn’t be there when you were there, or just folks who wouldn’t mind the memory. Post your media quickly, and remember to tag it so people know where to find it.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few things to do. File expense reports (if you’re lucky). Reconnect with your family (which matters for lots of reasons). There’s more.
What else have I missed?
I hope to see you at Video on the Net in San Jose. There’s lots of conversations and excitement bound to happen there. If you’re coming, remember these tips when you get back.
For new folks visiting my blog since PodCamp Toronto, please consider subscribing for free updates. You can get them sent to your RSS reader of your choice, or if you look at the right sidebar, you can get them via email. Love to have you stay part of the conversation.
Your Car is a
Not much to add to this. I just didn’t want you to miss Justin Kownacki’s post about your car being a poorly designed website.
My car, currently, is a 3 wheeled, dead-battery, mess out in the yard. I’m just too lazy and beat up to get out and do something.
Your New Show- Geek Farm Life
I met Andrew Stanley-Jones at PodCamp Toronto. He does a show called Geek Farm Life. Andrew was this handsome, friendly, wonderful guy who turns out to do a show about farm life, geekery, and life in general. If you check out that link, it takes you to his PodCamp show, so it’s not his normal format, but might give you a sense about his style.
Oh, and while Andrew was at PodCamp, his farm got a few more kids and goats.
Give it a listen here.
Reverend Doctor Jon Swanson
Congrats to REVEREND Jon Swanson and Nancy on your Ordination. Wish him well here.
(Photo credit: Jon Swanson, but really someone who took the photo FOR him.)
Fancy Business Cards Backfire
So, I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my new business card scanner. Turns out that several cards, especially the “fancy” ones, don’t really scan.
My own Network2 business card doesn’t scan.
Using images to make text look more clever backfires, too. In fact, it’s amazing how MUCH of the information included in the layout of a card isn’t really proving useful to the card reader.
Now, upon RECEIVING a fancy card, I always smile, nod, appreciate the great design. It’s always interesting. For instance, those new Moo cards are really cool, but they’re sized weird. That said, they scan okay because the card text on the back is great.
So, in the end, I think maybe if you use the back of the card to be shiny and clever and then use the front to be clear and easy to scan, you might get both accomplished. Sound like a stick in the mud? I feel like that, but at the same time, hey, you’re creative.
Share Your Flickr Photos Please
Alright you! Here’s the thing. I’m looking at all these great photos from the PodCamp Toronto Flickr Photo Stream, and I’m finding some GREAT pictures of people I love (including me). When I go to the landing page for the photo, I’m finding that 90% of you have your snaps set to “All Rights Reserved.”
Technically, this means: “look, but don’t touch.”
You want your photos to get around. You want to share them like social currency. You want people saying, “Did you see the photo of Blevis and Moon that Bob Goyetche shot?” And everyone will say, Yeah!
Here’s How you do it
- Log into Flickr
- Go to YOUR ACCOUNT (under You, Your Account is near the bottom)
- Click the PRIVACY AND PERMISSIONS tab to the right of the pink Personal Information words.
- Go down to Defaults for New Photos:
- Under WHAT LICENSE WILL YOUR PHOTOS HAVE, click edit
- I set mine to Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike License
- Then click SET DEFAULT LICENSE.
The message will come back THE DEFAULT LICENSE FOR YOUR PHOTOS HAS BEEN UPDATED.
This means sharing, and sharing is good
Now, to properly USE other people’s photos, you must give attribution back to the photographer. The best way for doing that is to give a link back to the person’s flickr landing page. Here’s how you do that:
- In this example (where I illegally lift Mark Blevis’s shot of Whitney Hoffman), hover your mouse over the Mark Blevis in the “Uploaded by Mark Blevis” over to the right.
- Right click (or CTRL Click on Mac) on the photo and select Copy Link Location.
- This is the address you want to use for attribution.
- Under your blog post of the picture, do a little html link back to that, saying something like “Photo by Mark Blevis,” with the Mark Blevis part linking back to that Flickr address.
Make sense?
Now, for everyone who attended PodCamp Toronto, and I mean Jay Moonah, Mark Blevis, Mitch Joel, Bob Goyetche, and several others, please consider freeing up your photos to the larger collective. Please?
