Archive for April, 2007
Be Nice Today
I’m hopping on a plane in a few hours to go to the Killer App Expo, but I had a thought I wanted to get out to you quickly: be nice today. What do I mean by that?
Today, pay someone a compliment, something heartfelt that you never thought to tell them before. Make them feel that you mean it by truly meaning it.
Today, call someone you have been meaning to call, and just check in. No business. Nothing special. Just check in and say hi.
Today, kiss your loved ones an extra time. Even if you kissed them 10 times goodbye, go all the way to eleven.
And smile just a bit more today. Just today. See what happens.
Interviewed for Folk Media
I was interviewed at BootCamp Pittsburgh for Folk Media, by Joel Mark Witt. Seems like a nice guy and the premise of his show is great, so give him a listen.
5 Ways to Extend the Conversation
Yesterday, I talked about extending the conversation, jumping out of our social media fishbowl and swimming among the people. How can we reach more of the “mainstream,” share what we’re doing with them, and empower them to participate? Today, I want to offer five ways we might be able to bring about some change. Much as I love all my fellow goldfish, I want to swim with the humans.
Build A Local Community Blog
Yesterday, in the comments section, Doug Haslam mentioned that he started a few community blogs. I think this is a great way to demonstrate the power of social media. Are you a parent? Start a community blog about activities for kids. Are you into cycling or running? Use a blog to discuss interesting routes, tips you’ve learned, and keep the local flavor.
ACTION:Invite your fellow community members to post on the blog. Most blog software now permits email-based submissions. Build an account. Get them set up to post via email.
Empower Photoblogging
I’m forever excited when I read about a Thomas Hawk or Steve Garfield photowalk. The premise is simple: get a bunch of people together, snap photos, post them online for everyone to share. Setting up a photoblog is simple. Simple for YOU, at least. Why not set up a photoblog, and empower people to email photos to it from their cameraphone? Give them a shared Flickr account and then post the feed directly into a blog. It’s a quick way to get people’s work together out into the open, and lets people feel a pride of ownership. Extra points for encouraging them to blog a bit about the photos, techniques, and more while they post photos.
Make a TalkShoe Show
Using TalkShoe is a good “gateway drug” to audio podcasting and building a radio show. They make it easy for one person to administer all the bells and whistles, but for others just to be able to call into the show and participate. When I first used it, I dialed in from my cell phone, pushed in a PIN like you do for a conference call, and I was part of the conversation. Talk about easy. An audio podcast that starts as a live on-air, scheduled radio show is a GREAT analogy to get people podcasting, because they understand the format: live talk show, phones, everyone gets a chance. See? Easy-cheesy. And you can repost the downloads (TiVo for Radio, I’ve heard people say to explain podcasts with no jargon).
Teach Videoblogging
Go the local library, request the use of one of their rooms to teach people how to do videoblogging, and then just schedule and promote it. Put up little posters (make them colorful!) at the local grocery store, the schools, the watering holes. See who might come in to learn about it. But here’s the trick: call it “Getting More out of Your Camcorder: Beyond Birthday Videos.” That’ll drag in would-be videographers in hiding, and then, you can trick them into videoblogging. Yes, that’s right. Trick them. Set up a blog and a Blip.tv or a Vimeo account, and show them how to post the first few. Start with very little editing, maybe just adding titles, and offer a follow-on course for the rest.
Host a PodCamp or Join a Social Media Club
Or some other kind of “new media” sharing event. Sure, I’m the co-founder of PodCamp, so I’m biased, but basically: invite your local community (look for the media types, the tech types, art students, film students, PR, marketers, small businesses), find a venue where everyone can share what they know, and make it free, open, and uncomplicated. Invite the community to suggest topics they want covered, but warm up the conversation by asking your local social media friends to come up with topics that will be useful for the newcomers as well as tracks for the experienced. Check out Social Media Club as well. This is a great organization started and run by some great people.
There are just five suggestions. You probably have some great ideas I haven’t considered. Notice in all cases, I focused on how to reach out to people who aren’t already in the fishbowl. In all cases, I sprinkled in some pointers for how such products could actually even be funded or sponsored. But you decide how you want to manage that. My goal is the conversation overall.
What could you do in YOUR community to get this going?
Small Boxes 28- Turbulence
Featuring the music of the amazing Mr. Matthew Ebel, who’s in Massachusetts for a few more days.
Extend the Conversation
The one message I wanted people to take into and out of the first PodCamp was that these new media tools worked best as a way to “extend the conversation.” By this, I mean that blogging, audio and video podcasting, twitter, second life, and all these other applications give us a chance to reach out to people not in our local area, or to find us relationships hidden otherwise by our day-to-day life. Growing up, I had two choices in life: do what the kids around me did, or do what I wanted to do and be ostracized. I picked a mix of the two.
I did lots of things in private, or with a select bunch of friends, but in the general public, I often blended in, hid what I was passionate about if it didn’t mix with the kids around me. I was a bit of a nerd about things (comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, sci fi, reading), and I didn’t wear that stuff too loud and proud until high school.
But now, with blogging, podcasting, whatever, I can reach people just like me. If I want to go out and find people who really dig Batman, it’d be pretty quick and easy to get done. (Friend in New Zealand who likes Batman: Michael Sampson. Done.)
And yet, that same dislocated community gives me pause. What could I be doing more to highlight the here and now? What could my abilities with blogging/podcasting do for my community? What stories need telling around here? If Silicon Valley and NYC aren’t the newsmakers in my life, who is?
Talking to Ourselves
Read this post, comment, and come back: Top 10 Reasons Why Web 2.0 Sucks.
Read this post, comment, and come back: Superhero, Reveal Yourself.
Charlie tells us we’re talking to ourselves, and I believe this. STRONGLY. I know this because in 2007, I’m still seeing panels at conferences entitled, “Should your company be blogging?” And for a long time, my answer to this was, “Well, duh!” But now it’s not. Now I think some companies shouldn’t be blogging. And yet, there are TONS of people who should be blogging. Oh… get it? People, not companies, write blogs. People we want relationships. Robert Scoble *was* Microsoft to me. Now? Nobody is Microsoft, or Ray Ozzie is, or whatever. But Scoble had the blood.
We’re all just talking to each other, which is swell, but if we want to be relevant, we’ve gotta climb the slippery, shiny, invisible sides of this big bowl we’re all standing in, and we’ve gotta get out there into the crowd. If I had this graphic, I’d post it. The graphic would be a guy throwing a bowl of shiny goldfish into a busy crowd. Think about that a moment. We’re all just goldfish in a bowl until we get there, into the people’s world.
Christopher Penn goes further. He says we should use our powers for good. Get out there. Use your newly minted voice to bring about real live change in the world. Chris practices what he preaches. His Financial Aid Podcast is truly the closest to a white hat financial aid organization out there, in a business that is FULL of black hat practices. Read: scammers. Chris’s show gives you top-shelf financial advice, a little philosophy, and some entertainment. Daily. You want something to hang your hat on? Take his advice to get out there and use your powers for something more than audio and visual masturbation. Make a value to the world.
Extend the Conversation
We NEED to get out there and talk to others, bring more people into the experience. Why? Because we are at a point where we (people who choose to use their voice) are the power. Don’t believe me? Read the fascinating BuzzMachine piece on the obsolescence of the traditional interview.. (Note: when I went to grab this link, I found Jeff Jarvis reporting that NBC has chosen not to air the Presidential debates on the Internet for policy reasons- hummm… OUR Presidential candidates? We can’t hear them because NBC says so?)
Who should you add to the conversation? That’s for you to answer. What are you talking about, and who needs to hear it? I tell you what: you’re not going to find ALL your pertinent audience online already. Lots of folks don’t know how to reach you. Remember, there are lots of Internet dirt roads with lots of blinking neon signs. You’ve gotta go out, hand roadmaps to your new audience, and bring them into the conversation.
Some of this might still have to start face-to-face. Get used to that idea. Show people who aren’t yet aware of your media what it will add to their world. By the way, it’s all about them.
Instant Value Enhancer- Turn Your Blog/Podcast/Whatever Into a “Platform”
The minute you build your experience into a conversation of two-way or more participation, it instantly becomes a stronger value to the community you’re serving. Reach out. Get people to videoblog their contributions. Make THEM part of the show. It’s instant. Reaching out to build your community by giving THEM a voice and a face and a presence is an instant hit. Immediate. It brings more awareness, more attention, new audiences to the experience, because then your newfound stars will bring their friends, family, connections to the conversation.
Know who did this well back in the day and is doing it more now that they’ve relaunched? Scriggity. They’ve understood that it’s all about ME since whenever ago. And YOU, and HER.
Bring more people into the media, energize them, and get the voices moving together.
Many Voices in Chorus vs. Chatter
Gather people to your conversation and combine. Build. Enhance. Make the “show” the “channel” the “network.” Gather all the voices into one powerful, UNIFIED experience that lets your combined audiences feel the larger experience. (But the backwards trick- give us a way to pick and choose, too. I might like some of your shows, but not all. Some of your segments).
A chorus of people approaching something will forever be more powerful than lots of little voices pecking at the same problem. Get together. Join. Gather.
Action
What could you do TODAY to get into this? Here are a few ideas from me. You add some of your own.
- Identify people in your real world community that you could serve with your blog, podcast, videoblog, whatever.
- Host a local event at the public library making people aware of social media.
- Reach out to a similar blog/podcast/video show and work out how to combine efforts. Raise your voice.
- Start going to local area meetups. They’re out there. Look harder. If not, start one. Meetup.com is a good service for this.
- Match your passion to your platform. Is text your medium? Why do a radio show? What would your audience want to consume?
- Educate locals how to use these tools themselves, and start a few blogs/podcasts in your own community.
- Improve your product. If you text blog, be more concise. Audio? Tighten up. Focus. Video? Get better lighting. Work on your sound. The audience wants TV and Radio quality. Mostly.
Okay, it’s up to you. What will YOU do to add your voice to this? What needs extending in your world? How can we burst through this talking-to-ourselves bubble and reach out to more? Am I wrong? Should we even try to reach out?
Alignment Management Not Time Management
I’ve got to get back to better project management practices. Notice, I don’t say time management. Time is rarely the enemy. It’s a shorthand we created along the way to cover our mistakes. But it’s not time we fail with. It’s alignment. Here are some ideas on how to rework your alignment.
Make the Main Thing The Main Thing
I am a HUGE fan of Dr. Stephen Covey’s 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE, and even more enamored of The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
As a quick recap of the ideas around the habits, here you go.
- Be Proactive- Realize that you’re the guy writing the story.
- Begin with the End in Mind - Write out what you want out of life (aka your roles in life, and your goals for each.)
- Put First Things First - Organize and execute around those goals. Make the main thing the main thing.
- Think Win-Win - The best solutions come out of leading yourself in a way that works well with others.
- Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood - If you can empathize, see the other person’s mindset, and deeply learn their perspective, you’ll go further.
- Synergize - Work hard to make one and one equal three. Can you make creative solutions that enhance everyone’s need?
- Sharpen the Saw - the law of maintenance and regeneration. Work hard to keep things up to snuff. (Remember my wake up post? That deals with Habit 7).
So the first thing we often do wrong when thinking we’re using our time poorly is that we forget what the main things are. We worry about the things that rush onto our plate (urgent), whether or not they’re important. And then, when we feel too tired from managing fires all day, we roam off into things that aren’t important.
Front Load Your Priorities
Gandhi said that everyone had the same amount of time in a day. It was how we chose to use it. If we go after the important things in life BEFORE they become urgent (like deadlines crashing into us), we’ll get the most return on the time we spend. Of course, we have to manage the firefighting that comes up (important plus urgent).
Figure Out Your Main Things. Build Projects that Align
For those of you who are huge David Allen GETTING THINGS DONE supporters, I salute you. There are some GREAT tricks inside there for keeping things in order. For instance, learning how to break things down into Next Actions is KEY to working on projects in a useful manner. Looking at the larger goals is daunting, and shuts most of us down. Remembering to go back and keep tabs of things by doing information dumps and check-ins is very important, too.
But it starts with making your goals align with your roles, and then figuring out what most needs to get done.
In my case, I have a bunch of roles that need addressing:
- Nourished, Creative Me- People often forget to put themselves first, but if you fly on a plane a lot, you’ll notice that the directions for the oxygen masks say to put yours on first, and then help others. Know why? Because without a properly nourished and cared for self, you’re not all that useful to others.
- Father/Husband- I’ve gotta keep my family high up there. They are the benefactors of my efforts, and they get the best me when I’m doing my best work. But I can never lose sight of why I like to come home at the end of a day.
- Community Developer- I own this role in several organizations (PodCamp, Video on the Net, Network2), but it’s a role that is integral to what I do, so I keep it high on the list. To that end, I do lots of actions in a day that are more community focused than they are directly related to the bottom line (until you realize that community builds your bottom line, big businesses).
- Show Director- I’m responsible for building Video on the Net, a huge conference where I gather the most engaging speakers and thinkers from traditional media, film, and entertainment, and mix them with the innovative disruptors of tomorrow. I have a budget to consider. I have team members to educate about what we’re doing. Lots of copy to write.
- Network2 Guy- I am rewriting the user experience, user interface requirements for Network2, making it easier to use, better, understandable. I’m working with the team to figure out what to do next to get us funded, figured out, to make a difference.
- PodCamp Co-Founder- Christopher Penn and I are working on several things for PodCamp, hoping to keep the experience alive, make it easier for others to organize the events where they want, and we’re working on the couple of PodCamps we have direct responsibility for. And with the PodCamp Foundation, we have even more to consider (thanks, Whitney).
- Fitness- This is part of role one, but I give it its own column, because I’m really behind on this. Without paying attention to this, I’ll really have problems shortly.
Okay, I went on and on, but there’s a point- without looking closely at what your roles are, you can’t clearly define the goals you should set out.
Building projects to those roles is how you go further.
Align with your principles and habits
Without a hard look at what matters to you and how you intend to do things, you can fall out of alignment really quickly. For instance, in my role as Show Director for Video on the Net, I might just want to get something done in a hurry, and I don’t want to take the time to educate the team around me. But what good is that from my mindset of community development? How can I take what I believe from PodCamp- empower, empower, empower, and NOT do that when I’m talking with my Video on the Net team mates?
I can’t. I have to use the same principles as best as I can, and apply my beliefs and mindset to everything. Otherwise, it will fall out of alignment quickly.
Project Lists and Next Actions
The super-secret way to get things done in a manner that works is to start at the biggest shape- the project, and then work down to the next shape - landmarks or milestones, and then work that down to the smallest shapes- next actions. If you were looking on a big-to-small graphic, it’d look like this:
Role>>goal>>projects>>milestones>>checkins>>next actions.
For my role as Show Director, I have a goal of increasing attendance and engagement on my events. The projects I have are the various components of upcoming shows that I think will move those needles (for instance, I want to bring more gaming to the expo floor). The milestones are little waypoints I use to determine I’ve made any progress. Checkins are scheduled reviews of what I’ve done so far, and next actions are all the little bitty things I need to do to move the other things forward. They should tie very nicely in a line such that the smallest makes sense when I get to the biggest.
Organizing Tools
I’ve come to the realization that I’m not interested in using an online tool for doing this. In fact, I’m not even interested in using software at all. I’m going to use paper and pens. The reason is that most of my project work is solo work that affects others, but rarely does it tie to other people’s missions, especially not on a time thread. My stuff is about getting something done and adding it into the collective (for the most part).
In my case, I’m going to do one project per page, with the largest details up top, and with the other stuff rolling down the page (once I make one to share, I’ll post a photo).
But YOU, use the tool that matters to you. Don’t listen to me on this. Do what you like. There’s tons of tools online that are good. There are plenty of collaborative project tools (In fact, share a few favorites in the comments). Use what works for you.
Your Improvements
I’ve laid this all out, but you know me. I love to hear your ideas, thoughts, additions, disagreements, and your own versions. Want to tell me what you think? How do you work on your projects? What are your methods or systems? Let me know.
(clock photo credit zen)
Interview with the Wrestling Mayhem Show
I think Will was trying to interview me, but forget that. I decided to interview them instead. Will Rutherford, Mike Sorg, and some other hooligans (hey, I can’t remember ALL your names) are doing a wrestling fan show. I met them first at PodCamp Pittsburgh. (Turns out the interview was shot mostly under a loud music speaker. Sorry about that.)
Check out the Wrestling Mayhem Show to learn about the team.
Threadbare Normans Invade England
THIS is how history should be taught. This is an animation of the Bayeux Tapestry, which discusses the Norman invasion of 1066. Discovered via Wired’s interesting new Table of Malcontents blog.
STACK the Deck
I’ve just created a Shared Tools And Common Knowledge page for the PodCamp wiki. The premise is simple: there are lots of resources out there that we know and talk about. Let’s list them out for folks just getting started. Second, let’s create and/or link to video tutorials of the various new media tools that we use, so that people can have a simple landing site for all the various things they could use out there and why.
Need Your Help
This would be hideously tedious and probably flawed if I fill it in myself. Please, if you’ve a moment, swing by the STACK page and add just a few links to the page.
If you’ve got some time and you want to create a video tutorial on something related to blogging, audio or video podcasting, Second Life, Twitter, whichever new media community tools float your boat, that’d be really great, too. I’m planning to make some recordings myself, but just threw up the page to start.
Shared Tools And Common Knowledge needs your help. Can you contribute?
Why to Use RSS Readers and HOW
These guys have done a great job of explaining in plain english how to use RSS and an RSS reader to consume your news and blogs. I don’t have much to add, but I wanted to point out this great video, created by Common Craft.
