Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum

What Do You Do With Links?

What do Gartner, Social Networks, Twitter, New Media, Soup.io and Friendfeed share?

The answer is that they share room here and on my radar for today but throwing a list of links at you is not my style. Beyond this idea not being on my radar it's more like I hope that there are better ways of dealing with links I might want to suggest to someone.

Instead of sticking random lists of links in this - or other - blogs, mainly I

• Write something about the item, then post it to this blog or the cancer-related Boobs on Ice depending on the topic

• Use friend-feed to share stuff that passes through my line of sight and catches my eye

• Tweet why I'm dropping the link in the tweetstream

• Rely on soup to collect my own non-twitter content and then add bits and pieces I'd like to keep on my own radar to look at later

But today the call of these two screamed out at me and I don't want to opine at length. Thus random links:

• Analysts Highlight 10 Things Retailers Should Know About Social Networks,  Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Igno

• Reuters sees Twitter as a breaking news tool: New Media File

Did it save me time? No - because I wound up writing about what I do with links. Typical.

It's About the Story

What makes your blog popular with readers? What makes your twitterstream popular with followers?

A Scoble might attract more readers than a Smith, but what keeps people with Scoble, or anyone else?  People don't make serious connections just because of the name, though it can initially attract their attention.

Is it really our ability to connect that counts? 

Stephen Denning, the author of The Secret Language Of Leadership contends that the art of successful leadership is about the ability to tell a story.

"The story is the vehicle for establishing a personal and emotional connection between the speaker and his audience."

And that's not just about and leaders and speakers. It's also true of each of us.Chip and Dan Heath in "Made to Stick" write that stories of various types constructed from pieces of our lives make people remember us. So it makes sense that stories, especially those that involve pieces of our lives, encourage people to feel connections to us, and also, if Denning right, let leadership qualities show.

A very simple message

Management guru Tom Peters believes that stories are key. That they are how we remember, how we learn, and how we visualize what can be.

In the nineteen thirties polio was taking a terrible toll and the March of Dimes tried to do something about it. They did this through a compelling story they began to tell in 1938. It went like this:

"With contributions of one dime at a time, a disease that is killing and crippling the young people of the nation can be eradicated".

True magic making

When the story was told it encouraged others to tell their own experience with how polio had touched their lives. Others who heard these stories were moved. By 1955 over a million dollars had been raised for research. That year the Salk vaccine was declared safe and effective. Polio was no longer a threat.

There was no puffery and overkill to this story - just a sincere and compelling truth telling. When we talk about things that are important to us people can tell. They also know when we are genuine and honest. They feel a connection to us because of our stories - even the smallest ones.

Our Stories

Do we use the tools we're now being gifted with to make telling our stories simple and direct or do we add as many bells and whistles as possible to toot out own horns and complicate our lives with information and "stuff"?   

KD Payne writes

"We all only have so much time left on the planet and we'd all much rather be interacting with other humans and reading real stories ..."

I think she's right. Do our blogs tell a story of who we are? Do we let people see us and experience our stories through genuine interaction on twitter? If not, who will care?

Our Lives: Drawing Boundaries, Keeping A Record

When the Editors Association of Canada speaker bailed, a blogger, editor, web guy, drummer and dad Derek Miller filled in. He spoke about the line between his online and off-line lives - with an emphasis on how he's handled the issue since developing colon cancer.

Derek says, and truthfully so since I watched/listened to this more than once:

"It's less of a bummer than it sounds, really."

Since I've been writing about the words we use online, how and where and with whom we connect and how what we say lives after us, it's a short trip to get to wondering how we separate the personal from the online US.

Derek talks about how the very act of writing about his illness in his blog took away some of the pressure. There was little wondering who knew about his diagnosis and who didn't. And in this I saw parallels to talking abut a divorce, a birth, a new job, or any announcement we might make and then wonder who we might have missed contacting.

In the talk he wonders how his work will stay archived after his death, the depth and breadth of images  he's leaving for his children. He considers whether his words online will be seen by family and friends, and gives voice to my concerns about how what we write about will impact them.

Though some of us may have more reason to think about this in depth, knowing that we'll die sooner than we'd probably like, we'll all die at some unknown point and the topics he raises are not simply for those closer to the end of their lives

This is technically a podcast Derek says, but is not an MP3. What an AAC audio enhanced with images is I don't know what that means but to me it looks like a slide show accompanying Derek's voice as he is doing his talk to the group. In any case: Life, death, and the blog is fascinating.

BlogPotomac

Geoff Livingston's blog the Buzz Bin brings news about BlogPotomac Slated for June 13 at the State Theater

Great news for me, this event will have excellent presenters and is relatively nearby, not only convenient for me but also right of I-66 so easy for lots of people to get to.

Check out the Buzz for the details released so far

Monitor Your Buzz - Can You Do It & Do It Free?

Most of us use - or at least we think we should get around to it - a handful of Andy Beal's twenty six buzz monitoring tools to keep track of our reputation, our online presence, our online "selves." 

But even though we supposed know about the tools, his list is a handy reminder us that we could be missing something. Or a way to nudge ourselves into putting them to use in the first place.

Andy writes:

"There are a lot of companies that will happily relieve you of your dollars, in exchange for buzz monitoring services.

"While many large companies will enjoy the peace of mind that comes from having a company track their reputation for them, the rest of us need something a little less expensive–or better yet, free"

Nothing not to like about free. And if these ideas don't float your boat Andy's got more to share in the MarketingPilgrim blog.

Which brings us to other questions: 1.) Is everything measurable  2.) Does free always work? and 3.) What do you use to track your online presence?

Your ideas are always welcome here and in the twitterstream which you can follow here and dive into yourself for a refreshing dip by singing up for a twitter account.

Weekends = Google Juice and Connections All Around

Weekends are a slow time for many blog readers, and writers. We've got more interesting things to do. We need to take the recycling off to wherever or haul all our stuff out to the garage for a sale.

The lucky ones get to wrench their back while wrestling sails, or fish, or three year olds. My spouse got to go help my daughter's family with a basement flood when he could have been fighting the lines at Costco .

Ah the good times, away from the stresses of the work week. It help explain why the dance party videos here are popular. Clearly this means they should be a regular feature

After all - this works for everybody.

1.) I get to do fun stuff like adding heads into the jib-jab videos and making up stories to go with them.

2.) I get blog traffic even on weekends. People come and find other things they like too.

3.) Visitors discover my genius insights and penchant for marketing that doesn't look like marketing and I get a gig doing the same for them.

4.) You goof-offs get a reason to laugh. You anticipate become the next star, ensuing blog link love, and even new twitter followers.

5.) You tweet about other dancers. You mention it on your blogs. People link to you, to the dance party, to me - and we're all linked in a happy kumbaya of frenzied feet and entranced eyes

6.) Sitting in front of your computers waiting for the next couple to emerge onto the floor keeps you off the streets on weekends,

 

Where Bloggers Blog

Part of connecting is communicating and part of communicating in a virtual world often includes blogging on a larger or smaller scale.

It's not like there's not lots of detailed information available for bloggers at any stage of the blogging process, about layouts and comments and RSS and all the rest. But what may have a greater impact that we really appreciate is where we set our blogs up.

Still, one of the first questions I'm asked by bloggers - including beginners, total noobies who who are considering starting a blog, as well as previously casual bloggers who want to get a current blog onto a more professional looking platform is this:

Where should I set up my blog?

Let's go beyond my opinion and check out the Blog software comparison that charts information from the article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?"  Lots of information about online publishing is available through The Annenberg Center affiliated with USC and their updated  Easy Publishing Tools for Online Journalists

My take is that Annenberg is a quite reliable resource, mainly because of their high profile in conjunction with USC and because they don't have a dog in the fight. I on the other hand am biased as a very pro-typepad user after lots of experience with LiveJournal and Blogger/Blogspot and a shorter experience with SquareSpace.

One of my daughters likes Wordpress and many high visibility bloggers do as well. For me it's an unnecessarily complex system with multiple plug-ins that I'm not geeky enough to understand, and many users are *clubby* which can come off as condescending to others that don't use it.

What it comes down to is that Typepad has the right combination of reasonable cost, being intuitive, and having the right number of easy bells and whistles to make it work for my needs.

In any case, you'll probably want to check out the information at the Annenberg Center. They may have just the magic words that will help you find your perfect way to reach the bloggosphere with your insights, news, or whatever it is you're interested in sharing.

Are Your Actions, Observed by Us, Shaping the World ?

In a post at Successful Blog, my twitter friend Jon Swanson talks about Shaping the World in Little Ways

".. I have this funny notion that people are connected to each other, that what happens to one person can change someone else.

Yeah, that's the €œbutterfly wing effect, right? A small action somewhere changes something in the other part of the universe. That'€™s so cliche."

Jon mentions me, Becky McCray and Jim Long in his example, which was beyond flattering.

"...if I started describing the yellow swallowtail I see in the backyard right now, while sitting in the old rocking chair that my grandfather sat in, and Susan Reynolds thought about it and decided to paint that butterfly, and then put the cards on her website, where Becky McCray ordered some to send a thank you to Jim Long for painting pictures with his words and images, which made Jim particularly motivated in his camera work so that he shot a visual meditation on yellow swallowtails . . .

. . . which was edited into the closing credits sequence at the end of the network news someday so that 2-3 million people watching were less cranky about the world when they sat down for supper and encouraged their kids instead of scolding them so that they did well on their tests the next day and school performance, just for a day, improved–would that be cliche?"

 

And that's beautiful and inspiring.

But that's not what's most notable about the article for me. It's that Jon's post brings a call to action. To do something - some tiny thing - that can cause ripples.

And to see the possibility of those ripples

Sometimes it seems as if people think only words spread ideas, but I see observed actions as agents for change as well.

Acting or not acting - what are the consequences?

When you're done commenting below - you are going to leave a comment so I'll know you were here, right? -  Stop by Successful Blog to be part of the conversation, to pick up a blog badge that tells the world you see your ripples and want them to keep on moving things, or just to see my friends Liz and Jon.

Connecting : Newsmakers Talk Back via Google

Moving forward into greater interactivity, Google introduced a feature on its News Web site allowing anyone who is mentioned in a news report linked on Google News to submit a written response.

In other words if Google links to a story about us they also give us the right to join the conversation about the story. That's novel.

Google says

Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

A Google employee will check that the response is genuine; independently searching for authentic contact information for the submitter of the comment. Google staff would then place a phone call or cross-check the e-mail address and phone number against information on a company or organization site.

If all checks out, the response will be posted on the same page as the story search results.

"Weird. That's the only way I can describe it" Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land wrote, making the point that

Comments also give Google its own news content. Some news stories will now be "anchors" for user generated content, somewhat similar to how a site like Digg operates. Of course, by trying to only get the "newsmakers" involved, Google may be hoping to eliminate much of the noise you can get in a place like Digg.

Is the Google move perhaps almost diametrically opposite to the Jason Calcanis' reaction in shutting down comments in his blog or Dave Winer's philosophy expressed in Joel Spolsky's blog?

Is Google taking one giant step beyond encouraging reader feedback in online media or playing a risky game?

Pete Cashmore on Mashable says

I suspect this could put Google in the dangerous role of being a human editor: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed.

An interesting move, though. Now to find a news article about us linked from Google news. I wish!  That could be enough, even without the opportunity to make our own case on the story.

The W-List Women Bloggers Meet Nick Denton ; Nick Meet Reality

Tell me that he didn't say this.

Nick Denton, the guy that Jason Calcanis called a "lying piece of garbage" at Gnomedax 2007 does exhibit a questionable sense of reality with this statement

"Gawker's new chick site, Jezebel, did 170,000 pageviews on its first day out. The previous record for a new launch was 70,000.

I think women may finally have discovered blogs."

I've got a few women bloggers and blog readers I'd like to introduce him to.

Liz Strauss and Valeria Maltoni are responsible for bringing to my attention a number of women bloggers in The W-List: Gathering a List of Outstanding Women Bloggers

Valeria at Conversation Agent shared the list of Women’s PR blogs pointing out the focus on and the power of male bloggers

"Go to Fast Company Expert blogs where I post every Thursday and count the males and female bloggers — 26 to 6. . . .

Maybe we can start a W-List to help us all discover great blogs authored by women."

Liz in turn asks

"Are there truly 5+ to 1 men bloggers to women bloggers? Why should we care?

"We should care because women are great at conversation, strategy, and writing. We should care for the same reason that no one should be overlooked."

Ladies, what say you? Someone else we should add to the W-List?

Do you have some women who have "discovered blogs" that you'd like to introduce Nick Denton to?

Because - um - he thinks women finally have discovered blogs.

Successful Blog - Thinking, Writing, Business ideas