Posted on Aug 11, 2008 under Beth's Obs, Blogging, Kool Toolz |
Happy Monday everyone! It’s a lovely day here in the DC burbs and I’m giving a little thought to my Monday morning routine (which is really my daily morning routine). Setting aside the household “must dos” (like letting the dogs out, cleaning up any mess from the night before, sending my hubby to work, etc.) how do I get the most from my AM time? I will admit that I am not a morning person and I’ve started sleeping in a little later in order to catch up on some much needed R&R. So, I’m usually not coherent until 10AM. Most of my friends are up at the crack of dawn, but I am much better in the evening hours.
I am looking for a little advice (and getting up earlier ain’t happening) so here’s my plan. May there are a few tips you could share to help me streamline my tasks?
- Check my news and blog feeds. I have a gazillion of these set-up and really find value in all of them for different reasons. The problem is, this morning I’m looking at about 414 posts to go through. I prefer the Feeds option offered by Flock, so I’m not sure whether there is a more useful tool out there. Is there a more effective way to manage feeds that you can share with our readers?
- Write my blog posts. I currently write for 5 blogs with more on the way. One is weekly and the rest are daily. I know that I need a better work flow for blogging and should really study Chris Brogan’s blogging work flow. It’s a great process.
- Check for RFPs. Until I get my business really moving, I’m checking the web for RFPs (got one on my desk that’s due Friday). Looking for blog help, small web development projects and the likes. What I find here lays out the rest of my week.
- Return phone calls. Inevitably, I need to return calls from Friday.
During the week, I do a little of this, but Monday AM is by far the time suck for catching up. During the week I tweet, blog, write proposals, write technical docs, write strategy docs, prepare for speaking gigs, etc. My latest endeavor is setting up a GoodDogz.org presence in Second Life. So, my weeks are busy.
I guess I’m just a sucker for time management and am looking for some suggestions/tools for managing my freelancer time.
I am in the process of writing a social marketing plan for GoodDogz.org. We launched our new website about 2 weeks ago and, without any type of promotion, started immediately receiving blog comments, new NING community members, new LinkedIn group members, etc. It was truly amazing to see how quickly the new social aspects of the site snowballed. Adding these tools to a non-profit site was easy, cheap and effective. Here’s what we added:
That’s it. By adding those 4 tools, we were able to quickly gain more interaction with our audience, more interest and ultimately better resources for our users.
The next step is to create a strategy for promoting and using these tools. Although we were lucky enough to have “built it and they came”, a strategic plan is important to not only establish engagement but maintain an audience of loyal users who will come back often and participate in the conversation. More to come on that and I would love to hear the ideas of others on getting the word out.
Chris Brogan is a visionary in the social media space and has compiled this comprehensive list of tool and sites that are great for the beginner (with a few gems for everyone else). Be sure to check out the comments for more great finds. I would add the following sites to his list:
- Eons.com - social community for baby boomers (I’ve found that the question “How do we reach out to 60+ crowd?” comes up a lot.)
- Gather.com - social community for the intellectual set.
- Changents.com - connecting agents of change with backers.
- Change.org - social community for non-profits.
- Idealist.org - community and resources for non-profits.
I will add Chris’s list to my social media tools page. Please feel free to comment and help us add to the list.
I must admit that I joined Second Life to try to figure it out. What’s the appeal? How can businesses use this? What’s the value? After a month, I have to admit - I’m no closer to answers but…Second Life (SL) is just plain fun.
My avatar (Cordelia Gothly) is young and beautiful and wears cool clothes. I get to shop for things I would never wear in real life (RL). I go to dance clubs, listen to cool tunes and dance longer than I ever could. And to date, I’ve spent about $40 on clothes, tattoos, shoes, jewelry, cool hair, gloves, clubbing, you name it. Imagine getting all of that for $40 in real life! While my husband raids on Mondays and Wednesdays on World of Warcraft, I sit in my chair listening to tunes, dancing and hanging out in Second Life.
I have to also note that the people that I’ve met are incredibly nice, helpful and respectful. I’ve been mostly having fun at The Blue Tattoo and have found several places that I like to shop including Pretty N Punk, Goth1c0 and Divine Divas.
My next steps are to delve into the Non-Profit Commons so I can start to explore the non-profit angle and take some DJ classes so that I can spin my own tunes in SL.
It’s fun, cheap and opens up a new, limitless world of friends, possibilities and fun (did I mention fun?)
Shock of all shocks - Google has decided to jump on the virtual bandwagon with its own virtual world - Lively. I decided to check it out and the overall feedback from others playing around is, that at this point, its a glorified chat room. And maybe that’s all its intended to be. You have a few avatar options to choose from and a few pieces of clothing. The service is web-based, so you just need a Google account and to download the small desktop appliance to use it. Avatars can set up chat “rooms” fully furnished to converse, dance and even puke on their fellow “roommates”. While at some point Lively may compete with Second Life, I don’t think that it will be any time soon. Moving from room-to-room is a little clunky and it seems that every link opens a new browser window. Lively has a lot of room to grow. It will be interesting to see where Google takes it.
I couldn’t decide whether to blog about this or to download these first…so I downloaded them first.
Mashable.com, my personal fave blog for social media goodies and news published a fantastic list of plug-ins for anyone running a Wordpress blog. I just downloaded the plug-ins that I didn’t have and took a pause so that I could share. Take a look at the list and let me know what you think!
20+ Must-Have Wordpress 2.5 Compatible Plug-Ins
OK, so I joined Second Life last night - my toon is named Cordelia Gothly. Despite waiting over an hour for their servers to allow me to login, I finally made my way “in world”. All I can say is, weird and surreal. I met a lovely “furry” who gave me a bunch of avatars and clothes, helpful tips and sent me to my first landmark. I haven’t quite figured out how to make my avatar look “normal” (if there is such a thing in SL), so I currently look like a Japanese anime character. I met a few nice folks who helped me figure out what the hell I was doing and one even gave me 100 LindenX. After a few hours, I took the leap and spent $9.77 on 2500 LindenX (SL’s form of currency). When I logged off, it still wasn’t in my account, so we’ll see what happens today.
All that said, the concept is really interesting, surreal and overwhelming. But I think I can say with honesty, I’m hooked. If you have SL stories to share, please feel free. It’s going to take me awhile to figure out what this is, let alone what it all means to me and potentially to non-profits. But I think it will be a fun journey and I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
And, please, find me in SL - I’m lonely! CORDELIA GOTHLY. See you “in world”!
I just realized that Flock has changed the way that I use the web. I am much more social. I am much more in tune with what’s going on in the world (and with what’s happening with Britney!). I am able to multi-task like a mad woman. And as more folks flock to Flock, the harder its makers are working to stay ahead of the curve.
In short order, Flock will be releasing an “eco-edition”, delivering environmentally friendly, green content directly to your browser. I don’t recycle and I drive an SUV, so this is likely the closest I’ll get to being environmentally conscious. Thanks for supporting my personal sustainability, Flock!
Check it out…
Flock Browser - The People-Powered Browser | Flock
Posted on Apr 09, 2008 under Branding, Kool Toolz, Marketing |
Megan Fitzgerald has been guiding me through a personal branding process. It’s been really interesting and has taught me a lot about myself and how I am viewed by others. Some bad - some good. All little gold nuggets. If you’re ready to REALLY know what people think of you, I would highly recommend it. Here’s a great article by Megan about personal branding and positioning. Check it out!
Career By Choice: Personal Brands are Uncovered Not Created
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Beth consults with businesses and non-profits on social media tool selection and strategy and helps her clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.