Archives for Kool Toolz category
Posted on Jun 16, 2009 under Beth's Obs, Kool Toolz |
I recently heard a fantastic story about how Google Earth helped scientists uncover an undiscovered rainforest high atop a mountain in Mozambique. Scientists noticed this natural wonder when they saw a big green smudge on the Google Earth satellite image over Southern Africa. Upon checking it out, they found a pristine, untouched rainforest with several animal species that no one has ever classified before. Amazing!
I guess consumer mapping and satellite technology has come a long way. Except when you need it to get from your house to the grocery store.
Here in the good ol’ U.S., I recently mapped out a trip into our nation’s capital using Google Maps. I was on my way to the American Independent Writers conference at the George Washington University’s Cloyd Heck Marvin Convention Center at 800 21st NW. My route began in Front Royal, VA. Simple enough, right? 60-some odd miles up I-66 then, according to Google Maps, “Take left at 23rd St. NW.” So with plenty of travel time, I made my way to my destination.
I arrived in DC with 20 minutes to spare. 23rd is the first numbered street that you can reach from Constitution Ave., so I thought I should have plenty of time to get to the location, park and find my conference room. I just had to make a left on 23rd St., right? WRONG. NO LEFT ON 23rd. Huh? Google Maps you lead my astray. And in Washington D.C. no doubt.
If you’ve ever driven in Washington D.C. you know that most roads are one-way and many lead to dead ends. So my 20 minutes of stress free driving turned into 20 minutes of sheer aggravation. Stuck on dead end streets and missed service roads, I finally found the GW campus and eventually the convention center and parking.
Don’t get me wrong. Google Maps is a vast improvement over MapQuest which would consistently take me on routes totally out of the way or through bad neighborhoods (my personal fave). I’m sure that it’s difficult to give the correct directions all of the time as signs change and roads open and close. But, Google Maps, I was depending on you, Saturday. <sniffle>
So, for extra credit, Google Maps – can you accurately map my way from Front Royal, VA to a tropical rainforest in Mozambique?
Let’s face it – planning is a necessary yet sometimes boring part of any job or project. While we typically want to jump in and “do” planning can stop us from “doing” things that don’t support the mission or goal. And sometimes, we may not even know what the goal really is.
TechSoup has a great relationship with Microsoft that allows eligible nonprofits to purchase discounted MS software. However, there are some guidelines including limitations to the number of licenses you can purchase and number of purchases you can make per year. So a little planning is in order.
Check out TechSoup’s excellent four-part series on creating a tech plan for the year and purchasing your MS software in a way that makes sense. Don’t squander the opportunity. Take the time to read through these great resources and take advantage of this great offer! Software is expensive and quite frankly, I hate buying it. But, TechSoup makes it easy and affordable. Check it out:
- Microsoft Solutions to Boost Your Productivity
- How to Make a Tech Plan that Helps You All Year
The TechSoup purchasing year ends on June 30, so be sure to get your requests in ASAP. Don’t miss this great opportunity!
Hey gang – it’s been a hell of a week with lots of fun projects and proposals for more exciting programs. But all this work has caused me to neglect my readers! So sorry! So, while I try to get through the rest of the week, I’m giving you a few tidbits that I’ve read this week that I think are worth a mention. I particularly like the post from Geoff Livingston on how the basics of making friends have stuck for 80 years and are now so well reflected in social media. Enjoy and I promise that I’ll be better in June!
Posted on May 22, 2009 under Beth's Obs, Business Tips, Kool Toolz |
I wanted to give a little shout out to FreshBooks today. For those of you who are not familiar, FreshBooks is a fantastic online billing/accounting application that enables you to easily track revenue, projects, billing and staff timesheets. The team at FreshBooks is always making upgrades and improvements to the system that just pop up as a wonderful surprise. They offer an iPhone app that allows you to track and book time to projects through your phone which is handy for client meetings and work sessions.
I used to use QuickBooks and was always frustrated that there was way more functionality than I needed making the entire process overwhelming. FreshBooks does a great job making the boring, often painful, job of billing easy. I recently passed on the billing duties to my assistant and she picked up on the process in no time. And, because it’s online, she can login from wherever she might be.
The system integrates seamlessly with PayPal so my clients can easily pay their bills online. As a bonus, FreshBooks integrates with my MailChimp account so it’s easy to import my client contacts into my newsletter list. There are a bunch of other add-ons for other cool applications.
Oh, and did I mention that all of this is cheap? I pay $14/month for unlimited access and plenty of room for my client list.
I need to do what I can to ensure that my time is spent working on growing my business; not doing administrative work. FreshBooks makes it easy to do an unexciting task with ease and accuracy. Kudos, FreshBooks!
Recently Sitepoint ran an excellent list of creative commons resources. Creative commons is a “spirit” (as well as a license and organization) that generally says, “I’m sharing these resources with you. Please use them with care and don’t try to resell them.” The goal is to lift some of the restrictions that limit the use of online materials, making this a “care and share” kind of space. Common sense etiquette should tell you that this is not an open invitation to take anything you can get your hands on. This is a gracious way for you and I to share our resources with others in a courteous and thoughtful manner.
Per Wikipedia,
“Creative Commons licenses contain four major permissions:
- Attribution (by) requires users to attribute a work’s original author. All Creative Commons licenses contain this option, but some now-deprecated licenses did not contain this component.
- Authors can either not restrict modification, or use Share-alike (sa), which is a copyleft requirement that requires that any derived works be licensed under the same license, or No derivatives (nd), which requires that the work not be modified.
- Non-commercial (nc) requires that the work not be used for commercial purposes.
As of the current versions, all Creative Commons licenses allow the “core right” to redistribute a work for non-commercial purposes without modification. The Non-commercial and No derivatives options will make a work non-free.”
It’s always a good rule of thumb to double-check on any online resources that you are planning to use. Do you need permission? Has the owner asked you to cite them as a source? Can you use the item at all? When in doubt, ask if you can. Flickr operates under a basic creative commons license, but again, it’s always good to check before taking.
For those of us inclined to pay for images, there are also several inexpensive stock photo, video and music sites including istock.com, Getty Images and FotoSearch.com.
I wanted to take a minute today to give some love to my friends at TechSoup. I received my Spring 2009 Product Catalog yesterday and have been making some purchasing decisions for GoodDogz.org. Software is so expensive, but so vital to nonprofits and TechSoup has made it so easy to get what you need at vastly discounted prices. You can even purchase computers and computer equipment. They also offer a myriad of online resources to help NPOs better utilize the technology that’s available.
In return, TechSoup needs your support. Get involved. Participate in their forums, Facebook and Second Life.
Check out TechSoup Global, TechSoup’s latest initiative to help ensure that changents all over the globe have the technical tools that they need. Also, take a look at NetSquared, another program from TechSoup. NetSquared believes that the social Web is the key to change.
Tell your friends about TechSoup – they are here to help your NPO succeed!
I’m speaking at DC Web Women’s “Social Media Extravaganza” tonight and have chosen the topic of listening. Listening is a vital part of effective social media marketing and sometimes I don’t do enough of it. When I talk to clients, they are typically overly excited about jumping into the conversation and I often find myself encouraging them to take a step back. Before you talk, it’s important to listen. And part of being an effective communicator is being a good listener. So, today, let’s take a step back and listen.
We all have the friend that likes to talk. Yack, yack, yack. We try to break into the conversations to either be cut-off or rolled over completely. Don’t be that person.
In my life (not just in social media, but overall) I’ve found that it’s important to be a good listener. Whether you are lending an ear to someone’s problems, learning from a compelling seminar or watching your favorite movie, listening is how we learn, process and connect.
In social media, it’s important to “listen” to what others are saying not only about your business and brand, but about your industry as a whole. Fortunately, the magic of the Web has made it easy to listen to the chatter and pick out the most important pieces of information for you. Here are a few tools to make it easier:
Google Alerts – Google Alerts enables you to receive email alerts when there is a new post about your brand or industry on Google based upon keywords.
Twitter Search – Millions of conversations happen on Twitter every day. Twitter search will enable you to monitor any mention of your brand in a conversation based upon keywords.
Google Blog Search – Unlike the general Google search tool, the Blog Search enables you to monitor blog posts that are indexed through Google.
Keotag.com – Keotag.com is an aggregator that enables you to check a variety of directories (like Google, Technorati, Live, Yahoo, etc.) based upon keywords.
BackType – BackType enables you to search blog comments based on keywords. Often blog comments don’t make it into the mainstream search engine results.
BoardTracker - BoardTracker searches popular bulletin boards for posts based upon keywords.
Start by searching for your brand or your name to see if anyone is talking about you specifically. Then try searching on terms that are pertinent to your industry. This will help you assess what people are talking about industry wide.
Once you have a handle on the topics that are important to your customers, jump into the conversation offering your opinion, help and expertise. You’ll be more informed and your listeners will get more from the interaction.
Since the first post on industry-specific Twitter resources was so wildly popular, and a lot of folks are actually changing their jobs these days – here is part 2 of our Twitter resource series.
Twitter for:
If you have an industry that we haven’t covered, please leave a comment and I’ll include it in part 3 of the series!
I think that one of the best, easiest ways to promote your blog is through feeds into social media properites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. While there might be a magical tool that links all of these mediums together, I’ve yet to find it. So here is my step-by-step process for posting your blog posts to almost all of your profiles. I will preface this by letting you know that I use WordPress so all of my techniques are based on WordPress.org.
Feed into Twitter - Use the WordPress Twitter Tools plugin to auto-post your blog post to your Twitter profile upon publication.
Feed into Facebook – There are two ways that I like to auto-post to Facebook.
1) By using the Twitter app in Facebook to feed your Twitter posts into your Facebook status bar, your blog posts will be posted to your Facebook profile automatically.
2) You can also use NetworkedBlogs to set-up a profile for your blog on Facebook. This gives you addtional exposure in general and feeds your blog posts into your activity timeline.
Feed into LinkedIn – LinkedIn recently launched a series of web apps that enable additional functionality for your LinkedIn profile. I use the WordPress app to feed my blog posts into my LinkedIn profile automatically. There is also an app called BlogLink that enables feeds for other blogs.
Feed into your Website - By using Feedburner, it’s easy to feed your blog posts into any HTML page. Simply sign-up for an account, enter your blog URL, configure your settings and copy/paste the generated code into your web page.
While there are literally thousands of social media tools, the feeds above should give you an starting point for effortlessly promoting your blog to your readers.
With all the talk of cutting back and going green – one would think media and advertisement would be out the window. While printed materials and high intensity ad campaigns might be slowing, more businesses are turning to the web – especially blogs – as a vehicle for their messages. What you may NOT know is how powerful a tool blogging software has become – it’s not just for blogs anymore!
I work in WordPress, and I can‘t say enough about how great it is. Below are tips and ideas that use WordPress, as well as reasons you should have a copy of this powerful platform.
- Increase Visibility for Little to No Cost! WordPress, for some reason, is more easily searched by search engine spiders than your standard sites… with less effort! For some reason, I’ve found blogs posted on the WordPress.com site returned slightly better search engine visibility.
- Brilliant Templates for Newbies and Non-Designers (I spend much of my time at smashingmagazine.com – search “WordPress templates”), while being extreme flexibility for expert programmers and designers. This flexibility makes it available to users everywhere, no matter what their expertise!
- Fast, Cheap and Easy! There are two ways you can set up a WordPress account.
- If you create an account at WordPress.com, you can set up a blog on the WordPress domain. With this option, you can choose plugins and templates to ‘customize’ your site – but only ones that are hosted on the .com site. Don’t worry – there are PLENTY! This takes less than an hour to set up. If you are savvier, you can experiment with custom images and CSS editing. – and all this is FREE!
- If you would like to host your own WordPress account, either on a new site or your existing domain, you will need to download the latest version of WordPress, unzip it, and uploaded it to your site. Most hosting providers now have a “blog install” option on their site which will do this for you. Software is FREE – install is usually FREE. All you need is a URL and a hosting package.
- Ability to Change Your Look. WordPress allows you to store themes, which can be used and changed in seconds. WordPress pages are styled using CSS, which is a lightweight and simple method of style web languages. Imagine the possibilities! You could have a new look every season, without having to touch the actual content of your site!
- WordPress as a Website – No, Really! Wordpress users have come such a long way; you no longer have to sacrifice look or functionality in your site. You can almost match a site that took months to build with a Wordpress site that was created in as little as one day. The WordPress community offers a wealth of plugins, with abilities to add features only the most robust websites used a few years before. You want bells and whistles? You got it! And, like styling, they can be installed and removed in seconds. And most are FREE!
The Bottom Line: By using WordPress to build and manage a website, the overall cost is WAY LESS than a custom site, with MORE BELLS AND WHISTLES and GREATER USABILITY in the back end, giving the domain owner more control than ever before – for much less money.
Sarah Chamberlain is a graphic and web designer. Currently she works with 360jmg, a branding firm in Washington, DC, at which she recently started a Green Design Practice Group. Catch her Green Design Blog on Tuesdays. Find her on Twitter at @Factory43 or shoot her an email at sarahchamberlain@360jmg.com.
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I work with businesses on marketing strategy, tactics and social media tool selection. I help create effective ways to leverage social media to meet business and marketing goals while cultivating customer engagement. How can I help you?
