We’ve been using quite a few social media tools to enhance the event (and we are just sidebars on this celebration – see the wedding invitation video)
One of the more exciting tools we are using is UStream. Angela and I have both been around the globe and have friends and family all over (Did you know Angela was raised on the mission fields of Indonesia?)
Inspired by Doug Mitchell's book The MultiThread Marketer (review coming soon), I started putting together archives of ConverStations into book form on FastPencil a few nights ago. Not all of the posts, just the best of them.
FastPencil makes it very easy to organize and publish your book to Amazon as Doug has done with his book. So I'm doing likewise.
At 22,000 words and two years of archives still to go through, I might break things up into two volumes (one talk, one tech).
It's been so easy, Angela and I are beginning to work on a book together ("Extravagant Love: With Christ as Our Example") with plans for a late-summer publishing date.
The tool is Favstar.fm and it's a multi-purpose cool! You can find new Twitter connections, follow hot topics (by number of stars and shares), and you can search once and subscribe to the activity on your own tweets.
The book guides your way through using the deck of cards for team-building or self-awareness exercises. Like road signs on your networking highway, the text helps navigate the many people we meet and interact with. You'll find for each personality the potential pitfalls, potholes, engagement guides, and motivation possibilities for each suit.
The card deck though, I'm going to put those to work right away in three four ways:
Self-Awareness – Look, any tool that pegs me as an "introvert" … is spot-on. I love to work in smaller groups or one-on-one (and sometimes solo). I can do crowds (and have), but my wheelhouse is a smaller group. Here's the online version of my "hand." (Deal 'em for yourself)
Coaching sessions – I've always believed that unequal situations/persons shouldn't be treated equally. These cards will allow both coach (me) and student (them) to build and work towards their strengths.
Connecting – If you've seen me work rooms or events, you know I'm a connector (conductor?). The best connections are ones that make sense and benefit both. I'd love to help everyone build a 'full-deck" network for themselves.
Prospecting – The text will especially help here. There are certain people I work really well with, and others that present a challenge. Heck, I've even had a few that had multiple personalities — in the same day.
Part of the core purpose of Personality Poker is to determine each person's strengths and play to a full deck (too many times we surround ourselves without regards to diversity of style or strength)
This book/game is great for any team-leader (HR, Managers, Small Biz Owner), teacher or coach, and consultants. I could even see writers using Personality Poker as a character-building tool for their fiction.
If you liked Ten Faces of Innovation or Vital Friends, you'll dig the two-part tool that is Personality Poker (@perspokerbook). The tool launches today, so whether online or at the book store – go pick it up and deal 'em out.
A few people have asked how I get those MovieClips and edit them down shorter. It’s super easy and can really put a punctuation on your blog posts.
First thing is to log in (or create a free account). Once you find the scene you want, you can edit even more by clicking on the “share” button on the right side of the screen, then dragging the blue timeline bars below the clip to edit down.
One thing to notice is that each time you search for a scene, below the screen are relevant results based on actor, screenwriter, keywords…(make sure you have a lot of time – it can be addictive)
They have 12,000 movie clips to choose from! Pass the popcorn and hot tamales please:-)
The top folks are ones you might expect and some of my own favorites. But there are also a lot of sites I hadn't visited before – and we can learn a lot from what they have to say.
How many times have you kicked yourself before or after a meeting or presentation for not capturing the conversation somehow? Notes. Video. Audio. Photos. Something. How many?
Okay, stop counting. I know it's a lot. I see it all the time.
Some of the most brilliant conversations we have are not planned (and therefore not captured). Sometimes, when they are planned – we let the medium kill our oomph (and we shouldn't).
Two habits:
Start carrying these tools to capture the conversations
Start turning the tools on to capture the conversations
These are small and easy to carry. And even if they don't capture greatness the first few times you use them, set them out and get ready to turn them on:
A flip-type video camera (FLIP is great. Kodak has a few great models too)
A digital audio recorder (Olympus is my preference – get something that you can upload via USB to your computer)
A digital camera
Pens or pencils
Paper — lots of paper (I prefer sketch pads as they can act as a portable whiteboard)
Yesterday, I read about a new personal portal-type of tool called About.Me (hat tip to TechCrunch). I haven't seen the admin area of about.me yet (I did reserve my name and you should too), but I know that flavors is very easy to use. Super simple to build a quick page that can act as several things at once:
a single-page, brochure site for "who you are"
a brief one- or two- paragraph bio
contact info
a photo
a portal to other places you have on the Internet, be it social or otherwise
Social Networks
Online Resume
Blogs or Wikis
sites where you contribute content
sites that have you ranked or awarded
I'd try to take a minimalist approach to these types of pages, but you can find various uses for them. I know there are even a few small, rural businesses using this type of page for their web presence.
I believe the trend towards single-page, personal portals is going to grow – especially with "free agency" and "gainfully unemployed" becoming popular job descriptions.
My suggestion is for you go reserve your name at flavors and about (and maybe both) today.
Often, when I suggest this, I hear: "Why do I need another email account?"
It's not so much about having an email account – in fact, you don't ever have to give your GMail account out to anyone. Yet, the tools available and how you'll use them make having a Google account (including the GMail) very important.
And the tools are free and numerous. Here's just a snapshot of some of them:
Once you open your Google Account, you have access to aggregators of information, analysis of traffic, and content creation tools in abundance.
Though this homework assignment is simply opening the account, over the next several days, we'll examine in-depth how we begin using:
GMail – we'll aggregate all your emails into GMail. You'll receive everything (except most of the spam) and be able to send from GMail without anyone knowing the difference
Google Reader - This will be your RSS aggregator. Feeds from other blogs, feeds from newes sites you follow, and feeds from search strings so you can Search Once and Subscribe. Google Reader also makes it easy to Skim, Scan, & Save (and then Share), as well as emailing stuff to colleagues and customers.
FeedBurner – This is how will smartly burn and syndicate your content.
So, once you have your Google Account open, go back to Day 4's assignment and practice some blog posting. We'll get together again on Day Six and dive into Google Reader.
Get to writing, I'll see you on Day Six – Smart Infosumption with Google Reader.
A few days ago, I confessed how I have a few customers "calling in" their blog posts using Google Voice. The combination of transcription and audio file has made it quite easy for some busy business owners to "blog" as we can still capture tone and inflection with the audio. We just clean up the text, add a few links and an image.
After talking with my buddy, Mike Wagner, I'm going to experiment again with Google Voice. This time, mashup up this site as part blog & comments, part guest post, part call-in show.
Each week, I'll pose a question here. If you want to take part, just call in your answer to my G-Voice # at
515-999-0734
This week's question:
What is the most close-knit "offline" community you participate in and what makes it so close-knit?
I'll post your answers mid-week here. When you call in, there's a few things to consider:
I'd like to post both text AND audio. Let me know when you call if you want just the text posted.
You only have 3 minutes to leave your message
Let me know which site to link to on your comment (website, twitter, facebook…something of yours)
We'll close up the call-in submission Wednesdays, Midnight Pacific.
Believing that Blogs are Conversation Stations, I coach small business and solopreneurs to use Blogs and Social Media to amplify their reach, their relationships, and their revenues.
