I haven’t seen it all in the marketing world, but I’ve seen quite a bit. I’ve worked for startups, agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. I worked for five years bringing digital to a major market television station and now work as a Public Information Officer.

So it was enormous fun to host the AMA Phoenix Spectrum Awards and see what the latest and greatest have been up to in the Valley of the Sun. heart&soul marketing took home the top award for the evening, but there was a ton of talent on display. Plus just some generally fabulous and creative people, which is always my jam.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks for letting me be part of your evening.

The post Hosting AMA Phoenix Awards appeared first on Improv Media.

When I worked at Intel many years ago I wrote a blog for them about all the screwy Social Media job titles people had. It was on their external blog and lived for a year or two after I left, but now has gone poof. It’s a shame because many of the titles I joked about became real things. It was simultaneously sad and amusing.

I thought it would be fun to recreate the list and turned to my Facebook friends for some help. I somehow suspect every one of these is out there somewhere on a business card.

Thanks to Facebook!

Social Media Guru – Set up a Facebook account for himself one day, and in the course of doing so achieved enlightenment in the ways of all things social.

Social Media Sherpa – Acclimated to the thin air at the top of the social media mountain, he is adept at leading social media tourists to their death.

Social Media Shaman – Believes in the natural spirit of authenticity that pervades us all, and will awaken it within you after you agree to smoke something with him.

Social Media Wizard – Very mysterious and wise (he will tell you this), he will claim to be able to conjure lightning but can barely pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Social Media Ninja – Commits to all manner of grand and nefarious undertakings, but is never actually seen doing any of them.

Social Media Cowboy – Fearless in the face of the Wild West of social media, he will shoot from the hip in any direction, killing bandits, cutthroats, and bystanders with equal efficiency.

Social Media Sheriff – Wanders the town telling people how they should act but never actually gets involved. Spends an inordinate amount of time cleaning his gun.

Social Media Barista – Serves up highly caffeinated shots of social media espresso that gets you all excited and energized, but then fades quickly and causes you to spend excessive time in the bathroom.

Social Media Kaiju – Big in other parts of the world, he stomps aimlessly through things you love. Far more fun to watch when he is breathing radioactive ideas onto someone elses’ project.

Social Media Superhero – Intent on saving the world from madmen and evildoers, but does far more damage to the surroundings than anyone they fight.

Social Media Manager – Formless spirit who has had their social media soul extinguished and exists only within the confines of a vague job description.

Social Media Jedi – Will tell you to believe in the force of social media, and convince you that these are not the sites you are blogging for. (via John Davidson)

Social Media Slut – Their social feed only contains selfies. (via Stacey Champion)

Social Media Cynic – Posts once a week that they’re off all Social Media forever. (via Dick Carlson)

Social Media Mother – Gives unwanted advice to everyone and comments on every single post, nagging, asking nosy questions and won’t stop poking you. (via Stacey Champion)

Titles are fun, but if the person knows what they’re doing then no wacky title is necessary.

I’m sure my list isn’t complete, so if I’ve missed one let me know.

The post The Big (Sad) List of Social Media Titles appeared first on Improv Media.

Recently I’ve been pondering what makes something “news.” It seems simple, but when I asked people for their own definitions almost nobody agreed. Does it have to be recent? Does it have to be life changing? Does it have to be strictly facts? News is very subjective in its definition.

It’s also very subjective in its impact. For example, finding out you’re pregnant is big news to the people involved, but not news to 99.99% of the world. News can be personal or global.

I began noodling on all the different responses people gave me, and how to tell if something is really “news” or just “information.” What I came up with are different attributes of news, and a bit of a range within each attribute. The idea is anything you find to be “news” should have some combination of these, and different news may have different attributes.

This is still a rough draft, but I’d love any feedback. Does something in here describe just about anything you would consider news? Are there any attributes missing? Are the ranges clear?

And I know this topic has been cracked in other ways, by other people and institutions, but I’m doing this as my own exercise in deconstructing and learning about the topic. So I heartily welcome your personal thoughts, but am not interested in any links/references to other material.

I’m also totally uninterested in a discussion of the different news outlets you use (or hate) by name. This is about the concept of news itself.

Disclaimers out of the way, here is the list I came up with:

Impact

• World view – It changes how I view the world on a global/national level.
• Overall life – Changes how I live my life.
• Short term plans – I’ll act on the information sometime soon.
• Immediate – I need to act on this right away!

Importance

• Breaking – Critical and worth interrupting me to learn about.
• General – I could go a short time without learning.
• Of interest  – I could learn about it anytime.

Factual

• Completely fact based – No perspective or commentary.
• Some perspective – Perspective or context that helps enhance the news item.
• Opinion and viewpoint – Analysis and summary from respected individuals.

Source

• Peer reviewed journals – Factual and objectively vetted.
• Traditional media – Formally trained journalist in TV/newspapers/etc., either local or national/global.
• Independent media – Self-trained reporters/bloggers.
• Social networks – Hearing it from people you are friends with or connected with in life or online.
• Self-discovery – Learning about it yourself.

Timeliness

• Just happened – Occurred within minutes.
• Recent – Occurred within hours.
• New to me – Occurred a while ago, but I only just found out.

Location

• Global – Happened somewhere else in the world.
• National – Happened within my country.
• Community – Happened within my city/tribe/group.
• Personal – Happened just to me and possibly immediate company.

What do you think?

The post What really makes something “news?” appeared first on Improv Media.

So I took Gary up on his offer to check out a copy of his new book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World” (JJJRH). It was almost exactly what I expected, which is a good thing.

In person, Gary can both pontificate on grand ideas and back it up with specific examples. JJJRH does the same. It’s a mix of perspective on content and communication, alongside entertaining decomposition of very specific examples. And I mean he has actual screenshots of tweets or posts so you can see what he’s referring to. No vague handwaving here. A lot of social content books don’t get down in the mud and specifics perhaps for fear of not pissing off the companies in question. Gary lacks that fear.

I also enjoy how much improvisation Gary has in his style, which you really appreciate if you see Gary speak in person (and work a crowd). You can see hints of it throughout this book even if he doesn’t call it by that name. Listening, engaging, and playing by the rules of the scene are all here.

His key message is right in the title – balance your engagement and don’t try to make everything a knock-out blow. He’s right, but I rather wish he had lightened up on the boxing analogy a bit. It felt a little overdone by the end, and I hope he doesn’t try to bite my ear off for thinking that. (badum-tish!)

RRJH fits well with Gary’s other two books, but they aren’t prerequisites. If you’ve been doing content and marketing work for a while, read it for some new ideas. If you’re new to this space, read it for some great perspective and background.

The post Lace up your gloves for 12 rounds with Vaynerchuk appeared first on Improv Media.

Instagram, the picture sharing service owned by Facebook, just added the ability to share video in their most recent update. The videos can be up to 15 seconds long, and you create them inside Instagram by recording little snippets of video until you’re happy. It wouldn’t be Instagram if it didn’t have filters, so you can then apply all sorts of goofy effects to your video before you post it.

The way it works feels very similar to Vine, which is the short video sharing service owned by Twitter. The difference there is, um… well, the videos are only six seconds long and there are no filters. But Vine has been gaining momentum the past few months so it came as no big shock that Facebook/Instagram would want to steal some of that action. The people at Vine have made some jokes about the new features and released their own teaser videos hinting at new features.

Check out the clip above to watch me discuss the whole affair (and the new Facebook comment images feature) with the crew at Fox 10 in Phoenix.

Will those features be something useful or just an attempt to re-differentiate themselves from Facebook? Who knows. Video apps are hot right now and there could be a lot more copycatting back and forth before the dust settles.

In the meantime it will be interesting to see how much of my Instagram feed turns from pictures to video, and what all those people do who just like to take pictures of their food. If they all start posting videos of them eating it, it’s going to get disgusting in a hurry.

The post Instagram adds video, so what’s next for Vine? appeared first on Improv Media.

I finally got my Pebble!

Pebble is a “smart watch” launched by the most successful Kickstarter Campaign to date. I was one of the first backers, so have been looking forward to playing with this thing for over a year. I had to wait even longer than some people because I’m a fan of color and chose the red version. Most people chose black (yawn), so I had to wait until all the black watches were made shipped until they got around to the color ones. Late last week my patience was rewarded and my watch finally showed up!

It came in a nice, compact box with the watch, rubber watch band, and the custom charging cable. It reminded me of the efficient packaging Amazon uses on their Kindles. Simple, clean, and effective. I had it up and working in about a minute.

Why use a smart watch?

Google Glass gets a lot of press, but I really have no interest in it. I have no desire to document every second of my day, and I don’t need to constantly be connected online. I simply want seamless, easy access to the information and tools I have, which is why Pebble appealed to me.

Pebble is a nice looking watch that connects to my iPhone via Bluetooth and acts as a convienient extra screen and mini-remote control from my phone. Nice and simple. Check out the Pebble Kickstarter video for more details.

If my phone is in my pocket or bag and I get a call, the caller-id shows up on my Pebble and I can press a button to answer or ignore the call. If I get a text message I can look at Pebble to read it. I can control my iTunes app and change my music if my phone is out of reach. Those are just the basic features so far. The people who make the watch have created an software developer’s kit (SDK) that will let developers write their own apps to take advantage of the watch.

Pebble also lets you load custom watch faces onto the display, which is a minor but fun feature. There is already a website full of custom Pebble faces you can add to your phone. I’m hoping that sort of community creation starts hitting apps soon and gives me all sorts of things to tinker with.

Running with Pebble

One of the first third-party apps to support Pebble is the popular RunKeeper fitness app. I already use RunKeeper for tracking my cardio, so even though my back was a little sore I decided to take it out for a run and see how the new integration worked.

The RunKeeper app saw my Pebble, which lit up with my run time, distance, and current pace. Since this was the first major app to support Pebble I was prepared for a little tinkering to get it to work, but was happy to find it worked seamlessly. The display on my wrist was much handier than trying to see the screen in the armband, or use the voice over status. I think it will be even more useful when I get back to regular runs and want to check my pace over different intervals.

My only gripe is that it doesn’t allow me to change the song that’s playing while running, which is a shame. Fortunately I’ve already cultivated a few good playlists for running that don’t need much editing.

Verdict: Fun but still limited

Right now it is a fun toy, but without a lot of apps out there yet it is hard to say if it is a game changer. If I had to bet, I would say that Pebble will likely become a handy convenience in a lot of small areas rather than a killer must-have accessory.

Lots of other companies are rumored to be looking into smart watches after seeing how red-hot the Pebble Kickstarter became. Unless you love being an early adopter or like toys, I’d say wait until the Fall and see which apps are available for the Pebble and which other smart watches hit the market.

Pebble Smart Watch: $150 at GetPebble.com

The post First thoughts with my shiny Pebble smart watch appeared first on Improv Media.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that exists only online. It has an exchange rate like a regular currency so you can purchase them, trade them for goods, and do most of the things you can do with traditional money. Instead of being printed on paper or minted in metal, a bitcoin exists as a set of very complex algorithms that is virtually impossible to fake or forge. You may see pictures of “bitcoins”, but these are either just models or special coins that refer back to the virtual coins.

Bitcoin was created in 2009, and has been use ever since. It’s gained enormous popularity recently with investors in Cyprus grabbing Bitcoins to get their wealth out of the financial mess their country is in. The result has driven the value of Bitcoins from around $15 at the start of 2013 to over $200 as of this moment.  If you look at the bitcoin value over the past few months it’s easy to see why people are buzzing. It’s serious enough that there are sites that track the Bitcoin exchange rate, and there is over one billion dollars worth of bitcoins currently in circulation.

What can you buy with Bitcoin?

Purchasing things has been tricky, but it is getting easier. You can use third party sites to convert them to things like Amazon gift cards, and there is a growing list of places that accept bitcoins directly.

One of the first purchases via bitcoin was in 2010 when someone paid 10,000 bitcoins for a pizza. It was mainly done to prove it was possible to use bitcoins as “real money,” but people like to point out that at the current value that was a $1,000,000 pizza!

Having more places accept bitcoins is one of the biggest things bitcoin supporters push for, so expect this to keep growing.

Why do people like Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is not backed by a Government, and is controlled by a decentralized system of computers to prevent any one group from manipulating it. The way bitcoins come into existence was determined when the system was first made, and only about 21 million of them will ever exist . It’s similar to gold in that at some point there just isn’t more gold being mined, and the value is determined by what people will pay for it.

Supporters claim no Government can regulate bitcoins or devalue them by printing more (like they do with their own money), there is no tax on bitcoins (just a transfer fee), and it is very, very anonymous. These all make bitcoins a popular tool for people engaging in activities they do not want the Government to track. If bitcoin keeps its popularity, though, I will just about guarantee Governments will start getting involved in some form, and it will be interesting to watch.

How can I get a bitcoin?

To get a bitcoin you need a virtual wallet. One choice is to download bitcoin wallet software you can run on your computer. The advantage to this approach is that it is more secure, but if you lose your computer or the file, you’re out of luck. There is no bank to go back to who will fix it for you. The other choice is to register for a virtual bitcoin wallet online. The advantage here is access from anywhere, and you’re not tied to one computer. The downside is that these sites are the subject of malicious attacks and if they disappear so can your bitcoins.

Bitcoin’s popularity has already spawned hundreds of conversations in governments, magazines, and businesses around how currency works in a digital age. The Royal Canadian Mint even has their own digital currency project called MintChip now.

Will bitcoin be an interesting bubble or change the face of currency? It’s way too early to tell, but either way will be amazing to watch.

The post What the bleep is a Bitcoin? appeared first on Improv Media.

Let’s see… random connecting with people, looking for good food, a chance to show off Phoenix? I was made for this like cheese for mice! I gave them a call and swamped them with ideas for places to eat, drink, shop, and visit, and a nice list of people they could meet with.

It turned out these fine people were Courtney and Matt from Breakfast With Strangers from Portland, Oregon. After getting married they launched a Kickstarter to help fund a trip around the US to have breakfast with interesting people everywhere they stopped. They had a rough travel plan, but mostly it was they two of them driving back and forth across the country in their van, the USS Pancake, and throwing out open invitations to the wind.

You can hear their thoughts on their trip and they people they met in this video they did with AOL. My favorite part is at the end where they talk about the most important thing they learned:

In Phoenix they ended up breakfasting with the most wonderful Jenny Poon and her husband, Odeen, at Matt’s Big Breakfast. Apparently they had dined at many IHOPs across the US and I could not, would not, let that happen in Phoenix.

I met up with Courtney and Matt later that night for drinks at OHSO Nanobrewery to show off some Arizona craft beer, and I ended up being dubbed the Breakfast With Strangers Moment of the Day back on December 6th, which was rather nice of them.

Now they’re working on a book of their adventures, and I’m looking forward to hearing the things they learned along the way as much as the people they met. You can follow their future exploits on their blog or on their Facebook page.

I love their entire project, but my favorite aspect is how they trusted themselves and others to put it together as they went. They could have scripted this out from Oregon before they left, but they would have met the majority of the amazing people they did, like Barry, the curator of the National Mustard Museum. As they said in the video, the happiest people they met were ones who took risks.

Plan less and see where the world takes you, but always eat a tasty breakfast.

The post Life is tastier when you take risks – Breakfast With Strangers appeared first on Improv Media.

First Time Attending SXSW

Most of my advice from last year’s A Beginner’s Guide To SXSW still stands, except for the links to the specific tools and forums. My top three tips would be:

1. Wear Comfy Shoes – Seriously, you are going to be on your feet constantly. Bring something you’re comfortable putting some miles on.

2. Pick People Over Panels – There are great sessions there, but always take a chance to make a connection with an interesting person doing something fascinating. The friends and good connections I’ve made there outweigh the memorable panels.

And the third tip that almost nobody ever listens to:

3. Go To Panels You Don’t Know Much About – Everybody’s first reaction is to look at the schedule and pick panels in their core area. Then you’ll go, learn a little bit, and be underwhelmed. Why go all the way to this convention to talk about the things you talk about all day long? Go to LEARN! Find panels where you have just enough of an inkling what the topic is to be interested, but still feel a bit like a fish out of water. This will expand your view of the world and your list of connections. Catch up on your own industry in recaps when you get home.

For another great list of tips, check out Andrew Hyde’s 2013 SXSW Guide.

Indie Authors Attending SXSW

It looks like the schedule of indie and digital publishing sessions out there is just as scattered as last year, but we have a list of 5 Tips For Indie Authors at SXSW posted over on Google+. It’s a good list, especially the tip about leaving your books at home. Seriously, just don’t even bring them.

Check out the list and let us know if there are any sessions or technologies you’re excited to see.

The post Tips for First Timers and Indie Authors at SXSW appeared first on Improv Media.

Unusual Gifts for Geeks

Here are the different items features in the segment, and links to their sites:

Hoodie Laptop/iPad Sleeve
A gift to help your techie significant other keep their gear safe, warm, and stylish. Made from hoodies in all sorts of colors, they’re soft, stylish, unusual, and a pretty safe little case!

Speak No Evil Bowtie
Very odd bow tie, pretty much guaranteed to be something they don’t already have. And beyond just being uniquely stylish, there is a microchip in it that contains the world’s wisdom! If there is a zombie uprising, your loved one with have Army field manuals, language books, and the entire contents of Wikipedia in their bow tie. Also showed off two keychains from the same company, made from recycled computer parts.

iPico mobile project for iPhone
Snaps right onto your iPhone to let you project video or pictures on the wall. Make your date more romantic with some background pictures of your time together, or just to add some ambiance.

StickNFind
Bluetooth powered ultra small location stickers. You can use your smartphone like a radar to track down any of these stickers hidden around. Use them to set up a scavenger hunt around your house leading to gifts or other surprises you have planned.

I’m posting this a bit late for anyone in panic mode for a gift idea for Valentine’s Day this year, but I find you can get extra bonus points for doing something nice for your geek sweetheart (Geekheart?) any day of the year.

Oh, and I’m not paid for promoting any of these things, but I did keep a hoodie cover because they look cool, and one of the tech keychains because, hey, I’m not getting caught unawares when the zombies come!

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