and find 2.0 here: www.scooterspage.wordpress.com

Passing of a Prophet: President Hinckley, 15th Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints passed away on January 27th.

What this means: Its not necessarily what happens now that was so significant, it was the way this news was communicated. At approximately 7pm MST he passed away. At 8pm my husband, Cammon, received a text from his cousin. Not but a few seconds later I received a text from my brother. And then it was interesting because at the time, we were in the middle of a dinner presentation at this conference and when I looked around I saw those who are of the LDS faith checking their phones as well. There are tons of stories circulating about how Facebook groups were created in a few short hours and the message went out to wear your Sunday best that Monday morning.
How fitting for a church leader who stressed Media Relations and is credited with bringing the church out of obscurity. Thousands upon thousands all over the world wore their Sunday best that Monday-and it was all because of the technology we have been blessed with.

The Pulver Show with Jeff Pulver: Today I participated as long as a could in the Pulver TV show with the guys from Qik.com-live broadcast video from your mobile phone.
What it means: One thing I remember is the London Bombings and how a lot of the footage shown were from people’s cell phones. This Washington Post article talks about how immediate we were able to see what was happening. And not even just video, but with the school shootings happening across the country, how people started blogging immediately. And take a look at the political campaign here in the U.S and how things are changing because the power to produce is no longer just with the big media giants.
What it all means: Because you no longer have to pay millions of dollars to have an online presence, people are able to capture live life moments and share them with the world. This ability to broadcast one’s life is huge. I wonder how I will communicate with my son.

I was watching a news report about how the political campaign leaders have been stumbling this year with how much they AREN’T able to control. Take for instance the 1984 Hillary video “Vote Different.”

It was quite a while before anyone even knew who put the video together! Now you’ve got blogs, and wikis and tons of conversations online that can’t be controlled. The report then went into how this is the case for all marketers alike-how they are scrambling because they don’t know how to deal with the influx of conversation that isn’t being channeled THROUGH them.

Richard isn’t freaking out though. His eyes light up when he talks about how cool it is to spread the word about projects, conferences and events. Meetings or conversations with him leave my head hurting-in a good way. He has so many ideas that he wants to try that I have to make sure I record the conversations we have so I can remember everything he has planned!

The difference between Richard and most marketers right now is that he wants to TRACK the conversations, see who is saying what and encourage more, not CONTROL it. I have heard so many people say “but if I put a blog on my company website, I might get negative comments about my company.” I can tell you right now, if you get negative comments on your blog, there are negative comments all over the internet. At least on your blog it is your turf, and you can respond and start putting that PR department to work.

By monitoring the online conversations people are having with each other, we can find out the truth about how people feel about our business/product. And by starting a company blog, a company wiki, and being IN the conversations, you are allowing yourself to be accessible to your client/customer which makes them feel like they can get to know you better, and be more loyal to more than just your brand, but to you yourself. You are also STARTING conversations and provoking thoughts that might have been left otherwise.

Richard is using all outlets of the web to try and spread the word, start conversations and allow people to talk back. His blog: BlissPoint Blog talks about marketing, overcoming fears and what he is up to with GWAVA. His blog allows comments-or I like to call it feedback. The GWAVA TV Channel shares content streaming 24/7 and has a chat room for you to talk about how you feel. He is also on LinkedIn and has dabbled in Twitter and has his own YouTube Channel too. As a client of GWAVA, you would have no problem finding out what is going on with the company on a personal level.

I think this is an excellent example of how companies need to embrace the online world. This doesn’t mean to stop using traditional methods, but adapting new ones and merging the two. Richard understands the importance of using all outlets and taking hold of all opportunities to expand communication to anyone who wants to listen. Way to go dude!

Anyway, when I look at all the email people are sending out to me, I have to shake my head.  In an age where it is very hard NOT to be able to find out SOMETHING about the person you are sending an email to, these spammers really are far behind.

When you look my name up, you find out about this blog, and if you read the last few post on this blog you find out that I’m pregnant and am expecting in May.  Even if you didn’t have my name, just my email address, the second hit that comes up is a comment on a blog talking about a baby travel system because I am expecting.  Its not hard to find out what is really important in my life right now.

Yet, the spam junk mail I have received has been about losing weight.  Taking this pill taking that pill or this program.  Um, I actually am suppose to be gaining weight.  I see the doctor in one day and I haven’t reached my weight gain yet.  So anything about dieting is immediately thrown out.  I have received a few emails about working from home, which is more along the lines of what MIGHT interest me, but I have said in twitter and numerous other places that I am trying to cut back on the amount of “work” I am doing in trying to clean up the house and get the nursery ready and am prepared to fill my role as mom.

And if spammers looked a little deeper-because Amazon certainly knows the latest searches I’ve performed, they would know that I have looked and looked and only recently found a prenatal yoga video I like.  We just got our baby travel system-but my searches are now centered around cribs and bedding and stencils for the nursery.  I’ve done so much research and searches on bassinets vs. cradles and breastfeeding vs formula, swings and bouncers, clothing and tons of other things.

Too bad spammers waste their time sending useless junk my way.  If I received a spam email about a bassinet or a crib or toys it might be something that actually caught my eye.  It is such a pitty they annoy me with such junk when with a single search they might actually send me something that I open.

So this past weekend being the New Years holiday I found myself listening to the “top songs of 2007 countdown” from several radio stations.

Most of the pop songs I didn’t know-I’m a country fan and haven’t listened intensely to anything else for about 7 years. There was one song that I had heard at one point during the year that seems to have made it into the top in most charts though that really caught my attention. It is a John Mayer song titled “Waiting on the World to Change:”

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

It’s not that we don’t care,
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

And we’re still waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnmayer/waitingontheworldtochange.html

Okay so there is a lot I can say about this song and its lyrics-but I’m not going to get into the politics. What actually came to mind is how much sooner the younger generations are embracing information and how fast they are learning-they are definitely going to have to wait for the world to catch up with them.

We have friends who have a 3 year old. She is your average child, who likes to laugh, play, cry, eat and use the iPhone to watch her Sesame Street Podcasts???? Yeah, she knows about computers and gadgets and when she gets fussy at a store or in the car, her dad hands her his iPhone and she knows how to get to the podcast page to watch her show.

How about our nephew who loves to get on with his mom and talk with us through video chat? It was fun to hear and WATCH him play his new harmonica he got for Christmas even though he is across the country. Something like that for me still amazes me, for him, its something that happens in his everyday life.

I consider myself a pretty savvy computer user-not as technical as my husband or either brother-in-laws, but I feel like I’m more ahead than behind. But then when I see the commercials for kids playing these education video games I wonder if it will really help them. I grew up with paper and pencil to learn my numbers, letters and played “I spy” to learn colors and objects. Is this enough for a younger generation who seem to be leaps and bounds further than I was even 5 years ago?

Take a look at people like Christopher Penn, Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver and CC Chapman who have visions for the future. They were able to adapt to emerging and changing technologies and make something out of them-but I’m sure they were told to “go play outside” many times in their youth.

Is this a good thing, are we doing a disservice? Are we going to be able to keep up with our kids or as the lyrics suggest are they going to have to wait for us “older and less knowledgeable” adults to move out of positions before they can truly reach their potential and change the world?

Its not that I haven’t been blogging.  But for some reason ever since I found out I was pregnant and then going through the changes a first child brings, I kind of took a step back from the internet/technology world for a bit to reflect.

I am not one to be saying that online conversations aren’t important and I do need to be doing more to keep those relationships thriving and excelling, but for some reason, my world changed.  Before, when Cammon would go to the office, I dove into my online world and persona to touch base with friends and would spend hours online-because that was my world.

Now I think of things that need to be done around the house, I do yoga to make sure my body stays fit, I plan good meals to eat so I can get as much nutrition as I can.  I talk with friends who are not online who are outside walking with the stroller.  I still check twitter and facebook and linkedin every day to check in with what is happening, but for some reason, even though this kid isn’t even born yet, those things aren’t the most important even right now.

Like I said before though, I actually have been blogging, just not here.  I write several posts a day.  I have a private blog for my husband where I write him little love notes each day.  I write a post to my mom once a week on another blog.  I also participate in a family blog in which all of us from near and far write daily the things we are grateful for.

I also now have a personal blog called Mom’s Advice. It is like stealing the idea from a good friend Dave who started a podcast with his wife when they were expecting their first called Two Boobs and a Baby.  I have my own journal I am keeping with personal conversation directed toward my kid, but the fears, excitement and ideas I have during this pregnancy as well as in future years I expound and share and ask for your advice on at this blog.

I don’t look or market my consulting any more.  If someone wants help, I’ll be more than glad to help them if they ask, but right now trying to take on more work is probably the wrong way to go.

So really, for right now till January, this blog will probably be silent.  I will pick it back up in January and write a post once a week on here.  I hope this doesn’t offend anyone and if you do want to keep up with personal thoughts and feelings, go follow me at the other blog Mom’s Advice.

Granted I do feel a little like my mother sees it as lounging around-and while my office chair is my couch, I am up and doing and filling my day with worthwhile work-but she said what she envies the most is that if I am hungry, I can go to the pantry and get some food.  If I want to take a day off, I do extra work the day before or the day after so I can take time off.

She then said that she feels like she would want to start a business of her own someday so she can be her own boss.  I told her to be careful though, that most businesses started because they wanted to be able to take time off or just “be their own boss” don’t have a very high chance of making it.  The best reason to start your own company is to fill a niche that no one else is.  I asked her if she had a niche.

“Yes, a very strong niche.  I feel like I can do something on my own and I have this very strong urge to explore that feeling.”

My sister and I tried to hide our giggles as we explained that we weren’t talking about an itch, but a niche-when you see a hole that you can fill, where you see someone doing something and you see a better way to do it.

“Oh. Well I’ll have to think about that,” my mom said.  “But I do still have this urge to do something more fulfilling in life.”

“Thats great, Mom.  That is at least a start.”

Now go find your niche and scratch it!

-You have to send in an application to reserve a room.  But for any dates past Jan 1st you have to wait until November 15th to send the application in.

-I called on November 10th to find out if the rooms I wanted to reserve were taken anyway, and how likely it would be that if I got my application in first, would they be taken.  I was reassured that at that time all the rooms were available and Sat. is not a very high requested day-it was just a matter of jumping through the hoops and submitting the application.

-I got up early on the 15th to fax the application in and then waited.  I just got off the phone today with someone saying that while applications are taken first come first serve, internal employees to the venue are actually really first, and someone had reserved all the rooms for that day.

And here is the kicker.  The phone call was to see if I wanted to change the dates, I asked them if I did change the dates what the details would be.

-I was asked exactly what group this was that wanted to reserve the rooms.  I told them there were initially 4 of us who want to gather people who were interested in podcasting.  It was open to the public and there would be no charge.

“Well, I am familiar with podcasting,” I was told “and I have to say that it just isn’t a broad enough topic to extend to the general public, so while you aren’t charging to attend, since its for a niche group of people our venue would have to charge you the regular rental rates on everything.”

Um, not for the general public?  Name me one demographic that CAN’T podcast and I’ll find you someone in that demographic who is.  There have been other “camps” similar to this one that has drawn in a crowd of as much as 1,000 plus people.

So apparently I have been misinformed for these past few years!

Anyway, while this is an obstacle that we need to overcome, it will make Jan 26th, when we do have a kick a** event that much sweeter cause we conquered and overcame.  So plan on still attending and having an awesome time learning, sharing and networking.  Just don’t expect to network with anyone from the “general public” there.

This job is going to take a lot of my time-but I am sure I will love every minute of it. I will try to write at least once a week-but you can still reach my through email and I can answer any of your questions-any day of the week.

According to some who also hold this job title, I may become a bit overwhelmed with the job duties and tasks required of me, but I will learn by leaps and bounds and become an overall better person because of it.

My new job title I now hold is: Mother.

I am very excited. I had my third doctor’s visit and he said that I am out of the miscarriage stage. We officially heard the heartbeat yesterday at a strong 159.

I hope that all of my American readers enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving coming up. I know there is plenty for me to be thankful for!!

Thumbing through the pre-Thanksgiving get your Christmas gifts now ads for toys and electronic gadgets, I came across the weekly ad brochure for a local grocery store, Macey’s Food Market. I do have to say that there is some marketing genius behind this because it did catch my eye and stopped me dead in my tracks.

Yes, thats right, cowpies. Natural Juice, Forget the Fork bring the shovel pies, with cows as the characters. Okay, is it me, or what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear “American Original CowPie.” Then you hear “natural juice pies” and your nose crumples up even further. By the time I got to “forget the fork” my husband looked like he was going to toss his cookies! Of course you’ve got the apple and cherry and walnut kind of pies, but even the font type for that is smaller than the rest of the ad.

I just wanted your opinion on what this ad might make you think of and if you would jump at the chance to purchase this at the store?

Thanks to Michael Wesch for this video and letting us share it over the web.

While I enjoyed very much the classes taught at the Blogging 4 Business Conference in Salt Lake City Utah yesterday, it was the afternoon Keynote address by Gary Goldhammer VP of Edelman that really hit home for me.

Let me backtrack a bit and set the situation up for you from my point of view. I went to the Podcast and New Media Expo (2007) in Ontario, California and while I met tons of people I had been networking with online, I have to be brutally honest and say that I left the conference feeling like the sessions were lacking what I had wanted to learn. Don’t get me wrong, the speakers were all very amazing people who are doing great things, but each class felt like it was a “here is what I did, now go see if it works for you” type of pep speech. New media is still too new for anyone to be an “expert” on anything but I wanted to hear the words “this is what you need to be doing-this is where things are going and this is how to get there.”

I was struggling with these thoughts-not trying to say I am any better than those who presented at the conference either-they have implemented what they have learned and I am just beginning, but there was something missing.

Then I had a conversation when I returned, with a friend who said the Internet was still too immature for him. He said that as a whole it is still being used for entertainment. He is friends with me on Twitter and some other communities and he says that when he logs on, he has yet to find anything anyone is saying really helpful to him. He wants information, not just what you’re doing that afternoon, he wants to be educated not entertained-he doesn’t have time for that.

I had a long argument with him and hung up very frustrated with what he was saying.
Then at the conference yesterday-it all collided together with Gary’s address. He said a lot of important things and here are the few that really meant something to me:
(These quotes are very close to what he said-I couldn’t type fast enough to write down word for word)

“We respect what has happened, ignoring what could have happened, but the could have happened is where greater innovation might be.”

“What we know is less significant than what we don’t know.”

We are all amazed at what has happened with technology, but what don’t we know about the technology that we have, or don’t have? This kind of boggles the mind. Even ten years ago were people thinking about text messaging on their cell phones as a mainstream practice? If they were, then what is it that they weren’t thinking about? We are preoccupied with getting video on our cell phones, is there a greater technology that we aren’t thinking about instead?

And can we look at the past to determine the future or even predict the future of social media? We can’t, according to Gary. He gave this story that will stick with me forever:

“There was a turkey farm where lived a specific turkey (he hasn’t named the turkey yet, but I’ll call the turkey Fred).
So Fred the turkey wakes up every morning to the farmer coming out to feed him and patting Fred on the head. Fred enjoys this very much and looks forward to this routine each and every morning.
Like clockwork the farmer always gets up and feeds Fred the turkey and pats Fred on the head. This happens every day rain or shine at the same time for 1000 days.
On day1001 like clockwork the farmer gets up and goes out to feed the turkey named Fred. The turkey eats the food the farmer gives him and then the farmer cuts Fred’s head off and they eat Fred for Thanksgiving. How much of this could Fred have predicted?”

Don’t use the past to predict the future, make the future of how you use the Internet the way you want it to be.

I was so stuck on the fact that no one at the PME told me what they are doing or will be doing, just what they have done-that I lost the idea that it doesn’t matter what others are doing, I need to worry about myself. Thinking about my post “The Internet is Crashing: Permanently”, what am I personally doing to make sure I am flexible if either something horrible goes wrong, or if something wonderfully awesome happens-am I prepared to own it and make it work for me either way?

What about my friend? Well from our conversation, I see that he will probably wait to see what happens and then try to adapt. What I don’t see happening ever, though, is the Internet, or Twitter or any application turning into an education only outlet. Look at the TV and Print and Radio mediums. If I turn on Nickelodeon or MTV then I will get entertainment. If I turn on The History Channel or The Discovery Channel, then I will be informed. If my friend wanted these applications to work for him, he needs to turn on the right channels. He would join up with programmers and developers and talk with them throughout the day rather than myself-who not only doesn’t know code, but has done some damage trying to figure it out!

So through this mumble jumble I understand now that I can’t rely on anyone to predict what is going to happen to the future of social media because the past isn’t the future-I have to get in the drivers seat and make my own future. Anyone who wants to join me, I won’t get upset if you go down a different road than I go-just make sure we keep in touch, my screen name on Twitter is mediajoltz!

Recent discussions though, have led me to look at those statistics more carefully. In my research I have found that while it seems to be growing, we who are of the “new media” space are a very, very small number.

According to Internet World Stats Website there are 6,574,666,417 people in the world today and 1,244,449,601 people have internet access. Normally I say take a look at this stat and tell me if your company is doing something to reach that amount of people who have internet access. But today I ask you, did you realize that only about 19% of the world has internet access?

Here are some stats and the websites I found the stats on the popular applications people are using:

There are 506,331 users of twitter as of Oct 11th 2007, according to http://www.twitdir.com/. Out of those how many are actually active is still unknown. And only 506K when there are more than a billion people who have access to the internet is not that many.
34 million active members worldwide are using Facebook according to the Wikipedia article on Facebook. Once again I would normally say something like “34 million people, how would you like even a piece of those people to become your friends and get on your mailing list,” or something like that. And yet 34 million is still comparatively small.

Now for something thats still very new, we turn to Second Life. According to the description on their webpage only 9,980,489 people logged into Second Life within the last 60 days.

Noticed how I said only. Believe me, when talking to those outside the fishbowl, I normally talk in an excited voice and act like this is huge! But to those of us in it, how many new people do you continue to talk to on a regular basis, compared to the “handful” of regulars?

If you go to the Pew internet Research Company and type blogging in the search function you get a list of different reports. Report number one and six specifically drew my interest:

From these reports you will find these stats:

Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.

Only 8% keep and 39% read a blog. So if you are reading or writing or doing both, boy are you leaps and bounds above more than half of the population of the U.S. Makes you feel special and lonely all at the same time, huh?

44% of adult American Internet users – more than 53 million people – have contributed material to the online world. Content creation in our definition includes creating a Web site, posting material to another Web site for work, family or another organization, posting materials to a personal or another person’s Weblog or online diary. It also includes posting photos, artwork, writing, or audio and video files to the World Wide Web, to a chat room or discussion or newsgroup. The average number of content creating activities for a content creator is relatively small – 1.7 activities – and that suggests the most Internet users are content for now to find a small number of ways to make their contribution.

This stat is the one that got me. “Content Creation” meaning doing pretty much anything to add to the internet, including creating a website-and only 44% of American Internet Users have done this? Way to go those of you who have bravely gone this far!

Some 13% of Internet users have their own Web site. Most do not refresh the material on their site very often: 10% of Web site owners post to their sites daily or more often, but the plurality (42%) update their site once a month or less often.

Okay, for those 13% of you who have a website, lesson to learn-the people who are online are dynamic. Unless you provide fresh material, they have no reason to come back.
I know that stats are not the end all, and there are so many reports that contradict each other, but come on, we have to understand that no matter what the stats say, 9 million or 20 million, the fishbowl is still very small.

I really like what Tom Webster Vice President of Edison Media Research has to say in his analysis: New Podcasting Statistic-Is the Glass Half-Full, or Half Empty? and encourage you to read the whole thing. One comment he makes I have heard myself in my podcasting seminars:

“Though long-time podcasters are tired of hearing this, and probably rejected it two years ago, there is no question that a good chunk of people who might otherwise be interested in podcasts believe that an MP3 player (and, specifically, an iPod) is required to listen.”

I don’t know how many times people have said in seminars, “but I don’t have an iPod.”   It really is amazing.

So what we need to do to help is make new media easy for the non-tech person to access it. Don’t start talking about how they can subscribe to your podcast through an RSS that automatically downloads the episode to their computer through an aggregator… you’ve lost them already! Tell them to go to the website and hit play to listen to your new show, or to read an article you wrote.

Stop talking about podcasting, blogging and new media like it is some foreign thing that only you understand and start talking about your show, or journal-use words people understand, make it simple.

So CC says we need to break the proverbial fishbowl and let it crash to pieces so we can just simply get a bigger fishbowl.
So what are you doing to break out of the “echo chamber?” Are you talking to friends and family about what is going on? Do they understand? Does it take more than a casual conversation for them to understand?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now since I was called in to help some friends create a better online presence for their conference-The Wasatch Business Conference. But you see, the people who have been attracted to this conference are not ones who spend much of their time on the Internet. I was told we need to teach them the importance of the online world. This is right within my realm of work-helping business owners create an online presence that kicks butt. The problem is, is that I have found, at least in my area, that the learning curve for those who aren’t ready to be taken into the online world, is VERY high right now. I have narrowed my target audience to those who are interested in learning the importance-not those who really don’t know or care.

Take my mother for instance, the one who is scared of mechanical pencils. Is she someone who belongs online, does she deserve the careful continuous education, even though I don’t think she’ll ever get it? And no, I’m not slacking on teaching her because I’m afraid she’ll read my post about her being scared of mechanical pencils…

Seriously though, are there people like that out there you are working with-are you going to continue educating them or is it time to move on to someone else? How do you know it is time to move on?

Photo provided by www.ellie-miller.com/fishbowl.jpg

I had to go check this out. Orbitz, as of September performed an upgrade to their “Traveler Updates” program where now, you get the updates to any selected airport made by real people. Very similar to the set-up twitter has, someone writes about a topic ranging from security line, check-in, traffic-and it gets sent to you as an alert.

Orbitz even called it a community on the commercial. I think this is a great idea and that more companies could follow. You don’t even have to set up a new website or your own alert system. You could simply get an account with twitter.

Now when I mention twitter to some company owner I usually get the weird look like “isn’t that just a social communication thing like IM where people write useless updates about their day?” Well that depends on who you subscribe to. And while Orbitz isn’t using twitter, it is the same idea-and I think it can be useful in several different applications.

The Today Show has joined twitter and posts links to the video segments of their news shows. Thanks to Jim Long because now I only have to find the one that interests me and watch it instead of sitting through a whole show just to get one segment.

A laundry room at a college has a twitter account and updates how many washers and dryers are available.

The Los Angeles Fire Department uses twitter to inform of accidents on the road-which could help you avoid traffic if the radio doesn’t pick it up immediately as well as any other incidents that they are called to respond too. Interesting use of Twitter and they have 300+ people following them.

I use twitter a ton. I use it to keep up with friends, to gather information-it came in very handy when a friend Jesse Stay gave us play by play action on the BYU vs NM game while I was flying back from PME. I wish there was a BYU tweeter on so then all of Jesse’s non-byu fans wouldn’t get mad at him.

Right now I get updates on my phone about the weather in my area. But I only get it once a day. What if I was traveling? Sure I can check online or watch the weather channel, but I think it would be cooler if I got real time updates from people. What if the weather channel allowed for people of their area to post a weather report throughout the day so then I can get real time updates. A 40% chance of rain-well did it rain that day with 40%?

So how can a company use twitter? I want to forward you on to a great post by PR-Squared on an interesting way a Pharmaceutical company can use twitter and hopefully it can get your mind working on ideas too.

PR-Squared’s “Social Media Tactics” Series…Using Twitter to Create & Inform Communities

Max Web made a comment on my blog about how being online has impeded our social skills because now we are so use to “friending” and “unfriending”. He made a really good point stating:

“I think we have avoided or even ditched, “real life” relationships in some ways because of the ease of Internet relations… if I don’t like you on the internet, it’s not too hard to “un-friend” you, but if I screw up my relationship with a neighbor, what do I do, move? The Internet has been the greatest invention for social slackers, it allows us to have great people we might never meet or relate to in real life, as “friends.”

But for some people, being online has helped them go out of their comfort zones. Where in real life they would never approach someone and start talking to them, online they are a popular social bug. But then again, what happens when there is a meet-up? I felt that at the PME where I suddenly got scared that people wouldn’t like me in real life. But I’m the same in real life as I am online, at least I think I am. I have no trouble approaching people in both situations, but that’s me. I know of others who are online who are not as outgoing in real life-but they are comfortable with this almost alter ego online.

Max brought up another good point- are the people you are connecting to online, the same type of people you would hang out with and be friends with in real life? That’s an awesome question. At the PME I overheard a conversation about how there are some people that get on this group’s nerves. I sat there thinking, why are you connected to them then? Well, its because this group saw that there was value in these people’s knowledge. Would any from the group actually hang out and be friends with these people in real life? Probably not.

Do you feel a little more free about whom you connect to online? How many people are you connected to simply because they share good knowledge, vs. those you really would want to be friends with?

Cammon made a comment about how he likes relationships online because he can talk on his own time.

“It’s easy for me because I have the time to connect with people on my own schedule. It’s hard for our neighbors to all get together because we all have different free time. So staying connected with someone online is not hampered as much by time, it’s easy to write a quick note or post a video and you stay connected.”

I bet a lot of us feel that way. We’ve even got voicemail on Facebook! Now I have to be careful because Cammon is my husband, but, playing devils advocate, why not leave a note on your neighbor’s door? Is that not like an email? You are giving them a message that you are thinking of them, they don’t get it until they are ready for it. Why are we so against direct contact?

Are these skills that we are learning online, hurting or helping our real life social skills? Are they making us more lazy, or are they providing us with an extra means to make more friends. Those you are connecting to, online, do you really consider each one a friend? If not, why?

(a note about the comments-my php friend will be fixing the black text on gray box problem tonight!)

Let me take a step back.  This post was inspired by a conversation I had with Chris Brogan yesterday, so the original thought comes directly from him.  But he asked a question that got me thinking deeper.  What if Facebook just crashed one day?  Would you be okay with that?  Would you still be able to keep in touch with the friends/clients  you have made?

And so my mind started turning and the topic got more and more exciting for me.  Just think about it.  I remember when not TOO long ago :0)  I was only allowed to carry a cell phone with me when I ventured the two hours it took to get to my softball travel team practice.  Now, I can’t leave home without it-I don’t even have a landline!

Dave Delaney from Two Boobs and a Baby +  recorded a video about how he felt when twitter went down for maintenance.  At the Podcast and New Media Expo-I went a whole day without being able to get on the internet from my computer, but I was okay because I had the web on my phone/pda.

We are so dependent on the Internet for connections, are we ignoring vital face to face connections that can also help our company, home and lifestyle?

I belong to several networking groups in my local community and I remember at one lunch the director said “I want to make sure you develop deep relationships with the people of this community such that if we close our doors tomorrow and never have another event again, you have no problem continuing those relationships without us.”

So what if the Internet crashed?  Where are all your relationships? Are you speaking to all of your customers through one medium?  If the Internet crashed would you still be able to talk with them?

What if we are talking about a single application like Facebook, or email-what if your customers stopped using an application-are you able to talk to them through another way?  Are you everywhere you ought to be?

What about personally? Do you have people you can turn to right in your own neighborhood?  Do you even know your neighbors?  Not that I’m promoting solicitation in church, but do your fellow friends at church even know what you do?  Why not?

How about the friends you know online.  Do you have a way to get in touch with them?  Do they know how to get in touch with you?  Is it all simply Internet based or have you taken that online relationship and made it real through mail or through the phone?  I’m not saying to broadcast your phone number out to everyone, but those you really are connecting with, what are you doing to make sure there is an ongoing dialogue no matter what.

Are you mixing the medium and/or crossing platforms?

One of the classes I went to helped me to realize something that I learned about myself and my blog. The class was “10 Secret Habits to Podcast Stardom” taught by Franklin McMahon of Franklin McMahon Studio.

What we need to remember is that habits need to be practiced over and over again-so APPLY THEM!! Its not going to be easy, and it is very repetitious, but that’s what makes the difference between succeeding and failing.

I really liked the fact that he brought up the fact that we need to get out of the bubble. I believe Chris Brogan put it: “get out of the fishbowl.” You can read his first posts about this topic here Extend the conversation and 5 ways to extend the conversation.

When you are talking about podcasting with those not familiar with the term, you can very easily scare them off by talking about podcasting and RSS and subscribtion and iTunes. To get someone easily connecting to your show, just tell them you have created a show, send them to your website and make sure you have an easy website that has a play button for them to watch/listen right away.

So for an example instead of saying-“Hey I’ve got a podcast on surfing that is really cool because you can subscribe to it and the code in the subscription will let your computer know when a new episode has been uploaded blah blah blah,” make it about the show.
Say “Hey I’ve got a show that’s about surfing. It gives tips and tricks on how to do some of the most awesome moves-AND some ideas on how to make sure you keep your board in the best shape it can be.”

And don’t just think about new media marketing for your show, you can do press releases, tv and radio interviews. We do need to keep in touch with each other, but we also need to be doing our part to help others understand this technology.

I wanted today to add some of my thoughts. The podcast and new media expo 2007 was my first “new media” conference you could say and I learned a lot. One of the main things I realized (and it was in this class) that those of you reading this blog, probably aren’t my target audience. I’ve been worried that I haven’t been posting good things and that’s why I haven’t hit 30K downloads a month. But, my target audience is probably not reading blogs-beacause they don’t know how.

Those who are my target audience need me to help them get set up online. They are businessmen and women who already have a website but want to do more because they understand the importance of online relationships-but don’t know how to start.

What am I going to do about it? Well I came up with a few ideas and one of those is to start having more seminars. I want to tell people about this technology, I want to make more friends online and I know of so many people who would benefit from making friends with some of the people I know-I want to share it with everyone. So seminars it is-and heck, maybe I’ll get into the speaker/presentation arena. I got a great friend named Laura who consults on presentations. Her company Pistachio Consulting is “helping lots of presentations suck less.” I think I’ll give her a call.

But I also wanted to throw out there a thank you to those of you who are reading my blog as my support group even if you aren’t learning something new everyday.

Wasatch Business Conference Wesbite Link 

The conference is a great day full of education and networking with some of the most awesome business minded people in all of Utah County.

There will be presentations on topics covering marketing, finance, technology and management targeting the small business.

I am on the panel discussion talking about blogging, podcasting and networking.  It should be tons of fun.  Last year I made some new friends and learned some great tips-even some great tips on blogging!

So go check out the website, register and come join me on November 2nd!

1. Because the assignments I have given you so far-find and listen to podcasts to start formulating your own podcast, takes longer than a day to do.  So I want you to continue doing the searching, with a satisfying break in the middle.

2. I wouldn’t be where I am today-however unfamous I might be even still, I wouldn’t be as far as I am today with out these people-so where else to give them love than where I am excelling?!!

So today I give some love to my husband, Cammon Randle.  Cammon was the one who got me into technology.  He is a video guy.  Anything and everything that has to do with video-he knows.  He has his own company, CopperRain Productions and does corporate high definition video.

He was voted Businessweek’s Top 25 Entreprenuer under the age of 25 in October of 2006 and won three national videography awards including the Telly Award.

What has been fun though, is that while normally he is the one explaining how things work to me, lately he has been coming to me with help on social networking.  Asking questions like how to make the best use of Facebook?  He is now even on twitter-and that is how I know he is coming home from work!

He is a great guy-a great husband and will one day make a great dad.  And you can bet every moment is captured and stored on dvd!

So now, what if you found a podcast but it isn’t in the itunes directory? All you need to do if find the RSS feed button.
The orange button is the universal symbol for an RSS feed-or the url you need to add to your podcatcher.
It could also be written out in text. Below is a picture of some of the things you could see to click on.

Now the add to iTunes will open up your iTunes. But it is possible, because it could be a podcast and blog mixed that you will be directed to a window that looks like this:

You can see the option to add to other web-based podcatchers, iTunes, as well as a url for the feed.

Take that URL and head on over to your podcatcher, mine being iTunes and add it:

And you can see that it is being added to my iTunes Podcast selection:

Happy listening!

What are your favorite podcasts??? comment in the field below so that we can all check out some awesome shows!

Here is a short version of the list:

1 How I Use Facebook
2 Ways I Embrace My Audience
3 Should My Town Use Social Media?
4 A Community I Love
5 Technology That Empowers Me
6 How Flickr Did it Right
7 How Best to Comment on a Corporate Blog
8 Ways to Save a Bad Time at a Conference
9 How I Find Blogging Ideas
10 Somebody Has to Say It
11 My Children Will Do it Differently
12 How Schools Could Use Social Media
13 The Best Parts of Marketing
14 Presentation Skills for a New Conversation
15 How I Find Time to Make Media
16 Empower Your Best Customers
17 After the Event- Carrying the Conversation Forward
18 Just Jump Into Podcasting- Heres How
19 My Community and How You Can Engage It
20 Twitter Jaiku Pownce Facebook- And Then What
21 Making a Miniseries
22 If I Were an Advertiser Today
23 My Mother is On Facebook
24 Does a Big Brand Need You
25 Books I Want to Write

check out Brogan’s site for the rest of the topics!

Just like we went and explored other blogs, we need to also explore other podcasts to decide what things we like including:

-the length

-the format

-the intro music

And so here is part one of the Step by Step on how to find and listen to podcasts.

When you subscribe to a podcast you are actually subscribing to what is called the RSS feed. RSS stands for “really simple syndication.” What RSS does is attatch a piece of code to your podcast to let the computers belonging to those people who are subscribed to your podcast know that there is a new episode.
Having all the RSS do all the download work for you is great when you have nine or ten or more podcasts that you like to listen to on a regular basis.

The last thing you need in order to listen to a podcast is something that I have
just barely touched on, it’s called a podcatcher. In other words, some kind of program that will read the RSS feed and then allow you to watch or listen to a show after it is downloaded. A favorite seems to be iTunes and it is available on both Mac and PC. One nice feature about iTunes is that it has a built in Podcast directory.
You can go to www.apple.com and downloading iTunes if you don’t already have
it and taking a look at all the podcasts that are ready to be consumed.
Download itunes.

Once you have downloaded iTunes go ahead and open it up. It will ask you a
few questions like “do you want to make this program your media player?” Get past all those options we just want to get to the podcasts.

When the program opens up click on the “iTunes Store” it’s to the left of the
screen.

Next, find the Podcast section just to the right.

You are now ready to start browsing the thousands of podcasts from all over.

You can also browse to find podcasts that interest you:

Or you can search for specific podcasts

So now you can start listening to some of your favorite podcasts and see what you like about them. Write that down. Keep track of how often they produce an episode. Pay attention to the topic and if they stick to it or wonder on the show. How about the quality, is it good, bad, does it bother you if it isn’t radio quality? Start formulating what you like and don’t like and try to implement that into what you want for your own podcast.

I have a Treo. I’ve only had it since May. The phone I had before that was a regular Samsong camera phone which did nothing for me but take and send phone calls. And for those of you new to the blog, I really am not a phone person. For some reason I like email way better. And now, I can get email on my phone. If someone calls, I also can just hit “respond through text” button that sends them a text message telling them why I didn’t pick up.

This is a great device-and yes there are lots others out there like it, ie the Blackberry and the iphone, being the biggest two I have heard of. I use this piece of equipment that fits in my pocket as a calendar, a camera, a video camera, my email station, my web browsing device and countless other things. There have been several times where I’m out and about and wanted to get a picture of something and thank goodness I had the camera built into my phone.

Take this picture for example. A homeless man sitting out in front of a Uncle Sam decoration that says “Proud to be an American.” I just couldn’t pass this up:

I even got a picture of a goat in the backseat of a car once, but my phone died and I never got to transfer that picture to a computer before it did.

Anyway, don’t be afraid of a device that can do more than make that phone call. Your life story is being played out everyday-take some pictures and video to remember it!

(What are some of the best situations you were in when you wished you had a camera?)

Think about when you are podcasting, the people you would otherwise never reach or get to know.

Christopher Penn on social networks

The past few weeks I have gotten to know Thom Allen a little better.  He is an awesome dude with many talents.  He is into NASCAR and Galactica as well as anything technology.  He and I have had some awesome ideas and plans we are meeting to work on.  If you EVER have anything you want some honest positive feedback on, he is the man to ask.

I’ve begun reading the very short and very excellent book called “Age of Conversation” by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan. In this book they have 100 experts write one page on the topic of conversations. In the book Roger Anderson writes about the message and uses an example I’d like to spin off of the way he presented it.

Have you heard of the telephone game where someone starts with a phrase and then that person whispers it in someone else’s ear and so on. Usually at the end of the game that final phrase is no where near the original. Roger applies this to the listening vs. hearing concept-where it takes effort to actually listen to what is being said. I would like to apply this game a little differently to new media. Through blogging and podcasting and being in these social networks, you are there WITH your audience. They are getting the message directly from you-without you having to sit down and meet with everyone of them. The passion and the message is being directed clearly just as you want it to be.

So you can use new media to get the exact same message out without taking up tons of time. AND unlike a print, television or radio ad-you can actually see who is listening or seeing your message.

Here are some questions that the authors pose about podcasting to help you begin formulating the proper podcast that you’ll enjoy producing:

Who are you and why should we listen?
You want to talk on a topic that people can connect too. More than no commercials or the quality of the podcast, people say the number one thing they like about the podcasts they listen to is that they can connect with them.

Be straight up with who you are, the intentions of the podcast-don’t try to sell anything on your podcast episode after episode.

While its easy enough to listen to podcasts, it does take some effort-and they are listening to YOU not someone else, so give them some honest information-get to the meat of the matter on your podcast.

What is your podcast about?
You need to decided exactly what your podcast is about. The more niche the better. What are you trying to accomplish with your podcast and make sure each episode stays on that track.
When your listeners download or subscribe to your podcast, its because the liked what they heard in the first few episodes. They expect each episode to be new and fresh but familiar to the previous shows…
Narrowcasting-or making programs that only appeal to a very tight group of people is something that is talked about today. If your show is too general people might subscribe, but are they really loyal. If you have a show on unicycling, you are going to reach a small percentage of the audience, but the impact and appeal of the show to that group is immeasurable

How consistent do you want to be?
When your listeners subscribe, its almost like entering into an agreement-they will download your podcast on a regular basis, in belief that you will be podcasting on a regular basis.
Set a consistent time and stick with it. Inconsistency is one of the points that can kill a podcast listener loyalty quickly. But also keep in mind the law of diminishing returns…everyday might be way too much. I know some that are once a week, others are once every two weeks

How long should your show be?
I like to listen to shows that are 10-20 min long while Cammon listens to some that are an hour and a half… you know the audience you are trying to reach better than I, what are they like, are they busy or do they sit at the computer for long lengths of time able to listen to an hour or so?

Start strong and finish big-no one has to be perfect, but make sure you jump out of the gate with energy and enthusiasm. A floundering presenter has the luxury of being able to bring the audience back, but a podcaster loses his audience for good with a click of a button. Make them feel like they are in good hands right from the beginning. Lead with your strength. Make sure the opening of the show reflects the tone and pace of the rest of the show. Choose an appropriate theme song…Relax and have fun with it, don’t be nervous!

Well I got up around 7am and had a bowl of cereal, but out of the portable cartons cereal comes in when all the dishes are packed away. Then I packed. I hauled 10X cans full of sugar, flour and beans from the basement-my mom’s food storage was coming with her. I took all the sheets from the linen closet and wrapped all the fine glasses and plates from the hutch. I helped dismantle beds and furniture.

I worked with the rest of the family until about 7pm that night getting everything ready for the moving truck that was coming the next day. Up the stairs down the stairs, we packed a 3 story house basically in one day.

But you know, it was one of the best birthday’s ever. I have never received so many happy birthday wishes in all of my previous birthdays than I did this past year. All through the day my phone buzzed with an alert that another friend has wished me a good day-and that made all the difference.

The reason for this is because I have a Facebook account. I use this account to keep in touch socially with those who are important to me. You’ll fined close friends from highschool and college on there. I’m connected to family around the nation. I have business friends whom I want to get to know on a personal basis that I’m connected to. And Facebook has this wonderful tool that posts your friend’s upcoming birthdays for that week.

Happy Birthday to Jeff Pulver on Wed!!!

Now, some may argue that none of the people who sent me a note would have even remembered my birthday so it doesn’t really count. My argument for that is, if you’re someone who isn’t good a remembering dates, like myself, then why not use technology to help you solidify relationships. I was important enough for those people to invite me to be their friend. I was important enough for them to see that it was my birthday and DO something about it. None of them HAD to send me a note.

So, while my birthday consisted of backbreaking work, throughout the day I was reminded again and again that I mattered to someone. Thats what social networking is all about. The technology is just the means to find more people to connect with, the human relationship is the end goal.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday, it meant more to me than you probably thought!

So we headed over to Blogger  to create a website for the Randle Stadium where everyone has a front row seat.  This blog is an excellent example of using pictures and video in a blogger account if you’d like to see a real life evolving example.

So do you have a party coming up?  Are you a sports fan?  How about an event someone across the country can’t come to?  Use some video and a blog to share with others.  Create a little fun and introduce your family and friends to a little technology in their everyday life!

For $65 USD a month with a minimum 3 month contract I am offering:-One 10 min podcast (although 2-4 a month is recommended)
-2 hour phone/Instant Messenger/Email consultation
-Weekly Tip about New Media
-Instant friend link into all the communities I already belong including: access to over 2 million on Linkedin, Facebook, etc
-Reminder notifications for Blog, Podcasts Updates
-8 proofs of your blog/podcast

What do you think, sound interesting? I’ve already got a few who are interested in this deal and its been lots of fun! My purpose is a 3 month contract and if you want to work more with me after that its another 3 months. I will work for you up to a year, but my purpose is to get you on your feet and running an online presence for yourself within 6 months.

This is just a part of a big picture that could mean tons of fun things happening. In the meantime, continue to work on your blogs and build your relationships. While you are writing your posts, don’t forget to comment on someone else’s blog….

It is a way for a business to interact with the world.  Whether you agree with or even like it or not, there is a movement online where successful marketing campaigns and connections are real.

Start thinking today why you blog?  And then take it one step further to: “Are you going to stop at blogging?”

And my question to Jeff is What IS your social media strategy?

I use this process to embed videos onto this site. I also use this to post videos onto youtube to let my friends and family know what I am up to!

So?

Lets do it! This week I want you to start blogging. I want you to be passionate in your writing. I want you to tell your friends and supporters and co-workers and family about your blog. I want you to put your blog URL into your signature in all your emails…

But first, we have to set it up:

Let me know how it goes. Let me know the URL-I’d love to visit!!!

Today’s post is about using technology in everyday life outside of work. Because yes; there is life outside of work.

A while back there were several times while hanging out with friends that my husband and I were completely lost when they started chatting about different television series.

We felt lost and very “uncool.”

But this is no longer the case. No, we haven’t decided to rearrange our schedules around the schedules of the latest sitcom. The stations themselves have saved our behinds through streaming the shows online.

If you go to ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and TBS they now have most of their shows streaming online. Shows like Lost, Ugly Betty and Prison Break.

The catch is that you have to usually wait until the next day before they are online, but this is okay with us. It is actually pretty fun to be able to watch more than one episode at a time.

And unlike shows on the television, streaming shows online have half the commercials-and the commercials are sometimes shorter than 30 seconds.

Now you may be wondering why the heck we would want to watch shows on our computer, but we don’t. We hook our computer up to our television and while the quality isn’t as clear as our HD channels, we don’t mind sacrificing a little bit of quality for the ability to watch when we want.

Here is a helpful link for Hooking up your PC to your TV.

Here is a helpful link to a forum where they discuss how to Hook your Mac Computer to the television.

I’m not sure if this is available to all countries. For those outside the United States, I would love for you to let us know if you are able to watch LEGAL streaming video…

Is it because you’ve heard you should? Is it because you want to advertise your product and services? According to Technorati, there are over 72 million blogs-what are you going to do to help contribute? What do you have to say that’s different than what others have said?

Chris Brogan has some ideas for business owners in his post: Local Social Media-Applications for ways that you can use your social media-including blogging in your local community. Then you can read the 15 comments his readers give on ways they suggest using social media in their local communities.

Here are two ideas that I just discussed today with a group:

-I think Realtors can blog about the communities they are selling homes in. Or they can blog about tips and tricks for maintaining a home. When my husband and I were new homeowners, we knew we had to clean out the gutters and the basics of taking care of the home, but there were lots of things that we didn’t realize we ought to do. With a blog, a Realtor can brand themselves (apart from their company) and then by submitting that to all the directories, their name will be all over the place.

- The second one is actually something that a friend of mine is doing. We talked a little bit about the blog she had for her company For Every Body. She wanted to know how to get more awareness about her company. I told her that a blog needed to have passion in it and she went and did an amazing job with a new blog they started called Think Pink. Their company has a campaign going on for Breast Cancer Awareness Month where they are collecting stories and then choosing one woman to provide support to her.

What you are passionate about? Look at what people are already saying about it and think about your view, your twist to what is being said. People don’t want to read advertisement after advertisement, they want substance that they can learn from and enjoy. They can tell if you are fake and impersonal, so let your passion shine through.

Tomorrow is a post on using social media in your personal life, so take this weekend to figure out what you are passionate about. What do you want to blog about and WHY?

Today is a promotion of Enoch Chapman.  This dude rocks.  I had him on a podcast and the man knows his stuff.  More importantly though, he has been a huge support for me.  I’ve only been in “technology” for the past few years and he has encouraged me greatly.

He has encouraged me on the consulting side, pushing me on, feeding my passion for new media and boosting my confidence when I felt unsure of myself.  When I talk about creating relationships with people who will be your support in the future, I’m talking about something like what I’ve got with Enoch.  Thanks a ton man!

I’ve already mentioned Technorati, but there are also other places to search:

• IceRocket

• Google Blogsearch

• Syndic8

• Blog-Search

• Yahoo Blog Search

• BlogCatalog

• BlogHub

and many others. You can go to Google and type in blog search/blog directory.

You can also type into Google search the topic and then blog and it will pull up a few thousand urls with those words in there such as “small business blog”

You can also do a search for bloggers in your area. They might be writing on things you enjoy, but more importantly, they are local so if you need some help and would like to get some information from them, contact them and see if they have time to meet-invite one or several to a lunch. I don’t know of many bloggers who would turn down a free lunch!

You can also find blogs from the Blogroll of the blogs you like. A lot of times a blog author will list the blogs they like most and read and if you like what they have to say, then you should check out the blogs they like too.

Today’s assignment is something that will strengthen relationships with those who write the blogs that catch your interest. Start examining the website a little deeper to learn more about the author. Do they have an “about me” page? How about a “contact me” page?

What do you know about this author? What would you like to know? Most blog authors have a way to contact them. Find this information and whichever form of contact is most comfortable to you, contact them. Let them know you are trying a New Media Assignment-they’ll be excited for you! Ask them why they started blogging, what inspired them? Ask them why they chose to write on the topic they are covering and what are the toughest things about blogging?

The best way to learn anything is to glean information from those already involved in it. Be sincere, maybe tell a little about what you are thinking of doing and see if they have any suggestions for you. Ask more than one person to get an overall feel about what blogging is all about. This is how I started writing. I talked to a few people like CC Chapman, Janet, Bryce, Cord and Mitch. They all have different reasons for blogging but each one gave me ideas for my own blog.

The people you talk to will have different answers than you, but by asking them questions and listening to advice they might have, you start to form a relationship and advocate for your blog, and its a lot more fun when you’ve got friends supporting you!

So today’s assignment: Continue to comment on blogs and take that further step to contact an author to start building a relationship that can become a resource of help, advice and motivation later on down the road.

When someone writes a blog, while it is THEIR opinion and ideas, they are writing for YOU. Let them know what you think-further the conversation. The magic of blogs is that they are a two way street. They allow for someone to post, the reader can comment and the author to then return a reply. I have many people I feel I can call friends whom I’ve never met, and it started as a comment I made on their blog or they made on my blog.

But be careful about your comment. Truly provide a constructive response. Here is a Comment Ethics website that goes over some things that will help you. Be courteous, and intelligent, there are some topics that we don’t agree with, but you want to be professional in everything you do online-remember it won’t be deleted!

So your assignment: to comment on two different blogs. By doing that, not only are you going to contribute to the conversation, but begin to forge a relationship online. These relationships can help you in this new media process too. Believe it or not, but most bloggers are actually friendly!

Till tomorrow, thanks for stickin’ with me!

-Blog- found from Wikipedia: A blog is a website where someone publishes entries on topics of interest. The topics vary as there are more than 70 million blogs out there being tracked by technorati.

Where did the term blog come from? A blog is a short term for web log. Basically an online journal or log of life, thoughts, business and ideas. There were a lot of stuff that could be the “beginning of blogs” such as websites with a “whats new page” but today blogging has become more mainstream and right now carries the controversial question: “Can bloggers be considered journalists?”

Terms to know:
Blog- we defined

Blogosphere-the connected community of all blogs together. The Blogoshpere can be defined into smaller niches such as a group of blogs on one topic-business or marketing

Blogger (the company and the term itself) a free website that allows the creation and maintenance of a blog. The term blogger is also a description of one who blogs.

Column- a column on a blog defines the space on the website. In my website the place where I post is one column, the place where I list my blogroll and podcast list is another column, I have a two column blog. Here is an example of a 3 column blog: http://www.davidlaplante.com/
You can find a one column blog template here: http://www.geckoandfly.com/2006/04/27/one-column-blogspot-template/

Tags-what the post is about. It can also be described as a Category-the pre determined topic the post falls under and is grouped with all other posts on that topic

MetaTags-these are used in the code of your blog for your pages that help with Search Engine Optimization

Trackbacks-a trackback is when someone writes on their blog about the post you have written. This is done by clicking on the link of the other person’s actual post and including the link in your post.

Pings-a ping is an alert sent to an author of a post letting them know that their post is being referred to elsewhere.

Permalink-this is the URL of an actual post. Instead of linking to www.mediajoltz.com when you like a post, you click on the title of the post and it takes you to a page with only that post on it. The URL of this page is a permalink.

Post-the body of a text blog.

Blogroll-list of blogs one enjoys or recommends, usually found on the side column of a blog

URL-uniform resource locator, or the address of a website

Domain Name-what is your website called? Mine is mediajoltz

Hosting-when you are writing and putting pictures and video on your website, it takes up space-or storage. Someone has to handle all that space, or host it.

Links- a hyperlink in your post to a reference that supports or further explains your topic

Linking-you can do this with other blogs by referring to them in a post and attaching a hyper link to the word in your post.

“I have a blog that I post on that talks about different ways to use online communication in your company. I tried and do a podcast every 2 weeks with someone who is using some type of online communication in their company and I do consulting if someone wants deeper information…”

He stopped me short and said, that’s all fine with blogs and podcasts, but what about instant messaging?

Instant Messaging? Well I had never thought about that before. I mean, who doesn’t use AIM or Yahoo or Windows Live Messenger? Skype might be too new, but the others I have always taken advantage of using pretty much since I started on computers way back when. You can contact me on AIM with screen name utahcamsboss, Yahoo with than_randle and MSN with Lorri_Randle@hotmail.com. I even have a program for my Mac called Adium which groups all of these programs into one, so I only have one window open on my computer that lists all my buddies so I don’t have to have 3 separate windows open for each program. Windows users can use a program called Trillian to do the same thing.

THE MISSION

This got me thinking harder than ever about NOT knowing anything about online applications. It had never occurred to me that while I feel like I am being simple in my explanation of how and why to use things, maybe to someone who has not a clue about even Instant Messaging and the uses for that, their head spins when i talk about all the other new media stuff that I think is pretty basic.

So while I gather all the information I can and create tutorial videos on how to download, install and use instant messaging to my friend’s advantage, I’m also going to start simple here on this blog.

So this is what my goal and mission is to do. I am going to start from the very beginning of the online world. I am going to give assignments and lessons. There might be some who are more advanced than what this blog can give at this moment. I hope you’ll stick with me, share your views and opinions and help everyone else to catch up to your expertise. I plan on helping each and every one of you who read this blog to have a rocking online presence and a grasp of what that means to your company/personal branding.

HERE WE GO:
I want you to do some research on blogging. Don’t worry about trying to write a blog or subscribe or anything, just learn what people are saying about blogging.

-What is a blog?
-Where did the term come from?

Basic Terms to know:

Blog
Blogosphere
Blogger (the company and the term itself)
Column
Tags
MetaTags
Trackbacks
Pings
Permalink
Post
Blogroll
URL
Domain Name
Hosting
Links
Linking

(Those more advanced, please feel free to post in the comments any other important BASIC terms for those interested in blogging.)

These phrases should get you started. Here are some URLS (websites) that should help you research what exactly blogs are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blogging_terms

Knowing the terms will help you to communicate better and give you the confidence that you can participate in this exciting online community.

CORPORATE BLOGGING

For further reading you can check out: Corporate Blogging

You can also read these blogs to get an idea on how large companies are using their blog:
Marriott on the Move

Jonathan’s Blog (from Sun Micro systems)

The Apple Blog

STUDY WHAT YOU LIKE

Now visit Technorati and in the upper right hand you see a search function. Go ahead and search on a topic you are interested in. Investigate the blogs that come up. See what you like about them, write down what you do like. Is there something that you don’t like about any of them? Write that down too. What features and colors did you like? What attributes caught your attention? Did you notice that some blogs have one, two OR three columns? Take note of the details that make certain blogs stand out.

I hope that this weekend you get excited about what you see. Blogging is something that, while I don’t enjoy writing, I very much enjoy feeling like I’ve helped someone learn a little something today. Thanks for sticking with me as I evolve this blog into something I hope is truly valuable for the business owner in all of us.

1. What information are you giving to the world through the Internet?
2. What information are others giving to the world through the Internet about you?
3. Who is responsible for the information found?

This post follows one from my good friend Phil801. After sending him a post Christopher Penn wrote on the Matrix 2.0 about what someone can easily find out about you, Phil did a search on himself and shares the results. He does live a good portion of his life online and is fully aware of what can be found. By using some of the sites he mentions, I found out all about my sister-in-law who said she doesn’t have anything on the Internet…

Let me preface this with the fact that while I am not paranoid that something bad WILL in fact happen, I am the type that would rather not make personal information freely accessible. I understand that nothing is private, NOTHING IS PRIVATE, but for me, I would rather that someone had to WORK and pay money or do whatever to find my information than to find out I personally gave them everything they needed.

NOTHING IS PRIVATE
Nope, not a thing. Here is an article “They know all about you” about the AOL incident where they posted a database consisting of 3 months worth of searches. They substituted numbers for names, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who some people were. Think about the searches you do and then think about the world knowing what you’ve searched for.

The problem continues when even though AOL took the data down within hours, it had already been posted on several other sites. Remember, what you post on the Internet is there forever. The Internet is a never ending archive that never forgets or deletes.

BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU GIVE
Just as the article “They know all about you” says, we do give up a lot of information about ourselves. We better not be naïve about what we have given though, don’t be surprised that someone has your

-email address, (if you have a gmail account, Google has your address and an archive of your emails. “Gmail stores, processes and maintains your messages, contact lists and other data related to your account in order to provide the service to you. When you use Gmail, Google servers automatically record certain information about your use of Gmail. Similar to other web services, Google records information such as account activity (including storage usage, number of log-ins), data displayed or clicked on (including UI elements, ads, links); and other log information (including browser type, IP-address, date and time of access, cookie ID and referrer URL.”

-if you’ve bought anything online, you’ve given out your credit card info, (even if it’s a secure site, THEY still have that information).

-Amazon has archived what you’ve bought and even has an idea of what you would like!

Have you been on Facebook lately? Here is a picture from Facebook of the process to add an application to my profile:

I can uncheck all of them if I want to except for the top one, the one that happens to say: “here is everything about me” interesting…

WHAT IF I DIDN’T WANT THAT UP THERE?
Now we approach the idea of information on the Internet that you didn’t put there. I’m talking about third party sites that gather information about you…here is one www.web.public-records-now.com where you can find me, where I live and pay only $60 for more information.

“…you gave me the answer I needed…” “…gave me the detailed information that I needed to locate my son” Who is to say a predator won’t find James’ son too?

OR, someone who wanted to find more information about me could simply peruse through my friends information and find more about me through my friends’ pictures of me, conversations they’ve had with me, or anything else my friends post. Do my friends have my permission to do that, do they NEED my permission to post a picture online that I’m in? With photo tagging, someone can find out the places I’ve been and the people I associate with without ever visiting a single page that I’ve actually contributed to. Is this fair? HMMMM….

TAKE THAT DOWN!
Recently I’ve heard a lot about companies like ReputationDefender and DefendMyName popping up and charging fees for finding and getting rid of reputation destroying content. There are several cases where I think that companies like this are doing right by offering their services. Instances where posting false, libel or slander, information just as in any form of media where this is illegal calls for help when an individual themselves are not able to get through the red tape. An example comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal where an ex-boy friend posts this woman’s phone number online and she begins receiving phone calls:

“Janel Lee, a mortgage loan closer in Minong, Wis., sought ReputationDefender out after her ex-boyfriend began posting her work and cellphone numbers in response to several questions on Yahoo Answers, including “What is 50 Cent’s phone number?”
She got 15 to 20 calls a day, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. One after-hours voicemail, presumably intended for the rapper, was a lengthy rap performance. “I sing blues, jazz and rock. This was painful,” said Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee said she contacted Yahoo Inc. directly but was unable to get most of the information taken down. So she paid ReputationDefender about $240 for a two-year membership, plus about $150 for the posts that the company, over three months, got removed. “It was quite a great relief knowing that someone was working on it for me,” she said. Mr. Fertik said Yahoo removed the information after being contacted by ReputationDefender.”

BUT, personally I think that people are also using these services simply because they are embarrassed and not taking responsibility for their actions. Anything you say, do, take a picture of, or have someone take a picture of you saying, doing, etc, CAN end up on the internet.

This video is of two girls in a restaurant setting with some boys. Because of the sexual nature I am not including the link.

The scenario is that these boys videotaped these two girls kissing. But it isn’t the kiss that makes this video popular with close to half a million views; it’s the statement the girl on the right makes just before they kissed. “As long as it doesn’t end up on the internet!” Wow, for their sakes, I hope that their future employers don’t find this video.

But is it right for them to demand that this video be taken down now because it is embarrassing? They kissed in front of all the people at the restaurant. Who is to say strangers sitting around them at that public place didn’t see them kissing, how are they different than strangers on the Internet? What do you think? When is it a matter of legal vs. not taking responsibility for things you’ve done in life?

GOVERNMENT’S PRYING EYE
I had a conversation the other night that got me thinking about privacy and the government. Is it wrong for the government to be searching your personal information published online to get an idea about the people of the country? Does it have the right to go through myspace profiles and blogs and look for clues about possible actions people might make. Does government have a right to have access to search information?

Take for instance the example used in the article referenced before “They know all about you”

“On April 4, for instance, user 14162375, the melancholy Portuguese-American in Florida, seems to have passed out on the keyboard at 6.20pm, when he asked, suddenly, “llllfkkgjnnvjjfokrb” then “vvvvbmkmjk” and “vvglhkitopppfoppr”. An hour later he had recovered enough to search for variations on his wife’s name - he thought she might have moved to New England. On the evening of April 16, matters came to a head. “My cheating wife,” he typed; and then, five times, “I want to kill myself,” and then “I want to make my wife suffer,” followed quickly by “Kill my wifes mistress,” “My wifes ass,” “A cheating wife”. Two days after that he was back looking for audio surveillance and bugging equipment and four weeks later he seemed to have cheered up and was looking for motorcycle insurance.”

Would it be wrong for the government to have access to searches and put a tag on this man when he started searching “I want to make my wife suffer” and “kill my wife’s mistress”? Would they be able to stop things like the Columbine Shooting and more recently the Virginia Tech Shooting? In an article found in USA Today we find out that the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, made illegal purchases of guns and ammunition through Ebay. Is it possible he did some searches on the internet?

What is your take on internet privacy? Where are the boundaries and lines? Is everything black and white or are there exceptions? Do you think we all have a right to put whatever we want on the internet even if it involves others?

On their 8/08/07 podcast they answer one of their listener’s questions about making money with  a podcast.  I expound on their answer and hope that this helps you figure out your strategy for using podcasts as a part of your marketing.

Also, a little change to the music, trying out another track from Garage Band.  Let me know what you think about this one!

Last year my husband and I went to Disneyland. In preparing for our trip I researched several hotels to find the best one for the best price. We decided that we didn’t need to stay inside the park, but still wanted to be close enough to the park that we could walk and not have to worry about parking if we felt like it.

I found a Holiday Inn Hotel that in the description said it was a block away from Disneyland. I wanted to double check just how close it really was so I went to my application Google Earth. I really enjoy all the help the Google Earth User Guide gives, instructing me on how to use every detail of this product.

Here is a video of what I found out about my hotel in California I had found:

You can use Google Earth to find out where you are staying in relation to your target destination. This is great for conferences or any type of business or personal travel.

Bryan Pope: I met Bryan through a video shoot for another association about November of 2004. Since then he has become an advocate and best friend. It is through his advice that Mediajoltz even came to be. He is a great marketer, leader and truly cares about those he helps. His program called My Marketing Day is changing lives and improving businesses across the state.

Use Headers and Subheaders
In order to break out of the monotony of an all one paragraph page

Keep Paragraphs Short
When writing a paragraph, make sure you keep the paragraphs short. This is one that I need work on. People do a lot of scanning when visiting websites and they want to be able to get your opinion quickly. Lots of text is taxing on the eye and they will skip it.

Use Whitespace
Having whitespace-the negative space around your text- makes your page look less crowded and more inviting.

Add pictures

This picture was taken from Problogger.net Blogging for Beginners Series. I highly recommend you read the posts they have there!!

Feel free to add what you like to see from your favorite blogs. I will continue on Wednesdays to layout more tips on Blogging

In this interview I talk to Enoch Chapman of Wasatch Dev, cousin of CC Chapman of Managing the Gray about the future of technology and what businesses can do if they don’t seem to find the time to jump into technology themselves.

Go online to find that personal time.
I realized that from the time that I got up in the morning, until I went to bed, I was surrounded by media and working, but wasn’t taking the time for myself. Even during my workouts I would listen to podcasts and get my mind thinking and stretching.

So I decided that I need to take some time for myself.  I starting looking and researching online workout websites and came across MyYogaOnline.com. They have some free videos to check out the quality and the classes they offer.  I personally think that the web video quality is outstanding and find their classes to be a relaxing workout, connecting mind and bode before jumping into the stresses of the day.

MyYogaOnline has classes for all levels of yoga classes, they have pilates classes and meditation classes.  They even have a section of videos dedicated to yoga at work!

You do need a good internet connection, but don’t need a windows based PC to watch the videos.  They have easy instructions in their System Requirements that instruct you on how to install the free plugin that allows Mac users to watch Windows Media  called Flip4Mac.

Make sure that you are not neglecting yourself by taking time to do things you like to do.  This doesn’t mean you have to give up technology for it, but make sure you have some time each day to relax!

What are some things you do during the day to relax?

The first things that came into mind were the benefits for branding and it is cool and to start getting into conversations with new people as well as friends and then, well, then I decided I needed to dig deeper than those answers and be totally honest with myself about what I am doing and why I am doing it, other than the regular business reasons.

I got into new media because of my husband, actually, who doesn’t do twitter or blog or is even active on Facebook. He hasn’t done a podcast now for quite some time and while he listens to podcasts, it is very passively “being involved.”

I’ve always been the one getting involved. I was a ham when I was younger as evidence by this video, I’m the one with the doll:

I don’t really like writing, other than fiction short-stories, which is why I probably am having such a hard time writing this blog.

But after long thought, here is why I am blogging, podcasting, getting involved in new media:

1. I am scared to death of being alone. My husband just got a new office out of the house and it has been working wonderfully because he gets so much done. I on the other hand miss him so much. Him getting an office means that I am going to be at the house by myself. Being online talking with others helps the hours to pass by.

2. I revel in feeling included. All through highschool and college I never smoke, drank or did any drugs. My first date was in college and I didn’t have sex until after I married my husband. I was an “outcast” while growing up because not only did I not do those things, I didn’t go to parties where those activities were occurring. I was unpopular and very uncool. The thing that got me through it all was my love of softball, I played highschool, summer and fall seasons leaving me only 2 weeks out of the year were I didn’t have practice at night. How does this relate to New Media? I’ve got a new passion that is so exciting to me that I can be involved and be included! Anyone can be, the communities being formed out there are unbiased and uncritical of who you were/are. New Media is a connection of brotherhood and sisterhood no matter race, color or background that is exciting to me.

3. I love to help people. Almost to a fault I try to make everyone happy and help where I can. So if there is a community built to help others, to let voices and opinions be heard and to create friendships I want to be in it. I love to have connections to rely on and also become a good source for them. If someone is in need of a connection, I’d love to help. If someone was moving somewhere to any part of the world, it would be awesome to hook them up with help.

4. I want to keep learning. Once again I bring up my dear mother, she is so excited that she is typing 39 wpm now after a few months of using Mavis Beacon typing lessons. In a very few years she is going to be so lost. I want to keep learning and growing. I want to be on top of my game for as long as I can.

So I will keep writing and blogging and podcasting and making friends. All the while spreading my name and branding my company and fulfilling personal needs as well.

Why do you blog?

Geico as you can imagine has since sent a letter discussing the serious results that could happen if this man did not relinquish the domain name over to the Geico company. The man asked on Linkedin what others would do, could he win a case like this.

This question now has over 100 answers.

Most of them say that he doesn’t have a case, and I believe he doesn’t either, because GEICO does have the trademark license to anything GEICO. BUT the man does now own the .TV domain name.

Now I have no lawyer knowledge and this is simply my opinion, but this is why it is important to have your trademarks squared away-it shows ownership of the name, so someone else can’t come and take it from you. GEICO takes to court the proof that they were using the name GEICO before this man.

BUT my main question is why the heck does GEICO not own the domain name to their company no matter if it is .com, .net .org??? They are a large enough company to pay the $40 a year for the .TV domain name??!!

I heard on the radio a commercial that says “you wouldn’t let someone into your purse and just steal something without a fight, so why would you let someone steal your property on the internet, BUY YOUR COMPANY NAME!”

Even if you are a mom and pop shop get online and buy the name of your company. Protect the name that you care about.

And speaking of protecting your name that you care about, have you bought your name online too. What if you become famous and then someone else owns the domain to your name??? I’ve got lorrirandle.com make sure you have yours!

For some reason I have a hard time getting my blog post a day and my podcast a week. It could be that I am starting a new job while working for another and learning to balance the two. It could also be that I keep bouncing from project to project and never seem to get anything done.

So I figured that today’s post could be for me and hopefully ya’ll could benefit too!

Tips to Find time to Blog:

I went to Google this morning to search on help for blogging more consistently and found this awesome site: Blogging for Dollars Blog written by Angela Booth.

I think she makes some excellent tips in her post Blogging Takes Time: Ten Blogging Time Management Tips. Please take the time to read her article all the way through!

Here are the tips she mentions:

-CREATE A FILE CALLED BLOG IDEAS. You could do this on your computer word processor, create a real file and cut out magazine articles or check out Delicious-an online bookmarking site.

- WRITE FIVE TO TEN BLOG POSTS AT A TIME. I need to take this to heart, it is hard for me to write everyday, so I need to pick a few topics and write ahead of myself.

-AUDIO BLOG. No, not a podcast, but while you are driving, just grab that recorder and talk about stuff.

-ASK FOR CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OTHER BLOGGERS. I think this is something else I need to do, with connections like Mitch Joel and Chris Brogan who could offer more experience than myself alone. I try to do this with the podcast, but to line up schedules to interview is definitely a lot harder than if they could write a post on their own time and email it to me…hmmm

-OUTSOURCE/HIRE A BLOGGER. I actually don’t agree with this one. If you don’t have time to blog, I don’t want to come to your site and read someone else’s opinon, BUT if it is a corporate blog then maybe you could get away with that.

-GET OVER PERFECTIONISM! I never knew I was a perfectionist until I started blogging and podcasting. Especially podcasting, I don’t know how many takes I do because I don’t like what I said. Maybe sometime I’ll include all the bloopers at the end of a podcast just so you can see what I mean!

-THINK ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE. WHAT CHALLENGES DO THEY HAVE? Well today is purely selfish for myself, but I hope that you get some good from it too. If you have any topics you’d like me to cover, email me mediajoltz@gmail.com.

-RESEARCH BLOGGING-GET UP TO SPEED ON BLOGGING. What is new? What are others finding works better in blogging? What is happening? Are there any tips you know of that could help you to blog?

-SCHEDULE BLOGGING. Do NOT just assume it will get done and NEVER say I’ll do it later. Make sure you actually schedule time to do it like you would a meeting. I also want to add to this, shut down anything that could be a distraction. For me that would be my iTunes and email program to make sure that I don’t get into something else. I think this is my biggest problem in trying to blog…

-WRITE PRODUCT REVIEWS. Thats kind of what I’ve done here and there on other posts talking about Skype, Blendtec, and BubbleGuru.

So there you have it. This is a challenge to you and I to be more consistent with our blogging. I will start next week… Just kidding!

MY GOALS: 

Take time to blog without distractions

Write more than one post 

Ask another blogger to write a post this month 

Schedule the time to write a post.  I’m going to write the rest of this week’s posts tomorrow morning between 7am and 9am. 

What do you do to make sure you take time to blog?

The Online Publisher’s Association released survey results about Online Video Viewing. Here are some points that hit home for me:

-123 million Americans will view online video at least once a month in 2007

-66% of video viewers have watched online video adds

-44% of those have taken an action on what they had seen (ie sent the video to a friend, went to website, etc)

LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD

The internet has leveled the playing field for small businesses. You no longer need to worry about buying ad space or airtime to get your video out into the world to be seen. You now have the chance to upload the video to the internet for little or no cost. This also means that you don’t have to worry about paying for airtime in several geographical locations because the only limit you have with the internet is if your target audience doesn’t have it. InternetWorldStats.com now reports 1,173,109,925 people use the internet in the world today.

OPPORTUNITY

When you look at successes like the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, or the Doritos User Generated Contest winners, these ads didn’t originate from an ad agency where they were thought of in a creative brief. These came from regular people who had an idea, a camera and a computer-things that are all accessible to you.

EXAMPLES

Dove Evolution Video

Blendtec Video

You have Dove, a household name getting millions of views for this awesome video they did. They have a huge marketing budget and are having great success. Then you have a local Orem, Utah company who doesn’t have the big budget Dove has, but they are experiencing the same amount of brand recognition and success Dove is. You can check out my post where I interview George Wright, Marketing Director of Blendtec to find out why he decided to do the WillitBlend campaign and why they chose video on the internet.

LEGITIMATE SOURCE

Online video, viral or not, has been proven to be a legitimate source for branded information when it is done right. The pipes are getting fatter and video online is becoming crisper and clearer every year. I once had someone ask me “why should we worry about shooting video that looks great to begin with, when internet is just going to destroy it?” To them I say, because in a very short while you won’t have the internet to blame for the crappy image you uploaded and you’ll have to shoot it all over again. Care about what your video looks like today, and it will last a lot longer and go further for you than if you didn’t.

QUALITY

If you recall the Dove and Blendtec examples you will notice the difference in quality of the video itself. Dove’s video looks smoother, crisper and more professional than Blendtec’s. You DO NOT have to spend thousands of dollars to get your video shot. I know you’re jumping up and down right now, but let me pull you back in for a second. This doesn’t mean that Uncle Bob is the best one to shoot your video either. You have to take into account the look and feel of your company, and what you want your video to portray. A video of a blender slicing and dicing up any kind of object is okay to look raw. A raw looking video from a soap and skin care company might not be so good. (I’m in the process of putting together a service sheet for you to fill out on this website if you need some costly videowork done. Doesn’t mean you’ll get the multi-award winning Businessweek Top 25 Entrepreneur Director of Photography, but the video will get done and look decent at the end of the day.)

SEO and ANALYTICS

Why should you care that Google bought Youtube, well because of Google Universe. Straight from their own press release:

“Beginning today (may 2007) the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources-including videos, images, news, maps, books and websites-into a single set of results.”

Google buying Youtube has reinforced the idea that video is now more than just your funny clip, but that it is fast becoming a serious source. Now when you search on Google, they will incorporate videos along with other sources into that search. If you are in multiple sources, ie the news, any audio files, video, images, you will be more findable to the people looking for you.

There are also alliances being made between video sites and analytic companies that will enable you to know who is watching the video, how long the stayed to watch it and if they shared it anywhere (by email, to a blog, to Facebook, etc) so that you can measure more easily how your video is working for you, or if there is something that isn’t working too.

CREATING RELATIONSHIPS

This is my pet peeve. I think that if you are going to be successful in life you create loyal clients, not customers who are just another transaction. We are far beyond push and interruptive advertising. Marketing is more than just advertising campaigns, its about creating real relevant relationships with your audience. Use video to develop those relationships, to provide a rich, engaging informational experience that they will WANT to share with others. We have all heard about the Tivo and DVR, please don’t assume that people online are different, that they want to watch a 30 second commercial about your business, give them something more-they are asking for more.

And wow how the world has changed. Who would have thought we would have video on our cell phone or watching television from our computers. Who would have thought that I would have some best friends in Boston or UK and have never met them before?

I think of the pioneers and their handcarts and often wonder what life would be like, heck I wonder what my life would be like without a cell phone! Seriously though, we’ve got tons of technology in general with refrigerators, radios, microwaves and air conditioning, cars and planes. Now in terms of media we have vhs to dvd and now hd dvd’s and streaming video. We’ve gone from radio stations to podcasting, from letters to social networks.

My questions to you are, how has technology helped/hindered your day to day activities? Would the pioneers see us today as lazy or innovative? Do you see yourself as lazy or innovative

I brought this back home and applied it to the problems I have been having with my Garage Band software on my computer. I have two podcasts that I was suppose to post while I was away but because of editing problems I wasn’t able to edit them. I was also suppose to be posting blogs but for some reason my software for my Treo wasn’t working to blog while I was away either.

I was very frustrated with this and thought it would be a good post for when I got back. Sometimes things don’t work. While I want technology to work every time, we just aren’t in an advanced world where machines aren’t going to break down every now and again.

What technology has done though, is allow us to be able to reach out to a broad community and find out if others have had the same problems and what they did to resolve it. We now have many avenues, online forums, social networking sites where we can go and ask the world wide community. So branch out and talk to others around you.

Today though, I want to discuss a topic that has been showing up like on Chris Brogan’s blog post: Why join another social network?

With all the places you can go and join, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Myspace, Linkedin, and then all the blogs and podcasts you can listen to, it is very easy to become overwhelmed with trying to keep up with it all. I agree with Chris when he says you don’t need to try and be in it all. The point where your balance in life as well as your work starts to suffer, is when you need to cut back.

Today I cleared out 20 blogs from my aggregator- it was at a point where I had not been able to read all the posts and started to feel overwhelmed. I kept trying to get up earlier and earlier in order to have time to read them all-but it still wasn’t working. I found myself deleting a lot of unread posts thinking “I’ll go back to the site later.” When I realized that I wasn’t, it was time to ditch.

So here is how involved I am in social networking and what I use each application for:

Myspace: I have a page, but that’s all, I created one and left it. I check it once a month to see if there are any messages.

Twitter: I am on every day. This is where I keep in touch with friends and get up-to-date information on what is going on. While there are a ton of prominent people in a new media work sense I try and keep in touch with through Twitter, it still has more of a social community atmosphere rather than a doing business making money right now feel.

Linkedin: I get on every day. I spend about an hour answering the messages in my inbox and searching through the Q/A part of Linkedin. I use Linkedin for business connections as well as getting sound advice from peers. I once asked a question and one hour later, I had 30 different people send me their answer. How cool is that?

Jaiku: I am on Jaiku and check it once in a while, but don’t use it like Twitter-more people are on twitter.

Pownce: You need an invitation to be on Pownce and I would love one-hint hint…so I can check it out and find out how much I am going to integrate it into my everyday activities.

Facebook: this is a mixture of business and family. I have a lot of friends and family on facebook and keep in touch with them with pictures, video and the like through this application. I also have some associates I keep in touch with through facebook too.

I do listen to various podcasts and read blogs and I’ll leave the blogroll call for another post.

Don’t get so involved that you lose site of the vision of social media. It isn’t a race to see who can have the most Twitter friends, or ask the most questions on Linkedin. It isn’t about being the most popular either.

I use these tools to associate myself with those I see as strategic partners and friends in life. An example of that is I wanted to meet and become friends with some people here in Utah and was never able to get a hold of any of them through email or cell phone, so I went where they were-on Twitter, and have now found some great friendships with them-you know who you are and I want to say you guys rock!

To sum it up here is a question a friend posted on Linkedin:

From my answer you can tell that I am very passionate about this and hope that you will be too!

“I like the social networking sites because I am able to:

A. keep up with friends and family not close. I can’t be on the phone talking to them all, all the time, but through things like facebook and twitter I can get up to the minute information on the people I care a lot about. I like Youtube because it provides an easy way for my mother who lives across the other side of the nation to see what is going on in our lives, when we open her christmas gifts, paint the house or even just visit fun places.
B. I have a chance to meet and make friends with people I otherwise wouldn’t be able to. I have tons of friends I hang out with, I also have people I consider friends whom I’ve never met-and never would considering they are in other parts of the world.
It is definitely still a balancing act between the online world and the real world. Some people take either one way too far, either they hide away in their houses, or are repulsed and never meet cool people online…You also have to be careful of social burnout and not doing too much and becoming overwhelmed.
Social networking and new media as a whole allows us to meet people and join conversations you never would have been able too before.”

And thanks to the Podsafe Music Network a place where artists can upload their music for podcasters to use.  A big shout out to Alamantra the band from Alabama who provided Surf Babe-the music I am trying out for my podcast now!

In Delta’s case, I would own up to this and tell their side of the story-not make excuses but let everyone know they are aware of it and ready to deal with it. To avoid this would make them look completely out of touch, and untrustworthy.

Tip of the Day: Get involved!

So I had someone ask me the other day: “What do you say to a company who is scared about the negative publicity you can get by blogging or using a type of new media.” I posted this question to Linkedin and received numerous answers. I also emailed this question to some friends of mine including Greg Grimer who does the podcast Voices in Business as well as The Cold Calling Podcast with his partner in crime Mike O’Hara. Included in this email was also CC-Chapman who does everything from podcasting to running a marketing company called Crayon in second life. I couldn’t forget to get the opinions of Joe and Mike from the SalesRoundUp podcast. I also included Mitch Joel who runs the Six Pixels of Separation podcast.

And Seth Godin wrote back and so did Cord Silverstein who writes Marketing Hipster as well as Shelly Palmer of Media 3.0

And they all wrote back good answers too. Because they used email and I do not have permission to post them, I will not. But the gist of their answers was what I had told him-and I felt very satisfied to be back up by such a prestigious list of leaders in New Media! (thanks guys) This is what I said:

To avoid conversation in this day and age is going to work against you. People are already having conversations about your product or service already. New Media, like my post on starting conversations is about communication with clients, or listening to the communication they already are involved in. Starting a blog, podcast or getting involved in social media allows you to find out what people really think about you and then improve on those things people don’t like.

The more I thought about it though, I had more questions that I started to ask myself:

1. What about companies who want to play dumb in public? They know there are negative things about them and they have corporate people listening and watching to find out what those negative things are and are working to improve those problems, they just don’t want the complaints right there on their website. What do you tell them about new media?

2. The second question is: New Media is a new scary thing. So how do you talk to those people who are scared and scared of trying new things? If you start talking about blogging and podcasting and social networking they feel overwhelmed. So where do you start?

3. The third is: Why should they trust that new media is the way to go? Why should they trust me when I tell them that they need to do X now? Everyone says it is a matter of when, so why now and not later, what makes it so that their company ought to be doing this now?

So for these questions I decided to post them to the blog so that we might all benefit from the answers. So please feel free to comment with your opinion!

Two of the reasons I use Skype and record the phone calls with Pamela is if I am having an important conference call with someone and I it is important to document what they said either for legal reasons, or so that I don’t have to worry about taking detailed notes during the initial conversation.

This is also a great way to call someone, interview them and use it as a podcast, the sound quality is great and you can more easily interview people not local for podcasts! So, watch and learn.

Tip of the day: Now you can podcast with people all over the country without leaving your office!

(Click on picture to take you to URL of Video)

Because she is looking to move out here to Utah to be by her kids, she has been staying with me for the past 8 days. I found myself explaining things that had always seemed really easy to me. Instead of typing an address in the URL field of a website, she always went to Google to type the business name in and then just clicked on the link in the search that came up. She didn’t know where she was suppose to type the url.

We took some video footage of a beautiful place here in Utah called Cascade Springs. My mom wanted to know if we could take still pictures from the video footage. I told her we could, or we could just put the video footage up online so she could watch it there too. She was puzzled that we could do that-which might have been understandable, except for the fact that for the past 5 years she has watched footage we’ve shot of Christmas and other holidays over the internet. She said she wasn’t sure if there was a special camera we shot with in order to get it online.

This morning she was going to some classes designed to help with the job search. As we were walking out the door she remembered she needed a pencil and so I got out a mechanical pencil and handed it to her. She looked at it and then back at me then back at the pencil, shook her head and then with panic plastered across her face said, “I don’t even know how to work this. You don’t have just a regular pencil?”

Something as simple as a mechanical pencil to me, represented a contraption of panic to my mother and thats when I got it. We all have different levels of understanding in the world. Some things click and someone might understand the first time, while it might take a while for others to take hold and embrace something new. New Media is not suppose to be scary or frustrating to anyone. It is a way to communicate easier, but it doesn’t mean you have to get it right the first time you do a podcast, or your blog will be set up perfectly and ready to go on the first try. Everything takes practice and time and this doesn’t exclude media.

I guess the lesson I want to let others know that I learned is that if you don’t understand something, thats okay. Don’t panic, take your time.

Tip of the day:  Go to Blogger.com to get your feet wet on blogging, give it a try, don’t be scared of it, you can’t mess it up or ruin anything. If its not for you right now, thats okay too.

So not only are they seeing their bottom line increase, but they’ve been able to create big brand image where their Blendtec name is now spread throughout households all over the world. No one has ever taken a blender and stuck a rake in it and posted it to the internet before.
What can you do with your product to make it exciting???

Tip of the day: Use new media to be creative with your service and product!

I actually understood that he was talking money, but I wanted to see what his reaction was. It was exactly what I thought it would be because his next statement was “That’s all great, but how much more money can I make from new media?”

I knew from this question that he really didn’t catch the vision of new media. He was only interested in the bottom line, about “what’s in it for me?” This is NOT what new media is about.

New media is about taking a new way of communicating and using it to reach others and start conversations. Blogging, podcasting and the social network sites are out there to be able to have direct conversations with those who are interested, allowing them to talk back AND facilitating a way for them to more easily talk to each other.

When you are able to talk directly with your customer and client, you are letting them see a more intimate part of the company. Now this company has a personality, it has life. People feel they get to know you better, and people do business with those they know, like and trust.

When you allow your customers and clients to talk to you, you are now more than just a shoe store, a financial planning company, a bank, etc, you are someone who cares what people want. You are listening and want to hear about what you are doing right, and what can be improved and people like that.

If you step back allow those who have interacted with you to talk to each other-you gain valuable market research, and learn far more about your company than you could ever imagine. You are able to hear the conversations people are having with each other and learn the real reasons they do business with you-or don’t do business with you and then you can create better campaigns based upon that knowledge.

Here are two companies that are using blogging as a way to communicate with their audience. One of them gets it, the other doesn’t.

First up is Marriott. The owner, Bill Marriott has started a blog to communicate with his audience. He posts regularly about where he is, what is going on in the area of different hotels and often about his family. He even posts about issues affecting the hotel industry like passport regulation changes. The blog does talk about Marriott Hotel-because that is the company, but doesn’t feel intrusive like an advertisement. He comments on something about the company and those reading give their feedback. On his first post, he had 136 people comment!

This is a man, a company that understands communication is a two way process and not always just about the bottom line.

The second company I want to use as an example is Yahoo. Yahoo doesn’t get it at all. Here is a company TRYING to implement a new media strategy without fully understanding the meaning behind it. Yes, they have started a blog called Yahoo Mail. It is in beta right now and I hope that someone at Yahoo hears this and changes their way of thinking. If you look at the blog-even the subtitle completely misses the point

So basically they’ve created a blog about all their latest and greatest improvements-yuck, who wants to subscribe to a blog that only blows its own horn where post after post is an advertisement-give us meat, and give your company a better personality.
Second, if you scroll to the end of each post, there is no way for me to communicate back to them how I feel about a product they’ve just written about. In one of their posts called “As You Wish” the first line says: A fresh new version of Yahoo! Mail Beta is here, and your ideas and feedback are at the core of what makes it stronger and more useful.
Well if that is the core of what makes it stronger, why can’t I comment on something you write, where the heck do I go to give you the ideas and feedback I have?
So after posting day after day about the new releases of product, they don’t even let me tell them what I think about it, good or bad. It is a one way conversation that isn’t going to work.

Now, I do have tons of examples of people who are seeing their marketing ROI increase with new media. I think this is call for the next post to be about Blendtec….
But you see, the key to this exciting technology is the ability to communicate-and with more than just the local market, but around the WORLD. If you do it right, great things will happen, I promise.

Tip of the Day: Use New Media to get in touch with people who otherwise you wouldn’t be able to reach!

I love these guys! This is a casual talk with some great buddies all the way from Boston. I used Skype to call them and had a great conversation about why they started to podcast. These are two guys whose background is in sales, but decided that it was time to share with the world their knowledge tips and tricks.

I wanted to do interview podcasts for two reasons, the first one is that I wanted to get business owners who are already using new media to give us some ideas on how we can use it ourselves. The second is to show that it can be done. I had a little learning curve figuring out Skype and recording the call, but if I can do it I know you can too!

This is a little longer than the other two because there was so much good stuff I just couldn’t cut anymore out. I think most of the interviews are going to be this long but they’ll be packed with great information. Enjoy!

Back in 2003 a company called Skype came rolling out with VOIP (or voice over internet protocol). What that means to mean is I make phone calls from my computer using the internet. It is a very easy application to install and very easy to learn how to use. I do recommend buying some type of microphone-you can buy one right from the Skype website called Plantronics PC2000 Headset for only $10.

From Skype I am able to make phone calls to any phone in the world. If I am calling from Skype to another person who has Skype, the call is free, just like mobile to mobile minutes. Here is a list of things Skype offers for free:

As you can see you can not only make regular calls on Skype but also do video chat with others across the world. This has been very helpful for me in personal life, being able to see family living on the other side of the nation has been tons of fun. It is also helpful in business with clients who are not local we are still able to talk and see each other and that has helped in communication.

Skype also offers the conference call for free which is very beneficial to any company who needs to make sure everyone is on the same page. I use Skype for my interview podcasts where I can have several people on at once.

There are other features that Skype offers that have fees, but very minimal for what you get:

I use the Skype Unlimited to call clients and not use up minutes on my cell phone. For just $29.95- I am able to make ALL my calls for the year-not bad huh! My husband has several friends in South Africa and United Kingdom who he talks to on a regular basis. The friend in South Africa also has Skype so they talk all the time for free. Those in the United Kingdom do not but for him to call them is only $.02 a minute. His sister has friends in Japan who she is able to talk to for only $.02 to a landline and only $.015 for a mobile phone.

So how does this help me as a business owner. Well you can hop on over to the ColdCallingPodcast where Greg and Mike talk about “How to Use Skype to Fatten Your Pipe.” In this podcast they talk about the benefits of using Skype to make calls if you are doing sales. I mentioned above how it has helped with keeping in touch with those not local as well as conference calls with more than one person. Plus, it is very cost effective in long distance calling, and I can be on the computer making notes, going through windows and have everything at my fingertips without trying to balance a phone on my shoulder!

Tip of the Day: Use Skype to make your phone calls and save those minutes!

I’d like to add to this article and point out four things that you need to think about when starting to blog and all of them have to do with content.

The first one is that you have to HAVE content. Just start writing, don’t worry about what others are going to think when you first start because then you won’t ever start. Guy Kawasaki has a great book called Art of the Start that talks to business planners about just getting out there and starting your dream/idea. I say the same applies to blogging, podcasting, getting involved in new media-just do it!

The other point goes along with the first point about just starting. Sometimes we get too caught up with how our blog page looks and we never write anything that matters. While Allister Cameron does have a great post about things to do so your blog page isn’t distractive to those visiting called “If Your Blog Looks Crap it IS Crap!” But having an awesome looking blog with no content on it doesn’t work either-so keep that in mind.

The third point is to make sure that it is niche. For example, this blog can be labeled as a media and technology blog, but it takes a different spin. I use this blog to take geek talk and turn it into business benefits. For example, instead of just taking note that last year Google bought Youtube for 1.65 billion dollars, I can turn that piece of tech news into a lesson on the benefits Google buying Youtube might have for a business owner:

-Video is becoming more serious. If Google bought Youtube for 1.65 billion dollars, and then others step up to rival that combination then they must see video as something more than the Youtube cat flushing the toilet.

-If the Dominator in Search buys a video sharing site, then maybe that means video is going to play a bigger role in searches. Google now includes YouTube video in search. Well now what does that mean, it means that if someone is looking for a topic in your industry and you have a website and a video on youtube, both will come up in the search. New sites are already now implementing audio and video into their searches.

-Bottom line is that the outcome of Google buying Youtube means that as a business owner, there will be more ways to find you. And who doesn’t want to be found by the people looking for the topics they cover?

Now there are many different ways to put a different angle on something to make it niche. Take for example a real estate agent’s blog. Instead of writing about the industry news, to put a little spin to it, why not do a maintenance after you’ve bought the home blog, or write about the schools, events, businesses and restaurants in the areas of the houses you are selling? You could write a blog about tips and tricks to help better you home BEFORE you put it on the market?

The fourth and final point is that no matter what the topic is, make sure that you are writing about something you love. If you aren’t people will be able to tell that you don’t care through your writing. So go on, start writing about something you want to whole world to know, just go and do it, make it yours and have fun!

Tip of the Day: write good content that you are passionate about-and those with that passion will follow!

If you want to LEARN how to blog and START blogging in a very short time, go ahead and check out Blogger. At Blogger you can start blogging and telling the world what you think.

This is a free place to start a blog, they host your blog and you don’t have to worry about space. It is very fast and simple. To make things even easier, go ahead and watch this video explaining the step by step process on how to start one, it is only 2 min. long which tells you something about how easy it is!

1. You are creating a personality for your company/hobby/passion. Instead of just a website with a lot of copy, people will get to know you, like you and trust you. They will become your fans…

2. You are becoming an expert. By giving meat on your blog-people will begin to recognize that when they need information on that topic, they can come to you. If you aren’t already established as an expert in your field, get to know others who are experts, contribute to their blogs and then you can interview them on yours…

3. Intimate Conversations: by starting a blog you are opening conversation about your topic-and facilitating conversation between your viewers too. By allowing comments on your blog, you can find out true opinions from people, research straight from the audience.

4. Because it is good for you educationally-it forces you to stay up-to-date and on top of the topic and we should never stop learning.

5. Because its fun darn it! Besides being able to have another medium that will help marketing and public relations, its a great way to connect with those that are online, another community to grow and make friends with!

Tip of the Day: I hope that no matter the reason, blogging becomes a great way to communicate with others near and far, so get to and have some fun!

I am directing you over to C.C. Chapman’s Managing the Gray where he did a presentation at a conference about the New Media Playground and how it is like we were kids and you made instant friends with the person on the swing next to you-and that is what it is like online today. You’ve got to hear it!

Here is an excellent example of how the online community has your back in times of trouble:

Tip of the Day: Start building your community by visiting other’s!

So I looked up what Web 2.0 means in the Wikipedia and got a dry definition, but here is what it means to a business owner like you: it means there is a gathering of people online and they are looking and talking-and they could be looking for you, and talking about you as well.

There were 1,114,274,426 people worldwide who used the internet in 2006 according to InternetWorldStats.com

Now an example of people being online is demonstrated in the fact that I didn’t look stats up in a book, but online. I didn’t look up the definition of Web 2.0 in a book either, I looked it up on Wikipedia

I also found an article you can find here on Clickz called “Study Gives Web Video Ads High Branding Marks, but Repetition Detracts” It talks about online commercials fairing better than commercials on regular TV. The reason for this is that there aren’t as many commercials online-so you are in a smaller competition pool. It does talk about the repetition of the same commercial in an online episode being distracting, but I think it is great for the company-a whole episode with not a single competitor.

And even if you don’t have the budget to get an ad in front of a television episode, being online in a podcast, blog, in the social networking circles helps you to be in places where people are gathering. This new media space is cost effective too, with little or no money you can start conversations with your target audience.

So go ahead, give it a try!

While I am a fan of doing SOMETHING to be involved with media, I’m not sure how I feel about this service so I’m going to post all my thoughts about the pros and cons and ask you to take a look at it and decide for yourself if it is something you want to do.

First, I’ll start out with the pros. Hats off to them for making it a fairly simple task to get video on your site. All you do is connect your webcam and off you go. If you don’t have a webcam, they provide links to get one-and webcams come pretty inexpensive now. You don’t have to redesign to embed the video nor does it take up any space. And I think that having video on your site definitely is a must and to have something like Bubble Guru will bring attention to the specific page or information you want your site visitors to pay attention to.

That said, I do have a problem with pop-up video. Have you visited a site that plays music that just started out of no where? How many of us didn’t look for the “turn music off” button on the website. If there wasn’t a way to turn the music off, did you stay at that website or move on? In a day where everything is becoming more and more what the consumer wants WHEN the consumer wants it, intruding into their browsing experience with a pop-up video might not be the best way to go. A button that allows the visitor to play the video if he or she wants it is an option at Bubble Guru, but it should be the default.

There is a way to stop the video, but not a way to pause it or rewind and so if you miss something, you have to start from the beginning of the video. You also will get this video every time you visit the site-there is no “skip” method to the video, so after the 3rd or 4th visit, the video is already very old…

Also, the video takes a long time to load, so a message bubble might sit there with nothing in it for a while. Then when it does load, even on my Mac 1.5 ghz 1 gig of ram computer, the video stumbles along sometimes stopping and skipping.

So things we can grow and learn from Bubble Guru is that video is a good thing and is fast becoming more than a fad, but a necessity. What we don’t want to start doing though, is intruding our site visitors with “listen to me now!” applications on our site.

Tip of the Day: New Media is about the client deciding what they want, don’t force it on them!

The way this site works is that I as a user may connect to people and build my network. When I connect with someone else I am also “connected” to their network to the third degree. So I connect with Bob. When this happens, I not only am allowed the opportunity to connect with those people Bob is directly connected to but also allowed to connect with those Bob’s direct connections are connected to.

Lorri Bob 1st connection 2nd connection

So what does this do for my business? Well there is a story that I can use to illustrate this. I was working on a project and needed to get in touch with someone from a company I had never been to or contacted before. I went to LinkedIn to see if I had any connections there. It just so happened that I did. I had a friend who had a friend who knew the exact person I was trying to contact.

I sent an email to my friend asking them to forward it on. They forwarded it on to their friend who then forwarded my message on to that person. Within a day I had response back and was communicating directly with this person about my project.

LinkedIn has different level of memberships and one of them is free. Sign on today and start connecting. You can connect to me by my CopperRain email lorri@copperrain.com.

I said in the title that you’ll never have to make a cold call again, thats because with Linked In, you can make all the warm lead connections through friends and associates. It helps you use the relationships you already have established to get in touch with other business owners, connect with potential clients and get inside the circles you need to be to make that sale.

Tip of the Day: Use Linkedin for your business calls or podcast!

When someone has a blog, they allow their listeners to “subscribe” to their media just as one would subscribe to the newspaper. This is done by using RSS or “Really Simple Syndication.” Actually if you don’t understand code, its not very simple-but thanks to our geek friends, they have made it as simple as clicking a button.

You can find the subscribe on anyone’s page, but it might come in different forms. The universal “subscribe to RSS” button looks like an orange square button:

but it might also come in the form of:

No matter the look of the “subscribe to RSS” button, once you click on it, it will add the website you subscribed to, to an agregator: a place that gathers all new episodes or posts. One of the more popular ones is Google Reader. I use NetNewsWire because I am on a MAC.

Once you click on this button the website will be loaded into your aggregator, and then every time a new post or episode is available, your computer will be notified and your computer will downloaded it. Thats it, so everytime I want to find out if any of the blogs I read have a new post I go to my aggregator:

I just hit refresh all and if there are any new posts, my computer gets it for me. No more surfing to each and every website-which saves me time to do more important things, like blog!

Here is a video that does a good job of describing RSS and how it works: It is called RSS in Plain English

If you have any questions or suggestions please email me at lorri@mediajoltz.com.

This first episode is casual as I introduce myself and my background-I work with a video production company and had started doing seminars on web video, podcasting and blogging and realized there are a lot of people who have heard these words, but didn’t know how these tools can be used as tools for their company. I found myself many times consulting businesses on how to integrate media into campaigns they were preparing. I started to listen to a lot of podcast and read a lot of blogs to make sure I am on top of the latest in media and online communication and want to be able to provide this information to everyone, not just those locally.
One thing I don’t mention in my podcast: my dream job in college was to be the first female Superbowl Director…who knows, it could still happen….