On Having Lunch at Panera
The din resonates
Countless voices frantically
Proclaim facades and personas
Below the cascade
Simplistic souls stand
Wall flowers alone and longing
Within, a voice asks
Shall we dance?
Viewing entries in
"social networking"
"Traditional marketing focuses on what brands attempt to portray to consumers. Social media allows consumers to tell brands about themselves, while simultaneously increasing brand awareness by promoting interaction and a sense of community."
-Mary Rodgers, director of marketing communications, Cuisinart and Waring, at the 2010 Shopper Insights in Action Conference
Note: Thanks to Connie Chesner for sharing this with me. Visit her here.
-Mary Rodgers, director of marketing communications, Cuisinart and Waring, at the 2010 Shopper Insights in Action Conference
Note: Thanks to Connie Chesner for sharing this with me. Visit her here.
Take 8 minutes and watch this video from TED talk. Amber Case is a "cyborg anthropologist.'
Twitter
tweets #scream
RTs mark my mind
@slapping my humor
taunting my @attention
Facebook!
look what @she said
funny pictures
another #page to #Like
that should be on LinkedIn, too
LinkedIn!
a mention of my @business
my expertise must be seen
Plz RT!
my domain claimed, reiterate
duplicate, repurpose content
again, repeat
#retweetupdatepost
then
there is no room
nothing left for
reflection
resting
in the arms of con-tem-plation
no room for
being still
stillness, in this place - now
creative
i'm starved
(HEY! i should #tweetPostUpdate that...)
For a long time (meaning more than 10 years) I've been trying to articulate an assortment of thoughts, ideas, and theories about one of the biggest challenges face in life: the ability to find and maintain joy.
I have put together some research and designed an interactive experience to share with others. The end result is that I have the privilege to offer a workshop over a five week period in the first part of 2011. I hope you'll feel free to drop over to the blog and Facebook Page - and perhaps, just perhaps - participate in the journey.
Now, I return you to the regularly scheduled blogging here at Kim' Korner.
I have put together some research and designed an interactive experience to share with others. The end result is that I have the privilege to offer a workshop over a five week period in the first part of 2011. I hope you'll feel free to drop over to the blog and Facebook Page - and perhaps, just perhaps - participate in the journey.
Now, I return you to the regularly scheduled blogging here at Kim' Korner.
Last evening I took advantage of a rare opportunity to enjoy one of the best story tellers of our generation, Garrison Keillor. The master of A Prairie Home Companion and troubadour of Lake Woebegone, Garrison Keillor knows how to weave a tale.
The Steven's Center was a delightful venue for the event. The stage front was set with a simple table, stool and microphone stand. Denise Franklin of our local public radio station, WFDD, offered a simple and respectful introduction of Mr. Keillor that set the stage complete with understated anticipation.
What followed was a well measured unleashing of humor, poignancy and inspiration as the baritone voice of Garrison sung and spoke story into our hearts. His humor was masterfully crafted right down to the black suit and white shirt that playfully gave way to a red tie, socks and sneakers: classic Keillor - refined and established tradition with a splattering of irreverence.
I had two take a ways this night: 1. Garrison's description of marriage as "A life time sentence to a relationship with your best informed critic." You have to love this. My wife and I looked at each other with instant agreement and bursting laughter. 2. The art of story is a dying art and if we lose this wonderful form of communication, if the digital snippets of media that bounce in and out of our awareness each day manage to capture so much of our attention that we no longer have the time or craving for the well turned phrase and a rambling illustration...then life will be diminished beyond reclamation.
If you have not had the pleasure of basking in the mastery of story as it is delivered - no, performed - by Garrison Keillor then reach out into this digital, instant gratification world and GET YOU SOME well paced, long rambling, heart stroking, laughter generating, life adoring STORY.
I'm going to take a walk out onto some thin ice, and then jump up and down on it.
Social Media has become a loud and hot topic and for good cause. In the last few years tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have skyrocketed in popularity. Facebook tops 500 Million users, while the youthful Twitter has grown to over 18 million users and LinkedIn, in a very business oriented market niche, has grown to more than 80 million active profiles. The reasons for this growth and the subsequent intense chatter are varied and full of theory and opinion. I'll add mine to the mix.
Social Media (specifically the venues mentioned above) has empowered the internet user to connect and communicate with communities of people online. They provide ongoing and interactive forums with intricate and vibrant interfaces. Now - let that statement settle a moment. Community connections. Interactivity. Intricate interfaces. I'm too lazy (or stubborn) to break down the various forms of Social Media to apply these elements, but it should be apparent that each of them have these elements: Community connections, Interactivity and Intricate Interfaces (although I will say a word about interfaces - meaning, the many ways you can now connect and communicate across not only a single Social network, but between those networks. These are represented mostly by 3rd party UI tools).
Social Media has presented us with a unique twist to the internet's ability to display information and made it more accessible for the user to participate in what is being said to/from any given target audience. It is a grass roots movement empowered (i'mpowered?) by technology. This isn't blogging.
Blogging isn't, by nature uniquely interactive, community focused or intricately interfaced - at least not like the aforementioned (I love using that word, just because it is so fun to type aforementioned...) Social platforms. Blogs are written mostly by individuals or small teams of people. Typically, blogs have something to say to the reader. The voice of the blog is primarily singularly directed from the writer to the reader and blogs don't really provide a very interactive format for conversation. What of the comments you say?
Comments on blogs are usually just that - comments. The typical format for comments doesn't lend itself to conversations very well. Readers leave their thoughts and opinions and there may or may not be any response by the author of the post, and almost certainly there is no conversation between commenter's. The technology to connect comments, responses and dialogue via blog comments is cumbersome and not widely implemented.
Blogs build readership, not communities. For the aforementioned (I do love that word) reasons, blogs aren't particularly useful at creating communities. The relationships created are more between the reader and the blog than they are among the readers. Those who follow a blog don't by design connect with each other.
When it comes to an intricate interface that can connect the community (that doesn't exist) with others inside and outside of the readership of the blog, blogs are sorely lacking. In fact, blogs have struggled to find a singular technology to connect them with each other and readers for years. There are many and diverse blogroll tools - but no universally accepted format. There are blog directories and listings in abundance, yet even the great Technorati lacks for universal recognition as the dominant blog directory. Yet, it is this lack of Social interface that has, I believe, thrown blogging into the Social Media mix.
Bloggers have embraced Social Media to promote their blogs and the interface technologies provide by Social Media have made that a workable mix. Technorati's State of The Blogosphere 2010 identifies this reality. Here are some of those stats.
78% of bloggers surveyed are using Twitter with the most common purpose being to promote blog content (72%) and share links to interesting content (62%)
87% of bloggers surveyed use Facebook, and the majority (66%) do not have a page for their blog separate from their personal account
The most effective social media sites to promote blog content are Facebook (28%) and Twitter (26%) followed by LinkedIn (4%) StumbleUpon (3%) Flickr (2%) and YouTube (2%)
All of this to say, Blogging isn't Social Media - bloggers have however embraced Social Media in much the same way that companies have utilized it to promote their web presence.
Nuff said - end of thin ice dance.
Nuff said - end of thin ice dance.
A NEW BLOG!! For those of you who have not heard the news, Katie, Rachel and Allison (formerly of Triad Smarty Pants) have joined together to launch a brand new site for moms in the Triad! They are called Triad Moms on Main and are here to bring you EVERYTHING you want and need to know about being a mom, raising a family, finding great deals and taking care of yourself.
Drop over and visit them. Please tell them I said hello - because they need to know that this dad promotes moms!?
Go on now, click over...
Want to "see" what is being felt around the world last year, or even in your city today? This is an amazing tool and worth a few minutes to explore.
Drop over to "We Feel Fine" and take a look at the feeling of others... maybe even yourself.
If you are a blogger and can be in Winston-Salem, NC in October 28th, you might want to join us for a Blogger Meet and Tweet.
See details below. If you would like to come, email Laura (lauraw at rmhwinstonsalem.org).
See details below. If you would like to come, email Laura (lauraw at rmhwinstonsalem.org).