When I gave a talk about Bootstrapping in the Mohawk Valley to the MV Young Professionals group last month, one of the points I tried to drive home was that you need to surround yourself with people that make things…and that you should make something too. Whether those things are businesses, films, music, art, pieces or writing -whatever- I think it’s really important, no matter where you live. They will inspire you to build your own projects, or form partnerships that can accomplish more than either of you could on their own. And we have a lot of people locally that are doing some awesome work.
Recently had a chance to sit down at the Tram with Michael Patrei who is a film maker here in Utica to talk about a project he did a couple of years back called Ballou. The film was shared with me by Rick Short and I thought it was a really excellent documentary that was done on a marching band in an impoverished section of D.C. Michael’s film changed the lives of many of the kids in that band and the film took him as far as a festival in Belarus and was even screened at the White House.
I just wanted to share Michael’s story as yet another example of the cool things that are being done by people right here in Utica. You can watch the documentary online at Hulu by clicking here or find out more about the film at the official website.
Michael’s next project is a human rights film festival called called Unspoken.
I’ve been giving some talks recently to businesses and groups on promoting yourself online and some basic social media primers for business. I try not to get all caught up in the tools or the 3rd party add-ons because sometimes those are the things that can get confusing to people and you miss the point of the medium which is interacting, listening and sharing… It’s not about any one tool. So I try to leave those out as much as possible in order to get people acquainted with some best practices. But I often get asked what tools I use on a day to day basis for myself when it comes to managing all that data. So here’s a quick overview of what’s in MY toolbox:
TweetDeck - for Twitter management and sharing. I don’t load in any feeds from other networks to the system except for Twitter, though I do allow TweetDek access to my Twitter, LinkedIN and Facebook accounts so I can manage what I share across multiple platforms. The software allows me to separate, sort and search the tweets from over the 1,000 people I follow by category (Local friends, Conference Peeps, Social Media Gurus, Humor, etc), as well as monitor keywords I’m interested in tracking. It will also alert me anytime someone is mentioning my name or talking to me via @replies or DMs (Direct Messages). There a are a lot of other tools out there (CoTweet, HootSuite and the official Twitter Client) but so far for managing my PERSONAL accounts on a desktop, I’ve been sticking with TweetDeck.
Twitter (for iPhone) – While I use TweetDeck for my desktop, I use the official Twitter client for my iPhone. It allows me to keep tabs on my groups and conversations in a simple, intuitive interface, but lacks many of the bells and whistles that TweetDeck has.
Su.Pr - Su.pr is a URL Shortener that I use when I really want to track the sharing of my original blog post content. When I share a link (www.ryancmiller.com for example) it will shorten it to something that uses less space in your tweet (www.su.pr/Ekfjr). But by using their dashboard I can log in and track how many clicks each shared link gets in real-time as well as any retweets, and even let’s me easily submit my content to StumbleUpon. It allows me to see when my content is clicked throughout the day as well as which content strikes a chord with users. I can then use that data to make better decisions about when and what to post.
Google Reader – If you don’t currently use Google Reader or an RSS reader to subscribe and manage blogs you like. Sign up now. I subscribe to roughly 75 blogs that I read daily (or whenever new content comes out). Google Reader dumps down the content from all of these blogs into one place where I can read only new items at my leisure, tag posts, share them, and organize the blogs I subscribe to into categories (Social Media, Business, Photography, Wine, etc). Because let’s face it – I can’t read about business all day every day and using an RSS reader is a great way to manage all that content without having to go to each site every day to see if there is a new post.
Instapaper – I constantly see links or headlines to posts via Twitter or Facebook that I want to read – but don’t have the time right at this moment. So I use Instapaper to save those articles for later. Using a bookmark link in my browser it will extract the photos and text and format things in such a way that it’s easy to consume at a later time via my iPad or iPhone. Get it.
So that’s a start, right? Those are just my desktop tools that I use (though some of them cross over to mobile) to manage content and sharing of things I want to consume or share. If you’re looking to not miss a beat with news, keep better tabs on those in your network, or just grow your chops in the industry of your choice, some or all of these may help you out. I also consult and help to manage a lot of this data for clients at the agency, and we use some turbocharged tools for managing so many accounts and large mounds of data. But this should get you started on a personal level. Questions, comments, complaints? Leave me a comment and let me know what tools YOU use that I didn’t mention, and why.
I was leaving the restroom of a local watering hole about a week ago when I was stopped by a woman asking where she knew me from. I didn’t know her (at least I didn’t think I did). After a couple of seconds it came to her. I was a singer songwriter that she saw a few weeks ago at the wonderful Tramontane Cafe in Utica, NY. This was true. I did do an acoustic show there a couple weeks ago and had a great time.
Great crowd, great sound..all in all a perfect evening. This particular person apparently was just at the cafe and had no intention of staying – but ended up having a great time and enjoyed the music and stories (I tend to tell lots of stories when I play listening room shows).
And then she called me out. She started poking me in the chest and said that I needed to not ever apologize for taking my time between tunes and telling stories. That I need to look more people in the eye when I’m singing. The poking continued as she repeated back to me details of the stories behind the songs:
Spanish woman smoking Lucky Strikes
Ambassador to the U.N. buying tequila
Why I enjoy putting names of cities and weather in songs
This was both awesome and scary at the same time. There is definitely a part of me that doesn’t think people are listening in the first place-that thinks that what I have to say isn’t funny relevant or real-that doesn’t want to share a story, because of the inherent vulnerability that presents. But it’s that transparency that also allows people to connect, to have a laugh, or just to relate.
And so I guess what I learned first hand from that experience was that people do listen. Maybe not all people all the time, but whether you’re a musician, a salesman, a business owner, or someone just looking for connection…. it’s the stories we tell to each other (and tell ourselves), verbally and non verbally, that define us. Own Your Story. Give people a reason to connect with your art, your business or just you. Even more important, give others a reason to share their stories with you. I think you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find.
GoDaddy’s had a hell of a day after a video(not for weak stomachs) of CEO Bob Parsons killing an elephant on vacation has gone viral. I wanted to do a quick video to recap the story and also show how users around the world as well as people with massive online influence such as Peter Shankman – are giving this story legs, and how it will certainly affect GoDaddy’s bottom line and brand rep.
Lesson: Your personal life and your digital life are not separate. And when you’re a CEO, small business owner, or employee that can have big implications on your business’ reputation and bottom line. Keep in mind that this hasn’t even been out there for 24 hours…. One Godaddy competitor has already started running a Domain Transfer special where they will donate $1 for each domain transferred to them to save the Elephants-gimicky for sure, but I promise they’ve seen a spike in business today (Thanks Alex G and Erika for pointing that out).
What’s your take? Is a situation like this likely to make you move your domains? Or is it not enough to affect a purchasing decision? Does it affect the way you see GoDaddy? Fire away in the comments.
UPDATE: Mashable has a good follow up piece to this with Parsons explaining in greater detail the situation and circumstances surrounding the hunt and says that the herd was destroying the crops for local villagers, which is why they were allowed to hunt. It is certainly a more complicated issue than what’s shown in the video, but my point with this post is that perception is reality in many cases and when a video or story like this goes viral, a company needs to be out in front and fast. Regardless if the hunt was with the bet of intentions – regardless of whether Parsons helped save a village and their crops – the headlines and tweets all around the web are still ‘Godaddy CEO shoots elephant.’ We’ll see how well his explanation of the hunt gets passed around today.
This past weekend I hopped down to New York City to spend some time with some amazing friends, but also to check out one of my favorite bands ever, Over The Rhine. The show as awesome, to say the least but I thought I’d just share a couple of observations that I had while schlepping around Manhattan.
Since I had an afternoon all to myself, I went to MoMa for the first time and had a really wonderful time checking out all the exhibits. To be able to see some Warhols, Polllocks and amazing amount of Picassos all in one place was really cool. The piece that was simply a 12 in section of torn cardbord in a frame….well, I’m no art critic but there were definitely things I didn’t understand or appreciate.
I did however notice that an amazing amount of people were scurrying through the different floors and photographing every work of art that they liked or had seen before as a dorm room poster, with their cell phones. Hundreds of people, shooting hundreds of shots, textures, and group photos.
MoMa also has a pretty decent audio tour and iPhone app that guides you through the museum and provides some context to the exhibits and more famous works. I really felt like visiting this museum in particular was very much a social experience as much as it was a cultural or art-centric experience. Why do so many of us feel the need to take a low resolution cell phone photo of the piece we had as a poster in our dorm room, or have seen online? There are hundreds of pictures of Henri Matisse’s The Dance online – do we really need a cell phone version? No, but what the integration of the MoMa app, and a relatively lax photography policy has fostered is that going to MoMa (even alone) has become quite a social experience. We want to share the highlights of where we were, give our online network some context and content of where we are and what we’re about.
But is it good for art? Does it enrich the experience of visiting an art museum like MoMa for art’s sake? Do those cell photos posted to Facebook help expose people to fine art who wouldn’t normally take the time to look? Or does all this sharing take away for the experience of sitting (or standing) and reflecting on the emotions a piece brings out. I don’t know. But I suspect that Picasso could never have dreamed that his work would exist as cellphone wallpaper on thousands of phones. Regardless, I think MoMa understands that everything is now both a digital and social experience through social media and mobile technology, and they have for the most part embraced that same tech to provide visitors with some background and context of the pieces in their collection while also recognizing that some folks just want the social proof of sharing with their network where they are…or a Picasso as their cell phone background. What’s your take?
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Mohawk Valley Young Professionals event. Rick Short and I were honored to be asked to present and meet so many cool folks from the MoVa. Hopefully we were able to inspire and give you some ideas about how to thrive here. But the real takeaway from the evening should be the new faces and connections we all made. Remember, it’s not about the ipod – it’s about the infrastructure. That being said, below, here’s my little attempt at infrastructure. I’ve included an embed of our slide decks from the evening- feel free to share them, remix them or steal them. While many of the things I spoke about this evening are taken from my opinions and experience, I also borrowed a lot of great points and analogies to share with you from books, talks, and workshops I’ve been to from likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, and more. Hope you’ll check them out as well. They’re brilliant. Trying my best to cite my sources…
Also, here are some links to some of the peeps and organization who are making noise and making change in our area. I hope you’ll connect with some of them and work to build something great. Thanks again for showing up.
When people say that SXSW runs on beer, energy drinks and breakfast burritos, they weren’t kidding. I’ve been having an absolute awesome time the past couple of days, with great panels and meeting amazing people. One of the highlights of the trip so far was getting to hang with Erika Napoletano, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tom Martin, Shelly Kramer, and Katherine Meyer – all at once and in real life, at an amazing party thrown by Jay Baer. All amazing folks to not only follow online but also to meet in real life. Lots of talent and good vibes all around. I also challenged Gary V to pencil wars (and was beaten handily – I think he’s still undefeated) ((video below)).
Day 1 Highlights:
Panels
Panels
Panels
Meet ups
TequilaNOW party
Jay Baer in a Mariachi outfit
Pencil Wars with Gary V
Kickin’ it with RedheadWriting
Panels
Happy hour
Actually winning at pool against @katherinemeyer
Amazing Crawfish dinner
BED
Experiences like this remind me how much of social media and SXSWi truly are social, but they’re just tools to facilitate relationships. Getting to meet up with previously online-only friends I think is something that SXSWi and other tech conferences really are about.
But of course the panels have been amazing. I’ve gotten to sit in on discussions ranging from the future of social media, ad agencies, and community management, but also have taken in amazing keynotes from the likes of Guy Kawasaki and Moot (4chan). And we’re not even half done. I’ll be posting, notes, videos and recaps as well over the coming days, but wanted to just check in to say hi and let you all know I’m having a kick-ass time so far.
I watched the Oscars this past Sunday. I’ll admit it. It started as background noise while I cleaned up around the house. Basically since I don’t have cable or an antenna for the TV I plugged my mac into the TV and fired up the pre-Oscar video stream on ABC.com – but as soon as the ‘actual’ ceremony was underway, the live stream was only of commentary taking place outside of the theatre. Even though ABC was broadcasting the Oscars (over the air) for free, I couldn’t see it on the web. What gives?
At this point I had already (kind of) invested an hour of my time in the pre-show, so I was a bit curious as to if anyone could beat Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor, so I fired up Justin.tv and found a couple of streams of the broadcast that individuals were sharing (basically by taking the video signal from their TV and uploading the stream live through Justin.tv so we could all watch). But on occasion the channel would get banned or shut down by administrators. However, a quick Twitter search for ‘Oscars Streaming Live’ netted me a whole wealth of channels streaming the broadcast (some even in HD).
And so within another 30 seconds I was back to watching the Oscars, on my TV, through my computer. No problem.
When people say that SXSW runs on beer, energy drinks and breakfast burritos, they weren’t kidding. I’ve been having an absolute awesome time the past couple of days, with great panels and meeting amazing people. One of the highlights of the trip so far was getting to hang with 
