I recently had the pleasure of getting to speak with Erika Napoletano - better known online as Redhead Writing. I first started reading her work about a year ago through the re-tweets of some people I followed on Twitter and found her writing style as well as her sense of humor to be both smart and hilarious. It’s also not for those who are afraid of colorful language…. For the uninitiated, Erika is best know for her blunt, unapologetic writing style. Whether she’s blogging about business (the bitch-slap), her obsession with cycling, or why she’s not going to follow you on Twitter, Erika is someone who has done an amazing job of building her own personal brand as well as her own business. She was nice enough to sit down with me to share her story so far and offer up some great tips to the rest of us who aspire to write, run a business, or just do good things for your clients.
I’ve condensed our 45 minute chat and distilled it down to into 3 parts (about 10 minutes each). In part I we’ll talk about Erika’s journey to becoming a full time blogger and writer. Part II will cover the fine art of the Guest Post - how you can use it to build your audience as well as how to make connections with other bloggers to expand your reach.
Part III will be posted tomorrow - we’ll get into owning your brand as well as the agency / client relationship.
Many thanks to the head Redhead for taking the time to speak with me. Get some context and show some love by checking out Erika’s blog, follower her on Twitter, or connect via Facebook.
Did you dig it so far? Would love your thoughts, so fire away in the comments. Part III will be posted tomorrow.
I just took a quick swing into and out of NYC, catching up with some great friends whom I haven’t seen in the better part of decade. It was awesome to hang with Rachel, Micha, and Katha and one of the highlights was checking out the High Line in Manhattan.
Last year attended The 99% Conference in NYC and one of the keynote speakers was Robert Hammond who (along with Joshua David) spearheaded the project. Robert gave a great presentation which you can check out by clicking here - on how the project was born and how he helped to start a movement in the community to bring it to fruition. I was immediately fascinated by not only the look and feel of the High Line but also how it came into being.
Here’s a quick video of the park that I shot of us at the High Line as well as some footage of us enjoying the mustache exhibit by Dave Mead at the Chelsea Market.
Have YOU been to the High Line? Would love to hear your thoughts on the park - or David Mead’s photos. Those mustaches are fierce. Fire away in the comments.
One of the highlights of SXSW was Gary V.’s keynote. Had the pleasure of meeting him briefly as well as rushing to the secret tasting he did with @Katiebisbee. Sometimes I dread Q and A but the audience questions were awesome this time around. That being said, I’ve finally uploaded the entire Keynote (7 parts) including the complete Q and A. Hope you enjoy. Still more SXSW videos to come.
Here are the links to each part of the keynote that I’ve uploaded to YouTube:
Through sheer luck, I had the opportunity to chat with Hazel Grian and Simon Johnson - who were the creators of the Tweeture. I was amazed that this project was actually built as a context aware and location aware robot that could interact with whoever had possession of it at the time. I’ll let them explain it in much greater detail:
Hazel and Simon are looking for people who had interactions with the Tweeture at SXSW and are asking them to post their thoughts on the project to YouTube. I’ll have mine shortly.
I had a great time at the Gowalla party last night and got to meet the Tweeture as well as his temporary caretaker Adam Rucker - I’ll let him explain what he’s doing carrying it around.
