blogbrevity’s posterous

social media musings in 140 words or less {& a bit of inspiration} 

Making a List, Checking It Twice

It is proven that when you write things down, your focus aids manifestation.


As a creative person, I do not like a schedule.  My best work comes when I go with the flow.  However, I do like lists.  They help me have a target of things I want to accomplish, and sometimes, they just help me to remember!


However, I want to share a recent strategy that has helped me to work out.


My list always included scheduling a time for working out or quiet time.  But, somehow, these things always ended up at the bottom of my list, just being honest!


Recently, I had an idea to post on my refrigerator, “When are you going to work out today?”  I found, in this way, I could plan on setting a time, or not, THAT day, that would work. It did not conflict with the rhythm of my day. Every morning, I could consciously think of when I could work out on that particular day, and I have, at least four times a week.


A Eureka moment for me, and just in time for the holidays!


You can substitute any goal to post:


•  “When are you going to meditate today?”

•  “When are you going to write your blog post today?”

•  “When are you going to work on your painting today?”

•  "When are you going to work on your new business idea today?" 

•  “When are you going to call your Mom today?”

 

Please let me know if this works for you or any tips you use! Thank you.

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Filed under  //   art   creativity   exercise   goals   inspiration   LOA   meditation   painting   quiet time   time   time management   working out  

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What's Happening - Twitter the News Organization

Twitter no longer cares "What are you doing?"  Twitter wants to know  "What's happening?" Moving beyond personal status updates, Twitter is positioning itself as the news source that it is.

I always thought "What are you doing?" was a big misnomer for the power of Twitter.  It was the reason people were confused about its value.  As someone who helps people with Twitter strategy, it is the first roadblock I have to eradicate with people learning the tool.  I remember sitting at Y-Pulse in San Francisco with a 20-something staffer as I was updating info from the conference on Twitter. Her response, "What are you doing? (sic) I just don't get Twitter?"   I quickly explained that Twitter was a forum to exchange what you are you doing with other people like you with similar interests.  I further explained that you have "spheres of interests" and build your followers around those interests.  I asked her about a hobby she had and would she like to meet other people who shared her interest.  "Oh I get it!"

So, an ultimate frisbee loving, jazz aficionado, who happens to be a start-up entrepreneur in web design, would follow people who play ultimate frisbee, like jazz, are start-up entrepreneurs and web designers.  By exchanging "What's happening?" in your areas of interest, you engage in conversations with like-minded folks. 

The beauty and continued success of Twitter, as explained in this Twitter post about the "What's happening?" change, is that it is an open forum; you do not have to confirm relationships. This is key and why it doesn't work the same way in Facebook and will not work the same way in LinkedIn. 

"What are you doing?" isn't the right question anymore--never was.

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Filed under  //   facebook   linkedin   social media   twitter   twitter status update   what's happening  

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Three Important Tips to Help You Avoid Scams & Protect Your Email List

In light of the recent story by BBC technology reporter Jonathan Fildes "Scam Hits More Email Accounts,"  and other information this week, I still find many intelligent people falling for all kinds of scams when it comes to digital communications.  Therefore, I wanted to share a few simple tips that may be helpful to you.

 

First of all, if you ever doubt any information in any communication including a Twitter DM or email, search the information in google or search.twitter.com.  Make sure to (1) Include all key phrases along with the word “scam” or "hoax" in the search.  Oftentimes, this simple step will quickly unveil to you others’ experiences and save you from many problems.  This applies to any offer including jobs!

 

Today, I received an email asking for help with an Amber Alert. I am sure my friend's heart was in the right place in sending this information out to all his friends.  However, when I searched "Ashley Flores Scam", I found these results immediately; Ashley Flores is NOT missing .

 

Another misstep, this friend sent the email  to everyone on his contact list and displayed their email addresses in the "cc:" section of the email. I cannot stress enough the importance of putting any (2) list information in the “bcc:” section of an email, if you do not want everyone to see everyone’s contact information. This is not only a service to you, but to your "friends."

 

I also had a business contact email their entire contact list in the "cc:" section. Why would you give everyone privy to your business list?  Do you want them to market to your customers? Seems simple, but is not obvious to many.

 

The third tip is to (3) change your passwords regularly, and do not use the same password on all sites.  This tip is well known but particularly difficult for people to adopt. At least try to change your passwords every season. Fall is here, change your passwords today, and don't fall for scams.

 

Most of you already know this information, however, I also saw this again today: DO NOT open those mafia Twitter DMs, they will take over your account.


The above photo is courtesy of my friend and budding photographer @marapearson .  You can enjoy more of Mara's photography at http://bit.ly/GfPQw .

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Filed under  //   Ashley Flores scam   avoid   email   email scam   hoax   lists   protect   social media   tips   twitter  

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Where the Wild Things Are

If you haven't yet seen the TED talk on creativity  by Sir Ken Robinson, it is one of the most enjoyable and eye opening 20 minutes you can spend. 

Sir Robinson was recently in the Netherlands at the Creative Company Conference to promote his book,  "The Element."  He defines the element as the point where natural talent meets personal passion, where what you enjoy and what you are good at come together.  His book covers creative individuals who took diverse paths and found success by following their "element." You can enjoy yet another engaging talk by Sir Robinson from this conference courtesy of Rick van der Wal of CRINID.com.  (If you aren't following Rick on Twitter, he has lots of ideas about ideas and creativity @rvdwal.)

Sir Robinson states that one of the most important capacities for creativity is divergent thinking.  He describes it as an essential process, and  "the capacity to think of lots of answers to a question, to see lots of possibilities, to make lots of connections. It is often involves thinking in analogies, in metaphors." Sir Robinson relayed a study that tested for divergent thinking among 3 to 5 year-olds.  Amazingly, 98% of the children tested in the genius level for divergent thinking.  As we get older, this capacity for divergent thinking wanes, so much so, that by the time we are adults, only 2% of us retain this ability. 

Look for more posts about creativity this week. Can't wait to see the creative adaption of "Where the Wild Things Are" next week.  "Let the wild rumpus start!"

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Filed under  //   creativity   CRINID   genius   ideas   ideation   Sir Ken Robinson   TED   TED talks   The Element   Where the Wild Things Are  

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What is Social Media?

Ideas in action. ~ Angela Dunn (aka @blogbrevity)

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Filed under  //   Angela Dunn   blogbrevity   social media   social media definition   twitter  

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Find something you love to do so much you'd do it for free ~ DJ AM

"My mom always said, you want to be happy in life, find something you love to do so much you'd do it for free, then find somebody to pay you for it, " DJ AM.
In memoriam, Adam Michael Goldstein, DJ AM,  1973-2009

I spent last weekend going through my vinyl record collection from my past career as a D.J. with my teenage son. I hadn't touched the records since I closed my nightclub a number of years ago. Music has a way of involuntarily pulling you into the past.  Whether you want to look back or not, listening to a couple of notes draws you into a vortex of memories. Although those days were filled with great memories, they are gone and I choose to live in the present.

I guess that is why I chose not to touch the records. When I closed my club, I focused on being a mom which is the most rewarding career of all. I marveled watching my son's excitement at playing the records he loved for me on my trusty Technics 1200 turntables (still a remarkable piece of engineering.) I marveled even more that his favorites were my favorites, some of the songs from before he was born. He also had the same eclectic taste which was my signature as a D.J. I was able to mix a plethora of styles and enjoin a diverse crowd into a symphony of communion, long before mixing genres was fashionable.

My son showed me how he taught himself to scratch. It brought back memories of me teaching myself to mix records and "scratching" was the ugly result of not lining up beats-per-minute (BPMs) correctly. I taught myself how to line up the measures of two songs and had an uncanny sense for compatible harmonies even though I never formally studied music. My son had; he studied piano and percussion, and I watched in amazement as this iPod kid deftly handled the vinyl.  

However, I was lucky; I was an anomaly. My career was not affected by the addictions that played a different siren song for some other D.J.s. My addiction was the sound of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people, screaming in delight when surprised by a song in a night's journey of music and dancing. Making so many people happy?  Yes, you would do it for free.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ Charles Dickens

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Filed under  //   Apple   D.J.   DJ AM   iPod   mixing   music   records   vinyl  

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Amazing Tool for Finding Your Online Persona from MIT

An addendum to my previous post on "Are You Aware of Your Digital Footprint ?"  Here is Aaron Zinman's tool from MIT analyzing my persona.  Try it yourself, and READ the posts (or footprints) as they are searched, amazing!

You can also search your Twitter username as I did.

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Filed under  //   digital footprint   digital media   MIT   online   personas   sentiment analysis   social media   social media monitoring tool   twitter  

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Are You Aware of Your Digital Footprint?

Water is probably the only place you cannot make a footprint; not even this 1800 pound (800 kg) polar bear can.  You may not ever think about your footprints, but have you ever thought about your digital footprint?  All the places in cyberspace where you have left a comment, downloaded a photo or music, made a purchase?


It is often advised that you “google” yourself to see what information is out there. Have you ever searched your name in 123people.com?  Many are very surprised to see all their information displayed so publicly.  Among the “50 Things that are being killed by the internet," Matthew Moore of the Telegraph.co.uk lists privacy and says, “We may attack governments for the spread of surveillance culture, but users of social media websites make more information about themselves available than Big Brother could ever hoped to obtain by covert means.” 


However, society is quickly adapting to digital media. Recently, at the ePharma Summit, Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution Health and co-founder of AOL, reminisced about Amazon.com, “If I’d stood up back then and suggested that consumers would enter their credit card number onto [Amazon.com], that the number would be stored for future purchases, and the site would recommend what they should buy next time, I’d have been run out of the room."


Now, Zappos has created the first social shopping site , and the latest viral video on the social media revolution says that you will no longer find products, they will find you.


Smart marketers are using many social media monitoring tools and services to keep track of you online, e.g., Radian6 , Scout Labs , Jodange , Spiderfly , Social Media Metrics , to name a few.  Through “sentiment analysis," they sort through online text for positive vs. negative commentary as well as subjective vs. objective text.  I believe this trend is the magma of marketing today.  It is also the way most of these social media platforms will make money, including Twitter.  The data being collected is what is valuable.


Although some pundits like to dismiss Twitter as babble, smart companies are taking advantage of its SEO generating and data mining properties. Do you know your Twitter bio acts as a meta description on google?  In fact, do you know all of your tweets are indexed? Have you ever thought about it? 


Recently, I came across this tool developed by Aaron Zinman , a third year PhD student at MIT, and was amazed at what was instantaneously searched and analyzed, from a comment I made on Jeremiah Owyang’s blog to a compliment I gave to my dog’s groomer.  Zinman’s tool analyzes your digital footprint to create a “persona," the way the Internet sees you, “It is a critique of data mining...It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world...”


Social media is not going away, and comments will be made about you or your brand regardless of whether you choose to participate or not.  Obviously, the more positively you project yourself, the better. This post is not meant to make you paranoid, just aware.   


What are your thoughts about your digital footprint? Don't be afraid to comment!


Honored and happy to have this as a part of my digital footprint, from "The Web Strategist " blog, "Blogbrevity, thanks, you clearly grasp the trends of the web ," Jeremiah Owyang , Web Strategist, former Forrester Analyst and now Partner with the Altimeter Group. Thank you, Jeremiah!  


Photo of polar bear in the water is by ucamari and licensed through Creative Commons.

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Filed under  //   digital footprint   Jeremiah Owyang   Jodange   MIT   monitoring   NY Times   personas   prnewswire   Radian6   revolution   Revolution Health   Scout Labs   sentiment analysis   social media   Social Media Metrics   social media monitoring tool   Spiderfly   Steve Case   Telegraph UK   twitter   webbed marketing   Zappos  

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Social Media Revolution: You Thought It Was a Fad?

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Posting for posterity. Although this video shows the undeniable force that social media is fast becoming, some of the statistics have been called into question here. Still, makes you think, no?

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Filed under  //   facebook   fad   linkedin   posterity   revolution   social media   twitter  

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Can't Please Everyone, You've Got to Please Yourself

 

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Critics, do you listen to them?  Do you let them squash your creative spirit?

In a recent post, Seth Godin made an argument that there are only some “Critics that Matter." I believe the only critic that matters is you. Normally, we are our own worst critic anyway. 

Often, to create something truly beautiful, we pour our heart and soul into the creating. It is very difficult then to detach emotionally from anyone’s judgment, especially if it is negative. Artists of all types, including business innovators, often get discouraged then by some of these “professional” critics.  One thing to understand is that these critics live their lives to be contrary.  They develop notoriety for their contrarianism.  You cannot take their sentiments to heart.  They are not real arbiters of taste, and like Seth advises, they do not matter. 

I truly believe that if you follow your passion, it will drive you to create the best.  You will only fail, if you do not listen to your heart.

This post is dedicated to my artistic Twitter friends who inspire me every day, especially @elephantbird, @winsorandnewt and @Guy_Vincent

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Filed under  //   #art   #ffparty   artists   best   contrarianism   creating   critics   Critics that Matter   Seth Godin   twitter  

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