I’ve kept this Adobe Key Caps cheat sheet handy since it arrived in, according to the ©, 1989 or thereabouts. Download the large version so you’ll know exactly which combinations to tap out when you need ¢, ?, •, and my favorite, ™. Diacriticals and a few ligatures included.
Whether you define social media as the 20th century spanned by two phones hooked together by copper wire or a bluetooth keyboard tapping out a tweet that ends up as smart phone text in the 21st, success with the medium begins with understanding the process.
Social Fresh Attendance by Category
Which is exactly where Social Fresh has landed on the map of the Continental United States. I was able to gain critical insight from some of the best in the business when Tampa played host to their multi-stop tour in February, promoted across the social media spectrum by founder Jason Keath (@jasonkeath) as the answer to marketers in various “underserved cities” wailing at the “How does all this stuff work?” wall of confusion.
The 1-2 day conference objectives are teaching marketeers – ad shops, pr firms, corporate communication staffers, philanthropic agencies – first the basics, then expanded specifics of invoking social media in its various forms. Facebook and twitter first, augmented by late breaking news in the app and cloudware departments later.
The chart above shows the typical conference breakdown of attendees by channel, and is indicitive of the broad interest among corporations, marketeers, government, non-profits and others in learning how social media communication strategies can be applied across markets. Social Fresh brings in a full slate of new media stars to shine in a venue that’s part camp meeting, part Mary Kay convention, where they’re free to serve up advice and instruction on the best ways for an audience of mostly pilgrams to navigate a landscape where there’s still no road map. It’s a job for experts, and Social Fresh delivers.
You can view more on the evolution of social media here.
But can it sing? Judging by the handout highlights, it’s pretty clear we’ve moved well beyond desktop publishing. When I joined two dozen or so other invitation only attendees in Orlando April 5 for an Adobe technology sneak peek, bets at the $2 window were on a new full version Creative Suite release. Instead, a recalibrated release timetable was rolled out along with a CS5 dot-five version upgrade, company insight into areas of major focus, and a show and tell review of CS5’s major product (mainly Photoshop) improvements.
The two-hour session, held in an anteroom at the Seaworld Renaissance Orlando, was hosted by Scott Morris, Senior Director of Product Marketing, and Noha Edell, Senior Solutions Engineer, in a tag-team format of feature highlights and live how-to demos. Message of the day? An almost urgent awareness of the importance attached to serving content to mobile platforms; the role of metrics as the company extends channels (Omniture and hosted services); and a clarifying ceasefire in the Adobe-Apple Flash On-Flash Off Mobile War. Continue reading
The March, 2011 meeting of the Public Relations Society of America Tampa Bay chapter was the first local professional organization to feature live, over distance technology using Skype VoIP to bring in talent from afar and marked my debut as a producer and moderator of streaming social media content.
Skype allowed for a remarkably comfortable exchange of see you-see me conversation between the presenters beaming in from Baton Rouge, LA and Seattle, WA respectively. In addition the cloud presentation software Prezi was utilized for the first time as an alternative to the ubiquitous and to many banal Powerpoint bullet lists. Both techniques were employed after first being experienced at the Poynter Institute’s first Social Media Day in November, 2010.
The historic event featured two dynamic presenters from two different time zones: Monica Guzman (above, onscreen), Director of Editorial Outreach at Seattle’s intersect.com, and Louisianian Whitney Breaux, fellow PRSA and PRAL member, founder and exec director at Baton Rouge Social Media Club.
Whitney’s one of the first Baton Rouge practitioners I met as a new PRAL member, while my (virtual) introduction to Monica was at Poynter’s Social Media Day, which was also my first exposure to intersect’s remarkable social site. (Read more about the powerful features available at intersect in the PRSA December chapter newsletter here.)
With the explosion of social media niche channels circling the linchpin giants facebook, YouTube and twitter, tending the content garden is becoming a real exercise in time management and it’s become increasingly clear that the need to prioritize – triage might not be too strong a term – is becoming critical, as is the insight to quickly adapt to new channels as they become available.
Whitney (above, in monitor) spoke first about the evolving interest in her favorite project, the Baton Rouge Social Media Club, from startup to a fresh new design makeover just recently launched. Evidence of the buzz social media gets in Baton Rouge, state capital and home to Louisiana State University, is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that Tampa Bay – defined by St. Petersburg, Tampa and several professional sports teams – hasn’t yet caught up. She also talked about how her new position as director of social media at Wright-Fiegley Communications is already showing measureable results for the firm’s client roster, which includes several projects for the State of Louisiana.
Monica’s focus was on the remarkable flexibility offered by intersect that enables users to tag content in a linear fashion using both time and place locators. For example, looking for the intersection of Washington, DC and January 2009 returns a set of events remarkably different from the community view on the same day in Tampa, Baton Rouge or Seattle. For pr practitioners, there’s a very clear advantage to deploy intersect in the social media toolbox. I call it Google.
For business social, a term that seems to successfully encapsulate the real differences that exist between casual and professional internet chit chat, how that challenge is met could mean the difference between a well built out communications strategy and one that shortly after facebook falls off the radar.
PARIS Lagardère SCA today announced a €651M binding offer by Hearst Corporation for the sale of it’s international publishing empire (102 titles in 15 countries), including the industry leader Cycle World brand, part of the HFMUS portfolio of titles.
Lagardère would retain control, however, of it’s iconic ELLE trademark, which it will continue to license for various markets including mobile, print and product, and thus benefit from future royalties.
According to the press release, the parties have until Q3 2011 to complete the sale.
There’s not much Tim Tebow does that I don’t like. Actually, there’s nothing he does that I don’t like, and a whole lot that I do. His new web site timtebow.com has a fresh look, his YouTube collection’s growing, and he’s keeping his head above water in the Denver altitude.
If this ad was built around anyone else, it would be a laugher. Instead, it just brings a smile to my face. Role model? It doesn’t get any better.
This post on USA Today last August got me to thinking. Could this have been me on any number of Cycle World Treks? Well, yes it could, as a matter of fact, given my woeful state of experience and not really that nimble riding style.
The story concerns Leigh Fazzina, a mountain biker in Connecticut who broke her neck on a downhill leg, but could easily apply to any number of scenarios. Being able to tweet when a voice connection is tenuous or impossible becomes a significant asset. Toss in location awareness and you’ve got a very sophisticated rescue tool in your pocket.
When a buddy in Baton Rouge recomended dropbox, I opened up with a suspicion-based defense of my not really that useful iDisc/Mobile.me online storage feature as being the same as, before politely thanking him for his interest and filing the info in “maybe later, sometime”. Times change, in this case a few months, and Bob’s your uncle, it works great for a whole bunch of stuff. Plus it’s infinitely better than Apple’s slower than a TSA patdown at a stripper’s convention alternative.
If you at any time need to backup critical data, synch client info, or work online from a remote location, dropbox is for you. Otherwise, just move along.
I could go on, but this Macworld review says it all, better, with examples. Dropbox Review | Macworld Wonder how long before they hook in a mail app to use with?
David Armano writes for Edelman PR on all things social media. A goal for 2011 is to pay more attention to what he’s got to say.
This December offering requires moderate parsing, but with the blizzard inspired transportation breakdown as a metaphor, he offers a brief checklist of what corporations might pay attention to if the goal is to match up social technology’s impact on both media and business.
It is, as he says, food for thought.
In the mid-’70s a client wondered if the new design trend utilizing large format color prints could be adapted for the welcome center to a golf course subdivision on Florida’s West Coast. One of the labs I used at the time – Dallas based Meisel who then also had a lab in Atlanta – was actively promoting the concept, including some of my own stock.
It was only when the finished size required was measured against the original media used to produce the image that eyebrows raised. My plan: shoot the scene, an early morning dew drenched landscape of a green framed with Spanish moss, on 35 mil transparency. In my mind it was simple: load up a Leica factory loaner with K25 and fire away.
Today, December 30, 2010, is the last day a roll of Kodachrome will ever be processed. It is the end of an era, the end of a very large chapter in the history of photography. Read more of my story here.
