Personal | Totally Incorrect

David June 1, 2009

Scribnia: Connecting Blogs & Readers

I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting blogs to read. To be honest, most of my reading these days is blogs, rather than print media or other on-line sources.

A problem I have is finding great new authors who may well have something I really want to read, but I have just never stumbled upon them.

Enter Scribnia – a new website with the aim of connecting readers and bloggers in an entertaining community.

Scribnia is currently still in alpha, but I believe a public beta is planned pretty soon. There is already quite a lively community in the making. Once you sign up for the site, you can search for authors and publications by name or by category. You also have the opportunity to comment on and rate blogs that you like (or don’t like) to help other readers.

Here is the Totally Incorrect page at Scribnia, currently looking pretty sad with no ratings.

It would be great if you could sign up for Scribnia and review Totally Incorrect – some ratings would be really nice!!

Because Scribnia is a brand new community this is a great chance to get involved and help to shape the community. Some of the top blogging guys (and gals) such as Danny Brown, Tim Jahn and Lauren Fernandez are already there so you’ll have good company.

Just in case you have any questions about Scribnia, contact David Spinks, the Community Manager there at davidspinks@scribnia.com I’ve found David to be a really nice, helpful guy in helping me get started. You can also find David as @DavidSpinks over at Twitter.

It is going to be really interesting to see how the Scribnia community develops. I’m hoping it becomes a really good tool to help readers connect with some great blogs and writers.

To find out more, head on over to http://scribnia.com

Are you already a member of Scribnia? How is it working out for you?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: bloggers, blogs, reading, scribnia 3 Comments

David May 23, 2009

Blog of the Week – Discomfort Zone

When I first visited these good old United States, something that hit me was the number of coaches there are running around in sports. It seems as though there are more coaches than there are players.

Look at American Football, you telling me that, after four years of doing nothing at college but plying football, a guy can’t figure out who to throw the ball to? And what about baseball, are the players so dumb that they can’t decide whether the ball has been hit far enough for them to make a decision as to whether to amble over to second base or hang around chitchatting with the first baseman about the latest boutique steroids?

Crazy, and I’m convinced that this explains why the USA will never win the World Cup. How is anyone supposed to know where to kick the ball without the grumpy tones of Bill Belichick in his ear telling him which goal he is supposed to be heading towards?

I know what you are thinking – Holliday has finally gone completely off his rocker! Well you are wrong (I think!) because my Blog of the Week for this week has everything to do with coaching. This is because as well as trying to solve the unemployment problem by having 35,000,000 sports coaches, America seems to have a similar number of Life Coaches and my Blog of the Week belongs to one of these strange creatures.

I know what you’re thinking “Life Coaches? WTF?” I thought that as well, but despite overwhelming evidence that this is not a very good idea, I’ve decided to go out on a limb and make The Discomfort Zone by Tim Brownson this week’s Blog of the Week. Mr. Brownson is …….. (sharp intake of breath) ……..a Life Coach!!

There are certainly times I could use a Life Coach. Someone to make me get up at 5.00 every morning, run 10 miles before breakfast etc. Actually, The Discomfort Zone is nothing like this at all.

In his blog, Tim writes about lots of aspects of life, about ideas and really makes you think. If you are a skimmer, forget it. No short, concise and to the point quickie posts here. Tim clearly takes the time to craft well thought out stories and to really enjoy them you need to allocate some quality reading time.

If, like me, you have no idea what Life Coaching is all about, you can learn all about it at Tim’s site as well.

So, Mr. Tim Brownson is an interesting guy with a very thought provoking blog. I get the impression that (despite the fact he is clearly from the wrong side of the Pennines) he would be a great guy to go for a beer and a chat with – I’ll have to try and get to interview him for Totally Incorrect some day!

So The Discomfort Zone by Tim Brownson is a worthy Blog of the Week!

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, coaching, discomfort zone Leave a Comment

David May 16, 2009

Are you a Reader or a Skimmer?

This thought came about after a brief conversation on Twitter with Michael Schechter. Twitter conversations generally don’t have a title, but if they did I’d call this one “How do you cope with the fact your wife likes to relax by watching crappy TV shows in bed that you, can’t stand.”

There are obviously a number of possible strategies for dealing with this including: getting divorced, “forgetting” to pay the Comcast bill (not recommended because if Comcast disconnects the TV, your Internet access is toast too), sleeping in the spare room, etc.

My personal method of choice is to use my iPhone to listen to music and read – this is great because I can totally block out even the worst garbage on E! channel with ease.

Anyway to get to my point, Michael mentioned that he has an overloaded Google Reader and as a result had become an expert “Skimmer.”

Now this got me thinking. I would usually describe myself as a reader, not a skimmer. Although the majority of my reading in the last few years has been on various mobile devices, I used them to read some pretty big works: The six volumes of Churchill’s History of the Second World War, most of Dicken’s works, George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (George where the heck is the next book by the way – you’re killing me here!!) – the list goes on.

But know what, even though I have a bunch of books in both Kindle and Stanza on my phone that are started, I’m not making much progress right now. Why is this? It’s because I’ve subscribed to far more blogs in Google Reader than I can ever keep up with up! So I breeze through them, looking for interesting tidbits. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! I’ve become a Skimmer!!

What about you? How do you deal with the bedtime TV/reading issue? Are you a Reader of a Skimmer?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, google reader, reading 1 Comment

David May 15, 2009

Sick of insincere businesses?

I don’t always agree with Chris Brogan (no problem with that and I do read his blog everyday), but his recent post “Shut-the-hell-up-you-self-promoting-turd” caught my eye and not just for the attention grabbing headline.

Chris was complaining about the way a lot of companies insist of forcing old style marketing messages at us constantly, even when we all know they don’t work – rather like he does with his Thesis themes ads, actually.

So, anyroad up, the post got me thinking and my mind drifted towards things companies say and how this compares to what they do. Hmm, what do I mean?

First, I’m thinking of the businesses that go on and on on the “about us” part of their website about how the people are the most important thing about their organization. These are the businesses that promptly outsource manufacturing to China and make sad users have to try and deal with non-English speaking tech support in India. As soon as there is a dip in the economy these “really important and the real strength of the business” people are suddenly out on the street. They were just so important eh?

And then there are the companies who put a dumb “we take care for our customers” tagline on their logo. The kind of businesses that refuse to help clients when something is clearly covered by a warranty. Want to get a good reputation for fantastic customer service? Why not try actually doing it, rather than making it just marketing BS?

So here’s the deal – these days it is so easy for your clients and potential clients to find out just how an organization operates. You are not going to fool anyone with BS anymore. Your employees and customers deserve better.

To quote Mr Brogan: “Shut up! Just stop it.”

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, Marketing 1 Comment

David May 9, 2009

Blog of the Week – Planet Neil

My Blog of the Week for this week is Planet Neil, by Neil van Niekerk.

Neil is a photographer based in New Jersey, specializing in wedding and portrait photography.

While Neil is a great photographer and produces stunning work for his clients, that isn’t why his blog is Blog of the Week. I chose Neil’s blog because of the fantastic way he has stepped up and shared his knowledge with other photographers.

When I got back into wedding photography and had to get up the learning curve of this newfangled digital thing, Neil’s site and his posts over at Digital Wedding Forum were a tremendous help. I’m lucky in that Neil uses the same Nikon system as I do, so I’ve been able to take advantage of all the time and effort he has put into really learning the best way to set up these tools – knowledge he makes available for anyone wanting to learn.

He is also an expert in lighting – particularly in the art of getting good results from on-camera flash. I think there is a generation of photographers doing better work because of what Neil has taught.

In addition to his great blog, Neil also takes part in a lot of seminars and also has a book on lighting being published soon. He has a list of his upcoming workshops here. I see there is one soon in Boston, I might just have to attend! Neil’s book isn’t published yet, but you can pre-order at Amazon. I have.

So Neil van Niekerk is a great photographer and a great guy that loves to share and make things better. That is why Planet Neil is Blog of the Week! If you want to improve your photography head over there NOW!

And if you happen to be planning a wedding in the Mid-Atlantic area, you better contact Neil quick to see if he is available.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, learning, photography 2 Comments

David May 3, 2009

Blog Of the Week – Danny Brown

Danny Brown’s blog is my blog of the week.

For this week I had planned to make a change from my usual Social Media type blogs and move to somewhere else – photography to be precise. I knew exactly which blog I wanted to talk about – one that has really helped me with improving the photography for my wedding photo business.

The only problem is that this Danny Brown guy has been getting in my head all week and I’m wondering if putting some thoughts about what he is doing into this post will help get him out.

If you’ve not come across him before, this Brown character is a north of the border person twice over. He’s a Scottish guy who now lives in Canada – maybe it’s a character flaw!

The question is how the heck did this person get to take up residence in my head? I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that everywhere I go in the Internet these days he is there – almost as though he has figured out my likely destinations and decided to camp out there, waiting! He is all over Twitter for example It is impossible to take part in any of the #chats without seeing his avatar. To make it worse, he is making comments all the time as well.

So in an effort to escape, I might head over to some blogs. Same thing; there he is again, ready to ambush me. If he isn’t being talked about he is posting in the comments or – gasp – guest blogging. I’m seriously considering contact Al Gore and warning him that his invention is being taken over.

The main reason for Danny Brown being in my head is that all these Tweets, blog posts, comments and guest blogs make me think. I’m still a newcomer to the whole Social Media thing and I have so much to learn. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest Reading Danny Brown’s to get any answers, although there are certainly some there. I find that after reading his work I am questioning what I think I already know. Danny Brown challenges me by showing how little I really know and how much there is to learn.

Oh – if you’ve seen the 12for12k logo on my site, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that Danny Brown is the founder of that as well.

If you’d like to take the risk of reading some of Danny Brown’s work, head over to his blog at dannybrown.me. If your business is trying to get to grips with how to integrate this trendy Social Media thingy into your marketing plan you can also check his business site PressReleasePR.com.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

What do you think of Danny Brown and his approach to Social Media? Is he someone who has gotten it together, or just a Scottish guy with poor fashion sense when it comes to headwear?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, Marketing, social media 3 Comments

David April 28, 2009

David’s Twitter Newbie Tip

Getting some followers.

If you are just discovering Twitter (as I was a short time ago – I’m still basically a newbie!) you’ve probably found that it gets much more interesting when you build up a group of followers. There are a lot of strategies around for doing this, including many schemes that offer to get you thousands of followers in a very short time. If you want to do this – go for it. Personally, I think it is better to build a network of people with similar interests to yourself; people you might actually want to have conversations with.

Here’s a strategy that I think works.

Provide some information in your profile. If anyone (other than a spam bot) is interested in becoming part of your network, they are going to want to get a feel for what you are all about. A quick one line intro, a photo and a link to your website or blog goes a long way.
Post a few tweets on subjects you are interested in. For me, I will usually not follow anyone who hasn’t made at least some posts.
Find some people with similar interests and follow them. A lot of the people you follow will follow you back – especially if you’ve taken care of the first two steps. If you look at someone’s profile and their numbers of followers and followed are pretty balanced you’ll know you are in with a good chance.
Join in the conversation. A really good thing to do is to get involved in some of the organized “chats” on Twitter. I’ll post more on these in a future Twitter Tip if you don’t yet know what these are. The one’s I like to take part in are #blogchat on Sunday and #smbiz chat on Tuesdays. There are a lot more to be found.
If you find a good organized conversation with a subject that interests you, you’ll find a lot of people to follow and (if you take part) you’ll be followed too.
If you find something of interest on Twitter Retweet (RT) it. This lets more people see the interesting content and the originator of the material will usually thank you and often follow you. Here’s a good guide to ReTweeting.

You’ll find that once you get a few followers and start becoming active in the community, your number of followers will increase with little or no effort needed. I’d strongly suggest that you follow back people that take the trouble to follow you. I nearly always do except for the “get 10,000 followers by lunchtime” and “get rich quick while sitting on your bottom” crowd. It’s a good policy to always check out the bio of anyone you are thinking of following (see my first point at the start)

Most importantly of all, I think Twitter works best if you just want to network and have fun, rather than having an agenda.

If you are a Twitter user, how did you get started in building your network? Are there any great tips you could share?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: social media, twitter 2 Comments

David April 27, 2009

Google’s Morse Code Logo

I’m loving Google’s logo today, to celebrate the birthday of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the code that uses those little dots and dashes.

I must confess, I had no idea Morse was such an interesting guy and was well know as a painter long before he got involved with inventing the telegraph.

Clearly, Mr. Morse was the Al Gore of his day.

It is well worth while reading his Wikipedia entry. Thanks Google!

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