Earlier this year I turned ignored not one, or two, but three invitations to join Pinterest (I now know what a sin this is. Please forgive me). I was busy with a project and didn’t want to get caught up in a new social network that I kept hearing was the most awesome time-suck of 2011. But after months of my good friend starting tons of emails and chats with “I found the most awesome thing on Pinterest,” I took the plunge and joined. Its a good thing I waited because I have easily spent more time there than any other site (well, maybe second to Facebook) than any other site all year.
At first glance Pinterest seems all weddings and babies, but there is a great deal of depth to the collections if you spend some time curating your follows. After about a month on the site I have some tips that have improved my experience and helped me discover some unique goodies (diet coke brownies, anyone?) Perhaps they can be helpful to you too!
Lesly and I both had the great fortune of attending Facebook’s annual f8 Developer’s Conference a few weeks back in downtown San Francisco. I was working the conference as one of their presentation designers, and had developed several Keynote presentations for breakout sessions, and Lesly was covering the event for a few blogs. Every year, Facebook announces something big at this conference, and this year didn’t disappoint with the announcement of Timeline.
Now, your Facebook page appears as a virtual scrapbook, chronicling your entire life on a single timeline. So if you upload, say a picture of your first bike ride, it appears as a life event on your timeline. Maybe you put up your first date with your spouse, or a photo of the birth of your child. These events, along with every other status update you’ve ever put up on Facebook, appear on your timeline. Very cool!
Also cool, was SNL alum Andy Samberg coming out at as Mark Zuckerberg for Zuckerberg’s keynote speech. The crowd didn’t quite know what to make of it at first, but it was hilarious.
Everything in consulting is focused around getting clients, securing contracts, and at the end of the day getting paid. There’s little to no advice out there about what to do when the project ends and both sides go there separate ways, but I would venture to say how you end is almost more important than how you start, and can cement your reputation with your client regardless of how the scope of your project went. Here’s a few Do’s and Dont’s on bringing a project to a successful end.
I know there are other things one can do to nicely wrap up a project, but I’ve found these are great ways to keep the relationship open–you never know when a happy client will want more of your hard work, and if the last thing you’ve left them with is a great summation of your most recent work to jog their memory, you’ll likely be top of mind when a new project comes along.
I’m still reeling so much from the awesomeness that was last week’s WordCamp that it’s taken me a while to process it all. I already love WordPress as a blogging platform, a content management system because it’s just so easy to use. In less than an hour I’ve trained the most technology-ignorant or averse audiences to use it, including a group of public health leaders from central Africa who needed to share information on medical supply deliveries with a fleet of bicyclists.
So, it’s been like a holy grail to get to a WordCamp-every time one was near in DC, I missed it and now that I live in SF there was no way I’d not be there. I even passed up a trip to China with the Georgetown men’s basketball team. There were no brawls at WCSF, but there was a pie eating contest!
My biggest takeaways from the weekend?
The downside of the weekend? Some jerk snagged my iPad charger while I was engrossed in Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word speech. But, it even that had a silver lining as it introduced me to the founder of a local blog I read all the time–SF FunCheap–and he turned out to be a really cool guy. So much was made of the WordPress community at this event, and I got to glimpse that. I’m looking forward to 2012 already!
Wow. I’ve never done so much work in such a short amount of time.
Digital District (a team consisting of me and my lovely wife Lesly Simmons), was lucky enough to be the design and marketing team for The 2011 National Association of Black Professionals (NABJ) Convention and Job fair, which just wrapped up last weekend in Philadelphia, PA. With over 3,000 attendees, this year’s conference was one of the biggest they’ve ever done. Lesly and I were responsible for the direct mail piece (mailing to over 6,000 members), the full 108 page conference guide, pocket guide, event flyers, ads, the Salute to Excellence program guide, the logo for the 2012 Convention, and a few other things. It was a ton of work, but our two person team got everything done on time. We took care of all of the printing, the direct mail, the delivery of materials, and I even hand delivered flyers and placed them on seats before a big sports award program. We did it all. In a very short amount of time.
It just goes to show that a small team with big experience can do almost anything!
Will PR people ever get it right? Will reporters stop being so mean and take calls? Can’t we all just get get along?
Last week the San Francisco PR Summit Conference at the St. Regis in Soma, tackled these questions in the world of social media and tech writing. A few highlights:
All Things D editor Kara Swisher talked candidly (the only way she ever does) about the editorial focus of the site, and her thoughts on some of the rumormongering among tech blogs. The big takeaway for PR pros, she shared that the site will increase it’s product coverage in the near future. So get your pitches ready!
Speaking of pitching, its sad to hear the same advice repeated over, but it seems like some PR pros still haven’t figured out the art of the targeted pitch, at least according to the five bloggers on one of the afternoon panels. The group covering publications including Wired and the San Francisco Chronicle reminded listeners that the “spray and pray” method of pitching still doesn’t work. What has a better chance of success? Pitch via email with a succinct subject line and a brief overview of the event/issue/news in the body, don’t call after you email to see if your message arrived (don’t ever do that, honestly. Everyone hates it, not just reporters,) and dont send gifts if and when your pitch makes it into a story. Thats just weird.
Social media strategist Eric Schwartzman made my day during his keynote when he bigged up Google Reader as one of the best tools to monitor industry news (I couldn’t agree more). He called digital illiteracy the biggest hindrance to successful social media implementation in business, and since I’m currently dealing with some serious DI with a client, I asked how to fight it. His advice is to get hands on, so even if they don’t fully embrace social media engagement, they understand why I am AND have realistic expectations of the results.
I’ve gone to a number of conferences recently for free and felt like they were a waste, so I’m excited that this one I paid for was both cheap and useful. The summit will travel to a few other cities this fall, so I highly recommend it if it comes to your city.
Today Digital District client the National Association of Black Journalists announced their 2012 convention will be held in New Orleans. Our team designed the convention logo, which was unveiled today along with the new city. Check out the artwork and the press release below.
NABJ Convention 2012: New Orleans Announced as Host City
NABJ Returns to Crescent City for first time in nearly 30 Years
WASHINGTON, DC (July 28, 2011)-Today the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced that its 2012 Convention & Career Fair will be held in New Orleans, La., June 20-24, 2012.
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