Oscarina: digital + social

Books on my nightstand

These are the books on my nightstand. They're not ranked in any particular order, nor does a spot in the stack mean I'll actually read it. These are the books on my nightstand I'd like to finish.

I've got a nice combo of summer reading books, biz books I should finish, books to improve my work/life balance and books I find feed my inner geek.

I've started reading four of them and suspect that I'll finish them sometime this year...or not.

When I travel I try to bring along a book, but my own personal craving for hard cover or the so-called coffee table books makes me a shoe-in for the additional weight baggage fee. I'm struggle to keep my luggage light as it is. I swear most times I pick my bags up at the baggage carousel only to find a neon orange tag affixed that boldly declares HEAVY in ten languages.

But back to the books--here they are in order from top to bottom:

1. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larson
2. Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (on a side note I saw one of the authors speak...such simple concepts that work brilliantly)
3. Take Back Your Life by Sally McGhee
4. The Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless (love, love, love this book)
5. The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
6. Lovemarks by Kevin Roberts
7. Eyetracking Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice

What's on your reading list?

Facebook: Should it be in your social marketing strategy?

My mother works for the Morale-Welfare-Recreation Program of the United States Army--she called me the other day to ask how to set up a 'fan' page in Facebook similar to the one set up by Family MWR on Facebook. Over the past decade my mother often calls for support in graphic design, some copywriting or marketing ideas. Sometimes it's just to be a sounding board as she tries to manage programs for young soldiers stationed across the world. In return for a few hours of work she sends me a gift card to my favorite yoga studio. It all works out.

So I asked her: what will you do with a Facebook page? What purpose would it serve for you to have a Facebook page for MWR? She was stumped. "Doesn't everyone need to have one?" she asked. Sure, if you can understand what you're going to get from a Facebook page.

Facebook is a walled garden--eveything you do in Facebook circles back to Facebook. As long as your audience uses Facebook then using it as a medium makes sense. Here are a few more tips to make sure that your page is successful.

1. Keep it updated and engaged. Facebook works best when it's used. We've all got friends who are active posters--making status updates almost non-stop. You need a friend like that to be the one running your Facebook campaign.  
2. Get a dev resource. Some of the best Facebook interactions occur with games or gimmicks developed on Facebook's platform. Think about Farmville or Bejeweled Blitz. The idea is to keep your fans involved in your page.
3. Encourage participation. Hold a contest. Allow voting. We all love to vote and rank; and with the expediency of the web it's easy to do it immediately. Make is simple.

Finally--make sure that you're taking advantage of the Facebook Insights. See who is visiting your page, liking your updates, viewing your content and sharing your information. This is a great way to peek under the hood to rate success.

Ultimately, using Facebook is an inexpensive and potentially viral way to reach your audience. Just make sure that it makes sense for your audience.

Just finished two weeks of travel. Some personal time off in Austin (please, please check out www.lakeaustinresort.com ) and then work in Atlanta.

Not sure that my body is made for drinking and not sleeping...I think it's one or the other.

Twitter Magnets: like poetry magnets, but for twitter

I’m not super happy about the piano music, but the interaction is pleasant.

http://twittermagnets.com/

Playing for Change: Stand By Me

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Growing tomatoes in Seattle: an experiment

I keep trying to grow tomatoes in my little garden patch—relegated to the only true sunny spot in our yard sits a patch of rocky soil between the driveway and the neighbor’s lawn. Two summers ago I dug out mountains of old iris bulbs, sad bearded ladies who popped up every spring…so over-mingled that they all were a faded lilac color, even in height and size.

Then last summer I pulled out the remaining bulbs, a few errant hedges, and decayed railroad ties. I planted tomatoes, peppers, squash, zuchinni, sunflowers, lavender, and a lone peony along with a few dahlias. Oh, and a group of Walla Walla onions that weren’t separated at planting so we ended up with smaller onions—a nice bonus.

For all of our efforts to keep on top of fertilizing, pruning, watering, and harvesting we didn’t end up with a real crop of edible tomatoes until early September. We planted the damn things in late May. Almost four months of baby-sitting for tomatoes that still required off-vine ripening in the window sill.

This year I’m turning to a new resource—the boob tube. I’ve purchased two Topsy Turvy Tomato Planters. Let the summer fun begin!

Blue Post: Death in America

The last two weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions--elation, sadness, excitement, and grief. Only six short weeks ago my uncle called to tell me that my aunt had been diagnosed with liver cancer. She had three to six months to live. Ten years ago she fought off breast cancer, however, it returned a few years ago. And despite her valiant attempts to fight it...it didn't work this time. She fought the good fight.

I planned to travel to Colorado to see her later this month, but she was ready and at peace with her fate. Extremely at peace and prepared for death. This wasn't to say that she was pleased about what was going to happen, but she was prepared for it. She said her good-byes and she spent time with her children and grandchildren. She was ready to go.

She passed away on April 2, 2009 at 11:43 PM MST.

As I mentioned her passing to my friends, colleagues, and family I was surprised at how limited our vocabulary is for death. We're confined to a few select phases and with those we're supposed to convery an overwhelming gamut of emotions--I'm sorry, my deepest sympathies, my condolences...when what we're really trying to say is this sucks. It's not fair. That blows.

After the funeral mass we drove to the cemetery--and I took this photo.

Wrapping up my first speaking gig

On Friday I spoke at the Intelligent Content 2009 Conference in Palm Springs, CA. Earlier in the fall I responded to a request for speakers with a proposed topic of building hybrid content acquisition strategies. I piloted this approach with an online journal I published for four years—I had zero budget to spend on hiring authors and did not have an in-house staff beyond the few colleagues who wrote articles periodically. This is also a strategy I saw turned up a notch while at Microsoft working as an acquisitions editor for the Work Essentials website.

What I did in a grassroots sort of fashion while on my own took on an added layer of complexity with contracts, multiple authors, technical writing agencies, and metrics. At Microsoft we reported on the usual (unique users, page views, top entry points, etc.) as well as implemented a few specific surveys to gauge our content as well as the intent of our audience. Those combined with small one-off usability sessions helped my team to create a substantial consumer-focused website. Unfortunately, that website did not last as we couldn’t justify any lift in revenue with our audience.

However, those principles of creating a hybrid approach to sourcing content for consumer-based websites stuck with me. So I pitched it to the organizers at IC09 and wouldn’t you know it…they invited me to speak. From the feedback I’ve received so far I did well—of course it was a small gathering and I managed to meet most of the conference attendees before my session. Nevertheless, people were interested in approaching content development from multiple sources.

In addition to a great conference—the other speakers were amazing. I always enjoy meeting other folks within my discipline (content management) who are passionate about their jobs and their ideas. I’m excited to attend next year and hopefully be asked to speak again.

Ann Rockley, of the Rockley Group, was the primary sponsor along with the Content Wrangler, Scott Abel. And in Ann’s opening remarks she mentioned that she wanted to offer a conference in the dead of winter at a boutique hotel someplace warm. We stayed at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs. Talk about cool…this hotel was amazing and full of character. I did have a few issues with the hotel, but nothing that ruined my stay. (One major issue…my room did not have a bath tub, only a shower. And the shower head was installed low enough on the wall that the stream of water hit my neck…I did squatting showers the two days I was there.)

I also met the fabulous Scott Abel, the Content Wrangler—his session certainly enlivened the IC09 crowd and I spoke with him at lengthy on Friday afternoon. I do hope to work with him again as his passion for good content management is palpable and sincere. His AT&T customer service story is a hoot. I do believe he posted it to his blog.

My dog is a German elitist

Seattle area is known for good dog parks—our favorite happens to be the Marymoor dog park. Over 40 acres of off-leash dog heaven where well-socialized dogs can sniff, chase, and poop with abandon. (Located at each entrance is a roll of plastic bags for picking up the last activity.) There are paths and bridges covered in wood chips to help keep the humans on track and out of the mud. Running through the park is the Sammamish River where dogs can leap in to catch tennis balls or those odd looking floats the hunting breeds prefer. We see little dogs and big dogs. Brown dogs, black dogs, and blue dogs. Dogs in purses and dogs in packs. Naughty dogs on leashes. Quivering dogs hiding under benches. Happy dogs and bark-y dogs. Dogs. Lots and lots of dogs.

There is even a dog wash…seriously for $8.75 you can wash your dog in a lovely waist-high dog tub. It operates like a car wash where you pay for 8 minutes and turn a dial to rinse, soap, rinse and then dry your dog. Love it!

Now, for all of the wonderful socialization opportunities and amenities of the dog park you would think that any dog would be stoked to go. Zoe is. She just doesn’t care that there are other dogs at the dog park. When we lived in Orlando we’d take her to other dog parks where she would play with other German breeds. I should mention that Zoe is a Weimaraner—she’s a big gray hunting dog. Her feet are webbed for swimming and she’s bred as a partner dog.

But she only hung out with the Deutsch dogs: Weimaraners, Boxers, Dobermans, and the occasional Shepard. She bypassed the labs and the retrievers, the terriers and the toy breeds in favor of her fellow countrymen. As she’s gotten older (she’ll be nine this year) she’s gotten less interested in any dogs. She loves the dog park and the occasional sniff, but she’s not going to chase your dog. Nor does she appreciate your dog chasing her.

I wish dogs had thought bubbles—like in cartoons—floating above them as they ran around. Zoe’s would say: Running! I love running! Wait…where’s my mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Oh, there she is. Let’s run! Let’s run! No sniffing my butt. I’ll sniff yours, but hey! Where’s my Mom? Mom? Mom? Oh, there she is. That’s my ball. That’s my ball too and yes they will both fit in my mouth. Hey, no petting. Where’s my mom? Mom? Mom? Oh, there she is. Running! I love running!

Nikki McClure: what a woman can do with an X-Acto knife.

Last fall my manager introduced me to the work of Nikki McClure. She’s a Washington native who creates amazing images. I like this one and purchased it as part of a set from www.buyolympia.com. She also produces beautiful calendars. If it’s something you see everyday then why not make it beautiful?