All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Web Stuff

A Syracuse Wiki?

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Some weeks ago, I was doing some research online and I happened upon the wiki page of a small town I’d never heard about in this state. It got me to thinking about my own home area and whether we had a wiki page or not.

Turns out we did, but in my opinion it’s not very good. It looks nothing like a wiki page, based on what I saw on the other page and of course the big Wikipedia site. I started wondering what it might take to have a better one for this area.

Then I was at the health club and one of the guys I know from Twitter, Keith, who also does computer stuff, showed up. I broached the subject with him and he mentioned that when he lived in Rochester, NY, that they’d had a wiki page and he loved it. I took a look at that page, and though it’s kind of plain, it worked much better than the one for Syracuse.

I started thinking that maybe we needed to build a brand new page to get it right. However, I knew it would be a major undertaking, and I decided I wanted to put together a dream team of sorts to discuss the issue. Besides me and Keith, there’s Josh, Patrick, and Chris (only first names because I can’t spell Patrick’s last name, and I’d probably get Chris’ last name wrong as well). We all met at a Chinese buffet on Erie Blvd near Thompson Rd (the local folks will know it) to talk about it.

The main discussion fell into two categories. One, whether locally people would care all that much, and then whether they’d want to try to build up the one that’s not great (that is if we can find the originator of the site, because we’d like to really dig into it) or go about creating our own from scratch. I purchased one of the domain names to protect it, but I’m willing to share it with everyone else, and Chris has server space he’s willing to donate so there won’t be any other costs associated with it.

What we all agreed upon is that we would put out a survey and ask Syracuse folks if they’d complete it and give us our opinion. The link is on Survey Monkey, and it’s 3 simple questions. It should prove to be interesting, no matter the outcome. And who knows; this post might get some of the rest of you who aren’t in Syracuse to think about one for your area. I’m definitely no community organizer, but this will be my entry into the market, and probably my only one.

Wiki

Personal

Where Would You Go In A Disaster?

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Today I got a CPAP machine, and that will be a story for another time once I start using the thing. Instead, I want to talk about one of the questions that I was asked that came from left field.

The question was “where would you go in a disaster?” I found the question stunning, so much so that I was lost for words for about 15 seconds, which doesn’t happen often for me. I said it was an intriguing question, and asked why they would ask me that. She said because the CPAP machine needs electricity, and that many people, once they start using it, find they never want to sleep without it again, and thus if the power went out where would they go to still be able to use their machine.

Of course, me being me, my mind had gone elsewhere. I’ve always had the scenario in my mind that if I heard about something happening like we were being targeted by a nuclear bomb that I would just hop in the car and drive as far west as I possibly could to try to outrun it, since we’d have some notice that something was coming. And I live within 35 miles of a nuclear plant, but it’s recommended to be safe trying to be 45 miles away, so I always figured I’d hop in the car and head south if I knew something had happened there.

Yet, when all is said and done, how many of us have thought long term about where we’d go if a disaster struck? For that matter, wouldn’t your believe be like mine, that it would depend on what the disaster was? For instance, since my house is a mixture of gas and electricity, if the electricity went out I could stay in the house, keep warm, and eat just fine. But if it was a flood obviously I’d have to get away, but where?

Have you given this one much thought? By the way, I answered eventually that I would probably go to one of the local hotels about 2 miles away, hope they had power, and get a Jacuzzi room and just chill for a few nights if I needed to. That made them happy, and all was right with the world. Weird, right?

Luxury Car Booster Carrier Seat Belt Safety For Pet

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mitch Mitchell

Social Media

SMM Countdown – Audio And Visual Options

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Tomorrow I’ll be doing my workshop on social media marketing locally with my friend Renée Scherer of Presentations Plus. Once again, instead of talking about it, I’m going to link to yesterday’s post on LinkedIn, which will link to the previous day’s post, and I’m also going to link to my post from last week talking about the third phase of my social media marketing methods for this workshop, since something that’s there is something I’m going to talk about here.


A Heap of Televisions
by Morgan Howarth

Something that’s generally easier to do today is to create a social media marketing strategy using audio and visual media options to help get your message across. Just six years ago visual media didn’t really exist for the masses, and even when it went live in February 2005, I doubt anyone expected that YouTube could be used for the types of things it’s used for now. Back in 2004 we could create MP3 files as sound files that we could then somehow get to other people, but they were large files and we didn’t have the download speeds we do today, so it took awhile before people could listen to your media.

These days, getting a video online takes creating an account on YouTube or Vimeo or one of the other sites, uploading the video from your computer or flash drive, which will only take a few minutes depending on the speed of your connection, and not only are you set with your video being online but it creates both a link to the video and code for your video that can be embedded into yours or anyone else’s site that takes a liking to it. That’s what I did last week with the above link to Phase III, where I posted a video of Renée talking about both our event and the place it was being held. It literally took her a couple of hours to film the video (multiple takes), get it to someone who cleaned it up in a couple of hours, then get it to me and have me take about 20 minutes to create the account and get the video uploaded. Then the next day it took me a minute to embed the video into the post; just amazing stuff.

With audio, there are many options, free and paid. Free options include popping an MP3 file online, which I’ve done with the numerous times I’ve been interviewed on both this blog and my business blog. Because download speeds are faster now and MP3 files are more compressed, this isn’t as bad a deal as it was in the past. There are also ways to create podcasts, such as hooking up with a site like Blog Talk Radio or a podcasting service that lets you record a file and convert it to something where people can listen to it easily enough without worrying about the time or having to deal with large files. A great example of that is my friend Tim Dodge’s site where he uploads podcasts of books he’s written one chapter at a time, since he’s also reading them. You should check out one of his books, Acts of Desperation, which I actually got to read and critique before he recorded it. If you look at the page, you’ll see multiple ways you can listen to it. Start at the bottom then move up, then go to the first page to listen to the rest of it.

No matter which way you go, it’s good to know that there are these social media marketing options, whether you decide to create them yourself or have someone else do it for you. One of these days, I’m going to finally purchase a camera, and then watch me go!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mitch Mitchell

Social Media

SMM Countdown – Why LinkedIn Is Essential If You Want Business Or Work

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I’m two days away from my social media workshop, and I’m spending this week talking about social media aspects. Instead of linking to my sticky post about the workshop, I’ll link to yesterday’s post where I asked how social are you ready for.

Today I’d like to talk a bit about LinkedIn. I realized in looking back that I’ve never talked about it all that much before, and I think it’s time to rectify that one. After all, I’m of the opinion that if you’re either someone who works for themselves, are looking for work, or already are working and hope to work for some time to come, that it’s essential for you to be on LinkedIn.

Why? Because LinkedIn is the place where true connections can be made with business people from around the world. It’s another opportunity to post something about your business, about your background, no matter what you do. It’s another opportunity for both advertising and networking. It’s another opportunity to talk to business people about topics local and international, talk to people within your industry or people who shares the same interests as you just like direct networking.

It didn’t use to be like that. In the beginning, it was just a place to try to get business links, but it wasn’t overly friendly an application. So I connected to a few people; then what? Then they added things like groups and applications and suddenly it was a more vibrant place.

For instance, something I do at least once a week, if not more often, is to go on LinkedIn and, in the area where I have 120 characters, mention something I’m doing or did earlier in the day. Those messages get out to people who either check in on you from time to time, or through the weekly email that goes out to every person on LinkedIn, but most specifically the people who you’re connected with have the opportunity to see what it is you’re doing. I also belong to a few groups, one for my local chamber of commerce, a couple for consultants in general, and the others having something to do with some of the business ventures I presently do. I have the opportunity to comment on what others have written, as well as create my own topics of discussion.

The best thing, though, are the connections. You can find local people you know and if you know their email address you can connect directly to them if they approve. If you don’t know their email addresses, or those of other people you might seek out for whatever reason, you see people in your network who might be connected to those people, and you can ask for an introduction, of sorts. For instance, according to the site, I have 237 direct connections, which means I have almost 22,000 people I can connect to in within reach via one person, and just under 7.5 million people I could potentially connect with if I branched out to try to meet more people. That’s phenomenal!

The other side of that, however, is that you need balance. That seems to be a theme of mine lately, so let me explain. One, you really only want to connect with people who you either know or who are in industries you’re in; at least initially. That’s because those are the people who will do you the most good. Trying to connect to everyone “just because” not only wastes your time, but if people you try to connect to visit your site and don’t see you connected to enough people who could potentially benefit them later on, they’re going to ignore your request. Like networking in person, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

And two, even though you can do some minor advertising, you have to watch that you don’t go to far. Not only will people on this site object to being sold to, and trust me they will call you out (I haven’t been called out because I know the game, but others have been lambasted and reported for doing it), but you can get kicked out by LinkedIn for doing it. Since this is business and not pleasure, and it’s the best one around, you don’t want that occurring either.

Of course there are other sites which say they’re all about business, and they probably are, but if you remember yesterday’s post (did you follow the link?), to be effective you shouldn’t overdo it because there’s just not enough time to do it all. Of course, if you’re on LinkedIn, you can hook up with me there; just let me know how I know you if we don’t know each other all that well.

No matter what, if you work in some capacity, you need to be on LinkedIn.

Sea Grass Magazine Tote by Household Essentialss

Social Media

How Social Are You Ready For?

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How social are you really ready for? Whether you’re into social media for marketing or pleasure, you have to be careful when determining just what it is you want to do and how you want to do it. Social media can be overwhelming; if you don’t believe me, remember the first time you were in a live chat room, if you ever did that, and how difficult it was holding multiple conversations at once.

Yoel Ben-Avraham via Compfight

I only did that a few times before I realized how overwhelming it could be. One night I kept up 16 conversations for 2 hours, and I think I rarely blinked; I couldn’t even get to the bathroom! It was fun, but I couldn’t get to anything else I wanted to do.

That’s how social media can be for some people when they overextend. Sometimes one can overextend with just one thing, such as spending hours upon hours on Twitter or Facebook or whatever social media option you’ve chosen. Sometimes you can overextend yourself by trying to get into too many things, then trying to find the time to do them all.

I see that when I read some people’s Twitter posts. Do you know there are over 100 different ways to track Twitter posts now, and that’s not including mobile phone apps? Who has the time to try all these things out? Definitely not me, but some of the younger set does because they seem to be hard to please; yeah, I said it! lol Not that it’s a bad thing, because out of those things they want come new platforms, but it’s a never-ending search for perfection that just isn’t going to happen.

Then there are people looking for new ways to meet people in places other than Twitter or Facebook. That’s not a bad thing except some people sign up for everything, and once they’re there they send requests to all the people they talk to in other places, trying to get them over there as well.

It’s the programs and websites that ask them to do this, but sometimes it’s overwhelming. I get probably 5 or 6 new requests a week for sites and applications I’ve never heard of from someone I may or may not know all that well. I also get repeat requests that I’m not sure the people know are being sent to me because I refuse to join.

The thing is that I’ve figured out my limits, and I’ve figured out my time and strategy for both business and personal use. I’m already pushing those limits while still trying to do other things. Introducing more things into my life that essentially are the same as what I already have isn’t in my best interest.

What do you feel is in your best interest when it comes to social media? Are you satisfied with what you’re doing now? Are you always on the lookout for a better way to do things? And do you feel stressed or satisfied with the amount of time you’re putting into your social media projects, which by the way includes blogging?