My Social Media Journey

Time Spent Elsewhere

The Pocono Tweetup tribe has been keeping me very busy.

I love them for that because it means they have been pushing me past my comfort zone.

An unfortunate consequence is I have less time to spend here.

A fortunate consequence means I have to rethink where else I’m spending time and rethink the value of those activities.

Are you being challenged by your friends both offline and online to break out of your comfort zone?

If not take Seth Godin’s lead “Maybe you need new friends”.

What activities are you spending time on?

Rethink the value of that time which is spent elsewhere!

Social Is As Social Does

My new motto came as an inspiration while watching (for the millionth time) “Forrest Gump” – here it is:

Social is as Social does!.

Take a second… Let it sink in… Social Media is NOT ME standing up acting like a talking head.

Social Media is ABOUT YOU!

Take WIIFM (What’s In It For Me!) and spin it 180 degrees to be WCIDFY (What Can I Do For You?).

…for now I’m asking WhatCanIDoForYou?

Tweet your questions using the hashtag #WCIDFY – I’ll be watching.

Linchpin – 2nd Copy Goes To Mike

Wow – Seth Godin doing what he teaches…

I received a 2nd copy yep that’s right a 2nd copy of Linchpin Seth’s new book. In the book Seth talks about giving gifts. This book then will be my gift to a good friend Mike Beckenbach. Read Mikes’ blog at: http://beckenbachpr.com/Blog/.

Seth ran an experiment where he offered to send at his cost a preview copy of his new book Linchpin to the first 3000 people that would make a donation to the Acumen Fund. 100% of the donation went to the fund so in reality the preview copy was a gift from Seth to begin with. Now he sends me another copy as appreciation for acting on his preview offer and making a donation. A letter from Seth came with the book that reinforces the act of giving.

Buy two copies of “Linchpin” from Amazon.com now – keep one for yourself and give the other one away.

Seth thank you. The art that you bring to this world is an example we all can learn from.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be looking for ways to “Give more than I Get” that I can roll into my daily routine and carry forward with me for the rest of my life.

What gifts can you give?

How does your art affect the lives of those around you?

Share and inspire. Thank you.

Cracked the Cover of Linchpin

Received my advance copy of Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin yesterday and cracked the cover last night to begin my journey into “The New World of Work”.

To get the advanced copy (public copy should be out on the 26th of January) I was one of the fortunate people to get in on Seth’s experiment. He asked 3,000 people to donate at least $30 to The Acumen Fund and he would send a copy to you at his expense. That means all proceeds raised went directly to The Acumen Fund – cool.

I’m gonna save my review for later but here’s a teaser. Chapter one takes you on a journey through what was the norm for jobs, businesses and factories and lays the ground work for what is to come (hint: look out it is already here).

Hold onto your seats because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride (for the good) as you begin to transform yourself into a Linchpin.

You can order a copy from my Amazon Store (affiliate links) under books.

Personalize your Facebook URL by adding a Username.

At today’s Pocono Tweetup I learned how to personalize my Facebook URL (web address) by adding a username to my settings.

I’ve seen other people post their Facebook address using their name or some variation of it, for example Jason Trump another member of the Pocono Tweetup Ning uses http://www.facebook.com/jasontrump. I often tried to get to my page by adding my account name to the Facebook URL like this: http://www.facebook.com/bruceflinn. Problem is I always got the error page like the one below. What gives?

For the life of me I couldn’t figure this out until… the subject came up at today’s tweetup and Lisa Sanderson said matter of factly “Oh just update your settings.”. Easy for her. I requested her assistance and fired up my Facebook page.

 

I found the *settings* link in the upper right hand corner and clicked it.

 

On the settings page I then clicked the *change* link for Username.

 

I can’t do print screens for the rest as Facebook only allows you to change your Username once so *Choose Wisely*.

I was given a choice of names to use and after picking the one I wanted I clicked the *check availability* link and was elated when the message came back telling me I was good to go (my words). I saved my changes and that brings us back to now.

You can find me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bruce.flinn which is a whole lot better than something like this: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/profile.php?id=nnnnnnnnnnn&ref=nf (where *n’s* would be a bunch of numbers that represent your user id).

 

Pocono Tweetup Scheduled for December 18th

This is a real quick post to let everyone know that the 1st Pocono Tweetup has been scheduled for December 18th at Panera Bread on Route 611 beginning at 8:15am.

Full details can be found at the Pocono Tweetup Ning / Forum under the Events tab. You can sign up to be a member of the forum (there is no cost involved) where you can read about new Events and interact with other members, build your own MyPage with info about yourself and browse through the forums to find some good content relating to Social Media. There’s also a real time chat feature which could be really helpful if you’re working on something and get stuck and need a helping hand.

Please visit the forum and introduce yourself. We will be talking about the forum on Friday to see how we can make it a useful tool for everyone.

Thanks and hope to see you at Panera Bread Friday (directions and info are on the forum under Events).

Coffee, Like Minds & Passion

Coffee

Like most people I start my day with a cup of coffee. I’m not a big drinker – one cup / mug usually is enough. Today like last Friday I was brought into a conscious state when I realized I was thinking about my last post Invitation to Coffee in the Pocono Mountains. I got up grabbed some paper and a pencil and began taking down notes. Fifteen minutes later my wife wakes up and says “good morning – do you want some coffee?” of course I said “yes” and continued to jot down my thoughts.

To tell the truth this idea has been on my mind since waking up on Friday. I’ve had 3 cups of coffee since Friday and it looks like I’m in store for some more.

Three people so far have expressed an interest in at least getting together with me and talking about doing something – Lisa Sanderson, Jason Trump (the original invitation for coffee came from Jason a couple of weeks back) and Mike Beckenbach. Lisa and Jason I met in the Social Media world through Twitter, Mike I have known for sometime now – at least I thought I did.

 

Like Minds

In digging around the web this morning I re-visited Mike’s blog and came across a great post that really reinforces my feelings on getting this meet up off the ground. It Starts with Passion. Take a few minutes to read this post from Mike, the link will open it into a new tab or window so that when you are done I’ll still be here and you can pick up where you left off. See you in few…

Mikes’ post talks about doing that which is your passion even if it doesn’t pay the bills or make you a world known superstar at least you will have been fulfilled. It’s not always easy to do this but when it happens you get a natural burst of energy and time seems to rush by.

Observation: people of like minds have a connection even before they get to know each other.

That last point is an important one because you see I met Mike well over 2 years ago maybe even 3. He was a tournament director for a poker league at a local tavern where I played. Over time we became friends because I respected his game and admired him for his outgoing personality which seems to come naturally for some people. I’m not one of them. I am a quiet person by nature which is why this meet up next week is a real stretch for me. Anyway somewhere along the way I found out Mike was in Public Relations and Marketing but we never really sat down to talk about what each of us does for a living.

It turns out I really didn’t know Mike until this morning when I read his blog post about passion. Yes more recently we have shared a little bit about our lively hoods but after reading his post and doing some further exploring throughout his blog I came to the realization that there is much more to Mike than the friend I play poker with.

 

That Brings Us to Passion

Artist unknown
Passion can be a misunderstood word at times but as it pertains to our jobs and career choices I think it’s pretty clear. If you wake up most mornings with ideas running through your head and an energetic drive to get the day started then I’d say you’re passionate about what you do, plain and simple. Don’t get me wrong we all have our off days but if your on days far out number them then you are doing what your heart loves to do. God bless you and your courage to get out there and be doing it.

 

Take Away

If you yearn to be doing something else because of a tug in your heart start small, do some research, find some like minded people and begin a conversation, read a book, subscribe to some blogs but most of all do something that starts you on the journey to discovering your passion.

- Peace

Invitation to Coffee in the Pocono Mountains

The Inspiration

Last week Jason Trump (twitter: @jtdesigns – blog ) sent out a tweet inviting anyone in the Pocono area to meet up for coffee. A couple days later I had the chance to connect him with Ryan Knapp (twitter: @ryanknapp blog) on twitter that was looking for help designing a web banner. Jason thanked me and I responded saying I’d be interested in that coffee meet up when he gets a group together.

The Wake up Call

Well this morning I woke up at 5:34 and started mulling this coffee meet up over in my mind. And that gets us to right now.

The Invitation

I’d like to reiterate that offer for a coffee meet up to my twitter followers and social media friends to talk about the possibility of sharing what we know about social media with other professionals in the area. This is an informal invitation and I have no idea how small or big this could be but I’d like to see it grow into at least a once a month #poconotweetup. There’s a ton of topics that could be covered and we could do hands on workshops to get people started using facebook, linkedin, twitter, a blog and more advanced topics like Pay Per Click, Adsense, Adwords, affiliate networking, installing plugins etc.. I could ramble on but I think you see where this is going.

The Knowledge

People like Lisa Sanderson (twitter: @LisaSanderson blog) who is a real estate agent in the Stroudsburg area uses social media to build content, context, recognition and trust could share her experience, knowledge and best practices with other agents looking to enter the social media theater. Jason Trump would be perfect for a design your website / blog workshop and as a Google Adwords Qualified Professional we might be able to pull together a one-day workshop for the more advanced users in the group.

These hands on workshops would help everyone and would be a great way to get people started off on the right foot. The more informed first timers are the less mistakes they’ll make and the social media community will be better as a whole. Now I haven’t talked to either Lisa or Jason about this but that’s where the coffee drinking begins.

The Questions?

Are you interested? Could we do this? Let’s get together and find out. I’d love to get this big enough that one day we could get people like Chris Brogan (twitter: @chrisbrogan blog) in for a day.

Times running out and I need to get the day started – I seriously think this is something we can do! What do you think? Leave your comments below and let’s drink some coffee…

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[ updated: 2009/11/20 @ 11:21 EST ]

 
Here’s a MindMap (click to see full size version) of what I’m thinking about – I will update it as suggestions come in and I begin to clarify more of my thoughts.

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[ updated: 2009/11/20 @ 14:43 EST ]
This is great. So far I’ve heard from the following people that said let’s go:

• Jason Trump @jtdesigns on twitter
• Lisa Sanderson @LisaSanderson on twitter
• Mike Beckenbach @MBeckenbach on twitter

I’ll add to this as other people express an interest, in the meantime the strategy for the weekend is to talk it up amongst friends and by mid-day on Monday finalize who then begin the when and where for our 1st meet.

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[ updated: 2009/11/20 @ 16:48 EST ]
Added Google Calendar to site as an event planner. Thoughts?

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[ updated: 2009/11/22 @ 12:16 EST ]
Woke up this morning with more ideas swimming around inside my head. Can’t wait to get together this week with everyone that has expressed interest.

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[ updated: 2009/11/25 @ 11:34 EST ]
Had inspiration last night and created a blog to use as our teaching example – PoconoTweetUp.com. The first post will give you an idea as to where I think we can go with this. Thoughts anyone?

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Choosing between WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

There have been a number of people recently asking the question “What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?”.

There’s a great explanation of this very subject on the Support section of WordPress.com WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.

Still confused after reading the above – then consider these questions.

1. Are you looking for a quick and simple solution to add a conversational vehicle to an existing web presence with a limited budget and resources?

2. Do you want a straight forward interface to adding posts and managing user contributions?

3. You’re not really comfortable with terms like buying domain names, finding a web host provider, FTP, updating software or adding plugins.

If you answered yes to 2 or more of the above then WordPress.com is for you. Otherwise you should consider WordPress.org.

Most hosting services have control panel installations for a WordPress.org install and if you’re comfortable with number 3 above or you know someone that can help you through the process (like me… just kidding – see note below) then WordPress.org is for you.

This is a hosted WordPress.org blog and I have found that adding plugins, updating the code and adding features has been manageable. In fact I’ve started to post some of how I’ve accomplished these through the “My Social Media Journey” posts.

Seriously though if you see a feature I’m using and need someone to help you walk through the install I’d love to help out – no charge… honestly – my way of giving back to the community that has helped me so far.

- Peace

Just Installed Buy Me A Beer / Coffee WordPress Plugin

A number of blogs that I have come across lately have had the Buy Me A Beer / Coffee link at the bottom of their posts. Thought this was an interesting idea so I googled plugin buy a coffee and found Ankesh Kotharis’ BlogClout blog explaining the plugin, how to download and install it BlogClout – Buy Me A Beer Plugin. So I did – while I was there I bought him a mug of beer…