Happiness CDXIX

Jul 8, 2012 | happiness

Maybe our technology focused modern world needs a few days offline to refocus on life.

The Power of Communities

Aug 10, 2010 | blog

Free Colorful Grafitti Rainbow Street Art Drive By in Worcester Massachusetts by Pink Sherbet PhotographyInteresting thing, communities. We live in them our entire lives. Multiple ones actually, and usually are participating in more than one at any given time.

Today we think of communities more as online constructs, usually referring to a social network as a community. Of course, a community isn’t a tool, but rather a collection of people with similar interest.

The reality is that we participate in multiple communities because of the varied interests we have and the need to connect. We are social creatures and connecting with like-minded peers brings a certain satisfaction to our lives.

This is where the future of communications and marketing come together. Building communities around a brand isn’t misguided as some may suggest. Brands have always had followers, they’ve usually been called loyal customers. These customers are the ones that evangelize at the drop of a hat, and rally around their favorite brand, be it an automobile, soda, or candy bar.

These brand-specific communities existed before social media, indeed, before the Internet itself was useful to the average consumer. So building on that existing base, and providing added value to your brand’s community is the job at hand with social media. The opportunity for your brand is to make it easier for the average consumer to become a loyal customer.

Discover how the power of community can enhance your products and strengthen your brand. After all, why produce and sell something if it isn’t worth people getting excited about it in the first place.

Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Moleskine Notebooks – Going analog for the fun of writing

Dec 25, 2008 | blog

Moleskine Pocket Ruled Notebook - Black Try as I might, I couldn’t find the post that I thought I wrote about Moleskines some time ago.  I think it was about a year ago a couple of online friends and I had a chance to finally meet and talk in person.  It was a local version of LifeCamp, and it was Jason DeBoer-Moran (@newcoventry on Twitter) and Thomas Knoll (@thomasknoll on Twitter) along with a few more folks looking to organize and prioritize our lives these days.

One of the biggest take-away’s for me from that first meetup with my  now-good friends was the importance of keeping track of thoughts and ideas.  While these guys had been doing this for some time, it was a new initiative for me to keep something close to hand to quickly capture those moments of inspiration.  The best device to record this information seemed to be a simple notebook.

However, I wanted to find something that was as rewarding to write in as the thoughts I was trying to capture.  This is where the Moleskine comes in.  Sure, lots of folks are turning back to these traditional mobile information gathering notebooks – to the point of it being cliche.  The thing is though, I really enjoy these notebooks. They seem to reward the writer with a great feeling when writing in them.

For me in particular, these notebooks bring a sense of permanence to the things I’m writing. They bring a connection to the past, and offer a way to tap into the legacy of pen & paper in a way that the average ringed notebook found at your local big box discount store for 99¢ simply can’t. If you’re looking for it, a Moleskine can’t be beat for bringing another dimension to note taking or journaling. Give it a try for your next journal and see if it helps to inspire and capture the ideas, stories, and things that you’re trying to save.

Living Without Social Media

Sep 17, 2008 | blog

The simple life by Alvarock! A Twitter friend of mine recently, jokingly, chastised me for a post some time back about not needing Twitter and social media. That caused me to finalize a few thoughts on the topic and inspired this post – thanks DV!

On that topic, lots of folks do it every day, and yeah they do quite well. In fact, most folks live without the Internet every day and do quite well. So what is it about social media that so entices and enthralls the social media mavens out there?

Since late last year, I’ve been struggling with a number of items about social media that don’t seem to have a purpose. The current phenomenon of "social media" is more a reflection of the growing social awareness of generation X & Y than of anything else.

It’s true that the web 2.0 technologies have empowered us in new and exciting ways, allowing us to further explore new ways of doing things, and exploring new opportunities. The growing social awareness is bringing the idea of friendship and community back into lives that may have been spent focusing too much on work or single-minded pursuits.

Personally, I think that the modern urban psyche is longing for more social interaction, and pushing people to explore new methods for interacting. I believe this to be the root cause of the interest in social media, spurred by the ideas, near ubiquitous high-speed Internet connectivity, and cloud computing software technologies that allow for rapid development and deployment.

It’s this combination that makes social media what it is. Mostly the "media" part is the tools; networking, IM, photo hosting, video, podcasting, web conferencing, sharing, bookmarking… these are just things that allow us to connect the way we do – tools our parents and grandparents did not have. The social is what I talked about previously – that the maturing generations that have been exposed to computing and world-wide networking technologies have new ideas of how relationships can be built.

Still there are millions more who simply don’t need these tools and these technologies. The social part for them still exists because they always have been social. Participating & building their community is just part of their lives. Sure the Internet can add value – but not in the ways that social media technorati get value. For them it’s about news or entertainment, or simply ordering something that they can’t find locally. That’s the value for them – and that’s a good value.

Photo credit: AlvarocK!

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