Tag: United States

Because Forrester has some interesting data to support it…

“While only 4 percent of US online adults have ever used a location-based service, like popular check in app Foursquare, data from research firm Forrester shows that young adult males with college degrees appear to be the main user group.

In addition to being the main user group, the group may also be heavy online influencers as 38% of them claim that their networks ask them for their opinion before making a purchase decision. It would be interesting to know what types of products their networks ask them about before a purchase. Most likely, it’s probably electronics.

Finally, the data shows that the group may also be heavy mobile researchers, meaning that they are more likely to search for information on products or services as well as look up ratings and reviews. If the user group is constantly checking in to locations, then they are probably also using their smartphones…” Source: Forrester reveals who uses location-based services the most | VentureBeat

While the Pew Internet Study reports that only 4% of smartphone users are ‘checking in’ — it’s a pretty awesome and influential 4%. Wouldn’t you agree?

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“A common perception is that in the aftermath of the dotcom crash of 2001, the market remains flooded with information technology (IT) workers with skills, but no jobs.

However, the reality is just the opposite. In fact, an IT worker shortage is hitting companies across the nation, including southeastern Wisconsin.

As the baby boom generation drifts off into retirement, the next generation is not as large, and the talent pool is not as deep. That equation recently prompted Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates to declare that North America has a “pretty significant shortage” of IT workers.

The Wisconsin Department of Work Force Development projects that there will be approximately 12,745 IT jobs in Wisconsin by the year 2014, which would be up 12.3 percent since 2004.” Click here to read more…

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10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology

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Image by ismh_ via Flickr

“Your gadgets and computers, your software and sites — they are not working as well as they should. You need to make some tweaks. But the tech industry has given you the impression that making adjustments is difficult and time-consuming. It is not. And so below are 10 things to do to improve your technological life. They are easy and (mostly) free. Altogether, they should take about two hours; one involves calling your cable or phone company, so that figure is elastic. If you do them, those two hours will pay off handsomely in both increased free time and diminished anxiety and frustration. You can do it.” Source: 10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology – NYTimes.com.

You’ll have to go to the source if you want to hear the Times perspective on the 10 ways you can more effectively manage your technology in the new year — most of the suggestions are sound. You might also want to read this post for some things you can do to get a ‘new’ computer for the new year…

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4 Predictions for the Future of Politics and Social Media

Show me a modern political candidate who doesn’t understand television, and I’ll show you a loser.When TV became the dominant medium for Americans to consume news and entertainment, political candidates could no longer be successful without looking polished in televised debates, appearing on talk shows and spending big on commercials.Like the television boom of the 1960s, we are standing on the precipice of a big shift in how public figures are perceived and how campaigns are conducted. Our frontier is social media, and its impact on mainstream political culture is coming on fast.While my colleagues have been making their predictions about what’s on the tech and social media horizon in 2011, there will be no major U.S. elections next year. Here, we’ll be postulating about social media’s impact on the more long-term future of American civics.

You can read the rest of the article here if you’d like: 4 Predictions for the Future of Politics and Social Media.

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The way we get our news is changing

Image representing Google Reader as depicted i...
Image via CrunchBase

Interesting data from a great source that should have you thinking…

“In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.

The internet is at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. Six in ten Americans (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day, and the internet is now the third most popular news platform, behind local television news and national television news.

The process Americans use to get news is based on foraging and opportunism. They seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines. At the same time, gathering the news is not entirely an open-ended exploration for consumers, even online where there are limitless possibilities for exploring news. While online, most people say they use between two and five online news sources and 65% say they do not have a single favorite website for news. Some 21% say they routinely rely on just one site for their news and information. ” Source: Overview | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Me? I use over 600 online sources aggregated in one great tool; Google Reader! Occasionally, I listen to WTAQ, but that’s not for the news — it’s to catch my good friend Jerry Bader! I rarely if ever watch television or read a dead tree newspaper for the news — I get it ALL online. I’ve covered my methodology in great detail here and here. Comment, call or contact me if you’d like to take your news aggregation needs to an unprecedented level…

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What’s Your Killer “Technology”?

The word “technology” is in quotes because I want to expand your view of how it’s used. Businesses that get talked about do something different from other businesses. Being different is such an essential ingredient in marketing a small business.

You must also work, however, to bring that difference to the forefront of all marketing communications by developing tools that promote your point of view and your core difference.

It’s not enough to say that you’re different; you’ve also got to develop tools and materials that illustrate that difference. So in that vein, your technology could be a seven-step approach, a discovery audit, an actual technological product advancement, a coaching process, a set of tools, or proprietary software.

The key is to capture what it is that you do that’s unique and valuable and expand it into something that you can build a great deal of your educational content platform around. Think of this as your organization’s signature tool.

via openforum.com

My ‘signature tool’ is the ‘e1evation workflow’ — you can read about here…

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Repurposing Content for Maximum Impact

[Hitterdals Church, Telemarken (i.e, Telemark)...
Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

The gospel is to be communicated. This is evangelism. By what means should this communication happen? I get the feeling from the Apostle Paul that it’s “by all means” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Paul preached and spoke as he traveled the Roman roads from city to city. He wrote and utilized the volunteer help of messengers to spread his ideas. He hit the synagogues, the marketplaces and even the prisons to share the gospel. Yet the tools at Paul’s disposal were quite limited compared to our arsenal today.

By enlarging your congregation’s collection of tools, you can stretch the value of your communications strategy and talk to new audiences in new places via new mediums never possible in the early apostolic era. Consider this:

  • The pastor’s message can be re-distributed by media through the mail.
  • It can be printed in periodicals and publications.
  • It can be offered in a media player on a website.
  • It can become part of a podcast, updating weekly with very little effort or financial cost.
  • Pieces of that message can become blog posts when re-worked for an online reading audience.
  • More pieces can be sent out as a daily devotional email.
  • Nuggets from that message can be tweeted and retweeted, or shared on Facebook.
  • Discussion arising from all of these distributions can create opportunities to converse with people previously out of reach.
  • Those conversations can become the beginnings of new content as the message takes on a life of its own by its listening audience.
  • A short clip from the message (if recorded on video) can land on YouTube.
  • Church members can share the clip on their Facebook wall.
  • The slideshow from the message can be shared online.
  • The slideshow, transcript, and audio and/or video can be packaged together and distributed by download, CD or even custom-imprinted thumb drives for other churches to benefit from.

Should we be creating new messages? Absolutely. But we can also take what God has given already and put it to its fullest possible use, spreading it around in the cloud of content we’re all breathing and then fielding the questions that arise.

The mission has never changed: Get the gospel to the world. But the tools have multiplied many times over, allowing us to do it more efficiently than ever before. Which means we can spend less time fighting to create more content at all costs and spend more time simplifying our message and distributing it effectively.

via churchmarketingsucks.com

It’s all about churches this morning @ on the ‘elevation blog’ — due in part to rediscovering ‘Church Marketing Sucks’, subscribing to their feed, and being reminded of their great content…

I want to put a really fine point on this post by saying imho — it’s all about using a blog as a homebase that automatically re-expresses or redelivers content to multiple points without additional burden on the church staff [same principle applies to business, btw!]. For example, the author puts podcasts above blogs, but a podcast is nothing more than an ‘audio’ category in a blog. Here’s an example — get it?

I quoted the whole post above for busy people — pasters, ceo’s, thought leaders — who wouldn’t normally take the time to click through to the source. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your ministry…

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Your nonprofit communications course catalog

Will Robson, Nottingham Carnival costume
Image via Wikipedia

Welcome, all, to the back-to-school edition of the nonprofit blog carnival. (Say, what’s a blog carnival?)

From the many great posts we received, we’ve put together this handy dandy list of nonprofit communications resources. It’s the first day of college all over again, but without the social pressure. Choose a topic, learn, and enjoy.

Know of a great post that belongs in our course catalogue? Post it up in the comments during the add/drop period.

via bigducknyc.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in these great resources…

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Here’s a great example of a school district using Facebook wisely

Kudos to the school district of Janesville, WI for leveraging “good, fast, and cheap” social media tools. You can ‘like’ their page here…

Posted via email from e1evation, llc

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“practical, tactical social media”

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=practicaltacticalsocialmedia-100527084139-phpapp02&stripped_title=practical-tactical-social-media-20
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[Lifestyles of the] Lazy and ‘low-bandwidth’ed

Almost every advancement in simplifying my social media toolkit comes from the simple fact that I do most of my news consumption and production with a 1Mb/s connection from a hundred year old farmhome in rural Wisconsin over a cellular modem. I simply have to be effective in order to be productive! My ‘low-bandwith’ lifestyle is actually a blessing in disquise…

Oh, that and I’m lazy so my toolkit is very efficient as well!

:-D

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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Starbucks CEO on ‘luck’

“Life is a series of near misses. But a lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future.”

Howard Schultz (1953 – ), American entrepreneur, chairman of Starbucks ” Source: Newsletter

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I talk to strangers

Thread Heads meet Micki | SXSW 2008 - Austin, ...
Image by Moth via Flickr

The social media elite are gathering in Austin, TX this week for SXSW. Here’s a reminder for the rest of us…

“No matter how shy you think you are, the person next to you may be even more shy. So be the one to break the ice, and just say hello. Start up conversations with the person in line behind you, with the person walking down the hall near you. Smile and make a comment about the long, long walks between sessions or the beautiful sunshine outside that everyone is missing. I met a guy from Belgium as I walked back to my hotel yesterday and got some wonderful insight into how others perceive our country and our conferences.” Source: 10 More Tips For Enjoying SXSW – WebWorkerDaily

Me? I’m one of those guys that usually talks to strangers. It’s fun. Sometimes it’s rewarding. Last week, while stranded in Detroit, I struck up a convo with a guy named Marty who was my twin separated at birth from a business standpoint. Coincidentally, we were joined my a mutual friend who also ended up being stranded [thank God he had a pass to the Delta Sky Club and could get us in for the rest of the day!] at the Detroit airport until later that evening. Try it! It’s an interesting way to pass the time and sometime, just sometimes, it can be really rewarding. You just have to make the first move…

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This reminds me…

…of how I spent my Sunday! Observing humans at Wal-Mart…

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Thought leadership. It’s not just for geeks anymore!

Kevin Naze, one of my favorite outdoor writers, of the Green Bay Press Gazette writes…

Dave Nolan is a family man on a mission of faith.

While part of it includes finding a new career after an 18-year stint in the automotive industry ended when General Motors decided to stop making Saturns, another component to his master plan is getting more people to look beyond the world’s values.

“My dream job would be to have a career in sync with my passions — the outdoors partnered with the Christian ministry,” Nolan said. “My goal is to be the face of an organization and build relationships with an organization that shares the same passions.” Source: De Pere’s Nolan following a new path | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

What thrills me most about this is knowing the backstory. You see, Dave is a client of e1evation, llc and a good friend to boot. I was with him when his job at Saturn was pulled out from under him and I’ve been there every step of the way as he has made his decision to follow his passion and follow God’s lead into a career in the ‘outdoors’…

Dave is using the good, fast and cheap tools I advocate to build his business. He’s still taking baby steps at Dave Nolan Outdoors, but he’s making all the right moves. Track his progress! This guy’s a thought leader who is going places and he’s partnering with e1evation, llc to make it happen…

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How Gist works

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Are location-based services overrated?

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Image via CrunchBase

Please consider this…

“Despite the buzz around location-based services, I have been ambivalent, if not skeptical about the technology.As much as social media has encouraged people to share information, I have not been convinced there is the same amount of enthusiasm for broadcasting your location.There’s the issue of privacy, as well as few “rewards” for telling the world your location.

In many respects, however, being unconvinced about the potential of location-based services has been like a Don Quixote-like experience, particularly when you’re an enthusiastic member of the social media community. The idea that you don’t really buy into the next new thing seems almost sacrosanct.

It was interesting and, to be honest, encouraging to read Joshua Brustein’s column in yesterday’s New York Times about whether the excitement surrounding location-based services is being driven by technology companies and investors, while consumers only seem modestly interested.

Brustein’s column came on the heels of a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey that discovered only 4% of Americans use location services like Foursquare and Gowalla, compared with 5% last May. Even among smartphone-toting 18 to 29-year-olds, only 8% use location-based services.

It may just be that location-based services won’t be widely embraced. Or it could be that location-based services have yet to find their sweet spot. However you want to explain it, the reality is location-based services have failed to live up to lofty expectations as social media’s next hot thing.

Perhaps Facebook’s entry into the market will change things, particularly if consumers are attracted to the link between the company’s Places and Deals services.

Or maybe not. It could be that most people have no use for location-based services despite the best efforts of companies and investors.

After all, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” Source: Do Consumers Really Want Location-based Services? | Social Media Today

When I teach ‘curation’ as a form of blogging, I usually say that the author’s comment can be ‘yes, no or maybe so’. In this case, my response is a ‘maybe so’, but I’m leaning toward no. Let me tell you why…

Something like 87% of Americans have cell phones. Of that, 25% have smartphones. That number is projected to grow to 50% in 2011. The default mapping application on the two fastest growing platforms is Google Maps. Google just released a new product called Hotpot that makes it easy for patrons to write reviews directly on to Google Maps. Think about the implications. Say someone’s driving through Algoma, WI on their way to Door County and they’re looking for a place to grab a bite. They check Google Maps to see the options and as they try to decide, they check the reviews from Hotpot directly on Google Maps. Unfortunately, earlier that week someone had a rare bad experience at one of their choices. Do you think that won’t have an impact?

Michael Moon quoted Peter Drucker astutely in his book ‘Firebrands’ over a decade ago when he said that we’ve moved beyond the information age to the aged of ‘trusted relationships’. I believe that tech-savvy people with smartphones are going to change the face of American retail business by holding retailers accountable through mobile tools that allow them to report good or bad experiences immediately as they happen. These ‘trusted’ mobile ‘relationships’ will have the power to guide purchasing decisions at the mobile ‘point of sale’ like an endcap in a grocery store, directing potential customers to the ‘right’ place. Smart business owners will keep an eye on this trend…

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Electronic media usage by children reaches record high

USA Today
Image via Wikipedia

Apparently electronic media is equal to a full time job for most kids…

“The findings, out today in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 2,002 people ages 8 to 18, show that young people spend seven hours and 38 minutes using media in a typical day — up from six hours and 19 minutes a decade earlier.

About the only thing that seems to be fading: ink. Though daily book readership has held steady at about 47% since 1999, the percentage of young people who say they read a magazine every day has plummeted from 55% to 35%. It’s worse for newspapers, down from 42% to 23%.

Electronic media are now “a part of the air that kids breathe,” says Vicky Rideout, director of Kaiser’s Program for the Study of Media and Health.

African-American and Hispanic kids spend nearly one-third more time each day with electronics than white kids. Among other findings:

  • Cellphone ownership has increased sharply since 2004, from 39% to 66%.
  • Ownership of iPods has jumped even more since 2004, from 18% to 76%.
  • 20% of kids’ media comes via mobile devices.

The near-ubiquity of mobile devices has had a profound effect on kids’ free time, filling up “the insterstitial spaces” in their daily lives, says Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. She jokes that iPods and cellphones may be this generation’s “magazines and chewing gum,” harmless ways to fill time.” Source: Kids’ electronic media use jumps to 53 hours a week – USATODAY.com

What does this say about our culture? Our future? The future of newspapers? I have a thousand questions. What about you?

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Lessons learned from 2009

Here’a a great post from Holly Green…

“2009 has come and gone, and many of us are taking a huge sigh of relief. Going through one of the worst recessions in U.S. history will certainly take the wind out of your sails. But we appear to have weathered the worst of the storm. And while the economy might not rebound with the speed and vigor we would like, it at least appears to be heading in the right direction again.

So what did we learn from the trials and tribulations of the past year? And how can we apply those lessons going forward? Here are 10 things I believe that leaders need to do differently to position their businesses for success in 2010.” Source: Blogging Innovation: 10 Lessons Learned from 2009 – Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights

Go to the source to read her ten lessons. My favorite?

“Get used to the likelihood there will be no normal anymore. The old business world that most of us knew and loved went away with the recession, and it’s not coming back. To adapt to today’s business realities, question all your beliefs and assumptions, get comfortable with uncertainty, and adjust your expectations. For most, the new ‘normal’ will be slow and sustained growth rather than a hockey-stick curve and it will continue to surprise us.” Source: Blogging Innovation: 10 Lessons Learned from 2009 – Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights

Which one is yours?

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Lately I’ve been struggling…

…with the issue of what is the best way to graphically depict the relationship between the various social media tools that I use. I think I may just end up settling with a flow chart for now, however, I’m finding some interesting stuff along the way such as this…

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An interesting perspective…

USA Today
Image via Wikipedia

…from a former USA TODAY reporter…

“Today is the last day that I’ll walk through USA TODAY’s glass and marble lobby, itself a monument to flusher times.

I’ve been laid off from my dream job, and I’m not going to lie. It sucks. I enjoyed almost everything about my immediate world there, from my globe-trotting reporters to my creative production team to my hard-working and open-minded boss. My group was tight, and we laughed and learned from each other every day.

But what bothers me the most is what my firing represented. See, I’ve been learning all the tricks that a modern multi-platform journalist is supposed to know. In the past 22 months, I’ve blogged, tweeted, shot photos and videos, and handled speaking engagements. I edited my section, managed my high-personality staff and then in my spare time, I wrote cover stories – something that very few other editors at USA TODAY do. I hustled and I cajoled and I ended up out on my ass anyway.

I’m a true believer in the power of journalism. I walked into my first newspaper office when I was 16, fell in love with deadlines and chaos, and never looked back. During my 20 years in the mainstream media, I’ve written stories that have changed lives, and I’ve written stories purely for entertainment. I felt it was a calling, more so than a job.

But increasingly, things have become more interesting outside the newsroom bubble. I’d go to conferences and meet people who were making it just fine on their own. Some were creating niche businesses, busting up the paradigm. Others were parlaying old school media talents into fresh ventures, with a moxie that made me wish I had the freedom to emulate them. The air inside USAT’s towers on Jones Branch Drive always seemed a little stale after that.

These freelancers-slash-entrerpreneurs are smart. They are nimble. And now they are my role models, as I join their ranks.

So to the managers who made this decision, in less than 140 characters I tell you: Good luck steering the Titanic. And thanks for the head start. Now I’m really going to run.” Source: Goodbye to all of that… | Chris Around The World

The world as we know it is changing in very interesting ways…

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