This past weekend, we managed to sneak out of Bozeman to Cooke City for a weekend of fun in the snow. Things were pretty tracked up, but as you can see in these photos, we did manage to find some powder here and there. Between sledding on Saturday and x-country skiing in Yellowstone on Sunday afternoon, we had a great weekend.
In this series, my brother-in-law Jeb shows his boondocking style.
If nothing else, remember that social media is about the C’s: Conversation, Connections, Community, Consumer, Control, Creative, Collaboration and Content. Do: listen, be transparent about your intentions, “Give to Get” and have a plan. Don’t: Be fake, interruptive and focus only on short term sales.
One of the best articles I've found so far for businesses who are trying to figure out how to approach social networking. I especially appreciate his first best practice: "Start with a plan, not tactics." Great stuff.
Now that you've got your Twitter feet under you, it's time to amp up your usage of this social networking tool. This twittography from David Erickson is a great starting point to making some sense of the Twitter universe. He updates it regularly, so keep checking back!
http://e-strategyblog.com/2009/02/twenty-six-twitter-tools-to-track-tweets/
CONSTRUX ANNOUNCES COMPLIMENTARY TRAINING PROGRAM FOR DISPLACED SOFTWARE WORKERS
Bellevue, WA -- January 30, 2009
Construx Software today announced a complimentary program for training software workers who have been laid off during the recent economic downturn. Construx has allocated 25% of the seats in its Software Development Best Practices training seminars free to people who have been laid off from professional software development jobs.Construx 1-, 2-, and 3-day seminars cover subjects including Software Project Management, Software Estimation, Software Requirements, Software Design, Software Testing, and numerous other software development topics. Construx offers more than 50 public seminars each year at its training facility in Bellevue, Washington.
“During the dot com collapse the software industry was at the epicenter of the recession. Most of our clients were affected, and that meant we were affected," said Steve McConnell, Construx CEO and author of five best selling software development books. "We remember what it was like before, and we are fortunate this time to be in a position to extend a helping hand to our friends whose companies are struggling."
If you work in the software industry, you're familiar with Steve McConnell's work. For those who have been displaced, this is a great opportunity to learn from some of the thought leaders in the industry.
Today, my daughter had a chance to learn from one of the best: Jason Lezak. If you watched the Beijing Olympics, you saw him come from behind in the anchor leg of the 4x100m relay to defeat the favored French team. He explained in his remarks that he had previously been a part of several 4x100's that were not quite so successful, which made the win in Beijing that much sweeter.
Jason's presentation was great for the kids to hear: he focused on the importance of priorities, goals, and banishing negative thoughts or using them to create positive energy.
In the afternoon, Jason gave a two hour freestyle clinic to master swimmers and several members of the Barracuda swim team. Emily was thrilled to be a part of it and left the pool exclaiming, "You can't believe how much faster I can swim now!" Only time will tell if that's the case, but I am pleased that she was inspired by the experience. Kudos to the Bozeman Master's swim team for bringing Jason to Bozeman and to Eagle Mount - the organization here in town for whom the visit served as a fundraiser.
Here's an image of Emily and Jason on deck after the clinic.
Seems everyone is trying to figure out how they can make money from social media (SM). Like search engine optimization (SEO) before it, everyone and her brother is claiming to be a social media 'expert' - whatever that means.
I'm not ready to call myself a social media expert, but I am moving in the space. And I'm convinced that the question, "How can I make money from social media?" is misguided. A better question might be, "How can I use social media to accomplish my goals?" Those goals can vary widely: build brand awareness, find friends, and yes - make money. To determine how best to leverage social media, you first need to determine your goal. Without this step, you'll never be able to measure your progress toward success - you'll only know that you've put a lot of effort into something that has shown perhaps dubious results. That social media can work for business has been shown already. I'm not a big fan of Burger King's food, but I love their understanding of social media and viral uptake. From the subservient chicken to dropping Facebook friends for a free Whopper, BK has been successful at creating campaigns that not only create buzz in the SM community, but also get play in conventional media. When your PR stunts are deemed newsworthy in their own right, you've done something special and achieved several turns from your marketing dollars. But must you be a multi-billion dollar company with a marketing budget to match to accomplish such feats? Again, it depends upon your goals. I've recently witnessed a very effective use of free social media tools by a photography school here in Montana that shows you don't have to have a huge budget to successfully execute a social media campaign. The Rocky Mountain School of Photography is located in Missoula, Montana. Their instructors travel throughout the United States conducting weekend workshops and longer photography field trips. They also offer an intense photography program conducted on their home campus in Missoula. RMSP currently leverages the web to offer online descriptions of their programs and online event registration. Recently, they have also branched into social media. I'll confess that I'm a big fan of RMSP - as a photography hobbyist, I have attended one of RMSP's Photo Weekends in the past and am quick to recommend their programs to others. So when I heard that RMSP plans to offer a Photo Weekend here in Bozeman later this spring, I enthusiastically began to tell my friends in the office about the event. My reason for evangelizing is not entirely altruistic: I'm interested in assembling a group of at least five attendees before I register so we can get a small discount on our registration fees. As I was updating my Facebook page last night, I decided to see if RMSP had a Facebook presence. Lo and behold, not only did they have a Group Page, they also had Facebook Events for each and every Photo Weekend planned for this spring. Thanks to the event infrastructure in place on Facebook, I was able to easily send a notice of the event to targeted friends who I believed would be interested in the Weekend. I was also able to quickly post the event to my Facebook wall where all my friends would see that RMSP is coming to Bozeman. With just a few clicks, I was able to pass the word along to a select group of individuals I believed would actually welcome hearing about the event. Would I have taken the time to compose and send e-mails to these same folks if I'd had to do it manually? Would I have written and proofed a blog post about the event? I doubt it. Think about what happened here: with no compensation from RMSP, I put my credibility on the line and handpicked a group of potential customers to receive a notice from me - not RMSP. I also posted a notice of the event on my wall for my friends to see. RMSP paid nothing for this: no endorsement fee, no radio buy, no newspaper buy, no billboard buy, no banner ad buy, no adwords bid. Just a guy who likes their product telling his friends about something he thinks they might find interesting. Was RMSP successful in their use of social media? Since last night, I've already identified two friends who have definitely committed to attend. If RMSP's goal was to increase the number of paying attendees at their Photography Weekends, then I would say the answer to that question is yes. And because both of these new customers learned about RMSP via social media, they are potential SM vectors like me if they are equally delighted with their RMSP experience. They may tell their Facebook friends about RMSP, post RMSP events on their profiles, tweet about RMSP, blog about RMSP. And that, my friends, is viral marketing at its best.
My main reason for heading up the South Fork was to get a few shots of the big horn sheep that winter in this area. Forest regs instruct you to stay several hundred feet away from the sheep to avoid stressing them. Fortunately for me, this big ram bedded down right on the dirt road - without exiting my car, I shot this image with my 70-300mm lens at 300mm (1/10 sec. at f5.6). With the 2x crop factor of my Olympus E500 (which gives this lens a 35mm equivalent reach of 600mm) and some aggressive cropping in post-processing, I arrived at this interesting composition. Turned out to be one of my favorite shots of the day.
On my drive up the South Fork highway, I pulled over at the Forest Service boundary to check out the incredible vista. Before I could even get out of my car, however, I looked over to my right to see this golden eagle perched on the ground not 30 yards away. Knowing he'd bolt if I stepped out of the car, I rolled down my window and snapped this image from the vehicle. Shot with my 70-300mm at 300mm; 1/60 sec. at f5.6.
I can't afford the Singh-Ray Gold-n-Blue polarizer, so I decided to push the colors a bit during post-processing in Lightroom. Taken with my 14-45mm at 27mm; 1/100 sec at f4.4.
I'm a Software Product Manager living and working in Bozeman, Montana. I started this blog as a place to discuss/display anything that comes to mind: work, photography, golf, software development, requirements, project management, x-country skiing, religion - anything's fair game!
You can check out my other blog at www.freemyfotos.com and view a larger collection of my photos on my flickr photostream (http://tinyurl.com/49cys3) . I also have several prints available for purchase at ImageKind (http://images.timleonhardt.com).
