So I'm Back, From Outer Space

July 11th was the last time I posted here. I've been busy. But I've also been just lazy in my time management and my priorities. I know, I know. I understand you're upset. But I'm here. Now. And we'll work this out. Just give me some time. Just a week or two. And we'll get back on just like we used to. It's going to be a cold winter; be good to have someone to curl up and read. Just saying.

So starting tomorrow (or, I guess, today), I'll be posting every weekday, M-F with occasional weekend Gravy. I'll keep it light and insightful, just like it used to be.

Thanks for reading. Be talking to you real soon.

Restarting the Flow

Sometimes life interrupts.

And that's not an excuse. Life always interrupts. But people who try to blog on a regular basis, try to keep their social networks going, sometimes falter. That's me right now.

It usually comes out as "Oh, the holidays!" or "we had a death in the family" or "business got too busy" or "everyone in the house is sick" or they're lazy or tired or depressed or "there just wasn't time." Please, don't think I'm criticizing anyone but myself. Count me in on all of them.

How do you fix it?

You get back on the bus; you restart the flow, and you keep that flow going.

My best advice?

Plan well. Set your week's blogging subjects on Sunday or Monday. Even all you do is create a blog and give it a title and save it for later, you've already got your week primed for a quick interjection.

Set a schedule like it's part of your job. If you are even remotely related to social marketing, it is. "I'll blog at 10am every day." If you can pin down a time, you have no other thing to be doing. Blog.

So go ahead and plan and set and we'll be seeing more of you and your business.

And you'll be seeing more of me.

That will be all :)

New Schedule for The EJM Designs Limited Blog

I recently wrote on why a blog publishing plan can save you many hours the rest of the week.

And this is the next step in that idea, which is creating a thematic calendar for you to follow. The upsides to putting together a calendar for yourself are twofold:

1. I have just created a template for myself. That means no more fretting about what to do for each day; I've already got a topic. And I've just saved myself more time by creating that lens for each day.
2. For your readers, you are giving them (that'd be you) something to follow, an expectation and a repeat business. Keep up with that schedule and you grow a dedicated following.

Here's my weekly list of themes that can be seen in my right column from here on out:

Monday
And...GO! Getting your week going, on Mondays we'll be addressing items of motivation and inspiration, or how to avoid lack of those things when running your own business.

Tuesday
Social networking ideas. What's going on in Cincinnati and elsewhere in the world of marketing and networking and making it personal. Yes, that means getting out there and shaking some hands.

Wednesday
Twitter in the news! We use Twitter every day. Here's how that's playing out for other people through the headlines. You'll be sure to find humor and concern as people misuse, disuse, and learn to cope with ubiquitous technology.

Thursday
Tech Fetish. Tech wonders from around the world - what's hot, what's new, what's way the hell weird. All brain candy.

Friday
YouTube you need to tube. Interesting videos that might provoke thought but will probably just hearken LOLz. It's Friday. Just enjoy.

Saturday and Sunday
That's the time I spend with my business, myself and my family. Move along folks, nothing to see here. But there might be. And that would be bonus for you.

And 5 posts a week is not the be-all and end-all of the plan. There will always be something more during the week. Maybe not daily, but I've got a whole lot to talk about.

Point being: putting together a vague plan is not an option. You must court your audience with promises of certain types of news. The witty commentary is up to you.

Thoughts, recommendations, experiences with scheduling? Comments are always open!

We All Need a Vacation

I appreciate all my lovely readers and only think it's fair to let you know I'll be out of town until July 6th. And while I'll remain partially connected, writing blog posts will probably not be part of my vacation daily routine.

I'll be back before you know it, posting on all things social media, web design, SEO, entrepreneurship, and tech.

Cheers!

Podcamp Ohio 2009: #pco09

This past weekend I attended Podcamp Ohio 2 (PodcampOhio Twitter)in Columbus, Ohio. And it was wonderful. (note: this post went up yesterday but disappeared *shakes fist at Blogger*)

Walking into the OSU Geology building set the tone for the whole day. Before the registration table was a large pad of paper propped up on a easel. Someone had hand-written in marker: "Our hashtag for the event is #pco09. Tweet when you arrive!" I'm sure they didn't even need to tell us. As of this writing, almost 800 tweets have gone out with that tag.

Building-wide wi-fi was free (thank goodness - my Pre was picking up nothing in that structure), everyone was hooked into their smartphones, and about half of us had laptops. There were six sessions throughout the day with seven+ talks for each session, so making choices was NOT an easy endeavor.

Yay Free Stuff!

Swag bag was great and contained the official program with descriptions of each talk that was registered before the deadline, trial software from TechSmith (and the sweetest highlighter/Post-it tag dual-purpose pen I've ever seen) and some very informative information about Columbus. And I'd be remiss to skip mentioning the toy racecar, plastic "LOVE" ring, and balloon.

ávitāe energy water was one of the sponsors and we had the simple joy of purified water and caffeine hydrating us for the day. Our delicious lunch was Qdoba. Yum.

Ummm...What's a Podcamp?

For those of you who have not attended or even heard of Podcamp, it was launched in Boston by Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn and is officially categorized as an unConference, meaning speakers aren't there so much to rule the room, droning with slides, as to facilitate a discussion with the understanding that there will be people in the room who know more about the topic than you do. And that's okay. Everyone's a rockstar and the rule of two feet applies: you don't feel you're getting out of it what you want to, get on your two feet and go somewhere else.

I did see a couple reticent posts in post about the content of Podcamp Ohio. It is NOT just about podcasting but the whole of new media. There were talks about social media in general, specific social networking sites, podcasting, podcasting equipment and software, branding, and even SEO. It basically spans anything internet and new media.

What Your Boss Already Knows About You

In the fourth session, I gave my talk with the above title. We discussed how businesses are using social media to screen both potential and current employees, how colleges are using social media to screen potential and current students, and what we can do overall to find a balance between privacy and "being out there."

It was a smaller group, but very engaged in the topic and their stories certainly increased my understanding of the extent that schools and businesses are going today to screen employees.

And while most of the goodness came out of the discussion and starting/ending the talk with www.cursebird.com on the screen (Twitter web use of API, live stream of any tweets that contain swear words with trending graphs), you are more than welcome to a PDF of the slides here.

My Path

I started with Daniel Johnson, Jr. in Session 1 talking about job hunting success stories, including his own. I joined John "Lumpy" Lemke in Session 2 for the Audacity Hands-On Workshop. After lunch I participated in a wonderfully-overcrowded room where Krista Neher was discussing building a strong brand and how it relates to new media. I had to sneak out of that one (it was running long) to get to my own talk but after What Your Boss... I was over to Twitter Tools for Business with Wendy Suto, which I cut short when I saw a live tweet from Daniel Johnson, Jr. that there was an impromptu with Amybeth Hale and Michael Loban about job searches and recruiting. I fired away at the SEO Lightning Session, with Bill Condo as the main speaker. Excellent info shared by all.


Conclusion

My primary take-away from the unConference (which I've already tweeted) is a dichotomy of "Hey, I'm doing okay for my business" and "Holy crap I've got a ton of work to do!" Part of that work is getting deeper in the keyword aspects of my social media and web marketing life. I preach the importance of it and practice it regularly, but I could be and strive to be better myself. Also, in the next 3 months, my goal is to be using videos and audio podcasts to spread my new media gospel and offer my web design and internet marketing expertise to a larger audience.

Conclusion is that it was like being at tech geek social media home. I loved it and cannot wait until next year. In fact, I'm looking at Cleveland's which is forthcoming with a spring 2010 date, as well as Pittsburgh's, taking place in October. And I think I may be talking again.

If you missed Ohio's, check one of those out. If you're half as much into technology and new media and the internet as I am, you will not be disappointed.

Spend an Hour, Save Your Week: Why You Need a Blog Publishing Plan

Much like a home, a blog has to consider three things: expectation, expectation, and expectation.

The first expectation is from everyone: if you're not blogging at least 3 times a week, you're not holding enough variance and value, not keeping up your part of the bargain. Sure, not everyone will visit your blog every day, but when they do, you don't want them disappointed because your last post was 2 weeks ago. There exists a blogger/reader relationship of trust and if that trust is broken or there is not enough to build that trust on, people go away.

If the first expectation is frequency, then the second pertains directly to your readers and revolves around consistency. So you've made the commitment to blog three times a week. Squeezing those three posts in right before dinner on Friday evening doesn't cut it. Pace yourself, use theme days to garner more interest, give readers something to look forward to. You'll get more readers for it.

The third expectation is for yourself. I'm sure that some people love flying by the seat of their pants, improv-ing their way through the day. For some folks, it's the breath of life. For most of us, that is the touch of death. You don't want to wake up having to worry about what you should blog about, whether it's timely enough or if it's too personal or if you'll even have time. You need a plan to keep yourself happy as much as you need one to keep your readers happy.

The Plan

I am going to suggest the plan I am taking up (okay, so it's as of this week) and continuing with as far as I can see in the future for this blog.

First, answer the expectations to others:

• Frequency: I will be blogging 4-6 days a week.
• Consistancy: I will blog 4-5 times a week M-F with the occasional Saturday or Sunday post as time allows. Meaning: if you check this blog at 7pm EST 5 days a week, you will find a new post 80% of the time. For themes? We'll start tomorrow with Tech Gadget Thursday.

Secondly, we need to address the personal plan. For this blog, I will be reserving one hour every Monday (after lunch) to plan my week. I enter my blog editing interface on one tab, create 4-5 titles and save them. If I'm feeling particularly inspired - or have nothing to do - I can put future dates on the posts, fill them all out, and sit back the rest of the week (on blogging) while the posts populate the blog.

In order for this to work, I'm dedicating 30 minutes after lunch every day to blogging, whether that's producing a post, commenting on, or following other blogs.

FYI, tomorrow is Tech Gadget Thursday and Friday will be best practices on Twitter, and constructing a Tweet Plan.

So how do you plan? Do you plan? Do you think you should? How long do you think I'll stick to this one? Comments always welcome.

I'm Speaking at Ohio Podcamp 2

You may have noticed my badge on the right:



I'm speaking at Podcamp on June 20th. Title of the talk is "What Your Boss Already Knows About You"

"You're Fired!" Social media is becoming a common tool in hiring, firing, and advancement, in business and education. How things are changing and how to protect yourself.

Click the icon above to check it out and register.

It will be great.

I'm Blogging

(H/T @dougmcsorley RT @gregfinn)

My Brother, OH to CA - in MO

My brother is traveling from Ohio to California. Tonight he's hanging in Missiouri.

Check out his blog.

We all wish we could be there.

Live vicariously with me.