New use for twitter

Working on sales collateral and needed a synonym for "easy-to-manage" account management.  So twittered "need synonym for 'easy-to-manage'"

So twitter can be a work tool - a thesaurus!

My twitter, myself

Image via CrunchBase

What are you doing right now? Reading JumpTheSnark.

Is that a read-worthy twitter? To me, yes. To people who care what you read, yes. Beyond, that, no.

Who do I follow on twitter? People who are on top of subjects I care about, like Chris Brogan and Phil Wilson, who are teaching me about social media. David Brauer covers Twin Cities media. If I found a New York theater insider twittering about Broadway, I'd follow. If my friend Rosalie Maggio, who writes on writing, twittered, I'd follow.

People who break news, offer insight....or make me laugh. Which no one is doing right now.

Why not use twitter to make people laugh? Thats why I tweeted "WWJT?". "Blue slugbug."

It's not just funny-it's food for thought about the form. It's my twitter party and I'll tweet what I want to.

WWJT

What would Jesus twitter?

Oh Oprah!

Image via Wikipedia

Now there are Oprah scholars

From Oprah, the person, to the TV show, magazines, radio, tours, book club, the road to Oprah scholars may have been inevitable. Are there Rupert Murdoch scholars or Martha Stewart scholars?

In today's New York Post, The Oprah Syndrome: Bloated, Depressed -- As O Goes, So Goes the Nation" suggests that we as a country are in the same state as Oprah.

Rich? Smart? Successful? Good-looking? Accomplished? If we are all those things, we are in pretty good shape.

But this article is about Oprah's weight and her inability to maintain it at a certain level. On that basis alone, we are to think her a failure. Oprah herself is "embarrassed".

If maintaining a certain weight is the standard by which we measure success, we are in a sorry state. Think of the women and men who'd be considered failures: Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Teddy Roosevelt, Elanor Roosevelt, Henry VIII, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft.

Not that's a subject for scholars.

To Tweet or not to Tweet

Image by mommy peace via FlickrTo paraphrase Shakespeare, that is the question. Would he have twittered? Would #WillonAvon have sent off sparks all day? What would this have done to his work?

@WillonAvon What light through yonder window breaks?
@WillonAvon Working on new play: Romeo and help! need name
@KitMarlowe Ethel
@DarkLady Pearl
@EssexEarl Elizabeth
@Touchstone Phoebe lol!
@Pyramus Thisbe
@DickIII Constance
@Antonio Maria
@Ben Beatrice
@TheatreLover Liking Ethel. Also Nancy, Margaret, Isabella, Porsche, see my list at tinyurl.xy.co
@WillonAvon Ale with #KitMarlowe, #DarkLady, #EssexEarl
@WillonAvon Twitter. Rhymes with litter, glitter, flitter, titter, bitter. Ah, well, off to sleep perchance to... drool

Could have happened.

A Social Media System

Image via WikipediaIt's a bird. It's a plane. It's exactly what the doctor ordered to manage my overwhelming immersion in social media.

A system. John Jantsch has it here.

Gender Gap

Look at this photo of Obama from today's New York Times.    

What's missing from this picture?

Apparently we're not just post-racial now.  We're post-gender.

Is your site accessible?

Image via WikipediaGlenda Watson writes about the importance of making the web accessible.

Interesting. I serve on the inclusion committee at my synagogue and we have addressed accessibility in many areas, but not the web.

What have you done to make your site accessible?

Tool a Day #2

Image via WikipediaI failed. I couldn't limit oneself to one new tool. In addition to Zemanta, I joined InSocialMedia, added Zentact, registered my blot at Technorati, and signed up for FriendFeed.

There is so much to learn, so many things to try. I can't stop.

How do you limit yourself?

A Tool a Day

Image via CrunchBaseIt's raining apps, and tools, and plug-ins and posts, and it's hard to keep your head above water. How about trying one new tool/app/plug-in/technique each day? Can you take the pledge? I'm going to try. With so many new, exciting bits of information and ideas, I want to explore and try things all day. Moderation in all things but this?

Stop. Breathe, as Skype advises.

My tool for the day: Zemanta.

The Zen of Blog

Image by Financial Aid Podcast via Flickr

So you want to blog. You're not sure how to start. HubSpot :

HubSpot is a one of the great resources an internet marketer and blogger can have. The site is chock-full of useful information in regards to marketing, blogging, and networking.Admin under, The Zen of Blog

The article boasts a list of common mistakes beginners make like (gulp) using a sub-domain (for example, susanberkson.blogspot.com) You should read the whole article. Make some uncommon mistakes.

Reading List

Great post on social media for traditional communicators

Using New Media on Inauguration Day

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeHow did I use new media on Inauguration Day?

As I watched CNN's coverage on television, I had my email, my twitter widget showing me new tweets, my RSS feeder sending me updates from NYTimes, Talking Points Memo, Gawker, MinnPost, and Andrew Sullivan. I used chat to send a question about Fritz Mondale's part in the proceedings to BrauBlog's David Brauer, I used twitter spy to see what others were saying about John Roberts' administration of the Oath, I tweeted my displeasure with John Roberts' delivery of the Oath, and I Googled the text of the Oath and found it here.

Then I used this blog to express my displeasure with John Roberts. I call this blog Jump the Snark so I dare not say anything more about Roberts.

Postscript

Change has come to virtual America. Minutes after I posted this entry, the original White House link I'd found about John Roberts was down, replaced by this. John Roberts Wikipedia entry had already been updated to reflect his errors administering the Oath.

New Tricks for Old Dogs

"I'm an old dog.  I can't learn new tricks,"  a friend e-mailed.

That's a new trick.  This friend also uses gmail chat.  That's a new trick, too.  

You can learn them.  You're here reading a blog.  That's a new trick, as well.

Go to Common Craft where you'll find video explanations for all the new tricks in plain English.

What are you having trouble learning?  We'll try to help.

I Am Your Clem

You know "Clem", that silver-haired gent who is TPT's spokesperson for converting to HDTV?

I am your "Clem" for new media; a person of a certain age knowledgeable about making the switch.

Although Clem has it easy.  If  this switch were as easy as buying a box, Circuit City would still be in business.  But it can be done.  It is possible.  I am the living proof.  Not only do I know the meaning of url, tinyurl, blog, twitter, tweet, widget, gadget, RSS, application, embed and html, but I can use them in conversation.  I have a website, bookmarks on Delicious, and profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, WorkStir, eMurse, Hot Gigs and, they're all linked.  I twitter, I tweet, I blog.

Not with the best of them.  The best of them are way ahead of me.  But I am learning.

And you can, too.

To start, I used a list put together by one of the best of them, Phil Wilson, titled,  Know Now or Very Very Soon  It's been my roadmap for conversation to new media.  And now, thanks to this very post, I have embedded my first link.    A hearty virtual whoopee for me!

The Blogging Puzzle

This blogging business is like moving pieces around a puzzle, both in form and content.

Form-wise, you move your text boxes here and add a widget there.  Or bump the widget up next to your Profile and add an ad at the bottom.  Or pop in a poll at the bottom.  Or the top. Shuffle the pieces.  Shuffle again.  Change the color or the font.  

But that's the easy part.

The hard part is figuring out what to write.  What you want to write may not be what people want to read.  Someone else might be writing about the same thing.  Best to follow your passion, I suppose; although no one may care but you.

 

She’s the BEST Employee I’ve NEVER Met

She's a career counselor who recommended someone with whom she'd connected on LinkedIn.  And why not?  She had been impressive virtually. so she made a virtual referral.  

She’s the BEST Employee I’ve NEVER Met

Brrrrrrrr

How cold is it?  I cant tttouch my my kkkkeyboard.   The laptop was in the car for two hours and bbbboy was that a mistake. 

Right?

I can say nothing with the best of them

Facebook

I'm a facebook failure.  Really.  I'm there, I have a profile and interests and pictures.  I post links and music and video and nobody responds.  Nobody.  Not that I really socialized with all these folks in the real world.  Why should we socialize in the virtual world?   Hmmmmm

Pro vs. Am

Look how long I have been writing about writing.  Correction.  Writing about not writing.  I am the queen of procrastination. A professional procrastinator.   What do I have to say?  Enough with talking about my evolution  If I want to evolve, I must evolve and try to crawl up out of the water.  What if I have nothing to say?  Other people do that quite well.  

1,2,3...go

Here we go.  One word after another.  When I think about how I started writing the LAzy woman-which actually was the start of my writing career, it was the same.  Same deal.  Procrastinated and procrastinated and procrastinated until push came to shove.  So today is the shove.   I claim I want to opine so I have to get about it.