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Glass brings a Community Layer to the Internet [Video]

November 18, 2011 By 11 Comments
Glass Conversation with Danny Brown

A Glass Conversation

Earlier this week I received an invite from Danny Brown to join him on Glass. Being perpetually curious about tech and web applications I headed over and signed up. The last few days the application has really piqued my interest because it creates a new community layer over the internet unlike anything that has been available previously. It achieves this by combining side-wiki like features with a virtual social network. It also allows comments and conversations to occur on any website but privately with the connections of your choice or publicly with any Glass users. It caps all that off with a community streaming function bringing your Glass, Facebook and Twitter content that contain links into one place.

Reasons Glass is usefull

  • Transcends the boundaries of social networks and websites
  • Allows private or public conversations about any site or page
  • Creates a community stream of your Glass, Facebook and Twitter
  • Potential to integrate any social network, blog comment systems
  • Enables you to share any website or page via Twitter, Facebook and Email

How about a video?

This video that takes a tour of the features and describes in more detail what you can do with Glass and why it may be a helpful tool for you.

Don’t see the video? Try this link instead.

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Strategy, Technology, Tools, Twitter, Video, YouTube Tagged With: , , , ,

Expand your content sharing with Print Friendly and PDF

October 21, 2011 By 8 Comments

As bloggers we’re always looking for ways to make our content more friendly, encourage conversation and encouraging distribution of the content to amplify our voice. I recall seeing the Print Friendly plugin for the first time over at Waxing Unlyrical. I thought it was interesting but didn’t connect the dots until yesterday that is.

Why some of your readers will love this plugin

Think for a moment about your less tech savvy readers, the ones who may not even have a Twitter account or won’t bother to click the LinkedIn share because they rarely log in. Or think about the friends and connections of your tech savvy readers that won’t want content delivered anywhere but the old tried and true – Email. This is where the true power of Print Friendly lies. In this video I demonstrate how the plugin works and describe in more detail why I think it is great for the web 1.0/Email crowd.

Video not showing up? Try this direct link.

Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Video, Wordpress, YouTube Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to use Tagxedo to embed a cool tag cloud on your Blog

January 3, 2011 By 3 Comments

Tagxedo Tag Cloud of Joe's Gone SocialHave you tried Tagxedo? It’s a pretty nifty little app I spotted on @liendi11′s  Amplog recently. While playing around with it I realized that it was more difficult to get the clouds to work in WordPress than one would think so when I found a way to get it to work I also created a video to explain it. The method that I demonstrate shows you how to create a tagxedo cloud that is usable in both pages, posts and even as a widget. The main thing that needs to be modified is the size of the iframe code that is provided in the tagxedo code snippet. Here is the video followed by a live example of the tag cloud.

In the live example of a Tagxedo Tag cloud below you’ll note that all of the links go to the default function in the setup – a Google search page. Ideally a blog specific search should be used. I’d imagine someone will get creative and port it to a WordPress plugin before too long but until now you can see the possibilities. (Note: If you click the tags it will take you off my site and to Google search, apologies I should have adapted it to my site search!)

Filed Under: Blogging, Images, Social Media Strategy, Video, Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Donating my 40th Birthday to Charity #40thpledge (Video)

August 18, 2010 By 6 Comments

I’ve thought of a lot of things to do for my upcoming 40th Birthday this Saturday, here are a few of the ideas I had:

  1. Houseboat trip with family/friends.
  2. Trip to Vegas trip.
  3. Traditional Birthday party w/ family friends.

Each idea had its perks and this is a pretty major birthday for me, but today I had an idea while driving on highway 24 west bound towards downtown Oakland. I was thinking about the Vegas trip idea and listening to Counting Crows “Carriage” cranked up and I caught a view of the bay bridge, San Francisco and fog seemingly stalled at the edge of the SF skyline. I was feeling exceptionally grateful and fortunate for my life, family and “where I am at” and thought a trip to Vegas while fun lacked the kind of meaning that I want my this coming chapter of my life to have. The idea that popped into my head was donating my birthday to charity.

How do you donate your birthday?

I know it sounds like a strange idea, but the next step for me was thinking about all the projects my Rotary Club, District and PR group have that I could work on. I also thought about the blogs, websites and Facebook pages that all sorts of local non-profits that I’ve supported, helped or been exposed to over the past couple of years. More importantly I thought about the volunteer opportunities that might exist to donate some time to help others.

Action Plan

The plan involves 4 steps:

  1. Write a blog article to point the potential benefactors to.
  2. Compile a list of potential benefactors and their Email addresses.
  3. Compose a message to the potential benefactors.
  4. Compose a list of things that I will do if no-one has hands on opportunities or requests.

Steps 1 to 3 being done offline or already complete, that left me with a list of things to do if no-one has hands on opportunities or requests.

Default Go-to Activity List

  1. Setup some scheduled blog posts and tweets about the charities.
  2. Spend some time working on Rotary related websites.

Kind of a short list, but it’s also an ambitious list by itself. If you’re interested in following the effort I will tag everything I do with #40thpledge so you can search via Twitter, Google or even as a Tag on this blog.

Update 8/29/2010 – One of my friends over at Amplify.com was asking me about updates on this effort. Here is how my day went (quick summary I want to record a video later)

  1. Many of the 11 non profits responded, 2 of them had tasks for me for Saturday.
  2. One task was to talk to husband of the founder of the Booker T. Washington Empowerment Network about using Social Media (Youtube and Facebook mostly).
  3. Another task was to help Sonrise Equestrian Foundation with Ranch Cleanup.
  4. Since this was only part of the day I planned to work on a website for Rotary in the Valley, a group of 6 Rotary clubs regional effort.

Booker T. Washington Empowerment Network

I spoke with Anthony on my drive to Sonrise Equestrian. We discussed how to use the Facebook pages, Causes and some best practices for Facebook and Youtube. Anthony is pretty sharp he knew the right questions to ask and I am confident that he will be able to effectively execute. If not I’m prepared to advise them on an ongoing basis.

Sonrise Equestrian Foundation

The founder of this wonderful organization is Melanie Burke, after she spoke at my Rotary Club earlier this year I invited her to be on my Podcast. You can listen to that interview here. I spent 4 hours at the Charles Wilhelm Training Center – the ranch that hosts Sonrise. I was teamed up with a few other volunteeers carting in broken down asphalt into the back yards of the horse stables. The challenge with this job involved clearing the thresholds and the stuff is heavy and difficult to spread. I learned it helps with drainage in the rainy months. We also repaired one of the stables with some plywood sheets. Evidently sometimes horses lay down too close to one side of the stall and don’t realize they can just roll over so they panic and kick the heck out of the wall. Wow I would not want to be anywhere near that when it was occurring. My time working with the Sonrise volunteers was the highlight of my day. She has a very supportive group of people that help her, and when you meet Melanie or hear her story you will probably understand why.

Rotary in the Valley

Since I was out of requested tasks to do I looked at where I could have the most impact using my skills. I can navigate my way around WordPress fairly well and there was a site that needed to be built for Rotary in the Valley. It is still a work in progress but you can check it out here. This site is a team effort of the 6 San Ramon Valley Rotary club’s PR chairs. I happen to the PR chair for the Danville/Sycamore Valley Rotary for the 2010-2011 year. Our fearless leader is none other than THE Bill Randall, our District 5160 PR Chair and Alamo Rotary past president. Bill drives the bus and we all do our best to support his efforts. Rotary is very important to me and the benefactor of the majority of my community service outreach time.

Summary

Ultimately I do what I do for my benefit, but I am always thinking about my son and the importance of setting an example for him. I learned about the importance of serving others through my mother. She used to bring me and my other siblings to visit elderly people in the local convalescent hospital. I know she also volunteered throughout her life and the things I do know about probably only scratch the surface. My mom passed away 10 years ago and I suppose for me being able to give back and follow in her footsteps to some degree is really a celebration of her good example. I hope as a result that this has somehow inspired you.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James

Filed Under: Community, Inspiration Tagged With: , , ,