I admit it; graphic design is not my area of expertise. But I work in advertising and we work closely with graphic designers on each and every project. And one thing I have learned? Deleting that road sign and adding another inch of water/cliff/sky to the right side of a photo is not an easy task. Often, it’s a task that takes so many hours it makes my head spin when I see the billing and need to explain to my client that we spent 5 hours retouching ONE photo in their print ad.

So when I saw the new Content-Aware features being introduced in the next version of Photoshop, my ears perked up. Content-Aware will save our designers headaches and time; and will save our clients lots of money. A task that may have taken hours is now pared down to minutes, with a few extra touch-ups.

I highly recommend you put this on your list of things to add to your toolbox when it comes out. It may make a significant difference to your design estimates in the coming years.

According to one Gannett employee out of Milwaukee, “We get a lot more information from there, and sometimes we know things before our managers even tell us, weeks before.  Pretty crappy.”

This shows me three things. Gannett is either:

1. Not monitoring their online brand closely enough
2. Does not see the importance in it
3. Does not know how to turn it around at this point

A smart executive should see this as an opportunity to turn things around. These sites have captured the audience of their employees, past employees and competitors. If they were to have a chance at turning around their image – here it is. Most companies would pay thousands for a focus group with as much honest feedback about areas for improvement as these sites give Gannett. This is proof that they are not doing a good job communicating, and if you’re not giving your employees answers to questions, they’re going to find the answers elsewhere.

What are some things they could start doing to turn things around?

1. Start responding to comments on Gannettoid and Gannett Blog, identifying yourself as a Gannett executive. Give the readers honest answers. They’re just going to speculate if you don’t give them answers anyways.
2. Start communicating about the bad news. Companies are quick to put out memos about awards won or new ventures, but it’s quite sad when employees find out about furloughs, consolidations and downsizing from an inside-scoop blog. Even if it’s bad news, it’s better that employees hear it from the horse’s mouth. It will be easier to control the message and there will be less gossip and speculation. Even when the news isn’t great, giving it to your employees straight can help build trust.
3. Start guest blogging on Gannettoid and Gannet Blog – if they’ll have you. It’ll slowly start your change in image. Send memos about company news out to employees and send them straight to the Web site and blog. (They’re going to get them anyways.) Then, respond to each and every one of  the comments posted to the Web site or blog posting personally. Even if it’s a, “Sally, thanks for your comment. Sit tight. We understand your concerns and Gannett execs have a meeting this week to discuss that very issue. Just want you to know we’ve heard you, and we’re working on it. We hope to come to a solution in the next two weeks.”

Got other suggestions on how they can fix their image with such a large existing online community? Send ‘em my way! We know you Gannetters are out there and your voices need to be heard.

1. Burglary/Theft
   While it’s not extremely likely that thieves are trolling the Web for info on when people leave their homes, the Web site Please Rob Me brings to light some of the dangers surrounding location-based social media. The site aggregates a list of people’s status updates that share their current location – therefore sharing  the fact that their home-base is open and ready for the taking. Obviously, the site creators are not out to get you robbed, but they’re trying to bring to make us all aware of some of the dangers surrounding the transparency of location-based social media. It’s a reminder to be smart about what you share online and that it can leave us vulnerable.
2. Reputation
   According to the Reputation Defender Blog, online reputation management is a double-edged sword. In order to protect yourself from Internet slander and promote your personal and professional brand, you have to maintain a strong presence online. However, the more you share on the web, the more you have to work at preserving your digital identity.
   They make a great point: Consider what you’re sharing before you post it. If you’re late to work because you stayed out late, will you be able to explain it to your boss? Not if they can see on Foursquare that you checked into five bars last night and were out until the wee hours of the morning. (Solution: Maybe don’t Tweet that info out and keep your location private… or just don’t befriend your boss online.)
3. Personal Safety
   I think the biggest concern with location-based social media concerns the personal safety of minors. In the 90′s we saw sexual predators using chat rooms to target children, the last decade, they’ve used the likes of MySpace and even Facebook; but now we’re allowing our children to use smartphones with lots of fun new apps. Apps like Foursquare. They have access to location-based social media tools and could be broadcasting their locations out to sexual predators. It does happen. I guess this applies to adults as well, but I think one area of caution with the use of these tools is with children. They may not be as choosy when it comes to who they befriend, and may not think through the repercussions of telling their locations to the world. Be sure to talk to your kids about the new technology and, if they insist on using it, teach them how to be smart about it.

I think it’s great to stay on top of the latest trends. I really think that FourSquare is coming up with some great new ways for us to share recommendations, find great new venues and interact with our friends. We just need to think before we share.

See some benefits of these tools in Part 1 of this post.

The verdict? It sucks. I really fell in love with it at first, when I saw how many networks it can connect with.
But editing???? It was terrible. I could only post via e-mail or via Web. Their Web editor is TERRIBLE, and my e-mail wasn’t formatted correctly, so everything showed up all screwy when something was posted. If I posted via Web, I couldn’t post a photo or video or anything.

I’ve found that I did just fine with my WordPress blog. I’m able to link it to my Twitter feed and my LinkedIn feed. It’s easy to edit posts, track my traffic, respond to comments and much more.

I don’t really need to link everything to one account because I use them so differently. My Picasa photos are usually personal photos of friends – nothing I’d use for professional development. And if there’s a video on my YouTube channel worth speaking about, I’ll let you all know via a blog post linking to it.

I’m always going to stay open-minded about lifestreaming, but right now, I just don’t see it as the best way to put yourself out there. Please let me know if you’ve been able to make it work for you.

If you’re on twitter, you may have seen people’s status updates lately reading something like, “@JohnDoe left home and checked in less than a minute ago: I’m at Golden Corral Buffet & Grill (195 Holt Garrison Parkway, Danville).” At first, I was like, “Who cares?! And why do you want everyone knowing where you are every minute of the day. It’s bad enough that I get to find out what you have for breakfast via your Twitter feed, but now I have to know where you’re eating it, too?” But much like Twitter, these location-based tools do have their benefits. You just have to look beyond the surface level and find a way to make it work for your business.

First, if you don’t know what these are, here you go:
Tools like Foursquare, Google Buzz and Brightkite are location-based social networks that let you connect with friends using GPS via your mobile phone. They combine location sharing, friend connections, and Twitter-like streams to create a status update feed for your check-in history, and placestreams for each location.

The Benefits
Now according to the real social media experts, the front runner of these tools is Foursquare. It’s becoming a complete goldmine for marketers, and is the one that makes the most strategic sense for an individual and a business to use. Here’s why:

Personally:
In short, it’s a game. I earn points for every check-in, for hitting up multiple spots in a day, etc. “Mayorship” is key. If I check in at the same location a few times, I become the Mayor of that spot. People have found themselves competing to be the Mayor of the local Starbucks or Panera – and sometimes, if the business is in tune, the Mayor gets free stuff while they’re there. Which leads me to why it’s healthy for businesses …

Businesses:
Running a coffee shop? Offer free morning coffee to your Mayor every day. It spurs up some friendly competition among locals who frequent your spot, and compels them to check in at your shop on a more regular basis to get the check-in points. Plus, these people send out tips to their friends about your shop. We all know that recommendations and word-of-mouth are the ultimate marketing power, so this is just another way to encourage recommendations. Right now, Foursquare for businesses only works for places where people meet, socialize and linger. Think cafes, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, museums, theaters, etc. They’re working on incorporating other businesses into the system. But this could be a huge opportunity in the future for universities, walk-in clinics, hair salons, pharmacies, grocery stores and more.

Aside from spurring conversations and drumming up business, Foursquare is a marketer’s dream. This app collects data about your customer’s daily routines. It can track their taste in food, fashion and music, and we can receive alerts and location-based notifications about our customers. We’re always trying to target our consumers and learn more about them. What more can we ask for? We can find out that Suzie lives at 555 Blue Drive, attends movies at X Theater, goes to the local Starbucks every morning, works at a nearby financial firm, loves Mexican food, and takes the train every weekend to downtown Chicago and heads to the 20-something crowd’s popular bars and clubs. Now if you run a Mexican restaurant in downtown Chicago, why WOULDN’T you suggest your place to Suzie and mention to her that it’s just around the corner from Club XYZ (that you know she goes to every Saturday night)?

Now I haven’t personally used Foursquare to promote a business yet. So I’m trying to learn more about how one can use it to target consumers and get them in the door. But I really think this is a great tool for businesses to keep on their radar for 2010.

Personally, location-based networks pose some dangers. Which I’ll address in Part 2. Stay tuned!

Posted via email from Newbies to New Media

Posted via email from Newbies to New Media

Again, I find myself a bit behind in the world that is digital media.

Lifestreaming.

What is it? How does it work? How can I use it to my advantage? That’s what I plan to explore here through using Posterous. I stumbled across this great article, “Move Over Blogs: Here Comes Lifestreaming” and it peaked my interest to want to learn more about Lifestreaming.

What do I know so far? If you’re working on developing your brand online – be it a personal brand or your company’s brand, Lifestreaming can help bring all of the various platforms you’re using together. Post something to your Lifestream, and it gets blasts a tweet to Twitter, a post to your Facebook PAGE, a post to your Facebook PROFILE, a new entry for your WordPress blog, an update to your LinkedIn profile (not sure if it works for groups yet…), photos added to Flickr photostream, videos added to your YouTube channel, etc.

My initial reaction is that one should not abandon their blogs for Lifestreaming. It’s the source of your expertise and credibility. Plus, as a communicator, I strongly believe that your messages need to be targeted by audience. My Tweeps and my Facebook friends don’t care about the same things and don’t read things in the same ways. But, we’ll soon find out if my opinion is to change. Stay tuned …

If you want to learn more about me pre-Lifestreaming, check out my blog at http://newbiestonewmedia.com.

Posted via web from Newbies to New Media

Boy was I wrong. The word is GLOG. And it’s short for graphics (or graphical) blog. People and/or organizations are using glogs as interactive multimedia images that look similar to posters, but the readers are able to interact with the content. You can start your own glog on the Glogster Web site.

It’s the same basic concept of blogging, though. You create a profile, and you’ll want to be sure to have a clear objective and target audience for your glog. Let’s say you want to start one for personal use. You decide to glog about your family. Your target audience is friends and family, and your objective is to virtually scrapbook the ongoings of your life. Each glog post may highlight a certain event or trip. One for the family vacation to Disney, one post for your husband’s birthday party, another post for Christmas festivities. And within each post, you can put interactive videos, audio, links, journal entries and more.

Students in my mother’s school are creating glogs for class projects. Rather than creating posters with markers and magazine cutouts, they’re learning to adapt to this ever-changing digital world by creating glogs, listening to podcasts, using the iPod touch and other fun new media devices. In fact, the popular Glogster.com even has a division dedicated to education, where students can share their glogs securely with other students in their class and their teachers.

For fun, I decided to try out Glogster and created a completely rudimentary glog with info on my forthcoming destination wedding. Mine looks terrible, so don’t judge. But it was kind of fun! It’s one of those platforms where you just need to go in and play around with it. I suggest giving it a try.

So how can you use glogs?

• I can see them being used to promote events targeted to a Gen Y population – sending links to the glog out via facebook.
• It would be a great way to promote a client who produces rich media – like a band, an entertainment venue, a comedian, etc.
• Someone with graphic design talents and interactive talents might want to start glogging as part of their online portfolio – rather than doing traditional blogs. A glog could really show off your talents.

I’d love to hear your ideas on how you could use the concept of glogging in the professional world. Share your thoughts and help us out!