The Winds Of Change Are Comin’

Sometime over the next 30-45 days, this site will be making a move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. I’ve done enough reading about the technicalities involved in such a switch that I think I can accomplish this on my own. That being said, this might be one of those cases where … “That’s what you get for thinkin’!”  I may need to call in the geeks (smile)

While I have had a whole lot of fun and have learned a great deal in creating and maintaining these pages, the simple fact is that we have outgrown its capabilities. WordPress.org will …..

1. Provide a vast array of new choices in terms of cool themes. I have already chosen one of these to at least get started with.
2. Allow us to integrate some neat widgets that include java scripting. WordPress.com will only allow a small assortment of widgets that they have pre-approved. This is the same case with their selection of approved themes.

Additionally, the focus of this website will return to our members and their respective companies. The sites we developed on a Ning platform were designed for this purpose but they have been abysmal failures. That’s not Ning’s fault. I just can’t seem to get our members to sign up and use the sites period. As I like to say.. “stick a fork in them cause I’m done.” A huge part of this problem is based on the fact that we have been required to use multiple platforms to accomplish our goals including: WordPress, Ning, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Zoho. The sites themselves are o.k., it’s the jumping back and forth that gets confusing. I was working with another company on developing some software that would combine these functions however, part of our plan including offering this software for resale and we ultimately came to the conclusion that the demand for these capabilities simply was not sufficient.

On the brighter side, I continued to research alternatives in anticipation of the potential need for a “Plan B”. Our new site will be designed to ….

1. Give our brand a new look including a new logo that is close to being finalized.
2. Prominently feature members in each group along with their companies including appropriate contact information.
3. Provide our members with the ability to submit their own contributions in terms of articles for the blog.
4. Allow for a tighter integration with our CRM’s as well as the introduction of a new very easy to use group collaboration tool that I am presently evaluating.
5. Minimize the number of platforms required and make those that we do need more user-friendly.

There may be some technical challenges involved but I believe that they can be overcome. The actual address of this site is http://www.networksboise.wordpress.com. The new site will be just http://www.networksboise.com which, incidentally, is how this site is already referenced in our printed materials. We do own this domain name and have been forwarding that address to this WordPress.com URL. I have confirmed that I will be able to export the contents of this site and import them to the new .org location. The big question revolves around the fact that all of our existing pages and blog posts are linked to our present WordPress.com address. I am not sure how exactly this works but I am led to believe that for less than $10 we can do something called “domain mapping” that will take care of this problem. If it takes care of the problem, great. If not, I’m already over it.

Thanks for visiting! Exciting times ahead!

Craig

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Taking NetWorks! Boise To The Next Level

sacredhands.co.uk

First off, I do need to make it clear that our intentions are not quite as lofty as those shown in the scene depicted to your left (smile). That being said, there is nothing wrong with constantly trying to improve on what you already have. In fact, I consider that goal to be both a mandate and a requirement.

On October 27 of this year, NetWorks! Boise will celebrate it’s two year anniversary. By this date, our CRM database will  hold close to 3,000 opportunity records shared by this group during our weekly meetings. We have traveled a huge distance. Those who have been with us since the beginning will confirm that the NetWorks! which folks see today is absolutely nothing like the NetWorks! model that was introduced two short years ago. We have continued to evolve and have continued to get better. Evolution never ceases.

It has been no great secret that all along I have planned to develop NetWorks! Boise into multiple independent groups with each being based on the same model. To that end, I have been gathering potential member names with plans to launch the second group this coming spring. That schedule has been unexpectedly greatly accelerated. A few weeks ago I was approached by a friend who has been actively involved in another networking group here in town. I have always felt that, at least by looking at their membership, this was probably a pretty good group. Turns out that, at least for a few of their members, these folks are interested in getting a little “more” ROI from their efforts. So, I got the call … “Craig, I have some people interested in starting a new group and I was wondering if you had ever thought about opening another NetWorks! Boise”. Ohhhhh yeah (smile). This individual has visited a NetWorks! meeting and likes our “accountability” which is a huge part of what leads to our phenomenal “results”. That, my friends, is a topic for another post unto itself.

Well, a few of us had a meeting over coffee, discussed the group, and came up with some names. Of those names there are some that I know quite well, some that I know marginally, some that I know “of”, and some that I do not know at all. Never heard of them. What’s exciting is the possibility of reinforcing existing relationships and building new ones. I am not going to name names at this time but, this is quite the list of peeps. Well connected, well recognized, proven networkers, and they all love to “refer”. As for their skill sets ……. let’s just say that I’m drooling.

Our “BING” (Business Intelligence – Not Gossip) group has taken the art of knowing “who, what, and where” to “gold standard” levels. I am constantly amazed at the number of times I hear about the latest breaking business news and just smile knowing that this was already registered in our CRM for maybe months prior to this announcement. We have this down to a fine science.

Here come the best parts ……

My Top 10 Favorite Social Media Apps

zoegriffin.co.uk

O.K., I lied. I think there are about 16 here (smile). About a month ago I did a post entitled “10 Tools That Make My Life Worth Living”.  A lot more cool toys have surfaced since that time so here is my updated list (in alphabetic order):

GizaPage: Think of GizaPage has your own personal webpage that directs others to all of your social media sites including Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, or any other place that you might have a profile or some sort of presence. So, instead of providing all these addresses you just say www.craigmjamieson.gizapage.com. That’s it. Simple and easy. Someone I spoke to told me that I could also do that on FriendFeed, and you can, but for this purpose, I like the GizaPage format better. I also discovered another interesting function of GizaPage while I was just trying some things out. When you log onto my Twitter tab, it takes you to an app called TweeTree. I have never heard of it but it looks a lot like a standard Twitter page. But, get this, it is also calling up the actual link content that you include in your tweets. For example, a couple of my recent tweets were for new blog postings. These are generated automatically by TwitterFeed along with a link to the post. TweetTree not only shows the tweet, it also shows the post itself including the Jing videos. Sweeet!!!

HootSuite: HootSuite is a lot like TweetLater in that you can schedule tweets to go out on a delayed schedule. It’s is also like TweetDeck in that you can use it to monitor your Twitter activity. And, it has some other cool tools. I am hoplessly in love with it’s FireFox toolbar button called the “Hootlet”. When reading a page you’d like to share, click on the Hootlet button and a tweet is created, the url is shortened, and you can send the tweet now or schedule it for later. And do all of this while never leaving the page you are reading. They should really call this thing HootSweeeet (smile).

Jing Video Capture Software

I just learned this morning about a program called Jing. People were buzzing on Twitter about how cool it was. Well, it is. You can screen capture images, however, I already have been using the Vista “snipping tool” tool and Aviary for that. Might switch (smile). What caught my attention was “video capture”. Hmmm. Does this mean that I can make a video of what I do on my screen? This would be great for instructional videos. What you will find below is my first, and very lame, attempt (smile).

I am impressed that it is simple to use but there are limitations:

1. In order to post to YouTube you do need to go with the paid version upgrade.
2. The free version of Screencast.com that comes with Jing is limited to 2gb of storage and I think the same in bandwidth. I’m not sure what the bandwidth means but the storage limitation should not be that much of an issue.
3. Videos are limited to 5 minutes in length. I figure a 5 minute video is about 15mb. This means about 600 videos or 10 hours of them if my calculations are correct. Even I can’t talk that much. Well, o.k., maybe (smile). Interesting thought, though, since I am pulling this off Screencast and onto VodPod, maybe I can delete it from Screencast and will not have to deal with the potential storage issue? Hmmm.
4. Naturally, since this is a WordPress.com account, there are always issues in trying to figure out how to get things like this to a post. In this particular example, it means: create video using Jing; save to Screencast.com; go to Screencast.com and call up your new video; use the VodPod FireFox toolbar “share video” button to capture the video; and finally use VodPod to post the video to your blog. This sounds worse than it actually is.

Update: I just received a link via twitter from Dirk Frazier who is the PM over at Screencast.com. This appears to be a simpler way to “Embed Jing into A WordPress.com Blog”. Still involves VodPod as this is the workaround tool. Thanks, Dirk!

Overall, I’m gonna’ give this sucka’ two thumbs up (smile). Hope you enjoy the video. Please be kind. I used my shirt pocket as a microphone holder (smile).

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

more about “2009-07-17_1857“, posted with vodpod

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Adding Photos, Slide Shows, and Videos To WordPress

kudlian.net

This post is going to be more of a “what” and “where” than a “how” and “why”. All of this started out when I found a blog called “Business Blogging 101″ that talked about how to “Add a Photo Slideshow to WordPress with Slide.Com“. This is an excellent blog to follow if you work with WordPress. I’m not even going to try to duplicate Mark McLaren’s efforts in education in this regard. Incidentally, this is the same blog that introduced me to the power of the WordPress “text widget”.

Of course, I read Mark’s article and naturally, rather than follow the path of least resistance, I want to do what he is demonstrating but I want to do it differently. Why me? (smile). When you are dealing with any type of media with WordPress, you can potentially place these files in one or more of three areas: a “static” page, a “post”, or on a “sidebar”. The first two are easy. The last one is a bit tricky and, I wanted to place a “slideshow” on a sidebar. Bad choice (smile). Still, it can be done.

In my quest, I became acquainted with a number of free programs that will all work with WordPress in at least some fashion:

This isn’t a program, it’s a plain old photo (smile). This you can put anywhere in WordPress. When working with a post or a page, just use the “upload/insert” command and slap that baby wherever you want it. It can also be added to a “text widget”. You will, however, need to convert your photo to HTML. Not as bad as it sounds. What you do is start to create a draft post and insert your photo into that post. At the top right of the command bar for the post you have a choice to see your post in either “Visual” or “HTML”. Click the latter and your photo is converted to code. Copy the code and then paste that into you text widget and, voila, you have a photo on your sidebar.

Not a whole lot of explanation needed here. YouTube is the place for videos. YouTube can be placed either within a “static page” or within a “post”. In fact, it can be embedded which means that, as opposed to a link that will take you to the video, the video shows up right on your page.