To create and publish great content (blog posts, Facebook Page Wall notes, videos, tweets) you need….
1) Lots of good ideas about something that interests you, a way to record those ideas and time to do so
2) An editorial calendar to coherently organize and schedule the ideas – expanded into content – for publication, and time to think about and work on the calendar
3) Structured blocks of time to create all of the great content that you’ve thought of, then organized and scheduled
Three simple things, and time ties them all together.
Number One is doing fine for me; I have a whole notebook of blog post ideas that I carry around, and I keep notecards by the bed in case of late-night rockets of brilliance to the brain. Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Lifefor more insights into organizing your ideas.
I used to be pretty good with Number Two, then fell off of the planning wagon, got tired of pulling content out of my left ear at the last minute, and stumbled wearily back to the calendar. The key is to schedule time to think through and craft the calendar, organize the content ideas and fit it all into your workflow. Go read Becky McCray’s post on the six most important things; it will help.
I am not doing so well at Number Three.
My basic schedule for keeping up with 3 blogs means a post for one of them each day, Monday through Friday (this blog is scheduled for every Tuesday and Friday. Ain’t happening, is it?)
This means I need a more functional schedule. It also means I am considering dropping one of the blogs for which I’ve run out of creative energy. In my Navy shipboard engineering days, the electricians called that “load-shedding”….dropping noncritical items off of the power grid to ensure power to vital systems and equipment.
It does not mean I need to “make time.”
You can’t “make time.” That goose is already cooked. No one gets extra helpings of time or special favors from the Wizard of Time.
At the recent TACVB (Texas Association of CVBs) annual conference in Lubbock, my business partner Becky McCray and I negotiated a trade show booth for our Tourism Currents online course in social media for tourism as part of our speaker fee.
The only problem was that we had never put anything in our marketing budget for booth decorations or signs. We’ve never planned on doing trade shows; such events are probably one of the most expensive ways to market (booths often cost $500 and up) and our network seems to be building pretty well via word-of-mouth, social networking, current customers and our speaking engagements.
How could we put together something engaging without looking, well, cheap and pathetic? We’re a startup, but we have some pride! We decided to shop my stash of personal possessions for decorations, and not sweat the small stuff.
I was the only person at the trade show because Becky wasn’t able to arrive from Oklahoma until the conference opening reception. I’ve never done a trade show in my life; it was homework time.
Based on that research and my own experience as a trade show attendee, I could see that we didn’t need to get too fancy with the booth, but it did need to be eye-catching. We needed something to fill physical booth space since our main product is online training. I looked around my house for things to use – as a globe-trotter, I’ve done a lot of shopping over the years and have figured out how to find travel souvenirs when you’re on a budget.
Here’s what we did:
*** Assess the amenities already provided. We would have a skirted 8 foot long table, head sign with our company name, two chairs and a waste paper basket. There was power available. We also ended up with a terrific location, right by the trade show entrance.
*** The table was pulled back into the booth about 2 feet so that I could stand in front of it. I never used the chairs because it’s best to stand up to chat and engage with your visitors. Wear comfortable shoes and a perpetual smile when you’re the “booth babe.” :)
*** Pick a color scheme. Our Tourism Currents website designed by Kim Fenolio has a lot of blue in it, so I brought my blue-and-white patterned table runner (originally purchased at Pier One) and two blue tablecloths – one from Kenya, one from Egypt to fit the conference travel/tourism theme – to drape over one of the chairs and over one side of the side drapes. There are a few touches of orange on our website, so I wore an orange jacket.
*** Fill empty space. I brought a large, tall blue-and-gold cloth umbrella that I’d bought years before on a Navy port visit to Bali, Indonesia. When opened, it looked festive, matched the color scheme, fit the travel/tourism theme and drew a lot of interest. Driving my little Hyundai sedan to Lubbock with a pole running up the middle seemed a small price to pay (I can fold down part of the back seat to accommodate long items. I’ve even gotten a Christmas tree into that car.) I was also going to buy and blow up a bunch of blue balloons at a local grocery store to fill space, but the umbrella did enough.
*** Give people something to fiddle with. I used what I had – my bag full of tech accessories became a “Geek Gear” display. Many people picked up items, looked at them and asked questions about my external webcam, pocket video camera, tripod, Skype headset, etc. I had to trust that the gear wouldn’t walk off, and none did, but you have to know your audience. I also set out a bowl of Werther’s hard candies brought from home, guarded by a small plastic Japanese Godzilla doll just for fun.
*** Nice colorful flyers (mostly blue) run off at a Lubbock FedEx/Kinko’s were our only out-of-pocket expense: US$38.32 for 60 of them, which was about 30-40 too many. Becky designed the flyer to include course information and a discount code for the TACVB event, plus some info and another code for our upcoming tourism workshop at BlogWorld and New Media Expo on October 14.
*** Stack of business cards. I already had plenty, made by moo.com, which lets you do a lot of customizing and use many different photos on the backs. I use the regular business card-sized ones, not the mini ones that fall out of card decks too easily and annoy me.
*** A clear plastic glass brought from home, about half full of water with a light up party reusable “ice cube” in blue floating in it (originally from our family trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida awhile back, because, why not?) It was colorful and and caught the eye.
That was it.
The most important thing I did – besides chat with people who came by the booth that day – was to follow up the next week via email with everyone who had left me a business card.
And yes; it resulted in new paying customers for our business.
We are used to seeing handicapped parking spots and curb cuts, but how many of us think about the accessibility of the Internet – specifically travel and tourism Web sites – to those with disabilities?
As I discussed in an earlier post (Can you see this? Let’s talk Web accessibility) I’ve become a convert to the importance of making the Web accessible to everyone, including those who cannot hear or see very well.
By the way, if you are young now but plan to live to old age, come to grips with the realization that you won’t be able to see or hear as well as you do now. Web accessibility matters to everyone, eventually.
The disabled travel, too, and there are millions of them. Have you thought about whether your tourism-related Web site gives them the information they need to plan a trip?
I’m trying two different tools to make my own content more understandable and easier to use.
Perhaps you can find some useful ideas here for your own site….
1) BuzzVoice. Look at the right-hand sidebar on this blog; you’ll see a little phone-looking icon (we call it a widget) created by a company called BuzzVoice.
It uses text-to-speech software to turn my written words into spoken English, so a visually-impaired or dyslexic person can still absorb my content. Thanks to this post about BuzzVoice by Jason Falls, I’m helping out with the software’s beta-testing. Your feedback is, of course, most welcome down in the comments for this post.
Is something like this only for the visually-impaired? Nope; another benefit is that people who have long commutes, road trips, workouts or who simply love audio content can “listen” to my blog posts on iPhones, iPods/MP3 players & other mobile devices (and now on the new iPad.)
To share the Sheila’s Guide talking widget on Facebook, Twitter & other social sites, just click the “Grab This” button at the bottom of the widget (you can embed it like you do a YouTube video.) You can subscribe to the vocals as an RSS feed or as an iTunes audio feed.
The software doesn’t “translate” perfectly, of course, and it’s an electronic voice rather than my own, but still, it’s a step ahead for allowing multiple ways for readers to enjoy the site.
2) Video captions. A service to help you with automated video captioning is now available for all YouTube users, so I’m trying it out on a few of my own videos.
I’ve been schooled by Web accessibility expert Glenda Watson Hyatt on the importance of video captioning for the hearing-impaired (here are some captioning tips on Glenda’s blog) but until this machine transcription service, it was “too hard” and “took too much time.”
To request a machine transcription (the software for it was created by a deaf Google engineer) go to the Edit function of your selected video and look for the tab labeled “Captions.” Click that, and ask for an (English only) machine transcription if it’s not already been done.
You’ll get an .sbv file to download and edit. I recommend opening it in WordPad for better formatting. You’ll see the words lined up with the time that they were said in the video; you’ll also see that the speech-to-text technology is….er….not terribly accurate.
No matter: at least you have a time-synched rough draft transcript to work with, right?
Rename the “captions.sbv” file something like “Smithville downtown video transcript.sbv” and go to work – edit the file to make the text match what is actually said in the video.
It is much easier to edit a video when the speaker is clear and speaks slowly; since I tend to speak quickly when I narrate my own videos, I am a pain to edit.
When the .sbv file is ready, upload it back on the same Edit page for the video, and it will automatically be entered into the video. Watch the captioned video all the way through to make sure everything is correct. If there is a problem, go back to editing, remove the old file and re-upload your corrected one (it will again be automatically added to your video.)
Are there SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits to adding this caption text to your videos? My very preliminary research indicates that the jury is still out on SEO benefits of YouTube’s captions, but at least now you have a transcript that you might be able to add to the video description or place into your own blog post below the video’s embed box (and that text WILL be indexed by search engine bots.)
More importantly, actual humans appreciate captions. Here is a video from the California School for the Deaf High School (here’s a direct link to it on their YouTube channel) with students explaining why they’re so excited to have more captioned video content – I dare you to watch it and not realize the power of Web accessibility:
I have been practically welded to my tripod (a three-legged Sunpak 6060) for the last few weeks as I’ve shot video (and still photos to incorporate into those videos) for a client CVB.
There is no question that it has enhanced my good shots and totally saved several otherwise crummy ones.
Before you shoot another frame of any visual digital medium, go get a tripod. Your viewers will thank you.
One of the great benefits of hanging around with tech-savvy people at events like Social Media Breakfasts, tweetups, SOBCon, etc. is that I’ve picked up some very helpful tools for communications and information sharing.
These are in the “toolbag” of just about everyone who is active on the social Web….
1) Skype (with headset) – Skype is the telephone of the Internet. This basic “let’s talk” tool costs nothing to download and install on your computer, and you can use it for free one-to-one conversations or group conference calls around the world. I’ve used it for almost two years with a monthly business mastermind group, plus one-off calls like a recent one with my fellow Perceptive Travel Blog writers (scattered across Tennessee, New York, Texas and New Zealand.) You can use Skype with your computer’s built-in microphone, but there are feedback/audio problems. Buy a $20-30 headset at an electronics store before that first call (I use a comfy one from Logitech that plugs in via USB port.)
2) Google Docs – Again, free. All you need is a Google account (which also gives you the well-regarded Gmail email, another geek staple.) Google Docs allows you to share and edit a document, simultaneously if you’d like, across multiple users. No more emailing that .doc or PDF back and forth! You can also create presentations, forms and spreadsheets. Did I say: free? You can also password protect your creations. How do Becky and I run Tourism Currents? We use Skype video meetings and Google Docs.
3) Webcam – You may have a webcam (Web camera) already installed at the top of your screen or monitor, or you can buy an external one that you plug in (I use this one from Logitech.) With a webcam you can livestream to the Web using UStream (geeks are always livestreaming stuff) and you can also do Skype video calls.
4) SlideShare – After a presentation to a techy audience, I almost guarantee that someone will say, “Will this be up on SlideShare?” Don’t look at them blankly; have an account set up and upload your presentation slides. No more emailing huge Power Point slide files. SlideShare costs nothing; here are my uploaded presentations. Here’s what you get on SlideShare when you search for presentations on tourism and social media. Nice, huh?
Did I miss any obvious ones? Please chime in with your suggestions in the comments.
After watching this incredible video of musician Bobby McFerrin using his body, some humming and audience feedback to demonstrate the pentatonic scale at a science conference, I wondered….
How often are organizations willing to open their minds to new people who can teach everyone new ways to look at things?
It is scary to stretch your brain, but that’s when the “Oh, wow!” moments happen.
Is your organization hiring the same old, same old?
That’s perhaps why it is stuck doing the same old, same old.
