Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should.

I've been in some discussions lately about how to reach larger audiences for growth.
Ok, yeah, it's not for business, in this case, it's been for my church. But a lot of what I know about business applies here.
There's all this talk and excitement still about digital and social media, which is understandable. Social media still has this wonderful promise of being the great equalizer. Now, those who could not afford to create flashy websites can create and distribute content for free or practically free. Get your message out there! Get on Facebook! Twitter! Pinterest! Blog away! Go mobile! Everyone is CONNECTED!! (Ok, so churches can be a little behind the curve sometimes).

But here's where I want to start flashing the "yellow light". The first step with developing your social media strategy (and YES YOU SHOULD HAVE ONE) is to LISTEN. Just because you have volunteers or people within your organization who know how to post to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc, does not mean you should. Are the people you want to reach even USING Twitter? While half of all adults may own a smartphone or tablet,  they do not all use them the same way. Most use them to consume news, but not all use apps. If you don't know your audience, developing an app that connects nicely with Twitter and Facebook may fall flat and not appeal to some, most, or worse- anyone- that you're trying to reach. On top of that, you'll frustrate and burn out your developers.
Developing a strategy and listening is really not all that hard. Engage! by Brian Solis is an awesome book that will walk you through it, and has some great forms to help you track listening. You can buy it from Amazon here.
So yes, social media is awesome. There are a TON of ways to connect with your audience. That does not mean you should try to use all of the ways to connect. Find the ways that work, the ways that they are already using. Meet your audience where they are- don't try to get them to meet you where you are. With so many options available, if you're not where they expect to find you, they'll just pay attention to who IS there.

The Path is not crowded. Yet.

So there's this app called Path. I heard about it from a friend who knows his stuff when it comes to social media and integrating it with the real world, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

First, let me say that I really, really, really love the idea. The app integrates multiple social media streams (Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Twitter, Tumblr). All of this in one place, in one stream. This is fantastic for the next reason that I love the idea- it's intended for use by a limited circle of friends and family, for close sharing. So I have many relatives who are not on Instagram, Twitter, or Foursquare. This puts all of my activity in one place so they can still keep up, and I can add even more detail ( like that I'm awake or asleep) to keep them up to date. Yes, it seems like a large amount of detail, which is why it's meant for only close family and friends- parents and grandparents who really care that it's 61 degrees today and the kids are both passing math.

I'm not even kidding. I'll add the math part later.

So while I love the idea, here's the issue.
It's an app for iOS and Android. There's no desktop version. So those people I talked about earlier who don't have Twitter or Instagram or Foursquare? Yeah, most don't really use a lot of apps on their smartphones either, if they even have smartphones. So, while I sent invitations to my close family to try this out, so far I'm the only one on my feed. Every one of them quickly responded to the invitation, but none had the right phone  or data plan to use the app. So the interest was there.

Other gripes I have so far, some of which could be lack of knowledge due to lack of use (due to lack of family with smartphones... see above). The music sharing doesn't integrate with my Spotify. It says that it will import my Instagram, Facebook, etc, and it did when I initially set everything up. But since then, I haven't seen a single post come across. I also posted something from Path and tried to cross-post to Instagram without success.

Ultimately I think this is an awesome idea, and I would love to see it take off. A desktop app would make it a MUST for keeping up with family. I'll keep watching it, that's for sure.

I know what you really want to know

So I had two biopsies this week. Really they are more of scrapings when it's skin biopsies, just having moles removed, but for some reason I've been really anxious about it. Here's one of the gruesome post- procedure sites:

Gruesome post-biopsy site

When I was 19 and had HPV, I had my first "cancer test" and had a cervical biopsy. The doctor who did that was quite unfriendly about it, and fairly clear about why. That one hurt a lot and bled a lot. (It came back benign.) Since then I've had lots of the screening tests- my breasts have been smooshed paper-thin when I complained of painful lumps. I've had the trans-vaginal sonogram multiple times. I've had techs who allowed me to insert the probe and some who did it themselves. Either way felt like a violation and I can't imagine having to have that done following a traumatic event.

So why the heck am I all worked up about this? This was the least invasive and quickest of any procedure I've had in my recent memory. 

I think that, after much thought, I'm more worried this time because if I need to follow up with anything, I'm in trouble. I don't have insurance anymore in 4 days. I won't even know by then if it's benign or not. And that's lame, you know? I shouldn't have to worry about that. Not me, as in just me- "Me" as in the global me, as in we- we should not have to worry about what we would do if it turned out we needed more care than our usual visits to the family doctor. And I shouldn't have to sell my soul to get it. That's just salt in the wound.

But I know what you really want to know.

How do I keep my arms so well toned?

Well, I have a Wavemaster cardio bag, a decent pair of gloves, and at least an hour of music on a Spotify playlist. I put on my playlist and I punch the bag and dance. I don't have routines, I don't have any sort of trainer, I don't go to a gym, I don't watch a DVD. I listen to loud music, punch a bag, and dance for an hour. I highly recommend it. Feel free to subscribe to my kickin' list and dance away!

I did this in less than 10 minutes using free iOS apps.

Stuff like this is really easy to me, but people ask me all the time how I do it, don't seem to believe that it's so easy, and start to look at me cross-eyed when I tell them how to do it. It really is this easy, so I thought I'd throw a quick "this is how easy it really is" up here. Yep. Less than 10 minutes and the apps were free. Here's how I did it.

First I used my iPhone camera :

Then I used Dash of Color to isolate the red (for the most part- I wasn't too careful) :

Then I used that image in Instagram to add filtering and mess with the light to come up with the final product: 

Yep, it's that easy. If you have an iOS device, it's honestly never been so easy to adjust pictures and try to draw out and express whatever it was that made you take the picture in the first place. Give it a shot- you might be surprised at the dormant creativity within you!

Digitizing books and learning languages for free. Technology Rocks!

I recently discovered Duolingo after a friend offered invites and encouraged watching this video of Luis Von Ahn's TED talk.

First off, I did not know that we were helping to digitize books with reCaptcha. That's awesome. Second, I love the idea of leveling the playing field so that anybody can learn another language. Not only can anybody with access to the Internet learn another language, but in the process of learning, we're making the Internet available to more people. This is awesome. I had to do it.

I decided to start with German because I took two years of German in high school when I lived in Germany. Duolingo allows you to test out of levels, so if you do have previous exposure, you're not stuck going through all of the lessons. Herr Dowling would not be thrilled with how few I have manged to test out of, but I'm glad that I haven't lost it all. It has, after all, been 20 years or so.

The lessons are really straight forward, there's some explanation, an area for questions and insights, and then the exercises. They're made up of pictures and sentences that you translate back and forth from English to German and vice versa. There are multiple choice questions and free text. It even has audio so you can hear the language and practice speaking it. But you don't have to. I turned off the speaker and the mic because I have a hard enough time understanding what people say in English.
I'm able to start translating stuff from the web right away, which is really cool, because I'm able to use some of the conversational German that I remember, and the stuff that I don't.... well... You know those instruction manuals that sound like they were translated from Japanese to Swahili to English? Well I get to do that translation! It's kind of fun, and then I'll see the other translations and find out how it's really said. So I learn. Bonus.

Oh and it works great with my ADD. I don't have to pay attention- I can just kind of go through it while I'm talking with the fam in the evening or watching TV. In fact, I'm finding that's better. (I don't know if that's because I've already been exposed to the language I'm "learning"). I'm not trying to do a 1:1 translation, I'm just learning it through repetition. This is working for me. And since I can translate little pieces from the web not only am I helping out, but I'm learning the language and interesting tidbits as I go.
It's still in Beta and people with accounts only had 3 invites- mine are all gone. The first went to my 10 year old son, who is even doing great with it and mastering levels like crazy (he's doing Spanish).
If you know someone with invites, ask for one! If not, go to the site, sign up and wait, it will be worth it. Unless you'd rather pay $500 or more per language.

UPDATE: I got 3 more invites today, because the 3 I invited signed up, so I'm glad there's not a 3 invite limit!

Frank Warren is stuck in my head

I recently did a short presentation on PostSecret, and in researching that, watched a lot of PostSecret videos.
Frank Warren is the guy who started it all, and he really does a good job talking about how the secrets offer a glimpse into the true human condition. I honestly don't know how Frank does it- I only check the site weekly at best and there are secrets I've seen that still haunt me years later, he sees massive amounts more, and I'm sure some that are nearly unbearable.

So one of the things that Frank says is that he believes that secrets come in many forms; secrets we keep from others and secrets we keep from ourselves. And then his (apparently) famous "free your secrets and become who you are." This is what I can't get out of my head. I know the secrets I keep from others (well, mostly), but what secrets am I keeping from myself?
and what are those secrets keeping me from becoming?

I dunno. I guess maybe I'm really good at keeping secrets from myself. But now I'm thinking about it. All the time. I've never sent in a secret, but if I did, what would I send? What secret would I share with strangers, anonymously, that I have shared with no one else? Do I just not have the need to share in that way, is that why I can't think of anything, or am I not that deep? Am I avoiding the real questions I need to be asking myself?

What secrets am I keeping?

Email. Why bother? Because I don't know what else to do.

I love collaborating with others and working in teams when everyone (or most everyone) is engaged in the project. I find it energizing and inspiring, and a lot of fun.
Of course, that's once everyone gets together. The issue I'm running into more and more lately is getting everyone together. Not just physically, but even virtually. And I'll admit, I'm just as bad- if not the worst- about this as anyone else.

At one time, email was the way to go. Yahoo and Google groups worked fantastically to organize groups of emails and store and archive of messages, and everyone on the list could easily communicate to everyone else quickly. But recently something odd has begun to happen.

Emails get sent, but not replied to. In my own inbox, despite the priority flagging that Gmail has been nice enough to do for me, I ignore emails. In fact, I go days without checking my email. I don't think I'm the only one- I've sent emails to groups asking for even a response saying that the email was received (knowing of course that each person had to confirm their email to join the group) and been greeted with silence in return. This is a problem when trying to collaborate with multiple people who have very different work and sleep schedules.

So what are other options? I've tried Google docs, texting, Facebook groups, Facebook messages and wall posts, email + text, instant messaging... all with limited to no success. I'm having this issue in my personal life- I can't even imagine how anyone handles this in a remote office situation where you can't just get up and walk to someone's desk! Obviously there are some awesome paid collaboration tools out there, but if I can't reach my co-collaborators where they hang out anyway, I'm not holding out much hope for them making a purposeful trip to a separate tool.

So I'm stuck. Individually, Facebook, Twitter, and texting work great for me and easily beat out email as the best way to share information with me. One of my friends has figured out if there's a lot of info to go ahead with an email, then text me that she sent it. But the abundance of choice in communication has given us just that- an abundance of choice. This means that we will continue to face increasing challenges when it comes to collaboration, and it will be increasingly important to define the channels of communication at the beginning of a project. And I don't just mean get everyone to nod and say "ok yeah, we'll email about that", I mean get everyone to commit to the method and agree to respond or post or whatever- leaving it open will leave you open for frustration and possible failure and nobody wants that.