In response to our last minute on making virtual friends, someone asked me to turn our marketing newsletters into an RSS feed. Huh? I had seen the RSS button on lots of websites, but was a bit hazy on the details. Nor was I so keen on the idea of adding yet more weight to the information overload all of us experience. Now that I’ve done the research and tried it out, I’m sold on the idea and ready to convert others. So brace yourself!
I’ve said it once in my newsletter…
Like many workaholics I get sooooooo much email that I respond mainly to the urgent ones. Contrary to Stephen Covey’s advice and my own desire, I tend to ignore the important things like news and personal emails. And yet, I write a newsletter using www.streamsend.com. More surprising – thousands of people subscribe and some even read it. And a handful of friends love me for the poor correspondent that I am.
…I say it again on my website…
We archive all our newsletters on nFold’s website www.nfold.com for posterity. Sometimes people interested in our impartial advice or niche software will browse the site and can catch up on all the fun over some coffee. Or journalists wanting to quote someone not so rich and not so famous but mad about software, will check out the results of our crystal-ball-gazing and cheeky comments about the state of the software world.
…and I say it again in a BLOG…
This BLOG business has taken the world by storm. Everyone and his dog can write whatever they want whenever they feel like it and share it with the world. The infrastructure is free, courtesy of www.blogger.com. But anyone interested in reading your thoughts will need to know your BLOG exists or find the proverbial needle in a haystack. And when you add another thought?
… now I can say it again on RSS…
I was gratified to discover, at the END of my RSS research – thanks Murphy! – that we already have an RSS feed. If you browse to our BLOG address http://softwareminute.blogspot.com your browser’s “Feed” button should magically light up. When you click it, it takes you to a specially formatted page http://softwareminute.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.
But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. Now that you have the address of our feed, you need to add it to a feed reader like the one you can download for free from www.feedreader.com. It hovers in your computer’s task bar and pops up a window every time one of your “feeds” is updated with new content. Hey presto! News that you’re interested in reading arrives on your desktop.
…and the final word can be mine.
Our next step in the new technology adoption lifecycle is to follow in the footsteps of one of our software suppliers. Tom Sant is rated one of the world’s top 10 sales trainers and writes an award winning newsletter called “Messages that Matter”. No really! There IS an award for newsletters in the US where everything is bigger and better – as we all should know. He “podcasts” his messages so that you can listen to him have the last word on http://www.santcorp.com/best_practices/podcasts.htm. Now that’s what I call spreading the word!
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Making virtual friends? Ag shame!
For the longest time I have been reading about the social revolution happening on websites such as http://www.secondlife.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/. I have also been wondering what all the fuss is about Blogs? Finally, I decided to take time out from my (rather busy) first life to find out more.
Technically speaking, you are now experiencing my first blog softwareminute.blogspot.com. It took me all of 5 minutes to register on http://www.blogger.com/ and start WABing - for the un-initiated that means I am now indulging in Work Avoidance Behaviour. In the spirit of the moment I have explored Blog aggregators such as http://www.afrigator.com/ for local Blogs. I have joined virtual networks such as http://www.mygenius.com/ for entrepreneurs. And I've been growing my business network on http://www.linkedin.com/.
Rumour has it that companies screening job candidates have started checking out the profiles of their potential employees on sites such as facebook. So watch what you say about your secret hobbies if your career means anything to you. I was a bit disappointed at how difficult it is to find and join an existing network on facebook. But it seems easy to make friends and invite people from your own address book to join your own networkssssss. Go wild! Have a dozen. Invite everyone you know or would like to know. Look up long lost friends. But be warned...you could be "poked" by someone you wish would remain lost.
You need a lot of time and patience to live a second life. As an ardent sci-fi fan, I'm not phased by the lingo. I know about "avatars" and have chosen Opin Dawes as my virtual name. But appealing as it may be to explore a whole new world peopled by 8 million other people who are responsible for 12.5 million transactions per day in this not quite virtual economy, I prefer to meet real friends for real coffee in the real world - even if it costs real money.
I guess all of these social networking mechanisms have business potential if you're willing to get creative. No doubt someone may even be willing to pay you to lead a second life in the hope of financial reward. In my view, facebook, linked in and blogger have the most immediate business potential. Meanwhile, having registered for a whole bunch of virtual networks, I am gritting my teeth in expectation while waiting for the to spam hit the fan.
Technically speaking, you are now experiencing my first blog softwareminute.blogspot.com. It took me all of 5 minutes to register on http://www.blogger.com/ and start WABing - for the un-initiated that means I am now indulging in Work Avoidance Behaviour. In the spirit of the moment I have explored Blog aggregators such as http://www.afrigator.com/ for local Blogs. I have joined virtual networks such as http://www.mygenius.com/ for entrepreneurs. And I've been growing my business network on http://www.linkedin.com/.
Rumour has it that companies screening job candidates have started checking out the profiles of their potential employees on sites such as facebook. So watch what you say about your secret hobbies if your career means anything to you. I was a bit disappointed at how difficult it is to find and join an existing network on facebook. But it seems easy to make friends and invite people from your own address book to join your own networkssssss. Go wild! Have a dozen. Invite everyone you know or would like to know. Look up long lost friends. But be warned...you could be "poked" by someone you wish would remain lost.
You need a lot of time and patience to live a second life. As an ardent sci-fi fan, I'm not phased by the lingo. I know about "avatars" and have chosen Opin Dawes as my virtual name. But appealing as it may be to explore a whole new world peopled by 8 million other people who are responsible for 12.5 million transactions per day in this not quite virtual economy, I prefer to meet real friends for real coffee in the real world - even if it costs real money.
I guess all of these social networking mechanisms have business potential if you're willing to get creative. No doubt someone may even be willing to pay you to lead a second life in the hope of financial reward. In my view, facebook, linked in and blogger have the most immediate business potential. Meanwhile, having registered for a whole bunch of virtual networks, I am gritting my teeth in expectation while waiting for the to spam hit the fan.
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