At Long Last, I’m Going To Be A Podcaster

Yesterday I met up with my longtime friend and fellow geek girl Sheri on a sunny patio where we held our first brainstorming session for our new podcast. (Incidentally, Sheri, who has called me by the nickname “

Suze” ever since we met was the inspiration for the name of my blog).

I’ve been wanting to start up a podcast for some time now, but I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Sher and I got to talking a few weeks back and it turned out she had the same desire and wants to talk about the same things I do. It was a natural fit!

Our plan is to spend the next couple of weeks working out the topics and researching for Episode 1. We’ve set up a blog which I will disclose to you later this week, once I’ve cleaned it up a bit. We’ll be sorting out the technical side of production and our goal is to record our first episode the weekend after next.

I hope you’ll tune in when the time comes. In the meantime I’m wide open to hearing any advice or suggestions anyone has for building a successful podcast. I won’t give too much away about the subject matter just yet, suffice it to say that it will appeal to tech-curious and tech-savvy women.

Stay tuned!

Things My Mom Has Taught Me About Social Media

I’ve been pondering for a couple of days what to write for my Mother’s Day blog post. I knew it would be something about all of the things my Mom has taught me over the past 37 years or so about life. But this morning I started thinking that many of the things she has taught me apply directly to my experiences with social media.

So here is my list of Things My Mom Has Taught Me About Social Media:

Play Nice With the Other Kids
When I was growing up, my Mom always told me to be polite and kind to the people I interacted with. This meant grownups as well as the other kids around me. She said it’s okay to disagree with people, but always be respectful of others’ opinions.

How do I apply this lesson to my online interactions? Simple. I often disagree the opinions of others. I don’t mind saying so by commenting on their blogs or sending them a message. But lately I’ve been noticing more and more negative discussions hovering around my social networks. Healthy debate promotes positive change. Bashing people and negative talk doesn’t accomplish anything. Play nice and everyone will benefit.

Be Grateful For What You Have Been Given
When I was growing up my Mom always reminded me to be grateful for the things I had been given…a nice family, a roof over my head, nice clothes, 3 meals a day, and so on. She also told me to be grateful to the people around me when they did nice things for me. And to try to do nice things in return.

I am eternally grateful to all of the people who’ve helped me on my journey so far - from my my great friend André who took a chance on me when I was just 19 and gave me my first job in TV, to my brother who dragged me up to the computer room in 1996 and showed me this amazing thing called the “Internet” for the first time, to all of the people (too many to mention here, but they know who they are) who have been mentors and teachers of all things social media. I do my best to do nice things for them too. And I am now passing on what I’ve learned from them, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do that.

If You Don’t Know How to Do Something, Figure It Out
My Mom is a voracious knitter. Over the years I’ve watched her go from knitting simple potholders and scarves to ultra-complex hooded sweaters and baby clothes. The work she does is beautiful and frankly I am amazed at how she does it. It’s a talent. But if you ask her, she’ll say “I just worked at it till I figured it out.”

Today, I live by that advice. In 1998 I graduated from a college program where they taught us about CD ROM development. All we learned about the web was one class about HTML coding. 3 weeks after I graduated, one of my teachers came to me and asked me to teach a course at the college in HTML and Dreamweaver. I said sure, having no idea how I was going to do it. But I spent the next month learning everything I could. I messed around, messed up, and worked at it till I figured it out. I taught the course and got rave reviews. Today, because of Mom, I get excited when I don’t know how to do something, because it’s an opportunity to explore and figure it out.

Don’t Spend All Day On That Thing
My Mom realizes the importance of variety. When we were growing up, Mom wouldn’t let my brother and I spend too much time doing only one thing - watching TV, reading, playing outside, and even homework. “Take a break, do something else. It’s all about balance.” she’d say.

I spend a lot of time on the computer, but eventually, somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear my Mom say to me “Don’t spend all day on that thing!”. So I shut down the computer after a while, to make sure that there is a balance between my online life and the rest of my life.

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My Mom is a wise woman. The impact and influence she has had on our family’s life is remarkable, and she continues to inspire us daily with her energy, love and commitment. Thanks Mom, for being you and Happy Mother’s Day.

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(Note: My parents are no social media slouches themselves. My Mom is on Facebook, regularly Instant Messages, and my Dad runs a blog at villagesquares.wordpress.com and uses Flickr for all his photo sharing needs.)

Is Social Media a Square Peg in a Round Hole?

Last night I attended the Third Tuesday Ottawa meetup for the first time. It was a great event, with excellent speakers. I highly recommend it for anyone in the Ottawa area interested in social media and networking with like-minded people. The discussion was entitled “Shiny Object Syndrome” and the intent was to explore social media tools - what’s working, what’s not, what’s the next big thing, etc.

However (as is often the case at these types of forums), the discussion ended up being not so much about the tools, but about the impact they are or are not having on corporate and government communications. It seems these days, the question du jour is - how do I get my Boss/Director/High Ranking Bureaucrat to understand social media and advocate its use in my organization?

That makes me think…is it possible we are trying to force social media into a space where it doesn’t belong? Are we trying to push a solution onto a problem without really understanding what it could solve?

By sheer coincidence (or fate, as I tend to believe in cases like this), one of my former Senior Managers was in attendance at last night’s Third Tuesday. It was extraordinary to see him at an event like this, because after the high tech bust he got out of the business altogether. But there he was.

Back in the day when we both worked for “Giant Corporation”, my boss used to gather our team in his office for what resembled a daily sermon. One of the things he often talked about was whether or not the solutions we were providing to “Giant Corporation’s” business problems were the right solutions or if we were “trying to fit a square peg in a round hole”. His point being, even though we worked for a technology company, throwing technology at a problem was not always the best solution.

These days, it seems to me that some (certainly not all!) communicators think that throwing the latest new fangled social media tool into an organization is going to help solve problems these organizations have with marketing, communications and PR. “If we tell our customers and employees to get on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and FriendFeed and so on…they will understand us better.”

The truth is, the next FriendFaceTwitterTube is not going to make organizations communicate better. All the Twittering in the world is not going to make employees adapt to a new business process, and setting up a Facebook group is not going to soften the impact of massive layoffs. Spending money and resources to produce a fancy marketing to post on YouTube in the hopes it will go viral is not going to close more sales. In these cases, the solution doesn’t suit the problem.

Now you may argue, “But yes! Social media is the answer! I use Twitter to communicate all the time! My Facebook and LinkedIn networks are powerful! My blog gives me a voice inside of my faceless organization! Think of all we can accomplish by getting everyone connected on these tools! It’s about personal communications!”

The problem with social media is it’s intensely personal. And most corporations and governments are not set up for personal communications. They are structured in a top down fashion with sets of checks and balances that ensure that information is funneled and filtered and controlled through the right channels. And with good reason.

When I worked for “Giant Corporation”, we were strictly prohibited to speak to anyone from the media about what was happening in the company, good or bad. If blogging had been prevalent back then I’m sure we’d have been prohibited from doing that too. They told us they could take legal action if we were caught talking to media or publishing any sort of information about the company. Why? Because it’s a public company and when shareholders are involved, information MUST be controlled, or the shareholders can get antsy and that is not good for the stock price. Bottom line.

Transfer the same philosophy over to government, and it’s a similar situation. Someone says the wrong thing to a reporter (or posts on their blog, or Twitter, or Facebook page) and boom! Scandal.

I’m not saying that the way corporations and governments communicate is perfect by any stretch. But, social media tools, by their very nature of being for the people, by the people, are a square peg in this environment. Frankly, these tools do not necessarily fit in the round hole of corporate and government communications. In order for it to work, the traditional model and culture of corporate communications must be burst wide open and I can’t see that happening any time soon.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a HUGE proponent of social media and all of the amazing possibilities it holds. I think it is a tremendous marketing, communications and PR tool for small and medium sized enterprises as well as non-profit organizations. Every day I move forward in some way in my own business as a result of social media and the marvelous network I have been able to develop in the past few years.

What I am against is forcing a solution into an organization just because it is cool and hip and trendy, without giving serious thought to the ramifications of implementing it.

(Thanks to the lovely and talented @G_reg for contributing his insights and helping my poor worn out brain to edit this post tonight. I couldn’t have done it without him!)

On Passion and Success

Last evening I was privileged to attend the 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Gala. This annual event is a pretty big deal for artists in our country. It honours the lifetime contributions of Canadian artists - from musicians to dancers to playwrights to filmmakers to comedians and beyond. Some past recipients include Norman Jewison, The Guess Who, Neil Young and Gordon Pinsent.

This year, the honours went to actor/writer/comedian Eugene Levy, Canadian rock superstars The Tragically Hip, pianist Anton Kuerti, choreographer Brian Macdonald, playwright John Murrell, rock legend Michel Pagliaro, and filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. An incredibly diverse group of artists.

The show itself was terrific, and performances by The Hip, Anton Kuerti, and Michel Pagliaro were amazing and fun. The Governor General, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean even took the stage and played the piano with host Gregory Charles. The presenters gave fantastic tributes, from Martin Short cracking everyone up with his “roast” style tribute to his life long friend Eugene Levy, to a charming introduction to the Tragically Hip by the CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos (he was the only presenter that didn’t use a teleprompter or notes for his tribute - impressive).

It was a star-studded evening, to be sure. But what I really took away from the experience is that as diverse as all of these artists are, they have one common link. Their passion for what they do is what has directly contributed to their success.

Imagine how different things would be in the Canadian arts community if Eugene Levy and Martin Short had never acted upon their wacky ideas when they were students at McMaster University in the late 60s. Or if Anton Kuerti had never bothered to learn to play the piano. Or if that little rock band from Kingston had never had the motivation to put Gord Downie’s lyrics to music.

It is those people who create through their passion that succeed. All of these honourees can tell you many stories about obstacles they’ve encountered along their paths. But their passion for their art is what drives them to continue, to overcome the obstacles and ultimately, to reach their goals.

We can learn a lot from people who have achieved great things. There is no great secret to success. Success begins and ends with being passionate, with a lot of hard work thrown in between. Watch any one of these honourees as they work at their craft and it is clear exactly how their passion contributes to their success.

What are you passionate about? How are you living and creating through YOUR passion?

Cheryl and me hanging out with George Stroumboulopoulos
at the 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.

Trading Snake Oil for Wolf Tickets

This morning I am inspired by a Twitter debate I had with Amanda Chapel. We only started following each other on Twitter yesterday but she chose to engage me this morning in a conversation about Web 2.0 and her prediction of a forthcoming bust to this whole business.

I shall say off the mark that I fundamentally disagree with Amanda on many of the points she makes, particularly around the perceived “guru-ism” of the many thought leaders that are out there right now in the Internet space. She claims that it’s just a lot of snake oil. For the record, I want to say that that is categorically untrue, in my opinion. The so-called “gurus” that she speaks of are legitimately out there trying to define and explain all this Internet business right now along with everyone else, and, with all due respect, Amanda, ABSOLUTELY know what they are talking about. I also don’t particularly care for her debating style. But that’s neither here nor there.

However, she did accomplish one thing…she got me thinking.

What will happen if Amanda’s right, and all this Web 2.0 business does go bust? Well, I can tell you, there will be plenty of hurt and broke people out there. Just like last time. There always is. What does that mean to all of us who are doing the thinking, and the strategizing, who are trying to figure out business models and actually make a go of it in this space?

I think what it comes down to is flexibility. It’s all about understanding the ebb and flow of the technology industry and being able to adapt.

I was around for the last bust. In fact, I worked at one of the most busted companies, Nortel Networks, as they rose to the top and then fell hard. As an employee, when it was good, it was very very good. We got free stuff like DVD players and barbeques if we did a good job. We got free beer and wings every Friday. We had pool tables and fooz ball and air hockey and free snacks in the lunch room. But when it all fell apart, it was awful. Not just the for lack of perks. Morale tanked. People’s self esteem got destroyed along with their careers. And I got out as fast as I could.

At that time, as the bust happened around me, I realized that it was adapt or fail. I wouldn’t survive if I was just a web designer. So I started to shift over to communications, a place where, at that time I saw a lot of potential. I became a writer and a teacher, a producer of concepts and content instead of a “do-er”. And I got lots of other jobs as a result.

My point is, nobody really can predict whether all this Web 2.0 stuff is going to go bust. Anyone who says definitively that it is, is touting snake oil of their own. As individuals, we must decide how we are going to adapt if it does all fall apart. It’s something we all should be conscious of, so if it all blows up in our face, we can bounce back relatively unscathed.

(Note: “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets is also the title of the 2001 album by Gary Jules”. )

Gotta Love the In-Person Stuff! Ottawa Geek Dinner

Tonight was the Ottawa Geek Dinner and I was thrilled to see some old pals and meet some new people who, until this point I had only known through their tweets and blog posts.

There were a good 20 people who came out, which made for a long table. I’m sorry I didn’t get around to meet and talk to everyone.

My friend Andre and I discovered a jet lagged Jeff Parks of I.A. Consultants and the Boxes and Arrows Podcast sitting at the bar when we arrived. We didn’t immediately suspect that the rest of the group had arrived so we sat at the bar and had a beer, and Jeff told us all about his trip to San Francisco’s MX Conference.

Eventually we ventured up to the second level of the Blue Cactus (who knew they had a 2nd level?) and discovered our geek friends had already settled in. I received a warm welcome from my Podcamp Toronto and Ottawa pal Mark Blevis, whom I hadn’t seen since Podcamp Ottawa in November. How is it that we live in the same relatively small city and never run into each other?

At our end of the table I had the pleasure of sitting with Bob LeDrew of Bobcat House Concerts and Flacklife. (He’s shown above with Chamika who I met at Podcamp Ottawa) He and his wife open their home once a month and host amazing musicians like Penny Lang, Tony D, Suzie Vinnick and David Gogo for intimate musical events.

I also got to meet Jay West (that’s him on the left, and my good friend Andre on the right), who I had come across on Twitter, and he had many interesting and insightful things to say, including what I think might be a record for number of consecutive years developing the same web site for the Ottawa Jazz Festival - he’s been doing it for 13 years. Would love to see the various iterations of that site over the years!

Also I was able to meet and chat with Twitter pal Simon Chen from Ramius, they are doing some really cool stuff in the enterprise/communication/community space. Check out their site if you get a chance.

All in all it was a great evening, and I’m really happy I went. I love meeting new people, especially those who I have only “virtually” met before. Thanks to Mark Blevis and Robin Browne for organizing the evening. Can’t wait for the next one!

How Twitter Helps Me Stay in the Now

Some of you may already know that I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle’s book “A New Earth”. I am completely aware that it’s not for everyone, but for me, personally, it has given me a new perspective on things, and taught me some valuable things that I have put to work in my own life.

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about Twitter, and why I am so attracted to this way of communicating. And it just hit me - Twitter asks a very simple, yet profound question - “What are you doing?”.

Well, the fact is, in order to figure out what I am doing, right at that moment, I have to take a step back from my cluttered thinking mind and step into my conscious mind. That’s the only way I can understand what I’m actually doing at that moment - without all the filters our cluttered thoughts impose on us.

The more I get used to stepping out of my thoughts and into my conscious self, the easier it becomes, or so I’ve discovered over the past several weeks. And in a strange way, I think that part of my affection for Twitter has to do with how it plays into my ability to stay present. I’m not only focused on my own present, but the timeline of Twitter helps me to see that everyone’s days and nights are really just made up of individual moments in time.

What are you doing? Tweet me at twitter.com/suzemuse and let me know.

Twitter in a Nutshell (for my Facebook friends)

I was twittering with @GinnyK today, and she is in a similar predicament to myself. We both have many Facebook friends who have no idea what Twitter is. At least 3 times a week, one of my FB friends asks me “What the heck is Twitter?” This is because I am a complete geek, so that means that my Twitter posts automatically update my Facebook status as “Sue is twittering….”.

@martin_english just posted on his blog about a boilerplate explanation of Twitter that has been posted at Smart Mobs. So I’ve decided, for the benefit of all of my FB friends who read my blog (which is also automatically linked on my FB page every time I update) to copy the boilerplate message here, so now I can just point people to this post whenever they want to know what the heck Twittering is.

Hopefully some of them will join the fun, too!

What Twitter Can Do For You

Hey Facebook Friend,

I was thinking it would be great if you had a presence in Twitter [ http://twitter.com ]. In a nutshell, Twitter is sort of like the Facebook status update and IRC chat rolled into a single social application where people write, read and respond in real time. The result is a kind of live collective unconscious of all those you follow.

Twitter posts, AKA “tweets,” are 140 characters in length including links. Think of online news headlines and you get the picture. I think of Twitter as a [your metaphor here] “sensibility subscription” because it allows me to subscribe to other people’s ongoing thoughts and activities and share my own.

Here’s a great animated video by Common Craft that explains it all much better than I can. It’s called “Twitter in plain English:” http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter

One of the most popular uses of Twitter is as a micro content delivery system. Tools like Twitterfeed allow you to configure an RSS of your latest blog posts, magazine articles, website content, news, social bookmarks, flickr photos, etc. to your Twitter profile: http://twitterfeed.com

BBC, WIRED, Boing Boing, NYT and many other publications use Twitter as a means of extending their reach and expanding their audience. Here’s the BBC feed: http://twitter.com/bbc

Many educators have done interesting things with Twitter as well. University of Texas media professor David Parry is a Twitter-teaching pioneer: http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/

And Howard Rheingold has the most extensive collection of Twitter links I’ve seen:
http://del.icio.us/hrheingold/twitter

Last but not least, here’s my Twitter …
twitter.com/suzemuse

If you were in Twitter, this is where you’d be:
Twitter.com/[your handle here]

Let me know if you’d like to Twitter. I’d be happy to help get you started.

Sincerely,

Suzemuse

My Favourite Songs - For You!

I remember when I was in 12th grade, I lived in Trenton, Ontario and I had a boyfriend that lived in Ottawa. I would come to visit him on the weekends and he used to give me these mixtapes that he’d spent hours making for me during the week when we were apart. They were always made up of great songs, and in fact if I dug deep enough in those dusty boxes in the basement, I’d probably find a few. Of course, we quickly grew tired of the long distance relationship and broke up, but I will always remember him for his outstanding mixtapes.

Now that we have Mixwit, I’m thrilled that I get to give my blog reader(s?) the gift of a mixtape.

Click here to listen to many of my all time favourite songs.

Enjoy!

I Think I am Writing a Novel

It all started on Thursday night. Hubby was at work, I was hanging around Twitter and some blogs, and suddenly, the first line of my novel entered my head.

I tried to push it aside, as I REALLY wanted to finish reading the post I was on, but it kept pushing its way back into my head. I got up, poured a glass of wine. Sat back down, checked my email. The line was still there. I wandered into the livingroom, sat down, strummed my guitar a bit. Still there. I sighed, walked back into the office, sat down, opened a Word document, and typed the line. Then another line. And another.

I don’t know if I even want to do this, but I feel like I don’t have any choice. I wrote 800 words on Thursday night, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. The story is floating around in my head, and I think my only option is to get it down on paper.

Of course, I’m procrastinating. It’s a big commitment, writing a whole novel. I’m not even sure if I’m going to be any good at it. I write for a living, sure, but that’s proposals, creative treatments, TV shows, web sites. Not NOVELS. I might completely suck at writing a NOVEL. And the subject matter isn’t even something I know much about! But it’s here, in my head, and I don’t have a choice.

Well there, it’s out. Now that I’ve shared this with the blogoverse, I guess I really have to do it. If anyone has any tips or advice I’m wide open for suggestions. Because as I said, I have no freaking idea what I’m doing.