Read These Books! You know who you are!

Still working on porting over from my previous blop address. Be patient and my top posts will be here before too long.

Until then, note I just finished an exhilarating workshop/class out in Penn. Muhlenberg let me test drive an idea for an animation course this fall and we just viewed our movies.

Will post links after some additional post-production. I encouraged the newly minted animators, as I did at USC earlier this month, to read the following books for a birds-eye view of the possibilities for content creators in the Web. 2.37 world. (Web 2.0 is so over-used I think .37 is a far funnier number and therefore more meaningful)

you want three good books to read, books that will change the way you think about the world and the tools being invented that will change the 21-century education and economic landscapes. Read these three, in this order:

1. The World is Flat .3.0 by Thomas Friedman
2. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
3. The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

Why these three?
The World is Flat, because it gives you the BIG picture about the smallness and approximity of the global community and the changes in interconnectivity within that community as pertains to your economic future. The Long Tail because our notion of economics and what works economically requre being educated about long tail opportunities all around us.
The Four Hour Work Week because it is a great case study of someone who chooses to take advantage of the changing landscape with intense zeal, and educates us about being lifestyle-literate in profoundly counter-intuitive ways. Living from within the longtail at it’s most independent.

Come back when you’ve read these and much of what I say will start to come into focus.

Hits Schmitz. Quality vs. Quantity

In a recent debate amongst friends, the subject of hits came up. One side arguing they could deliver hits, hits, hits, on on a YouTube campaign, with Google Ad Words campaigns, e-mail campaign, etc. The assumption being “hits” is what brings in business. (Or at least enables them to charge more for fees)

One fellow made a quip that podcasting gets very few hits and is an ineffective marketing tool, done mostly for show.  This was responded to by a fellow who had a podcast for Internet marketers and had already landed advertisers on his podcast and he had less than 1,000 total subscribers to that podcast.

How could this be? Monetizing a podcast with only a few hundred hits?

The reason, he stated, was that the advertisers asked him if he could deliver at least 100 Internet marketing executives as an audience.  He said he can deliver three times that.  The people who listen to his podcast are so prequalified that the advertiser knew that they were not going to be broadcasting and hoping that 50% of their advertising hit the right ears.  This podcaster could deliver not only hundreds of people but hundreds of highly focused executives who make purchasing decisions.

So the point here is that quantity is misleading.  A total volume of a million hits means nothing if you cannot articulate who those hits are, figure out how to sell a product to those hits, etc.  Conversion of those hits into loyal long-time customers who have given you their “permission” to market to them is the gold standard in Internet.

A podcast, a blog, or a website who has 2,500, 2,000, even as little as 500 loyal, subscribing, constantly listening devotees is a worthwhile and potential income producing opportunity.

SEO Infinite Suggestions

SEO is a field not short on info overload. I’ve just sat down to do research on SEO for this blog. Three hours later I’ve come to this conclusion: I’m doing it all wrong, and if I’m doing it right, I’ll have no life.

So to do it right, this is what I’ve learned:

• Get a real domain name and host a wordpress blog on that domain. Why? Better search engine rankings. Don’t do what I’m doing here, ie letting wordpress.com host the blog.

• Start a podcast to point people to your blog. Register the podcast with all the directories. Point them back to your site.

• Start a squidoo, wikipedia, guru.com page and point people to your blog. Why? To become known as the expert in your field

• Create a video about your blog and post it through TubeMogul to at least 12 video hosting sites. Make sure the blog is mentioned and it’s URL is prominent in the video

• Log onto Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, etc., from three different computers and start a conversation about your blog in the forums, comment pages,  etc.

• Use social bookmarking pages to point people to your site. Digg, del.ic.ous, stumbleupon, etc.
• Write and register your blog posts in article directories to drive traffic from those directories back to your website.

• Do not start a website, rather start a blog, give away content for free and charge for speaking engagements and forgoe the headache of a blog.

• Create a membership site to which you can re-route the subscribers to your blog via a newsletter. Think about the next three products you will market to the members and start creating them now.

• Fire your PR firm and get the traffic yourself by doing all the above.

I’m drifting a little here. The choices are bewildering. I’m looking for clear sources to help focus my efforts in a helpful, focused way.

To be continued…

Cooking up Content

Most kids have an interest in the internet. They seem to have far more knowledge of the internet and technology than their parents in many families. While most kids are using the internet to meet friends, do school work and play games, some are taking it to another level. These kids aren’t passive consumers, but innovative and active users of online media.

Kids are creating some amazing content on the internet. They are participating in the media rather than merely watching. The experience and knowledge they are gaining will make them more globally competitive later. They are gaining important literacy skills and experience in the newest form of information delivery, internet technology.

Kids aren’t just creating unique content for fun. They are making money at it. Some kids are funding their college education through money earned with their online content. These kids are gaining a valuable education in the business world while bringing in money to fund school, buy a car or save for their futures.

Check out www.spatulatta.com for a prime example. And note how their parents get into the act. This is a family effort all the way.

George Lucas in your School

George Lucas who brought us the Star Wars legacy knows as well as anyone that technology and the web can provide an education form-fitted for today’s youth.  With 24% of the 34.5 million youthful internet users visiting virtual worlds at least once a month, Lucas knew that harnessing this technology and our youth’s predilection for the online experience, we can provide a forum for our children to expand their horizons.

He was so sure of this that Lucas founded the George Lucas Educational Foundation in 1991.  The GELF is a non-profit foundation geared at promoting and sustaining the advancement of education using the technological tools that our youth have become so in tune with.  The result was Edutopia.org.  Edutopia.org is a resource website for parents and teachers alike who wish to take advantage of the new media for educational purposes.

Edutopia.org provides an array of articles, media and flash-based resources that the teachers and parents can utilize to allow their children to experience the world of knowledge as it unfolds online.  It also provides video documentaries that explain concepts such as emotional intelligence, project-based learning such as kid-generated animation and technology integration in the classroom.

Your child will now be able to push the envelope of their education with literally having the world at their fingertips.  With this exposure, your child will be able to explore options not previously known to earlier generations and can focus their education on up-to-date concepts and subjects relevant to our age.

Remember how difficult it was to absorb topics when all you had to go from was a dry textbook that provided little more than data.  With this approach to education, your child can utilize their textbook knowledge and put those concepts in context with the world around them in real time.  Having this extra dimension to their education, children will be able to cement their knowledge and grow to obtain an intimate understanding of the world around them.  Kids will also be able to network with each other in a positive manner, helping each other to learn.  They will also be able to inform each other of issues that affect them in a manner that is both educational and enjoyable, increasing their understanding of the world around them and enhancing their social skills on a global level.

Edutopia also gives educators and parents a forum where they can exchange ideas regarding the education of their children, streamlining the curriculum to better reflect our changing society and educational needs.  By activating our scholastic system in this manner, our children will be able to gain a fuller understanding of and have interactivity with real world issues.

With so much of society dependant on modern technology to carry out their daily tasks, giving your child a foothold in this modern age will ensure their understanding and future success as contributing socially aware citizens in our new economy.

Read these books! The Four Hour Long Tail Whole New Mind!

Communication and media are changing and evolving quickly and are doing so on a global scale. Instead of the old media terms for this phenomena, like “new media” or “multi-media” we might best refer to it as “multitudinous media”. New ways of communicating using the Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitters of the world are intersecting with tools as mobile and disruptive as our teenagers themselves.
We all know the world is becoming smaller, or flat as one author puts it. What this means for education and culture is almost impossible to fathom for those of us from traditional literacy models.

Educators, thinkers, futurists and governments are postulating policies to cope with the plethora of communication literacies emerging because the current models of education are failing to keep our students globally competitive. The students are having to do it themselves online, away from the confines of the classroom.

If you want three good books to read, books that will change the way you think about the world and the tools being invented that will change the 21-century education and economic landscapes. Read these three, in this order:

1. The World is Flat .3.0 by Thomas Friedman
2. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
3. The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

Why these three?
The world is flat, as Tom Friedman has declared. The global community and the changes in interconnectivity within the community have produced a long tail distribution model of goods and services an endless abundance of niches. Our notion of economics and employability will rely on being educated about long tail opportunities/dynamics. Chris Andersen gives us a tour through very compelling examples of how this effects everybody.
The Four Hour Work Week because it is a compelling case study of someone who chooses to live inside the long tail. Tim takes advantage of the changing landscape with intense zeal, and educates us about being literate about wealth in profoundly counter-intuitive ways. He automates his income and travels the world taking on passions with relish, tweaking our ancient notions of what it means to be wealthy along the way. His niches fuel his passions. His passions are his niches. And they become his own private economies.

A Whole New Mind, by Dan Pink because he nails the mind set required to survive in the coming years. Cultivating the right brain, even for left brainers, is crucial to survive as professional services industries become global commodities. Design, Storytelling, Differentiation, and an appreciation of abundance is at the heart of his teaching. Download his lecture from iTunes audiobooks to get a real taste of the urgency of his message.

Come back when you’ve read these and much of what I say will start to come into focus.