Liz Wiltsie

Last Week’s Greatness

Does anyone else use Twitter as a note-to-self?  I retweeted links that I thought were excellent and didn’t want to forget.  I was SUPER busy last week, so I feel like I’ve just caught my breath.  Sort of.  I’m leaving for the life-change on Friday, so a little busy.  I don’t want these links to get lost because there are some excellent ones.

Before I get to the list, I’d like to give a big shout to Trey Pennington (@treypennington).  We had an excellent conversation that spanned topics like social media and great TV.  Also the limits of the Apple TV and iTunes’s inability to reference more than one hard drive at the time.  I look forward to more conversations in the near future.

And now my list…

Dan Roam creates winner of Best Slide Presentation contest by Adobe and Slideshare.  Dan Roam is the author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.  I love looking at great presentations, there are always ideas to put into motion.  I wish Dan Roam would do more on Twitter (@dan_roam).

The Seven Laws of Projects and How to Break them by Matthew E. May (@matthewemay).  This is a great piece about challenges of projects.  I think being smack in the middle of my own projects helped me appreciate this insight.  Tweeted by Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki), I am always impressed by his variety.  I find his tweets to be insightful with a great mix of funny, serious, knowledgeable, and esoteric.  I know he is one of the best, but I am always happy to see it in action.

Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.  Again, he is great.  This is the text of the speech.  It makes me want to rework every deck I’ve ever made.  Although, I think there are different rules for decks that are meant to be read online (via something like SlideShare) versus given as a presentation.  Brevity is still key, either way.  Although I call it ADD friendly.

And to prove that Guy is too well-rounded for one human, he posts this link to a 4 year old giving the Herb Brooks speech from Miracle flawlessly.  It is a must see.  Too funny.

Those are the ones for the moment.  This week is crazy busy in my world, but I’m planning to blog my road trip next week.

Moleskine Knock-Off (Ecosystem Notebooks)

I am a giant book fan and I have far too many blank journals.  But when I walk into a store I rarely leave without a new one.  When I went to college in NYC in 2000 I found my first Moleskine notebooks.  At that point they weren’t always at Barnes and Noble so I paid more at the art supply stores or Kate’s Paperie.  The combination of a compelling story, ability to lay flat, and narrow ruled lines have kept me interested for years.  I have owned almost all of the styles of Moleskine (except the storyboard one).  Today I like the 3 pack ones because I can keep things divided in my bag and not carry more weight.

I’m mentioning all of this because while I was trying not to spend money at Barnes and Noble today I saw the Ecosystem line of notebooks.  I was struck by their similarity in style to the Moleskine line.  They have the same footprint sizes, elastic closures, and a back pocket.  According to an article in Publishers Weekly, the Ecosystem line was a response to the category growth of journals (fueled a lot by Moleskine).  I don’t blame Barnes and Noble for wanting a bigger piece of that market, and I commend them for deciding to go for it out of post-consumer products.  BN also has a relationship with Savannah College of Art and Design to bring students/alumni designs to a large market (see them here or go into your BN for a bigger selection).

I’m writing all of this because I am torn.  I love Moleskine, and will continue to love them.  There is a big part of me that despises the me-too-ness of this move by BN.  The other part of me says, the notebook isn’t bad and post-consumer is a good trend to support.  Right now, I will stick with my Moleskines.  What about you?

Strategically Brilliant Ad

In an age of pop-up blockers and DVR it takes a lot to make me watch an ad on TV.  It takes even more to remember it, and still more to want to buy.

The Etrade Baby makes me laugh, but it doesn’t make me want to buy.

I saw a Dawn commercial the other day that made me want to go out and buy Dawn soap.

This commercial pairs the familiar image of animals slicked black with oil with the power of Dawn to fight grease.  Throughout the commercial we see hands gently cleaning fragile (and super cute) animals.  At the end, the animals are clean and fuzzy and we hear that Dawn will donate $1 for every bottle bought.  There aren’t just animals for the sake of it, they serve a real purpose.  This is a great example of excellent creative in the service of spot-on strategy.

Wikipedia and “The Truth”

I’ve had the following conversation a number of times recently:

Liz: I love Wikipedia.

Liz’s Friend: I don’t, it’s not True.  OR, I can’t tell where the bias is.

Encyclopedia Britannica was not True either.  Nothing ever written is 100% true.  With Wikipedia lots and lots of different people are contributing to the same work.  So, there’s a lot more opinion and chance for usefulness.  Also, no one thinks Wikipedia is 100% true, so everyone is skeptical.

Skeptical is good.  We should be skeptical of every news outlet, media source, book, or blog out there.  So, I maintain, I love Wikipedia.

Facebook and Twitter: Peaceful Coexistence

As I’ve mentioned before, I am fascinated by Twitter. I am also a big fan of Facebook. I know plenty of people who use TweetDeck (or another app) to post the same message simultaneously to Twitter and Facebook. I don’t. Here is why:

Facebook allows me to keep in contact with the people I already know. I am not friends with anyone on Facebook that I have not met in real life. Twitter lets me interact and engage in conversation with people I have never and probably will never meet.

On Twitter, I feel the need to be useful (most of the time). I try to pass on links and information that someone else may value. I also like to log my love of certain products/services/entertainment.

On Facebook, I don’t care about being useful. Status messages can be wholly mundane, and ignored quite easily. I have a network of friends that spans the globe. Without Facebook, I would not be able to keep up with many of them in a meaningful way.

What’s the @#?

Several people have asked me the difference between tags on Twitter, so I’m offering a brief explanation.

@wiltsie is a direct reference to an individual. I think of it like shouting someone’s name from across the room. Twitter makes it easy to give credit where credit is due. All @wiltsie gets filed within Twitter on its own, as well as in the main feed. RT means ReTweet. I thought at first it meant Right, like, I agree with you.

#dollhouse is a reference to a larger conversation. This is the equivalent of walking into a room for a specific conversation. Clicking on #dollhouse will take you to a list of all the tweets that use the #dollhouse tag. This is a great way to log your part of a larger conversation without referencing a specific person.

The third way is to just talk about issues/ideas/products. The people interested in those opinions can do a Twitter Search and find your tweets.

Why Twitter?

1. Conversation
2. Research

Conversation: There is a fair amount of discussion about why anyone should care about the ongoing “chatter” that is Twitter. The most common argument is about breakfast (Maureen Dowd’s “To Tweet or Not to Tweet”)  But people talk about everything. Where else can a branding student in Alabama (@kleysippel) have a conversation with branding professionals in South Carolina (@thebrandbuilder) and Brazil (@GabrielRossi) at the same time? Then you can have a conversation about favorite TV shows, movies, musicians, products, or anything else.

Research: The conversation leads to research. As a small business professional, I am always looking for ways to research better. Because people are talking about likes and dislikes, businesses all over the world can get real insight into customer opinion. Amber Naslund (@ambercadabra) wrote an excellent series about creating social media teams in a corporate setting (Equipping the Social Media Team, Assembling the Social Media Team, Roles and Responsibilities, Listening, Plug In and Participate).  As more people join Twitter, the raw material gets better and more reflective.