m2h blogs

My newest social media project at Allstate is FrienderBenders.com. We wanted to create a site that shows how bad driving habits can contribute to accidents, but in a fun and engaging way — without preaching at people. Who wants more preaching? Not me! So here’s the promotional video. The video outtakes are funny. If you click to watch, I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

FrienderBenders.com is social media and user-generated content. Visitors to the site can choose from among four bad driving characters: Texting Tessa, Make-up Mary, Johnny Distracto, or Hungry Horatio and add their own photos and choose from one of the sound effects.

Do you want to tease one of your friends about eating in the car? You can send him a Hungry Horatio complete with a picture and sound effect. The application creates a short Flash animation of a funny car crash featuring the unique bad driving character you created.

FrienderBenders is meant to be social. You can share your funny animation with your friends via email, save it to Facebook or other social networks, or even embed it on your blog so visitors to your site can see your creative talents.

If you’d like a walk-through of the application, here’s an interview I did on TechWebTV with David Berlind of Information Week at Web 2.0 demonstrating the site:

Click over to FrienderBenders.com and be sure to come back and let me know what you think. Feedback welcome!

Tara Hunt’s presentation at Web 2.0 was really fantastic. I love the presos that have just a few words per slide followed with pictures to illustrate concepts. Tara used that technique to her advantage as she spoke to a packed room — not only were all of the seats full, but people stood or sat wherever there was a spare pocket of space.

Reciprocity
One of Tara’s key points was on reciprocity: if you want to be an influencer, you need to provide time and attention to the community.

Become part of the community you serve. Ask:
– what problem can I solve?
– what makes people happy?
Then, integrate the answers into your initiatives.

I took this concept as a reminder I can share with others when they bring up that social media is inexpensive — when planning social media projects, you have to plan for an investment of your personal time (lots of it!) as well as your budget dollars.

Tara also advised, look for opportunities to turn the bullhorn around because it’s impersonal otherwise–you’re just shouting. Further, worry less about stating your position than listening and responding personally to others to create amazing customer experiences.

Create amazing customer experiences
1. Dazzle with the details (e.g. Moleskine)
2. Go above and beyond (e.g. TED)
3. Appeal to emotion (Vosges black pear chocolate)
4. Inject fun into the experience (Google’s talk like a pirate day)
5. make something mundane exceptional
6. Let people personalize
7. Be experimental (threadless, iplai: iparklikeanidiot.com)
8. Simplify (37 signals)
9. Make happiness your business model
10. Be a social catalyst

Tara continued with more points about how you can build whuffie. Look for her slides on slideshare (site was down for maintenance just now). Or, for more you can check out her book, The Whuffie Factor. It’s due on shelves April 21, but if you click over you’ll find video clips, images and more info.

I attended the Web 2.0 Conference last week in San Francisco. Over the next few posts, I’ll try and upload some of my notes for you from the Web 2.0 marketing sessions I attended.

One of the Tuesday workshops I attended was SEO From Soup to Nuts, by Stephan Spencer. Stephan is president of Netconcepts, writes a column for Search Engine Land, and his blog is Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings.

SEO has become one of my interests over the past few months because a good SERP is one of the ways that I’m measuring the success of the various social media marketing projects I’m working on for Allstate.

Stephan held everyone’s attention. I’ve only been following the SEO buzz for a short time, but everyone listened to hear what the secret sauce is to getting good search engine results on Google. I’m sure there are a few secrets, but from everything I’ve read and heard, it really comes down to basic concepts like publishing good content, using good keywords and at the right keyword density.

Stephan pointed out the right keywords are ones that are relevant to your business and popular with searches. There are a number of good SEO Tools available to help you see your site the way a search engine would and to refine your keywords.

SEO Tools
Some of the tools mentioned include:
Quintura
Google Suggest
Yahoo Search Assist
Woodtracker (subscription)
Seobrowser

Much of the talk focused on keys to pagerank such as getting your site fully indexed, making sure your pages are visible to crawlers, and building good inbound links.

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Please update your links for m2h blogs.
Speaking of building good inbound links, would you please check your links for me and make sure they’re still working? My site at “mwrites” died a while back because of problems with a domain host.
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But back to the topic at hand — did you know that the length of time your domain is registered for is one of the ways authority and longevity is determined? I don’t know that it’s a major factor, but it was one of the things mentioned.

Stephan’s Top 3 Tips
1. Content - write good content
2. Architecture - publish flatter (1 level down better than 5)
3. Links - build inbound links with good authority

Another tip Stephan gave was how to add good anchor text to your website links on LinkedIn. it’s easier than you think to do, but it was a great final remark he gave as “homework.”

Are you on LinkedIn? View my profile and add me as a contact.

More to follow.

I’m still here and breathing. Work and workouts have just kept me busy.

I’m thrilled…

• My nephew is doing yoga with his preschool class
• I’ll travel to San Jose, San Francisco, and New York this spring.
• My office is getting cleaner and more organized.
• Spring is coming

I enjoyed watching…

• The Jane Austen Book Club movie recently. I might even have to pick up an Austen novel. I haven’t read much fiction lately, but the upcoming plane trips might be just the occasion.
• (finally–it’s from January)the soul series interview with Oprah & Dr. Oz. I expected it to be all about how diet and exercise are good for you (really!), but there were some good questions from listeners about alternative health topics.

I’m thinking…

• about doing a solo international trip this summer or fall to break in my passport. Ireland and Switzerland are possibilities. If I wait till the new year, Australia or New Zealand are on the list.
• about doing some motorcycle riding while in California. Also thinking about July long weekend trip.

One slow deep breath to…

..bring balance into the day
..enjoy the satisfaction of a great morning workout
..remember to have patience with other morning drivers
..be grateful for wonderful family and friends
..reaching out with compassion for others who also begin this day
..and lest you think it’s all peace and light, another slow deep breath before I rush to finish getting ready and get out the door.

Have a great day!

One of the ways Chodron talks about breathing is breathing in the dark and heavy and breathing out cool and light.

She teaches the Tonglen practice (briefly it is):

1) resting your mind
2) visualize breathing in what is hot, dark and heavy and breathing out light, cool, and bright
3) breathing in a painful situation close to your life and breathing out relief or whatever will help situation
4) extending thoughts during breathing in #3 to any who are suffering from a similar situation.

Over time and continued practice, it’s a way to become more compassionate for yourself and others.

I’ve been trying it over the past few days for family who are going through tough times and friends who are not feeling well. I’m not sure that it’s helping them, but it is helping me, although I find myself having to take cleansing breaths every so often. It’s difficult to visualize breathing in pain and not be affected by it. I guess that is part of the point.

I’ve been debating what word to choose for this year, as Christine discusses.

I first thought about choosing “change” as my word. Doing so could encompass all of the things I want to do in the new year. However as I thought more about it, for me, choosing change would be at the “do” level and not the “be” level.

Next I thought about choosing the word discipline. Who doesn’t want to have a little more discipline to finish what you start. But, it still didn’t feel right.

Finally, I’ve settled on the word “breathe” for 2009. Without the breath, nothing is possible, and with the breath, there are no limits to what I might accomplish at the core level.

In Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron talks about noticing the breath as a starting point to more compassionate living.

I’m staring right here, anew, breathing deeply and optimistic about what the new year will bring.

Happy New Year to you all!!!

seen at Nels. I don’t know that every word is spot on as with Nels, but the results are about 95% accurate. I’m not completely spontaneous. I’m a planner and list-maker, but I can be impulsive. And, I’ve been a little less outrageous lately. I’m going to have to work on that!

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz…

• A couple business colleagues took me out to lunch today to Bob-Chinn’s Crabhouse. I was really surprised at how good the food was–especially considering how far Illinois is from any sea. I chose the Florida Grouper for lunch, and the taste had me going “Mmmm” from the first bite to the last. It was as good or better than any I’ve had in Florida.
• I am also surprised at how much I’m enjoying green smoothies these days. Tonight I blended a little apple juice, 1/2 banana, 1/2 pear, and 1/2 bag of organic baby spinach. I love how it looks — bright green — and I love how it tastes. Yum! Who knew!?!

What else am I enjoying?

• Clothes/Jewelry from Chico’s — So many bright colors and patterns. On. Sale. If I was married, I’d be embarrassed to walk in the house with yet another Chico’s bag. However, one of the joy’s of being single is not having to explain–you see, I had this great coupon off of the sale price…. However, I do admit that it is about time that I have a talk with myself!
• Merle Norman Soft Touch Eye Pencils — They are so creamy going on. I can get a thin subtle line or that smoky smudged look really easily.

What else is working for me?

• 20 minutes on/20 minutes off — work a while, play for a bit. I’ve been able to make more progress at getting necessary household chores done without it seeming like such a big deal. I won’t go so far as to say it’s been fun, but definitely more manageable!

What’s working for you? Or, what seems like less work these days? Any new food addictions?

Wondering if I confused Tim Berners Lee with Tim O’Reilly in a talk I gave at work. Stumble out of bed, check preso. Whew. I’m good.

So, what now? why not blog? It’s as good a time as any to write here in this space. Finally. It’s been so long since my last post. I’ve thought about blowing the thing up. It’s not all that…just random musings, curiosities, notes. Who is my audience? What do they want to read? What do I want to write about? or share? I’m liking Twitter these days. Only 140 characters. Less space to fill.

Random surfing commences. Read How to Blog. Find another pearl from Merlin.

LOL. Laughter feels so good. Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep.

More soon.