• If you want to produce, we can help you do that – writing, editing, video, slides, other media, we partner with you to help you make your mark.

• We find the best way for you to publish your work on the web, setting up flexible and adaptable websites and blogs.

• Next we help you in getting it to the audience you need to reach, and if you wish, we assist your navigation through the maze of Social Media.

A Winnipeg Music Blog
… with the great name Painting Over Silence. It tells you all about the Winnipeg music scene, which, like all music scenes, is mostly Indie. And thanks to Painting Over Silence, if you’re an Indie fan, you can now find out about your personality.

A couple days back an enlightening article appeared on the CBC that published the findings of a Scottish University’s study aimed at unearthing the link between musical taste and personality.

Musicians for the Environment
The Lake Ontario Waterkeepers, an environmental group, have a newsroom which contains one of the Great Lakes’ largest archives on environmental law and water quality issues. One of the articles aggregated there talks about Canadian musician Sarah Harmer, who co-founded PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land), an organization campaigning, according to Wikipedia,

to protect the Niagara Escarpment from a proposed gravel development which would see parts of the wilderness on the escarpment destroyed. To support the organization, she and her acoustic band embarked on a tour of the escarpment, hiking the Bruce Trail and performing at theatres and community halls in towns along the way. A documentary DVD of this tour was released in 2006 as Escarpment Blues.

A Courier in Vancouver
Bulletproof Courier is the brain – or helmet? – child of Greg Crosby, a citizen journalist documenting news and events in downtown Vancouver. Greg says he also enjoys producing catchy video reports of local events and venues he attends, often through the unique perspective of his helmet cam. I haven’t met Greg (yet – hopefully I will next week) but, well, I guess he is a bicycle courier, and I’m glad I finally found such a blog. Bicycle couriers – don’t you think they’re ideal people to have a blog? They see a lot, both on the streets, in the dark corridors of CorporateLand and in the deep, frustrated eyes of law office receptionists. Plus they have their own rather quirky perspective (or am I stereotyping, Greg). Anyway, to stay with the music theme – enjoy Greg’s video of the Star Wars theme on bagpipes.

Marketing
Staying with the creative theme, let’s move from music to creative marketing ideas. Ethnicomm, a marketing blog, has a post on 7 steps towards becoming more creative . I know, there are lots of blog posts out there but what I found interesting that in addition to the usual suspects (“go against the flow”, “be inspired”) there are also ones that I don’t come across that often, for example

Chatter incessantly.
The more you talk, the more you expose yourself to opportunities to have a conversation with someone. And if you tie this in to point #1 above [“go against the flow”], even better. Just be careful that you’re not always talking to yourself. The barista at your local Starbucks, the cab drive driving you to your innovation seminar, the math teacher at your child’s school, the annoyed and tired looking gentleman on that transatlantic flight can all help with your verbal rapid prototyping efforts.

(Uh – what are verbal rapid prototyping efforts?  Is that a new word creation?)

Interior design
Gaile Guevara has a blog that showcases modern furniture and other interior design articles (artifacts?), like the jelly chairs you can see gracing this post. There are a great many links on her blog, which I really like – what I’m missing, however, is a sense for what Gaile does. Does she have a store? Does she offer her services as an interior designer?

Author and Grow Rich! In 12 hours!
I guess we could still put this in the category of creativity although what Glenn Dietz from Sarnia, Ontario, is mostly about is – you guessed it: making money from books. Not just $27 ebooks but something that brings in $10,000. In this post here about – well I guess it’s about market feedback – if I get it right, he talks about flowcharting one’s thoughts. That sounds interesting. I hope he’ll write more about it.

Canucks Blog – Cory Schneider
I have to confess that I’m pretty much in the dark when it comes to hockey and our Vancouver team, the Canucks. (Although, staying with the topic du jour, I think that sports has quite a lot to do with creativity). Fortunately, that doesn’t prevent me from at least trying to get to know about their online activities; maybe I’ll even learn something? Let’s take Cory Schneider’s blog. I like how he just tells his story; it’s almost an old-fashioned type of blog, just a little diary – perfect for someone with fans who are eager to get a glimpse of the lives of a sports celebrity. In this entry, he talks about getting to know the team – and I even about music! His favourite band right now is 3 Days Grace (also a group I hadn’t known, so thanks for introducing me to them, Cory!)

Hardcore Accounting
Ok, finally here’s a blog that has nothing to do with creativity. (Or does it?) Through MBA Explorer I found out about Krupo’s A Counting School – Hardcore Chartered Accountancy
since 1494. I was curious about “1494” and after googling for a moment, was reminded that was the year when the Italian monk Luca Pacioli, “the Father of Accounting” published the first book written on double-entry accounting. The title of this exciting book is “Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions.” A 500-year bestseller. Hey, maybe we can get Glenn, our author specialist, to write something about it!)

At any rate, here is an interesting entry by Krupo, Trainwreck of economic logic. He compares professional services that cost money with those that make money. Krupo just alludes to these concepts, saying that he would not “fisk” the referenced article that spoke somewhat disparagingly of people who “only” cost money. Thus, Krupo introduced me to the term “fisking”. In all this time in the blogosphere I had never come across it but apparently it’s widely used, meaning “a point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story”. At any rate, I would have liked to hear more about this; I think it would make for an interesting conversation about all kinds of things, for example, the difference between long-term and short-term economic benefits, something of interest not just for accountants but ordinary folks, too.

That’s it for this edition!  As always, if you know of a Canadian blog that fits what we’re doing here (and we’re looking particularly for non-IT bloggers; IT blogs are already getting a lot of exposure) please let us know by using this submission form. The next edition will be out on October 18, 2008.

Mind you, that’s just my way of doing it. For some people, keeping the different aspects of their lives separate is important, works well, and is even enjoyable. There are all kinds of people who, for example, get a lot out of anonymous blogging; and I’m not talking about blog scrapers, trolls and porn bloggers here – just people who have chosen to stay anonymous, like Waiter Rant, Patient Anonymous or Going Private.

(Sidebar: Even whether one decides be highly transparent and integrated or private and compartmentalized, is a decision that’s influenced – maybe even determined – by one’s personal background, experience and personality type. Which explains why one does not have to be an extrovert to be transparent, or an introvert to be more private; such decisions come informed by many of the mind’s strands).

Carol, in her last post, was talking about integrating one’s online persona. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way that really works for me. In terms of pulling all the information together, of the ones I use, MyBlogLog and Facebook are probably the most comprehensive. But I really, really don’t like their layout; if I use such a social media tool it needs to look and feel comfortable; it needs to be a bit of a living room. Both Facebook and MyBlogLog have a bit of a mall feeling and I guess I’m of a generation and persuasion that doesn’t find malls particularly inviting.

I know there are many more such tools out there but I feel very unmotivated to try them out because so far, all of them have me disappointed (with a possible, very lukewarm exception of FriendFeed). Ideally, I’d like to see something that is

• comprehensive in terms of pulling together all my online presences (and actually does it; Tumblr, for example, promises to pull in my Twitter feed but doesn’t)
• easy to use
• responsive
• relatively hacker-safe
• fast (how much of a time delay would i put up with? 5 minutes maybe?)

and has

• clean layout that I can easily change
• tagging ability
• the ability to post extra material, ideally all the way from text to video (a la Tumblr, which, by the way, I kind of like – but see above)
• an FAQ that talks about more than just the very obvious
• easy, friendly and time-sensitive help (please NONE of that farmed-out help, for example like the one on Twitter; I really like the model that Dreamhost uses for support)
• ideally, the sort of follower-sorting that TweetDeck has
• public/private settings
• favouriting
• whatever back-end structure that’s needed to keep the thing working a good 90%+ of the time

Is there something like that out there? And would I/you want to pay for it? How much? Would it be okay to have advertising on it?

Or, here’s an idea. I was just wondering what the “meatspace” equivalence of such an online space would be. A sort of plaza, perhaps, or a park. It’s infrastructure.

What if governments started building such sorts of infrastructure?

Or should it be more like Wikipedia?

Enough questions for now?

Image by mike (el madrileño)

As you can see, our Alphablog media dog is learning fast! He’s been reading some Barrington Nevitt, an old colleague of Marshall McLuhan’s. (Yes, he can read. Why not?)

After her article was posted, she discussed with me some of the differences in the process of writing for blogs compared with writing articles for print. Whatever the differences may be, it’s clear that good writing transcends all supposed rules – bringing both the writer and the topic vividly to life in the reader’s mind. Here’s an example of Mireille’s approach in this excerpt describing only one of the wines featured in her Taste BC article:

Dunham and Froese Pinot Blanc. A full body is what struck me most about this wine, then it dawned on me: it tastes like Alsace! So rarely do we see good Alsatian Pinot Blanc in this neck of the woods that I nearly forgot what it tasted like–and here I was tasting a fine example, only it was from B.C! Excellent weight supported flavors of white peach and chalky flint with a charming white peppery spice at the finish. A mere $16cdn is what they were asking for this gem of a wine.

You can find out more on Mireille’s work as a wine industry consultant at her Wine Umbrella website.

Dear Nettie,

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a long time now, but I am afraid to post anything. I find I’m quite shy and don’t want to be criticized for it. The thing is, I do want to share my writing. How do I get over this feeling of inadequacy and fear of exposure?

Waiting to hear from you,
Shy One

Dear Shy One,

first of all, thanks for coming out of your shell long enough to ask this question.

I noticed you didn’t sign your real name (that wasn’t you, Jennifer, was it?) It looks like it was okay with you to write and sign as “Shy One.” That’s a good first step.

So let’s do a few more baby steps. Why don’t you go over to WordPress and get yourself a blog name. shyone.wordpress.com/ is taken already (although they only had enough stamina for two posts, I see) but how about iwontbeshyforever.wordpress.com – that one is still available. There ya go, all you have to do is click on that link. It doesn’t commit you to anything.

Then take some time playing around. You can set the privacy settings so that no-one can see your blog for now. It’s just you and your pet iguana.

Talking about which. If you think it’s going to take you a long time to come out of your shy privacy shell, why don’t you have your iguana do the blogging? Okay, not really but you could say it’s your iguana writing; dogs do it, why not pet iguanas? If you’re a budding writer, it might even be an interesting challenge to write from your pet’s point of view.

Of course you can just have an ordinary anonymous blog. Lots of people do that. This guy’s been at it for almost five years now; seems to work for him! If you want to remain anonymous then …. wait, that’s another post, I think someone else was asking about that. Stay tuned.

After you’ve played around a bit and made the decision to come out of your privacy shell you can start making a decision whether you’d like to out yourself on that blog. Or you can do what many others do and start a second blog that does bear your name.

Well, Shy One, I hope that helped. And if you want to get over your shyness in other areas of your life, not just blogging, check this out.

Nettie

If you have a burning question or concern, send it right over to Nettie using the simple form on our Just Ask Nettie! page, or add it to the comments section below.

(Iguana image by MrClean1982)

Canada 9-5 is something we’re very excited about. What we have on offer here is once again the crème de la crème of Canadian business bloggers, people who use the power of blogging to showcase their professional and business expertise and to better get to know their customers and clients. We’re concentrating on non-IT bloggers; for IT people, blogging is second nature – it’s people whose business isn’t in IT already who, we think, need some help seeing the magic of blogging.

We even have a badge for it now (yup, we’re working on our blogging goals). I’ll let Carol have the word here for a sec, explain why we thought it would be important to do this:

We are really keen to see Canada 9-5 get going strong this year, and we’ve been calling 2008: The Year of the Business Blog.

Here’s our badge – feel free to use it to link back to us.

So here is our line-up for this month:

Small Business Owners – How tough to you want to get?
Our first article is by someone we already met – welcome back, Vahid! To Succeed As a Business Owner, You Have to Be Tough is a post on his blog, Work at Home Business Solutions. It talks about the drawbacks of being tough – burnout, for example – and how to deal with it.

Divorce Help – All the way from the East Coast to BC
Divorce Online is a good resource for people all over Canada who have decided they need to part ways with their spouses but want to go for an uncontested divorce. What I like about this blog is that it looks at both Federal and the various Provincial laws. Lately, they’ve had a few posts on spousal support – this one, for example.

Coaching - The poetry of search engine statistics
Lee Down is a coach here in Vancouver. His background is actually quite similar to mine – a quirky mix of IT, spirituality, community development, writing and human services. This post here about the deeper usefulness of search engine statistics shows his personality in a wonderful way. That’s exactly what blogs do – they help your clients get to know you better.

Fashion - Stories from a “petite activist”
Cynthia C is a writer and petite activist from Toronto. She has recently published her first book, Aspirations, which can be found online (Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, Borders, etc) and in bookstores everywhere. I have to confess, I’ve never heard of petite activists before – but it makes perfect sense! I have two friends who are very short and always complain of how difficult it is to find pants (and reach cupboards and find your friends in a mass of people when everyone is at least a foot taller and and and …)

Really enjoyed this article – I always find little historical bits like this one here fascinating:

The inventor of petite sizes, Hannah Troy, died almost 15 years ago at the age of 93. Mrs. Troy thought up the petite size when she noticed that many women were pulling on shoulders and waists, making them fit their figures properly. And yes, like many of us petites who know from experience, Mrs. Troy knew that alterations can “spoil the design.”

Community banking - What’s a blog bar?
Gene Blishen runs a small credit union; his blog is a bit about that and a bit about all kinds of things. He’s a great example of what we talked about in an earlier article, Blogging for business – letting your hair down. In the article we’re showcasing, Gene talks about the idea of consumers letting their hair down: In blog bars, customers (or clients, or consumers, whatever you want to call them) can let you know online right away what they think. These “blog bars” are installed on location. A very interesting idea – we’re coming full-circle: from online to on-site.

This concludes this edition of Canada 9-5. The next edition will come out on February 28. Got any articles to submit? If it’s a Canadian blog that talks about work or business, bring it on – here’s the submission form.

The beauty of blogging, of course, is that it is a bit more casual, that it invites clients and potential business partners to get to know you a bit better.

How, then, can you let your hair down a bit and at the same time not violate your privacy?

One way is what I call a Blogging Privacy Strategy.

It is quite simple. Sit down and make a list of the non-business activities and topics that you often discuss with your friends and family. Can’t think of any? Just remember the last Thanksgiving Dinner with aunt Maude or when you went to a brunch and movie with the Jeffersons. What did you talk about?

Maybe the list looks like this:

• Hockey
• Stephen Harper
• Aunt Maude’s arthritis
• Your son Matt’s homework
• News and events in Aunt Maude’s hometown, Winnipeg

Now the question is – what aspects of these topics would you feel totally comfortable talking about? Which ones would be 100% off limits?

Let’s take Stephen Harper, our sometimes not-so-beloved prime minister. If you are now a staunch supporter of the Conservative party, maybe you feel quite private about that summer a few decades ago when you thought it would be cool to be a wild-eyed radical and had a shouting match with young Steve. And perhaps on the other hand, Stephen Harper’s economic strategies are something you’ll happily discuss with anyone who’ll stand still long enough.

Now you take another piece of paper and divide it into two columns: Absolutely yes, and Absolutely no.

Your wild-eyed past goes into the “Absolutely no” column and “Harper’s economics” goes into the “Absolutely yes” column.

And so you go down the list. Chances are you’ll have more than one “Absolutely yes” or “Absolutely no” per topic. Chances are also that as you do this, you’ll come up with more topics.

Within less than an hour, there you have it: Your Blogging Privacy Strategy.

Bonus? You’ll also have a nice big list of topics to write about.

(Photo courtesy of leep)

Or in other words, are you looking for popularity and wide-reach, or in-depth one-on-one with your specific target group?

Both these approaches are valid in the blogosphere. Don’t assume that to be successful your blog has to reach a wide mass market. Isn’t blogging all about being outside of the mainstream media? Well, yes and no. More and more blogging is coming to the foreground as a viable medium in its own right, and, as dad always said, “With those rights come responsibilities.” Your responsibility is to your own audience, whether it is 24 close readers, or 2,000 mildly interested people, or 100,000 bots.

Have you seen that kind of devil-may-care stance that many bloggers affect or express becoming a little more mannered, as the audience widens? It becomes, in fact, the blog-style of choice. There is a blogger voice, a social attitude that many would-be bloggers might feel they have to emulate. Don’t. It isn’t necessary. If all the popular kids in high school do this or that, it doesn’t invalidate your particular voice or approach in any way. Once we get out of high school we realize this. There is no need to perpetuate the tyranny of social hierarchy and its many discontents through the blog world too.

Your blog is your own. Do what you like with it. If you are reaching out to a few select readers, in depth, speak directly to them. But if you are reaching out to the “masses” then by all means uses the blogger-voice, the wise-cracking bon mot, the shock factor, the now so-last-night Paris Hilton name-dropping, whatever it takes, right?

If you aren’t up for all that, just remember that reaching your client group through your blog can help them keep in touch with what you are up to, and it may not be really important for you to water down that message by adding references or keyword groupings that will up your google juice.

Now there some truly wonderful popular blogs out there too, and there are really good solid ways of building popularity and widening presence.

How do you want to interact – person to persons, or broadcaster to public? It’s all within your reach. Understanding media is all about understanding audience. If we want humans reading our blogs, we have to demonstrate some humanity to speak to humans. Then we can layer on the purpose of your blog, the intended people you wish to reach, the message you wish to give and the communication and community you want to build .

How do you stand out from the crowd?

Here’s an example using a very simple project. Because it’s hypothetical, there are no photos for it. Let’s say you’ve self-published a recipe book, made up of recipes your family has loved for the past 20 years, with a few really old ones from your mother’s day. You want to use a blog to promote it beyond your close family, and to create strong visual meaning so people will remember it.

Number one: who loves your book the most? Your family, and possibly a few friends. How can they provide visual impact for your project? Simply by being photographed (in good light) laughing and enjoying one another’s company at the table. Pop it in the blog and voila!

Let’s say you connect with a worthy group or association, willing to support your efforts. If they were to have a fundraising dinner made entirely from your recipes (with participants receiving copies of your book) you would have plenty of opportunities for photos of a positive event to include in your blog – plus a link into a good cause as well. Or go for a school event, something other than family, where your recipe book can bring out the good times and good feelings in people. Again, document the whole process, not just the final meal.

Endorsements are standard workhorses of the photo-op, and if you do find a prominent person to endorse your recipe book, don’t think only of a text blurb. Try to get a photo of yourself and the endorser together, with the book, or perhaps sharing one of your cupcakes! Very blog-worthy indeed!

No external endorsement or organization? Use your extended network to get a couple of cooking teams together, to make your recipes, then celebrate by eating the results and reviewing the creations. All this can go into your blog. Be sure to photo-document the whole process of each team. You could even go so far as to select a couple of “judges” to determine who wins the “bake-off”!

One tip to remember: nothing looks less appetizing than food that has been badly photographed. If you don’t have access to great lighting and a good camera, stay focused on the interactions between people – go for the smiles and the good times rather than the plate of limp-looking yam fries.

Okay, that’s enough of the recipe book example. The main thing to remember is that everything you do in getting your project to fruition is bloggable. It is never too late to start. You can use the old documentary trick of “recreating” if you didn’t start out documenting your process. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a tagged picture can speak even louder.

And one more tip: Be yourself! It’s a lot more fun.