Category: life

Blog Action Day, by the numbers (plus a great music video)

Not to turn this into yet another tree-hugger blog, but I thought I’d share a recap of Blog Action Day 2009, which was last Thursday, Oct. 15, and the topic of which was climate change.

  • Number of bloggers participating (according to the Blog Action Day 2009 blog): Around 32,000.
  • Number of nations represented: 55.
  • Number of continents represented: 6.
  • Number of higher ed bloggers participating (unofficial)*: 2 (me and Davina Gould). Not great representation, granted. But it all starts with small steps and small actions.

Even if you skipped or forgot about Blog Action Day, you can still make a statement about climate change.

First, please watch this video from the Tck, Tck, Tck Campaign:

Now, please add your name to the I Am Ready campaign to encourage our world leaders to sign a climate commitment in Copenhagen in December.

Thanks for reading and for taking action. This is the only earth we’ve got.

[/self-righteous rant]

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* That’s just the number of higher ed bloggers I’m aware of who participated. If you participated and I didn’t include you in this list, please leave a comment and let me know.

Friday Five: 5 on 5

We’re having a Friday Five special today. Each Friday Five item includes five tips, giving you 25 takeaways in all today. Yes, we’re over-delivering this morning. But fear not. We’ll make up for it once we get to the office.

  1. The 5 big myths of social media, from Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog, dispels the idea that social media is all about going viral, that you need a community manager, and so on. Good read. Thanks to Andrew Swenson for sharing via Twitter (@wordpost).
  2. Social marketing for celebrities: five lessons from Neil Young. Here’s another one by way of @wordpost (he’s been retweeting some good stuff lately). This piece from Huffington Post contributor Andrew Cherwenka extracts sound advice from Young’s successful and prolific musical career and applies it to the social media sphere. Noting that the folk rock legend is not the most web-savvy of celebrities — Young “has no official Facebook fan page, and his website is a Flash disaster stuck in the ’90s” — Cherwenka points out that “Canada’s legendary mutton-chopped musician was leveraging 5 key principles of social marketing decades before the Internet came to be.” Hey hey, my my, this is good info for anyone wanting to engage in social media marketing.
  3. 5 apps to tap into the Internet’s infinite playlist. While we’re on the subject of music, these five apps will help you tune in to Neil Young or any other musician whose work is floating around in the Internet cloud.
  4. 5 brands tapping into your brain. This FastCompany piece also gives a nice overview of the concept of neuromarketing.
  5. Your future in five easy steps: Wired guide to personal scenario planning. Worried about the future? Worry no more, my friend. Just follow these five steps to envision “a clearer view of what the future may hold and of the most advantageous route through it.”

Have a good weekend. Stay strong.