MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over

Mobile Picture of the Week

2009-09-13T16:27:13Z

I want Blueberries, and I know how to get them

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The Great Business Book List

2009-09-13T13:33:36Z

I made fun of the Indigo sign, but I am a big fan of the book store. Any book store. But, I have a soft spot for Chapters-Indigo since I spend over three years working there while I went to university. It doesn’t hurt that I have an addiction to books. I love fiction (the type you can imagine the characters so vividly that even years later you can tell a friend about the novel); and the odd summer junk novel (usually crime / mystery novels like Kathy Reich), I have also been known to read a thoughtful history book or gripping book on pop culture. But, my biggest fixation is my collection of business books. I love books on marketing, social media, Internet culture, management….and I believe I own more than I have actually read. It is always my intention to read, but I also read about 200 blogs.

That said here are some of my recommendations for great business books (chances are I own them if you need a loaner)

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t – Jim Collins
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything – Don Tapscott
Growing Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World – Don Tapscott
Purple Cow: Transform you Business by Being Remarkable – Seth Godin
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends – Seth Godin
A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions – Dan Ariely
Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder – David Weinberger
Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual – Locke, Weinberger,
The Tipping Point: How Little things Can Make a Big Difference – Malcolm Gladwell
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking – Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell
First, Break all the Rules – Markus Buckingham
The Long Tail – Chris Anderson
Here Comes Everybody – Clay Shirky
Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message – Ben Mcconnell

These are just a few of the ones I haven’t yet read but own:

Tribes – Seth Godin
Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel
Truth Agents – Chris Brogan & Julian Smith
Meatball Sundae – Seth Godin
Free: The Future of a Radical Price – Chris Anderson
Twitterville – Shel Israel (getting this on Tuesday)

And, if you are looking for gift ideas these are books that I would like (and may buy on a whim while in a bookstore)

Whuffie Factor – Tara Hunt
New Rules of Marketing: Marketing on the Web – Tamar Weinberg
Art of Community – Jano Bacon
Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business – Erik Qualman

Now, perhaps time for a trip to my favorite book store…

Do you have any favorites I missed?

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Books. Gifts. Goats

2009-09-05T19:23:56Z

I don’t know if this is a new sign – or I am just noticing it for the first time. I thought it was “Indigo Music and Books” – but they have the right to change their tagline.

However, this is just weird.

Books – check (picked up Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith and Six Pixels by Mitch Joel).

Gifts – check (picked up a gift certificate for my sons teacher).

Kids -didn’t see any for sale there. Couldn’t they just say “Toys”? Books and Gifts will cover any other children’s products they sell.

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Mobile Picture of the Week

2009-09-05T19:23:08Z

Out for a Sunday drive at Centreville

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Camping

2009-09-05T18:19:33Z

Every year since 2002 my husband and his work friends have gone on an annual camping trip. The first year they went it was just the “boys”. In 2003, the girlfriends started attending, and starting in 2004 the wives arrived, and in 2005 so did the kids.

Over the years the camping trip has obviously changed – both the attendees and how the days played out. Certainly the men still pretend that they are cave men and can do anything – like start fire (argh!) And, the women try to find free time to relax and read a book. But, now with kids on the trip it is less about relaxing and more about finding activities to keep the kids busy.

At the end of August we went on the annual trip – and this year including the kids there were 25 of us. Over 7 or 8 campsites. We left the baby at home with his grandparents since neither of us wanted to spend the weekend chasing a crawling baby through the sand, soot and woods. We were looking forward to taking Bear for a canoe trip, hike, and swim at the beach.

We were able to accomplish one thing on that list.

Unfortunately, this summer has not been kind to us. We have planned weekends away – but they never work out as planned. This one was no different. Friday we arrived set up, had dinner with friends and then hit the air mattress (we camp in style). We woke up on Saturday morning and discovered over cast skies, and of course this was followed by RAIN.

Bear and his friends didn’t seem to mind and chased each other around in the mud with their umbrellas. We grumbled but made delicious eggs and bacon (they always taste better when camping!).

A trip into town for coffee, ice and firewood was next – where we discovered that everyone else had decided to the same thing. I counted 36 people in line at Tim Horton’s. It was a long wait – but Bear was kept happy by promises of chocolate Timbits

Back at the camp site we gathered the troops and headed on a hike while it wasn’t raining. It was mild out – which made for decent walking weather, but the winds were high along the beach. There wouldn’t be any swimming at the beach this camping trip, the sun wasn’t out and the water was chilly and the waves were powerful. No canoeing it turned out either – after we finished the camping trip Bear got a fever….so day 2 ended up being our final day as we packed up the tent and gear and headed home.

There is always next year.

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Top 5 Ways to Build a Community

2009-08-29T18:22:38Z

I keep promising myself that this is the week that I will write the next great post on Megoagain.com. And, instead I get sucked into an episode of True Blood, Weeds or Dexter (I am still catching up on Weeds and Dexter!) or I spend my evening…ahem…working. Being a Community Manager is a job that doesn’t end at 5pm. The community doesn’t stop because you are enjoying the long weekend. And, to be honest I get kind of sucked into visiting our Twitter page, and our forum just to see what is going on and if I have missed anything of great interest.

But here is a quick post with the top 5 ways to build a community I have discovered in the last 6 months as a Community Manager:

1. Differentiate

Are there other communities that cater to your audience? How do you differentiate? If you run a branded community the differentiating factor may just be the ability to offer the “inside scoop” or a direct connection to employees.

2. Empower and reward users for their hard work

Super users work hard, in some cases they spend more time on the community than the Community Manager. Check your metrics to see who are most valuable members and reward them – with verbal thanks, with kudos, a special private board, thank you gifts, share special news or ask for their help and feedback.

3. Take it offline

In this role, and in my past role as Marketing Manager at another company I have had the opportunity to take my community “offline”. This is a great opportunity to gather feedback, really get the know the people that make up your community, and reward the users as well.

4. Be active

Participate as much as you want the community to participate. Set the tone. Create content (blogs, posts and more) and start discussions with your members. Encourage conversation and engage with your super users and newbies! Even a “welcome” to the community can be the reason a user comes back again.

5. Stand Back

Sometimes the job of the Community Manager and other employees is to stand back and let the community take care of it. If the community manager is constantly responding to posts – what is the role of the community members?

I know I said Top 5…but this one is really important.

6. A community is never “done”

This is likely the reason I spend many evenings “working”! A community is a work in progress and a Community Manager must constantly be looking for ways to engage, participate, build and integrate the community into the business or other customer touch points.

Other great articles you should read by brilliant community gurus:

Everything I Know About Community I Learnt Tending Bar – Jeff Sandquist

How to Kick Start a Community – Jeremiah Owyang

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Third Tuesday Toronto: Bob Pearson

2009-07-16T01:03:58Z

Last week I attended Third Tuesday Toronto, a Social Media PR Meet-up organized by Joe Thornley of Pro PR. Working as a Community Manager I was excited to hear the speaker Bob Pearson (formerly of Dell, currently President of Social Media Council) speak about observations and trends in social media. I was not disappointed! Instead of my telling you all the important points – here are some tweets from the event.

The next Third Tuesday Toronto will be Shel Israel as part of his book Twitterville (August). I am looking forward to attending!

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Sleep: A Nightmare or Dream

2009-07-06T23:48:50Z

Sleep is a sensitive subject among parents with kids of any age. Are they sleeping? Do they have nightmares? Do they sleep in their own bed or the family bed? Do they go to bed at 8 or 10? Do you allow them to have a snack before bed time? If you want to get into a scrap with a parent simply suggest that they are doing something wrong with setting sleep rules for their kids.

What is equally true is that sleep and kids also has its funny or sweet moments among the stress that you are doing something wrong. We only need to look as far as the statement “Sleep like a baby” to see the humour in sleep

We worried for some time that my youngest would take after the oldest and not sleep through the night until he was 10 months old. Fortunately, the monkey began sleeping through the night and napping much earlier and continues (knock on wood) to be great sleeper. He is an incredibly sound sleeper – even is own drastic movements don’t wake him. We can guarantee that whatever position Z is put down in – he will be in the opposite direction before long. In fact, the only thing that seems to bother him at sleep time is when he can’t locate his favourite bear. This causes tears in the middle of the night, but only requires someone putting the bear back in his arms – and all is still once again. Coming in to Z’s room in the middle of the night and finding him curled up in a ball with his teddy bear is one of the sweet moments.

Our oldest is now a great sleeper, after 1 1/2 years of torture of course. Sometimes he pulls the “I don’t want to sleep” stunts which include:

I need water
One more book!
It is dark in my room
Where is X, Y, or Z toy

But, generally he does not fuss before bed.

He does occasionally wake in the middle of the night. And, these are the moments that are painful at the time they happen, and funny when we look at them. O insists on sleeping with toys, not squishy cuddly stuffed toys – but the flavour of the week car or truck. Recently that toy has been a Buzz Lightyear that he got for his birthday. Buzz is hard plastic, with buttons that cause the toy to make space ship noises, and it to say “To infinity and beyond!”. So one night O comes into the room and when asked why he is awake at 2 a.m he answers “Buzz Lightyear is making too much noise”. The following night he made Buzz sleep downstairs. Another recent mid-night reply was “There is a shadow in my room, and it is shaped like a shark. He has his mouth open”. In the morning O will come into the room and stand there until you wake up and get a shock from seeing him standing there, or he will run in excitedly telling you it is “wakie” time. If you decline getting out of bed he will open the curtains and show you that it is in fact “wakie” time because the sun is out. This morning he did the stand there routine, and when I didn’t immediately feel his presence in the room he touched my face. I jumped out of my skin, and before I could get mad at him for almost causing me to have a heart attack he looked at me sweetly, touched my face again, tilted his head to the side and said “I love you mommy”.

So while, I am sure I have made mistakes with setting the stage for sleep in my house, and complained often about the patterns that the kids have had…sleep has caused us just as much laughter as anguish.

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Race Day

2009-05-24T16:04:11Z

My baby just turned four. My first baby that is.

Somehow he went from this:

O - Day 1

To this car obsessed, scooter-driving, ABC reciting, candle blowing kid:

birthday boy

In September he starts school. And, it seems like I will close my eyes and he will be going off to college. He will move away from home, and if he is anything like my husband he will never call his parents. I digress…

Yesterday, we held his fourth birthday celebration. Every year we host a party for him at our house. It is becoming more difficult to do at home as the kids need more direction, more entertainment, and more friends attending. But, we decided one last time until we are forced to spend a small fortune renting swimming pools, indoor playgrounds or space at a local farm equipped with pony rides. When we asked Bear what he would like to do for his birthday he said he wanted his friends to come over to play, to eat cake and to get presents (of course). Reasonable requests. Not once did he ask to play video games at Chucky Cheese or go go-carting or ice skating with a birthday hat on.

Still, his list of friends was long (and we couldn’t invite 8 of 10 boys in his class – we had to invite them all, which is why we limited the invites to boys and only invited one girl from next door) and these boys need games and entertainment or they become unruly and chaotic. So, we couldn’t just have a party at the house and throw the kids and some toys into the backyard. Last year the birthday theme was Construction as at the time Bear was into Bob the Builder. We had a few games planned but the kids were more interested in the cardboard boxes we had put out as giant building blocks. What works at age 3, doesn’t work for age 4.

This year we hosted a Race Day.

Here is what we did:

Every kid arrived and received a lanyard with their Pit Pass.
We took their picture as a racecar driver using our Mac and video camera and then e-mailed the photo to their parents. Here is our son in this picture:

All the kids received a little wooden race car to decorate with stickers, crayons and markers.
While some kids finished decorating their cars, other kids played with the die-cast cars and ride-ons we had out in the yard.
Games: Red Light, Green Light and a Parachute with a plastic ball
When all the kids were finished their race cars we held a race using a ramp (seen above) that my husband built- complete with launcher.
Food: Typical BBQ – hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, fruit salad popcorn and potato chips
Decorations: Race flags, black and white balloons, red and white checkered table cloths, orange pylons.

We think it was a hit.

Before I know it…it will be time to plan his 13th birthday.

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Community Manager: or the reason I have been MIA

2009-05-10T00:58:28Z

I have been away from this blog for a little while now (as you may have noticed). Apparently, I don’t adjust well to change!

Two months ago I started a new job as a Community Manager, ending my maternity leave early by nearly five months. I started initially part-time, but went to full-time this week. In reality, Community Management is NOT a part-time gig, but the opportunity for this position was a perfect fit and going back to work early was not in the plans, this was the compromise!

So, what is a “Community Manager”? It is a tough job to give you an elevator definition. But I will give it a whirl:

My job as Community Manager is to engage, build and listen to the community. It is kind of like being a hostess for a party I have to make sure everyone is getting what they want, that they aren’t ruining the party for anyone else, and that if there is a question about where the coats should go – there is someone to answer it.

Of course that is a bit silly. But, the essentials are there.

Engage the Community

Motivate members of the community to get involved, connect with other members and actively participate in activities whether that is a discussion on a Forum, an offline event, comments on a blog, or a twitter chat.

Build the Community

Extend the community beyond the existing members, market and maximize communication to community, potential members at large and internal employees.

Listen to the Community

Monitor conversations within community and other online conversations to make sure needs are being met, identify trends and new ways to activitate two-way conversations.

Tactically, I do the following:

Write blog posts
Listen and post on our community forum
Monitor the web for brand and community mentions
Find new ways to promote, engage and build the community (adding features to the community, spreading WOM, finding ways to increase SEO or link build)
Evangelize social media
Work with internal teams to promote community, get support or resources as well as providing trends and metrics from community to other groups who can use that information.

Connie Benson has a fantastic post on the Roles and Responsibilities of a Community Manager which I highly recommend reading.

You can visit my community here (make sure you check out the community blog as well since this is where I have been doing the blogging for the past two months!)

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