Managing the Gray #25 Transcript – Steps to Make 2007 a New Media Success For You
Managing the Gray #25
Originally Posted January 5, 2007
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[00:00:25] Speaker 1: Welcome to the brand new World of Digital Marketing Consumer Generated Media and No-Control PR. The worlds of engagement are no longer black and white, you need to change to evolve, to manage the gray. And how do you do that? You let C.C. Chapman help you.[00:00:44] C.C. Chapman: Hello everybody, this is C.C. Chapman. Welcome to Managing the Gray, number – 25, the first one of 2007. Sorry, it has taken me a few days to get this out. I’ve been just kind of enjoying the holidays really getting rapped up for the New Year.
I really want to make sure this show with something that with truck full of goodness. First of all, I hope you all had a very happy holiday which ever one you celebrate, hope you had a happy new year.
We got a whole year ahead of us: weeks, days, months ahead of us to succeed at whatever you are thinking about doing. Managing the Gray is gonna help you do that, resets the hope. I am gonna do everything in this year, possible to help everybody out there who wants to be helped “to embrace new media” that’s what the goal of Managing the Gray from day 1 was. That’s what it’s gonna be in the next year and I am gonna really step it up, I hope and help you all out.
Another thing I have to give on the way is one of the things Christopher Penn for stepping in the last episode, I hope you enjoyed that. It was little something different, something that lot of us knew England podcasters beyond did where, for the holidays, we thought it would be fun to do, a gift exchange, instead of doing gifts, we did shows. So, I hosted another show, somebody else hosted one of my other shows.
There are very few people in this world that I would led host Managing the Gray. Christopher Penn is one of them. He is my personal little marketing ninja, there is so much knowledge in that head it amazes me everyday. I came here in actually getting together with him in bunch of other new media folks from the Boston area this weekend. I am looking forward to him on so many levels, because, yeah we cross passing email and IM in Second Life and other places, but face-to-face nothing can ever beat face-to-face, nothing will ever replace face-to-face, just human interaction in general. Getting to hangout with such professional people and such good friends of mine, I can’t wait, some of mine haven’t seen in a long time and I am looking forward to that, so get out in 2007.
So, today I am gonna talking about some different things, where it’s a fresh new year, it’s a fresh new start. Just to get you energizing and get you pumped for the year ahead, because there is so much, you get those things in, it comes in the end of December then its like, you get everything its kind of sluggish, if you are in new England almost this year, but if usually if you new England it’s the weather and block, no, right now its fresh. The new year, just get ready to go.
So, I thought about some points, I just wanted to drill into your head to get you going for the New Year. One of them I want you to really think about is to seize every opportunity that comes along. What I mean by this? Is there are so many events, gatherings, happenings all around the world right now, centered around new media. Whether these are big events? Video on the net, The Portable Media Expo is renamed The New Media Expo. There is all sorts of real life events, there is also sorts of Second Life events, whether it’s an opening of a new office or…
Yesterday there was built of the congress, so you could actually engage with me, next week events coming in there. Its not just new, but next week at Crayonville we are actually gonna be part of anyone of theaters, in our theater you can watch the Second Life premier of 4 eyed monsters, which is an independent movie. Sunday channel is doing it, they work with electric chip on it and you are lucky enough too, you can come and watch in our theater. We also got second Thursday’s in Second Life which is a PR focused event, the second Thursday of every month in Second Life and it’s going to be on Crayonville, this month. Things life that there is so much going on, and you see for asking questions, there is new feature linked in. I know, where people are asking questions, you have even just a thought, may be you are not the expert on that, you thought on the answer, share that. You never know where an opportunity is gonna lead.
I know just from speaking and talking to the people and being such a big supporter and it’s just in my blood to build communities. The opportunities, the doors that are opening are just amazing. See, you don’t know where one is gonna go, just get on it and I do wish it’s funny. If someone has this, if someone knows it’s out there or someone wants to get crazy, how cool it would be? If there was a website that very simply tracked all the new media events and anybody could add something to it. It was just real simple, calendar with an RSS feed and it could be Second Life, Real Life, Small Town stuff whatever, all the podcast to be listed in one place, very next side of all the big conferences, next to every little meet-up and every little concert in Second Life.
Whenever you go, it’s fairly easy to do. I am not a coder all the time, but just put that out, because that’s the one my listener getting when I throw ideas and they jump on about “Oh! I can do that,” so go nuts. So, in the New Year also, make sure you are being productive. I am on this big kick right now, being productive. Working at home is been a huge shift for me. I always been in office, I been around people. Yeah, I telecommunicate in the past, but it’s a day or two week here and other people in their office working completely virtual is whole other thing. In this year I really want to get productive, it’s a little things that I have learned already just in the past week of just being productive. One of the things that, if you are not working on a laptop or if are working on a laptop, getting a bigger monitor or getting dual monitors, there has been studies, I have read about them in adds productivity.
My wife laughed at me when I purchased it, I got this big 30 inch flat screen now for my computer. She laughed at me that it was gonna help my productivity, you don’t understand, then I thought of showing her how I can I have Google desktop open all the time, now. So, I got news and I got web clip showing up automatically. I got iTunes minimized, opened all the time, I can have outlook, I can have dream leaver, I can have cast blaster and they are all open in their own spaces and one is not interfering with the other. I am not doing as much minimizing, opening and closing, which we all might go, you click on the bottom. It’s adding to the productivity, it really helps a lot and if you get organized, it does.
On that factor starting with your computer, go through your add/remove programs or on Mac go through your programs and get rid of stuff you don’t need, just get off the computer, it will speed thing up. Go to your RSS feeds, whether using Google reader or bloglines or something else, go through the feeds, what aren’t you reading? If you are not reading on a regular basis or once its dead, they are deadly, get rid of them. Clean it out, will it take a moment to figure out. If you got hundreds and hundreds of feeds and some of them you never reading, just get rid of them, it’s not worth your time wasting. Focus on the things that you are interested in. The once you are really engaging with, do the same thing with podcast.
I went through my podcast feeds, the other day. It actually doing like 12 or 13 different podcast, for what ever reason I am just never getting to listening to them again and the fact that I am downloading them, using someone else’s bandwidth, giving them stats and just wasting my bandwidth in my hard drive. It’s not worth it, so just go through, get rid of some of the clutter, clean-up your desktop, clean up your desk physically. All these things run and I hope you embrace everything its going on, just take a moment and just step back. Its funny, the google desktop is really got me excited. I am not using with search here, but I love the fact there is desktop after where, literally, right now I am looking and I can see the hot news in the webpost, but my favorite thing is just the search pad. It’s so simple to do, [inaudible] it’s a scratch pad, excuse me, I got to post it now. , but I just write-down the thing that I have to do today and then I cross them off. I tried some other to do this, I had some great people suggesting, but this was even easier, where there is no integration. It’s just right there on my desktop, likewise on that I am now carrying a notebook everywhere I go. I have a little mouse kind of note book and it goes everywhere with me.
So, that way when something, because we all have that moment when you are driving in a car or inline it starts bugs and you Oh! Or whatever it is, I need to blog that. Ah it’s a great idea, if you hear somebody talking some, yes, you chat down real quick. I suggest not chat down way you driving. That’s dangerous, bad-bad don’t do that.
I got a comment here that I want to put it, it kind of fits in the next thing. So, this is from a long time listener and just give it annoyed bit long, but thank you Sebastian Keil for sending this in.
[00:08:23] Sebastian Keil: Hey CC, its Sebastian from Planet Sab.de and also from Speak English Podcast. I just wanted to say, thank you again, hopefully this week to see you for Managing the Gray. I’ve been a listener from very beginning ever since the guys on FIR pointed me to your podcast and well, it has been a valuable lesson, the whole way. You know the guys of FIR, I don’t mean it disrespectfully too, they are of course to me a long time heroes, but anyway come back to you, I just want to say thank you for giving me a kick in the bud with the early episodes. Each and every episode pointing to another thing that you can do to promote your product or to enhance the experience for the users or the watchers, in my case with the podcast. I mean from try this in Second Life, which I did, I put up adds there, I hang up with lead and I registered in my podcast in various categories, everything you can do. Linking here and linking there, each little piece I stepped on the way to where do Speak English Podcast is at the moment, with close to 2,000 subscribers, maxing out at 1200 at one point and now it seems the community is starting to kick in which is of course really cool, because I mean feedback is all one does it for. So, we are going well, long story short. Thanks and keep it up, keep up kicking us (listeners) in the bud and pointing us to new things, we should try out. Thanks.
[00:10:51] C.C. Chapman: See those types of comments, I get a lot and I love. Sebastian doing something very good to, Speaking English Podcast which I will link to it in the show notes of managingthegray.com. Its very-very simple, it’s a short video podcast teaching Basic, Basic English. Things like, I know he did a whole thing on the word “which”. The differences between actually “Which” as in Which thing do you wanna do? And “Witch” the thing you see on the Halloween, simple things like that. A very niche podcast, but a very good one and Sebastian, I am glad I am kicking you in the bud. That’s kind of my next point, why I played your comment.
This New Year, I want you guys/girls keep trying new things. One of the best, my happiest things I get, is I get emails from people saying “CC I never would have tried this, if is it wasn’t for you” or “Wow! I never thought of doing that,” that is the point. Kick you in the bud and getting you to try new media. In everyday there is something new to try.
So, listen, have you thought about blogging or podcasting or just even walking around in Second Life or may be creating a video, or even just one video or taking more pictures, just do it, do not be afraid of it. Just get out there, if it scares you a little bit, that’s good. Think about the first time you looked at a roller coaster, right, it scared the [phonetic] out of you. Loop-to-loops fasting people screaming, it’s a scary thing, its scary for everybody, but how many people get on the roller coaster, riding and go, “ha…ha that’s awesome, I need to do more”, new media is like that. You are looking at it, it’s scary. Yeah it’s safe here on the ground. I am sure there is executives around the world who go “Ah, its safe right here on the tea cups, I am going to stay there,” but how much more fun it’s gonna be on the roller coaster. Think about that, just look it and try it. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
Yeah, I am supposed to be some big podcasting professional or whatever you want to call it, right. So, I have a video background, I love video. I’ve run a few pictures, the independent production company, it’s been on over 10 years, made a tonne of short sup, produced some features. So, what am I doing now? I am creating video podcast, it is [inaudible] for his article CastBlaster Video. I use CastBlaster, if you go to castblaster.com, I use that report on my podcast. The CastBlaster Video is literally one click, click the camera turns on, if I am going to play clip, I push a button and then when I am done, I hit save , that’s it, no editing done over period. Its raw, I like that and I like that I am trying in. I love the fact that I am helping this product that eventually it’s gonna allow anybody with the webcam to make video content, whatever it is, I think that’s amazing.
You want to get that, go to oneguysthoughts.com, I’ll link to in the show notes over the feed there, so you can skip straight into the feed. Its all slices of life, what I am doing with it right now, is actually playing clips of movies, I find on my computer, from stuff I have shot randomly, I am hoping that you know, like when go to an event, I am gonna say “Hey, dude come here, I am gonna video somebody” and put it on “oneguysthoughts”.
So, just don’t be afraid to try it, setup that blog. You can go to wordpress.com and do it for free or blogger, there are so many services, podcast them. You can get out there you can do it for free. Put it up on YouTube, put up your video on YouTube, if you don’t know how about hosting? I have seen some podcasters that’s all they do in the start. Just don’t be afraid, get out there and try it. See, it’s the only way you gonna find out what it’s like? Even if you don’t like it, at least then you could say, “You know what, I’ve tried, I don’t like it” that’s okay, but not trying is never okay.
So, the final thing to you is goals. I don’t want to call them resolutions, because we all break resolutions. I am gonna jog nearly a mile, no you are not. A goal should be, you know what? I am gonna run more often or I am gonna run everyday, that is a goal, that is what you should do? Set them, set them big, if I say “I am gonna workout” that’s not a goal. That’s not big enough for me, when I say “I am gonna lose X number of pounds by the end of the year, that to me is a goal and it’s measurable. All your goals should be big and they should be measurable. So you can see success and don’t look at them everyday. Oh, I lost, I lost an ounce today, do not look at that. Look in the bigger picture, set weekly or monthly milestones, but set things where you can measure them and you can see success. If you are not reaching the level of success, stop re-evaluate, figure out what you can do to make that a success and then go forward and kick bud on it and is that alright?
I saw a great quote the other day and it was labeled as unknown, so I guess I can take it here what they said was “if you could do anything and know you would not fail, what would you do?” I read that, it just stopped me and what would I do? I don’t know, but think about that for a minute. What if you knew, you wouldn’t fail at it, what would you attempt to do? And then why don’t you try attempting it, because how do you know you can’t fail. How do you know you will fail, think about it either way, you don’t know. Any goal that you can think of in your head, you can obtain, it could be any thing. So think about that and it doesn’t just apply in new media, or out side of new media, but why not set a goal in new media? I want to go from 100 to 1000 listeners, if that’s your goal, it’s measurable, its big, go for it, try it, see what happens.
Me, I got lot of goals this year, one of them is I wanna help more people to get into this world. I want to get away from the word of podcasting, I want to get people into developing content, I don’t care if it is video, I don’t care if its audio, I don’t care if it’s a mash up of a cinema or history, I am making something like that as I go along. The important thing is that you are doing it and you are going after.
Me, my biggest goal for this year, my biggest goal! and I am petrified to death of it, is to write a book. I got approached by a small [phonetic] publisher saying “CC we love the podcast, we love what you are talking about have you ever thought about writing a book”. Its always been a dream of mine to write a book and so now I am setting a goal to write this book and by me saying it here, it makes it more tangible, it makes me half the work towards it, because I just told you I am gonna write a book, does that scare me? Yes, because right now, I am publicly saying this to, I don’t know how many people out there. That’s very empowering and very scary thing, but by me putting it out, I am setting my goal high, its measurable, do I hold the book in my hand at the end of the year. It’s very measurable, so think about it do not be afraid to do it, just step out there and go for it.
So, I really want 2007 to be a success for you, thank you guys/girls for listening to Managing the Gray, you made 2006 a great year, its when Managing the Gray started, went to 25 episodes, would I like to be more episodes? Yes, that’s another goal for me is to make Managing the Gray biweekly at a minimum. If probably lot more, because my heads going to mile a minute, but I appreciate you for listening, its comments from you, its feed back from you that I love and managingthegray@gmail.com is always available for questions or anything else you want.
I know lots of people are swinging by Crayonville Island, want to say hello and ask question and I love that. If you have no idea where Crayonville Island is, by typing Crayonvillesecondlife.com or just Crayonville.com and there is a link there too. It will bring you right to the office and come on in, if I am not there and if there is nobody out there at the moment, just walk over you will see right in lobby of the office, there is a big stone statue of guy juggling balls, each of those balls, if you click on it, it will tell you how to send a message to any member of Crayonville, which is great thing. It actually sends some email if they are not online, if they are online, like if I am in wherever, it actually lift up and say I am online, and you can go find me someplace else, or send me a message, and I will get it, and I come over and talk to you. That’s the way the conversation starts, right. Doesn’t what the medium is, as long as the conversation is happening, that’s the important thing.
One another thing before I go, I really, really, really want to highlight and link in the show notes directly to the link Mitch Joel, Six Pixels Of Separation, someone that I am glad to say, I got into podcasting. I think me and Joe Jaffe would be the evil parents that created Mitch Joel, a podcaster, that kind of a scary Trio . He did this great thing, right before the holidays, where he reached out to all his new media contacts and said “hey guys I would love to hear from you for this end of the year show”. I listen to it, finally yes I am little behind it, it was very powerful episode, just hearing from people all through the podosphere, just all these different people with all sorts of different in-sites into just the past year, where we were going , we are not so much predictions, some of them are, some of them aren’t. It’s a very great episode, if you are into, if you life Managing the Gray and you life what’s going on, you will love Six Pixels Of Separation and this one episode, you wanna get exposed to, I don’t want to say greatest mind, some of the coolest people I personally dig in this world. You wanna check up this episode, so go to managingthegray.com, it will be in the show notes, you click right there and go over to it.
So, thank you for listening today, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and have a very-very successful 2007. I am going to be here to help you with it, I hope and I will talk to you very soon. Alright guys, peace, and be well.
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