Managing the Gray - Marketing for the New Media Professional

Last night I had a dream that Adobe bought Linden Lab and thus the popular virtual world of Second Life. I woke up giggling a bit about this, but then in the shower (isn’t that where great thoughts happen?) I got thinking more about how that could be cool if it actually happened.

Adobe and Macromedia merged a while ago. So think of the tools that Adobe has. Flash, Illustrator, PhotoShop, ColdFusion and Flex. They’ve got the perfect mix of tools for scripters and designers. Imagine what you could do with that tool set if completely integrated into Second Life. Just thinking about it makes me smile and grin. It would be quite impressive.

Now, I don’t think that Second Life fits into the Adobe business plan, but then again I don’t know what their plan is. I could make arguments that having a virtual world would be an amazing place for creatives to unleash their brains because lets face it, that is what Second Life is for a lot of people. It is about a lot of other things too. *grin*

The code side is where the real power could be. I worked with ColdFusion for a number of years and know that it can do some pretty cool stuff. Finally having web integration in both directions would be a huge plus. Being able to query data from other sources and have that data come into Second Life would shift everything. I’m still hoping they do simple things such as tying the weather to a zip code. That way I could build a sim and tell it to pull the weather from Boston or Hawaii to add a certain new level of “real” to it.

I’m not making any predictions here, but I had to share since it gave me something to noodle on today and perhaps it will give you something to as well.

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As most of you know by now I have resigned from my job and am jumping head first into the deep end of being a hired gun freelancer. It is certainly an exciting time right now and I was encouraged to share with my listeners how I came to the decision and what I’d share with others who might be thinking about the same thing since I’m hearing lots of grumbles out there.

So, today we talk about calculated risks, taking chances and figuring out what you love and hate. All things that were important to me and that should be important to you. I’ve also got a great comment from Paul Colligan that focuses on the assigning value discussion we have been having, but that also fits into my world right now as I try to figure out what to charge people who hire me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. The comment line is always on at 206-309-4729. If you like the idea of hiring me for some work or looking for a speaker at your next event please drop me an e-mail and we can get chatting.

Update: Transcript of this podcast here.

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As an FYI to the readers and listeners over here I wanted to share some news with you.

Last night I publicly announced my leaving of crayon. You can read all the details here.

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I’ve been keeping an eye on Zoho for a while. They are doing a lot of the same things Google is trying to do through Google Apps. A completely online working environment. The perfect thing for all the new media nomads out there.

Biggest difference though is that Zoho has an off line feature. I can sync everything to my desktop (using Google Gears of all things *grin*) and work completely off line and then sync up the next time I connect. THAT is the key thing.

Then this morning I find out about Zoho Business and my grin got even bigger!

It is going to come in two flavors - Free & Pro. Some features will include:

• Company level Admin Console
• Domain Management (for pointing your domains to Zoho Apps)
• Centralized User and Group Management
• Single Sign-on across several Zoho Apps
• Zoho Apps include Writer, Sheet, Show, Wiki, Notebook, Email, Cal, Tasks, Planner, Viewer, Chat etc.
• Customization Options
• Multiple levels of Security including SSL
• Remote Backup
• Telephone Support and more.

I love all of this and think it is a huge step forward. I’m wondering how long until Yahoo or Microsoft try to buy them so that they can directly compete with Google. Heck, if Apple made a play at them things would get REALLY interesting, but I don’t think it’s the market they are in right now.

Posted in Cool Tools, New Media | Comments(1)

Once again the power of Twitter shows up in my life and this time it leads to me giving a morning keynote at the October 4th Era of Conversation Conference in Washington, DC.

I’m excited about this event because it looks like a packed day full of information and interesting people. Geoff Livingston and I connected via Twitter about me doing this event and I’ll be speaking along side Valeria Maltoni which is very cool.

I’ve been working on a new presentation and wasn’t sure when I might actually first show it, but this could be the event. After watching Mitch Joel speak, I’ve really begun to look at presentations as something very different. Thus I want to really focus in on the presentation as much as what I’m saying. Does that make sense? It does in my head. *grin*

So if you are anywhere near DC when this is going on consider registering and attending for the day. If you are going let me know so that we can be sure to meet each other and really have a conversation.

cross posted from CC-Chapman.com 

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