Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 347

Keep Yourself Alive

Who will protect your rights, your opportunities and your privacy online?

Do you think that it's the role of government? Is it the corporation's responsibility? Should Google and Facebook be securing your privacy online? Technology, connectivity and the great untethering of our society as we become more and more mobile is our own, personal responsibility. Yes, the government can support this evolution through legislation, enforcement and ensuring that our most vulnerable have equal levels of protection and access. Yes, corporations must make sure that what they offer consumers is something that they can understand (in relation to the terms and service) and a product that is secure for them to use, but beyond that, you - the individual - should not rely on anyone else but yourself when it comes to your online persona (and this includes the content that you create and your privacy).

Keep yourself alive.

Remember that with every friend, like, plus, tweet and website visit, there are breadcrumbs that are being gathered. Those breadcrumbs are then being associated with your usage and who else you are connected to. Should this make you paranoid? While some of the information is not personally identifiable - as an individual - remember, that it's not all that hard to make the link between what is being tracked and the information that you're freely contributing.

Here are some tips and tricks that may help you out:

Don't link to spouses and children. If you don't identify that these individuals are tied to you in the physical realm, it's hard for platforms like Facebook and Google to know the difference between a spouse and a friend or your child and a friend. By not identifying them as family members, they can still connect to all of your information. Remember this trick when tagging photos or naming folders as well.

Don't publish anything private. Someone I know was concerned about registering for a website because they were worried about what the company might do with their email address. This same person has been publishing pictures of their young family to Facebook and Flickr forever, for all to see. If you don't want your privacy exposed, be very leery of what you are posting.

Be careful of groups you join. People seem to think that groups are more private. They're not. Even private groups are just bits and bytes. The information is readily available for those who are interested in it.

Make your acquaintances as close as your friends. One of the reasons I like having so many friends and followers is that, in the end, it's a bit of a mess to sort through. It's hard to tell who is family, who is a close friend and who is an acquaintance. Yes, this requires some filtering in terms of signal to noise when it comes to usage, but it makes all of my connections "equal" in terms of the raw data.

Be leery of platforms with open APIs. Not to get technical, but understand the platforms you're using, try to read the terms of service and be aware that if they are allowing third-party developers to create apps and the like, it may also mean that the data (or, your information) is being shared as well.

Be responsible.

This is all on you. It's easy to take all of the information in this Blog post, get paranoid and think that I'm telling you to avoid any sort of personal engagement via digital channels. That's not what I'm doing. This is much more about ensuring that individuals take full responsibility for their actions by understanding that Facebook and Google aren't here to protect your most personal information. They're here to make money. They are a business... not a cause for the social good. Yes, if they want happy customers, it's critical for them to maintain your privacy and have a secure product (which they do), but as the business models evolves, so too will their terms of service (nothing new here - this is the kind of stuff that keeps getting Facebook into trouble with their community). Remember, it's on you to be the true gatekeeper.

You must take responsibility for your own rights, opportunities and privacy online.

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Fighting Cancer

It was beautiful and perfect sunny day on August 25h, 2010.

I was flying from Montreal to Toronto for a business pitch (ironically, it was the Canadian Cancer Society). I was happy with life - family, business and community were all going along great. I remember looking out of the plane window into the clear blue horizon and thinking, "life is good. I am very lucky." I was looking forward to landing because I was about to call my best friend to let him know that my family was expecting a new baby. I've known this person for my whole life. I can't remember them not being a part of my life or a friend. He was the first call outside of my immediate family with the good news. He always is. When the flight landed, I received a phone call from him. I was smiling to myself thinking, "this is perfect! He's calling me!"

That's when my world collapsed.

He told me that his beautiful, young daughter, Leah (who was four years old), had cancer... leukemia. How could that be? A few weeks prior she was at my kid's Birthday party, laughing, playing... perfect. Now... Leukemia? It was - without a question - the hardest moment of my life... trying to understand and take in what my best friend was telling me about his daughter... who I would treat as my own daughter in terms of love and care.

It makes no sense.

The stress, tears and worry since that day has been non-stop, persistent and draining. Leah's courage throughout this nightmare is what pulled everyone through - family and friends. If there were ever a definition for "survivor" it is Leah. After a lengthy and hard battle, she is - thankfully - in remission and back home where she belongs: with her family and friends.

She's lucky, but many, many kids are not this lucky. 

Now, it's our turn to make a difference. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada's Light The Night Walk is a night to pay tribute and bring hope to all those affected by blood cancer. On October 15th, I will be joining thousands of people walking in twilight carrying illuminated balloons to fight this dreaded disease. I'm doing this as a part of Leah's team. I'll be walking with Leah and her family. Leah didn't deserve cancer of the blood... nobody does.

I'm asking you to do something for me.

This will be my ninth year of Blogging. I do my best to put out six Blog posts and one audio podcast every week. This makes it close to three thousand entries over the year. In all of that time, I have only asked for something twice: The first time, it was to help spread the word about my business book, Six Pixels of Separation (for which everyone responded in a humbling and kind way). The second, was a few weeks ago in conjunction with the launch of the End Malaria book (of which I was one of over sixty contributors) as a part of Seth Godin's The Domino Project (the book did great! It his #2 on Amazon and raised tons of money to buy mosquito nets for those in need). This will be the third time. In a perfect world, I'd prefer to not ask for help (those who know me, personally, can attest that I struggle with asking for help). In all instances, I try to make the ask something that has more value to the person actually taking action. Meaning, I prefer when the value of the ask is balanced not towards the person asking, but to those who participate. I'm confident that on all three occasions, this has been the outcome. This isn't about me raising money. It's about our kids and the randomness and cruelty that is leukemia and because none of us are safe. Leah got a cold that turned into a virus that triggered leukemia with no family history. Nothing. Now, Leah (who is in remission) will have to deal with this for the rest of her life.

Please help.

I set a goal of $2500 to raise from friends and family. That goal was surpassed to the tune of $4000, but there's more work to be done. Leah's team has set a goal of $20,000. I do realize that times are tough and many of us are watching our wallets just a little bit closer than we usually have, but please consider giving something. You know the saying, "every dollar counts." If over the year, any of my content has struck a chord with you, made you smile, made you see your business world in a different way, I hope that you will consider this ask as the the "tip jar" for my thoughts. Please help me. Please sponsor my walk. Please give generously. Please.

If you can find it in your heart to give, please do so right here: Light The Night Walk.

Thank you.

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9 Glorious Truths About Creating Great Content

Marketers don't like to make mistakes. People don't like to make mistakes.

Content has become a core ingredient in the Marketer's recipe for success. The challenge is that creating great content is like creating art: it's not a perfect science and it requires both time and commitment before you start getting good at it (and great results). Like art, some people never get good at it. There are some core lessons that can be learnt from brands who create great content (and some of them ain't pretty).

9 Glorious Truths About Creating Great Content:

You are not a machine. While your factory may be able to pump out those widgets, human beings are not machines. Therefore, you will make mistakes. You will have days when your writing is not all that interesting or when you struggle to find your voice.

You may be great but you are not perfect. Think about it this way: even some of the world's best authors have written some pretty bad stories during their careers. This is going to happen to you and your brand. Your only recourse is to keep at it.

The bad stuff only happens after you start. You're not going to make a bunch of mistakes and then start pushing your content out there when it's ready for primetime. Much like writing, when you commit to it and get serious about it, that's when the crappy work starts coming out. It's a natural part of the process, you just have to be ready for it.

Expression is important. Arianna Huffington likes to say that, "self-expression is the new entertainment." It's true, but know that self-expression is also a huge part of what makes us human. We want to express our thoughts and views with others. When you're thinking about your company and your content, think about whether or not the content has that true expression coming out of it, or if it's just thinly veiled marketing blather.

Great content can't be taught. There is an important distinction here: you can teach anybody how to create content, but you can't teach someone how to create great content. Meaning: you can teach people a few moves and tactics, but what makes content great is a great imagination and that's, quite simply, a gift that some have (and others don't).

Editing content is hard. Creating great content (post imagination) is a series of decisions... the challenge comes in the editing process. The people who create great content have the ability to edit out the decisions that were bad... that don't work.

It's not the start of the content creation that is hard. Many brands struggle with this: they feel like they just don't know how to start. They feel that starting is the hardest part. What you learn as you create more and more content is that it's not starting the work that is hard, it's revising it, reworking it and re-editing it that is not only the hard part, but it's the part you should (learn to) love the most. Great content comes from the reworking of those initial ideas.

Complex is bad. For some reason, brands think that for something to be serious, it needs to look and sound complex. I'm not sure why that is, but the best content is not complex... it's honest. And, if you think about it, honesty comes through best when it's kept simple.

Be a part of the culture. When you're creating content, think about it as your art (because it is art). Always remember that the best art plays some kind of role in our culture... in our humanity. Take the time to think about and figure out what your role is in our culture.

What would you add to this list?

(this Blog post was inspired by the movie, Bad Writing ).

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The Value (And Waste) Of Twitter

I often feel like I suck at Twitter.

Besides the fact that I'm not all that comfortable with the public back and forth of platitudes, handshaking and baby kissing that I feel diminishes the authentic tweets from brewing to the top, and forgetting the mad dash that many individuals engage with to follow (and follow back) as many people as possible, there's something more about Twitter that makes me a little bit uncomfortable lately. It goes beyond my self-admitted social flaws (more on that here: The Gentle Art Of The Retweet).

Tweet too often. Tweet too little.

While this could be a relic of the mass media advertising mindset, there's no doubt that being persistent (having a constant and consistent message in market) and repetition (repeating messages to ensure that everyone you connect with can see it) is key to being successful at Twitter. Now, before we all run to the hills in an attempt to define "success," I'm going to say that success is defined by having an active audience (a group that not only cares about what you tweet, but interacts and shares those messages with their own social graphs). I'd add on to that that someone who is "successful" on Twitter (by my estimation) is also someone who has a growing community. So, if you want to be active on Twitter, you have to hunker down, tweet a lot, sometimes repeat yourself and - in general - be in people's faces.

Ugh, if that's the case... I'm never going to be great at Twitter.

There is a fine line between a valuable tweet and a total waste. I think about every tweet before I put it out there (maybe I shouldn't?). I wonder if what I am tweeting serves the audience or if it's too much naval gazing. I wonder if the tweet is truly adding value to your stream or if it's just one of many. Yes, I probably think a little too much about these 140 characters.

We live in two second intervals.

It's the new reality. A Blog post, a tweet, a video on YouTube... all of this content has a short half-life. It has to. And therein lies the challenge: will there ever be serious value out of tweets? If you look at some of the people that we would consider "successful" on Twitter, they are cramming their feeds with content. Clearly, this technique works because more and more people follow these individuals and more and more people point to these individuals as ideal case studies in how to make Twitter work in the most effective manner. In the history of the world, content probably never had this short of a shelf life... ever. It seems like smoke signals stuck around longer than many of the tweets that fill a screen these days.

Frequency does not equal quality... but it can on Twitter.

To be considered good at Twitter, I would have to tweet more. In fact, there are many days (sometimes in a row), where I don't tweet at all. It's not that I don't like Twitter (in fact, I kinda still love it), it's just that life happens and I don't ever feel any pressure to tweet. When time gets crunched, my priorities always start with the client work at Twist Image and ends with a Blog post. I also don't want to be the person that is constantly tweeting everything just to get more followers or social media validation. But, the fact remains that if I don't tweet often and consistently, none of my tweets get heard... they seem to get lost in the shuffle.

I'm wondering if you think we'll all mature beyond this point or if Twitter and success will always be about the person shouting the most (and the loudest)?

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What New Media Must Learn From Comics

The comic book industry teaches us many lessons about New Media and the new consumer.

Are you familiar with the comic book, Superman - Red Son? It was released in 2003 to critical acclaim and became a nomination for the 2004 Eisner Award for best limited series. This three-issue mini-series took Superman and shook the baseball and apple pie story up like a snow globe. The premise of this series was that instead of his rocket ship landing in the corn fields of Kansas and being raised by Ma and Pa Kent, the superhero - who would stand for truth, justice and the American Way - lands in a Ukranian farm and becomes a political tool for the Russians. Now, instead of his secret identity that was given to him by his adoptive parents, everything about him is a state secret. Instead of being a force for goodwill to all mankind, Superman - Red Son, is a weapon of both propaganda and power for the Soviet Union.

It's how you imagine and re-imagine stories that will get your audiences inspired. The more creative, the better.

While the popularity of comic books has its ups and downs over time, it's amazing to see how it changes and adapts as an industry. This past weekend, was Montreal Comiccon and it played host to tens of thousands of fans from all over the comic book and science fiction genres. In a world where books struggle with their own digitization and only a small few earn the right to have a book deal that can turn into a blockbuster movie, it seems like comic book culture grows, becomes that much healthy and still has a certain level of protectionism when it comes to the value of the actual physical paper.

"This dude is serious." 

While walking the floor at Montreal Comiccon with a serious comic book collector (I used to be one and now, it's more of a hobby), he pointed to one booth of comics being sold and said that, "this dude was serious." It turns out that he was showcasing two different copies of the first comic to feature Spider-Man. He also had multiple copies of other comic books that had collectible status because of a first appearance of one of the more popular superheroes. The fact remains, that comics are still collectible because the truly rare ones (especially in good shape) are hard to find. While it's nice to have an abundant amount of media out there, we all know that scarcity is what makes something truly attractive to an audience: that ability to see something (or have something) that other don't have access to.

Scarcity isn't impossible... and comic books teach us that. 

While few can actually own a copy of 1939's Detective Comics #27 (the first appearance of Batman) because it goes for around $300,000 (if you can even find one), it's not a hard comic to find if all you want to do is read the story. Along with countless reprints, one of the growing trends in comic books has become the trade paperback (and hardcover). The comic book publishers take classic comic books and bundle them together into a trade pub. For the most part, these version are non-collectible (meaning they rarely increase in value from the cover price), but they offer fans the ability to read and enjoy the story without the fear of ruining a comic book that should be handled as little as possible to maintain it's mint condition value. Along with that, it has opened up an entirely new segment of both readers and distributors (it's not uncommon to now see comic book trades in bookstores, magazine stores, toy stores, etc...).

The digitization continues.

The comic book industry has not been spared by the digitization of everything. iPad apps and the ability to now buy comics in their digital form continues to rise. The acceptance and desire to have digital copies of comic books validates another truth about New Media: it is not a zero sum game. Just because someone buys a copy of Superman in a digital format, they may be doing it because they just want the story and no longer want to collect comics, or they may be doing it to read the comic on the go without fear of ruining their physical copy. The digitization of comic books is also introducing many new readers to the genre (and something tells me that a fan of the digital format will inevitably buy some physical copies to build a collection of value).

Pushing out into the edges.

While walking the floor at Montreal Comiccon, you begin to realize that nearly every chain in the food chain is now being monetized in some way, shape or form. From people paying $50 for a Stan Lee autograph or $20 to take a picture with a replica of the original Batmobile, the lesson is clear: if you have content that people want... people will pay for that content. The edges blur even more when you see the alleys of comic book artists selling original work, being created on-demand and in the moment. Herb Trimpe (one of the first comic book artists to draw The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine) would draw one of your favorite characters (doing whatever you want them to be doing) for around $100. What better way to declare your love of something than to have an original piece of artwork done by one of the original artists to your spec? The popularity of the genre and events like this has pushed comic books to the big screen, television, magazines and even into paperback books (yes, you can buy Batman fiction).

My feet hurt. My brain hurts.

It's not all bellyrubs and lollipops for the comic book industry. Like any other media there is fragmentation and consolidation colliding at the same time as digitization and a finicky audience, but Comiccon is a great catalyst for media professionals to explore and analyze. There is a business around collectibles and there is a business around making the content accessible for everybody. There is a business around the personalization of giving fans real access to everything and there is a business in being strategic about how to extend the brand.

The future of media may lie in everything else but the media, while the more traditional companies will continue to grapple with the value of content as their one trick pony. 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - What New Media Must Learn From Comics .

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Jeff Jarvis Shows Off His Public Parts

Episode #271 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Jeff Jarvis has a sharp tongue. Meaning: he is opinionated and often right about how New Media intersects with our traditional ways and what this impact has on our society. His first business book, What Would Google Do?, was a massive best-seller. His latest, Public Parts, looks set to topple it. Along with that, his Blog, BuzzMachine, is a complete source of media goodness as he continues to explore how our society adapts to the new ways in which we communicate and share information. When he's not doing interesting public media projects with Twitter or hashtags, you can find him working on the interactive journalism program and the new business models for news project at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.  It's always a pleasure speaking with Jeff and I'm always honored when he takes the time to connect. I know you will too. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #271.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #65

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Wealthy Campers Bring Hired Help to Burning Man - The Wall Street Journal . "I spent a week in the desert North of Reno at Burning Man . While it's a rough place to spend any time, plenty of people bring their creature comforts. This brief video (and the accompanying article) show just how far some people are stretching the definition of 'self-reliance.'" (Alistair for Hugh).

Jeff Jarvis Remembers 911 On Twitter - Storify . "On Sunday, author and journalist, Jeff Jarvis , relived his day in New York exactly 10 years ago. He tweeted what he was doing when the planes hit the towers, until Twitter 's rate limiting stopped him. It's the best use of Storify I've seen yet, and it demonstrates just how much of media has changed in ten years. As Jarvis says, 'If we had Twitter and phones with cameras that day, the world's view would not have been from a rooftop miles away... it would have been at eye-level.'" (Alistair for Mitch).

Supercomputer predicts revolution - BBC . "We are no longer in the age of computers, or the age of the Web or mobile. Truly, we are witnessing the birth of the age of data: its creation, its collection, and most importantly, its networking. Patterns emerge and we are starting to be able to *predict*... whether someone is likely to buy a particular pair of shoes; and now, whether a country is about to descend into revolution." (Hugh for Alistair).

Ex-Drug Smuggler Turned Data Miner Reclaims Field He Created - Bloomberg . "Data data data is what it's all about today. Any company, or country not on top of data - about their customers, competitors, their market and their future - is in for a tough time. This is a story about legendary Hank Asher , former cocaine smuggler, former house-painter, former draughtsman, and and and... inventor of LexisNexis and multiple other data/search tools. He's recently completed terms on a non-compete agreement (an obligation to the last company that bought one of his products), and is back on the horse, making more data tools." (Hugh for Mitch). 

Van Halen & Startups - Favo.rs. "I tend to hate articles that attempt to compare something from business to an artist or some such, but what could be better than an article about Van Halen and startups? Really? ... and let's not forget about those green m&ms!." (Mitch for Alistair).

How Information Became a Thing, and All Things Became Information - Discover Magazine . "What is it about human nature that makes us fascinated by things like information... and then how information turns into data? The root must lie in our own curiosity to simply understand things... and a lot of that understanding is based on figuring out why we're here and what we're supposed to do with our lives. I know, this is deep stuff, but it's true. Once we've gathered all of the information that we need and we turn it into usable data... then what? Human beings have an unquenchable thirst for information. Have you ever really stopped to think about why? This article was sent to me by Virginia (our ECD at Twist Image ), so a special hat-tip to her!" (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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Marketing - A New Dawn

Is this just the natural evolution of Marketing or is this a complete revolution?

It doesn't matter anymore. If this is an evolution, we have evolved. If this is a revolution, the revolution is over. The Internet is (clearly) not a fad. Online marketing and advertising is (clearly) not a fad. Social Media is (clearly) not a fad. People are connected - to one another and to more information than they ever have been before. They're able to create content and share their thoughts and opinions from anywhere and everywhere. With all of this connectivity, mobile (smartphones, tablets, etc...) also makes them highly untethered. These digital marketing channels are no longer some kind of destination. They are ubiquitous. 

What comes next? The dawn.

Welcome to a new dawn in Marketing. It's going to be a challenge, and this is going to scare a lot of Marketers (both on the brand and the agency side). The trick is in not seeing it as a challenge, but in being able to capitalize on the opportunity. This won't be an opportunity that will favor conversation over broadcasting. This is (and will be) a new dawn. When the Internet first became commercialized (nearly two decades ago), one of the most bandied around words was "convergence" - how the Internet and mass media broadcasting would fuse together into one platform. Marketing professionals shied away from that word and opted for "integrated." The challenge with integrated marketing solutions is that few agencies and brands are rarely able to deliver consistent results. On the agency side, some shops were above the line, while others were below the line. Some shops were hyper-creative, while other shops were hyper-analytical. In recent years, we've even seen an evolution to shops that focus on the consulting and strategy to other shops that go deep into a specific niche (i.e. affiliate marketing, experiential marketing or search engine marketing) to deliver results around a sliver of a sliver of the marketing pie.

Convergence Marketing.

While not every Marketing partner is going to be all things to all brands, the best shops will be the ones that may not be completely integrated (in terms of offering the full suite of services), but the ideal shop will know and understand what the revolution in marketing was all about and how to sell that brand narrative into this new dawn of marketing. It's important to remember that dawn is not daylight. It's just the beginning. The sun is cracking over the horizon while the moon slowly rests. It's a moment that can't be called "day" and certainly can't be called "night" either. It is something new. Much like Social Media took over a decade to take hold, this dawn in new Marketing may take some time until it turns into pure daylight.

Time to wake up.

Ambrose Bierce once said, "Dawn: When men of reason go to bed." While that quote makes me smile, it is time to wake up. Trying to place Social Media or any of the Digital Marketing initiatives into an experimental budget or just having a couple of people within the brand handling all of that is the same as ghettoizing it. It simply won't work. Our media channels are beginning to converge (just look at how many people share what they're thinking about during a television show or while reading a magazine article in places like Twitter, Facebook and Google + - all live and in real-time - while they're consuming more traditional channels of media). This is no longer about multi-platform activity, they're simply "in the media." Arianna Huffington from The Huffington Post likes to say that, "self-expression is the new entertainment." Think about that from a marketing and advertising perspective: more and more people are not only sharing how they feel, but they're more likely sharing a vision of what they hope other people think of them. Advertising and Marketing has historically been built on playing off of creating an image of what someone wants to be. So yes, we're heading into even murkier times as this convergence in Marketing takes hold. This new dawn of Marketing truly will be a convergence of traditional mass media, new media, a broadcasting mentality mixed with a more human approach and candor.

Dawn. I'm looking forward to the dawn.

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6 Websites That Deserve Your Attention

What is a Blog?

I have no idea anymore. News websites now run on WordPress while Blogs tend to look a lot like news websites these days. Regardless, there are six online destinations that constantly grab my attention. If all else fails: Twitter whales, my Google Reader goes bust and I can't get any good links out of my friends and connections on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google +, I can always rely on these:

6 Websites That Deserve Your Attention (in alphabetical order):

AdWeek . Since their recent redesign, AdWeek has been chock full of advertising and marketing goodness. Sure, it's easy to just grab the RSS feed or wait for someone on Twitter to send you a link to an AdWeek article, but a daily visit to this site will get you up-to-speed in no time at all... and it looks and feels great too!

CMO.com . Another one of the few websites that I have set as a default tab when I open my Google Chrome browser. CMO.com is called, "digital marketing for CMOs." I'm not sure it would be possible for a description to be more fitting of the things that interest me most. CMO.com is a combination of links from across the Web and original content. There's always something meaty to bite into.

Lost At E Minor . Strange and quirky artistic journeys into pop culture. If you're looking to see something different or trying to spark some level of creativity, there's no better place than Lost At E Minor. While this should be considered an art Blog, there are countless lessons about Marketing from within their posts. I'm also a huge fan of their e-newsletter (yes, I still subscribe to e-newsletters... quite looking at me that way!).

The New York Times - Media & Advertising . This is one of those, "I can't believe all of this information is free" types of pages. While it's only one web page, it's links and links to everything you need to know about what's happening right now when it comes to all media and the advertising happens in and around it. There's always deep insight and the structure is a real pleasure to peruse.

Nieman Journalism Lab . From Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab comes this Blog that is always a treat to read. It's described as, "an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age." Beyond the philosophy and hyperbole you get on other Blogs looking at the new Journalism, you'll often find reviews of apps and other real-world events that are changing the face of journalism here. And trust me, if it's changing the face of journalism, it's also affecting everything we do in the marketing realm as well.

Sparksheet . Published by Spafax, Sparksheet is my favorite place to learn more about the discourse on content, content marketing and new media. The writing is sharp and original. You can tell that the Editor, Dan Levy, puts a tremendous amount of time and effort into thinking about each article, the flow and how it all comes together. Ultimately, it feels like a magazine... a real magazine, and that's a treat in a world where most websites are simply links to others or a regurgitation of content we've seen somewhere else. I'm constantly surprised that more people don't know about Sparksheet and how great it is.

Now it's your turn: what are some of your top picks (and yes, I'd prefer the picks to be ones that aren't so well-known ;)

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The Marketing Industry

You can't have a strong business without a strong community.

Personally, I've lived by that motto since I first got involved in business. Marketers frequently struggle with issues - from how to get more clients to how to keep those clients, and from how to continue to keep being creative to how to keep their teammates happy and engaged. It's not an easy business. It's a fun business (meaning: the work is important, but if we all screw up the next ad campaign, nobody dies - thankfully), but it's not an easy business.

How involved are you in your industry and the associations that serve it?

Many years ago, I was considering joining the Canadian Marketing Association. I knew that if I wanted to have real "game" in the business, I would need to not only join the largest association of marketers in my home country, but that I would need to be active in it as well. This is where many businesses fall down. They join their industry association, pay their dues, sit back and wonder what value the association will bring to them? This is a big mistake... it's a tragic mistake. Prior to joining the association, I sat down with the head of membership and made it clear that I had no interest in joining the association unless it was possible - from day one - to volunteer and become active.

It's a wild ride.

From sitting on the Digital Marketing Council to being active on the National Convention Committee to my current role as Chair of the Board of Directors, I have not only met some of the most fascinating people (who have become true friends), but I have grown. I have grown personally, professionally and all of that benefits our business at Twist Image. Along with the CMA, I have been active in organizations like the Internet Advertising Bureau, Web Analytics Association, Shop.org and others. The results have always been the same: the more I volunteered and worked to help the industry to advance, the better the results were.

It's simpler than you think.

It's too bad that not more people get involved (and get active) in their industry associations. It just seems so obvious: the healthier the industry is, the better the businesses who work within it will benefit. The quicker the industry is to react to issues and challenges, the more credible and respected it will be in our communities. Most industry associations are not only hungry for more members, but they're even hungrier for people to help out and volunteer. Whenever someone asks me what the one thing is that they can do to make a difference in their business, my immediate reaction is not a Blog. It's not about creating a Twitter feed, Podcast or posting videos to YouTube. It's not even about a Facebook presence or trying out Google +. It's this: join your industry association, get active, affect change and if you do that effectively, it will - without question - grow your business and everything that goes along with it.

What are you waiting for?

Tags:

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industry association

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