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	<title>Propaganda: Culture, Branding, Marketing &#38; Advertising Forum</title>
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		<title>We all pretty much live on Facebook, but what if you want to hide your actual location? or: How to turn off Facebook Places</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/we-all-pretty-much-live-on-facebook-but-what-if-you-want-to-hide-your-actual-location-or-how-to-turn-off-facebook-places/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:15:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[apps]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Facebook Places has us a little bit paranoid. After all, the idea of our friends checking us in at the yogurt shop isn&#8217;t something that we want leaking out. We&#8217;re yogurt fanatics and we wouldn&#8217;t want the word to get out to our friends and loved ones. So, if you&#8217;re wondering how to turn off [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=205&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Facebook Places has us a little bit paranoid. After all, the idea of our friends checking us in at the yogurt shop isn&#8217;t something that we want leaking out. We&#8217;re yogurt fanatics and we wouldn&#8217;t want the word to get out to our friends and loved ones. So, if you&#8217;re wondering how to turn off Facebook Places and keep your friends from outing your addiction to frozen treats, read on.</p>
<p><strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></p>
<h3>Restrict access in &#8220;Things I share&#8221;</h3>
<p></strong><br />
<a href="http://www.maclife.com/files/u53/screen-shot-2010-08-19-at-9.38.48-am_0.jpg"><img src="http://www.maclife.com/files/u53/screen-shot-2010-08-19-at-9.38.48-am.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="245" /></a></p>
<p>Under the Privacy settings, go to Custom and &#8220;Customise settings.&#8221; This will take you to the page that will allow you to select what other friends can see. We set this to &#8220;Friends Only,&#8221; but you might be okay with letting &#8220;Friends of Friends&#8221; know where you are.</p>
<p><strong></p>
<h3>Keep others from mentioning you under &#8220;Things others share&#8221;</h3>
<p></strong><br />
<a href="http://www.maclife.com/files/u53/screen-shot-2010-08-19-at-9.38.37-am_1.jpg"><img src="http://www.maclife.com/files/u53/screen-shot-2010-08-19-at-9.38.37-am_0.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="152" /></a></p>
<p>Keep your friends from being able to check you in with them by disabling &#8220;Friends can check me in to places.&#8221; Your friends might be annoyed with your decision, but remember this it is your privacy. You can still be tagged in status updates, however.<br />
<strong></p>
<h3>Change the settings under &#8220;Applications and website&#8221;</h3>
<p></strong><br />
<img src="http://www.maclife.com/files/u53/screen-shot-2010-08-19-at-9.43.05-am.jpg" alt="" width="554" height="377" /></p>
<p>This one is tricky and took us a few clicks to find. Scroll to the bottom of the privacy page, and under &#8220;Applications and websites,&#8221; edit &#8220;Info accessible to your friends&#8221; so that &#8220;Current location&#8221; and &#8220;Places I&#8217;ve visited&#8221; are not checked off. This will ensure that your information is not shared with any of the applications, games and websites that you and your friends might use.</p>
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		<title>sometimes the obvious works</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/sometimes-the-obvious-works/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:39:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[branding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[click through]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Adidas Jersey Switch- US Rugby @ Rugby World Cup, New Zealand 2011. Absolutely genius ad for Rugby WC 2011, Adidas, US Rugby and, frankly, for getting the female and gay male demographic.  Maybe Adidas has been paying close attention to Bravo&#8217;s rather clever strategy.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=196&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/campaigns_nz/content/popup/index.asp#/video">Adidas Jersey Switch- US Rugby @ Rugby World Cup, New Zealand 2011.</a></p>
<p>Absolutely genius ad for Rugby WC 2011, Adidas, US Rugby and, frankly, for getting the female and gay male demographic.  Maybe Adidas has been paying close attention to Bravo&#8217;s rather clever strategy.</p>
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		<title>So you bought an eBook but still have no e-lit? Announcing: The Electronic Literature Directory 2.0</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/so-you-bought-an-ebook-but-still-have-no-e-lit-announcing-the-electronic-literature-directory-2-0/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 26 May 2010 15:16:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[anthologies]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[E-Lit]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[So you bought an eBook but still have no e-lit? Announcing: The Electronic Literature Directory 2.0 http://directory.eliterature.org ELO Part 2 Pending (with another piece on InanimateAlice): Press release to Uni&#8217;s around the US For Immediate Release                                                                        Contact: Mark Marino (310) 420-4481 or markcmarino@gmail.com Director of Communication Electronic Literature Organization Los Angeles, Calif. (May 25, 2010) [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=189&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>So you bought an eBook but still have no e-lit?<br />
Announcing: The Electronic Literature Directory 2.0<br />
</strong><a href="http://directory.eliterature.org/" target="_blank">http://directory.eliterature.org</a></p>
<p><span style="color:#993300;"><strong>ELO Part 2 Pending (with another piece on InanimateAlice): Press release to Uni&#8217;s around the US</strong></span></p>
<p>For Immediate Release                                                                        Contact: Mark Marino<br />
(310) 420-4481 or <a href="http://markcmarino@gmail.com/" target="_blank">markcmarino@gmail.com</a><br />
Director of Communication<br />
Electronic Literature Organization</p>
<p>Los Angeles, Calif. (May 25, 2010) &#8212; What good is an iPad if you only read 19th-century novels? The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) wants you to spend less time fretting over your gadgets and more time exploring new literary forms.</p>
<p>This June, ELO announces the Electronic Literature Directory 2.0, the latest version of its online directory of 21st-century electronic literature, full of novel interactive works, like:</p>
<p>Inanimate Alice: <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/407" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/407</a></p>
<p>And that&#8217;s just the beginning&#8230;.</p>
<p>The Directory will officially launch at Brown University at the fourth International Conference and Festival (<a href="http://ai.eliterature.org/" target="_blank">http://ai.eliterature.org</a>), June 3-6, 2010, hosted by professor and poet John Cayley.</p>
<p>&#8220;Print books on a Kindle are not electronic literature. E-lit uses computer processing to deliver new forms of story, poetry and drama,&#8221; says ELO President and University of Illinois professor Joseph Tabbi. &#8220;And we&#8217;re even seeing works that, while they&#8217;re clearly literary, fit none of those settled genres inherited from print.&#8221;</p>
<p>The works in the directory run the gamut from the first pieces of e-lit, such as Michael Joyce&#8217;s &#8220;afternoon,&#8221; to Jhave Johnston&#8217;s 2009 &#8220;human-mind-machine.&#8221; Authors include novelists, such as Kate Pullinger; poets, such as Stephanie Strickland; and literary scholars, such as N. Katherine Hayles of Duke University. The Directory includes international e-lit authors Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (South Korea) and Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez Ruiz (Colombia).</p>
<p>The latest version of the directory leaves behind the static layout of version one to take up the &#8220;Web 2.0&#8243; model of collaborative curation through a wiki structure. &#8220;However, unlike the just-about-anything-goes format of the Wikipedia, the Directory relies on the review and detailed annotations of an extensive directory review board,&#8221; says Davin Heckman, who currently coordinates the working group and teaches English at Siena Heights University.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Directory is ready to serve you some outstanding 21st-century summer reading or novel novels for your Fall 2010 syllabus,&#8221; says Heckman.</p>
<p>&#8220;Did you really buy that iPad just so you can read Sense and Sensibility? Reading print books on your iPad is like using your e-mail to send Morse Code,&#8221; says Mark Marino, Director of Communications of ELO and writing professor at the University of Southern California College of Letters, Arts &amp; Sciences.</p>
<p>Although just in its initial stages, the working group has vetted more than 150 works and has as many more in the pipeline of this ever-expanding collection. Along with artistic pieces readers will ultimately find critical essays on electronic literature and venues for publication.</p>
<p>At the June conference entitled &#8220;ELO Archive and Innovate,&#8221; ELO will honor Robert Coover, whose New York Times essays ushered in and out the &#8220;golden age&#8221; of hypertext. Coover&#8217;s son Roderick appears in the Directory with his work &#8220;Unknown Territories.&#8221;</p>
<p>This year, ELO will also be publishing the second volume of its Electronic Literature Collection. To view the first volume, go to <a href="http://collection.eliterature.org/1/" target="_blank">http://collection.eliterature.org/1/</a></p>
<p><strong>Media passes to the conference</strong> are available upon request. Contact Mark Marino at (310) 420-4481 or <a href="http://markcmarino@gmail.com/" target="_blank">markcmarino@gmail.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>More electronic literature is just a click away!<br />
</strong><br />
Inanimate Alice: Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph<br />
A multimedia online novel in four episodes set in China, Italy, Russia, and the protagonist&#8217;s &#8220;Hometown,&#8221; featuring a girl growing up in the 21st century. Reader participation and interactivity increase as the series progresses, reflecting Alice&#8217;s engagement and influence in her environment as she grows older. <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/514" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/514</a></p>
<p>Roulette: Daniel C. Howe and Bebe Molina<br />
A language game for readers, a single work that can be read in roughly 64,000 ways. The lines of the poem shift every time readers interact with one of the three lines of the poem. <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/511" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/511</a></p>
<p>The Jew&#8217;s Daughter: Judd Morrissey with Lori Talley<br />
An interactive, non-linear, multivalent narrative. A hypertext, but one that transforms the text (rather than just linking from one stable text to another). As soon as the reader moves the mouse over highlighted keywords (links), segments of a page replace one another fluidly. <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/509" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/509</a></p>
<p>JB Wock: Eugenio Tisselli<br />
JB Wock is a self-described &#8220;English-speaking blogmachine&#8221; created by poet and programmer Eugenio Tisselli. JB Wock, a PHP script, searches the web for a phrase that it &#8220;likes&#8221; (from a site that publishes notable quotations), &#8220;twists&#8221; these phrases by substituting synonyms, and publishes the results daily on its blog (which also includes a comment feature, inviting readers to respond).</p>
<p>slippingglimpse: Stephanie Land and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo<br />
A 10-part generative Flash poem combining videos of ocean patterns with text. <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/507" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/507</a></p>
<p>Sydney&#8217;s Syberia: Jason Nelson<br />
A poetic meditation on urban space presented through a Flash-based &#8220;infinite zoom&#8221; interface, which Nelson has repurposed and re-titled as &#8220;infinite click and read.&#8221; <a href="http://eld.eliterature.org/node/487" target="_blank">http://eld.eliterature.org/node/487</a></p>
<p>####<br />
Founded in 1998, The Electronic Literature Organization is a non-profit, multi-institutional organization that draws together an international body of artists and critics.</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212; End of Forwarded Message</p>
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		<title>transmedia, multimedia, transmodal, multimodal, what defines true interactive digital edutech?</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/transmedia-multimedia-transmodal-multimodal-what-defines-true-interactive-digital-edutech/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 13 May 2010 01:30:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Inspired by an entry by Kelli McGraw, Defining &#8216;multimodal&#8217; on her blog, the folks over at Inanimate Alice&#8217;s educational blog decided to highlight the semantic morass in which Ms. McGraw and her fellow educators in Australia find them selves. Australia and New Zealand&#8217;s official educational bodies and institutions have been early adapters and adopters of [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=179&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Inspired by an entry by Kelli McGraw, <em><strong>Defining &#8216;multimodal&#8217;</strong></em> on her blog, the folks over at Inanimate Alice&#8217;s educational blog decided to highlight the semantic morass in which Ms. McGraw and her fellow educators in Australia find them selves.</p>
<p>Australia and New Zealand&#8217;s official educational bodies and institutions have been early adapters and adopters of digital media in education- both teaching it, as well as making it a tool.  As these types of resources evolve, engaging existing and new curricula, and well as the platforms, hardware, connectivity and interactivity expand, the terms to describe these phenomena have become even more diverse than the subject itself.</p>
<p>We follow these subjects on twitter, Buzz, WordPress, LinkedIn, Google, Educational and ICT sites, but how do we know what we&#8217;re missing?  Is it #edtech #edutech #e-books #ICTeducation #transmedia #multimedia #transmodal #multimodal #newmediaed #education2.0&#8230;. the list is very, very long.</p>
<p>The environment, the culture, the technology and global adoption of this revolution is happening so quickly and in as many ways as the imagination of the students it is intended to engage.  The question is: do we need common terms?  Is that limiting or part of the &#8216;content curation&#8217; movement?  Who makes that decision and what do each of these terms mean to all the different people involved- from grade 5 language students in Melbourne to Ministers of Education in the European Union?</p>
<p>Inanimate Alice is a fantastic springboard to solicit input and begin dialogue by its very existence and unique morphology.  So, we ask you to look at Kelli&#8217;s post about Australian curriculum, titles and the confusion created, the article by the Inanimate Alice teachers and supporters highlighting the semantic aspect of Kelli&#8217;s article.</p>
<p>Then, please, weight in.  What, exactly, are we talking about?  In an increasingly small world and stronger global community- how do we speak the same language?</p>
<p><a href="http://kellimcgraw.com/">Kelli McGraw: sharing resources, inviting conversations</a></p>
<p><a href="http://inanimatealice.wordpress.com/">iTeach: Inanimate Alice blog</a></p>
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		<title>Augmented (Demented?) Reality: Fictional B&amp;B gives tripadvisor.com a huge boost</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/augmented-demented-reality-fictional-bb-gives-tripadvisor-com-a-huge-boost/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:35:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Quite possibly my favorite media cross-over story of, well, ever.  Proving most Americans do have a sense of humor, and likely, too much free time.  A throw-away joke from NBC&#8217;s The Office sitcom boosts tripadvisor.com&#8217;s mindshare among the pop-culture obsessed. As a constant female traveler who prefers to go solo, trips can be made or [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=174&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Quite possibly my favorite media cross-over story of, well, ever.  Proving most Americans <em><strong>do</strong></em> have a sense of humor, and likely, too much free time.  A throw-away joke from NBC&#8217;s<em> The Office</em> sitcom boosts tripadvisor.com&#8217;s mindshare among the pop-culture obsessed.</p>
<p>As a constant female traveler who prefers to go solo, trips can be made or broken by a lodge/ hotel/ pension; wherever I choose to stay in any given place.  The safety, help, food, security, cleanliness and especially the advice from the proprietors is the most indispensable tool a traveler can have in a far-away, unfamiliar place.  Yet, few people I know (including myself) do more than rate a place by clicking on one to four stars, if they do anything at all.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll spend days obsessing over the possible meaning of a specific article of clothing on LOST, or the many bad days of Jack Bauer on 24, the injustices (and fashion disasters) of the Academy Awards, churning out blog after tweet after Facebook status about any number of things- as long as they&#8217;re not real.  Music and books and iPads and bubble tea inspire furious commenting and speculation, but the truly useful information regarding experiences for families, business folk and leisure travelers alike-in numbers or alone inspire less effort, for reasons I don&#8217;t quite understand.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not blameless, I do and don&#8217;t do the same things.  Though I realize how important accurate, descriptive and diverse-perspective travel advice can be, I rarely take the time post-trip to warn or recommend, to describe or lament missing an event or destination or critical interaction with hotel staff, restaurant owners, local guides, you name it.</p>
<p>But a fictional, thoroughly improbable establishment run by a non-existent ridiculous character (and beet farmer) from what isn&#8217;t exactly a hot-spot destination in Pennsylvania?  Well, that warrants a post and a piece in <em>The New York Times</em>, now doesn&#8217;t it?</p>
<h1>For a  B&amp;B That Doesn’t Exist, the Online Reviews Keep Coming</h1>
<h6>By STUART MILLER</h6>
<h6>Published: March 28, 2010</h6>
<p>One recent TripAdvisor review of <a title="The TripAdvisor page." href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g52842-d730099-Reviews-Schrute_Farms-Honesdale_Pennsylvania.html">the  agrotourism destination Schrute Farms</a> awarded four stars, lavishly  praising the food, while another yielded just one star, casting  aspersions on the owners’ sanity. This wild disparity is especially odd  because Schrute Farms doesn’t even exist.</p>
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<p>The farm “belongs” to Dwight Schrute of the <a title="More articles about NBC Universal." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nbc_universal/index.html?inline=nyt-org">NBC</a> series “The Office” (and his eccentric cousin Mose). In September 2007,  the show asked to use TripAdvisor, a travel Web site,  in an episode in  which Dwight turns his beet farm into a bed and breakfast. Christine  Petersen, the chief marketing officer for TripAdvisor, was thrilled. “We  don’t have a big marketing budget and don’t do TV ads,” she said. “This  was the big time.”</p>
<p>TripAdvisor set up a review page, thinking it would be good for a quick  laugh or two. Paul Lieberstein, who wrote the episode, called  “Money,” never even went back to the site afterward. “We thought it would be fun,  but then we didn’t think about it anymore,” he said in an interview.</p>
<p>But Schrute Farms is still doing big business — for TripAdvisor. Reruns  and DVDs keep inspiring new visits to the site and there are now over  600 reviews (more than for many major Manhattan hotels, Ms. Petersen  said).</p>
<p>Many reviewers add their own funny flourishes, enhancing the show’s  mythology: Mandy Pyszka from Milwaukee, who stumbled upon the  TripAdvisor site while searching <a title="More information about Google Inc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/google_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Google</a> for Dwight Schrute quotes, raved about the beet pudding.</p>
<div id="attachment_175" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 200px"><a href="http://brandisosceles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/dwight-schrute.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-175 " title="Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, beet farmer and agrotourism hotelier. " src="http://brandisosceles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/dwight-schrute.jpg?w=455" alt=""   /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">by Paul Drinkwater/NBC</p></div>
<p>Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, beet farmer and agrotourism hotelier.</p>
<p>Carla Harrington of Fredricksburg, Va., was surprised to find 82 percent  of reviews recommended Schrute Farms. “I thought about what it would  feel like not to know them as TV characters but to really go to this B  &amp; B,” she said in an interview. Her one-star slam called Dwight “an  overbearing survivalist who appears to have escaped from the local  mental asylum.”</p>
<p>Mr. Lieberstein, who also plays Toby Flenderson, a human resources staff  member, on the show, said that “The Office” might  someday revisit the  farm. TripAdvisor executives said they would love that. “We’ve started  many a meeting with Dwight’s quote that TripAdvisor is ‘the lifeblood of   agrotourism,’ ” Ms. Petersen said. She has contemplated adding the  Bates Motel and “The Shining’s” Overlook Hotel.</p>
<p>But not everyone gets the joke. Recently, TripAdvisor added a caveat  explaining that Schrute Farms was fictional, Ms. Petersen said. “We had a  complaint from someone who had wanted to go there.”</p>
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<h6>A version of this article appeared in print on  March 29, 2010, on page B4 of the New York edition.</h6>
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			<media:title type="html">Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, beet farmer and agrotourism hotelier. </media:title>
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		<title>The technology is great, but the content is the key: are there publishers out there determined to use i-education as a base for maximum distribution?</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/the-technology-is-great-but-the-content-is-the-key-are-there-publishers-out-there-determined-to-use-i-education-as-a-base-for-maximum-distribution/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:04:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Content is universal, or can be- there are price or border or language barriers for a good story and what we can learn from it.  The increasing use of technology in teaching both current and future educators, as well as students themselves, is obviously inevitable as Technology (all of it) evolves.  It is engaging and [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=168&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Content is universal, or can be- there are price or border or language barriers for a good story and what we can learn from it.  The increasing use of technology in teaching both current and future educators, as well as students themselves, is obviously inevitable as Technology (all of it) evolves.  It is engaging and allows for more personal, adaptable and variable than traditional static media.</p>
<p>It seems the next challenge is how to level the playing field- all of these apps require devices and devices cost money, which the majority of the world&#8217;s schools are unable to afford.  Then there are the splintering and stratifying of content with exclusives and format preclusion for certain devices.</p>
<p>Dennis Duffy may have been onto something when he said &#8220;technology is cyclical&#8230;.&#8221;  I think the more accurate statement would be &#8220;the advent of new technology inspires and pushes the evolution of existing technologies.&#8221;  Into this last category, I would most certainly include the good &#8220;old-fashioned&#8221; paper-based book.  The framework and methodology that eLearning brings to the world can guide the (r)evolution of existing educational models.</p>
<p>Some insight into mobile education via Fast Company follows.</p>
<p><span style="color:#ff6600;"><strong>The $64 million dollar question is: who are the educational publishers progressive and daring enough to look back and forward to make the absolute best and most accessible, successful eLearning titles?</strong></span></p>
<h2 id="hdr_article-headline">A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld  Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution</h2>
<p><cite>By: <a title="View  user profile." href="http://www.fastcompany.com/user/105230">Anya Kamenetz</a></cite>April 1,  2010</p>
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<p><img src="http://www.fastcompany.com/files/imagecache/panoramic_image/files/feature-67-kids-apps-1.jpg" alt="Kids, education, applications, technology" />From Left: Angel Taylor, 6, Jose Becerra, 7, and  Julissa Munoz, 6. | Photograph by Danielle Levitt</p>
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<div id="article-deck">As smartphones and handheld computers move into classrooms  worldwide, we may be witnessing the start of an educational revolution.  How technology could unleash childhood creativity &#8212; and transform the  role of the teacher.</div>
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<h3>Related Content</h3>
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<p><!-- END: article-bucket --> <!--paging_filter--><strong>Gemma and Eliana Singer are big  iPhone fans.</strong> They love to explore the latest games, flip  through photos, and watch YouTube videos while waiting at a restaurant,  having their hair done, or between ballet and French lessons. But the  Manhattan twins don&#8217;t yet have their own phones, which is good, since  they probably wouldn&#8217;t be able to manage the monthly data plan: In  November, they turned 3.</p>
<p>When the Singer sisters were just 6 months old, they already  preferred cell phones to almost any other toy, recalls their mom, Fiona  Aboud Singer: &#8220;They loved to push the buttons and see it light up.&#8221; The  girls knew most of the alphabet by 18 months and are now starting to  read, partly thanks to an iPhone app called First Words, which lets them  move tiles along the screen to spell <cite>c-o-w</cite> and <cite>d-o-g</cite>.  They sing along with the Old MacDonald app too, where they can move a  bug-eyed cartoon sheep or rooster inside a corral, and they borrow Mom&#8217;s  tablet computer and photo-editing software for a 21st-century version  of finger painting. &#8220;They just don&#8217;t have that barrier that technology  is hard or that they can&#8217;t figure it out,&#8221; Singer says.</p>
<p>Gemma and Eliana belong to a generation that has never known a world  without ubiquitous handheld and networked technology. American children  now spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media &#8212; as much time  as they spend in school. Even more remarkably, they multitask across  screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours. More and more  of these activities are happening on smartphones equipped with audio,  video, SMS, and hundreds of thousands of apps.</p>
<p>The new connectedness isn&#8217;t just for the rich. Mobile adoption is  happening faster worldwide than that of color TV a half-century ago.  Mobile-phone subscribers are expected to hit 5 billion during 2010; more  than 2 billion of those live in developing countries, with the fastest  growth in Africa. Mobile broadband is forecast to top access from  desktop computers within five years.</p>
<p>As with television, many people are wondering about the new  technology&#8217;s effect on children. &#8220;The TV set was pretty much a damned  medium back in the &#8217;60s,&#8221; says Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop. But  where others railed against the &#8220;vast wasteland,&#8221; <em>Sesame Street</em> founders Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett saw a new kind of  teacher. &#8220;They said, Why don&#8217;t we use it to teach kids letters and  numbers and get them ready for school?&#8221; <em>Sesame Street</em>, from its  1969 debut, changed the prevailing mind-set about a new technology&#8217;s  potential. With its diverse cast and stoop-side urban setting, the show  was aimed especially at giving poor kids a head start on education.</p>
<p>Today, handheld and networked devices are at the same turning point,  with an important difference: They are tools for expression and  connection, not just passive absorption. &#8220;You put a kid in front of a  TV, they veg out,&#8221; says Andrew Shalit, creator of the First Words app  and father of a toddler son. &#8220;With an iPhone app, the opposite is true.  They&#8217;re figuring out puzzles, moving things around using fine motor  skills. What we try to do with the game is create a very simple universe  with simple rules that kids can explore.&#8221;</p>
<p>For children born in the past decade, the transformative potential of  these new universes is just beginning to be felt. New studies and pilot  projects show smartphones can actually make kids smarter. And as the  search intensifies for technological solutions to the nation&#8217;s and the  world&#8217;s education woes &#8212; &#8220;Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age,&#8221; as  the title of a summit at Google HQ last fall had it &#8212; growing sums of  money are flowing into the sector. The U.S. Department of Education has  earmarked $5 billion in competitive school-reform grants to scale up  pilot programs and evaluate best practices of all kinds. Major  foundations are specifically zeroing in on handhelds for preschool and  the primary grades. &#8220;Young kids and multisensor-touch computing are a  huge area of innovation,&#8221; says Phoenix Wang, the head of a startup  philanthropic venture fund called Startl &#8212; funded by the Gates,  MacArthur, and Hewlett foundations &#8212; that&#8217;s entirely focused on  educational investing. Google, Nokia, Palm, and Sony have all supplied  handheld devices for teaching. Thousands of new mobiles &#8212; not just  smartphones but also ever-shrinking computers &#8212; have come into use at  schools in the United States and around the world just in the past year.</p>
<p><a title="A is for App" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/app?slide=0" target="_new"><img src="http://images.fastcompany.com/magazine/144/feature-67-kids-apps-inline-1.jpg" alt="Angel Taylor, Jose Becerra, Julissa Muñoz" /></a><br />
<em>Photograph by Danielle Levitt</em><br />
<cite><em>Angel Taylor, Jose Becerra, Julissa Muñoz <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/app?slide=0" target="_new">(</a><a title="Slideshow: A is for App" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/app#0" target="_blank">Click  for slideshow</a>)</em></cite></p>
<p><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/144/a-is-for-app.html">Permalink</a> to article</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/app#0">Permalink to slideshow</a></p>
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		<title>Listen up, retailers: brands DO matter.</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/listen-up-retailers-brands-do-matter/</link>
		<comments>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/listen-up-retailers-brands-do-matter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:51:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The resurgence of Trademarks and brand names as drivers (rather than set price points): another sign recession receding. From The Street.com Retailers Get Push-Back as Brands Disappear by Jason Notte Saturday, March 20, 2010provided by As evidenced by Wal-Mart&#8217;s (WMT) attempt to streamline its shelf space, even garbage inspires brand loyalty among American consumers. Earlier [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=165&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2><strong>The resurgence of Trademarks and brand names as drivers (rather than set price points): another sign recession receding.</strong></h2>
<p>From The Street.com</p>
<h2><em><strong>Retailers Get Push-Back as Brands Disappear</strong></em></h2>
<p><!--Yahoo! Finance evergreen article module--></p>
<div><cite> by Jason Notte<br />
Saturday, March 20, 2010</cite><cite>provided by</cite><a href="http://www.thestreet.com/"><img title="TheStreet.com" src="http://l.yimg.com/a/i/cz/legacy/44233.gif" alt="TheStreet.com" /></a></div>
<p>As  evidenced by Wal-Mart&#8217;s (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=wmt">WMT</a>)  attempt to streamline its shelf space, even garbage inspires brand  loyalty among American consumers.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Wal-Mart  returned Clorox&#8217;s (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=clx">CLX</a>)  Glad bags and Pactiv&#8217;s (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ptv">PTV</a>)  Hefty bags to its shelves after cutting them in February and carrying  only S.C. Johnson and Sons&#8217; Ziploc bags and its Great Value in-house  brand. Wal-Mart says the Hefty and Glad bags and hundreds of other items  were taken out of the mix as part of a remodeling effort, but the  retailer replaced them when it became clear it wasn&#8217;t losing only a  $4.99 single-item sale, but entire shopping excursions by people seeking  specific brands.</p>
<p>&#8220;What we found is that you can discontinue items that don&#8217;t sell but  get you a trip,&#8221; said Bill Simon, Wal-Mart&#8217;s executive vice president  and chief operating officer, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch  Consumer Conference last week. &#8220;So, we&#8217;ve been through the business and  put 300 or so of those items back into the stores that were removed. We  believe that that&#8217;s going to solve some of those issues.&#8221;</p>
<p>Other  retailers including the SuperValu chain and CVS Caremark (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=cvs">CVS</a>) are pushing ahead and  slimming their selection of stock-keeping units. Wal-Mart&#8217;s recent  retreat may not be enough to mollify manufacturers from Pepsi (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pep">PEP</a>) to Kimberly-Clark (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=kmb">KMB</a>), who have the most to  lose when stores slash SKUs.</p>
<p>&#8220;They would have to be nervous about  it,&#8221; says Susan Reda, editor of STORES Magazine, which is published by  the National Retail Federation. &#8220;It&#8217;s the manufacturer that has more to  lose, and if you&#8217;re not a tier 1 or tier 2 company, you&#8217;re in a dicey  state.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of the ripple effects of the economic recession was an  almost industry-wide reduction of retail inventory. Wal-Mart, for  example, trimmed its U.S. inventory by more than 7.5% last year, in  part, to prevent the overstock and price plunges that punished the  sector in late 2008. The result for manufacturers varied as widely as  their products.</p>
<p>For instance, Colgate-Palmolive&#8217;s (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CL">CL</a>) sales grew 12% last  quarter, including a 5% jump in North America behind the launch of new  Colgate products. Procter &amp; Gamble (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pg">PG</a>) and its Bounty paper  towels, Duracell batteries, Crest toothpaste and Ivory soap, meanwhile,  reported a better-than-expected 6% sales increase last quarter as its  gross margins and outlook for the fiscal year improved.</p>
<p>&#8220;The whole  idea of efficient assortment and giving more shelf space to the brands  shoppers are looking for the most tends to improve visibility of  existing and new items,&#8221; says Jennifer Chelune, a Procter &amp; Gamble  spokeswoman. &#8220;It favors companies that innovate.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile,  Kimberly-Clark (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=kmb">KMB</a>) and  its Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and Scott and Viva paper towels saw  sales rise 8.5% in the quarter, but the company reduced its 2010  earnings forecast as sales of core paper products fell 6% when consumers  sought cheaper alternatives. Its stock price followed that downward  trend. If that&#8217;s the pressure being felt by the maker of the tissue that  the NRF&#8217;s 2009-2010 BIGResearch Consumer Intentions and Actions Surveys  say is their favorite brand by an 18% margin, the burden on  manufacturers that are lower on the food chain is even heavier.</p>
<p>&#8220;Unless  you have come up with a product that&#8217;s such a standout and so different  from the market, you&#8217;re not going to make it if you&#8217;re just another  iteration of ketchup,&#8221; STORES Magazine&#8217;s Reda says. &#8220;If you&#8217;re number  three or number four in that space, what&#8217;s going to set you apart from  those other two?&#8221;</p>
<p>That fight gets tougher when store brands join  in. According to the NPD Group, sales of private-label items increased  8.8% from 2008 to 2009 and nearly 18% during the past decade. Nielsen  found that store brands brought in $86 billion in U.S. sales last year,  up $14 billion since 2007. With Consumer Reports finding that store  brands, on average, cost 27% less than their big-brand counterparts,  such a surge can eat away at sales volume for companies like Del Monte (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=dlm">DLM</a>) and Unilever (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=un">UN</a>), with the NRF survey  reporting that the No. 2 brands of vegetables and ice cream are  store/generic products.</p>
<p>However, many retailers still depend on  manufacturers to pay for displays at the end of aisles and other prime  shelf space, making private-label products a limited option for  retailers not named Trader Joe&#8217;s. While manufacturers tend to use this  knowledge to their advantage and flood the floor with billboard-sized  displays of their merchandise, a slimmed-down store selection can be  easily expanded through E-commerce. Procter &amp; Gamble, for instance,  is using its eStore commerce site as an &#8220;online learning lab&#8221; to test  consumers&#8217; habits and relay that information to online retailers like  Wal-Mart and Amazon (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=amzn">AMZN</a>).</p>
<p>&#8220;We  are a house of brands,&#8221; Wal-Mart&#8217;s Simon said at the conference. &#8220;We  prefer to sell national brands because that&#8217;s how we can differentiate  ourselves in price better.&#8221;</p>
<div>Copyrighted,  TheStreet.Com. All rights reserved.</div>
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		<title>For the record&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/for-the-record/</link>
		<comments>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/for-the-record/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:30:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/?p=161</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I am very, very pro- social media and SM marketing, despite my somewhat skeptical recent posts. The bubble will burst (the backlash is already coming, with teens leading the way by slashing their Facebook communities), I&#8217;m advocating smart and sustainable social media tactics and planning, not that it doesn&#8217;t work.   I believe it does, but [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=161&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I am very, very pro- social media and SM marketing, despite my somewhat skeptical recent posts.</p>
<p>The bubble will burst (the backlash is already coming, with teens leading the way by slashing their Facebook communities),</p>
<p>I&#8217;m advocating smart and sustainable social media tactics and planning, not that it doesn&#8217;t work.   I believe it does, but understanding how and why and when is important, and should be investigated more instead of just accepting as truth.  In these relatively early stages, we measure by followers and retweets, not by results (many marketers aren&#8217;t even sure what those are, unless they run a social-media-buzz-only business, or are coordinated, big-budget, campaigns à la Hasbro and Tribal BBD for Monopoly City Streets).</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve seen real results from FB, Twitter and LinkedIn, but we&#8217;ve all also seen more &#8220;Social Media Experts&#8221; than there are tweets, and as an industry we need to be smart about our business, our jobs and our futures.</p>
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		<title>Shadows and Tall Trees: what social media marketing can learn from third-world pro-social movements</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/shadows-and-tall-trees-social-media-thriving-among-the-canopy-is-it-really-reaching-the-grassroots/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:49:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Trying to nourish the roots from the canopy of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn- what the industry can learn from aid organizations and third world groundswell. Even if your company, brand or product is not aiming for guerrilla, grassroots marketing models, shouting from the rooftops, no matter how state of the art your audio-visual equipment, may [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=146&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Trying to nourish the roots from the canopy of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn- what the industry can learn from aid organizations and third world groundswell.</p>
<p>Even if your company, brand or product is not aiming for guerrilla, grassroots marketing models, shouting from the rooftops, no matter how state of the art your audio-visual equipment, may never even reach your traditional client.</p>
<p>The best return to investment ratio marketing tool is word of mouth.  No campaign will beat your best friend, father or trusted colleague raving about real world upside- great results, exceeded expectations, superior service, critical savings or having daily routines eased by a brand or business, wherever it&#8217;s found.</p>
<p>The trick, of course, is that those hearing the lauding may not need or want such a thing, and the message is not reaching the audience looking for it. What if you want a new netbook, but don&#8217;t know anyone you trust, or with similar usage habits, that just got one? You have no other source but the usual product claims and lures found on company websites or superstore specials.</p>
<p>In the age of brands growing personalities and trying to make themselves accessible and personal by tweeting news, promotions, or links to articles mentioning their wares, the reality is that this approach can be just as impersonal and scatter-shot as traditional media advertising.  Yes, it&#8217;s far cheaper and much more nimble (no production and media buying lead times), only with two significant extra hurdles: first, there isn&#8217;t the advanced, specific initial demographic data that allows you to target those you want or need to reach and second, even one had this information, one has to get the consumer to follow them to receive the message.</p>
<p>Facebook advertising can alleviate this to a great degree- it&#8217;s very nature allows Facebook to offer very specific consumers bases.  It&#8217;s not hard to reach out to all the 23-year-old female young urban professionals that listen to Jay-Z and like to knit and eat pepperoni pizza.  So now you&#8217;re specific, but are you engaged?</p>
<p>Facebook&#8217;s Pages are the middle ground- users opt in, choose to be updated, and have asked to participate with your brand.  Seems ideal- a somewhat captive audience on the world&#8217;s biggest social media platform, with people spending so much time there that one grows nostalgic for the (yester)days when parents bemoaned the amount of time their kids spend in front of the tv instead of bosses worrying about work hours whittled away online.</p>
<p>The reality is that those that tend to join these pages join LOTS of pages.  There are users who become fans of bands and stores and designers and companies and products and movements (real and imaginary), nearly every channel or medium you can think of.  There are few users who join just a few pages, and those tend to be solely cultural or political.</p>
<p>Jockeying for attention among a hundred other groups: back to square one.</p>
<p>So what does one do?  How do you &#8220;move the needle,&#8221; &#8220;rise above the clutter,&#8221; &#8216;be heard among the chorus of voices?&#8221;  A good road map can be found in an unlikely place: non-profit aid organizations.</p>
<p>Entities like the U.N. and its branches- UNESCO, UNICEF or Government foreign aid programs like USAID and giant NGOs like the WHO&#8217;s Sonagachi Project are big, well-funded and in the trenches.  The central, urban trenches.  They tend to focus on the cities (the most visible, obvious areas).  They pour tons of good intentions and money into education, awareness, infrastructure, regional offices and specific initiatives time after time, yet find that they are making little headway in their extraordinary efforts.</p>
<p>Why?  Because they are standing on the canopy, shouting through their proverbial bullhorn, watering these trees, missing every plant, bush, flower and blade of grass in between.</p>
<p>In other words: they&#8217;re missing those that need them most- the less visible, the less likely to reach out; the majority of the population.</p>
<p>Project (RED), of which I am an avid supporter, is the poster child for what is happening out there: great marketing, tremendous corporate partnerships, tremendous awareness with the social media universe, engaging campaigns and content, but not reaching the people they were built to serve.  Measure with traditional and cutting-edge metrics, they score off the charts for success in the twitterverse, on Facebook, the blogworld&#8230; but not in the savannas and jungles of Africa, where all their social media awareness is not matching the slow, slow progress they&#8217;re making in their fight.</p>
<p>They&#8217;re getting tons of return when it comes to social media success, but the equation doesn&#8217;t balance out- their goal is not being reached, at least not in any meaningful way.  The proportion is so lopsided it&#8217;s astonishing.</p>
<p>There is a complete and utter disconnect: the number of followers on Twitter, the legion of Facebook fans, the high awareness are all relatively useless if they are not endemic to the community you&#8217;re ultimately aiming for.   If mommy bloggers regurgitate your message all day long, adding up to 100,000 tweets a day for two weeks straight, what does it matter if you&#8217;re looking to reach that 23-year-old pizza eating knitter who doesn&#8217;t interact with, or is not influenced by, that demographic?  The answer, honestly, is: not much.</p>
<p>The reality is that every one of us in the marketing world- traditional, corporate, digital, social media, wherever, whatever, need to ground ourselves, converse with our real audience, go outside the hubs and online cliques and frankly get our hands dirty.  There is no substitute for an actual dialogue with your audience- no amount of retweets or diggs will ever offer you the insight or tools that a two-way conversation with a couple of real live customers does.</p>
<p>When it comes to social media, anecdotal research, even with a healthy dose of salt, is more valuable than a million twitter shouts into the wind.  Because the reality is that the M.O. of most of us is just that.</p>
<p>We need to dig among those proverbial roots- get out there, observe, interact and THEN plan how to nourish them.  Not the other way around.  There are good case studies out there and they are easy to find and even easier to learn from.  They&#8217;re coming from ground up, rural aid organizations led by single and singular people with vision and passion and the humility to listen;  an unexpected, nontraditional place.  Which is right up our edgy, out there, trail-blazing alleys.</p>
<p>For some examples, and a little perspective, pick up Nick Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn&#8217;s <em>Half the Sky.</em> You&#8217;ll be surprised what a high-powered, high budgeted executive can learn from an uneducated, unconnected former prostitute in Kolkota.</p>
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		<title>Social media housekeeping during the holidays – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook</title>
		<link>http://brandisosceles.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/social-media-housekeeping-during-the-holidays-%e2%80%93-linkedin-twitter-facebook/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 02 Jan 2010 03:35:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donna M Bruschi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[endings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[linkedin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[by Licensing, Merchandising &#38; Brand Management group member (LinkedIn), Kat Shoa Social media housekeeping during the holidays – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook As everyone gears up (or down) for the holidays, this might be a good time to take a step back and perform some housekeeping on your social media activities. Just like other aspects of [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=brandisosceles.wordpress.com&amp;blog=8872635&amp;post=150&amp;subd=brandisosceles&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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<p>by Licensing, Merchandising &amp; Brand Management group member (LinkedIn), <strong>Kat Shoa<br />
</strong></p>
<h3><a href="http://thedirective.blogspot.com/2009/12/social-media-housecleaning-during.html">Social media housekeeping during the holidays – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook</a></h3>
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<p>As everyone gears up (or down) for the holidays, this might be a good time to take a step back and perform some housekeeping on your social media activities. Just like other aspects of your business, your social media gets outdated, collects garbage, and needs to get refreshed. I’ll be writing a lot more about social media in the future, so come back and visit.</p>
<p><strong>Social media handbook</strong></p>
<p>If your employees are using any form of social media, it may be a good time to develop a “social media guidelines” handbook for them (especially true for LinkedIn, where work related activity is more pronounced). You need to ensure your company is not misrepresented and your employees keep your image consistent with your goals, but check with an attorney to make sure you’re not stepping over the line.</p>
<p><strong>LinkedIn</strong></p>
<p>This is where most business social networking/media occurs, and it has become the de facto networking site to search for information on companies and individuals. Whether you’re cleaning up or catching up, set some time aside to take care of the following:</p>
<p><strong>Company profile.</strong> Have you developed new products or technologies? Have you entered new verticals? Have you acquired other companies? Make sure your company profile is up to date.</p>
<p><strong>Personal profile update.</strong> Check your personal profile and make sure it still reflects how you’d like to be presented. Did you perform new activities that haven’t been included in your profile? It’s the end of the year. You can review your 2009 activities and update anything that’s worth mentioning.</p>
<p><strong>Contacts.</strong> I know so many people who haven’t connected to all their contacts yet. Someone I recently met told me he has so many contacts, he went through all the names up to the letter L, and never finished it (!). Make sure all your contacts are connected to you on LinkedIn. This is a good time to send a “happy holidays” note along with a connection request. Never send a blank request without a note.</p>
<p><strong>Recommendations requests.</strong> If you performed a great job with a client, a partner, or a vendor, before they forget about it, make sure to ask for a recommendation. This is another one where a nice “happy holiday” or “nice working with you in 2009” note will come in handy. Once you receive this recommendation, you can also use it on your website, corporate presentations, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Groups.</strong> There are new groups being created every day. Go through your groups list and see if you still benefit from all of them. If you don’t, leave the less interesting ones and join newer or more interesting groups.</p>
<p><strong>Applications.</strong> LinkedIn occasionally adds new useful applications without announcing them. Check the apps section of LinkedIn and make sure to use the ones that pique your interest.</p>
<p><strong>Q&amp;A ratings.</strong> If you asked any questions, go back and rate the responses.</p>
<p><strong>Twitter</strong></p>
<p>Most companies are still confused about Twitter and how to use it, but if you are a user, make sure you have an informative “background” on your profile with marketing info, contacts, “links” (you can’t really link on them) and pleasing background colors. You can google “twitter background” and find a lot of free or cheap background pages on the web.</p>
<p><strong>Facebook</strong></p>
<p>If your company has a Facebook page, you can use it for a last push for product promotions during the holidays. But also with your “happy holidays” note, make sure to ask your followers to recommend you to their friends to increase followers.</p>
<p>As I mentioned, I’ll be writing a lot more in the future about specifics of social media. If there are any specific topics you’d like me to write about, feel free to let me know in the “comments” section of this blog.</p>
<p><a href="http://thedirective.blogspot.com/2009/12/social-media-housecleaning-during.html">Permalink</a></p>
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