Archive for July, 2009

Neville Hobson, over at his blog the other day, asked why he should use Posterous.

For those of you who’ve never heard of this application, it’s a blog-like platform that enables you to blog by email. You sign up for a free Posterous account which gives you a blog at www.yourchosenname.posterous.com and you can then blog by sending an email with photos, mp3s, videos or text, and even by calling in on your phone - these items will be posted on the blog automatically. For more details of how it works, check out my review of Posterous from around this time last year.

Neville’s question - and the responses he got from various people - got me thinking about how and why I use it, when I already have this blog.

There seems to be a trend towards not just multimedia but also real time, or almost real time, communication online, facilitated by smartphones with always on internet connectivity as well as SMS (short text messaging) and MMS (multi media messaging). This is emerging as a fresh form of blogging that is being called “lifestreaming” - where you stream a record of your real life on to the online space in nearly real time. Twitter is the most well-known application that enables you to do that via text. Posterous facilitates the process in a multi-media way.

I use my blog here at Fusion View for posts which are more like articles or essays where I explore issues and topics in a considered way. These longer posts are interspersed with some video, audio and photo-slideshows. But it doesn’t feel like this is the right place for very informal snippets of what’s going on in my daily life. So that’s where lifestreaming comes in.

I’ve called my Posterous site the Fusion View Lifestream. Since I got my new Blackberry Bold the other week, I’ve really been having fun snapping shots of my garden and friends I’ve met up with as well as my recent jaunt down to Bristol - and then emailing them straight to Posterous. You can also email multiple photos in one email and it will create a little slideshow automatically. There is an automatic cross-posting function that sends the snaps to Twitter, Facebook and my Flickr account - as well as a range of other social media sites, if you were so inclined. This means that my friends and family who follow me in those spaces can see what’s going on for me within minutes of my snapping the pictures or tapping out the text on my Blackberry. But people who read my blog who may not be that interested in seeing my tomato plants or my tourist snaps of Bristol don’t have to be bothered by those more personal moments.

Occasionally, I get Posterous to automatically cross-post to Fusion View as well if it’s the right kind of vignette or mood piece that would fit with the blog and break up the longer, in depth posts.

So, if you’d like to follow my lifestream vignettes, you can subscribe to my Posterous feed or follow me on Twitter.

If you’re lifestreaming or using Posterous, why don’t you add a comment with the link to your site - I’m curious to see who else is having a go at this!

Photo: thanks to Zest-pk from flickr.com (CCL)

I met travel writer Navjot Singh a few weeks ago at the Creating Value through Web 2.0 presentation that I took part in. I’m always taken by people with fusion lives so as we were chatting, it was fascinating to me to learn that he is a British-Indian who is somewhat of an expert on China and the Far East. It also turned out that we had both been to Dulwich College - I had attended the all boys school for one term to do the Oxbridge exam - and he had recognised me from the Old Alleynians Facebook page!

Navjot emailed me the following blog post:

Hi, Yang May

Many thanks for contacting me. It is a pleasure to be asked to write for your blog. Firstly, a bit about myself, as I am sure most of your audience may not be aware of whom I am.

My name is Navjot Singh (Pronounced “Navjaut Sing”, although to be honest on my travels around the world, I have been known in a variety of different accents!). I am a writer and freelance journalist. I was born in North India in 1980 and came to the UK as a young boy (around 3 years old), however, I am actually classed as a 3rd generation British-Indian because my late Grandparents were one of the first batch of migrants welcomed to the UK from the commonwealth in 1953. I have been back to India twice, once in 1989 and then in 1999, and on both occasions for about a month. I would love to go back again one day as a travel writer or for work and rediscover my roots.

Since childhood, I have always had a passion for travelling, taking photographs and flying (I adore planes). In my younger years, it used to be more for a personal basis, however nowadays that hobby has somewhat turned into a second career!. So, as an example, anytime I used to go travelling, I always took down notes on a daily basis of things which I saw, experienced and people I met. I always used to (and still do!) take photographs of anything that may seem interesting or extraordinary. To me life is a picture in itself, and I always feel that if you do not take a photo of something which may seem interesting, then most likely you have lost that chance and you may never see it again. Its amazing, because in the future, say, 10 or 15 years time, you can proudly look back and say, “Ah, I remember writing about this or that, or taking that photo”, and so on.

I wrote such a diary on my first trip to China way back in 2002. China has really opened my eyes the way I think about the country and the people. I remember even as I was preparing myself to go to China in 2002, I did not have any idea of how much of an impact the country would have on me. I did not intend to go to China for a long term basis; it was merely a one week’s vacation. Also I feel fortunate to have made the decision to go to China in those days, because so much has happened since then. Now everyone wants to go to China, and I feel privileged to have lived and worked in all the major cities (including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen), and to have witnessed at first hand the immense growth that’s almost ubiquitous.

Usually travel guides are written by a collection of different writers scattered all around the country or place which they want to write about, and it is not easy to write a travel guide. For me the great challenge was that I had no one to assist me, and in many ways I wanted to write it all by myself. In that way you have more control and freedom over timelines and research.

Sitting down and writing the travel guide is not that time consuming as is the research carried out for the chapters. I have had to speak with hotels, airlines, physically try out food at particular restaurants so I can write about it from my own experience, speak to various Chamber’s of Commerces and Embassies. More importantly I have tried to make my first guide book different by including personal stories about certain events that I have encountered. Writing a business travel guide as opposed to a travel guide for tourists is different because you have to pick things carefully, such as places of interest, hotels and restaurants, because business people don’t have much time for leisure and (usually) have more money to spend on corporate meals and hotels than tourists do.

If there are any would-be travel writers reading this article, my best advice to you would be to start with a short personal diary and note all the things that come across in your mind the first time you see them because its always your first impressions, your feelings and your experiences that will make your article different to other writers because every one has their own way of observing the world.

Always bear the reader in mind and put yourself in the shoes of a reader. When you feel you have compiled a full manuscript, then approach publishers with your idea. If they like it then you have done the hard work. Good luck!

With all good wishes

Navjot

Navjot is the author of “Newcomer’s Handbook Country Guide: China: Including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen” (First Books), and has also written “China: Business Travelers Handbook (Stacey-International)

Check out Navjot’s blog at http://navjot-singh.blogspot.com/

Photo: thanks to Navjot (with permission)

What contact information is on your business card apart from your name and the name of your company/ business? Traditionally, it would most likely have been your job title, your real world address and your telephone number. In the ’80s, that new fangled technology, the fax machine, meant that fax numbers were then added to the card. In the 90s, that tiny bit of card had to cope additionally with website URLs and emails and mobile phone numbers.

Is it time to de-clutter, I wonder?

Recently, I’ve come across a number of business people exchanging their Twitter @usernames, in the way that one might exchange mobile phone numbers - or including those monickers at the end of their Powerpoint presentations.

I wonder if we could reduce the verbage on our business cards simply to our names and Twitter @usernames?

OK, for those who have not yet heard of Twitter, it’s an online micro-blogging site where you can post short messages of 140 characters for the world to see on the Twitter site - either via your mobile phone or your computer. Your Twitter username is a username of your own choosing. Mine is fusionview. To “hail” someone on Twitter you send a message - or “tweet” - with @ in front of their username: so “@fusionview” would reach my Twitter inbox.

If we minimised our contact details to our @username, might that also improve our communications with people we meet other than the obvious one of de-cluttering our business cards?

People can “follow” your Twitter stream by clicking “follow” on your Twitter page and you can “follow” them back - or you could choose not to. So new people you meet as well as your friends and associates could easily find and follow you online with just your Twitter username. You can have public discussions with them - and other Twitterers - or private exchanges, if you prefer.

You would normally include in your Twitter profile a link to your website so people can find your more detailed contact information via you website Contact Me page, if they need to. On you Twitter page, all people need is a quick snapshot of who you are / what you do. People can also see on your page the kinds of things you “tweet” about or what you discuss with other Twitter users. That can actually say a lot about the kind of person you are, what you’re interested in and how you engage with others. Might this then be an alternative and more informal way to let yourself and your business be more open and accessible to new acquaintances and lonstanding friends alike than your website?

I rather like the concept of a business card that just says:

Yang-May Ooi
Writer
@fusionview

… and a way for people to encounter me online at Twitter as they might encounter me - as a friend, a writer, an avid learner about all things social media, a reluctant gardener, an unfit runner, a lover of good food… and so on, as my Twitter stream evolves.

The only thing is that we’d all be dependent on Twitter to stay afloat into the foreseeable future if it became the norm to trust our contact details to it…

Or maybe the end result will be yet another new contact format to crowd into that little bit of card as we squeeze our Twitter @usernames into the last available blank space there…

Do you use Twitter for chatting, networking, making contact with people whether in a personal or business context? Do you think there’s potential for mass take-up of Twitter as a contact tool?

Image: thanks to xotoko from flickr.com (CCL)

This is a brilliant concept. You know, how on planes passengers hardly ever watch the safety demo? Well, Air New Zealand has found a compelling way to get you to watch their safety video - by having good looking naked staff do the demo, with their uniforms painted on!

Here’s another cheeky one:

Business communications expert and podcasting guru, Neville Hobson, interviewed my co-author Silvia Cambie and me on Friday for his influential For Immediate Release podcast. We talked about how we came to write our book, International Communications Strategy, the main themes and ideas we explore in it and our favourite chapters/ case studies.

Neville has now uploaded the podcast interview on iTunes and his blog - so if you’d like to listen to our discussion, please do go and check it out.

Thanks, Neville!

Or you can listen to it via the grey podcast player below.

Photo: thanks to Neville, with permisision

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1582)

Posted via email from Fusion View Lifestream

Ipadio.com is a live phoneblogging platform - you dial a number from any phone and speak. It is broadcast live on the internet - a message is sent to your Twitter feed so that people following you on Twitter can come and listen to you live. The timelag is about 5 seconds so it is pretty live!

It’s free for consumers and you get 60 minutes* for each phonecast - or “phlog” as they call it (not the most elegant word!).

Mark Smith and his team at ipadio are terrific and taking on user feedback and they’ve integrated a lot of user requested functions. The most useful for me are cross-postering:

# to posterous.com, where I have my “lifestream” and which I have set to further automatically cross-post to this blog
# to Facebook

If you have a Blogger, LiveJournal or Wordpress.com, it will also auto-crosspost to those sites. How cool is that!

There is definitely a move towards immediacy and lifestreaming over polished, edited content. Lifestreaming is your stream of multimedia from your current real world experience online to share with the world what you’re doing right at that given moment. Twitter has probably set the tone for that with the ability to post short text messages online within seconds. Qik offers live streaming video. Posterous enables you to email photos, mp3s, video and text online - if you have a smartphone, that’s pretty easy and immediate - but what it lacked, in my view, was the option to audio blog by phone so with ipadio bridging that gap, Posterous has become, for me, a great way to share my lifestream.

*Update 12 July 2009 - Mark Smith at ipadio tweeted on Twitter re this blog post to say that actually, they are giving all users call duration of 60 minutes now (it used to be 5 mins). Thanks, Mark!

It was a great tutorial on how to conduct a podcast interview when Neville interviewed Silvia (@XCulture) and me about our book for his FIR podcast show this afternoon. He’s got the knack of making his interviewees feel comfortable and for asking good questions that allow you the space to express yourself easily. And I got a strong case of gadget envy when he whipped out his portable stereo digital recorder with detachable mike and sound level monitors….
 
The show will be uploaded next week - check out For Immediate Release on iTunes/Google.

Posted via email from Fusion View Lifestream

This afternoon, I passed this blonde with a bottle of champagne who became art for an hour as part of Anthony Gormley’s One and Other art project on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Who have you seen on the 4th Plinth?

Posted via email from Fusion View Lifestream

I can’t decide if this Evian YouTube ad with skating babies is freaky or cute….

At any rate, it sucked me in enough to help advertise Evian by embedding the video on my blog… that’s the sneaky power of viral marketing for you!

I met writer Miranda Gray at a Society of Authors do awhile back. She is also a coach, healer and a Company Director of a multimedia production company. She told me about her new book, The Optimized Woman, which encourages women to embrace the power of their menstrual cycle rather than viewing it at “The Curse”. I was instantly intrigued and invited her to tell me more by way of a blog post for Fusion View, especially in the context of women and writing!

Here is Miranda’s blog post:

We’ve all been there. Sitting at the blank computer screen, fingers poised above the keyboard ready to start… and nothing happens! Then, after a few attempts, the panic steps in: ‘Why can’t I write, what’s wrong with me?’, ‘What if I can’t meet the deadline?’, and ‘Am I really any good at this, should I get a proper job?’!

Women’s creativity has a unique element to it; it is cyclic. When we begin to understand this and work practically within this cyclic nature we find that writer’s block is simply trying to do the wrong thing at the wrong time! The cyclic aspect to women’s creativity lies in their menstrual cycle. Many women don’t realise that the menstrual cycle affects the way we think, our abilities and skillsets, how we communicate, and how we perceive the world and ourselves. And for women in the creative industry, the menstrual cycle can be either a huge challenge or a resource of powerful tools they can actively use to excel.

The menstrual cycle can be divided into four phases; pre-ovulation, ovulation, pre-menstruation and menstruation. In each phase we can experience days of heightened abilities and skillsets called Optimum Times. For example, the pre-ovulation phase is the Optimum Time for logical thinking and reasoning skills, the ovulation phase has heightened feeling-orientated perception, the pre-menstrual phase offers us inspiration and problem identification, and the menstrual phase is the Optimum Time for touching base with core values and issues.

So how does this relate to women writers and solving writer’s block?

A ‘block’ appears when we expect consistency of thinking and ability, and we expect to be able to do something not in line with our cyclic abilities. This is not to say we can’t do any task outside of out Optimum Time, simply that it can take longer, be more difficult and may be of poorer quality.

To get ahead, we need to apply to our writing the tools that our cycles give us.

We can use the pre-ovulation phase to build the structure of our work or book, to plan our plots and our work schedule, to break down the chapters into sublevels, to organise our files on characters or to categorise piles of research, and to give ourselves the basis on which to write creatively later in the month. It’s also the Optimum Time for analytical and structured writing, for editing and research, and for checking the small print on the publisher’s contract!

With the change to the ovulation phase comes heightened communication, listening and empathy skills, making it an Optimum Time to write dialogue, to interview people for their stories, to write from the heart and from our passion, to ask for people’s views and critiques, to empathise with our characters or our audience. It is the Optimum Time to network, contact publishers, market our books and proposals, and do talks and signings.

The pre-menstrual phase is often the most challenging for many women, but it offers us some powerful tools for writing. It can be an intensely inspirational and creative phase if we allocate time to day-dream and ponder, often providing ‘Eureka’ moments as ideas lock into place. The Optimum Time for creative writing and to explore ideas, it often takes only one small seed idea to start an avalanche of writing. The pre-menstrual phase is also the time to identify problems and create solutions. It is the time to analyse whether the plot really works, to explore why we are not happy with the structure, to cut away superfluous words and sections, and to brain-storm what would work, how we could approach things differently and how to re-write that awkward paragraph.

As we move into the menstrual phase our physical energies are often low, and mental abilities such as concentration and memory can also decline. If we have planned well in the pre-ovulation phase we are on track with our deadline and can afford to drive ourselves a little less for a few days. When we take the opportunity to rest in this phase two things happen; firstly, we come out of this phase into the next refreshed and full of renewed energy, and secondly we have the opportunity to connect to our deepest insight. This phase is the Optimum Time for touching base with who we are and what we are doing, not only in our life but also in what we are writing. Does the book feel ‘right’? Are we writing in a style, genre, method that feels ‘comfortable’ to us? Can we commit to the direction the book is taking, or do we need to go back to the core values of the book or of the publisher? Have we gone off track? Are we writing what we were asked to write? Is the deadline feasible? In this phase we can ask ourselves these potentially challenging questions without the emotional rollercoaster and needs experienced in other phases.

When the next pre-ovulation phase comes round again we are renewed in our energies, mental abilities and commitment to get started. We can plan our work schedule for the month ahead using our Optimum Time skills to their best possible advantage and knowing that just because we can’t write in a particular way right now, give it a couple of weeks and there’ll be no stopping us!

‘Writer’s block’ no longer exists - we simply do the right task at the right time.

~~~

Miranda’s website is http://www.optimizedwoman.com/
She blogs at http://optimizedwoman.blog.co.uk/

This post first appeared on Miranda’s blog.

Photo: from Miranda’s website, with permission