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Last week we had a little contest to give away a few copies of Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception. We determined the winners via a random drawing on Saturday and today we would like to congratulate:
Meghan Clark
Jon Swanson
Amanda Sims
Claudine Motto
and Amanda Klausmeier
You will each be receiving an email from me shortly with a request for a shipping address. Congratulations! We hope you find the Icarus Deception as helpful as we have.
Julie and I love books and we love introducing others to good books almost as much as we like reading them ourselves. Well today we get to not only introduce you to a good book, but we’re going to give away 5 copies.
The book – The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin.
Seth launched this book as a Kickstarter Campaign back in the summer and we couldn’t resist backing it and getting a few extra copies to give away. They arrived shortly before the holidays, but in the craziness of time-off and celebrating, we never decided how we would give them away.
Well, we decided and today is the day. Here’s what you need to do for a chance to win a copy.
1 – Leave a comment and share the book that helped you the most in 2012.
2 – RT or share this post via Facebook or Twitter.
That’s it – pretty easy.
I’ll choose 5 random winners on Saturday and have you email me your contact info so we can get those books out in the mail to you next week.
Thanks for reading the blog.
Why 3 WordsIt’s Jan 1, 2013. New Years Day. One of the busiest days in gyms all across the world. Resolutions are fresh and exciting, and intact. And while having some specific goals, resolutions, or whatever you want to call them are great ways to help you grow in those specific areas, I have been challenged with taking a larger perspective for 2013. I first heard about the idea of 3 words from Chris Brogan a couple years ago. The idea is to pick 3 words that serve as icons, symbols and reminders, of your larger vision for the year. Words to keep coming back to in order to evaluate, guide, measure your day-to-day actions. They should be big words that apply to multiple roles in your life instead of specific, niche ideas. Think of them as broad themes instead of narrow story lines. (Chris does a great job explaining this in his post on his 3 Words.)
Story - In 2013 I want to focus on living a story that is worth telling, and even more importantly, I want to help other people and organizations tell their story more effectively. Over the past couple years, I’ve come to realize how important story is in our lives. The stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others. Our world is shaped by those who tell and live the best stories.
Explore – In 2013 I want to dive into the world. I tend to like the familiar. This year I want to be intentional about exploring new places and ideas and developing new relationships. Part of this is to expand my world, and part of this is because I have two teenagers and I want to expose them to the limitless possibilities that lie before them.
Now - Context is one of my strengths. Looking to the past to see how we got where we are today. And in our business we do a lot of thinking about and planning for the future with our clients. And while both of those are important, I can tend to lose sight of the present. But now is important. It is what you do today that will actually change things. So in 2013 I will focus on being present in life. On living in the moment, on being with the people that are present, and working on the task that is at hand. Now is the only time you can do anything.
There is some overlap in those three words – on purpose. These are the three words that will go on my screen saver, on note cards, and other places to remind me, encourage me, challenge me to make 2013 a great year.
Julie doesn’t like the 3 word idea. She says she is to ADD for 3 words, and instead choses 1 word for each year. This year her word is Determined.
What are your 3 words (or 1 word) for 2013? We’d love for you to share them in the comments or link to your blog?
Welcome to our Social Media Summary. Each Saturday we review 3 of the biggest social media stories from the previous week. This week we’re looking at Facebook testing Page notifications, LinkedIn making it easier to follow thought leaders and some new Google+ Hangout features.
We hope you find this new weekly social media summary helpful and would love to hear any feedback in the comments. Without further ado, here’s this week’s edition of the Saturday Social Media Summary.
This week Facebook seems to have begun addressing one of the biggest complaints by page owners, the fact that the algorithm Facebook uses prevents most fans of pages from seeing the content they share. Facebook appears to have started testing on a feature that allows users to select an option to receive notifications when brands update their pages. Users who have this feature will find a “Get Notifications” option under the “Liked” button on the Facebook page.
Once selected, the user will than start receiving notifications from the brand each time they update. These notifications appear in the same place mentions and notifications from friends appear.
While it’s good that Facebook has heard the frustration of page admins, this is not a great solution. First, I don’t believe many fans of pages are going to want to have a notification pop up on their screen each time the page updates. Second, even if they do, most users aren’t going to take the time to visit the brand pages to make this change.
Have you seen the new feature? If so, have you opted in to receive notifications? If you have it and want to test it out, you can always sign up for notifications from the Rocky Mountain Media Group Facebook Page. [Read more...]
Welcome to our Social Media Summary. Each Saturday we review 3 of the biggest social media stories from the previous week. This week we’re looking at Twitter’s announcement about expanded Tweets, and LinkedIn’s Video Ads. The third story will highlight a blog post that we discovered and think you will find helpful. Kind of the best of the best from what we share on our Facebook page during the week. This week it’s a post by Jeff Bullas in which he shares a great infographic on content and SEO and also highlights 23 hints for creating content that Google loves.
We hope you find this new weekly social media summary helpful and would love to hear any feedback in the comments. Without further ado, here’s this week’s edition of the Saturday Social Media Summary.
Earlier this summer Twitter announced the ability to expand a Tweet to view photos, videos and previews right in the Tweet. This week they announced that they have been working with partners over the past few months and now have more than 2,000 ways to bring more interaction to your Tweet stream. These changes are not only for the website, but for iPhone, Android and Blackberry apps as well. [Read more...]
It seems like discussions surrounding organizational culture are all the rage these days with the business kids. As an ED of a local non-profit, I often share with our rm2g clients that a strong organizational culture is the foundation for great branding. Spend time working on the inside, and it becomes much easier to communicate who you are to those on the outside. If your organizational culture or health is weak and your focus is on external branding, you are building a house of cards.
Business writers Ravasi and Schultz state that organizational culture is a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. A definition I like even more comes from Gary Kelly, President of South West Airlines. He simply says organizational culture is “WHO you are.”
As a leader, it is your responsibility to spend time studying, observing and fostering healthy culture. It’s where your brand starts. At Family Life Services we are going through a great book by Patrick Lencioni called the Advantage. In it, Lencioni says the best companies—the ones with the true advantage have a healthy culture and spend time nurturing it.
Non-profit leaders, listen up. If you don’t spend time building this foundation, your clients, staff, board of directors and other stakeholders will sense that your brand is off. And that means you aren’t going to get total buy-in for your mission.
Here’s a great video in which Michael Hyatt interviews Lencioni about his new book and this “advantage”. At Rocky Mountain Media Group, we know you can’t have a great brand without first building a strong internal culture .We hope this post gets you thinking about how your organizational culture is shaping your brand.
Patrick Lencioni talks about core values versus aspirational values in the video. What is a core value that shapes your organizational culture, and what is one aspirational value you are striving for?
It’s not everyday you get to start off a blog post quoting a David Bowie song, but we just couldn’t resist. Lately we’ve taken a break from the old rm2g blog. Partly because we’ve been traveling a little more and partly because we wanted to spend some time re-evaluating our strategy. It’s always good to step back and look at where you are, how you got there and revisit the direction you are wanting to go next. Having done that, we’ve decided that there are some changes we want to make and one of those is that we want to provide you with a weekly social media summary that highlights some of the biggest news in the social media world.
Each week the social media summary will cover 3 stories from the previous week. Most weeks we will highlight 2 stories straight from the social media channels themselves. This week we’re looking at LinkedIn’s new profiles and Klout’s incorporation of Perks on mobile. The third story will highlight a blog post that we discovered and think you will find helpful. Kind of the best of the best from what we share on our Facebook page during the week. This week it’s a post by the great folks over at Social Media Examiner where they share some great ways to find influential people with social media.
We hope you find this new weekly social media summary helpful and would love to hear any feedback in the comments. Without further ado, here’s this week’s edition of the Saturday Social Media Summary.
LinkedIn announced the roll-out of new user profiles that are designed to make it easier to tell your professional story, to discover people and opportunities, and to engage your network. If you want to be one of the first to get the new look, you can sign up at http://www.linkedin.com/profile/sample. You can also check out this video of the press event where the new profiles we announced and demoed. [Read more...]
Social media blunders only take a momentary lapse of judgment. A snarky reply to a follower, a tweet from the wrong account or a poor attempt at humor. With the press of the enter button the entire social media world could be in an uproar.
Businesses, celebrities, politicians — no one is exempt. Anyone can make this mistake. And once it happens how you respond is critical. With a great strategy and a little honesty you can take an embarrassing situation and turn it into something positive.
Check out today’s infographic from MDG Advertising to see some of the most infamous social media blunders from the past few years. The blunders of Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Weiner, Kenneth Cole, Ragu and the American Red Cross can serve as lessons for everyone using social media personally or professionally. [Read more...]
I watched one of America’s most beloved brands take a blow to the gut last night. And the worst part, it did it to itself. In case you missed the game, and weren’t anywhere near Twitter (there is some inappropriate language in this post), there was a bit of controversy last night. The game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks was filled with missed calls, bad calls and more than its share of chaos. The last few minutes of the game felt like a slow motion scene as the train wreck you felt coming actually happened as the time ran out. A hail-mary pass to win the game, a missed offensive pass-interference call, two refs making contradictory calls on the winning touchdown, a blown review, and a victory handed to a team that should have lost the game.
This is the worst nightmare for the NFL. Games being decided not by the play on the field, but by the referees. And not just referees, but replacement referees. There is a labor dispute between the regular officials and the NFL. So the NFL has brought in replacements this season. And after three weeks of questionable calls, the unthinkable finally happened. They made a bad call and changed the outcome of the game.
I don’t blame the officials. No one thinks they are purposefully making the bad calls. They are doing their best. But they just aren’t qualified. The blame rests on the league for putting them in the position with no chance of success. [Read more...]
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