Nikki Smith-Morgan, Public Words Inc

Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Click on the image for a larger version.

Curious Rock Faces in The Garden of the Gods

The Garden of the Gods Park, a Registered National Natural Landmark in Colorado Springs, is a beautiful area of remarkable sandstone formations. Many people come to admire the rocks and soak in the spiritual atmosphere. I was captivated by the many 'Rock Faces' that nature has sculpted into the stones. Here's a few I managed to snap with the camera. (Click on an image to enlarge it.)

West Side Story Back Stage Photos

The Palace Theatre, Broadway, New York.

 

Josefina Scaglione who plays Maria.

 

Manuel Herrera who plays Pepe and Karen Olivo who plays Anita.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isaac Calpito who plays Inca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to use Twitter to build a community

The magic word for speakers, authors and business consultants is ‘platform’. Your platform is your community. It combines all the people you’re friends with, people you’ve worked with, readers of your books, audiences that have heard you speak, people who’ve subscribed to your blog, and even those who’ve watched your videos, StumbledUpon great pictures you’ve taken, and Digg’ed your articles. If you’re smart, you are keeping track of your community and are putting energy in to ‘elevating your platform’ (to use the jargon). You’ll be using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking tools to keep your connections with people fresh and channels of communication open.

Agents, publishers, meeting planners, speaker bureaus, associations, organizations – all value people who come with an established community. They want reassurance that you have a growing audience of people who know of you and want to hear your message. It gives you credibility and positions you as an authority in your particular field of interest.

People often decry Twitter as being full of benign chatter, spammers and time wasters. They are missing a trick. Twitter is a phenomenal tool for people who want to build their community. I’m astounded that since joining Twitter last December, I’ve connected with over 14,000 people I didn’t previously know. Most of them are fellow designers, photographers, web developers, authors, publishers, journalists, business people or speakers. If I get stuck on something, I can ask my community for help. They constantly feed my brain with links to interesting web sites. And when I post a Tweet I can be assured of directing traffic to information I find valuable, interesting or funny.

So if you want to get serious about using Twitter to build your community, here are some tips.

Be smart about who you follow
Unless you already have celebrity status, you won’t get many spontaneous followers simply by sitting back and waiting for them to come. If, however, you increase the number of people you follow, I guarantee you will start to see an increase in the number of people that follow you. Start watching the trending topics or public timeline to see what people are talking about. Follow people who have interesting things to say and are relevant to you. Use the Search Tool or search.twitter.com to find discussions on keywords, eg, ‘corporate events’ or ‘photography’ and you’ll find more people having conversations that will be of interest to you.

Try and avoid the spammers. If you follow people indiscriminately (and if you automatically follow back anyone who follows you), you may increase your follower count, but your community will be worthless. If people are urging you to eat Chinese food, subscribe to look at their pictures, or make money doing nothing, then they are spammers (regardless of what picture they are using). To remove these people from your followers list and to dissuade other spammers from following you, it is best to block these people. It will keep your followers list clean for others.

Twitter keeps an eye on the number of people you follow. If you get too enthusiastic and not as many people follow you back, then you’ll be prevented from following more people until the ratio evens out. For this reason, you need to weed out people who don’t follow you back. Give them time, but if they are not going to engage in your community then you have to be brutal and unfollow them. They will do the same to you, so when you are followed by genuine people, follow them back.

Find the Rock Stars
By this I don’t mean Britney Spears. What you want to do is find the leaders in your particular field. Jeffrey Zeldman (@zeldman) and Dan Cederholm (@simplebits) are my Rock Stars in the world of web design. They have healthy Twitter communities and attract a constant stream of new designers. You can see who the Rock Stars are talking to and what topics are causing chatter. Find your Rock Stars, go to their Followers page and click down the list to add them to people that you follow. (Get well soon Mr Zeldman, hope the swelling goes down.)

Participate
The zen of social media (and many other things in life) is realizing it isn’t about you, it’s about your audience. What is your community interested in? Can you be a useful resource? Is there a problem people have for which you are the solution? Can you provide people with information that they can retweet to their community?

Be authentic and get involved in the discussions. If people send you a message, then respond. Keep a close eye on your @ page and your Direct Messages Page to monitor all updates that mention you.

Don’t be afraid to be yourself. My favorite tweeters are those who are genuine and mix a little of the personal with the professional. You feel like you have more of a relationship with them than just reading their book or blog. Be mindful that you can’t delete a Tweet once it’s been published so anything you say should reflect the quality of your brand.

Twitter is a wonderful tool that lets you broadcast your passion for your topic and build a community of like-minded individuals. You’ll be surprised how big that world is and the opportunities it will bring.

Follow me on twitter @nsmithmorgan

Out and About in Boston June 09

There was lots to see out and about in Boston this weekend. Below are some of my pictures. Click on the image for a larger version.

Photo Journalism: News Sites That Have The Best Photo Galleries

News site are often the best place to go for stunning images that capture world events as they happen. I've listed below some of my favorites. Please comment if there are other resources you can add.

The Australian

BBC News

Boston Globe

Chicago Tribune

Denver Post

The Guardian

Los Angeles Times

MSNBC

National Geographic

The New York Times

The Telegraph

Time Magazine

Times Online

Wall Street Journal

20 important things they don't tell you in Web Design class

1. Web design is a perfect career if you want to gain weight. At least 5lbs is guaranteed with every site you launch.
2. You won’t need clocks any more. You’ll be able to tell what time it is by how brightly your keyboard is illuminated.
3. Day-time and night-time clothing will be entirely interchangeable.
4. At some point, you will want to tattoo a mathematical symbol on your body.
5. You will learn to use all the keys on your keyboard that no-one else does.
6. There will never, ever, ever be a problem you’ll encounter than someone else hasn’t already solved.
7. You will lose the ability to read paragraphs. Only lists.
8. Mastery of one topic, only qualifies you to know nothing about another.
9. You will learn to love Lego and Star Wars, and occasionally use FRAK as a curse word.
10. You will know how satisfying it is to be validated.
11. You will discover that Internet Explorer was invented by Puritans who didn’t want us to enjoy our work too much.
12. Your mum will tell everyone that you work ‘in computers’.
13. If you are a left-brain thinker, you will likely start taking photographs of special meals. Right-brainers tend to photograph their feet. If you have a high IQ, you might find yourself doing both.
14. Kids will love you because you have really cool pencils.
15. You’ll view a person’s source code and THEN decide if you want to be associated with them.
16. You'll accept the fact that clients will always want to change the color.
17. Your self-worth will only be determined by Google Analytics.
18. You will start at least three new projects before you finish the ….

Images of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New England

I was privileged to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he spoke to a packed stadium of people in New England today. Below are some pictures. Click on the image for a larger version.

Images of Boston

I took these pictures while out and about in Boston on a lovely Spring day. Feel free to download and use these images for your own non-commercial use. Click on the image for a larger version.

What women can do to increase their authority

A few years back, whilst working for a large IT corporation, I was invited to an annual Pow Wow that brought together the firm’s engineers and marketing professionals. The facilitator asked us to introduce ourselves and let the group know if we were a ‘techie’ or a ‘fluffy’. Not hard to work out which was which.

Authority is not something that is automatically granted. As a woman who works with competent executives, it’s important that I’m perceived as being credible and am taken seriously when I have something valuable to contribute.

Yet many women, myself included, often do things that undermine our own authority. Even when we are just as capable as the next person, our body language can let us down. Being married to one of the country’s top communications experts Nick Morgan, I’d have been remiss if I didn’t learn a thing or two about non-verbal communication and why it is so important in establishing trust and credibility. Here’s my top five recommendations for actions that you can take immediately to increase your authority, especially if you are a woman and know you should be getting more respect than you do.

1. Keep that head straight
Ok, I know it sounds trivial, but you watch your female colleagues and see how many of them tip their head to one side when they are talking. Imagine I’m telling you about a bad day at work and I say: “I just don’t know why they don’t take me seriously.” You might be sympathetic. Now imagine I say the same thing, but I’m tilting my head at a 45 degree angle. Now you understand why I might be coming across as a little insecure. The head tilt is a classic gesture that indicates that you are listening, waiting for a response, or giving up authority to someone else. It does not say “I’m in charge and feel completely confident.” Even if you do feel that way, that’s not the way you will be perceived if your head is at a tilt when you are speaking.

2. Don’t groom
Look fabulous, and have that gorgeous hairdo, just don’t play with it! Grooming – repetitive touches to the hair – might be just your attempt at getting an unruly lock out of the way, but people will perceive you as being self-conscious, or maybe even flirtatious. If you are giving an important speech or have a high-stakes meeting, don’t let your hair be the main attraction. Spray it or tie it back so you won’t be tempted to touch.

3. Watch that pelvic posture
High heels and a slim figure can cause you to jut out your pelvis. This sends out a subtle sexual signal — great for supermodels, but not for business women. To avoid being pelvic when you are standing, balance your weight evenly on both feet. When you are walking, lead the body from your heart, not from your hips.

4. Give your voice an authoritative arc
The unintended consequence of collaborative working environments is everyone ends up talking like everything is a question. Every sentence ends up on a high note and sound like this. “Hello? The meeting today will be about new product development? We’re going to be brainstorming new opportunities? This group is the best in the company? It’s going to be awesome?

When everything sounds like it is a question, no one knows whether you are stating a fact or asking for feedback. It’s ok to be emotional, you can get excited, raise your voice and vary your pitch. That makes you interesting to listen to and passionate about your topic. Just come down at the end of a sentence. Ending a sentence on a deeper tone makes it a declarative statement. No-one will argue with you. Your words will be treated as facts. “This meeting is about new product development.” FACT. “It’s going to be awesome.” FACT. Same words. Different tone. Nick calls this the authoritative arc. I love it, especially when I’m asking for a refund or room upgrade!

5. Check Your Wardrobe
When preparing for an important event, many people ask me “What should I wear?” You want to wear something you feel great in, however you don’t want your clothing to be distracting or restrict your movements. To be perceived as trustworthy, your body language has to be open. Stand in front of a mirror and open your arms out wide. Check and make sure your buttons don’t gape and that you are not revealing anything you don’t want to! If you are going to be on a stage, find out the color of the backdrop. Usually it’s black – which means you want to wear a strong color that will help you stand out. Avoid patterns and prints that are too bold, especially if you are going to be on camera. Wear shoes that you can walk and climb stairs in.

In summary, observe yourself. Use a video camera or get a friend to point out some of these things that you might do. I guarantee it will make a difference and you’ll soon be getting the respect you deserve.