The Portal

my window on the world: small business, communications, social media, and beyond

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How to Work That Very LARGE Room

May 4th, 2009 · Blogs & Blogging, Customer Service, Freelancing, General Interest, Small Business

I suppose I’ve always dreaded networking events for the same reason I was a lousy blind dater in college. Polite chit chat with strangers comes hard for me. Most of my best dates were with people I already knew. I married my best friend . . . and he still is. If we’d met at a conference, we might both still be single.

This week I’m attending the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC). And a few of my readers from yesterday wisely queried: why was I going there? I hadn’t mentioned it in my post.

I’m going because, as a tech writer, I want to hear the conversations. I want to know, pick up a feel for, what emerging technologies will be the topics my clients may soon look to me to help them document. I want to know the lingo. In a perfect world, I’ll meet a few new prospects, see a few clients and maybe even have a good time.

One more opening point: Tony Stubblebine with CrowdVine has suggested that his and other networking tools would be of great assistance in situations like this — helping attendees meet and greet in advance, so that none of us walks in cold to the event itself. Those are definitely an option and, presuming good advance work (as I attempted to do for SXSW), an invaluable part of the solution. An energy-specific tool in this case is a new networking group (both virtual and actual), Energy People Connect.

Way too much intro, let’s cut to the chase. We’re there to meet them and they’re there to meet us. How hard can it be? Bring lots of business cards — ideally optimized for the venue you’re walking into. Dress comfy, but with some sense of the dress code. Another tip I read this morning was to bring a Sharpie and customize your pre-fab nametag with something personal to set you apart. In my case, for OTC, I might write something like “contract tech writer.” If you’re on Twitter and have a TwitPin, wear both.

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Getting Ready to Work a Very LARGE Room

May 4th, 2009 · Freelancing, General Interest, Small Business

The Houston Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) has been in business since 1969 and is the world’s premiere gathering of resources and vendors in offshore drilling, exploration, and production. Last year, attendance at the four-day conference crested 73,000. This year, the event has been expanded from Reliant Center to Reliant Arena as well. They expect some 2,300 exhibitors, covering some 500,000 sq ft of exhibit space.

Except for scale, it’s still just one big room to work — not unlike a Chamber of Commerce social or college alumni gathering . . . right?

For some of us introverts (really, I am one), events like this are worse than a root canal (or would be, if I’d ever had one). As I plot my strategies for this week and look back on my first South by Southwest (SXSW) adventure back in March, I’m sharing what I’ve already learned at other conferences or “big room” gatherings and what I’ve heard from some of my friends.

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Guess the Header Photo — 17 April 2009

April 17th, 2009 · Quizzes, Travel

Have you ever been here before?

Drop me a comment and tell your story. First (or most recent) time you were there, what you remember, how you feel about this space.

It’s coming on time for another margarita contest but this one is way too easy . . .

 

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The Chapel Bridge — Lucerne, Switzerland

April 17th, 2009 · Quizzes, Travel

Many thanks to Chris McCroskey, one of the prodigious Squeejee.com developers who brought us TweetCongress, for stopping by to identify my latest “mystery” portal view. It feels a little as if Elvis passed through the old blog site this afternoon! I’m giddy!

But back to the bridge. There’s a story here, worthy of note.

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Best of the Best — Saluting the 2009 SXSW Web Award Winners

April 16th, 2009 · SXSW, Web

If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone know? For some reason I’ve felt our most gifted Web designers and content providers for 2009 were being recognized deep in some kind of forest during the recent South by Southwest Web Awards in Austin and, since, have fallen even further off the radar. This post is an attempt to honor their work and build a little more buzz for these guys — they deserve it.

Two winners this year originated in the great state of Texas. We’ll lead with them, followed by all the rest. All the winning sites are each, in their own way, lovely or astounding and surely worth a visit. Let me know which ones resonated for you.

Following each winning entry name (and link) is the category in which they won.

Tweet Congress (@tweetcongress)

Activism — green and non-profit websites striving to make the world a better place

This team of Austin and Houston Web developers is led by Squeejee.com’s (@squeejee) Wynn Netherland (@pengwynn). They created the product out of indignation at citizens’ lack of accessibility to members of Congress — as measured, in part, by how few were participating on Twitter. It’s clear a lot more in Congress are Tweeting now, since TweetCongress has risen in visibility and a similar site, TweetMinster, is gaining in popularity throughout Britain.

Modernity Spirit of Experimentation

Student — web designers refreshing the industry with new talent and new ideas

Among the nation’s rising student designers, we’ll surely be hearing more from Pedro Villegas. He’s a student at San Antonio College, which boasts a strong visual and digital design curriculum. Villegas won his award for an online catalogue of artists working in the areas of furniture, glass, lighting, ceramics, and accessories.

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Myths About Freelancers — and a Valuable Lesson On Blogging

April 8th, 2009 · Blogs & Blogging, Freelancing

For some reason, I had in my mind that blogging was a little like ReTweeting — in that, if you posted links back to the original post, you could recycle others’ content and help the original author extend their reach. It’s also (or can be) a lazy way of generating material but I somehow thought, with full transparancy, it was an acceptable practice when not overused.

My first mistake was in missing the distinction between individually-authored blogs and those created by for-profit entities. The second was not asking the post’s original author or publisher for permission to reprint — which, of course, I now realize is an essential courtesy. I “borrowed” something that was not mine to take. Said publisher in this case, EnvatoNetwork contacted me and pointed out these missteps in a very gracious way. I am grateful for the education and share my “lesson learned” with all the rest of you here.

Envato Network offers a full product line of blogs, themes, tutorials, and other resources that I am certain to revisit. Among them, to a self-employed contractor, FreelanceSwitch offers exceptional value. Please note these guys aren’t just in it for the money — they recently promoted a Freelance Camp here in Houston and I assume other events with some regularity.

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Quiz #3: Still Putting Up Mystery Header Photos

March 30th, 2009 · Quizzes, Travel

Looking for nomads and wanderers — is that the same thing? — who might know where this photo was taken. If so, 1st person to post a comment here gets recognition on Twitter, no increase in fortune at all, and my eternal gratitude.

Here’s the thing: I’m really looking for more than just the name of the place. If you recognize it, you’ve probably been there. What did ‘ya think? How long ago were you there? Was it business or recreational travel? Details would help us “bond” — wouldn’t that be nice?

 

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I’ve Joined ProBlogger’s 31-Day Challenge
(to a Better Blog) . . .

March 30th, 2009 · Blogs & Blogging

. . . and so should you.

Okay, I’ll grant that plenty of you (particularly those along the right column here) are quite adept at blogging, at the whole SEO piece, and at the graphic niceties as well. Me, I’m new here in cyber-space and am learning OJT, as I go. Relying heavily on “Wordpress for Dummies,” and whatever forum answers and blog posts I can get my hands on.

Along comes Darren Rowse, online author of ProBlogger, How You Can Make Money Blogging. Twice before (in 2007 and 2005) Darren’s offered a month-long course in better blogging, and this time I’ve signed up. Each day’s lesson, as I understand it, will consist of a teaching component (new content) and a practical component (a homework assignment).

We’ll also have available to us a private forum to kick ideas around and, presumably, ask the Big Guy (or one of his minions) questions. In my limited experience with forums, however, I’ve found they tend to attract a multitude of smart people . . . defined as anyone smarter than me . . . and it’s the forum piece that appeals to me as much as the lessons.

Here’s the deal: Darren encourages each of us to bring a friend along for the ride. Someone known to us who’s motivated to improve their own blog, and someone who can provide longer-term accountability after the 31 days end. I know there are newbie bloggers out there, either among my Twitter peeps or people I actually see here in Houston. I’m asking you to join me. And, I’m also thinking there might be another opportunity to drink margaritas together, either real or virtual — though I don’t know how many of them I can personally afford to buy you.  ;-)

Did I mention that it’s free? The course, that is.

SO, if you would like to know more and might like to take this challenge, here’s the link to a special invitation just for you. The date for this 31-day exercise has been moved to April 8, Monday. So there’s still time to sign up. There’s a place to sign up right there on the page — the lessons and additional instructions will come to you via e-mail. The forums will open around the time the first lesson is sent out.

 

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Answer to Quiz #2: the Washington Monument

March 29th, 2009 · Quizzes, Travel

Washington Monument courtesy of Kevin Dooley

Washington Monument courtesy of Kevin Dooley

When I offered a contest prize (to the 1st quiz) of one top shelf margarita, redeemable in any of three Texas cities, I began to see more visitors to my blog!

In future, I may need to offer other inducements to keep up traffic — but not every time. That would be too predictable, not to mention hard on the reputation if readers get the impression I’m bribing people to hang out in bars with me.

Most of the geographic shots you see on this site will be my own, of places I’ve been. I’ve spent a lot of time at this place also, but none of my shots were as interesting. It’s taken from the Flickr Creative Commons collection and has been radically cropped to fit the header. Once someone correctly answers the question, I’ll insert the original photo into this post as well as the photographer’s name for full attribution.

NOTE: Original Creative Commons photo by Kevin Dooley. Answer to quiz courtesy of CJ Yeoman w/ Frogpond.com.

 

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Postscript: What Does WOW! Customer Service Look Like?

March 27th, 2009 · Customer Service

My best advice to House of Blues Houston (in the previous post) and any service organization attempting to thrive in rough economic times is to examine, in detail, the Zappos model, found in the links below:

 

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