How to properly attribute photos in blog posts.

I have been struggling to find a quick and easy way, or a perferred format for crediting images that I use in my blog posts. After some searching, I stumbled upon these guidelines from +Creative Commons:

Examples of attribution

Here is a photo. Following it are some examples of how people might attribute it.
8256206923 c77e85319e n.jpg

This is an ideal attribution

Because:
Title? “Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco”
Author? “tvol” – linked to his profile page
Source? “Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco” – linked to original Flickr page
License? “CC BY 2.0” – linked to license deed

This is a pretty good attribution

Photo by tvol / CC BY
Because:
Title? Title is not noted (it should be) but at least the source is linked.
Author? “tvol”
Source? “Photo” – linked to original Flickr page
License? “CC BY” – linked to license deed

This is an incorrect attribution

Photo: Creative Commons
Because:
Title? Title is not noted.
Author? Creative Commons is not the author of this photo.
Source? No link to original photo.
License? There is no mention of the license, much less a link to the license. “Creative Commons” is an organization.

Best practices for attribution by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 3.0

What happens when you stop responding?

+Taylor Swift (middle) and me (third from right) photo by +Sony 
If you were to poll 100 celebrity accounts with over 500,000 followers across social media, I think you would find something interesting. Most of them do not actively interact with their audience. Sure, they may call out an individual tweet or reply to an occasional comment, but for the most part, their audience interaction is limited.
For traditional celebrities, this seems very rational. +Taylor Swift probably doesn’t have time to reply to thousands of comments, and if she tried to, it would turn into a cascading time suck. However, if she started to reply to each and every fan, would it ruin all of the excitement for those that do hear from her?
Watching several “non-traditional” celebrities, more of the Internet type, writers, commentators and corporate big wigs, I’m starting to notice a trend, that people are more likely to engage with those that are less likely to respond. Take +Vic Gundotra‘s posts, for example. If you watch what he and his colleagues post, you will always see a myriad of responses, some form more prominent Internet figures. However, most of them know that the likelihood he will respond is fairly low. So why do they bother to comment on his content?
I’m wondering if there is a “critical mass” in terms of tribe size or follower count where content creators should limit their audience interaction in an effort to increase engagement on their posts. It’s a continuation on my theory of “manufacturing scarcity” but I think it also applies in the social realm.
I believe that in personal branding, we are taught to interact with as many people as possible as often as possible to help establish our authority in our particular niche. However, is there a point where well-followed individuals should curb their audience engagement to encourage more interaction with their posts?
Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about totally eliminating interaction, but showing your audience that you’re busy doing important things and can only interact occasionally. By creating this artificial scarcity, does the engagement become more valuable?
It sounds crazy, but I think it might just work…

#thinkaboutit

Can you manufacture scarcity?

“Variety of Scarcity” by bryanesque is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Recently I was reading an article my dad sent me about +Bobby Flay and his new mission to open a new restaurant in Manhattan–a city with plenty of restaurants already.

It got me thinking. Something like 80% of small businesses fail, and a large number of those are restaurants. So, if a certain type of business has a shelf life, why don’t we exploit that and build it into the business model?

What I am pitching here could be a billion-dollar concept, assuming you can figure out how to lower overhead and control costs. What if you opened a restaurant with an incredible chef, trendy decor, fresh menu items and everything that food critics are clamoring for, but then tell the world that the restaurant will only be open for 9 months. Can you manufacture scarcity?

After time, the restaurant is doomed to fatigue, grow out of its honeymoon period, wither and become stale. People will stop talking about it, and the food costs will rise as the revenues subside. However, if you knew that you could only keep that concept vibrant for a certain period of time and exploited that by telling the world, could you keep the place packed before it was time to close up shop?

#thinkaboutit

The Age of "You're Doing It Wrong"

I am sitting here this morning watching +TODAY on NBC and I noticed a segment talking about selfies and a documentary that is showing how they are helping girls and their mothers boost their self esteem. The director, Cynthia Wade, encouraged the women to take their digital self-portraits without using any filters or image alteration.

Before the segment, +Carson Daly did a great job of demonstrating the differences between our definition and understanding of beauty with a simple Google image search. Carson simply searched Google Images for “beauty” and then did the same on +Instagram. The difference was obvious, Google showed us what the media wants us to think beauty is whereas the hashtag on Instagram showed not a bunch of glamour models, actresses or Photoshopped makeup ads, just a myriad of selfies showing beautiful individual smiles.

There was a popular opinion for a while that taking a selfie was a narcissistic behavior. We were warned by generations before us that we were so self-loving and needed to focus on what was important, and spending less time trying to share every moment of our lives. I’m not sure if you all felt that way, but over the last few years, I saw I bias between generations. The ones before us did not understand or appreciate the self-discovery of the later generations.

As a millennial, I am watching some incredible things unfold. I was the first generation to learn computer programming grade school BASIC, LOGO, I was the first generation to experience mainstream social media before it made it into public domain (Facebook) and now one the generations to fully experience the digital-to-analog transformation.

During this revolution is a new wave of transparency. People now exchange their thoughts, ideas and opinions more openly through social media than they ever have before. Some hide behind anonymous cloaks and others declare their thoughts openly. Regardless of how, so many people have been preaching the essence of this one phrase that just drives me wild, “you’re doing it wrong.”

Whether or not their might be a better way to accomplish something in order to attain ones own goals, it doesn’t mean that we all share the same goals. Just because something doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean you should caution all others against it.

To all of those that say “you’re doing it wrong,” I offer you this one piece of advice: you’re doing it wrong.

Allow others to try things, shape their own opinions, learn from their discoveries and share what they learn. In this case, something that was condemned as narcissism (taking selfies) has transformed into a way to let people appreciate their own beauty, realize that we are all different and celebrate those differences.

My differences? When I was a teenager I had terrible acne. I still deal with some of it today. My teeth? Stained from years of smoking. In fact, I just learned yesterday that they will never be Hollywood white and I’m fine with that. My hair? Fine as you could imagine and gray as #AAAAAA in some places. My eyes? Horrible astigmatism and myopia.

You know what? This is me, and I’m pretty cool with that. I may not be Hollywood’s definition of beautiful, but I’m beautiful to someone, and that’s all that matters. If you don’t like my photo, get over it.

If you don’t think I should be taking pictures of myself, then think about this: the Internet is a place where we can connect with billions of people from the around the world. Unfortunately, 99% of this communication is through text. Unlike a face-to-face conversation, you never get to see my face. Facial expressions alone compose the majority of non-verbal communication.

My point? You can learn a lot from someone’s selfie.

What are you known for?

talk to the experts by Mai Le is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday serves as a great day to ask yourself, “what are you known for?”

No, we won’t all move mountains. We won’t all change the course of human history. We won’t all make it into the history books, but we all have the opportunity to make a change in the world. It can be something small, something big, or something that only affects a single person.

Regardless of what you want to be in the world or what you want to do, people will always associate you with certain things. If you work with them, they might just see you as a co-worker, if you bowl with them, they might just see you as a bowling partner, if you do great things though, they might see you for your accomplishments.

One of my biggest struggles as I have created my personal brand identity, is to figure out exactly what I want people to think of me as. Do I want to be a SEO expert? Nah. A community management expert? Maybe. A social media guru? Definitely not. A storyteller? Probably.

The challenge of trying to define yourself as a topical expert of one particular niche is important if you want to be a known authority for that particular subject. But, what if you’re like me and you’re interests are all over the place? What if you love consumer electronics, but also have advice for how small businesses can better use social media to attract new customers? What if you like debating issues like social media platform design and application user experience?

Can you truly be the master of anything if you enjoy so many different things?

I have been watching quite a few characters on Google+ recently, and I’m starting to notice a trend. The people that are regarded as topical experts post a lot about their given topic. However, a large number of them seem to cross over, post and comment on things that might be tangential to their focus, but not necessarily their blockbuster topic.

The bottom line, though is these people always return to what they do best, and because of that, they are known for that. +Mark Traphagen is on top of everything related to Authorship in SERPs. +Ronnie Bincer knows every technical aspect of Google+ Hangouts, Hangouts on Air and YouTube interface. +David Amerland has established himself as an expert on semantic search while +Dustin W. Stout  is leading the wave on fresh, purposeful content and engagement. Need to know anything about Google+ on the whole? +Denis Labelle and a slew of others likely have you covered. Android news? +Derek Ross is all over it.

These examples are people that have chosen to focus, and because of their focus, they are rewarded with being known for their focus. Those of us that chose to be interdisciplinary won’t achieve the same recognition of these individuals, and won’t stand out in a crowd for being the best at any one particular thing.

By diversifying your interests, you have the ability to learn so much about so many different things. However, in doing so, you can sometimes sacrifice the opportunity to be known as an expert. Regardless, though, how important is it to be known as an expert of one particular thing?

As I look to shift my career, I’m learning that ambition is no match for hard work and years of experience. Hiring managers and companies looking for consultants don’t just want someone that knows what they’re talking about, they want someone that can prove that they have consistently performed. These individuals, by choosing their focus and continuing to teach and share have done exactly that.

For the rest of the year, I am going to be asking myself, “what am I known as?” But until I figure it out, maybe you can help, what do you know me as?

To Share +1's or Not to Share +1's

Yesterday I was perusing my stream on Google+ when I noticed that +Dustin W. Stout had +1’d a post by +Taylor Swift. Now, I couldn’t help but think it was out of place for someone as savvy as Dustin to broadcast his interaction on a post with a mega celebrity that doesn’t have much at all to do with his realm (being awesome at the Internet).

When I privately alerted Dustin of what I thought must have been a mistake, something that he had overlooked, I got a reply that made me totally reconsider the way I thought about sharing +1’s.

Within minutes of seeing Dustin’s reply, I noticed this post in my stream by +Chris Jenkins that had been “vetted” by +Mark Traphagen, +Derek Ross and +Eli Fennell (three people that I highly admire).

Prior to the screen capture, I didn’t have +Chris Jenkins in my circles. In fact, if the three people that I trust so much hadn’t +1’d the post and had their accounts enabled to show +1 recommendations, I never would have seen the post appear in my stream.

When the +1 broadcast feature was initially released, it was met with two schools of thought. One was that those that decided to turn the broadcast on, would either self-censor themselves or “over-share” and possibly +1 things that didn’t fit their brand or niche. The other school of thought was that by enabling the feature, you would allow your followers to be open to a whole new world of content and creative people.

Sadly, at the time of the release, I bought into the first theory. I didn’t want to censor myself by changing the way that I 1+ content. I wanted to +1 whatever the heck I wanted to, and not worry about someone else seeing it appear in their stream. I wanted to show everyone I was following that I was listening.

I guess at a certain point in your Internet presence, that school of thought is okay. But, with a large audience comes a bit of responsibility (at least in my mind) which is why I think I should take the opportunity to share what I find interesting with the rest of my followers. Starting today, I’m going to think about what I really enjoy reading, watching and engaging with. As I find things those things, I think it’s time to reward the people that took the time and effort to create and share those things.

Thanks, +Dustin W. Stout, for making me change the way I think.

How to Get a New Phone for Free

As a technology enthusiast, I always like to have the latest and greatest devices. However, keeping up with the latest tech can be an expensive addiction.

Although most of us are only eligible to upgrade or trade-out our smartphones every year or two, there are a ton of things you can do with your current device to make it seem like a whole new phone.

Thanks to operating system updates (Android Jelly Bean/KitKat, iOS 5) software developers deliver a periodic fresh new look and feel to our hardware while showering us with new and innovative features. But, beyond that, there are a bunch of things we can do to declutter of phones and make them work for us.

Just the other day I was trying to record a video on my Samsung Galaxy S III when I realized that the audio quality was horrible. I returned the device to the store where they swapped it out for a refurbished model. Some of you might think that carrying a Galaxy S III puts me way behind the times, but when you think about it, I have most of the features of the newest smartphone, but with the added ability of having removable storage and swappable batteries (something you cannot do with the Google Nexus or iPhone).

A Factory Reset can breathe new life into your phone. Over time your device gets worn down by tons of applications, widgets and background processes that can chew through your data plan and your battery consumption without you even knowing it. Within a few months your device can get slow, bogged down and just not as fresh and fast as it was out of the box.

By backing up all of your contacts, photos, videos and apps (best done by using a Google account to store your contacts and Autobackup to store your photos and videos) you can easily reset your phone and get a fresh start in just a few minutes. The advantages of doing this are that you can review the apps on your phone, how you have your home screen configured and make your phone what you want it to be.

Take time to organize your device. By putting the apps and contacts that you use most at your fingertips, you will find that using your phone efficiently can save you a ton of time and extra thumb presses. As you can see from my updated home screen, I’ve put all of the things that I use most in my system tray. That way, as soon as I unlock my phone with one or two taps, I can get exactly what I need.

One of the annoying default settings of most phones is that when you install an app, it automatically places an icon for that app on one of your home screens. This can be really frustrating with Android, as it will just crowd your unused space with icons. By turning off that option, you can take control of what you want to keep on your home screens.

Use widgets to take a quick glance. Sorry iOS users, this one is only for Android. By using multiple home screens and some of the great widgets available, you can quickly browse the information you need from your favorite or most used app without having to load it each time.

Sorting your applications into folders can also help you quickly find what you’re looking for without trying to recite the alphabet each time you’re looking for an app.
Functionality trumps design (at least for me). Most of the time, when I see people post screen captures from their phones, I see beautiful background images and aesthetically pleasing icons and clocks, but what I don’t see is functionality. When I pull my phone out of my pocket, I want to complete a task as quickly as possible. Whether it is making a call to a love one (I use favorites in Phone), launching an app (sorted by folders) or glancing at my calendar or e-mail (widgets), I like to keep my phone set up to work for me and make my life easier. After all, that’s why we spend some much on this technology, to make our lives simpler.
After resetting your phone, reorganizing your apps and ridding your phone of the ones you never need, giving yourself a new background/lock screen, you’ll feel like you have a brand new device. The best part? It was all completely free.
If you have tips on how to make your phone work for you or how you give yourself an Android makeover, leave them in the comments below. I’d love to see what you’re doing to make your phone even better!

The Mythology of Shared Circles

Brocken experiment, Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13579 / CC-BY-SA

A long time ago, when +Google+ was just a protostar, people relied on shared circles to tell who was active on the network and who was not. If you were new to Google+, at the time the “stream” showed everyone that was actively posting, not just the people that you had circled. As the network grew, people needed a way to keep track of the people that were active so they could narrow down their stream. During this time, the use of shared circles was very common, however it was necessary.

As time went on and Google+ started to become a star, circles were less about just who was “active” and more about specific interests and topics. A lot of people used them to help discover new users that were excited to grow an audience, but most of those attempts were extremely organic.

I, like +Mike Elgan, +Robert Scoble, and others, worked on creating carefully curated circles that contained people specific to a certain set of interests. Mike’s best one yet, was the #BlogsofAugust  circle that introduced me to some great people, but Robert’s Circle of 500 Bloggers put so many Google+ early adopters in front of hundreds of new followers. Later on, I would go on to create an “Original Content Creators” circle which featured people that were sharing their own genuine content.

I didn’t want to jump into this argument and say that unfocused shared circles are bad, because that would be hypocritical. We definitely used them in the infant stages of the network. However, the ones referenced in this post are a different breed. They aren’t about the people in them, but the person benefiting from them, which is the person hawking them. If you’ve ever been pitched for an MLM, hen you know exactly how these circles work. You’ll never get the Bentley or the private jet, but if you keep on trying, you will only help the person at the top to go further.

The image above is of the Brocken experiment by British physic researcher Harry Price.

“In 1932, Price travelled to Mount Brocken in Germany with C. E. M. Joad and members of the National Laboratory to conduct a ‘black magic‘ experiment in connection with the centenary of Goethe, involving the transformation of a goat into a young man. The “Bloksberg Tryst”, involving the transformation of a goat into a young man by the invocation of a maiden, Ura Bohn (better known as the film actress Gloria Gordon), produced a great deal of publicity but not the magical transformation. Price claimed he carried out the experiment “if only to prove the fallacy of transcendental magic.” – Wikipedia

The true magic of a shared circle, is one that is carefully curated, focused and limited to those who are truly engaging and consistent content creators. I encourage each and every one of you to curate several of these circles throughout your time on Google+ and share them with your audience to help others discover the great things out there.

These “other” circles, the “Mega Ball” and the “+1 and reshare to be included” circles are akin to the Brocken Experiment. No matter how well you advertise it, and how hard you try, you simply can’t turn a goat into a young scholarly man. In fact, when you think about it, the whole idea is just plain silly.

The Importance of Sharing

The hardest part about sharing is finding the courage to do it.

We spend so much time during our petty existence worrying about our image. Some of us worry about sharing too much, sharing things that are too personal, or sharing things that others may not like. We feel that we have a duty to ourselves to create and preserve a certain image from which others will perceive us.

Although creating boundaries and maintaining a positive image are admirable traits, by censoring yourself, you deny yourself the opportunity to share your most important thing, you perspective. As I said on a recent post, no one can see the world like you do.

Two of the most important books that I always keep on my bookshelf are Life’s Journeys and The World According to Mister Rogers. Now, I know it may sound childish to some of you, but the concepts that Mister Rogers taught me at such a young age will forever shape who I am as a person.

One of my favorite passages from The World According to Mister Rogers is this,

“Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”

Each of us has a unique story to tell. Our perception of the world is shaped by the people with interact with, the situations we were born from the actions that we take throughout our life. As we continue to absorb more information, our decisions change over time. With the more knowledge that we accumulate, the better we are to reason, question and ponder issues that will shape the future for generations before us.

No matter what your opinion, whether it is left, right, or straight down the middle, you will never make an impact unless you share your thoughts and ideas. When we collaborate and exchanges these thoughts and ideas, we learn more about ourselves and apply the knowledge to making better decisions.

By sharing, you are giving someone else information that could completely change the way they see things. By sharing, you have the power to help people better understand themselves and the issues that we face in our overly complicated world today.

As you embark on the journey of sharing, you quickly learn things about yourself. You start to pay more attention to your inner dialog, you get a better understanding for the way that you think and process ideas. As you start to share these ideas, the transmission of them becomes much more fluent, and much more comfortable.

When you decide that censoring yourself, trying to preserve some artificial sense of anonymity or convince yourself that you can make an impact, it is finally time to tell your story.

Your story will develop over time. You will say things at one point that you will later disagree with. Each day, week, month, year and decade you will accumulate new information and a better understanding for the things you ponder every day. These experiences and this additional knowledge will shape your thoughts and perspective and allow you to paint a more complete picture later in your life.

However, as you learn and experience new things, it is incredibly important to challenge them, debate them and think about them. Expressing them openly is a great way to encourage others to discuss these matters with you. From those discussions you will form great relationships, some bonds which will last a lifetime, others which will whither away. However, from sharing your thoughts, your ideas, your arguments, your hypotheses and your experiences, you will allow someone else to see the world through your eyes.

The more perspectives that you are willing to view and the more shoes you are willing to try on, the greater understanding you will have of the world around you and the issues that matter to you most.

However, if no one shares their story, their thoughts, their opinions or their ideas, you will have nothing to think of other than your preconceived notions. Without additional information to change the way you think about things, you will be stuck in whatever mindset you already have.

By sharing, we enable each other to help make the world a better place, that’s why sharing is so important.

Special thanks to +Yonatan Zunger for providing the inspiration for this post. Had he not shared this earlier post (below), I would have been without the perspective I have today.

How often do you zone out?

No, I’m not talking about catching up on Facebook. I’m not talking about looking through your Twitter feed nor am I talking about surfing the Internet when you should be working.

When is the last time that you actually and completely zoned out?

For me, zoning out is like meditating, but without all of the “meditation.”

Every once in a while I like to turn off my distractions, put my hands and eyes to rest and just think.

In our jobs, we are surrounded by nothing but distractions and more things to do. However, at the end of the day, I think many of us ask ourselves “what have we actually accomplished?” This busy work and abundance of “productivity” keeps us from doing what our brains were designed to do: think and reason.

Typical white collar workplaces have workers facing multiple computer screens with their backs to the rest of the world. They are vulnerable to everyone walking by and seeing what they are doing, but most importantly, they are engrossed in being so “productive” that they neglect the opportunity to improve whatever it is that they do or sell.

If you work for yourself or have a job that involves lots of critical thinking, zoning out can still be an important tool for you to ensure that what you’re doing is the best use of your time. Is there a better way of doing something or a more effective process? If you focus on being productive and getting everything done, you will neglect the opportunity to zone out and focus with what’s on your mind.

We all carry a lot of mental baggage. We think about our families, our friendships, our finances and everything in between. If we keep those things in the back of our minds, unprocessed, they seem to build up, creating pressure. This pressure, is most visible in the form of stress. I think that if we all take the time to zone out and process these thoughts, we will all be able to release of the pressure and relieve some of the stress.

When I zone out, I give myself an opportunity to evaluate what I am doing, why I am doing it and how I could do it better. Zoning out gives me the opportunity to tune everyone else out and explore my thoughts and emotions–things that we are told to keep at the wayside when we cross the threshold into the office.

Perhaps it’s Mittyesque, but zoning out gives me the chance to carry out my inner dialog, to figure out how I can do things better and more purposefully and to give myself peace.