Written by Kelly Rusk on 18 March 2010
Ugh. That Margaret Wente post has really gotten under my skin. I get it, I’m satisfying the point of the article by reacting to it, I won’t link to it, but I think the damage is done.
However, others have read this and actually believed what she said and spread the problem even more. I’ll link to him because I don’t actually think he’s linkbaiting, I just don’t think he’s too smart.
That’s the problem. Had Wente written that column on a personal blog, she probably would have easily been dismissed as a buffoon. However, on a platform such as a Globe and Mail column? People believe the news media to be credible. Even columns-which are opinion-based, are still assumed to be researched and laid out with actual fact.
Wente did none of this! Case in point. A quick, easy, simple Google search!
What I do want to point you to, however, is a blog post by Clay Shirky about women’s lack of self-promotion. Yes he’s generalizing and clearly giving his opinion, but it’s laced with actual real fact, and more compelling anecdotal evidence rather than “his friend Sarah”. However, this is a real issue in the blogosphere and if we can glean some real action and insight from this situation, let this be it.
And finally because I think a lot of really smart talented women have already weighed in, I’m linking to the great posts I’ve read so far (though I’m sure there’s many more-just point me to them!)
Spydergrrl thinks we should tune off the G&M tomorrow and talk on our own platform-our blogs, that we actually do writer! Great Point! And the inspiration for this post to boot.
Amy Boughner gets down to the real reason people (including women) blog.
Annie Urban constructs a well-thought argument that introduced me to the term ‘Mansplain‘ which unfortunately, the definition I am already familiar with.
Written by Kelly Rusk on 18 March 2010
“Don’t feed the trolls” is an old saying that goes back to the days when people communicated online via forums or chat rooms like IRC (maybe even before that?)
It’s an expression you use when someone is trying to conjure up a (usually negative) response from others. In a forum or chat setting, it’s usually just for attention.
However often bloggers will post absurd opinions on controversial issues to stir up response. The point of doing this is for linkbait–to get other bloggers to link to them.
Well apparently this is the new trend for mainstream media as well. I’m referring to a column by Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail. Notice how I’m not linking to it. You don’t need to read it here’s the gist: Margaret thinks women don’t blog. The reason they don’t blog is they don’t have opinions or the need to put themselves out there, yada yada yada.
Well anyone who’s ever visited more than 5 blogs in their lives knows women do in fact blog. LOTS of them. Hell there’s even a conference/movement around women bloggers!
Wente likely knew that, she likely knew that people get riled up when newspapers write generalized, ignorant statements about women, as the National Post did a couple months ago (also not linking to). And what happens when people get riled up? They spread the news. More hits means more advertising dollars which means her boss is happy.
So I’m not upset at Wente about her ridiculous article about women not blogging, just the fact that she’s given up her personal reputation and journalistic integrity for ad dollars. Exactly what the mainstream editorial media is *not* supposed to do.
To all you who blogged about it today: I admire your passion and agree with your view points, but please remove the link to said article! And if you do, I’ll gladly link to your articles and we can discuss the issue of women blogging, but without G&M getting ad dollars out of it.
Oh yea, finally on a lighter note, my personal favourite response to the article via @kittenthebad
you know what else women don’t do? Lock crazy women in cages and throw them in the river. Shame.
Update:
Oh-so now there’s a debate tomorrow with Wente and Annie Urban (@phdinparenting) and Tamara Plant. This I’ll support as they are both passionate women who know what they’re talking about. They deserve the press.
One final note about linkbaiting
I just want to clarify, there’s nothing inherently wrong with linkbaiting. It’s a great tactic to get traffic to a blog or web site and invoke a response. HOWEVER, good linkbaiting is fueled by passion and conviction and based on fact. Spreading bad, insulting information to get a response is not. THAT is what is wrong here.
Written by Kelly Rusk on 10 March 2010
As you may have heard the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas is kicking off later this week.
This is my second year going, and I’m excited. So excited, that I anticipate to be tweeting about it… A lot. In fact, if you follow many people who are going, I can guarantee you’re going to get sick of hearing about it. (I remember the feeling in ‘08)
Good news for you, there are now a handful of tools available that will let you temporarily mute followers or keywords. Here’s a list from Oneforty…
However, if you *do* want to follow what’s going on at SXSW. Leave a comment and let me know what you want to hear about! I’ll do my best to accommodate.
Written by Kelly Rusk on 06 March 2010
Two days ago, Sarah Killen (aka @LovelyButton) had 3 followers on Twitter…
Today, she has 13,000 and counting. She’s also included on 230 Twitter Lists. In fact, if you just happened to find her profile today and knew nothing else, you’d think she’s someone important, influential and likely accomplished, or at the very least been on Twitter for a while.
But in fact, the only difference between Friday before 3:55pm–when Sarah had 3 followers–and now, was a single tweet and a follow from a celebrity.
If you haven’t heard, what happened was Conan O’Brien (who only joined Twitter a week ago, but has amassed well over 500k followers) decided he would follow one random person on Twitter. That lucky person was Sarah Killen, a 19-year-old Michigan girl who’s engaged and was a little worried about how her and her fiance would pay for the wedding. However, her troubles are over since many have come forward and offered everything from free wedding photos to a custom-made wedding dress, and likely everything in between.
Sarah has already been interviewed on MTV (and, when she discovered her webcam didn’t work pre-interview, one follower bought her a brand new iMac) and by the LA Times blog. I imagine others are after her too.
Honestly, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this on Twitter, and I think it’s a fantastic story. Sarah didn’t go out searching for fame, and she’s carefully taking it in stride. “If this all stopped right now, I’d be more than happy with what’s happened. It’s helped us out so much,” she said in the LA Times blog.
While I am a little shocked about what this says about mankind (really? do we need to worship the person Conan decides to follow at random?!!)… I do find it to be a cute story and that Sarah Killen certainly sounds deserving of this 15 minutes of fame.
Will other celebrities follow suit? Will it make any sort of impact if they do? Whatever happens, I just hope it helps lead Conan to a new show!
Written by Kelly Rusk on 03 March 2010
I was very pleased and honoured to be asked to speak to the BIT program’s class by Thom Kearney on the topic of Professional Networking.
However, I was even more pleased by the way the opportunity came about. Thom had published a blog post looking for speakers on a variety of topics. Joe Boughner (someone I know through Twitter and various Comm/Social media events) commented and suggested I would be good to speak about networking…
The perfect proof of concept!
But I digress… The fact is, if you met me five or more years ago, you’d probably never imagine *me* talking to people about professional networking. It’s not that I am (or was) really shy, but mostly utterly intimidated at the thought of walking up to someone I’d never met before and striking a conversation.
However, as a student of public relations at Algonquin College I learned that networking wasn’t only important to success… It was crucial.
So I figured out how to make it work for me. And hoping I can inspire you to find out how to make it work for you-because I also believe networking is crucial in any career.
First, here’s the PowerPoint I presented (Don’t expect ninja-like PowerPoint effects and design, I went the ’simple so you can focus on my message’ route. Truth is, I was intimidated to try to make something look nice enough for 4th year design students)
My networking ’secret sauce’ is pretty simple: I took something I loved (communicating online) and used it to my advantage. First (in the pre-Twitter days) I subscribed to local blogs I was interested and started commenting and interacting as much as I could. Then with Twitter I went around and followed everyone I could find in Ottawa who was interested in the same things I was.
A little while later, I attended the first Social Media Breakfast Ottawa. I went alone and was really nervous. When I walked in, I scanned the room and didn’t notice anyone I really knew… However almost instantly a few people came up and introduced themselves as Twitter followers and suddenly I was relaxed… At ease… Actually, ecstatic!
I’m not saying you have to join Twitter to be successful at networking, though I will say it definitely helps. But find you’re own secret sauce, and work it to your advantage.
One example Thom brought up in the class is finding interesting groups that aren’t related to your career but something you are really interested in or passionate about and start there. I agree this is a fantastic way to get comfortable networking, and no doubt you’ll still meet valuable professional contacts this way.
And finally, a few resources to get you started:
- LinkedIn – If you aren’t already a member, JOIN! LinkedIn is like my central contact database for networking. When I collect cards at an event, I add them as contacts on LinkedIn with a personalized message and I’ve built stronger relationships because of it.
- Betidings.com – an Ottawa-based startup that uses a social approach to event listings. Browse others’ calendars to find out about great events happening in Ottawa, or create your own!
- Meetup.com – a place to organize local meetups on every topic under the sun. Literally.
- Twellow – The Twitter yellow pages, a great way to find people in your city with similar interests to follow on Twitter.
And finally, the biggest thank you ever to Claudine Wilson, aka PRHunter, who not only taught me about networking back in the PR program, but pointed me to her fabulous text book to help ‘refresh’ what I’ve learned for this presentation. And while I’m praising, she also gets credit for teaching me fantastic PR skills overall, instilling a solid work ethic on me, being a great friend and about a million other things. Thanks again!
Written by Kelly Rusk on 04 February 2010
As 2009 ended, like usual, we saw tons of blog posts and speculation about what’s in store for 2010. One common theme (that had even been hinted upon long before the end of the year) was “geo-location based apps” such as Foursquare, and now contender Gowalla.
While I definitely see a huge untapped potential for local businesses to take advantage of. At this point I don’t think Foursquare will be the next Twitter. From my perspective, there are a few growing problems with the tool.
- Scalability – I think I was one of the first 50 or so users in Ottawa when Foursquare was launched here. I *loved* it! I used the handy web tools to find all my Twitter and Facebook friends and I already knew many of the other users. However, as it grows, the happy community feel is diminishing. Also unless you’re checking in over 200 times a week (which, even as a highly social person, I find that completely ludicrous) you don’t even have a chance at making the top 10 anymore. The competitor in me has lost interest.
Also, a recent Tech Crunch article claims that appealing to a mass audience means compromising quirky features that appealed to the original geeks who embraced it. Douchebag badge anyone?
- The annoyance factor – As I mentioned above, Foursquare allows you to import your Twitter followers and add them as friends in Foursquare. So that begs the question, why do so many feel the need to tweet their every Foursquare activity?
This seems to be creating a counter-Foursquare movement by Twitter users who are fed up with the “spammy” foursquare updates. (With very smart people like Judy Gombita leading the way, see her passionate interview on one of my favourite blogs – MediaStyle)
- And now what? – The reason tools like Twitter and Facebook have been so successful is the sense of empowerment they provide to users. Facebook allowed us all to re-connect and better stay connected to old friends and past acquaintances. Twitter taught us a new and powerful way to communicate and network in 140 characters or less.
But Foursquare does what? Enables stalkers to function more efficiently? Yes, it’s really cool when you check in at an event and find other people there as well, but Twitter already does that via hashtags, and has a much larger user-base. Foursquare has a lot of ‘hey that’s really cool’ elements to it, but nothing that is going to set of bells in our heads and make us feel like we couldn’t live without it.
For the record–I am an avid user of Foursquare. It’s fun and I definitely see staying power potential, I just don’t envision it as the next big thing anymore. What do you think?
Written by Kelly Rusk on 28 January 2010
Cory Darby pinged me on Google Chat last week & told me about this little experiment based on Gladwell’s Tipping Point. A cute and interesting, not to mention inspiring, story I thought I just had to share…
In Cory’s words:
Recently while sitting in a local Tim Horton’s coffee shop, I started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. The style of the book was very interesting, but as it was applying the principle of small things leading to epidemic changes, I was a little skeptical. Particularly with examples used–that were not focused on internet successes I could relate to, but more on real life examples of how STDs can spread, crime rates, etc.?
In other words, a more direct impression of what I thought of the book eight pages into it was, ‘This book is full of bullshit.’ I was determined and now I had a mission to prove this theory of small things can lead to an epidemic wrong. I decided to put the very foundation of what the book was backing to the test. I noticed the Haiti donation box at the store’s front where the cash register was, I had intended to donate to the cause but hadn’t done so yet…
I called over the store manager and asked if I could pre-pay the coffee for the next few customers. The manager was fine with the idea and I agreed to donate $110, or 82 medium coffees. My mindset was, ‘If the book is correct than my small good deeds to others should lead to a widespread of good deeds and specifically, I had figured the likely outcome is they’d donate to the box at the cash register.
I had predicted that a handful of people would donate when they found out their coffee was free, I mean, they had the money already in hand when and the box was directly in front of them…
What happened next was mind blowing and honestly, caught me entirely off-guard. The book’s principle of small things leading to epidemic change was proven because of the 82 people who got a free medium coffee 65 of them ended up donating.
I estimate it was roughly equal (if not greater than) myself directly donating the $110 to the box but the key thing is now 82 people have a story. The experiment allowed me to ‘double dip’ because I was able to donate indirectly exactly what I could have directly donated, provided 82 people with coffee, potentially changed 82 Canadian lives and gave those 82 people a story that I hope spreads the good will to others.
Special thanks to:
Bill Liao, for getting me into business and his life changing book ‘Stone Soup’.
Brett Wilson , for being such an amazing role model for me.
Malcom Gladwell, author of ‘The Tipping Point’, the book that changed my life in eight pages.”
Written by Kelly Rusk on 19 January 2010
If you noticed it’s been quiet around here, one of the (many, *sigh*!) reasons is I’m speaking next week at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media for Government Conference in Edmonton.
It was a last minute opportunity I couldn’t pass up… And fortunately I have a last minute opportunity to pass on to you as well. If you’d like to attend the conference (and can swing it in a week!) you can save 50% on your registration by mentioning my name!
Register here!
If you are attending, please let me know. I’ll be speaking on the topic of using social media to initiate change in Government (aka become a Gov 2.0 social media champion) and using case studies of people actively doing exactly that in government. Hope you can make it!
Written by Kelly Rusk on 16 January 2010
If you’re reading in an RSS reader, please click through and have a look…
Seriously, I’m feeling a huge sense of relief. When I chose my previous theme (Bella) over a year ago, I loved the look of it, but had issues from the start. Most notably it was difficult to customize and often loaded painfully slow. I only found out a couple weeks ago from a tip from a reader that my titles were flash-based, which can not only crash your browser, but sucks for my SEO.
To be honest, I hate choosing a new Wordpress theme. It usually takes me hours upon hours, as I’m really picky, but indecisive. Also I like to customize my themes and make them really feel like ‘mine’. But my HTML/CSS skills are getting a little rusty, so I at least need a theme that’s well organized and easy to figure out, which my previous one was definitely not.
Also, I discovered this time around that not all themes will work. A few months ago I installed the Mainstream theme by Woo Themes. Very modern, clean and customizable… However when I activated it, it was a mangled mess. I was discouraged. Yesterday I found a similar theme I loved, called Charade, by HTML Rockstars. Again though, I activated and it was a mangled mess. After tweeting my frustrations, I was told it’s likely because the theme was developed for a previous version of Wordpress and may not work on newer ones.
Ready to give up and just shut my blog down (seriously, I get really worked up over this!), I continued to search through recommendations of sites from my Twitter followers, and eventually found this theme–Producer. I love it because it’s elegant, clean and attractive right ‘out of the box’, however it also has tons of configurable options, and easy to work with CSS files.
So hopefully, I’m sticking with this one for a while, and over time I hope to customize it and really make it mine. I’d love to know what you think and I’m open to any suggestions you may have. After all the look of my blog is really for your benefit.
Also, here’s a list of sites to find Wordpress themes, courtesy of my awesome followers:
So please, leave a comment with any feedback. And I’m certainly not looking for an ego-stroke here. I’m wondering if you think the text is too small, or if the archives are too difficult to find, or if the red makes you feel angry and want to leave, whatever pops into your head. I’m going to maintain a wish list of tweaks for me to make whenever I have the time (which is not often enough!) So I appreciate any feedback you may have.
Written by Kelly Rusk on 15 January 2010
Just a quick note to let you know the Ottawa Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators is hosting a ‘Networking in the New Year’ event next Wednesday. If you’re in communications and looking to learn more about a specific area, there will be designated experts on hand to answer any questions and talk with. There’s also going to be food, so you won’t leave hungry either!
It’ll definitely be worth the price, but book before Sunday, Jan. 17 for the early bird!
Register now!
(disclosure: I sit on the board of IABC Ottawa, but that doesn’t stop this from being a great event!)
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