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Fair seas, HMS #Tidespring #A136 (at Halifax, Nova Scotia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BppM_HcH2SrluL0-bZ_0cNC3WCH5h36YG6-AIY0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pnoytzn29zn2

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10g shirt in a 10kg Glass Handbag #WearableWednesday by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from adafruit industries blog]

Glass handbag by Ying Gao:

How can we carry a 10-gram shirt in a 10-kg bag? This is the question to which Ying Gao and glass artist Michèle Lapointe have found an answer. Together, they have created a glass object with a rounded contour, in which they have inserted a shirt made of super organza. This transparent piece of work reflects on the nature of accessories and their content, while being an aesthetic and formal exploration of glass and textile.

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How to Use Social Media to Build Stronger Community Ties by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing]

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Joe Shervell – Enjoy!

photo credit: alexkess via photopin cc

Social media allows businesses to take their products and services to the next level by actively harnessing the power of the crowd. More typically this involved turning users into unknowing promoters, but it can also be an excellent way to target strategic business partners. Incentivized campaigns on major social media outlets give regular users a sense of ownership and involvement in the company and its products, but there are also emerging technologies which allow businesses to source advice and skills from the crowd.

Crowdsourcing

‘Crowdsourcing’ is, in essence, using savvy members of your social sphere to help shape a product through design input and productive feedback. Think of it as holding a brainstorming session with an unlimited number of planners.

Branch.com is a good example of crowdsourcing on social media. A user expresses an idea, suggestion, or concept to a circle of industry experts using the Twitter interface. One popular conversation was the ‘save symbol’ discussion, started by design technologist P.J. Onori. This discussion swelled to include over twenty people and deconstructed the functionality and design of the existing save symbol. Because of its crowd nature, every person in the discussion became a co-creator for the “concept” save symbol in progress.

Chaordix.com is another crowdsourcing platform that breaks its sourcing communities into ever-increasing, broader circles. At the top and hence the smallest are business leaders and producers. In the middle are brand and idea groups, which discuss ways to make the products and services better and get the message out to the maximum number of potential customers. At the bottom, but still hugely important are the user-groups, or the potential customer/regular Internet user. Using a combination of analytic and CMS tools coupled with user incentives and feedback, Chaordix creates strategic dialogues between the top management levels and the consumer to permit more people to take a hands-on approach in shaping new products and services for public consumption.

The common factor in these services is the ability to give the consumer greater ownership and a more direct role in shaping the products and services they use, as well as the businesses they buy them from. The other advantage of crowdsourced intelligence is that for a fraction of the cost of a traditional digital advertising campaign, the crowd can feel involved and consequently more excited about a product. Natural, this will lead to greater social sharing and more traffic and eventually a higher conversion rate. Creating a buzz at the source means that users hear about the product from their friends, family, and their online community—in short, people they trust.

One of the most prominent brands built entirely from a crowd-sourcing perspective is Threadless, a service which encourages artists to design artwork that will eventually be used for t-shirts and other products. The best designs are decided by user-vote, ensuring that the entire process is completely sourced from the crowd. It’s a great way to make partners of both designers and t-shirt fans.

Crowdsourcing is also an excellent way to encourage co-creation and strategic partners through crowdfunding, such as through Kickstarter. By encouraging small investors in new projects, the company’s R&D budget is not tapped as heavily and the investors see a real return on their investment in the form of something new that they helped create, either through conceptual input, cash infusion, or both.

Treating User-Groups as Partners

Clever brands are starting to realize the power of the crowd as a marketing tool. By treating your users as marketing partners, you can create communities which perpetuate your message simply because they enjoy doing it.

RadioShack found a way to harness the power of Twitter with its #kindofabigdeal hashtag campaign. The premise was simple: A number of Verizon cell phones were arrayed on a table. As users Tweeted the hashtag, the phones would vibrate. The phones were ultimately awarded to the last person who made each one vibrate. In addition to promoting the RadioShack/Verizon pairing, it also generated a huge amount of online talk, netting over 80,000 mentions on this hashtag alone. Unwittingly, every contestant had become a promoter. By creating an online community, RadioShack had used the crowd as a strategic partner.

There are plenty of other examples emerging of companies realizing the power of social media for harnessing the power of online communities. Crowdsourcing is multi-faceted, but it’s becoming undoubtedly one of the most powerful methods of planning and promoting a product.

Joe Shervell is a keen blogger and digital marketing enthusiast. He loves everything social online and tries to incorporate some element of social media in all of his work. He writes for www.datadial.net, a London-Based Internet Marketing Agency.

How to Use Social Media to Build Stronger Community Ties is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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Radovan Breuss replied to Craig Elder's discussion APM Copter 2.9.1.b has been released by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from Latest Activity on DIY Drones]

Radovan Breuss replied to Craig Elder's discussion APM Copter 2.9.1.b has been released

[afromacnerd]

Legendary ad man Lee Clow talks about Steve Jobs' love of branding and more by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

While speaking at the PTTOW! summit last May, legendary ad executive and TBWA Global Director and Chairman Lee Clow reminisced fondly about his 30-year journey "looking into the future" with Steve Jobs.

He was 25 years old, when I met Steve. And he was already this passionate, intense. He and Wozniak invented this thing called the personal computer. Wozniak was just kind of into it for the hobby kind deal. Steve looked at it and said, "This is going to change everything."

Clow touched on a number of topics, but his story regarding Jobs' love of branding is particularly interesting.

Clow said that Jobs loved brands, having grown up admiring both Sony and Polaroid not only for furnishing cool products, but also because they represented the type of branding he admired.

Clow explains that in calling the company "Apple", Jobs may have been influenced by Sony which in 1958 changed the company name from Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo to Sony because it was a "charming, kind of fun, sunny, nice name." Another theory, not mentioned by Clow, is that Sony was chosen because it was easy to pronounce in any language.

Drawing a parallel between that and Jobs' decision to name his company Apple, Clow explained:

I think, even though I'm sure he didn't think it through, that his intuition told him that he'd introduce the world to technology that was going to change everyone's life and do special things, but at the same time, it was going to be new, it was going to be scary, and people weren't going to know what to do with a computer, or if they even needed one.

So he thought - Apple.

Maybe if it's named something non-threatening, something likeable, something you could trust, I think he intuitively understood that that was gonna be a more graceful way for people to come to this technology that he believed would be so amazing and change our lives.

Also interesting, and clearly a principle that seeps into every aspect of Apple's products, was Jobs' belief that everything a brand does is a de facto advertisement.

"Steve figured out," Clow said, "that every way a brand touches you is a message, and it's either a positive message or it's a message that kind of contradicts what you thought about the brand."

That said, Clow relayed how Jobs and Apple from the very beginning left no detail to chance. Clow explained that his company even helped write the manuals for the original Mac because Jobs wanted it to be accessible to the masses, not written in technical jargon that would inevitably alienate and confuse consumers.

That attention to detail, Clow continued, is also evident in Apple's unique approach to packaging, and of course, Apple's retail stores which Clow once told Jobs were the best ads Apple ever did.

There are a lot more interesting nuggets in the full video below. It's well worth watching.

Legendary ad man Lee Clow talks about Steve Jobs' love of branding and more originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On Assignment: Cheap Portable Studio, Pt. 1 by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from Strobist]

UPDATE: You can see the result on Laurie Reuben's site, here. Still riffing on Monday's post about studio-vs.-location, here's another reason I am not a big fan of studios. You can replicate them pretty much anywhere, and for almost nothing. So let's switch things up and start with the BTS pic this time, to show you the "studio" used to photograph consultant Laurie Reuben last week. It's a minimalist, two-speedlight setup that yields an elegant, painterly light—without the expensive studio part. Read more »

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Quick Tip: How To Make A 5 Minutes Battery Pack by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting]

Flickr user Raw Sniper (aka ak Photographie) just sent in this great tip on creating a quick and dirty battery pack using an empty battery case and a few pieces of metal.

This can come in handy if you want to power a strobe from external power (or if you just need a 6V pack). So if the strobe goes weak, you just replace the external pack without fiddling with batteries.

If you use this as a system, you can keep a few in the bag, and once a pack is drained remove the batteries from it so you get a nice system to tell charged packs from empty packs (which will literally be empty).

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How To Break Out of a Career Rut in Four Weeks by tidespring

[shared via Google Reader from Lifehacker]

Think you might be stuck in a career rut? The good news is, career ruts are easy to spot. There’s that telltale sick feeling in your stomach every Monday morning, jealousy when a friend gets a new job that they’re excited about, and a tendency to quickly change the subject when someone asks you what you do for a living.

The bad news? Career ruts are much harder to fix. You might not even know exactly why you’re so miserable, let alone how to solve the problem. Although it can seem like you’re stuck in never-ending career limbo, your time is valuable, and there’s no need to waste it feeling unmotivated, unappreciated, or just plain unhappy. So we’ve created a simple four-week plan to put you on the path to career improvement. Just think—one month from today, you could be well on your way to a job that you’re truly passionate about.

Before we delve into the week-by-week plan, here’s a quick tip to make your time as productive as possible: Schedule time for your career improvement, and stick to it. We’ll be focusing on one task per week, so be sure to set aside a few chunks of time to accomplish it (and commit to keeping these dates with yourself, even if your friends want to grab dinner or the treadmill is calling your name!). In just one month, you—and your career—will be really glad you did.

Week 1: Identify the Problem

Dedicate the first week to focusing on what’s behind your dissatisfaction. Sure, you don’t like your job, but what specifically is bothering you? Do you have too much time on your hands, or are you run ragged from 10-hour days? Maybe you’re stuck in a field that you’re not passionate about or you’re sick of making a long commute to your least-favorite part of the city. It’s important to be as specific and honest as possible.

In addition to identifying the big changes you’d like to make, spend time at the end of each day jotting down things that you don’t like about your current job, as well as things you do. This will help you narrow in on what to look for—and what to avoid—when you make your next move.

Week 2: Research, Research, Research

This will be the most time-intensive week, as you’ll figure out what potential jobs or career moves will be the right fit. You may event want to extend the process to two or three weeks, especially if you want to make a big change.

In any case, your goal is to look for positions and places that will capitalize on the things you like about your current role while avoiding the things you don’t like. Start browsing job openings and companies in your field. Does anything sound like it will meet your “great job” criteria? (Hey, you might even realize that you don’t need a new job, you just need to tweak a few aspects of your current position.)

Or, maybe you want to think about a complete career overhaul, like going back to school or changing careers. If this is the case, take some time to think about your interests, hobbies, and passions. Is there something that you love doing that you could look for in a job? Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and explore some ideas that might be a big departure from your current career. A friend of mine had a traditional office job, but realized that her favorite part of the day was when she left work and headed to the gym. She’s now a part-time personal trainer, and hopes to eventually leave the corporate world behind forever and train clients five days a week.

Career-savvy friends, former collegues, college professors, and professional mentors can also be great assets when you’re trying to revamp your career. Let them know what you're looking for, and ask if they have any recommendations. Advice from someone who knows you (and your local job market) can be more beneficial than 50 Google searches.

Week 3: Create a Game Plan

This week is all about choosing a goal and creating a game plan to achieve it. First, hone in on what direction you really want to pursue: Look at all of your options and see which excites you the most or seems most feasible at this point in your life. You might have a couple of potential goals, and that’s OK—just follow this part of the process for each one.

Once you’ve chosen a goal, start mapping out what you’ll need to do to achieve it. Let’s say, for example, that you’re a PR professional currently working at a small agency, and your goal is to get a job with one of the top three firms in your city within six months. Your game plan might look something like this:

Evaluate my skills. Do I have everything I need to qualify for Account Executive positions at big firms, or should I enroll in classes or take on some pro bono projects to get more experience?

Update my resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn profile to reflect my latest and greatest work and accomplishments.

Browse LinkedIn and send an email to my network to see if I have any contacts within the firms who might be willing to put in a good word for me. Set coffee dates with each of these contacts.

Check out open positions at each firm. Draft targeted cover letters and applications for each firm, and apply.

Attend at least one networking event per week to make new connections at these firms.

Obviously, everyone’s game plan will look different. The point is that you can achieve almost any task—even ones as big as landing a new gig—by breaking it up into small, manageable bites.

Week 4: Get Started

Now it’s time to get the ball rolling on your career plan. In week three, you listed all the tasks you’d need to finish to complete your goal. Now, it’s time to get out your calendar and actually schedule those steps. Depending on how much free time you have (and how desperate you are to get out of your current rut), you might want to try to complete part of your game plan every two or three days, every week, or every other week. It might seem silly or tedious to write out what you want to accomplish on your calendar, but it will keep you accountable to achieving your goal.

Of course, actually achieving all the parts of your “game plan” might take weeks or even months. The key is to make sure that you’re setting manageable goals and then committing yourself to accomplishing them. Don’t let yourself lose momentum during this part of the process, and continue to carve out time to achieve your weekly or daily goals. Keep a reminder of why you’re working so hard—maybe a picture of your dream office or a motivational note to yourself—nearby to keep you focused on what you’re trying to accomplish.

After you’ve completed this four-week program, give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. In a single month, you’ve done what some people never accomplish—put yourself on the path to a career that is truly right for you.

How to Break Out of a Career Rut in a Month | The Daily Muse

Lynze Wardle Lenio is a freelance journalist from Salt Lake City, Utah. When she's not investigating workplace relationships, she enjoys skiing and traveling with her husband. You can follow her adventures at home and abroad at www.thetravelogueblog.com.

Want more from The Daily Muse? Check out:

5 Ways to Find Jobs Without Using a Job Board

3 Signs You Should Definitely Quit Your Job

Image via Pressmaster (Shutterstock).

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