Hello ya’ll Thea here again. As I promised in my last blog Social Media Week Wrap Up, here is the transcript of my first (and possibly the last, ha!) Social Media talk…“10 Quick Tips for LinkedIn Success”.

I started by taking a show of hands of how many were on LinkedIn (LI). Pretty much everybody – as you’d imagine. Then, I asked how many felt like they were utilizing it to its fullest potential (because frankly, most people, in my opinion, aren’t). About three people raised their hands. This talk wasn’t for them! It was my hope that the vast majority of the audience would go away with even just one tidbit to try at home later.

So if you’re not a LinkedIn expert, then this one’s for you. Starting at the top here we go…

(1) MAKE YOUR HEADLINE NEWSWORTHY

Make yourself interesting. Avoid sticking “Business Development Manager at ACME WIDGETS” as your headline. That tells me absolutely nothing about you or your company. If you don’t change the default text, LI just uses what you put for your most recent job entry.

You just have to remember you’re more than your JOB TITLE – so consider giving a bit more information. Imagine you were walking up to someone at a networking event, how would you introduce yourself and describe what you do to them in an interesting way?

Also your headline is a key search area on your profile – so use it wisely.

(2) CHANGE THE DEFAULT TEXT

Do you have a website? Does it have a name? If so, then put that. The default text in LinkedIn merely says “Company Website” or “Blog” on your profile (see above).

Honestly, I can’t believe how many of my contacts haven’t bothered to change the default text there, and are thus they’re missing out more key search optimization. As in the example above of someone who has more than 500 connections. Room for improvement there, my friend…

So if your profile says “Company Website” – or “Blog” then please do me a favor, go home and change it to its real name OK?

(3) PICTURE PERFECT

Stating the obvious here but don’t leave it blank (i.e. the grey default avatar), or stick your logo in as your profile pic – save that for your company page.

Instead use a good, professional headshot whenever possible.

LinkedIn is not Facebook – so avoid your holiday snap, a cropped picture from a night out with your friends, and always remember that first impressions matter.

So put your best FACE forward…

(4) DYNAMIC PROFILE

Don’t make your profile read like your CV – with bullet points listing the tasks you do. Ditch the dryness and find engaging things to say about yourself, your job and or company. Use positive wording, correct spelling and good grammar. (Write it in Word and paste it in if needs be.)

Make people WANT to connect with you. A good example, and I am not just saying this because he pays me – is NSDesign’s head honcho Gary Ennis. His profile tells a story, not just lists a bunch of things he’s done or achieved. It has personality (see the last paragraph – magic, juggling, geeks etc – you get a good snapshot of what he’s about…) and I believe it makes you want to connect with someone when they do go that extra paragraph if you will.

And speaking of connecting – that’s what LinkedIn is all about…so when you do….

(5) ALWAYS BE PERSONAL

If you’re going to add someone to your network, it’s good to start off with a comment on how you came across them, where you met (if you have met somewhere), or how you’re connected if by a group, contacts in common and so forth.

One thing to avoid is using “friend” for someone you’ve never met or spoken to.

Even if you have met, never leave the default text - “I’d like to add you to my professional network” – please, please, please, always be personal with a message. It only takes a minute.

One guy added me recently. I didn’t know him. We’re not in the same industry. He didn’t put a message and he called me a “friend”. For principle, I hit “ignore”. I know not everyone is as picky as me about this, but equally I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are!

If you want to connect with someone, then be worth connecting to in your request!

(6) GO ON GROUPS

If you don’t know a person, but want to connect with them, find groups they’re on and join and begin genuinely engaging on them.

Groups are an amazing opportunity to learn information, find jobs, become aware of opportunities and events – as well as to connect to people who you might not have ability to get in front of so easily otherwise.

Local groups are a fantastic source of getting relevant information, sourcing contacts, various specialist recommendations etc.

Recently on one of our local groups, there was a post offering a funded trip, for a content conference in Cannes called MIPCOM. I replied and I just returned (blogs about that to follow here soon!)

This was an opportunity I’d never have been aware of had I not been actively engaging and monitoring that group.

So definitely check out relevant groups to your interests or sector.

(7) RECOMMENDATIONS

You can use LinkedIn to get past OR present colleagues, suppliers, customers or bosses – to say a few nice things about you.

Some people I’ve come across have NO recommendations and others seem to go to the other end of the spectrum and have zillions.

For me, I personally would opt for few quality recommendations, over quantity but to each their own on this one and it may differ according to your sector.

(8) TAGS

Only recently, I discovered that if you go into your Contacts you can tag them. You may wonder why you’d want to do that, but say you were having an event in Glasgow and you wanted to message all of your contacts that were local, you can type in “Glasgow” and it shows you all the people you’ve tagged with Glasgow and you VOILA you can message them all in a ‘oner’.

Please don’t use this feature to SPAM people or you’ll quickly start losing connections!

(9) DATABASE DOWNLOAD

Has anyone ever lost their phone, or their contacts due to an email malfunction? I updated my software on my Blackberry a few months back and overwrote my entire address book accidentally (nightmare!). But with LinkedIn’s contacts area, you can export all your contacts (via a variety of formats) and import to your computer email program and/or into you phone’s address book.

I highly recommend periodic downloads of your contacts. Just because, you never know…

(10)  GET CONNECTING!

My top and final tip is just get out there and start connecting. Like anything in life, you get out of LINKEDIN what you put into it. It’s work to build up a solid network online just as it is to do so OFF. But if done right – it can lead to more contacts, mentors, suppliers, clients and maybe even friends.

Thank you.

PS: Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn but only if you make your request personal

Hey guys, Thea here again. Further to my earlier blog about Social Media Week having kicked off, I thought I’d do a follow up, a short wrap up, if you will.

It was a very busy week for us NS Social Media types – what with us, like most people, having full time jobs and yet still trying to get out there to participate as much as we could.

Like any festival, conference or the like – there is a danger of being “too much” on. In my opinion, life is better with quality not quantity, but that’s just me. In many cases, there were things happening concurrently, and I’d want to be at both – which is, of course, impossible.

As luck would have it though – the vast majority of the sessions were recorded and streamed, so it was possible to watch LIVE while at work, or later at a more convenient time.

Wednesday night Gary took part in an event at Glasgow’s Film City called Socially adept or socially inept? How to do, learn and use social media for business. It was, as ever, an engaging and informative talk from him – this time recounting some of the stats from our recent Social Media ROI survey. There are a few of my snaps on our NSDesign flickr page – if you’re interested.

SM STATS

There were some surprising results in the survey like: Nearly 40% of the Scottish businesses doing Facebook don’t think it’s useful. Ironically, the winner was Twitter – which most people don’t initially “get” – but was found to be the most used and useful.

Another key social media tool was blogging which 64% of our respondents found useful (that’s quite a bit more than the aforementioned Facebook stat).

Also on the bill were: our cultural client, Clare McLeod @IntermezzoArts, who uses social media to promote the arts, Inner Ear’s @dougalperman discussed having a plan, then doing the campaign, and most essentially recommended using tools for measurement (an interesting example of SM tool CO TWEET was given), and finally the ever-controversial social knowledge authority @MurrayBuchanan recounted the tale of how he grew his Facebook followers to the thousands only to dump them down to just his nearest and dearest. (Frankly, after years of doing social media daily, I can’t really blame him,…)

Thursday morning I gave my own social media bite-sized talk for The Business Banter crowd. I was speaking on my 10 Quick Tips for LinkedIn Success – which I’ll no doubt post as a blog later this week. It was a nerve-racking experience but overall pretty fun. I might just do it again. My fellow presenters all did a fantastic job to amuse and enlighten us.

With each talk I attend I usually walk away from it with some tip, suggestion, nugget or thought. It’s often something as simple as checking out a website, or a suggestion on how to do social media more effectively.

Friday I was in work all day but rushed to Skypark to hear the closing keynote of Social Media Week, delivered over Skype, from Don Tapscott. Don is the author or Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (2006) and a new book Macrowikinomics – Rebooting Business and the World. While it was interesting, I have to admit it was all a bit over my head. I ended up leaving Skypark feeling that it was all a bit anti-climactic. Of course the excitement raged on, in town, but after a long week of work and Social Media all I really wanted was some food and to put my feet up.

It was a good experience over all. I got to catch up with many of my peers from across the Central Belt. I heard some of them talk and share their stories. Like most people I didn’t get to half of the talks I wanted to see but thankfully, as I said, there’s always the LiveStream. Speaking of which, off to finish watching the talk on Responsive Design.

Let us know if you attended any talks. Which were your favorites? What was the best bit of advice you walked away with?

Hey everyone, Thea here again. I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had much time to write blogs at all. This week is Social Media Week taking place all over the world. Glasgow, it has been claimed to be the biggest outside the USA. That doesn’t surprise me as many ‘weegies’ do seem pretty clued-up and passionate on their tweets, likes and shares.

As I was working in NSDesign on Monday, I didn’t make it along to any events the events. Today, however, I made up for some lost time by attending many talks.

The first few were at the Glasgow Film Theatre and part of filmcamp Glasgow. Caught the tail end of a talk on Crowd Sourcing in today’s film-making arena (which was pretty apt for me as I’ve been contemplating a Kick Starter campaign for my own little project).

After that it was BlipFoto.com founder @joetree. I love the idea of this little, Bafta-winning Scottish dotcom. It’s an engaging site whereby you upload one (and only one) picture every single day as a sort of video journal.

I tried it a week ago or two ago, uploaded one photo, and have not done it again since,…but I suspect I could (and will) get into it.

Being a fan of Flickr already, this appeals for my joy of taking pics on the go.

Joe also had pretty impressive stats of usage of his site (as seen above) – which most of us site owners would envy…

Just before 5pm it was a mad dash down to Bothwell Street for Future Forward, an event hosted by our friend Benedetto Bordone (@tlcstudios).

There were four, interesting talks on the night and some good banter too. I took a wee shot of Hera Hussain - in action at twenty one years old, and tweeting less than a year she’s taken to it like a duck to water.

The whole day’s been great. It’s always interesting to hear my fellow Social Media peers’ experiences, thoughts, recommendations, best practices and so forth.

Plus one of the speakers, Jim Henderson, a business coach, even gave me a book – Positioning the Battle for Your Mind. Sounds right up my street, and I do love a FREE book, so thanks Jim!

Wish I could spend the day attending more talks tomorrow, but alas, there’s working to be done at NS HQ – so I shall resign myself to the one, rather special, evening talk from our very own head honcho – Gary Ennis. His talk - Socially adept or socially inept? How to do, learn and use social media for business. On Thursday it will be my turn. My first ever Social Media talk. It’s on the subject of LinkedIn, delivered early on Thursday morning for Business Banter. It’s FREE, short and sweet, if you’re up early and want to glean a few tips on the business networking site. I am just one of half a dozen speakers – so it’s bound to be a great coffee morning in Esquires in Glasgow. Hope to see one or two of you there. Better go, I’ve got to put the finishing touches on my talk.

If you’re in the Central Belt of Scotland it’s not too late to sign up for some talks. Learn more about Social Media Week Glasgow – and why not take part.

Think about these, discuss them with colleagues, or write your thoughts and answers in comments…

 1. What will the “essential function” be that transforms QR codes from a nice idea into something most people use every day?

 2. Will newspaper paywalls succeed or eventually be dismantled and regarded as a failure?

 3. What will social media look like 5 years from now? Will Facebook,Twitter and Google+ still exist? Who’ll be biggest? How will they have changed?

 4. Tell me about one Tweet that sticks in your mind.

 5. Am I right to be slightly reluctant about putting everything “in the cloud”?

Jessica Ennis wants to win a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

That’s her goal and I’m convinced she’ll achieve it.

What’s interesting is the work she’s doing right now in order to make sure she does.

We’ve had some insight into her regime these last few days because she’s given some interviews to promote the event.

Alongside all the gruelling training sessions and careful diet she sticks to, what’s fascinating me is her mental preparation.

There’s still more than a year to go until that heptathlon gets underway but even now, Ennis is being incredibly disciplined in her thinking. 

In an interview with The Guardian she revealed she hasn’t let herself picture the stadium yet, but “probably will next year but not until the latter stages before the competition”.  Note how specific she’s being about this – she’s actually decided when she’ll allow herself to start thinking about it.  There’s a level of detail and a commitment to the decisions she’s made which puts her apart from most of us.

She also made it clear that despite the attention and comments she gets in the street, from the media and even her fiancée at home she firmly keeps her focus. “I do not think about it” she says.

I’ve never sat in front of a life coach but I’ve thumbed through enough books in Waterstones to know that “positive thinking”, “visualisation” and “goal setting” can be big parts of achieving success in sport, business and life in general.

But that interview with Jessica Ennis really hammers home the discipline required in your thinking to get what you want, even months in advance of a particular event.

Without turning ourselves into machines, there’s a lot we can learn from her and her Team GB colleagues.

What must children make of this phone hacking scandal and all the controversy surrounding News International, the methods some journalists use to get stories and the relationship between the media and politicians?

“First News” is a newspaper aimed at 14 to 17  year olds and it’s covering the story in depth with a profile of Rebekah Brooks “the woman at the heart of the hacking scandal”, details of the resignations from The Met and how all this is making life uncomfortable for the Prime Minister. 

BBC Newsround is also covering the story with its usual excellent journalism and although they might sometimes give the impression they’re only interested in mobile phones and hideous music made with auto-tune you can be sure our young people know exactly what’s going on with this.

When I was that age the fall of communism and the end of apartheid were two of the biggest stories. Me and my friends grew up watching the world become a fairer and more open place with the Berlin Wall coming down and the release of Nelson Mandela having a massive impact. Both these events were considered impossible just a few months before they happened.

As a result my generation grew up taking it for granted that no-one would be discriminated against because of the colour of their skin.  While some parents and grandparents remember a world where certain words and attitudes might have been tolerated or even acceptable, for the vast majority of us, it’s cut and dried and we quite rightly have zero tolerance of racism.

So what do changing attitudes and the current scandal mean for newspapers?

Well, they face a battle to get children to read them in the first place because the whole concept of buying something that contains stories that don’t interest them is entirely alien to young people. But even more than that I believe the adults of tomorrow will place a premium on honesty and take it for granted in the way I take it for granted that no-one should be discriminated against because of the colour of their skin.

This is a generation of people prepared to share everything about themselves on Facebook. They’re growing up expecting everyone to know where they are, what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, even when this ends up causing them embarassment or gets them into trouble.

Yes, some will hit 18 and “clean up” their on-line profiles; in fact there’s evidence some of the recent Facebook profile deletions may be students coming out of their degrees and panicking about what potential employers might discover.

But overall young people are developing an expectation that they themselves, adults, businesses and most certainly the media should be absolutely honest, fair and totally open and transparent at all times. In short, it’s getting harder to lie.

The latest crop of music stars like Jesse J, Rihanna, Adele and The Wanted have their own websites and are highly active in social media which means they communicate direct – and sometimes even one to one – with their fans. This means speculative stories about them in tabloids and magazines are worthless.  Why would a 12 year old Nicki Minaj fan bother reading about a relationship she may or may not have had when they’ve already got the official version of events?

Young people aren’t daft – they’re taking all this in and it’s affecting their view of the world.  No longer is the media a big booming powerful influential voice that tells them what’s going on. Instead, it’s considered something slightly grubby and imperfect that they expect to be able to interact with and shape to suit themselves. They want to make it better.

I think there’s an opportunity here for mainstream media businesses to engage with young people now. Think beyond specific publiations or programmes for “kids” or focus groups trying to anticipate what the future’s going to look like. Ask the people who’re going to be calling the shots. Find a group of responsible teenagers and let them get involved in the production of the newspaper or broadcast news bulletins now. Ask what they think of the stories you run and the methods used to generate them. It would make for a highly engaging school project and give you valuable new ideas. You could change the particular young people involved every couple of months.

Better still – and this applies to all businesses, not just the media – why not consider doing something revolutionary… and put a 16 year old on the board.

If the very thought of that just made you scoff, ask yourself why.

And the answer, I suspect, will lead you to discover what you’re doing wrong.

Hey folks, it’s Thea here again, ruminating about last Friday. You see, our designer Paul and I attended the rather erroneously-named Highland Fling 2011 Web Conference in Edinburgh! (Now, I know I’m only an American, so my geography can be a little patchy, but since when is Edinburgh considered the Highlands?)

I digress…It was an all day event, with an audience of more than a hundred attendees listening to half a dozen speakers from England, Scotland and a fellow American, too.

There we’re half a dozen talks on Content Management Systems (CMS), HTML5, the Apple Look, Accessibility and even a talk on Why Simple Isn’t. (NOTE: Link to slide presentations that I could find at the bottom of the page).

There were all types of people in the room, from designers and developers, to project managers and company directors – all with one thing in common an interest in Web Development.

I started building websites back in 1995, teaching myself HTML in notepad, moving on to tools like Dreamweaver and later CMSs such as WordPress (or our very on NSBuilder).

Over the last twelve years, I’ve worked for some of the top Web Development companies in Scotland, in a variety of roles, and one thing I’ve learned is how universal the communication challenges are in Web Development.

These “challenges” can be both internal (say, between designers and programmers) and external (for instance between company and client). OY! and don’t even get me started on the challenges of designing for clients with committees! (See Gary’s piece for .Net magazine on that subject!)

I suspect anyone who works in Web Development can relate to my assertions…

(<< – - Example from Remy Sharp’s talk of a challenging design to program.)

OVER THE WALL

One of the internal challenges is that programmers often work separate from the designers, and as was described at the Fling, the designs simply flung “over the wall” to the programmer – who then is forced to find a way to make the designs work from a functionality, back end sort of way. This can be problematic (particularly in larger organisations) as illustrated in the picture above. An example of a  busy (cluttered), high-tech, design that was passed over a programmer to code (in this case Remy Sharp, I believe) – presenting him with a nearly-impossible feat.

A way of bridging this gap might be for the designer and programmer to spend a little time, before the project has even begun, discussing the site’s functionality and frameworks. This, would likely, cut down in frustration and hair pulling as the “build” begins.

Incidentally – just because someone is an artist or even a good graphic designer, doesn’t mean they will be competent or even understand how to best design for the Web. (Thankfully our designers are good at all types of design work – print and web and everything else).

So again – a little time discussing the project before the build – might have save a lot of time (and money!) in the long run. (Note: If work is being done separately and remotely then Gmail chat or Skype video calls could be a solution for the two sides to “speak”).

In a firms such as ours, it helps we have no walls separating us, and we’re all able to work side-by-side, discussing any issues as they arise.

CLIENT AND COMPANY

Communication hiccups can also be common between the web development company and the client. Each side needs to be succinct regarding the scope of the project. It’s the client’s responsibility to have a clean, concise, technical scope (a lesson I’m still learning myself!), and it’s the company’s to work out whether that scope is logistic.

The issue here often is the fact that a technical scope is beyond the capabilities of a vast majority of clients. Most won’t have any idea how to write up a technical scope of what the site should be, or look like, etc. They tend to have rough ideas, at best.

The more a client articulate what the site needs to do, suggestions on how it does it, and the end goals, the better it will be for the programmers to help define how this can be done from a technical standpoint.

With regards to the design, if the client can provide a list of sites, that they do and don’t like, then it’s the far more likely the first draft designs will hit, or at least be closer to, the mark.

Both sides can often be guilty of expecting the other to be a mind reader and most of us aren’t psychic in that respect. So if you’re a client having your website developed, provide as much information as you possibly can.

WEB DEVELOPMENT IS LIKE A RARE ART FORM

In my career, I’ve worked on sites that cost a few hundred pounds, all the way up to ones that have cost a quarter of a million pounds, and, funnily enough, these challenges I’ve written above have been prevalent on all of them.

Having run my own site for eleven years, I’ve been the “client” who’s had her site re-designed and relaunched a handful of times in that period. Each time there have been hurdles to surpass in order to re-launch.

As a result, I’ve realised that seldom does the creation (or re-creation) of a site work in a cut and dry fashion, but rather it’s a dance of one step forward then one back – clarifying expectations and gaining understanding.

It can be a frustrating and sometimes painful process (on both sides) – but once that site goes LIVE, and the client is happy, we’re reminded of why we even do the job. That is because it’s a rewarding job (well, in most cases).

The Highland Fling 2011 – was a chance to not only meet with, but also to learn something from, people who share the same passion as us – namely web development and new technologies.

Though as I said, I’ve been in this New Media field for a long time, it’s constantly evolving for all of us.

We’re all inadvertently forced, in this fast-paced, game-changing industry, to continually learn and expand both our technical skills, but also our communication skills.

That’s why I love attending things like the Highland Fling. You pick up something at every event, seminar, conference or talk. It can be a tip, a technique, a website or business contact, but I don’t think there’s been one event I’ve felt was a waste of time.

So here’s to the Highland Fling 2012 – where we’ll do it all again!

And here are a few photos I snapped for NSDesign on the day.

And here are some links to slide presentations (so far – if you were a speaker and have a link – feel free to add in the comments section and I’ll add you)!

Rachel Andrew’s Slides from her talk on CMS

Remy Sharp’s talk on Implementation Interaction

Speakers & Such:

@ highlandwebconf
@ Steve Marshall
@ Rachel Andrew
@ Mike Rundle
@ Remy Sharp
@ Jack Osborne@ Christian Heilmann
and James Edwards

PS: Bios etc here on the Highland Fling site.

Hey y’all, Thea here again, just back from another New Media Breakfast in Glasgow. Today’s fantastic presentation was given by a rather enthusiastic, Jennifer Holloway, of Yorkshire-based Spark Branding.

In a  Malcolm Gladwell sort of way, Jennifer kicked off asking the audience to hazard a guess at a variety questions like where she’s from, how she voted in the last election, if she was in a relationship (and if it was with a man or woman) etc.

The idea being that we form an opinion of someone in the first seven seconds of contact. Incidentally, Holloway asserts this holds true even if that contact is online.

WHAT’S YOUR MESSAGE?

Have a think for a moment about what your profiles, for instance on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook – say about you, your business and your personality.

I don’t think I was alone in leaving the room wondering about what mine say about me, and vowing to do an audit of each before the day’s end.

Much emphasis of Jennifer’s talk was placed on LinkedIn which, of course, most of us realise is a valuable tool for business and networking. (You may have read my post last winter 8 tips for Getting the Most out of LinkedIn…)

We all need to promote our personal brand according to Jennifer and to add personality to it – even on LinkedIn.

PEOPLE WORK (BUY OR DO BUSINESS) WITH PEOPLE THEY LIKE

The talk really boiled down to one, simple premise – “we do business with people we like” (well, at least whenever possible). So we need to be as likable as possible – both online and in person.

The thing is we all need to put our best foot forward, of course we do, but we also need to keep in mind that we’ll never be able to control how other people perceive us.  There will always be people who love us (our company too) and those who loathe us. We don’t have any real control over either group.

“PERSPECTIVE IS A MIRROR NOT A FACT”

One gentleman thought Jennifer’s own profile picture was “shifty” whereas others liked it and even called the picture “cheeky”. It reminds me of my favourite quote that “perspective is a mirror not a fact”.

It would stand to reason that the one most likely to do business with her was the one who found her “cheeky”.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE PICS

Have a look at your own LinkedIn profile, if you have one that is. Is the profile picture a professional one? It should be.

Leave out the glam wedding day shots, or the one where you’ve cropped out your best mate in a face-lock.

Instead opt for a clear head shot with a hint of personality. [NOTE: One amusing example showed was a woman who looked like a vamped-up sex kitten, but was actually a lawyer; she, arguably, went overboard on trying to show she wasn't a stereotypical lawyer, I'm just sayin'...]

AS FOR THE CONTENT…

As for the words filling your up your profile be sure to add something interesting. For instance, a prime example comes our very own MD’s profile. In addition to talking about all of the ways NSDesign can help you and your business, – there’s a little bit about Gary’s own personality in there too:

“A true people person, Gary’s other interests include magic and juggling, which he often uses to entertain the masses – from local playgroups to conference delegates!”

I love it. This, I’ve no doubt, will be a conversation starter with some people out there.  It won’t interest everyone of course, but it might just the line that causes someone out there to do business with him.

OTHER PROFILE SUGGESTIONS:

• Take a look at your own profile/s online and assess the photo and the copy.
• Put yourself out there and promote yourself (and your business) with “conviction”.

• Ditch any “Old School” worn-out patter, add some personality and  blow your own trumpet (at least a little).

• Find your own balance between under-selling and over selling yourself.

On that note, I’m off to critique and revise my own profiles and maybe add a little about that Road Trip I did back in ’06 – and the documentary about it I hope to one day make…

Hello again everyone it’s Thea here again. Welcome to the third, and final, installment of my Silicon Valley Diary - it’s part 3.

Today I thought I’d talk about having lunch at Google the other day, and share a few reasons why I think Google is so Cool.

Well I’m not the only one, it seems, CNN Money had a poll of the Top 100 places to work and Google ranked number 4 (to be honest, seeing the three above them, I am rather surprised they’re as low as #4).

So I met my friend M on his second to the last day at HQ. Though staying with the company, he’s transferring out to New York (closer to his family) to work with a new team, but still within in their software division. It was a perfect time to meet him again, as he was very relaxed wrapping up work in California and looking forward to his move back east. It meant that I was able to spend extra time with him to eat, chat, take pictures/videos, and wander HQ.

So here are a few reasons why I love the odd trip to Google’s HQ.

1) The Free Food is Awesome!

It’s an obvious choice, this. There are a variety of different cafes to choose from at Google for whatever you fancy:- salads, burgers, Mexican, pizzas – you name, they have it, and all FREE for, not just employees, but also their visitors! There’s been much controversy over this particular area of Google practices, but I, for one, am a fan of the FREE lunch. (Who isn’t?)

2) They’ve Got Cute Bikes

Because Google’s Mountain View HQ is so spread out – they have cute little bikes that you can ride between buildings. That’s an awesome little nugget but some unscrupulous people have been nicking them and then flogging them on Craigslist which to my mind is rather naughty. Plus how obvious would be out riding a coloured Google-Plex bike (red, yellow, green and blue) in your own random neighbourhood?

3) Entrepreneurial Spirits

There is something rather exciting about being surrounded by all these creative and gifted minds. Google, apparently, chooses its candidates through a highly-scientific methodology and approach to picking staff. So you get a sense you’re among greatness, or at least I do, when I’m there. I end up hoping some of that greatness will soak into me through osmosis.

You may love Google or loathe it, but you can’t deny it its successes.

4) Inspirational Setting

The campus is in a natural green like setting (trees, grass etc). There are beach-like volleyball pitches, swimming pools, an organic garden (which provides some of it’s ingredients for their cafes), a bronze T-Rex dinosaur, and a garden filled with nautical-inspired statues.

It seems like it would be rather easy to have a little spot of grass to yourself, in or out of the sun, to work on you work. It reminds me of my own Northern California university days, and that’s a good thing.

5) Google’s Liquid Galaxy 3D Simulator

Arguably the most fun part of the trip to Google was the fifteen or so minutes spent in the lobby. Not only are there cool things to look at, like the hanging plane (aka Spaceship One), but they have the most fun 3D panoramic Google Earth  simulator called Liquid Galaxy. You walk into it, there are panels that wrap around, maybe 100 degrees, and are several feet high (it’s hard to explain but this YouTube video shows it clearly and from the outside).

Most people, apparently I learned, choose to look at their house (which I did too), but really took a 3-D look all around Glasgow as a whole, giving my friend a virtual tour of my fair city.

It’s an absolute blast, if a little dizzy-inducing at times. I wish I had one of these things in my living room!

Anyway check out my ’2-min Tour of Google’ video here to see some of the things I talked about above. Thanks for reading about the little trek to Google’s HQ in Mountain View. It’s worth a little visit if you ever get the chance…

Hey everyone, it’s Thea here again reporting to you live from the valley of silicon.

Well, I’ve been here a week already and it’s been a non-stop trip so far. I’ll reckon I’ll need a holiday to recover from my holiday.

I’ll be honest with you, trips to California always sound much more glamorous than they actually are, for me it’s just going home. But home to a place where every other corner practically has a tech company on it and every daily car ride is, invariably, past at least one of the big names we’re all familiar with now, be it Yahoo, Apple, Cisco, Google, IBM etc.

Something in that still remains cool to my inner geek. It’s a little inspiring in some way to be surrounded by these global companies. It’s like the valley is steeped in an entrepreneurial spirit that isn’t quite the same anywhere else I’ve ever been.

Scotland, of course, has had its amazing contributions in terms of inventions (television; telephones; penicillin; antiseptics,…hello), but, arguably, not particularly in its global start ups.

Nope nowhere else on earth is quite like the valley.

ONE FOR THE BOOKS

My first weekend was spent in Santa Cruz at an intensive writing conference – discussing various project ideas with other would-be writers. Additionally, we heard experiences of authors, editors, agents and marketing experts.

Much time was spent going over the new paths for publishing (mainstream press, self publishing, different types of ebooks, etc), as well as the various opportunities used to promote works through different social media channels.

Did you know there are 1000 books a day published by mainstream publishers? Or that 47,000 novels were published in America last year? Or that on Amazon: Kindle books are outselling all print books?

Well, I sure didn’t…

Over all I have to say that writing conference was an experience that managed to be both inspirational and deflating in equal measure.

WE CAN ALL BE JOURNALISTS THESE DAYS

The past two days were spent at Stanford University attending a conference: the Eighth Innovation Journalism – how innovation is affecting the business of journalism – from mobile publishing to collective intelligence.

At NSDesign we’re lovers of technology, trends, and of course social media so this conference, too, was right up my street.

There were students, technologists, journalists, and entrepreneurs from all four corners of the globe discussing the many ways we’re all connecting and changing history through stories. Not a new subject – it’s one we covered recently here on our blog and how journalists are using social media for news gathering.

Never has this all been more apparent than in the major global stories over the past year – from the Iceland Ash Cloud, to Japan’s earthquake and Tsunami, to protests in Egypt, to the floods and tornadoes across America.

These incredible events, coupled with today’s mobile technology (smart phones, handheld video cameras etc), mean that any one of us has an opportunity become a citizen journalist if we’re in the right (or wrong) place at the time of the event.

The whole landscape of news, publishing, and indeed interaction is changing and what can feel like break-neck speeds. It’s certainly been a thought-provoking and interesting time to be alive, has it not?

In part two of my Silicon Valley Diary, I’ll be sharing some of the latest hot sites and exciting apps that people have been talking about here in the valley.

Check back Monday for that, OK?

So until then, I’m Thea, saying “See Ya!”