Toluu

A discussion of PR

Taylor Graves relates to the public.

User Friendly SimplicityYesterday

Have you ever noticed that the best things in life are usually the most simple?

While watching the chargers game a few weeks back (the last game of the regular season that led us to the play offs, woo-hoo!) we started talking about the simple things in life that.. simply.. can’t be beat. Apple products  are often centered around “touch” — very simple, the In-N-Out Burger Menu (the simple and few choices are a beautiful thing!), Google products are centered around the “find” theme, and again, very simple - very successful. See these illustrations taken from Eric Burke’s blog post about simplicity.

I think that in today’s world customers are over the over-complicated. They want something simple that they can figure out how to use.  A product has to have a certain amount of worth in order for us to find time in our busy lives to sit down and take the time to learn a new tool - the easier it is to use, the more committed a consumer will become to incorportaing the products use into their daily lives. We want simple, easy to understand and efficient.  While some may associate simplicity with easy on the creator side — this is simply wrong.  Simplicit

ActionJanuary 2

I watched this video of CD Vann of SOHO Magazine and SOHObiztube.com on ActionsTalk.com, and had to share it with you. I especially appreciate the beginning of the interview when CD explains how she started her magazine, SOHO Magazine out of Milwaukee.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, ActionsTalk is a site that helps bring attention to start up businesses. They have helped cultivate startup communities in non-hub cities. It consist of Ryan Graves and Blake Samic, it’s great to hear the stories of successful and up an coming business people via ActionsTalk.

“Goals are dreams we convert to plans and take action to fulfill.” - Zig Ziglar

Cd’s story of how she started SOHO Magazine and SOHObiztube.com, and this quote really highlight how important it is to turn goals into movement. Cd was lucky she had her friend George to push her to take action on a dream that she had been holding onto for over a year. As we just finished talking about New Years Resolutions, and setting high goals, it’s so so important for us to remember that writing down goals on a post it and sticking them to our monitor is only going to get

New Years Resolutions - Think Big This Year!December 31 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about new years resolutions lately (obviously), and trying to find the time to write an amazing post about the new years resolutions we all make and break each January. I wanted to develop some thoughts on how we actually accomplish our goals this year- and make resolutions we can stick with. But I’ve been realizing how many people will tell you to tone down your resolutions to make them REACH-ABLE, DO-ABLE, and REALISTIC.  So I’ve changed my thinking, and I say… what fun are goals if they are easily within your reach??

I wanted to take a minute to encourage you all to fight that mind set this year. Don’t move your goals inside the box so that they are attainable. Better to make an unreachable goal and get closer to it, than to set one below the bar, and cheat yourself out of that “ah-ha” sense of accomplishment that makes it all worth it.  This new years - set a HIGH goal, give yourself a goal you may never quite reach, and then push yourself to get as close to it as you can. Baby steps are fine, that’s often necessary, and I’m not knocking the reach-able goals but they need to lead to something more, something big this year. It’s 2009!!

What’s something you think you’ll never be able to do? For me it’s run a marathon. Maybe I’ll run a 10K early this year, and if I get really ambitious maybe by next December I can find the time to train for a half. Friends… lets

Community…not to be confused with Social Media.December 27 2008

Social Media can help foster communities, but it isn’t a community in and of itself.  Social media simply allows conversation around certain content. For example - if multiple people post comments about the new Verizon - Blackberry Storm, to say what they do and do like about the phone - this is conversation centered around a common theme or object. It does not mean, however, that a community is created.   In a recent post by Rachel Happe, “Social Media is not Community”, Rachel lays down the facts that these ideas are often confused.  She outlines communities - what makes them and what their characteristics are.  In doing this, we can separate the ideas and realize that communities can be built, they allow communication, they are continuous and they are based around content.  We must then see social media as a tool that can be used for your brand or company to help the building of a community.

NOW…Realizing that you may not already have a community where you thought you did,  that it was simply discussion around the content of your brand/company etc, the next step is to figure out how you go about building this network or community. Focus on building community first, and then on how to encourage discussion through social media for your community.  In a Now Is Gone post

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year!December 24 2008

Merry Christmas everyone! Have a happy holiday with loved ones!!

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”   - Charles Dickens