resource management

How to Starve Ideas to Death

tragedy of the commons

We’ve all had these meetings: Big ideas are being discussed. The future of the company is being diagrammed on a whiteboard. The word “should” is being used a lot. The greatest thing since sliced bread is being articulated with passion. Everyone is smiling. People are enthusiastic and everyone pats each other (and themselves) on the [...]

4 Ways to Kill Distractions and Get Things Done

how do you have time for that

I have been wanting to write this post for a while. But I haven’t had time. I figured I’d do it eventually. But project deliverables got in the way. So did happy hours. And so did sleep. Don’t get me wrong: I kept writing it on my to-do lists. I definitely wrote it down more [...]

Want Your Message to Resonate? Say it Again. Want Your Message to Resonate? Say it Again.

repetitive marketing messages

Growing up, my mom had to constantly remind me to do the things she needed me to do. After the fifth or so reminder, I’d reluctantly get up and put my clothes in the hamper (or complete whichever menial task she’d requested of me). On my way back to couch potato land, I’d let her [...]

Quit Daydreaming and Focus on Your Website

work horses

That one big idea—the one that will bring the masses to your website overnight and lead to more Twitter followers than Lady Gaga sees is not worth waiting for. I’m all for brainstorming and trying big new  ideas, but if you really want to improve your pageviews and build community online you should place your [...]

Free Your Content, and the Rest Will Follow

free your content and the rest will follow

A social media presence is a good start, but a presence alone is a lot like having a storefront on a quiet street and waiting for people to come in your door. Sure, they may find out about you eventually – if you’ve invested in advertising, have great word of mouth, dominate search engine rankings, [...]

7 Steps to Dealing with Information Overload

dealing with information overload

Be honest: How many tabs do you have open in your browser right now? And how many times will you stop to check your email, IMs or Twitter while reading this post? There are too many links to click, blogs to subscribe to, Tweets to Retweet, books to read, and oh yeah, work to do. So [...]

The Next Big Thud

next big thud, betamax tape

When it comes to gadgets and tech, I used to be a late adopter. I didn’t own a cellphone until 2000. Even four or five years ago, I would choose a cheap model and tell myself I really didn’t need a phone that took pictures, played music or even included a texting plan, for that [...]

How to Monitor Social Media Conversations

monitoring social conversation

There’s a lot of social media static out there. And sifting through it is not an enviable task.

4 Tips to Develop Engaging Story Ideas

story ideas for editors

“That’s a story idea,” I would often think as a general assignment newspaper reporter and editor. So many of my friends’ and family’s stories about lively debates at their jobs, old friends they ran into or the TV shows they were obsessed with would often lead to an article idea relevant and interesting to our [...]

6 Content Marketing Lessons from Warren Buffett

content marketing warren buffett

Warren Buffett would have made an excellent blogger. Unfortunately, he’s too busy finding places to stack his piles of money to give it a shot but he really could have been something special. He’s been through highs and lows in the stock market, and has always managed to come out on top. Along the way [...]

That’s Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man

tin foil troll

You have written the perfect blog entry on a topic that seems harmless enough: “Five fitness tips for fighting flab.” You publish, and then you wait for the healthy dialogue to begin.

3 Web Design Tools for Non-Web Designers Who Need to Explain Design Ideas

web design tools for non-web designers

I couldn’t draw you a 6-inch straight line if you gave me a ruler, a pencil, and a 5-inch head start. Seriously, design is not my forte. Just ask anyone who has ever tried to copy off my papers in high school. My doodles are terrible and cast doubt on my ability to perform basic [...]

The Quality Mixtape: 20 Web Resources for Content Creation

quality mixtape

Some of my most memorable musical discoveries were made thanks to meticulously compiled and lovingly decorated mixtapes, created for me by friends with the eclectic tastes and artistic fervor of adolescence. I know I’ve just utterly and irrevocably dated myself, but I don’t care; just thinking about those tapes makes me happy, reminds me that [...]

What If We Treated Every Page Like Our Homepage?

treat every page like a homepage

I get it. You’re not going to stop obsessing over your homepage. And you shouldn’t. Sure, only a percentage of your overall site traffic probably views your homepage in reality, but it doesn’t matter. It means too much. It’s symbolic. It’s political. It’s your brand. It’s the first thing people see when they check out [...]

Social Media Monitoring Made Simple

social media monitoring

If you’ve been monitoring social media for mentions of … social media monitoring, you’ll likely have noticed more people discussing how to listen better on behalf of your brand. There are tools. There are services. And there are case studies on how your organization can sift through social media static and glean out useful nuggets. [...]

What I Learned About Content Marketing While Shoveling Snow

snow shovel content marketing

The first snowflake of the season always brings excitement. We know that with it comes sledding, skiing, snowball fights, and maybe – if we’re lucky – a good, old-fashioned snow day. Trillions of snowflakes later? It’s sort of a drag. When you reach the stage in your life where snow days no longer mean cancelled [...]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tweet

confessions of a twitter hater thumbnail

All right, it’s confession time: I used to hate Twitter. Like many of my journalist brethen, I was skeptical, if not dumbfounded, by this microblogging platform. As a pen-to-paper, Microsoft Word kind of girl, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the Twitterverse stepping on the toes of the print I’m still so enamored by. [...]

Content Curation: Think Museum, Not Warehouse

content curation needle and haystack

Understatement of the week: There’s a lot of content on the web. Another understatement: Sifting through all of it is nearly impossible for the average human being. The deluge of online information (and misinformation, in some cases) has increased the demand for content curation, or rather, for someone else to sift through all that hay [...]

5 Tips to Fight the Writing Procrastination Gremlins

writing procrastination gremlins thumbnail

For every 300-word blog entry or 2,000-word article they write, many writers spend a substantial part of that time doing everything they can to not write the story. Writing may be something you have wanted to do since you started a class magazine in the sixth grade, wrote editorials for your college paper, or had [...]

It Takes a Village to Save a Newspaper

how to save newspapers

I have a fantastical dream of returning to Indiana and buying my hometown weekly newspaper. Nevermind that I don’t have the cash, it’s not for sale and that I’m firmly rooted in the DC area. I started in newspapers and continue to believe in them. Am I a dinosaur?

Born to Multitask

born to multitask

Hi, I’m Becca. I’m a Gen-Y, Type-A, multitasking machine. I’m part of a generation that is expected to crank out quality work with frightening efficiency. We shave off the fat between idea inception and execution. We brainstorm in our sleep. We tweet. We write. We design. We produce. We respond to hundreds and hundreds of [...]

One Size Fits All Content Publishing?

one size fits all content publishing

In the content publishing industry, we’re always discussing technology and how it could be applied to solve the little challenges of life. This article just popped up on our radar—which talks about the rise of designer Scott Dadich as the “Savior” of Condé Nast and how he became the new executive director of digital magazine [...]

The Quality Hustle

fast cheap good

Fast, cheap, good: pick two. You may have heard the adage, and it makes lots of sense applied to the world of media. We’ve already examined the exigencies of fast and relished the comforting ripples good can generate… but can cheap ever fit in with a quality ethos?

Print or Online? There’s No Easy Answer

flipping a coin

If I had a nickel for every time a client asked me ‘do you recommend print or online?’ I would be a rich man. Well, not quite rich, but I’d have a boatload of nickels. This question comes up almost daily from corporate marketers, association marketers, hospital marketers, and even from colleagues at other media [...]

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