5 Steps to Import Your Blog into Facebook

This morning I was working with a client, trying to explain over the phone how he can pull his blog into his new Facebook Page, and I felt as if I was playing that game where you sit blindfolded and have to get someone to draw something you are thinking of, using verbal communication only.

Somethings are just easier to do yourself than to try and explain. I ended up writing the directions down and sending them via email, but by 3pm, I had two other people asking me this same question on our Gettin’ Geeky Page so I figured I’d better get this out!

Since you put a lot of effort into a blog, you want to get all the exposure you can. You can import your blog into your personal profile on Facebook as well as your PAGES. Here are the steps to follow (it may sound a bit confusing but hang in there!)

1. Go to your PAGE and click on EDIT PAGE on the left.

2. Go down to APPLICATIONS (sometimes you have to click on BROWSE MORE . The search box is in the upper left- type in BLOG and you will see several options including NETWORKED BLOGS (SOCIAL RSS is another good one).

3. When you click on the Blog app you will then need to click the link ADD TO MY PAGE (under the picture on the upper left). If you have multiple pages, it will ask you to choose which page to add it to.

4. Now you go BACK to your PAGE and select the Blog tab that should now be showing. You will have to now pull the blog into the tab from here. You are almost finished.

5. There are a few boxes to check and then you must SAVE your settings and then TEST the publishing to make sure everything took.

There … that wasn’t so hard now was it?

Share your blog address here for all of us to check out too!

@GinaSchreck

July 29, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Facebook PAGES, Social Media, Technology | Leave a Comment

The iPad Project: Surviving a Week without My Laptop

On our recent trip to Hawaii to attend my sister’s wedding, my hubby convinced me to leave my laptop at home and just take my iPad and phone to stay in touch with the world. It sounded interesting. It sounded a bit scary.

The challenge was, I was conducting a Webinar the day after we got home and then speaking at a conference two days after that and I was concerned that I may need to sneak in a bit of early morning work on these while away and didn’t feel completely confident it could be done on my iPad. I saw it as an opportunity though; One that would help me finally find a place in my heart for this lovely iPad, which up until now has just been an oversized iTouch or expensive iPod. Sure I had a few fun apps on it and the Schrecklet loved playing games on it, but I had not moved it into a business tool category yet.

So I mustered up the courage to kiss my laptop good-bye, just for the week, and pack my iPad.

Here are some of my observations and benefits of traveling with my iPad:

1. Checking in and going through security at Denver’s International Airport was much smoother than when traveling with a laptop. Not only did I not have my big red laptop case, but TSA didn’t even require that I take the iPad out of my purse. Smooth sailing through security …except for that bottle of nail polish at the bottom of my purse! Curses–I usually catch those small items and stick them in my pocket! (NOTE: The TSA folks in Honolulu did not have the same smooth-sailing policy and required me to remove the iPad from my purse and lay it in a bin by itself.)

2. When sitting on the plane and the antsy 9-year-old boy in front of me slammed his seat into the reclined position, the iPad did not get lodged into the tray or seat back like my big laptop usually does! SWEET benefit I had not anticipated!

3. Obviously the small size made it great for throwing in my bag and heading down stairs to grab coffee and do a wee bit of work before the Captain woke up and the added benefit was that I didn’t look like a total idiot bringing my laptop poolside when I should have been relaxing. The new cool-factor served as kind of a disguise for any workaholic! (Which I’m not! I know, denial is one of the signs, but really…I’m not!)

4. Aside from music in my iTunes library, I had a collection of great magazines, podcasts and audio books that I had downloaded before we left, and before we even landed in Honolulu, I had read an issue of Wired Magazine, listened to half of Tony Hsieh‘s book “Delivering Happiness,” and one TWIG (this week in Google) podcast! Nothing says geeky vacation like laying on the beach with a few good episodes of This Week in Google with Leo LaPorte, Jeff Jarvis and Gina Trapani! (Can’t you hear the ukuleles in the background now?)

I do have to admit that the iPad connectivity was sketchy and I could not get online many times to even check email, so I ended up at the end of the week loving my (HTC) Nexus One phone all the more! That baby doubled as a great camera, email reader, Facebook app for posting content, a GPS navigator for getting us around the island, and of course a phone occasionally for making a call here and there! (NOTE: I do not have the 3G service on my iPad so I could connect, or try to connect, to the Marriott’s wifi service, a few others I met there were trying with 3G service and could not get a strong enough signal)

There were a two apps I had loaded onto my iPad that helped get me through the week though.

1. Thanks to the prompting of my tech-savvy and Mac enthusiast assistant, Marci Dahms, I signed up for LOG ME IN, which allows you to access a desktop (previously set up) so that in an emergency I could pull documents or files off of my PC at home and work on them and send them to a client in need, which did happen.

2. Because I had Docs To Go loaded on my iPad, I could open and edit a Word doc with no problem. This is also what you would use if you wanted to show a PowerPoint presentation from your iPad. (You would need to add a $69 adapter that connects to the projector.)

So all in all, can you survive on your next business trip with only your iPad? I say of course you can…as long as you bring your smart phone!

Let me know if you have successfully traveled with your iPad sans the laptop. I still feel that with a little more time, I CAN make another attempt at it.

@GinaSchreck

July 26, 2010 | Filed Under Mobile Technology, Technology, iPad | Leave a Comment

Becoming Mayor of Tipsy’s Liquor World & Other Technology Dangers

I “performed” last night at IGNITE Fort Collins a fun comedy routine about the dangers of using today’s technology. The IGNITE programs are spreading across the globe (and one is coming soon to Second Life for those who can’t get to one physically). The basic premise of the IGNITE programs is 15 or so presenters are selected to give a 5 minute presentation each. These presentations must have 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds, making them fun, fast, and highly entertaining. Last night the presentations ranged from “Being Married to a Gamer” and “The Anatomy of a Harmonica” to “Understanding the Barter System.” Each one was unique and FUN!

Here is my “comedy routine” I titled “Becoming Mayor of Tipsy’s Liquor World & Other Technology Dangers”

If you’d like to see more of the entertaining presentations from last night’s IGNITE Fort Collins event, check them out HERE.

Happy Friday and REMEMBER DONT TEXT and WALK without your iHELMET.

@GinaSchreck

June 18, 2010 | Filed Under Gettin Geeky, Social Media, Technology | Leave a Comment

Tending to Your Social Media Garden

I love spring and summer. I love sleeping with the windows open and hearing the birds in the morning. I love waking up at 5:30 to go out in my garden to water the flowers, skim leaves out of the water fountains, making sure the water levels are up, and frequently planting a new potted plant that I found the night before. I even enjoy pulling a few weeds here and there. My husband asks, “Is the garden ever finished?” I try to help him see that a great garden is a daily commitment. It is never finished, it just keeps getting better and better.

Growing your social community is a lot like a garden. It takes a daily commitment to do the work each day. You will need to check on your relationships, nurture a few that are wilting and even pull a few weeds each day. Too many people want the beautiful garden without doing the work. Those are the people who end up buying fake plants or paying someone to come each week to do the work for them. Let’s take a peek into both of those Social Media Gardens:

Buying fake plants is the same as those who jump into the social media arena and connect with thousands of people that they have nothing in common with or that they really have no interest in conversing with. They just want the appearance of a big garden. Take a look at the “FOLLOWER” list of some people and you will see it filled with spammers, porn accounts and the default Twitter bird picture that shows it is most likely a spam account. Now look at the profile page of that gardener and you will find one way conversations that are most likely automated. Little if any @replies to people because this gardener is simply focused on sticking more fake flowers in the dirt.

While there is nothing wrong with paying for a little help, and who wouldn’t want a gardener to come and help make your garden look its best each week, BUT you have to be careful that the gardener doesn’t take over your vision or your garden might end up looking like Disneyland with sculpted Mini and Mickey in the front yard! There are tools that can help you automate SOME of your social media chores, but you still have to get out in the garden to nurture the relationships each day. An example of a problem that can arise when you replace your presence in the garden with automation, is posting Facebook PAGE updates using fabulous tools like TweetDeck, Hootsuite or any other third-party tool and not paying attention to comments or questions that might be posted. You will not always see comments or questions unless you walk through the Facebook Page garden.

If you are going to hire someone to help you, be sure you don’t abandon the garden. There’s just no way around the fact that SOCIAL media tools are still about the SOCIAL! Without the daily work, all of the time and effort you put in to start your garden will return nothing but weeds.

Here are 4 tips to simplify your work in the garden.

1. Start with a plan. What kind of content will you be providing? Who is the community that you will be connecting with?

2. Log in to each of your sites each morning. Welcome newcomers, provide value to your community, respond to questions or comments. Be social.

3. Use automated tools (TweetDeck, Hootsuite, etc) to schedule posts for regular events or tips that you provide.

4. Take time to enjoy your garden- post fun content – recognize loyal followers- show your personality!

What are your tips to keeping a beautiful social media garden? Share them here with other gardeners!

@GinaSchreck

June 10, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Gettin Geeky, Social Media, Technology, Twitter | 1 Comment

Session Notes & Links from ASTD (American Society for Training & Development)

Thank you to all the FABULOUS learners at ASTD’s international convention in Chicago. Here is a recap of my session with links and a few of my slides and side rants (thrown in for your entertainment value!).

The title of my session was, “Using Today’s Technology for the Game of Learning!”

If our goal is to engage learners and make learning fun again, it may be time to look for ways to take learning OUT of the classroom and put it into the hands (and devices) of the learners. Let’s get them involved in the process, from telling us what they need, to co-creating content for BIG FUN learning. In order to involve our learners, we have to be willing to step off of our thrown …or podium and remember that WE are smarter than ME!

These are the folks “FORMERLY KNOWN AS YOUR AUDIENCE”

Repeat after me, “I will not stand in front and read BORING powerpoint slides to my audience as if they were mindless idiots!” That mantra, repeated daily, will help you shift from standing up and dumping information to truly engaging the brains of the people in your audience. There are technology tools that can help engage, teach and even thrill your teams as they are learning …even outside the classroom walls BEFORE and AFTER a learning event!

WHY should you worry about changing the way training is delivered in your organization? Well part of it has to do with the fact that our learners have changed! We have 1-yr olds trading stock on e*trade for goodness sake. They are tech-savvy, impatient, have ADHD, and they have a lot to contribute! Here are some statistics:

We need to use some of the tools that are already in the pockets, purses and backpacks of our learners (and I’m not talking about bandaids, chewing gum or tweezers here!).

One of my favorite tools is the fabulous FLIP camera. Get creative and get others in the driver’s seat creating content! Involve customers, vendors, and of course employees! Some of the ideas shared included giving sales teams cameras and having them create a 5 minute learning video to teach the other teams about a new product roll-out. Have a few of your best customers create a short video showing a “Day in the life” of that customer to show your customer service teams what it is like in your customer’s world. Have executive teams or senior members of the organization share 3 things they know now that they wish they would have known when they first started in the industry or at your company. These learning videos can be loaded on your own website or on sites such as YouTube (set to private) or Blip, which allows you to load videos longer than 10 minutes.

Create podcasts within your organization (simple audio recordings saved as MP3 files). Interview team members and capture their knowledge to share with others. Download audio books and have them available on MP3 player for people to check out. And for those of you concerned about the risks and hazards of having these tech tools available to employees, LET IT GO! Reading your training manuals can give people paper cuts and looking at boring Powerpoint can cause brain damage so this is much safer and less expensive than those worker’s comp claims.

Here is a fun video that can provide SOME protection for Tech-Hazards (I showed an edited version of this in my program–this version is RATED PG-13) )

Remember, these are just a few ideas of how to get your learners involved using video and audio files, so be sure to post any of your great ideas in the comment section here so we can continue to share knowledge.

We discussed ways to take geo-tagging apps used for marketing or games such as FourSquare or GoWalla and create learning treasure hunt games. You could leave envelopes at different locations with blog posts or articles in them for learners to find using a geo-location list you give and their mobile devices. By adding the element of competition you will turn learning into a fun and fast-paced race to learn! This is very much like the popular geocaching game for treasure hunters, only the real treasure in your hunt is big nuggets of learning!

For another dimension of fun, you can use augmented reality tools such as LAYER or TAGWHAT to embed pieces of information or content from your learning programs into specific locations. By tagging the content to the location, you can send participants out on a hunt for information using mobile devices.

With barcode scanner apps on many of today’s mobile devices, look for ways to add 2-dimentional bar codes on objects that will provide more information to learners. You can place barcodes on walls within a building that bring the company’s story to life, or provide safety tips to learners. This picture shows a barcode placed on a tombstone that brings up information on the deceased. You can create your own content-loaded QR tag at http://QRtag.net – go ahead and try it–it’s FREE! I think I will be making a t-shirt with a tag on it that takes people to my website ) How can you use this?

With iPads, ipods, smart phones, Kindle readers, and more gadgets popping up daily, make a commitment to learn more about these new mobile learning tools, and do share your ideas here for the rest of us because WE are smarter than ME!

Be sure and check out the Gettin’ Geeky page on Facebook where I always share tech tips for BIG learning and building BIG biz. I encourage folks to post questions there or their own GREAT tech tips!

It was great meeting so many wonderful people this week at ASTD and I look forward to more BIG learning and BIG success stories!

@GinaSchreck
President & Digital Immigration Officer
Synapse 3Di

May 19, 2010 | Filed Under Education, Future, Geolocation, Social Learning, Technology | 8 Comments