Archives for March 2011

Have you ever watched the Ken Burns series The West? It’s a marvelous series, especially if you are a history buff like me. There are so many insights into American history, but one of my favorites is somewhat late in the story. The US has been connected East to West with railroad tracks, and settlements and cities are growing like never before. The development of one such city is explored in a bit of detail. A news reporter noted that the ground breaking ceremony for the city’s town square actually happened far away from where the people were living at the town.

“I thought you would want your square to be in the center of your town,” He said to one of the organizers.

“Oh, this is where the center of the town will be after we have grown and expanded,” the organizer responded.

When it comes to your online community, which you are building based on all of these engagement techniques, growth is the ultimate goal, or at least, presumably, one of your goals. But are you planning for that moment in the future right now? Here are some things to think about.

[Read more…] about What will you do when your community grows?

Sometimes, lessons can come from the most unexpected of places. When you think about Judd Apatow, you may think about Freaks ‘n Geeks. Maybe you think about Anchorman or Knocked Up or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Whatever you think about, you probably do not think of particularly sage advice. However, if you look at how Apatow’s career has developed over the last decade or so, there actually is a lot you can learn about how to evolve your engagement strategy online over months and years.

Here is what I think Judd Apatow would say to you were you to ask him (in the highly likely event) how you should build your engagement online.

[Read more…] about The Judd Apatow Guide to Engagement

I’m trying to create more organization of my posts here in my home sweet home. I thought I would start in the most obvious way, which is to group my posts about books together, and then create a Book Reviews category where all of those posts will go.

The first book review I ever posted to the blogosphere was of Trust Agents. I did a chapter by chapter review back in June.

I’d like you to explore some of those posts, and there are two reasons for it.

First, I’d love to be able to discuss the book with you.

Second, for those of you who are new to blogging and who think I might take my comments and tweets for granted, I want you to look at how many comments I was getting less than a year ago.  I want you to see how confused I still was by Twitter in June. I want you to see that I was frustrated and dismayed. Less than a year later, things have gotten a lot better.

Don’t give up.

Several years ago, I became a huge fan of the HBO series Six Feet Under, and it wasn’t just because of how yummy Peter Krause was (is). The show carried such great acting, such great stories – it was truly one of the best shows I’ve seen. So, when I heard that one of the actors from that show, Michael C. Hall, was launching his own series on Showtime called Dexter, I was already pretty certain it would be awesome.

If you are not familiar, Dexter, the namesake of the show, is a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department during the day. At night, he is a serial killer, but he only kills criminals who have escaped punishment for their crimes. It’s sort of a super-twisted 21st Century Batman. You find out as the show progresses how Dexter came to be this way, and you are placed in the very awkward position of liking a serial killer better than most of the other characters.

In case you’re worried at this point, no, I’m not saying you’re a serial killer.

[Read more…] about Do you have something in common with Dexter?