GREAT ADAPTATIONS

I’m on a new adventure, and I’d love for you to come along. This year I’ve been thinking about how to offer my readers something juicier and more meaningful, and at the same time, weave my writing and blogging together as my core work in life. (Which it is.) How can I do that?

I founded Bay Area Bloggers Society in 2008 to bring community members together for sharing the learning curves of everything about modern communication. Now, BABS is sponsored by O’Reilly Media as an official User Group, which provides many more benefits to our members. Please join us! Here’s the link to the Meet Up where you can hop on board:

Bay Area Bloggers Society

Come over to my new site, This Extra Day. Here, I show up several times a week (which is more often than I have posted in the past), and talk about writing and publishing, alongside life-as-it-is. This means I make space for more of the tough stuff: being a cancer veteran, for example. Living in a radically changed world and making sense of it. Being in the moment. I think this is the best kind of support I can offer my readers, and I know it is a lot more compelling for me. It’s scary, it’s real, and it’s something I want to do.

This site, Great Adaptations, will change a little bit too. I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future (whatever that is!) and probably write more about technology here. We’ll see how it evolves.

Thank you for being my reader. You (and the hokey pokey) are what it’s really all about.

Love and blessings

Suzanna Stinnett

First rate content is essential if your goal is to attract a loyal and active readership. I’m offering a series of content classes in the San Francisco Bay area. If you’d like to learn how to sharpen your focus and eliminate the problems which make your readers leave your website, this class is for you.

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Writing First Rate Content
#1 in the Creative Assets Series
March 2nd, 6:30 – 9:00
Class Fee $35.00
Classes held at BZHive Coworking space
80 Mark Drive
San Rafael, CA

What’s so important about first rate content?
Let’s look at Stacy’s problem to understand what happens when readers encounter poorly formatted and poorly proofed copy.

Stacy has a blog about restoring historic homes. Her niche is well-defined, which is a very good starting point for a successful blog. She grew up in a historic area of Boston, has restored three homes herself, and she’s enthusiastic and knowledgeable about architecture, restoration, and the challenges restorers face. She’s the perfect person to write this blog.

But we’ve got some problems. Like almost every blogger out there, Stacy is an average writer and, worse, she is an average proofreader. Besides those issues, Stacy does not know how to format her posts for web readability.

She writes carefully and lovingly, about interesting topics relevant to her audience. But she is producing second-rate content.

Her poor readers are subjected to spelling errors, grammar errors, and long lines of type with no white space. Even the most devoted reader is repelled by these readability issues. The question in the reader’s mind is “Why doesn’t she care enough to proofread?” Trust is eroded.

No matter how great your content is, if it is not brain-friendly, it will not produce the results you want. Your reader’s finger is on the click-trigger, just itching to go to the next place. Don’t give them a reason to leave your site.

Publish first-rate content – or lose your audience.

Class #1 in the Creative Assets Series includes tools and resources which help you develop first rate content for your blog or other project.

To pre-register, go to the registration page.

If you have any questions about the class or upcoming classes, feel free to email Suzanna:
suzannastinnett@gmail.com
Happy blogging!

People who work with Suzanna say:
“Suzanna explains everything in such a personal, easy to understand way. In the middle of her live workshop, I suddenly realized I was feeling excited rather than overwhelmed, and I left feeling empowered to begin my blog!” Abba Anderson, LAc, CCHT, MSOM

“I thought I had great content for my upcoming blog. I am so glad I turned it over to Suzanna before I went any further — she helped me see how to work with blog formats, which actually make my writing much more clear and give me a structure to work with. She’s a creative and focused professional, and her contribution to my process was priceless.” Barbara V.M., Santa Rosa

Suzanna Stinnett is a gifted proofreader with over 25 years of copy proofing under her belt. She has studied web readability for the past decade. Her other accomplishments include her book, “Little Shifts,” published by Sourcebooks, and over 400 articles currently on the web. She teaches workshops on collaborative marketing and web tools, consults privately, travels and speaks on the new culture of creatives, and is working on her next book, “Cloud Alchemy,” based on her manifesto for the conscious web citizen.

Well heck yeah, that’s me! I’m happy to tell you that I now have a site up for my web content services. Come on over and say hey.

On SuzannaStinnett.com, you’ll find descriptions of my services, blog posts relevant to business owners and managers, resources, and links to blogs which are serving us all with great educational content.

I’ll see you here — and there — as we journey on through the changes of 2010.

Cheers,

Suzanna

    

The Year of Living Exponentially

I’m a collage artist. I enjoy scissors, paper and glue. Always, I am trying to communicate something through my collage pieces.

Not all of my collages have a name, but this one does: It is “The Year of Living Exponentially.” It illustrates my tribute to nine notable innovators.

It’s a valentine, a winter bouquet, a gift for my readers and a tribute to my muses, leaders, and mentors. For me, it was a winter meditation.

I also practice another art: Cloud Alchemy. It is described in my manifesto by that name. The alchemy is putting people together in dynamic ways, talking about them with my readership, juxtaposing different energies in the “global brain.” In this collage, I’ve taken the nine notables and put them together as an art piece along with the stories I’ll tell about them.

The Nine Notables

The following are nine among many who have lit my path:

Janet Tokerud:

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A web professional since the early 80s, Janet continues to inform her audience in a multitude of ways. I enjoy her intelligent reviews of new products, her enthusiasm about the culture of the web, and her grounded support of my own projects. Janet attended the first meeting of B.A.B.S. (Bay Area Bloggers Society) and is one of the reasons I went forward with it. Follow her on Twitter as @tokerud, and her blog on http://tokerud.com.
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Dr. Ellen F. Weber

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Dr. Weber is a neuroscientist I have come to know on Twitter. She shares amazingly useful concepts about the brain and how to create leadership and learning environments which are most productive and human. Ellen contributes so much love and wisdom to the global brain through her continual high-level communication, she is like a one-person web of connective tissue. Everyone should follow Ellen. Find her on Twitter as @ellenfweber, and see her blog at http://BrainLeadersandLearners.com.
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Barbara Bonardi

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Barbara was one of my students in a new media class in early 2009. She has progressed at an astonishing rate, while continuing with her own art, journaling, and the process of earning a green MBA. Barbara is just getting her blog started and I am so curious to see how she will inform us all. She’s a superb example of a mature mind grabbing these tech tools and running with it. Barbara is an original member of B.A.B.S. Follow her on Twitter as @barbarabonardi.
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Michael Phillips

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Michael is one of my early influences. I read his book, “The 7 Laws of Money,” in the late 70s. His classic, “Marketing Without Advertising,” (now being revised for the 7th edition), taught us the culture of marketing at the deepest human level. It stands today as the best guide for marketing and led the culture of “the conversation” long before we had the tools to converse. Among his unique qualities is the ability to trigger the brain to think in a new direction. He does this on his blog, http://phillips.blogs.com/. Put your thinking cap on and take a look! Follow Michael on Twitter as @phillips1938.
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Valeria Maltoni

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Valeria Maltoni is another communication professional I met online. I think I was reading her vastly informative blog, Conversation Agent, before I knew her on Twitter. Every time I read something on her blog I think I should just drop everything and spend the next month reading everything she’s written. Valeria carries “the conversation” with elegance and a deep understanding of what is productive and true. You can find her on Twitter as @conversationage, and see her blog at http://conversationagent.com.
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Catherine Grison

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Catherine is one of the new friends I’ve made through interacting on Twitter. She has a warmth and style you just have to experience. A Parisian ex-pat, she is a Feng Shui artist who embraces the Twitter community with humor and humanity. When I need an uplifting moment, I just go look at her website. It’s a tonic for the soul, in living color. You can follow her on Twitter as @catherinegrison, and see her website at http://YourFrenchAccent.com.
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Mark McGuinness

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Mark is one of the creators of Lateral Action, which began as a great animated series about the role of creativity and innovation in successful business today. Before Lateral Action, I read his work on Copyblogger. Mark speaks the language of creativity and business, which makes him a potent contributor to the global brain. His art and his writing convey concepts in a simple, straightforward way that I find as reassuring as it is informative. You can follow him on Twitter as @MarkMcGuinness, and see more of his work on http://LateralAction.com.
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Chris Brogan

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Chris Brogan knows at least as much as anyone on the planet about how to live in a social media world with fairness and integrity. He talks about this openly in all of his material. If you want to see something really refreshing, look at his Disclosures and Relationships on the About tab of his website. When someone talks to me about values in leadership today (usually complaining that there are no values in leadership today), I point them to Chris Brogan. Chris is one of the reasons I believe we are creating a more civilized world through the employment of online communication tools. You can follow him on Twitter as @ChrisBrogan, and see his website at http://ChrisBrogan.com.
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Liz Strauss

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It makes me smile just to type her name. To me, Liz is a mastermind of the giant hive of minds contributing their best to “the conversation.” She created a system to honor others for their work with her Successful and Outstanding Blogger site (SOB). That’s the best kind of announcing. Liz is a model for anyone who wants to get their mind around how helping other people keeps you on the track to personal success. She’s funny, too. You can follow her on Twitter as @LizStrauss, and see her website at http://successful-blog.com.
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I hope you will explore these fine contributors to the innovative online community. Our world is more sane, more civilized, more viable, and just better at everything because of them.

Suzanna Stinnett

The public gazes through a window of possibility

Are you a media-based leader, a media-aware leader, or both?

Media-aware leadership means that the leader understands what is available to her public, and understands how her core demographic is engaging new media. This awareness helps the leader listen. Even if a leader does not personally spread messages through modern media, she must be able to use the tools to listen to her public.

It’s possible to be a media-based leader, that is, able to engage the tools of new media, yet still function at a low level of media-awareness. Again, it is a matter of listening. It’s not enough to “get on Twitter and Facebook.” Leaders have to care enough to keep building their listening skills and grow that brain area to the level they can participate in thought leadership.

If you care, it shows

This profoundly positive shift in marketing is worth embracing as a daily practice. Modern leaders including corporate executives must realize that listening to their public is the cost-effective way to set their compass points. The level of listening now available gives business a whole new playground of connection to their customers. It streamlines everything – once a leader or company acquires the skills (or hires a modern media professional).

MODERN MEDIA IS MESSAGE-GENERATIVE. Topics, outcomes, urgencies, fears, advice, discoveries, and desires are a few of the messages which proliferate, generate and infiltrate the public conversation.

Sort through the noise and listen

When leaders begin to enter modern media, all that proliferation is quite a din. It’s noisy, busy, distracting and confusing. That’s normal. Think of any experience of learning a new language. You can learn hello, goodbye, thank you, and where’s the bathroom, but after that you enter a brain-confused state for a phase of deepening into the language.

If you’re groping your way into modern media right now, I recommend starting with search tools. Play with searches on Twitter, for example, to see how people talk to each other in that universe. Raise your tolerance for seeing incomprehensible characters in your search results. Look for meaning. Relax, drink water, and let your brain grow into it with playful curiosity.

Suzanna Stinnett

Thank you to Valeria Maltoni of ConversationAgent.com (@conversationage), for juicing up my mind on these ideas.

The posts of 2010 often relate to my focus words and/or my manifesto, Cloud Alchemy. This post relates to my focus word “nature,” as the organic nature of leadership deepens in meaning. It relates to Points #5 and #8 in Cloud Alchemy.

Focus Words Post: In progress

Cloud Alchemy: See on Scribd.com

I’m researching sites for a client this morning. One reason I’m paid to do this is that I can move quickly through digital debris, find posts and sites that are current, and assemble a relevant bullet list from our criteria.

Today, though, as the shiny new year beckons, I’m struck by the long trails of digital debris on many websites.

I’m talking about sites that offer many resources, blog rolls, links and freebies to their readers. While it’s a plan with a heart, all those beautiful topics and all their lively links to help each other through the obstacle of the moment, we’d do well to remember that it takes MAINTENANCE.

The high cost of generosity

One site I’m still wading through has the ambitious goal of offering its readership 1,000 free downloads. They have put them in categories. I’m evaluating this site for a place for my client to increase her own exposure, which is also part of this offering on the site. They encourage the contributors to use an opt-in page so the reader will become part of their list. That’s fine.

What’s not fine is that more than 50% of the links I’ve clicked are bringing up error pages. Others are going to the website of the contributor but to a dead page. And one even went to a smarmy miles-long sales page. Very disappointing.

We all could do some tracking and mopping up

The issue is two-fold. At least. On the one hand is the website owner with all the offerings to be organized and maintained. Maintain ‘em. Please. On the other hand, the contributor needs to be tracking where all their offerings are showing up and making sure the links are good.

Just start where you are

Sound like a lot of work? It is. That’s why, today, I am streamlining my own plan for 2010. Engaging the exponential can be done in a manageable way. I’m starting a spreadsheet for every place my current work can be seen (all the things I’ve initiated, that’s all I can do, of course). If it starts to get out of control, I will go back and eliminate the ones that are low performers.

ACTION PLAN:
*For starters, let website owners know when they have a lot of broken links. This is the only way we will clean up past linkage we didn’t track.
*While it might be too late to find older links from years past, begin now to track your posted links. Create a plan for the future. Decide how much you can manage and act accordingly.

The web is a chaotic mess, as it should be. But individuals can and must maintain workable threads through their own offerings.

Otherwise, our precious readers have no option but to click away, click away, like a bunch of reindeer on the loose!

Blessings,
Suzanna Stinnett

A modern communication skill taken from our young friends, the Digital Natives

There’s something I’ve realized, working with people who are learning how to use new media. Newer users, who are often older people, get stuck on little things that don’t make sense.

We newer users are, in general, making use of a different skill. It’s along the lines of proofreading. It has served us well for decades and it still has a high place in the world of communication.

But it is stopping us dead in our tracks when it comes to the efficient and effective use of modern tools. Tools like Twitter, for example.

I teach people to enter microblogging by using Twitter as a search tool. Twitter is already the premium search tool, for those who understand it, and it’s a good place to begin to see what’s going on in that universe.

Here comes the dead in our tracks part. The first time someone does a search on Twitter, they’re bound to come up with a string of seemingly irrelevant posts. When I sit side by side with a newer user, I can point to this and that to help them see what is relevant on the page. But they are drawn to everything that is NOT relevant. What does RT mean? Why is it there? What are all these @ signs? Is that a link? Why are they saying #FF, is that like an obscene gesture?

Hold it, whoa, take a breath. Let’s learn from digital natives, who are able to quickly find the relevance they seek. Here’s how they are doing it:

They ignore the vast percentage of what’s on the page. Instead of looking for the irrelevant or incorrect bits like any great proofreader, they are scanning the page for relevance.

They skip over everything they don’t need and go straight to what they want. And even then, they scan. Skip and Scan. It’s the great new way to use your brain. And it will make a big difference in getting where you want to go – if you want to access the vast intelligence now available to you on sites like Twitter.

Skip and Scan! Anyone for an Evelyn Woods class?

Here’s to your new brain areas: Breathe deep, walk often, and drink lots of water.

Blessings,

Suzanna Stinnett

Teaching

September 23^rd was “Twitter-intensive” for me. Mid-day I taught a great group of newer users in Berkeley. I learn at least as much as they do in these groups. I feel like a neural conduit in the global brain, downloading a bunch of big files into the system. Process, process, process. The best moment, as always, is when the energy shifts in the room: The collective mind turns toward curious investigation. Question and expressions change. We breathe.

Learning

At 5:30 I attended a WIC (Women In Consulting) networking meeting in San Francisco where Irene Koehler, Nancy Friedman and Cathy Curtis spoke as a panel about the whys and hows of Twitter. A lot of intelligence in the room there, 30+ women in some type of consulting business. I watched the unfolding. As I always see in my own classes, there is a spectrum of understanding and readiness for this information. People do balk at the vernacular. “Tweet-up?” I saw one woman’s spine stiffen as she deflected yet another goofy new term. Overall, though, the panel got this group over the bridge. Applause.

How I get around

My work is brain-informed. Now that probably sounds silly, too, but I mean it in the mechanical sense. I have studied the brain since I was a kid, and follow neuroscientists along the ever-widening path of discovery. I have a capacity for translating science for laypeople, so I stay in that sandbox where I like to play and make myself useful. Peter Russell’s metaphor of the “global brain” captivated me back in 1987. And with Twitter, now, here we are. A thinking global organism. Big potential there.

Balancing

But back to the human-size brain and what informs me. Being raised a practical Midwesterner (now an escapee), I like to hold on to what is rooted while waving my other arm around in a very big picture of what is possible. The mechanics of the brain are well understood and provide me with ways to comprehend our choices, our options, and our potential. This viewpoint does regularly lead me into a sense of awe. I like it there. Working directly with people keeps me connected to gritty realities, so my glowy appreciation of life is a form of balance.

Enough background. What I was reminded of yesterday which could be of value to you, dear reader, is this:

We like our corrals, our words, and normalcy

1. We are naturally limited at the brain level in our willingness (not our capacity) to reach for broader, more diverse understanding. It’s a mechanical function of the brain, human, necessary, and just fine.

2. Most of us don’t like our words being messed with. We get annoyed and we put up more boundaries. This is a 21^st Century dilemma and a playground of staggering proportion.

3. We have a mandate to play (read Dan Pink) which is uncomfortable and confusing for lots of us. This may be the key “brain area” we have to develop to re-invent viable culture today.

4. Our ideas, beliefs and techniques of teaching (and learning) new media are very diverse. This reminds us to value differences, raise our tolerance, and become more interested in a range of communication styles.

5. Learning new media (social media, Twitter, blogging) is one of the most effective ways to expand our brains and our businesses. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle: Wobbly at first, then freeing and natural.

I’d like to thank you for reading my work. Did you know that you legitimize me? Social proof and all that? Your comments are the way I know you’re reading and taking it in, so thank you for taking that time, too.

Very best wishes,

Suzanna Stinnett

P.S. Look for Irene, Nancy, and Cathy on Twitter, and be sure to check out their blogs. Thanks again to you three and to WIC for providing a rich evening of musing and connecting.

The Berkeley “kitchen class” – next dates: October 9^th and 22^nd

Global Brain Series in Berkeley: October 8^th, 15^th, and 29^th

Contact Suzanna for more info – suzanna@greatadaptations.org

Now go relax.

In the classes I teach on new media, I have learned that one of the biggest hurdles people face is coping with the avalanche of options for their new web presence.

That’s why I guide my participants toward the simplest, most reliable tools. You see, it really doesn’t matter which tools you use. What matters is that you can understand them, access them, and direct people to your own little kingdom online clearly and easily.

The Google profile is one of those simple tools we now can access. I love it because it is super clean, super simple, and gives me one web address that I can send people to. From my profile there, everything else I’m doing online has its own pretty little link.

When newer users of modern media ask me what they should do first, this is what I tell them:

Relax, take a breath, and do one thing at a time–

~>Single Task – Multi Outcome. That’s what you want.

1. Get a gmail account. Make your gmail name as short as possible.

2. Create a Google profile. Don’t worry that it’s a bit thin at first.

3. Start a simple, free blog on either Blogger or Wordpress. Use your first one as a “play-and-practice” blog, knowing you can delete it. Remember you can have as many as you want, for free.

4. Open a Twitter account and start following a few reliable people. (If you don’t know how to do that, then follow me, and start exploring who I’m following. Let yourself meander and find people, posts and links that reach out to you. Follow those people.) Use your Google profile as your link out of your Twitter profile.

5. Go back to your Google profile and create the links to your new blog and Twitter account.

Relax, play, and do NOT overdo it. You are creating a new brain area. Spend about an hour a day for five days. Do NOT keep trying when you are frustrated – that blunts your new brain area.

Get a blog buddy. Find someone local you can meet with and share this process. There is no substitute for face-to-face interaction.

Keep playing and realize that each of these processes is a new world with its own language and culture. Do you expect to learn French and understand Paris in a week? Of course not. But you can read about it and begin to love it, a little bit at a time.

See all of the above as your entry into a whole new world. Your new skills will grow. Your new brain capacity will grow. You will use these skills the rest of your life. It is an important investment in modern communication. It will get easier.

For many of you, it will become part of your daily life. The benefits of connection and engagement as you continue to show up will expand into untold new opportunities, new fantastic relationships, empowerment, and a growing sense of belonging.

That’s what it’s all about — boom-boom.

Welcome! Follow me on Twitter at

twitter.com/brainmaker. See my Google profile at

Google.com/profiles/imaginecreating.

Now relax, get a glass of water, and spend some time with the dog.

Suzanna Stinnett

Listen to audio here: Spoken For You

See local classes here: Twitter for the Trees