August 2010
1 post
Reworked
I can’t shake the overwhelming feeling that there is something wrong with business today. Grant it I have been reading books like Linchpin and Rework, but they have been confirming my thoughts rather than introducing radical new concepts. The amount of excess and waste is astonishing and entirely ineffective.
A Story.
An organization I recently did some work with had 5 people in the office. This...
July 2010
2 posts
The Future of Work
Last week another example of how quickly and collaboratively ideas move thanks to the power of social networking, I unexpectedly found myself in the process of starting up a co-working location for Little Rock. To me this concept reflects where the future of work is heading. This is why I am interested in this project, and excited about the possibilities it brings to Little Rock.
To understand...
Social Media Predictions, Twitter is not dying
Since everyone has been telling me it is the start of a new physical year I thought it might be an appropriate time for one of those looking forward post.
Recently at a conference which I did not attend a “social media expert” made the bold statement that Twitter will be dead in 12 months. I’ve been asked multiple times from people who have attended the conference what my thoughts...
May 2010
3 posts
It is not About Social Media, Stupid
*Note: I’ll admit, I’ve been a little surprised by the response to my Practicing Social Media blog post. I’ve had more comments both in passing and through email that I ever expect. Like any good blog post of course it did make a few people mad, but the comments have been overwhelmingly positive. This was all originally part of a larger idea about social media that I had, so consider this post...
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Fear of Social Media
When I was little I would get scared a lot at night. Boogy man, zombies, aliens, @andreasmalec’s Chicago accent… you name it when the lights went off it scared me. So what I would do is hide my head under the covers. By doing that I could pretend it didn’t exist, I felt safe and protected. Now of course my threats were imaginary (except Andrea’s accent), but I always felt the best way to avoid my...
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Buckets of Crap
To say that the last few years have been rough would be an understatement. The reality is though, that it is going to get a lot worse. Companies and organizations that went through (or worse) were started in the 90’s got a little spoiled. People would pay for stupid, worthless crap. Especially when it comes to B2B sales. Instead of trying to buy a quality product or service that would move a...
April 2010
3 posts
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Location Matters - So Does Social
Last night I saw a local blog post by Brant Collins that was a response to a twitter conversation with a good friend @Tsudo. In it Brant expresses a very elementary understanding of location based social media that sadly I have seen other “social media experts” struggle with as well.
First you “experts” completely downplay the overall value to the end user. Thinking of...
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Practicing Social Media
Several years ago I had a good conversation with a friend going into medical school and I asked him a question that had always made me curious: “Why do doctors call it practicing medicine?” The answer has stuck with me for a while, an answer I find confirmation in from time to time by doctors who enter and exit my life. The answer was “Because the day you stop practicing is the day you fail to...
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A little help with twitpic of the year
So it is the last day of the Tweetie nominations and you are having a little trouble picking the photo of the year? I’ve had a few people mention my photos so I figured I would make it easy and pull out a few of my favorites. You can of course just browse through my twitpics at http://twitpic.com/photos/jgreghenderson
Here are my top 6 in order of favorite, click on the photo to pull up a...
February 2010
4 posts
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Sweet Home Chicago
So after 16 or 17 years, I am going to go back to visit Chicago. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but for me it feels a little like a home coming.
I grew up relatively poor, mom worked as a dental assistant and a secretary, dad worked as a truck driver. Him being a truck driver though is the source of this particular reflection.
He worked for a manufacturing company in Little...
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Responding to Situations with Social Media
I have two things lately that I am publically passionate about: social media and photography (I am equally passionate about politics but I keep it off the radar most of the time). Normally I reserve this space to express photography, my thought is that between my work with Tweetup, Southern Socials, and RefreshCA anyone who cares about my take on social media has heard it several times. Today...
January 2010
4 posts
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Chances to Get Cool Prints and Help even Better...
Couple of Art related things coming up, a chance to get some great artwork and help support local causes.
Jan 21 Starting Early - Arkansas Repertory Theatre This will be a party at the Governor’s Mansion and included will be a silent auction. I have donated a nice 16x24 version of the print above. The print is done on metallic paper on a nice gallery style display. Cost of admission is...
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Welcome to 2010, the Rebirth of Print
customxm:
Welcome to 2010, I think this is going to be a very good year compared to the one we just made it through. Few have had a worse year however than the print industry. Which is why I am a little surprised to be here writing this for CustomXM. See I grew up in the digital age, marketing directors like myself have basically killed print. In developing my skill I embraced the computer...
December 2009
11 posts
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2009: Hell of a way to end a decade
This is the time for reflection on the year that is almost gone. Every news site, blog post, and twitter update just about has some reflection. So I may as well go with the crowd.
Time Magazine recently called the ‘00 decade the worst in American history, and dubbed it the “Decade from Hell”. I certainly have to agree with them. However, for me 2009 was a hell of a way to end...
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Introducing: Corporate Photography
So I have this crazy thing called a camera, and for while I’ve been sitting around trying to decide what to do with it. I do not want to be one of those senior picture photographers, because I believe that would bore me.
The idea occurred to me while making an ad for work the other day that outside of ad agencies I do not know of anyone who specializes in photography for ads, business...
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The Free Project
Several months ago my co-worker and friend Alex Cone introduced me to the concept of free. Alex felt motivated after reading Chris Anderson’s Free to try the concept of doing services he felt talent in for free. The ultimate goal here is for someone to hire him based on the services he freely gave. These services were directed primarily at non-profit organizations to help further advance their...
November 2009
4 posts
No Surprise Saturday: Palin to headline at Tea... →
What is the one thing that the Tea Party needs to be even more annoying? Palin of course. A movement that has no legitimacy + a (potential) presidential candidate that has no legitimacy = a match made in heaven.
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Time to Forget SEO, Move to SMO
8 years ago when I first got into web design and marketing I quickly moved into a specific area called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Early on the way to optimize a website for search engines was to load up with keywords. This was the “content is king” era. You could adjust meta tags, heading tags, bold keywords, and various things like that to target specific words you wanted to show...
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How we took over this city in 6 months
So if you talk with me much you will know that my big new statement is that we rule this city. In fact I believe my statement yesterday at lunch that Natalie loved so much was something like “We are the most powerful organization in Little Rock”. Now I know all you have images of Chicago style mobsters running around beating everyone up. While we might send out Bryan Jones and his CJRW posse...
October 2009
13 posts
Making a Difference with Better Communication
Two years ago I decided I wanted to go to grad school. My undergrad was in political science, but I knew that I didn’t want anything quite that focused. So I decided to look at speech communication, it was nearly a minor in undergrad and I enjoyed it a lot. I did a little research and UALR had a great program called Applied Communication.
My concept of communication coming into the program was...
Using Google Wave Shortcut Keys
varvil:
Walkthrough of the most useful shortcut keys
Open a Wave that already has a lot of posts.
Use the space bar to jump to each unread post within the wave.
Want to see the post above or below? Use up/down arrows.
Want to reply to the highlighted post? Just hit enter.
Want to add a new post to the end of the thread? Hit shift+enter.
You’re now done entering or replying to a...
Better Marketing with Google Voice
I am eating my words a little in this blog post, I have preached a time or two that we have moved beyond direct mail in marketing. I am wrong, what is happening is a revolution in direct mail, and it is still very relevant.
Thanks to web services like google analytics, tiny url, twitter, and others we can easily integrate our direct mail campaigns back into our online world and accurately measure...
You have skills, get ready to use them
rockcityproject:
All of us have skills. For some it is creating and designing for others it building and making. Some people write well, some people talk well, and some people like to be behind the scenes organizing. Some people have contacts and some people have time.
You may not realize what you have but chances are you have it.
Collectively we posses all the skills to accomplish just about...
What is the Rock City Project
rockcityproject:
Ever feel like you want to do something to help your city or local community? Ever think that you have skills that could in some way be put to good?
Well, that is sort of the idea behind this project. What I hope to do is tap into a wide range of skills around the community. Then bring common community projects together and collectively raise awareness through the use of these...
Revealing Google’s Stealth Social Network Play →
adfeed:
This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li, who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re…
Charity and the Power of Social Media
I am always amazed at the power social media can have in charity. Why? Because most people truly want to do something good but don’t know how, social media makes it easy for them.
An easy case study is going on right now. Pizza hut sent out the following tweet earlier today:
@pizzahut : We will donate 4 meals 2 World Hunger Relief 4 each person who RTs this: http://ow.ly/qWn8 #pizzahut...
4 steps to better social media
Social media can provide a highly useful tool for companies and individuals looking to expand their reach, however used incorrectly it can make your company look out of touch. Here are my 5 steps to better social media:
1. Spread it around and mix it up – chances are your audience is not all on one media service. So spread it around. I like to use twitter, facebook, tumblr, flickr and others to...
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Defining what the workplace can and should be
I must say that I was completely overwhelmed by the response to my last post “Finding a way to enjoy work”. I honestly had contact from every angle: emails, direct messages, instant messages… someone even stopped me out on the street and said they liked the post.
I think it goes to show that there is a real problem with workplaces in America today. We all want a change; we are just too...
Trying to Find a Way to Enjoy Work
Sometimes you have to take a step back and find out if you really enjoy what you do. To do that I pose two very simple, yet complex questions.
1) What do you want out of “work”?
2) Do you have that?
If you answered yes to that last one my email is gregh29@gmail.com … please write me and help me figure this out so I can share with others.
My feeling though is that most of you who know...
September 2009
4 posts
Communicating through the lens
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Trust me, it is not, that is complete BS. Some pictures are worth only 1-2 words. However some photos only need 1-2 words to make a statement.
Take the photo above for instance. Yeah you could pull 1000 words from it, 998 would be completely worthless in communication though. Those 998 words represent static, just trying to fill dead space. The...
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Organizational Ethics and Management
A common problem with old school managers is that they approach ethics is that as long as they are not clubbing baby seals or employing 12 year old workers that they are ethical.
Ethics in organizations moves far beyond this however. It means holding value in your employees and constantly advancing the organization for future viability among other things. I see many businesses and organizations...
Conflict and unwillingness to change
I am currently writing a paper about conflict analyzing an episode that happened at work last week. It occurred to me that most of our conflicts in the workplace happen as a result of one person unwilling to hear the needs of others.
In this situation that I am writing about our director wanted something his way even though it was ineffective and hindered others from doing their job. He even made...
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Organization Comm Reflections:
The Twitter Effect on Writing Professional Papers: In writing professional papers you must quickly make your argument and attempt to extract the most meaning out of each sentence as possible to be effective. We discussed this in class and the professor openly admitted that he struggles with this as do most academics.
Twitter encourages us to make meaningful(often loaded) statements in a very...