Ever since I started teaching at the college level a few years ago, I’ve been dreaming.

My first dream was to design a course that discussed emerging technologies, social media, and communication on the Web. I took my dream to the powers that be at the college and they gave me a shot. The course, Web Media, was so successful, that the next year it became part of the full time curriculum. It’s one of the most rewarding classes I teach, and I continue to be connected with former students who say that it really helped them get a leg up in the world of new media communication. For that, I’m proud and grateful.

I’ve been immersed in social media and online communications for quite some time. I was in on the ground floor of many things – I was on Facebook way before most of my high school buddies. My user ID on twitter is 821,845 (there are over 100 million users now). I’ve written 325 posts on this blog in 3 years. At about 1,000 words per post, that’s the equivalent of about 3 full-length novels. I’ve come a long way in the online world….but I want to go further. I want to dream bigger.

It’s no secret that computers and the Internet have fundamentally changed the way education is delivered. I remember the days before computers in the classroom, as I’m sure some of you do. The teacher would write and draw on a chalkboard. Presentations were hand written on plastic transparencies and displayed on an overhead projector. We watched filmstrips on an actual film projector, and listened to audio cassettes. Material was presented to us through different media, but often, what we were giving back were just flat, handwritten regurgitations of what we’d learned.

Now, anyone can record a radio show, or make a video documentary. Anyone can publish a novel or a photo travelogue. Most importantly, we can share our creations with the world. There is tremendous power in our ability learn by creating, publishing, and sharing content online. This power has translated well into the classroom environment, and it’s enriched the learning experience for many people.

I want to take this a step further.

Many classrooms today are using technology to create wonderful things. Some are even sharing it with the world. I create YouTube channels for my classes, and encourage my students to blog their college experience. That is all wonderful, and feedback from my students shows that they see great value in this. It falls short though, because classrooms are still mostly communicating with themselves. Sure, in some cases, they are showing off their creations to friends and family, but my YouTube channels are mostly so my students can look at their own and each others’ work. It rarely has much impact outside the classroom. This is where I see a great opportunity.

Most community colleges have some sort of new media or Web program now. Some even have courses specific to new communication and social media. But, in my experience, these classes often don’t know much outside the walls of their own experience.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could some how start to connect beyond the walls of our own classrooms? Wouldn’t it be awesome if our classes began to connect and share with other classes? Imagine a college class in Ottawa and another in Melbourne not only sharing what they’re learning with each other, but actually collaborating on projects. The possibilities are open and wide and endless.

It Starts With Us. The challenge with connecting classrooms is not in the actual connecting – we have the technology. The challenge is in actually figuring out logistically how to do it, and how it fits into our courses. And that starts with us teachers. Before we can connect our students, we have to connect with each other. We have to start sharing, and connecting, and collaborating on the best ways to facilitate these interactions. We have to understand how connecting our classrooms will tie into the learning objectives for our courses, and how we’re going to set our students up for success.

So this is my challenge to you. If you’re a teacher who is interested in exploring connected classrooms with me, get in touch. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching at the college level or not, I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment or hit me up on Twitter. Let’s have a chat and see if we can find some ways to dream big together. Who knows, we might just open up a whole new world of possibilities for learning.

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It’s that time of year again! I love back to school. I’m excited to meet my new group of students (I always have first-years in the Fall), and look forward to helping some future web designers and developers learn some new skills. Teaching is one of the most rewarding things I do.

With all of the other stuff I have going on – my business, speaking, blogging commitments, and volunteer work – prepping and managing a 6 hour a week course load with 80 students can easily get overwhelming. Fortunately, I’ve found some online tools that have helped to make things not only more efficient for me, but more interesting for my class. Here are a few ways I’m bringing online tools into my classrooms.

Google Docs

One of the major issues I had when I was first starting out with teaching was I was always having to move files around. I’d prep my PowerPoint slides, write my notes and prepare handouts, then I had to either copy them remotely to the college network (which can be slow and unreliable), save them on a USB drive, or email them to myself. It was an extra step that could wind up in catastrophe if I forgot to do it (which I did, once or twice).

Enter Google Docs to save the day! Google Docs, if you’re not familiar, is a web-based word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet suite from Google. With Google Docs, I keep all my class files in one spot, and I can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection (even on my smart phone!). Now, I just do my prep at home, and when I get to school, I call up my documents in Google Docs and off I go. One less step, and less risk I’ll forget something important at home.

The best part about Google Docs is you can share documents with others. So, instead of printing handouts, why not save some paper and share a handouts folder to your class? Or, have them write their assignments in Google Docs, and share them to you for marking? There are plenty of applications. Once you start using Google Docs, I promise, you’ll never go back.

Class Community Sites

Maintaining good communication with your class outside of class can be a big challenge. LMS systems like BlackBoard only go so far, and can be clunky and time consuming to use. I’ve taken my classes to a collaborative space outside the LMS environment, creating a Class Community site around my course. In this space, which is invitation only and not available publicly, I can post announcements, share links and videos (it’s a great place to post the YouTube videos I talked about here), and it provides a forum for dialogue not only between you and your class, but between classmates as well.

My students love the interactivity, and I love the convenience and easy updating. I have used Ning in the past, and am now experimenting with Google Sites. You don’t have to be a web designer to set up a site using these tools. If you can create a Word document, you can have a Class Community Site.

Often as teachers we can feel isolated – we’re not always sure what other things our students are learning in their programs of study. Having a space to connect with other teachers could go a long way towards creating a better learning experience for our students. A Community Site can be taken a step further to a Faculty Site as well. Imagine being able to share with teachers in the same program or department as yourself. You can share tips, ideas, discuss challenges, and help each other out. I think there is huge potential in creating dialogue between teachers, especially teachers within the same program.

Skype Video

My students love guest speakers. A couple of times a semester, I will bring engaging and inspiring folks from industry into class to present and do Q and A. It adds another viewpoint and dimension to the class, and they get a break from listening to me yammer on. Often I bring in local people, but since I’ve been out here on the Internet, I’ve met so many people in other cities and countries who have so much wisdom and experience to share. Since I don’t have a budget to bring them to my class physically, I use Skype Video, and it works beautifully. The students enjoy it immensely and I think my guest speakers get a charge out of it too.

Skype is free and many college classrooms have web cams now. Why not give it a whirl?

Those are just three simple ways you can make your teaching life easier using technology. All of these options are absolutely free and available to anyone online.

What’s in your online teaching toolkit?

[photo credit: AllanCaplan on Flickr]

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I was thinking back to the first time I was in college, back in 1988 (ooh. I’m really dating myself now). There were no computers in the classroom. We lugged around armloads of textbooks and binders with foolscap clicked into them. There were no text messages coming in on our mobile phones to distract us from what was happening in class (although we did pass notes). Times sure were different back then.

Ironically, I was in a technical school, taking a technical program (TV Broadcasting). So, I was surrounded by technology every day, in the form of TV cameras, video switchers, lights, editing controllers, and the like. To add insight to irony, we were using these tools to communicate messages to audiences. Our great instructors used the technology to help us learn to communicate. I guess I was lucky that way.

What the Tech? Flash forward 20 years or so, and technology isn’t just something you learn about in trade school. It’s incorporated into everything we do. Kids are growing up not knowing life without mobile devices and the Internet, and any of us who are Gen X or earlier are being forced to catch up to a world in which technology is at once ubiquitous and elusive.

As teachers, this can put us in a hairy predicament. We’re just trying to figure out how our new dumbphone* works, and our students are toting iPads and Androids in their backpacks. Yet, we’re supposed to be the experts in the classroom that have it all figured out. We’re supposed to be using the technology as proficiently and seamlessly as they are. It’s enough to make some teachers want to bury their heads in a heavy textbook and never come out.

Rocket Surgery 101. It doesn’t have to be this way. Bridging the gap between what we know as instructors and how our students are learning isn’t as scary as it seems. The problem is, there are SO many choices as to how we’re going to leverage technology in the classroom, that it’s hard to know where to begin. So, I thought it might be useful to provide a couple of tips that you can try out with your students starting right away. I want you to give it a whirl, and report back on how it works. Remember, it’s all an experiment!

Keep in mind, that these tips don’t just have to apply to education in a formal classroom environment. If you’re holding any kind of workshops or training on any level, these techniques can apply.

Virtual Office Hours
Most Learning Management Systems (LMS) have some sort of capacity for holding live chats. Some instructors use this to hold Virtual Office Hours – a set time every week where they are available online to answer questions or concerns, or discuss various topics. It works well and students like the interaction, particularly in a Distance Learning environment. I suggest taking Office Hours to a new level. Why not start off the discussion by posting a video on YouTube and sharing it with the class? You can record straight into YouTube, so you don’t need any fancy editing gear – just a microphone and a web cam. I use this to discuss current events and give reminders of assignment deadlines mostly. But we’ve all been in the situation where we get 20 emails from students asking the same question. Why not use the video to respond to everyone at once?

Once you’ve posted the video, send out the link to the class with the announcement of when your Virtual Office Hours will be taking place. They can view the video, and then show up to the chat already having some discussion points and also having any potential issues cleared up.

Then, if you want to get really fancy, you can take your chat outside of the LMS, and move to something like Skype (live audio chat, good for small groups), or Oovoo (multi-way video chat). Other tools worth looking at include TalkShoe, where you could do a live broadcast and have students “call in”, then share the show with anyone who couldn’t make it to the discussion, or even share it with other classes!

Facebook Groups
If you haven’t already created a group for your class on Facebook, do it. Let’s face it…the majority of your students are spending all their time on Facebook anyway, so why not be where the action is?

Think of a Facebook Group as an opportunity to create a living, breathing environment where the class can share links, have discussions, and comment on things. You can post photos, videos, links, and events – so there are tons of possibilities. Perhaps you want to post your Office Hours video there, instead of on YouTube? Easy peasy, and again, you can record straight from your web cam. Maybe you want to share links to recent news, or post industry events like tradeshows and conferences to the calendar.

What’s cool is, anything you post will show up in group members’ Facebook stream, so as they go about their day, they will see bits and pieces of things relevant to what they are learning. It’s a way to keep them learning even when you’re not in the classroom. And once encouraged, people love to share, so suddenly, your class is helping to create the content for your course!

The great thing about Facebook Groups, is you can make them secret. That means, the class group won’t show up in public searches, and it’s by invitation only, so you can carry on in a private manner without worrying about a bunch of non-students getting in there and cluttering things up. And if you’re worried about becoming Facebook friends with your students just so you can have them in the group, don’t. You can set individual preferences inside of Facebook so particular friends only see what you want them to see.

So there you have it. Two quick ideas that you can start to experiment with today. Try it out…and get back to me with your thoughts. I’m eager to hear your experiences! And also, if you have any of your own tips to share, please do so in the comments. Happy teaching!

*Hat tip to Jon Swanson

[photo credit: katiew on Flickr]

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I’ve been musing here for over 3 years. It seems like much longer! But, it IS Internet time after all, so that’s like, 15 years, right?

I’ve often thought of my blog as my playground. It’s the space where I can feel free to mess around with ideas and concepts, get things clear in my head, and spend time enjoying the process of writing. I’ve not paid much attention to the so-called “experts” who say one “must have a theme, or topic for their blog”. I have written about everything here, from life to productivity, to work, self employment and creativity. I’ve been fortunate that the topics I’ve covered have opened up new opportunities for me to write for great blogs like Thoughtwrestling and Ottawa Tonite. I’m even exploring some new blog writing opportunities now (to be announced soon!).

It’s time for a change.

As many of you know, I’ve been a teacher in some capacity for much of my 20 year career. It all began back at the cable station, when part of my job as a Producer was to run training workshops for the station’s volunteers in such things as camera, lighting, audio, directing and editing. After I went back to school in ’97, I started work at a training company. I helped to design one of the first Web Design certificate programs offered at Algonquin College, and worked as a program coordinator and course designer for corporate training outside the college as well. During my high-tech hayday, I designed training and awareness programs and wrote help documentation. I spent some time traveling across the United States teaching software at corporations. Then, about 3 years ago, I was hired part time to work for Algonquin college, where I currently teach video production and Web Media, and am designing an online course in Digital Communication.

The best part is…I absolutely adore teaching. Some of the most fun I have is creating learning environments for my students – interesting ways for them to get their hands dirty with new ideas. And the best moment…the BEST moment…is that moment when you see the lightbulb go off over a student’s head. The moment they really GET what you’re teaching them, and they are inspired to move forward with their new knowledge and make things happen. It’s just about one of the most rewarding things there is.

I’m changing things up here on Suzemuse, because I want to talk more about teaching, and training, and education, and how technology plays into all of it. How our experience as both teachers AND students is changing. How emerging technologies are opening up new ways to learn and experience and explore things.

Digital technologies such as social media are rapidly changing the landscape of education. Many teachers and educational institutions are facing big challenges with trying to keep up. Students are demanding more interactivity in their learning environments all the time. The tools are there, and ripe for use inside and outside the classroom, but as educators, we need to figure out the most effective ways to use them. One of the ways I want to do this is by opening up a space where we can all talk – students, educators, administrators, corporate trainers – about ideas, best practices, successes, and failures.

So, starting today, Suzemuse is transforming. I am going to shift the focus of this blog to talking about education and emerging technologies, and I hope to start some interesting conversations around the shifting landscape and the future of education. I’m going to engage with other educators and hope to provide interviews, guest posts, and maybe even a podcast down the road.

This is where I want to be right now. It’s an extremely exciting time and I’m looking forward to exploring this with you.

Thank you for your attention and time and contribution here the past three years. Here’s to next steps!

xo
Suze

[photo credit: Matt Packer on Flickr]

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We’re such creatures of habit.

When I think of the 9 to 5, the corporate rat race, I think of the Fifties. You know, the classic scene where it’s 5 o’clock, Mom’s got her hair and makeup tidied, is getting the table set, the kids are playing quietly on the floor, and Dad comes in the door, with his briefcase, suit and hat. He looks a little worn out from the workaday world, but he’s proud to be providing for his family. Tomorrow morning, he’ll head out the door, commute to the office, and do it all over again.

Sure, a lot of things about this scene have changed. “The Wife” isn’t necessarily a professional homemaker anymore. The kids are likely playing XBOX. A lot of Dads don’t wear suits to work anymore. But it’s funny that the one thing we’re still hung up on is the whole “Workaday World” thing.

Many people still get up every Monday to Friday morning, grab their lunch bag out of the fridge, commute into the city, and sit in a stuffy office or grey cubicle for 8 hours. They take their lunch to the lunch room and eat ham sandwiches while discussing last night’s hockey game. They shuffle back to their desks, until 3pm when it will be “Jack’s Birthday” in the boardroom. They will stand around eating too-sweet cake off paper plates with plastic forks, and pat Jack on the back before heading back to their cube to finish the day. They will get up at 5pm, grab their empty lunch bag, and commute home. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the type of work being done. I know plenty of people that work in offices who truly enjoy the work they do. They are involved in interesting projects, with good people, and dynamic teams. But I am wondering if there are better ways to accomplish the same thing?

8 days hours a week day. I had an interesting conversation with my friend Pam yesterday. We’re both self employed consultants, and we spent some time musing about how life of a consultant is VERY different from the life of the average nine to fiver. It really got me thinking.

People in the workaday world are required to show up at a certain time of the morning, get right to work, and keep working for 8 hours. Then they can go home. The expectation is that, aside from a few short breaks and lunch, they will keep working throughout the duration of their time there. However, it’s common knowledge that a certain percentage of those 8 working hours are made up with personal calls and email, chatting with coworkers, cake in the boardroom, and yes, Farmville. So, of those 8 hours, how many are being spent head-down in work? 6? 5? Less? The corporate culture equates sitting at a desk to being productive, but to me, the last place people are productive is sitting at their desks. I got hours worth of work done in just 1 hour yesterday, sitting on a park bench with my iPhone. No birthday parties. No co-workers wanting to chat. No boss bugging me every 10 minutes.

Those of us who work for ourselves (or who work at home) have a very different model. My actual sitting at the desk working time each day is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4-5 hours. Makes me seem like kind of a slacker, eh? But consider that the average nine to fiver is probably putting in only about 6 hours of an 8 hour day on actual work, and suddenly I’m at about par. Throw into the mix that many consultants and workshifters spend a large percentage of the rest of their days working via mobile device – responding to emails, taking and making calls, or networking while in line at the grocery store, or while waiting for a friend at dinner. Just because people are not at the computer doesn’t mean things aren’t getting done. In fact, it’s possible that even more things are getting done in the average day spent outside of the cubicle walls.

If I can’t see you, you’re not there. Cats have this funny thing where if they can’t see you, they think you can’t see them. From under blanket, or in a box, as far as a cat is concerned, you can’t see them, so they are not actually there. Imagine their surprise when you suddenly lift the blanket or open the box! Managers in the workaday world are like cats that way. They think that if they can’t physically see their staff sitting in their cubicles, then they aren’t there. And if they aren’t there, then obviously, no work is getting done.

I worked in the corporate rate race for many years before striking out on my own. It was in my job description to show up at a certain time, leave at a certain time, and do specific things while I was in the office. If I had to leave to run to the store or something, I had to let people know where I was. Then, I had to make sure that I stayed an extra 20 minutes at the end of the day to make up the time. If I wanted to go have coffee with a friend, it was best to wait till after hours – coffee with friends during the “work day” was frowned upon. After all, I was supposed to be working between 9am and 5pm. Socializing and networking was for after business hours only.

As is the case with many small businesses these days, our team at Jester Creative is entirely remotely based. They don’t have to show up to an office every day. We meet in person, discuss the work to be done, then they go off and do it. We don’t care if they do the work at 4am on a Sunday or 2pm on a Thursday, as long as it gets done, they meet their deadlines, and contact us if they have issues.

In fact, I have much lower expectations than the average workaday world manager. I don’t expect my team to show up at 9 and leave at 5, stick around for birthday parties and eat ham sandwiches in the lunchroom. I just expect them to get the work done. I don’t care if they go for coffee in the middle of the day, and I don’t care if they take Tuesday off. The irony is, because my expectations of their physical presence are so much lower, the work that is put out is of much higher quality, gets done much faster, and in fewer hours than if they were sitting in a cubicle 8 hours a day.

I feel as if I could write forever on this topic. What it comes down to is, I think that some corporate culture shifts need to start happening. We see countless reports on how much wasted time, and lost productivity there is in the corporate environment and particularly in government. Don’t you think that finding ways for workers to escape the 9 to 5 culture could improve that? I want to hear your thoughts.

[photo credit: herval on Flickr]

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There are basically two situations we get into as self-employed people. Either we are completely overwhelmed because we don’t have enough clients, and therefore, don’t have enough money coming in, or, we are completely overwhelmed because we have so many clients, so many projects to get done and what would seem like not enough time.

Been on both sides of that fence? Yeah, me too. While the latter is obviously the ideal situation, it can be equally as stressful as the former. Having too much to do, and too many clients, especially when you’re self employed, is what my friend and former boss, Andrew Moizer, would classify as a “good problem”. But a good problem is still a problem, and even the best of problems can quickly turn into bad problems if they aren’t dealt with.

The thing about both of these problems – the one of not enough business, and the one of too much business – is that they have the same solutions. You see, both the good problem and the not-so-good problem create the same feelings of being overwhelmed. Therefore, it stands to reason that the path to stop these overwhelming feelings would be similar, right? Let’s explore some ways we can fight this, and reclaim our sense of calm and serenity in the midst of the chaos.

Always Baby Steps. I often equate self employment to climbing a big mountain. You start the journey, and you feel great. You are moving fast, and seeing the infinite potential and opportunities that lie ahead of you. Then, after a while of this, you realize you’re still climbing. You’re getting a bit tired. You’re running out of resources, and you still haven’t reached the first plateau. You slip, and slide back down the mountain, and have to start climbing all over again. Eventually, you get your feet under you, but not for long. Yes, you’re stronger now, but obstacles become more complex the higher you climb. You climb up a bit, slide down a bit, until eventually, you can see the summit.

Sound familiar?

The only way to get to the top of a mountain is one foot in front of the other. If you think that the moment you open the doors of your business, the money and clients are just going to fly in, well, I’m here to tell you you’re mistaken. (Don’t worry, we all made the same mistake.) It takes work, and sacrifice, and more work, and hustle, and courage, and not much sleep to start and run a company and make it successful. It also takes near infinite amounts of patience. Everest wasn’t conquered in a day, and every day you are working on your business you are on Mount Everest. And to get to the top, you have to do it like everyone else – baby steps, one foot in front of the other. Don’t overwhelm yourself by focusing everything you have on reaching the summit. Focus on the task at hand, then the next one, then the next one. Eventually, the top of the mountain will come into view.

How are you DOing? At the present time, I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 projects on the go. I wrote them all down on my white board the other day, just to see what it looked like. At first, I thought it was going to send me into a panic. But when I saw it all laid out in front of me, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I was kind of excited about it. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on!

A lot of people assume that when I say “projects” I mean “paid work”. I have a tendency to lump everything in together. That way, I can be sure that even the stuff I’m not being paid to do gets enough of my attention. I have some fun little creative side projects right now. They are a good break from my professional work, and that balance is critical.

So, do two things. First, make a list of all your projects…and I mean ALL of them. Yes, that scrapbooking project counts as a project. So does your podcast, your blog, and that going away party you’re planning for your cousin. Writing it all out helps you to see where your head is at and where your focus is. You can group them and categorize them any which way that makes sense.

Then, once you have your high level categories, start to make your task lists. Take each project, and write down all the associated tasks you need to get done. Put them in a To Do list. I use a combination of Evernote and Egretlist, because they are integrated and sync across systems. I tag each item with a priority and group it under a project. That way I always know what needs doing where and when. You can even keep your list in your calendar, or (GASP) a paper notebook or Daytimer.

What’s cool about having all your tasks laid out is, it becomes super easy to get started at something. Simply pick something from the list, and do it. I tend to have times where I’ll bang off a bunch of shorter items, like sending emails or small writing or research tasks in a group, then slot in some time to tackle the larger things. Crossing off 4 or 5 things in one go is a great way to feel like you’re accomplishing things, and it frees up space for the larger tasks too.

But whatever you do, don’t try to keep your To Do’s in your head. It never works, and you’ll forget stuff, and chaos can quickly become catastrophe. Writing it down gets it out of your head, so you don’t have to keep thinking about what needs doing – and you can just focus on doing.

Being busy, whether it’s hustling for new clients or managing the ones you have, is a good, good problem to have. As overwhelming as it can be, it’s important to not let it get to you. By focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, crossing off one task at a time, you’ll walk away from each day having climbed a bit higher up that mountain.

So, get yer hiking boots on. We got a hill to climb.

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I’ve met Peter Childs a few times, but it was only today that I decided to really get friendly with his site, DailyDinner.tv.

At first glance, the site seems pretty straightforward….plain, even. There’s no funky graphical header or image rotator. There’s no long section of “follow me here”, or “tweet me there” calls to action. There’s not even a whole lot of text.

The genius in Peter’s idea is not in his ability to leverage social platforms to maximize the engagement of users and the authenticity of the experience and yadda yadda blah blah blah. (Thank goodness!)

Nope. What Peter does is way simpler, and WAY more effective. He solves a problem that each and every one of us have on a daily basis – what to make for dinner tonight.

DailyDinner.tv does one simple thing and does it well. Every day, at around 11am EST, the site posts a new, delicious recipe, that can be made with simple ingredients, simple kitchen tools, and in around 30 minutes. Peter tells me that his recipes are generally “an amalgam of several recipes to add flavour or reduce time, and some classics that everyone does the same.”

On the home page you’ll see the day’s recipe, with ingredients listed and either a high quality photo or a video. The photo and video thumbnail are the only images on the page, and that’s exactly how it should be. I want to see the yummy, not some fancy flashy graphics that mean nothing. I see the photo and I want to make it. It’s that simple.

I can sign up to receive the recipes by email, or I can subscribe to get them in my Reader. I can login and favourite recipes, or view an alphabetical list of previous recipes (which in this case is better than a searchable archive because it’s more practical and taste bud tantalizing to scroll though a delicious list!).

Here’s the point.

Every day I talk to people who are afraid to get started on the Web. They don’t have the time, or the technical/design chops. In fact, you don’t need any of those things. You just need to have an idea that solves a problem, and solves it well. Peter Childs is solving a fundamental problem, and doing it in a practical way – you don’t have to be a gourmet chef to follow his recipes. His recipes have only a few criteria – they have to be delicious, nutritious, quick and easy, and satisfying.

Perhaps we need to take a page from DailyDinner.tv’s book. Forget the fancy gizmos. Forget the latest trends. Build a site that is based on passion (I know Peter is passionate about food!) and the willingness to help peoples’ lives be better, and you’ll have a winner every time.

[photo credit: Peter Childs, DailyDinner.tv]

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I didn’t know what I was going to blog about this morning, then I saw this on Lucretia Pruitt’s Facebook page. I want you to watch it all. Trust me, it’s so entertaining you won’t even notice it’s a bit long.

Impersonations by Kevin Spacey (Inside the Actor’s Studio)

It’s no secret that Kevin Spacey is one of the best actors of our time. Not convinced? Well, if you haven’t seen The Usual Suspects, The Shipping News, American Beauty, or any of the other 60-some-odd films he’s been in, then you need to. Then come back and tell me he’s not one of the greats. Not only that, but as you’ve seen above (you did watch the video, right?), Mr. Spacey is also extraordinarily talented at impersonations. But don’t get too hung up on his ability to change his voice to match Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando, and yes, Katharine Hepburn, because there’s so, so much more to it than that. What makes Kevin Spacey such a great actor is his absolute attention to detail.

Don’t just do. Be. Go back and watch a bit of the video again if you need to. You’ll notice something interesting. You see Kevin just being Kevin, smiling, laughing, and blushing Then suddenly, host James Lipton asks Jimmy Stewart a question and there is a sudden shift. Kevin isn’t just preparing to talk like Jimmy Stewart – he becomes Jimmy Stewart. His body position changes. He starts to move his hands a certain way. He somehow shape-shifts parts of his face to be more “Jimmy”. He’s Jimmy, before a word even comes out of his mouth. Then, when he does speak, he answers the question, not as “Kevin Spacey doing Jimmy Stewart”, but as Jimmy Stewart would have answered the question.

It’s this fine attention to detail that is so impressive. There’s no doubt that Mr. Spacey has spent countless hours watching his fellow actors, studying, in detail, the precise habits, mannerisms, intonations, and expressions they use. Then, he probably spent countless more hours in front of a mirror, perfecting his impersonation. Sure, talent has some to do with it – the guy’s most certainly got an aptitude for this whole acting thing. But attention to detail is what wins him the fans. He’s not just “doing” acting. He’s “becoming” his characters. Big difference.

Are you doing, or being? As you go through your days, are you just floating from one task to the next, doing this, finishing that, so that at the end of the day you look back and can’t really see what you’ve accomplished? Or are you being your work? Are you getting into the finer details of the things you’re doing, and really studying? If you start to pay attention to the fine details of what is in front of you, something amazing will happen. You’ll notice different things. You’ll see how all the little pieces fit together to make the whole. You’ll be able to read between the lines, and your end result will be much, much better quality. Be present with your work, and focus on the detail of it, until you get it right.

Make it look easy. Kevin Spacey makes acting look easy. In that video, he shifts seamlessly from Kevin to character and back again. He brings all the pieces together – body language, humour, expressions, tone of voice – and the complete package is presented flawlessly. But at the end of the video, you see Kevin do something, even though it’s sort of in a joking way. He fans himself, says “whew”, pretends to look worn out by this ordeal of having to play so many characters at once.

It is not easy to do what he did in that clip. It takes crazy amounts of concentration, confidence, experience, and wit – more than most people have. I can bet that it would take a lot out of a performer to have to perform on the spot like that. But Kevin’s a details man, and he’s not about to let the minutiae slide, that’s for sure. He’s practiced, prepared, and paid attention to detail, and he makes it look easy.

Are you a teacher? A public speaker? A musician? A consultant? Your goal should be to make what you do look easy, even though people know it’s hard. And that takes an absolute dedication to detail. It takes practice and knowledge and comfort with your subject matter. When you make things look easy, you’re not trying to show people that things ARE easy. You’re showing that you’ve mastered something, and if you’re a master, people will want to see more. Maybe they will even want to hire you for what you know how to do.

Making something look easy is hard, and it takes lots of practice and a bit of talent and oodles of time. But focus your energies on working hard at making it look easy, and people will start to respond. Remember, most people just see the easy. Details people see what it takes to get there.

How much are you paying attention to the fine details of things? Are you reading between the lines? Studying, re-reading, preparing, practicing? Or are you just going with the flow and stopping when something is “good enough”? I know I’d rather see Kevin Spacey do a remarkable impersonation of Johnny Carson than one that’s just “good enough”. Wouldn’t you? Then why would we ever expect just “good enough” out of ourselves?

Perhaps we should all try to be a little more Kevin Spacey.

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Many an article is written on the topic of focus. People tell you that in order to meet your goals, you must push everything away that can distract you. You must focus on that one thing, until you achieve it – otherwise you run the risk of not accomplishing anything at all.

I think that’s a load of hooey.

The more you do, the more you know. I am a voracious learner. I’m curious to the nth degree, and I get very frustrated when I don’t understand things. So the only way I can find peace is to try and figure it out. Thank goodness for Google.

Because of my innate curiosity, I end up involving myself in a lot of things I would not otherwise be involved in. Curiosity is the reason I ended up going back to school to learn about new media in 1997. Suddenly, it became my career. Curiosity made me want to get into teaching – after all, in order to teach something, I had to learn it first. What better way to understand things than to have to explain them to someone else, right?

My curiosity makes me take on lots of new things, and sometimes, those new things become opportunities. So do a lot. Be curious a lot. And before you know it, doors will start to open.

Overdo it! Come on! I dare ya! I am the type of person that likes to be involved in a hundred things at once. I come by it honestly. When I was growing up, my parents were always doing a million things. They worked full time, raised two kids, were gardeners, and were two of the most active people in their community. They were always on organizing committees to plan events and fundraisers for our town, were heavily involved in social events on the military base, and then in his “spare” time, my Dad helped build a TV station. Did I mention they both worked full time, and still had plenty of time left over to spend with us kids?

I often hear people say things like “Don’t bite off more than you can chew!” and “Don’t stretch yourself too thin!”.  Now, I’m not advocating spending every waking moment running around, being involved, working on this and that. There has to be a balance, and everyone’s limit is different. But I think that many people are so afraid of over-committing themselves that they end up not committing to anything. Instead, they wind up on the sofa watching reruns of LOST 6 hours a day, wondering where the time goes and why everyone else seems to be getting all the good stuff.

I encourage you to take a good hard look at how you spend your days. Sure, you may have three kids, two dogs, and a mother-in-law. But I bet that even with all that going on you can find 1 hour a day (doesn’t have to be consecutive!), to carve out some time to at least THINK about a project or two that interests you. Maybe you even talk to a friend or colleague that might want to work on your projects with you.

Find the time MAKE the time to work on stuff. Inject it into your day. Sitting at the coffee shop with a sleeping 6 month old? That’s plenty of time to learn something new, jot down some ideas, or GChat with a friend about your idea. Walking the dog? Why listen to Christina Aguilera for the thousandth time, when you can be catching up on interesting podcasts or taking a course at iTunesU?

We all have more time than we think we do. We all have some room to commit to new things. You just have to figure out how to work it in with the rest of your life.

But what about focus? Oh yes, we were talking about focus. Sorry, I got distracted.

Here’s what I’ve been wondering about the past few days. I’m involved in more things right now than I’ve ever been involved in before. My company has just started a bunch of great new projects. I’m gearing up for another semester of teaching at Algonquin College, and I’m also designing an online course in Digital Communication for this program. I’m working on a couple of speaking engagements this Fall. I’m heavily involved in the creation of SAW Video’s new web site. We’re in pre-production for Season 3 of The House Healers. I even have a couple of secret projects on the go in the background. All that…AND, I still spend plenty of quality time with hubby and the rest of the family, my friends, and occasionally find some time for just me. I sleep 6-8 hours a night. I watch maybe 2 hours of TV a week. Balance.

Some people might argue that I don’t have any focus, and that it’s dangerous to be so “all over the place”. But if that’s the case, then why do I feel like I have more clarity than ever before? My good friend and mentor Andre nailed it the other day, when he said to me, “You have clarity, because you are doing what you should be doing. You’re finding all kinds of ways to create and deliver content. It may seem like you’re all over the place, but in fact, you’re doing one thing well. You’ve just found lots of different ways to do it.” I think he’s bang on.

So, I challenge you…forget focusing on one thing. Focus on everything you care about. The secret is to not get overwhelmed, and to chip away at everything as it comes. You’ll find that when you’re focusing on doing everything you love, it all becomes crystal clear.

Oh, and while you’re busy focusing on everything? Here are some great tips from Lifehacker on how to train your brain to be less distracted. Hat tip to my friends Randy Matheson and Stacerella for focusing long enough to point out the article to me.

[photo credit: Philo.cn on Flickr]

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On an average day, I probably skim through about 200 web sites. Most of these I subscribe to in my Google Reader, so that I can quickly scan the headlines and in some cases, the first bits of content for items of interest. Of those 200 items, I probably scan the body content of about 75. Of those 75, I probably read between 15 and 25. Of those, I probably am compelled to comment on 2-10 items.

We all want to figure out the secret sauce for getting more traffic to our content. The problem with only counting page views is, just because someone lands on a page of our site, doesn’t mean they are reading everything. They could be just like me – skimming for something interesting. If they don’t find it, they move on. That’s why I believe the more important things to track are comments, re-posts/shares, inbound links, and bounce rate. Those are not guarantees that people are reading, but they are a lot more reliable gauges than page views alone.

So how do we encourage people to actually READ and LEARN from what we are offering? How do we compel our readers to ACT upon what we’ve shown them – whether it’s to change a behaviour, or buy a product we are selling? I’ve broken it down to one simple concept.

Tell a great story.

Once upon a time I wanted you to buy my stuff. One of the biggest mistakes that people make online is they move to the sales pitch too fast. I like how Chris describes it – “I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth.” If your blog post is entirely made up of you talking about how important you are and why everyone loves you and how much people pay you to do things, I’m moving on. I might even unsubscribe. If, the very first time I hit your web site, I see your squeeze page asking me to give you my email address or buy your $50 e-Book or $500 workshop, I’m outta there. For Pete’s sake, I don’t even know you yet!

Look. We all want to build our businesses. We all want to get to the end goal, being profitable, as quickly as possible. Many people are desperate – they’ve given up everything to start their companies, and now the cash flow isn’t there. The problem is, real sales takes time. People have to get to know you, trust you. They want to make sure they are getting something of value in return if they are going to give you some of their hard earned cash. It’s only fair that we respect that and be patient with our prospects.

And you’re right – it totally sucks having to be patient.

But rather than sitting around doing nothing, wondering why your hard-sell pitches aren’t working, why not focus on building up the reasons why people should want to be involved with you? Why not work on telling a better story about yourself?

My mind is a blank slate. Have you ever tried to write your own bio? It’s hard, eh? Difficult as it is, I think that anyone who wants to create content online MUST start by putting together their bio. Writing about yourself is a really great way to start to understand what you’re all about. And understanding what you’re all about is key to telling a great story. It’s a good idea to have someone else to help you with the bio. Ask them to interview you, or simply send them a draft that they can give you feedback on. Often, we are too modest when writing about ourselves, so our bios sound just like everyone else’s. But just going through the process of writing a bio can help you to understand a bit more about yourself, and getting someone else’s take can make you realize what you do and what you know that is of real value.

Once you understand more about who you are and what you have to offer, you can start to build stories around that.

Let’s say your background is in the telecommunications industry. You worked for 10 years with various major telcos, and this has given you a great understanding of how big companies work. You were a team leader there, so you have lots of insight into team building, empowerment, and creating successful collaborations. You were also there during the boom years AND the bust years of high tech, so you know all about how cutbacks can affect morale, and you’re an expert on survivor guilt.

How many story ideas are there in that last paragraph? Count them.

Write your bio. Then write a list of stories you can tell that relate to your experience. Start publishing those stories. And remember, if writing isn’t your bag, you don’t have to write. Grab a web cam, record your thoughts on video and put them up on YouTube. Get a portable audio recorder, create an audio podcast. Sure, you might feel weird at first, but with practice, you’ll get more comfortable, I promise.

Every piece of content that exists in the world is a story. In order to create great content, you have to be able to find the story in everything you do. Then, you have to sit your butt in the chair and express it.

Build stories and share. Build stories, and share.

I bet that before you know it, opportunities will be pouring in from people who want to hear more of your story. Sounds like a much more enjoyable way to make a living, don’t you think?

By the way – there are 8 story ideas in that paragraph. Did you find them all?

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