“My bedroom was the set so it had to morph back and forth between a 16 year old girl’s bedroom and a 26 year old guys bedroom.”

This interview ends our series on Video Distribution.  I thought I’d take a different approach and do a case study on creating video for YouTube and how Mesh Flinders and Miles Beckett created Lonelygirl15 which received over a million hits. Today’s interview is with Mesh Flinders.

How did you come up with the concept of Lonelygirl15?

Miles Beckett and I met in 2006. He told me he wanted to make a series about a vlogger on YouTube and have some mystery around it. We started meeting regularly and pretty soon we had some characters and a story. Soon after that we partnered with Greg Goodfried and set about casting the show and found Jessica Lee Rose and Yusef Abu-Taleb. We started posting her videos and interacting with the YouTube community. We worked non-stop all summer to make the videos as compelling as we could and to make Bree a really engaging central character. I think the audience was drawn in equal parts to Bree’s quirky charm and to the mystery elements in the show. At that time YouTube was pretty much users that chatted with each other and made videos about themselves. There wasn’t an ongoing story on YouTube like what we envisioned Lonelygirl becoming.

Did you know the total videos you would have to complete the series?

We went in with the idea we would create a certain amount in a week and that number kept changing as we learned more about our audience. We were trying to figure out what was sustainable for us and what was best in terms of our fan base. I left the show in late 2007 early 2008 and by the time I left I think we had done around 300 videos.

How many videos were you committing to do a week?

I think we posted between three and five videos a week all summer. There are lots of important questions you want to

Jessica Lee Rose as Lonelygirl15

ask yourself when posting videos in a web series like what time of day people are watching your videos? Are they watching them at work? Are they watching them at night? In those days we were trying to figure out when it would be best to post the videos so they would reach the widest audience and there were a lot of different factors we considered in this process.

How long did it take to develop and shoot this series before uploading to YouTube?

We were doing everything at once so it was a pretty hectic time. Our turnaround time between videos varied over the years but we were always juggling between writing, directing and editing as well as keeping up with what was going on on the website. It was a huge challenge constantly trying to figure out the best ways to use our limited resources to keep the show engaging and fresh. My bedroom was the set so it had to morph back and forth between a 16 year old girl’s bedroom and a 26 year old guys bedroom.

How did you get the word out about this series, which went viral?

Well YouTube in those days was really more of a community then it is now. It’s just a lot bigger and less personal now. In those days there were specific users that blogged everyday and made videos and interacted with each other. Of course we always responded as though we were Bree if someone messaged the Lonelygirl account and that interaction was a very important part of the show. Once we were part of the YouTube community, Bree’s videos just got more and more popular.  I remember that first month we watched the views climb and we were stunned at how quickly they got up there. Then the debate started among the fan community is she real? Is she not? That was when things really got fun.

I want to thank Mesh for taking time out of his NY schedule to be apart of this series. Next week download our free white paper on Video Distribution.

“From the very beginning Vimeo was created by filmmakers.”

It’s our fourth week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Video Distribution.  This weeks interview is with Blake Whitman from Vimeo.

What is Vimeo?

Vimeo is a video sharing platform for artists and filmmakers and anyone who would like to share videos they create with their friends and family. Basically, we are a very simple service for video creators to publish videos to the web.

What is your position at Vimeo and what do you do?

I’m the director of Community and Product, so I basically oversee the customer service side and the community development on the site. Fostering community is a really important part of Vimeo and we really encourage participation. A lot of people upload videos to the site and then really connect with other people who are interested in the same types of things that they are.  So I help foster that communication. I actually came from the community myself and was hired from sort of obsessively using the site several years ago – it’s a Cinderella story, really. The other side of my job is working on the product team. I helped create new features and work on ways to improve the service for all of our millions of members.

Do you offer analytics?

Vimeo has a basic set of analytics for the basic membership, which is our free membership option. The Basic membership, allows members to upload videos up to 500 mb per week and gives basic access to the site.  Then we have Vimeo Plus which is our premium subscription, for $60/year. Plus gives you all sorts of great tools for your videos advanced statistics/analytics being one of them. We launched Plus Stats about eight months ago and we’re very proud of the added value it brings our Plus customers. We’ve been working on it for a really long time, and it really provides in-depth knowledge about who’s watching your videos and where they are being embedded. How long people are watching them, from what country. Great information for people who are interested in learning more about what people are doing both watching and embedding their videos. It’s really great for people who are interested in learning what content of theirs does well. Where it does well. You might have a video that really does well in Japan or something. It’s really interesting to see where and why different videos are popular in a different region. It’s pretty interesting.

I’ve noticed that on Vimeo the quality of the videos are pristine.

From the very beginning Vimeo was created by filmmakers. It was created by a filmmaker who was interested in sharing his work with his friends and family. So he was always interested in providing the best quality videos possible. For us we’ve always focused on technology that will provide users and members with the highest fidelity possible. In that respect we were one of the first sites to launch HD video sharing back in October 2007. That was actually one of the big marks in our history for growth because that was right around the time that people were really buying the consumer/prosumer HD cameras and those people were looking for a place to share the videos they were creating on the web. We’ve always just pushed the limits on what quality we can offer. Of course the technology is also contingent on bandwidth and computer processing speeds. And even sometimes when computers can’t necessarily handle it, we’ve offered higher quality to our members just because we give them the option themselves to choose what type of quality they want for their videos. In that respect, we offer 1080p HD streaming, which for our plus members is the highest quality available right now online. Vimeo is known for offering the best and highest quality viewing experience and we want to stay ahead of that game.

Is there any way to get my video to a higher ranking so people will see it?

We don’t really rank videos parse. Vimeo is really just about sharing. So the way that Vimeo works is it’s like a big organic recommendation system. What we really encourage is participation both by uploading as well as community participation. And that’s a really good way for you to get more traffic to your videos. If you make contacts with people and you make comments and like other people’s videos, people generally become interested in your work as well. It’s about getting to know other people through their videos chances are they will be interested in what you are creating as well. It’s really a two-way street. That’s really what we encourage. When I first started using Vimeo, I was really attracted by the high level of communication on the site. People were very supportive and encouraging and they were leaving great comments on my videos.  And that really inspired me to want to give back in the same way and learn and be inspired by other videos that people were creating. That was the way people got to know me and the stuff that I was creating. Vimeo has this great collaborative environment that encourages people to communicate with and learn from each other, which in turn brings more traffic to your own videos.

I want to thank Blake for participating in our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Video Distribution.  Next week marks the last week of the series.  We will be interviewing Mesh Flinders, co-creator of Lonelygirl15 on YouTube.  Our white paper on this series will be available on July 26th.

“We offer a suite of analytics, including engagement graphs that delineate when people stopped watching a particular episode…”

This is the third week of our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Video Distribution.  Today’s interview is with Co-Founder of Blip.tv, Dina Kaplan.

What is blip.tv and what do you do?

Blip.tv is the next-generation TV network. We host, distribute and monetize approximately 50,000 original Web shows, attracting 90 million video views a month. The company was founded in May of 2005, so we just celebrated our 5th anniversary, and we’ve always been headquartered – proudly I should say – in New York City.

What we’ve found is that show producers often want to focus their talent, and energy, creating great original content, but they need help with all of the other elements required for a Web show to be scalable and profitable. This boils down to four buckets: first, bandwidth and technology to power the show; second, distribution to outlets such as iTunes, AOL Video, YouTube, Roku, Boxee and other platforms where people enjoy watching Web shows; third, ad sales to drive revenue for the show; and fourth, a bit of marketing, packaging and PR. Blip.tv provides each of these four services, enabling show creators to focus on making great content while blip.tv handles the rest.

Dina Kaplan, Blip.tv

Who should post their videos to blip.tv?

People producing original, serialized shows should post their content to blip.tv. We encourage these producers to send us a note when they’re uploading, to support@blip.tv, so we can check out the content and also say hello.  The founders of blip.tv actually come from the community of show producers, so we’re always happy to welcome new folks to the roster of producers we work with and to nurture them as they grow audience numbers and then revenue.

Do you offer analytics?

We offer a suite of analytics, including engagement graphs that delineate when people stopped watching a particular episode and even where people paused, rewound or fast forwarded within the show. We’ve integrated TubeMogul analytics into blip.tv, and they’ve been a terrific partner for us and for our shows.

We also aggregate statistics across the entire blip.tv distribution network, so shows can check the blip.tv dashboard to track viewership across each of our syndication partners. We make it easy to track revenue by episode and by day, week and month, and to keep track of your eCPM as well.

Are pre-roll, post-roll, or overlay on all the videos that are uploaded?

As a producer using blip.tv, you have the choice to opt into, or out of, advertising on the blip.tv network, and we let you select the type of ads that run on your show.  If you want to maximize revenue you’ll select pre-roll, overlay and post-roll for all of your episodes.  Some of our shows will make a quarter million, or even a half million dollars this year, so we encourage shows to opt into advertising.  We like nothing better than to send out checks to shows for their share of advertising revenue each quarter.

Does blip.tv have ownership over my video?

You own 100% of the content you upload to blip.tv, and that will always be the case.  Our goal is to let you succeed on your own terms.

I want to give a special thanks to Dina for educating us on how blip.tv works as a television network. Next weeks interview is with Blake Whitman, Director of Community of Vimeo.

“Brightcove is the leading online video platform.”

This marks our second week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Video Distribution.  Today’s interview is with Erik Koland from Brightcove.

Tell me about Brightcove and what do you do?

Brightcove is the leading online video platform. Our solution allows organizations across all industries with everything they need to publish and distribute video content on the Web and devices that support video, like mobile phones. To quickly clarify, Brightcove is not a content destination like YouTube, Facebook or Hulu. Our clients use Brightcove primarily to power their own video experience on sites they control. Though may clients syndicate their videos or players through Brightcove, the focus is on building and extending their own, branded video experiences.  It’s a powerful and flexible tool. If you can think of an application for video, a Brightcove client is probably doing it.

Erik Koland, Brightcove

In my role as a Strategic Account Director, I work with Brightcove’s key clients, mainly in California, where I’m based.  My goal is to help the clients I manage get the most out of the platform and achieve success with their online video initiatives.  I’ve been with Brightcove since Aug ’09. Prior to that, I worked in business development and content licensing at two other digital video startups: Vuze and Akimbo. I’ve been in video distribution/audience building since early ’06.

Who should post their videos to Brightcove?

We have over 1,500 customers. The bulk of Brightcove’s customer base was originally comprised of large media companies, but as video becomes ubiquitous across the web, our customer base has expanded as well. Now nearly every sector of industry and society are using the Brightcove platform to drive marketing initiatives and to increase brand awareness, customer engagement and conversions. Brightcove is a great solution for organizations that want to deliver a high quality video experience. They can use our templates and get a great looking video player up in a matter of minutes, or build a custom experience using our APIs and BEML.

What tools do you use to market yourself so people know about Brightcove?

Though I am not heavily involved in Brightcove’s marketing strategy, I can say that like many organizations, we invest heavily in our external marketing efforts to maintain brand awareness and to increase our leadership position in the market. We’ve also been very successful at maintaining our thought leadership in the space, as our executive team is often sought out to comment on industry trends and the future of online video.

Do you offer a player? And how does that work?

Yes and it’s a highly customizable player that can deliver video optimized to the viewer’s internet connection or viewing device – HD down to mobile video.  It’s a Flash Player, but we can also convert the player in a way that allows playback on devices that don’t allow Flash (iPad, iPhone). There are countless ways to change the look of the player or use the player in unique implementations – like shoppable video, or live streaming with chat.

I want to thank Erik for sharing about the power of Brightcove’s capabilities.  Next week I interview Dina Kaplan, Co-Founder of Blip.tv.

“…we offer one of the most advanced video analytics suites in the marketplace.”

Today launches our next 5on5 expert series on Video Distribution. I interviewed Brett Wilson, CEO of TubeMogul.  I was very excited when Brett said yes to this series, since I am a TubeMogul user and love this tool for video distribution.

What is TubeMogul and what do you do?

TubeMogul is an online video distribution and analytics platform.  Our mission is to get online videos watched and watched longer by highly targeted TV-sized audiences.  We have three main segments to our business.  OneLoad is our free video distribution service for uploading a video once and easily deploying and tracking it across the top video and social networking sites.  InPlay is our analytics suite that provides detailed statistics on video viewership for advertisers, marketers and content creators.  Finally, PlayTime is our 100% transparent video ad platform that enables advertisers and marketers to promote their videos across brand-safe sites.

Do you offer analytics?

Yes, we offer one of the most advanced video analytics suites in the marketplace.  Our InPlay product provides real-time video viewership, audience engagement and performance analytics to our clients.  Content creators use InPlay to track the performance of the videos that they upload.  Advertisers and marketers use InPlay to measure and compare video campaigns across video sites, social networks and paid placements.  Publishers use InPlay for performance analysis of their own video player or video site, and to share video metrics with advertisers and content creators.

What does the paid service for OneLoad provide me?

We offer three product tiers for our OneLoad distribution service.  The lowest tier is free and gives our users the ability to upload 100 times per month to the major video sites.  The mid-tier “Business” package provides 500 uploads per month and also offers additional features such as scheduled launches and scheduled recall.  The top-tier “Gold“ package offers 1000 uploads per month, the ability to manage multiple campaigns and the option to batch upload your videos to TubeMogul using an MRSS feed.

Do you target my audience with the video distribution and how does that work?

For users of our OneLoad service who are only distributing their videos through TubeMogul, there is no traditional audience targeting features.  However, for customers of our PlayTime video ad platform who want to promote their videos, we offer audience targeting capabilities to them.

What is your PlayTime Video Ad Platform?

Our PlayTime product is aimed at ad agencies and brand advertisers who want to promote their online videos.  PlayTime is a video advertising platform that features videos as standalone content on brand-approved sites and within social media.  We leverage our massive dataset to place videos to maximize play-time and guarantee viewership objectives with the right target audiences.  The PlayTime network is 100% transparent, allowing advertisers to compare viewership, audience and engagement metrics across every placement in real-time.  Finally, PlayTime guarantees views to advertisers and advertisers are only charged when a video is watched.

I want to thank Brett for taking his time to share the amazing features and services of TubeMogul. I use TubeMogul to distribute our videos and feel the application is very easy to use and fast to upload.  I would highly recommend TubeMogul as a great tool to get your video out into various social media communities.

We just completed our last 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Non-Profits Using Social Media.  Now AVAILABLE is our White Paper on this series so download it today.  Next week launches our Video Distribution series, we will be interviewing:

Brett Wilson –  TubeMogul

Erik Koland – Brightcove

Dina Kaplan – Blip.tv

Blake Whitman, Vimeo

Mesh Flinder, Co-creator of LonelyGirl15 on YouTube Case Study of Video Distribution

This should be an exciting series on what considerations to make when distributing your videos on the web.

“We have built a real strong following online and twitter has been a big opportunity for us” -Rod Arnold

Our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Nonprofits using Social Media is on it’s last week. Today’s interview is with Rod Arnold COO at Charity Water.

What is Charity Waters and what is its mission?

Charity: Water is an organization dedicated to bringing clean and safe drinking water to the nearly one billion people in developing nations that don’t have it. Charity Water started in 2006, based in New York.

How have you been able to use social media successfully to advance your mission?

Several things come to mind. Obviously, we have built a real strong following online, and Twitter has been a big opportunity for us. I think we have the largest Twitter following of any non-profit with 1.3 million followers.  And that has been driven by things like Twestival last year. We were really excited to be a part of Twestival and it created an amazing amount of momentum around our organization.  There were 200+ cities that did live events in support of charity: water by using Twitter as a connection tool, which was phenomenal. We’ve also been proactive about driving traffic to our own site. We’ve never really done anything with direct mail. We haven’t spent money on marketing. We get some free media and quite a bit of PR. Really everything we’ve done has been online and through events. If you want to find out about charity: water and want to learn what we do, it happens online. We’ve also built a new site, mycharitywater.org, which is really a social media site around giving. All that together has allowed us to continue to advance our mission and keep growing.

How do you integrate your current or traditional communication e.g. events, conferences, etc. into social media?

A lot of our events are private events. They are not open to the general public because they are in people’s homes or an opening of a store. If we do a private event for Billabong or another company we are partnering with will typically take a lot of photos and video and share those events with people so they have a chance to feel like they were there. I think the bigger opportunity for us is that we created an event around what’s happening over seas and what’s happening with our work in the fields. So for example, when we do our annual September campaign it’s always a big push for us.

It’s interesting last year we did our live drill from the field via satellite in the middle of Africa back to our website using social media to get the word out. In fact we were in the middle of doing that when Hugh Jackman announced that he was going to give away $100,000 based on whatever his twitter followers recommended. So a lot of people got excited about what we were doing from our live drilling a well and got Hugh involved and he ended up giving Charity Water $50,000. So I think there’s a lot of momentum around live events from a project taking place and people can feel like they are a part of it.

How do you use online video or viral campaigns?

I think the key is making a great video. We see the greatest results when we tell really good stories, and using video is a great way to do that. And capturing emotion makes people talk about it and spread the word. When we post a video on our Facebook page, people help spread the word and share it with their friends. Once or twice YouTube has even put our videos on their home page, which gets people very excited. And those are the kinds of things that you just can’t pay for. That just comes from slowly building a community of passionate people who care and want share the story with their friends. We try to take a personal approach and talk directly to our community with real stories.

What particular social media tools do you use?

We don’t think of it as marketing as much as we do as communicating. We think of Twitter and Facebook as vehicles to communicate with our community in a personal way.  We don’t ever ask for money directly. What we do is try to be generous and talk about what other people are doing. We talk about what our donors and fundraisers are doing and share their stories. We ask for opinions, we try to answer as many direct messages as possible, and we try to be the head cheerleader and surprise people. We don’t want it to feel like marketing and self-promotion. After all, they are the true heroes. Our job is to facilitate the movement and cheer them on.

I want to thank Rod Arnold for sharing more about Charity Water. This completes our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Nonprofits using social media.  Subscribe to our white papers for more on these series. The Nonprofits using social media white paper will be available to download next week.

“Today anybody can take messages into their own community and talk about it.”

We are on week four of the Nonprofits Using Social Media 5on5 Expert Blog Series.  Today’s interviewee works with Nonprofits in their web building and using video to tell stories.  Michael Hoffman is the CEO of See3 in Chicago.

How long has See3 communications been around and what do you do?

See3 was founded in 2004 to help nonprofits make the most of the web. I have been a consultant for nonprofits for many years now and what I and my partner Danny Alpert saw in 2004 was a shift happening and the shift was really about broadband. So See3 was formed to combine the best of web development and consulting with engaging storytelling, because the web could now really support visual storytelling in a way that couldn’t prior to that time.

How have you seen social media change and become an advantage for nonprofits?

I think social media is both the positive and the potential negative for nonprofits. I think the nonprofits that embrace social media and learn about it will do well and the one’s that ignore it do so at their own peril. The benefits of social media is that we are moving from a world of, as Seth Godin calls it, “interruption marketing to permission marketing”. A world where you pushed your message at people and now we are in a world where people don’t have to accept your messages. We’ve really seen a decline in authority and the authoritative voice.  So people are finding out things and learning things from the most trusted sources on the web. And so the benefits are the people that are really passionate about an issue can carry that issue into their own community and so there’s a lot of leverage there. So the opportunities are for the passionate ones who can invest their own time in their own networks and raise money and advocate and make a change. So the opportunity for organizations to reach new audiences far beyond what they can do with their own resources is tremendous.  The potential downside is you don’t control the messages. We see a lot of larger organizations or older organizations struggling with issues around branding and brand control and brand identity.  So figuring out how do we do that and how do we take advantage of it but at the same time where do we need to keep control of it and where can we let go.

Another thing we are seeing is the breakdown between the inside people and outside people. Today anybody can take messages into their own community and talk about it. The person who is actually doing the work in your organization becomes the voice that you have the opportunity now to amplify. So there’s a cultural shift because the organization may not have thought of that person as the voice for the organization. And that person may have never thought of that as part of what they are being paid to do. The other break down we are seeing in the same vain is between the personal and the professional. You go to people’s Facebook pages and they have information about the movie they saw and then they have information about you should give to this cause because it’s important. Seeing that there isn’t the clear line between people’s personal lives and their professional life. All of this is so new and everybody’s navigating it and learning along the way. But a lot of it is scary for people.

What social media tools do you recommend and use yourself?

I think that the big guys in social media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Those are tools everyone should be thinking about and everybody should be using. There are a lot of other tools, specific to other organizations these other tools can be deployed. A great example in the diabetes space is Manny Hernandez’s stuff with Diabetes Hands Foundation, which uses Ning as their home base and very successfully which is another build your own social network system. There are lots of other tools out there and the use of those tools I think depends on the circumstances. With regards to so many social media tools out there I think you need to go deep not wide. What social media is about is conversation and it’s very time consuming to have real conversations and relationships with people. The idea that you can just spread yourself around and push your content out I think that’s the mistake that some people make around social media. Thinking that it’s just another channel to push out the same press releases and marketing stuff that we do everywhere else. It’s really about real relationships, listening and finding opportunities and then motivating the people that you are connecting with to actually spread the word in their own words on your behalf.

Does your company help with social media guidelines?

There are some great tools out there. There is a FREE Social Media Policy Generator. Where you fill out the form and it gives you a generic policy, so that can be a starting point for organizations. We’ll help organizations do that, though most of our clients have some ideas about that. There are good models out there to help you.

When does your company typically come on board?

We’ve found that we are the most effective the earlier we are involved. So really in the planning stage we determine what are our goals and developing strategy. We have all different layers, we have clients that know exactly what they want, they need a video and social media plan and we’ll go in and do it. And then other clients that are on retainer and we are really helping them through all of this change. And building in the certain amounts of different deliverables, but really being there for them on a strategic level. And bringing a level of experience of this world to their internal team that makes their internal team that much more effective. Because they are not running around with their head cut off figuring out what do I do now. Much more focused and much more relaxed about it. There’s a lot of panic where I need to be using this tool or this thing and so what we really try to do is impose some calm and order and focus on that. So organizations feel like I get it and here’s how methodically we’re going to work through it.

I want to thank Michael Hoffman for sharing more about See3 and what they do for nonprofits. Next week’s interview is with Rod Arnold, COO of Charity: Water.  Subscribe to our white papers for more on these series. The Nonprofits using social media white paper will be available to download on June 14.

“We can do things differently.” -Alison Gordon

Alison Gordon, Rethink Breast Cancer

We are on our second week of the 5on5 Expert Blog series speaking with Nonprofits about their social media.  Today’s interview is with VP Strategy, Marketing & Communications Alison Gordon of Rethink Breast Cancer.

Tell me about Rethink Breast Cancer?

Our mission is to help young women who are concerned about and affected by breast cancer. When we started the organization ten years ago there was really nothing in the world of breast cancer that was geared towards young people.  Everything was much more about pink ribbons, pink teddy bears, walks and runs.

We started Rethink Breast Cancer with the idea that we wanted to engage young people in this cause and provide them with the education they needed to be ‘breast aware’ in a way that was bold, positive and upbeat. We re-envisioned the entire cause, across the board and globally.  We were one of the first to say, “We can do things differently.”

We were getting a lot of media attention for our innovative events and partners e.g. GAP, Schick, TELUS, etc.  We started to capture the attention of a lot of young women who knew about breast cancer or had breast cancer.  They were coming to us and saying you know we see what you guys are doing and it really speaks to us and we really feel like we don’t fit in anywhere in the medical world or anywhere in the world.  They felt like ‘Rethink’ understood and they could fit in.

What do you find to be the biggest challenge in reaching your audience?

The biggest challenge in reaching a younger audience is that it’s everybody’s audience so how do you catch their attention when you don’t have the marketing budgets of large corporations.  We just get as creative as possible and find new ways to reach our audience.  It requires getting super creative without any dollars.

How do you approach a video viral campaign?

We work with ad agencies, creative people who work with nonprofits.  We work with the best people and have been successful in viral because what are the odds that another will be successful at creating an incredible viral video that has never done it before? Secondly, we look for an idea that really resonates. I think you can go out and do things to get a lot of attention, but ultimately what is your call to action. Is it to get people to your website, donate money or bring more awareness to your cause? Strictly speaking going after a viral video is not our approach.  We look for what we are trying to achieve.  Since we know our goal and who are audience is we work with creative people to help us come up with the concept of the video.  It’s not just about creating a video for us.  It’s about the idea.

What particular social media tools do you use?

We’ve been on Twitter less than a year.  We have a Facebook fan page.  I think we know what we want to do and what we’d like to do but need to find the way and time to do it. We have one staff member assigned to tweeting and our Facebook page.  MJ (MJ DeCoteau) and I write the blogs. We try to blog 2 to 3 days a week.  Our goal is to take some time over the next few months and talk about our social media strategy. We’re not looking just to do it or pay someone just to do it.  That’s not how we operate.

How does ‘Rethink’ use social media to engage donors, volunteers and those that wish to help your organization?

I don’t profess to be doing a great job in the area of Twitter for reaching new donors. We haven’t given it a great go. I think we’ve done a great job in this area with campaigns like “Save the Boob” or “Booby Wall” or with our latest campaign featuring Kim Cattrall as the face of this year’s “Fashion Targets Breast Cancer” campaign.

I want to thank Alison Gordon from Rethink Breast Cancer for sharing how they use social media. Next week we interview Michael Hoffman CEO of See3. Please subscribe to blogs and whitepapers for more interviews and to receive FREE white papers on various topics.  The “5on5 Life Coach” white paper is available now for download.

We are on our second week of five for the Nonprofit using Social Media 5on5 Expert Series.  Today’s interview is with Founder of DiabetesSisters, Brandy Barnes.

What is DiabetesSisters and what is its mission?

DiabetesSisters is a North Carolina-based 501c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the health and quality of life of women with and those at risk of developing diabetes, and to advocate on their behalf.

How have you been able to use social media successfully to advance your mission?

Since we started as primarily an online organization in 2008, social media has been a critical factor to our rapid success.  Being well-connected in the diabetes community is essential to the success of a nonprofit in the diabetes field.  By working with our friends in the diabetes blogger community, we have been able to reach more women with our online programs/services because they, as a group, helped us get the word out among their own audiences online, via Twitter, and via Facebook.  In fact, these connections were critical in helping us get the word out about the Weekend for Women Conference very quickly.  As soon as registration opened on January 1st, we saw people tweeting and retweeting messages about it.  We have had a number of women who registered for the conference or who applied for a conference scholarship to say that they found out about the Weekend for Women Conference through Twitter.  We filled the Conference to capacity within 8 weeks and I think this is largely due to social media.

What particular social media tools do you use?

Currently, we use Twitter and Facebook.  Twitter is used more for general announcements about the organization and its happenings.  Facebook is used for both local and national marketing purposes.  I post my weekly blog on Facebook, announce our local monthly meetings and quarterly gatherings, and post updates about the Weekend for Women Conference to get people talking.  Facebook allows more conversation.

How do you integrate your current or traditional communication e.g. events, conferences, etc. into social media?

It is more important for us to get people to our website for online networking first, then get them to the conference.   So, we use our website, Twitter, and Facebook to bring exposure to the Conference and local events.  We also send out press releases in the traditional manner.  We have plans to have a volunteer tweeting about the Weekend for Women Conference while it is going on this year.

How do you measure your ROI?

Our LIVE conference and online program goals are integrated.

Objective 1: To reduce the isolation that women with diabetes experience and to provide opportunities for women to engage, learn and be encouraged by one another as they face the gender-specific challenges and issues associated with diabetes.

Outcome measurement: post-conference questionnaire; live event return rates; percent increase in DiabetesSisters membership; increase in DiabetesSisters forum participation; qualitative analysis of forum conversation.

Objective 2: To educate and encourage women with diabetes to make a commitment to improving and/or maintaining their own mental and physical health to reduce the devastating and costly complications of diabetes.

Outcome measurement: post-conference questionnaire; increase in DiabetesSisters forum participation; qualitative and quantitative analysis of forum conversation.

We thank Brandy Barnes for sharing with us their social media practices and where you can find DiabetesSisters out in the social media universe. Next week we interview Alison Gordon of Rethink Breast Cancer. Please subscribe to blogs and whitepapers for more interviews and to receive FREE white papers on social media.  The “5on5 Life Coach” white paper is available now for download.

Pros

• Inexpensive – Flip cameras run under $200 for the HD version. WOW that’s a GREAT price for HD.
• Lite and Easy to Carry around – It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and pull out to capture things around town, an event you may be having or are attending, man on the street interviews, video diary, video blogs, testimonials…
• Very EASY to use – All you have to do is press the RED button to begin filming and press the RED button again to complete filming.  Can’t get easier than that.

• EASY to capture on your computer – Plug in the USB on the camera to your computer and you’re off to the races. Copy the files from the flip hard drive that pops up on your desktop (MAC users) and move them to your computer. You may need to do a little editing before you upload it to YouTube or your Blog.  The files are already formated for the web mp4 (H.264).

• HD – WOW the quality is actually really nice! The resolution is 1280 x 720 which means when you open it up on your computer to view it, it’s a BIG picture.

Cons

• Shooting in Poor Lighting – If you are shooting in a low light environment the quality of the video will be …..darker. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you won’t be traveling with your lighting set for shooting on a flip camera.  The quality of the video can be dependent on the lighting that’s available to you.
• Audio – If you’re shooting a band the audio can be very distorted especially if it’s blasting and everyone is cheering along.  Since you really can’t control the audio this is not good for a sit down interview where quality of sound is important.  So if you are shooting in a noisy place you may just want to capture the video part and lay some music down instead. And that’s done in post, which means you will need to bring it into an editing session and lay the music down and take the audio from the video out.
• Movement – The flip camera can’t handle movement of the camera very well.  So I would just hold and shoot or use a tripod.  Panning the room may look very pixelated and choppy.  So flip camera is not for high speed racing unless you are just holding the camera as the cars race by….maybe.
• Memory – Depending on the memory size of your camera it does NOT come with additional memory.  Once you’re memory is FULL you have to download before you can shoot any more video. Here’s the breakdown of memory size and hours of shooting.
  • • 16 GB = 4 hour
    • 8 GB = 2 hours
    • 4 GB = 1 hour
• Battery Life – Again depending on the camera you purchase the battery life is around 2 hours and only two of the cameras have AA rechargeable batteries.  The SlideHD and the MinoHD do not so you will need to plug in to charge the batteries.

I feel the best reason to use a flip camera is to get something quick like I said above testimonials, to capture parts of an event, to get quick interviews from people at the event where the noise level is at a minimum, man on the street,…  I feel you should go professional video if you are doing sit down interviews with broll (video that compliments what is being said in the interview e.g. talking about cooking and you see them cooking).  When sound and the video quality are IMPORTANT spend the money to do it right!!  It’s worth it.

We are excited to launch our new series of experts from the non-profit space using social media.  Our first expert in the series is Michelle Bouchard, President of HealthCorps.

What is HealthCorp and its mission?

HealthCorps is a proactive health movement founded by heart surgeon, Mehmet Oz, MD fighting the obesity and mental resilience crisis.  We do that by educating and activating America’s students and families to become agents of change for health in their own communities.

What do you find to be the biggest challenge in reaching your audience?

Money is usually the biggest challenge.  The more money we have the more programming we can do.  Some money would go toward social media and enhancements to our website e.g. tools to make the website “sticky” and paying someone dedicated to doing this full time.  We have a Twitter account which one of our Coordinators does in his spare time.   In an ideal world, sooner rather than later, we will have a paid person focused only on new media.

How have you been able to use social media successfully to advance your mission?

We have a blog on our website so that parents and students can read about nutrition, fitness and mental resilience. We actually pay an expert in those fields to write and execute the blog.  We have utilized it successfully to show our “Fit Town Projects,” a section of the web provides an online mapping of all our participating schools.  You can press on a particular location and the coordinators and students have uploaded pictures they have done as a part of their “Fit Town Project”.  There are also photographs and videos that were made available to anyone who wants to see what’s going on at the local level and comment.

What particular social media tools do you use?

We use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TeacherTube. We have a Flickr account and we are also on Wikipedia. We use Google grant advertising to drive traffic to our website and that’s been really helpful. We use different accounts on Facebook such as ‘HealthCorp HealthRaisers’ which is a marathon and cycling team for HealthCorp. In addition to our normal HealthCorp account, we have HealthCorp Alumni.

Have you implemented social media guidelines for your organization?

Like most organizations we just start without social media guidelines but we are in the midst of discussing them, probably launching guidelines in September.  We have so many channels at this point that we want to maintain a certain standardization of message. As things are cropping up organically from the coordinators, students, and people who want to support us, we want some basic guidelines to follow in order to do it. That way we maintain a kind of integrity and standardization message.

We thank Michelle Bouchard for sharing with us their social media practices and what HealthCorps is planning. Next week we interview Brandy Barnes of DiabetesSisters in North Carolina.  Please subscribe to 5on5 for more interviews and to receive FREE white papers on social media.  The “5on5 Life Coach” white paper is available now for download.

In our new “5on5: The Non-Profit” series we will be interviewing key leaders in the non-profit industry on how new technologies in social media are changing the way we engage communities, participate and campaign for change.

Social media has afforded many new opportunities to reach new audiences and engage in a very personal way.  We learned from our non-profit leaders how their organizations are participating by understanding their key messages and core group of participants.  These leaders are making new strides in communication by learning to spotlight technologies that will enhance their communications such as an exercising immediacy in their strategies with Twitter.  We learned that measurements of engagement by way of Google analytics and a full-time digital engagement staff member are areas that will continue to grow.  These organizations are using both free and paid services to learn from the groundswell and make quick and efficient changes to continue to maximize their message and engagement.

Check out “5on5 Expert Blog Series – The Non-Profits” launching May 10, 2010.

May 10: Michelle Bouchard of HealthCorps

May 17:  Brandy Barnes of DiabetesSisters

May 24: Alison Gordon of Rethink Breast Cancer

May 31: Michael Hoffman of See3 Communications

June 7: Rod Arnold of Charity : Water

June 14: FREE White Paper on this Series

FREE White Paper download on our resources page from our 5on5 Expert Series on Life/Business Coaches.

In our new “5on5: The Non-Profit” series we will be interviewing key leaders in the non-profit industry on how new technologies in social media are changing the way we engage communities, participate and campaign for change.

I spoke with Alison Gordon, Vice President of Strategy, Marketing & Communications of Rethink Breast Cancer, a charity that supports young people affected by and concerned about breast cancer through innovative education, research and support programs.  The executive director, MJ DeCoteau and Alison Gordon are leading the way as “a bold and enterprising charity that is thinking differently about how to beat breast cancer.”

During our interview, we talked about the key ingredient to any successful campaign, a clear message.  Knowing what you want to achieve, who your audience is and keying in on a clear message can either make or break your efforts.  Alison pointed out that social media or the tools of social media are simply tools. Rethink Breast Cancer has been forward-thinking from the get-go without social media and they will continue to expand their efforts by choosing to think of their audience, objective and message first, social media or any other vehicle, second.  I couldn’t agree more.

Social media is an ever-growing ingredient to all companies; for-profit or non-profit and Rethink Breast Cancer is looking at new ways to integrate their social media efforts.

Learn more about Rethink’s strategy when we launch “5on5: The Non-Profit Series” starting May 10, 2010.  Interviews include Alison Gordon (Rethink Breast Cancer), Rod Arnold (Charity:Water), Michelle Bouchard (HealthCorps), Michael Hoffman (See3 Communications) and Brandy Barnes (DiabetesSisters).

“…I’ve had great mentors myself and that’s one of the big secrets of my success..” -Allison Maslan

This interview concludes our series on Life/Business Coaches. Today’s interview is with Allison Maslan who is the life and business coach to Sam The Cooking Guy. She is the Originator, Master Personal Coach and President of the Blast Off! Life, Career and Business Success System, a highly acclaimed Author, an international Motivational and Inspirational Speaker, the Inventor and Developer for Blastation, an Interactive Life Coaching Software, and the President of the Homeopathic Wellness Center where she practices as a Nationally Certified Homeopath and Licensed Holistic Health Practitioner. She is also the Founder of the Homeopathic Academy of Southern California the largest and most comprehensive homeopathic certification academy in the United States.

How long have you been a life coach and what was the impetus to become one?

Allison Maslan

I have been a life and business coach for the past 6 years. I didn’t set out to be a life coach. I have been a Homeopathic Physician for 15 years. At the same time I have built 9 of my own businesses. I’m really an entrepreneur at heart. So I had these clients that were getting well and ready for the next chapter of their life and they were watching me building these businesses. And people just started asking me, “Hey Allison, can you help me do that? Can you help me create my path?” Whether that’s creating a business or to bring more passion in their life and get them unstuck. So it just evolved into my own strategic coaching program that I developed from the combination of my business and healing background. It’s just been a natural progression for me and it feels so right.

What’s your style of coaching?

A lot of coaches are very motivational and inspirational and I am that as well. I’m very direct with a compassionate undertone. If somebody really wants to reach their goals I’m determined to get them there. There’s a lot of strategy to what I do and a lot of real practical steps on how you take what we are doing from the work in the session to results in your life. I know that’s different from a lot of life coaches out there, though mines very specific, for instance, if I’m going to help them launch a business, I coach the on all of the details that go into that. Not just the emotional part of moving through the fear and taking that big leap, but what are all the necessary aspects of a business such as the marketing and systems that needs to go into it. What are all of the details to make that goal a success. I have definitely been in the trenches and I’ve had great mentors myself and that’s one of the big secrets of my success. And so working with someone that’s done it before really helps you so you don’t have to recreate the wheel and make some costly mistakes. It saves you on the heartache and the headache.

Do you use social media to advertise yourself?

I think that we are in such an amazing time right now with the technology that we can reach out to people. I would have never connected with a client in Korea if it weren’t for Facebook. And I use twitter a lot. I launched a book called, “BlastOff”, in January and it hit number one on Amazon in Canada and in the US. It also made the bestseller list in the UK. And that was really from social media and being able to reach out to so many wonderful people that I would have never had the opportunity to connect with. I’m on Facebook, Twitter, a blog that I post on regularly. I’m also on YouTube. I try to really get my message out there and I think that people are responding so it’s wonderful.

Can you share a success story of one of your clients?

One of my clients is Sam the Cooking Guy who’s here in San Diego. When Sam came to me years ago. He was feeling really stuck in his life and he had three young kids at home. He was working for a biotech company and prior to that he was working in real estate and he was just really trying to find himself. When he came to me he was really frustrated, because at heart he’s an artist and an entertainer. He loves to be around people and to make people feel good. And at the time he was working in biotech with a bunch of scientists and felt it wasn’t the right fit for his personality. So I really encouraged Sam to follow his dreams. It really opened up the window for him to really look at the world a different way. That there were possibilities out there, that he could venture out and try something new. Sam was thinking about doing traveling news segments prior to the cooking. But since it was around 9/11 people stopped traveling after that time. So then he regrouped and then came up with the idea of the cooking segments. Now you can imagine he really wasn’t a chef. He had friends who owned restaurants who were saying, “Sam, are you crazy? Who do you think you are no one’s going to listen to you.” His own family was really scared and doubtful because he was going to leave the biotech company, which was a solid secure income. And really everybody was thinking he’s making the biggest mistake. He really leaned on me and I helped him stay true to his dream. And told him that, “these people are just projecting their fear onto you. And if you let that in it’s going to throw you off your path.” So I told him to walk towards his goal every single day. He called me his “AA” sponsor. To help keep him on track and my goodness he really broke out of the box. And he was picked up by Fox and eventually got his own television show. He’s won a lot of Emmy’s and he’s just released his second book. He’s also got his own show on Discovery Health. He’s just a beautiful success story.

What are daily or weekly exercises for an entrepreneur?

In my book, “Blast Off” it’s a real structured program to help people get a real clear vision of where they are headed and what they want to create in every single aspect of their life not just starting a business. There are a lot of exercises in my book so you’ll know what to do every single day. And one of the things that I help people do is to break down their big goals into small baby steps, because we get very overwhelmed with our lofty goals and when it’s just too much we often give up. And so breaking it down into baby steps, I call them mini feats. And I ask my clients, and I also share this in the book, is to do three mini feats a day. And that might not seem as much, but at the end of the week you’re twenty-one steps closer to your goal. So mini feats are 10 minutes of your bigger goals broken down into these small increments every single day. Here’s an example of that, say you want to clean out your closet. I know not the most exciting thing. And you say, “Saturday I’m going to clean out my closet. “ And Saturday comes around and you know you’re going to be about 3 or 4 hours with this task and you say, “oh forget it.” What do you? You procrastinate it and this keeps going on and on. Instead try saying Monday at 8 o’clock I’m going to take 10 pairs of shoes and I’m going to put them in a bag. Tuesday at 5 o’clock I’m going to do a foot width of the right side of my closet. I’m just going to organize that part. So at the end of two weeks your closet is completely done and has taken you almost no effort. I have businesses that are using mini feats now. It really really works. I have a software program too called, “Blastation” you can actually input your mini feats in that which goes onto a calendar and helps you breakdown your goals. So that makes it very easy for someone to get their life organized and even a business to run smoother.

I want to thank Allison for her time and sharing her mini feats.  Next week our FREE whitepaper on the 5on5 Expert Series on Life and Business Coaches will be available for download, please go to our website and subscribe.

In our new “5on5: The Non-Profit” series we will be interviewing key leaders in the non-profit industry on how new technologies in social media are changing the way we engage communities, participate and campaign for change.   I spoke with Michelle Bouchard, the Executive Director of HealthCorps recently to learn more about how social media is helping to activate their base.

HealthCorps is a proactive health movement founded by heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, fighting the obesity and mental resilience crisis by getting American students and communities across the country to take charge of their health.

We talked about the importance of providing tools and forums to empower their health movement.  One tool is their dedicated  intranet site for their coordinators who are teaching the next generation of high school students about health and mental resilience.  The site allows coordinators from all over the country a professional development forum to learn from each other by discussing and sharing ideas.

I was impressed to learn that many of their social media activities are performed by an active base of volunteers within the HealthCorps organization from staff contributing to their Twitter account, to students adding photographs on Flickr and coordinators and students contributing their real life stories on Facebook.  Michelle pointed out that social media can be a huge advantage to empowering the grassroots nature of HealthCorps.  Along with a clear message, this further promotes their mission of “activating students to become agents for change.”

Photo courtesy of HealthCorps

Check out our ongoing series “5on5 Expert Blog Series” and look for our new ‘Non-Profit Series’ launching May 10th, including interviews with Rod Arnold (Charity:Water), Michelle Bouchard (HealthCorps) and Brandy Barnes (DiabetesSisters) to learn more about how these executives are using social media to reach their audiences.

Please share your comments.

“…it is beautiful to see someone come into their True Self and be successful at what they really want to do.” -Phoenix

We are on our fourth week of the five week series on Life/Business Coaches. Today’s interview is with Phoenix. Her background includes Holistic and Alternative Health Instructor and Practitioner including Massage; Clinical Hypnotherapist; Yoga; Published Author/ Column on Well Being as well as a Fine Artist.

How long have you been a Life Coach and what was the impetus to become one?

I have been a Life and Entrepreneurs’- Small Business Coach for over 35 years. I have a background that is quite diverse and full to offer my clients.

It was an organic process. People just naturally tell me their concerns. I would listen without judgment and when asked or felt prompted somehow, I would offer a different or useful perspective and suggest a solution or strategy. That’s how the business name became Phoenix Life Solutions & Strategies.

I love offering people a way to do things different so they truly have a different outcome. Call it blossoming or growing, but it is beautiful to see someone come into their True Self and be successful at what they really want to do.

What’s your style of coaching?

I am not a ‘formula’ Coach, everything is customized and ‘organic’.  I am an Intuitive, I ‘read’ between the lines.  I listen and use all my skills and senses to know what my clients need and want, and how I can serve them. I empower clients to discover what isn’t working for them. They learn what changes need to be made for their success in life or business so they feel better. I offer lots of insight, direction, focus and clarity. I impart skills to my clients. I have a program I developed early on: the I.M. Life Program™ short for Integrational Mastery of Life™. This is the foundation of my Life Coaching and Business Coaching. It can completely transform a life at a core cellular level, and `seems’ to change brain chemistry enabling positive behavior changes. It is simple, powerful, effective and becomes ‘organic’ enabling my clients to be successful.

What is your process for coaching a client? And time commitment?

I ask a lot of questions and spend the time listening and hearing what they have to say.  I don’t tell them what to do, I assist them to find their answers. I empower them through a huge variety of methods and techniques. I impart to them useful daily self-tools I’ve developed that really are effective in creating the changes they want.  They want something different, I give that to them.

I started out years ago with the traditional hour time frame. Some clients I may only spend an hour or two with them. Most clients come to me for real change and want to be successful at whatever is next for them in Life and Business.  Most people opt for the three-hour sessions and come for six to twelve appointments.  No matter whether clients come for Life or Business Coaching or the combination, they make the commitment to what they want and need. They know there is a limited time frame that will fit their budget because these are offered at a Series special-fee.  Everything I do is customized to what my clients want and need.

If someone is thinking about getting a Life or Business Coach what are some things to consider when picking a coach?

Make sure they have enough Business experience of their own to assist you. Ask how long they have been ’self-employed full-time’.  Many Coaches come from Corporate or an unhappy job, take a ‘course’ and hang a shingle without a real foundation as an Entrepreneur or hands-on Business Owner.  You want someone with real-time experience who knows developing a business from the ground up and how to handle challenges encountered with owning a business and can impart these skills to help you with your needs.

Getting a Life Coach needs to be a careful choice. You are sharing your most intimate self. Do they have the depth, experience, education and sensitivity to offer you what is needed for your issues? Human behavior and habits are complicated. A Coach needs to know and have skills of how to help you change or accept your worst and develop or enhance your best. Will they handle you with compassion and firmness to keep you feeling safe and supported?

What are the top 5 things entrepreneurs generally struggle with?

1. Under capitalized to go the distance
2. Most can’t wear all the hats, are under-funded or too controlling to be able to delegate
3. Knowing what motivates them and having determination; making money and passion isn’t enough sometimes
4. Procrastination kills success
5. Discipline to stay on point and follow-through

It’s a 24/7 job because it’s yours. You work more hours and most initially make less money. You have to work smart in the beginning years to be successful. Really love what you do, it isn’t work if you believe in yourself and what you offer.

I want to thank Phoenix for her time and sharing her organic coaching style.  Next week will conclude our 5on5 Expert Series on Life and Business Coaches. I will be interviewing Allison Masian Life and Business Coach of Sam the Cooking Guy. Please go to our website and subscribe for our FREE white paper on these series.

In our new “5on5: The Non-Profit” series we will be interviewing key leaders in the non-profit industry on how new technologies in social media are changing the way we engage communities, participate and campaign for change.  I had the opportunity to speak with Rod Arnold of charity:water a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.  He serves as their Chief Operating Officer.

We talked about charity:water and its ability to reach audiences without traditional marketing or direct mail.   What’s their secret?  Knowing their base.  They have an engaged activist based on Twitter with over 1.3 million followers and effectively know how to both visually and audibly tell great stories via photographs, online video and live video.  Their live videos of ‘drills in the field‘ have garnered front row seating on YouTube.

What impressed me the most was when Rod would gently correct me in our interview, replacing the word marketing with communicating.  Their organization is a master of communicating and actively cheering on their base.  Marketing using social media almost seems antithetical.  Social media was designed to communicate.  I got it.

Communicating to the public about issues that affect us all and that we all can relate to is social media.  Who can’t understand the basic need for clean water?  This idea of communicating to their volunteers, communicating to their donors, communicating to potential activists and communicating to a public about what is going on seems to fit the perfect model of social media.  Social media has replaced the need for marketing because they communicate by becoming a cheerleader for their constituency.  The idea of being an activist in your own organization really struck a chord.  To amplify this idea further, charity:water created a  new initiative called ‘MyCharityWater’ which allows anyone to get involved by giving up birthday gifts and asking for donations instead which in turn have a matching funds cycle.  Charity:Water becomes their cheerleaders creating a social feedback cycle to support, embrace and further their mission.  Who wouldn’t want a group of activists to participate in a personal and direct manner?

Check out our ongoing series “5on5 Expert Blog Series” and look for our new ‘Non-Profit Series’ coming May 10th including my interview with Rod Arnold (Charity:Water), Michelle Bouchard (HealthCorps) and Brandy Barnes (DiabetesSisters) to learn more about how these executives are using social media to reach their audiences.

Please share your comments.

“I feel like my main approach is the concept of what is going on within us is ultimately what manifests outside of us in our lives.” -Wendy Haines

I am honored to have had the pleasure of interviewing my former life coach Wendy Haines. She is an actress as well as a life coach in Los Angeles.  She has appeared in successful TV shows including ER, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, and many more. She has stepped into the art of filmmaking with Illumine Entertainment’s first film Beyond the Bridge which Wendy co-wrote and co-produced.

How long have you been a life coach and what was the impetus to become one?

I became a life coach about 6 years ago.  And the impetus to start coaching came from my own experience of having my own coach. I worked with this coach for a couple of years and as things progressed I found myself coming to the call coaching myself. And she kept affirming this too, “You’re really great at this and actually you should consider doing this.” So that was how the seed got planted. At the same time I started teaching a workshop called “The Goals and Success Workshop”.  So people would come to this experience for the day and then they would want continued support. So my experience with a life coach coupled with people coming to me saying, “Hi, I want continued support individually,” put those things together and that’s how things really launched for me.

What’s your style of coaching?

It’s a combination of things, because I’ve studied with so many different people over my lifetime I feel like my main approach is about the concept of what’s going on within us is ultimately what manifests outside of us in our lives. Whether it’s good or bad. So I really come to the coaching from the stance of where do you want to be in your life and where are you now and how can we bridge that gap. So it’s really about first looking within to see if there’s anything limiting the individual that has them repeating the same things that they’ve always done which gets them the same results. So in order to shake things up we look within first to shift around in limiting beliefs or habits that could be having the person stay in the same place. And then look to cultivate a different vision and then also a different set of action plan to move the person towards what they want and ultimately into the life that they want.

How can coaching benefit an actor?

Specifically in the world of acting we are faced with an industry where the employment rate is equal to the unemployment rate for the rest of the world. So you look at those numbers you already know you are in a challenging arena.  So many actors are also professional jugglers; they have day jobs to support their acting career until things really come through.  Often those survival things; the day jobs and taking care of life become the predominant field of attention for an actor. I think life coaching can be great, because it helps you keep your eye on the prize. So you don’t loose the forest for the trees.  It’s easy to get off track surviving as an actor. I also think it’s important to have a lot of encouragement and a lot of support in the journey. And also as an actor you are constantly faced with what could be received as rejection and so it’s important to have a healthy sense of self. And that can be maintained in the coaching process.  Remembering ‘I am who I am I’ve got a unique gift to offer and I can’t get into the realm of comparing, because it’s a dead-end street’. I think similarly for other people it’s the same in a way keep your eye on the prize.

Can you share a success story of one of your clients?

This is a great one. Elaine Hall had created The Miracle Project, a theater and film arts program for children with autism. She came to the one-day workshop for the first time a few years ago and we do a visioning process. And in that visioning process she really went all out. She created a vision that she thought, “oh my gosh this is so big and so amazing there is no way that this could possibly or actually come to pass”. And it had to do also with seeing her program as being the subject of a documentary. She knew that the potentiality was already there, but she didn’t know how far it would go. So within a years time this documentary was indeed made about her and her program and the documentary went on to open at the Tribeca Film Festival to huge amazing response. And it went on to do really well in other festivals. And then within about 8 months this is all still within the year HBO purchased the documentary , “Autism: The Musical” which won two Emmy’s. And all of this time she continued to coach and she still is. So this was 2 years ago, now she has a big book deal and she spoke at the UN this past year. She has become a very big presence in the world of autism and it’s really incredible to continue to see her dream unfold. And she continues to say, “I didn’t even know this could possibly be possible”, but here it is and it’s all happening. It’s really been about her allowing herself to dream that big.

What results can I expect with coaching?

A sign that coaching is working can be as simple as a greater sense of well-being. A greater sense of where you’re going in life. A greater sense of who you are and what you have to offer the world. And then the sense of accomplishment that comes from taking consistent action towards the expression of that and the creation of whatever it is your creating in the world. So I think it can be as simple as that or it can be really specific and big.  So that tangible progress also is what someone should expect from coaching.

I want to thank Wendy for her time and all her amazing perils to dreaming and living big.  Next week’s expert on life and Business coaching is Phoenix who will share her intuitive and organic approach to coaching.  Please go to our website and subscribe to our FREE white papers.  The life coach white paper will be available May 3rd.

“Geography is destiny.” Napolean Bonaparte

Dr. Verghese used this quote to set the stage for a life of destiny, opportunity, hard work and absolute reward.  He grew up in Ethiopia from missionary parents originally born in India.  He was raised a Christian in a Muslim country.  These two components alone might seem to set the stage but his desire to learn, read and his keen ability of observation would lead him to ever greater pastures.

His parents were like most Jewish middle-class parents in the United States cultivating a strict choice of career guidelines: doctor, lawyer, engineer or failure.  His brother quickly showed promised as an astute mathematician declaring his desire to pursue engineering.  Abraham, feeling compelled to make his own declaration, announced that he too had chosen his vocation…he would become a doctor.  His declaration seemed natural against his Ethiopian environment; growing up seeing the blood of animals in various form in birth to their death.

His true moment of clarity came from reading “Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham.  The story of a young man who experience tremendous loss early in his life, the loss of his parents.  He teased incessantly by his peers due to his club foot and only finds refuge in his painting.  As a young man he moves to Paris to study painting only to discover that he is a mediocre artist.  He changes course and pursues medicine.   As he experiences working with patients for the first time he relishes in the ‘humanity in the rough’ and recognizes a parallel position as an artist, as a person who is asks to deliver themselves to him, to his craft.  “One thing that I’m fit for,” the character Philip said.

This book and its turning point for Abraham carry him along his path today.  A medical career in which he is ‘fit for’ and imbues these characteristics onto his medical students with  “hard work and a quiet conviction, much like literature, have the power to transform.”  The book and his declaration of becoming a doctor were sealed and he never looked back.

As in his daily job as a physician he “learned and understood to take his role very seriously” in his writing.  He shared about the “conceit of cure” mentality before HIV in which patients were “reduced to a syndrome.”

HIV was a humbling experience for Dr. Verghese because as an infectious disease specialist he had no cure.  It left him with a “very unsatisfactory feeling.”  He recounts one patient in particular, close to his death that stopped coming for doctor/patient visits because there was nothing left to do.  Abraham decided to visit this patient at his home.  The “act of coming” was so meaningful for him and the patient and his family.  “One can heal even if one can’t cure.”

The act of seeing patients in their most vulnerable condition carried him into the present with a yearning and desire to impart the doctor/patient bedside ritual onto his medical students.  The idea that medicine was losing this relationship to technology what he refers to as the “iPatient.”  The patient left with multiple tests but no clarity of his/her condition and the doctor/patient relationship void of ritual, explanation and healing.  When the average doctor interrupts their patient’s story within 14 seconds of their talking, what does this say about modern medicine?

In his early days of seeing patients he shares his sense of failure and awkwardness around a patient until he would fall back into the ritual.  The ritual of a doctor’s hand on the patient during examination, their names so vivid, the ritual as necessary to convey one message.  The message to his patients, delivered by hand, that he “will always be with you and never abandon you.”

We all need more Dr. Verghese’s in our live, to embrace and support the position of ritual, relationship and touch.  I am honored to know that these physicians exist and are teaching the next generation of physicians.

Share your comments of either good or bad experience with physicians.  What needs to change?

“We are really working on getting you outside of your comfort zone from a place where you are empowered and simultaneously moving into action.” -Jaclyn Beckerman

This is our second week in the Life/Business Coach series. My interview was with Jaclyn Beckerman. She brings to her coaching practice experience in the fields of public relations and media and advertising. Jaclyn is an affiliate of Accomplishment Coaching, an ICF accredited coaches training program. She is based in New York City.

How long have you been a life coach and what was the impetus to become one?

Jaclyn Beckerman, Life & Small Business Coach

I’ve been a life coach for 2 years now. I graduated from one of the best coach schools in the country; “Accomplishment Coaching” and I now help lead the coach training program in New York. I thought about becoming a therapist for a while before getting into coaching. The more I looked into it the more I decided it really wasn’t for me. It’s more focused on the past and emotional healing, coming to terms with issues, neuroses, diagnosis, where as coaching is more goal oriented and future Focused, it’s about getting out of your own way and getting into action to create the things you want in your life. So it was more in line with how I already viewed the world and how I saw the bigger picture. When I found Accomplishment Coaching it was just a perfect fit. I signed up for the program within 2 weeks and that was that.

What’s your style of coaching?

My style of coaching is ontological, which is the study of being. We look at who you are being in the world that has things  going the way they are – this is always in the background running the show. We are consistently looking at how you are showing up, where you are coming from and what your perspective or point of view is. As human beings, we tend to have a limiting view of ourselves (you can’t see the forest for the trees) and we live our lives based out of our particular point of view, or the lenses that we see through. In turn, this limits what we can see and create as possible for us. We’re really working on getting you outside of your comfort zone from a place where you are empowered and simultaneously moving into action. Essentially we’re getting you out of your own way and into action to produce results.  The actions are based on the projects you create which include specific goals and milestones and then break out the steps of action needed to take to meet those goals.

Who are your clients?

Predominately, I work with entrepreneurs and small business owners to significantly increase their bottom line while simultaneously creating amazing relationships. I’ve also worked with authors, performers and artists.

What results can I expect with coaching?

If you fully commit to the coaching sessions, I’ve seen people create phenomenal results that they would have never imagined. Anywhere from finding that relationship they always dreamed of to getting to the next level in their business. I had one client that wanted to meet the woman of his dreams. He was very focused and took the action steps and within three months found his ideal relationship. I’ve also had clients who have created huge financial business deals within just a couple months once they really got clear on what they wanted. The results you produce are directly correlated to the action you’re willing to take.  It really always comes down to the person and how open they are to getting into action to achieve what they want to create in their lives.

What are daily or weekly exercises for an entrepreneur?

One is regular bedtime and rise time. Sounds like the simplest thing but most people don’t do it. The easiest one to start with is the rise time. If you start getting up at a set time the bedtime will follow suit. You’d be amazed what happens when you start making this change the results that people start creating. It goes in line with handling your time more effectively. Another exercise I do is plan tomorrow today. Actually take out your planner at night and schedule your entire day for the next day.  Another fantastic practice is to do things to support your well being on a daily basis. This can be exercising, going outside, laughing, meditating, talking to family or friends, financial planning, reading – really doing the things to create a strong foundation for you to take action on top of. People tend to put this off but you have to make the time for you or you’ll run yourself down and then you aren’t operating at your best for anyone, including yourself.

I want to thank Jaclyn for her time and sharing her coaching skills.  Next week I will be interviewing Wendy Haines life coach of actors in Los Angeles. Please go to our website and subscribe for our FREE white paper on these series.

Here’s social media in action.  I have always been interested in personality tests, astrology, and the enneagram.  And recently I put out the intent of meeting more people who are interested in the enneagram.  My business partner Heidi Rataj had come across an acquaintance from high school that had just written a book on “The Career Within You“, which explores how to find the perfect job for your personality.  So as the Six questioner I am, I looked her up and found that she was on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  So I took a chance and followed her on Twitter became a fan on Facebook and started working on a friendship before connecting on LinkedIn.

Photo by Lisa Keating

Her name is Ingrid Stabb and I began my quest to connect with her through social media.  I started by RT (retweeting) her tweets on Twitter.  I also commented on her new book that I was a fan and loved the enneagram.  Over a months time I would continue to #FF (Follow Friday) her and RT her tweets and then she started reaching out more to me by RT several of my tweets. She also become a fan of ours on Mindeliver Media’s Facebook Page.  We started a dialogue, which then resulted in her sending me, “The Career Within You” that she co-wrote with Elizabeth Wagele.  I had several of Elizabeth’s books so was amazed by my now 6 degrees to this author. And this all came to be by taking a chance and reaching out. I read Ingrid Stabb and Elizabeth Wagele’s book “The Career Within You” and felt it was very informative on multiple levels.

First off, the book starts with a quiz so you can determine your personality type there are 9. I could go into so much more detail of the types but I’ll leave it up to you to read the book for yourself.

1. The Perfectionist
2. The Helper
3. The Achiever
4. The Romantic
5. The Observer
6. The Questioner
7. The Adventurer
8. The Asserter
9. The Peace Seeker

Secondly, I enjoyed the books breakdown of Famous people of that type, strengths in the workplace, what that type needs on the job, the other side of being that type; what’s hard for them and what they need to work on, as well as, based on their type the perfect job for their personality.  I enjoyed this book so much I created a snapshot of each type, so I could quickly look up the characteristics and especially the struggles of the type.  It helps me to better understand someone that may be a micromanager and why they are one.  I’m obviously taking this book a step further in attempting to understand at a deeper level why people do what they do and react the way they react. Now I know there may be deeper issues, I’m just trying to find different ways to work better with people and try to understand them a little deeper then the surface.

Lastly, I love the cartoons, they really say it all.

Cartoon by Elizabeth Wagele

I would recommend this book for people who are interested in a different way of thinking about themselves as well as employers working with all these personalities. It can make life a lot more manageable knowing how to better interact with a perfectionist vs a helper. I would like to also thank Ingrid Stabb for being so generous by sending me, “The Career Within You”, and making it so easy to connect with her on a more personal level. Social media not only works for selling a product or service it’s a great way to reach out to people that you may think you don’t have access to. Love to hear your thoughts.

“There is so many ways a coach can help a business owner from strategic planning, to marketing, to getting through tough problems.”  -Greg Clowminzer

I’m excited to introduce our new series on Life and Business Coaches.  Our first Life/Business coach of the series is Greg Clowminzer. He is both a successful entrepreneur and passionate truth seeker.  He is also known as the Zen Coach and is a self-realized spiritual teacher, life success coach and publisher of Daily Wisdom online coaching tips.

How long have you been a life coach and what was the impetus to become one?

I’ve been a life coach for over 16 years now.  I think to really look back at what made me or prompted me to want to become a life coach I have to go back to my pre-coaching career, when I was in commercial real estate and going through a transition.  I woke up in a place of really wanting to make a change in my own life.  I was looking for some sort of mentor, some sort of guide and I was thinking the people I really looked up to might be a Martial Artist or some sort of Sage.  And the thought that “when the students ready the teacher appeared”, was really predominant on my mind. It was really in that moment that I decided that I want to be that for other people. Those people who might be in that place of transition or that place of readiness. The fortunate thing is that right around that time I did have several teachers that showed up in my life and that were wonderful teachers and mentors for me. So that was really the deciding moment for me way back than.

What is your process for coaching a client? And time commitment?

It’s funny I have clients right now that I’ve worked with for 15 years. I generally ask a person for a year.  I think you’ll see that most work happens over a year’s time.  And that’s the thing with coaching as a developmental model vs. a quick fix model it takes time to develop a person.  I’m a martial artist by background and you don’t just show up and get your black belt after a month. It’s a developmental process and you cultivate skills you cultivate a relationship and you learn new tools to equip you for your life. So my process is generally an initial interview, followed up by a complimentary consultation, then from the complimentary consultation we make a decision if it makes sense for us to work together or not. Then we look at how much time and what’s necessary to do our best work together both in time and the client’s budget. Eighty percent of my coaching is done over the phone; if the clients are local I allow them to choose to see me in person. Some people salt and pepper it with a face to face and some phone.   Then if we are doing strategic planning sessions those are more face to face.

Who are your clients?

A better question may be who haven’t been my clients. If I look at my clients most of them are professionals with an entrepreneurial spirit or a need to be more entrepreneurial. I coach other coaches, service providers, financial services people, insurance, stockbrokers, mortgage people, real estate, real estate developers, CPAs, financial planners, chiropractors, dentists, and attorneys but usually professionals that are looking to build their visibility and grow their business and be experts in what they do.

How can coaching benefit a small business owner or entrepreneur?

There is so many ways a coach can help a business owner from strategic planning, to marketing, to getting through tough problems. Really shifting what their focus is, again so many business owners get caught up with the day to day affairs that they lose sight of finances, expenses, keeping people on the books that they should have let go of. A really good coach is going to be able to listen to and hear all of the concerns and challenges that a business owner may not have found a voice to articulate themselves and  ask questions to point to the truth of what’s really going on in their business.

Tell me about one of your coaching models you use?

Listen, love, enlighten, and lead it’s really the four pillars that I use when working with a client.

Listening to what a client is trying to say or not trying to say. And just holding a space and loving people right where they are.  That can create a huge shift or change for them. And then enlightening is really being able to ask very key questions or helping an individual to make distinctions in life and in language. Leading them is not leading them where I think they should go but out of listening and loving and enlightening is to lead them to where they want to go. Where they may have been afraid to go and just really support them through the courageous journey.

I want to thank Greg for his time and sharing his tips for entrepreneurs to get clearer on where they want to go. Next weeks coach is Jaclyn Beckerman from New York.  Please go to our website and subscribe for our FREE white paper on these series.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small compared to what lies within us.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

We just wrapped up our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Recruiters Recruiting on LinkedIn. So go to our blog page to read more about this series and others.  We launched the FREE white paper on the Recruiters Series, so go to our resources page to sign up and download this copy.

Next week begins the 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Life/Business Coaches helping Entrepreneurs get clearer on what they want and providing them the steps to Dream Big Live Big.

Let’s meet our experts:

March 29th – Zen Coach Greg Clowminzer

April 5th – ICF Accredited Jaclyn Beckerman

April 12th – Life Coach to Actors – Wendy Haines

April 19th – Organic and Intuitive Coaching – Phoenix

April 26th – Life and Business Coach of “Sam the Cooking Guy” – Allison Masian

I’d love to hear from you what expert series you’d like to read about.

“…to establish yourself as an industry thought leader that’s one of the best places to spend your time by answering questions in the Q&A section” – Khan Ozol, PhD

We are on our last week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series hearing from recruiters on recruiting through LinkedIn. I interviewed Khan Ozol, PhD, who is an experienced recruiter and sales professional with a scientific background. He specialize in recruiting accountants and scientists, throughout the Atlantic Canada market.  He focuses primarily on the recruitment of accounting professionals.

How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?

I’ve spent roughly half my professional career engaged in recruiting. That’s probably an accumulative amount of about 6 years. I’ve recruited scientists, financial advisors, and accountants. Primarily in the last year I’ve recruited accountants in the local market that I’m in. So going forward it’s going to be accountants and potentially I’m going to go back to recruiting scientist, pharmaceutical and biotech.

What tips would you give a potential applicant for their profile?

First of all, complete your profile. You get that nice little indicator that tells you where you are at percentage-wise, so take the time to complete your profile to 100%. Because individuals that are searching on LinkedIn are going to find you by those keyword searches and you never know what searches you’re going to pop up in. And have a decent amount of information within each position and go as far back as you’d like. Because the further back you go in your experience the more power that’s going to give you in a keyword perspective. Because you’re probably going to be hitting on multiply keywords in multiply positions. So if someone was going to type in a cost accountant or a formulation scientist and you’ve been a formulation scientist three times in the past and you think, ah I’m not going to put that on my profile. It might be worth it in case someone was looking for a director level individual and they type in a keyword formulation or formulation scientist you’re going to have more likelihood of coming up in that search. So focusing in on your keywords is important, building out your profile to 100%, add a picture preferably with a smile on your face. There’s lots of reading material out there on how to get your profile optimized. Two books in particular I would suggest are, “How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Other Social Networks” and “Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0″.

How has LinkedIn changed the role of a recruiter?

Geographically speaking it’s different for different recruiters and depending on the position they are recruiting for. So for example, I said I did financial advisor recruiting. Successful financial advisors are not looking for jobs on LinkedIn. So for a recruiter looking for financial advisors LinkedIn is not the number one strategy to find them. Now if you’re looking for accounting clerks or accountants or various other roles then LinkedIn may be a better tool for that. More and more people are obviously subscribing to LinkedIn. I’ve heard it’s one per second right now new users signing up on LinkedIn. So what you’ll see geographically there are better areas to use LinkedIn as a tool than others.

What tips would you give to someone who’s looking for a job through LinkedIn?

Number one you have to complete your profile. Don’t forget to fill out as much as you possibly can. The groups that you join are also a good source of leads. You can find groups on almost anything you could think of in terms of career specializations. So there are groups for accounting professionals, cost accountants, usually there’s accounting and financial groups within specific regions and geography.  A lot of folks post jobs in those groups. Job search strategy in my opinion from looking at the data responding to job boards, gives you about a 12% chance of landing the job. Another way I would use LinkedIn if I were looking for a job would be to create a target list of the companies you are interested in. So let’s say you have a target list of 25-50 companies that you think would have the potential type of role that you’re looking for. And now you can basically leverage LinkedIn to find people within those companies and make connections. LinkedIn is a goldmine for you to actually go and start making connections within those companies.

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn and how do you utilize your time?

I try and restrict myself to at least an hour a day. But 9 times out of 10 I don’t succeed at that. This year my goal is to spend time on LinkedIn, So my time is spent building my network, looking for folks, looking at groups, looking at updates within groups to see what’s going on. Potentially looking at other job postings that are out there to see what might be happening in the market place. I don’t engage in the questions and answers section, but if you want to establish yourself as an industry thought leader that’s one of the best places to spend your time by answering questions in the Q&A section.

I want to thank Khan for his time and sharing his tips for potential candidates in how to find a job on LinkedIn.  This completes our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Recruiters – Recruiting on LinkedIn.  Please go to our website and subscribe for our FREE white paper on this series that will have the additional questions asked.  Our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Life/Business Coach launches on March 29th. Please feel free to add your tips and tricks to your profile and how you use LinkedIn for looking for a job.

“The better networker you are the better you’ll be seen..” – Aaron Tankenson

I had the pleasure of interviewing Aaron Tankenson, Senior Recruiting Manager at Sony Pictures Imageworks. With his vast background in film and television production and his extensive experience at various visual effects facilities and dealing with major film studios, it’s no wonder he’s now recruiting at Sony. He’s completed recruiting projects for Speed Racer, Watchmen, Valkyrie, Spiderman 3, among others.  So with no further a-due our interview.

How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?

I’ve been a recruiter for 4 years, with 14 years of film and television production experience. I recruit for all positions across the board for the company. There are a couple of additional recruiters here as well. I recruit for any and all digital artists position at the Sony facility.  Some of the current projects I’ve recruited for are Green Lantern, Alice In Wonderland, and The Smurfs.  I feel my strengths as a recruiter lie in my ability to build and sustain relationships with a broad range of individuals, including executive and upper management, as well as, artistic talent and administrative staff.

How do you go about searching to find potential applicants on LinkedIn?

There’s a couple ways I do it. I use LinkedIn as my all in one rolodex, so I can access it anywhere which is great. And when you have a lot of potential candidates attached to your name it will generally make it easier to recruit for positions. I will also do specific word searches for skill sets and see who comes up and then reach out to people that way too. There’s a lot of approaches I take it just depends on the situation. So like I said I would do a specific word search for a skill set, so for example if I’m looking for a digital artist that specializes in Houdini software, sometimes I throw in one word like “Houdini” and see who pops up. So it’s very important to list all the software you use and know. I also reach out to candidates I know that I’ve worked with or people I’ve hired here before.

As a recruiter what do you look for on someone’s profile to see if they would be a good match?

I look at their profile like I’d look at a resume. I look at their experience and see what kinds of skills they have. Every feature we do at Sony our creative teams will look for different skill sets depending on the position. Sometimes I’ll look for artists that has worked on similar films for the styles we are trying to achieve.  A lot of times we rehire people we’ve already worked with in similar positions they have done on other films.  Right there I know they can do the job, since I’ve hired them before.

How has LinkedIn changed the role of a recruiter?

It’s definitely made it easier to find candidates. I have a database I use at Sony that any and all artists that come through here go into that database. LinkedIn makes it easy to type in a name and see what they’ve done. I use LinkedIn not only to find candidates but to see who connected to me and check on their experience. It’s a great giant database.

What tips would you give a potential applicant for their profile?

Make sure they list everything pertinent to what they’ve done.  Any additional skills if it’s creative abilities they should list them all.  The better networker you are the better you’ll be seen.  It’s very important to complete your profile and provide links to the work you’ve done if possible.

I want to thank Aaron for his time and sharing his tips for potential candidates and LinkedIn members about how important keywords are in their profile.  Next week will be completing our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Recruiters Recruiting on LinkedIn with our last interview from Khan Ozol, PhD recruiter in the Biotech and Pharma world.  Please go to our website and subscribe for our next FREE white paper on this series that will have the additional questions asked.  Please feel free to add your tips and tricks to your profile and how you use LinkedIn for social networking.

“The drug smells like dirty socks.” some patients say.  The stinky med could explain why so many patients stop taking it according to the latest research.  Although doctors that I have spoken to and it seems to go along with recent reports is that they were not aware of the problem with their patients.  Doctors simply didn’t take this into consideration because of the more common side-effects such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, flatulence, distention and abdominal pain.  What is even more interesting is that this common ’stink’ is common in the conversations amongst patients out on the Internet.

So why the disconnect?  Maybe patients and doctors run out of time during their visits to discuss ’stinky’ medication.  Or is it a ‘last on the list’ and not very important considering other potential issues or challenges. But if a medication stinks so badly that patients are no longer taking it…why don’t they tell their doctors?  I have found in my discussions with doctors that patients take themselves off of medications all the time or more commonly take other alternative or supplements without reporting them – not realizing that they interact with their prescribed medications.  To me this is a classic disconnect between the patient and doctor.  Metformin has been around a long time and seems to be showing great results for many prediabetic patients.  So the critical point here is communication.

How does the Internet communication get to the healthcare professional?  Wouldn’t it be great to have some kind of blogosphere, ezine, community filter for doctors that could provide a RSS feed for this type of information?  Of course, the doctor would have to upload or turn it on…further would have to read it on a regular basis.  So time becomes another issue.

Time is an issue for all of us – top if off as a healthcare professional trying to see patients in 8-minute increments – and you have a real time challenge.  Being in the business of creating content and delivering content to both professionals and patients, I find this an ongoing challenge.  Communication, time and feedback.  Our business recognizes implicitly that a one-way communication channel doesn’t work.  It is our goal to find new ways to create two-way mechanisms and in addition a feedback cycle.  Without knowing that patients are complaining about a stinky pill – there is no way to change it.

What do you think would work for patient and physician communication?  How can we solve even the simplest problems – such as a stink pill – without letting the doctors in on the conversation?

We are on our third week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series hearing from recruiters. This weeks expert is Jennifer Farris, Recruiting Manager at Playdom. Beginning her career in HR/Staffing at Google, she was able to develop a strong emphasis on sourcing passive candidates through a variety of networking skills, research, complex Internet searches, cold calling, and developing strong interpersonal relationships with prospective candidates. Presently, she recruits for game developers and producers at Playdom.

“…I always look at who recommended who on LinkedIn and who they are connected to.” – Jennifer Farris

How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?

I’ve been in HR and recruiting since about 2006. I’ve recruited for pretty much all types of roles from technical engineers to accountants, artists, and executives. Now that I’m in the gaming industry producers, game designers, etc. I was trained as a technical recruiter but I’ve done a variety of recruiting since. At my current position I have recruited for game designers for Mobsters/Mobsters 2, Sorority Life, Wild Ones and Tiki Farm to name a few.

How do you go about searching to find potential applicants on LinkedIn?

I know that LinkedIn currently has a new specific recruiting tool.  I haven’t used that one yet.  It’s very expensive tool and one that I heard is useful but I actually think that LinkedIn for an average user would say it’s helpful in and of itself. I use the advance search options and then manipulate the fields from there. So for instance, if I were looking for a Flash developer I might type in the keywords box action script because that would be a criteria for a Flash Developer. See what results came up and then if there were 2000 results I would further limit the search from there by location or industry. I tried to target any search to parse down to about 200-300 results.  I don’t believe in necessarily huge Boolean type searches on LinkedIn. I think that limits you too much in the types of candidates you might look for. I think it’s possible for a great Flash developer to be on LinkedIn but not have the words Flash or action script in their profile. So I would start off with a keyword search see what that provided and then I would actually just search by industry or another type of criteria as opposed to just using a keyword box because that way you can really capture those people who may not have written down the relevant details in their profile. And then after doing advanced searches I often find it to be more helpful doing a basic search and then reviewing each individual’s personal recommendations and the people they’re linked to. I think those searches sometimes provide some of the best candidates not only are people who give recommendations on LinkedIn either that person’s manager or colleague, but they themselves have a solid understanding of the industry if they are able to comment on someone else’s performance. So I always look at who recommended who on LinkedIn and who they are connected to.

Any advice to who a person should be getting a recommendation from?

I usually like to see a recommendation from someone who you’ve managed and your manager.  So getting that 360 perspective if at all possible would be great. Outside of that anyone who can speak to your work ethic and your technical skills I think our ideal. I noticed a lot of people will have recommendations from maybe someone in their HR department and they’re an engineer.  I’m not really sure how valuable those are, it’s always great to have more people recommend you, but try and keep it within the people you work most directly with.

As a recruiter what do you look for on someone’s profile to see if they would be a good match?

Basically, whenever I look at someone’s profile I first just do a quite scan looking for specific keywords again going back to an Engineer and maybe action script or Java. Do a quick glance to see if this person is even interested in this type of technical work. Then if they are interested in a job I look at their general career path and what role they are in now, are they a Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager or are they an Architect. How long have they been at their current job? How long were they in their previous job? This gives me a sense of their career path. The types of roles they tend to look for, their dedication to a company, etc. Then I look at their education when they graduated, what school they attended and what their major was. Then it quickly compiles in my head this person has had essentially five years of solid work experience and they seem to move up the latter quickly or maybe are stagnate in a particular role somewhere. If all those scans of their profile prove fruitful I’ll then delve deeper into the details of their profiles and make sure they’re the right fit. Again going back to checking to see that they prefer to work on a Linux platform not on .net or Microsoft. And just seeing if this person would be happy at this type of company. And if any of these elements are missing I scan their profile again to see if they could fit another role I may be looking for. So maybe their not a solid enough developer that maybe they’d be a great quality assurance engineer. And see if there might be another role for them. If that doesn’t pan out then I would probably pass on them at that time. I do take several pieces of criteria when scanning someone’s profile.  I have a pro account so once I narrow down my search I start reaching out to potential candidates through InMail.

Where do you post jobs on LinkedIn and how often?

I do post jobs on LinkedIn. Ideally I post about twice a month. So my high priority jobs for instance my current company we’re hiring somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 people this year. So we’re going to have a plethora of job openings. I would post once every two weeks to make sure those jobs stay at the top of the list. I post on the LinkedIn job boards. I also post in groups, but it depends on the role. I’ll post on the Silicon Valley IGDA group, it’s their game developers association. If there is a specific niche skill set I’m looking for I’ll post in a group, but for the most part I’ll post generically because a lot of times we’re looking for kind of a catch all and we want to try and get as many people seeing the job if possible.

I want to thank Jennifer Farris for giving me some of her time and expertise.  Next week Aaron Tankenson, Senor Recruting Manager at Sony Pictures Imageworks, how he recruits for digital artists in the movie industry.  Go to our resources page to subscribe for our FREE white paper of the extended questions I asked of these experts.  Please share your thoughts and tips.

In my first series of interviews Cardenas shared his life story starting as a young boy living in San Diego at the age of five, learning a new language (came from Mexico) and surviving in a time where you had to work hard for everything.  Hard work, discipline and a desire to succeed guided his life and career early.  As a teenager he worked side-by-side with a group of engineers building gliders.  At one point they needed help and he was there to step in and test these gliders.  He learned how to fly gliders off of Torrey Pines cliffs.  The Gliderport was first established as a soaring site in 1928 and has defined the history of motor less flight.  The Gliderport is home to hang gliding, paragliding, scale models and sailplane flight.  It’s an absolutely stunning area and I can almost imagine the thrill he must have experienced taking off for the first time.

This thrill became a thirst for flight over the years.  In a life-changing moment he enlisted with the California National Guard and became an aviation cadet.  He was sent to Twentynine Palms, California to help establish the Army Air Corps Glider School because of his early experience with gliders.  He was later assigned to Wright Field, Ohio to become a flight test officer.

In 1944, he flew many mission during WWII under the 506th Bombardment Squadron known as the Flying 8-balls and on March 18th was shot down on the German side of Lake Constance.  He swam his way to safety on the Swiss side.  After recovering from his injuries he was sent back to the United States to start piloting experimental aircraft.  This launched him into a long career of testing aircraft from the Messerschmitt Me 262 to the B-29 Superfortress that launched Captain Chuck Yeager in the supersonic experimental aircraft the Bell X-1.

As I continued to learn more about his military career I started to wonder how he really felt about his late-in life diagnosis of diabetes.  Did it bother him?  His answer was to take it in stride.  He has had so many opportunities and taken them all on with gusto.  His diabetes is no different.  In fact, it too presents itself as an opportunity.  His opportunity to maintain his health.  He shared how his main fight was maintaining and losing weight – which came as a bit of a shocker because I came to see him as almost invincible.  A war hero with no stop-gates but alas we all have our fights.  He too must fight to manage his weight and diabetes.  He too must go to the doctors and make the best out of his situation.  I discovered that for him, for his success and his ability to work with diabetes in his life he had to have a goal.

As with the rest of his life, a goal or objective, has allowed him to succeed in a big way.  A goal keeps hims going during thosetimes when diabetes or his overall health tries to keep him down.  He keeps himself active by working towards a common goal.  Recently he just completed an eight-year in the making goal – to open up a new national cemetery for veterans in San Diego.  It was a major undertaking but no doubt that the commitment from him and others saw it through.  My veteran, my hero, my interviewee with diabetes, Brigadier General Cardenas is an inspiration to us all.

We are on our second week of the 5on5 Expert Blog Series hearing from recruiters. This week’s expert is Claudia Closmann, EMEA Core Technical Recruiter at Microsoft. She’s a tri-lingual speaking German, English, and Hungarian.  She has over 13 years of experience in global recruitment.

“…it’s important that candidates mention the desired technical terms we’re looking for in their profile.” Claudia Closmann

How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?

I have been a recruiter for 13 years. I started out in an agency, dealing with international projects. For the last three years I have recruited for Microsoft via SearchWizards, specializing in Core Technical positions in the EMEA region, but also recruiting for Marketing and Sales professionals.

How do you go about searching to find potential applicants on LinkedIn?

There are several ways to find the right candidates on LinkedIn: my specialty is Boolean strings, so that’s what I use most. Candidates who are interested in being found on LinkedIn, should make sure that they have their profiles filled in as detailed as possible.

As a recruiter what do you look for in someone’s profile to see if they are a good match?

For technical positions, it’s important that candidates mention the desired technical terms we’re looking for in their profile. Also the University they visited can be of importance as well as their professional development. What is important to me is that candidates show consistency in their career, this should be presented in the profile. It’s sometimes interesting how the information in the profile can vary from the information in the actual CV.

What tips would you give a potential applicant for their profile?

It’s important that the profile is filled in as precisely and detailed as possible. Certain keywords should be at least once in the profile, for instance if a Software Developer codes in a certain language, that language should be present in the profile. It’s important also to get an idea of the responsibilities and achievements a candidate has in their current position. The profile should be up to date and cover the last 10 years. The candidate should also check the “interested in career opportunities” option when they want to be contacted and likewise uncheck that option if they are not interested in offers. The profile should still be concise and contain an email address (in the section that LinkedIn provides for this purpose). Candidates should also be an open networker, so that they are easier to contact.  A picture is always nice. Proficiency is really a key in order to be found, among 15 million potential candidates it’s a little of the needle in the haystack. If people cannot find you then even the best expert can not get hired. It’s also possible through entering keywords in the right amount and as many as possible to be on top of search lists. For instance I enter a search on let’s say media expert. There will be a listing and whoever has the most keywords in their profile will be listed first so that’s also quite important. When candidates apply for a position that has been advertised, they should make sure that if they possess the skills that the advertisement calls for, they should mention those skills in their CV, using the verbage that has been used in the advert. This is very important as recruiters search CVs against the keywords used in the position descriptions they receive. It is therefore worth the while to sit down for 5 minutes and tailor the CV towards the job advertised.

What is the percentage of hires that came from LinkedIn?

That really depends on the project that we are working on.  There are projects where LinkedIn is our tool of choice and we use nothing else. In that case it would be 100%. But most often LinkedIn is part of our recruitment strategy or our sourcing strategy. I would say about 30%.

I want to thank Claudia for her time and sharing her tips from Hungary.  Next week we will be interviewing Jennifer Farris, Recruiting Manager at Playdom.  Please go to our website and subscribe for our next FREE white paper on this series that will have the additional questions asked.  Please feel free to add your tips and tricks to your profile and how you use LinkedIn for social networking.

“The first thing is give me a way to contact you.” Jenny Kahn, Sr. Recruiter

Recruiters what do they look for on your LinkedIn Profile?

Jenny Kahn starts off our 5on5 Expert Blog Series from the perspective of a recruiter looking at your profile.  Jenny has recruited in a variety of industries including Aerospace, Semiconductor, Medical Device, Pharma, and Commercial Real Estate.  She a featured recruiter in Marcia Stein’s Book, “Recruiters on Recruiting“.  Let’s here her tips for what she’s looking for in your profile.

How long have you been a recruiter and what jobs do you recruit for?

I’ve been a recruiter for over 20 years. I recruit for whatever needs I have at the moment. I’ve done everything from aerospace, semiconductors, medical devices, and commercial real estate. It’s whatever I can get a contract for, so I’ve really done it all. At the present time I’m focused on public relations and environment consulting.

How do you go about searching to find potential applicants on LinkedIn?

I do a people search and put in my specific criteria’s for the job which brings me to a list of candidates. Then I evaluate whether I think they would be a fit based on their skills and whether their profile says they are available or interested. If they just started a new job and depending on how difficult the position is to fill I might contact them for a referral.  I will email them directly if possible.  Usually if they don’t give you a way to contact them through an email or a group mostly likely I will either pass them over or call up the company and ask for them.

As a recruiter what do you look for on someone’s profile to see if they would be a good match?

To find the candidate I would go in and put the title I’m looking for.  So let’s say that I’m looking for an R&D Engineer with catheter experience. I would put in Engineer in the title, put catheter in the keywords, limit it to the area I’m looking to hire in then sort it by relationships.  So the people I’m closes to come up top. Once I have my list of people to look at I’ll begin with their profile. First, I look at their summary and their specialties. I want to make sure they have a background or interest in the area I am searching for. If they don’t, it’s a hit or a miss on whether I will continue to read on. Next, I will look at the present job. I will look to see how long they have been in that position and whether they are doing something similar to what I need. Then I’ll scroll all the way to the bottom to see what their contact settings are – If they say they are open to new opportunities. I’ll also look to see how approachable they are based on how actively they are using LinkedIn. All this will give me an idea on how to first approach the candidate. Usually candidates who are in groups or have a lot of contacts are the first I will reach out to.

Where do you post jobs on LinkedIn and how often?

I post jobs in the appropriate groups. I will do that for any position that needs candidate flow, because it’s free.  So if I need a pipeline of candidates I will post it on the groups. I’m also likely to post questions that ferret out the types of people I want whether they are active or not.  I will also post on Answers.  And a lot of time I get consultants answering the question.  Consultants can be very good people for networking and referrals.

What tips would you give a potential applicant for their profile?

The first thing is give me a way to contact you. I can’t tell you how many people will say, “I’m looking for a job” but then there’s no information on how to contact them on their profile.  I’ve been using LinkedIn for my hiring for about 3-4 years. And in that time I only paid for two months of InMails. If they are not giving me a way to reach them I’m going on to the next candidate unless there’s something really interesting to me, then I’ll probably call up the company and ask for them. The next thing is make sure that your summary and your specialties have the keywords that a recruiter is going to look for you. And it needs to be in that top section, because the reader/recruiter may not go past that top section depending on how many of candidates they have for that position. So for example an admin position or a position very general to that you must absolutely hit your targeted keywords in that first section to set you apart.  If you can get a recommendation from somebody, who is a known subject matter expert that’s always a really good thing.  I think accessibility and being clear on what your target is your brand is the most important thing.

Jenny Kahn gave some insightful tips on completing your profile.  Once you start moving into a power user and as you are connecting to more and more people you will start to get more visibility on your profile.  Be a presence to be reckoned with!!  Share your thoughts and tips for LinkedIn.  Also go to our website and download the latest FREE 5on5 White paper.

Mindeliver Media in partnership with Taking Control Of Your Diabetes (TCOYD) and begins production on a new television special that will air as part of the TCOYD television series on UCSD-TV and UCTV (DISH). The special will feature interviews with veterans and healthcare professionals treating veterans living with diabetes.

After learning that millions of veterans are affected by diabetes, we started development last year with Dr. Steven Edelman (TCOYD) who is a practicing physician treating veterans.  He shared amazing stories that piqued our interest, which in turn, lead us to story and character development. We wanted to learn if their challenges are different, unique or the same.  We wanted to find veterans from different backgrounds, gender and ethnicity as a snapshot of the veteran living with diabetes experience.

We also knew we needed to add an educational component such as a link between good management and living healthy with diabetes, common risk factors and the need for quality care.

What were specific challenges to management?  How do healthcare providers play a role in our veterans lives?

Mindeliver is excited and honored to be working on this latest project.  Our ongoing working relationship with TCOYD  will most definitely bring out the very best in this special. Stay tuned for more information.

“I set a goal to reach over one million people without having to spend a dollar in advertising.”- Andrew Ballenthin

I’m happy to say the 5on5 Expert Blog Series on social networking was a success. Today launches the FREE 5on5 White Paper – Innovation in Social Media, which can be downloaded from our website on the Resources page under Blog.  The white paper includes the additional questions asked of these 5 experts:

1. Andrew Ballenthin, Blog-Off Creator on LinkedIn
2. Zhu Shen,PhD, MBA, Queen of Networking
3. Ben Bendetti, Creator of LinkedIn Film and TV Professionals Group
4. Dominic Tong, MD, Social Networking Connector
5. Lena West, Award Winning Social Media Consultant

In addition, Andrew Ballenthin has gracious included a link to download his LinkedIn Marketing Guide ebook.  Once you subscribe to our Free white paper you will be given the link to download this awesome guide.

Next series begins February 15th on Recruiter’s using LinkedIn.  We have 5 expert Recruiters using LinkedIn to recruit for jobs.  These experts tell us what they look for in a LinkedIn profile and how important it is to complete your profile, use keywords in your summary, let people know if you’re open to a new job and a way to get a hold of you.

Here are our expert Recruiters:

1. Jenny Kahn, Sr. Recruiter/Career Consultant
2. Claudia Closmann, Microsoft Middle East and Africa Core Recruiter
3. Jennifer Farris, Sr. Recruiter at Playdom
4. Aaron Tankenson, Sony Pictures Imageworks
5. Khan Ozol, PhD, Recruiter – Accounting, Biotech, Pharma

Tell me what topic you would be interested hearing from the experts on.

Q: Tells us about your latest project?

The idea was to follow Christian Lassen traveling around the world in his search to develop his ultimate piece of art.

(from left) Christian Lassen, Stefan Mentil, Sonny Miller

Q: How did you get involved in the project?

I got involved in the project through Sonny Miller the director.  He and I have known each other for over ten years.  We met on a Mercedes commercial.  We like a lot of the same things and share a passion for shooting action sports.  We started going out on surf adventures – traveling to other countries – wild trips.   It grew into a friendship.

Q: What was the most interesting aspect of the project?

The most interesting aspect has been the travel – traveling to different countries – Bora Bora French Polynesia.  I love seeing how people live – many people travel to this beautiful place for their honeymoon just to experience the beach but miss out on the natural beauty – amazing art, architecture and landscapes.

It is an amazing place.  We woke up early to climb up a mountain to look down onto Captain Cook’s Bay – the sun rising over the bay, small boats in the bay – it was an amazing experience.

The other interesting aspect was the story – following Christian Lassen – discovering his inspiration through his travels.  He is seeing different places all over the world.  He lives out of his suitcase 90% of the time.  He is out there – finding new things that inspire him to make these great paintings.

Q: What camera did you choose?

Stefan Mentil

We are shooting various formats from Super 16mm to RED to HD and a little Super 35mm for the opening of the film.  We chose to use different formats in various locations to stylize the film and give it an overall feel.  We used different formats to move the story – give the story movement.

Certain formats mean different things like the film Traffic – when we filmed in El Salvador we wanted to add some grain to the film – we added a filter to add a lot of yellow – making it feel hot – like the heat of the hot sun.

Q: When is the premiere?

We are expecting an early 2010 premiere.  Keep you posted.

If you would like to learn more about Stefan Mentil.  Check out his bio or give us a call (858) 271-1592 to book him on your next video project.

I had the honor of interviewing Lena West who is an award-winning social media consultant, blogger, speaker, journalist and technologist. She is also the CEO and Chief Strategist at xynoMedia, a social media consulting, implementation and development firm that helps women-owned and led companies profit from the power of Social Media and the Internet.

Let’s get started, how long have you been on LinkedIn and how do you use it?

I’ve been on LinkedIn for several years now. At the very least 6/7 years. I’m a lot more active now with my LinkedIn account than I used to be and plan to be even more active in the future – especially now that LinkedIn has added applications to their overall functionality. Now you can pull in your blog posts from WordPress and presentations from Slideshare. I definitely use LinkedIn to connect with people, to stay in touch and for general networking. I also use LinkedIn to write recommendations for people who I think are great or people that I’ve worked with who I think do really good work. I use it to snoop, too. Kind of as an intelligence tool. I poke around and look at company pages, hiring trends and that sort of thing. I also use it to prepare for meetings with potential clients. By checking out their company page or seeing who works for them, I am able to get an edge. It’s a good way to get a clue about a company’s culture.

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn and how do you utilize your time?

I would say maybe an hour a week, if that. Obviously, that is going to increase with our plans to use some of the additional features going into 2010.

If I’m speaking at a conference, I will have my assistant send out LinkedIn connection requests and she’ll approve connection requests as they come in. I know the LinkedIn platform well, so I know exactly where to go for what I need. As a result, I don’t spend a lot of time trying to find the information I need. It’s probably that way because I use these tools for a living and we teach our clients about these tools. It’s a bit like going into my closet, and saying, “Oh where are those brown shoes? Ok, that’s where they are”, because it’s my closet I’m familiar with it. Because of what I do, I’m able to go right to the information. So when I want to do some competitive intelligence or collect some intelligence about a potential client, I am able to go right to the information. I’m also, to toot my own horn, a really good searcher. If it’s in there, I’m going to find it. My searching skills are honed and plus, I know where everything is so that helps a lot.

What are some of the tools you use on LinkedIn? And why?

I like Slideshare, because it allows me to showcase both my intellectual capital and my thought leadership. It also lets people know that I’m giving presentations i.e., I am available for hire as a speaker. It also showcases that while there are certain themes that I cover most often in my presentations, there are customizations to my ideas. This gives me a higher level of credibility and it also lets people know that if I’m speaking so often, chances are I have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the industry and with potential client needs. Also using the WordPress application allows me to import my blog posts and that let’s people know that I’m blogging and I do have fresh ideas and information. I also leverage recommendations. When I want to really thank someone who I feel as gone above and beyond, I will write a recommendation for them on LinkedIn. People have, for some reason, the mistaken thought that in order to write a recommendation for someone they have to have worked for you in some capacity. That’s not true.  You can write a recommendation based on someone’s character or your experience with them. There are different recommendations that can be written other than the employer/employee type recommendations. I also use the company area and the company pages.

How do you strategically work with your connections?

That’s what we are going to be doing more of coming into the New Year. Let’s say I meet you and I think you’re great and I’ll say you need to meet Tara, so instead of sending an email introduction, I will forward your LinkedIn profile to her and vice versa. And say, “hey, you need to meet.” We’ll definitely be more active in LinkedIn groups. I was just named by Forbes as one of the Top 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter. I’ll talk about that – not in a self-aggrandizing way – but in a causal way.

You’ve just gone through a rebranding of your company how are you going to promote the change on LinkedIn?

We’re definitely going to make better use of some of the features like LinkedIn polls, LinkedIn questions and answers. After the rebrand we will have our own blog to import; up until now I’ve been a blogger for Entrepreneur Magazine and Fast Company Magazine. I’ll be continuing my work with both of those publications, but adding some of our own content to it. So, we’ll definitely be promoting our own blog content as well. We have some stuff coming down the pike that’s going to be really, really interesting in terms of ways to leverage LinkedIn.

It was a real pleasure interviewing Lena West and learning from her how she uses LinkedIn.

Subscribe to our website for the completed white papers on February 8th.  Next series is 5on5 Experts – Recruiters starting February 8th. Please write your comments or any tools you use.

How long have you been on LinkedIn and how do you use it?

I have been on LinkedIn since 2005 – easily four years closer to five – when I first received an invitation from a fellow Dad coach of our sons’ recreation soccer team, and have been fairly active since 2007.  I use it as a tool to augment what I normally do in terms of face-to-face or traditional networking. I am a physician by training, and, most of my career, I have been in clinical practice. I would have to say, with very few exceptions, that most physicians do not network or their network is very limited in terms of the professionals that comprise their network, usually other physicians or healthcare providers, and individuals that work at medical centers or hospitals. When I transitioned from clinical practice as a physician to industry, then to what I am doing now, which is early stage technology development, I discovered that I didn’t really have much of a network to begin with and not much of a professional network to assist me in that transition.  It was quite a shock, actually.  Since, I have developed a fairly solid network on LinkedIn, and I find that LinkedIn is really a very useful web-based tool, a non-traditional networking tool to expand one’s professional network and potential career opportunities.

How much time do you spend on Linkedin and how do you utilize your time?

It varies, it is really more task or project oriented. Currently I am Chief Medical Officer for an early stage technology company, a life sciences company, and we develop software for MRI imaging analysis. My time is really tied up with the company, since it is a start-up, and also with leading our clinical trial so my LinkedIn involvement varies from day-to-day.  I would say that I am on LinkedIn everyday to some extent, but the time commitment varies. It can take up quite a bit of your time if you want it to.  When I was in career transition and searching for a position and opportunities, I would probably spend nearly eight hours a day on LinkedIn, but now I am in more of a ‘maintenance’ mode.  If I meet someone professionally, I will exchange business cards and may send a LinkedIn invitation if I have not received an invitation. Or, if I am interested in a company I would do a LinkedIn search to discover who in my network would have a LinkedIn contact in that company.  Right now, it is really general networking, just expanding my professional network – about 1-2 hours a day.  I know some professionals use it to search for potential clients or customers, but I have not used it for that purpose.

What are some of the tools you use on LinkedIn?

Primarily, the search tools, searching for people, for companies.  I don’t use it in a Twitter fashion in terms of tools like TripIt.  There are some tools such as sharing events, which is very Facebook-like, so if you’re attending an event you can send a ‘shout-out’ and find out who in your network will also be attending the event. I do not use LinkedIn as a substitute for traditional face-to-face networking, but to augment that effort.

How do you strategically work with your connections?

In terms of strategy, I use the rule of thirds: a third of connections are more focused in terms of professional networking, they may be in the same space in terms of professional space such as cardiovascular, imaging, interventional, vascular, a networking focus in terms of partnerships or potential partnerships. We are also in the process of more traditional fundraising, so it would be networking with venture capitalists. Believe it or not, venture capitalists are on LinkedIn.  The one-third on the other end of the spectrum would be professionals that I have met at meetings, whether professional meetings or just socially. I use LinkedIn in a general way as a dynamic address book because, intrinsically, LinkedIn uses user-generated information.  So, if you want to maintain contact with someone, and they maintain their LinkedIn profile, you will have their updated contact information as well as the companies that they are working for, current position, etc. – that’s all updated by the user, so I find this to be very useful instead of storing this information in a traditional address book.  There are other websites and technologies that provide similar functionality, Plaxo and various others.  Now, the last one-third or the middle one-third would be individuals that are in an interesting space, professional area or industry that, in the future, may be useful to have as a resource. For example: if I wanted to learn more about what they did or what their company does or that particular professional field or industry.

What do you see as the future for LinkedIn?

I notice that they keep tweaking their website, they seem to continually strive for efficiency and being user-friendly.  For instance, the functionality of adding connections.  As far as the future, I think Web 2.0 and networking websites are here to stay.  Of course, LinkedIn is different from Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo and some of the other websites in being more focused on professional and career networking.  So, I would imagine that LinkedIn will be around for quite awhile.

A target audience defined by the marketing and advertising industry is the primary group of people that something is aimed at appealing to – a target audience can be people of a certain age, gender, marital status, lifestyle, etc.  In the entertainment industry the target audience is a critical piece for a producer and director of a film to understand when meeting with potential distributors, marketers and press because when a studio/distributor decides to commit to your project they will already be considering ways in which to market the picture and ultimately sell tickets.

“Your film is not for everyone but it is for someone.”

I have been listening to this statement ever since film school later on producing my first short film with Oscar-nominated actor Robert Forster and much later as Co-Producer for Sundance Film Festival favorite SCRATCH.  As a consultant to several independent filmmakers this repeated statement can be revolutionary or a deal breaker.  Revolutionary because it helps them navigate the business part of getting their picture sold and out to market – deal breaker because without understanding target audience a film gets lost very quickly, marketers don’t know where to put it and consequently audiences don’t know where to find it.

As an entertainment professional the exercise of determining target audience is as critical to the sale of the project as to its ultimate success – prints, advertising and reach.  Your film is definitely for someone but not for everyone.

Who is that someone?

When you close your eyes and think about the audience that is sitting in their theater seats ready to watch your film – who is sitting in those chairs?  Moms, male teenagers, women under the age of 40 or families?  Who will engage and further push your idea forward – forward to social networks, word-of-mouth, comment on blogs and simply shout at the top of their lungs describing how great your film is.

Applying a film process to your business.

Going through the process of determining target audience starts with identification.  In the film business research, comparing similar films, following marketing teams, etc are apart of this process which can be applied to your business.

First, start with identifying your target by answering the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics of your target?
2. What is the attraction?
3. Is there an adequate size and growth potential?
4. Can the market be reached by advertising?
5. What is your marketing budget?

Secondly, identify the demographics:

1. What is the age, gender, income, location, ethnicity, education or occupation?
2. Is there a niche?  Is the product or service unique? such as convenience, distribution, demographic, technology or superior performance
3. What about your competitors?  How did they enter into the market, where are they effective, what is their reach?
4. What are market and industry trends?

I apply my film experience to all of our clients because knowing your audience translates to all of your communications whether that is web content, a blog, an online video, commercial or a feature length documentary – when you know your target audience you can target your message and reach the right audience.

Going through the process will help you in the short and long run of your project.  As a producer and consultant the answer to target audience provides the one-line tool in all of your work.

How do you determine your target audience?  Share your thoughts.

Ben Benedetti has worked in the entertainment production industry for the past seventeen years as both a freelance producer and corporate executive. He has extensive experience in management and administration of all phases of production including network, studio operations, and facility’s management.  The reason I chose Ben to participate in our 5on5 Power Linkedin Series is because he created a group Film and TV Professionals, which in 9 months has grown to over 24,000 members.

What was your impetus to create the Film TV Professionals group and what did you want to accomplish?

Honestly, it was selfish in nature. My first idea of creating the group was really trying to see how I could use these resources to help my career.  I’m a sales professional. I sell video postproduction services in Hollywood.  I was trying to leverage some of the relationship that I have and the people that I know use Linkedin on a regular basis. So I created the group with that thought in mind but, then it quickly became apparent that the opportunities and potential to really help people overshadowed that original impulse. So I had to step aside and let the group grow itself. Now I work really hard to make sure it’s a clear environment that really can help people so it shouldn’t be biased by my personal agendas.  And at the time there wasn’t really any other groups focusing and specifically addressing the needs of those television and film professionals. Now I’m dealing with anywhere between 200-300 requests to join a day.

How did you go about promoting the group?

It’s been the classic viral kind of thing. Linkedin and a lot of other social networking groups and other sites like this are really interesting because their approach is rather grassroots, it’s not like direct internet marketing as so much that it is direct contact to contact. Simply one person seeing it on another persons profile than it takes on a life of it’s own.  The membership is spanning the entire globe at this point there’s really no barriers.

If someone were interested in starting a group what tips would you share?

The key to this group is making sure that it’s focused. And making sure it remains focused on its purpose.  The time that I do spend administering the group is trimming the discussions, which is really just a forum. Making sure the discussions stay on target, which stay within the bounds of actual film and television professional issues and structures and make sure the discussions and the members of the group know this place is a safe place to discuss what they really want to talk about. The value of the membership really is enticing to outside organizations to want to take advantage and want to reach out to them, which really just pollutes and devaluates the focus of the group itself.   I think it’s more important to keep the group in its direction that it goes as far as helping the membership and the membership being able to help each other.

How much time are you on Linkedin?

Very early on it was simply for building my network finding people who I knew and recognized. It’s such a useful tool to be able to reach out and reach a person without having to keep track of where they are.  Finding out when people make career moves where they land.  Passively through LinkedIn it’s such a great tool to have. So a lot of my time is just kept monitoring where people I know land and where they’re working or if they’re going through a career change. Or even finding out if people are unemployed and helping them perhaps land a position and that gives me an advantage as a salesperson as far as strengthening the relationship there. I spend anywhere from 1-2 hours a day on my group.   The rest of the day is haphazard I’ll check in the morning on my homepage in LinkedIn to see if there’s any necessary updates and then I’ll check in the afternoon.  If I think about reaching out to a contact I’ll do that too. It averages out to anywhere from a half an hour to an hour a day using LinkedIn as an actual communications tool.

What do you see as the added value to LinkedIn?

Again as I’ve mentioned the passive ability to be feed information about some of my key contacts and clients I know. Also people I’ve just known through my career that I’ve been close with. Finding out and being able to track where they are. The film and entertainment industry really for all intent and purposes is a very small industry.  As far as the number of studios, the number of companies, and the small number of select individuals that actually run it. The film and television industry provides such a unique window to how LinkedIn works and the resources that are available and how it can positively influence a career or not, because it is such a small microcosm in the overall picture of industry in America. We really are a small business even though there’s a lot of capital and a lot of money invested into it.  And obviously the influence it has over the population of the country. But having that passive access to that information about people and also because of having those connections the cold call becomes a warm call. It really empowers myself to be able to reach people but also not crossing the line of being a spammer or being the annoying phone call.  It’s a much more comfortable relationship when you’re able to reach out to people you may not have a strong relationship with.

It was a real delight to have the opportunity to interview with Ben.  Next week we hear from Dominic Tong,MD who is the king of connecting.

Subscribe for our upcoming white paper on the 5on5 Expert Blog Series with full interviews from all 5 experts in social networking.  Stay tuned in February for our 5on5 Expert Series where I interview Recruiters on LinkedIn and find out what they look for in a profile.

]]> http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/5on5-expert-blog-series-ben-benedetti/feed/ 0 http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/534/ http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/534/#comments Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:00:20 +0000 tmagaro http://www.mindeliver.com/?p=534

Zhu Shen,Ph.D., MBA is an award-winning business leader, author, media personality and thought leader in cross-Pacific life science business. She is the CEO of BioForesight, a strategic consulting company providing partnering, financing and outsourcing advisory, cross-cultural training, and media/public relations services to clients worldwide. She is an expert in social media, with over 9 million connections on her Linkedin network, and produced the DVD “The Art and Science of Networking and Social Media” which received rave reviews.

How long have you been on LinkedIn and how do you use it?

I think it was 4 or 5 years ago a friend of mine who started using LinkedIn and sent me an invitation and at that time LinkedIn was in its infancy. I was immediately attracted to the nice professional looking website with the layout and some of the features they already have. So I responded to his request and then setup a simple profile for myself. And then in terms of how I used it well, after the five years LinkedIn has grown significantly. They have over 50 million users worldwide. And they have a lot of nice features. So I use LinkedIn to establish my professional presence in the social media arena. And I use that to send updates about my activity, speaking events, conferences and other things that might be of interest to others in my industry. I also use that obviously to keep up with professional networks. And then continue to build the brand for my company and establish leadership position.

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn and how do you utilize your time?

It varies from this week to next. But I would say on average probably a few hours per week. And then primarily what I use that for is to send personal updates and then when I have major event or major developments I would update my profile. I would also get quite a few emails or messages that would come to my personal email box, that came through LinkedIn where people invite to connect with me or are introduced or referred by people that I know who are directly linked to me who request to connect on a professional level. Then I also do active searches on people I want to find in certain industries or groups.  And respond to requests, so those are the key things I use in LinkedIn.

What are some of the tools you use on LinkedIn?

The update tool, which I believe is 140 characters just like twitter is very useful. I use that to send my personal updates and especially when I have events where I’ll be speaking. I think it’s a nice way to broadcast to people in your network. I also use the recommendations feature both for myself to get recommendations from others in my network and also recommending others. Which I think is a very nice feature that allows people to see the accomplishments that you have made and the kind of nature of your professional relationship with people in your network. And they get a feel for your capabilities, your personal style in a positive way. I think that is very useful and a powerful feature which I use quite often. Then I also use the request to connect where you could make requests to connect with people in your network through other people you know. When I identify people that I want to connect with then I send a request. And I get requests through that way as well, which I always respond to help others. Now in your personal profile, there’s a few places were you can list websites. So for myself I obviously have my company main website and also have website where I have a feature article which is an important one, that I could share with people in my network. Often times they would read that  and send me an invitation or comment about certain articles. So those are quite useful to get the message across.

How do you go about getting your recommendations?

What I usually do is among the people that are connected with me on the first level. I think about those I really value and that I have a great relationship with and who have been extremely helpful in one way or another in my professional career. I would start off recommending them first and just talk about what it was like working with them. And then they will receive their recommendation in their email box and they will see what I wrote. A lot of times people will reciprocate right away because it’s a courtesy and it’s really good to do that. So often times I just get responses that way and they would write me a glowing recommendation too. Which will be posted on the LinkedIn site. For those who do not respond right away then after a little while maybe a week or two I will send them a gentle reminder. “I hope you like the recommendation I sent you. And I would appreciate it if you could recommend me as well if you enjoyed working with me.”

What do you see as the future for LinkedIn?

I think LinkedIn has evolved and now is undisputedly the leader in professional networking and social media tool. That’s their brand I think they are going to continue to make features more useful and add features. So it’s a better tool for people to make connections. And next year I envision myself to develop more professional contacts both in my biotech life science industry, but perhaps increasingly in the world of entertainment, media and others because of the book I’m writing with my son Perry, on his movie review career as a nine year old. So I think I will develop more relationships in that circle. I also think in terms of useful features in LinkedIn they may want to develop an intergraded platform where you can have other social media tools, which I noticed they are using already with Twitter. That will make the LinkedIn page more user-friendly and you can streamline the process. Also I think it would be nice for them to perhaps add a video feature or where you can post video from YouTube. So it’s a multi-media platform not just words. Because the video has immerged as a really powerful tool for communication and that drives a lot of web traffic.

It was a real delight to have the opportunity to interview with Zhu.  Next week we hear from Ben Benedetti who created the Film and TV Professionals group.

Subscribe for our upcoming white paper on the 5on5 Expert Blog Series with extented interviews from all 5 experts in social networking.  Stay tuned in February for our 5on5 Expert Series where I interview Recruiters on LinkedIn and find out what they look for in a profile.

]]> http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/534/feed/ 0 http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/lets-talk-about-groups-in-linkedin/ http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/lets-talk-about-groups-in-linkedin/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:00:29 +0000 tmagaro http://www.mindeliver.com/?p=583

Let’s talk about Groups on Linkedin.  Here are my 3 favorite things about groups.

1. It’s a great place to find like-minded people.

2. To build your connections.

3. Find groups in areas you’d like to learn more about

Let’s breakdown the groups a little bit more to give you the full exposure to how to find a group and move on from there.  One thing you should know is at this point you are limited to 50 groups total and can only have 10 groups pending at a time.  You have to be accepted into the group, so that usually takes anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple of days.  So as you are joining groups once you hit 10 you have to wait until some of them are approved or exit an existing group you are in.  As you can see in the picture the groups in yellow are pending approval.

1. Linkedin groups are another great place to meet like-minded people in your areas of interest.  And what’s even better is the members of that group may live all over the world!!  What that translates to is great exposure to countries that may never have had the pleasure of meeting you and hearing about your company.  And in addition people you can visit!  The power of networks!

So first thing is go to Groups – Groups directory.  Then put in your keywords, languages, and categories. I put in women in business and got 1,635 groups!

I usually look at the member size and how long it’s been in existence.  If you like one of the groups then click on the group title and join it.  Move on to the next until you get 10, then wait to be approved and go on to join more.

2.  Now that you’ve joined and been accepted into the group it’s time to build your connections.  I usually add the group leader to my connections and any other top notch members in the profile.  Next I go into the members of that group and read their profiles and if I like what they are doing or am interested in learning more I add them to my network.  As you may or may not know they have to accept your invitation, so that can take minutes to days.  You will also have access to the groups discussions and that’s a great place to get involved by either adding to a discussion or starting one.

3. Have you ever wanted to learn more about a topic, subject or category?  If so, linkedin groups is a great place to join groups that have always been of interest or you may need to know people who you can partner with in that field.  Our company specializes in content development for television, radio, mobile and online social media and video.  So I joined groups for iphone developers, web designers, and writers.  You never know when you may need to expand your freelancers.

Now is the time to start connecting within new groups start talking on the discussion boards and start announcing yourself and your company.  You never know when someone will come to you for your expertise.

Please leave a comment, start a discussion, let me know your thoughts.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Ballenthin who is the founder of the Community Marketing Blog and President of Sol Solutions, an integrated marketing consultancy. With 18 years experience focusing on branding, promotions, online and offline marketing and work with over 15 countries, he brings out-of-the-box thinking to clients looking for change and growth. His focus during the last half of 2009 is on his first book, “Stop Chasing Chickens”. This engaging book covers how to monetize social media by applying integrated marketing strategies and tactics.  He also created the BlogOff Contests, which has just completed it’s second round!

How long have you been on LinkedIn and how do you use it?

When I first started LinkedIn I had no idea what it is, like everybody else. I thought it was just a place for keeping track of your business contacts, similar to a Rolodex. Then in 2008 I started transitioning my views, I wanted to enhance my network and therefore I started reaching out to people. And started making connections that I thought might be of future business value. During 2008, I was watching the publicity go on with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace and so forth and how they were being talked about and

heard a lot of talk about how social media was the hotspot to be, it was the evolution of communication.

As I started my blog I found that I really wasn’t getting a lot of the results that I was reading were possible to achieve in social media. Going into January 2009, I set some goals for myself that for me were assert test social media could live up to what other people were talking about, difference being I wanted to do it as a marketer verses working in a vacuum as a social media player. So I set to work on what sort of questions would I ask myself in marketing and then how would I apply that to LinkedIn and my other social media activities. The result was I set a goal to reach over a million people without having to spend a dollar in advertising. And LinkedIn became the best vehicle for doing that as I realized that there was the possibility to join upwards of 50 groups in LinkedIn, which gave you access depending on the size of the group, to over 200,000 members. I just checked my totals recently I have access to over 1.8 million group members through LinkedIn today.

]]> http://www.mindeliver.com/2010/01/5on5-expert-blog-series-andrew-ballenthin/feed/ 0 http://www.mindeliver.com/2009/12/3-most-important-twitter-tools/ http://www.mindeliver.com/2009/12/3-most-important-twitter-tools/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:00:19 +0000 tmagaro http://www.mindeliver.com/?p=587

Have you ever noticed that when you google twitter tools, lists and lists of websites come up promoting various applications to integrate into your twitter account.  I’ve signup on a lot of these sites and as I was thinking about a blog topic my favorites applications for twitter use came to mind.   As I was going through my saved bookmarked sites I found myself deleting a lot of them for lack of use.  I started narrowing down my list to my favorites and couldn’t live without twitter helpers.  So here they are:

I was going to more and more social networking meet-up groups and talking to people about social media.  Many of the unemployed at these events were not utilizing LinkedIn in their job search efforts.  It got me thinking about myself on LinkedIn and how I was using it.  As I was building my connections I came across Lena West. She was on HomeBusinessBrains.com as one of the featured small business experts. She talked on social media and I just felt a connection with her and how she presented the material and herself.  That led me to think about what are the experts doing.  What tips and tricks are they doing on LinkedIn.  My first thought was how about 5 power users and then my business partner chimed in with 5on5, ask the 5 experts 5 questions.  We were also thinking about white papers and what topics we could write on for our business. That’s when I decided to create a 5on5 Expert Blog Series and from there ask additional questions to include on the white paper.

I’ve just completed the first 5on5 Expert Blog Series on social networking and LinkedIn.  I interviewed Andrew Ballenthin who created the BlogOff Contest which just completed it’s second round.  Zhu Shen is the Queen of Networking with over 9 million connections.   Ben Benedetti creator of Film TV Professionals with over 24,000 members in less than a year.  Dominc Tong, MD who is a great connector referring many to the right connected match. And of course my inspiration Lena West an award-winning social media consultant, blogger, speaker, journalist and technologist.  The blogs begin on Monday January 4th. Stay tuned for February’s Series on Recruiters.

Subscribe today to receive the FREE white papers on the 5on5 Expert Blog Series Starting February 4th. Could you be the next Expert that I go after???

I’ve been working on building up my connections in LinkedIn over the past couple of months.  And been thinking more and more about who I want to connect with that are really doing “Big” things in their professional life. Then my neighbor passed away after being in a week long coma from a brain aneurism. She was 48. As I’m dealing with the loss of my neighbor,  I realize how feeble life is.  And started thinking what stops me from reaching out to connect with people in the places I want to go. Life is short and now is the time to BE BIG, THINK BIG, and ACT BIG.  No matter what age you are or place in your life, don’t stop yourself from being BIG.  BIG to me is stepping outside the box, doing something risky e.g. speaking to a group of people, reaching out to that CEO you admire and want to connect with, partnering up with people to create that BIG idea you’ve had for years.

Now is the time to ACT!!  We are heading into 2010 and I feel this is the year to make your dreams happen and anything is possible if only you BELIEVE! So go get those CONNECTIONS!!!

Let me know what BIG is for you.

Mindeliver recently started production on a new series of interviews featuring conversations with veterans.  Heidi Rataj worked with Stefan Mential (Director of Photographer) to capture an intimate interview with Nina as she describes her love of art.

Nina describes how conquering cancer and managing her diabetes has only been possible because of art.  She was introduced to art classes many years ago at a local San Diego college. After taking several courses, she was introduced to Bob who not only heads the art department but offers a free art studio for his students and friends to enjoy.  Nina is in good company with both veterans, retired physicians and a handful of art-minded folks that regularly enjoy each other’s company.

We decided to shoot at the Pacific Beach art studio because it encompassed the beauty of Nina’s love of art – the studio.  The studio is small, bright, with very large windows that cascade natural light.  Along with groovy jazz playing in the background, a rich comradery and friendship welcomes you.  From the very first time to consecutive weekends over years, this studio, its teacher and students share a passion for art and in its ability to motivate and encourage their respective lives.

To capture the studio’s natural beauty, Stefan Mentil brought cinematic lenses offering a richness of texture and color in the frame.  We decided to shoot close ups of Nina working on her latest lithograph piece.  Using a 35mm lens the shots provide wonderful contrast of depth, focus and light.  The shots are beautiful and provides an intimate feeling to the interview.

The interview will be available for viewing in early 2010.

Q: Tells us about your latest project?

The idea was to look at gun violence from the perspective of rappers who’d been shot and survived, and returning to the scene of the crime. The idea came from the film’s producer, Josh Krause, long before I was involved.

Q: How did you get involved in the project?

My name came up through Doug Pray. He and I have work closely on a ton of stuff over the past five years. Quincy had talked to him about it and he couldn’t do it for whatever reason and so Quincy asked Doug who would be the guy he would recommend and he said my name.  And then I had to fight for it, you know. They’d never worked with me before and they were concerned about working with a director that they had no experience with and so I just really went out of my way to write a treatment and to really try to express my vision and instill confidence in them. And they hired me.  They took a chance and hired me and I think it worked out well.

Q: What was the most interesting aspect of the project?

I love documentaries because you get to dive into these weird little worlds that a lot of times you wouldn’t have access to otherwise and, through Quincy, we had all the access in the world. So, we were shepherded around in some of the most hard-core gang neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and all over the country, and we had complete access.

I remember one time, we were sitting on the stoop of this low-income housing project outside of Los Angeles with 40 Glocc and he turns to me and says, “You know if I wasn’t here, you guys would be lunch meat.” 40 Glocc was great.

As far as the subject matter goes, the thing that impacted me the most was seeing that the root of most of the problems of violence and drugs in the hip hop community, is poverty.  It’s the number one thing.  And KRS-One says that explicitly in the movie: the U.N. did studies and they discovered that the number one cause of violence is poverty.  That’s what I took away from the movie, being an outsider, a white middle-class male American: it’s perhaps easy to demonize people and it’s often hard to empathize with them but, as a result of making this movie, I realized that anybody, any one of us, in a similar situation, would do similar things.  Certain things may become options that you never would have previously considered.

Q: What camera did you choose?

We shot with the Panasonic AG-HVX200.  We chose this camera because it is well-suited for documentary work and it provides a good bang-for-the-buck.  The decision was a result of wanting to keep expenses down for a camera package but also provide a great look. I love the color rendition of the Panasonic Varicam and the HVX comes close. We shot 720 24p. I would have loved to put a 35mm lens adapter on the camera and use Zeiss Super Speed primes, but then the rig becomes cumbersome for documentary work. My director of photography, Jeff Bollman, and I put a lot of thought and effort into really painting our scenes, especially our interviews, with light.  We made deliberate and conscious choices about color and the quality of the light.  If you look through all of the interviews, you will see each one has a distinct “look.”  I wanted to make the film as accessible to as many people as possible, people who, going into it, may not be familiar with the rappers.

Q: When is the premiere?

It premiered at the 2008 Hollywood Film Festival and it has been doing the film festival circuit ever since, including SXSW, Atlanta, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and about a dozen others.

We all want great content for free.  Internet and smart phone users are already accustomed to it.  Bringing the internet to the your television just means that instead of one of a multitude of devices, we can use our television to access the internet and go online to watch programming or movies on free sites.  Will Comcast truly penetrate the consumer space?  We’ll have to watch and see.  Content after all is always king – consumers however are looking for new ways to view it for free.

Share your thoughts.  How do you think the cable industry will fare in this changing model?

5on5 Power Linkedin Users Blog Series.  The impetus to create this series was hearing from people that they don’t know how to use linkedin effectively and in turn end up just signing up, partially finish their profile, connect to some friends and that’s the extent of it. So I came up with the idea to interview the power users and get their thoughts on how they use Linkedin and what they find as the powerful applications and features.

I have interviewed 4 out of the 5 experts, Andrew Ballenthin creator of BlogOff 1 & 2, Zhu Shen the Queen of Networking with over 9 million connections, Ben Benedetti created the group Film TV Professionals with over 23,000 members, and Lena West an award winning social media consultant and public speaker.  The 5on5 Power Linkedin Users Blog Series will launch on January 4th and continue every Monday until February 1st.  A white paper will be available as a free download with the extended interviews on our company website beginning February 8th.  You can subscribe to our blogs, whitepapers, and newsletter beginning in January 2010.

Here is a little about the 4 experts I’ve interviewed and the dates their blog will be available.

January 4, 2009

Andrew Ballenthin is the founder of the Community Marketing Blog and President of Sol Solutions, an integrated marketing consultancy. With 18 years experience focusing on branding, promotions, online and offline marketing and work with over 15 countries, he brings out-of-the-box thinking to clients looking for change and growth. His focus during the last half of 2009 is on his first book, “Stop Chasing Chickens”. This engaging book will cover how to monetize social media by applying integrated marketing strategies and tactics.

January 11, 2009

Zhu Shen,Ph.D., MBA is an award-winning business leader, author, media

personality & thought leader in cross-Pacific life science business. She is the CEO of BioForesight, a strategic consulting company providing partnering, financing & outsourcing advisory, cross-cultural training, and media/public relations services to clients worldwide. She is an expert in social media, with over 9 million connections on her Linkedin network, and produced the DVD “The Art and Science of Networking and Social Media” which received rave reviews.

January 18, 2009

Ben Benedetti has worked in the entertainment production industry for the past seventeen years as both afreelance producer and corporate executive. He has extensive experience in management and administration of all phases of production including network, studio operations, and facility’s management.

January 25, 2009

TBA

February 1, 2009

Lena West is an award-winning social media consultant, blogger, speaker, journalistand technologist. She is also the CEO & Chief Strategist at xynoMedia,a social media consulting, implementation and development firm that helps women-owned and led companies profit from the power of Social Media and the Internet.

Please share anyone you think is a power linkedin user and why.

Mindeliver receives its award as part of the 2009 Davey Awards.  The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, advertising and marketing firms.  IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Condè Nast, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, HBO, Keller Crescent, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby’s Insititute of Art, Tribal DDB, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, Yahoo! and many more.

Specializing in creating content for the healthcare, lifestyle and business industries, the production of ‘Hip Hop for Health‘ is in collaboration with San Diego Diabetes Coalition, Community Health Improvement Partners, the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative and the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency.  Mindeliver produced the video web series as part of the social media campaign to educate the public on diabetes, diabetes prevention and obesity prevention by promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Please share the video and let us hear what you think.

Let’s get started.

Step 1 – sign up it’s FREE! Go to LinkedIn and create a login and password.

Step 2 – Get your resume and start filling out ALL the fields.  Now on the side there’s a %, so you can see where you are in the process of completion.

To complete your profile you need:

1. Fill out all the fields in the Profile

2. Start making connections

3. Get a minimum of 3 Recommendations (usually

through your connections)

Your profile will take time, so be patient.

Step 3 – Some cool features and strategies.

As you’re filling out your profile you’ll notice a section for adding Applications, which is a great feature to add your blog, slideshow, events, polls… It’s a way to showcase what you’ve done. Remember LinkedIn is about getting the word out about YOU or YOUR company.  This is the place to showcase what you’ve been doing or are doing.  Below are just a few out there and the great news is LinkedIn adds new applications so keep checking back.

Another cool feature is if you’re on Twitter you can now connect your twitter account to linkedIn as well as 3 other websites you may be on. For example, our company has a separate blog website, a YouTube channel as well as our company website.  So it’s a great way to drive traffic to your other sites.

Now some strategies:

After you’ve filled out your profile, here are some tips for working on your connections and recommendations.  Start with your address book, see how many connections you can get from there.  Next, start joining other networking groups. Go to Group Directory and put in your keywords to groups you’d like to join e.g. engineering, social media, video production, recruiting, healthcare…. you get the point.  Start joining the groups you’re most interested in connecting with other people.  Did you catch that … connecting, so this is another great resource for finding new connections.

So get started today!  And have fun!

I’d love to hear from you so please share your comments or your tips…

]]> http://www.mindeliver.com/2009/11/linkedin-its-as-easy-as-1-2-3/feed/ 1 http://www.mindeliver.com/2009/11/mindeliver-adds-new-talent/ http://www.mindeliver.com/2009/11/mindeliver-adds-new-talent/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:38:40 +0000 tmagaro http://www.mindeliver.com/?p=295

Jim Dziura up and coming Director

Mindeliver Media adds new talent. New on the director list is Jim Dziura who recently worked with Jessica Biel on a national PSA and Alex Chu recently completing the ZUNE Arts Series and Hurley commercial. On the video front, director of photography Stefan Mentil brings his unique style in capturing ‘live moments’ in action sports with Shaun White and Laird Hamilton to community events such as the recent Gold Davey award in Hip Hop for Health. On the written-word, new writers Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Theresa Hoiles and Laura Parker all with extensive experience in social and traditional media. Please check out our new ‘About Us’ to learn more about this talented group.

Mindeliver Media offers new social media services including blogs, twitter, facebook, web content and more.   Our professional writers provide top-quality talent to set new profile accounts to writing web content to writing blogs for our clients on all the most popular social media sites.  Click on our services page to learn more.

Patrick Roberts Law

Mindeliver Media launches a regional commercial for Roberts Law Group PLLC in Raleigh, North Carolina. In partnership with eJustice a legal marketing company and the Roberts Law Group PLLC, Mindeliver developed a series of graphical videos to highlight the areas of legal expertise. The ‘Roberts Law Group Overview’ video became an immediate hit and was further commissioned into a 30 second regional television commercial. Click to view.

Mindeliver Media partners with ReachMD, an innovative new media communications platform for medical professionals to bring “Diabetes Discourse” to thousands of medical professionals.

Diabetes Discourse will air on ReachMD Sirius-XM Satellite Radio Channel 160 and via simulcast on ReachMD Online at www.reachmd.com. The program will feature renowned health care professionals discussing the latest topics on diabetes: therapies, research, technology, clinical studies, treatments, and more. Diabetes Discourse will deliver the most up-to-date information and education that primary care physicians, endocrinologists and health care professionals working in the field of diabetes will find vitally important for their patients and practice.

Host Steven V. Edelman for Diabetes Discourse

Diabetes Discourse is hosted by diabetes expert Steven V. Edelman, MD, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of California, San Diego, director of the Diabetes Care Clinic at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego, and recent American Diabetes Association Outstanding Educator recipient. Dr. Edelman is personally affected by diabetes and has been living with type 1 diabetes for more than 35 years. He has committed his career to improving diabetes care by informing and empowering the health care professionals who treat the disease and the patients who live with this condition.

“Working with leaders such as ReachMD enables Mindeliver to continue working with leading minds in the fields of medicine and science,” says Heidi Rataj, President of Mindeliver Media. “We are excited to be working with ReachMD in their ability to reach thousands of medical professionals in the field of diabetes.”

Nanotechnology the Fight Against Cancer

Mindeliver Media receives its award as part of the 30th Annual Telly Awards. The Silver Telly Council, the judging and oversight body, is comprised of top industry professionals that are past winners of a Silver Telly. The Telly Awards receives over 13,000 entries annually from the finest ad agencies, production companies, TV stations, cable companies, interactive agencies and corporations in the world.

Mindeliver Media’s founder, Heidi Rataj previously is the recipient of official selections in both Sundance and SXSW Film Festivals and nomination for Best Documentary of the Independent Spirit Awards.

Heidi Rataj and Tami Magaro founded Mindeliver Media in San Diego in 2007. Specializing in producing video for the healthcare, nanotechnology, biotechnology, non-profit and science industries in San Diego, the production of “Fighting Cancer with Nanotechnology” is in collaboration with NanoTecNexus, an outreach organization for nanotechnology and the NanoTumorCenter headed by Dr. Sadik Esener. Mindeliver produced the video as an outreach piece about the booming nanotechnology field and its application to cancer.

The leadership forum is an exclusive invitation only group of senior marketing, communications, media, and technology leaders from global 1000 healthcare organizations. The purpose of the group is to examine best practices and case studies for the application of web video to achieve enterprise marketing and communications goals specifically for pharmaceuticals, medical device, consumer healthcare, managed care and large hospital organizations.

Business Development Institute has produced cross-industry Web Video Leadership Forum events for over three years in New York City and San Francisco. Due to popular demand BDI offers their first one focused on the specific needs of the healthcare industry.

The following companies are registered to attend: Beeby Clark + Meyler; BrightRoll; BSHSI; Carat; Cardiovascular Research Foundation; Dynasplint Systems, Inc.; Established Products Business Unit; GE; Hall & Partners, USA; Howdini.Com; inforonics; Iona College; Johnson & Johnson; JUICE Pharma Advertising; Mayo Clinic; Montefiore; Novartis Consumer Health, Inc.; OTC Global Marketing; Pfizer Animal Health; Public Health Solutions; The FeedRoom; Triple i, A MediMedia Company; WebMD; and others.