Heather is inspiring!  Figuring she had to fit time into her busy day to blog, she has developed her own strategy: use the 20 minute cycle commute to work to record her video blog!  And why not?  That’s when she gets  her ideas, and her iPhone is set up with a clip that attaches to her bicycle handlebars, so she can pedal and record at the same time.  The result?  It’s something like this:

How cool is that? OK, there must have been some time invested in editing and so on, but she’s fitting both the cycling and the vlogging (video blogging) into her life, and Heather is a self-confessed workaholic. If you don’t cycle you could try drive vlogging, dinner prep vlogging, laundry vlogging, bath vlogging… ok maybe not. But the possibilities are endless!

BTW, yes I missed yesterday’s blog because I “didn’t have time”. This post is my comeuppance.

EWomen Network is a business networking group for women, and it’s run very well by Kerry Brown.   Tonight there must’ve been 75 women there – and I knew easily 50 of them!  In that group, I have met the woman who sold my house, the woman who recruited me to work in her design group for the last two years, the woman who arranged our mortgage, the woman who helped us stage our home, the woman who coached me while I ran my own business, many social media clients, and many great friends.

I love my group of women, and recommend eWomen Network wholeheartedly for any woman running a business, or even just thinking about it.  But that might not be your calling.  In that case, I hope your take-away from this post is to find yourself a group to call your own.

It might be a church, a community organization, a business networking group, a running club or any number of organizations where people get together and share an interest.  Don’t stay on the fringes.  Get in there and get to know people. Offer your talents, take some phone numbers,  go out for coffee.

As a kid, I was told “You get out of it what you put in.” EWomen Network has shown me, on a monthly basis, how true that is.  Thank you to my wonderful network of friends.

It’s been in Daniel’s hands for the last couple of hours, and he’s already learned a few chords, and sounds not bad for the first day.  Ben was playing it earlier today, and looked very natural with it strapped around him, leaning back in the hammock and noodling around on the frets until he found a sound that worked for him.   They each have their own approaches, and I want them to discover for themselves, in their own way, how it works.

They seem to have acquired the “music bug” from me – we’ve been singing in the car together for years and lately, we can even make three-part harmonies work.  Both Daniel and Ben have taken up the saxophone for band, and Stephen sings like an angel.  But I’ve never pushed them to practice, and never put them in formal music lessons.  I went down that road myself when I was a kid, and as much as I loved music, I really didn’t enjoy lessons all that much. And I certainly hated practicing – I would much rather “play”.

This attitude followed me into motherhood.  With two ADHD boys (out of three boys altogether), I was afraid that forcing the discipline of practice on the kids would make music into just another “chore”.  I figured if it was really important to them, they would find music and it would draw them in.

I’m pleased to report that, thanks to modern technology, this approach is working!  The boys are used to finding out pretty much everything they want to know on the Internet, so the first thing Daniel did when he picked up the guitar was pick up the netbook as well, and look for the chords for his favourite song.  We have lyrics and charts galore at our disposal, and videos of the best musicians for technique.   We can listen and play stuff back until we’ve got the sound “right”.  We can even record our efforts and see how they sound.

Now Daniel would like to learn more about composition.  He’s got ideas in his head that he can’t get out… yet.  But I figure the answer is probably here online somewhere.

What discoveries are happening in your home that have been made easier with computers?

However, the time is right.  First, I took a very long break from social media work altogether.  My blog fell asleep, my tweets dwindled to practically nothing, and I rarely looked at my Wordspring page on Facebook.  Now that I’m back in the field, I’m working for other companies, rather than trying to run my own business.  My Wordspring “brand” is less important.  And being myself is far more important!  Since I have Twitter accounts for the places where I work, I can use my personal account for personal purposes.  Seems like something I should put my name to.

I’m glad to say that I’ve been in the social media “scene” in BC long enough for people to see beyond the Wordspring brand to the Catherine Novak behind it.  What’s more, I have always used some semblance of my own face as my profile picture.  So I should  not have too much trouble with losing people due to lack of recognition. Besides, I’ll be unfollowing a lot of people/brands/spammers that don’t have a personal relationship with me or give me great information. My personal account has long had a stream that goes by way too fast for me to make much sense of it.

Then at work, I’ll follow people and develop a following more based on the activities that I do at work.  You can find me already at @gowestgroup, and I just started tweeting as @NetscribeCath today.  Follow me in both places if you think I have something of value to say.  And friends, I am funnier, more irreverent and risk taking after hours than I am at work.  But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Netscribe's "Twavel" app

Tomorrow is my second “official” day at Netscribe Web Communications.  I think I said on Twitter earlier that I’m doing happy dances on the inside.  Between Netscribe and my work with Melinda Harris at Go West Design Group, that puts me firmly back in the land of social media/interactive web.

I think my favourite aspect of this turn of events is that I actually have worked at Netscribe already – five years ago.  At that time, I was newly back into the full-time work force, having spent 8 years mostly with very small children, though I always kept a bit of contract writing work on the side.  Netscribe was a much smaller company a few years ago, and I was on contract.  So at some point we gave each other hugs and kisses, and I went to seek my fortune elsewhere… and where I went in the meantime is a whole other story that doesn’t matter much right now.

Jump to 2011 – Netscribe is a thriving web apps firm, bursting at the seams with desks, computers and smart staff.  And Steve and Stella were looking for a social media person.  They managed to track me down at Social Media Camp Victoria, and I feel like we just picked up where we left off.

I’ll be doing writing, social media consulting and training work for clients in government, as well as managing the social media for Netscribe itself.  I guess I’ll have to set up a Twitter account for me with my Netscribe hat on – it’ll be very transparently me at the keys though.  Should I change my user name from Wordspring to NetscribeCath?

If you’ve been hanging around the Internet for a few years, you may have heard the adage, “Content is King”.  As a writer, and in many instances a web writer, I’ve hung onto that phrase like a gold coin.  It validates what I do, which is create the content that all the lovely code in the background supports.   Code is important – useability is important, but without ongoing new content, any website will wither and die (putting the lie to my last post, heh heh).  But Doctorow takes this concept one step further.

“Content is just something to talk about” puts human interaction at the centre of the picture.  And it explains the rise of social media on the web, the growth of multi-user games on all platforms, and the persistence of people meeting in real life, and not just in “cyberspace”.  Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising.  It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor… and stops there.  If the sender is lucky, it may lodge as a piece of information in the receiver’s consciousness, and they may act on it someday.  If the sender is luckier, or perhaps more engaging, it may be something that the receiver wants to talk about.  And then the message gets a whole new burst of energy.  The energy behind the message is what gives it meaning, and a life of its own.  That happens because we humans like to communicate with each other.  Thus the conversation begins.

I see the truth of this all the time on my social platforms of choice: Twitter and Facebook.  Users are constantly sending out little bits of information, but the fun really doesn’t start unless those morsels are taken up by someone else and responded to, passed along, or even “liked”.  And for that to happen, there has to be a conversation starter somewhere in the message.

“I had cornflakes for breakfast” is not likely to generate any sort of conversation beyond “Me too,” or “Yeah, so?”  But (and this really did happen to me, though it was long enough ago to be Before the Internet) “Oh shoot, the ferret I’m babysitting just jumped in my cornflakes!!” conveys a bunch of conversation starters.  Who is crazy enough to babysit a ferret?  What is it doing on the breakfast table?  Do ferrets like cornflakes?  How long did it take to clean up?  It has action, emotion, and personal experience, and those are the key ingredients to starting a conversation.

If you’ve been on Twitter, or Facebook, or even the phone – you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Our world is shaped by the relationships and conversations we have with other people – by the emotions we feel as well as the information we receive.  As you consider the message you have to bring to the world, ask yourself: is this a conversation starter?  Who will I interact with as a result of my putting it out there?  How will the conversation proceed?  What might happen?

This wisdom applies whether the nature of your conversation is commercial, or personal.  In fact, as a model of effective communication it is all the more important because it puts the personal into every transaction – and we all want to be treated like a person, and not just a “consumer” (of media or anything else), right?

Help me carry on this conversation: pass it along to your own friends, or send a comment to me.  I’d love to hear from you.

What happened in the meantime?  The short answer is – I needed a break.  2009 was an incredibly intense year, in which I found out what happens when you start a business on no money, and try to do everything yourself.  It magnifies both your strengths and your weaknesses.  And by the autumn of last year, I was running on empty.  So I escaped to the “security” of paid employment in a completely different field, and I did my best to take care of my family.  It took a bit longer to take care of myself as well, but that seems to be coming along, too.

As of right now, I am looking for more work in the communications field (where I have always been at my best). I’ve also signed up for Social Media Camp on October 3rd, and I’ve just finished the seminal book, “Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky.  Those three things alone deserve separate posts.  So stay tuned.

It’s supports a wonderful local charity: Power To Be.  Kids with disabilities deserve to get out and try new things, and just be kids.  Power To Be gives them the opportunity to stretch themselves and find out just what they CAN do.  Check out their website at www.powertobe.ca.

It’s going to feature a great variety of local talent: CBC’s All Points West host Joanne Roberts will be the emcee through the evening, which will feature comedy by Mike Vardy, and music by Vikki Flawith and Easy, Char, Crimson Star, The Gruntles and RIPT.

Twestival has shown the power of social media – particularly Twitter – to build community quickly. While people organize hundreds of fundraisers every year for worthy causes, my experience has been that when you do most of your planning in person, and with phone calls, pulling together a fundraiser can take months.  Using Twitter both to organize and to get to know each other, we’ve been able to form a team in a very short time.  It’s amazing how powerful a sentence or two can be in conveying just the right information.

Here’s a fun little video that Cris Vleck cooked up for us to get the word out:  watch it and buy your tickets!

YYJ Twestival Video on You Tube

And remember to buy your tickets in advance and swish right past the people lining up at the door:

www.amiando.com/yyjtwestival

Only 7 more sleeps!  See you there?

Has the Vancouver social media community considered starting a chapter of the Social Media Club? I know it’s “yet another thing” for many people, but its whole mission is to have these conversations, both in person and online. It has benefited the Victoria community enormously for these reasons:
1) The larger organization is a wonderful space to share local discussions and “lessons learned”, and the arrangement is reciprocal, with wider discussions seeding the local level too.
2) It encompasses the full spectrum of social media – not just blogging, not just the “flavour of the month” – and many of our discussions are applicable across platforms.
3) It is becoming a recognized brand in itself. As a communications professional engaged in social media, I’d like to visit chapters in other towns. Are there great people visiting Vancouver who are missing connections because they don’t know where to look?

Since Paul Holmes and I founded the Victoria chapter (the first in Canada!) six months ago, I have been continually amazed by the quality of discussion and the building of community that takes place when we meet.  We’ve gone from 15 people to nearly 40 at the last event, and the momentum keeps building. We’re preparing for a very big event Sept 22nd, when we welcome n2y4 award winner Joe Solomon to talk about “Movement Building in a Connected Age”.  That deserves its own post, so expect to see more here about that talk this week.

At the same time, meetups, tweetups, an Open Coffee group and DemoCamp all add to our knowledge base and our contact files.  (For people who spend a lot of time behind screens, we sure like to meet!) At each event I’ve been to, I’ve come home feeling like I’ve shared a lot and learned far more.

Yes, I am parked behind this computer for many hours every day.  Yes, the yard is untouched, except that we have trimmed the lawn to a uniform height and are putting up with the growing patches of brown.  Yes, my “holidays” have been put on hold, and when I go away with the kids I bring a computer and an internet stick.  Should I take a look at finding some balance in my life?

Let me pass along an analogy I’ve found incredibly helpful in times like this.  Many lifestyle coaches advise us to achieve balance in our life.  So we feel we need to carefully plan each day with the right amount of work, rest, “quality time” and so on.  It’s fine advice if you have a routine that you have set – great for maintaining a pattern that is already clicking along.

But what about when you are giving birth to something new?  As a mother of three, let me tell you that during labour there is no question of taking a break and finding balance.  You are in it for the long haul and until that baby comes out, you’re not doing anything else.  People who are adept at starting new ventures know that giving birth to a new idea is much the same.  At times like this, the best you can hope for is harmony.

By thinking of harmony instead of balance, you give yourself permission to let different “instruments” take centre stage in your life for a time, and it’s ok if sometimes the effect of the moment is a high-volume guitar solo, or an aria.  That solo will last a moment or two, then it ends and something else becomes the focus of the music.  Harmony expects rests along with the melody, and crescendos as well as quiet.  A piece of music that is “balanced” throughout risks blandness.  Achieving harmony in your life requires you to look at the bigger patterns, and plan beyond the day-to-day.  Harmony sometimes demands all-out performance, then a period of recovery.  And it seems to me that harmony will create a more dynamic result than carefully-maintained balance.

So the next time a well-meaning friend tells you that you need more balance in your life – ask them to look at the bigger picture.  Maybe you are creating something bigger, and more harmonious, than they can see from close up.