http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary Social Media, Online Marketing, and You Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:25:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Don't trust the cloud. Or I should say, don't trust the cloud alone. Sproutbuilder is a service that was recommended to me by a friend to check out.  Since they had been around a couple years, it seemed a good fit for a few projects so I signed up for a monthly ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2010/02/16/lessons-learned-from-sproutbuilder-shutting-down/ Today I had the fortunate experience of getting a day pass at the Workantile Exchange, 3,000 square feet of coworking goodness in Ann Arbor. If you don't know what co-working is, it's where groups or individuals work on their individual projects, but in a (usually) shared space. There are basic amenities, ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2010/02/09/co-working-done-right-in-michigan/ When you're passionate about your field, what you do, or create.. whether a web worker, entrepreneur, artist, or any other idea generator - sometimes, life throws you curveballs and can, for whatever reason, make you lose some of that spark. I've seen it a lot, and it happened to me earlier ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2010/01/19/burning-out-and-rekindling-the-fire/ I don't normally write my blog entries aimed for other social media professionals. After all, there's a lot of knowledge out there - I aim to distill things to my audience, which I know is more executive and marketing related but not necessarily in the digital space. If a fellow ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2010/01/14/blinders/ Two musings or tips for today. Some others have mentioned them as rules very kindly online, others have said they like'em - I don't like to say "rules" but here's how I operate. Foursquare is a social tool. It's a social tool. I know I've violated this rule of thumb, but I ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2010/01/08/one-click-two-clicks-three-clicks-foursquare/ I'm going to save you at least $20-$200 today. I'm going to tell you the "secret" that so many websites with extremely long copy and bogus "complete online marketing strategies" will charge you for, with, shall we say, notes. Many, but not all, of the "Social Media Experts" (see an interesting ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2009/12/27/how-to-cheat-twitter/ What is Huffduffer? Shortcut for illicitly inhaling (huffing) toxic chemicals? Nope. New version of Duff Beer featured on the Simpsons? Not quite. As a longtime fan of podcasts, there's something that podcasting definitely hasn't had - an easy way of sharing or having a fun discovery tool. It's always been a difficult process ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2009/12/21/what-the-heck-is-huffduffer/ There's groupthink in any industry, but I think ours in Social Media is full of it to an extreme extent. Because it's so relatively new (although some of us has been interacting socially on the web for 15 years before the tools got nifty pastel gradients and friendly icons reminiscent of ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2009/12/04/questioning-god/ Was glad tonight to get to see Social Media Club Detroit (search #SMCD on Twitter or the Facebook fan page) with Christopher Barger, head muckety-muck of social media over at GM. He hit on some really great points about SM in organizations. There's lots of takeaways in the hour-long video, ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2009/11/18/chris-barger-general-motors-and-social-media-club-video/ I felt highly motivated to say something, after I've had numerous friends come to me and tell me there's a problem going on in our Detroit social media community. I've made a generic example below of how it's gone down the 9 or 10 times it's happened recently with the ... http://portagemedia.com/socialcommentary/2009/11/06/its-only-stealing-from-yourself/