Seems as though I haven’t had as much time as usual to play with my blog. I think I’ve gotten a bit caught up playing with flickr, plus I’ve just overall been really busy working on several projects. Getting finished up with a program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence and finished a newsletter for AIA, Birmingham chapter. I’ve been pounding out ads for Underwoods (sister company to Birmingham-based Bromberg’s Jewelers). Oh, and I wrote a reasonble itinerary for the Alabama Front Porches website that I posted on the blog I created for them. Need to scan some more old photos in. Haven’t really made anything interesting to eat in over a week–busy and boring.
Work
Last Week’s Crazy Schedule
Wow, what a busy week last week. First, I have way too much to do. Then, I get hooked on Flickr. (Even uploaded a few photos to the al.com photo section–they seemed to like my photo of the guys sitting in front of the Selma grocery store–they left it on their front page for almost 2 days.) But, I managed to get lots done, including a draft of a 48 page program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence program (ACE), photos for a new client (the American Society of Landscape Architects–Alabama chapter), ads for Underwoods, Florida sister company to Birmingham-based Brombergs and other things I can’t even remember right now.
Oh, and I finally got around to writing up a travel itinerary for a trip to Selma, Alabama, Gees Bend and Camden. It is posted on the Alabama’s Front Porches blog site: www.alabamafrontporches.com/blog. A little more work and I’ll incorporate it into the main site. I ordered a GPS (Garmin nüvi 750
) yesterday to help me better plot my travels around Alabama. (click the link to buy it through Amazon.com–and give me money!!!)
Busy Week So Far–Much Left to do…
Wow, what a busy week–little time for updates, though I admit to playing a bit more than I should on Flickr. I’ve added some additional photos (mainly of Birmingham–downtown and the zoo). This morning, I’m going through a training manual for the ACE (Alabama Communities of Excellence) Program and reformatting it for consistent use of fonts, sizes, styles, etc. I’m trying to give it a cleaner, easier to follow look without putting loads of hours into it (it is somewhere around 45 pages). Other than that, just the typical updates to my various blogs (I added several links to a Facebook Group about Black Belt natives yesterday).
Ordered the Adobe CS4 suite of programs yesterday–can’t wait to get that in hand. Oh, and picked up a new client as well: the Alabama chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. I’ll be developing a website for them in the next few months, but Friday night I’m off to one of their banquets to take pictures. That’s two months in a row with actual people photography work (a judge last month and now an event). I’m not as fond of taking people photos as I am of landscape or food photography, but I’m getting the hang of it more and more.
Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Oh My
There are just too many social networking opportunities out there right now. I’m giving all the above a try. I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, thanks in large part to an old college buddy, Dale Kiefling years ago. I’ve been on Facebook for a lot less time, but still pretty interesting. Twitter is pretty new to me–I’m still getting the hang of exactly why I’m using it, but sort of secretly like it. Plaxo–pretty lame overall, but keep it up for a certain crowd.
And, I just joined Flickr today. Flickr is basically a photo-sharing website that lets you upload and organize your photos. Never been very into that sort of thing as I never saw a need–after all, I can post stuff to my blog anytime. Finally broke down and joined and uploaded some photos, though. It seems pretty cool so far.
And the reason for all this? I want to understand the social media networks in order to use them effectively for my own personal benefit and particularly to benefit my clients. There are many, many opportunities to market to a whole new crowd and in a completely different way. So here goes!
Another Sierra Club Newsletter Completed: November 2008
One of the monthly newsletters I work on: The Alabama Sierran. I did the first newsletter for the Alabama Chapter of the Sierra Club in January 2006 and have done one each month since then. This is an 8 page tabloid-size newsletter printed on recycled newsprint. You can download the full newsletter at alabama.sierraclub.org. In addition to working on this newsletter, I just finished an online newsletter for Birmingham, Alabama based CGH Insurance Group (www.cghinsurance.com/newsletter). And, perhaps most fun right now, I’m working on a website on tourism–particularly historical and ecological–in Bibb County, Alabama. I’m developing it almost entirely in Movable Type (using a little Dreamweaver to help me handle the CSS stylesheets). Pretty interesting stuff. Not that far along yet, but I’ve built the shell: www.bibbtourism.com. Other than that, just the usual blog updates at Your Town Alabama and Alabama’s Front Porches.
Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama Newsletter Complete!
This newsletter is one that I do only about 2 times each year. It is a pretty good sized newsletter with lots of input, so it takes a while to complete: very pleased with this issue, both design-wise and content-wise. We managed to add in more reference, teaching-oriented information into this issue than ever before (at least since I’ve been doing the newsletter–and that’s been about 5 years).
