Farewell to a Friend

There’s just not much to say, except that we are saddened by the news that the Rocky Mountain News will publish its last issue on Friday. We will certainly miss this long-standing community resource and the reporters and editors who have become our friends over the years. We thank them for the news coverage they've provided and the consistent quality of their work. Best wishes.

~GroundFloor Media

Social Media Workshop in Boulder

If they haven’t already, most small businesses know they must start using social media or risk losing customers to web-savvy competitors. However, the sheer size and complexity of the social media universe can overwhelm even the coolest cats in the corporate world as they try to navigate the social media ship and pick the right social media channels for their business.

This Wednesday at the Boulder Outlook Hotel, GroundFloor Social Media will host Social Media 101: PR in the Digital World. This three-hour program, taught by our GroundFloor Social Media team and hosted by the SBDC, will provide marketers and communicators an opportunity to learn how to use the social media universe to help further their marketing and PR goals. After this Social Media 101 program, we hope that everyone will be able to confidently move forward on the social media front without looking like a deer caught in the infamous headlights.

Space is still available and information may be found at the Boulder Small Business Development Center’s Web site. www.bouldersbdc.com

Hope to see you there!

Half-day Social Media 101 seminars available free of charge to associations, nonprofits and government entities

The emergence of social media has had a dramatic impact on the public relations industry. According to a trend report from Netpop Research LLC, there are 40 million active social network users in the U.S., and social networking has grown 93 percent since 2006. And if you’re reading this blog, you’ve already changed these percentages.

We are excited to announce a new GroundFloor Social Media (GFsM) workshop series aimed at helping Colorado-based associations, nonprofits and government entities leverage social media in their marketing and fundraising campaigns. Called “Social Media: Getting in on the Ground Floor,” the series will offer personalized social media training and education at no cost. Yes, they are for free! Well, at least for the first 20 guests that register in their respective category.

Most nonprofits and government organizations know social media is one way to further boost their marketing and fundraising campaigns. However, as we all know, limited budgets often make it difficult to try nontraditional campaigns. These workshops will provide these organizations with the knowledge and know-how to increase their social media presence.

We developed our Social Media 101 workshop series to help educate organizations about the social media universe and provide them with a step-by-step guide on how to start and maintain their own social media campaigns. In these sessions, our team of social media junkies will help attendees gain a basic understanding of the different social media mediums and learn how to engage customers, employees and supporters through social media.

These half-day seminars will be taught by our GFsM team and will cover everything from Twitter to Facebook to Blogs.

Here’s the scoop. Organizations interested in participating must submit an online application which is available at http://www.groundfloormedia.com/. The workshops will be held at GroundFloor Media and are limited to 20 guests. Dates can be found on our site.

And if you don’t walk away with some new social media superpowers, then you should demand your money back… or not.

The Worst Invention – Ever

I got a new computer last week, and I had to reset all of my settings in the Office programs, such as the color of my calendar and which side the e-mail preview box shows up on, etc. I’m sure you’ve all felt that pain.

Having not personalized all of the settings yet, I was reminded of the worst invention ever – the little box that pops up on the bottom right-hand side of the monitor when you have a new e-mail. You know the one, and if you’re like me, you turn it off. If you’re not like me, you leave it on and are distracted every time a new e-mail comes into your inbox. For me, that would be more than 200 times per day on average. No wonder so many people complain about their lack of time in the day when they are overcome with new e-mail messages.

This reminds me of one of my favorite concepts that I’ve come across in recent years – “inbox zero.” Here are a few tips I’ve picked up from inbox zero posts (http://www.43folders.com/izero).

- The only way an email will ever get out of your life (and out of your worrying brain) is to either deal with it or get rid of it. If you’re planning to do anything in-between, you should have an explicit understanding of why you’re doing so. Any idea which one of these is a particularly sh%#ty idea? Touch everything once whenever possible, but even if you’re busy, take the extra 2 seconds to consider whether this really has any place in your life. If not, just punt it. Article of Faith #5: “Lying to yourself doesn’t empty an inbox.”
- Seriously: is this an email you are ever going to respond to? If it’s more than a week or two old, either answer it or delete it now.
- When you check your email and find yourself groaning “Ugh, this again?” consider creating a filter.
- Limit the number of times you check for and then scan new email throughout each day. An email auto-check set for every minute means 60 potential distractions every hour, or almost 500 per day. Look back at a week of your emails and ask yourself: how many distractions was that really worth? How much crucial, instantly actionable email did I receive to make it worth shifting my attention over 2000 times?

I hope some of these tips help all of you busy communicators out there. Now go turn that e-mail notification box off!

Get Connected '09

You know those middle-of-the-night thoughts that you write down in hopes that you won’t forget them by morning? Well, early last year, I had one of those dreams/nightmares of standing in a PR seminar listening to people talk about the art of writing press releases and literally falling asleep. So we decided to combat the bad dreams and launch the Get Connected series of professional development/networking events for senior-level marketing and communication pros. These invitation-only events provide an opportunity for leaders to gather in a peer-oriented environment to learn about new trends in the industry, discuss challenges and opportunities and network with one another.

So this February 18th, we will host 40 guests for our first Get connected event of 2009 titled: The Best Way to Deliver Tough News in Tough Times. We have a solid line up of speakers including Gil Rudawsky, Deputy Metro Business editor, Rocky Mountain News; Lynn Kimbrough, Communications Director, Denver District Attorney’s Office, Ken Keymer, Restaurant Industry Veteran, former CEO of VICORP Restaurants, Inc. and former President of Noodles & Company and Jim D. Leonard, Faegre & Benson LLP

If you are a senior-level marketing/public relations practitioner and are interested in obtaining an invitation to our next Get Connected event, send me an email to getconnected@groundfloormedia.com . The cost is $25 and we give the proceeds to our Get Grounded charity program http://www.groundfloormedia.com/giving_back.html


Happy Connecting…