Cinemagraph by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg - http://cinemagraphs.com

I found an absolutely stunning bit of photography and animation on the web today. I went to google and searched for “sophisticated GIF” and found some work that blew me away. Each shot is like a time capsule, a magical micro-moment – and they’re [...]]]>  

Cinemagraph by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg - http://cinemagraphs.com

I found an absolutely stunning bit of photography and animation on the web today. I went to google and searched for “sophisticated GIF” and found some work that blew me away. Each shot is like a time capsule, a magical micro-moment – and they’re animated GIFS!

There’s a good chance you associate the concept of an animated GIF with something like a garish early nineties website along the lines of a Geocities homepage. Remember Borat? His original tongue in cheek website is no longer online but has been preserved by the good folks at the Internet Archive, and you should read my post on his insane animated GIF strewn website here: http://iam.strongandfree.ca/blog/the-internet-is-forever-wayback-machine-retrieves-borat

Above you’ll see an example of this amazing visual art. It’s like a throwback to the original days of cinema, when even the most primitive frames could spark delight and capture the imagination. Mind you, the duo of Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg are operating in modern NYC and their spin on the “cinemagraph” is very sophisticated in its execution. I going to encourage you to check out two websites for dozens of examples of the incredible imagery, before I ask you to analyze the image at the top of this post (you’ll see some teensy tiny flaws in the crosswalk area at right).

So be sure to spend a few minutes at the main page, and the blog by Jamie Beck (each site has different content)

Cinemagraph site: http://cinemagraphs.com/

Blog by Jamie: http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

The Contact Photography Festival just passed and my blog’s Google rank was higher than EYE weekly magazine and both the Facebook page for the fest and a page in Yahoo Business. [...]]]> Can my site rank higher than Facebook and Yahoo? Yes, in the right circumstances, and with a terrifically crafted post on a specific subject.

The Contact Photography Festival just passed and my blog’s Google rank was higher than EYE weekly magazine and both the Facebook page for the fest and a page in Yahoo Business. The Google result for “Contact Photography Festival” placed me on the third page of results (out of millions) and confirmed to me that my online marketing strategies are paying off.

People do come to my site, read my articles and check out my videos. The question is: “How to convert that into something tangible”? You’ll also note that my blog contains no advertising of any sort, so some might ask the more elementary question “Why blog?”

It’s interesting to mull the answers and talk about what motivates me and how I’m marketing myself on the WWW.

Motivations to Blog

First of all I am an expressive person and I’ve always liked writing. Designing a blog was fun and graphic design is my main focus, but I’m interesting in reaching a wide audience and exposing people to interesting people, places, and events, and engaging people in issues I care about. If you check out my site, you’ll see I have postings on a variety of topics but they fall mainly under these 10 categories: art, design, Toronto, film, books, blogging, WordPress, education, school, workshops etc. I write about what I know and what I’m interested in.

Recently I had an interesting experience while taking an informational interview with a design industry person many years my junior. After I introduced myself and my wide background of work, the designer took a deep breath and offered up this comment: “I think you have to ask yourself, ‘Do you want to express yourself or do you want to communicate?’” Later I had a chance to mull it over. I realized that I was doing both. I understand how communication works in the digital age and I’ve capitalized on it — and I express myself through my art and my blog (and other sites).

Represent Yourself – Online Identity and Branding

“Whether you realize it or not, you have an online “brand,” too. Do you have a Facebook or MySpace account? Do you comment on blogs? Have you tried out Twitter? When you post content, engage others or share information about yourself on the Web, you are creating a unique identity—branding yourself, in a sense.”

- Patti Church / Whyhire.me

In an article in Career Options magazine, which is targeted toward Canadian college students, Ms. Church describes trends in branding and marketing and puts forth the argument that we all need to fine tune our online brands, because if we don’t, others will do it for us. She quotes the amazing statistic that a giant majority of employers will google a job seeker, and often they find publicly accessible web pages, such as Facebook, Google or blogs and forums. Read Patti’s terrific article at: http://careeroptionsmagazine.com/creating-your-online-brand/

In “The Long Tail,” one of the more interesting business books of the last decade, Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine analyzes trends related to business and the rise of the collaborative community-based Internet. There are two things he writes about which I find relevant and interesting. One, products are increasingly being made and distributed by prosumers (yes – it implies a combination of professional /producer and consumer) — regular folks who take it upon themselves to avail themselves of some semi-professional gear and produce hi-quality art, music, books and utilize the digital tools of our age to get their message out. An important chapter takes a look at the “Democratization of the tools of Production.” Anyone today can develop their own product and marketing materials – and online aggregators like Amazon and  iTunes allow us to pitch our product to the whole world. Two, a smart person can develop what might be called “traction” or “cachet” – a certain respect and professional prestige which, if it doesn’t directly earn money (and it can if you publish a book for instance), can indirectly boost your career by opening up opportunities to you in your industry. Some speaking engagements might be non-paying but that presentation, like the blog entry, impresses upon your peers that you have a valuable contribution to make. Convert your reputation, in other words, into professionally-related reward.

You are a product, a brand. What are you doing to promote yourself? Are you pro-actively managing your online identity? If you build a website or blog, Google will find it and rush your personal page to the top of the results page. this ensures you present the most professional side of yourself when the world comes calling through digital age channels.

Build it and They Will Come

If you put a modicum of time and energy into a blog you shall reap some reward. If you pay attention to certain practises and principles then it should bring you traffic and reach a lot of people. I have some basic recommendations and they can all easily fit into a summary I could just describe as “Google-ize” yourself. Are your meta tags tweaked? Do you even know what I’m talking about? Here are some tips to help you get going.

Google / Search Engines – Make sure you update your site frequently, use relevant keywords in your headings and page titles, and always be sure to add media to your posts and pages. I am convinced that much of my success has come from exploiting tools like Google Maps, YouTube, social media websites etc – in part to diversify the kinds of content on my site, and also to simply provide links back to my content. Your site probably has the ability to put “meta tags” into the source code – meta tags includes areas like “description” and “keywords” – this helps search engines understand your site and what it’s all about.

Overall there is probably no substitute for good craft – take some time for design and write well. Or hire someone like me to get the job done.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

mike | strongandfree.ca

Recently I’ve been training a pretty tough audience – teachers. Since I’ve been teaching for about seven years I know what it’s like to lead a group, and the demands and expectations that educators have, because they are doing this stuff nearly every day, are higher than most. It’s a challenging audience and [...]]]>

Recently I’ve been training a pretty tough audience – teachers. Since I’ve been teaching for about seven years I know what it’s like to lead a group, and the demands and expectations that educators have, because they are doing this stuff nearly every day, are higher than most. It’s a challenging audience and it’s given me a chance to mix two topics I really love: education and 21st century technology, and DIY tools like blogs, websites and (multimedia) software.

So far in 2009 I have worked with both the Durham TESL association and Canadian Centre for Cultural and Language Studies (CCLCS) here in Toronto. I led workshops that varied from one to five hours. In each we looked at concepts like web 2.0 and future-now Internet applications and how tools like WordPress and other CMS (Content Management Systems) might be used be people like teachers to organize and control digital and online content and connect and inspire their students with the power of Internet resources.

I am slowly constructing a home base for  my workshop which so far, in expanded form, I am calling “Electronic Me: Teaching You to Get Tech.” The name could have easily and obviously been “Digital Me” but I expand beyond the convention of talking only about computers and incorporate discussions of other (20th century) electronic equipment such as televisions, DVD players and iPods (particularly for teachers and trainers).

Perhaps you or someone in your organization is looking for some advice or hands-on training to create a website or video. Maybe you’d like an overview or an in-depth session on a specific topic like WordPress websites and blogs for entrepreneurs, creating documents for MS Word and PowerPoint, or using iPods in the classroom.

Please contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to the opportunity to “Teach You to Get Tech.”

mike | strongandfree.ca