I normally don’t get to do a lot of writing in the summer, but I’m looking to cover the 2013 US National Gymnastics Championships in Hartford, Conn. in mid-August. If anyone needs a freelancer to cover the event, please take a look at my gymnastics writing resume page.
Author: Kat (Page 14 of 89)
For some of us, writing and doodling are just easier. The Dean (my boss at my full-time job) and I are very alike in that way.
I’ve tried styluses on iPhones, and using an iPad to take notes in meetings, but nothing really compares to handwriting and illustrating notes yourself. Maybe this shows my age, but if it does, I’m fine with it.
The Dean came to me Monday morning with something he had drawn up that morning that he wanted to convert into a blog post. A hand-drawn blog post, if you will. He’s a former graphic designer, so of course a normal doodle by him turns out to be absolutely spot on. But he wanted some specific sections of the doodle to link to external sites, social media and Spotify.
He handed me the doodle and went off his day of meetings. In order to keep his doodle intact but still link out to everything he wanted, I turned to Stipple.
Stipple is a photo sharing site that allows you to upload a photo and place multiple links or text on a photo. You can then share that photo and its links on various platforms (like Twitter and Facebook.)
Here is what Stipple allowed me to do with the Dean’s hand-drawn blog post and links:
Pretty awesome, right? The goal is to do one of these each day this week as a way to curate the university’s Senior Week and Commencement activities.
I can’t help but think there are SO many opportunities to use Stipple in both venues in which I work (higher education and sports media.) For example, the US Figure Skating Association (USFSA) loves to share athlete throwback or action photos on Twitter. What if they used Stipple to do so, which would allow them to link to a YouTube video of that particular performance or the skater’s athlete bio? Or even a link to purchase Nationals tickets?
What uses do you see for Stipple?
I logged onto Klout for the first time in a while this afternoon while doing some social media work for the Dean I work for full-time. The social media rating tool, which attempts to score your social media abilities and provides you analytics about your usage, is now allowing users to answer questions on the site to help boost their score.
I let myself procrastinate for a minute and decided to answer one. I had 300 characters to answer the following question: “What are the three most important pieces of advice you can give to someone who is new to social media?” Only 300 characters for that loaded question? I could write a book on that subject! (Maybe I should…someday…when I have time.)
1) Be honest. It’ll keep you engaged longer and make it easier to be on social media.
2) Don’t be afraid to be silent. If you’re real, there are times where you honestly have nothing to share.
3) “Don’t let comparison ruin your joy.” Don’t compare yourself to other users – you’re you.
My answer was very stream of consciousness, so it is not necessarily refined. I think this advice has kept me engaged in social media for as long as I have, and it keeps me going when I have the opposite of those Saturday Night Live Stuart Smalley affirmation moments (“I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, and gosh darn it, people don’t like me.” And I do realize that breaking out an early-1990s SNL reference is probably why people don’t like me.)
What are your thoughts? What advice would you give? Am I completely off base?
Much to my delight, I’ve been covering a lot of high school gymnastics since I started my high school sports writing gigs with the Boston Herald and the Peabody/Lynnfield Weekly News. I love writing about gymnastics, so it leads to a lot of “I get paid to do this?” moments of amazement. It’s pretty wonderful. I have met so many incredible gymnasts, coaches and parents over the past few months, and I’m grateful they have been so welcoming.
Barnstable on floor exercise at the South Sectional on Feb. 23, 2013.
The New England championships for girls high school gymnastics are this upcoming Saturday, March 9th at Algonquin High School in Northboro, MA (also home of the only Wegmans in Massachusetts.) Each state will send their top two teams and the top six gymnastics on the all-around and each event.
In preparation, I’ve put together a list of the all-around champions and top two teams from each particpating state. (Thanks for my Maine high school sports gurus @JeffMaineSports, @MattyinMaine and @MikeLowePPH for letting me know Maine no longer sponsors high school gymnastics.) This doesn’t mean these teams or gymnasts will necessarily compete on March 9th, but it’s a good list to have published somewhere.
Connecticut
(results from CIACsports.com)
All-Around Champion: Erin Malone, Southington
State Team Champion: Woodstock Academy
State Team Runner-Up: Southington
Massachusetts
(results from my trusty reporter’s notebook)
All-Around Champion: Kim Stewart, Nauset
State Team Champion: Barnstable
State Team Runner-Up: Sharon
New Hampshire
(results from NHIAA)
All-Around Champion: Kaylee Pacunas, Pinkerton
State Team Champion: Salem
State Team Runner-Up: Bishop Guertin
Rhode Island
(results from RIHSS)
All-Around Champion: Nicole Silva, Barrington
Division I Team Champion: North Kingstown
Division II Champion: Exeter/West Greenwich
Vermont
(results from the Burlington Free-Press)
All-Around Champion: Courtney Gleason, Essex
State Team Champion: Essex
State Team Runner-Up: Champlain Valley
My Tuesday morning Twitter stream is full of colleagues, friends and others I follow boasting about being at Social Media Week in New York City. But for every person at these cool events, there are several of us who don’t have the resources or time to attend, and sit behind their desks and iPhones feeling pangs of jealously.
Put that jealously away – it’s not good for you. (Trust me, I know from first hand experience that this is difficult. But I know that once you get over the jealousy, your head will be in a better place. Dr. Phil moment over….now.) Here are a few ways you can participate in or create your own Social Media Week!
– Devote a column on your TweetDeck or a search to the week’s official hashtag: #SMW13. While reading live tweets is not always as inciteful as being there, it’ll catch you up on the key takeaways your colleagues who are in attendance will be bringing back to their workplaces.
– Use your free time this week to read a social media related case study or book. I’ll be using my “train time” finishing Solving the Social Media Puzzle by Kathryn Rose and Apryl Parcher, as well as reading the sample case study from the upcoming book Social Works by mStoner, an educational marketing firm. (And if you’re in Boston, I hope you’ll join the crew behind the book at their launch event on Tuesday, February 26th. Yours truly is the event planner. There will be crudite and hummus, so attending is a total no brainer.)
– Engage in one Twitter chat this week regarding social media, PR or marketing that you haven’t in the past. Or it can be a chat regarding the industry you wish to do social media work within. If you aren’t available at the exact time of the chat, that’s okay. I know a few higher education and sports chats that are continuous (you can engage with the hashtag whenever you desire, and others will usually jump in.) You can engage whenever it is convenient for you.
– Organize an get-together of your own. Bummed you aren’t drinking wine and eating cheese with other social media fanatics? Put together your own tweetup this week or sometime soon. Pick a date or a time (it’s usually easier if it’s a Monday – Thursday, since bars and restaurants tend to be less busy.) Put it out on social media that you’ll be there then and would love to get together with like minded people. Create a easy registration page either on EventBrite or Facebook so you can get an idea of how many people are coming and can make an appropriate reservation if the venue requires it. Make sure people understand food and drink is on their own, and then gather together. It really is this easy – trust me, I put these things together all the time.
– Put together a sample presentation of something you have done well on social media. Maybe its responding to Twitter in a crisis situation. Maybe it’s promoting a radio show via Twitter. Maybe it’s nabbing yourself a PA audition with the Boston Red Sox like Twitter user Joel McAuliffe did. Whatever you think you’ve done well on social media, flaunt it. Create a short talk, a guest blog post or a PowerPoint presentation on how you did it. Not doing so is like doing months of “Rock Hard Abs” and not wearing a two piece swimsuit afterward. Not only is sharing your experiences a nice thing to do, it is a chance to brand yourself as someone in the know. That will not only help your career, but it could eventually nab you invites to present at things like Social Media Week.
– Have confidence! Don’t let yourself think for a minute you don’t have as much experience as those who are presenting about social media in New York this week or the lucky few who get to make their living with social media. Social media is only a decade old. It’s hard for anyone to claim to be an expert in something that is ever changing and is younger than a sixth grader. You have time to catch up. Your experiences are valuable, and just because someone isn’t paying you $75.00 an hour for them doesn’t make them less so. Keep on learning, Tweeting, Instagraming and participating. Your day will come!