johnnylaird

One of my recent posts talks about taking the online offline.

I experienced another example of a seamless shift from a media point of connection – in this case the TV – to an actual physical point of connection this weekend.

Jan and I had been watching some breakfast TV on Saturday morning and in particular a piece featuring Marsha Coupé of Coupé Woman, a marketing & PR company specialising in Plus Size issues in the UK and US.

Marsha did her cause proud, and made a positive impression on us here at Casa Laird.

So, it was a pleasant surprise, within a mere few hours to see Marsha again; this time in the street in our neighbo(u)ring town. Janet had been particularly taken with Marsha’s positive and empowering message on TV earlier in the day, so made a point of stopping Marsha in the street to tell her so!

I don’t suggest everyone goes around stalking the folks you see on TV, but sometimes it is good to be an encouraging an affirming voice of support.

If you have that chance…take it.

• Coupé Woman website
• Marsha blogs at Lover’s Kitchen

HT to Marsha for the image

If you’re a regular reader of johnnylaird.net, you may want to bounce over to top man Jonny Rose’s blog to check out a Guest Post of mine there…the first of his new series “I Blog On A Sunday”

…and while I’m into gratuitous self promotion, I was pleased to get a shout out from Kapil Apshankar in his post “Social Media Success And The Law Of Non-Linearity” when he referenced my recent interview with uberblogger Mike Cliffe-Jones.

Grateful thanks to Jonny , Kapil and Mike

A few days ago, Gianpaulo Pietri of Simply Optimal posted his list of “Top 10 Best Cities for Bloggers.”

Now clearly, any list like this is going to be entirely objective, and subject to lots to challenges and observations, but it was interesting enough for me to share on my own Facebook profile.

In response, a Hong Kong based good friend of mine took the opportunity to share his opinion on Gianpaulo’s list, so I thought I’d pass that on to you here:

“SIMON D: This is so Anglo-centric (as in English language) it’s unbelievable. Fact is Chinese is the second most used language online and there are loads of bloggers north of the border (mine, not yours) but you just can’t access them (easily).

Time for you peeps over there to realise it’s all happening over here.

JOHNNY L: On one level you’re right, Mr D, but I wouldn’t be so hard on the guy. (…who speaks English, Spanish, French, Italian & German)

Sure, this post and most of the blogs mentioned start with a heavy English language bias, but the subsequent comments, and the other posts that no doubt will spin off from the initial one will spread the net (excuse the pun) wider.

Many bloggers are aware that things are going on big time in China, but in a blogging and broader Social Media world that feeds on itself through dialog, the English vs Chinese variants language barrier is going to be pretty huge and an obvious handicap. Add to that the Chinese Government’s attitude to open information and difficulties with the “low control” digital environment much of the rest of the world inhabits…and there’s a pretty big mountain to climb. Having said that; it will be climbed!

I do understand what you are saying though. I kinda expressed similar feelings here in a post called “Who are the truly global blogging voices?”

SIMON D: I think I’ve said before that one of the things I’m doing at work is looking at machine translation. Now if you’ve ever used the “translate” button on your browser you’ll see that the technology has a fair way to go but I can assure you, from someone in the translation industry, that it’s very quickly getting much better. “

What this does is open up non-English language posts/blogs/websites to anyone so the linguistic barrier you’re talking about isn’t as high as it seems.

With regards to China, well yes, the Great Firewall is obviously an issue but what you’ll find is the really interesting people know how to circumvent it so the posts are out there.”

This dialog now appears as a Comment on Simply Optimal. I’ll be interested to see if that stimulates further conversations.

With a weird sense of synchronicity, I also bumped into a fascinating site/blog called “Geeks On a Plane” via a Tweet from self described “US/Asia cross border biz dev guy ” , and Forbes Blogs contributor Ray Kwong.

Ray simply said “Giving it a gander: “Geeks on a Plane – Asia Tour 2010 – Episode 1.”
That was enough to pique my interest and send me to the vid shown here:

I’m not entirely sure about the HK Movie/Kung Fu or whatever intro, but this video is kinda fascinating.

Whilst my friend’s observation that some English language bloggers assume nothing else is happening in the blogosphere, I’m convinced that scenario is rapidly changing. Translation technology is – as he says – improving very quickly, and I believe there is also an air of change in the way we in the West are willing and able to engage beyond our usual cultural comfort zones.
Long may it continue!

More Geeks on a Plane stuff…

HT to Bernie J Mitchell for pointing me in the direction of this…

Well, are you?

In the short months since I became aware of Barry Furby, I’ve quickly become an admirer of his drive and entrepreneurial nous, as well as his genuine way of authentically valuing relationships  beyond the “what can you do for me” paradigm.

So, I’m glad Barry has been able to take the time to answer some questions and be the latest interviewee here at johnnylaird.net

Q: What made Barry Furby the man he is today…who were your early mentors and influencers?

Firstly Johnny, thanks for allowing me some time in the limelight of your blog, it looks like a great series of interviews and thoughts coming together here. What a challenging first question to kick us of…

In life, it has to be my family, my father and both grand fathers are/were great gentlemen, hard working, respectable and loving. Now that I have a family of my own (Oscar 16 months &  2^nd son due in a matter of weeks), I make every effort to make the most of opportunities to provide for them, and develop my understanding of the world we live in to pass on to them.

In business, I’ve worked always worked so reactively and instinctively, it’s both a strength and weakness that I try to balance on an almost daily basis. In the last 2-3 years the biggest influencers have been the people I communicate with on a daily basis (Yourself, Shannon Boudjema, Adam Vincinzini, Bernie Mitchell, Scott Gould) and the places that they send me to read, this includes the Seth Godins, Chip & Dan Heaths, Stephen Bayleys and Roger Mavitys of the written world.

Q: Can you tell me something about the genesis of your current projects; the really early days when you moved from ideas and concepts towards something that started to become tangible.

I sat in soul-less sales offices for months leading up to going out on my own and setting up Fresh Resources and Social Media Monday, I was telling myself it wasn’t the right time (with a new born son and few spare pennies), then the penny dropped! If something begins to feel right or excite you then go and do it. I saw an opportunity to grow a business in an emerging market, and a community of likeminded individuals who I could learn from, be-friend and provide a valuable service to. Straight out the starting blocks the excitement had caught me, the learning curve began, and I haven’t looked back.

Q: My impression is that you are a guy who has come a long way pretty quickly. Is that the way you see it too, and if that’s the case how do you explain it?

The learning curve I mentioned, that’s not been far from vertical, but I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. I worked my trade for 4-5 years before I set up Fresh, so that element of setting up was actually less risky, I was confident in my ability to win contracts and secure talent for my clients. Social Media Monday in terms of the community and events, that was a new experience and something I’d never even looked at before. I saw the value in offline events, relationships often take on a stronger form when they’re built up with layers of communication, mutual value and handshakes. Events, Technology, Community and their impact on Business have really captured my attention and it’s something I’m definitely planning to take further.

Q: You have an incredible network of friends and associates. What kicked that off?

I’d like to think that making these relationships mutually beneficial are the reason that they’ve flourished, in a time where all of us are still learning about emerging tools, applying lessons learned and understanding the psychology of community applied to business we must make the work we do Win-Win-Win, that’s personally, emotionally and in business.

Q: What makes someone a good networker, and how do you deal with balancing authentic relationships with strong and successful commercial initiatives?

Hidden agendas, Broadcasting and Self promotion all #FAIL, I really believe that if you go into these relationships thinking how can I help that person then the rewards in return will be double, now I don’t mean that like giving xmas presents to get one in return, but Seth Godin says “if you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. they want to engage, to interact and to get you involved”, I’d be delighted if the work I do gets me anywhere close to this.

Q: We’ve talked about how things started off for you, so where are you now with Fresh Resources and Social Media Monday?

5^th of August 2010, is Fresh Resources’ 1^st Birthday, and the September Social Media Monday will be the 12^th so we’re one year in on paper and it only feels like the beginning of the journey.

I’m working super hard with a few people in the SMMo community to help extend our community and family of events worldwide, that is truly exciting and there’s an announcement that goes with it that I can’t wait to get out… right now it’s one of those if i told you i’d have to shoot you moments… but it’s exciting and to a degree, a change of direction that will give us focus and help evolve everyone involved.

Fresh Resources I call the day job, and I’m delighted to have close relationships with leading businesses in the London Social Media space, and have been overwhelmed with a couple of kind references we’ve received for our work recently – really great news for the business – and post-baby, we’ll be ready to grow the company (and maybe come to London).

Q:  Who are the people working in your arena now that are inspiring you, and what is it that makes them stand out in a pretty crowded field?

I see myself as slightly detached from the space as I’m not a practising Marketer or Strategist, but a biz owner who uses the tools and facilitates a community and events. So it’s quite easy to step back see what’s going on without seeing people as competition. I feel at the moment there is an element of frustration in the social media industry, frustration with guru types, facebook page merchants and £99-499 a month bundle packages and I understand it, I’m a huge advocate of grown up intelligent marketing and an integrated approach that provides results for business, box ticking isn’t going to get far in a fast paced visible market where your work is accessible and the competition are so critical.

• Scott and Drew are doing great work with Like Minds, I really like their approach, Gemma Went of Red Cube again has a grown up approach to the space, and we have something happening at our Social Collective conf which is inspired by Shannon Boudjema, Darika Ahrens and Paul Armstrong called #mapMAP a step back asking what’s broken in our advertising model and that’s going produce some really good conversation and a paper that highlights the points made – it should be a great take away.

Q: Could you have done the work you are doing today ten years ago?

Ha, at 16 or in the yr 2000? I think it would have been a very different experience, and certainly would have used different methods and technology. Actually maybe not, I guess it’s happening now because of my fascination with modern day and emerging technology, business and community, I’d like to be successful in trying to find a way for them to work together harmoniously through Fresh and SMMo.

Q: Any final thoughts to share…?

I’m excited about where this space, technology and family of communities will take us… It’s very much a period of learning for me and as I seem to learn best from doing so I look forward to looking back and sharing.

Thanks for spending some time with me.

• Barry’s main hub on the web
• Fresh Resources
• Social Media Monday
• More interviews on johnnylaird.net

One the guys who I’ve found really encouraging in this journey I’ve been taking with my johnnylaird.net blog is Mike Cliffe-Jones.

At the beginning of 2010 Mike was listed on Problogger as one of “30 bloggers to watch in 2010″, so it’s been great to be able to catch up, and find out a little more about Mike.

Here’s the interview…

Q: So, Mike, I know you have an interesting background.  Can you tell us a little about your history, and how you found yourself living where you do?

That’s a long story! OK, here’s the short version. I was born in Hong Kong and lived there until I was 12, although I was sent to boarding school in England from the age of 8.

I love cars and I’m a complete petrol head, so I did the logical thing and joined the motor industry. I worked for Toyota GB during the very exciting launch of the Lexus brand, then moved to Ford Motor Company, before settling for several years with Volkswagen UK. Both my wife and I (she was finance director of an IT company) had senior level jobs which meant we travelled a lot, and although we had all the trappings of success, we realised our quality of life and the time we could give to bringing up our kids was not sufficient recompense.

So we sold up and moved to Lanzarote 10 years ago! When we arrived we started an estate agency, which we gradually grew to be the largest on the island, and then in 2008 we took the decision to pull back from that (we still own the brand and run the marketing) and follow our passion as writers. And that’s how we ended up as bloggers!

Q: Before we unpack things in more detail, what are the projects keeping you busy right now?

I kind of wear three “hats.”

I run our business Camel Media Group, which is both a social media consultancy and the owner of a number of websites. The premier site (and income earner) of that business is www.lanzaroteinformation.com

I’m also CEO of an American business called Beyond Blogging Corp. and my role there is to publish books about blogging and to run something called the Beyond Blogging Project, which basically helps bloggers create businesses with long term sustainable incomes.

I’m also “just” a writer. I love writing my own blog Mike’s life and I’ve had two books and hundreds of articles published on the web and in print.

Q: OK – back to the beginning; what was it that first made you want to blog, and which bloggers were the first to grab your attention?

As we pulled back from the estate agency, I wanted to find a business we could run from anywhere in the world. One of our kids has left home and the other will be doing so soon, so our plan for some time has been to travel the world for six months of the year.

Blogging combined our love of writing, with a business we can do from anywhere – all we need are a couple of Macbooks and our Blackberries.

The first bloggers that grabbed my attention were Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan and David Risley.

Q: Was the purpose always to make a living, or did you start just by sharing your story?

We started the business with the intention of making money. There’s a whole other story here, but we sold out of the estate agency and that left us a pile of money and several properties. At that point the recession bit hard, and to cut a long story short, the banks panicked and insisted we reduce our borrowing. We did, but it took all our money!

The net effect was that we needed to find a way to make money very quickly, and so we concentrated on making Lanzarote Information successful, and Mike’s Life became the place where I shared my thoughts and transferred the learning from the travel blog to help others to do the same.

Q: I know you had some pretty tough days near the beginning when there was nothing much doing revenue-wise. Can you tell us something about that?

The above hints at it, but there were some pretty desperate days – you can go back through the archives of Mike’s Life to find out more.

I do remember days when we both worked 16 or 17 hours and ended up earning less than a dollar!

It’s hard, but it’s character forming, and we weren’t stupid enough to think we could create a business without some really hard work. But the level of work surprised us both.

I wouldn’t change it though – we learnt so much about blogging, business and ourselves through that period, and it makes our moderate success all the more satisfying.

Q: Along the way, was there a single tipping point when you thought “yes – now we are getting there” or has the success of your blog much more linear?

There were several tipping points. With Lanzarote Information, it was the day we were first contacted by an airline who wanted to advertise with us. And then a hotel, and then an tour operator. I still don’t know why, but it was like we had suddenly become visible.

Blogging for an income is anything but linear. I was looking at figures for Lanzarote Information the other day. The income on that blog doubled from April to July last year, and did the same again from July to September. It’s like a snowball.

In relation to Mike’s Life, it was when our book Beyond Blogging went on sale. The launch period was crazy – we turned over 5 figures in 24 hours, and we ended up as a trending topic on Twitter, in the Alexa “Hot sites” pages, and it was just a manic period. That was thanks largely to some big hitters picking the story up. But the whole thing was a kind of tipping point for my online presence.

Q: How has your blog developed since day one, which technologies have had the most impact on it?

I’m not the most technical of people, so the evolution of the blog has been pretty gentle. In writing terms, I’ve become a much better blogger than I was in the beginning – and writing for a blog is very different to writing for a newspaper or a book.

Our blogs all use the Drupal platform, and I think Mike’s Life is on it’s third theme. Things I use and love are:

• Livewriter - the best posting tool there is
• Disqus comments – I love moderating in email
• Twitter – I have almost 10,000 followers and enjoy using the service
• Facebook – I ignored it for too long, but I’m now hooked

Q: I would say – from my own experience – that you are one of the top drawer bloggers who is always willing to engage with their readers; is this true, and how much effort do you have to put into developing the relationships that this level of engagement brings?

Thank you – that means a lot. And it’s quite deliberate.

You see, I came into blogging as a very experienced, mature, successful business man. Without wishing to be arrogant, that means I’d spent years talking to senior level people, who would listen to me, answer my questions and be interested in working with me.

So when I first came into blogging, I did what I’d always done – I went and found the successful people and tried to start a dialogue with them. With a few exceptions (notably those I mentioned earlier) I was ignored. And I didn’t like that. I have no problem with people being too busy to invest their time in me, but I do with them not having the courtesy to respond at all.

After that experience, I vowed never to do the same. My promise is that I always answer people who contact me, however they do so. Nine times out of ten I can help them or answer their question within a few minutes. If I can’t, I go back to them and tell them why. But that’s rare, and it’s even rarer that people take advantage of that.

I do have a VA, but she doesn’t handle any of my communications, because as a blogger I see that as a very important part of my job.

Q: Which of those very early online friends are still with you today, commenting on Mike’s Life, following you on Twitter and just generally still in dialog with you?

Great question! And too many have fallen by the wayside over the last year and a half, amongst them some were great writers, like Jamie Harrop and Gordie Rogers.

People from the early days include Kevin Tea, Chris Hinton, Robert Bravery, Nathan Hangen and David Risley.

Q: When did you come into contact with your recent partner on the Beyond Blogging project, Nathan Hangen, and what’s the story behind the recent parting of the ways.

Nathan and I sort of got to know each other via comments on other blogs. He then approached me with his idea to write the Beyond Blogging book, which we did, and which was very exciting.

We parted company last week after about a year of working closely together. There’s no great mystery to it – Nathan is very creative and is a real free thinker. He wants to explore new areas, move away from blogging and get into creating art and software amongst other things. That just didn’t sit well with him being one half of the Beyond Blogging team, which is focused on helping people make money from blogging!

He left the team with my very good wishes and eternal gratitude for the fantastic job he did as my partner.

To illustrate that this isn’t just a “PR” thing – we’ve just both agreed to sit together on a panel at Blog World Expo, and we’re both excited to be meeting each other and sharing a few beers.

Q: Do you have any more plans for more collaborative initiatives, or are there any other new things you are working on?

I’m currently working on the next steps for Beyond Blogging Corporation. I want to create a whole series of books which follow the original format, but take the story down into “niches.”

We already have someone working on one based on travel bloggers, and I have a whole list of others to chase down, like automotive bloggers, personal finance bloggers and so on. How about one from you? Christian bloggers? (JL hmmn….interesting

I’m always open to collaborative ideas, and now that I have a decent network and some reach, I can hopefully help some other people on their way.

Q: You live in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. What impact has that had on your blogging business; what have the pros and cons been for you?

It’s a wonderful place to live, and possibly the best place in the world to bring up kids.

I think the biggest advantage for me personally as a blogger is that our lifestyle here gives me so much outside of blogging to enjoy. We don’t ever sit around and watch TV – we’re too busy swimming, surfing, diving, running, cycling or socialising. I think having interests outside blogging provide great stimulation for a writer.

There’s only one “con” to living here, and that is it takes ages (and is expensive) to go anywhere. The nearest “hub” airport to us is Madrid, but that’s a two hour flight away. For example, to get to Blog World in Las Vegas, we’ll be travelling the best part of two days in each direction, and getting a total of six flights.

Q: Are there any bloggers coming into the range of your radar who you think the rest of us need to know about?

Goodness me! I’m going to avoid that question, because as someone who works with a lot of new and learning bloggers, I’m far more likely to forget to mention someone who deserves it.

I’ll side step it by saying the people who are really impressing me at the moment are the ones in “unusual” niches. How about vegetable gardening, marathon running or antique clothes? People in these niches and others are applying basic business and blogging principals and creating fabulous incomes for themselves, much faster than I ever did!

Q: I always like to give a little space for free thought at the end of my Questions….anything else to share, Mike?

I’m pretty sure I’ve rattled on enough, but thanks for some stimulating questions, and I’ll leave everyone with a final thought:

The biggest thing I’ve learned as a blogger trying to earn an income is that every time I’ve taken what I thought was a risk, it has paid off for me. It was a risk to create a whole new type of advertising program on Lanzarote Information, it was a risk to create a membership program there, it was a risk to take on another writer – I could go on and on.

But without fail, every time I’ve hesitated about investing a lot of time, and in some cases money, into something, it has always delivered far more than I was expecting.

Massive thanks to Mike for an excellent set of answers – enormously useful to anyone serious about blogging.  Thanks too for the image, Mike.

• Catch up with Mike at Mike’s Life
• Tweet with Mike here
• For more on Beyond Blogging

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It’s a long time. It’s a good time.

My most loved brother & sister (in laws) celebrate 21 years of marriage today, and I celebrate with them.

I celebrate because they are outstanding example of solid marriage

I celebrate because they both are dynamic and inspirational individuals

I celebrate because they have so graciously embraced me as a brother

I celebrate because we have so many wonderful shared memories

I celebrate because we laugh, live and share high hopes for our kids…together, even though we live on opposite sides of the Atlantic

God bless you, Ev and Don

I’ve been noodling around with this funky little tool from the guys from Small Rivers.

They’ve built a “newspaper” from the Tweets of the people I follow, and it’s pretty fascinating…to me, at least!

Go to paper.li to make your own newspaper

This is probably a good place to point out I have a disclaimer page on my blog….just in case anyone I follow says something outrageous that I don’t support or agree with!

Delighted the lovely people at theMediaNet have published a little piece of mine today.

A lot of it has already appeared in one form or another here on this blog, but it’s been good for me to revisit where I was, and where I’m headed.

Much love – again – to all of you who have stayed close to me on this journey…whether you’ve been there since the beginning or a new and valued friend.

If you’re a Jesus follower, and involved in the media in any way, theMediaNet is well worth exploring

Jason Clark has flagged up some really interesting Social Media training days later in the year, so I’m repeating his post wholesale here, just to spread the word.

Looks like there’s only a small amount of info out there on the intriguingly titled “Theological Refraction on the Internet” at the moment, but I’ll be keeping my ear close to the ground to see what develops.

4th September – Social Media Boot Camp at LICC that I (Jason) have organised in partnership with EA UK, LICC and LST. A days training from top coaches involved in social media. A ‘how to’ for individual and organisations, to get up to speed with using social media and understanding it’s possibilities for individuals and organisations.

16th October – “Theological Refraction on the Internet” set up by CODEC as part of Premier Media’s Christian New Media Conference but aimed to bring together theologians and media theorists. Other parts of the CNM Conference will speak to Christian Leaders and Techies. This event is the reflective, ‘what goes on within social media interns of identity and formation, and its relationship to theology.

30th November – The next Digimission event by EA UK Slipstream. I’m involved in the planning for this and will be taking part. The theme is Social Media and Social Change. How can churches engage in social media for change in their local communities? Early days for info on this yet, but it will be at All Souls, Langham Place, London.

It’s really good to see the UK Church rolling their sleeves up and engaging with Social Media, although it’s worth holding that in balance with a quick read of today’s Chris Brogan post, “SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT A VOCATION”

Hoping some of my own tribe – The Salvation Army – can get along to some of the events.

HT to Jason for the pic of him sitting on the ground!