Earlier this week I stopped by Frame USA to catch a glimpse of the frames they’re donating toward the 2011 NMC Digital Awards. I think you’ll agree that they look awesome.  Be sure to register to attend if you haven’t already.

Sneak Preview of the 2011 NMC Digital Awards

As we begin to wrap up the 2011 season of New Media Cincinnati, it’s time to cast your vote for the NMC Digital Awards! These will be given at the November 12, 2011 New Media Cincinnati Second Saturday event. Last month we opened up the nominations so that you could share who you believe has done excellent work this year.

Thanks to Frame USA for printing the awards and donating custom frames with the NMC logo in them!

Your nominees for the 2011 NMC Digital Awards are as follows:

NMC Digital Native

Exemplary dedication to the practice and promotion of digital literacy and community building in the Greater Cincinnati area over the past year.

Brent Billock

“Brent is a rich source of digital media expertise and practice. He brings his sharp skills to the table in multiple venues and is an agile user as well as able promoter of digital media.”

“By creating SocialNati.com, Brent Billock has taken the ‘Most Social City’ designation from Mashable.com and run with it. He’s creating an easy to navigate home for social events and social media events with a Twitter stream that tells you anything the event listing may have missed. It’s important in our ‘digital age’ that we know where to go to connect socially & in person. Brent’s site succeeds in facilitating and encouraging a very social (media) city!”

Christiaan Todd

“Chris constantly shares his knowledge of the latest and greatest in digital and social media whether it is platform changes, social media policy, new apps or events in the news within many digital communities like LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Groups, email and at New Media Cincinnati meetings. Photographer by day, he is a consummate social media pro 24/7 and someone who’s opinion I respect.”

Crystal Thies

“As the LinkedIn Ninja, Crystal has done a phenomenal job this year in helping businesses and individuals better brand themselves and use LinkedIn better. Locally, she’s given presentations and taught us how to get the most out of our profiles. I especially liked her talk at the Clermont Chamber on things you didn’t realize you could do with LinkedIn.”

Daniel Lewis

“Daniel has been doing an amazing job making PodCamp Cincinnati happen.”

Debba Haupert

“With Girlfriendology, Debba is a master of digital community building, and has grown her network tremendously since she first attended New Media Cincinnati.”

Joe Robb

“Joe has always put himself out there for anyone that has needed expertise in this realm. He’s well versed in all Social Media aspects and shows a tremendous amount of enthusiasm whenever the topic of social media is being discussed. He has numerous how to sites and videos that help our clients when we engineers are too busy to explain it all.”

Michelle Hummel

“Started a class to teach different uses of social media. The Web Media Expert brand is active and constantly posting about community.”

NMC Digital Giving First

Outstanding support toward members and potential members of the New Media Cincinnati community by sharing expertise and raising awareness through education and example both within meetings and during after-hours over the past year.

Daniel Lewis

“Daniel’s work to make PodCamp Cincinnati a reality and his desire to bring members of the social media community of Cincinnati together to make it happen and work as a team makes him a perfect candidate for the Digital Giving First Award.”

“Extraordinary effort in bringing PodCamp Cincinnati to town! Daniel has a tremendous vision and enthusiasm for education and content creation within the social media space and beyond! It’s been a pleasure and honor to work with him as he led the PodCamp Cincinnati Planning Committee. In addition, he always made himself available to answer questions and broaden my scope of understanding. Highest regards and recommendation!”

“Besides coordinating the incredible ‘PodCamp Cincinnati’, Daniel has been a huge advocate and supporter of New Media Cincinnati. He is constantly attending the meetings and speaking up to support members of the organization. I find myself continually inspired by his leadership, expertise, and dedication to supporting our community at large.”

Matthew Evins

“Matthew stepped up to volunteer as co-host on the New Media Cincinnati podcast with Daniel Johnson, Jr. this year.  He and Daniel have been going through the NMC LinkedIn group and other sources, sussing out relevant discussions to share with the community.”

NMC Digital Go The Distance Dedication

Sincere dedication to attend New Media Cincinnati events. Person who has dedicated his or her time, energy, and resources to consistently travel a great distance to listen, learn, and contribute to New Media Cincinnati.

Ann Lightfoot

“Ann travels deep from the southern fields of Kentucky to make the monthly New Media Cincinnati meetings. She is always there with a smile and shares her experience with the group. She travels over 2 hours round trip to join us!”

“Ann has been a dedicated member of New Media Cincinnati since I have first ever attended. She is constantly exuding a positive attitude and always is passionate about connecting others. With a constant smile, she actively engages in the discussions and has fostered many inspiring discussions. I nominate Ann Lightfoot for the NMC Digital Go the Distance Dedication Award.”

Brandon Kilby

“He’s always there & approachable! Not sure his is the farthest commute, but it’s a commitment that he upholds to enhance the NMCincy community. In addition, he has stepped up and presented to the group. Kudos!”

Tom Rockhold

“Tom Rockhold doesn’t live in the Cincinnati area. He lives just outside the Columbus area but is passionate about being involved in the New Media Cincinnati community. So much so, that he drives almost every month to spend time with us. I understand he’s donated equipment that is used during events, too.”

Voting

Voting will be open until 5 PM this Friday, November 4, 2011. So vote now!

–> Click here to cast your votes! <–

Help us spread the word by pasting this text into your social media streams:

Congrats to all the 2011 NMC Digital Award Nominees! Vote now! http://bit.ly/tp2056 #nmcincy

It’s time to acknowledge great work done in the community! New Media Cincinnati plans to give out the following three awards at the November Second Saturday event:

More information about the NMC Digital Awards.

Submit your nominations here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JP8GRFJ

Nominations are open until October 18, 2011.

Removing the Facebook Ticker

If the new Facebook real-time Ticker feed bothers you, there’s an easy way to remove it.

This month at our New Media Cincinnati Second Saturday event, we’re talking about the flurry of changes that Facebook has recently been rolling out.  One of them is the real-time Ticker feed, which appears in the upper right hand corner.

It’s a non-stop, rolling ticker of updates. More than some are willing to tolerate. So for our Power Tip this month, we share how you can remove it.

How to remove the Facebook Ticker

If you use the Google Chrome browser, you can try the Facebook News Ticker Remover extension.

If you use Firefox, try the Facebook Ticker Removal add-on.

Image credit: Facebook News Ticker Remover – Chrome Web Store

Related links:

• How to get rid of the Facebook Ticker | ZDNet (zdnet.com)
• Facebook Side Ticker Remover, Hide Facebook Ticker (ghacks.net)

Chris Olson and Vickie Sceifers at Sept 2011 Second Saturday event

Welcome to episode 005 of the New Media Cincinnati podcast. Thanks to Don and Vickie Sceifers and Chris Olson for moderating the September Second Saturday event! Don and Vickie also provided the audio from the event, which is here in this episode.

This episode was recorded on Saturday, September 10, 2011.

Shout-out to sponsors: Jazzmania Productions and BlueHost.

Download this episode directly: 

Questions From A Hat! NMC Sept 2011 Second Saturday – New Media Cincinnati Podcast

Running time: 1:19:40

photo credit: Barry Stregevsky

New Media Cincinnati meets on the Second Saturday of every month, except for December.

Add yourself to the NMC email signup list to get email from us.

Music played on this podcast comes from MusicAlley by Mevio. Used by permission.

Intro and outro music is “Surf Babe” by Alamantra

Add to iTunes

Add to Google Listen

Related articles

• Allergies, Computer Woes, and All Your Time on Social Networks (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Questions, Trends in Social Media, and Chabot Seizing Cameras! (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Podcamp Cincinnati And Nothing About Steve Jobs (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Paul McCartney, Tech Hotspots, and WordPress Blog Spam (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Should I follow everyone on Twitter who follows me? (danieljohnsonjr.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Editor’s Note: each month we like to give the community something they can take away from our time together. We decided at the beginning of the year to provide this as a “Power Tip” that you can immediately use.  We always welcome guest posts from others who are interested in contributing, and I’m glad that Steve Platt, who’s on the NMC Steering Committee stepped up with the one for this month.

Steve is also the Managing Principal of Bridge The GAPs – an on purpose small consultancy bridging the gaps between Sales, CRM, and Marketing. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The theme at our event this month is “Questions From A Hat”. The idea is that we can crowdsource answers to questions we in the community have with others in the community.  It’s nothing that new or revolutionary; we’ve done this in the LinkedIn group for quite some time.  The way we do this is loosely based on the popular “Scenes From A Hat” game on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Before we talk about crowdsourcing, let’s talk about Alltop.

Alltop

Have you ever heard of Alltop.com? It was launched in March 2008 and is currently owned by Nononina: “two guys and a gal” in a garage — or more accurately, one guy in a home office (Will Mayall), one gal on a kitchen table (Kathryn Henkens), and one Guy in United 2B (Guy Kawasaki). They’ve been working together since the previous century and are still friends.

The purpose of Alltop is to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest you. You may wonder how Alltop is different from a search engine. A search engine is good to answer a question like, “How many people live in China?” However, it has a much harder time answering the question, “What’s happening in China?” That’s the kind of question they answer at Alltop.

Alltop provides categorized selections of feeds that make it easy to scan a lot of news on a particular subject.  Think of it as the “online magazine rack” of the web. They’ve subscribed to thousands of sources to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” To be clear, Alltop pages are starting points — they are not destinations per se. Ultimately, their goal is to enhance your online reading by displaying stories from sources that you’re already visiting plus helping you discover sources that you didn’t know existed.

(Kind of like crowdsourcing. More on that in a minute.)

Dan Roam, author of the “Back of the Napkin,” calls Alltop “How I Find My Nuggets.” Alltop is an information filter to help you find your nuggets of gold.

MyAlltop

MyAlltop enables you to create a “personal, online magazine rack” of your favorite websites and blogs. You can create a personal collection from over 32,000 information sources — if you’re interested in something, they probably have it covered.

They provide a custom URL so that you can share your masterpiece with others. The starting point is this tutorial that steps you through the process of creating your MyAlltop page. Everything is point-and-click, so you’ll be up and running in a few minutes. Here’s a link to a page that I started: http://my.alltop.com/steveplatt

Even more interesting… at MyAlltop, you get to see links to others’ MyAlltop pages. It’s like being able to browse their magazine racks! For example, there’s a page called Holy Kaw, which has Guy Kawasaki’s selection of Influencers. At this page, Alltop searches the sites Guy has pulled into his MyAlltop.

Crowdsourcing

Let’s see what we can find out about “Crowdsourcing” from inside the Holy Kaw MyAlltop site: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-9957157764457980%3Al5rbjhmsenb&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=crowdsourcing&sa.x=19&sa.y=8 (that’s a custom Google search – don’t let it intimidate you)

The following was sourced from Holy Kaw within Alltop and provided courtesy of an Infographic by Bizmedia.com.

“Crowdsourcing” was coined by journalist Jeff Howe in the 2006 Wired article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing“.  Though it goes by many names, it is simply the practice of companies making an open call to a broad community to solve a problem, either through competition or collaboration. They involve a “crowd” to help them solve their problem. By getting a larger group of people to work on their problem, they hope to get a better solution.

Crowdsourcing is also known as

• Fansourcing
• Crowdcasting
• Open sourcing
• Crowdfunding
• Mass collaboration
• Wikinomics

Some companies that use Crowdsourcing:

• Netflix, for entertainment targeting
• Wikipedia, for information gathering
• DuPont, for R&D
• Amazon, for human intelligence tasks
• crowdSPRING, for logo and marketing design

Related articles

• Find the Best of the Best Blogs for Entrepreneurs (businessinsider.com)
• 5 Ways To Keep up with Your Favorite Topics (bloggingot.com)
• Beyond the Buzzword: How Crowdsourcing Can Disrupt Brazil (thenextwomen.com)
• 5 Tips on Crowdsourcing Content for Marketing (toprankblog.com)

Social Media and Hurricane Irene

Social Media had a profound impact on delivering news during Hurricane Irene.  You could find an NYC Evacuation Center on Foursquare, learn about the aftermath and reaction of Hurricane Irene, view pictures of the calm before the storm, and of course – view “Hurricane Irene” twitter account.

Facebook Sharing – Privacy/Security/Settings

(Source: Facebook Blog)

On August 23, 2011 Facebook organized two areas of content sharing: what shows up on your profile, and what happens when you share something new.

On your Profile:

• Content Sharing – Options such as hometown, latest interests, photo albums and more, now have an inline menu that allows you to control who sees a specific part of your profile. A side benefit of moving most of the settings to inline controls is a much shorter and simpler Settings page. (to view this simply click “edit” next to the content section you want to change the settings for)
• Profile Tag Review – Previously, photos you were tagged in would show up on your profile as soon as you were tagged.  Now – you can choose to use the new tool to approve or reject any post you are tagged in before it’s visible to anyone else on your profile. (to view this simply go to account settings in top right hand corner and select “privacy settings”)
• View Profile As – You can now view your profile as others see it.  If you go to your profile page and select “View Profile As…” you can view yourself from a different perspective.

When You Share:

• Inline Controls – Before in order to control who saw your posts you had to click around within the settings page.  Now there is an inline option for each post to control who and how you share your content. Also, when you tag someone the audience label will update to show that the person tagged and their friends can see the post.
• Change your mind after you post? – You can now change who sees your update even post you post through inline options.
• Tagging Locations – Before you could only “check in” to locations using a smart phone.  Now you have the option add a location to anything from your home computer.  Currently, there are no restrictions on your location post.  For example, you can say that you are currently in Paris, when – for example -  you are laying in bed from your home in Cincinnati.

This didn’t really seem fall within the categories above, but is really cool.

Your options for removing tags or content on Facebook are presented more clearly. Your options are: removing from your profile, removing the tag itself, messaging the photo owner or tagger, and requesting the content get taken down. (More details on tagging can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/about/tagging)

Update: The article I wrote above is a summary of social media news that I found interesting.  I kept the tone relatively formal and intentionally left out my opinion.  After sharing this with the New Media Cincinnati committee, I thought it would be fun to share my “two cents”.  So, if you are still reading at this point, here it is:

I thought it was really interesting how social media played a part in delivering information on Irene.  The actual @Irene account was a Product Strategist who was delivering information and communications about the hurricane.  While the tone was light, a lot of sources reported that “her” tweets were informative.   I was also impressed with the option to “check-in” to an evacuation center on foursquare.  It was designed to reveal a list of local evacuation centers and make it easier for residents within the area to find a center.

On the Facebook section of my post, I am really glad to see Facebook taking steps to make privacy easier to manage.  I like that I have control over accepting or rejecting tags of photos and locations.  The inline controls to make content sharing easier among certain friends was also a great added value for me.  While nothing is ever truly private online (especially Facebook), it brings me a bit of solace to know that controlling my privacy has gotten a little easier – even if it’s just an illusion of security.

Welcome to episode 003 of the New Media Cincinnati podcast, with your hosts, Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins. This episode was recorded on Thursday, September 1, 2011.

Shout-out to sponsors: Jazzmania Productions and BlueHost.

Download this episode directly: 

Questions, Trends in Social Media, and Chabot Seizing Cameras – New Media Cincinnati Podcast – Hosts: Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins

Running time: 22:41

01:35 Thanks again to Daniel J. Lewis for coming on last week to talk about PodCamp Cincinnati.

02:05 September 2011 Second Saturday event coming up on the 10th. Questions From A Hat. Loosely based on the Scenes From A Hat game from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

04:35 From the LinkedIn group: Krista Neher shared 5 Biggest Trends in Social Media

05:25 Google Plus. Public and private posts, like a combo between Facebook and Twitter. Some other similarities to LinkedIn and even blogging.

07:24 Google Plus mobile app has a Nearby stream that lets you see what others are posting. You can connect to others you might not already know. Photos added to a queue that you can opt to share with others. Can share to individuals or circles or to all circles.

08:50 Social Media Overload: Remember your goals and what you’re looking to get out of it.

11:07 Businesses are offering incentives to encourage those who engage with them in social media.

12:10 Other trends… Accessing social media via mobile devices, virtual commerce, and gamification.

14:26 Why Seizing Cameras at the Rep. Chabot Town Hall Is A Big Deal. We cannot expect privacy in public places anymore. Especially at events funded by taxpayers for our elected politicians.

Connect with Matthew:

Twittter: @evinsmj
Website: http://evinsmj.net
Professional: http://mevinsconsulting.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/evinsmj

Connect with Daniel:

Twitter: @danieljohnsonjr
Website: http://danieljohnsonjr.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danieljohnsonjr
New Media Cincinnati meets on the Second Saturday of every month, except for December.

Add yourself to the NMC email signup list to get email from us.

Music played on this podcast comes from MusicAlley by Mevio. Used by permission.
Intro music is “Surf Babe” by Alamantra
Closing music is “I’ve Got So Many Questions” by Ken Kurland feat. Penny Towers Wilber

Add to iTunes

Add to Google Listen

Related articles

• Podcamp Cincinnati And Nothing About Steve Jobs (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Paul McCartney, Tech Hotspots, and WordPress Blog Spam (newmediacincinnati.com)
• The ROI of attending an in-person social media event (danieljohnsonjr.com)

Welcome to episode 002 of the New Media Cincinnati podcast, with your hosts, Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins.

This episode was recorded on Thursday, August 25, 2011, and we were joined by long-time friend and New Media Cincinnati member, Daniel J. Lewis, who is also the Lead Organizer for PodCamp Cincinnati.

Shout-out to sponsors: Jazzmania Productions and BlueHost.

Download this episode directly: Podcamp Cincinnati And Nothing About Steve Jobs – New Media Cincinnati Podcast – Hosts: Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins

Running time: 27:49.

PodCamp Cincinnati will be held on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at Northern Kentucky University’s Griffin Hall.

NMC LinkedIn group – open for discussion but beware of the community banhammer for self-promotion.

Connect with Matthew:

Twittter: @evinsmj
Website: http://evinsmj.net
Professional: http://mevinsconsulting.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/evinsmj

Connect with Daniel:

Twitter: @danieljohnsonjr
Website: http://danieljohnsonjr.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danieljohnsonjr
New Media Cincinnati meets on the Second Saturday of every month, except for December.

Add yourself to the NMC email signup list to get email from us.

Music played on this podcast comes from MusicAlley by Mevio. Used by permission.
Background music is “Surf Babe” by Alamantra

Related articles

• Paul McCartney, Tech Hotspots, and WordPress Blog Spam (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Introducing the New Media Cincinnati Podcast – Episode 0 (newmediacincinnati.com)

Welcome to episode 001 of the New Media Cincinnati podcast, with your hosts, Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins.

This episode was recorded on Thursday, August 11, 2011. We met in-person at an Arby’s in Fairfield, Ohio and shared some of the discussion going on in the LinkedIn group, as well as about Sir Paul McCartney playing in Cincinnati recently.

Shout-out to sponsors: Jazzmania Productions and BlueHost.

Download this episode directly: Paul McCartney, Tech Hotspots, and WordPress Blog Spam – New Media Cincinnati Podcast – Hosts: Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Matthew Evins

Running time: 27:04.

01:40 Excitement around the August 13, 2011 NMC Second Saturday event. One in three people registered are coming for their first time. In 2011 there have been many new faces showing up at these events, demonstrating a continued interest in this space.

03:00 Sir Paul McCartney in Cincinnati last week for a concert at Great American Ball Park. Some are suggesting this might have been his last concert ever in Cincinnati.

04:23 Other bands from the 80′s in Cincinnati also last week: Journey, Foreigner, and Night Ranger. A couple days beforehand, Journey played on the Today show, sounding just as good as ever.

05:17 Business Week names Cincinnati 3rd most booming city for technology jobs.

07:05 NMC LinkedIn group – open for discussion but beware of the community banhammer for self-promotion.

08:41 Lisa Desatnik asked about suggested for preventing spam trackbacks on her WordPress blogs. Daniel uses the Disqus commenting plugin; Matthew uses a commenting plugin that uses Facebook Connect. Try Akismet (no longer free), Bad Behavior, Spam Karma (neither of have experience with that one)

14:17 Poll shared by Joanne Maly: Will You Abandon Facebook for Google Plus? – Most people say they won’t just yet.

15:14 Charles Egerton shared a link: Why Texting Is the Most Important Information Service in the World

16:50 Props to Crystal Thies, the LinkedIn Black Belt Ninja, for sharing things you didn’t realize you could do in LinkedIn for Tech Tuesday at the Clermont Chamber of Commerce. Very interesting are the different applications, honors/awards, projects, custom company pages, and using Signal to search status updates.

Connect with Matthew:

Twittter: @evinsmj
Website: http://evinsmj.net
Professional: http://mevinsconsulting.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/evinsmj

Connect with Daniel:

Twitter: @danieljohnsonjr
Website: http://danieljohnsonjr.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danieljohnsonjr
New Media Cincinnati meets on the Second Saturday of every month, except for December.

Add yourself to the NMC email signup list to get email from us.

Music played on this podcast comes from MusicAlley by Mevio. Used by permission.
Intro music is “Surf Babe” by Alamantra
Closing music is “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Blake Morgan