Web Worker Daily |
- Network Like a Man
- First Impressions Matter
- Perch: An Ultra-Lightweight CMS
- Crisis Communications for the Social Media Age
- WatchDox Makes Document Security Simple
| Posted: 01 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT Written by Imran Ali. One of my favorite blogs recently has been The Art of Manliness. It’s not a boneheaded celebration of dumb machismo, rather a thoughtful exploration of what being a man can and should mean in a post-feminist world. With values anchored in equality, the writers explore everything from employment and relationships to parenting, grooming and etiquette. Last month, in response to the deepening recession, one contributor wrote “How To Network Like A Man.” It’s a great essay on networking, oriented around the story of a man losing his job and immediately putting to work his network of professional relationships to find new work. The advice in the essay isn’t gender-specific, and applies pretty broadly to almost anyone in a professional context — for web workers, good networking skills are even more valuable than understanding CSS or Photoshop inside out. Here are some of the key points to take away from the piece:
Some of the best networking advice I’ve read recently comes from Guy Kawasaki in a post called “The Art of Schmoozing.” He suggests that the essence of networking is “establishing relationships before you need them” and “discovering what you can do for someone else.” Kawasaki’s advice is really about altruism and generosity of time. Share your networking tips in the comments.        |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2009 01:00 PM PDT Written by Dawn Foster.  photo by woodleywonderworks If you’re a freelancer, making a great first impression with clients is vital. Here are some of my tips for making sure that first impression is a good one. Like many other freelancers, I dread hearing these words from a potential client: “Can you send me a copy of your resume?” Resumes will never be a great way for me to showcase my work, and I don’t think they make a great first impression. They also seem a little old-fashioned for those of us who work almost entirely online. My body of work is online, and that says so much more about me than I could possibly cram onto a one- or two-page resume. However, many people still ask for a resume, and you have to be prepared to send one to potential clients or employers. If you’re preparing an “old school” resume, FreelanceSwitch has some good tips. I have a slightly sneaky technique that I use to get around the standard resume request and show off my online work in the process. I send the prospect to the “About” page on my web site. It contains my bio, my consulting page, blogs and other projects, current and past work, speaking engagements, places where I have been quoted, and more. When I send them the link, I let them know that they can download a PDF version of my resume under the “More About Dawn” section of the page. With any luck, they’ll click through a few links to see examples of my work while scrolling down the page to get a copy of my resume. You might also want to read Celine Rogue’s post about creating a social media resume for more hints about creating a more modern resume. When potential clients don’t ask for a resume, I send them links to my “Consulting” page for more information about the services that I offer, and I send them a link to my “About” page to see examples of my work. However, many potential clients find me through searches, referrals or other sources, so my web site also has to speak for itself. I try to write frequent blog posts to show potential clients that I have interesting things to say and that I take my own advice about blogging regularly. I use tabs across the top for navigation to important pages on my web site to make it easy to find key resources and information. My sidebar is prioritized with the most important items at the top, starting with consulting, information about me, contact details and subscription links. As I was preparing to write this post, I realized just how long it had been since I had overhauled the content on these pages. You won’t make a good first impression with stale content, so I just spent a couple of hours taking a critical look at several pages on my web site and making major changes. Here were a few things I focused on:
How do you make sure that you make the best possible first impression online?      |
| Perch: An Ultra-Lightweight CMS Posted: 01 Jun 2009 11:00 AM PDT Written by Simon Mackie.
Installation is straightforward, although you do need to be a little tech-savvy to get it up and running. You’ll need a server running PHP5 or later. (Check if you’re using a shared host — I found mine was still running PHP4, but could flip to PHP5 easily.) Download the zip from the Perch web site, unzip, and FTP the Perch folder to your host. Run the setup script, insert your license key, and fill out your database login details. Most of the installation legwork is done for you, although you’ll need to FTP a generated configuration file back to the server. To start using Perch to manage the content on your site, you first need to add some editable content regions into your pages using Perch tags. Once you’ve set up the regions, log in to your Perch control panel. Perch’s interface is very clean and simple. There are just two tabs at the top of the page, “Content” and “Users”. Under “Content” you’ll find the regions that you added to your pages. Click on a region to initialize it by selecting a content template to use. Perch has templates for many types of content included out of the box (file, image, contact, text block, article and text), but you can create your own templates using simple markup. If you’re building a site for a client, it’s now just a case of setting up user accounts for your client under the “Users” tab. (There are only two levels of access: “Admin” and “Editor”.) They’ll then be able to log into the control panel and edit the content as required. Because Perch has a simple, clean and easy-to-use interface, it shouldn’t be too hard to train clients to use it, which makes it a good choice for web sites that have some changeable content but don’t require a full-blown CMS. Perch should also be a great choice if you want to retrofit some editable regions into an existing static web site. However, it is very stripped-down, so if you require, say, an inbuilt WYSIWYG editor, you’re going to need a more heavyweight solution like ExpressionEngine. Perch costs £35 ($57) per domain (you can switch between domains as required), with no ongoing fees. Unfortunately, there’s no free trial available, but you can download a Compatibility Test Suite to check that it will work on your setup before purchasing. Have you tried Perch? Let us know what you think in the comments.      |
| Crisis Communications for the Social Media Age Posted: 01 Jun 2009 09:00 AM PDT Written by Aliza Sherman. We’ve all learned that good news travels fast online, but bad news travels faster. Now, with social networks, blogs and microblogs, the speed with which bad news can travel online is staggering, as everyone can get in on the conversation almost instantly. What can any of us — individuals, organizations and companies — do to handle a social media communications crisis? After publishing my 10 Golden Rules of Social Media, I’ve been asked by a number of people what to do when things go wrong in the social mediasphere. Anyone who is putting themselves out there using social media tools is bound to encounter moments of crisis — some as large as the Domino’s fiasco, others as small as an old-fashioned person-to-person flame war. My advice is to plan now. Don’t wait for that communications crisis to take place before planning for how you’ll handle the fallout when something bad (inevitably) happens. Here’s a blueprint you can use for your own plan. 1. Pay attention. Whether you are using Google Alerts or Twilert or any other monitoring service to see when your name or brand name is mentioned, setting up “digital listening posts” is essential to help learn about not just the good things people are saying about you, but the bad things as well. Getting an early “heads up” can make all the difference in the world between crisis and total disaster. 2. Review context. Before you panic and jump the gun to respond to what might appear to be a crisis, dig a little deeper to make sure you understand what is being said and why. You don’t want to enter the conversation until you have a firm grasp on the issues being raised. 3. Address promptly. Timeliness is everything when dealing with and defusing the crisis. Every day, every hour, every minute you agonize over what to do — or ignore the situation altogether — is time wasted. 4. Acknowledge first. Once you figure out what has happened and what some of the emotions are behind it, make sure to address these issues or emotions in your responses. Like any good interpersonal communications, start with statements like “I understand you’re frustrated” or “We realize this is a confusing situation.” Give credence to the other party’s feelings and perceptions. They may not be correct, but they are valid in that they’re what they believe and feel. 5. Don’t overthink. Running through committees, endless drafts and approval processes to get a response out there can cause far more damage than good. As long as you have taken the time to assess the situation and can take a rational, respectful tone in your response, even an awkward response is OK to start with, and buys you time to continue to respond to the problem. 6. Be open. If you’re upset, nervous, worried, shocked — don’t be afraid to express that as well. People want to see a human response to a crisis, not an overproduced, formulaic or canned reply. When there is a crisis, there are people involved. Pretending there are no emotions mixed in the mess is a surefire way to lose credibility with others. Domino’s CEO responded pretty quickly and openly. However, check out his response to the crisis. The CEO never once looks at the camera. If you are going to be open and forthcoming in your response, at least look straight at the camera at some point. Even when reading from a teleprompter, you can set it up so your eyes are directed at the camera. Otherwise, you’ll look shifty and untrustworthy. 7. Fix the problem. If the crisis is bringing a problem to your attention, admit it, address it and fix it. If something is wrong and you can make it right, do it. If something isn’t really wrong but someone perceives that it is wrong, don’t dismiss their concerns. Take every exchange seriously, and do your best. That is all anyone can really expect. If you make sincere efforts and consistently take the high road, you stand to gain some goodwill, even if the problem is not entirely resolved. 8. Tell your story. Telling your own story throughout the “fixing” process is another good way of helping defuse the issue. Giving updates such as “We’re still looking into that bug that caused your data loss,” and “Please contact us privately so we can make amends to this situation” lets anyone paying attention to the situation see something is being done, even some of it has to happen “behind-the-scenes.” What other things should we think about when it comes to crisis communications in a social media-powered world?      |
| WatchDox Makes Document Security Simple Posted: 01 Jun 2009 07:00 AM PDT Written by Aliza Sherman.
Watchdox uses a secure Flash-driven viewer that requires no special software download or login. When you send or receive your first WatchDox doc, you simply enter your email address to start the quick authentication process. Access to documents is controlled via email; you are authenticated when you receive an email from the site and click on a link. Easy. Of course, you must have full control over your email address and inbox — and be confident that is also true of anyone you share your documents with — for this security model to work. If you edit a shared document, all the recipients will see the newly updated document the next time they access it. You can revoke permissions from any recipient at any time. You can also add an expiration date to documents, after which they won’t be viewable by the recipients. All of the documents you send and receive are stored in your “My Documents” box. You can store up to 50MB on WatchDox with the free version, and documents automatically expire after 30 days. At any given time you can send up to two documents for a total of 15MB. The system is based on Amazon Web Services, so should scalable for enterprise-level needs. WatchDox provides document security for Box.net, so you might already be using it. Watchdox is free to use while in beta. There will always be a free version for individual users, but Confidela will also introduce premium plans starting at $15/month per sender (there is no limit to document recipients).
One neat security-enhancing feature is that if you click away from a Watchdox document browser window, the document is instantly blurred by a virtual “curtain.” This is a clever way to mask private and confidential content from people peeking over your shoulder. While services like Scribd have made it much easier to share documents online, WatchDox takes things to the next level by adding no-hassle (no password required) security, including a virtual paper trail. Of course, I concede that just sharing a document online reduces its security; however, for documents that don’t have “National Security” stamped at the top, this app seems like a winner. How are you sending your documents securely?      |
This weekend saw the launch of 
Every so often, a new app hits my radar that gives me that “Wow! Awesome! Right On!” feeling. Launching into public beta today, 
Right now, to send and view documents, you must visit the WatchDox site unless you have Microsoft Outlook; a plugin is available that automates the document sharing process from your inbox.| You are subscribed to email updates from WebWorkerDaily To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
Inbox too full?  | |
| If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: WebWorkerDaily, c/o Google, 20 W Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.