Risley Ranch

We've come a long way...

I was the first employee at Barkley to have a blog.  That was 2004.  We've made a concerted effort to develop our social media expertise over the past couple of years.  And as time has gone on, I've noticed more and more of our partners starting their own blogs.  For a recent blog training I did, someone noted all the partners that have active blogs.  It's a solid list with a varied range of topics:

Citizen Brand by Mike Swenson 

Stampkit by Paul Corrigan 

Lazy Eye Theatre by Pat Piper 

The Martini Shaker by Jeremy Fuksa 

Average Jane by Celeste Lindell 

Twisted Jim by Jim Dayton 

KC Dog Blog by Brent Toellner 

Toellner Tells It by Brent Toellner 

Shake Gently by Dustin Jacobsen 

bemomobi by Mark Logan

And I bet there's more out there I'm not aware of.  Especially when you take into account MySpace and Facebook profiles.

technorati tags: blogs, Barkley

My iTunes Widget

iTunes has a new widget...My iTunes.  I added it to my blog.  So if you follow RisleyRanch, you can see all the 80s hair-band and 70s music I'm always buying.

technorati tags: itunes, widget

Add This

So I'm sure I'm late to the party in finding Add This, but I'm testing it out.  I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the button on the end of every post automatically (somewhere in Typepad is the "advance templates", but all be damned if I can find and edit them).  So I'm simply saving the HTML on an Outlook Note and will copy and paste it into each post.

technorati tags: addthis

Forum a must do

A Barkley colleague and I are attending the New Communications Forum in Vegas March 7-9.  I'm excited, for a few of reasons.  First, I went last year, and it was outstanding.  The opportunity to network and learn from other social media mavens was worth the price of admission.  Second, I'm happy about the opportunity of educating another partner in the ways of social media.  And finally, I get to hear Dave Weinberger, one of the four horseman of the Cluetrain.  I've made it my goal to meet all four authors.  I met Doc in 2001.  It might be more challenging meeting Christopher Locke (a.k.a., Rageboy) or Rick Levine...they don't seem to be as public (physically).

technorati tags: Cluetrain, newcommforum, docsearls, weinberger

A new Barkley voice in the blogosphere

Dustin Jacobsen, a technical director at our shop, launched a new blog recently:  Shake Gently.  Dustin and I worked together at a former tech start up in Kansas City.  Besides being a very smart, kind and optimistic guy, he married a Risley, so he has incredibly good taste and judgment, too.

technorati tags: Barkley, Jacobsen, Risley

New look, new feel, new me

I took a vacation last week.  The whole week.  I didn't go anywhere -- just lounged in Lawrence, Kansas.  It was outstanding.  Got to eat lunch with friends, pick up my son from school, sleep in, nap, read and watch movies.  Oh, and I re-designed my blog.  It was time for a new look and a new picture.  There's nothing like a little personal time to shake out the cobwebs.  And as one of my colleagues said, "staying at home for vacation is highly underrated."

One of us at BlogHer

One of my Barkley colleagues, Celeste Lindell, is attending BlogHer this weekend.  From her post on our internal blog:

BlogHer is turning into quite a showcase for female bloggers of all levels, from Dooce, Arianna Huffington and Amanda Congdon to a plethora of B-, C- and D-listers.

The first day’s sessions include hands-on instruction on a variety of topics, most technically-focused (podcasting, video blogging, blog design, widgets, etc.).  The second day’s sessions focus on community, conversation and the culture of blogging. 

On Saturday, I’ll be speaking on the "unpanel" for the Business Blog Case Studies session, mainly to discuss the 90-Foot Babe character blog I worked on for Lee Dungarees in late 2004.  My fellow panelists include Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing, Yvonne DiVita of Lip-Sticking and Susan Getgood of  Marketing Roadmaps.  All are great marketing bloggers who specialize in topics relating to marketing to
women.

Get a Second Life

After listening to Joseph, Neville and others talk about Second Life, I had to check it out.

Wow.  I was amazed.

It's a little mind-blowing.  And you really can't understand it unless you experience it.  At first I felt a little voyeuristic...like I was a visitor...like I didn't really belong there.  But after about two hours "playing," I got the hang of it.  I can really see myself getting sucked into it.

Wife:  "Honey, you've been in front of that computer for four hours...what are you doing?"

Me:  "I've been teleporting around Second Life."

Wife:  "What?  Are you looking at porn?"

Me:  "No, seriously.  Right now I'm in Luna Oaks Galleria...this is wild.  You should check this out."

Wife:  "I thought you were working?"

Me:  "I am.  I'm learning about this very cool new online world and how it can be used to maybe help our clients...Really."

Wife:  "Would you please stop goofing off and help me fold the clothes!"

More to come.

Corporate bloggers take heed

My friend, Jenne, gets interviewed by the local press and gives good advice for anyone -- especially corporate-types -- who is looking to start a blog.

coComment is coOL

I really like coComment.  In my opinion, this little tool could be the next hyper-jump of blogging.  Before using coComment, I wouldn't discover interesting comments until I found an interesting blog post; the post was the gateway via a feed from the blogger.  Now I can discover interesting posts, and people, via their comments; the comments are the gateway via a feed from a blogger's comments.

I subscribed to Jack Yan's comments, just to try it out, because he's a prolific commentor.  And sure 'nuff, I found several other interesting blogs -- blogs I wouldn't have found unless they were linked to in a post or via Technorati.  (If you want to subscribe to my comments, there's a link on my blog, or it's here.)

What would really make this tool rock is additional feed options.  For example, I only want to subscribe to Jack's comments that he leaves on certain blogs (maybe those just related to marketing).  Or, I want to subscribe to comments that contain certain key words, no matter who in the blogosphere is making them.  Or a combination of both -- certain commentors on certain blogs with certain key words.  I'm sure Hugh and the folks at coComment have already thought of this, and perhaps Technorati or PubSub does something like this already.  Not sure.  Just food for thought.