podcast: nancy

Anything goes when Nora McInerny walks into a room.  The same can be said for this podcast.  We originally planned on talking about manners and etiquette regarding Facebook friendship with family.  But, Nora’s a bit of a wild card, and so are we. Come along as we go from point A to point B while taking brief pitstops at high school proms and family get-togethers.  We might even sneak a quick nap in during a story about children.

About our guest: Nora McInerny is Meghan’s younger, blonder, and taller sister. She is a writer and humorist whose words appear in various locations on the internet.

In our 30th podcast, we discuss the process behind our presentations, focusing on our recent speaking gig at MIMA where we spoke on the subject of Cultivating a User-Centered Culture.   If you attended the event, you may have been asking yourself, “Why has the projector been displaying nothing but the color blue for the past 15 minutes?” or “Why are Meghan’s shoes filled with snow?” Well, look no further.  For the love of Bieber, we will answer those questions, plus many more right here and right now.

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Update: After recording this we discovered that it was Kristina Halvorson‘s dongle that saved the day. Thanks, Kristina! (And thanks to Andrew at ech03, too!)

Additional Resources

This week’s Geek of the Week, supergenius Jodi Chromey, stops by the studio for a choreographed ‘Pinky Tuscadero hand jive’ with Nancy and to chat about her career as a writer. Jodi initially claimed to be more “nerd” than “geek”, but after talking about her former life as a tech writer and then admitting to her love of Fonzie, her past blogs about Dawson’s Creek and cataloging her Sweet Valley High books as a child, it became obvious that we had chosen a true geek.

Jodi began writing her blog, I Will Dare, in 2000. Aside from her own blog, I Will Dare, Jodi is the editor for Minnesota Reads and is the mastermind behind paulwesterberg.net.

In this podcast, Jodi offers up advice on becoming a writer while giving us a brief glimpse into what inspires her (peanut butter and gin!), which begs the question, how did it take us this long to invite Jodi to be our Geek of the Week?

Additional Resources

Creepy Hand Model

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So, Facebook Messages. Everyone’s talking about it, but what is it?

• What are the basic features? 
• What does this mean for Facebook users?
• Does this mean more social media overload, or better filters?

We also discuss personal branding and ways to create a central landing page that you can drive people to, so they are aware of all the places they can connect with you. There are some great new services out there to help you put together a homepage for yourself that centralizes your social accounts, or you can get all fancy and build a site yourself.

Additional Resources

• Facebook Messages
  • A First Look at Facebook Mail
  • Official Messages Page on Facebook 
  • Official YouTube video explaining Facebook messages
  • Inside the War Room: Answering the Questions Behind Facebook Messages
• Personal Branding
  • Personal Branding – Social Media for Humans
  • About.me – Meghan Wilker (OMG, GIANT HEAD! It’s like a small planetoid!)
  • Extendr.com – Meghan Wilker
  • Meghan’s Personal Website
  • Nancy’s Personal Website
• Miscellaneous
  • Email Extensions: What does your email address say about you?
  • Inbox Creep: How to keep a handle on all the places you get messages.
  • BlueZones
  • Cheryl Tiegs’ Bio

Here are some other related blog posts we’ve written in the past about ways to DIY a web site:

• DIY Web Tools
• Free is Never Free

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