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The Ten Spot
SXSWi Recap: Networking at the Next Level
Today in the TenSpot, three LevelTen-ians recap their trip down to the great town of Austin for 2010's SXSWi Conference. The team just returned from the event, which used "Tomorrow Happens Here" as the rallying cry for this year's participants.
Colin made his first voyage to SXSWi this year, while Rachel and Tom returned for their second trip this year.
The panel discusses their likes, gripes, experiences and highlights about the conference, which hosted more than 17,000 participants this year, including some of the most influential ambassadors in interactive development today. LevelTen's own Colin even placed himself among the ranks of the influencers by presenting a session on Citizen Journalism.
After listenining, you can dive into more SWSXi culture and figure out how to participate more in the future by checking out their website at here.
Disclaimer: the term "tweet-slap" does get used during today's jubilant banter.
Power Tip
When you attend SXSWi or any other major conference, maximize your time by planning out a schedule that will allow you to consume content that is most relevant to you. After all, your not just there to party and network, but to learn more about becoming the best at whatever it is you do. After you have observed and participated, then its time to enjoy yourself and take in the culture at the location of the conference.
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Building A Winning Race Team for Your Website
Today in the TenSpot, we're talking about tactics for building a website that wins. Buying or building a website can be compared to choosing a car. Whether you budget for an $850 junker, an economical hybrid, or a high performance race car, the success of your purchase depends on your goals. If you are looking for a website that wins, this panel discussion is for you.
Tom moderates today's episode, as we walk through a "Building Success 101" course of sorts.
Chris enters the fray to give his insight about building winning teams with clients, Brent offers a social media tool in the works, Gigya, as it pertains to business success, and Bryce and Colin jump in with marketing and SEO tips.
Join us for coming episodes as well, as we will build on the concepts of today's TenSpot to formulate a growing curriculum for building online leaders.
Power Tip
Most people have decent ideas, but fall back to the crowd when it comes to driving traffic to their site and creating a well-developed marketing scheme. By mastering the basics, staying updated and seeking qualified advisers for the advanced skills of web development, you can build a winning website.
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Bringing Ignite to Dallas
Today in the TenSpot, we're exploring the mystical world of creative tech seminars, specifically the growing franchise called "Ignite", coming to Dallas March 3rd. Ignite will be happening in about 60 cities worldwide simultaneously, as creative communities everywhere look to spark innovations.
Perhaps you have heard of or attended a traditional lecture convention, but these new seminars more closely resemble a jam session for innovators. Ignite's format consists of 16 speakers making five minute presentations, with slides on an automatic loop, so that content and ideas move quickly.
"Our motto for Ignite is: Enlighten us, but make it quick," organizer Danica Mathes said.
After attending Ignite, there are local events you can organize to keep the creative juices flowing. Here's a brief rundown of the events that are happening right now:
- Jelly - Held every Friday at the Big In Japan Co-working Space @ Infomart. This casual co-working event allows entrepreneurs and developers to work, talk, collaborate and form lasting connections.
- Tweetup - Twitter speak for a "meet-up", this is a gathering for those who are suffering an addiction to social media. These happen every month in Dallas, and it cities across the United States
- BarCamp - BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for individuals to share and learn in an open environment. It is intense with discussions, demos, and overall interaction. Learn more Here.
Ignite Dallas organizers Chris Bond, Danica Mathes and Chris Walters join Tom and Colin for this week's episode.
Ignite Dallas
Wednesday, March 3rd
Doors open at 6 p.m.
Granada Theater
Tickets: GA - $10, VIP - $25 - Buy Here.
Power Tip
Before progressive social events like Ignite existed, there was a hole in the connective tissue of creative professionals. Embrace these new opportunities and engage with local events that can help carry your business idea or event to the next level.
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Recapping Certified Scrum Training with Mike Cohn
Today in the TenSpot, we are taking Agile to a new level. Members of our staff recently underwent ScrumMaster and Product Owner training with Certified ScrumMaster extraordinaire Mike Cohn.
Cohn is a leading Agilist, having been involved with the process on an executive level since 1995. He has authored three books and led Scrum conferences and events around the world.
LevelTen transitioned to Scrum and Agile processes after searching for the best method of completing client work efficiently. Findings about the benefits of the Agile process are documented below:
This week's panel experts are Rachel Scott, Kayla Wren and Tom McCracken. Join them as they walk through their training experience to help explain how your company can become more efficient and effective through scrum and agile processes.
Power Tip
When working in a team, prioritize tasks by ranking the scope, budget, time frame and quality of the project. Specify which element is fixed, that is, which will be the biggest key to success. Then, rank one as firm, or something that needs to stay in place, but could wiggle just a bit. Give the remaining two elements a "flexible" tag to allow for more agility during the work process. Assigning these qualities will help teams as they endeavor to complete successful client projects.
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How to Navigate the Client / Agency Relationship
Today in the TenSpot in honor of Valentines day we're going to be talking about the unique relationship between a client and their agency. As the story goes, when a client and an agency love each other very much, they come together to form a web presence. But sometimes they have an ugly web presence, and no one wants to admit theirs is ugly, but it happens. Then the agency and the client are left wondering - could they have seen the signs earlier?
On this week's panel, our featured relationship experts are Jon Webb, Chris Sloan and Colin Alsheimer.
Join us as we discuss relationship tips for clients and their agencies.
Power Tip
Make sure you have a vision around a specific result that you want to have. Then, determine how much that goal is worth to you. Use that to determine your budgets for online spend.
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New Years Resolutions at LevelTen
It's that time of the year at LevelTen. Time for everyone to make resolutions (goals) for the new year.
This podcast, we'll tell you about some of the plans we have for the company over the next year.
Kayla Wren discusses LevelTen's learning culture, and what we've got planned for broadening our minds in 2010.
Renee Dobbs talks about her plan to give more back to the community.
Jon Webb goes over his plans for giving more back to our clients, including interesting ideas on how to stay in touch though knowledge sharing.
Colin Alsheimer talks about his goals for LevelTen's blog community.
What are your goals for 2010?
Power Tip
Wrap your team building exercises around events that also give back to the community. Not only is it a great way to build bonds between team members, but it will benefit the community too.
Interview with The Granada Theater's Marketing Team
Note: due to podcast length (1:06), we had to go without the standard intro and outro.
We've got a special episode of The Ten Spot this week as we sit down with the marketing team from a Dallas entertainment institution - The Granada Theater. The Granada Theater is an award winning live music venue that's been having much success marketing online.
With campaigns that started as basic as Craigslist postings and a MySpace page, The Granada Theater marketing team has evolved into using sophisticated, integrated online marketing campaigns. The Granada Theater uses popular platforms like Twitter and Facebook, as well as niche networks like Eventful and Last.FM to help sell concert tickets.
What's interesting is that despite having a very small team, the marketing duo of Nathan Binford and Brad Ehney have created sophisticated spreadsheet and workflow systems for efficiently and consistently managing social media accounts.
Listen to the full podcast as we learn their secret sauce for growing community online, upcoming marketing initiatives, mistakes that were made along the way, and the lessons that were learned.
Power Tip
Start using Facebook to market your business or brand, if you haven't done so already. Especially useful is Facebook's event widget, which has a strong likelihood of going viral.
We're Agile!
There's a project management revolution going on today, and it goes by the name of Agile.
Agile project management methodologies are an alternative to traditional waterfall project management, which is the style of project management used in the majority of web development and design projects today.
Large companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce.com have already made the switch to Agile.
Why?
Because Agile processes encourage new ideas, promote a harmonious relationship between clients and agency partners, ensure that the most valuable features get delivered first, and ensure that vendors get paid for the value they deliver.
Join panelists Chris Sloan, Kayla Wren and Dustin Currie as we discuss all things Agile. In this podcast, we'll cover the origins of Agile, talk about the Agile Manifesto, and discuss why Agile makes sense from a development standpoint, as well as how to overcome difficulties in selling Agile projects to upper management or potential clients.
Power Tip
Check out NoFixed.org, to learn more about selling and executing Agile based projects. If you're looking to hire a team to execute your web projects, or you lead an internal team looking to make the switch to Agile, check out NoFixed.org for educational resources.
Image from Dilbert.com
TenSpot: Multiple Product Backlogs & Proper Estimating
In this week's TenSpot podcast, we get down to the nitty gritty. Kayla Wren discusses running the Scrum process with a blended product backlog, and Dustin Currie discusses some of the problems with project estimation, and some strategies for creating better estimates on your next project.
Power Tip
When estimating for web projects, be sure to get the entire team involved. Typically, you'll get more accurate estimates then if you just had one person do the estimating.
If you're using the Scrum process, try playing a game of Planning Poker.
The TenSpot: Sales, Marketing & Twitter
When do you usually make your sales calls? Is it first thing in the morning, around 9am? Or maybe you subscribe to the theory that the best time to make a sales call is around lunch time. Either way, you'd be wrong. According to a recent study by MIT, the best time to make sales calls from website leads is the 4-6pm block.
Learn more about what it takes to make effective sales calls in the podcast! This week, we also discuss why you need Internet marketing for your website, and some tangible ways you can get started today. From page titles to local business optimization, we cover all the basics.
Finally, we cover why Twitter's new list feature may be revolutionary for how we get content online, and why it's exactly what Twitter needs.
Joining us this week:
Power Tip
Our power tip this week is to increase your response time to website leads by using your cell phone. Simply set your lead submissions to forward to an e-mail account that is accessible by phone. That way you can follow-up with your leads much faster, thereby increasing your likelihood of a sale.
Scrum Musings & The Real Time Web
Contrary to popular belief, I say the best day of the week is Monday. Not Friday, not Thursday, and certainly not Saturday... Monday. Why is it my favorite day, you might ask? Because on Mondays, I get to review and edit our fantastic weekly podcasts. Sure, I usually know the topics ahead of time, and most days, I even participate in the podcasts, but in a world where yesterday's news may as well be last year's news, a refresher is always good.
This week, we've got a varied lineup of topics up for discussion on The TenSpot.
Renee Dobbs, discusses the decision to move office management tasks into an official Office Scrum. So far, the early returns have been very positive. If resources at your company are tight (as most are), and office tasks are starting to pile up, you may want to consider a switch to scrum, to get that list whittled down.
Continuing with the scrum discussions, Kayla Wren discusses the quandary of the Product Owner. Specifically, in the agency environment - who plays the product owner? Is it the client or the account manager? If it's the client, how do you budget and plan for that extra time drain? Learn the answers to these questions, and more in the podcast!
Finally, Rachel Scott, on the heels of some big announcements from Bing, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, discusses the state of the Real TIme Web. Why is it important, and what exactly do you need to know about this burgeoning web trend.
As always, Tom McCracken moderates.
Business Power Tip
The product owner is the single minded voice defining what the product should be. Or - the single throat to be strangled when the project goes wrong. Be sure to designate someone as the official product owner, if you're an agency, this should preferably be on the client side.
Today's Challenges in Interactive Marketing
This week's podcast features a collection of top minds in the Dallas area Interactive Marketing field. Guests on this week's panel include Eric Feitel and Nate Christman. Eric and Nate both work for TM Advertising in Dallas. Eric serves as TM's Creative Director and Nate as the Art Director.
In past podcasts, we've had discussions about new trends in Interactive Marketing, and plenty of social media best practices tips. What we haven't discussed are the many challenges in Interactive Marketing. We felt a podcast devoted to this topic was necessary to shed some light on important industry issues.
Some of the points we discuss are:
- How do you measure and benchmark social media efforts? What will prove value to the client?
- Who should be responsible for social media work - the client or the agency partner?
- What are some of the ethical considerations for today's Interactive Marketer?
Power Tip:
If you're getting into social media for the first time, keep your approach agile. Plan just enough to get started, but don't over analyze or over plan. Start with a single channel and get good at using it before moving onto others. If you're trying to get your company involved with social media, try to get other co-workers involved too.
Digital Recruiting with Craig Fisher and Chris Hoyt
This week we're featuring Craig Fisher, owner of A-List Solutions, and Chris Hoyt, the Associate Director of Talent Attraction for AT&T. During the podcast, they share their top tips for job seekers in today's economy, and share some recent trends in the recruiting and staffing industry, including a brief discussion on mobile recruiting.
About Craig Fisher
Craig Fisher is a founding partner of A-List solutions, and an 18 year sales veteran who has been an innovator in the Recruiting Industry since 1995. He has been a top performer and sales leader in start-ups as well as large, high growth companies. Craig specializes in Information Technology Staffing, and Executive Search services.
Craig also trains HR and staffing organizations as well as job seekers on Social Networking and Branding strategies for employment and career growth. He writes about it at his blog, www.fishdogs.com. He is a regular contributor to technology and career forums, and has authored articles that have been published internationally and featured in HR journals, industry newsletters, and career web sites.
About Chris Hoyt
As a mobile marketing/recruiting evangelist and self proclaimed Social ‘X’ addict, Chris Hoyt has been pushing the boundaries of each aspect of full-cycle recruiting for over 14 years – most recently as the Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T.
In his current role he leads the full scale integration of social media and mobile marketing within a workforce strategy that included search engine marketing and optimization for talent attraction long before it was fashionable.
With a passion for breaking out of traditional recruitment practices and a background that includes training it’s no mystery that the combined teams of recruiters and sourcers working with Chris are constantly evolving and pushing the envelope of non-traditional talent attraction and recruitment. Whether functioning as a coach, team lead, or individual contributor it’s his top notch results using ‘out of the box’ strategies that have established him as a recruiting expert amongst peers and clients alike.
In a time where the return on investment for social media struggles to be defined within the recruiting and staffing world, Chris moves forward in an effort to show impact, scope of reach and brand influence by engaging and tracking both the candidate’s involvement and experience.
It’s this focus on Interactive Recruiting within social and mobile channels, big picture results and measurable gains that make Chris one of a handful in corporate America that can speak with authority on the topic of social media and recruitment.
The Iran Election & Emerging Media Use in Social Revolutions
Social networking tools have recently been credited with aiding protests from Moldova to Iran. In this episode of the TenSpot we learn how governments restrict access to the Internet and how people are using social media tools to circumvent cyber-roadblocks. We also discuss the changing role of traditional media and how social networking tools are giving voice to the once powerless and disenfranchised.
Our guests include:
David Parry is an Assistant Professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas. David studies how people communicate in the digital age and prepares students to use media.
“The more powerful forces out there are not state actors, they're not corporations, but social networks.” – Dave Parry
@academicdave
http://www.outsidethetext.com
Mona K. is a Ph.D. candidate in Emerging Media at the University of Texas at Dallas. Mona studies the impact of social media on gender and identity issues. She recently returned from Iran where she witnessed first hand the power of social media in lives of many women there.
Power Tip:
The people have spoken…and you no longer control your brand. Your best approach is to recognize the power of the human voice. Instead of trying to control it, find ways to embrace it and use it to your advantage.
How To Launch a Citizen Journalism Website - The Ten Spot
This week's podcast is all about how to launch a citizen journalism website that actually gets read. Joining us this week are the creators of In This Economy, I Live in Dallas, and Five O'Clock Dallas. During the podcast, they all share their experiences, from the inspiration behind launching the sites, to the tools used for marketing and promotion, and even some unexpected results.
About In-This-Economy.com:
in-this-economy.com is a blog designed to take the ridiculousness of the economy and spin it into something that can entertain and even distract folks from their problems for a while. We cover everything from national news to free stuff to completely random Internet finds. We rant and rave about the economy, and when we’re not crying we’re laughing. ITE’s co-creators are art director Rondo Estrello (@rondostar) and copywriters Rachel Pinn (@rachcreative) and Derek Rundgren (@drocolate). Our other contributors include Stephanie Berlin (@sberlin), Logan Finklestein and Zack McLain (@SurlyZ). We’re also (clearly) passionate social media advocates. Follow ITE on Twitter at @inthiseconomy.
About FiveO'ClockDallas.com
Five O'Clock Dallas is a community website for Dallas bars and happy hour listings, that tries to take the work out of the after work drink. Five O'Clock Dallas goes beyond simple bar and happy hour listings by providing video reviews, news, events, and a new series called Happy Hour at Home. Five O'Clock Dallas focuses on showing people that it's possible to have some classy fun in Dallas without breaking your budget. The website was founded at the end of 2008 when co-creators Colin Alsheimer (@levelten_colin and Alyssa Gardina (@agardina couldn't find a good resource online for finding happy hours in Dallas. Five O'Clock Dallas can be found on Twitter (@dallashappyhour) and Facebook.
About ILiveInDallas.com
ILiveinDallas was launched in March 2008 to promote art and culture events in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is beginning to be recognized as a centerpiece in the US for hosting world-renowned artists, intellectuals, musicians and activists in the city. With many resources in the Dallas area for like events, ILiveinDallas stands out to be the go-to calendar for young thinking professionals interested in the ideas and culture of many. The goal is to get people out of their house and experience the world, without having to pay for the ticket around the world. The Creator of ILiveinDallas, Jennifer Conley, is an advocate for local arts and education. She believes the Arts promote creative and expansive growth in a community, and brings the thinker out in all of us.
@iliveindallas
@jenniferconley
Power Tip
Make sure you are passionate about the content you're creating for your website. Don't worry about monetizing it, because you probably won't make much money. If you're able to pay for your website's hosting through your website, you're in a great position.
Real World Social Media - The Ten Spot
Length: 25:00
Do we have a podcast for you! This week, we discuss real world uses for social media. Yes, you've heard of Twitter, you've heard of Facebook, and you're probably on all of them. But are you doing the right things? Are you using social media to smartly advance business goals, or are you all over the map? Joined by Neil Lemons and Jon Webb, Colin Alsheimer shares his thoughts on the subject and recaps his two days spent at the Inbound Marketing Summit 2009. The Inbound Marketing Summit is a conference put on by Chris Brogan and Justin Levy of New Marketing Labs and featured presentations by Paula Berg of Southwest Air, Tim Walker of Hoovers, Aaron Strout of Powered, Shawn Collins and Missy Ward of Affiliate Summit, Bill Tolaney of Whole Foods Market, Greg Matthews of Humana, and many more. Slots are still open for the Boston edition, and if you happen to be in the area, we highly recommend that you attend.
Power Tip
To really learn social media, make sure you're connecting with your online contacts in the offline world too. You'll have better conversations, form deeper connections, and learn a ton. What's the best way to do this? Use Meetup to find social media & Internet marketing groups in your area. You can also use Twitter Search to find people talking about Tweetups, or other networking opportunities in your area. Simply use the search phrase "term" near:location.
The Ten Spot #12 - Project Management with Crystal Williams
In this week's podcast, we sit down with Crystal Williams of Workhabit and talk Project Management. We discuss the pros and cons of different types of Project Management, why it saves your project money, and simple steps you can take to improve your project management skills.
About Crystal:
Photo Credit: n-re-k
Quoted from Workhabit
Equally comfortable in design, code, wireframes, or spreadsheets, Crystal loves working in all aspects of web projects to produce world-class web properties.
Crystal earned a dual major in Economics and Media Studies from Scripps College, found her way to Drupal in 2006, and hasn’t looked back. With experience in the worlds of Retail/Channel Marketing, Web Development, Design Agencies, and the Music Industry, she loves crossing industries to create innovative solutions for clients.
Crystal is also a passionate organizer of BarCamps in the US, Canada, and China, and founder of DrupalCampLA; all free conferences focused on knowledge transfer and inspiration between individuals from all walks of life. Her “10 Steps to Organizing a BarCamp” article is now translated into German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and has become the standard guide for founding new un-conferences.
She is also an avid traveler and can often be found at Web and Information Security conferences around the globe.
You can also watch her Drupalcon 2009 presentation, Project Management for Fun and Profit.
Power Tip
If you want to polish up your Project Management skills, or just read up on what it's all about, check out Web Redesign 2.0, Workflow that Works.
The Ten Spot Episode #11
In this week's podcast, we discuss:
Naked Day!
On Thursday, April 9th, LevelTen participated in Naked Day 2009. For those who aren't familiar, Naked Day promotes Web Standards and encourages websites to strip down to their skivvies (aka - turn off their CSS styles). This sparked a debate at LevelTen, which we captured on our podcast. So, it goes without saying that this week's podcast is all about Web Standards, W3C, and more.
Bonus Discussion - Semantic Web
Today we have a special treat for you! A bonus discussion on Semantic Web - what it is, why it's important, and why you should be more aware about its future potential.
Have an opinion or a question about web standards? Use our contact form to the right to ask our panelists a question and we'll answer in an upcoming episode.
Don't forget, you can subscribe to this podcast in your favorite RSS/podcast program.
The Ten Spot Episode #10
This week is an extra special week, as it's our 10th episode of our podcast! In this milestone episode, we'll be discussing features that are important to your website, from SEO/SEM friendly content management systems, things to look for in a CMS and the importance of RSS feeds.
Create a RSS Feed from a Drupal View
Panelist: Jennifer Conley
On Monday evening, the team was here late finishing out our second Sprint Planning Meeting. Around 8pm, our Developer, Dustin Currie, mentioned that one of our recent projects was not setup for users to subscribe to the blog and articles RSS feed. We were two days from launching this project, and I was perplexed that this was being brought up right then, because everyone at LevelTen understands the importance of an RSS feed. And we were about to launch a site that didn't have it setup! I said, "Show me. Show me how to set it up so that it doesn't get overlooked the next time!"
Read More
Top 14 SEO and SEM Modules for Drupal
Panelist: Colin Alsheimer
If you work in search engine optimization, or Internet marketing and you haven't been exposed to Drupal yet, it's a wonderful CMS for a variety of applications. Specific to this blog post, however, Drupal is a phenomenal platform for search engine optimization and Internet marketing. With the right modules installed and configured, Drupal can be a complete joy to work with for an SEO. Use the following as a guide for the best SEO and SEM modules to install for your Drupal website.
Read More
The Ten Spot Episode #09 - Twitterviews, Contxts and more!
In this week's podcast, the LevelTen panel discuses Twitterviews, the new Contxts service, and discuss if e-mail is dying.
Send Your Business Card Via Text Message
Panelist: Jennifer Conley
After I think there is one last business card at the bottom of my giant bag, I'll rummage through my contents and then say, "Oh, I thought I had one, but I don't." It's embarrassing, and it's a missed opportunity. Business cards are also somewhat of a cliche, and they can be difficult to manage over the years.
Last week, I came across contxts - it's a mobile sms service that you use to text your business card to people on-the-spot. Read More
Twitterviews - Online Interviews in 140 Characters
Panelist: Rachel Scott
Yesterday morning, the man who just last year said, "I am learning to get online myself," participated in an online interview via Twitter, being coined as a "Twitterview" by the news media. John McCain responded to 10 questions asked by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, all of which were posted on Twitter through "@replies". Because of the interviewee's popularity, and the term "Twitterview" being acknowledged through the media, there has been a good amount of hype surrounding the event. My question is, will the term "Twitterview" stick around? And will people start to schedule more of these Twitter-based interviews? Read More
Is E-mail Dead?
Panelist: Renee Dobbs
Is traditional e-mail on it's way out? John C. Dvorak at PCMAG.com gives us 9 Reasons why E-mail is Dead. In some regards I do agree. It seems that social networking sites have already taken over traditional e-mail on a personal level but what about in the workplace?
Read More
