The Awesomeness Manifesto - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Revie by Umair Haque | 2:47 PM September 16, 2009 Innovation: it’s the ultimate source of advantage, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the economic ring. Innovation is what every organization should be ruthlessly pursuing, right? I’d like to advance a hypothesis: awesomeness is the new innovation. Let’s face it. Innovation relies on obsolescence. Innovation dries up our seedcorn. Innovation often isn’t. It’s time to ask: have the costs of innovation exceeded the benefits? A better concept, one built for a radically interdependent 21st century, is awesomeness. Ethical production. Insanely great stuff. Love. Thick value. The vast majority of companies — in my research, greater than 95% — can only create what I have termed thin value. Let’s summarize. I’ve talked to many boardrooms about awesomeness. What makes some stuff awesome and other stuff merely (yawn) innovative? You might be innovative — but are you awesome? Want to help kickstart awesomeness?
Scaling Up the Effort: The Process Behind Great (Contracted) Content The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that it's hard work to build great content that: a) people want to read b) people remember and will be motivated to share c) helps you further increase the reach of your brand This becomes especially true when you're building content for a company that's not your own. This post isn't about Lesson #12,753 we've so valiantly learned here at Mack Web as we grow our small (but mighty) integrated web marketing team. It's about you and the exceptional content you need to be building on behalf of the clients you work for. That said, if you're like us, you find solace in, and learn a great deal from, the trials and tribulations other companies face. 1. Sit tight. How do you build great content when you're not the expert? For a while, we were treating content generation like a factory. General brand stuff vs. expert content
Disable wpautop Plugin A simple plugin to disable the WordPress wpautop function. This is the function that automatically formats your posts. Installation Installation is just like any WordPress plugin: Download disable-wpautopUnzipUpload to /wp-content/plugins on your serverActivate the plugin You can find full details of installing a plugin on the plugin installation page. If you find that breaks (<br/>) are being stripped from your posts then look at this WordPress support page. Like this: Like Loading...
The Psychology Of Going Viral: 12 Proven Ways to Craft Content That Gets People Talking (About You) The web is a busy place… it’s become tough to get noticed I think that’s why so many folks have become obsessed with the idea of “viral” content. When something takes off, it’s fun to watch… but are there any commonalities between those things that seem to take-over the internet for a short while? There’s got to be… right? Luckily, you no longer have to guess, because today, I have the research that will show you. How To Push People’s Buttons I’ve just finished re-reading the book Buzz Marketing, authored by a guy named Mark Hughes. Mark was known as the VP of marketing for Half.com back in the day, and was famous for… get this, convincing the town of Halfway, Oregon to rename itself Half.com! Yes, he got a town to agree to name itself after a website. Apparently, this guy knows a thing or two about creating buzz! In his book, he outlines the six buttons he’s found in his marketing research and experience that always seem to get people fired up, when presented in the right way. Ready? 1.) Yowza!
36 Awesome Idea Hubs to Spark Creative Thinking, Innovation, &am There’s no limit to the number of good ideas out there that could help change the world. Many times, innovative solutions grow from previously existing ideas that are tweaked and customized for current needs. That said, below is a list of Idea Hubs from around the web to stimulate your mind, from conferences to user-submitted idea warehouses to resource centers. Videos to Inspire 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. ideaCity: An eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists. twitter: @ideaCityNews Good Reading 22. 23. 24. User-Submitted Ideas Exchanges 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. the Idea Shower: A launchpad of new ideas for the web. 32. idealist: A platform for designers and creators to publish and share their creativity, get feedback from the community and increase the popularity of their ideas. 33. 34. 35. 36. Like this:
Content Marketing with Interactive Tools: Pros, Cons, Examples & Best Practices At first glance, interactive online tools may not seem like a content marketing tactic. But, when you consider their educational and entertainment value, interactive tools offer exactly the kind of ‘stickiness’ marketers and brands are looking for. From the early days of collaborative online learning to sophisticated interactive tools that allow consumers to keep track of their calorie count and fitness level, today, numerous institutions, governments, news organizations and brands have incorporated interactive tools on their websites to further educate and engage their customers and constituents. Why incorporate interactive tools as part of your content marketing mix? Because education is such a powerful and important fundamental to improving the customer experience. Big brands have been using education as a way to connect with their consumers for a long time. In the ‘splinternet’ economy, being able to capture your visitors’ attention is becoming more and more difficult. Pros Cons Vizrt
Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers An aspiring blogger can be overwhelmed with the vast amount of resources, tools, and advice for bloggers available on the net. While in no way definitive - there's simply too much going on in this space to cover it all - we did our best to bring you a comprehensive list of blogging resources, which should be equally useful to beginners as well as veteran bloggers. Enjoy. WordPress WordPress Themes ThemeViewer - The number one location to find WordPress themes to make your page cool, which you will most certainly want to do.Templates Now - A smaller collection of WordPress themes, but still worth your while to check out.TemplateMonster - If you want more professional quality themes then this site can be useful. Best WordPress Plugins Akismet - The best blog comment spam prevention plug-in. Wordpress Plugin repositories Movable Type Movable Type Styles Best Movable Type Plugins Movable Type Plugin repositories Blog Hosting Solutions Dedicated & Shared Hosting Services Paid Blog Hosting Services Tips
How to Start a Blog that Matters Thinking about starting a blog or reinvigorating an old one? Today we’re launching a new course called How to Start a Blog that Matters that can help. This course is meant for three groups of people. This course might be for you if: you’re thinking about starting a new blog, from scratch, or you’re unhappy with the results you’ve gotten from a blog you recently launched, or you’re doing OK with your blog, but want to re-brand and re-launch it to take things to the next level In any case, the course is a step-by-step 90-day action plan for starting a blog that makes a difference. Starting a blog is incredibly easy these days. Anyone can create a blog in 5 minutes, but very few people will create blogs that matter. What’s the difference between most blogs and the select few that attract huge followings or otherwise make a difference in the world? That’s a question I started asking myself long before I started my first blog. How Does this Fit with the Million Dollar Blog Project? P.S.
8 Ways To Be Timeless And Get Off The Content Treadmill The New York Times is shutting down some of their blogs as they “got very, very little traffic, and they required an enormous amount of resources, because a blog is an animal that is always famished.” According to Ian Fisher, the assistant managing editor, there is a constant pressure and the visitors “expect us to be filling the artificial container of a blog” with new content on a very frequent basis. Blogging is not about feeding the hungry beast and constantly manufacturing new content through assembly line writing. Making great content that attracts an audience is the goal. Getting off the content treadmill Timely content on the other hands is fast, real time and focused on social media. These big sites sell banner ads on cost per thousand (CPM) impressions which forces them to chase page views. Unless you have many journalists and freelancers working for you producing massive amount of content, you should not aim to spend most of your time running on the treadmill. Go evergreen
Press It Languages: English • ไทย • (Add your language) Note: This feature was removed from WordPress 2.5, and was replaced in WordPress 2.6 with the Press This function. You are pouring over your feeds, viewing a website with an article or story that catches your eye, and you want to share that information with your WordPress site viewers. A quick trick is to use the WordPress Press It feature. WordPress makes it easy to quickly add links and information to your site through the use of a bookmarklet called Press It. If you find something of interest on the Internet, you can click the Press It link and a window with your site's Administration Write Post panel will popup with the page you are viewing listed as a link. The Press It bookmarklet is found at the bottom of the Write Posts panel. Favorites, Bookmarks, or Links list or toolbar. To activate, simply click on the "Press It" bookmarklet link. The link is Javascript, and its form is: Give it a try.
17 Unique Places to Find Great Content to Share 5.3K Flares Filament.io 5.3K Flares × I get a particular thrill from finding little-known restaurants that serve amazing food. My greatest hits list includes elk tacos at a highway diner, cinnamon rolls at a downtown hole-in-the-wall, and – perhaps my greatest discovery of all – barbecue from a trailer in a parking lot. (Seriously, it’s good barbecue!) The discovery process for great content has a similar thrill. Without a doubt, sharing great finds on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks is a smart way to with your followers. People love a good content share. 1. We look at the inbox every day, but how often do we search it for great content? Next Draft Managed by Dave Pell, this daily newsletter contains the day’s most fascinating news – a Top Ten of interesting links from around the web, often starting with current events and meandering into fun, off-beat, interesting links. The Daily Digg Sign up by clicking the Daily Digg link in the menu bar of the Digg homepage. 2. 3.