Changes in the Air

This note is for the benefit of those dear souls who have been asking why my site has been in maintenance off and on for weeks on end, and when I’m going to post on my own site instead of on other sites – valid questions! Answer? This blog theme has more bugs than an August morning in an alder swamp. Client work comes first, of course, but I’m working on getting the site changed over to something more readable and more reliable – just as soon as time permits. Should you care? Perhaps not. But there it is, in case you’re one of those who do. :)

Social Media Content Strategy from Joe Pulizzi

Often, when I’ve been called on to explain the benefits of content marketing to a nonprofit board, it’s been a useful shortcut to share some of the Slideshare presentations by Joe Pulizzi of Junta42.

Here is just one of Joe’s presentations that a number of our very small community-based groups have found especially useful, as they brace themselves to dip a toe in the (deep, dark, shark-infested!) waters of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps even begin to plan for launching a blog.
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100-Year-Old Cake: A Small Museum on Facebook

What attracts new readers to your website, if all they have to go on is a name? How does an author sell a book, without an intriguing review or cover blurb? And how can a small museum bring in visitors, if people have no idea what treasures they’ll find there?

Social media is an ideal place to serve up tantalizing teasers to whet the appetite of your prospective audience.
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Complex Lists Made Easy: Workflowy

After years of testing every kind of outlining software and “to do” list tool that looked as if it could be adapted to a writer’s requirements, I do believe Workflowy is The One.

It’s like… it’s like… a big giant list with a search function. Practical, convenient, and flexible. Perfect for writers and researchers who fear that we’ll drown in a sea of index cards!
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Trouble with Townships

When you’re digging around in old books and papers, it’s not uncommon to come across the word “township” in placenames, land grants and title transfer documents, descriptions of properties, and so on. It’s as well to be aware, in researching a local or family history, that “township” may not mean the same thing to you — here and now — as it did to the writer of an historic document.

Was your great-grandfather more likely to be a banker than a farmer, because the records say he grew up in a township? It all depends…
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