John T. Meyer | This Idea Is Hot

Book Review (1/12): Drive by Daniel Pink

johntmeyer — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:03:49 +0000

My first book review of 2011 comes from Drive by Daniel Pink. I enjoyed reading this book as a manager who has employees to motivate and inspire. Pink describes a unique motivation 3.0 that exists today and discusses how it motivates humans today. Watch my full book review today and check out Drive on Amazon (affiliate link).

This Idea is: HOT

The Socie Awards and DesMob.com Grow Offline Community

johntmeyer — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:56:52 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to recognize to en fuego ideas that regional cities Sioux Falls and Des Moines are doing to take their online communities offline.

In Sioux Falls, The Argus Leader and Clickrain are teaming up to present the 1st ever Socie Awards to recognize the finest in social media in the South Dakota community. Also, Des Moines has created their online rolodex to connect with the community offline with DesMob.com.

Here is my video on why both of these projects are important and deserve an en fuego rating!

This Idea is: En Fuego

Facebook is Merging Me Mad

johntmeyer — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:00:08 +0000

After accepting an offer from Facebook to merge my business page (9 Clouds) to a places page I waited for days and then a couple weeks. Finally when I got the memo that my pages were merging I stumbled on quite the surprise when I when to check out 9 Clouds on Facebook… all of my content was gone. Eighteen months of posts, questions, pictures and videos completely erased.

I still have not found a solution, but I did hear some some similar stories and a bit more clarification on this Facebook page of frustrated peers.

This Idea is: CHILLY

Dropico Finally Solves Photo Sharing?

johntmeyer — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:45:09 +0000

I have to admit I’m terrible at taking photos. I spent the first 18 years of my life posing for pictures every 30 minutes with my camera-armed mother in my life. Then there was a dark age of about four years where taking pictures in college was a rare phenomenon. Today I seem to do a better job of having some photo-taking device (camera or iPod Touch) but now I’m awful at sharing my photos. Either there are too many networks to share across or not enough time. I may have found the answer!

Today I saw this video from a service called Dropico. Take a look and see if this is something you would use.

I need to try out the service a bit more to ever award Dropico or any idea an En Fuego rating, but if this idea is even close to as easy as it looks in this video it’s at least a Hot Idea.

This Idea Is: HOT

2011 Keywords

johntmeyer — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:32:18 +0000

Just like last year I wanted to share my 2011 Keywords. I create keywords annually to serve as my theme or guiding pillars for the year. I still create specific goals that are actionable and measureable beneath my keywords, but keywords are pasted on my computer as a daily reminder. Without further ado my 2011 keywords…

DELIVER

QUESTION

VALUE

POWERUP

It was pleasantly surprised when I was doing my blog reading to see I’m not the only person who loves keywords. A few of my big inspirations Chris Guillebeau and Chris Brogan shared their keywords as well.

Preparing to Dominate 2011

johntmeyer — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:31:17 +0000

I’ve spent most of this week reviewing the year that was 2010 and preparing for a dominant 2011. In fact, I’ll probably have another post with my goals and keywords for the 2011 year. For today, I wanted to share a bit of what I’m thinking about for success in 2011 in three categories: READ, WRITE, and WATCH.

READ:

If you read anything this week before the new year arrives I highly recommend Chris Guillebeau’s blog post “2010 Annual Review: Looking Forward.” I’d love for you to finish this post, but I’d even encourage his article more and then his book after that if you need more. Guillebeau is the master behind “The Art of Non-Conformity” brand and offers a unique look at examining his 2010 year and preparing for his dominant 2011. I was pleasantly surprised to learn this week that we accomplished seven of 10 of our 2010 goals at 9 Clouds and two of the three we didn’t accomplish didn’t apply anymore. I felt great about 7 for 8 but it was time to take the next step in 2011.

I’m still finalizing my 2011 goals (and will post them here because the best way to be accountable for something is to announce it publicly) but I’ll let you in on one of the goals now. I need to read more. I enjoy reading, it gets my idea wheels turning, and it makes me really hungry to work hard and get products to release date. However, I struggle at making reading a priority. Sure, I get around to my favorite blogs, but I’m talking about high quality, book reading. My goal is to simply read 12 books in 2011, one per month. For you reading All-Stars this seems like a feeble goal but I know I can accomplish it and I’m hoping at the end of 2011 I’ll end up somewhere around 18-20 books.

I’ll make sure to share what I’m reading and my reviews here but I’d love to hear what you’re reading and what you recommend. Let’s be bookworms in 2011!

WRITE:

I’m going to encourage you all to spend these final days of 2010 to WRITE DOWN your goals. Whether it be in a Moleskine by the side of your bed or on a note in your iPad, but make sure they’re documented and if you have someone you trust or are willing, share it with them too. Make a commitment to the things you want to accomplish in 2011 and tell other people that you’re going to do it. I believe we sell ourselves short as human beings and become too distracted and busy in this high-paced society we live in and begin to drift off course. Your 2011 goals will not only serve as a roadmap to keep you focused over the next 12 months, but will also be a declaration of intent that will allow you to say NO or turn down opportunities or offers that don’t fit within your personal mission. Saying NO is one of the hardest things to do (right Scott?) but it’s good to have the reason to say no behind you!

In the writing category my goal is to write 104 blog posts in 2011 (that’s two a week). This is my commitment to my blog, to my ideas, and to my audience. Consistency and quality is important to blogging and I know I can deliver both.

What and where do you enjoy writing? Whether on a public blog or a personal journal find a place for your thoughts and write them down. If anything, this document will serve as a great self-preservation piece and you can look back and laugh at your silly young self.

WATCH:

Have you ever heard of TED talks? TED is an organization that hosts events around the world with incredible thought leaders sharing their ideas in 10-20 minute talks. My favorite iPad app I downloaded is the TED app. I try to make a point to watch a TED talk every morning that serves as both enlightenment but even more so as inspiration. Sometimes the topics are quite random and I learn about organic farming, sometime they are highly technical and fit to my field of social marketing, but either way I love them all.

I’d recommend finding YOUR resources of enlightenment and inspiration for the new year and use it as your well to drink from. Whenever you need that boost go back and drink. Two talks that I’d recommend watching at the end of the year are Simon Sinek’s “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” and Jason Fried’s “Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work.”

With watching video in 2011 I hope to learn about every day in history for the entire 2011 calendar year. I recently announced a new project called That Was Today which will officially begin this Saturday on New Year’s Day. The concept is a daily video blog which asks YOU (the crowd) to share the his/herstory of that day in history. People will be sharing their viewpoint’s on that day in both a historical and personal context. The goal is to have different people each day of the year, so check out the website (http://thatwastoday.com) and claim your day in 2011.

So there’s a bit of what’s been on my mind this week as I prepare for 2011. I realized that this week may be my favorite work week of the year. After the Christmas madness and before the New Year’s holiday people shut down and things go quiet. The phone and email inbox have been relatively silent and it offers a calm before the storm to prepare for what’s next.

A good mentor of mine sent out an email this week that stated, “The new year begins 10 minutes after Christmas morning.” That may be a bit extreme, but the point is to use this week to propel you for an even more successful and enjoyable year. You have an idea of what I’m preparing for and hopefully you’re ready as well. I’m excited to follow along with everyone’s great accomplishments in 2011.

This piece is part of the content received from John’s Letter.ly VIP Ideas Newsletter. If you want to subscribe for $2.99 a month click here.

What I Learned This Year – INFOGRAPHIC

johntmeyer — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:00:23 +0000

I stumbled upon this great infographic from Minneapolis ad agency, Colle + McVoy, about what this individual (Mike Calguin) learned in 2010. The graphic does a great job of making some simple, yet direct statements in a visually pleasing way. Enjoy!

This Idea is: HOT

Lessons Learned on Branding

johntmeyer — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:00:51 +0000

The best gift I received this Christmas was purchasing the domain 9clouds.com. After wishing we had the domain since the day my brother and I started 9 Clouds, we finally had a chance and pounced on the auction winning the domain at a surprisingly low bid of $305.00.

John discusses his lessons learned through this domain experience and whether or not he would do things differently next time.

Facebook Adds Feed Filtering

johntmeyer — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:46:14 +0000

Today Facebook starting rolling our filtering options to your news feed. A couple initial thoughts.

Great for Users - This will be a much welcomed feature for Facebook users. Now you can decided what you want to view in your news feed as opposed to the old options of Top News (which was determined by Facebook’s algorithm for you) or Recent News (which was simply based on timeline). The option to view just photos, only links, only posts from pages, or even a specific group of friends is great. Not only will this make Facebook more enjoyable, but also more manageable.

Good or Bad for Brands? - For brands and marketers like myself this is a bit of a double-edge sword. My initial thought is users will want to filter out the brands they “like” and ignore their status updates. On the other hand, if a user is filtering only links, only photos, or only videos your brand may be able to get in front of the users easier. If you’re running an effective Facebook page with engaging content the feed filtering may give you a higher chance of being seen.

This all comes down to how users will take advantage of the filtering options. Many users will probably keep their filtering options as status quo. What will you do?

Before we make a final conclusion we’ll have to wait and see if this feature even remains. Filtering is currently not turned on for everyone on Facebook and Mashable admits that it could be that Facebook is merely testing the feature.

In the end, if this features sticks it is better for the users and thus it is a HOT IDEA.

This Idea Is: HOT

Launch of ThatWasToday.com

johntmeyer — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:57:35 +0000

Today is a big day as I’m launching a new idea of my own called That Was Today. That Was Today is a daily video blog that asks YOU to tell the his/herstory of that day.

This idea is a rare exception to my ACT NOW rule of ideas. I started fiddling with and sharing this idea back in October of 2009 and now 14 months later there is actual product. You make think failure right? But this idea really needed the time and now it is at a place where I’m excited to launch.

This Idea Is: Hot