danny brown

Help Me Choose a Name?

Beginning on Sunday January 30, I’ll be running an ongoing series on the blog that answers a new question each week from you, the readers. It might be on strategy; marketing; building loyalty; business; blogging; social media; and more.

Originally I was going to call it Sunday School, since it’ll be posted on a Sunday and it will have an educational slant (yeah, I know, not very original).

But then I was thinking some folks might think it’s a religious thing, and I wouldn’t want to confuse or upset anyone. So… any ideas?

Leave your suggestion(s) in the comments below. My favourite will be the name of the series, and will get a special little something mailed out to them.

Thanks, guys, and look forward to seeing your suggestions!

Update: Thanks to Phil McDonnell and his suggestion – the name for the new series will be Sunday Brunch – details here.

Why You Won’t Like This Blog

I had a few emails (and 14 unsubscriptions) after this blog post I wrote yesterday. The emails I received expressed the sender’s dislike of the post, saying that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. I’m guessing the unsubscribes shared that view.

That’s fair enough. Opinion pieces often do that – some will agree, some will disagree, and some won’t care either way. And that’s all good, and how it should be – it’d be a pretty boring world if we all agreed on the same topics.

Whether the post was enough to make folks unsubscribe because of it, I don’t know. Personally, I think I’ve written far “worse” and much more opinionated posts here, but that’s by the by. Like I say, the choice is yours – I’m not forcing you to do anything, nor would I want to.

But it led me to thinking what this blog is about, and what type of readers it has. And that in turn led me to thinking of reasons why you wouldn’t like this blog, if you were a new visitor today.

So here’s the quick 15-second elevator pitch on why you won’t like this blog.

It’s often blunt and, while respecting reputations, isn’t afraid to challenge people and practices.
It’s not just about social media, but how that fits into the bigger picture.
There are sometimes cuss words.
It won’t tell you how to raise whatever influence score system you’d like to game.

I’m sure there are many more reasons not to like this blog (and feel free to drop them into the comments!), but these are the ones that I’ve had most feedback on over time.

If any of these aren’t your cup of tea, I fully understand you not visiting again – there are plenty of blogs out there that will meet your needs on any or all of the above.

If, however, you like honesty and an open approach to everything – where your voice is just as key as mine – then thanks for continuing to be here, and let’s keep challenging the way we think.

Cheers!

image: waferbaby

And We’re Live With the New Design

Hey there. So, notice anything different?

After what seems like a long journey (longer for some, eh, Lisa?), I’m really pleased to be able to unveil the new design here at DannyBrown.me. Built from scratch on the core WordPress platform, design has been handled by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics.

It’s a bit of a change for me, since it’s the first time I’ve used a fully customized design as opposed to building from a premium framework (I’ve used everything from Thesis to Headway to Genesis on here at some stage).

I have to say, I’m absolutely delighted with the makeover – I think Lisa has captured what this blog is all about perfectly, from the professional and business-like layout to the (hopefully) welcoming header and comments section.

The blog has always been about making you feel at home, but knowing that you’ll find business advice as well as personal stories of social media and marketing, and I think Lisa has got that perfectly.

It also means that, due to Lisa’s hard coding, I can delete a ton of plug-ins that will mean a faster load time on the blog. At the minute, it’s not completely optimized, due to some tables being left over from a previous theme and some conflicts within my WordPress database because of that, but my web hosts are on that and should have that resolved soon.

So, what’s some of the new stuff?

Home Page

You’ll see the funky new layout, with the featured post image rotator, as well as the drop shadow effects around the blog, the teaser boxes and the sidebar. You’ll also see a nice little speech bubble indicator for how many comments a post has received, and clicking that will take you straight to the comments.

Single Post

Underneath the single post, there’s now a social box, where you can subscribe to the blog for future updates, as well as share with your friends if you liked the post (Facebook Like and Twitter shares are still handled separately). There are also related posts that you can click through on, and the comments section has had a complete makeover. These replace Livefyre, and go back to vanilla WordPress comments with CommentLuv enabled. If I can get Livefyre coded the same, and it adds CommentLuv or similar, I’ve no doubt I’ll switch it back on.

Sidebar

If you look to the right of the blog, the sidebar has had a makeover too. There are different sidebars for different pages, so Work With Me will look different from single post will look different from Charities, and so on. I felt it made more sense to have complementary sidebars as opposed to a generic one all the way through.

Footer

I’m saying nothing except scroll down to the bottom of the blog and check that funky footer option out!

These are just some of the new features and design changes – there are some more, which I’ll let you find for yourself if you so desire. Suffice to say, I’m really excited about the new look, which Lisa has done a tremendous job on.

So tremendous, in fact, that Lisa is now officially the web design arm of Bonsai Interactive Marketing. We’ll be sharing more information soon, as well as a very special offer to celebrate Lisa becoming part of the Bonsai family (as well as the launch of this design), so stay tuned in the coming days!

Like I say, there are some minor tweaks to carry out, but that’s more from the remnants of previous designs and plug-ins in my WordPress database. That should be resolved in the next few days, and the full makeover will be complete.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Out With the Old…

… And in with the new, as the saying goes. Seems kinda apt for some of the changes coming this way in 2011, at least as far as this blog is concerned.

In the next few days, I’ll be putting the new design live on here. Built from the core WordPress platform, it’s the first time I haven’t used any premium theme framework and instead gone for a custom design. The makeover is being handled by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics in L.A., and having seen what she’s done in the development area, I’m really excited to unleash it, so to speak.

The new design is just part of the makeover, though.

A couple of months ago, I launched For Bloggers By Bloggers as part of Bonsai Interactive Marketing’s online projects. The aim – to (hopefully) offer some of the best blogging tips around for bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Since launch, the site has continued to grow – from subscribers to unique visitors and Alexa ranking. That’s in no small part to the awesome bloggers that have been kind enough to join me and make up our core author team.

Because of the focus of For Bloggers By Bloggers, it means that any blogging-related posts will be appearing on there from now on. I’ll still cross-post the odd one or two here, but For Bloggers By Bloggers will see them first. If you’re interested in learning more about growing your blog and everything around it, feel free to check us out.

There are some more collaborative projects on the way from Bonsai Interactive, one of which we’re really excited to bring you, especially with the people that we have involved in it. My business partner Troy Claus will be heading this project up, and we’re looking to launch it in early 2011 – if you’re a small business owner, it promises to be something you’ll definitely want to keep your eyes open for.

As for this blog, I’ll be concentrating more on you – your use of social media, how you can use it in your marketing, your customer service, your employee culture and more. But at the same time, it won’t use the term “social media” all that much – it’s simply a toolset and/or mindset, depending on your take, and as such we’ll talk about the tools and the mindset needed around them. Think organizational development and you’ll get the idea.

Then there’s also a little thing called 12for12k relaunching and producing a global charity event for the latter half of next year…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog so far. It’s been a great experience getting to know you and reading your viewpoints in the comments. You’ve made me think about some of my points of view, and how we can all work together to both ask and answer questions.

I hope you’ll continue to do so in 2011, and feel free to use the subscribe options in the right sidebar to keep up-to-date with everything that’s happening next year and beyond.

Cheers!

Digital Storytellers: My TEDx Ottawa Presentation

Last month, I was incredibly honoured to speak at TEDx Ottawa. The shared ideas that came out on the day from the other speakers and the attendees was nothing short of amazing.

My presentation was entitled Digital Storytellers: What We Can Learn from George Lucas, and looked at how technology can enhance our lives as long as we remember the human connections around it. I was delighted to have local teenager Graeme Stewart share his story through music as well.

You can see the other talks over at the TEDx Ottawa YouTube channel. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Digital Storytellers and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the presentation topic in the comments below.

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