Sometimes tweeting about a good read isn’t enough for me. Like a friend who keeps telling you the same story whenever she’s had a few too many, I need to share these posts with you just one more time.
I loved this post by Mike Kammerling at the Lateral Action blog, How to Grow Your Imagination in Secret. “We have all had the experience of taking our mind off a problem only to have the solution come to us like manna from heaven.” Mike shares ideas about how to encourage the cherished creative impulse that usually visits us in the shower or while chopping vegetables. Read the comments too; they’re full of good ideas.
Storytelling has been a leadership topic for quite some time but I must admit I never gave it much thought, thinking it a bunch of woo-woo. I based that misperception on a bad conference session on storytelling that I suffered through long ago. After that I never investigated it further, until last week. Sometimes the universe throws an idea at you so hard, you have to sit up and pay it attention. Like the morning Kiki L’Italien tweeted about a post by Steve Denning, Storytelling is a Revolutionary Force for Change. Then a post by Shelly Alcorn appeared in my Reader, What Associations Can Learn from the Reinvention Summit 2010. That sent me over to the Reinvention Summit, “a virtual summit on the future of storytelling.” My eyes and mind are wide open now – chewing, digesting and thinking.
That was your brain candy, now it’s time to focus on blogging. Dan Zarrella from HubSpot gave me a minor sense of vindication when I read When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts on Problogger.
“…while major news sites and blogs publish articles during the work week, articles that are published on Saturday and Sunday tend to be shared on Facebook more than those published during the week. Perhaps one reason for this is that (as Wired reported), more than 50% of American companies block Facebook at work.”
A few weeks ago I wrote about my wish that more people and organizations published Facebook updates and blog posts during the weekend – the time I read the most. A few days later in a Copyblogger post about how to get more comments, Dan wrote, “While articles published during the week generally tend to get more views, articles published on the weekends get far more comments.” I’m not completely out-of-step; weekend publishing does make sense.
Heidi Cohen has a helpful post at the Content Marketing Institute — How to Organize Your Blog Team (Hint: It’s NOT Just Marketing!). She describes her post as a “great checklist to ensure that you’ve covered all of the bases in terms of getting everyone on board for your company or group blog.” If you have a small staff, don’t freak out. This post will give you ideas about what to consider as you create your blogging strategy. Many of these tasks can be performed by one person aided by a small team of colleagues and/or freelancers. It is doable.
I lived in the Washington DC area during the Mapplethorpe debacle at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I had hoped that lessons were learned and art lovers in DC wouldn’t fall victim again to that kind of close-mindedness and fear. Wishful thinking. Over the weekend I read about the ridiculous ejection of a video from the Hide/Seek exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I particularly liked these two articles because of their thoughtful discussion of the exhibition and censorship.
- What Else Is In the National Portrait Gallery’s “Offensive” Gay Show? by Jessica Roake at The Awl
- Congressional Curators at The Economist
I spent a few years as a volunteer at the National Gallery of Art. You’d be surprised at the variety of art subjects that offend people; believe me, I listened to all kinds of complaints. We all have the freedom to view or not view particular pieces of art. No one’s forcing it on us; leave the room if you don’t like it, but don’t deprive others. Just because you don’t like something, don’t understand it or don’t agree with it, doesn’t give you the right to impose your beliefs on others. That’s the beauty of our country, or so I thought.
Association Brain Food 
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