The weekend read

I've been in London this week, giving the closing keynote at the International Speechwriters Conference yesterday, but still had time to share some great ideas, news, leads and reads on Twitter--and to meet some tweeps from the EU and the UK. Grab the Great Britain edition of the weekend read right here:

• Was that the Queen's English? Google Translate for Android just got 16 new languages and supports personal phrasebooks.
• Cashpoint, indeed: In London, mobile payments are a regular staple in restaurants and other businesses, but U.S. sellers and conference organizers might need this rundown of 14 ways to accept mobile payments.
• The Court of St. Google? John Kerry became the first U.S. secretary of state to hold a Google+ Hangout.
• Bloody tourists: It's not that Facebook users in the U.S. aren't coming to the site. They've just moved and become more mobile-centric.
• Tips from the newsagent: Ripped from the pages of The Guardian are these tips on public speaking for academics, crowdsourced during a live chat.
• Let's put Scotland Yard on it: Brands have been flocking to the hottest picture sharing app. Now it can be told: What brands are really doing on Instagram.
• It's pronounced SHED-you-ull: Schemes is an Android app that goes beyond scheduling texts to let you schedule tweets, Gmail and Facebook posts as well.
• You don't say: You've given up annual reports, perhaps, but here's why you should write an annual failure report.

Royally good jobs for communicators: World Wildlife Fund is looking for two senior communications specialists, here and here...the University of Nebraska wants a director of marketing and communications....the Salk Institute for Biological Studies needs a senior director of communications...Elmira, NY-based Farm Sanctuary seeks a senior director of communications.

You've got two weeks to sign up for my popular workshop, Be an Expert on Working with Experts, perfect for communicators who work with smart people. But don't delay: Seats are filling. Will I see you there?

London treated me royally, just the way you do by stopping here every Friday. Cheers and a good weekend to you!

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5 updates on photos, visuals in social media: Trends and tactics

In a world where the New York Times has already published an Instagram photo on its front page and Pinterest grew into the third-biggest social network in just a couple of years, there's no denying the strength of photos as a social-media trend. Whether you take photos, use them for your blogs and social sites, or share the ones you see, you'll want to keep an eye on these recent trends and tactics:

• Pew's 2012 study on how photos and videos are used as social currency is a smart first stop if you need to better understand your audience and how it uses photos online. Here's the overall scope: "56% of internet users do at least one of the creating or curating activities we studied and 32% of internet users do both creating and curating activities." The survey looks at Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram use.
• Can this strong visual trend be monetized? You know something's strong in social media when this question arises. This post cites a recent HubSpot study showing that on Facebook pages, photo posts generate 53% more Likes and 104% more comments than average posts.
• You can put more in your Facebook page cover photo, including a non-linked URL. Find out 6 ways to take advantage of the new photo options.
• How to stop people from swiping your online photos looks at pending legislation in the UK that has some photo owners concerned. You'll find out why you should embed ownership information in your photos now, before laws and terms of service change. Sharing others' photos? Here's how to make sure you're legally sharing online photos.
• Your LinkedIn profile now lets you add photos and video to show off your skills. You don't have to be a photographer or filmmaker to use this option: Think screen grabs, shots of yourself speaking and presenting and more.

How are you using photos online?

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Communicators, what advice would you give to your younger self?

This Fast Company roundup of advice from tech entrepreneurs to their younger selves and this great Truth for Our Daughters on Harvard Business Review's blog made me wonder about you, communicators: If you could sit your younger self down now, what advice would you dish out?

I hear all sorts of communicators say they wish they'd worked harder, or not so hard...learned to nail a presentation or speech sooner...started that freelance business before they had a mortgage and a family to support...or realized sooner that they just didn't like what they were doing before it became their specialty. But you don't need to confine yourself to the regrets column. Perhaps you learned to trust yourself early or got somewhere advantageous because you learned to love risk. Maybe you learned you loved doing the thing you dreaded most.

Share your insights--small and personal, big and magical and everything in between--in the comments, or on Google+, or the Facebook page for don't get caught, or to @dontgetcaught on Twitter, and I'll compile them for all to share. Advise away...

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The weekend read

Have you hit the brick wall that is this week yet? Let me cushion the blow: The weekend's almost here and I've got all sorts of great finds I shared on Twitter this week that will help you sail over that wall and get to the weekend faster (and smarter):

• Shared wall: Feedly has asked users about sharing reads with others, a much-beloved feature that got cut out of Google Reader some time ago. (Hint: You're not the only one who misses it.) David Pogue runs down the Feedly v. Google Reader comparisons here.
• Bring your own bricks: Get used to bring-your-own-device policies instead of the office-bought iPad. A survey says the BYO policy will be more common by 2016.
• Writing on the wall: Learn how to put subtitles on your digital movies.
• Wall of fame: First, they put an Instagram photo on the front page. Now, a GIF. That New York Times! And for the data nerds, here's a look at how the NYT did its interactive tools during the Olympics.
• Great wall of notebooks: Evernote has 4 million users in China.
• Walk through walls: Despite all the griping over Google Glass, you'll like this physics instructor's tour of CERN using the device. Want to further get nerdy about Glass? Read this multi-part review of all the Google Glass apps, software and hardware, a little slice of nerd-vana. With photos. There goes Friday...
• Pinned against the wall: See the most popular brand boards on Pinterest.
• Just another brick in the wall: With marketing creeping up on serendipity, has social media lost its way?
• BrickedIn: WiseBread has 9 LinkedIn changes every job hunter should make, and some other redhead takes a profane look at LinkedIn endorsements (spoiler: she hates 'em) and how to get rid of them.
• Wall of sound: NPR got a new mobile site (this trend's going around) and why scrolling's a big part of it.
• Pay wall: YouTube's setting up paid subscriptions for some channels. Here's the official rundown from Google. For those of us with Internet-capable teevees, meet your newest alternative to cable teevee.
• Tear down that wall: Before you embark on your next project, research yourself first.

No walls between you and these communications jobs: Twitter wants a director of news and journalism...the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities seeks a vice president for public affairs...Amtrak needs a chief of corporate communications...St. Martin's Press is looking for a senior publicist for non-fiction.

Deadline wall: You've got just under a week to grab the discounted registration rate for Be an Expert on Working with Experts, my popular one-day workshop for communicators who work with smart folks. The workshop is June 13, and registration stays open till May 31 or when all seats are filled. But that nifty discount goes away after May 16. Are you in?

Next week, I'm in London to keynote the International Speechwriters Conference, but there's no wall high enough to keep me away from you, right here, so you'll get a global weekend read next week. Enjoy your weekend!

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Where do you put out your welcome mat for comments? Trends & issues

Comments have long put the "social" into social media, but for many blogs and websites, they've become more curse than blessing. Are you still putting out the welcome mat for commenters? And if so, which social media door gets the welcome mat?

I've struggled with this myself, tiring of rampant spam and occasional trolls. Should I shut down commenting altogether on the blogs, as high-profile bloggers like Seth Godin have done? That's one option, and makes maintaining the blogs easier. Less simple is the path the New York Times has taken: At the Times, moderators decide which articles will have commenting open and which will remain closed. That keeps many articles from being overtaken by partisans duking it out in the comments, or as the Times puts it, "Our goal is to have every NYT comment thread offer tangible added value to each article for our readership."

The plus side of comments
When they work well, comments have long served, for me, as a great source of blog post ideas and even a boost to my search results (and if you don't know how to leverage blog comments for better search rank, you should). There's nothing as authentic as content that comes right from your best readers, whether it's a question, a useful tip, or a comment that expands on your thinking. Take it from no less a writer than The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose writing won a National Magazine Award, prompting him to throw a nod to his commenters, dubbed "The Horde," for sharing tips and leads and fixes and helping to improve his writings.

Threading as a trend
Threaded comments are becoming more prevalent, an effort "to serve the people reading the comments, rather than the people writing them," as this article on how Gawker's reforming its comment threads puts it. In this scenario, the most recent or most frequent commenter isn't rewarded with the top spot or the chance to dominate the feed. Facebook's also in on this trend, rolling out ranked, threaded comments for pages with more than 10,000 fans or celebrity profiles.

Importing comments
But what if your blog or website's part of a different trend, the one in which comments stop arriving because your followers are sharing your posts and commenting on social networks? Google's working on a way to have your comments everywhere, making it possible to bring Google+ comments to your Blogger blog (or use this workaround to embed Google+ comments on any blog or website). Here's what that looks like:

The upgraded commenting system preserves the existing comments, but the future comments require a Google+ account. That means, visitors can no longer post comments anonymously, using an OpenID account or using a Google account that hasn't been upgraded to Google+. When posting a comment, visitors can also share it on Google+. The new commenting system doesn't just show the comments posted on Blogger, it also shows all the Google+ messages that link to the post and their comments.

Plug-ins on WordPress make it possible to import Facebook or Twitter comments into your blog posts, too--an easy way to have your comments where the commenters are most comfortable posting them, and on your blog or website. But do the commenters know you're importing their comments? wonders Librarian by Day blogger Bobbi Newman:

What I’m struggling with is first is it ok? Do people realize the comments they are making elsewhere are being imported to a blog? That what they see as a passing Twitter comment becomes more permanent? It is even less obvious on mobile devices that your Facebook comment is being posted elsewhere.

Newman also questions the aesthetics of using imported comments, worth considering before you take the plunge.

Have you struggled with these (or other issues) on comments? What's your comments policy? You know where to tell me about that, right?

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9 guides for communicators who work with big-ego experts

Communicators who work with experts eventually run into the big-ego expert--the one who's all too aware of his importance and wanting to be sure you are, too. I had a boss who used to refer to them as people who were "reading their own press releases and believing them," and I call them the ones I have to pull away from the microphone.

No matter what you say about  them, the big-ego expert's a real challenge for communicators. Often, it's that ego that reporters notice when they're dealing with your difficult expert, and big egos are sometimes behind the behavior of experts who blow off media interviews and other opportunities. An egotist's expectation that you'll be lining up those promotional opportunities creates a demand that sometimes means other, less pushy, experts get less attention.

What's a professional communicator to do? For now, I say: Retreat to the bookshelf to get smart about that ego. I've worked with my share of big egos, and have found it takes extra help to develop the non-anxious and effective methods you'll need to handle those hotheads and microphone-grabbers. Here are eight useful references you should consult--and share with your team--so you can get better at handling big egos, even if only in self-defense:

1. Why Is It Always About You? looks at the narcissist and, more importantly, how you can set boundaries to keep one from running right over you. A short, good read.
2. The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't is worth reading and then passing on to your manager. The first chapter alone documents the cost of maintaining a corporate culture with a**holes in it. For communicators, a good internal discussion could revolve around how and whether you'll tolerate these characters among the experts you're promoting, and how your team will handle those situations. The book will tell you the cost to organizations that don't have this conversation--and it's high.
3. Type Talk at Work (Revised): How the 16 Personality Types Determine Your Success on the Job will help you learn how to deal with experts of all types, although you'll find most of them type under ISTJ. Use the book to learn how to deal with them effectively. It may not be ego you're running up against, just their personality preferences.
4. Introduction to Type: A Guide to Understanding Your Results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator gets you even deeper into personality types. Be sure to read the "in times of deep stress" portion of the profiles to see how your experts might behave when you push them outside their boxes.
5. The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No is a great negotiation tool for communicators who need to say no to important experts and still preserve a relationship.
6. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most helps you get to the meat of the matter in thoughtful and careful ways.
7. Tangling with Tyrants: Managing the Balance of Power at Work is recommended by some of my readers, focusing more the the boss as bully. It's a Kindle book, and Amazon Prime members can borrow it for free in Kindle ebook format.
8. Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others is a guide communicators can read first, then hand off to the coders they work with. The book recommends adopting the "servant leader" approach and advises smart coders to "lose the ego." There's even a useful chapter on "Working with Poisonous People" that might come in handy for you.
9. Assholes: A Theory was suggested to me by a communicator who attended my recent presentation on 10 things communicators don't know about experts and vice versa. I love getting leads like this one; this audience member shared a picture of the book on her cellphone, so I'd remember the title. More of a think piece than a survival guide, this one has insights you'll appreciate if big egos are part of your work life.

Big-ego experts are always on the agenda at my workshop, Be an Expert on Working with Experts. Seats are already filling for the June 13 session in Washington, DC, and there's a substantial discount if you register by May 16, although all registration will stay open until May 31 or all the slots are taken, whichever comes first. One university communicator, after the last workshop, said, "If you ever have the opportunity to take a workshop with @dontgetcaught, do it! Best training I've ever had. Informative and eye-opening."  I hope you can join me for this session in June.

This post updates and expands one I published in 2012

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