LinkedIN Myspace : A New Era in Communications

It took my friend Christina about eight emails before I finally gave in and signed up. I had not idea why this "myspace" and "facebook" and "linkedin" were so the rage. Perhaps it's because I'm already on communication-overload and this just adds to it, but looking back it HAS reunited me with many and connected me with many more. Times they-are-a-changing for sure!

Who's IN?






MySpace Page

Best Books

Last week I sold one of my plasma TVs as it was never watched but merely a temptation to put down my books to watch something mindless. Granted, the TV stood on a bookshelf that hosted a handful (okay, 50-60) of my favorite books.... and now the shelf is being used elsewhere. With a pile of books all over my floor now and a new shipment in from Amazon last week, I've been inspired to update my "Best Book" list online. (I'll update periodically so feel free to bookmark)

Here ya go...




***CLICK HERE TO SEE MY BOOK LIST***

August BBC - Day 1

It's the end of a long 12-hour boot camp day and we just got home
from a lovely dinner after a full day of discussing goals, vision,
numbers, and lots of other biz stuff. It's a difficult day because
the number part is mind-boggling and we're all exhausted by the end
of it and have "homework" at night.

The group here is awesome. Here's a shot Kevin Swan shot of us during
our "wine and cheese" break before dinner.

Kimberly, Nicole Kent, Sara Harper, me and KT Merry. We'll have to
get some with Kevin tomorrow...

Shoot for the Moon

Just a quick reminder why we should never stop at creating big goals for ourselves. We should take it a step further and make Big Hairy Audacious Goals!! (BHAGs!) After all...

Any Day Now...

...we'll be unveiling the BananasEDU site. We have a crazy week coming up with a PhotoBizBootCamp here in Atanta this Tuesday - Thursday, then a bunch of shoots on Friday.





The Crazy Simple Workflow will be in duplication starting this week so pre-sales will start soon ;)

KISS your Ads

If you've taken a biz class you've probably heard the importance of "KISS" before: Keep It Simple, S____ (fill in the blank)

I'm not an advocate of traditional advertising but there are a FEW - VERY FEW - exceptions I make. I don't want to go too much into this controversy right here and now because it's a long discussion.... and I could talk forever on it...

... but an exception presented itself and today we were charged with designing an ad to send to the publication ASAP.

The thing is, there's a lot of clutter out there already. The "enemy" is no longer the competition - it's the clutter! So how to combat this clutter? KISS!!! The simpler, the better. It's not an easy thing to do though. Being a visual artist.... it's easy to want to clutter my ad with lots of photos and text and graphics. It's so much easier to pick a few favorite photos and slap them up there with a logo and call it an ad.

So I opted for a more daring approach - strip it bare. Simplify. Completely simplify. Advertise my photography without showing a single photo.

I dare you to apply this principal to your next ad, marketing peice, or even something less visual in nature. Think about what your goal is too! For me, it's to spark intrigue; present my business as timeless, classic, fresh; give them a glimpse of my vision; and ultimately get them to go to my web site.

In the essence of KISSing, I'll close with this:

Crazy Simple Workflow

Without further delay...

We finally are ready to share a little bit about a project we've been working on for the past few months. One of the most expensive things about wedding photography is the time it takes us to process the images and get them to the client. As professional photographers these are just a few of the many decisions we face:

- How to organize files?
- How to back up files to ensure they are secure?
- How to view images?
- How to take the best photos straight out of the camera?
- Should we show a slideshow on-location or online and how should we do that?
- How to spend less time in front of the computer and more time doing what we love - shooting pics!?
- How to get images and products to clients as soon as possible with top quality?
- What software to use and how to use it?
- What shortcuts and templates and tricks will help us use the software better?

All I knew is that There Has GOT To Be A Better Way! So we tested, experimented, researched, designed, and incorporated basic business smarts to our workflow. It's about working smarter, not harder; taking better photos straight out of the camera; starting with an end in mind; and Keeping It Simple.

Watch the video for a quick peak:



The awesome thing is we also added a quick shooting lesson as well and it shows all the key things you need to know about lightroom so the DVD lesson ended up being two hours instead of one. We've got our production time (including blogging, slideshows, AND albums) down to record times ...so that clients can see everything in as short as hours!

I think the DVD ("Liana's Crazy Simple Workflow") will be out in the next week or two with pre-sales starting this weekend. Hop over to BananasEDU.com to sign up for the update and site debut :)

Fighting Writersblock

... (continued from below)... So how to beat this Procrastination and Perfection problem? The answers, as usual, did not come from me.

Before my re-emergence into full time photography, I was charged with being a voice within corporate America... namely a big four accounting firm. To say I was in over my head was an understatement. My poor boss had to repeatedly correct my on my technical mistakes in particular... let's just say "hooked on foniks didn't werk for mee!" I was sent to training like all the others except this training was special... it was with the company known for being the leaders in communications training. I still look back and know their workshop was one of the most valuable ones I've attended... if even for this advice alone....




It was the president of the company, Mark Ragan, that solved my problem. He didn't believe in writersblock.... only in a) not having enough information and/or b) trying to be perfect the first time around and never getting anything down on paper because of it.

Thus, the solution is simple...
a) brainstorm and gather additional information. Let the ideas flow freely... do not dismiss an idea until you've dumped everything out on paper. Make google your friend. Seek advice, input, facts, and examples from others. That should solved the lack-of-information problem.

b) then ... in Mark's words... "Write Cra*!" Yep, he says the best way to fight the perfection problem is to try to write garbage... something not perfect... something you'd never think of showing another living, breathing organism. Some people call this "free writing." The thing about this is you have to keep writing until the whole story is on paper... THEN, and only then do you go back and edit, edit, edit. You have to have a chunk of clay before you can sculpt it into something beautiful or worthwhile.

Over the years, I've seen that this concept work in other areas as well. If it's taking forever to get an album design complete, we simply let go of perfection and finish it. It's the editing process that will bring it to it's perfect form... and that comes with the help of many others including the client.

I bet there's some piece of work (ahhem... like all the original bios missing from websites) that's been neglected because you can't find the words or inspiration... I dare you to try Mark's method. Try gathering more information, write cra*, then edit, edit, edit. I dare say that even if it's far from perfection the world will be a better place because of it ... because it's REAL.

But that's a whole other topic....

Perfection Leads to Procrastination

I have this problem. It starts with a capital "P."

I *love* to Procrastinate. I also love to do things right and do the best possible job ... or not do it at all. Yes, sometimes I'm guilty of being a Perfectionist. For months, the emails, notes, scribbles, articles, quotes, inspirations, facts, stories, reviews, and recaps have been piling up on my desk, kitchen table, filing cabinet, inbox, and finally in a so-called-designated-email-folder-titled-"blogstuff."

This new shiny blog has been prepped and tested. It still has a few tweaks but is functional and awaiting my use. But now I don't know where to start. If I had posted about the aforementioned "blogstuff" when I was going through it, it would have been so much easier. Now it's difficult. What to do?

"Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow."

LOL. That one cracks me up. I'm pretty sure it belongs on one of those Demotivator posters that I discovered when working in corporate America. A group of us spent an entire lunch hour one day laughing at all of these until we were crying, all the while contemplating which ones to gift to each other.



Well... it would be more PERFECT to talk about how to solve this "P" problem in another post... perhaps I'll procrastinate until tomorrow on this one....

In the meantime, I'm going to know that sometimes giving up on perfection is necessary - in all areas of life. Otherwise, I might not press the "publish" button just yet...