Plus I wanted to throw in the tweets from the Productivity & Communication course by Lisa Hone:

• 3 hrs of day is full of interruptions. 80% of those are little value to no value.
• The average person gets interrupted every 8 minutes
• SMART way to set goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.
• Goal setting is critical to personal productivity
• simplify your life: 1. Pay someone else to do it
• Our brains aren’t actually set up for multitasking.
• Time is what we want most, but what we use worst (William Penn)
• We all have the same 24 hours… how do you *choose* to use yours?
• “Know when good is enough.”
• When you are sinking from overwhelm, take a breath, make a list, and prioritize
• make use of applications that automate tasks for you!
• LeechBlock Firefox add on to keep my productivity up
• 3 P’s of Personal Goals: Positive-(phrasing); Personal; Possible (within our control).
• Productivity is the result of commitment to excellence, intelligent planning & focused effort.
• Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. Word for Productivity
• One reason we procrastinate – fear of failure or success
• Balancing blog and family…always tricky, but so worth it. We’ll never regret quality time w/family, but will regret lost time
• Balancing blog and family: 1) Set and stick to work hours 2) have a blog buddy keep you accountable Use leech block.
• Office space Feng Shui! http://bit.ly/bkyywP
• To-do lists are awesome for productivity. Just be sure “play” is on there somewhere.
• The average person speaks 16,000 words a day. That’s a 300 page book every week. That’s how much we communicate
• 55% of communication is body language. Good thing we’re behind our computer screens.
• Sharing common ground is key
• Consider from readers point: do you care? Do you help? Can I trust?
• Book recommendation: John Maxwell’s Everyone Communicates, Few Connect

I hope you enjoyed yesterdays post regarding the photography information I gathered from twitter following the #sbsummit hash-tag. If you weren’t able to attend the summit via twitter or in person I wanted to share with you the things I learned. You can find the whole transcript of tweets here.

I was SO jealous of all the attendees and have already decided to find a sponsor for next years summit. If you haven’t followed the Savvy Blogging group and you are a blogger you are really missing out – I have been following them since their inception earlier this year and have gained endless knowledge and connections to other bloggers.

I want to share everything I learned with all of you, so all week I will have parts of the twitter stream “highlights” during the summit.

Today I am highlighting the Strategic Planning/Vision course & the Blogging in the Media Course

• Consultants should identify problems and help bring any issues to surface for the organization.
• Make your info (posts) easy to share for others to share!
• PR people want to know the goals of your blog Place contact info easily.
• Stats not always that important ID our niche and that can be relevant to a brand who may work with you.
• Establish a Board of Directors as an advisor for your blog
• Ask a questions, then say you’ll put your answer in the comments.
• Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
• Purpose of annual strategic plan is to ensure you reach your desired results.
• You mission statement is about PURPOSE not PRODUCT Why do you exist?
• Checkout mindtools.com to help develop your mission statement.
• Series are good for all blogs. Pretend each post is like a chapter.
• Priorities + Authenticity + Core Values = Happy Successful Blogger
• Strategic planning is not an “aha” experience – series of small moves that when pieced together moves u in right direction
• Contests can increase traffic, but they don’t necessarily build community
• Develop a scorecard to track the key metrics and evaluate yourself and the business
• Your mission is why your blog exists. Expresses your core values, easy to understand.
• Vision, Mission, Strategy, Goals, Actions, Metrics
• Contact PR Companies for products you love Look at press releases to get PR info.
• “You ARE the disruptors You have the power” – Jesse Odell
• Loving what you do is key to being successful.

I am going to post another link this afternoon on CSS Code and Design Tips so be sure to stop back!

What you didn’t see me there? Of course you didn’t, because I did the next best thing and attended via everyone else! Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE Twitter! I spent my weekend on twitter following the #sbsummit hashtag. If you weren’t able to attend the summit via twitter or in person I wanted to share with you the things I learned. You can find the whole transcript of tweets here. I was SO jealous of all the attendees and have already decided to find a sponsor for next years summit. If you haven’t followed the Savvy Blogging group and you are a blogger you are really missing out – I have been following them since their inception earlier this year and have gained endless knowledge and connections to other bloggers. I want to share everything I learned with all of you, so all week I will have parts of the twitter stream “highlights” during the summit. Today, I want to highlight the Photography session. It was taught by David Mejias

• When shooting food, get your shutter speed down and you may not even have to use a flash!
• Use a white board to reflect light and open up shadow.
• Aperture F-stop is like the human pupil. Opens more when dark, smaller when bright.
• Context. Deliberate. Everything in your frame is important . Is it part of your (picture) story?
• Mac Users, http://skitch.com/ is a FABULOUS (and free) way to resize, crop, and share photos.
• Use your flash even on a sunny day to help with shadows.
• Use clamp lights as an inexpensive light source for great photos.
• With photos, sometimes the concept supersedes the execution.
• Always save the original, work on a copy.
• Develop a point of view with your photos and make it a theme on your blog. (b/w, concept)
• Use all 4 sides of your photo and crop strategically!
• Crop creatively and purposefully.
• Be deliberate when taking pictures.
• The little things in the background of your photos makes people pay attention to the things that aren’t important.
• Pay attention to everything in the frame. It’s all important.
• Simplify your backgrounds when taking close up or food shots.
• Invest in an external flash and a tripod.
• Don’t be afraid to take risks, You’ll find what works and doesn’t.
• We see in 3D what we photograph in 2 D – learn to see what the camera sees.
• View your pictures through the lens of your camera.
• Move around a lot when you take pictures. Different angles make a difference.
• Photo should be about light, color and gesture.
• Photography is undervalued. Relevant pictures can help you connect to your audience and help you share your story.
• Because people don’t have a lot of time, photos in posts are important to communicating.
• Use pictures to share ideas and concepts with your readers.
• A relevant picture connects with your audience.

The next best thing to actually attending the conference is attending via Twitter!

Other Savvy Blogging Summit 2010 posts:

Strategic Planning and Blogging in the Media