Fiona Cullinan » digital

Photo School, Friday School and Social Media Group Therapy

Fiona Cullinan — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:24:01 +0000

This is obviously the Year of the School. Firstly, there’s my moveable cake-fuelled feast of learning, the Friday School, while over on the other office sofa, Pete has just launched Matt and Pete’s Photo School.

Photo School is a monthly ‘photo club’, that’s also designed to combine learning with fun. It is based in Birmingham and the idea is to learn more about your camera, the art of photography and how to improve your picture-taking skills both in and out of the classroom. It is all but sold out for the launch session this Sunday but there is more to come in March so book ahead to reserve your spot – here’s the flyer:

Busy Pete has been busy – he has also set up Social Media Group Therapy, which is a great format for sharing and solving problems. I’ll be assisting at the first two-hour therapy session, which will take place at Moseley Exchange on 6 March.

Also on the learning theme, both of us will be taking part on a panel at the University of Wolverhamption this week. Now that everyone is a publisher, we’ll be discussing the new world of publishing and social media jobs with students on the Creative and Professional Writing degree. Author and lecturer Candi Miller will be moderating.

Welcome to Friday school (or how I developed my own freelance training programme)

Fiona Cullinan — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:55:33 +0000

UPDATE: I’ve blogged a fuller version of this as a guest post on Firehead.net if you want to know more: How I teach myself digital skills using cake!

I have a reputation for getting stuff done. This is probably because I’m a lists person. At this point I want to recommend Workflowy as a ‘lists with benefits’ free app. Not only can you create lists and endless sublists, but you can tag the tasks by priority or date (using hashtags) and assign the work using the @name function. Best of all, you can share and collaborate on a list and export it for use with other programmes.

But enough of the glowing review. Above is my personal training list for January. This is part of my idea to set up my own personal Friday School.

Every Friday, for half a day, I take myself off to a café with wifi, treat myself to brunch, lunch or coffee and cake, and sit down to learn.

My list of stuff to learn for my work is long but here is the overview.

Clicking onto any of these titles then displays a breakdown of chapter titles, video presentations to watch, links to read, tutorials to view, etc. I estimate there is about a school year’s worth of work here.

To help cope with that and not give up at the first instance, I’ve tagged about four Fridays worth of work with the hashtag #january. Clicking on this brings up a much more manageable list and, as you can see, I’m nearly done. Anything that’s left over, I’ll just retag to #february so I don’t stress about not getting it all done to a deadline. I am trying to make my learning fun and not a pressure.

So what did I learn in January 2012?

The best part of the Google SEO guide. No snake oil just straightforward ways to make sure content is findable by readers.
How much corporate blogging overlaps with journalism skills.
Digital video content tricks to take my video efforts to the next level.
Storytelling techniques from Hollywood.
And today I did my first bit of coding using Ruby, using a free ebook in progress called the Bastards Book of Ruby – an amazing free resource, written by a hack not a hacker, so very easy to follow.

Here is my first bit of coding – I has a proud, as you can see:

Uploaded with Skitch!

So, enough. Roll on #february – I finally have some web analytics training lined up, which I’ve been trying to get around to for 18 months now.

How do you learn your chops?

Cantal press trip blogged – and a travel request

Fiona Cullinan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:42:03 +0000

Just back from a week in the centre of France in a little known area called the Cantal. It may be “one of the most sparsely populated and geographically isolated French departments”, according to Wikipedia, but it does have one big claim in that the region encompasses Europe’s largest volcano. Snowshoeing a sleeping volcano seemed an irresistible storyline.

Cantal is 70km across and not a classical cone-shaped volcano but one which has been carved through millions of years of glacial activity which have shifted its lava stone into a series of mountains, valleys and plateaux.

Of course, Cantal also boasts much in the way of traditional ‘Frenchness’: an astonishing array of high-spec cheese, gourmet cuisine, glorious wines, chic boutique auberges and historic vintage. But I was there to cover my pitch: ‘Snowshoeing in the French volcanoes’. (France has volcanoes? Yes, albeit extinct ones.)

While I’m writing the feature for the Sunday Mercury in the Midlands, thanks to free wifi in all our accomms, I did get to do a considerable amount of blogging – which I’m using as trip notes and practice for creating multimedia content to tell the story of a press trip.

Foreign journalists are so rare (in winter) that we even found ourselves the subject of a feature for the local daily, La Montagne.

Anyways, as well as the video above, here is the series of text, photo and video-blogging posts I produced (including the rail trip there and back):

The journey’s the thing – video post covering the 11-hour rail journey from Brum to Clermont-Ferrand.
Bicephalous Clermont-Ferrand photowalk – a solo travel stopover and photowalk around ‘the Liverpool of France’, Clermont-Fd.
Journey into the Cantal, Auvergne mountains - short video showing the landscape on the way to Cantal. On the return journey from Vic-Sur-Cere, I discovered that the track rises up into the mountains after Murat – a far more scenic option if you’re booking a route.
Trip notes: Auberge d’Aijean, Cantal – notes on the accommodation while waiting for the press trip proper to start.
Snowshoeing Cantal: Europe’s biggest volcano - a video post featuring things I learnt about showshoeing and what happens when there has been no snow.
Le Lorian ski resort and Chez Lucy’s choc pud – I can’t ski but there was plenty to film on the pistes at the highest summit in the Cantal, including a mountain rescue.
A mountain refuge in the Cantal – no snowshoes but we still hiked half way up a mountain to reach Bernard’s hut. Video/photo post.
BBQ duck in a hut – I didn’t like duck until this method of cooking changed my mind. Photos, video and trip notes on a Finnish-style grill hut and campsite.
Fell in love with a dog at La Roussiere – photogenic animals in the Siniq Valley.
Around the Cantal in 10 dishes – French press trips serve up some awesome food. Overindulged – and suffered for it.
Gare de Lyon’s tropical garden – in surprise tourist news, there is an underground tropical rainforest garden alongside Metro line 14 platform (direction Olympiades).

There may be more posts to come, but I’d better get on and write the feature first.

Meanwhile here is my plea to do more of this kind of recording of stories for tourist boards, tour operators and other travel brands and conferences.

Travmedia launches new social network for travel trade

Fiona Cullinan — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:25:17 +0000

Travmedia, a press release and journalist alert service which connects journalists and PRs, has just made a very smart move (I hope) by launching a Facebook-style social network, that will facilitate many more travel trade connections and work opportunities, and make travel freelancers like myself more visible to travel editors.

‘My Network’ is a little clunky to use at first – a beta feedback option would be good for members so that they can improve the user experience. And there are currently some privacy issues – if you are a Travmedia member you should immediately update your default profile so that your full address doesn’t show, for example.

But I think this might be the first useful work-oriented network I’ve joined since Twitter, which has become a little noisy of late.

The success of ‘My Network’ may be dependent on whether others adopt its usage and how Travmedia develops the service. But it’s already been helpful to me in finding PRs for areas I want to cover, for reconnecting with friends I’ve met on press trips and for posting feature pitches and commissions.

We shall see how our relationship progresses after the first flush is over.

Dataviz first attempts

Fiona Cullinan — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:45:32 +0000

Having wrestled with a significant number of roadblocks for what is a fairly straightforward dataset, I am happy to announce the birth of my first data visualisation comparing 2011 figures for the percentage of women in the boardroom across a number of different countries. (Data source: Grant Thornton International Business Report). This is just a tester graphic, though. I now have to figure out how to show this over time, and with many more countries, and on a world map. *Gulp.*

Update: I have added in the rest of the 2011 data by country so that it can be represented on a world map. Can’t seem to customise the horrible brown colour though.

Now to try adding in extra maps to show the data in different years…

[Tum-te-tum.]

Less than 15 minutes later, the rest of the data is input and a graphic created which shows the state of play for senior women in business since 2004. You’ll have to click through to see this in action. Either click ‘All’ maps in the toolbar above the map, or select by year from the dropdown menu bottom left.

Phew. Logging off now and going to pub.

News from my blogs

Fiona Cullinan — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:06:29 +0000

Having different blogs for different subject areas means that I am a slave to them all. So if it’s quiet here on my central hub then it’s probably because I’m over on one of my other workday or spare-time blogs. As a quick roundup, here’s what I’ve been posting elsewhere of late:

31 Destinations in Time – because it’s not just about the place but the era in which you visit it. I’ve just posted number 11 in the series on Dumaguete City, capital of Negros Island, in the Philippines in 2007. The series also includes Bali, Iceland, Venice, Jordan, Slovenia, Paris, Gili Trawangan, Austin, Texas and San Francisco.

Subs’ Standards – lately in my sub-editing blog I’ve been picking up on a few funnies that have made it through to publication. I also published my first guest post – from multimedia journalist Andy Bull on the subs-friendly art of curation and live-blogging. I’m now thinking of asking other sub-editors to write about their experiences of digital subbing.

Debauched Teddies – rounding up bad teddy bears from around the world. There are LOTS.

Katchooo Mix – a scrapbook of stuff that is relevant to my interests.

Flickr news – fresh up are holiday pics from Llangollen canal and the Isle of Purbeck, plus shots from Mostly Jazz Festival weekender who kindly gave me a photo pass.

Grant Thornton Thinking blogs – I help write and edit four blog channels for Grant Thornton UK on/about: business leaders and entrepreneurs, the high net worth community, international markets and boardroom issues. Recently I’ve researched online business networks in China, live-curated the UK Budget and set up a Scoop.It for female finance directors. I’m lucky in that the firm’s online channels are open to exploring new ideas for business and financial content.

The Firehead blog – I’m also blog manager for this European content and comms recruitment company. They let me post LOLcats among the more serious business content. This makes me happy.

My digital switchover

Fiona Cullinan — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:53:50 +0000

I wasn’t going to post this but the above is what happens when a pun comment and some beery late night Photoshopping collide. All those TV reminders about the analogue-to-digital switchover in September must have also seeped into my brainz.

How many of the following can you spot in the picture: Robots (5), switches (3), iPhone, TV switchover logo, 8bit nerd, Twitter, multicoloured pixels, newspaper hat, newspaper, cat, magazine and me (twice)?

For the record I used to be a print journalist, now doing purely digital work. Hence the personal mashup of what is in my head now.

The reason I did post this in the end is because I realised afterwards that this IS, in fact, how I tend to learn my digital skills. I muck around with whatever software until I learn how to use it.

In this case, it was Photoshop, which I usually only use for prepping images for the web. Here I got to really delve around with cropping, polygonal lasso, transform, cut and paste, sharpen, rotate and a whole world of effects and settings under the filter menu. It was fun (if never-ending).

So welcome to another 1am production, featuring Creative Commons images from:

Anyone else out there do what I do?

Fiona Cullinan — Mon, 30 May 2011 23:54:58 +0000

The shift in publishing from print to digital has changed my production journalist job beyond all recognition – a transition I blogged about in last year in RIP Sub-editing. Now, instead of ‘journalist’, I answer blogger or web editor or content strategist or content creator or multimedia producer or social reporter or online quality controller – depending on the circumstances I find myself in, the people I am speaking to and what people are more likely to understand.

A memory: covering an FT conference for a client, I got chatting with a senior manager at BT Group who asked what I did. I replied that I was there to interview attendees and get their views for a video blog post – a video blogger. I’ll always remember his reaction: “Is that even a job?”

I’m happy to say that it is. I wasn’t insulted by his comment. I fully understand how fast reporting has changed and how big business has (in general) not kept up. In fact, his reaction wasn’t at all unusual and often people don’t understand the business model behind what I do. But the truth is, my work as a sub-editor and journalist for newspapers and magazines has now morphed into one of facilitator. I assuage the needs of clients, all of whom have become publishers, but most of whom do not have any training in basic publishing skills, production sensibilities or editorial judgment.

They need help. Simply put, I help them.

Another memory: a couple of years ago I was hired out as a freelance corporate blogger by my London agency. My boss said afterwards that my use to the client would be less as a blogger and more as a source of information.

I think that has come true: I am their contact ‘on the inside’ of the world of blogging and online communications. When people talk back to them on the blog, or when in-house experts write their first blog posts, I am a source of context, perspective, advice and training.

What has become interesting about this transition into some kind of digital facilitor is that the ‘hands’ person (blogger, web editor, etc) is also the ‘brains’ person (consultant, content strategist). Don’t get me started on rates for the job. I can see why people pitch themselves as just one thing or the other, even if the company ideally needs a combination of both. But it is because I am a ‘hands’ person that I can be a ‘brains’ person. I believe that to advise, you need to have the practical experience not just the theory.

‘Ask Fiona!’

Being the person who understands the online environment (as much as one ever can) means getting involved in client web content strategy – and beyond, for content strategy doesn’t stand alone but affects (or tries to integrate with) all corporate comms, marketing and media. This tension between the human blogging voice and the corporate print voice is a particularly interesting chasm for companies to cross.

But it makes sense to me to have someone in-house or on-call who can answer such questions and corporate dilemmas. After all, the businesses I work for are in their own business, not publishing or online content marketing. And, to be brutal, few businesses are very good at talking with their clients and users directly.

So sometimes I feel like a content coach. It’s a funny role because sometimes it involves stating the bleeding obvious and watching people be amazed by that.

So what do I actually do?

In truth, it’s a flexible role, meeting each client where they are at in terms of resource, skills and aims. In the past two years, for example, I’ve left my comfort zone of blogger and web editor to work on video production and editing, conference blogging and creating a dedicated content strategy for a large corporate client.

What is becoming more clear as time goes on is that being an ‘information point’ or ‘mentor’ or ‘on-call advisor’ is an important part of helping companies develop their confidence, online skills and strategy while maintaining some level of professionalism as they experiment and find their way.

Change management and the culture shift caused by the internet and its possibilities lie at the heart of what is currently going on in my profession. And that is what I feel I now do: encourage the culture shift one individual or department at a time.

Is this embedded freelance role common?

And that is why I have been feeling a growing separation from content strategy as a field as it tries to define itself. Because in my role, I feel less than a management consultant but more than a web editor. On Monday I might be a strategist and trainer, but on Tuesday I might be a blogger or editor.

The other thing I have been thinking is that I don’t scale. I am embedded into the companies of the clients I work for and I feel alone in that I don’t know anyone else who does this. I have more of a direct relationship with my clients than I do with my agency and yet I am an not employed by them. When I visit London, I work in the client’s office not the agency’s, which helps put me at the heart of what they do rather than an external skill that they hire in. But how can this be sold on to others in need of professional publishing help?

I’m not sure where this post is going. It’s the start of being honest and getting something out there about what I do and my ever-changing job title. Am I the only one in this embedded, flexi-role position? What do I call this? I don’t think it is content strategist and I don’t think it is web editor. Am I a publishing aide? How do I market this out to people who only understand terms such as copywriter or editorial content director?

I think I’ll send that one out to the universe and wait to see if there are any fish of the same stripe out there who might reply.

The perfect rose?

Fiona Cullinan — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:38:40 +0000

Sometimes, despite low light conditions and a shady rainy British summer evening sky, the perfect picture is made. This one is from a photo project idea I had to pick ‘A dozen roses’ from the front garden. It was delivered perfect from the camera on an ISO of 1600 and required no image manipulation (although I did up the contrast slightly). The bloom itself is from a David Austin rose called Abraham Darby – whose namesake, oddly, was a Quaker stalwart of the Industrial Revolution who produced ‘pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal’ (source: Wikipedia). From a grim industrial past comes true beauty. Here’s the full bouquet of my 12 roses.

18 practical content strategy tips in 8 minutes

Fiona Cullinan — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:55:30 +0000

If (like me) you have been tuning in to the rise of content strategy, but feel a bit lacking in actual practical know-how, then this collection of soundbites and voxpops – wrung by me from the mouths and Twitter accounts of the world’s leading content strategists – is truly the badger’s nadgers.

At last month’s Content Strategy Applied conference, I hunted down asked the keynote speakers, presenters, panellists and attending experts for one single tip they could give that would help people (like me) apply content strategy to their web work. There was also some follow-up Twitter conversation on the subject, which led to a few bonus tips making the final cut.

The full list of interviewees and contributors, with a quick summary of their one piece of advice, follows beneath the video. Which is here:

I’m extremely grateful to the following for contributing:

1. Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic: Start asking lots of smart questions about your content. This also helps shift the conversation around it.

2. Ken Yau, Baddit: Ask why! Be a pain in the butt. There should be a justification for content existing.

3. Fiona Perks, Bright Stuff Communications: A good content strategist never forgets about the end user.

4. Julie Mahoney, LBi: Always incorporate different channels – social media, mobile devices.

5. Richard Ingram, Ingserv: Use context to shape your content. Don’t just find out who your audience are. Discover the circumstances and emotions behind their interest.

6. Amy Laskin, Ogilvy: Don’t make assumptions about your users; they will surprise you every time.

7. Rob Hinchcliffe, Hour of Play: Find your hook: immerse yourself in your community, listen to what they’re saying, find the common themes, and then build a narrative around those themes.

8. Nikki Tiedtke, eBay Europe: Before anything, first try to find out who your customer is. Not just users but the client. Understand what they need and why. Don’t jump into solutions.

9. Jonathan Kahn, Together London: Content strategy is half collaboration, advocacy, and organizational change – the deliverables and techniques are useless on their own.

10. Steve Wilson-Beales, MSN Entertainment: Find out what your audience is searching for, what topics are trending on social networks, use autosuggest tools… CS is replying to that need and allows you to create an editorial layer.

11. Kath Ludlow, Bright Stuff Communications: Think about content as the stuff that people are going to use, enjoy, keep, share, react to and act upon. Focus on delivering a strategy that delivers this response on a long-term basis. Then you can’t go wrong.

12. Danny McCubbin, Jamie Oliver online: Be transparent in the content you put up on site. Don’t intervene too much in the community – your audience will tell you if you have got it right or wrong. Be authentic.

13. Chad Butz, Bourne: Get to know the business and marketing objectives inside out and relate all you do back to those, from selling in to analytics.

14. Seth Bindernagel. Mozilla: Localisation: ask do you intend your content to meet a global audience?

15. Lucie Hyde, eBay Europe: Don’t think multilingual think multicultural – language is just the start of localisation.

16. Charlie Peverett, iCrossing: Creating page tables? Make your life a whole lot easier – use mail merge http://bit.ly/gQ7LbS

17. Rahel Bailie, Intentional Design: It’s all about the metadata – it governs everything.

18. Jeff MacIntyre, Predicate LLC: Every content strategist is, at minimum, a professional communicator. This entails two requirements of you. One, never sacrifice clarity on the altar of the buzzword, and two, critical thinking is mandatory – develop a considered point of view (and rationale) for the trends and ideas that matter most to you in your work.

If you liked this video, please do share it. You might also find this CS Applied conference post I wrote for Firehead web recruiters useful: Content strategy in 60 tweets.