Thing #12: Catch up and Comment!

Come on everyone, let's catch up! I know I'm a little behind the 8-ball at the moment. If you are stuck for ideas have a read through other peoples blogs for that thought that will get your fingers typing or that spark of motivation that will get your mouse finger clicking!

For this 'Thing', I've left comments on Sean's blog somewhereon6 and Colin's blog Make it creative and meaningful, if you wish. They're pretty good, you should check them out.

Thing #11: Explore Twitter

I suppose I'm pretty active on Twitter. I manage 5 different accounts:

• @MonashMarketing – the Twitter account for the Marketing Department at Monash University
• @ANZMAC2009 – the Twitter account for the ANZMAC 2009 Annual Conference
• @tapp_ - my personal Twitter account
• @WebMyMind – the Twitter account for my business (I make the odd website and business card from time to time)
• @TheYouInside – the Twitter account for my girlfriends Personal Training business – looking forward to using this one a lot more effectively

Personally, I use Twitter more for information gathering rather than answering the question "What are you doing?" I follow services that tweet about things that are on sale, I follow companies that sell products I'm interested in, I follow organisations that give lots of information about topics I am interested in. I love it!

If you want to checkout some cool Twitter Apps, I highly recommend TweetDeck – if you want to get more into Twitter check it out!

Thing #10: Play with an Online Image Generator

I looked through about 10 different image generators and only found one that I liked - imagegenerator.net. A lot of the sites I discovered were clunky and cluttered and I didn’t have the patience to try and figure them out.

This is the imagegenerator.net image I made.

As I know how to use Photoshop and other image manipulation programs, I would prefer to use those programs as I have more control over the end result.

Thing #9: Locate some Marketing blogs

I found Technorati a bit clunky at first. It took me a while to find the search function and I found that a search on Small Business Marketing came up with similar results to the search in Google Reader.

For a laugh I went onto iTunes and did a similar search and came up with podcasts mostly, but most had blogs too. My favourite I found is Small Business Big Marketing (it’s more a podcast than a blog feed, although there is a blog feed reviewing each podcast)

I’m really interested to read how everyone else went with this one.

Thing #8: Learn about RSS feeds

I decided to set up Google RSS Reader. I really like Google's apps and how well they all integrate with each other. I've added in all of the participants on the Monash 23 program and I discovered that my Aunty is documenting her trip around Australia on her blog (instead of sending out bulk emails to let people know how she is going), so I’ve subscribed to her feed and it has made it so easy to stay in touch. RSS is definitely Really Simple Syndication!

Thing #7: Blog about Technology

I've been reading and hearing that the iPod, and all mp3 players for that matter, will become obsolete.

I doubted this when I first heard it – surely we still have a few more years at least before the iPod is replaced by the 'next big thing'. Then I gave it some thought. The mp3 player replaced the portable CD player, which replaced the portable cassette player, or Walkman. So what's next in line to take the throne of the next 'must have' device all the kids will be talking about>

The SmartPhone – a device that includes a mobile phone, digital camera, mp3 player and personal computer – or if you like the iPhone, Samsung HD Icon or Windows Phone.

In the age of convenience that we live in, we are not going to want to carry a phone, mp3 player and camera around with us when we can have all of these features rolled into one device.

* The Blogger, Tapp, has not received any payment or endorsements for mentioning any of the above names products or companies :)