jonnygoldstein.com

(Visual Notes of Jeremy Epstein’s talk at the 140 Characters Conference)

A few months ago, I started a new Twitter account for my business. The business is very focused on visual communication, so the people I followed were from that field. I really enjoyed that twitter stream, so much more focused than the 1100+ people I followed in my personal account.

Life went on as usual, until I saw Jeremy Epstein talk about his approach to Twitter at the 140 Characters conference. I have a ton of respect for Jeremy. He’s smart, he’s business savvy, and he delivers great value for his clients.

The gist of what he said was that it’s not so important how many people follow you. You really don’t have any direct control over that. It’s more important who YOU follow, and how many people. It makes sense to follow people that you want to learn from. And it makes sense not to follow too many people, or you won’t be able to really absorb what they have to say. He said that he tries to keep the number to 140 people or less. There’s more to his approach than this, but you can read his thoughts to get a fuller view. He caught some flack for this approach, but it made sense to me.

His talk, combined with my earlier revelation I had with my business twitter account spurred me to revisit who I follow and to see where it made sense to trim that list.

A few days ago I followed over 1100 people. As I write this, I am following 444 people. And I’m still trimming. I’ve noticed my twitter stream has become more relevant to my interests.

Now, get this straight, if I unfollowed you, it does not mean that I like don’t like you or don’t think you are awesome. It’s just that I don’t need to get updates from you several times a day. Feel free to unfollow me if I’m not contributing to your twitter stream in a way that makes sense for you. I won’t mind. And if you want to get in touch, you can always email me, or give me a call. Love to hear from you.

I know this can be a little emotional. A few months ago, my friend Bre Pettis decided to slim down and he stopped following me and I bitched and moaned until he refollowed me. Sorry Bre! Now I get where you were coming from. So take a deep breath. I still like you. I follow people who don’t follow me back, and vice versa. Not a big deal. But it took me awhile to get to this point.

Do whatever works for you. I follow people like Laura Fitton who follow tens of thousands of people. Laura is great. Good people. And I follow people like Scott McCloud who follow 71 people (4000+ follow him).

That’s it. What’s your approach to following people on Twitter?

(Notes of Tim O’Reilly’spresentation)

Last week, Jeff Pulver put on the 140 Characters Conference, AKA “The Davos of Twitter.” Great speakers, lively format, timely topic.

Jeff is an innovator–he’s always looking for new ways to add value to events. That means he’s open to new ideas. I was happy to be embodying one of those new ideas–the idea that visual notes add impact to a conference. Here are the notes.

So what was the impact of having a visual notes artist at the event? Many attendees told me that it gave them a whole different way to engage with the content of the speakers’ talks. Tim O’Reilly made a point of tracking me down and sharing my notes of his talk with his 600,000+ Twitter followers. So the in person reaction was very positive. How about the media reaction? I spent some time tracking down media mentions of the visual notes and this is a sample of what I found.

Reactions to the notes:

Big Media:

The Industry Standard-Venture capitalist Fred Wilson used my notes to clarify a point he made at the conference about the growing importance of passed links the web.

Die Welt Kompakt
A German paper with circulation of 200,000 used one of my drawings to illustrate an in depth article about the conference. Download the PDF of the article here (in German).

Blogs:

Marketing Safari

Officially Rad

Inflection Point

Web 2.0…Really

Marlooz

Technology Today

The Twitter Steam:
There were over 100 tweets referencing the notes, including from heavy hitters like Tim O’Reilly, Fred Wilson, Laura Fitton, and Jeff Pulver. These are a few of my favorites, collaged together.

Flickr Stats:
Over 12,000 views of the notes so far, and this only includes what people viewed on Flickr. When people upload photos of the notes to their own sites, views of those images are not recorded in my Flickr stats.

Wrapup

Based on the reactions I got, visual notes provide the following benefits:

–Buzz. Visual notes are “talkable” they give people something to talk about during and after the conference. That adds up to word of mouth marketing for the next time you do your event.
–Reach. Posting the notes on the web on a social photo sharing site, like Flickr makes the visual notes available to a global audience.
–A fresh perspective. Several attendees of the conference told me that the visual notes gave them a whole other way to engage with the information provided by the speakers.
–Lasting impact. Images tend to stick in peoples’ minds. A vivid combination of images and key ideas.

This was an amazing conference, and I am delighted that so many people let me know that the visual notes I created added value to their conference experience. Thanks for having me Jeff.

If you would like to talk to me about creating custom visual notes of your conference or event, drop me line or pick up the phone and give me a call. Lets talk.

Catch me give a presentation on my fear of snakes, with my own original hand drawn illustrations. Lots of other splendid Philadelphians talking about neat stuff too.

Details:

It’s Saturday, June 13.

7:30 p.m., at Studio 34: Yoga | Healing | Arts
(4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philly, right on SEPTA’s Route 34 trolley line). $5 suggested donation.

(large image: click here)

I am delighted to be the official Visual Notes Artist at the upcoming 140 Characters Conference in NYC. The conference will explore the disruptive nature of twitter on fields as diverse as sports, publishing, music, and business.

Jeff Pulver is the producer of the conference which is billed as “The Davos of Twitter.”

The folks featured on this image are just a few of the confirmed attendees.
@anamariecox
@zappos
@wyclef (!!!!!)
@adventuregirl
@timoreilly
@troy_murphy

If you are interested in exploring the new age of connectivity ushered in by twitter, come join the cast of characters this june.

You can learn more and register at the 140 Characters site.
_____________
This image is installment 30 of 100 Days Envizualized, a project where I upload my visual notes that I create on 100 consecutive days. To check out the other notes, go here

I will be making an eBook available of all 100 days worth of notes, with annotation, once the 100 days are over.

Keep it visual.

–Jonny Goldstein

If you would like to learn about visual notetaking or feel like being entertained by a presentation I’m giving about my fear of snakes, June is the month for you.

June 1: Refresh Philly Hands-On.

I will be leading a mini-workshop on visual notetaking in Philly at the Comcast Center as part of the Refresh Philly Hands-On night. You must RSVP to attend.

June 13:

All kinds of fantastic artists, thinkers, writers, and such will be giving presentations at Philly Pecha Kucha Night. I am honored to be among them. I will be giving a presentation about my fear of snakes accompanied by projections of my original hand-drawn illustrations.

Details: 7:30 p.m., at Studio 34: Yoga | Healing | Arts
(4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philly, right on SEPTA’s Route 34 trolley line). $5 suggested donation.

Look forward to seeing you at one or both of these fantabulous events.

RSVP here for VizThink Philly 2

Topic: Get Framed….at the Storyboard-O-Rama

VizThinker Julia Pellicciaro will do a quick storyboarding demo, and then we’ll make our own and share them with each other.

Storyboards are poweful tools for planning and pitching projects. They are can also stand alone as potent communication devices.

Afterwards if you care for drinks and pierogies, hungry and thirsty VizThinkers will stroll over to Sugar Mom’s.

When: 6:30-8PM, Weds, May 27

Where: Philly Independence Branch Library (In the meeting room)

18 S. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(7th Street between Market & Chestnut)
Closest “El” stop: 8th street

RSVP here for VizThink Philly 2

If you have ever spent much time with me, you will have observed me sketching out my thoughts when I am planning or managing a project. I decided it would be a fun experiment to post those drawings for a 100 days. Today is day 1. If you want to follow the project, I will be posting annotated drawings over at the Envizualize Blog as the project unfolds.

Catch me give a presentation on my fear of snakes, with my own original hand drawn illustrations. It’s Saturday, June 13. More details coming soon.

There will also be a bevvy of other fabulous presenters from the deep depths of Philly’s rich cultural stew.

Amidst the current sturm und drang over whether or not torture was a good idea post 9/11, I feel like I am not hearing an important viewpoint. People argue about whether torture is a useful way to get intelligence from suspects. The preponderance of opinion I have heard from professional interrogators is that it is not a good method of getting quality intelligence. Meanwhile, former Bush officials say that it did help them get information that headed off terrorist attacks. I have a hard time believing anything they say, but hey, who knows?

What I don’t hear is this: torture is wrong. But what if we can get useful information by using torture, that can protect the lives of United States citizens? It’s still wrong. It’s evil. It’s sickening.

If you advocate torture, what are you defending us from? You have already brought the worst into our midst.

More pics and Vids from VizThink Philly 1 here.