Hi Everyone, For those of you who missed our Expat Women December 2010 members' newsletter last week, or did not get time to read the new features, please find below the highlights and we encourage you to click on a few for a great read!
(If you are a member and did not receive your newsletter, please email us here, thanks)
Success Story: Karen van der Zee, Romance Novelist;
Business Idea: Janet Dorey, emBoxed;
Expat Needs: The Pyramid of Expat Needs, by Elizabeth Abbot;
Student Campus Visits: 10 Most Important Things to Look for in the Campus Visit, by Rebecca Grappo;
Expat Confession: Local Poverty, by our Expat Women Girlfriend;
BlogWorld2010: 12 Insights from the World's Largest Social Media Convention, by Andrea Martins;
Currency Exchange: 4 Key Ways to Protect Yourself When Using A Currency Exchange Service, by Deborah Benn;
Winning Story: Black and White for Thanksgiving - The Mourning After; and
Winning Member: The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner.
If you are not a member of our main site, ExpatWomen.com, please join today to support us (and receive a link to download our free Expat Women e-book "Winning Stories"). This will also mean that next month your newsletter will be delivered directly to your inbox.
Thanks Everyone! And look out for our "Best of 2010" newsletter later this week...
Andrea
Monday, December 13, 2010
Expat Women December Newsletter Highlights
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Expat Women December 2010 Home Page
Success Story
In October, I was privileged to attend BlogWorld 2010 in Las Vegas with more than 3,000 other attendees... Many big social media names were there, such as Scott Stratten, Darren Rowse, Michael Stelzner, Mari Smith, Brian Solis, Yaro Starak, Jay Bear, Steve Garfield, Chris Garrett, Scott Monty - and even The Apprentice and Survivor creator Mark Burnett...
Sunday, November 28, 2010
BlogWorld 2010: 12 Insights from the World's Largest Social Media Convention: by Expat Women's Andrea Martins
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Hi Everyone! As promised, here is my write-up from the recent BlogWorld conference that I attended in Las Vegas. This article will actually be featured in our upcoming Expat Women December newsletter (but I wanted to share it with you in advance and would really appreciate both your feedback and/or your insights from other conferences as well). Thanks, Andrea
ps. If you do not already subscribe to our main Expat Women monthly newsletter yet, please support us by signing up now. Thanks so much!
BlogWorld 2010: 12 Insights from the World's Largest Social Media Convention
In October 2010, I was privileged to attend BlogWorld 2010 in Las Vegas with more than 3,000 other attendees, mostly from the United States, but with a sprinkling of us based elsewhere as well.
As the world’s largest social media conference, many big social media names were there, such as Scott Stratten, Darren Rowse, Michael Stelzner, Mari Smith, Brian Solis, Yaro Starak, Jay Bear, Steve Garfield, Chris Garrett, Scott Monty – and even The Apprentice and Survivor creator Mark Burnett.
BlogWorld 2010 was a wonderful experience - so many genuinely educational sessions, so many networking opportunities, and so much to offer to bloggers and new media people alike.
But if I had to condense everything I saw and learned those three days into twelve key insights to share, it would be these...
The Speakers
1. Famous people, are just people
The more I travel and attend conferences with big name speakers, the more I realize that (most of) the big name speakers are just like you and I – normal, friendly people who are easy to approach, happy to answer questions and more than willing to share advice, tips, and many times, some key contacts as well. To me, this is a really important conference takeaway, because it liberates you from the excuse that you cannot ask them advice or that you cannot achieve what they have achieved.
2. You and I can keynote
BlogWorld 2010 had many speakers. With plenary sessions plus around twelve (!) concurrent sessions per time slot over the jam-packed three days, there were plenty of speakers to observe, enjoy, learn from and critique. Some speakers were awesome, many were 7 or 8 out of 10, and unfortunately others really should have prepared better or spoken more clearly - rather than relying on their laurels or latest book title.
But my message to you is that those speakers at this conference that usually charge US$5,000 - $10,000+ a day outside of BlogWorld, were not always better presenters than you or I (and the same is true for other conferences I have attended). Which begs the question, what can you and I do to package and market our own brand better, so that we can also grab a slice of the speaking action?
3. Learn from Barry Moltz
Barry Moltz is a professional speaker who ran a really enjoyable session entitled “Feeding Your Addiction: How to Create and Market Your Content to Drive a Professional Speaking Career”. Some of Barry’s most useful/interesting tips were:
• Tell people that you speak! Put it on your website. Simple, but not done enough;
• As part of the speaking contract/deal, request that the client passes you one or two new speaking event referrals;
• Think about putting some danger tape around the back row chairs, so people come closer to the front and the atmosphere feels more intimate; and
• Plan each segment of your presentation (such as the opening, part one, part two, part three and so on, and the closing) so that it has all of these three things: a takeaway; a story; and an action. This helps you to prepare more thoroughly with your audience in mind, and helps to keep your presentation valuable and focused.
For Bloggers
4. Say something important
Darren Rowse (who reportedly makes a six-figure-plus income from blogging), founder of Problogger (167,000+ subscribers), got lots of nods from the audience with these pearls of wisdom: “say something important” and “build something that matters”.
Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger (137,000+ subscribers), reiterated: “give valuable content that people want to share and say good things about”. This “share-ability” concept was repeated by multiple other speakers at the conference.
Sonia Simone, also a founding partner of Copyblogger media, on the plenary panel with Darren and Brian entitled “The 7 Harsh Realities Of Blogging For Bucks”, echoed their comments and asserted that “It’s not about you - it’s about your customers. What do they want and care about? If you don’t have a big readership, maybe you’re not writing about something people care about.”
5. Improve your site’s call to action
Brian said that “free content is an attraction, but free is not a business model” – you need to sell directly-related products that solve problems, to make money – and you need to be good at asking people to buy your products. Brian used the bikini concept analogy to prove his point: he said that even if a site showed someone in a bikini that revealed nearly all of someone’s body, many people would still pay to see what was under that bikini – if you just asked them.
6. Focus on evergreen
Wendy Piersall is the founder of the new kids’ activity website Woo! Jr, who successfully sold her previous site, Sparkplugging, to a group of private investors in the fall of 2009. Interestingly, Wendy said that her strategy was not to get too caught up in Facebook and Twitter, but rather invest more time on creating evergreen content (aka content that does not really date) for her website that others can tweet, put on Facebook, link to, and which historically does well over time in the search engines.
7. Create your unique angle
Mark Burnett, creator of The Apprentice and Survivor, shared his advice, which was: don’t just copy what others are doing – you need to “take the risks…do things differently… and create things that other people want to talk about”.
Mark went on to give the example of Sarah Palin. He said that many media networks wanted to do a television series or documentary about her, but no one was able to secure a deal. Mark knew that Sarah loved both Alaska and adventure, so he proposed “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” to her – an eight-part television event that “takes viewers into the country’s ‘final frontier’ through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens”. Sarah loved it – and Mark successfully produced the series! (It was scheduled to premiere in the United States on 14 November 2010.)
For Authors
8. Bloggers can be better than Oprah
Ellen Gerstein, Director of Marketing at John Wiley & Sons, who has published many books by bloggers and is a great champion of social media, said that getting prominent bloggers to talk about your book can in fact be a more powerful force than going on morning television shows, or even Oprah!
9. Your books need to be e-books too
Justin Branch from Greenleaf Publishing revealed something authors should find scary: traditional books are now getting bad customer reviews on Amazon if the book is not available as an e-book! This means that regardless of the quality of your book, your book could potentially suffer from bad book ratings just because you did not offer your book in the medium that your potential customer wanted to buy it in.
10. Promote your book on the radio
Justin gave another great piece of advice: “The best way to promote your book is to do radio… you can do eighteen interviews a day from home – which is a very effective promotional strategy.”
11. Think about a manifesto
I am not sure which log I had been hiding under to miss the whole “manifesto” wave, but Jonathan Fields of Tribal Author book filled me in and I found it all truly fascinating.
Jonathan’s manifesto was The Fire Fly Manifesto, which served as a great prelude to his very successful book Career Renegade. He also talked about Chris Guillebeau’s manifestos: The Art of Non-Conformity; and the Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfare: Surviving Stress and Maximizing Fun.
In short, a good manifesto is an attention-grabbing, short book with an exceptionally-designed cover that is used to promote your main book, product or service. They can be a clever and potentially lucrative promotional strategy – think about them.
The Audience
12. Tech-savvy audiences are redefining our conferences.
As I mentioned in a recent blog update Taking Expat Women Around The World, never before have I seen what I saw at BlogWorld 2010 in Las Vegas. At every presentation, at least three-quarters (!) of the audience were always either blogging, typing, foursquaring, tweeting or reading Twitter updates from others in the room (or from other sessions at the conference), instead of looking straight ahead at the presenters. It was a real eye-opener – and I found myself mimicking this multitasking behaviour – tweeting things I was learning and reading the tweets of others around me.
Summary
• Think differently;
• Act creatively;
• Produce awesome content/products/services; and
• Believe in yourself – you are just as good as many of the famous people!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Taking Expat Women Around The World: An Update, Some Thanks, and Lessons Learned: Andrea Martins
Hi Everyone, A few times each year, I have the very good fortune to travel to some wonderful places to promote Expat Women.
I consider this travel an incredible privilege and I owe a belated but sincere thank you to everyone who has helped me and/or hosted me in my travels of late, plus every sponsor, advertiser, peer, partner, member and blog reader (ie. you!) for supporting Expat Women and making this all possible.
Thank you!
**
Here is an overview of what I have been up to... and what I have learned along the way...
1st Stop: Hong Kong, China
In September, I attended the first Search Engine Strategies conference in Hong Kong. Afterwards, I wrote up some insights and learnings from the conference, which I encourage you to read about here: 6 Ways to Improve the Success of your Website.
Lesson learned in Hong Kong... keynote like Avinash Kaushik - with passion - and equally importantly... with simple, creative and minimal-text slides!
A big thanks to my friend Linda Yan for accommodating me in Hong Kong and another big thank you to our wonderfully generous friends at SIRVA Relocation for hosting us one fine evening! If you are looking to be relocated, anywhere in the world, please contact SIRVA Relocation and support the company that supports us. Thank you!
**
2nd Stop: Shanghai, China
I then travelled to Shanghai for the 3-day Expat Show Shanghai. It was great to meet so many (mostly new) expats in Shanghai - and I thank all the women who signed up as Expat Women members at that Show. It was also lovely to meet the friendly and dedicated volunteers at Lifeline Shanghai (from the exhibition stand next to ours). I applaud their commitment and the difference they are making to so many expat lives in Shanghai.
Coincidentally, our featured Thrive authors (Ruth Kuguru, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Alejandra Guzmรกn) were holding a 'Meet-the-Women-of-Thrive' event at the Glamour Bar while I was there, so I got to meet all three women in person, plus some of the women featured in their book, which was fantastic.
Lesson learned in Shanghai... If an airline sells you a ticket with a different name in brackets after the main city name, such as "Shanghai (xxx)", do not assume that this airport is close by: be sure to Google the "xxx" name in brackets, so you do not find yourself like me and unable to get to the "xxx" airport (apparently 3-4 hours away) without having pre-purchased a train ticket several days prior.
**
3rd Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Two weeks at 'home' to spend time with my husband, children and friends.
Lesson learned in KL... Time away from your family and inner circle of friends makes you realize just how good you have it. Try not to ever take these wonderful people for granted.
**
4th Stop: Dubai, UAE
This was my first-ever visit to Dubai - and I could not get over how similar Dubai was for me to Las Vegas: grand hotels; dancing water fountains; desert; shops, shops and more shops; lots of 'big' buildings; a great array of visiting artists/musicians/celebrities; and lots of Westerners.
One of the highlights was meeting our Expat Women team member and my co-author for our first upcoming Expat Women book (due for release early 2011), Victoria Hepworth! Thank you Victoria for taking me to that groovy Lebanese restaurant where we enjoyed hummus while watching the skiers whiz by on the indoor ski slope!
Another highlight was joining in on an American Women's Association (AWA) Dubai meeting. (Thanks to Donna Haas for arranging for me to speak there, briefly!) The room was full, with about 160+ women (8 per breakfast table, so that was a lot of tables) and was very, very impressive. Congratulations AWA Dubai and keep up your great work!
Finally, I really enjoyed meeting our long-time friends Explorer Publishing, who donate our prize book pack every month. They produce the most gorgeous books for residents/expats in various cities around the world and if you have not checked for your expat location yet, I highly recommend you do so!
Lesson learned in Dubai... Avoid toy shopping there. The Barbie that my daughter wanted that was US$18 on Amazon.com and US$30 in Malaysia, was US$70 (!) in Dubai.
**
5th Stop: London
On to London (I love London!) to meet up with: the London arm of SIRVA Relocation; an upcoming new sponsor (who will hopefully be on our site soon); good friends and contacts in the relocation scene (including Corinne Hearne, who took me to a City Women's Network event - thanks Corinne!); as well as our long-time Gold Sponsor, Aetna Global Benefits. If you are looking for international health insurance, please check out what Aetna (a huge, very reputable, global company) can do for you. Thanks!
Lesson learned in London... never laugh at those signs in the Tube trains that say London has bed bugs: I did; London does; I got them. Not fun. :-(
**
6th Stop: Geneva
Now, this was a special treat: I got to stay with a family (Jo and Lee Heeson and their children) who were one of our favourite families during our posting in Mexico City, years ago. Jo and Lee are now living in Lausanne, and when Jo was not helping me at the Geneva Expat Expo, she was generously taking me on a lovely afternoon boat ride, a long walk through vineyards looking over the water, and for a traditional Swiss fondue dinner along Lausanne's waterfront. It felt surreal and I loved every minute of it - thanks Jo!
Lesson learned in Geneva... if you are lucky enough to be riding in a flashy car and people keep looking at you... remember, they are not looking at you, they are looking at the car. ;-)
**
7th Stop: Washington, D.C.
On to Washington for Clements International's Expat Forum 2010. This was panel discussion, with author and former WSJ.com "The Expat Life" columnist Alan Paul, adult TCK and Foreign Service Youth Foundation (FSYF) representative Alyson Rose-Wood, Maureen Johnston from the U.S. Department of State's Overseas Briefing Center at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), and myself. The audience was about one-third expats and two-thirds organizational representatives servicing expats. It was lots of fun. Videos from the panel discussions will be available soon (I will let you know).
A huge thank you to Clements International for organizing everything for this event at the U.S. Navy Heritage Center and providing breakfast as well! Serving expatriates for 60+ years, Clements International offers insurance coverage in over 170 countries for automobile, personal property, life, health, as well as businesses, international schools, and relief and development organizations.
Clements also run the annual Expat Youth Scholarship (EYS) - an initiative to be applauded and supported. If you have children who would like to get involved next year, follow the EYS on Facebook and be among the first to learn about next year's scholarship competition!
Shout-outs also go to the World Bank Family Network (WBFN) and the U.S. State Department's Family Liaison Office (FLO). I met the warm and wonderful teams in both of these organizations and it is so heartening to learn just how much these organizations are helping support the families of global relocatees.
Finally, to my good friend (from our Jakarta days), Steffi Stallmeister: thank you for taking me out for your birthday dinner. And for hosting me in Washington, I need to thank the awesome Susan Musich and her gorgeous children. Susan left the World Bank to develop Passport Career - a dynamic global job search tool for organizations to support accompanying spouses/partners of international assignees - which, if your organization does not offer this yet, I encourage you to ask them to get in touch with Susan. (Thanks also go to the 60+ of our members who helped Susan with research for her new venture!)
Lesson learned in Washington... You do not have to be American to get a thrill out of being inside the State Department and the World Bank's Washington D.C. office, and/or standing outside the White House. ;-)
**
8th Stop: Las Vegas
Las Vegas was BlogWorld: the world's largest blogging and social media conference. It was full of well-known names from the new media world, like: Survivor creator Mark Burnett; ProBlogger's, Darren Rowse; Ms Facebook, Mari Smith; Unmarketing's Scott Stratten; and more. The schedule was like a smorgasbord: I mean, have you ever been to a conference where for each session, there were 12+ track options to choose from? Incredible.
When I get a spare day (smile), I will go through all my notes and write up some of the great things that I learned from my three days at BlogWorld, to share with you, I promise.
Also, it was really nice to catch up with my expat friend Annabel Candy again, the author of our feature article this month, Successful Blogging: 5 Steps to Planning a Successful Blog. Annabel has just released her first e-book about blogging, Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps. I have read it: it's excellent. Congratulations Annabel!
Finally, big thanks to the Queen of CRAVE (a fabulous events and self-publishing company), Melody Biringer, for being my BlogWorld buddy. Melody is a self-described "start-up junkie" who has started 20+ businesses. Her memoir, recounting all the business lessons she has learned from each of her businesses, will be out very soon...
Lesson learned in Las Vegas... Tech-savvy audiences (like the ones at BlogWorld) are changing the way presentations are being delivered and received. At every presentation, a good three-quarters (!) of the room were always either blogging, typing, foursquaring, tweeting or reading tweets about what was being presented either in that room, or another room at the conference. It was a real eye-opener - and I found myself mimicking this multi-tasking behaviour - tweeting things I was learning and/or reading the tweets of everyone in the audience around me, commenting on what was being said up front. One ear was listening to each presentation and one ear was listening to was being said online. It was never boring.
**
9th Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Three weeks to recover and then in a few days I will be in...
**
10th Stop: Singapore
I am honoured to have been invited to speak next week at the American Association's Career Resource Center for Expatriates (CRCE) event on Wednesday 10 November, and the PrimeTime: Business & Professional Women's Association event on Thursday 11 November, details here.
**
11th Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Home, sweet home... at least until Christmas, then it's back to our other 'home' for the holidays!
**
THANK YOU to Everyone who made my recent travels so memorable.
I will try and upload some photos another day, when my internet connection is not so slow. (It took six hours just to write, insert all the links and complete this post... which would be funny, if it wasn't sadly true.)
BEST WISHES to all of you and enjoy your weekend!
Andrea x
