Wild and Wacky Friday: Just in time for Halloween, photo editing made fun

This online photo editing tool has a Touch Up suite! 15 cool effects like Sunless Tan, Airbrush, and Lip Color to guarantee that every picture shows your best side. Goodbye shine, goodbye wrinkles; hello Mascara, Blush, and Highlights! Advanced Tools (Dodging and Burning) keep shadows off faces and make spotty lighting consistent.


Check it out: http://www.picnik.com/ Be sure to pay attending to the loading messages!

There's a whole section for Halloween in the premium edition ($25/yr):
http://blog.picnik.com/2009/10/a-craving-for-halloween/

Plus with the premium edition- you also get unlimited access to all your favorite photo websites right from inside Picnik, including Photobucket, Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, and Webshots, which gives you the ability to transfer photos to and from those different sites, to and from Facebook!

Wild and Wacky Friday: Show your best side

This free online photo editing tool has a Touch Up suite!

15 cool effects like Sunless Tan, Airbrush, and Lip Color to guarantee that every picture shows your best side. Goodbye shine, goodbye wrinkles; hello Mascara, Blush, and Highlights! Advanced Tools (Dodging and Burning) keep shadows off faces and make spotty lighting consistent.

Check it out: http://www.picnik.com/

Making an impact through stories

What challenges do you face at work? How to capture the attention of distracted employees and have them accurately recall what you told them? Finding sure-fire ways to position the organization or quickly communicate complex ideas and new initiatives? Inspiring people to change? Stories can help you and your organization achieve these outcomes—and more. Learn what distinguishes stories from examples and case studies, what makes them more effective than other forms of communication, how to structure their content for maximum impact. Also discover how to effectively use story prompts, story triggers and story listening techniques to add power to your communications.

I didn't attend this session at the conference - a colleague did and raved about it.

Check it out:
http://www.sayitwithastory.com : Information about Stories Trainers Tell and free stories, articles, and a monthly e-zine.

http://www.wakeupmycompany.com : Information about Wake Me Up When the Data is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results: Book reviews, articles, and examples of story use in organizations

Social Media Adoption in the Enterprise

Attended session by Josh Scribner, Social Software Advocate at IBM, who champions the adoption of Web 2.0, new media, and emerging multimedia technologies within IBM. Josh architects IBM virtual worlds, teaches around the company and advises on technology adoption.

Check out Josh’s presentation on Identity Management for IBMers on Facebook : http://foxyurl.com/Ks

The cool graphic on the title slide was created using "Wordle", a tool for generating graphic word clouds - http://www.wordle.net/.

Using Yammer (Internal Twitter)

Yammer is an enterprise collaboration tool that lets you easily connect and share with the people in your company or organization (like an internal Twitter). The question is "What are you working on?". You must have a company email address and confirm membership to participate.

Download the Yammer Desktop Application to follow and participate in Yammer conversations on your Mac or Windows desktop. Yammer also has applications for iPhones and Blackberry.

Check it out: https://www.yammer.com/

From Tepid to Turbocharged

Jeff Herrington provided a checklist of writing tips to transform content into something compelling. Check out Jeff's site for more details: http://www.jeffherrington.com/home.htm.

Tips included:

• Subscribe to Word of the Day http://www.reference.com/wordoftheday
• Avoid overused words http://www.buzzkiller.net/
• Check out non-American websites (bbc.com, straitstimes.com) for inspiration
• Put people front and center in your writing

In addition, check out these vocabulary websites:

• http://www.freerice.com/index.php: For each answer you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
• http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_vocab.htm : includes medical jargon and tech terms.
• http://www.vocabulary.com/ a free resource used to enhance vocabulary mastery & written/verbal skills with Latin & Greek roots.

IABC Align '09

Attended IABC Align '09 - definitely worth the time out of the office. This week, I'll share info from some of the sessions I attended.

Check it out: http://www.iabcregionconferencehouston.com/