Wow Your Professional Network

Amplifying your thots was never as exciting as this !  Wow your professional network with your carefully curated collection of thots via amplification to LinkedIn. Amplifying thots to LinkedIn builds your brand and it associates you with your field more concretely.

"They" (you know them ... the ones that always seem to spout words of wisdom and common sense) always say that it takes someone 7 times to get the message.  Make sure that your network associates you and your expertise -- even when they are away from their gadgets.  By amplifying a strategically curated thot every now and then with your professional network you

• let your presence be known to your network (the heartbeat)
• remind them of your field of expertise (the talent)
• reinforce your reputation in that field by ensuring people know you are always current (the prowess)

Amplifying to LinkedIn is easy. Simply log in and go to account settings where within the Amplification Channels tab you can connect up to LinkedIn.  Just remember to turn various channels on and off depending on which thots you want to amplify to which audiences.

Here's to Serious Reputation-building Thot Curation!

Yes, please I'll tweet that thot !

We've mentioned before that various studies and research shows over and over again that people learn and absorb best when they are presented information numerous times, in different forms.  You can leverage that knowledge by amplifying your thots even further: thots can be tweeted to your twitter followers with just a few simple steps:

1. Log into Thot Of This
2. Go to your Thot Of This account settings page
3. Click on the Amplification Channels tab
4. Under the twitter section, click on "Add your Twitter Account" 
5. At this point, a twitter window will open requesting you to add your credentials and allow Thot Of This to tweet on your behalf.

We will only tweet your open thots if you want to and you can turn that on and off as you wish. To manage these settings, simply return to the Account Settings | Amplification Channels | Twitter section.  

Now you can amplify to your audience's favorite destination --Facebook or twitter ! Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too ! 

Here's to Amplified Thots !

You have a fan page, no problem !

We've got you covered.  Facebook connected users are now able to post open thots to their fan pages with the very same thot bookmarklet you have been using.  If you head over to http://www.thotofthis.com/ThOTs/UserAccountSettings.jsp you'll be able to see all your amplification channels.

Try it today and see your open thots amplify to your profile page, your fan page, or both !

All Us Thots Aren't the Same!

It was probably time to stop, take a step back and talk about thots--more specifically, the different kinds of thots.

Personal Thots
Personal thots are yours; they are useful to you, important to you and more importantly they are private.  No one else can see your personal thots -- they don't go to your network or get amplified
via social media.  Some ways our thot'rs use personal thots are for

• curating a collection that is still in progress; not ready for prime-time
• researching their work; thots that are the artisans baby steps to the final deliverable, art, piece
• capturing a chef's secret sauces ... sure its a recipe online but those very specific tweaks make it personal and maybe a secret !
• etc

Shared Thots
Shared thots are precisely that--shared.  When you create a shared thot, you're prompted for an email address.  That can be anyone -- someone inside the thot network, someone outside it, even a mailing list.  The thot then transforms into a shared thot and a link to it is shared with your recipients.

The best part is that your thot gets presented right along side the URL you are sharing. Those of you that I've spoken to know how important that juxtaposition is.  It's important because when your friend clicks away, you don't fall behind. Your name, your words, your thot is right there side by side with the URL of interest. So when you share that amazing research paper with a few brilliant takeaways, there will be no mistake who shared that ! Shared thots are used in so many ways but I'll share a few examples with you

• authors use thots to share their perspectives with publishers, editors, and others
• artists use thots to highlight  the nuance in a work of art and share with their team
• students use thots to curate content relevant to class assignments and discussions
• engineers use thots among their teams to share knowledge and further projects
• professionals use thots to share valuable insights on happenings in their field with their clients
• people use thots at work to share useful information related to projects with their co-workers

Shared thots can turn into discussions as well; as long as the recipient is a registered user (or facebook-connected user) of the Thot Of This network.

Open Thots

Ahh ... open thots.  The important thing to remember--open thots are Open and a little promiscuous! Creating an open thot is like standing up in a cafeteria with a megaphone and screaming !  And that is because Open thots get amplified via social networks:

• they go to the Thot of This twitter feed (via twitter they can go all over the internet further thanks to various crawlers and such)
• they appear in the Thot of This Open Thot collection,
• they appear on the Thot Of This blog

and you can further amplify these to your specific network by connecting up facebook and twitter and having your Open thots go to your facebook wall and your twitter feed.   Open thots are great for making your mark in someway, establishing your credibility in a field or with a subject but they aren't great for venting about that one person that irks you ... Remember the whole sticks and stones ... well, we prefer our thot'rs to stay away from the sticks and stones and the name calling.  

In general, its always good to Thot Responsibly (don't I always tell you that ?)!

picturesque OPEN thots

A few weeks back, we introduced picturesque thots. Now we bring you picturesque Open thots! Its definitely a better way to engage your followers ... and with Halloween just around the corner, the new eye candy on your Facebook wall is timely! Just take a look:
It's just as easy as shared thots ... this time, simply select the picture and make it an open thot! As long as you are connected to Facebook  your open thot & your picture will make its way to your Facebook wall ! Your followers and audience will thank you! As always, give us a buzz if you have any feedback or want to share any more ideas.

Here's to Happy & Picturesque thots !
Toral

Picturesque Thots...

Engaging your audience and followers is an important part of building your collection of thots. Whether you have a very focused thot collection or you muse about the world and everything going on in it (yes, I know I am guilty of that), engaging your audience to make sure they experience your thot is crucial.

We know that engagement that goes after all the senses or that is like verbal surround sound is what will really bring your audience in. And while we can't help you taste the caprese sandwich that your uncle sent you a recipe thot on ... we can definitely make sure you see it.

It's easy to start adding images, simply use your Thot bookmarklet as you always do and you'll see the new image section. You can scroll through the images available using next and prev until you settle on one you like.

That scrumptious caprese sandwich will be sitting in their thot email just enticing them to see what your thot says !

Remember the old adage--a picture is worth a thousand words--the next time you share thot!

Wishing you Happy Thots!
Toral
To see my musings, go ahead and check out my beta page.

Let Freedom Reign ....

In a completely untethered world, we thought it was an injustice to keep thots tethered to the ThotOfThis.com domain. So, it was decreed that thots shall be free and with a wave of our "developer" wand we bring you ThotSpot !

Its very easy to let your thots follow you to your websites, your blogs, or any online presence you maintain; ThotSpot can be configured in under 5 mins and voila you will see all your open thots scroll on your internet home(s) of choice.

"Every day volumes of technology news is broadcast via the internet and other channels. Thot of This allows us to provide our clients and customers the most important news with our expert commentary--giving them the stuff they need with a perspective and saving them time-- and all right on our internet assets. Its a very innovative way of engaging our customers." said Umeed Kothavala, CEO at Extentia Information Technology.

Email us if you're interested in learning more about ThotSpot!

Cheers to Social Media Day and our Get Social Campaign !

Alas, another Social Media Day is behind us. It was great to bring a sampling of the valley together to discuss Social Media and the impact it's had on all of our lives, the way we connect with people, and the way we do business.

We were joined by professionals from Education, Bio Tech, Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, IT, and let's not forget our handmade homemade proprietor (who also one of our recipients of the Get Social campaign).


We look forward to working with The Artisan Paper and other nominees over the next year; From time to time, we'll bring you guest posts so they can share in their own words how their experience with Social Media has been ! And of course, we hope to bring all of them together at the next Social Media Day -- SMDay 2013!

Creating a Tube Thot

It's very possible and fairly simple to create a thot for You Tube videos as we showed you last year.  Its been a while so we thought it would be a good time to go over it again.  Remember that there are a few detours along the way so let's get started. 

With two little children, I'm always learning how to draw so that I can teach them. Here's a video that I used recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_H-ioVf81U&feature=youtu.be.

Where is the Share/Embed Button ?

Remember that sharing a thot at directly on this URL won't give your followers/audience the side by side view of the video and your thot.  Instead you need to go to the Share/Embed link (see image).

Now if you click on the Share button, followed by the Embed button (see the next image) you will be presented with a URL that's ideal for sharing

Clicking Share and Embed

and embedding.  You'll want to copy the new URL (its already selected for you).   You'll notice that when you try to copy only the URL, YouTube selects the entire code snippet:



You actually don't need all of that code snippet (unless you are embedding the video on to your web page or blog).  All you need is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/embed/r_H-ioVf81U.  Our recommendation is that you copy the code snippet and paste it it notepad or somewhere else where you can easily copy the the URL from the code snippet:  

http://www.youtube.com/embed/r_H-ioVf81U

Creating the Thot

At this point, you can paste this URL in a new browser window or tab and share a thot from that location.  This somewhat longer approach to create a thot on a Tube maintains the side-by-side view that your followers and audience have come to appreciate.  Without following this approach, your followers will be presented with the thot and a link to jump away from your thot to the You Tube video.  And we all know that's never ideal ! 

Thots for You Tubes-- The Right Way!

A few words of caution. Sometimes the Embed URL appears automatically beneath the video next to Share (which makes it easier). And sometimes, there absolutely is no embed URL; for those videos, thots can be added just fine; however, due to the whatsitcalleds and the alignment of the thingamajjigers they can't be seen next to the video.  Most content is embed-able (if that's a word) so keep thot'ng!

Here's to Happy Thots (for Tubes too) !