About the People I Like

I’ve decided to start writing about people that inspire me. Some of them are people I know and some aren’t. And as for the title of these articles, I wanted to pick something that would garner some attention. I’m comfortable enough with myself to say, “yeah, I like that guy (or gal).” Nonetheless, these are the people that I think are doing some really cool things.

Jimmy Fallon

Source: Flickr (stevegarfield)

I love the idea that anyone can create something and it can become a phenomenon. This concept isn’t new, these things have been happening for a long time. My first memory of this is the infamous dancing baby. Or maybe it’s Hamster Dance.

Source: Mashable

This was on my mind because I recently read about an artist that created a poster of Conan O’Brien that went viral and was eventually bought by Conan and his producers to be used in his upcoming comedy tour. The timing seemed to be perfect since Conan O’Brien recently joined Twitter and has been rapidly building an online following – or as the Huffington Post describes it, his account “EXPLODES with followers.” Ha, I love it.

The point of all this being: Anyone Can Create a “World Wide Rave”.

What’s a “World Wide Rave”?

A World Wide Rave is:

When people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. Whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík, it’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there. (Source: http://www.worldwiderave.com/)

I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty safe in the clouds. Not necessarily because they’re soft and fluffy (although yeah, that helps), but because they’re a lot more reliable than the hardware that used to house my files. I’m talking about cloud computing. I’ve always been a little bit nervous about my computer failing, or even worse catching on fire, or even worse being eaten by Where the Wild Things Are.

If you want a good explanation of what cloud computing is, try this website (and learn what the pretty graphic below is all about):

As a native-Clevelander, I always like seeing cool things from our own town. Today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame launched a brand new website, and I’m a big fan. I did a little research, and the re-design was actually done by a New York-based company called The Barbarian Group. They’ve also done work for Justin Timberlake and Digg. Here’s what’s so cool about the new design:

A Design Worthy of Rock and Roll

Sometimes design doesn’t translate the brand. This one does. It starts with the color scheme – a lively red/orange set off by shades of gray. The background gradient and block lettering creates a bold effect. The logo is set off by a shape that’s reminiscent of a guitar headstock.

Source: The Barbarian Group

If you’ve used Twitter this year, and have paid any attention to the “Trending Topics” feature, you may have heard of Justin Bieber. You may also know about him if you’re a 13 year-old girl. But that’s besides the point. Justin Bieber is a 16 year-old Canadian singer. His stock in the music scene is rising very quickly thanks to the internet.

Source: Flickr, Mark Wilkinson Director

The Justin Bieber Effect

The Justin Bieber Effect demonstrates the influence that someone has when they’re connecting to “influencers” – he’s focusing on key individuals rather than the whole market. He’s doing this through Twitter now (@JustinBieber), but has used Social Media to rise to stardom. He talks to his “influencers” several times a day. He tells them about his CD’s and latest singles, but he also tells them about his life and what he’s doing. He replies to his fans.

I’ve been reading blogs for a few years – it’s now part of my morning routine. I subscribe to a little under 50 blogs, but there are only a few that I really look forward to reading every post. One of those is Google’s Blog because they always have innovative or interesting things to say.

There are several blogs that inspired me to create my own, but there are two that I think do an excellent job. And with them, it doesn’t stop with the blog…it continues to Twitter and other social media. It’s almost like a lifestyle. And in my opinion, they have nearly perfected the art of blogging.

The two bloggers are Jacob Cass (Just Creative Design) and “J. Money” (Budgets are Sexy).

One topic that I’ve decided to focus on here is the idea of personal branding. This idea is important to me because it’s one of my goals with this blog, but it’s also something that I think is more relevant and important now than ever before.

What’s Personal Branding?

Life is a little bit more social these days (in some respects). While we might not be talking on the phone as much, we’re sharing information more. We’re communicating through Facebook and Twitter, we’re sharing pictures on Facebook, Picasa, and Flickr, we’re setting up business profiles on LinkedIn. In all of these places, we’re setting up profiles. We’re telling people who we are, what our interests are, showing them what we look like, telling them what we like to eat, and so on. The sum of all this is our personal brand.

I like to think of it like this: How can you find out what your personal brand is? Google your name, and when you find yourself (if you do), what do you see?

Hi, I’m Ryan Morgan. I’m a designer and marketer in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the beginning of my personal branding experiment/journey. Here are a few of my goals:

• Establish a personal brand using this website and blog and a few social media outlets
• Learn more about marketing by writing about it (probably by being wrong sometimes, but hopefully also by being insightful at other times)
• Share things that I like, including good design, useful technologies that make life easier, and other blogs and information that I think should be shared