The First WordPress Plugin I Install
<<em>strong>Wordpress Plug-ins Can Make Blogging Life Easy
The repository is full of WordPress plugins that you can install for free on your blog. Someone said there are over 12,000 plug-ins available and from my searching, I'm sure that is true. However, not all WordPress plugins are created equal. Some make life easier and are simply wonderful assets to the blogger life. Others are difficult to figure out and some I simply won't live without.
I do install a number of WordPress plugins when I install new blogs and I definitely have my favorites.
Here's the first WordPress Plugin I install:
It is very powerful and I couldn't live with out it - Ozh Admin Drop Down Menu
Maybe you haven't thought about this, but the left hand menu on the left column of a default wordpress installation is not intuitive.
I find it so frustrating to read my choices the left side, however there is an easy fix. This plugin moves the wordpress menu from the left to a user-friendly horizontal menu across the top. You can find it on the plugin repository and it is free. Go grab a copy of the drop down menu plugin and make remove that little frustration.
Whew! That was easy!
Content Curation – New Book
Content Curation - What is it?
Creating website content is always a challenge particularly if you are not a natural writer. Your job as a blog editor is to fill the blog with meaningful unique content. Whether you suffer from the debilitating, but common disease known as writers block or are just struggling to find something to write about, if you are to have a profitable blogging career, you must post and post content often.
Content Curation May Be The Answer
Content Curation a powerful way to fill you blog with interesting material for your readers. Here's a highly-rated, recently published book on the subject of Content Curation that will be well worth a read. The reviewers are well known and the reviews are stellar so add this to your intended reading list and learn how the pros do it. It will change your approach to content creation and cure the writers block disease.
Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators
by: Steven Rosenbaum
publisher: McGraw-Hill, published: 2011-02-15
ASIN: 0071760393
EAN: 9780071760393
sales rank: 52617
price: $13.63 (new)
Business Leaders Are Buzzing About Curation Nation
“An indispensible guide to the brave new media world.”
—Arianna Huffington, editor in chief, the Huffington Post
“Gives me hope for the future of the Information Age. Rosenbaum argues for the growing importance of people—creative, smart, hip—who can spot trends, find patterns, and make meaning out of the flood of data that threatens to overwhelm us.”
—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive
“A testament to the strategic mind of a genius and a road map for developing engaging consumer experiences by curating content around your brand.”
—Bonin Bough, Global Director, Digital and Social Media, PepsiCo
“Perfectly on-trend—an insightful guide to the future. So entertaining you won’t put it down.”
—Chris Meyer, author of Blur
“Read this book. Embrace curation, and you’ll be ready to ‘crush it’ with focus and passion in the noisy new world of massive data overload.”
—Gary Vaynerchuk, New York Times bestselling author of Crush It
“Provides a wealth of real-world examples of how businesses can use the Web to give their customers a valuable curated experience.”
—Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com, and New York Times bestselling author of Delivering Happiness
“Our best hope for sorting the good from the mediocre in our increasingly overwhelming media landscape.”
—Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody
About the Book:
Let’s face it, we’re drowning in data. Our inboxes are flooded with spam, we have too many “friends” on Facebook, and our Twitter accounts have become downright unmanageable. Creating content is easy; finding what matters is hard.
Fortunately, there is a new magic that makes the Web work. It’s called curation, and it enables people to sort through the digital excess and find what’s relevant.
In Curation Nation, Steven Rosenbaum reveals why brands, publishers, and content entrepreneurs must embrace aggregation and curation to grow an existing business or launch a new one. In fact, he asserts that curation is the only way to be competitive in the future.
Overwhelmed by too much content, people are hungry for an experience that both takes advantage of the Web’s breadth and depth and provides a measure of human sorting and filtering that search engines simply can’t achieve. In these shifting sands lies an extraordinary business opportunity: you can become a trusted source of value in an otherwise meaningless chaos of digital noise.
In Curation Nation, Rosenbaum “curates the curators” by gathering together priceless insight and advice from the top thinkers in media, advertising, publishing, commerce, and Web technologies. This groundbreaking book levels the playing field, giving your business equal access to the content abundance presently driving consumer adoption of the Web.
As the sheer volume of digital information in the world increases, the demand for quality and context becomes more urgent. Curation will soon be a part of your business and your digital world. Understand it now, join in early, and reap the many benefits Curation Nation has to offer.
Creativity Tools – Quiz Creator Review
Can you think of any reason to create a quiz for your business? This is an interesting marketing tool that makes flash quizzes.
Here is a tool I discovered a while ago on GATD. That one was an early version that I downloaded to add interest an online class that I teach --- just to make it more engaging for the participants. I never got a chance to put it into use, but pulled it out after a brain storm.
Quiz Creator makes creating quizzes simple enough for my 10 year old to use it. It really is extremely easy to use - all you have to do is fill in the blanks. The product offers 9 different question types including the standards: True / false, fill in the blank, matching, word bank and multiple choice. There is also a short essay and a hot spot map.
Probably the most surprising feature is the ability to add media to your quizzes. This truly makes them interactive with pictures, audio and video. It even has the ability to add Text to Speech, a great accessibility feature.
With the additional ability to customize the introduction, the end and provide feedback to the individual responses your presentations can stand out from the rest of the pack this becomes more than a test. You can score the results and even have the results sent to your email box. Quiz Creator has all the expected tools for publishing in the online learning platform (I personally use Moodle - which is another post entirely.)
It is a fact that everyone learns differently. This tool enables you to teach and tell about your subject while engaging most learning styles.
Clearly, we live in a world where everyone is enamored with video -- including Google. I'm frankly tired of watching a video to learn about a product. I sigh loudly when I get to a landing page that has yet another video. Creating an interactive multi-media presentation is a great way to do something different.
Running a training course? Add a test at the end. Help the participant figure out what they really absorbed and what they need to review.
Learn more at the Quiz Creator website. They offer a free trial so you can begin creating your quiz as soon as you download.
Make a Quiz and Get QuizCreator 50% off
N.B. It is double the price if you are using it for commercial purposes which could be a show stopper.
P.S. I'm pretty kinda intrigued by their creative marketing methods.
How could you use this in your business to enhance the delivery of your message?
Hopefully these tips have been helpful. What do you think?
