Toys made from children’s drawings (adorable)

http://imgur.com/gallery/3COaH

Article on Margaret Atwood visiting Windsor newspaper editorial board (thought this would be somehow controversial, turns out she was just chatting which is nice too)

http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2012/05/11/atwood-gibson-meet-with-windsor-star-editorial-board/

BlogTO article about new cottage rental site

http://www.blogto.com/travel/2012/05/cottage_rentals_near_toronto/

Jezabel on the world according to stock photos of women

http://jezebel.com/5909078/the-world-according-to-stock-photos-of-women?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

CB article on the evolution of reading

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/83770–amazon-and-the-evolution-of-reading

Now I don’t feel as guilty as I recall what a time consumer a twitter visit can be. But fun!

A Little Help from Friends Old and New
By Sue Bowness

This may seem like a story about cold calling, but it’s also a story of facing rejection and finding new friends.

A long-time freelancer, I had taken a few months away from my regular business to finish a major project. On my return, I did what any seasoned freelancer does: call everyone I worked for (and had ever worked for) to let them know I was open to more business. That led to a few weeks of work.

But I also wanted to expand my client base, and experiment with new niches. So I headed back into territory to which every freelancer, no, make that everyone in business for themselves, dreads to go—the realm of the fearsome cold pitch.

I’ve been freelancing for more than 10 years now, so I’ve made all temperatures of outreach. Like most writers, I fear the cold pitch the most. I fear the disappointment of rejection, or worse, the indifference of the non-reply. The process can be time consuming, too, to identify the most appropriate, receptive contacts, to craft an approach, to set a tone that melds sales with friendly. I tend to spend a lot of time identifying the right person to whom to direct my pitch, and then send an e-mail ahead of time before following up with a phone call. But this time I also did something different—I not only reached out to the usual communications directors and marketing managers, but also to those with my own job title, fellow writers and editors.

This is where the story turns positive, but not in the way that I expected. My cold pitching had the usual success rate, relatively low but still better than not having done it. However, the best surprise came from my fellow writers, who were impressive in their generosity and willingness to share information.

Over e-mail and through quick phone calls, these contacts shared information about their organizations’ hiring cycles, the sorts of writing materials they produced, and even helped to direct me towards the right contacts within their organization. Gladdened by their willingness to share, I reciprocated with details of my experience with cold calling in their industry in case they ever wanted to move around. I even told them about PWAC, inviting them to our chapter events. In my favourite case, one particular writer also invited me to her private writer networking group which I later attended as her guest, meeting a whole new crop of fellow freelancers.

As a PWAC member for years, I’ve already benefitted from information sharing of a professional association, but my recent outreach confirmed that was a great reminder of how generally friendly writers can be, and that it can be worthwhile to think beyond the obvious in terms of who to contact for information as you move into a new niche or industry. Not only did I get some insider information that will be helpful for my business, but I netted a few new writer friends along the way.

Five tips for a cold approach

* Make the effort to figure out the right contact
Determine who makes the hiring decisions so that you don’t waste your time speaking to the wrong person.

* Send something ahead of time
If you can find an e-mail address and then call as a follow-up to your initial contact, then your call is warmer than it might have been.

* Lead with a question
Engage your contact and gain information at the same time by asking a question. Rather than just saying “I’m a freelancer,” say “do you ever hire freelancers?” and then “what materials do you produce?” and later “how can I keep in touch with you?”

* Follow up
Create a spreadsheet of your calls with the date, people contacted, messages left or received, and action plan for followup. Be persistent.

* Be nice to everyone along the way
Besides developing a reputation for courtesy, you never know when someone more junior can provide helpful information.

One day I was reading yet another great article linked from ALdaily when I read incidentally another story getting big coverage in the UK and practically nothing in North America (of course I forget which story). After that I made a folder called DailyNews with several of the most important papers from a wider range of places, and I just open them all in tabs to flip through.

Here’s my new morning read

• Globe and Mail
• Toronto Star
• National Post
• New York Times
• Boston Globe
• LA Times
• Washington Post
• Guardian
• Independent
• Telegraph

I know the list could still use a little more internationalism to bump it beyond the US/UK, but as I try out these sites and find which I like I may add a few more. For the moment, they’re opening me up to a fuller news coverage.

Of course, this morning the search led me to this Guardian column on funniest tumblr sites…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/04/10-funniest-tumblrs-blogging

Needless to say this led to a detour in my morning. My favourite is probably “Animals doing people things”…

http://animalsthatdopeoplethings.tumblr.com/

And most bizarre is surely “Food on my dog”, in which the owners put various foods on their dog’s head; I think it’s cute but only moderately funny but apparently The Internet has decided it’s a sensation…

http://foodonmydog.tumblr.com/

Then later as I tried to recall which UK paper had done this tumblr feature in order to include it here (note to self: always bookmark!), my bad memory led to searching tumblr on the other papers and finding other links from others, including this competition to find cutest sleeping cats (number seven looks like my cat)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/9123801/Winners-of-a-competition-held-to-find-Britains-cutest-sleeping-cats.html?frame=2158732

And this Nine Eyes of Google Streetview, a collection of images incidentally caught by the Google streetview project. Compiled by a Canadian artist, this is apparently something that came out even in book form ages ago so way old news but new to me and I found some of these images quite poignant…

http://9-eyes.com/

Finally, I also discovered that the latest craze to make cat sandwiches by putting a slice of bread on your cats head and then photographing it (this is the URL that made me realize, okay time to get back to work :))…

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Putting-bread-on-your-cat-so-that-people-think-you-have-a-walking-sandwich/122798484485807?sk=photos#!/pages/Putting-bread-on-your-cat-so-that-people-think-you-have-a-walking-sandwich/122798484485807?sk=photos

In the end I decided that Wednesday would be “social media afternoon” for this freelancer (when you’re self-employed a week is a bit of a luxury) and so I saw

a session by LinkedIn which was packed and informative (interesting to see their metrics and business plan)

a panel at the Globe from business reporters talking about Twitter (the number of times they mentioned being ‘one tweet away from losing their jobs’, then nervous laughter, then quiet, was a bit unnerving…reminds us how nobody has quite figured out this social media game even though those guys are pretty decent tweeters. Speaking of which how come only guys except for the moderator?).

Probably the best session I attended was at Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone. I’d read a couple of articles about this place and so was really curious about this venue/sponsor, basically it’s an incubator for small business ideas and they’re had some success pushing out good little startups. Anyway it was really fun, the students and teachers had us attendees brainstorm and invent an ‘app’ and then pitch it, a la Dragon’s Den, to a panel of judges. We had 45 minutes to come up with the app, which had to relate to food, then do our pitch. Really well run session, very hands-on and complete with pizza dinner. My good mood about the whole thing was boosted even further by the fact that our little group ‘won’, but can’t tell you about our app y’know just in case we ever take it public. But what a fun end to social media Wednesday.

I should add a coda that the week did stretch one more day to Thurday evening when I attended PWAC’s writing in a digital world event with three different online media outlets represented (including my favourite, OpenFile) and a discussion about the way the writing world is going. Not enough discussion about money though which I think is an important aspect of the whole deal.

Anyway back at my desk this week I’m sort of wishing social media week could be spread out over several weeks so each week would have a similar Wednesday afternoon break. Instead I guess I’ll have to go on Twitter for a few minutes and hang out there (I’m @codeword if you want to say hi).

According to Wikipedia, source of all things, the tradition has pagan connections and emerged in modern form in the 18th and 19th century, or could also represent the clash of two calendrical systems, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day

Like Internet memes from cat related to “shht people say” this is endearing because it’s a fun and silly break from the everyday.

Okay, so get to the point. Is winter going to continue?

Phil says yes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/groundhog-day-2012-punxsutawney-phil-shadow-means-6-more-weeks-of-winter/2012/02/02/gIQAriw2kQ_story.html

Willie says no (and Sam agrees)

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/1125107–groundhog-day-wiarton-willie-sees-early-spring-ahead?bn=1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16576438

I guess it is also good that tomorrow it is over and we can get on with the rest of our lives. Or at least back to work.

http://rubyink.tumblr.com/

Couple via Google:

http://allfreelancewriting.com/2012/01/03/freelancing/general/2012-new-years-resolutions/

http://www.freelancewriterscafe.com/2010/12/10-new-years-resolutions-for-freelance.html

Also liked this ’stop doing’ resolution circulated on a freelance list I belong to:

http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/

Beyond that, so many opportunities are not even advertised, and in spite of the think there is some concern and question about how to find good people on both sides. Directories like writers.ca or others provide leads and testimonials abound these days but it is still a long shot sometimes in making that connection. Often picking up the phone to connect in person seems like a more solid path towards real human contact, beyond the flow of the Twitter stream.

A couple of links I’ve come across recently have been really interesting reading when it comes to making those connections and getting started on relationships:

http://www.copyblogger.com/7-marketing-links/

And inside that, a bit about social media:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/7-unwritten-rules-of-social-media

First, we begin with questions. As a freelancer, I start new projects all the time and it always starts with questions. On my end, I like to begin with gathering lots of information a new client:

What kind of writing are you looking for?

What is the scope of the project?

What is your deadline?

How many revisions would you like to see?

How do you like to communicate about the project?

Is there a style or tone that you’re looking to capture?

What do you want the project to accomplish?

What audience will be reading it?

I like it when a new client asks me questions too, whether it be how and what I charge (usually by the project), how I like to work (lots of communication), what kinds of writing I’ve done in the past (I usually direct them to my portfolio) and whether I have any creative suggestions for their project (I really like that one).

Asking lots of questions helps us to get on the same page and minimizes surprises along the way.

Here are some other postings about the question of questions, from Freelance Folder
http://freelancefolder.com/42-questions-every-freelancer-should-ask-their-clients/

And a more introspective take from Guerilla Freelancing
http://www.guerrillafreelancing.com/questions-for-clients/

Great article in The New Yorker about the Occupy movement origins

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_schwartz?currentPage=all

A best of 2010 for writers to follow (have to investigate these)

http://robertleebrewer.blogspot.com/2011/10/best-tweeps-for-writers-to-follow-2011.html

And CBC reads list just came out

http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/