Vickie Maris | Online Course Design, Digital Content Strategy and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Do You Procrastinate? Eat That Frog!

2016-02-17 by Vickie Maris Leave a Comment

Mark Twain once said “eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” You will hear this phrase in business, and I often hear it in conversations among entrepreneurs.

If you’re a procrastinator, keep the concept, “eat that frog,” in mind. Start your day by knocking out the toughest project or the one you least want to do.

Another approach is to select your largest project first thing in the morning, and work on a section of that project. Doing this on a daily basis will help you keep your project moving along towards completion.

Resources

If you’d like to see a short (1:29 minutes), Eat That Frog, video, click the link: http://play.simpletruths.com/movie/eat-that-frog/

Vickie Maris is an online course designer, instructor, podcaster, and coach. She is also a university administrator and program designer. In her eclectic life, she plays acoustic guitar and piano accordion, is a singer/songwriter, and performs in the band Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday. She and her hubby, Scott Greeson, live on a hobby farm in Indiana with llamas, rabbits, a Jack Russell Terrier, Connemara pony and one, in-charge, cat. Vickie also has an Etsy shop in which she sells llama roving, yarn and Angora rabbit fluff.

7 Ways to Put Your Katch.me Account to Work

2015-12-27 by Vickie Maris Leave a Comment

If you’re broadcasting with the live streaming apps, Periscope or Meerkat, you should do more than establish a free Katch.me account. You should put that account to work for you in your content marketing strategy. Katch.me is a video sharing platform that archives your broadcasts, so they can be easily shared in your digital content at a later date.

In my teaching Periscope broadcast today, I shared six ways to put your Katch.me account to work. One of my live viewers of the broadcast added a seventh tip, so you’ll find seven ways to use your Katch account in the list below. Under the list, you’ll find the embedded video of the broadcast so that you can watch it if you’d like!

7 Ways to Put Your Katch.me Account to Work

By creating a free Katch.me account (linked to your Twitter account), you can capture your Periscope and Meerkat broadcasts as videos that you can be viewed, shared or downloaded long after the replays are no longer live in the Periscope or Meerkat apps. The platform creates an archive in the cloud that you, your followers, or potential followers can use as reference.
You can grab links to your archived videos in Katch.me and share them with your followers in tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts and other online social media channels. If you would like to embed a video in a blog post, Katch.me also provides the code for embedding. (see example below)
If you’d like to review a broadcast after it is no longer available on replay in the app, you can watch the video in Katch and review the comments by your followers who participated in the broadcast. Katch has a “Comments” tab which makes it very convenient for viewing the comments without watching the whole video of the broadcast.
Following the suggestion mentioned in number 3 above, view the comments to note the handles of the people who were interacting with you. This allows you to follow up with them by tweeting or sending a direct message in Twitter. You might send a “thank you for participating” tweet or respond to a question they asked during the broadcast.
If you’re watching a live broadcast, you can type “#katch” in the comment box and Katch will tweet a link to the replay to you in your Twitter feed. – Tip provided by @WelmoedVerhagen (Thank you Welmoed!)
After you log in to your Katch.me account, you can edit the titles of the videos. This is especially helpful if you had started a broadcast without giving it a title. A broadcast started without a title will show up in your Katch.me account as “Untitled” until you use the edit function to give it a title.
Using the edit function in Katch.me, you can delete a video from your account. I recommend that you schedule a visit to your Katch account on a regular basis to look for videos that really ought to be deleted. Keep in mind that each tweet, post, or stored video, represents you to potential followers, potential and current customers of your business, or recruiters and hiring supervisors if you happen to be looking for a new job. It’s a good idea to do account cleanup on a regular basis. (And note that if you delete a broadcast in your Periscope app, it will still exist in your Katch.me account until you delete it there as well.)

Do you have another way that you’re using your Katch.me account? Please add your suggestions and tips in the comments on this blog post. I look forward to seeing you on one of my upcoming broadcasts. If you’re not already following me, please do. My handle in both Periscope, Meerkat and Twitter is @vickiemaris.

PS – Here is the archived video of my broadcast about these methods for using Katch.me. I’ve embedded it in this post using the code I grabbed from my account in Katch.me after I logged in, selected the video, and clicked on the “Share” tab.

Udemy Course Discount | $9 with Holiday9 Code

2015-12-21 by Vickie Maris 15 Comments

During this week in which I celebrate the Christmas holiday with my family, I would like to provide a special gift to you to help you celebrate this or other holidays you might celebrate!

You can get a Udemy course discount price of just $9 if you are one of the first 150 people to use either of these coupons when you enroll.

In other words, there are 150 discount coupons available for each of my Udemy courses. To enroll at the $9 price, follow any of the links below between now and the end of Christmas Day.

And please feel free to share this opportunity with a friend!

Photo collage of B-24 bomber pilot and his wife Lucille Maris. — Lucille Maris tells of life on the USA home front during World War 2 while married to her pilot husband, Jim Maris.

Life of a Pilot’s Wife During World War 2 (WW2)

This is a documentary style course about life on the home front in the US during World War 2. I interview my 93-year-young mom who lived these experiences first hand as a young bride, newly-married to my dad, who was, at the time, training to be a multi-engine, bomber pilot. You will not only hear me draw her stories out in short, on-camera interviews, but you’ll also get to learn about several of my dad’s experiences during World War 2. He flew 30 missions in a B-24. His second mission was D-Day. He later flew as a flight test engineer at a tow-target base. In total, he had 23 years of service in the military with his career starting in the US Army Air Corps, which later became the US Air Force. To get this course for the $9 price, follow this link …

https://www.udemy.com/ww2-home-front/?couponCode=Holiday9

Photo of Vickie Maris who teaches Udemy course on creating simple talking head videos — Instructor Vickie Maris teaches about creating simple, “talking head” videos for an online course, website or YouTube channel.

Time-Saving Tips for Easy Recording of Talking Head Videos

In this Udemy course, you will gain confidence that you can get started right away in the recording of a video for your online course, YouTube channel or website using equipment that you most likely already have (or that would be relatively low-cost to acquire). I recorded each video with a very simple recording setup that included a tripod, lavalier mic and my smartphone. In some videos, I used a softbox light to demonstrate how that can change the scene, but I also show you course videos that use natural lighting or lighting that you would have around your home or office. To get this course for the $9 price, follow this link …

https://www.udemy.com/talking-head-videos/?couponCode=Holiday9

How Do You Prevent Burnout from Digital Content Creation?

2015-12-10 by Vickie Maris 4 Comments

Here is an opportunity for us to collectively share ideas to prevent burnout from all the time we spend on digital content creation! It is so easy to get burned out on content creation if you’re working to keep your business front and center in today’s digital world.

I did a Periscope broadcast this morning (you can follow me @vickiemaris on Periscope and Twitter) about this topic and suggested that we collectively turn this blog post into a list of ideas for how to prevent burnout surrounding content creation.

Keeping your blog, or your podcast, or your Periscope broadcast lineup, or your social media channels up to date with content can be especially challenging if you’re working a full time job that is separate from your online presence.

I’m going to list a few ideas for ways you can prevent burnout, but I’d love for us to get a conversation going in the comments on this post and share ideas with one another. Here are a few methods that have worked for me, but I’m being very honest here where I type – “I’m dealing with a bit of burnout in this very moment!” It’s what inspired me to broadcast about it this morning and to type these words here this evening.

In between the Periscope broadcast of the morning, and my time here on the blog this evening, I’ve had a very, very full day at work, and I’m having trouble mustering the energy to blog.

Ways to Prevent Burnout in Digital Content Creation

I’ll get us started with the following ideas, but please do help me build this list by adding your idea(s) in the comments!

For your social media strategy, focus your energy on one or two channels where you find your customers are most active. Then develop a schedule for developing content and scheduling of posts.
Keep your posting/tweeting to a manageable level, and develop a process so that you can more easily hand it off to a virtual assistant when you feel the timing is right. For instance, I write and schedule my tweets for Twitter in three-day increments. I put my tweets in a csv file that I can upload using the bulk message uploader in the “Publisher” section of Hootsuite. That has helped me grow in my engagement in Twitter and in the number of followers since I’m no longer using a hit-or-miss approach to tweeting. Each of my csv files contains 27 tweets (nine per day) that I schedule from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. They appear every two hours during those times after they are bulk uploaded. Social media managers have advised me to tweet more often, and while I agree with that strategy, I have found that writing and scheduling nine tweets per day is what I can currently manage with the other responsibilities of my life.
Determine your own sweet spot for the amount of learning you will do in the month so that it doesn’t distract you from developing content or working your business. I tend to be a learning junkie and could listen to podcasts, read books, take courses, or watch Periscope broadcasts for hours! That is one of the reasons I get behind in keeping my blog current or that I’ve been slow to launch my new podcast (I keep finding one more thing I need to learn before I set out with the new show! Ugh.)
Set time aside each day, even if only 10 minutes, to work on your content. I have been doing this in my career (day job) for many years. It’s how I get projects done and new ideas developed. But for some reason, I wasn’t giving myself the permission to do that in my side hustle. Once I started in 2013, to set time aside each day for my highest priority project, things began moving at a much quicker pace. For instance, if I’m creating a course to launch in Udemy, I work on it each and every day, even if only for a small amount of time, to keep myself in the routine of creating. I usually do this in the evening after I’ve completed my farm chores, but for you, it might be in the early morning.

I’ll stop there for now. I’m exhausted from my day. And, I know you are going to enrich this post with your own wonderful ideas and suggestions. I’m leaning on you today! Thanks for adding your input to this topic of how to prevent burnout!

Vickie Maris is an online course designer, instructor, podcaster, and coach. She is also a university administrator and program designer. In her eclectic life, she plays acoustic guitar and piano accordion, is a singer/songwriter, and performs in the band Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday. She and her hubby, Scott Greeson, live on a hobby farm in Indiana with llamas, rabbits, a Jack Russell Terrier, Connemara pony and one, in-charge, cat. Vickie also has an Etsy shop in which she sells llama roving, yarn and Angora rabbit fluff.

Meet a Llama on Periscope Wednesday Night!

2015-12-02 by Vickie Maris Leave a Comment

Updated Dec. 3, 2015: Below is the replay of the slightly comical, Pass the Cast edition from Dec. 2, when my llamas, Annabell and Velvet, helped me feature our Etsy shop of llama yarn, roving and felted batts. Thank you for the opportunity to feature my shop www.PeriGirls.com!

If the embedded video above isn’t working for you, try this link to the replay: https://ktch.tv/4GWY

Join me Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015, 10 pm EST, for Pass the Cast!

I would like to invite you to join me on Periscope tonight at 10 p.m. EST. I will be the second shop owner to broadcast in the Pass the Cast sponsored by PeriGirls.com. PeriGirls is a free Facebook group designed to support women broadcasters with training, events and much more.

You might already know that I typically broadcast about online course design and tips you can use in your creation of videos or Periscope broadcasts. But tonight, I will be featuring the llamas of our farm and the yarn, roving and felted batts we have available in our Etsy shop, heartsongllamas! Here is a coupon code you can use through Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015 for 15% off your purchases of $10 or more at the shop: HolidayShop

PeriGirls provided an opportunity for shop owners to enroll for this special, holiday edition of Pass the Cast, so that is how I have become a part of the event tonight. If you aren’t already following me on Periscope, I would be thrilled for you to join the fun! I broadcast daily about tips you can use as a course designer, elearner or Periscope broadcaster. On the weekends, I typically do a broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays that is focused on our farm. That’s when you get to meet one of our llamas, rabbits or our Connemara pony! Very fun!

Hope to see you on the broadcast tonight! Vickie

Vickie Maris is an online course designer, instructor and coach. She is also a university administrator and program designer. In her eclectic life, she plays acoustic guitar and piano accordion, is a singer/songwriter, and performs in the band Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday. She and her hubby, Scott Greeson, live on a hobby farm in Indiana with llamas, rabbits, a Jack Russell Terrier, Connemara pony and one, in-charge, cat. Vickie also has an Etsy shop in which she sells llama roving, yarn and Angora rabbit fluff.