24th December

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

December 23rd!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and today is what we call Little Christmas Eve, because we do not celebrate Christmas on the 25th, but the 24th in the evening – so the gifts, the dancing around the Christmas tree, and the big dinner will all take place tomorrow. So today is when all the gift wrapping takes place, the house is cleaned, and all family members nearby either receives a short visit, or a call.

This is also why you will not have any tasks today, instead I want to wish you an early merry Christmas, and remind you to get everything ready for Christmas – there really isn’t much time left now.

Here is how we spend Christmas:

In the morning we cook and do lots of preparation, watch tv shows and Disney’s big Christmas show which is a family tradition. We have a light lunch to ensure we are hungry for the big dinner, then at 2 we attend the Christmas mass, and then back to the kitchen. We are always 8-10 people, so before dinner we get dressed, pick up our grandparents, and set the table.

For dinner, we have 3 different types of meat, one always being duck supplemented with white potatoes, small caramelised potatoes, and some salad, gravy and extras. For dessert, there is rice pudding with hot cherry sauce – normally called ris a la mande – and in this pudding there is chopped almonds – BUT one almond is whole, and the person who gets this white almond gets the present – a little extra treat (which ensures that the entire dessert is finished off).

Hereafter coffee is served, followed by dancing around the Christmas tree – and then the gifts!!! That is our tradition. The 25th and 26th is normally booked for Christmas dinners with other family members – so lots of food and good company to look forward to.

 

What is your Christmas tradition?

December 22nd!

Christmas is just around the corner, but here is another lesson to take in before the vacation really kicks off:

Personalise your blog!!

Adding pictures and other media really makes a different to a blog post, and if you are using the virtual version to create posts, you will have a nice little line of boxes to use when adding videos, photos, audio, media, and polls. And now you can add a custom form.

A custom form could be used to collect feedback, sign up clients to events and much more, and they can be customised to fit your needs. I have added one below for you to see how it will look like in the blog (and people who are already WordPress users will find that their information has already been filled in for them).

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Your treat today is a traditional Christmas (and sometimes New Year) game which is played at big parties around the holidays.

The Gift Game

The game takes at least 6 persons for it to be really fun, but can be played by less. Before the game, everyone is asked to bring gifts for a certain amount (e.g. £5-10), minimum 1 per person, but the more the merrier. The game can easily be played between dinner and dessert, along with drinks and sweets.

All gifts are placed in the middle of the table. Then 1 dice is used for a game with less than 15 people, and 2 for more. The die is send around the table, and everyone has one chance (if 2 are used they should start in each end of the table, but move in the same direction). If a person gets a 6 they can pick a present from the middle of the table and place it in from of them. The game continues like this until all presents have been taken from the middle. Now they are distributed among different people, and this is when it gets interesting.

One person sets a timer between 15-25 minutes, and the game continues like before – but this time when you get a 6 you can take a present from one of the persons holding gifts. The game continues like this, and whether you have all gifts or none, what you get is what is in front of you when the timer goes off. That’s the end of the game, and the presents can now be opened. All sizes can play this game, but beware, it brings the competitiveness out in everyone . but it is good fun!!!!

Good luck!

December 21st!

Christmas is just around the corner, and in this merry time it is all right to cut down on the social media efforts in a business sense, and instead start thinking about how to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

If you are using TweetDeck, you will notice the little clock in the right side of the area where you are posting tweets, right next to the “post” button. This is a timer, which can delay your tweets. In order for this to function, you need a TweetDeck account, but you will find out when you hit the button.

Delaying your tweets will make it easy not only to greet everyone on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, while you are not even online . but relaxing among family and friends, and eating lots of delicious food – but you will of course also be able to use it at other arrangements where you wish for people to be able to find or receive certain information at a point of time where you are unable to “post” it. The same goes for the delay function in WordPress for blog posts. 

Timing functions allows you to optimize your social media activities, and ensures that people get the information they need, at the time they need it, or the time you want them to receive it, without you having to be present at the certain point of time.

So your task for today will be to

• Time a Christmas greeting on TweetDeck

Help spread the Christmas cheer, and ensure that you take the Christmas days off, and focus primarily on the offline world by “timing” whatever you need to do in advance, and getting everything sorted.

Maybe this song will help you find your Christmas spirit:

December 17th-20th.

Apologies for the delay in posts Alan, unfortunately the snow made it a hard challenge to get home – but luckily I made it back :).

I hope you will use your extra time around christmas to get everything settled for the big day, and to catch up on your social media activities, including your blog, your partner, and in particular the webpage and YouTube.

So for these past days, you get a Christmas song, a recipe for christmas pudding as well as egg nog, and a little more time to catch up. Good luck.

December 16!

Are you ready for another challenge?

It is time to get people to “like” your Facebook page.

But where to start? Well what do you like? Not like chocolate, or presenting,

but like “like” as in Facebook”like”? Why do you think that is? Go in and check out the sites you like which do not relate to someone you know, and put focus on the aspect that you feel makes the sites stand out.

Then return to your page, and analyse. Where is your site, where do you want it to be? Start delivering, and get people to help you. Use your friends to help you get more people to “like” your site, and appeal to people. Make sure you can satisfy the new people who visits the website, before you start spreading the word – if they drop by and like what you see, they will most likely return.

So here is your challenge:

Get 500 likes within one week – starting from when you want, preferably today (but I know you are quite busy).

Good luck Alan, I know you can do it.

Here’s a song for when you’ve put in a good effort:

December 15th!

It’s December 15th, and around this time the Christmas spirit should normally start to kick in, if it doesn’t in November as for me :). A really good way to kick the spirit up a notch is by watching Christmas movies and Christmas shows.

The reason why people love movies is of course because it gives you a feeling of presence – which I guess you know a lot about now – and is a perfect combination of text and pictures – into a dynamic visualisation. There is a reason why people enjoy sites like YouTube.

We have talked about using YouTube a lot, and it is an important field for you. Keep in mind everything you know about reaching out to people – and possible customers – via social media, and then head straight to YouTube.

You task is to:

• Watch a min. of 15 minutes of presentation videos
• Write down ideas
• Write down what you like/dislike about the videos
• Make sure your ideas take advantage of the positive things your search has revealed, and the social media approach.

Here is a list of some of the greatest Christmas movies, make sure you start now if you want to make it through the classics before the 25th.

• It’s a wonderful life
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Elf
• The Holiday
• Love Actually
• A Christmas Story
• A Christmas Carol
• Home Alone 1 and 2
• The Nightmare before Christmas
• White Christmas
• The Santa Clause 1, 2 and 3
• Holiday Inn
• Jack Frost
• Frosty the Snowman
• How the Grinch stole Christmas
• Scrooged
• The Polar Express
• Bad Santa

And my personal favorite: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Here’s a preview:

December 14th!

It has now been two weeks, and to mark this, today’s task will be to have a look back at what has happened the last two weeks.

Read through the blog posts up until now, catch up on any tasks you have missed or feel you haven’t fulfilled, and try to come up with any sites, functions, or tools which you still do not understand, and write them down.

When we meet Friday we can discuss this further, until then – keep it up!

10 days left till Christmas, and a little Christmas song should keep the spirit alive:

December 13th!

December 13th is Saint Lucy’s Day in Northern Europe, so I thought I would share this dear tradition with you.

For today, beacuse it is the 13th, you have to start 13 new conversations with people you haver never met. This can be replying to tweets, finding tweets related to you, blogs, facebook pages or LinkedIn groups in which your expertise could be useful now or later on. Remember the cocktail party story from our meetings, approach people like if you were meeting them in real-life. Be open, be yourself, and you will finish this task of in no time.

Social Media is all about conversations, so try to incorporate everything you know about it so far, and what your use of the different sites have taught you.

This is how we celebrate St. Lucy’s Day:

December 12th!

We are now half way to the 24th of December – Christmas Eve – and half way through this Advent Calendar!

Today your lecture = your task = your treat, and how can that be true?

I’ll tell you:

You have done a great job these past 11 days and deserve a really big treat; a day off! At the same time, it is a good way to focus on the holidays, get everything sorted, and just soak in that Christmas spirit in the presence of the ones you love.

On the other hand, it is also very important to realise that when dealing with Social Media, what you do offline is also essential. What you do offline is what you are projecting through Social Media, and therefore your focus should still be on providing great service here, and Social Media should be seen as a tool that extends this service, and shares it with everyone which you do not reach offline.

Your task will then be, to take a day off from Social Media, not even to check your Twitter status several times a day – or all that jazz – just the essentials that you cannot live without. Enjoy it!

EVERYBODY NEEDS A DAY OFF – EVEN SANTA!