Case in point: Amazon’s Lending Library. Amazon Prime members can borrow one book a month for their Kindles with no due date. And unlike your library and its e-book service, thousands of books are available now and you don’t need to download complicated software to read them. All you need is Amazon Prime and a Kindle (or the Kindle app on an iPad). This is a tremendous service for readers around the country, who now have access to a vast library of books.

How this works for authors - I’m an Amazon author, having used their Kindle Direct Publishing service for Murder in Ocean Hall. When the lending program rolled out, I was given the option of enrolling my book. I did. As incentive, Amazon set aside a $6 million pool in 2012 to be divided up by authors who participate. So, if there are six million borrowed books in the year and a hundred of those borrows are Murder in Ocean Hall, then I get $100.

There’s a lot of experimentation going on in the e-book space, as the market adjusts to this new world of publishing. But what I like about these changes is that more power has been given to writers, and more choice is available to readers. That’s something to cheer about.

Execution > Strategy. Which is how I feel about conferences devoted to social media. How can you develop the perfect social media strategy in an ever-changing environment, especially when success is determined by the audience? It’s better to dive in, create something, and see what works.

I was at What’s Next DC thanks to my own bit of execution – I made a pithy comment on the importance of storytelling on GovLoop and won a free ticket to this conference on digital marketing.

What’s Next DC was relentlessly focused on execution, on new media marketing efforts that worked as told by the people who created them. There were no belabored lectures on the media landscape illustrated by grainy slides filled with biz speak jargon. Instead, real practitioners in the field told their stories, warts and all.

How Dunkin Donuts does it.

One of my favorite speakers was Jessica Gioglio from Dunkin Donuts. She made the point that Dunkin Donuts was a brand owned by the fans. People feel passionate about the donut-maker and her job was to provide them the tools to express that passion. They have a huge presence on Facebook, where they promote a “fan of the week” and run lots of Dunkin “DD” puns.

And when Dunkin screws up, she’s going to hear about it, even if it’s a local franchise having a typo in their signage. You have to respond quickly and personally to every concern.

Sabrina Caluori from HBO is not the kind of speaker you’d typically find at a conference in DC. She shared the successes and failures of HBO’s social media efforts. They originally tried a tweet-chat with one of the stars of True Blood. As hundreds of questions poured in, it was quickly clear that this wasn’t going to work. That led to the development of HBO Connect, a “digital water cooler” for fans to discuss their favorite shows and communicate with talent.

I have a passionate, vested interest in the Washington Post. I’ve read the paper daily for decades. Over the past couple years, I’ve watched as the Post web site became virtually unusable, due to a clunky content management system and the integration of every annoying web gadget out there.

Sadly, social media is just part of the clutter. Katharine Zaleski from the Washington Post discussed some of these “advancements”. Coming from the Huffington Post, she brought a relentless focus on metrics and daily measurement of news performance. And she rolled out a couple of dubious products. Mention Machine is super annoying. It’s a little bar that appears at the bottom of the browser, impinging upon the story that you’re reading, and showing the number of Twitter mentions various candidates have received. Doesn’t the Washington Post understand that we just want to read an article? Isn’t that what newspapers are for?

Another deleterious gee-whiz gimmick is the Washington Post Social Reader. I don’t want to install another annoying Facebook app just to read stories that my friends find interesting. Why do you have to reinvent the URL?

This is execution gone wrong, when you place barriers in front of your readers.

Wouldn't you like this for your next meeting?

One final (and good) example of execution – the brilliant whiteboards by Carolyn Sewell!

These beautiful “doodles” summed up panel discussions in a creative and artistic manner. They’re a great way to remind people of what was discussed. And I’m sure her artistic talent didn’t originate in some strategic planning session.

What’s Next DC is not just another social media conference. With its focus on results, attendees left with lots of good ideas to execute – and not just strategize about.

Took this within minutes of trying out Slow Shutter - and it was the DCist Photo of the Day!

I heard about Slow Shutter from James Campbell, an iPhoneographer who I’m pretty sure has every iPhone photo app ever created. I was fascinated by the blurry, abstract long exposures that he had created with it.

I have a “real” camera, a Canon DSLR, that I could use to get long exposures. I’ve done so before, but it’s always a bit of trial and error, since I don’t create long exposures that often.

Slow Shutter and it's rather cryptic controls

Slow Shutter has enabled me to get long exposures just with a click – the app is that easy. I downloaded it, played it with a bit (the controls are little cryptic), then went out into the street. I wanted a photo of cabs going by.

But the cabs weren’t going fast enough – they didn’t have the long lines I wanted. So, I went to another corner and waited for the stoplight to change. Taxis took off and I got my shot.

I ran the photo through Slow Shutter, adjusting the “freeze” until it was dreamy, blurry and ghostlike while still retaining enough of the scene to make it identifiable.

Then I used Instagram (best iPhone photo app ever) to crop it to a square, Polaroid format using the X-Pro II filter. The filter also vignetted the photo, something I always like.

You can do a lot with these Slow Shutter preferences.

My dreamy cab shot made the DCist Photo of the Day. It’s one of those common urban scenes but with a slightly different, mysterious perspective.

Some photographers might look at Slow Shutter and say, “That’s cheating.”

My knowledge of f-stops and exposure times is, at best, limited. Just a few years ago you’d need fancy equipment, technical knowhow and darkroom experience to get such a shot. Now it can be done with just a click.

But what can’t be duplicated by technology is a good eye. Apps like Slow Shutter just make it easier for photographers to achieve their vision.

And like a good iPhone app, it’s also a lot of fun.

This desire to be seen, to be known, to be recognized (no matter your dubious accomplishments) is insidious, teaching people that having your own reality show is the ultimate American achievement.

For anyone that thinks that happiness comes from being on screen (or having millions of Twitter followers), I’d recommend The Winner Stands Alone, a thought-provoking novel by Paulo Coelho. He’s the author of The Alchemist, a global phenomenon of a book about the authentic pursuit of your dreams.

Set in the glamorous world of the Cannes Film Festival, The Winner Stands Alone starts out as a murder-mystery but is more a meditation on the desire for fame. It’s a cruel book, at times, as it illustrates the lengths that the aspiring will go to become members of the “Superclass” – and the hollow center that they encounter once they arrive.

It’s a great book for anyone who wants to go to Hollywood, exposing the phony and worthless nature of the “fame game.”

The Winner Stands Alone is far from a perfect book. With all of Coelho’s novels, characters and dialogue are largely secondary to the parable that he wishes to tell. Everyone sounds like Coelho, the wise teacher.

The Alchemist is about following your dream; The Winner Stands Alone is about the danger of following someone else’s.

A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.
- John A. Shedd

2011 was the year I decided that a camera in a bag was a dead camera. Our photographic tools (DSLRs, point-and-shoots, iPhones) are designed to be used. That’s where they’re built for.

I’m also fortunate/cursed to live in interesting times, as protests descend upon Washington. I know the city well and can get just about anywhere quickly by walking or biking.

So, I decided that I would use my Canon T2i and iPhone 4 to document political protests, art events, food and just interesting things I saw in the city.

Protests

One of my favorite photos of the year was from an OccupyDC protest:

While I took a lot of other pictures of this Key Bridge march, the Amaro filter in Instagram gave this picture a very warm 1970s-style. Ironically, it was freezing that day and the sun had just emerged for a couple minutes late in the day.

This “hippie protester” was part of the OccupyDC movement. Most groups come to Washington, march around, and leave. These people stayed. They turned McPherson Square into a squalid encampment and have disrupted the lives of the 99% (the people they claim to represent) by continually blocking traffic during rush hour.

The turning point for me came a month later, during their barn raising in McPherson Square. It was a small, silly event:

If you added up all the protesters, police, media and tourists, there couldn’t be more than a couple hundred people involved. But CNN covered it as if it was some sort of mass insurrection. A stand-off with police is always good TV.

Another way the media got things wrong was a laughable article on the McPherson Square camp as a model of new urbanism. The piece is filled with so many factual mistakes and academic-speak that I thought it was a parody. The thesis that the Occupy movement has “activated” the park can be demolished by actually visiting the camp, which is nothing but muddy tents and masked anarchists.

OccupyDC, can’t you come up with something more modern than marching in the streets like 1930s strikers? As an example of effective and innovative political action, check out DC Flag Day, where residents demonstrated their love of the city.

This woman is rocking the red heels as she advocates for DC statehood.

Art

Protesters could learn a lot from arts advocates in this city. I’m fortunate to be friends with the amazing Philippa Hughes, arts promoter extraordinaire. She’s reinvented the local arts scene with the Pink Line Project (who I write for occasionally). Philippa doesn’t do staid art gallery openings. She always has a different take on these events, designed to attract people who aren’t normally interested in the arts

She’s seen here at Audio Warhol, which is a perfect example of her work, making art fun and accessible to ordinary people. Watching strings perform an avant-garde piece in the National Gallery of Art was one of the most beautiful things I experienced all year.

Dancers and actors are an alien species to me, which is perhaps why I find them so fascinating. Getting up on stage and performing? That would be my nightmare.

But some can do it, even in the hundred-degree heat of Dance Day DC. In addition to capturing Redskins cheerleaders and the very loud Mary Murphy, I got this photo which I love:

Black and white works really well in dance. And how did the girl on the left get up so high?

Leo Bloom: Actors are not animals! They’re human beings!
Max Bialystock: They are? Have you ever eaten with one?

I love that quote from The Producers. My favorite part of the year is the DC Shorts Film Festival. And one of the coolest things about DC Shorts is the short screenplay competition, where the winner receives $2000 to turn their script into a short film.

Out of more than a hundred submissions, we chose five finalists who performed their scripts with actors in a a live screenplay reading. One of the writers couldn’t make it, so I filled in, casting and directing his script.

Here’s the annotated script of Desdemona, the script that we performed. I read the descriptions while actors played the different characters in the story.

While I admire actors, dancers and other creative types, I draw the line at performance artists. I always thought that they were crazy and my suspicions were confirmed by my encounter with Agnes Bolt. You can read the story of an art experiment gone wrong. Or just look at her eyes in this picture:

Weirdly, the bubble that Bolt lived in is now part of OccupyDC, which is appropriate because they’re both acts of meaningless theater.

Bikes

I must mention my obsession with bikes. One of the things that I love about DC is you don’t need a car. I bike everywhere so of course I took pictures of Bike to Work Day, as well as bikes in the snow, pretty girls on bikes, electric bikes and even a bike trail video. But it was this picture that generated the most controversy:

I thought it was funny – a park ranger in a big hat riding a bike. Turns out it’s Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Park Service and opponent of bike sharing on the National Mall. A minor kerfuffle resulted, as local cycling advocates noted the irony as well as Line’s unsafe biking practices. Lesson learned – even your most trivial photos may turn out to be important.

Food

Why is taking pictures of food so much fun? It’s because you’re capturing the memory of a good experience, like the Pink Blast cocktail:

It’s a custom drink for Philippa Hughes – how cool is that?

Peruvian chicken, an afternoon cupcake, a Shake Shack burger, amazing tacos and this delicious chicken curry all fell to my iPhone.

My only regret is not taking pictures of everything I ate in 2011.

Coffee was a recurring theme, however, which why I was glad to go to a coffee tasting at Yola, featuring Jon from DistrictBean.

He can answer anything you’ve ever wanted to know about the black brew.

iPhoneography

My photographic year was also influenced tremendously by the iwishyouwerehere show by Keith Lane at the Hillyer Gallery. Seeing iPhone photos hanging on the wall of an art gallery got me thinking about the photographic possibilities of this ubiquitous electronic device. His show and the earlier InstantDC show demonstrated that you could be an artist with an iPhone – that’s a very liberating thought.

This led to me taking a lot more photos with my iPhone and, just a few months later, winning first place in the Fotoweek Mobile Phone Image Contest.

That’s what’s great about art – it expands your vision in new and creative directions.

Moving Forward

Finally, I present this picture:

It had been rainy, cold and dark for three straight days. It was the worst time of year, when the days are short and night arrives at 5 PM.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I went out for drinks and then wandered the streets. The rain became a light drizzle and I captured this scene.

This represents a lot of what I’m interested in photographically – black and white, an iPhone pic, a city scene, a little lonely and mysterious.

It also demonstrates what a comfort art can be. On a dark, miserable night I was able to create an image that I really enjoyed. I forgot all about the three days of rain as I got this picture. That’s why it means so much to me.

In 2012, where will my camera take me? More food shots, certainly. I’d also like to do some portraits, as well as continuing the document the arts scene that I find so fascinating. I’m also interested in biking culture in DC.

At the start of 2011, I didn’t know I’d be taking so many pictures of protests. It’s hard to predict what the new year will bring. But my camera will be out of the bag and ready to go.

If you ran a company or a nonprofit, you really didn’t need a web site, or so people believed. And if you wanted a web site, you could have your nephew build it. He could make something flashy and “cool” like MySpace.

I see the same attitude today toward social media. Why should an organization invest in Facebook or Twitter? Let the interns handle it…

But would you trust an intern to be the voice of your organization? That’s the point I made in a recent article in AOL Government. If you accept the fact that social media is important (and you should, because that’s where the audience is), then why would you hand over these communication efforts to those who know the least about your company? Do you trust college kids to spread your message, respond to questions and interact with potential customers? Do they know the hot-button issues within your company? The language that you use with customers? Your customer service standards and policies? The things that they’re *not* supposed to talk about?

And what happens when the interns leave? They take all that hard-won knowledge about your organization with them, as well as valuable expertise in social media. And they may take the Twitter account as well.

Social media is too important to be left to a transient workforce. Companies and organizations should take a deliberate approach to this dynamic new tool. The keys to the social media kingdom shouldn’t be in the hands of someone who just walked in the door.

Your voice online should be controlled by someone who both knows your company and is familiar with the culture of the web and social media. Look around – you probably have someone already with the requisite experience and interest. They’re probably doing something perceived as more important. But what’s more important than representing your brand in a medium that reaches millions?

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