AMY GAHRAN: The Right Conversation

Getting LinkedIn: Growing Your Network

After much nudging from various colleagues, I've finally begun to use the professional networking service LinkedIn. (See my profile.)

I thought now would be a good time to get more connected with this service. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be more focused and systematic about how I build my conversational media consulting business. I like the LinkedIn model because it focuses on personal connections -- which is also the foundation of conversational media. Seemed like a natural place for me to start.

Here's what I've been doing so far, including six tips for building your LinkedIn network...

Running a Group Conference Blog: What I'm Learning

This Tuesday I'm flying to Burlington, VT for my annual brain food festival -- the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ). I've been working with this group since 1990, and I have a lot of friends there, so this event is always a blast.

This year, I set up an unofficial SEJ2006 group weblog. It's "unofficial" because it's a strictly volunteer, independent effort by people who are either SEJ members, attending the conference (speakers, exhibitors, others, etc.) or who are working on the conference (staff, etc.). I did this mainly because it was more efficient to just set it up by myself, on my own, than to have to deal with any organization to get it done.

To be quite honest, this blog has been consuming much of my time this week. More than I'd intended -- but this is an experimental project, and experiments always entail unforeseen resource demands as well as results. It's OK, I've been learning a ton of useful stuff from this effort.

So if you're considering setting up a blog in support of your conference, benefit from my experience. Here's what I've learned, so far...

Marketing Your Skills: Why a Blog Beats a Brochure Site

One of the reasons I launched this new weblog is that I'd quietly grown embarrassed by the static site I'd been using as an online brochure for my professional skills.

My old Gahran.com site had degenerated into a "cobweb" because it was a relative hassle to maintain. I hadn't updated it in a long time, and it featured some broken links. That's not good marketing.

Yes, I'll admit it, I've gotten spoiled by the simplicity, speed, and flexibility of blogging tools. But that's not the only reason why I've killed Gahran.com and redirected all the traffic from that domain to The Right Conversation. The thing is, a weblog can serve as both a brochure and a conversation.

Here's how I've done that, in this case...

My Consulting Services

"Consulting" is one of those nebulous terms which means, in this case, that you can leverage my expertise as you make and implement your media/communication plans. Here are some examples of the kinds of projects I can handle for you on a consulting or contract basis...