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There are no gatekeepers to reaching your audience

I think that we all (especially landscape architects, designers, etc) need to realise that there are many benefits of the new media world (including social media). You now have the power to get your ideas, projects,  and message out to your clients, allied professionals colleagues,  and the mainstream audience far more simply and quickly than ever before. There are no gatekeepers to reaching your audience. It is you who has the power to promote your ideas and message, you have no excuses that you are not being heard.

Below are a few tips on how to get your message out in 2017/2018.

  1. Setup your social media accounts with the same name as it is then easier to remember for followers.
  2. Tailor the image and message for each platform and think of how much time you wish to commit to each one.
  3. use linkedin for your formal news posts and some events, treat it like a industry newspaper or magazine where you publish your news and articles to your company page.
  4. instagram – I prefer the to go more informal and show everything that i am experiencing on a regular basis (sometimes daily).  Use stories to show process such as site visits, sketching, workshop, construction site visit, etc. You can post professional images but be aware it gets a bit tiring see the same images over every platform from a designer. How you use it as a individual and company is different, but remember it is social media and whimsical not too serious.
  5. facebook – setup a company page and use it for light hearted social moments in your firm whether its celebrations or announcements and then projects.
  6. pinterest – get your account setup and link all your images from your website to boards that relate to your projects.
  7. forget twitter, unless you have a current following and have previously posted regularly. twitter conversations are getting lost in the noise. I have found it the most useful as an individual at conferences for seeing who is there and maybe sending a Direct Message to then meet up.
  8. select one or two platforms and commit to it. Also remember try other platforms to see if will be fun and benefit your firm. All too often people write off social platforms because their clients don’t use and then 6-12 months later are scrambling to get their firm account and connect with clients and other designers.
  9. your company is made up of many people, so let many people publish to the platforms (preferably those who use it often). Although you are a company remember clients often hire for the people and what you do.
  10. remember people use social media to be social not read publicity statements or look at reposts of perfect project images. Your company is made up of people so celebrate your people and what they create and be social.
  11. be consistent – if it is posting once a day, or once a week, keep the posting at a regular interval so that your followers have a understanding and expectation of how regularly you will  post.
  12. use known #hashtags – all too often people start creating #hashtags for a their firm or project. Unless it is known and widely used, you are wasting time. Known ones for landscape are #landarch #landscapearchitecture #landscapearch. Encourage your staff to use event hashtags when they attend. Events such as #ASLA2017 or #ULIFall etc attract thousands of people but it is also a way to network with old and new contacts as people see your there and want to connect and meet in real life. ( I have met people after 3-4 years after following them on social media and it is a real buzz to meet people in real life).
  13. don’t be afraid to test and trial different methods and ideas – there is no one right or wrong way to post, one post is not going to kill off your following and you can delete a post if it doesn’t work, falls flat or you realise later on it wasn’t appropriate.
  14. don’t go overboard – it is fun and exciting to start posting images, gain followers and show your hard work, but be careful not to go overboard in the first few days or weeks. I have seen some accounts start posting 10-20 images a day on their accounts and then drop off once they have expended all their professional photography. Remember to be consistent.
  15. have fun and be social – it is a two way communication tool and these platforms are fun so remember to post more than the finished perfect images and also remember to like, heart and retweet other firms or clients posts as being social and interacting on these platforms along with promoting others work helps everyone get their message out and gives you social currency.
  16. Follow, subscribe and share others work.

Remember there are two major concepts. It is not about the quantity but quality of followers – 100 great fans and collaborators are worth a lot more than 1000 followers who you have no interaction with. Don’t get sidetracked by trying to publish the perfect image and wording, it is not the nature of the medium.

I hope that this helps those new and old users of social media and new media. I have not discussed Snapchat or Youtube as I am not using them as main platforms. If you have any questions feel free to contact me on the my social media platforms or go old school and email me.

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianholmes

Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/damianholmes/

Twitter [Landscape topics] – http://www.twitter.com/landscapearch
Twitter [Everything] – http://www.twitter.com/damianholmes

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/holmesdamian

Pinterest [WLA] - https://www.pinterest.com/worldla/

Email – damian@damianholmes.com

New media requires respect like old media

I am finding it more interesting that design firms who wish to have articles published on my blog – World Landscape Architecture think because it is new media and it is digital blog that they can ask and sometimes demand a change to the post title or the way the images are laid out. Often, I think they forget that although this is new media that old media rules still apply. That is, the editor or blogger decides on what to publish with what title and how it is laid out and how they promote it on social media. Don’t get me wrong I like working with firms and have been publishing their work for the last 10 years, however, I think sometimes designers and their ego think that they can control the way it is published, although they wouldn’t have the gall to make the same demands of established print magazine 5 or 10 years ago.

My advice is to be respectful to bloggers and publishers. You can make requests but don’t get pushy and aggressive if you don’t like fact that they won’t change the title, feature image or layout.

BOOK REVIEW | Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance: Angela Lee Duckworth

After hearing Angela on a TED talk podcast I was interested in reading her book - Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance: Angela Lee Duckworth. I found the first few chapters interesting but felt that after about 70-80 pages I had gotten the main points of the book. I perceived and read to the end, however I found the book had fallen into the same practice that many books in the business/self-help category. It was repeating the same points in two or three different ways, which can become frustrating and make the book seem to move slow and actually take longer to get to the points the author was trying to convey to the reader.

Overall, the book did provide some useful points about why people succeed at different stages of their and levels of their careers and that passion, perseverance, patience and grit get you through many stages of life and more successful in your careers. I would recommend that you watch Angela’s TED talk and read or listen to some her interviews and you will obtain the same amount of knowledge and insight as you would reading the book.

Angela Lee Duckworth – TED Talk

Angela Duckworth on Passion, Grit and Success

The Limits of “Grit” – New Yorker

 

 

Deep Learning is set to help herbariums identify more plant species

Herbariums around the world have large collections of sample sheets with dried plants pressed ready for  taxonomists to annotate, classify. This process often takes time and many herbariums don’t have the resources to catalogue the sample sheets, however researchers at Costa Rica Institute of Technology recently undertook a study using deep learning to analyze a big dataset with thousands of species from herbaria to see if they could setup a full autonomous to help identify the thousands of plants in collections around the world.

By using convolutional neural network(CNN) and various datasets from the iDigBio portal and other sources (Costa Rica & France) they trained the CNN to learn discriminant visual features of the plants from thousands of herbarium sample sheets. They found that they”….could potentially lead to the creation of a semi, or even fully, automatic system to help taxonomists and experts do their annotation, classification, and revision work at herbarium.”[1]. The researchers also found that the learning could be transferred between regions when they tested a dataset from Costa Rica against another dataset from France. Also that to improve the learning and classification it would be best to remove the handwritten tags, barcodes, logos and other markings on the sample sheets. During the research they also found that the learning does not transfer across to field images of trees, leaves, flowers, but it is best used for herbarium sample sheets.

Read the full article at WLA - http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/five-fields-play-structure-a-landscape-for-childish-exploration/

Solving the crowding and the associated impacts on National Parks

Over recent periods there has been an increase in visitor numbers to National Parks in several countries including China, USA(+7.7% 2016), Canada(+7% 2011-2016), South Africa (6%). Seeing people enjoy the natural beauty and conservation areas is encouraging when we often hear about the disconnection of people from nature. The downside is increased numbers is the impact on the nature and the associated problems of traffic jams, parking, pollution and more. Of course, there are many other issues that hamper conservation including poaching, unauthorised clearing, illegal uses, however this post was to provide solutions for crowding issues raised recently.

How can we all everyone to enjoy nature but minimise the impact?

Limiting Access
Limiting the impact on the parks through limiting access by ticket numbers is one method of reducing the impact. There are some parks that have a limit to the number of visitors per day to the whole or part of the park to minimise the impact.

Ballots/Reservations
Allow people to reserve a day they wish to visit or camp in the Park when used in conjunction with limiting access can encourage people to pre-book and

Read the full article at World Landscape Architecture