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Social Media

So another resource that I would say is very valuable and I think everyone would agree is that of social media, social media these days you know something that none of us had and, you know, ten years ago has really opened up a whole new world of sharing idea sharing, inspiration sharing and so you know, there's a lot of resource is right at our fingertips on her computers, on our tablets, on our phones, wherever we prefer to access social media and it can be used kind of out of control there's a lot of stuff with the social media that has such a negative connotation we all know that it's there, whether we tap into it or not and it's unfortunate actually breaks my heart that technology which is such a blessing in this world can be so you so so misused and you guys know what I'm talking about, and yet social media has a power bringing people and ideas and things like that together and connecting the dots for people and connecting relationships and ways that we can't otherwise. So the way...

that I personally use social media and my sharing is I have personally an account with facebook and twitter and instagram and if you are familiar with the way that I share, it isn't just about what I ate for lunch or the next new product it really is kind of a smorgasbord of lots of different things, I hope will inspire people, so you confined me. Becky higgins llc is what you would search for on either facebook twitter, instagram, that these three channels I'm very active on all three of them equally, I share the same content on all three, but I know that some people prefer one over the other and I wouldn't suggest necessarily that it's important to have all these different accounts, but you have options and it's, not just me, it's lots of people who are very good at sharing ideas, an inspiration and just kind of everyday moments for me. I really dio I really do care to inspire you over social media, so I have company I make products, I sell products, and so you're going to see some updates if those of you who are interested in knowing the latest and greatest and when something new has come out or what we're working on, I will share that more interesting than what's new is behind the scenes I have during the past three days been sharing behind the scenes look at look at what's happening here. At creative lives because I personally think that behind the scenes they're fun and I think that a lot of us enjoy seeing behind the scenes of a company that's being run, whether it's out of the home office or a big corporate building it's interesting, I share stuff like that and I also share stuff like photo ideas we just spent a whole segment this morning talking with caroline about vote, photo and photography, inspiration and that's the kind of stuff that I like to share with my social media to help inspire people what to take pictures of and what I'm taking pictures of in my own life that maybe will get those wheels spinning a little bit more. So keep in mind that social media, regardless of who you follow my advice would be follow those who uplift you, follow those who inspire you don't follow, you know, ten thousand people because they're famous or popular or talented follow people who really who really speak to you and what you need to get from them. There's a lot of people who are super talented and super, um, very good at making things or presenting things, and you might find that while it's inspiring to see what they're doing, it might make you feel bad about yourself because maybe you're not doing all of those things if that's bringing you down, stop following all this people you know I've gone I've gone on a social media diet myself I actually noticed after this is a while back when I first got on social media follow follow follow fellow coast that person was inspiring and that person was inspiring a while they have good ideas and then I was just overwhelmed you know how I like to clear my desk? I completely cleared one of my accounts I won't name it doesn't matter but I just I follow no one on a particular account because it wasn't it wasn't actually inspiring anymore because I was so overwhelmed and so I focus more on what I was putting out there and not what everyone else was doing. And so anyway social media I don't know if if any of you guys have experience with following um ideas as faras everyday life and project life and things like that on social media certainly interrupt me so I could sit for my glass of water if you d'oh have any ideas or thoughts on that and now's a good time at least instagram cause that's what the one that I'm one I like instagram a lot actually and thanks for bringing it up. I'm going to be talking even more about our creative team, but when it comes to social media everyone on our creative team I think everyone or maybe an exception of one or two they're using social media to share a creative team is not their tio necessarily inspire you are I should say they're not there to overwhelm you with all these ideas, but they're each individually on their own, doing their own spin on documenting life, and they each have social media accounts tap into that. If there's someone in particular that you just you re later style or her life or her as a person, then she would be worth following on social media, because you're probably going to find a lot of inspiration through that. So thanks for bringing up the creative team. Everything that I I share probably as a summary on social media really ties back to cultivating a good life and recording it. It's usually gonna have something to do, what with one of those things. And so, like I said, trying to inspire an uplift, try to find people in social media that inspiring uplift eo and try toe narrow down and weed out the stuff, the company's people that the celebrities, the other stuff that's just kind of become clutter in your life. Like I said, I did that personally, and it felt so much better to just kind of clean up a little bit, all right, online communities, there are online communities that are all about scrapbooking and all about project life and other topics. Many numerous of topics, but we're talking specifically about what we're here to learn. And so the main thing I wanted to point out to you is something that stacy mentioned, and that is that there is an official project life, community and it's on big picture classes, dot com and it's free there's no obligation to be a part of the community. It simply is a place that's dedicated into a spot and big picture have infrastructure in place where technology, technologically speaking, everything, everything can happen and work and function properly there. So in that place of a community, we have a new area where there's a gallery, and this is where everyone can share their pages and there's also a message port, a message board where everyone can share their ideas. And I love that this exists because I feel like a lot of people. And if this is one of you, please get ready to speak up. I feel like a lot of people find this thing. We're talking specifically about project life. They find this hobby, they love project life. They're doing it, and they realize that in their real life circle there's not many people connecting with that for one reason or another and so the internet gives us this opportunity to come together with other people and hopefully we're keeping it in check and not spending hours and hours and hours and hours doing that when we should be doing other things like being with our family working, sleeping properly, andi all those good things that we did a function of human beings but there is this place on the internet wherever you find it to be where you can share ideas you can you can not only be proud of what you just finished, but be proud of it and share it with other people who have an appreciation for what you d'oh same thing with the message boards that happen in these places. These message boards are a place where you get teo comment on the latest thing that just came out whether it's project life or not ask questions. There are ten million questions being asked right now in your mind and in the our internet audience and their minds on the message boards and they can't all be answered like simultaneously and I certainly can't answer them personally, but you don't need me you guys have each other and the internet provides that the's communities and these message boards and these galleries provide the opportunity to interact and to really come together and share, so that is one place that there is a community and another place that this exists and my world his studio calico I mentioned that we have a partnership with them because they offer and provide a phenomenal program that's a monthly subscription of fun project life goodies ok? They're not just another company and they're not just a subscription based service of fun products, but they have a community and this community is set up very similarly to what I was just explaining, which is there are there's a community and there is a gallery there are message boards and their sherry not just from their creative team but also from everyone who's just doing it you know, like people moms or women men, anyone who is participating in the and the creative aspect of scrapbooking is getting involved in this kind of stuff. So have any of you been involved in online communities, those of you who are here, anyone online his maybe listening in? Does anyone have involvement in communities and would you like to share kind of what that is? I personally I'm not in I'm kind of on the other side of the industry kind of producing and pointing things out so I'm not in chat rooms a whole lot or galleries and foreign, but can you maybe explain a little bit more of what that's like, yes, I live in the middle of nowhere yeah, and there's, nobody else around me that does what I do. This is the only connection I have to my hobby, you know, talking to people around the united states about what they're doing. It's. The only way I get instant gratification, I can post my page any because, oh, that's really cute that's really hot. And I could do the same to them. There is nobody on my island where I live. That does this. Yeah, I am the only one in a town of six thousand. As far as you know, you mentioned your friends, all of the united states. And I would I would dare say, you probably have a bunch of this friends who are not in the united states. Right? There's probably a lot of international. I don't know which message boards, but you guys know this is such a worldwide hobby and project life is available worldwide. And so we see people from all over the world connecting. Has anyone else been involved in some of these online communities and been able to connect with people from other places and all over the world? What's your experience with it? I'm involved. Do you want me to tell you which one? Yeah there's a community called to peace in a bucket and I'm pretty active on that community and I actually made a really wonderful friend there we scrapbook together we go to lunch together we've local tio turned out she was local so you met turned out really well at two peas in a bucket and yet you carried our friendship our virtual friendship became face to face every night that yeah that's a supportive community it's really great. Lots of ideas. Yes, lots of ideas. You brought up a really good word. Supportive there's a lot of support within, you know, we're very like minded people aren't we way getting getting about the same things and we, you know, we think you know, acid free, you know, like that it means something to us and we get everything in terms of project life like pockets oh, it's three for its for my six we can slip it in and so the we're like minded we think about these things and it's so fun to connect with other people who feel the same way. So yes, how about from the internet there's we have again the pete what is it called two peas in a bucket? Yeah, yeah, together we got that's crap tastic, baby b, p c and then I'll share with you win, says becky. When I started doing project life in australia, my regular group told me it wasn't scrapbooking and I was years behind and it made me feel so good to make great pages for my family, people I kept at it. Now my weekend crops are full of friends checking out my pages now or four or five of my friends now using your products so they use bpc online community to keep in touch. B p c, of course, is big picture classes. There you go. I love that so many connections that are being made through these online communities and so glad that you guys have had some experience with that and that many people watching have had experience with, so keep it up and stay active as it as it works for you there's something else online that we've all heard about. We've heard a lot about even like between segments here on creative live, and that is pinterest, okay, so pinterest is a relatively new when you think about the scheme of technology thing and it is a place where you literally can type in what you're looking for ideas on a party or wedding dress, ideas or photography ideas or home decor doesn't matter doesn't have to be in the creative fields. But you can search for anything that you're looking for ideas for, and it has a phenomenal database and a collection of what people are throwing in there what's available on the internet on blog's on websites and it pulls all together and it looks something like this when you do a search on pinterest for project life, you're going to see stuff like this and it's it's a lot and it could be overwhelming, so I want to just point out, you know, kind of just remember to two frames of mine here, pinterest and other related sites can be so inspiring and I don't want to stay by because that's something and they could be so overwhelming, so please use social media and pinterest and all these things on the web site cautiously it's a very individual thing, the way I look at the internet and social media is going to be very different than how you look at it or use it. And so if you are the personality type who gets so jazzed up and motivated and excited about spending a few minutes each day looking online for inspiration, please do it it'll keep you motivated, it will totally keep you driven to do your thing and to stay active in your quest to do project life if looking not, this is a little overwhelming or if you get too distracted where you you kind of get lost in all of a sudden you just spent three and half hours looking at ideas and you've done nothing for your family in terms of documenting life it's we may want to reassess, so just please use technology and social media and online options and communities and forms and galleries and chat rooms with caution and be smart about how you use your time cultivate that good life does not mean I spent hours and hours online okay my opinion on dai also don't want you to feel overwhelmed to carry on sometimes like the clutter on my desk gets me overwhelmed announce me to lose focus when I clear that desk or if I stop paying attention to the internet, sometimes I'm better off sometimes I'm I'm better functioning as faras resource is I have to point you back home. My website becky higgins dot com is where we have everything and for those who were not able to ten and earlier, I'll explain one more time that on my website excuse me as my voice is just hang in there guys way are so close I'm becky higgins dot com this is really home base for not only where the products could be found but ideas could be found, but we did just have a major face left a very exciting, wonderful, happy, positive, fabulous thing, but it did we wiped a lot of content so that we could bring it back in a really smart way and in a more organized way and a more functional way, and we're also building a shopping cart, which is going to be available soon, so when you go there, if you are first time visitor to becky hagen's dot com, it'll seem a little scarce, but we're building it back up. Now, I will also mention because we're live and this is happening right now. The other day we started, you know, with the freshness site by bloggers refreshed, we just had the first couple of block post, and we heard through the internet, a lot of people going where do those the blood content go? Because everyone who follows me knows I blogged regularly, and I share regularly and constantly, and I have a ton years and years of block content. Well, we've got a bunch back on there today and so it's their backing up to, I think january of this year, so there's a time of log content for those who are trying to remember they want to go back and search for something they know I did or their new and wanna browse the blawg, it's it's there, and we're building it back up so that's where you can find everything in terms of resources and it's not it's natural that that's where you're going to go to find stuff for for project lifetime dot com excuse me becky higgins dot com for project life s o this is what the new home page looks like and you can you know when you're visiting it now there's not even that much that you'll get lost in its very not overwhelming but it's there and I want to point out that we do have a free these section because who does not love free stuff and so when you click on the free meals section you're going to find some fun things in there if you want to get to know my team and all of the magic that happens behind the scenes faces bio's everything that's in the about section that's our creative team that's my staff that is everyone working behind the scenes including our graphic designers sometimes people find it very interesting to get to know the people who actually put the colors and the designs on two cards that's of interest to you you can read all about them they're so and like I said the shopping cart is coming within our company we have and we talked about it thanks for bringing that up a project life creative team I have such a fondness for these faces they mean a lot to me individually and collectively now this is just our two thousand thirteen the creative team and we have every year how to create it. Well, when I say every year I mean now, it's two years in a row, we're going on because they were only a four year old company. And so this is our current project, like creative team, and I want to get a big shout out and a kudos to them because they are about here. We're live in the middle of november. We're about ready to end their term. At the end of every year we hit refresh and we clear out the whole creative team, and we bring about a whole new creative team. So we will be bidding farewell to their direct participation with project life on our creative team soon on dno them in excuse me in december and will be announcing our brand new team. So for those who may be affected, maybe flooding into the chat rooms right now, how could I do that? How it going to be a part of that? I want to let you know it's a little too late for this year because our creative team we did a shout out. And a coffer submissions back in october and we invited people to submit their stuff this is what we're looking for they've submitted and it's going to be I believe this coming monday there's not much of a break after creative life that we will be personally reaching out in contacting those new creative team members for two thousand fourteen so we're really really pleased with the creative team and what they dio they basically just take the product and they just do their thing they just do project life however they want to do it and their style and then we share it through my blogged to my social media and so forth so this is this is such a fun way for us to involve others and celebrate their styles because we all know I'm just one person I have my style my style is very simplistic I stick the card and I stick the photo and I have my certain look I have my handwriting that's all I d'oh the creative team does more you know than that not just in terms of embellishing but the types of pictures they take the type of journaling they dio and they're from all walks of life they live in different parts of the country and the world and they have kids they don't have kids, they're married they're single so it's really fun to show a variety of people doing a variety things with project life an excellent resource for project life we also have publications now not we as a company but publications what I mean by this is that in this world of of sharing and even outside of technology we have that there exists a publication some magazines, newspapers lots of places that their goal is to provide inspiration and ideas in certain ways and I just want to point one out this is called seeing the every day and this is a magazine that holds a very special place in my heart because of what they do and what their mission is they are about what I'm about they're about cultivating that good life and I'm not necessarily a part of the magazine I don't even know how I heard about them back in the beginning but I learned about them somehow I happened upon this magazine this publication and there are no ads in here and the pictures are so every day and let me just read this one this one bit to you so you can understand or what what's important to them to share with our readers and you'll see why I so relate to this our lives of this some of each moment and an interaction it's day we work eat, laugh teach play, read remember and work at it with all and work out all again the next day within seemingly small exchanges we find opportunities to build relationships, develop character I enjoy for the price of our time life's most essential possibilities are realized at home a huge huge believer in that where we share, teach, grow, learn, serve, give our best without praise or fanfare because every effort every moment matters in the development of a person, nothing is really routine that's how I feel. I mean that's what that's, the core of what project life is about. And I am so grateful for a publication who focuses on strengthening the family, they focus on the family because that is the core most important unit of society. And look at just the inspiration in the photographs alone and how you're not distracted by ads. And as you read through the magazine and as I read through the magazines each time that it comes, I am truly inspired to be a better mother, a better wife, about her family member, a better friend, a better person in the community because of how uplifting it isthe, and it also makes me extremely nostalgic. I get very nostalgic as I as I read the stories, I think back to my own childhood upbringing. I believe if I grabbed the right issue, this was one from the summer oh, good it is, and something kind of special happened. They invited me, teo participate and to write an article and contribute to their magazine remember that picture of me fixing porter's hair, that's where that came from? A very talented photographer. Brad came to her house and took these pictures of me and david just being a family with her kids, just doing our thing, making our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the counter in the kitchen, reading stories, doing homework, and I was able to share. I'm not going to read it to you, of course, but I was able to share some thoughts that I had dating back to my childhood, that play into the type of mother that I want to be, and so that's, just to give you an idea, that's what seeing the every day is all about, and they certainly did not ask me to share anything about them, but I can't. I can't talk about project life and not mentioned that this is one of my greatest sources of inspiration, just on being a better person.