somersault

Somersault was invited to attend the recent TEDxGrandRapids (@TEDxGrandRapids) (#TEDxGR), a local event inspired by the internationally known TED talks (@TEDTalks & @TEDNews). On May 12, 16 Innovators from diverse fields and from all over the world came to Grand Rapids, MI to share their personal stories of innovation with over 500 local thinkers and doers.

An insightful summary of the day’s speakers is provided by Sharon Oleniczak, strategist at Peopledesign (@peopledesign). For example, she writes: Robert Fuller: Innovate Wonder. Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University (@bradleyu). Robert Fuller wants all of us to live in a state of wonder every day. “A life shaped by wonder is much different than a life shaped by fear or guilt,” he said. 

Read her recap in full.

If you have a chance to participate in a TED or TEDx event, you’ll want to prepare for it by reading these helpful tips from Ben Brousch (@brousch).

One of the videos shown at the event was this one, a life lesson presented by Mark Bezos, a volunteer firefighter:

How are you going to innovate today? Let Somersault help. And remember to daily use the SomersaultNOW online dashboard to read inspiring articles of innovation.

We hope you’re finding our online dashboard for publishing and marketing professionals, SomersaultNOW (http://netvibes.com/somersault), to be useful in staying current with the latest important news and information relating to your work. (Read our announcement about SomersaultNOW.)

We created the dashboard tabs to reflect Somersault's focus on book publishing, editorial oversight, innovation, leadership, branding, marketing/PR, social media, and research for the publishing community. We also included a tab to quickly read breaking religion news stories, another tab to help you monitor your brand every day, and another with links to sites for reading on your mobile device.

One of Somersault’s values is to be flexible and nimble. We’re keeping our eye to the horizon to anticipate the next change-wave coming. So we’ve added to the dashboard the new tab “Future,” where articles by futurists can be read as a way to help you prepare for future technology, future cultural norms, future reading habits, etc., that will impact your publishing strategies and sustainable growth. We hope you’ll benefit from it.

Interested in a free website that collects in one location the links and RSS article and news feeds from more than 300 media sources written for publishing, editing, and marketing professionals, and provides multiple services for monitoring a brand’s online word-of-mouth? Created by international publishing strategy and services agency Somersault Group™ (http://somersaultgroup.com) especially for publishing executives and content creators, the SomersaultNOW dashboard (http://netvibes.com/somersault) is intended to be used as an Internet start-up page, browser homepage, bookmarked favorite, or mobile portal.

You can use the dashboard as is, or customize it for your personal needs by registering a free account with Netvibes.

==> If you find this free online dashboard useful, please tell others about it on your blog, in your tweets, on your Facebook updates, by email, etc. Please include the hashtag #SomersaultNOW in your tweets. Here's a suggested tweet you may want to use: Check out the new #SomersaultNOW free Web dashboard created for #publishing & #marketing professionals http://bit.ly/fLYNYe .<==

The site contains news feeds and links divided into 9 tabbed categories: Publishing, Editing, Innovation, Leadership, Branding, Marketing/PR, Social Media/Word-of-Mouth, Research, and Religion News. Two additional tabbed sections consist of resources to assist users who want to monitor their brands’ current online and social media buzz, and selected links to publishing and marketing content designed to be read on mobile devices using Wi-Fi connections.

Among the daily RSS feeds on the SomersaultNOW dashboard are those from such media as Publishers Weekly, The New York Times bestseller lists, Shelf Awareness, American Booksellers Association, CBA bestseller lists, ECPA, The Association of American Publishers, Digital Book World, mediabistro.com, and Seth Godin’s blog. Direct links are included to websites like BookWire.com, Chicago Manual of Style Online, and Common Errors in English Usage. The dashboard even has the daily edition of the Dilbert comic strip, and words-of-the-day from Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary.com, and Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

The dashboard’s “Monitor Your Brand” tab offers the ability to conduct real-time Twitter searches as well as back-tweet and hashtag searches, Addict-o-matic and BoardTracker searches, image and video searches, and services including MonitorThis, Social Media Fire Hose, Google Alerts, and TweetBeep.

“We created the SomersaultNOW dashboard to help users leverage the swiftly shifting landscape of today’s publishing world by staying informed about it,” says Jonathan Petersen, Somersault’s social media evangelist. “Our dashboard assembles quickly accessible collective knowledge in one convenient place.”

Somersault Group™ (Somersault™) is a partner-managed LLC with offices in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company’s purpose is to enable publishers, agents, ministry organizations, and Christian authors to quickly leverage rapid changes in communication technology, emphasize excellence in branding and marketing communication for an author’s business development, and extend the highest editorial standards to achieve the goal of helping people experience God’s kingdom. Somersault’s mission statement: to change lives by connecting inspirational content creators with readers using exceptional creativity, right-now technology, and old-fashioned personal care. For more information, visit somersaultgroup.com.