It’s hard to believe that a month has gone by already. In theory, this is a photoblog. The thing is, I haven’t had time to shoot anything newsworthy or things that would harbor a broader interest than those of my own (my cat, instagrams, polaroids, etc.). June 29th was my last day working at the job that got me through the past three years, but now I will have all of my time to put towards my internship with an environmental non-profit in south Florida named The Everglades Foundation.

I have definitely had to hit the ground running with this internship. I started at the end of May and have been working part-time up until now–starting full-time July 1st. In the time I’ve been with the foundation, I’ve learned so much and have been able to exercise some of my other skill sets.

In addition to writing press releases and assisting with the coordination of press conferences, I have recently undertaken the tasks of moving our website to a WordPress-based blog format, creating and managing our new non-profit Facebook page, tweeting, compiling and e-mailing daily newsclips on environmental issues and legislation in Florida and preparing for my own presentation to the staff on our social media strategies, which I gave yesterday. The presentation focuses on the changes to our Facebook and Twitter and our (the communication dept’s) goals for using these channels to further our message and grow our audience online.

Most of the staff don’t have Twitter accounts, so after some explanation on the origins, purposes and potential of Twitter, we went through the registration process; each staff member created their Everglades Foundation Twitter account and send out their first tweets. We are initiating an office-wide effort to contribute to the Foundation’s image online. If you’re interested in following some of the Everglades Foundation’s scientists and outreach experts, you can find their accounts here:

@tjvl1066 – Thomas, Senior Scientist

@EfNancy – Nancy, Executive Asst. to CEO

@EFFordham-Kirk, CEO

@EFVivian-Vivian, Education/Outreach Director

@EFKaren -Karen, Education/Outreach Intern

@EFRosanna -Rosanna, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Scientist

@EFJessica -Me! Communications Intern

If you’re more interested in following the Everglades Foundation as a whole, there will also be different content posted on the account: @evergfoundation

They all do very interesting work for the Everglades Foundation, I would highly suggest following them, especially if you live in south Florida. The Everglades is our most precious ecosystem, and these are just some of the people leading the efforts for restoration projects for its future. They’re going to be tweeting about the work they do for the foundation, projects, research, facts, things they find interesting/worth sharing and whatever else their creative minds come up with.

Just to clarify, I have a personal twitter account that I have used for the past few years, I will still be updating and using my personal account all the time, but I will also be tweeting about my work with the Foundation and the new developments within the communication department, so even if you follow my @jessicahodder account already, there will be different content on my @EFJessica account.

The presentation ended up going very well. Honestly, public speaking makes me extremely nervous. But I pulled it off, and also created this colorful little reference for the members of the office to get them a little bit more familiar with Twitter when they’re using it on their own:

Thought it might be fun to play with the layout of the content in making this, I was right. Definitely something I’d like to do more of.

While doing my social media research and putting my talking points together, I came across this pretty cool site (understatement, I was thrilled when I found it). It’s called Klout.

Not only do they make clever use of a pun, their site is an awesome tool for anyone getting involved with social media strategies who may want to have a tool to use on the fly–or even if you’re an individual using sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, you can use Klout to figure out how well you’re getting your message across to your audience with different “scores” in various areas dealing with how you use your social media channels and, more importantly, how your audience connects and/or interacts with it.

Let me step down from this social media laden soapbox for a sec and show you a screenshot instead.

This is my Klout profile :

According to Klout, I’m most influential about photography, so I must be doing SOMETHING right, huh?

I linked my Klout profile to my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to arrive at this number. And this handy little line graph is only one of the many graphs created by Klout to illustrate your score in different areas. I’m still new to the site, but the possibilities for using it as a way to monitor your outreach and achieve a basic understanding of who your audience is (or who you need to modify it to be) are extensive.

In summation, if you: avidly blog, tweet, or use one of the aforementioned social media accounts often: play with Klout.

Some of the other things I’m waiting for/looking into/excited about:

-The Eddie Adams Workshop will be announcing its participants for its Barnstorm XXIV 2011 workshop sometime in July (I haven’t been able to find a precise date for when they were planning to announce yet)

-I want to add an instagram feed of my photos to my sidebar–I’m sure this is something that has been created already since they launched the new API, just a matter of researching it a little

-Going to Tampa for The Everglades Foundation July 8-10 for the Miss Florida USA pageant. Have a press pass. Gonna be shooting. Should be interesting, so be in the lookout for that post.

-If you’re my friend on Facebook, follow me on Twitter/Instagram, or are connected to me on LinkedIn, chances are, you’ve probably seen one of my posts talking about voting for me in the photography competition I’m currently in. If you’re wondering what it’s all about and why I’ve been talking about it everyday–well, firstly, don’t expect any of that to change until after July 29th–secondly:

I entered The One Life International Photography Competition. I entered early so that I could be considered for the Early Entry category judging, which offers a prize of $1,000 for the portfolio selected. THEN, there’s a People’s Choice category. The winner of this category, and its $2,500 prize, is largely determined by the number of votes they receive on their portfolio web page, hosted by see.me, for the purpose of the competition.

My portfolio is hosted here: http://jessicahodder.see.me/onelife2011

This is probably the most important link in this entire post. Voting for me literally requires one click on the blue words “Vote for me” on my page. They have made it extremely easy to vote, so to me, it seems like much of the burden of getting votes falls on the photographer him/herself to utilize all of their networks, online and off, to gather support and get the votes needed to win. Which I prefer; this is fun for me.

Needless to say, I would be grateful if you would click the link (saving it would be oh so proactive of you ) and vote for me once a day until July 29th. After July 29th, I’ll find out who wins the People’s Choice category and then it’s on to the final roud of judging for the entire competition, which boasts your choice of a cash prize of $10,000 (student loans, student loans, student loans) or a trip around the world, all expenses paid.

AND LASTLY–

I’m going on vacation July 15th to the outer banks in North Carolina. What are the outer banks, you may wonder. They’re barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, about a 200-mile stretch of them. I’ve bought some really cool/weird film from Photojojo, an online photo store and blog that I’m currently obsessed with, so I’ll be shooting that and posting the results on here.

and of course, I’ll be getting some new digital work in front of your eyes while I’m there. Very very very excited.

This has been a lengthy update. There are some pretty good links and resources that I sprinkled throughout this post, so be sure to check them back and let me know what you think.

Vote for me until July 29th and watch for my upcoming photo posts (yay finally!)

Thanks for reading,

Jess