Associated Content Producers Spotlight

I’m getting ready to start preparing my soil for my spring garden so this morning I was reading some gardening articles on Associated Content. Check out these articles on gardening.

Most Wanted’ Pests in Garden – Eddie Smith
“Wanted Dead Not Alive,” the garden pests most likely to cause damage to garden plants.

Will Your Backyard Garden Become Illegal? – Dusti Sparks
Possible pitfalls of H.R. 875: The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009.

A Beginner’s Garden: Top Vegetable Picks for Your Home Garden – Fern Fischer
Everything looks fresh and delicious in garden magazine and seed catalog pictures. When you choose what to grow in you vegetable garden, the most important thing to consider is what your family likes to eat.

Summer Plant Types – Sara Sentor
Summer is the time for relaxing. It is also a time to plant different flowers and make your garden blossom into an array of colors.

Buying Garden Plants on the Internet - Marge Tecat
Six things you need to know about buying plants online, from a mail-order veteran.

How to Control Common Vegetable Garden Pests – Jim Gober
Learn how to control common vegetable garden pests such as cabbage loopers, harlequin bugs, tomato hornworms potato beetles and more.

Indoor Gardening: Growing Indoor Herbs – Akeia Dixon
How do you grow herbs indoors? What kind of challenges will you face trying to grow herbs indoors? How easy (or difficult) can it be? If you grow herbs indoors, are there any health benefits?

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I have been compiling a list of content producers that have been spotted in other media outlets.  Here’s who’s been spotted.

Popularity: 11% [?]

A couple of months ago it happened: when I tried to log in AC (as you do in the morning) there was no AC. “Website cannot be found” it said on my screen.

I stared at the words. I couldn’t believe it. And I tried again, and again. Still no AC.

After banging my head against the wall, I sat down and looked at my lonely cup of morning coffee. Usually the first one is followed by many more by the time it’s 9 am. But no more AC, no more coffee. No more chatting on the threads, no more writing articles.

I imagined that a disaster must have happened, there in Denver. And normally I would have known what kind of disaster, because it would have been on AC. But not now of course. Because AC had ceased to exist.

I thought of what could have happened; it must have been big; Sam would never have given up without a fight. I pictured him clutching floppy disks in his bloody hands, defending himself with a paperclip.Of course, I thought, muscled Russian mobsters carrying machine-guns have taken over Denver! But no, I thought again, we’re talking about Denver, Colorado, not Moscow. And surely this would have been on TV. Sam sprinting through the streets must be a sight to behold and the CNN TV cameras would have zoomed in.  

Finishing my coffee (and thus loaded up on caffeine) I finally had the solution. Why I hadn’t thought of it before I don’t know.

Because what do you do when you have a problem? You email Sam. By now it seems, whatever your problem is; ranging from: “how to fix the dishwasher” to “how to keep the kids quiet” to: “What’s the best place to go on Summer vacation?”, Sam gets the questions, by email. He has no answers to all these totally irrelevant questions of course, but that’s not the issue here.

So, I emailed Sam to notify him that it appeared that he was out of job. He’s a big guy, but he can move like lightening in cases like this. I got an email back saying that no, AC was still there. I logged in and everybody and everything  was  where they should be. I got out my hanky and wiped the sweat off my brow, immensely relieved. It must have been a glitch on my end.

But it got me thinking: suppose, just suppose, that one day AC is really gone? Would you miss it? Would you miss the people there? The writing?

Just think of it.

It could well be that you would miss it more than you realize now.

Popularity: 8% [?]

The last few months at AC have grown inflammatory, derogatory, accusatory, defamatory, feudatory and even hallucinatory. All because of politics.

Content producers brave enough to state their political opinions have had to fight for them. CPs and readers have agreed and disagreed, sometimes in the forums, other times in the comment section of articles. The battle has clearly defined the political stand Content Producers are taking.

Associated Content is just as politically divided as the rest of the nation which only goes to show that amongst opposing viewpoints we are still one nation united together.

If you were to create a map of Associated Content Producers and mark them either red or blue like they do with the electoral votes map on the news the results would be remarkably similar

When I searched AC’s library of articles siding with both presidential candidates there were more results in favor of Obama. Not by much though. I used the search term “vote for obama” and “vote for mccain” and 2,832 turned up for obama and 2,518 for mccain. You have to take into account though all the articles listed in those results that said won’t, can’t or don’t vote but even then there are still more articles in favor of Obama than there are of McCain.

Of course now that it’s November 5^th it doesn’t really matter who voted for who because Obama has already won.

Perhaps we should have a little compassion for our Conservative, Republican, McCain loving Content Producers. As a gesture of letting bygones be bygones I offer you this list of disappointed CPs.

Todaysbest4me – Why I can’t Vote for Obama.

Charles Drengberg – Top 10 Reasons Not to Vote for Obama

Amanda Keller – Questions in The Rain as I Vote for McCain.

Timothy Sexton – Top 5 Reasons You Should Vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin

Alison Hasselguist – Why I Vote John McCain and Not Barack Obama

Virtual Vee – Why I Will Vote for John McCain

JHoff – This Time I’m Supporting McCain

LarrWayne – Vote for McCain Not Higher Taxes

I was recently informed that I made a blunder and included a couple of articles that were actually written in sarcasim.  So I went ahead and removed those from the list above and ind will instead add another list in this post for those in favor of Obama.  Thanks Sheryl!

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There have been many firsts in AC’s history including its group of first content producers.   Some of those first content producers have moved on to other ventures but a handful of the original CPs still remain. These are the CPs that have found success as a web writer and many of them are willing to share what they know with new CPs. Here’s a list of successful veteran CPs you might want to emulate. You could do worse than aspire to be like them.

Michelle L. Devon aka Michy

Tsu Dho Nimh

The Barefoot

Capt. Dallas

Pam Gaulin

Momie Tullotes

Carol Bengle Gilbert

Randy Inman

Donna Porter

SkyDanzer

Lee Andrew Henderson

Amy Brantley

Paula Neal Mooney

These are all people that have weathered the storm that is sometimes called AC. They are still striving, still succeeding and still writing.

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As I was sinking into one of my re-occurring reflecting and insightful moods (also known as day-dreaming) I thought of AC. About the people there, what kind of lives they might live. What the similarities were, and also the differences.

Of course, although AC is American-owned, it is fast becoming a global site.

The first thing that set me off thinking along these lines were the time-differences. By now I’ve become pretty good at working out what time it is in many places. Still, I always feel slightly sorry for the Americans, as they are always 18 hours behind us. It seems that I’ve already lived their yesterday.

And Europe is usually 12 hours difference. This is easier, at least for me.

Still it’s always fun to get a comment from India when it’s evening here and afternoon there.

But fiddling with several time-zones is only a minor issue.

“why have you joined AC?” Now we’re getting to the crunch. Because the answer is always the same: “Because I like writing”. And true too: if you didn’t like writing you wouldn’t join something like AC. Still, you could’ve bought a diary, opened a blog or you could’ve written long, long shopping lists. But you didn’t.

You had something to tell us: the rest of the world. And, if you get into some serious keywording, millions outside AC will read your articles too. And The Wise People at AC let you write about nearly any subject under the rainbow.

But, it’s not just about writing and getting all those creative juices going. Once that’s done; the Publish button has been pushed and you lean back in your chair congratulating yourself with a glass of wine, something else is happening.

Okay, your work is done; the article is out there, you can go to bed now and have sweet dreams. But people like me are still up and about; reading, reading. Watching posted video’s, looking at pictures, listening to great voices who sing beautiful songs. (Yes, on AC, and these are our own CP”s!!)

AC is fast becoming a global smorgasbord of all the above. And if it weren’t for AC, you and I would’ve missed out on all this talent. And not only all this talent, but also opinions.

I’ve learned so much about American Politics,(for example) that I’ve learned more about it over the past weeks than that of my own country. These are the voices of real people; not a commentator on TV.

Not being a great cook I’ve found several recipes that even a klutz like me can cook. Not only that, I’ve found articles giving me advice on every subject that I can think of. Also: I read articles that made me laugh in times when I felt down, and got good tips on how to date (should that ever be necessary). I’ve travelled the world through reading articles, bought cd’s because other CP’s thought they were good. I could go on forever.

Q:”Why have you joined AC?”

A:”Because you (AC)’ve brought the world to me”

Read, people, read other’s articles too. Don’t just write an article and turn off the computer.

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For those of you who don’t frequent the AC forums there’s a bit of a joke about “The Kelly’s.” The reason being is that there was at one time several Kelly’s active on the forums. One thing all of us “Kelly’s” have in common is that we are known to disappear from the forums and return and disappear and..well you get the picture. Although I must say, out of all the “Kelly’s” I’m the one that sticks around the most. So in the spirit of The Kelly Club I give you articles written by a few of the 600 Kelly’s on Associated Content. Myself included.

Kelly Herdrich is one of the disappearing Kelly Club members. Once in a while she pops her head into the forums so we know she’s still alive out there somewhere.

Some of her articles include:
Personalized Baby Shower Gifts for Parents
NYC Nightlife Guide for Lower Manhattan
How to Tie a Toga
Too Pretty to Fly? Does Judgment Equal Discrimination?

Kelly Hendrix is a fairly new Kelly Club member. So new in fact that she doesn’t even know she’s one of us. So far this Kelly looks to be trying to find her niche and dabbles in a variety of topics.

Some of her articles include:
The Philosophy of Happiness
How to Get Your Money’s Worth (and Enjoyment!) Out of Disney World
The Place D’Armes – Breathtaking Hotel in the Heart of New Orleans

Kelly Spies, that’s me. I’m one of The Kelly’s at Associated Content. My articles and interest tend to seem a little ADD in that they are all over the place topic wise.

Some of my articles are:
National Underwear Day, August 8th
Naked Sports: Sports Activities for the Nudists
How to Dispose of a Dead Body
What Happens to Your Website When You Die?

Kelly Fleming has been an Associated Content writer since 2007. She won the PMA award for top preforming richmedia and has published over 1,000 articles. You don’t see her on the forums much but she has made a name for herself amongst the other content producers.

Some of her articles are:
Work from Home: Squishy Cash
How To: Use Google Maps
Keeping Your Marriage Alive: Tip #1
Different Uses for Step Stools

Kelly Schaub is a brand new content producer. She just joined earlier this month and already has one article published. I’d like to welcome her to AC and to the Kelly Club.

Here’s Kelly’s first article:
Keeping Your Child on a Balanced Diet When They Start School

To see a listing of all 600 Kelly’s registered at Associated Content, click here.

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I recently had the pleasure to interview our award winning Associated Content Staff Member AC Sam. I wasn’t sure if he’d accept my offer so I was pretty surprised when he volunteered to be my victim. Without any further babbling from me I give you an inside look at one of the men steamrolling Associated Content towards success.

Me: Is Sam your full name or is it short for something else?

Sam William DeWitt is my full, legal name. I was named after my two grandfathers.

Me: What generation bracket would you most likely identify with? baby boomers, yuppies, gen-x’er, old farts etc.

Well, I’m a Gen-Y guy I guess… the Nintendo generation? Team Apathy. None of these really fit me. But I know I came after Gen-X. So whatever that makes me is what I am.

Me: What did you do before you came to AC?

Honestly, I was wandering around a bit in the job market. I worked for several years in radio, doing on-air work mostly, but also doing a lot of promotions gigs. You know when you go to a store and a station is broadcasting live from outside the store, and there are a bunch of people in cargo shorts and tee shirts hanging out in the tent? I was one of those people. Not the best job in the world, but my tan was unbelievable.

I’ve also done inside sales (hated it), media relations (loved it), and worked in the Athletics department of a Division II school here in Denver (LOVED it).

Me:If you could have the job of your dreams, the ultimate career in the universe, what would you do professionally?

Wow… honestly, I’d love to end up back in athletics. I had a great time with the student-athletes and coaches, and it was great to really be immersed in that team atmosphere. But my dream jobs are, in order:

1. Quarterback, Denver Broncos
2. Catcher, Boston Red Sox
3. Community Relations Manager, Associated Content

Me: Do you see yourself retiring from AC, meaning is this where you want to work until you retire?

Wow, I’ve never actually been asked that before. AC would be a great place to retire from, I think. The thing that I love about AC is being able to affect the company with everything I do. I’ve been here for a while now, and I know the ins and outs pretty well, so everything I want to accomplish helps the company, and it’s a great way of looking at it. But I’m still pretty young (turning 30 in April), so the thought of retiring from anywhere is very foreign to me.

Me: What would you say has been the most exciting thing you’ve experienced at Associated Content?

I would say watching the company grow. When I started, there were about seven of us, total, packed into a little two-rooms-and-a-lobby office in Cherry Creek North. I was a part-time Content Manager, so I only came into the office twice a week or so. We moved a few blocks away, to a bigger office, so I started coming in every day. But soon, we outgrew that space, and had to take up half a floor of the same building. Now we’re ankles to elbows in that space, so the next move will probably have to be a significant one. The thing about it is, nobody minds the moving and the shuffling around. It is the sign of a good, growing company that we are doing so, and that is based largely on the influx of Content Producers we’ve had coming into the site. If it wasn’t for all the great CP’s, I’d still be coming in twice a week.

Me: Do people off the street ever just walk in to the AC office? If no, is there a reason; for example, the AC building sits at the back of a dark alleyway or there is a big, scary bald guy guarding the door?

You know, I’ve never seen people wander in off the street. But it’s not because we have anyone guarding the door. Of course, if you’re coming by, we’d love to hear from you first, if for no other reason than it would give me a chance to clean my desk.

Me: Does AC do business with other local business owners?

Well, we’ve done some things with eBags in the past, and they’re located in Denver. I think Disaboom is in Boulder. Other than that, we eat lunch at a bunch of local restaurants, so you could say we do business with locals every day!

Me: You come across so sweet on the AC forums that many of us have been wondering about you. For starters we’d like to know if you’re married? If you are married would your wife get upset if we flirt uncontrollably? We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

I’m not married, but I do have a serious girlfriend named Maggie. She’s in the picture with me. And she says you can look but not touch, and that you can flirt as far as your keyboard can reach. J

Me: Do you have children?

Nope, none yet. Someday.

Me: What kind of shoes do you wear most of the time and what color? (you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of shoes they wear)

Well, it’s summer time, so flip flops are the order of the season. I’ve got two pair; one pair is black, with red trim. The other pair is tan. I can’t find the tan ones these days, so the black ones are getting a lot of wear.

In the winter, I wear work boots mostly, or hiking shoes if the streets aren’t too gross.

Me: Do you get all bundled up in the winter with scarves and gloves and the giant parka? Is it really THAT necessary?

I’m not so much for the parka, although my ski coat definitely got some wear in the last two years when we had some serious cold snaps in town. Two years ago was the blizzard, so my standard gear for walking around town (car was useless) was ski pants, ski jacket, hat, gloves, scarf, and goggles. Yep, it was necessary.

Me: Do you have any tattoos or body piercings? If so what and where are they?

I don’t currently. I had my ear pierced in college. Maggie is trying to get me to get some tattoos, but I haven’t decided what or where those would go. I’m leaning towards a Celtic cross on my forearm, but that might be a little racy. And I’m fairly certain my mother would have a heart attack. So it’s a work in progress.

Me: Does the AC office have a dress code or uniform?
Oh my, no. Jeans, shorts, tee shirts, button-downs… we’re all family here.

Me: Are you tall, average or short?

I’m tall. 6’3”, and a big dude, by all accounts. I hit my head on a lot of stuff.

Me: What makes you laugh?

Great question! A really funny movie (Knocked Up, Austin Powers, Big Lebowski) can do it. Chuck Klosterman, who is my favorite writer, always gets me. Anything by Nick Hornby. And, I think my friends are the funniest people in the world. My buddy Matt Bowker is a brilliant stand up comic in Boston, and he makes me laugh every time we talk. Hilarious. You can check out his stuff HERE.

Me: Do you ever write articles?

I used to write a lot more than I do now. I think, at the end of the day, I’m pretty worn out on the computer, so I just try to relax. I have written a few, and I used to write a lot more for a website called BroncosUpdate.com, but…

Me: What’s your favorite kind of article to read?

I love the humor section on AC. I’m a big sports nut too, so anything about the teams I care about.

Me: Lastly, can you give us a hint at what’s coming for AC and the content producers in the future? I know you can’t give us any detailed information but maybe just a clue?

I don’t have much information in that direction, but I know there are some good things coming through in the next 3-6 months. These are things that will make AC an even better home for your content.

Reading Sam’s responses to my questions was both enlightening and funny. Thanks Sam, for the interview!

P.s.  Photo above is Sam and girlfriend Maggie.  Cute couple.

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I left the threads for just a couple of days; when I came back I expected interesting,insightful,soul searching,funny and joyful threads. To my dismay they are in (almost) hibernation. And this while AC so loves our endless chatter! Admin.Mike said so himself; more or less. He wants more participation folks, not less! AC has well over 100.000 writers, and only a handful are active on the threads. Perhaps the other 99.990 are extremely busy lawn mowing, cleaning their house or smoking weird cigarettes, but surely there’s time to join in?

Joyful 324 is trying to find out what we do when we’re not writing. Since most of us seem to be the most creative at work, and so using the boss’ computers, it has become glaringly clear. We don’t have the time to write at home; instead we do it somewhere else and hope that nobody finds out.

Charlie had hoped that nobody in Denver realized it was a National Day: 4th of July to be precise. But since Sam keeps an eye on the calender this notion was dispelled of very quickly. Sam and staff will be putting their feet up and probably closing their tired eyes for the whole weekend. Or throw a party; I have no idea what they do in Denver when AC closes its doors.

And Crutnacker has probably seen more YouTube than he originally bargained for. To ask for songs that have your name in it will make people go absolutely wild, it seems . He has taken to listening to punk from now on and will re-appear with a Mohawk and safety pins in his ears. His new avatar will be for public publication soon. If he can find his camera, that is.

And Kelly is into needles as well; a new tattoo of intricate design has appeared on her arm. It shows that Kel is not afraid to go to great lengths and a lot of pain to get what she wants. And all this while she was also busy renovating her abode.

Well, that’s me for this week. Be nice to each other,

Mary-Jane

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Personally, I always thought that going on-line was a safe thing to do; just chatting away with kind folks and so on. But last week it resembled the Wild West and thereI was sitting in front of the pc with a lasso in my hands. Not quite knowing what to do with it; I’m a Townie at heart and the closest I ever come to a cow is buying milk from the supermarket.

But all is well again and my mind, at least has turned to some other interesting subjects.

Chris Carmichael is absolutely fascinated by all those severed feet that seem to be appearing everywhere. The investigating reporters among us are thinking up all sorts of scenarios as to how and why. And leaving the (real) police-detectives scratching their heads and looking downright embarrassed. Because, why didn’t they think of all that?

And Abby Johns is going to give birth to a panda. I truly hope that it’s going to be the smaller variety or else she might be in trouble. But Abby says it’s okay; she’s growing bamboo in her backyard to feed the bubba. And of course when you birth a panda, there won’t be any trouble raising it. No future school fees to think about and they’ll never talk back to you. And come neatly packaged in black and white fur with big cute black panda-eyes. The only problem might be that they climb trees and won’t come out.

Sophia Sanchez loves nature, but not all of its creatures. Everybody is covered in ticks at her place, including the kids. But I have the right solution Sophia: just concrete the whole place over and get some potted trees. It’s a great idea, because you’ll have a lot of parking space as well.

And CJ Mathis caused a small uproar with her Trojan mini-vibrator this week. AC is divided in two camps now: the people who can’t live with it and the people who can’t live without it. After hitting the Publish button CJ decided to post a thread about the sensitive subject and see who would be ending up blushing.

So far only 1 guy did, but surely he must have misread the thread and was confused in thinking it was the picture of the “bare behind” we were talking about. Admittedly it was an ugly one, and hopefully we won’t see any of those anymore, real ones or not so real ones.

Well, that’s me for this week! Be nice to each other! Mary-Jane

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When Kelly asked me to be a contributor here, there seemed to be some expectation that I would facilely serve up the humor like so much cold hors d’oeuvres. An expectation nerve-wrackingly reinforced by her hyperbolic introduction of me as “the funniest man on AC.” As if I’m some sort of trained seal who can just stick a flipper down my throat and puke bons mots. I’m not an amusement-vomiting seal machine that can be turned on with the flick of a switch, dammit.

But I don’t like to disappoint. Not a Kelly, at least. So here’s my cop-out – er, solution. For my first trick, I will provide humor while simultaneously furthering our mistress’ promotional cause. Here’s my own spotlight of CP Will Wright, a man to whom I’m tempted to refer as my favorite AC humorist, though I’m generally hesitant to label favorites.

Yes, I’m posting links to a dozen pieces of content. Excessive? Perhaps. The dude’s got over 200, though, so cut me some slack. Spend half an hour or so reading them all, I promise, it’s laugh-inducing time well-spent. If you have to come back later for some, so be it. These are the funniest of the funny. I don’t mean to imply that his other content’s no good; Will has plenty of interesting, useful, and helpful non-funny articles posted too. But E cares not for interesting, useful, or helpful things. Read, readers, read. And enjoy.

Marriage and the Elimination of Manhood, Part I

Marriage and the Elimination of Manhood, Part II

Delaware: The Most Expendable State in the Union?

Stupid Movie Trends: Movies Inspired by Breakfast Cereals

McDonalds Employee Fired for Being Competent

Confessions of a Stay at Home Dad

Nice Things People Say when They Don’t Like Your Writing

Are You an Evil Genius? A How To Career Guide

Trouble in Spongebob Squarepants 2008 Presidential Campaign

AC Writters Strike: Who Needs Righters?

Truck Driving School for the Blind Overcomes Adversity to Graduate First Class

How to Craft Generic Self-Help Articles for Fun and Profit

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The web’s greatest enemies are word processing programs. They do violent and unpredictable things to web forms. With a little knowledge you can avoid hours of heartache and destruction.

Now don’t even start with the, “but every web site on earth needs to work with Microsoft Word.” The worldwide web standards are not controlled by Microsoft. Just because you happen to use MS Word for everything is no reason for the rest of the world to conform to your limits. Arm yourself with a little knowledge and get with the program.

KISS it
“Keep is Simple Stupid,” is the best advice you can take away from this article. Use a very basic text editor to write things you plan to paste into a web form. Articles, résumés, and feedback rants are all examples.

Why are word processor so heinous?
Programs installed on your PC have access to the PC’s operating system, font definitions and formatting options. They also use proprietary codes to work their magic. Web servers do not have these nifty attributes. They expect you to provide plain text. When your text contains codes the web form can’t decipher, horrible, nasty things happen.

If you have dodged the bullet until now, chances are you were just keeping it simple when typing in Word. Trust me it will bite you eventually.

A little HTML goes a long way
The web runs on HTML. Just learning a little bit can be a life-saver. There is absolutely no reason to not learn the basics. Having a “mental block” is not an excuse. HTML is too easy. You need only know a hand-full of tricks to simplify your life.

1. Hypertext Markup Language is all about putting tags around your text which make the browser do certain things. HTML tags are inclosed in less-than and greater-than signs. To mark the end of what you want the tag to do, you use less-than, slash, tag, greater-than. Seriously, it’s that simple. For example <b>make it bold</b> gives you make it bold.

2. Know the basic tags: b=bold, u=underline, i=italics. That will cover 90% of your formatting needs.

3. Hyperlinks are simple. HTML has a multi-tasking tag called the anchor. You use it to create many things, but the one you’ll need most is a hyperlink. The format is: <A HREF=”http://thebarefoot.wordpress.com”>My Blog</A>. This leaves the words “My Blog” for the reader to see, but if they click on them, their browser goes to the address. So the results are: My Blog. (Note: the tag is case-insensitive.).

Why should you listen to me?
I know. I know. Some say this is all too difficult to bother learning, but I promise it will save your text one day. Some say, “Word has worked so far,” but I promise it will get you eventually.

I happen to be the technical weenie for a site which process hundreds of résumés each day. About once a week, we get notice of someone whose résumé won’t transfer correctly. One hundred percent of these cases have been people who pasted word-processor documents directly into the web site which houses their résumé. If you’ve ever been perplex by Associated Content not displaying your article correctly, just think how these poor people feel when the window to apply for the job is closing in a few hours and they have no résumé to send.

All you Word die-hards, I’ll be looking for you in the AC forums. It’s just a matter of time before you post in a panic.

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