Choosing which email address to use for Google Groups

August 12, 2010 By

I’ve gotten a couple of variations on this question recently:

I’ve been invited to use a Google Group, but I want to use a different email address than the one used to invite me. Can I change my email address in my Google Group profile? Or add a different address?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is that the way you accomplish this depends on the way your addresses are viewed by Google.

This post should help those of you with more than one email address. Especially since you probably have a darned good reason for having multiple email addresses (to filter specific types of email to specific accounts, for instance), and right now Google seems to be messing you up.

There are two scenarios that could give rise to this situation.

Scenario 1: You just want to add another email address to your existing Google account

You can add an alternate email address to your Google account (here are Google’s help pages for alternate email addresses), and then choose which of those emails to use for your Google Group stuff. Here are the steps to follow:

  1. When logged into any Google service (gmail, Groups, Blogger, Reader, Calendar, etc.) look in the top right corner of your screen. Click the link that says “My Account.” It might also be in a drop-down labeled “Settings.”
  2. Under Personal Settings (right column) of the Google Account page, you’ll see your email address. Click the small blue link below it that says “Edit.”
  3. On this page, you can enter an additional email address (it won’t replace your existing email address) to use with this Google Account. You could also change your address, but I’d recommend keeping the same main address and adding an alternate address as saner in the long run.
  4. Google will send a verification message to this alternate email address, containing a link you must click.
  5. After you’ve clicked the link, you should be able to log into any Google Group, click “Edit my membership,” and choose from a drop-down menu containing your verified email addresses to use for all notifications etc. for that group. Don’t forget to click “Save these settings.”

That should do it for most people.

Scenario 2: You have more than one Google account

You’ll know you fall into this category if you followed the Scenario 1 steps, but got stopped at Step 3 by Google telling you that you can’t use the additional email address because it’s already associated with a Google account.

This also happens if you try to use a gmail address as an alternate email address — because a gmail account is automatically a separate Google account. Gah!

Most people don’t need more than one Google account, but it’s quite easy to get there by accident. I’m actually one of those myself — I have an “old” Google account that I used to create blogs on Blogger long ago, and then somehow I ended up setting up a totally new one so I could use gmail. So if that’s what happened to you, rest assured, you’re not alone.

Google does not provide a way to merge two Google accounts. Here’s their official help page saying there’s no way to merge accounts.

So you can either choose to use the invited address for your Google Group (see Google’s help topic on using multiple Google accounts simultaneously), or you can join the group again with your preferred Google account (this might involve asking the Group administrator to re-invite or re-add you with a different address, if it’s an invitation-only Group).

Hope this helps!

Google is huge and mighty and sometimes quite confusing. Got more Google questions? Leave a comment here, and I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction!

Filed Under: From the Mailbag, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

Free website color clinic teleclass today!

June 16, 2010 By

Today at 1pm, I’ll be doing a free teleclass with artist Amy Crook of Not Dead Yet Studios and Antemortem Arts. Amy’s years of experience in graphic design and fine art are a perfect complement to my WordPress geekery; between the two of us you get beautiful form and flawless function. And that goes for our website work, too ;)

In this no-cost one-hour call, we’ll tell you how to choose (and more importantly, how NOT to choose) a color scheme for your website, give you some solid design principles to help you use color effectively, and offer recommendations for upgrading and fine-tuning your website’s colors. Got a question about color? Join us and ask it live!

Amy is going to announce a special deal just for callers, and this call is also the official launch of our joint WordPress packages, but this is not a sales call. We’re going to have fun picking apart some websites we know and love, and learning to see web colors with a designer’s eye. We’d love to have you join us!

We’re publishing the dial-in number and access code so that you can join us easily. No strings attached, no reservation or registration required.

Free teleclass details

We’ll be recording the call, and we’ll be happy to send you a free copy of the recording plus a 5-page PDF handout on using color effectively online. For that, we’ll need a way to contact you. Sign up here to get on the mailing list for the call recording and handout (this handout was designed by Amy, and she’s an artist — trust me, it’s gorgeous!).

Filed Under: Announcements, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

Teleclass Nuts & Bolts, Part 3: Recordings (and backup recordings!)

June 15, 2010 By

Our story so far:

I’ve taught quite a number of teleclasses about various tech topics, but I only realized recently that the setting-up and managing of teleclasses themselves is a tech topic that you might need help with.

I’ll describe the technological steps that I go through each time I set up and run a new class, from beginning to end.

In the previous two installments I talked about conference lines and getting the word out. Today’s topic is recording your teleclass.

Why record in the first place?

If you’re just starting out, you might be a little shy or even squeamish about the idea of recording yourself talking. And I totally get that. I still get a little weirded out by listening to myself on a recording, so I’m right there with you.

But here’s the thing: There’s no downside to recording your class. That becomes pretty clear if you flip the question and ask “Why not?”

  • I might say something stupid or sound dumb. Yep, you might, and no one ever has to hear the recording if you do. It’s yours. You can hide it, archive it, or delete it.
  • No one will ever want to hear/download/buy the recording. Yep, that might be true. But no one will ever be able to make that choice unless you have a recording in the first place.
  • I don’t know how. That’s OK, you can learn! Keep reading for your first steps.

Let’s flip these into reasons to go ahead and record:

  • I might say something brilliant. However unlikely you may think this outcome, it’s at least technically possible, right? And if you do, you’ll have captured it for posterity. Bonus: If someone else says something nice about your class, you’ve captured an instant testimonial!
  • If I ever want to create products to sell, having audio recordings gives me material to work with. You bet. You can even give them away as free bonuses, if you’re not ready to build an info product empire just yet.
  • This is a chance to practice something new. I think it’s a great idea for us solopreneurs to learn how to do most, if not all, the work our businesses require. If there are tasks you hate, sure, you can plan to outsource them at some point, but even if you do have that plan, you’ll want to know enough about what you’re doing to describe your plans to future helpers, right? And if it turns out there are tasks you can do yourself that you don’t mind, you can save yourself some money and feel super-capable at the same time. What’s not to like?

Now that I’ve given this great pep talk, let’s move on to the actual recording how-to.

Use your conference provider’s built-in recording feature

Most of the free conference providers offer free recording of their calls. If your call provider doesn’t offer this service, or charges you for recording, you really ought to switch.

The exact procedure for starting and stopping the recording depends on the conference provider. There should be clear instructions on the provider’s website or in the email you received when you signed up. And the provider’s automated system should walk you through the process as you do it, too.

For example, when I’m hosting a call using FreeConferencePro, I just have to press *9 to tell the service to start recording. I’m prompted to enter a number to identify the call (this is just any number that I make up, and I don’t have to remember it), then the # key, and then I hear “This conference is being recorded.” And when I hang up, the recording stops.

That’s it. As few as four key presses, and I’m recording.

Your conference provider should store your recordings for you, but you should still download a copy of the recording to your own computer as soon as possible after the call (I’ll cover downloading in a future installment of this series).

Always have a backup plan

If you’re going to record the call, I highly recommend creating a backup recording. You can (probably) do it for free, so the same “there’s no downside” argument applies. There is more than one way to handle backup recording, so here are a few ways I’ve done it:

Use a paid service like AudioAcrobat or BYOAudio. Each is $19.95 per month after a 30-day free trial; those are not affiliate links since I’m not a paying subscriber of either service. I have used AudioAcrobat in the past and it does make publishing audio files very easy, but WordPress plugins can do that job just as easily for $0. To record a conference call, you’ll need three-way calling to connect the AudioAcrobat recording service with your conference line.

Use your computer to record directly. This only works if you’re going to use Skype or a similar VoIP service for your call (which in general I don’t recommend due to possible connection and clarity problems), and if you have audio recording software and know how to use it. You’ll also likely end up with a recording that features your voice loud and clear, while any other voices on the call will sound like they’re, well, on a long-distance line. So you’ll want to be a savvy enough audio editor to do tricks like balancing out the volume levels. Not for the faint of heart.

My current favorite backup: TalkShoe.com. It’s a hybrid of an Internet radio network and a conference-call service, allowing both live webcasts and private invitation-only calls. I simply set up a private call, dial in using three-way calling, and have TalkShoe automatically record the entire call. Come to think of it, you could do this three-way-calling backup-recording dance with any other free conference service (or even another FreeConferencePro account).

Got a question about any of these services, or about recording conference calls? Leave me a comment or talk to me during my Open Office Hours!

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , , , , ,

Teleclass Nuts & Bolts, part 2: Getting the Word Out

June 7, 2010 By

Our story so far:

I’ve taught quite a number of teleclasses about various tech topics, but I only realized recently that the setting-up and managing of teleclasses themselves is a tech topic that you might need help with.

I’ll describe the technological steps that I go through each time I set up and run a new class, from beginning to end.

Last week I talked about conference lines. Now that you have a dedicated phone number for your teleclass, how do you give that number to the people who need it?

Open the doors or close the gate?

The first decision to make is whether to require people to sign up to join the class, or just broadcast the telephone number to the world.

If you are charging admission, you obviously want to collect payment before giving people the call-in details. An example is the Bite the Candy teleclass on backups and upgrades I’m doing on June 10 with Cairene MacDonald of Third Hand Works.

It costs $37 to register for the workshop, and Cairene has a nifty system set up so that buyers automatically receive an email message containing call details once their payment has been received (I’ll describe how I set up systems like this in future installments of this Teleclass Nuts & Bolts series).

If your teleclass will be free, it’s still a common and accepted practice to ask people to register. An example is the free teleclass called three ways to get more out of your AWeber investment (you can still sign up even though the class is over — you’ll get the recording), which I did with Shannon Wilkinson to promote our Love Your List workshop.

Why do you want people to sign up, instead of just handing out the number? So you can get your (electronic) hands on their email addresses, which you can then use to send marketing messages. In our case, we wanted to promote a paid workshop, and we also wanted a way to send people the recording after we held the live teleclass.

Of course, people will (rightfully) complain if you do this in a sleazy way, so it’s always a good idea to be upfront about what you’re going to do with their email address, and then make that something good. Such as sending them a recording of your class afterward, asking their opinion, thanking them with a special offer, or any number of other good-citizen marketing techniques.

Open to all

A note (and a question) about ungated calls: I’ve heard it said that giving something away (like an ebook) without requiring an email address means it will spread 20 to 50 times more people (not 20% to 50% more, but 20x to 50x). I’m not sure if those numbers apply to teleclasses, however (and I wonder if anyone has any information or statistics on this).

Teleclasses are different from ebooks, because they happen at a specific time. I’m sure that many more people will have access to the dial-in information if you make it public (for instance, simply publishing the phone number on your website, your blog, your Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc.). But that might not translate into more people actually calling in. Or it might. Does anyone out there know?

If you’re going to make the call-in information public anyway, I’d suggest going one step further and broadcasting your call as a live Internet radio show. You can do this for free at sites including BlogTalkRadio.com and TalkShoe.com (I personally prefer TalkShoe because there are no restrictions on when you can broadcast, you can have more live callers, and you can also schedule “private” broadcasts). People can listen on their computers or call in, you can easily get a recording (which will live on in your public archives, too), and you also get a bit more exposure by using the Internet radio site as a platform.

Countdown to the call

Whichever way you choose to set your call up, you’ll want to make yourself a Call Countdown Calendar, scheduling your publicity-generating activities so they build to a peak in the day or so before your call.

This is a chance to use your normal online activities to promote your call. For instance, if you hang out on Twitter, tweet a few times each day, and ask for retweets. Update your Facebook or LinkedIn status to include a note that you’re excited about your teleclass (with a link, of course!). Write a blog post (or several).

If you asked people to register for the call, I highly recommend that you set up a reminder email message to go out to everyone who registered, on the day before or the day of (the morning of the teleclass day is best, in my opinion). If you added them to an email list service like AWeber, it’s a cinch to set up a broadcast message containing the call-in details.

In my next Teleclass Nuts & Bolts installment, I’ll talk about recording your teleclass.

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: ,
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