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My Social Media Addiction

Like most Canadians, I celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend with my family. This involved a long drive north with 2 young kids in the car, good times, good family, and great eats.

Oh and no internet access.

4 days without internet access, some hardcore tweeters went crazy the last time twitter and facebook went down for a couple hours. My google reader had hundreds of new items yesterday for me when I opened it. My stack exchange site is ready, and I had a Google wave invite sitting in my inbox – and I just lost 4 days!

I’m not addicted yet – I still don’t have a wireless device, most of my fun is had after the kids are long asleep at home.

Today, I was sitting at an appointment waiting for 10 minutes, could have been writing a blog, or catching up on my feeds, or even tweeting from a mobile device. Well my birthday is coming up soon….

It is easy to get enveloped with Social media, there is so much information, so many tools, so much out there to learn – and yes this is learning for me. Learning about the tools that are out there, opening my eyes to how it is changing the world – yes the world! Everything from business executive blogs to IPhone apps that connect you with Kenyan refugees to do data checking. Social Media is touching everyone, and I believe everyone can use it their way, for their purposes – which is one of the great things about it.

As an engineer I have to devour as much information on a subject as possible, evaluate different options, and decide which is the best route to take, the best product to use. I learned real quick while doing technical design and programming that I could never know everything, but I still wanted to.

Which leaves me with my social media addiction. At least I concede that I can’t know it all, and I can blog about it. I just need to know enough to convince others of the value of social media for both business and personal use.

Posted in 2.0 Lessons, Random Thoughts, Social Media.

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By Jeremy – October 13, 2009

My First Incoming Link!!

After 2 weeks online, and still trying to find my place in the blogosphere, Tom Graves gives me my first incoming link to this blog.  I made a comment on Luis Suarez’s excellent post a few days ago, and Tom read my comment and included it in an article of his own.

Big thanks Tom! 

And now I really see how this all starts to work.  You really have no clue how it works until you just start doing it.  Unfortunately, if you are actually reading this, you probably already get it.  Now of course that is a good thing, but one of my goals for this blog is to try and get people on the bandwagon wrt to Social Media and the amazing thing it is, the amazing learning opportunity that it is, and the amazing connections that you can make. 

I am now following Tom’s blog, he sounds like an interesting fellow, and maybe he is following mine.  (I just checked, according to feedburner, 4 people are following me – thanks to Brian and Scott, the third one is me, and thanks to the fourth – whoever you are)  Back to my point, I think I have one, the more people that are following my blog, the more content I want to spit out, because I want to keep those 4 people coming back.  Luis keeps coming up with great posts, his latest here almost had me on the ground.  I always look forward to his posts and he never disappoints.  Was that my point? – no, my point was that I can really see this spiralling and growing exponentially, growing my readers and coming up with some great content that people will comment on and want to keep coming back.

My current goal is still to try to write and aggregate content that will help people embrace the social web, and help them figure out how they can make it valuable for themselves.  I find myself talking more and more about it to people and getting the eye roll and the waste of time comments, but those people don’t understand the impact Social Media is having, and are afraid to change, and are afraid to take the time required to get it.

I love a challenge!

Posted in 2.0 Lessons, Social Media.

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By Jeremy – October 2, 2009

Stack Exchange & Google Wave

Ahh the excitement is building. Stack Exchange in beta release, I am still waiting…

Also I heard today that Google is releasing accounts for their new Wave product.  I am convinced that Wave is going to transform the way we use email, IM and wikis, as it really combines all three of those tools!  It lets users work together on a “wave”, where they can discuss and edit the same page in real time, in deifferent languages even! In the presentation of the product earlier in the year, they also mention that they are going to make it available for enterprise configuration.

More on this – think about documents you write and review at work, and how many people provide feedback, emails, revisions, what is the current revision of the document? Document control systems have helped track revisions, wikis have helped with collaborative editing – but really don’t allow concurrent editing, Wave allows you, and who ever you invite, to work on a common page – at the same time.

Is there something wrong with me when I get excited over things like this?  I don’t think so, because I don’t plan on bidding on eBay for an account (not yet anyway). As of 4 pm today, there are three auctions taking place, up to $100 already on one of them.

Masshable is all over this:
http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/google-wave-invite/
http://mashable.com/2009/09/29/google-wave-invites-2/
http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/google-wave-invites-3/

Update: Good little clip on what Wave is:

Product demo from Google is below

Posted in Random Thoughts, Social Media, Social Media Tools.

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By Jeremy – October 1, 2009

Did You Know 4.0

I love this series of videos. This is the most recent one. I have included links to all of the other previous versions as well, as it is interesting to see the progression. The videos were initially created by Karl Fisch – http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com. He has related blog posts to all of them which are quite interesting. What started out as simple PowerPoint presentation has been revised and viewed 20-30 million times!  Believe it!

Did you know Version 4.0 – September 2009
Direct Link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

If interested, the previous 3 versions follow

Did you know Version 3.0 – August 2008
Direct Link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

Did you know – Version 2.0 – June 2007
Direct Link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Did you know – Shift Happens – August 2006
Direct Link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

Posted in Random Thoughts, Social Media.

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By Jeremy – September 29, 2009

What Is Social Media?

Here is a good lesson on what social media is!  (Do I have your attention yet?)

From slide 18 – Social Media is not a fad. It is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

What The F**K is Social Media?
View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Thanks Marta for such a to-the-point presentation.  And a recent followup: (Since I am sure she had so much fun with the first one)

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later
View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Posted in 2.0 Lessons, Social Media.

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By Jeremy – September 28, 2009

Setting Up My Blog – Part 1

If you want to Just Do It,  it is easy. I had fun figuring out how to start writing this blog, so I thought I would write about it.

  1. Start writing posts, using whatever medium you feel comfortable with. Napkin, paper, email, word processing software, whatever. Get the juices flowing!
  2. Pick a web hosting service. Get started at www.web-hosting-reviews.ca All the companies have different options, prices, etc, and really you have no idea what you want, so just pick one. Justhost happened to be #1 when I found this site, and when I tried to close the justhost site, they offered me 50% off, so I signed up. If you figure out how to make money blogging and have thousands of visitors this might become important, but for now lets just get a site going.  Double check that the host has options available for web editing.  I (and thousands of others) use WordPress.  PS – I did not start blogging to make money, if that is your main objective, then you are missing the point.
  3. Pick a domain name – this is surprisingly difficult. Everything my creative side came up with was already taken.. you will find that there are companies out there that have hundreds of thousands of domain names for sale. Pretty much every two word combination has been “registered” and the more common the words, or the more applicable to business they are, the more $$$ they are going to cost.  As far as I know, I belong to the only Sluyters family in Canada, and yet sluyters.com is already registered. Doesn’t seem right… Use  www.psychicwhois.com to see if your domain is available.
  4. You can buy domain names separately from the hosting service, I registered my domain when I signed up for the hosting package, and it was free.
  5. When you sign up for hosting, don’t buy anything more just yet, you are just experimenting.  Justhost has a cheap monthly rate, but they have pages and pages of add-ons that they recommend you purchase.
  6. Install WordPress using the file manager on your host account. It is easy, it just works.  Although I did have to go into the file manager and delete the index.htm file that Justhost put there as a landing page.
  7. Customize WordPress, there are thousands of themes and plugins that you can choose from. Don’t play with this for too long, your intent here is to create a blog and pretend you can write, not become a web expert (but that is fun too, depending on how techie you are).
  8. Post! Then post again, and transfer all of those napkin scribbles to your drafts library. If it takes to long to write a post, than you are blogging about the wrong thing!
  9. Try to post once a week, and have a small group of people you trust read your posts and provide feedback.   If you are enjoying the experience, then make a point of doing it, and share it with more people.

Part 2 will come later, based on how I do with my last point above! 

Finally, there are blogs out there about blogs  – www.problogger.net is a great place to start.  Speaking of Problogger, here are my 9 first steps that seem to be good goals to reach for a new blogger:

(Taken from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/07/17/9-first-step-goals-for-new-bloggers/)

  1. Publish 10 Posts
  2. Getting your first comment from someone you don’t know
  3. Get your first link from another blog
  4. Build your readership up to more than 20 readers a day
  5. Hit a level of 20 RSS subscribers
  6. Getting your blog indexed in Google
  7. Get your blog earning $1 a week (update: only if making money from your blog is one of your goals – it’s not for everyone
  8. First guest post on another blog
  9. Having someone (not you or your mum) tweet about your blog

Sounds reasonable.

Posted in 2.0 Lessons, Random Thoughts.

1 comment

By Jeremy – September 27, 2009

Dan Pink On the Science of Motivation

Rewards? Do you think you do a better job if you are rewarded? Science says not a chance, business says of course we do. Dan Pink says “there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.”

Intrinsic motivators vs. Extrinsic motivators.
Autonomy, mastery and purpose vs. Carrots and Sticks.

Who wins?  As soon as a task requires even rudimentary cognitive skills, rewards actually hinder the outcome!

An awesome video and worth the 18 minutes.

People need to drive, not be driven!

Posted in Business.

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By Jeremy – September 25, 2009

Just Do It

Ever had the feeling that you don’t have time to get everything done? There is too much to do, and just not enough time in the day, it is too easy to let the “big rocks” fall off the table, or spend too much time in Q1, (insert any other business metaphor you like). Or maybe felt like you were working on a hundred different things and getting nowhere on single one?

Blogging is one of those things that I always thought would be a good idea, but never could really bring myself to start. I recently came across this video on YouTube:

I have always had big thoughts in my head, with my mind racing constantly to figure out solutions to problems at work, home, wherever. Up until now I had not been able to pinpoint my passions, because I want to do it all, and when I sink my teeth into something, I like to see results, and see it through.

Seth Godin and Tom Peters made up my mind – It is a way to get my thoughts down, and just writing this makes me feel better! So now to figure out where to focus my energy, so I can provide value to someone out there, because random thoughts about everything really doesn’t help anyone out.

Posted in Random Thoughts.

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By Jeremy – September 15, 2009