The Blogging for Business conference will be next Monday. Click below to see the Rocky Mountain Voices vidcast with Matt Reinbold and Brad Baldwin
Popularity: 27% [?]
Tag: Tech Life
Calendar: Blogging for Business Conference Monday
October 18th, 2007Calendar: Utah Tech Spotlight — DOBA
October 11th, 2007
Take a breather Thursday and go check out Doba, courtesy of the jockeys over at TwelveHorses. P.S. Don’t forget that Doba is hosting Guy Kawasaki in a few weeks:
“Not only has Jeremy been very successful in building his company here in Utah (currently ranked the 23rd fastest growing privately held business in the Nation), but what Jeremy brings goes far beyond his business savvy and incredible success.”
Go to the Utah Tech Events site to RSVP
Date: Thursday, October 11th
Time: 1:00 – 2:00
Location: Bohemian Brewery And Grill
(94 East and 7200 South, right off of State Street, SLC)
Popularity: 21% [?]
Come one, Come all to Facebook… except you… and you… and…
September 12th, 2007
Yeah, I know this is old news, but when Facebook puts up a tool asking you to import your Gmail contacts, and then BANS YOU for doing exactly that… something’s gotta be said.
Harry Joiner, the Marketing Headhunter, was banned for doing just what Facebook said. Maybe it’s because he’s a “recruiter” (boo, hiss) and not a super geek rock-star like Scoble (who could kill your startup’s reputaiton if you banned him).
“I didn’t mean to break the rules. Indeed, if FB had been the least bit explicit as to what their rules are, I would have obeyed — and paid.”
LinkedIn slapped me in the face recently, too, when I used a similar tool… asking my own Gmail contacts to join my in happy linky-networky-love.
At the end of the day, sure NOBODY LIKES A SPAMMER, but Social Networks are tricky things. You (facebook, LinkedIn, mySpace, etc, etc) can’t run around like an axe-murderer and lop nodes off the network willy-nilly without probably cause and a little due dilligence… and you sure as hell can’t do it PERMANENTLY–unless you are god-like, at which point, you are omnipotent and already know who my friends are, so I would expect them to already BE in my network when I login the first time.
But, apparently, humans actually have the tendency to make mistakes… especially when it comes to relationships.
If you think I am upset about this, I’m not nearly as angry as The Recruiting Animal is (listen to the first 5 minutes… unless you want to listen to Jibber Jobber too).
Popularity: 20% [?]
Calendar: Guy Kawasaki Speaking in Utah November 1st, 2007
September 10th, 2007
I noticed in my Connect email this morning that Guy Kawasaki will be speaking in Utah (brief autobiography) on November 1st, 2007 (
). He will be speaking on business, and it’s expected that he reveal everything unknown in the known universe… or, at lease a few cool things about How to Innovate and Change the World, for sure.
From the Connect Press Release:
Best-selling author and business visionary Guy Kawasaki will speak to Utah executives on November 1 at an event presented by Doba and co-sponsored by Connect magazine and the Utah Technology Council (UTC) at the Health Science Center at Salt Lake Community College’s Jordan Campus, 3491 West, 9000 South. Guy Kawasaki serves on the Advisory Board of Doba, the leader in online product sourcing solutions for small to medium-size retailers, and, in that capacity, has agreed to make a presentation in Utah. In this session from 3:00-5:00 p.m., Kawasaki will discuss “How to Innovate and Change the World.”
Kawasaki’s speech, “How to Innovate and Change the World,” is based, in part, on his best-selling book Rules for Revolutionaries and is aimed at inspiring and informing individuals who work at innovative companies. During his presentation, Kawasaki will lay out the strategic steps necessary to create new products and services and will answer questions from the audience afterward. To register, visit http://www.doba.com/guy.
Guy Kawasaki is widely regarded in Silicon Valley and beyond as a leading business start-up thought leader. He is the managing director of Garage Technology Ventures; the author of eight books, including The Art of the Start and Rules for Revolutionaries; a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine; and the co-founder of Truemors.com.
“Bringing Guy Kawasaki to Salt Lake City is a real win for the many thriving businesses and start-ups that call Utah home,” says Doba co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Hanks. “Working with Guy as a member of our Advisory Board has been an enlightening experience. His experience and insights are helping our company advance on so many fronts that we felt it would be a disservice to all of us if we didn’t ask Guy to address the entire business community in Utah.”
Notes:
- It’s kinda cool to see that Jeremy of Doba met Guy back in 2006, apparently thanks to blogging. Guy is currently on the Doba board.
- If you’re EVER in a situation where you have to HIRE SOMEONE, read Guy’s The Art of Recruiting post FIRST, rinse and repeat often!
- Reading How to Drive Your Competition Crazy got me hooked on his ideas and out-of-the-box thinking from day one.
- I’ve blogged about Guy a few times, including using his BOZO TEST to point out some silly things local companies have been up to lately.
- You should search YouTube for Guy Kawasaki to see more.
Books and Stuff:
Popularity: 24% [?]
Event: Utah Open Source Conference Underway in Provo
September 7th, 2007The Utah Open Source Conference kicked off Thursday evening with a dinner/reception followed by the Utah Open Source Awards and keynote addresses by Matt Asay and Bruce Perens.
Of course, since the conference is happening at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center, there’s an interesting spike in the blogs about Novell and Microsoft’s recent partnership and how open source advocates feel about it.
Checkout jobs in Austin at itzbig.
Popularity: 14% [?]
LinkedIN: Im Gonna Have to Block You
August 30th, 2007Asking people to join your network may be hazardous to your (network’s) health.
Recently, LinkedIn, the granddaddy of all business social networkins sites, added some good features, trying to help people get and keep connected. I am strongly in favor of LinkedIn, and I am glad they made some changes to keep up with the pack… but fear of spam and network abuse has them wielding their swords a little early, in my opinion.
Monday, I presented the incredible benefits of using LinkedIn to my team, including a few new recruiters, only to find out that I wasn’t allowed to invite anyone to my network because I had been “restricted”.
Through my emails back and forth with LinkedIn, I learned that I apparently had 5 people that I invited to connect with me that said “I Don’t Know Robert Merrill”. That is enough to be blackballed, and I was restricted from my account until I fessed up, put my tail between my legs, and agreed to be a good citizen in their network.
At least they didn’t ban me like facebook would have. But that’s NOT THE POINT. I still demand that I didn’t do anything wrong, but the LinkedIN invitation accept/deny tool is faulty and ENCOURAGES false-positives:
This (above) is a screenshot from LinkedIN’s invitation accept/deny screen. Note that there is no button that say, “No, I don’t want to connect” or simply “Delete”.
False Positives?
Think about this:Â If a contact who knows me, but (for whatever reason) doesn’t want to CONNECT with me on LinkedIN (maybe our relationship is too passive, or they don’t want to be associated with “a recruiter, eww”), then they have NO option to just say “no”.
Here are your options for an invitation you DON’T want to accept:
- Clicking “Archive”, but the idea of an archive means “This will still be around for you later and may bug you or take up needless space”
- Clicking “Flag as spam” is clearly something they would do if they thought I was wantonly inviting everyone with an @ sign.
- Clicking “I Don’t Know Robert Merrill” is the only logical option for:
- NOT connecting with me AND
- Getting RID of the invitation out of my inbox so I don’t have to manage it any more.
Proof?
Sure. My account is proof.
I ACTIVELY manage my network and I ONLY invite people I have at least communicated with by email, if not in person (most often). There is NO WAY I sent an errant invitation to someone I don’t know… yet I still received five “I don’t knows”, thereby forcing the bar to be lowered on my citizenship in the LinkedIn community for a time.
LINKED IN — PLEASE ADD A “NO” or “DELETE” button to this screen!
Popularity: 34% [?]
Calendar: Utah Blogger, Geek Dinner Thursday (8/30)
August 27th, 2007…our geek dinner has been moved to this Thursday, August 30.
Join us at Applebees in Draper, Utah at 6 pm:
123 E. 12300 S.
Draper, UT 84020
(801) 495-4460
View Larger Map
- TinyURL to this post for your twittering (or other) pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/284plq
Popularity: 17% [?]
Help Me Promote Utah Tech Events
July 22nd, 2007UPDATE 8/14/2007 — This has all mostly changed.
There’s a booming meetup community in Utah — user-groups, techies, geeks, entrepreneurs, bloggers and all sorts of other types of people getting together to talk shop, talk dirt, or just talk.
But getting a clear picture of who is meeting… and when… is pretty hard.
So, to try and help, I have created a group on Eventful called “Utah Geek Meets“ I found that there’s a Google Calendar called “Utah Tech Events” being managed (in true open-source style) by several people around the valley including Matt and Jordy, and it attempts to simply be a one-stop repository for the kind of things a geek in Utah would like to attend. I’m also now an admin for the calendar, too.
This group is technology agnostic, so a “Helping Your Dog Podcast” meetup would have the same weight as a “Business Case for PASCAL” group.
I NEED YOUR HELP
This isn’t my thing… I amit is, so-called, open-sourced it to the whole Utah Tech Community… so you gotta contribute if it’s going to live.
Join Eventful (come on, just one more registration wont kill you) and then- Or, if the fear of another login is too great, just email me your event information (robertmerrill AT gmail DOT com) with
“Add to Eventful”“Event For Calendar” in the subject line and I will be your dutiful servant. I need title, description, place & time (begin & end) - USE the Utah Tech Events calendar, either online, by RSS or by iCal/webcalendar.
- LINK to the Utah
Geek Meets groupTech Events Calendar from your link-roll for publicity:
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=hhhlln87p4icc8q3c2bndmbjok%40group.calendar.google.com - PUBLISH the Utah
Geek MeetsTech Events calendar on your blog/website for others to see. Just cut-and-paste this code into your website someplace.If you’re quite the hacker, consider this feedburner feed (ideal for mashups) or Get this widget (above) (cut to the code here).
Let’s get meeting, people!
Popularity: 16% [?]
Network With Meaning
July 18th, 2007
Dave Slusher of Evil Genius Chronicles has had enough with the newest, shiniest social networks clamoring for his attention:
People invite me to services all the time. They want to connect to me on LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook. I appreciate that anyone cares and I get a little warmth from the sentiment. I’m not joining anything that I’m not already a part of though. People ask me why I’m not on FaceBook since that’s the cool, hot thing. That’s precisely why I am not. I’m not interested in coolness or hotness. I am interested in friends, true friends that matter to me and that miss me when they don’t see me for a long time.
He goes on…
Life is short and true friends that will go to the mat for you are scarce. The energy spent in chasing some sort of glorious future from service to service is friction in my life, not any sort of addition.
And I agree.
Though my logins to social networks has exploded over the last few months (in my quest of being at the crossroads of good people ready to make a change in their careers), all of them have a detrimental effect of the value of each network. I use them, but I like them all to play nice.
- MySpace and Facebook are so similar now, one of them is irrelevant.
- Twitter does cool things for me because it can follow me and keep me communicated wherever I am. I want it integrated into the other tools more (facebook is kinda-doin’ it)
- LinkedIn is the granddaddy of work-related social networks, and I appreciate it’s size and the improvements I recognize they’ve made.
Facebook was way better before it turned into add-my-new-application-that-bugs-everyone-in-your-network-book. I am glad you can do it, but I don’t like logging all the way in to find out that it’s just another ho-hum app that people install, then remove 30 seconds later. I know, it’s glittery right now and everyone’s trying to get ahead of the next Joe, but when the glam wears off it will go back to doing it’s job… helping people connect.
I especially like getting notes from within my social network asking me to go join someone else’s social network. How does that make sense?
At the end of the day, it’s about connecting people to people. If Web 2.0 is about disconnecting the CONTENT from the INTERFACE (APIs, RSS, SOAP, AJAX, etc), then the social networks must learn to play nice with each other or they will eventually lose out.
I want a social network that lets me:
- Blog on my own blog and it all works together. I don’t want to blog on YOUR blog. (duh)
- Know WHO and WHAT should be in my network via smart autodiscovery and Microformats (XFN/FOAF) culled from what I blog about, what I link to, what feeds I read, etc, etc).
- Post short messages like twitter that get blogged and published pro actively to people who care to receive them.
- Allows people to access my status via ANY instant messaging app and also message me the same way.
- Ditto the above for SMS, too.
- Instantly get my contact details to their email app, cell phone, or whatever.
- Share my likes and dislikes, favorite links, music, blog posts, movie reviews, even money.
- I can post pictures using any number of drop-dead simple tools (sms, email, IM, drag-drop) and they are logged, tagged, geocoded and published to those who care.
- Simple, easy interfaces like Tumblr that make my “stuff” look interesting enough to read once in a while.
- I can host it and customize it and monetize it in thousands of ways. Share the revenues made when I recommend a product, service or even display what music I like and it causes people in my network to purchase something.
- Helps me manage inbound communication (email, sms, whatever) through proactively knowing who is important to me thanks to my past interactions with them.
- Give my closest associates more priority than people I don’t know… but don’t BLACK/WHITE list… that’s not granular enough.
- Give me abilities to dig deep into my inbound messaging… able to deal with information on a relationship-based level.
- If I’ve got five minutes in the airport to check messages, only tell me what’s most-relevant to me. After I’ve handled those, then it’s OK to share stuff on the next tier of relevance, etc, etc, until it’s all been deal with and triaged, GTD’d, etc.
Whoever comes up with that network, please send me an invitation and I will forward it to everyone in my address book. lol.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Comcast Is Starting The Tiered Internet.. Whether We Like It or Not
August 21st, 2007Of course, I am not the only person who feels that Comcast Sucks, but I am fired up about them starting up the Tiered Internet whether we like it or not (DIGG article here).
There are a lot of arguments from the MBAs about why companies like Comcast need to charge different amounts for people who may use more bandwidth, or differing service offerings than the standard HTTP, POP3, etc., but that should be clearly explained in the company’s ads.
Oh, you don’t want people using all of the six megabits you promised them in your very expensive ads / commercials / billboards / banners / pop-ups / etc? Hmmm. Ever thought about SAYING that? Maybe hire one of those car-sales announcers who can read 10,000 words per second and throw the fine-print in there at the end of your commercials:
Here’s some sample fine-print that Comcast is welcome to use*:
I was a Comcast High Speed Cable Internet customer for seven years. I am no longer a customer as of this month, partially thanks to this, but also because of other service degradations that seemed to “quietly” seep into their network.
When a company like Comcast doesn’t trust its customers to mash-up their service and use it in their way, it’s the beginning for the end of that company’s respect. Instead of letting a “hundred flowers blossom“, they only want one, gigantic, comcastic flower, cast in bronze, that all customers must yield to and hail as the almighty provider of all things media.
With this blatant punishment of anything unorthadox, it seems that the term Comcastic is actually referring to having a high-speed network that numbly feeds your mindless eyeballs the content they want to feed you which, of course, is highly monetized, product-placement-ized, mass-market-ized and designed to keep the mainstream masses bowing down to the almighty “network producers” who determine at the flick of a mouse-click what is “cool” and what is “not”
At the end of the day, when companies LIE about what they’re actually providing you, that’s step one to disastrous failure.
* Fine Print: Any use by Comcast, real or implied, of these terms and conditions, shall result in payment of $40/month, every month, forever and ever, unless the entire agreement is used, at which point and additional service fee of $5/word per month per day per forever per person per megabit.
Popularity: 12% [?]
View Comments »
Posted in Personal
Tags: Commentary Miscellaneous Rants Tech Life Web/Tech