Social Media | Totally Incorrect

David July 6, 2009

My Social Media Avatar

I was inspired to write this story after reading this great article by Gina LaGuardia on her blog.

In it Gina explains (much better than I could) what the 12for12k charity means to her and how important using the special avatar is for her. I strongly suggest you read what Gina has to say.

It got me thinking because people often ask me about my social media avatar and I don’t think I’ve ever done a very good job of explaining it. So here is an attempt to do so.

There are two parts to my avatar – the 12for12k design and the picture of me; both of these are important parts of what I do.

The 12for12k charity is something I really relate to. I’ve never really been involved in any charitable organizations before so this is all quite new to me. I’ve always used the excuse that I’m too busy or too broke to make contributions to anything – of course neither is really true.

Like many people I heard of 12for12k by coming across Danny Brown on Twitter. It seemed that everywhere I went, the guy in the cap was already there and (despite of the damage he does to the English language) I found I often related to what he had to say. As the founder of the movement, what Danny often had to say was that through 12for12k, a lot of ordinary each making a small contribution could really make a difference. Sounds good to me.

So since then, I’ve become an enthusiastic supporter of 12for12k which supports a different worthy charity each month. Sure, some appeal to me more than others but I think the movement is really important. We all get so much (a lot of it for free) from social media so there’s really no excuse at all not to give a bit back.

The photo of me is special to me as well. Our family has a wedding business. Photography for my daughter and I, hair and beauty for my wife.

Last year we shot a sunrise wedding at the summit of Mount Washington – the highest point in the north eastern United States. We were at the summit of the mountain at about 5.00 AM hoping for an outdoor ceremony. Of course, Mount Washington is famous for its bad weather so we were forced inside. The image of me was taken by my daughter on the steps of the Tip-Top House, a small building right on the summit where the wedding took place.

After the wedding we hiked down the mountain with the couple and their friends, an unforgettable experience.

So Gina is right – an avatar can be very important. Here are some images from the wedding.

Thanks for the inspiration Gina!

Oh, if you’d like to learn more about our wedding photography and beauty services, head on over to our UniqueDay Events site.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: 12for12k.avatar, social media 6 Comments

David June 27, 2009

Mixero – another Twitter desktop app

Wow, there are starting to get to be a lot of desktop applications for Twitter. I’ve already written about two of the ones I use, Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop. Recently the Mashable guys compared 19 different apps – all designed be an improvement on using the actual Twitter website. I had never imagined there were so many of these.

Anyway, the other day I noticed a suggestion from David Teicher in a blog comment to try out an application called Mixero – not one of the Mashable 19! David is a guy who usually knows what’s going on so I tracked down the website for the application.

Mixero looked to be rather interesting, but I couldn’t find anywhere to download the app. There was a contact form so I sent a quick message asking if I could try out the app. I quickly got a reply with a link and an invitation code – great new stuff to play with!

Mixero uses the old faithful Adobe Air (don’t all the Twitter apps) so it was installed and running in no time.

Everything Panel

My first impression when starting Mixero was how simple and uncluttered the UI is.

I’ve gotten used to using Tweetdeck or Seesmic, both of which have a tendency to take over my desktop – not so with Mixero.

I can still save searches and these are shown as icons. The image ot the left shows my normal mode with my “everything” panel displayed. The icons to the right are my saved searches (Mixero calls them channels). I just need to click on an icon to make that channel active in the main panel. If there is an update to the content of a channel, a little icon on the icon shows how many new updated there are – much more elegant than my description.

The little blurbs on my avatar at the top show if I have any new @replies or DMs.

Obviously while in a panel, I can reply, DM or Re-Tweet to any of the posts there. I can follow and unfollow other users as well. All the functions you’d expect such as search, URL shortening (I use bit.ly which uses their API key for identification) are there.

Panels can be detached and moved anywhere on the desktop if I want to. I can re-size them and pin them so they stay on top of whatever I’m doing on my PC – nice feature!

Mixero Contacts Panel

I really like how Mixero allows me to keep track of my contacts as well. Contacts can be sorted into groups which can be manipulated in many different ways. I’ve only just started to build my contents groups. The image here shows my 12for12k contacts list as an example.

The developer of Mixero must be a David Allen fan because just as in Getting Things Done, Mixero can use contexts. I haven’t had the chance to delve into this yet, but this feature allows the user to set up contexts for office, work or others.

One of the really nice things is that all the settings can be synced so that Mixero can be used on different machines. I have it set up on my desktop and laptop and the syncing works fine.

Mixero Avatar Mode

On of the coolest features of Mixero is Avatar Mode.

This fits right in with the tagline of “reducing the noice.” Avatar mode effictivly minimizes the application to just the users avatar and the channel icons. This little icon cluster stays on top of the desktop and shows when new items are received.

In this example, I’ve received a direct message (I’ll bet it’s one of those nasty auto “thanks for following” ones) and there is 1 update in my 12for12k channel. If I hover my cursor over the alerts, I’ll get a good preview of the new content. I can see what’s going on without having to disturb my work – well, at least not too much.

Avatar mode is a really cool feature!

Nothing is perfect and there are a couple of things that could be better with Mixero. For a start I hate the putrid green colour of the links, I wish it was either blue (like Seesmic) or changable (like Tweetdeck) and the application does not seem to handle multiple accounts or connect to Facebook.

I’ve been using Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop for a while and they are really very close in how they look and function. it has been fun to try something that is very different. I really like the minimist approach that Mixero has taken. The combination of clean simple design with plenty of feature makes it a winner for me.

Sorry Tweetdeck and Seesmic, Mixero is now my favorite Twitter app. Better yet, there will be an iPhone version soon as well!

Want more information? Head over to Mixero.com and while you’re there, have them send you a download link.

How many of the 19 apps in the Mashable comparism have you used? Have you test driven Mixero? I’d love to know what you think.

Update: the nice Mixero dudes have given me some passcodes so you can try our the applciation for yourself. You can download from their site and use the passcode 12for12k. If you like Mixero, please consider making a donation to the 12for12k charity. If you don’t like it? Well making a donation to 12for12k will help you feel better

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: applications, social media, twitter 3 Comments

David June 18, 2009

Twitter Desktop Apps

If you use Twitter to any extent you will have noticed that the Twitter website is not really that good at managing your activities. This is especially true if you follow a lot of people or want to get involved in any of the #chats.

Fortunately, when there is a problem a solution is often forthcoming and this is no exception. There are several desktop application designed to help improve the Twitter experience and the two most popular are Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop. These two applications have a lot in common. They are both based on Adobe’s Air platform and both allow for a number of different columns to be set up.Let’s take a look at them…

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail – there will be all kinds of techie reviews all over the Internet already. I will however, give you my thoughts on how each of them works for me personally – I’ll be interested to hear if you see things the same as I do or differently.

Tweetdeck

Seesmic Desktop

Both apps cover all the basics:

Multiple columns
Searches that update automatically
Facebook integration
Setting up of groups
managing conversations
Shorten and post links

Tweetdeck actually has more features including online sync for backup and the ability to customise the colours. Seesmic doesn’t seem to allow customising of the colours, but I must admit that I like the default Seesmic colours better than any I’ve been able to create with Tweetdeck. I also have not been able to get the Tweetdeck Facebook account working – this is more likely due to my incompetence than the app, but these things should be easy.

Tweetdeck also just came out with a shiny new iPhone app. I must say, I’m thinking that this has so much potential. It has a few problems, but for a 1.0 release it is just brilliant and also syncs with the desktop version.

Conclusion – if you need all the features or are a Twitter power user, Tweetdeck is the one to go for.

In my personal case, I’m not so sure. Both are fantastic apps that really enhance the whole Twitter experience and it is really hard to choose one over the other. At the moment I’m finding that, although I love the features and power of Tweetdeck, I find myself using Seesmic Desktop more. The interface is just that bit simpler and seems to fit into my usage a little bit better.

I have no doubt that Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop will both continue to evolve and improve. I wonder if my conclusion will be the same a couple of months from now?

You can learn more at the websites for the two applications

Tweetdeck
Seesmic

Do you use Tweetdeck or Seesmic? Which one is working better for you personally? What features would you like to see in new versions?

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: applications, social media, twitter Leave a Comment

David June 16, 2009

Social Media & the IT Guy

Social Media and the IT Guy

People who market to businesses, (I really don’t like the expression B2B but I guess that’s what it is) often seem to complain that social media marketing techniques are not as successful as they are when marketing to consumers.

I’m not sure this is totally true, especially if you include blogs as being part of social media, but it is a fact that there are not too many people in manufacturing spending a lot of time on Facebook or Twitter.

So why is this? Obviously part of the reason is that people these days are usually pretty busy – their company has probably reduced the workforce so people have little time to spare.

One other reason is the dreaded IT Guy.

The IT guy (yes, I know the IT guy might well be the IT lady or IT team, but I don’t feel like typing IT person everytime. I really hope you’ll bear with me on this one) isn’t happy unless everything is locked down so that it is impossible to get to anything useful on the Internet.

Actually to be fair quite often these are company rules and the IT guy just has the task of carrying them out. Let’s have a look at some of reasons might have their Internet access restricted:

Stop time wasting. This is a good one; I can’t believe how many companies I go to where multiple people (starting with the receptionist if there still is one) are playing solitaire on the company’s PC. I don’t see how being able to access some useful web content would be more of a time waster. In anycase, these days companies can’t afford to have people loafing around – however they are doing it.

Using bandwidth. Hmm, how many businesses are paying by the GB for bandwidth? Not too many I suspect.

Watching porn. This one I do agree needs to be blocked. I don’t believe anyone, unless working in the adult entertainment industry would have a problem with this. Same thing with sites such as on-line betting which are illegal here in the US. You want to do this? Fine – do it at home!

Bringing malware into the network. This is always a concern. I believe the IT folks need to make the assumption that everyone is very capable of going to a bad site, clicking a link on the wrong email etc and having the systems in place to deal with it.

Visiting sites of categories considered to be inappropriate. This is where it gets interesting. Here are some examples of blocked categories from my company:

Health – a lot of our clients are hospitals or healthcare organizations so we can’t go to their site for information.

Weapons manufacturers – hmm, big part of our business is which DoD contractors.

Blogs and forums – crazy, most of what I learn these days comes from blogs but I’m blocked from seeing many of them (including this one) at my office.

Social Media – forget it. Unless you want to get another job, Linkedin is available – get those resumes posted.

I get the impression that our company is pretty typical with choosing to block certain types of on-line content. All in all, a bit of a pain.

What’s the solution? I hear you cry!

Well some companies have innovative ways around the problem. One of our clients has an area set up (they call it the Town Square) with table and workstations where anyone can go online during their breaks or when they need to. The workstations have internet access but no access to the company network. Employees can check their email, do their banking or whatever they need to do without fear of them bringing in malware. I think this is a great idea.

My personal workaround is to use my iPhone as much as possible. I find I can do about 90% of what I need this way. If it became more of a problem, I’d get an AT&T access card for my laptop.

Another good workaround is to use the RSS feeds that Twitter provides. Say you want to keep up with #IranElection but you can’t access Twitter. No problem use Twitter Search to search for #IranElection and subscribe to the provided feed. You can then follow updates in Google Reader or other feed reader.

I often wonder whether locking employees out from social media and other sites is actually holding businesses back. I know it often takes me longer to get things done than it really should. I’d much prefer to treat this as a peopel management issue and not block everyone from potentially useful content.

What do you think? Are you fighting the IT guy or is your business more enlightened? Would giving people access to social media help the business with new ideas or would it just waste time?

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: blogs, it, social media, technology 4 Comments

David June 14, 2009

UNICEF & 12for12k

Since The 12for12k Challenge folks (of whom I’m a huge supporter) chose UNICEF’s Believe in Zero campaign as the June charity, there has been a lot of activity, not all of it positive.

First one of the 12for12k blog partners decided he didn’t like UNICEF after originally posting in support.

There have also been attacks on the choice of this charity on Twitter and other social media sites and even the venerable old sage of 12for12k Danny Brown has come in for some stick.

So I find myself wondering what is going on here? What is it about UNICEF that causes so many different opinions, from those that support the organization and those that seem to think it has no merit at all.

I thought it might be worthwile to do a little investigating and see what this organization is all about.

History.

UNICEF was founded in 1946 to help deal with the problem of millions of starving children in the aftermath of the Second World War. Here’s a video, narrated by Sir Roger Moore on the organization’s history:

I don’t think anyone would disagree with UNICEF’s mission – there is no question that the it has saved many thousands of children’s lives since 1946 and played a part in improving the lives of many many more.

So why would the choice of an organization doing such good work, where it’s workers are dedicated enough to literally put their lives on the line (see the clippings I’ve included) in some of the toughest parts of the world cause so much controversy? Surely people working to protect children, often right in the middle of active conflicts, deserve support from those of us safe at home with our families?

I’m inclined to believe that the biggest issue UNICEF has is that it is part of the United Nations. The UN isn’t the most popular organization here in the United States, largely due to its history of poor management, but also because the UN is structured so that the US doesn’t get its way all the time. The fact that any of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) has a power of veto has often stopped the US from pushing through its agenda. Actually, I see this as a good thing since the US doesn’t have a very good foreign policy track record of late!

So UNICEF is having to operate in the field while carrying the burden of its unpopular owner – easy to see why there is a lack of enthusiasm. Of course, there are also advantages with being part of the UN, worldwide scope, access to government leaders and funding way above what any other childrens charity could hope to attain. I wonder if the huge budget of UNICEF is also an issue for 12for12k supporters? No matter what we were to raise, it is unlikely to show as a big line item on the UNICEF balance sheet.

While I do believe that UNICEF does great work and I’ve personally contributed to 12for12k this month (and certainly encourage you to do the same, because it is a great cause) I am somewhat disappointed that UNICEF has not played any role in the June campaign. The 12for12k Challenge relies on support – not just from supporters and contributors, but from the charities themselves. UNICEF could had actively supported 12for12k on their site and their various blogs, to the benefit of both. It would raise more for UNICEF in June and making more people aware of 12for12k would create a higher public awareness and better results for the charities lined up for the rest of the year. Instead UNICEF has been silent. Not my idea of a partner.

So today, I feel a little let down. Let down by people who could do more to support 12for12k instead of just complaining and by UNICEF which I thought could do so much to help, but has not come through. I’m certainly not feeling let down by the actual UNICEF workers and supporters who are doing great things or by social media users who have made contributions to the campaign.

So please contribute to support the great work being done by UNICEF and please consider becoming an active supporter of 12for12k. It is a great opportunity for us regular people to get together and actually make a difference. Rather than sit back and criticize, get involved and make it better. Go to 12for12k.org for more info.

I’d love to know if you agree with my thoughts. How can we work together to help 12for12k be more effective? What about that Roger Moore video commentary? Would you view UNICEF differently if it was part of the Gates Foundation rather than the UN?

Filed Under: World Tagged With: 12for12k, charity, social media, UN, unicef 2 Comments