Minuteman Missile Silo Photos

A couple photos from the Minuteman Missile Natl Park from my visits in 2011 and 2009.

Control Panel

Missile Replica in the Silo

Preserved Silo

Ending August

Wrapping up August by recruiting Cub Scouts and getting ready for a family campout.

We had a good recruiting event for Pack 3094 - over a dozen new scouts and more to come.  Time to round up some more leadership - we need a cub master, treasurer, assistant-everything and a bunch of parent volunteers for committee positions.  But enough of that!

This weekend - Kanopolis State Park!  We'd planned to hit Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, but the tropical storm is raining that out.  So we're heading West, just outside Ellsworth, KS.  Canyons, hiking trails, lake, just an hour from the Cosmosphere, more.  IF we can get everything loaded in the minivan with 4 kids, it should be a good trip.

See if I can find a tripod out in the garage and try for some astrophotography with the ancient Canon 300d.

Time to get packin . . .

Sunday the 26th

Up late, dialed into church.  Weak commentary on violence in the Old Testament.  'sometimes you have to move a lot of dirt to find the gold'.  Really?    Anyway . . .

Cleared up Mom's yard, de-vined the bushes and pulled crabgrass.  Installed safety bars at the steps between levels.  Began clearing the garage and lining out family camping gear.  Drove out halfway to nowhere to pick the boys up.

Shot a few photos of the moon - nothing very good.  Need less gain, more tripod.  300mm lens, F11, 1/1000th second at ISO 1600.  The old Canon does not do high ISO photos very well.

And this morning (Monday now) I find out that Hurricane Issac is headed directly toward central Arkansas, where our camping trip is planned this weekend.  Not the best omen for a family camping trip!  Perhaps we re-orient for the Badlands and Wall Drug?

2009 Riding Map

Got some good riding in for 2009, until I broke my collarbone in karate.  That'll stop that for a while!

Started out with an MSTA lunch ride; I camped out (or tried to) at Devils Den State Park.  Then off to BearSTOC 09 in Montana and back, on the Ducati!

Zoom out for the full view . . .


View 2009 Riding in a larger map

Whitebalance Fail

Was playing with the new (to me) Canon 300D this weekend and set a custom white balance for the very yellow 'soft white' CFL bulbs in the living room.  Ambient light shots in the living room came out great.  The dear wife claims my shot of her in the living room looks like a studio shot.  Then I did some other shots, without changing the white balance.

With the on-camera flash:



In the boy's bedroom with his 5000K 'Daylight' CFL lamp for backlighting:



And a gorgeous blue cast fail with the same 'Daylight' CFL for side lighting:



Lessons learned?  You can get cool effects with custom white balance.  Reminds me of the old film days where you'd use tungsten film outdoors, or outdoor film under tungsten lamps.   Also, reset your settings before you change lighting situations.

Riding your Motorcycle in the Wind

Reading on the CBR250R forum some good tips on riding in the wind.

1 - Use your knees to keep yourself anchored to the bike
2 - Loosen your grip on the handlebars. Don't fight the bike, it will self correct
3 - Loosen up your arms. This will help with posture and keeping your grip loose
4 - Acknowledge that you will not keep a straight line and will drift a bit
5 - Once the gust is over, reposition yourself in your lane


and most importantly:

If it's too windy, and you begin feeling unsafe, PULL OVER. Nothing says you are required to continue putting yourself at risk.

Saturday Wrapup

Got the meal plan for Crater of Diamonds State Park lined up.  Basic but solid foods.  Now to pull the kit from the garage and get it packed and ready to go tomorrow.

Got Alec's room cleared and his new desk built and installed!  He's quite happy as you can see.  It's not the best quality, but it fit well in the space he had in his room.  Missing one part; we'll have to call Monday to get another hinge for the drop front desk.  Sigh.

Nikki and I stripped the middle boys room and re-organized their clothes, closet and drawers.  Came up with 2 huge bags of donations.  Got through totes and bags of out of season stuff too.

Didn't get over to Mom's to get her grab rails done; that's moved to tomorrow.  Going to be a busy afternoon!

Dinner at Cozy's Cafe near Downtown OP; amazing food and service with a great, quiet atmosphere.  Alec tried something new (salmon) and I think he liked it!

Lots of fun, laughter, geeking out and generally an excellent day.

Kickin it with Kahn

Alec just got logged into Kahn Academy today. He's working on exponent math right now - very focused!

Saturday plans

Supposed to rain today, putting a crimp in outside plans.  So, indoor plans:
* steel hand bars for moms house
* plan and pack for Crater of Diamonds State Park camping trip
* clear Alec's room for a cool folding desk from Target

Traffic?

Wonder what happened yesterday?  300% jump in traffic - all the way to 10(!) page views.

Hm - maybe that's live stats reflecting me visiting the blog as I updated it for the first time in 6 months.

Friday Activity

Today: Project kickoff at work.
Tonight: Alec fixed dinner.  Chicken spaghetti.   I unpacked books from my mom's old place.  Found Stephen King, Fred Saberhagen, more great stuff from the 80s.

Scanned in photos for Nikki while I was unpacking.

Now kicking off journaling on this dopey blog.

Friend of mine, Jeff Schnieder, got me on the 'dopey' saying instead of a pile of cusswords.  He's up in Minnesota, eh, getting fitted for a new Aerostich.

In a couple weeks, I'll be puttin on the 'stich and rolling to Bull Shoals Lake for the BS Rally.  Nice long ride on a stock seat on the CBR250r.  Still riding.  Not sure why - it hurts when you do it, and I dread the rides before I go.

Not sure what I'll do with the books - I haven't finished a book all year.  Last winter I read about a book a day - Zane Grey westerns.

Bloging - not so much

Not so much of a blogger.  Twitter and Facebook have claimed the short updates / linksharing I used to do. Turns out I've never been much at journaling / blogging.  Last time I journaled regularly was 1983. Made it a week. I went to IGA and bought soda.  Then called in sick to school the next day.

It was actually interesting seeing the old notes in my handwriting from 11 years old.

So, perhaps I'll start journaling here.  No one reads this so it's as good as private, eh?

Only drawback is it's typed; when folks go back through your stuff when you're dead, the typed work just isn't as interesting or personal as hand written notes.  I recall going through my dads stuff -- his handwritten notes were interesting; the typed manifestos, not so much.  Couldn't tell if he was writing it, or copying someone else.  No personality in the typed page - or at least not as much as a hand written journal or note.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have legible writing.  But once in a while it's good to note down what's going on in life in pen in a good bound book.  Give someone something to decipher.

Lookin at Lines

Looks like some storms tonight.  55,000 foot cloud tops.  Long line of storms going to roll over KC eventually.  Finally - some rain!

Intellicast - Radar Summary in MO - Jefferson City

Native Sprint Coverage Map

The article on Sprint Support:
Know what coverage to expect with older single-band phones or plans that don't include roaming
shows you exactly where Sprint native coverage is - without any roaming partnerships etc. Very informative!

Fracking caused British quakes

(( there's only 150+ fracking wells in OK -- but no word from there if the 5.6 this week was related to that.))

Fracking caused British quakes:

A UK energy company has admitted that their hydraulic fracturing project (commonly known as ‘fracking’) probably caused a few surprisingly large earthquakes in Lancashire this spring. But, their report into the events concludes, it should be safe to continue operations in the area. Protesters disagree.

Fracking involves pumping millions of litres of water underground to fracture shale rock, allowing natural gas trapped inside to flow up the well. Concerns have been raised about whether this technique is safe (see Should fracking stop? and United States investigates fracking safety).

Two quakes of magnitude 2.3 and 1.4 in April and May, along with a cluster of 48 much smaller events, struck near the fracking project of Lichfield-based company Cuadrilla Resources. Cuadrilla stopped operations, and commissioned independent reports from a handful of consultants, including a Czech Republic seismic company and a British geomechanical services company, to investigate whether the drilling had triggered a nearby fault. Their synthesis report is now out.

Using AddThis Endpoints for Email Campaign Sharing

AddThis - Help - AddThis Sharing Endpoints

We're looking at adding sharing of purchases from our order confirmation emails.

Our email confirmation isn't like your typical newsletter, where you can copy the static contents of the newsletter to a webpage, then point everyone to that static page. Each email order confirmation is different, with different products in the order. We want to help our customers share the new phone, tablet or broadband card they just bought with their social networks.

AddThis normally uses Javascript to generate the HTML code; we can't promise that every one of our customers has a JavaScript enabled email client. Our workaround? Use AddThis Endpoints. What the heck are those? AddThis offers direct access to their sharing widgets via custom coded URLs. You can set up a 'share on Facebook' link or a 'tweet about your new phone' link using just the AddThis URLs. No Javascript needed, no fancy coding. Just pull in the device landing page URL and shoot it into the AddThis endpoint as a text or basic image link!

AddThis.com rocks.

What I'm Doing Lately

Had to update the one-page resume again (new Director coming on board - wants to know what we all do) -- figured I'd share with the world:


Synopsis:

• Sprint Employee since 1999
• Began with Sprint Paranet as Technical Solutions Consultant
• Moved to Sprint.com as Java Developer for the Shop platform
• App Admin for My Sprint and Sprint Shop
• Business Analyst for Blue Martini (device catalog); assisted in transition from Sprint to IBM
• Created, led, supervised Virtual Business Technology Ops team
• Developed BuzzAboutWireless.com Community site from hardware, software, content, vendor management.
• Technical manager for Sprint Community on Jive

References:

• Space Admin for Network and Coverage, all Apple, iPhone and iPhone 4S spaces
• E20 Consultant for internal social media – SprintSpace – providing VP level consultation to build new spaces and drive internal adoption, communication and collaboration.
• Member Social Media Ninjas team; Product Ambassador team; NLP Core Team; WebIQ facilitator

Current Hot items:

• Leading cross-functional team to transition SprintSpace from internal IT hosting to Sprint.com team hosted platform, coupled with version upgrade and tight integration with Sprint Public Community
• Lead blogger for Network Vision; working with Network and Corp Comm teams  to drive communication strategy around Network Vision improvements

5 Emergency Disaster Kit Suggestions

(( Good suggestions, although the 'always on internet device' runs on the same cell networks that your dodgy cell phone does. If your cell phone is down, so is your 'always on internet device'. I'd suggest a HAM radio and basic license, so you can contact other people at a distance, without depending on 3rd party infrastructure. )) -- from Wired Geek Dad blog:

5 Emergency Disaster Kit Suggestions:

I’m writing this from a downtown hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, the largest city near me. With me are my three younger kids and my husband. It has the virtue of being warm and lighted. After a long week without power with only a promise of an end in sight, we’re grateful for that.

We’re stormlost.

We got hit hard by the October snow storm and even after a full week, we’re still without power at my house. We were prepared for three to four days of no heat but not for a full seven days and definitely not the eight plus we’re going on as of Sunday morning.

I’ve read the CDC disaster preparedness instructions, especially after the ice storm a few years ago, and took precautions. I’d thought four days of firewood for our little-used fireplace, plenty of D-Cell batteries and flashlights, an excellent crank/battery-operated radio, and plenty of food on hand, plus water would work for our family.

The kids' playset suffered some damage also from the October 29th Storm

But I quickly had to expand what was needed because that wasn’t nearly enough.

Here’s what I would add, especially for geeky parents:

1. A wireless device that is always connected to the internet.

Our land-lines went out. Our cell phone service was glitchy. Basically, aside from the radio, we had no way to contact anyone about anything or find out information about our situation. And, the first two days, we were blocked in by fallen trees. I’ve never felt so cut off. I didn’t even know where the local storm shelters might be. I finally was able to drive out onto the main road, still strewn with fallen tress and branches, and check at town hall. They indeed had a warming shelter and, whew, a charging station.

I never thought I’d need one, since my land line has always worked. I’m thinking an iPad or other tablet with 3G service as an excellent disaster investment.

2. Car chargers. For as many things as you think you might want when the lights go down.

We had one car charger for the Verizon Blackberry my husband has for work. I didn’t have one for my MacBook or the various Nintendo handhelds that we owned or the other cell phones. This quickly became a problem. Even though I couldn’t do internet on my MacBook, I needed a lot of the information on it, plus it doubled as a DVD player to entertain the kids which ate up power.

Soon as I get my life back, I’m investing in one. And I checked out the prices of the car chargers for the Nintendo DS family: $9.99 at Gamestop. Yeah, we’re getting a few of those, plus a charger for the cell phones.

3. Gasoline.

Fill your gas tanks in the face of an impending storm or, if you have a generator, find a place to store a decent supply of gasoline to power it.

At a certain point, figuring out just how far our cars would go on the gas left in our tanks became a serious consideration. You can’t flee a disaster if you don’t have the gas to power the car the entire way and it was a good two hours to get out of the area hit hardest by our storm. We headed to my mother’s on the morning of day four — I stayed with my three younger kids until Saturday morning — and I was just lucky we had enough gas to get us ninety minutes away where I could refill the tank.

The husband, who stayed behind because his office opened in Hartford, Connecticut, was left waiting the next day in a line of “Carter Administration proportions” to fill up his vehicle to get home. I consider that lucky because so many stations were out.

4. The phone numbers of hotels about ninety minutes from your area in all directions.

When people lose heat or basic functions, so do the local hotels. And those that are smart enough to have generators or lucky enough to be missed, fill up fast. If I’d had a list of hotels and called one the minute power went out last Saturday to book a room for the following day, we might have been able to find a place to stay. As it was, it was impossible until just yesterday, when the southern half of Connecticut largely came online.

5. Gasoline-powered chain saw.

We have a chain saw. We’ve used it very little around our house, save to cut down some small brush. And it’s electric.

This does you no good in a storm that knocks out power. On the day after the storm, in the afternoon, the neighbors with gas-powered chain saws took it upon themselves to clear the road way well enough for cars to drive through. Yes, that was awesome. We were trapped in before.

One warning: beware of clearing debris with fallen power lines. They will be dead but they won’t necessarily stay dead. Apparently, the power companies sometimes turn on the power in an area with downed lines without clearing the downed lines first. This boggles my mind, since one would think they’d remove the safety hazard first but there’s even a warning about that on my local power company website. Of course, if you’re without power, you may not be able to read that warning….

The last item is more after-disaster preparedness. I’d suggest having handy the name and address of the officials of your local power company and the local authority that overseas them to vent your frustration about how the heck it could take a week for power company trucks to even arrive in your neighborhood.

Siri Quick Tip: Wikipedia

Siri Quick Tip: Wikipedia: I haven't seen this hint anywhere else, but I've found that in Siri, if you say 'Wikipedia' followed by anything like 'Muppets' or 'Zombies,' it will take you right to the Wikipedia entry for that request. Pretty cool.

How to get a job with a small company

{{Seth Godin offers some great advice about getting hired - especially relevant in the 'new economy', and parallels what I was just talking about with my son last night. It's not just what you can do, but how you can *present* what you do.}}

How to get a job with a small company:

Most advice about job seeking is oriented around big companies. The notion of a standard resume, of mass mailings, of dealing with the HR department--even the idea of interviews--is all built around the Fortune 500.

Alas, the Fortune 500 has been responsible for a net loss in jobs over the last twenty years. All the growth (and your best chance to get hired) is from companies you’ve probably never heard of. And when the hirer is also the owner, the rules are very different.

1. Learn to sell. Everyone has sold something, some time, even if it’s just selling your mom on the need for a nap when you were three years old. A lot of people have decided that they don’t want to sell, can’t sell, won’t sell, but those same people need to understand that they’re probably not going to get a job doing anything but selling.

Small businesses always need people who can sell, because selling pays for itself. It’s not an expense, it’s a profit center.

2. Learn to write. Writing is a form of selling, one step removed. There’s more writing in business today than ever before, and if you can become a persuasive copywriter, you’re practically a salesperson, and even better, your work scales.

3. Learn to produce extraordinary video and multimedia. This is just like writing, but for people who don’t like to read. Even better, be sure to mix this skill with significant tech skills. Yes, you can learn to code. The fact that you don't feel like it is one reason it's a scarce skill.

Now that you’ve mastered these skills (all of which take time and guts but no money), understand the next thing about small businesses--they aren’t hiring to fill a slot. Unlike a big company with an org chart and pay levels, the very small business is an organism, not a grid. The owner is far more likely to bring in a freelancer or someone working on spec than she is to go run a classified help wanted ad.

And many small businesses are extremely bad at taking initiative that feels like risk. They’d rather fill orders than take a chance and go out prospecting for a person who represents a risk. And that’s your opportunity.

When you show up and offer to go prospecting on spec, offer to contribute a website or a sales letter or some sales calls--with no money on the table--many small business people will take you up on it, particularly if they are cash-strapped, profit-oriented and know you by reputation. (Please don't overlook that last one).

Hint: don't merely show up and expect a yes. It's something you earn over time...

The rest is easy. Once you demonstrate that you contribute far more than you cost, now it's merely a matter of figuring out a payment schedule.

This is probably far more uncertainty and personal branding than most job seekers are comfortable with. Which is precisely why it works.

Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty Is on Its Way to America (With Trailer)

Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty Is on Its Way to America (With Trailer):
The latest Studio Ghibli animated feature to make it to America, The Secret World of Arrietty has the same beautiful and elegant craftsmanship expected of all their films, even though this one was written and supervised — but not actually directed — by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

It won’t be out in U.S. theaters until February 17, but I had the chance to see the version dubbed for American audiences a short time ago, and I loved it. The Secret World of Arrietty has all the polish of a classic Miyazaki film, but is closer in plot and characterization to classic American animated films, so may be more accessible to U.S. audiences than most Japanese animated films. Based — somewhat loosely — as it is on Mary Norton’s classic Borrowers children’s novels, the film may in fact seem somewhat familiar to American kids. See the trailer below.



I very much hope it will succeed, as it has the potential to become a classic of the genre. The dubbed American voices of Amy Poehler, Will Arnett, and Carol Burnett (among others) fade seamlessly into the film as though it had been made with them in mind.

The only thing I don’t love about the film is its title, which I’m afraid may not resonate with American audiences because of the unfamiliar name “Arrietty” (which is taken from the Borrowers, but still isn’t exactly a commonly-heard name). But it has the weight of Disney’s marketing behind it, so let’s hope it finds the audience it deserves.

Why Content-Driven Community Strategies Are Flawed

((What if you forgot about content for a moment and focused your efforts solely upon the community? What if you initiated interesting discussions and invited people to participate? What if you promoted events and activities that were taking place in the community? What if you created a strong and unique community culture? ))

((What If?))

(stolen from FeverBee)


Information Needs and Why Content-Driven Community Strategies Are Flawed:

Two weeks ago, I met with an organization looking to build a community for entrepreneurs.

Their plan was to create great content to attract people to visit the site and then include forums and other community elements. Voila, a community!

Can you spot the problems here?

First, content is ridiculously competitive and people have a limited amount of time. There is far too much content on almost every topic on the internet. It's difficult to be the best (expensive and time-consuming too). Building up a larger audience to create a community rarely works.

Second, content attracts people looking to satisfy their information needs. Converting these information-seekers to community members isn't as simple as adding community elements. There is no direct connection between reading content and participating in a community. Just think how much content you read every day and how much you talk about.

What if you forgot about content for a moment and focused your efforts solely upon the community? What if you initiated interesting discussions and invited people to participate? What if you promoted events and activities that were taking place in the community? What if you created a strong and unique community culture?

It's far easier to create a unique community than unique content. In fact, many of the most successful communities I've seen are simple forums or mailing groups with no centrally-produced content at all.

Free information doesn't have to be the pull to your community. I suspect participating with some of the most passionate, knowledgeable, friendly, funny or active people in your sector is a pretty big draw too. It's better to attract people to a community that want to participate in a community.

When is it okay to start worrying?

((Stolen from Seth Godin))

When is it okay to start worrying?:

A friend was waiting to hear about the results of a job interview. He hadn't heard in a while and he asked me, "how long before I should start worrying?"

Of course, the answer is, "you should never start worrying."

Worrying is not a useful output. Worrying doesn't change outcomes. Worrying ruins your day. Worrying distracts you from the work at hand. You may have fooled yourself into thinking that it's useful or unavoidable, but it's not. Now you've got one more thing to worry about.

Relax: Your cell phone probably doesn’t cause cancer

Relax: Your cell phone probably doesn’t cause cancer: The largest study of a possible link between cell phones and cancer has found no reason to drop calls, the Associated Press reports.

Danish researchers who studied more than 350,000 people didn’t find a difference in cancer rates between those who had used a cell phone for about 10 years and those who had not, the report said.

Fears of a connection have continued even though cancer rates haven’t increased after cell phones debuted.

ASUS -- next generation Transformer will be announced Nov 9, ICS on existing hardware this year

((10.1" Android goodness; quad cores, under $500. Nice.))

ASUS -- next generation Transformer will be announced Nov 9, ICS on existing hardware this year:


Johnny Shih, chairman at ASUS, had a few things to say of interest to Android fans about the popular ASUS Transformer tablets at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong this morning. When asked about the next generation Transformer (check out the teaser video here), Shih said to expect the formal announcement on November 9, and tonight was a sneak peek of what he dubbed the "Transformer Prime". He went on to mention the quad-core NVIDIA chipset, a 10-inch display, USB and mini-HDMI ports, SD card slot, and the Transformer Prime's 8.3mm thickness. He also let the cat out of the bag for the original Transformer and any Ice Cream Sandwich plans, when asked if ASUS would have it by the end of the year he replied "Maybe earlier than that". Finally, he talked about the Padfone -- a combination tablet and phone that should come around early next year after carrier testing. That's all great news, let's hope it works out that way. In the meantime, we're all waiting patiently for a couple weeks until the Transformer 2, err Prime, gets official.

Source: All Things D

Sprint announces the Motorola Admiral, coming Oct. 23 for 99

(Best part? Hardware MUTE button. Been missing this for a long time)

Sprint announces the Motorola Admiral, coming Oct. 23 for 99:

Sprint has finally announced the Android-based Motorola Admiral, one of its new Direct Connect phones. It'll be available in stores Oct. 23 for $99 on contract and after $50 rebate, and in all Sprint channels on Nov. 13.

The mil-spec phone (meaning you'll have to work hard to break the thing) features a 3.1-inch VGA touchscreen, 1.2GHz processor and Android 2.3, with a front-facing QWERTY keyboard. Other specs include:

• 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video capture, flash and 4x zoom
• Quickoffice
• 3G Mobile Hotspot capability supporting up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously
• 802.11 b/g/n
• 4GB internal memory, plus microSD card
• Sprint Direct Connect
• Group Connect
• NextMail
  

Source: Sprint

Visualizing Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich

Visualizing Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich:

Maybe you've heard about Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan for America: 9% sales tax, 9% income tax, and 9% corporate tax, and wondered how it would play out in the real world. Here's a chart that illustrates the answer neatly (click for full, farcically long-ass version): the poor will pay a little more (or a lot more, relative to their income), and the rich will pay a lot less, and the very rich will pay so much less that it takes 9403 vertical pixels to express how much they'll save.

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Weather Check!

Rolling out next week for a nice little ride. Weather check - at least I'll get out of the Kansas Hot!

Chamberlain, SD - 75 and wet
Spearfish, SD - 65 and wet
Red Lodge, MT -50's and wet
Moscow, ID - 60's and wet
Nelson, BC - 70's and wet
Glacier NP - 60's and wet in the valley, 50's and wet up top.

 At least it'll stay above freezing . . .  Seriously glad I'm not camping this trip!

(update 13-June, departing day after tomorrow: No Change. Still Wet.  Sigh.)

What am I doing lately...

Boss wanted a list of what I'm doing these days...
Assorted Roles, Responsibilities

E20 Internal Social Media – Provide VP level consultation, implementation and training for Internal social media efforts on Jive and Sharepoint
Community Technology – Define, drive execution strategy for platform upgrades
Community  Strategy – Contribute and collaborate with team on Community strategy for customer facing site
Community Execution – build custom community layouts, assist team with technical implementation of widgets, layouts
Community Reporting – Execute custom SQL reports for variety of requests
Community Network Space Owner – read, review, respond to network concerns by customers; work with Sprint Network team to identify pain points and deliver communication to customers.
NO&W Leadership Program – VP Core Team Representative for NLP program providing support to mentors and protégées, VP reporting on status, leading internal Social Media efforts for NLP program.
Google Analytics – provide consulting, metrics from Google Analytics for Community and other Sprint.com sites.
Google Webmaster – work with system admin team to optimize Google crawl rate, exclusions for Community and other Sprint sites.
Akamai Admin – Provide technical, implementation, contract and reporting support to IT, Marketing, Sprint.com teams for Akamai Edgesuite content distribution network
Search – Provide technical, implementation, best practices consultation for Google Site Search option; Inquira search of Community.
Support – Provide technical, content, layout and implementation best practices consultation for Support team.
Assorted Web Stuff -  System Admin, network admin, app admin for TheMobe.com and Varacam.com supporting both Sprint.com and Marketing initiatives.
TheMobe.com – provide Drupal / Word press technical assistance to internal teams.

Community Kickoff

"...rally their core supporters to .. seed the community with killer content that will make newcomers feel welcome and pique their interest. Make it irresistible for them to dive right into a vibrant conversation, instead of asking them to create the first content."

- Ian Greenleigh on building uptake on a community.

http://daretocomment.com/breathing-new-life-into-books-with-official-hashtags/

Another Statistically Impropable Phrase

I find the coolest terms that aren't in Google. Before: "mudsucking shitfoot" I used to be the only hit for that phrase.

Now I found another -- "bio viral interface implant", or "BV two eyes" from the book Dome by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry.

Came up on a teleconference today about future phone interfaces. And of course there's no summary or link to explain what it is.

And then the call degenerated into a talk about vajazzling your cellphone.

Nuclear War May Stop Global Warming?

Sorry, what? In 2006, National Geographic posted that, "Even a small nuclear conflict would cause long-lasting global devastation that could kill tens of millions, scientists warned this week."

Then last week, they posted that, "Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling"

Sorry, what? Is global warming such a concern that 'long lasting global devastation' is a reasonable risk?

Hat tip to FerFal for the pointer.

ATT Data Rates for 4G LTE

Was just reading from TiPB about proposed AT&T data rates for their upcoming 4G LTE service. It runs from 5MB/sec to peaks of 12MB/sec. They're offering two tiers - 200MB and 2GB of data. How's that add up?

Go ahead and get the 2GB plan -- it's good for almost an hour at normal speeds (only 22 minutes if you get the max speed). Overages will only cost you $1.10 a minute.

Want to 'save' some money? Their lowest plan ($15 a month) at 200MB will last you 5 minutes and 33 seconds at 'average' speeds (5MB). Just 2 minutes and 13 seconds at peak speed. Overages would range from $2.81 to $6.75 per minute of use. Classic! Just like the good old days of Ma Bell Long Distance rates.

Keep in mind - those are *monthly* plans - you get to use your LTE from ATT for anywhere from 2 minutes a month to almost a whole hour a month before they charge you extra. Isn't that nice?

Mo Bloggin

Wow, native blogging software on the HTC Evo. Nice. Is Blogger becoming relevant again?

Even offers in post photo adding:

Bill of Attainder - not just for civics class anymore

he needs to be prosecuted to the, the fullest extent of the law; and if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Blog Post Wrapup

Lately most of my writing has been on the Sprint Community - I've called out a few of the posts I've written over there if you're interested:

• Spotlight on Sprint Stuff - getting help
  
  
• Social Commerce SEO Benefits
  
  
• Developing Apps for the Samsung Galaxy Tab
  
  
• Vlingo for Android with In Car Mode Review
  
  
• What's in your Social Media Policy?
  
  
• AT&T's Facebook approach
  
  
• A Faceless Corporation Speaks!
  
  
• Complaint Handling on Social Media
  
  
• Campaign or Long Term Engagement
  
  
• What’s Community About Anyway?
  

Social Commerce SEO Benefits

Lots of buzzwords there in the title - but in a nutshell, putting customer generated content on your product pages helps people find your stuff in search engines.  Bazzarvoice hosted a webinar last week featuring Cabelas.  Cabelas has always had a great online catalog, but hasn?t always had great placement in the search engines.  They?ve started featuring the latest 4 or 5 customer reviews directly on the product page.  Many other sites (Sprint included) tend to keep the reviews hidden behind a tab or a sub-modal somewhere.

By placing the customer reviews right on the product page, the search engines index the product and the words real customers use to describe the product.  Instead of having to manually (and often disingenuously) seed your page with the words you think your customers may use to describe your product, you let the customers do it for you.  By putting real world customer words right on the product page you end up with multiple benefits:

• Better search driven traffic - north of double the organic traffic
• Fresher content - the page is updated frequently with customer reviews.  Search engines like fresh content 
• More transparency - you show you aren?t afraid of customer opinions of your product.
• And the above should lead to increased sales and more revenue.

Win - win situation.  You get more traffic and sales, your customers feel more trust in your product and brand.

Where are you using your online product reviews in your site?

What tools or tactics do you use to encourage your customers to contribute reviews and user generated content for your social commerce platform?

Originally posted on the Sprint /meta discussion Community

Adding Value

You can add value in two ways:

• You can know the answers.
• You can offer the questions.

Relentlessly asking the right questions is a long term career, mostly because no one ever knows the right answer on a regular basis.
Via Seth Godin

Designing for Social Media

Jason Falls writes an insightful article on the design of social  media websites on Social Media Explorer.  Great quote (emphasis mine):

There’s a really good reason people love apps, and in particular applications from brands. They are often streamlined and simple versions of a company’s website or serve a specific purpose. There’s no annoying copy in marketing speak, no flash banners slowing down the page load, no pop-ups and, often, no confusion on where to go to get what you want. Why? Because mobile or tablet/iPad apps are supposed to be simple, serve 1-2 purposes and get out of the way.

Which is precisely what most users want from a corporate website.
[...]
Want to make your website kick-***? Build it like you’d build an app. Think of the 1-2-or-3 things your main audience wants from your website, or cool stuff you can give them. Then just deliver that.

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2010/09/01/how-mobile-apps-can-inspire-website-design/

[image courtesy Electrolux Design Lab
http://www.flickr.com/photos/electrolux-design-lab/4730081230/ ]

Complaint Handling in Social Media

Megan Berry writes an interesting article on Mashable listing five strategies for dealing with complaints on Twitter.  Her strategies are targeted at the short, realtime medium of Twitter, but they can be expanded for use with any social media customer service channel -- like this site!

Megan writes:

"It’s all too easy to get frustrated and respond with something that will just make the situation worse (“I’ll give you a refund right away… oh wait, you didn’t actually pay for this!”) or to take it personally and get upset. While there is no magic formula for dealing with complaints in social media, I do have a few tips that have helped me.

1. A Quick Response Goes a Long Way
- many situations can be defused by a quick reply to clarify the problem

2. You May Have To Respond As You, Not Your Company
- Posting from a personal account brings humanity back into the equation, not a person vs. a faceless corporation.

3. Give Yourself More Than 140 Characters To Respond
- Using email or even a phone call can help to turn around a problem

4. Let Someone Else Respond For You
- This one is touchy; if you have a following and fans who can provide a counterpoint, you can bring the issue to their attention.  But done wrong it will appear you are ganging up on the negative commenter.  This is where having a robust community is most helpful - you will find that the long term helpful problem solvers will automatically step in to try to resolve the issue.

5. Know When To Let It Go
- Sometimes, there's people you just can't help.  Examples for Sprint: Customers who just don't have coverage.  Products priced out of their budget.  Features that are discontinued.  The best you can hope for in some situations is a neutral agreement to disagree.  Then step back.  There are some people that just want to feed the flames or stir the pot, and continued dialog with them isn't productive.

There's no magic formula for defusing problem situations in social media, but these steps can help.  Be sure to check out the original article for some interesting comments!
http://mashable.com/2010/08/13/twitter-complaints-tips/

via Rich Pesce from Sprint

(original post on Sprint Community /meta blog)

Netbook Restored!

While waiting for the interminable weekly software update to complete on the work laptop, I unboxed and fired up some new parts for my Asus EEEPC 1005HA.  Somewhere over the summer I lost the power adapter for it, and it's been battery dead for a couple of weeks.  I finally got around to buying a new eee PC power adapter off Amazon from Battery1Inc.   I've read a lot of reviews about aftermarket adapters, and they universally warn that none of them fit right.  For $17 I figured I couldn't go too wrong - and surprisingly  it works perfectly!  Right voltage (19v), right pin-size *and* pin-length.  It snaps in place just like the factory adapter.  Appears to be very similar to the factory adapter, too.

Now that the battery was recharged, I upgraded the RAM.  I know that's spooky for some people, but Asus made it as easy as possible.  Unscrew battery door.  Pop up.  Press the retaining arms out of the way.  Use a plastic spudger (or plastic fork) to pop the installed 1GB memory module out.  Carefully seat the new 2GB module on the pins and press down.  Reboot, holding F2 down to get the BIOS to re-check the installed memory.  Done!

Now I've got the one with more Gee Bees!

Anyway - the Netbook is now rebooting and installing a months worth of Windows updates, and the work PC is back online. so back to Omniture report trolling!

Have a great weekend!

W

(original post at 'on the geek side', my work blog)

My Values for a Content-Centric CMS-driven Website:

So, you want to design a content centric CMS website.  Here's a few tips for you.

1) As small a page size as practical for fast download times.

2) Minimal design elements - the focus is on content, communication and participation.  Whitespace is good.
    http://www.ecoalign.com/
    http://www.topnotchthemes.com/theme/1007

3) Flexible design using repeating elements
    a) flexible for us to modify layout using CMS admin tools
    b) flexible for various browsers -- media driven CSS for smallscreen viewing
    c) Graphical elements that resize from small to wide, short to tall (lines, corners, etc)
    d) Text for all variable items

4) Focus on What's Important.  People-centric story-driven site?  People should be front and center.  Content?  Content front and center. 

5) Use familiar navigation structures to enable rapid discoverability of content

Social Media Notes from T-Mobile UK

I just attended a webinar from T-Mobile UK about "Using Social Networks and Knowledge to Deliver a Better Customer Experience". Took some notes. Follows is the notes. Errors are mine.


* Social Media is Fast growing
* Poorly documented with few 'best practices'
* 45% of companies have zero FTE dedicated to social media.
* Reports show nearly 10% of support incidents handled via social media across all businesses.
* Social Media channels change - 'second life' --> 'twitter' --> 'facebook' --> ???

* 53% of customers for TMUK want to use web for first point of contact

* Content delta confuses customers - need unified content system / strategy. Content delta decreases first call resolution. TMUK uses Inqira for content management to present a unified set of information. Everyone has the same answer regardless of channel. Content ownership / authorship is distributed among the lanes in the company, not restricted to an authorship group.

* TMUK Integrates direct customer feedback into change efforts - feedback from the community on how they are doing.

* TMUK Forums have 3 moderators (FTE 8a - 6p). They remove personal attacks, spam, profanity. Encourages negative views of company. "Allows us to identify, react to negative perceptions". Takes problems into company (firmware foulup in this example) and changes processes for communication, execution.

* TMUK measures ROI on call deflection - shows 5% call deflection, relates that to the 3 FTE. Notes that the same level of call handling would take 22 call center reps.

* TMUK uses Inqira forums - because the content workflow / content management tools keep a consistent message.
http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/discussions/index?page=forums&board=TMO_TALKS

* Online 120 days. 1.4 million page views. Not fully launched. Working on customer recognition / reward scheme for customers that answer questions - how helpful they are.

* Beginning to use Twitter for customer service. Immediate use for customer support. Listen, respond, build oppty to sell.

* Trial with video content. Phase 1) TMUK generated. Phase 2) User Generated Video content. Unsure of how they'll do it or what form it will take.

* With single content management system, they have created 'single version of the truth'. Having consistent, clear, accurate and transparent answers, being accountable to the customers and reacting to customer concerns is their key to success.

Social Media Primer – what’s a Blog?

So you’re a business major. You know there’s this Internet thing. And people are facebooking and twittering all over themselves about it. And your boss mentioned that you need to get a social media strategy. What do you need to know?

Time and Risk are an important consideration in your Social Media strategy and we discuss them in another Social Media Primer article about time and risk.


To get started with your Social Media strategy, we have a few key words for you to understand.

A blog is a one-to-many social media model. One author or a small group of authors in your company write articles (posts) about your products and services. Customers, prospects and unknown people can read and post comments on the article. A blog is great for mass communication. It offers limited interactivity between customers, the company and other customers. The primary model of interaction is comments on each article. These are in a linear format, not well suited for diverse discussion. You control the content and the message of the blog site and articles. Blogs are fairly easy to set up. There is a relatively low time commitment. There’s also a fairly low risk in setting up a blog. Content on your blog will be searchable by the whole Internet and available somewhere forever.

A forum is a many-to-many social media model. In a forum, your customers can ask questions, post opinions, and talk amongst themselves. Other customers, visitors and prospects can read their posts, answer questions and engage in discussions. Not all topics will be complimentary to your product or service. Your company can also post your comments, start discussions and interact with your customers. You can also simply ignore the forum and use it solely as a customer-to-customer site with no company involvement. In a forum, you need to be aware that your voice has no more weight than any other poster. You have to build your own reputation in the forum. Forums are people talking to people. Relationships start to emerge as people get to know each other. Relationships with your company can start to emerge if you have committed caring people engaging on the forums. Forums offer far less control over the message and content. Moderation can be used to remove or redirect unwanted topics, but that carries a risk in itself of alienating customers. Forums are a more difficult model to set up, and require more time commitment. They also require more initial and ongoing funding. Forums also carry a much higher degree of risk. Content on your forum will be searchable by the whole Internet and available somewhere forever.

Twitter is a new ‘micro blogging’ service where you can talk about your products, services, features, ideas and more in 140 characters at a time. It’s ideal for mobile devices and quick hits. It’s also a great site to monitor for customer feedback about your products and services. Getting started in Twitter has no cost and requires very little time. Proper engagement with the ‘twitterverse’ requires more time and resources – especially if you are a service company with potential customer challenges coming up. You’ll need a plan in place on how to handle problems raised via Twitter. The resource and risk model vary depending on how you choose to use Twitter. Content on your Twitter account will be searchable by the whole Internet and available somewhere forever.

Facebook is the biggest ‘walled garden’ social media platform around right now. Creating a ‘page’ for your brand is fairly straight forward, free and requires little time commitment. Making the page a success requires more time, more engagement with customers and more risk. With Facebook you have the option to engage directly with customers, encourage posting on your page about your product or service, show photos of your business, products, people and more. You can go as far as having custom applications developed to enhance your primary product or service, or to advertise your wares. Several subscription model companies (phone companies) have applications on Facebook that allow you to check your minutes used and other account statistics – all within Facebook. Content on Facebook is more controlled and is not indexed by the public internet – hence the ‘walled garden’.

Choosing which platform to use for your social media strategy should be take into consideration how much time you have, how committed you are to using the tool, and how much risk you are willing to accept.

Social Media Primer: Time and Risk

So you’re a business major. You know there’s this Internet thing. And people are facebooking and twittering all over themselves about it. And your boss mentioned that you need to get a social media strategy. What do you need to know?

We’re looking at time and risk today. Some key terms are defined in the primer about ‘What’s a Blog’

First, there’s time. Social media is about people talking to people. That takes time. You have to have someone look up from their budgets and spreadsheets and pay attention. It can be a full time job, or an entire department dedicated to social media. The time commitment depends on what technology you want to use.

Second, there’s risk. You’re putting your brand out there for people to talk about. And they will talk. Good, bad and ugly. If you offer a platform for their comments, you will hear about it. Managing that flow of potentially brand damaging negative comment flow is challenging. You can accept it, take the criticism, modify your behaviors (products, plans, etc). You can ignore it – but why are you in social media if you’re ignoring it? Being transparent, and acknowledging your problems can bring significant customer perception rewards. Comcast, Zappos, Sprint and others have used social media technologies to defuse potential time-bombs of customer problems.

A bad social media presence also creates risk – social media is where people are talking today. You wouldn’t put out a website designed by your second cousin, or produce commercials with a camcorder and a work light? Social media is coming of age and should be treated with the same level of professionalism as traditional media. Social media is just faster, more immediate and more (virtual) belly-to-belly relationship building.

Scheduling IT Development in Big Companies - Rule of Thumb

So, you’re scheduling IT projects and you ‘know’ how long it should take. But you don’t want to get burned by making a too low estimate. Late projects are bad. I’ve developed a handy rule of thumb for large company development projects. I have found it to be surprisingly accurate over the past (mumble) years.

How long will it take for hard-core knowledgeable developers to get it done? (Say, 10 days).

Since you’re in a big company, double that estimate. You need have to have meetings about the project and get approvals. (Now you’re at 20 days)

Are you the developer? Nope? You have another org doing the development? Double your time estimate again. The IT org will have to have meetings amongst themselves and meetings with your business team. This is important – they need to know what you want developed. (40 days)

Is your development team handled by a third party / offshore contractors / not under your companies’ direct control? Double it again, because they’ll have to talk to your IT team and have meetings. (80 days) And then double it again, because they just aren’t best of class on your application. Most contract development models depend on rolling in resources as needed, then rolling them out as soon as code is complete. So, there’s some learning curve and training needed for the project. (Now you’re up to 160 days).

That’s the general rule of thumb for big companies with lots of layers and the typical outsource development model.

(Editorial comment removed – my boss reads my blog.)

Alec's Limerick

There once was a silly cat named Line
That silly old cat was fat and fine
He was a creeper
Always asleeper
Creeping or sleeping, that cat was Mine

Winfield School Students Promote Mercedes Benz

Either the kids at Winfield 'intermediate' School are the worlds biggest Mercedes Benz fans (suprising given that Winfield has no economy) or they have a peace sign fail. (someone submit to failblog...)

My Not-So-Epic Quest To Find The Elusive Verizon Droid Line

Droid Launch Fail:

My Not-So-Epic Quest To Find The Elusive Verizon Droid Line: "A few minutes later I was joined by two new Droid fans. Unfortunately, my excitement over my new friends was rather shortlived — the newcomers turned down my offer of free TechCrunch T-shirts, and informed me that they weren’t actually waiting in line, but had come to witness it for themselves too. As it turned out, they were members of the Android team, who were also apparently let down by the sad turn out.

"

Everyone in line was a reporter. LOL.

Web sales comparison

Saw an interesting ad on a blog for some kind of gore-tex cordura suit. Coudn't tell if it was a new motorcycle suit or what. Turns out it's a mountaineering suit from North Face. A full $1,000. And what do they offer you on their site to buy it? Two columns of (tm) and (c) laden buzzwords and a fancy flash rollover thing. That's it. I'm going to drop a grand on a suit knowing nothing about it. Fail.

Side note - the advertisement for the suit didn't even take me to the suit; dropped me to the wrong product category overlay page. Fail 2. Had to toggle between windows and search for the damn thing in their hidden search field.

http://www.thenorthface.com/catalog/sc-gear/mens-haines-tuxedo-suit.html?parent_category_rn=&cm_vc=Search

Interesting contrast by another company that makes a Gore-Tex lined cordura suit - for $200 less.

http://www.aerostich.com/aerostich-suits/roadcrafter/roadcrafter-one-piece-suit.html

A full fuckoff full afternoon of reading on that page if you include the links, customer reviews and time fiddling with the sizing and options available. You get to know that suit. You own that suit while you're reading about it. You become invested in it. You dream about it. It's part of you after you read that page.

That's what it's supposed to be about.

Not marketing bulletpoints(tm)(reg)(c).