Twitter is a micro blogging service that consists of 140 character posts. You can think of it as SMS for the web.
It has grown into a near real-time messaging service ranging from the banal “just ate an egg McMuffin” to the useful, “Arrested” which freed James Karl Buck from an Egyptian jail cell. [See link at end of blog post]
Here are five things a business person needs to know about Twitter:
When allocating budget for any creative endeavor there is always a tension between what the creative team wants and want the audience needs. Do you really need to blow the majority of your budget on just one effect, one feature or one gimmick?
Last night I saw Michael Weller’s BEAST, produced by New York Theater Workshop - the folks who brought you “RENT.” It’s told as a “fever in six acts” and arcs from Iraq to Germany to Crawford, Texas. From a creative perspective it leaves you warm; from a budget perspective it gets you hot under the collar.
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Yesterday I got an email from a brilliant friend I haven’t seen in years. He’s the mad-scientist of video engineering who I remember as always drilling holes in the back of $100,000 Sony decks to make “just one more modification.” We re-connected via Facebook (or was it Linked In?) and after the regular email volley of catch ups and pleasantries he asked:
I’m going to ask for some free advice (beers on me for this one). Colleagues and friends (including yourself) have invited me to join them on linked-in, facebook, etc…
As an avowed Luddite and someone who a) does not feel I have the time to maintain relationships on these sites and b) simply does not trust the security and intent of these sites; please explain to me why using these or similar services is good for my career or otherwise.
I do not want to avoid these sites if there is a real benefit to my career, but I have always had a fairly high bar for what is a real enhancement, and what just adds more maintenance.
Please also explain how the etiquette of not accepting someone’s invitation works. I do not want to offend colleagues by ignoring their invite. If I do sign up, there may be people for whom I would not write any kind of endorsement (also a high bar for me) also an etiquette dilemma.
Answer? BEFORE the Flood. You build your network before you need it. And that takes time. How much time? Well I joined Linked-In back in 2003 when the company first started. It seemed like a good way of keeping in touch with far-flung friends. I haven’t put much effort into it, maybe an hour a month and I’ve got about 225 connections.
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As I watch CBS Market Watch track in near real-time the downward plunge of key stock market indices I can’t help but think of proprioception.
Proprioception is the sense of where your own limbs are in space relative to the rest of the body. And it has significance for your business as well as your body.
It’s the sense that allows you to touch your nose with your eyes closed or, if you’ve been drinking, fail the sobriety test. It’s why when you wake up in the morning you don’t scream “Oh my God they’ve stolen my legs!” simply because you can’t see them under the covers.
Scientists will tell you that this ability is not reliant upon one organ but rather the sum total of the entire nervous system, Read the rest of this entry »
What do you do when you have too many choices and not enough time? How do you make sense of a lot of raw information about a problem that has no apparent pattern? And most important, how do you do it fast?
The fastest way I know how - and one that I use with most clients - is the decidedly low tech use of 5×7 index cards. These are the cards you can buy for 69 cents at the grocery store or local office supplies outlet. The entire process takes 30 minutes and here’s how it works. Read the rest of this entry »
AJAX is a series of interrelated technologies that power the so-called Web 2.0:
Asynchronous refers to the method in which the web browser communicates with the server. Rather than rely upon the actions of the user - “click,” then send data to server, then wait for the server to send a response back, then refresh the screen - the AJAX “engine” manages the process Read the rest of this entry »
Apollo 13 was supposed to be NASA’s third manned-lunar-landing mission but things didn’t turn out well. Two days into the mission the spacecraft was crippled by an explosion in oxygen tank #2. Losing oxygen and electrical power rapidly, the crew’s lives depended upon solving a complicated problem rapidly: how do you return to earth when your craft is damaged beyond repair? Read the rest of this entry »
The Ishikawa Diagram - also known as a “fishbone” or “root cause” diagram - can jump start your strategic planning with wonderful results. Named after Kaoru Ishikawa, one of the early pioneers of Total Quality Management in the 60’s, it forces you to:
Cloud computing refers to the shift of ownership and maintenance of servers from individual business units to a shared and secured environment on the internet. It means a lower total cost of ownership and the ability to scale rapidly to meet demand.
Think if it like this: if you’ve got an internet connection you’ve got access to storage space and software applications limited only by your budget. Nothing to install and nothing to maintain. Read the rest of this entry »
So I jumped the gun a little bit. Found the putative secret link to the iPhone 2.0 software update ahead of schedule. Through some good luck happened to download the update just before Apple pulled the link. The install was smooth enough, though doing a manual upgrade was a bit nerve wracking. To brick or not to brick that is the question.
Seeing absolutely no reason to buy the new 3G iPhone Read the rest of this entry »