June 25th - Relevant Links
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Sharing the links for the day:
Dozens, Hundrends and Thousands OH MY!
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008I was talking to some friends of mine the other day and pondering what I should do here on this blog, mainly for input, since I can’t seem to figure it out myself. Ultimately I find myself continuously in search of an original idea - not a whole lot of those out there these days, if any. It’s not so much the amount of available content, as it is the amount of non-original content centered on the modest number of content opportunities which exist. So I’ve been on this particular task for a couple of weeks since I realized that I want to participate online differently - specifically on a more personal level.
The main reason for the discussion in general, was my current ability to scale. I’m personally finding it difficult to scale with quality. In general, I think social media has a scale issue, not just from a technology framework perspective, but also as you focus on it as a topic theme. I think in general most topics/areas of focus have content scale issues, but the issue in social media is more acute.
A quick content analysis of key folks appears to validate that there are just a good deal on non-events and events which are leveraged to go back to the bag of tricks and highlight a key concept. Not a bad thing, in fact upon review some of the best writers in the social media space are effectively recycling content every 3-6 months in context of the latest Twitter outage or which new platform is where the cool kids should hang out at.
Back to the task…
Fundamentally how to scale a set of activities is always an interesting thought experiment and made for an interesting afternoon for the group. We circled the topic for a while and I paused to check twitter - glad I did. Wouldn’t ya know - the Gods of the Twitterverse presented a series of tweets by Amanda Chapel in the stream which addressed the scale issue. I have to paraphrase the tweet in question with over 140 characters, since the back function is disabled due to Twitter “stressing out”/service issues.
The cost of obtaining a customer/the profitability of the initial transaction is greatly diluted by the cost of service delivery over time. The delivery of customer service doesn’t scale.
True Enough! Sales transactions are the easy things for the most part of any initiative. We actually discussed this tweet for a while in and out of the context of blogging. A very productive exchange - each had their personal insights on the topic with a mix of varying industry experiences, company sizes and diverse set of current roles: operational, strategic and creative. So this one cat offers up the following:
Technology businesses are aren’t about the transactions, but the repeatable transactions and supportability of the revenue. Anyone can sell something to dozens, some folks can sell to hundreds, but the market leaders can sell AND support 1000’s.
So I’ve realized I’ve encountered a scale issue with how I’m participating online and I’ve seen a great number of businesses which have the same issues. Great ideas, great product, crazy transactional revenues, but no ability to scale the business. With the general realization/acceptance that blogging is no different, I’ll contiue my gedankenexperiment on focusing my content, but at least I have 3 questions I’m going to work:
- What content do I consume and where do I participate online? Quick quick scan indicates technology, people & the environment.
- What passions do I have? Family, politics, education and science.
- Where are there 1000’s? Where are there 1000’s of things to track? 1000’s of interested people?
Ideas?
50 Things I Like: An Exercise in Developing Future Content
Sunday, May 18th, 2008I thought I would spend some time documenting the things I like, with a goal of identifying what I might want to write on in the future. Not unlike mind mapping, but more public - hopefully some of you will pick this up and use this exercise as well.
- Art - All kinds, the problem is I don’t have skills here.
- Signage
- Math
- Mountains
- A Spring Day
- Rocks
- Driving in Foreign Countries - It’s a challenge, it’s kinda like playing Gran Turismo 5.
- Business
- A good movie
- Trees
- Golf
- Eating outside - specifically on a Saturday in the fall at Zingerman’s
- Fried Cheese Products
- Reading a book while on a plane
- Home projects
- Gardening
- Maps
- Mojo Sauce
- A rainy Sunday during Shark Week - Does shark week still exist?
- Learning
- Teaching
- Rivers and Lakes
- Writing - notes to myself, email and this blog thing.
- Dogs
- Fishing
- Camping and Hiking
- Integrity
- Science
- BBQ-ing
- Rides in the mountains in the fall
- Identity Management
- Work - Yeah, I’m one of those - not only do I like work, I’m Puritan about it and dig my current gig.
- Geography
- Earth Science
- Chiropractors
- Astronomy
- Business Stuff
- Cool Stuff - All kinds, electronic gadgets, hats, the perfect Wok, windmills….
- Technology
- Applications
- Media
- Unions - more accurately, socialism and general economic theory
- Travel
- Education - How technology impacts education and as a discipline
- Sustainability
- Being Outside
- Parenting
- Canada
- Live Music
Jen Knoedl Utterz her way out of SOBCon08
Sunday, May 4th, 2008Funny, real and interesting. The choice wasn’t difficult - super creative. Get in on Jen @ jenknoedl.wordpress.com - let’s help her get rid of the Handcuffs!!
Relevant Links for March 21st through March 23rd
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Relevant links for March 21st through March 23rd:
- Addiction to internet is an illness -
- How to Commit Social Media Suicide - interesting piece on execution
- Social Media Discipline - simple humor
- Blogging more or less because of Twitter? - twitter’s impact on blogging
- Precognition in Decision Making - Tom does an interesting science recap from some show on TV.
Relevant Links for March 14th through March 16th
Sunday, March 16th, 2008Relevant links for March 14th through March 16th:
- Urban Review STL » Blog Archive » Big Picture versus Little Picture -
- 10 Questions Every Blogger Should Ask Themselves Before Posting - I promise I will do this in the future.
- How to Grow Your Blog with Viral Copy - A reasonable problogger piece.
- CICLing-2008 Conference - the International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics? Really?!? Cool website -text.
Built to Flip
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008So I was reading the latest Inc. Magazine online, because of some random content a friend of mine was able to do a quote for mediaTemple, which is how I found the article, “Anything Can Happen” a interesting little history lesson on Ev. After reading through it I was somewhat amazed a the naivety of the author’s assertion that Twitter may be built to flip or at least passing on others might think this. On some levels, so what if it’s a exit focused start up, that being said Twitter’s micro-use case for business, public safety and personal communication are almost limitless, except for the 140 character thing. Below is Max Chafkin’s thinly supported concept by “many others”:
Although some technologists think Twitter could one day be a billion-dollar company, many others say it represents the worst of Web 2.0: a company that is built to flip, that does little of value and has no long-term prospects as a standalone enterprise.
So relationships, information and minimalist technology may have little value in some circles, but it is quickly becoming the favorite channel for real-time communication for many. It is essentially a platform that levels the messaging playing field for people, businesses and potentially the government.
People
Twitter provides insights into where and what. Not an overly complicated use case - share where and what is going on RIGHT NOW in under 140 characters with your followers and keep in touch with the people you are following. Twitter allows for a voyeuristic view into random folks’ lives and friends alike. It also services as an up to date new source with crowdsourcing of content and pushed content from legacy media outlets, such as the BBC.
Businesses
This technology could be seen as best for a marketing channel, but I think it better suited for the service channel and effectively keeping your customers aprised on support issues, service availability and general FYI information without the requirement of going to a website with it being delivered to your phone. I mean think about it - an elevator pitch in <140 characters. Maybe a new product launch artifact will emerge called the Twitter Pitch, but in essence once you’re done, your done; unless of course every day has a new pitch, which might be a fun spoof profile.
Public Safety
Amber Alerts might be useful on twitter, reminders of an election day or severe weather alerts. Twitter represents a broadcast communications platform which could have many uses for an eGovernment initiative. I actually think the civic uses are endless.
I’m not sure where I was going with it, but in principle if Twitter can represent the worst of what is Web 2.0, then bloggers and technologist are all doomed since it would imply community, relationships and content has limited/no value.
