a better way to broadcast: live-tweeting or live-blogging?

I'm at the Online Community Business Forum in Santa Fe, NM, and this is the first time I've attended an event where so many other folks are live-tweeting the proceedings on Twitter (follow me: itsthomas).

Thanks to the mad twitter skills of @sharakarasic, @dwitzel, @astrout, @hjstrout, @scottmoore and @frandallfarmer all using the #ocbf2008 tag, I'm now changing my mind about the best way to capture an event so others can follow along.

I used to think live blogging was the best way: within minutes (or within seconds if you're good) of an event being over, the rest of the world could absorb the content as if they'd been there themselves (minus the ability to raise one's hand and ask a question). Thanks to tagging, one can quickly get a list of all the live bloggers in a room and read each of their takes on the discussion. Somewhere in the crossover of all the blog posts was certain to be a fairly decent sketch of the actual proceedings.

Now that I'm watching the results of a group live-tweeting an event, I can see even greater benefits to the micro-blogging of germaine points via Twitter:

1. Twitter shows what topics are resonating greatest with the audience: the more folks tweeting the same thing, the greater the impact the idea is having. One would have to look across several blogs to find shared topics (if they were shared at all) and triangulate in on the temporal overlap of points.
   
2. The Tweet stream self-corrects: if one twitter post captures a statistic or quote incompletely or incorrectly, there are likely other tweets around it to correct or refine the point. Again, the temporal overlap is missing in blog posts, so it's difficult to cross-reference outside the micro-blogging stream.
   
3. Via Twitter, those outside the room can jump into the room: replying to a live-tweeter with a question to pass along to the speaker is more than possible (still waiting to see it, though). Live-blogging after the fact simply does not afford this luxury of jumping in from afar.
4. Twitter gives folks a leg up to network in the time between speakers: You've just spent an hour live-tweeting the same event, what better way to begin the conversation about other interests you share, and cement them over time by following each other on Twitter.
   

Just as savvy speakers have been able to leverage back-channels to see how their talk is going and course-correct mid-presentation, a savvy speaker can peer into the Tweet stream to see whether their message is hitting home (or even simply making sense).

While I began this event by live-blogging the first two speakers (Alan Webber and Rohit Bhargava), I think I'll be switching to live-Tweeting from here on out. You can follow along on our group effort using Tweetscan on ocbf2008.

Tip of the hat to Andy Carvin (@acarvin) for drawing my attention to the power of live-tweeting by including me in the many events he attends through his own twitter prowess.

Who have you found to be good at live-tweeting? or do you prefer the live-blogging style?

What do you think?

fwiw, here's my live-blogging of two sessions at OCBF2008 with Alan Webber and Rohit Bhargava

Rohit Bhargava speaks at Online Community Business Forum

Rohit Bhargava is SVP, Digital Strategy & Marketing at Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence (follow him on Twitter at @rohitbhargava)

Thinking Beyond the Community Website

Concerns heard during the intros this morning:

• selling the value of community
• getting new users to sign up
• building up the superusers

These are all marketing challenges, no?

Here are the keys to thinking beyond your website

1. learn where your customers are
2. be part of that conversation
3. focus on Word Of Mouth, not conversion
4. measure your level of engagement
5. expand!

Case study: WineLibrary.TV is a community that @santagaryvee has built

Case study: Rohit just launched a book called "Personality Not Included" and has created a new blog about it, a Facebook group to create a community around the book.

It's about getting where people already are. He's the one who invited folks to send him five questions and Rohit would answer each set of questions (no cut and paste) to provide custom interviews for these bloggers. Rohit had 50 bloggers submit questions so on day 1 of the book launch, he had 50 blogs pointing to him.

On top of that, he then had folks vote on which blog had the best interview questions (more traffic spread around), so that keeps the excitement running.

Salient point from an audience member: Don't confuse visitors to your web site with the community of people interested in your work: the community is independent of technology, and they will manifest across many platforms: yours, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.

UPDATE: Is live-blogging (this post) or live-tweeting the better capture? My thoughts posted separately.

Alan Webber at Online Community Business Forum

Alan Webber, Co-Founding Editor of Fast Company magazine, opens up the Online Community Business Forum here in Santa Fe, NM.

In early 1990s when he and Bill Taylor got together to build the magazine, they believed a great magazine succeeds because it identifies a community that already exists but doesn't know it's a community yet. The magazine becomes a strange attractor that pulls folks together.

According to Webber magazine is nothing more than a giant satellite dish in space - a vehicle for collecting stories about people, ideas and information that can then be deployed in other media.

They determined Fast Company would give folks the opportunity to come together where THEY wanted to come together.

Keys to community: context is king - a point of view, a perspective, that gives the community a reason for being and a trajectory into the future. Remember: the purpose of a community is to do something.

Back when, they were still in a world where marketing was moving from monologue to dialog. FastCo took revolutionary prop to instead of being the last word, was the first word in starting a discussion.

Company of Friends was the business society of the future: the chamber of commerce waiting to be formed: FastCo's job was to enable (not monetize, not interfere).

You're going to tell us what you need to know, and we'll go find the answers to help you grapple with the problems you're dealing with in your life

4Cs of successfully engaging people via a magazine:

• Community
• Context
• Conversation
• Co-creation

It used to be we struggled with finding the technology that could support the 4Cs.

Challenge now: we've got the technology, but are searching for the purpose.

RoP: return on purpose: what's the point of the exercise?

UPDATE: Is live-blogging (this post) or live-tweeting the better capture? My thoughts posted separately.

tweets o' the day

• 05:43 awake early. triathlon starts in 3 .5 hrs. power bar for breakfast. wish me luck. tweet you on the other side!
• 12:19 my 1st triathlon done. yay!
• 12:46 will know my stats from the tri when they're posted tonight. was hot and sunny, but finished under 2 hrs (whew)
• 16:13 made it from sacramento (tri) to SFO (plane) on way to Santa Fe (conf). what a day and still 8 hrs to go
• 18:42 landed at LAX. here for 90 min before departing to ABQ. hope i can foind the Sharks game on TV here at the airport
• 20:45 in my seat on the flight bound for ABQ. hope the Sharks hold on to win while I'm in the air
• 21:28 #1 for take off from LAX. full engines. full stop. jheading back to gate. waiting for parking space. doesn't bode well
• 21:42 pulled up directly to the Unoted maintenance hangar... is this a good sign?
• 21:44 and the sharks lose 4-3. boo
• 21:47 door open. maintenance guy now in cockpit. do I hope he's in there a long time or short time?
• 21:49 good news: if they clear this plane, we go. if they fail this plane, another one is waiting for us to swap into
• 22:09 plane has been cleared to fly. now just "waiting on paperwork" (aren't we always?)
• 22:37 still no paperwork. sitting on tarmac. won't make it to ABQ before 1 am (plus hour drive to Santa Fe)
• 22:43 story has changed. pilot says now waiting on phone call for clearance. fuel truck on way "in case" to make sure we're topped off.
• 22:45 we're cleared for take-off. w00t! (holding breath til wheels up)

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tweets o' the day

• 10:37 just picked up my wetsuit. now to pack up the gear and drive to the race site
• 12:47 van is packed. family inside. we're off!
• 15:54 in Roseville. checked into hotel, now to go to the race course to ride the road circuit
• 18:18 the lake is very low. it's a third of a mile from the shore to the transition area. swim time will suffer
• 19:29 getting ready to get my pasta on before the race starts in 14 hours
• 19:46 it's prom night in Roseville. you can almost smell the awkwardness

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tweets o' the day

• 10:04 back from a great breakfast with BenBins (not *yet* on twitter), wish we didn't live on separate coasts
• 15:49 how did it get to be 4pm already?
• 22:44 overzealous rent-a-cop gave me a parking ticket and placed it on top of my parking permit. grrr

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tweets o' the day

• 09:40 20 minutes left until I dive into back2back meetings for the next eight hours. see you on the other side
• 09:52 sweet. first hour of meetings canceled. the rest are still on, tho
• 18:15 meetings over. good content, but too long trapped in rooms. off to go throw some arrows
• 20:39 c'mon Sharks. you gotta score now
• 20:42 and they score! sharks lead 2-0
• 21:36 sharks win 2-0! 15 wins to go
• 21:42 teammate just shot a ton-80. way to go Patrick!

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loic lemeur talks with michael tchao about Nikeplus and Seesmic

Love it when my worlds collide like this. Loic Lemeur (Mr. Seesmic.com) posted a seesmic video wherein he's showing Michael Tchao (of Nikeplus) how seesmic works and talks about the number of runners on Seesmic.

I'm a HUGE fan of Nikeplus and have found it invaluable in my own training. If it's not too late tonight, I'll have to post a response to Loic's video to say hi and share my own Nikeplus story. (I run on Asics, btw).

tweets o' the day

• 09:06 i love hockey playoff season. the Sharks are finally getting coverage in the Mercury News (3 pages today). Game 1 is tonight
• 10:41 @davetaylor congrats on the MSM gig!
• 11:56 i heart caller ID... keeps me in the flow instead of sidetracking to decline telemarketers
• 15:10 getting ready to get my photoshop and illustrator on
• 17:10 off to see the Sharks win Game 1 of Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Look for me on TV :-)
• 18:50 the shark tank is all decked out in Stanley Cup decorations. just 16 wins away
• 19:13 the Tank is LOUD tonight
• 19:47 sharks down 2-1 at first int. lots of hits
• 20:41 sharks down 3-1 at 2nd int. the home crowd's getting nervous (and the refs are blind)
• 21:42 sharks lose 3-2 boo

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tweets o' the day

• 09:34 waiting so long at the dealership, the courtesy shuttle doesn't feel like a courtesy any more
• 11:45 I hope when WaMu got its $7B in new capital someone's requiring them to correct the spelling in their ads to "woo hoo" (not whoo). geesh
• 14:21 just gave my input on the topics of the book " Psychology of Facebook," you should, too: tinyurl.com/5m75af
• 17:22 @lotd " The perfect plan/Is not the man/Who tells you/You are wrong" Time Has Got Nothing to Do with It - Peter Murphy
• 17:47 time to leave the office... got a board meeting to run for the SCVDA dart league

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tweets o' the day

• 08:42 taking more too-big clothes to charity this morning, one of the benefits of losing 35lbs while training for a triathlon!
• 12:41 ignoring the reply in my inbox to my craigslist post selling my motorcycle. not as easy to let go of it as I thought it would be
• 17:29 off to buy more chicken feed. given the rise in the price of eggs, our backyard chickens are pretty cost-effective omelet sources
• 23:20 having a tough time blogging and playing poker at the same time, but I'll manage
• 23:44 hoping the visitor who's generated 100 page views on the urbanchickens.net blog is finding what they're looking for

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this is Sharks territory

this is Sharks territory
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

The 2008 Playoffs start Wednesday night against the Calgary Flames.

My better half and I will be at the game to watch the Sharks take a 1-0 lead in the series. (I think they'll take the series in 5 games)

Will you be there?

Go Sharks!

tweets o' the day

• 09:44 getting ready to do my last big workout before the triathlon. the rest of this week is reduced effort in prep for the race Sunday
• 11:02 off to do a 22 mile ride and a 2 mile run... rain or no
• 14:59 recovered from the workout watching the Sharks lose a meaningless game. Playoffs start this week v Calgary. go Sharks!

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tweets o' the day

• 07:25 on my way to SF to swim in the bay at Aquatic Park. cold already just thinking about it
• 08:06 water in the bay not smooth, but not too choppy either
• 09:32 survived my first open water swim in SF Bay. I should warm back up by Tuesday
• 12:47 in hayward picking up a table we ordered weeks ago

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tweets o' the day

• 00:49 g'night all. tweet you in the AM (pacific time)
• 08:34 trading my swim workout for a run today. tomorrow morning will be swimming in San Francisco Bay. brrrr
• 08:55 listening to my youngest sing along to the Aristocats. delightful sonic snapshot to carry with me to work
• 09:24 @lotd "Early morning, april 4/Shot rings out in the memphis sky/Free at last, they took your life/They could not take your pride" pride, u2
• 13:34 nice to see @cshirky holding his own with @StephenColbert: tinyurl.com/5v7axb
• 16:03 Thinking I may cut out a little early to go run off some of this nervous energy. Triathlon's just 9 days away.
• 19:51 just got back from a short motorcycle ride. damn I love my bike

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clay shirky on the colbert report

We had the pleasure of hosting Clay Shirky at our office the other week as he swung through the Bay Area on his book tour. He was a delightful speaker and I really appreciate how he was able to engage everyone in the conversation, not just those of us longtime fans of his geeky stuff.

Great to see him get his five minutes on the Colbert Report. He's in his element here even though he admits to getting nailed by Colbert:

tweets o' the day

• 09:07 just uninstalled the FB FunWall app. Deceptive UI keeps tricking my peeps into spamming their friends with FunWall posts. good riddance
• 09:50 @artbrock you'll have to check my other blogs to see what's up in my life besides egg production in the backyard
• 10:23 @lotd "Are you with me/Nothing to trust in/You have the answers?/What are the questions" Are You with Me, Vaux
• 12:49 Anyone else sick of this FunWall message propagating by preying on the crappy UI of the Slide app? it's an ILoveYou 2.0 virus for FB
• 12:54 Headmaster's Ritual showdown: Smiths original (tinyurl.com/2u82nu) or Radiohead cover (tinyurl.com/34lerq)? I'm torn
• 16:04 in a meeting at the same hotel in santa clara where i house-hunted from back in 2003. has it been 5 yrs already?
• 18:52 lucked into a "health and fitness training for triathletes" session at sports basement. good stuff!
• 18:53 fact: you lose aerobic fitness at a rate of 9 percent per week of inactivity. 6 mos to build: 10 weeks to lose. ouch
• 00:17 seething listening to the spin re FL and MI primaries on the Tonight Show

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wading into the world of realtionship management via CRM

Part of my function at work is to help our philanthropic investment firm understand its own aggregate social network so we can begin to leverage these connections to more effectively achieve our mission of creating opportunity for people to make their own lives better.

Put another way: we need to understand who we know and what they know and how to get to them.

Right now, each of us tracks our own individual networks using whatever works best for us as individuals (LinkedIn, Facebook, Address book, rolodex, those squishy bits between our ears), and most of us are really good at managing our own networks. Simply put: we wouldn't even be working here if we weren't good at networking.

But we're going to start growing gangbusters here, and with each new hire, the likelihood of overlapping networks grows and the likelihood of well-intentioned retracing of steps increases.

So how do we roll up each of our networks into a shared network that each of us both contributes to and leverages in a way that doesn't suck the social capital out of these connections?

• Is it a hoarding bias we have to overcome? No. I haven't encountered a single person who doesn't want to offer up all their contacts for the benefit of the group.
• Is it a technical problem we have to solve? Yes, partly. It's not a matter of simply dumping everyone's address book into a big shared file on the server. That's a band-aid solution. We need something that meets the who/what/how criteria on-demand and accurately.
• Is it a human process problem? Yes, partly. This touches on the squishy bits between our ears method that all of us use to track our social networks. We're going to have to find ways that are in-the-flow of our work to capture and record the states of our networks. No matter the technical solution, there'll have to be some process changes, and if I had to guess, this'll be the most difficult part of the relationship management problem

Understanding this network is key for us to best manage the whole investing process from deal flow pipeline to deal-making to post-deal portfolio management. I'm not looking to implement the Pipeline-to-Post-Deal management solution in one fell swoop, mind you. I think a shared contact database is the best place to start, and we can build out from there.

As a first step, I'm looking to hire someone to do a survey of similarly structured organizations (Venture Capital or Private Equity or Financial Services) to see how they handle CRM, especially how it integrates into the deal management process from pipeline through deal-making and out to post-deal management systems. All my informal surveys so far have yielded a hodgepodge of home brewed solutions like "we track in a big Excel spreadsheet" or "a custom Access database" or "we leave it up to the individuals to track that stuff."

I've got feelers out to a couple folks to see if they'd be interested in doing this survey on our behalf. Do you know of anyone you'd recommend for the project?

tweets o' the day

• 09:01 today's four hour meeting was canceled, I can feel the forthcoming productivity boost already
• 11:21 @ckreutz can you share your epiphany re: WYSIWYG editors not being necessary?
• 11:55 @ckreutz agreed that function distracts from content, but I'm surprised at how much lack of function inhibits wiki adoption by newbies
• 13:22 @lotd "I never married/never had those kids/I loved too many/now heaven's closed its gates" sunny road, emilana torrini
• 13:31 watching coworkers use the microwave makes me think a lot of these folks are the "set the damn marshmallow on fire" type of s'mores makers
• 16:28 our Urban Chickens fan page on Facebook just picked up its 100th fan. woot! tinyurl.com/35z8ys
• 21:30 kids are in bed, kitchen's clean, living room is tidy... time to play online poker and blog (multitasker I am)!
• 23:29 time to call it a night. c u all tomorrow

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tweets o' the day

• 00:45 amazon deal of day is the clapper? are you KIDDING me?
• 09:15 @lotd lotd: 'do i lie like a loungeroom lizard or do i sing like a bird released?' Weather With You - Crowded House
• 11:53 Bonny Doon Winery: great wines, arty web site, crappy digital customer service (2 out of 3 shouldn't be that bad, but it is)
• 13:33 going to Mexico City end of April: what's not to be missed on a free afternoon in DF?
• 16:23 @joi congrats on the just-posted CC news. keep up the great work!
• 16:50 hip-deep in CRM research... the onslaught of acronyms is astounding... alphabet soup, indeed.
• 18:27 out on a date with the wife: the lst Sharks home game of the regular season
• 20:16 and Grier scores with :10 left in 1st period. Sharks lead 1-0 at 1st Int
• 21:04 2nd int: sharks lead 3-2
• 22:03 sharks won 5-2! w00t

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Take two minutes to get smarter about the Middle East

I'm almost too embarrassed to share my ignorance, but maybe it'll help you over the learning hump with me. Regardless of your views on what's going on over there, get your basic facts straight via what every American should know about the Middle East, a great list complied by Daniel Miessler.

After starting off with this preamble, he goes right to the list of basics:

For example, frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and most think the words “Arab” and “Muslim” are pretty much interchangeable. They aren’t. So here’s a very brief primer aimed at raising the level of knowledge about the region to an absolute minimum

This should be required learning for everyone. American or not.

tweets o' the day

• 09:10 Easing back into tri training, Did a two mile run this morning and felt pretty good. 13 days to the race!
• 13:37 back from a great lunch with a twitter-shy coworker. Here's hoping she joins us to tweet sooner than later
• 15:31 hands-only CPR technique finally approved (no more mouth-to-mouth!). at last, the homophobics, can help: tinyurl.com/38bcgd
• 17:04 work day almost over. to-do list at home is mowing lawn and planting tomatoes before heading off to weekly poker game (and winning!?)
• 22:18 licking my wounds from poker. bad beat on an early all-in. at least the big winner's initials were TK, too

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tweets o' the day

• 08:00 making sunday morning pancakes for my daughters: our ritual
• 10:54 about to head to a kids birthday party... smiles everyone!
• 16:24 never underestimate the power of a pack of little kids to test the bounds of sanity. nonstop energy until mandatory naptime is called. zzzz
• 21:40 enjoying the heck out of our little community of urban chicken farmers. what a great group of people! urbanchickens.net

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tweets o' the day

• 08:19 appreciating anew my good health after just suffering a week of the flu. I'm alive!
• 15:15 happiness is munching away at the perfect gala apple
• 20:36 Cool! my urbanchickens.net blog featured on Deconstructing Dinner radio show blog at tinyurl.com/33eek9

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video: elephant paints an elephant

Thanks to Cory's post on boingboing this morning, got a chance to sit down with my daughters and watch this video of an elephant painting on a canvas (with a paintbrush supplied by its handler).



I was absolutely floored to see just how accurate a picture the elephant painted.

Imagine how much I had to struggle to explain to my girls that not every elephant can do this, nor does every elephant get the chance (should they?)

I'm still a little surprised at how moved I was to witness this, and I do so hope this was a real video and not a doctored one.

tweets o' the day

• 08:43 got in the pool for first workout in a week. still weak from the flu, but glad to be active (ish) again. tri is in 16 days
• 10:19 @howardgr my google calendars are not fully functional, either (still)
• 11:02 @diong careful you don't go look at nashbar.com or you'll spend even more money on bike gear! (all I can do not to spend $ there today)
• 11:40 feeling smug about my brackets as I peak in the standings. likely to fall in the ranks with today's results, tho
• 13:36 good lunch with a non-tweeting coworker. hope he joins soon so I can "r@" him out on twitter
• 15:07 just added my name to the list of Earth Hour observers (this Sat, 8-9p). is your name on the list? make it so at earthhourus.org
• 18:04 davidson's gonna slay my bracket goliathson
• 21:18 ugh, my 3 seeds failed to win today, so my brackets suffer. At least Sharks are gonna beat Ducks to clinch Pacific Division tonight

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I'm an REI customer for life

I first got to know and love REI back in college when I was an outdoor recreation guide taking folks on canoeing, kayaking, camping and rock climbing trips.

Even back then, REI was this place where you could (and did) get anything and everything to take care of your outdoors needs. I spent enough money at the REI in San Diego, that I ultimately wound up working there (in the summer of 1990) first off because it was a great environment to spend my daylight hours talking to folks about the very equipment I used extensively on my days away from REI, but more importantly, because I got to participate in "pro deals" where employees could get the equipment at dramatically reduced prices. Heck, I think I actually bought more stuff from REI that summer than I wound up earning. Come to think of it, I believe that was the summer I began to carry the credit card debt that I wouldn't full break out from underneath until 8 years later when I hit the AOL options lottery.

Now flash forward 18 years to where I'm the customer wandering the aisles asking REI staff for recommendations on this, that and the other. When I did my Mt Whitney summit last year, it was the kind folks at REI who helped me pick out an updated pair of hiking boots to replace my 25 year-old Vasques. Of course, the REI folks helped me slide into a new pair of Vasque Switchback GTX boots (less than half the weight of my old pair, whew!), and all indications were that the boots were a perfect fit. At $150 for the pair, they should have been.

But they weren't the perfect fit. After I got back from climbing to the top of Mt Whitney (and back down again) in them, I lost the nails on both my second toes (next to the big toe), and my left big toe is still slowly growing out of its bruised nail these six months post-summit.

Now, it wasn't just my toes that took a beating on the summit run. The boots took a beating during my warm-up hikes around the Bay Area and up at Squaw Valley, and then up and down Whitney itself. Given all those miles (and the mounted crampons), you can imagine the scuff marks on the outside of the boots after all that.

So, what am I to do with a relatively new, yet still visibly worn, pair of boots that don't fit? Especially given I'm going up Mt Whitney again in three months? Well, thanks to REI's 100% satisfaction guarantee, I just take them back to REI, tell them I got the wrong size and I get credited my money back to buy another pair (they're now $160).

I was more than prepared to pay some kind of idiot tax for buying boots too small, but not to the extent of having to eat the entire cost of the boots.

REI's forgiven my mistake and retained me as a customer for life.

I wonder if I can get a pro deal on my next pair of boots?

tweets o' the day

• 08:29 The worst of the five day flu is over. is good to be on the road to recovery! Now to assess the damage to my schedule
• 10:50 Finally, got my permit to climb Mt Whitney this summer. We summit July 11th. Anyone want to join me?
• 15:04 anticipating a long night of refereeing a couple squabbling dart captains. this is going to be fun
• 16:05 at last, a nav system I can get into: a crowd-sourced traffic-busting gps called Dash (www.dash.net) Mossberg even likes it
• 16:29 @chep2m agreed it should be MUCH easier. glad it's overwith :-)

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Mt Whintey 2008 Lottery results are in

Hooray! Got the letter from the Forest Service today.

We've got our day hike permit (eight of us) to climb Mt Whitney on Friday, July 11, 2008.

Now, time to start rallying the troops and starting the training regimen. Considering I went from couch potato to Mt Whitney summiter over the course of the summer last year, I think any of the newbies interested in joining me this year will have plenty of time to train.

I can't wait to get up there again!!

tweets o' the day

• 08:05 fever finally broke at 3am. I'm a new man this morning
• 10:09 has anyone used NetMiner (SNA mapping tool) or know someone who has?
• 18:11 day four of the flu comes to an end. please let day 5 be the last of it.

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I want me some Crayon Physics Deluxe

Just take a look at this and you'll see why. My daughters could spend hours on something like this and they'll get smarter for the time spent.




The first, prototype, iteration of the game (not the one seen in the video) is available, for free, at the Kloonigames blog.

Unfortunately, these games are for the PC-enabled set, not us Mac-types.

Oh, and if you like the music from the video, it's "Lullaby" by _ghost and is under CC, so have at it.

tweets o' the day

• 08:54 Stuck in the middle of this crappy five-day flu going around. Grrr.
• 09:45 for as little as a $5 donation (by 3/31), you, too, could be at a dinner for 5 with Barack: donate.barackobama.com/dinner
• 13:44 @krob hooray! people@work lives! tinyurl.com/3a8rvw
• 19:14 tri tip now off the grill... letting it set up before cutting into it. mmmm homemade fajitas

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powdered pig bladder too late to help my thumb

It's been almost 18 years since I lost the end of my thumb (read: to the first joint) in a motorcycle chain. After all this time, I've gotten quite used to not having the extra nail to clip. The only times I really notice it's missing are when I'm trying to cut my fingernails or when I'm trying to fasten the button on my shirt sleeve.

Now, I see the miracle of re-growth is upon us via powdered pig bladder. See the CBS News story telling of a man's successful regrowth of the end of his severed finger.

A little late for me, but not for all those others bound to make the same mistake as me (warning labels be damned!)

tweets o' the day

• 13:02 ugh. got the flu (again). trying not to let it get in the way of a sunny sunday, tho
• 20:33 just got back from an easter party, and I think I'm completely drained. going to bed early and hoping I wake up on the road to recovery

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tweets o' the day

• 01:06 time to call it a day
• 09:22 today's the day to buy plants for the garden. upside-down tomato plant ver 2.0 to launch this afternoon
• 15:14 @pierre great occasion to capture your thoughts on obama. couldn't agree more with how special a time this is
• 18:09 i must be trader joe's target demo: tj's playing great! 80s songs and I'm spending more time here than I should just to see what's on next

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tweets o' the day

• 09:23 thanks to iPod shuffle songs, rediscovering Toad the Wet Sprocket this morning. forgot just how good an album Fear is
• 11:30 @tempo try playing a white noise CD thru headphones and adjust the volume to find the sweet spot to mask the ringing
• 13:34 can't believe there are so few upsets in the first round. Actually, can't believe none of my upsets have panned out (yet?)
• 17:05 getting ready to go do an 800m swim workout. first triathlon's just 3 weeks from Sunday tri4tk.blogspot.com
• 19:07 1000 meter swim over. could have gone longer, but out of time. back at it in the AM

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tweets o' the day

• 08:57 bracket complete with 25 min to go. now, to watch and win
• 09:52 nothing so satisfying as watching a reckless speeder in a residential zone get stopped by the cops
• 11:13 Lessig: we're seeing the top 1% of the country taking advantage of the structure of congress at the expense of the bottom 99%
• 14:10 some of these social network maps I'm looking at remind me a lot of the arcade game Tempest (from the 1980s). ah, good times

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tweets o' the day

• 20:13 great day discovering filoli center gardens. the closeup of the bee is my favorite shot: tinyurl.com/3964oy

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tweets o' the day

• 06:58 blogging while looking out the living room window to see the sun rise into a clear sky over the Bay Area this morning
• 20:57 spent day discovering banana slugs hiking redwood forest 10 miles from home. see flickr for evidence: tinyurl.com/3bok5g

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tweets o' the day

• 14:53 triathlon training brick #2 completed: 55 min on the bike and then 20 min running, and feeling good still. Next week: add water
• 22:01 folks are in town. made beer braised hoisin short ribs to celebrate. feeling fat and happy and ready for bed.

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tweets o' the day

• 12:11 just back from my first swim lesson in 25 years. who knew there was still so much to learn about swimming with proper form?
• 13:34 finally finished updating week 4 stats from Santa Clara Valley Dart Ass'n. A lot of good arrows thrown this week.
• 18:39 tacos y burritos del Grullense. que saboroso

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tweets o' the day

• 09:34 still recovering from a late (school) night out
• 13:03 just had the best business lunch combo: both brain and stomach are full of good new stuff
• 16:22 about to head up to SF for dinner... yum!
• 16:49 sky looks menacing to the north. here comes the rain
• 16:58 and the caltrain pulls in just as the rain begins to fall. perfect timing
• 23:01 back from a great dinner at Firefly in SF with Will and Jerry. Conversation was as good/better than the great food. TGIF

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tweets o' the day

• 08:39 cloudy and drizzly on the Peninsula today. At least the flowers look happy
• 10:49 talking with VerizonWireless.com rep re: "view paper bill" function not working. She says "VZW doesn't support Macs" beg pardon?
• 10:51 I've used my mac to view my paper bill at vzw.com for four years now. and today they stop supporting macs? i smell misinformation
• 11:29 vzw.com and macs tinyurl.com/389thl /rant
• 15:46 new running clothes are here... gonna break them in this evening
• 18:57 trying to eat organic peanut butter quickly is futile

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VZW.com support team says "we don't support Macs"

My jaw is still agape at the brush-off I just got from the customer support folks (specifically: B) at VerizonWireless.com when I called to report that the "View Paper Bill" button wasn't working from Firefox, Flock or Safari on my Mac.

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't support Macs."

I'm floored at this attempt to brush me off for the kind of computer I'm using. It's one of those disrespectful "shoo fly, don't bother me" knee-jerks reactions I get from someone employed as a customer support rep yet not really wanting to do her job.

I press on: I've been using vzw.com functionality from my Mac for the last several years, when did you stop supporting mac access?

"If you like, I can confirm that for you"

Confirm what? that you don't support Macs? or that the View Paper Bill button doesn't work?

"That we don't support Macs"

But that doesn't solve my problem: I want to be able to print out a copy of my bill to submit for reimbursement. Can you tell me how to get view my paper bill?

"Hold please"

B goes away and then comes back and tells me I need to remove all my cookies and log in again, then click the button (she can make it work from her Internet Explorer browser with no problems).

I erase my cookies, log in again, navigate to the button and click it.

I can even see where the button action is in the page source :

<button type="button" class="gray" onclick="getPDF('REDACTED','February 25, 2008'); _hbSet('c2', 'REDACTED' ); _hbSet('cv.c5', '4087617021' ); _hbPageView(_hbxStrip('billing options statement view paper bill'), _hbxStrip('/my account/overview/billing options'));" >VIEW PAPER BILL</button>

Still no response when I try to click it, again.

"It should start downloading a PDF... do you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed?"

I know how this works. For the last four years, I've been able to do this specific action once a month... that's almost 50 times running. Let's get to the point: please file a trouble ticket for me.

So the ticket starts to get filled out. It's obvious from the questions B's asking and her pauses and nonreactions to the information I'm asking her to include (last time I successfully used the function, my ability to recreate the error, the line of code on the page where the trouble's coming from, etc), this trouble ticket isn't designed to actually help the customer.

I'm assured I'll get a call back in three to five days. Business days or calendar days?

"I said three to five days."

I say I need to find a PC to tackle this particular problem. And I'm tempted to go back to receiving paper bills just to add to the overhead of supporting my account.

tweets o' the day

• 08:38 glad to see the buds emerging on our japanese maples. spring is sprung (achoo!)
• 10:26 Huzzah to @sethgodin "Going to alpha by default is lazy and ineffective and expensive." read the rest: tinyurl.com/262436
• 14:49 The ten commandments of raising healthy urban chickens are posted tinyurl.com/2etrpm (anyone know what #11 should be?)

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still waiting on Mt Whitney 2008 Lottery results

Since I last posted about my Mt Whitney 2008 Lottery results impatience a couple weeks ago, time has c-r-a-w-l-e-d by as I'm still waiting to hear back from the "folks in charge."

While LeftCoast Mom has assured me she'll let me know when the Forest Service letter arrives in our mailbox, I still rummage through our paper-based mail at the end of each day vainly searching for some obscurely marked card that'll let me know I've got the Golden Ticket.

I've even begun to wonder if my lottery application even got there, but there's no way to find out since I didn't send it registered mail OR include a self-addressed-and-stamped postcard with my lottery form. Lesson learned for next time!

Going into this process, I thought they'd send out confirmation of results as the applications were processed. Upon closer reading, however it looks as if ALL lottery applications are processed before the confirmations are sent out. This means I'll be waiting for another month.

This is quite unfortunate, as I'm going to be giving a luncheon talk to coworkers next week trying to recruit a bunch to make it to the summit with me this year. It'd be much easier if I could answer their question of "so when's this going to happen?" with a firm date instead of a "well, if we're lucky, it'll be one of these seven dates in July or August."

In any case, they'll at least know it's time to start getting in shape!

tweets o' the day

• 11:43 psyched to be hosting @CShirky as he comes to talk with folks in the office (plus guests) today
• 16:14 processing all the new insights from @CShirky 's talk. what's the Promise - Tool - Bargain of your own group?
• 17:05 so, DJIA biggest gain since 7/29/02. what of tomorrow? I can't find what happened to DJIA on 7/30/02 as reference. sources? anyone?
• 18:07 wondering how many more cycles we're going to let the "older voters" decide who runs the country
• 23:09 suffering from a bad beat in FB hold'em

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tweets o' the day

• 08:51 it sure doesn't feel like it's already 9am in the Bay Area
• 09:13 the allergies are really bad today. claritin doesn't seem to be cutting it.
• 09:46 except for the Mel Torme, I'd swear they stole this mix tape list from my own dusty collection: tinyurl.com/2rexko
• 11:28 Almost forgot to include the interest I made lending money via prosper.com on my 2007 tax form (a reminder from P woulda been nice)
• 12:05 my new Canon SD1100 arrived. battery is charging. Enabling Eye-Fi card at lunch. totally geeking out
• 14:07 First Eye-fi-enabled blog post is up: tinyurl.com/39oocf lookout world

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mischief making tools

mischief making tools
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

At long last, I have the camera to go with the Eye-fi card that LeftCoast Mom got me for Christmas.

This picture of the pretty packages was achieved through using the Eye-Fi card to wirelessly upload the pic to Flickr. And the Canon SD1100 camera's smaller than my Blackberry 8830, so I feel like I'm finally "whole" again after switching from camera-enabled Treo 650 to BB8830.

Looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble I can now start to document. :-D

Creating a Philanthropic Keep the Change?

BofA Keep the Change howto
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

I drove by a Bank of America this morning, and it got me thinking about the social skills taught via their "Keep the Change"(tm) program. The concept's illustrated in the picture to the right, basically rounding up any charged amount to the nearest dollar and putting the rounded up amount into one's savings account.

The creative folks at IDEO were the ones to propose the Keep the Change program to Bank of America and it was launched back in October 2005 as a way to stimulate folks to create new accounts at BofA. (evidently it did quite well)

From what I can tell, BofA's success hasn't gone unpunished. A group called Every Penny Counts® is suing both Bank of America and VISA for infringing their 1993 "Rounder Patent" issued in August 2000.

I haven't yet figured out where the legal proceedings have gotten, but I'd offer this suggestion to all involved: open the patent so anyone can use it philanthropically. (Didn't Eddie Murphy have a movie wherein he stole the fractions of a cent rounded off of trades and make a mint doing so? anyone?)

So, I wonder how difficult/costly it would be to do something similar to Keep the Change, only direct the "rounded up" amount to one's charity of choice instead of one's own savings account. Conceptually, it seems like this could piggy-back off an existing payments program, and the brand halo could be enormous.

I've even got a name for the program: "Donate the Change."

Lest you fear, I won't be claiming any legal rights to this concept. Go ahead, make it happen. We'll all be better for it.

tweets o' the day

• 06:41 beautiful sunrise in Bay Area. off to run the sawyer camp trail
• 07:30 5 mile run is over... let's start the day
• 07:55 debating with my wife where the sound comes drom when you snap: i say where finger hits palm (mini clap)
• 09:51 it's an awful lot like same old politics, different gender. Such a wasted opportunity to shake things up
• 10:16 very excited: my new camera is to arrive on Monday (already have the eyeFi card). At long last, my Flickr stream will runneth over
• 12:02 hip deep in tax prep. ugh
• 19:44 just had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in 20 years. So many memories now flooding my local cache

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tweets o' the day

• 09:01 20 tabs open in Firefox. Perhaps I should start reading all these pages I've been saving for later.
• 11:48 must find top of physical desktop today. horizontal files too full
• 13:24 just did a mass ignore to 127 FB notifications needing my attention. A tinge of guilt, but happy it's done. spring cleaning!
• 16:40 off to let the chickens free-range in the backyard. weekend's about to start!
• 18:26 I like when a listing of nearby stores includes the hours open in the listing instead of requiring another click. good design!

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tweets o' the day

• 07:52 beautiful sunrise in the Bay Area this morning... the high clouds did a great job of capturing the pink/yellow/orange at dawn
• 10:12 wii alert: Amazon's got a shipment in now tinyurl.com/27hy4u
• 10:27 And the Wiis at Amazon are gone. Can't get enough of ours. the kids love it (truthfully, all of us do)
• 11:11 wow. I can no longer buy any more Wiis at Amazon, per their Wii policy: 3/hh (I've already bought 3) Go get your own via wiialerts.com
• 13:03 @loiclemeur a 30 sec limit could indicate seesmic is to YouTube as twitter is to blog
• 22:15 terrible call to send ucla game to overtime
• 22:59 on the verge of a great come-from-behind win at darts tonight. sweet victory in our sights
• 23:57 after being down 4-6, we came back to win 7 in a row for an 11-6 victory. go team!

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tweets o' the day

• 08:52 got in a chilly three-mile run this morning at dawn. even post-shower and breakfast, I'm still cold. hmmph
• 10:19 at the bottom of my second cup of coffee I have found warmth! (may have overdone it on the c-c-caffeine, tho!)
• 14:18 grateful for the tools at meetingwizard.com to help me land a meeting with seven other busy folks
• 16:48 feeling the frenetic energy of a large group of people getting ready to go overseas for a week-plus, wishing I could fit in a carry-on

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tweets o' the day

• 09:16 Lots of folks coming into urbanchickens.net from Plenty Magazine... tis the season to get your own backyard hens.
• 11:25 grrr on my.barackobama.com: Cannot use object of type PEAR_Error as array in /home/obama/htdocs/utils/blue_geocoder.class.php on line 297
• 11:26 the fatal error (previous tweet) kicks in 10 seconds after page load. so much for helping out today
• 11:44 Trying to get a domain transfered away from NetSol to GoDaddy is like trying to slay Hydra. Where's Hercules when you need him?
• 16:14 quick, can you name this Representative: ca14ima.pub@mail.house.gov? How about some real-naming in these govt email addys?
• 17:08 Can't find Clay Shirky's book tour schedule for Here Comes Everybody anywhere. help? where comes shirky and when?
• 17:55 another skirmish in the war on drugs: i has to show ID to buy cold medicine (paid cash but privacy lost)
• 21:33 got all three blogs updated today (whew) with substantive posts: that's not counting the LoudTwitter.com auto-posts

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dart league documents loaded into the cloud

Since taking over as president of the Santa Clara Valley Dart Association (SCVDA), I've been working with the other board members to get as much of our data as possible off individual computers and up into the cloud.

I've only been a member of the league for three years now, but in that time, I've witnessed some of the challenges that arise when folks keep important documents on their personal hard drives and then life happens, in other words: the computers crash or they go missing or the people just up and walk away from their duties.

No matter the reason for the missing info, the result is always the same: the league suffers from a lack of documented history. The remedy? Relying upon well-meaning-but-often-fallible memories of long-time members.

Combine all the above with the fact that most folks just want to get together and throw darts as an excuse to drink and be merry, and you've got a perfect storm of events conspiring to erase the institutional memory of the league.

So, since taking office last October, I've held the following items as the priorities of the board:

1. Get the current weekly match results and statistics posted as quickly as possible - we'd fallen about eight weeks behind in reporting the results of matches, and as you can imagine, it was more than a little frustrating to not know how you're doing for the season, either as a team or an individual, especially when there were tough sanctions for not reporting the results within 24 hours of the match.
2. Update the league documents to reflect current rules and bylaws - The published Rules of Play hadn't been updated since 2005 even though there'd been many changes to the rules voted by members in the many seasons since the official document was published. The Bylaws were even older (Feb 2004) and so knowing how the league was supposed to be run was difficult to determine for a newbie like me.
   
3. Get all the historical data trapped on paper score sheets digitized and published - herein were trapped all the results showing team standings and individual highlights for the past five seasons and no one could get at them
   
4. Hold the first SCVDA Awards to give away five seasons' worth of awards. Since joining the league in 2005, I'd never actually known an award to be given out for individual achievements (ton-80s and the like), and for amateur darters, it's all about the individual accomplishments when you're losing, as a team, to superior talent week in and week out.

Through quite a bit of effort by the board, we've been able to plow through all of the above and get everything published to the league's web site (hosted on a members' personal web server) so everyone in the league can access the info at our league's domain: http://scvda.com It's been a long uphill climb, but we're finally on top of it. I couldn't be more proud for the work these guys have done.

Now, our priority is to get all our data off one person's server and instead get it into "the cloud." In other words: getting our documents hosted on servers that are managed by teams of full-time employees, not a part-time volunteer who's having up-time issues with his own ISP.

My thinking? I'll trust my data to the Google servers because if the Google servers go offline, something catastrophic to the entire world is likely happening and the status of our darts stats is likely not to be at the top of the list of pressing issues if Google's crashed.

So, my first thought was to rent space at a domain server (like GoDaddy) and install a CMS like Drupal or Joomla. But as I dug into configuring the CMS packages, I realized they were still too complicated for our needs.

I've instead settled on using Google Sites to host our data, and so far, I'm pretty pleased with the capabilities. I'm a long-time wiki lover (Twiki then Socialtext then PBwiki and now JotSpot, aka Google Sites) so I really love how easy it is to pull the site together.

And now I'm uploading all our league documents and results from past seasons onto the site and starting to configure the loose architecture so others can follow.

What I still need to figure out is a good solution to emailing lists and how to set up form-driven activities on the Site (do they need to be form-driven anymore?).

The holy grail is how do we capture the reporting of results each week online. We've made the leap from submitting paper-based score sheets via USPS to now faxing the results to a virtual machine that PDFs them for us.

I'd like to think we can make the leap into a peer-reviewd reporting process next Season, but there's lots of habits to change and norms to create to enable something like that.

For now, I'm happy to have our stuff in the cloud so no one can hold the league hostage again, intentionally or accidentally.

tweets o' the day

• 09:08 Girding myself for the time change this coming Sunday. Getting up to workout next Monday's going to be a killer.
• 11:28 thinking about the best way to show the links among a small tight-knit group working their way through a list of new contacts
• 14:38 about to spend some time with @ethanz & can't thank him enough for his #TED blogging skillz
• 17:41 getting ready to win it all at HoldEm tonight
• 18:34 need a pocket camera: trying to decide between Canon PowerShot SD850 today or Canon SD1100 in a few weeks. advice?

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tweets o' the day

• 05:41 day has started early: volunteering at the treeathlon
• 06:05 the first racers are arriving and setting up i the transition area. lots of expensive bikes here
• 09:52 I've said "to the end and cross the mat" about 500 times so far
• 15:51 feeling more human after a nap. triathlon seemed to run smoothly. lots of lessons learned from watching and will be blogged about
• 16:36 watching the chooks squabble over grapes
• 18:37 making chicken tikka masala. love the way it makes the kitchen smell

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tweets o' the day

• 10:08 saturday 60 min bike ride over. now watching youngest at ballet lesson
• 10:35 they're playing enya's orinoco flow in ballet class. my ballerina is enthralled
• 11:42 wathcing the chickens devour the weeds in our backyard. certainly saves work for me
• 12:45 getting stuck to donate a pint of o pos. only two us at the blood bank now

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tweets o' the day

• 09:11 a foggy start to leap day here in Redwood City
• 10:13 @sethgodin quotes Gavin Potter: "The 20th century was about sorting out supply, the 21st is going to be about sorting out demand." huzzah
• 11:41 wrapping mind around a friend's discovering she has "exercise induced anaphylaxia" talk about an incentive not to exercise
• 17:16 scheduling a blood donation so it doesn't interfere with triathlon training program
• 17:25 off to take care of the kids so my illing better half can get some rest
• 18:56 finished first 1000m swim (yay!) good end to a leap day

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Pangea Day: seel life through someone else's eyes

What would it be like to see life through someone else's eyes?

TED's released a gripping little trailer to Pangea Day that gives us a sample from the not-too-distant past:

The trailer's a play on the man-stops-tank scene from Tianamen Square almost 20 years ago. While the still shot of the scene of that lone man stopping the line of tanks on their way to Tianamen Square is burned brightly in my memory, the motion picture adds a new level of enormity to this brave act.

Take the sixty seconds to watch the trailer, then go to the web site: Pangea Day to see how you can participate on launch day, May 10, 2008.

tweets o' the day

• 10:11 See you at Swell Season #
• 11:19 trying to take Google Sites for a spin, but am watching the "please wait" icon spin instead #
• 12:58 it's too beautiful, sunny and warm to not eat lunch outside #
• 19:11 getting ready to play week 2 of the scvda spring dart season #
• 22:15 GWB bs: "$4/gal gas? I haven't heard of those forecasts" out of touch? or simply stupid? #
• 22:59 rough night at the ockey. getting schooled by the best team in the league #

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Great example of leveraging a somewhat inaccurate story

Throughout my career, I've seen comm folks react to published stories with a grumble-grumble about how they were "misunderstood by the author" and "taken out of context" and other such complaints. These reactions spark up the moment the finished piece is published (and therefore out of reach to "sculpt") and are usually accompanied by exasperated hand-wringing and a "no! No! NO!" chorus as each new paragraph is consumed. Energies are then funneled into picking out everything that was "gotten wrong" in the story and crafted into a one-on-one message delivered straight back to the writer. As if anyone's going to read the retraction or errata in the next issue.

The point is: no one ever knows of the correction but the writer and the story subject.

Quick: what's the last time you read a correction in the newspaper and changed your opinion of the original piece (assuming you remembered the original piece the next day)?

So, I'm not surprised to see the folks at 37signals do a bang-up job in "setting the record straight" on their blog coincident with the just-published story about them in WIRED magazine's March 2008 issue.

In the post, Jason Fried clearly and concisely gives his side of the observations made by author Andrew Park that Jason refers to as "myths," complete with the blurb by Park that captures the myth:

• Myth: Whoever spends the most wins
  
• Myth: 37 signals customers are unhappy
  
• Myth: We don't care about our customers
  
• Myth: Complexity is a necessary byproduct of the modern age
  
• Myth: we refuse to change
  

Of course, Jason ends the whole thing giving props to Park's effort and product overall.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is a great way to get your message out in this world o' blogs.

Waiting on Mt Whitney Lottery results

At the beginning of February, I entered the lottery to climb Mt Whitney again this summer (see last year's successful climb pictures here and the video here).

Per instructions, I submitted an application via snail mail at the beginning of February. I'm hoping to lead a group of eight to do an overnight hike (just like last time) on one of the close-to-full-moon Thursday nights in July or August as my first choices, but will be happy just to get the permit for any of the nine nights I listed on the app.

Someone's crunched the data to show how many unused Whitney permits there were last year (see the spike at the end of September that coincided with the snow storm and explains why so few folks were on the trail with us September 29). Given the data, I think our odds are good in that I've asked for non-weekend days that aren't near any typical holidays.

And now I'm stuck in a holding pattern waiting for the permit lottery process to play out. My paper-based application is in a big tumbler with all the others and will be drawn out randomly to get my date assigned (and my check cashed).

So all I can do now is check the mailbox each day to see if I'm a winner. The suspense is killing me!

walking the talk on 2.0 tools

Great to see the lead article in the latest newsletter from CIO Insight is all about urging CIOs (and their ilk) to use Web 2.0 tools.

Edward Cone writes:

Understanding Web 2.0 applications is important to your business, and you need to spend some quality time using them to really get what they’re all about. The power of user-driven tools lies in the using. Just reading about them, or spending an hour or two playing with them, doesn’t do them justice; you’ve got to go hands-on to appreciate their power.

Yet, according to studies conducted by CIO Insight Research, many CIOs have limited experience with these tools. Fewer than half the CIOs participating in our 2007 Emerging Technologies Survey said they personally make use of blogs, and just over one-third use any form of social networking software; more than one in 10 respondents said they don’t participate in any Web 2.0 activities.

It's really easy to spot the tech person who's done limited time on 2.0 tools. It's far harder to understand whether they've decided to ignore 2.0 tools out of laziness or ignorance or both.

our phone number has been hijacked, so we've had to change it

Some time in the last six months or so, a person going by the name of Terry Barnes decided it'd be a good idea to put down a phone number that wasn't his on any and all forms he filled out that asked for one.

I know he's done this because we've been receiving an increasing volume of calls from businesses seeking to speak with Terry Barnes at our unlisted home land-line number.

We've only given out our unlisted land line to a select few friends and family because, until Terry threw his pursuers into our lives, we've known that when the home phone rings, it's someone we want to talk to.

It doesn't matter that we insist there's no Terry Barnes at this number, we still get called again and again as Terry defrauds more and more businesses. Collection agencies, attorneys, private investigators... evidently the "there's no one here by that name" no longer means anything to these folks: they're all on the trail of Terry and he keeps giving them our number as his own.

In seeking help with the situation from AT&T, we were informed that the only solution was to change our own unlisted number and go about informing our limited "unlisted" network that we've had to move. Evidently this particular brand of identity theft happens a lot more than you'd think. The stakes aren't as high as when they take your social security number or credit card number, but there's still a big inconvenience factor.

Aside from my bank, PayPal and Google AdSense, I can't think of anyone that's ever verified my phone number. So of course, falsifying phone numbers is piece of cake when filling out apps at Blockbuster or the library or any other place that doesn't do an extensive credit check.

Here's an idea: smart vendors should start verifying phone numbers by requiring cell numbers and making a call to said cell phone on the spot to make sure it rings.

Oh, and if you happen to get any kind of application from Terry, cut to the chase and call the cops straight away. I'm sure all those collection agents would appreciate the tip.

testing recipes for America's Test Kitchen: it's over

I love to cook, and I also enjoy testing recipes and giving feedback and helping improve the ultimate product so others can create a fantastic dish (see my post on helping create the Good Home Cookbook). Volunteer recipe testing is a fun way I can collaborate with cooks across the country/world without actually sharing the same kitchen.


Along those same lines, for the last year or so I've been participating as a volunteer recipe tester for America's Test Kitchen (ATK). I'm a huge fan of the ATK shows, and I've got copies of their last five annual recipe books. I'm also a subscriber to Cook's Illustrated, the magazine produced every other month by the same staff. I find the ATK/Cook's Illustrated approach to teaching about food and cooking is a great combination of science, technique and, ultimately, delicious food.

Through the program, I've had the opportunity to test 23 different recipes
over the course of fifteen months, ranging from pear crisp to thin and crispy oatmeal cookies to rack of lamb. Along the way I discovered a fabulous scone recipe,
one for chilaquiles (tortilla casserole) and another simple yet
delicious one for sautéed spinach with lemon and garlic.

As an ATK recipe tester, I'd get a recipe in my email every few weeks or so asking me to test it and submit feedback on both the instructions and the results. There was never any pressure to submit results, but there was
always a time window in which they needed to hear back (typically: ten
days from receipt). Of the twenty-three recipes offered, I think I gave feedback on eight of them, and 0.347 is a good batting average in baseball, right?

In the last couple months, the recipes they've sent for testing were decidedly not in keeping with my weight-loss-and-exercise program getting ready for my first triathlon in April. So I haven't submitted feedback on recipes since, gulp, September.

So, I was a little wary this morning when I found an email from ATK titled "Friends of Cook's Program" instead of the usual "New Cooks Illustrated Recipe to Test." When I opened the email, my fears were confirmed, as this is what they had to say:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for the contributions you have made as a recipe tester for America’s Test Kitchen. The information we receive through the recipe testing surveys is an invaluable asset in the development of recipes and the improvement of our publications. In an effort to continue to expand our understanding of the landscape our readers face while preparing recipes, we will be refreshing our list of testers and looking for input from new cooks.

As we update our lists, our veteran recipe testers will no longer receive new requests, as a way to allow newer members a chance to participate.

We appreciate your ongoing dedication to helping our publication's continued success.

Happy Cooking!

The Editors of Cook’s Illustrated

Perfectly in line with all the other experiences I've had with the folks at ATK/Cook's Illustrated, even this Dear John letter was classy. And I can now call myself a "veteran recipe tester."

If you're interested in becoming a recipe tester yourself, follow the link at the bottom of the ATK home page and sign up. If you've got even the slightest joy in cooking, it's a great experience (heck, I may just sign up again under a nom de cuisine).

seeing my dots on the Dopplr map

If you haven't yet signed up on Dopplr, you simply must go there immediately after reading this post to register and start using it. The Dopplr gang have created a great service that allows you to share your travel plans with friends and associates and find out when you'll be in the same city as they are be it at one another's home base or half way around the world.

And, over on the DopplrBlog, they've got a cool post on the roundup of Dopplr user statistics in 2007. The Dopplr gang refer to it as the Dopplr Raumzeitgeist or "Space Time Spirit" (that's the right translation, Dani?).

You'll have to read the post to get at all the numbers, but I found the map (minimized above, click through to see the bigger version) to be the most intriguing part of the report.

Why? Because I can make out the dots I contributed last year by while being a Dopplr user: San Francisco, Boston, Stockholm, Amsterdam, New York, Santa Fe, Seattle, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur. They're all there.

geeking out on the run: Nike+ iPod Sport Kit

I can't stress enough just how great I think the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit is in helping me to while away the miles I spend jogging.

Judging by the number of referrals from this blog over to my triathlon training blog, many of you are already following along as I prepare to run my first triathlon in April. So you're no stranger to the praise for this handy little tool that helps motivate you to run farther, faster and having more fun. For those of you who haven't visited the other blog, I think this gadget warrants a write-up here on hvy TK - Tech & Trends.

The Nike+ iPod Sport Kit works like this:

• install the transponder that fits inside your shoe (if you shell out for the special Nike shoes) or attached to your shoe via a pouch on your laces
  
• attach the receiver to your iPod Nano (it only works with the nano)
  
• follow the directions found on the new Nike+iPod menu on your iPod to track your run either by time or distance
  
• after the run, connect your iPod Nano to your iTunes and you'll be invited to automagically submit your stats to the NikePlus web site (say yes!)
  
• the NikePlus site now charts your runs (distance v pace), tracks your mileage and calories and time and pace, and allows you to set goals for yourself or challenge others to a virtual "race" where your stats are compared.
  

I've coupled my iPod Sport kit with the great steady-beat podcast mixes over at DJ Steveboy's Podrunner blog and have seen my running skills improve from barely-run-a-mile to finishing a 7.1 mile run with a smile.

Heck, if I can make this transformation with a little technology assist, anybody can do it. Give it a try!

Winter Update details for DirecTV HR20 HD DVR

It's been a week now since the winter update was downloaded to our HR20 and we were greeted with the following heads-up descriptions from our friends at DirecTV (in italics) and my commentary on each:

Menu Changes: with the larger text size and new order of things, the menu is now easier to read and get around

Um, I can't really tell if the text size is indeed larger (I'll take their word for it), and the new order of things seems to be referring to the fact that setup is now the fifth item in the list, and "manage recordings" is on the top level (was it always there?)

Screen Options: in the Guide, My Playlist or while watching TV, you can use the YELLOW color key to view available options.

This is actually a pretty cool update: pressing the YELLOW color key in the various environs results in the following menus:

• Guide: Sort programs by category, jump to a date and time, change favorites list
• My Playlist: Mark programs to delete, sort programs by category, change order of Playlist, open/close all
• Watching TV: View previous channels, Closed Captioning, Change favorites list, audio options
  

Closed Captioning: We've added a quick on/off switch to TV options. To give it a try, press YELLOW while watching TV.

I'm pretty impressed with the CC function so far, especially with two young kids who LOVE to scream and yell just when I'm trying to listen to crucial dialog.

So, they're making incremental improvements to the experience.

I'd still trade all the above to get a better signal on our local FSN-HD channel so I can see hockey in high-def. As it is, the signal's not strong enough so we suffer through pixelated pucks all the time. sigh

RSS demystified by Howard Rheingold

Last week, I gave an informal brown bag session at work on how to use Google Reader to track information flows. I'm trying to convert folks here into leveraging RSS feeds to keep on top of things instead of our old-school ways of browsing sites checking to see if things have been updated.

I started off the session with Lee LeFever's CommonCraft show on RSS in Plain Text. And then I went on to demo Google Reader and how it worked and the advantages of sharing feeds and collaborative filtering, etc.

In hindsight, I didn't do a very good job of it. Sure, they learned a little, but not all I'd hoped.

And my assessment of my effectiveness was driven home yet again when I watched Howard Rheingold's recent vlog post: Introduction to RSS. He's a great teacher, and I can learn a lot from paying attention to the little things he does so well.

For one, Howard's setup of the problem is great:

Information is abundant.
Access to information is infinitely easy
Way-finding requires skill

Finding the information that matters and knowing why it matters in the unordered flow is probably the most important task and skill in my life.

Howard starts the hunting and gathering part of in his day by reading blogs (many, many blogs) as the first level of his filtering the "unordered flow." And how he keeps up with 100s of blogs for this first level of filtering? via RSS.

Then Howard delivers the solution with a comprehensive walk through of how he uses Bloglines to track his RSS feeds.

Go watch Howard's vlog on RSS now. Your investing seven and a half minutes watching it now will be repaid handsomely as you cut down your time spent browsing and instead let the info flow to you.

Lost a Netflix DVD? Replace it cheaply via Amazon

I lost one of our Netflix DVDs (don't know where or how) and I was shocked! to find out that Netflix was going to charge me $20 to replace it.

Here's how to replace a missing Netflix movie MUCH cheaper than their quoted $20:

1. Go to Amazon.com
2. Search for the missing movie title in question
3. Follow the "new and used from $price" link (DO NOT BUY THE MOVIE NEW!)
4. Select the item in "Used - Like New" condition from the seller with the most positive feedback. Depending on the title, you'll be paying anywhere from $0.98 to $4.98 for the disc
5. Get it shipped to you as economically as possible (therefore is the cheapest method)
6. Once it arrives, remove the DVD from the packaging, put a post-it note with your name and email address on the label side of the DVD
7. Slip the post-it noted DVD into the same postage-paid mailer as your next returned DVD. If you're on the one-at-a-time plan, mail the DVD to Netflix, PO Box 49021, San Jose, CA 95161
   
8. Voila! you've saved yourself at least a month's worth of Netflix fees

FWIW, I think the folks at Netflix will forgive the first missing DVD if you tell them it was lost in the mail. Not sure how many folks actually successfully pull this "dog ate my homework" story off a single time. Needless to say, this isn't the first time a Netflix DVD has gone missing in our house.

RIP Sir Edmund Hillary

How very strange that just eight days after posting my observation that I was seeing a mountaineering theme in many things, I learn that Sir Edmund Hillary has just passed away at 88 years old.

From the AP obit, there's much to admire of Sir Ed, as New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark relates:

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the
mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be
called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest
abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who
not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination,
humility, and generosity," Clark said in a statement.

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," she said.

I'm still only half-way through the account of Hillary's first summit of Everest yet I know finishing it will be an odd experience now that I know its author and protagonist has passed. He was always careful to make sure that no matter the risk, he remained in control so that no one ever died on any of his expeditions.

Granted, the stakes weren't even remotely as high when we climbed Mt Whitney last Fall. But still, our ascent left a lot to be desired in terms of coordination and caring for the entire group. Sure, half of us made it, but I still can't quite let go of the guilt of leaving the others behind to stumble their way back to the cars unattended.

As I look at the 2008 Mt Whitney Lottery Application taped to the wall of my pod, I'm more determined to return to the top this time, and to make sure the whole climbing party makes it with me. This year I hope to be the kind of climbing group leader that Hillary would be proud of.

wow, more pressure to get hi-def DVD

Thanks to kottke.org, I found this direct comparison of HD v DVD images of select scenes in Fellowship of the Rings (LeftCoastMom would approve).

You'll need to mouse over each of the ten images to see what the HD version details over and above the DVD shot.

And here I thought I could avoid the high def DVD bug (Blu-Ray looks to be the right choice?)

Tulley's dangerous things you should let your kids do

Gever Tulley is the founder of the Tinkering School and in this talk he shows how these things (really, there are six of them) will make your kids stronger and smarter and actually safer.

For those on a tight schedule, Tullye's list includes:

1. Play with fire
2. Use a pocketknife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA
6. Drive a Car (bonus item)

He details the WHY behind the each item on the list in this TED video (embedded below), or your you can visit the TED site to see it there.

i heart radiohead all over again - scotch mist video

Thanks to @tempo on the Twitter, I found this YouTube-hosted film of Radiohead shortly after 590,000 folks had viewed it. (I'm always in the second half-million, it seems)

The film was made for New Year's Eve 2007 and features the band in the studio and elsewhere playing every song on the new In Rainbows album with some pretty bizarre interstitials. Par for the course for Radiohead fans, I guess.



If the above embed doesn't work for you, see it on the YouTube - Radiohead - Scotch Mist page.

Oh, and true to my word in my post about downloading In Rainbows for free, I've purchased the physical CD of In Rainbows, and it's on its way from Amazon.

inspirations from a soldier's "in the event of my death" post

Maj Andrew Olmsted (a prolific blogger who blogged as Andrew in Iraq for the Rocky Mountain News) was killed in Iraq on Jan 3, 2008 when his team was ambushed (and became, possibly, the first American casualties of the year).

"I am leaving this message for you because it appears I must leave sooner than I intended. I would have preferred to say this in person, but since I cannot, let me say it here."

At his request, on the event of his death, blogger hilzoy has published a post authored by Maj Olmstead to the Obsidian Wings blog.

What I don't want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else, to be maudlin. I'm dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren't going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.)

Honoring Maj Olmstead's request, I won't speak to the politics of his passing. I can, however, speak to the emotions of the posting. It's a heartbreaking read. I can only imagine how tough it was to write (he'd last revised the post in July 2007), yet I wonder

I don't even know how to start a similar "on the event of my death" letter, but I think I should try. At the very least, it'll show me where and on whom I need focus my energies.

Oh, and let me know when it's time to break out the onions.

POST-PUBLISH UPDATE: On a second reading of this (and an anonymous tip), I think I need to clarify why I feel the need to write my own "on the event of my death" letter. Maj Olmstead closed his letter admitting he "wasn't the greatest husband." God help me if I get to the end my letter saying I wish I'd been a better husband, a better father, a better son. If I do get close to writing something like that down, it's a sure sign my current priorities are way out of whack, and I'd better change them in a hurry. There's no excuse not to. When else will I get the chance?