Gritty Gritty Grit

Thought of the day: I've been attempting to find that balance to make my client's and my startups successful. It's not easy.

I've failed many, many, many things.

I've spread myself too thin. I've spent too much time on social media. I have taken too many different projects at the same time. I have missed sizings. I've had to fit my own brain wiring and nature. I've mis-managed my own company to a degree.

I finally got on the ball and read Gerber and Adams to  come up with systems of strategies and tactics.

Things are getting better. I've learned (hopefully). I found more discipline.

I guess that is the challenge of GRIT and attempting to see the opportunities in the challenges and making that choice to press on (and believe me, there's more naysayers than not).

And I don't care if you care.

Removing toxic, negative thoughts, people, and habits.

I am not sure how I figured it out, whether it was epiphany like a bolt of lightening or a slow realization like water wearing away at a rock, but I realized that I was overly negative about everything in the world. And being that negative was keeping me from getting what I wanted.

How negative was I? I would use self deprecation as way to connect with people. My favorite saying to the question, "How are you?" was "Fat and Ugly, but I get by." It would get a laugh, but I felt myself dying a little bit each time.

Really? Why would one do that? Probably lack of confidence, and self-esteem. I don't say that anymore. Why? Because it was extremely negative to myself. I don't want to be negative. So why do it? I decided that I wouldn't any more. However habits and behaviors are hard to break.

Breaking a behavior is incredibly hard. Especially once you realize you are doing, you start to have this meta-cognitive thing going (thinking about your thinking). You start to see where you do it and when other people do it. If you "slip" and fall into the habit, you feel a bit bad. If it's being negative that's the bad habit, it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. And once you get yourself better at not being negative, then the harderst part is dealing with your emotions when you see or hear people you associate with being negative, or dwelling.

So what do you do? You remove the toxic, negative elements out of your life. I work on myself first. And I work on myself last. After all, you cannot change other people. All you can do is suggest, be the "guide by side".

Do know, your friends and family may not like the suggestion they are being negative. So work on yourself. As for people that won't change from being overly negative, remove them from your life. They become misery vampires. You can only work on yourself.

Sounds simple, right? It is really. Its got trials and tribulations, and you just need to deal with them in a productive fashion. Try to set a positive system for each negative habit you have. Set a positive system of counter suggestions to other people's negative habits (or remove or limit your interaction with them).

Some things that help are mindfulness, meditation, self development, and Emotional Intelligence (written before here).

Good luck.

Jeffreystune

Getting started for the ADD / ADHD mind using only strategies

Getting started. It's hard for someone with ADHD / ADD to do. If the task is not novel, interesting to them, or fun, the sheer will power to get started is ENORMOUS. Or as my 4 year old son says, "GINORMOUS"

And as anyone that knows me, knows I have mild ADD. Really, the schools suspected it when I was a kid and I finally was tested as an adult around 37.

That said, I cannot take any of the medications. NONE - the non stimulates give wicked headaches and I cannot take the stimulates because of a rapid heart rate.

That leaves me with strategies when I don't have the luxury of the task I need to do being "novel, interesting, or fun" (NIF).  So that being said, these are the strategies I have found that work the best for me:

• Journal Entry to clear my Brain. Stream of consciousness writing if I cannot start tasks - it clears my mind. It's just want I am thinking, affirmations, and gratitudes.
• Breaking down the task or project into smaller components. Then prioritizing the smallest/easiest task first to gain momentum. If I find I don't get momentum, repeating the process again. And again. I use a todo list in a Google Drive Doc Spreadsheet. I have 3 sheets in the document: 
• one for my "right now list" that I only put 5 tasks at a pop, 
• one for my giant list (of things I will eventually get to), 
• and one for my week planning.
• Meditation to slow down my brain - YMMV, but I find it stops the racing thoughts.
• Planning a reward after the each task that matches the tasks weight. If folding clothes is the task, then the reward might be watching a TED talk.
• Using Idonethis.com I can put what I have done and it gives a sense of accomplishment.

Note: I have been looking at gamification to make the tasks fun (a spin on the reward tip), but I have found entering all the tasks into whatever system I am using "distracts me" and I lose momentum. Some you can try are SuperBetter and HabitRPG.

Let me know how you fair with the tips or the gamification.

Jeffrey

Lifestyle Entrepreneur-ing at Kinetic Thoughts

This post is about some of my journey to become a life style entrepreneur at Kinetic Thoughts LLC (my company that focused on technology).

I was told early on, that my company had no focus and people could not figure out what it was doing. I was miffed and kept struggling on. It turns out they were right. I should have read the book E-myth sooner. I tried writing software for hire, but I couldn't sell the service to the customers I identified as my possible market. Then I tried selling web design services, and found the market was saturated with low ballers for the limited design skills I had, or I was brow beaten into low ball prices.

So I finally shifted gears for Kinetic Thoughts. We no longer focus on building software for hire, or doing websites. We turn people with ideas into technology entrepreneurs! It's a great gig, because it allows us to be on the revenue generating side of the equation, instead of the cost saving (or worse overhead) side of the equation. Having done several projects to help start up the tech of some Startups, I was able to correctly identify our target customer and what channels to reach them. We have also been experimenting and learning about how Start up's operate and are created. I would like to learn more about new venture creation, as well as equity bias, and other things we were not taught in the MBA.

I have also added the strategy of harvesting assets from each project that can be reused, resold on their own, or given away to build good will/ reputation within the technology community. I hope one day to create a repository of products that generate passive income for Kinetic Thoughts and our partners that contribute to each asset.

That said, one of the things most entrepreneurs do is keep a journal. I keep one in a Google Doc (so I can access it from any one of my computers or devices). It works well enough.

However I have been considering building an application centered around the Google Document that accounts for journal activities, such as dates, formatting, reminders if you forgot an entry, table of contents, etc. Think like a blog, but personal and can be exported to a PDF, Word Document, CSV, etc. Perhaps I will build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product in Lean Startup Speak - LSS) and release it for free with a survey of "wanted features" to test the waters. If the response is favorable, and based on the features selected, I will add them for a premium version.

My own little asset to fit a need.

Jeffrey

Just when you forgive, the hypocrite doesn't disappoint

Years ago, back in the Paleozoic area - er high school, I had a friend I was 90% sure stole some money from that mom had sitting on the counter. It was only $20 bucks, but my mother is a type I diabetic and it's the money my father had left for her insulin. All my life, it had been indoctrinated into me that she needed her insulin to live and you didn't mess with that.

Well, over the years, I had thought about how I accused him of that, and eventually began to feel sorry for the guy. Perhaps I was wrong. And if even if I wasn't wrong, I decided I would forgive him.

Now I should say, he was part of a group of eight of us that ran around together. Well, three of which (besides myself) I drove to school each morning, the $20 thief being one. Fast forward years later, I am living in Florida and one of the "ride to school buddies" is down and wants to visit. The wife and I head over to see him (we will call him Ozzy Osborne, because he now looks like him). Upon visiting, Ozzy asks me if I had heard from the $20 thief. I told him not since that falling out over the money, other than on Facebook. Then he proceeds to tell me that he and the other guy had a gay/bi thing going on all through high school (Ozzy had since come out). Well, I NEVER KNEW.

Fast forward a couple of years. I get a call from one of the other guys in the eight. Lets call him "Sales Guy". Well Sales Guy likes to call me every now and again. Either for some advice on a project/product he wants to sell or when he is slightly tipsy. Well it just so happens he has made contact with $20-thief guy. He calls him on a 3-way calling feature. As we are talking about old times, laughs, fun etc., Sales Guy asks about Ozzy. Before I can say anything about seeing him, $20-thief says, I heard he was gay. Well. Calling the kettle black aren't we? I didn't say anything on the phone, but I should have. That is the one regret. I said I met up with him when he was down and what he was up too (he's not actually doing all that well).

Now I could give to shits about your sexual orientation. Hell, our 3 year old calls one of our good friends (that's coincidentally gay) Uncle D. I do mind when someone lies to everyone at the expense of someone else. The truly sad part is they are lying to themselves.

Anyway, to wrap it up, I felt it was pretty hipocritical of him to say that.

Back Again (me and the snowbirds)

For no particular reason I decided to pick up my blogging again. I have decided to turn this blog more into a piece about my local environment of South West Florida. Currently living in Cape Coral (the largest city by land mass in Florida) I have the honor of having a fairly geriatric population of neighbors, a large amount being snow birds.

Now being in the thick of snow bird season, I tend to think of them more and more. They are a double edge sword as any tourist town knows of seasonal visitors. Albeit ours stay for longer stretches than the typical American vacationer (which is 1-2 weeks at most, and ours stay 1-3 months). This leads to longer lines, need for bigger infrastructure of services (private and public) and general dislike from some locals. However, all and all, I don't mind the snowbirds (and my income doesn't depend on them either). They do bring vital income to area and some what of a diversity of character.

However, what I do mind is the homogenizing of local color. If you go to a place other than your home, do a few things, namely be respectful of environment, the peace of community you are visiting, and local traditions/customs. If things must be "how things are done up north", well frankly, just stay there. Likewise on bad behavior that would violate the peace of community. The phrase that comes to mind is "if you don't shit where you eat, don't do it where I eat". This little part of the rant stems from the seasonal bad behavior we witness year and year.

However, I must admit, I am thankful we don't live on the beach or in a full blown party town like Key West or Cancun.

All and all, snowbirds and tourists come for the same thing that drew many transplants here. The weather and Florida lifestyle. I cannot fault them for that.

The Lost Coconut Tree and a Bee

This Sunday morning after breakfast I decided to weed the "weed patch". Everyone of our plants was absolutely filled with them. Mind you we have about 20 potted plants.

Our new lawn guy (I used to be the old lawn guy) doesn't take care of them, nor does the flower beds and I let them get away from me.

So I was checking out this coconut tree I have had since 2001 in a pot. I actually brought it back from Big Pine Key to Ohio on the last big "family" trip down there (we stayed a month). I grew this tree in a pot from the nut.

Well, I think it got sick and had a lack of water this last dry season and didn't recover. It saddens me as I had come to think of the tree as Mason's tree (our first son, born an angel). My old boss had suggested I buy him the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom where the letters go up the coconut tree. See the connection?

Well, as I investigate the tree to verify I cannot save it, I sigh and realize it's time to move on. As I look up, I see a small honey bee buzz on the flowers next to me. We never, NEVER see honey bees. That means something is growing and food is being produced.

Life moves on.

~Jeffrey

Vibes at the farmers market

Saturday Jessica, Parker and I were coming back from breakfast at Annie's (local greasy spoon in Cape Coral - decent price and portions, bad coffee, and friendly service) and decided to pass up the house and head to Cape Harbor (BTW Cape Harbor, somebody else has your domain name now) for their summer farmers Market.

Well, after getting some green beans and sweet potatoes, we went to look at the non food vendors. There were two next to each other that caught my eye.

The first was a guy selling items (wood, shells, cloth) laser etched with images. Apparently he did it with "some program" after doing the images in photo shop. I found it interesting he was very secretive about this "program", as it reminded me of some of the inventors at the Edison Inventors Association. Fair enough.

The second man and his wife were promoting his website SloopScoop.com. Now if you are a boater here locally, and have looked up tide charts from NOAA, you know they are not the most user friendly looking things in the world. Well, Brian Fuller and his wife Kim made them friendly (coincidentally, Brian is also they guy responsible for the Newspress' Hurricane Tracker App). Brian showed me how things worked, and we talked shop on development and mobile programming. A very different vibe than the first fellow.

I personally like Brian's approach much better than the other fellow's. It probably comes from working in computers with open source. I do think he will do well with it on his new website. I wish them both good luck.

Jeffrey

Nerd Post: Hacking Wordpress's admin pages to add a hidden link

As some of you know, Kinetic Thoughts is working in partnership with another firm to produce some niche Wordpress plugins. In creating the plugins, we wanted to create an admin menu, with sub-menu entries. No problem. Wordpress has mechanisms for that.

Now, when you add in a menu choice (or sub-menu choice) the URL generated when the menu is click is something akin to: http://host/wp-admin/admin.php?page=your_custom_menu_handle

This handle is actually created with the code like (assuming it is a sub-menu, the menu's function has a slightly different signature):

add_submenu_page(

'my_plugins_toplevel_link'

, 'Page Title (seen in browser)'

, 'Menu Link Text'

, 'administrator' //security level

, 'your_custom_menu_handle' // here's the page handle for page one

, 'page_callback_function' //the function that renders this menu's page

);

Now, I want to get to my sub-menu page and preserve the URL structure of:

http://host/wp-admin/admin.php?page=your_custom_menu_handle

One way to do this is to add a sub-menu entry pointing to your first sub-menu's handle:

add_submenu_page(

'your_custom_menu_handle' // set the parent to your first page and it wont appear

, 'Hidden Menu Page Title (seen in brower)'

, 'Hidden Menu Link Name' // unused

, 'administrator' //security level

, 'your_hidden_menu_custom_handle'

, 'hidden_page_callback_function' //the function that renders this menu's page

);

I want to thank the guys on this post at StackOverFlow.

This works quite well. Now I don't condone hacks usually, but sometimes you just got to get to the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and fix things later. More than likely, Wordpress was coded to allow for multiple levels of sub-menus, but only displays the first. Something to investigate in the future.

Nice, huh?

Jeff

A Thought on Life Planning

This is not a brag, but I have taken quite a few higher education classes.

The opening day was almost always started with introductions of your name, what you do (or it is volunteered) and what would you do if you won the lottery.

Most people answer (and these are weighted):

1.) Travel

2.) Pay off bills

3.) Take care of my family

4.) Start a charity

Got me thinking that most people really don't know what they want to do in life.

It seems perhaps they just flow through life with a loosely devised plan of what they think they should follow (or what someone else thinks they should follow).

Many don't expand their thinking and thus life planning using Creative Problem Solving (CPS), SWOT analysis, or even just deferred judgement brainstorming.

I think more should.

Nerd Post: Mixing it up with the Custom List Table Example and $wpdb

Here at Kinetic Thoughts, we have been working in partnership with another firm to produce some niche Wordpress plugins. Without getting to much into the "niche", I want to talk about a slight "gotcha" I found today in trying to hook up the WP_LIST_TABLE class to other tables in the $wpdb




Now, for 3 really great background information sources, I would suggest investigating the following:


1.) Download the Custom List Table Example and inspect fully (and read the comments!).

2.) Theme.fm's article on Column Hacking

3.) $wpdb's Class reference



Now, I am not going to get into give step by step code - there is enough in the above links to get you started. What I do want to give you is one of those small tidbits that sometimes are implied, but get missed.



If you were to copy and modify the Custom List Table Example and attempt to use the $data = $wpdb->results("select column1,column2,column3 from mytable"); you are going to get a couple of weird errors.



Why? Look closely at the $wpdb's link above. It is actually pointing to the function get_row(). Notice the 3 constants? Those determine the returned datatype. You want ARRAY_A. Simply change your code to: $data = $wpdb->results("select column1,column2,column3 from mytable", ARRAY_A);

That's it.



Nice, huh?



Jeff

Where is the pacifer

My wife came to me yesterday morning with the exclamation, "you won't believe what I did last night".

Now, normally, I might cock my head to one side and look at her (very similar to a dog looking at a human doing, well, doing a stupid human trick). However, since we have a new born son, and she let me sleep that night, I felt it better to hold any smart ass gestures.

She says to me, "Well, in the middle of night he was fussy, so I checked him and found he was wet. I changed his diaper and went to lay him back down and could not found his pacifier" (Known in our house as a binky).

She goes on to say, "I looked in the crib, on the floor, even in the trash were I threw the diaper. Finally I picked him up to soothe him and felt something not right on his bottom. Then I realized I had fastened up the diaper with his binky inside."

By this time, I am on the floor laughing, and our poor son is looking at me with his head cocked to the side...

Holodeck is next!

Some really cool stuff coming out from Sony.

How Costco Primes Us To Spend More Money…

An intriguing article about how brain chemistry and product placement helps to separate us from our cash. Link back to the original article.

by heather on July 1, 2009

You don’t need me to tell you that it’s really hard to save money at Costco. And, I’m not talking about saving money on the price-per-pound for ground beef, or the cheaper price-per-ounce of Jiffy Peanut Butter.

On those things yes, you’re saving money compared to buying at the grocery store.

What I’m talking about is the Ralph Lauren swimsuits. The super massaging leather easy chair and ottoman. The flat screen tvs. The Gucci handbags, and the expansive DVD section.

There is a big reason why Costco stocks these things instead of just food. And, it’s because we buy them. Big time.

I recently finished reading the book, How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. And, it’s an incredibly fascinating look at how, exactly, we go about making decisions.

This post isn’t a review of that book (which was amazing). It’s a post inspired by one section of the book, on how stores prime our brains to spend more money.

All research for this post comes from author Jonah Lehrer, and is fully credited to him.

A Quick Look At Our Decision-Making Process

Think about your last trip to the grocery store. Specifically, the cereal aisle.

If you were alone, with time to choose the cereal you wanted, your thoughts might have gone something like this:

“Wow, that Bare Naked Granola cereal looks really good and healthy. Oh, but it’s $5. Too expensive. But that box of Frosted Flakes would be tasty. Oh, but that’s got way too much sugar. I need to eat more fiber anyway. Maybe Raison Bran? Oh, but that cereal’s gross. Maybe Fiber One. It’s $4? Crikey. Maybe there is a store brand that’s tasty…”

And on and on.

All these thoughts probably took no more than two seconds. Walking down the cereal aisle is just like having one long arguement with yourself.

What Lehrer points out, and what we don’t realize, is that all of these arguments trigger a specific set of emotions and associations (page 199).

Sure, we want those Frosted Flakes. That wanting is a very strong emotion. But, we know we need to eat more fiber because it’s good for us. This thought has less wanting, but more obligation, so it triggers a weaker emotion. But coupled with a lower price, and our desire for saving money (which is still a weaker emotion than our wanting of the Frosted Flakes), we might end up buying the fiber cereal.

Most of the time our decisions are not based on logic, even though we think they are. They’re based on emotion.

Our Brain’s Reaction To Shopping

Now, think about how you feel when you find something fabulous in the store. You get excited, right? Your breathing may quicken, your heart starts to pound, and you reach out to just touch it.

When we see something we want to buy, our brain is instantly activated. Know what it does?

Our nucleus accumbens (NAcc), which is the pleasure center of the brain, releases the hormone dopamine, which is the precursor of adrenaline. Dopamine is very, very powerful. Scientists James Olds and Peter Milner discovered that when rats are overstimulated with dopamine release, they’ll literally die of pleasure (pg. 35).

So, the stronger we want something the stronger our NAcc activation, and the more dopamine is released.

Knowing this, scientists can literally tell if we’re going to buy an item before we even know it. It happens that fast.

How Stores Prime Us To Spend More

Let’s go back to Costco. You know what you see when you walk through the door of every Costco store?

You see all those huge, gleaming flat screen tvs. Who wouldn’t love a big flat screen? We see these things and guess what happens? Our NAcc kicks in, and dopamine is released.

But, we may not have $1,200 to drop on a new Sony. So we walk on.

Then, we pass the jewelry counter. And the designer handbags. And the DeWalt tools. And the leather easy chairs.

With each look, our NAcc is being prodded, and the dopamine is flowing good. We want that. And that. And that. We get into a state of wanting.

All this is doing is conditioning us to crave a reward.

What’s key to understand about all this is that we may not buy a $1,200 flat screen that day. Or that $800 easy chair. Or that $300 hand bag.

But our brains have been incredibly stimulated by now to want a reward. So, we’ll probably buy that $12 box of cookies. And maybe that beautiful $20 hyacinth bush for the front porch. And, what the heck, that $30 jacket.

After all, we think, $62 is way less than those other things, right? And besides, we deserve a treat.

And the House Wins…

By strategically placing those tvs and handbags and diamond rings in high-traffic areas, Costco just got an extra $62 out of us. Just by stimulating our dopamine production.

Yowza.

Knowledge Is Power…

So, what do we do with this information?

Well, I’m one of those “knowledge is power” kind of girls. I really think that knowing what is going on in our brains can help us take a step back and analyze what we’re doing.

Walking into Costco, or any retail store, is always going to be fraught with dopamine production, which means our wallets are threatened. But knowing that stores are deliberately priming you to buy a reward for yourself, even if it’s just a little one, can help you stick to your list and walk away with a bit more money in your pocket.

My Thanks…

My thanks go out to Jonah Lehrer for writing How We Decide. It’s an incredible book, and if you’re at all interested in learning how your brain works, how you make decisions, and how you can start making better ones, then pick this book up. Lehrer’s writing style is interesting and fast-paced, and you won’t want to put the book down once you start it.

And, his picture on the back dust jacket is completely worth the price of the book.

A Poem Worth Reading by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

A Poem Worth Reading

by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy
And his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion,
Telling stories of the past.

Of a war that he once fought in
And the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies;
They were heroes, every one.

And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors
His tales became a joke,
All his buddies listened quietly
For they knew where of he spoke.

But we'll hear his tales no longer,
For ol' Bob has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer
For a Soldier died today.

He won't be mourned by many,
Just his children and his wife.
For he lived an ordinary,
Very quiet sort of life.

He held a job and raised a family,
Going quietly on his way;
And the world won't note his passing,
'Tho a Soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth,
Their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing,
And proclaim that they were great.

Papers tell of their life stories
From the time that they were young
But the passing of a Soldier
Goes unnoticed, and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution
To the welfare of our land,
Some jerk who breaks his promise
And cons his fellow man?

Or the ordinary fellow
Who in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his country
And offers up his life?

The politician's stipend
And the style in which he lives,
Are often disproportionate,
To the service that he gives.

While the ordinary Soldier,
Who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal
And perhaps a pension, small.

It's so easy to forget them,
For it is so many times
That our Bobs and Jims and Johnnys,
Went to battle, but we know,

It is not the politicians
With their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom
That our country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger,
With your enemies at hand,
Would you really want some cop-out,
With his ever waffling stand?

Or would you want a Soldier--
His home, his country, his kin,
Just a common Soldier,
Who would fight until the end.

He was just a common Soldier,
And his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us
We may need his like again.

For when countries are in conflict,
We find the Soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles
That the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor
While he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage
At the ending of his days.

Perhaps just a simple headline
In the paper that might say:
"OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING,
A SOLDIER DIED TODAY."

JSON String back to a Javascript Object invalid label error

I was pulling my hair out today, trying to turn a JSON string back into a Javascript Object using the "eval" function.

Turns out, you have add parenthesis to your JSON code.

Example would be:

var jsonString = Object.toJSON(jsonObject);

Where the jsonString would equal:

{ "id" : "jeffreystune", "name": "jeffreystune.blogspot.com"}

"id" would be an "invalid label" during an eval(jsonString);

The solution is simple, but hard to find:

var copyJsonObject = eval( "(" + jsonString +")" );

Ugh! Welcome to my geeky coding world.

~Jeffrey

Everybody wants to go to heaven

As I sit here coding (or attempting too) and listening to Pandora Radio on my Jimmy Buffett channel, Kenny Chesney's song "Everybody wants to go to Heaven". Here is an excerpt of the chorus:

Everybody wants to go to heaven
But nobody wants to go now

It made me think of the holiday house and walk with my wife and mother this past Saturday. A young lady was passing out religious literature. Her "hook" was, "have you gotten one of these yet?" And as I took it, she says "It will tell you how to get into heaven someday".

Well, I threw it away... for the sole reason above. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but I don't want to go now - and I am not so sure I will know when I want to go.

Jeffrey

Intuition, Emotion, and Science

In a recent skype conversation with my friend Theresa, I made some connections about intuition and science.

It seems that intuition and emotion are not all that different to science. They are the same story told in a different voice.

To clarify, intuition is generally an extension of empathy. Empathy is the observation of emotion.
Science is the observation of natural world. Emotions are generally reactions to events of natural world.

For what it is worth.

Jeffrey

Halloween Party with some old Eightbar Buddies

I just got back from a Halloween party - a virtual one with some of my old Eightbar colleagues from IBM (incidently, many have moved on to form their own companies such as Feeding Edge by Ian Hughes / Epredator).

It was on Almaden Island in Secondlife hosted by IBM Virtual Universe Community (VUC). A special thanks to the current guild master of the VUC Mary / Sharon Schmertzin for hosting and DJing.

Believe it or not, it was great to reconnect with people I have not talked to in a while from across the globe. I think virtual worlds are the next logical step in Social Media, an extension if you will of Facebook or Twitter. If you have not tried out Secondlife, I highly recommend you do and give it a chance (it does have a learning curve and sometimes the technology can be some what flaky). Look for me, Jeffrey Fanwood is my avatar name in world.

Some pictures of the event:


Me before I put on my costume - kind of a MJ Thriller thing going here.


That is me in the purple leather pants rocking out to Thriller actually.


Buggy Rich and Subdigit playing the piano - I like that painting in the corner too.


Another spooktackular scene.

Well, that is about it folks. Tomorrow is the real Halloween party at Jessica and I's home, we are expecting a time so good it will be scary (yeah, that is a bad joke).

Jeffrey

Social Media is not Social Marketing

I was reading the discussions groups on LinkedIn recently and one caught my eye under the group "twitter innovators Innovation & Creativity Network of Tweeters".

It was 5 questions to ask your Social Media Consultant by Andrew Ballenthin
President of an Integrated Marketing Consultancy, Writer, Speaker, Community Marketing Blog Founder. I have reprinted the questions here:

5 Criteria For Qualifying Social Media Consultants

Social media has been around for over 10 years. The role of Social Media Consultant is a term that's much younger. How do know if someone is qualified in this field as a professional? Here's 5 questions to think about (for more details http://tinyurl.com/yfeqcam ).

1. How many years have you been practicing social media?
2. How many years have you practiced for clients/business?
3. What are your accomplishments with monetization, PR, database buiding?
4. What is your past business background?
5. How did you achieve your greatest accomplishmnet?

What experience and expertise do you look for with someone who offers social media services?

Well, I love social media. I have been playing with facebook, twitter, plurk, for over 3 years and blogs for at least 6 years. Web 2.0 is Web Deux or Web DO (as in Do something).

That said, I am skeptical. To build a viral buzz seems to be the goal of many social media consultants and it is akin to trying to capture lightening in a bottle. When done purposely, it almost always misses the mark.

How do you overcome insulting the intelligence of your user and make this a viable asset? Social media is not social marketing and I hope many the social media consults don't think the two are the same.

My suggestion is to tell the users they are being marketed too and act accordingly, while adding some value.

That is the real question, what is the value add a consultant of a social media campaign providing to the user? After all, it is all about the user.