There are one or two issues that I have note specific to adding categories to the post (e.g. I couldn’t move into the category field directly rather I had to access it via the BlackBerry menu key. And once I was in to the category [read more]]]> For the purposes of this post we’ll keep things short and simple. Set-up and installation of the app on my BB 8330 (Curve) was quite easy. The application is pretty polished and intuitive and I haven’t experienced any technical issues yet.

There are one or two issues that I have note specific to adding categories to the post (e.g. I couldn’t move into the category field directly rather I had to access it via the BlackBerry menu key. And once I was in to the category selection dialogue it wasn’t really clear how to select the categories that I wanted to assign to the post – I did finally figure it out and you have to use the “Change Option” menu option to toggle the checkbox on or off – which seems a bit kludgy).

Other than those two usability issues, which aren’t really major, I am extremely impressed and am definitely going to continue to experiment with the app.

More to come…

Many pundits have proclaimed that RSS is dead but I firmly disagree. I think RSS is still one of the easiest and most flexible medium to get information how you want it when you want it. However, with everything information related there is always the [read more]]]> While I normally keep my posts a little less technical I decided to jump into the technical realm based on a number of questions that I have seen on Twitter and particularly due to a request for help from a friend.

Many pundits have proclaimed that RSS is dead but I firmly disagree. I think RSS is still one of the easiest and most flexible medium to get information how you want it when you want it. However, with everything information related there is always the challenge of managing the barrage of information that everyone of us is dealing with every single day.

The purpose of this post is to illustrate an easy way to merge multiple site feeds into a single source to make it a little easier to manage and maintain. One perfectly good reason to do this is if you are an association who offers multiple/many individual feeds from your site and would like to offer your members a consolidated feed – but the utility doesn’t end there. It’s really only limited by your own need/imagination.

Let’s get started.

For the purposes of this brief tutorial we are going to use Yahoo Pipes largely because I believe it is the most flexible and easiest to use of all of the similar services available. If you have a Yahoo! (think Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, etc.) account it is really easy to get started. If not, the first step is to sign-up.

Once you are signed-in, click on the “Create A Pipe” link in the top menu bar:

You will then see the following screen which is the Yahoo! Pipes main stage where you can work your magic:

While the myriad options can be overwhelming, we are going to keep things simple and get right to the task at hand. We’re only going to be scratching the surface of what is really possible with Yahoo! Pipes so if you are really curious I’d encourage you to check things out in greater detail at some point in the future.

Our first task is going to be to add a few modules to the main stage. The first one we are going to add is the “Fetch Feed”. To do this you will have to expand the “Sources” menu on the right side of the screen and then “drag-and-drop” the module on the stage.

Above you can see that I have added three “Fetch Site Feed” modules to the stage. This is because I am going to be merging feeds from three sites into one. Once you have the modules on the stage, simply enter the URL’s from the sites that you want to merge. Because we are using the “Fetch Site Feed” module, not the “Fetch Feed” module, all that you have to do is enter the URL of the site(s) that you want to merge. However, the process would be the same if you knew the URL’s of the feeds and used the “Fetch Feed” module instead.

It would be tempting to simply try and merge the feeds together straight away, but we are going to hold off on that for a moment and add a few other modules that provide us with more control of the output. If you look at the navigation pane on the left you will see an option labeled “Operators”, you will want to expand that to gain access to the next two modules that you are going to want to add to your stage.

Click on the “Operators” option and that will reveal a new set of modules.

As I alluded to earlier, you can see that you have a bunch of options. For those of you with less of a technical orientation some of the options may sound like they are in a different language, while others may appear to be much more intuitive. Fear not. We are only interested in two of them for the next few steps: “Truncate” and “Union”

The “Truncate” module allows you to control the number of feed items that you will “fetch” from the feeds that you are merging. The “Union” module is where the true magic of this tutorial takes place and what is responsible for the “merging”.

Using the drag-and-drop method we used previously, you are going to want to add the “Truncate” module to your stage.

You should add as many of these modules as you have “Fetch Site Feed” modules. For the purposes of this tutorial you will see that I have added 3.

Once those modules are on your stage, you can fill-in the amount of items. I have chosen to use 10 from each feed.

The next step is to add-in the additional module from the list in the left pane that I referenced above: “Union”. Again, simply drag-and-drop this module to your stage. Once it is added, your stage should look similar to what I have below:

Take a deep breath! You are almost done. There are only a few more steps left to complete. You have all of the components on the stage that you need to merge your feeds into one. Now all you have to do is “Pipe” them together. To do that all you need to do is literally “connect the dots”. Simply place your cursor over the circle/bubble at the bottom of the module and you will see that cursor transforms into a hand. Drag the mouse to the top of the module below it. It sounds more complicated than it is, so just give it a shot. Below is an image of the modules on the stage, piped together.

Once you have everything “piped” together you will want to save your Pipe. To do this simply click on the “Save” button located on the top-right portion of the screen.

Doing this will enable you to “Run” your pipe and generate the output – which in this case is your merged feeds. All you have to do to “Run” the pipe is click on the “Run Pipe” link that will appear at the top-center of the screen if your pipe saved properly.

This will open a new tab/window and you will be presented with the results of your merged feed. Mine looks like this:

At this point all that is left to do is get the URL for the newly created RSS feed. You can see that you have plenty of options. However, if you are planning on offering it as a link on your site the most obvious choice is RSS.

Here is a link to the Pipe that I created for this tutorial: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=EsPef6lq3hGOG39MKX1_0w. You can take a look at it to see everything in completed form and also can clone it if you don’t want to go to the trouble of creating your own merged feed from scratch.

I hope it helps. Let me know if you have any questions or run into any problems in the comments below.

It’s not [read more]]]> According to Wikipedia, many in the United States believe that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence Day (which actually is September 16 (dieciséis de septiembre in Spanish), the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico). In reality, Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican regional holiday that commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla. According to the historical record, while outnumbered, the Mexicans defeated a much better-equipped French army that had known no defeat for almost 50 years.

It’s not a major holiday in the U.S., but we treat it with equal regard to other cultural holidays such as St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and the Chinese New Year. So regardless of what you believe or if you plan to share a few cerveza’s with your colleagues after a day at the office in celebration of the holiday, I think the today is a perfect opportunity to take stock of your own battles against formidable opponents and how you are responding.

Whether your opponent is a colleague, a member, change, the system or even yourself, are you fighting a good fight? Is the battle actually worth fighting? Are you being honest with yourself? Are you digging in and doing everything you can to emerge victorious?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate your strategy and priorities. Should you really be doing it? Is it worth your effort, energy and enthusiasm? Is this how you want to be remembered? Are you being driven by pride or fear of defeat? If so, all of these
motivations need to be reconsidered.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu advised: “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight“. It was his first essential rule for victory. Perhaps we would all be wise to heed his advice. Pick your battles wisely and always remember there is as much to be gained in defeat as there is in victory. What people will remember most is how you conducted yourself in pursuit of your goal.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da Vinci

Great leaders have the innate ability to make the most challenging situations simple by removing the extraneous and focusing on the core.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do [read more]]]> In keeping Jamie’s meme alive, I wanted to contribute my thoughts on the 3 most important qualities of effective leaders. There’s already been a number of great contributions to the meme and some touch on my own ideas but great minds do think alike.

Simplicity

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da Vinci

Great leaders have the innate ability to make the most challenging situations simple by removing the extraneous and focusing on the core.

Empowerment

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – General George S. Patton, Jr.

Great leaders teach others how to accomplish a task, tell them what is expected, give them the tools they need to succeed, and then get out of their way.

Agility

“First do it, then do it right, then do it fast.” – Anonymous

Great leaders accept the fact that our world is dynamic, change is a constant, what works today may not work tomorrow and are willing to adapt to the circumstances. In doing so they become prepared, and perhaps inspired, by the opportunity that the change creates.

Without digging into each of these attributes in depth, these are the additions that I would make to the already great list (Edit – Here are a few links to the other posts: Maddie Grant, Jeff De Cagna, Deirdre Reid, Bruce Hammond)

Here is the situation. For the past few years I have been an outspoken fan of Fusion Productions DigitalNow conference. In my humble opinion it’s one of the best organized [read more]]]> Normally I’m not one to call people/companies/organizations out for things that they do to me. I generally handle things behind the scenes if I think I’ve been wronged and move on with my life but in this specific instance I decided that it was worth posting about because it could potentially happen to any of us.

Here is the situation. For the past few years I have been an outspoken fan of Fusion Productions DigitalNow conference. In my humble opinion it’s one of the best organized and programmed conferences that I have had the opportunity and privilege to attend in my career and I always walked away energized, inspired and full of new ideas and flush with new contacts. I started off as a simple participant in 2007, but was among the very few who was tweeting the event live – long before Twitter was the in thing. Last year, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel led by Ben Martin and had a lot of fun doing so. To me going to a conference pales in comparison to being a real part of the conference.

2009 marked the first time in three years that I wasn’t able to attend/participate due to financial constraints but I still kept track of what was going on through the vibrant Twitterstream. It wasn’t as good as being there but thanks to my association friends I was able to glean some pretty useful and interesting nuggets of wisdom and I even got to see Ben do a live demo of Mogulus. I wasn’t there physically but I was definitely there in spirit.

At some point as I observed the festivities I was alerted to the DigitalNow LinkedIn group and decided that it was a good group to join on with because (a) it’s an a group that I share an affinity with and (b) I like keeping as many contact points as possible between my association colleagues and myself. The DN group was a bit different than many I have joined (and am actively participating in) on LinkedIn in that it was by approval only. A hurdle no doubt, but one that I felt was worth dealing with in order to gain access to what I perceived to be a great community of folks. In the rare instances where I have joined “by approval” groups on LinkedIn, I have normally been approved within a few hours.

Aside: I only join groups where I either have a specific tie or think I can add value – groups to me are to be treated seriously and I don’t join them just to have a pretty badge associated with my name. That is pretty much my entire approach to social networking.

Well in this unique experience I didn’t get an immediate response. In fact my request to join went unanswered for quite a while. Finally this morning I did receive a response and here is what it said:

Julie McKown has sent you a message.
Date: 4/22/2009
Subject: [DigitalNow Community] Your DigitalNow Community request
Group: DigitalNow Community

Dear David:

Thank you for your interest in joining the DigitalNow Community group on LinkedIn.

DigitalNow is the name of an annual conference produced by Fusion Productions and Disney Institute. It was started as a way to provide Association Executives and Senior leaders with a forum for private conversations about issues of import. The expectation of our audience – and of our LinkedIn group members – is that we provide a place for them to have those conversations in a non-sales environment.

Therefore, we are only able to extend invitations to participate to members of our audience, past and present speakers and presenters, and a small group of Resource Center partners who participate in our conference. (For information on how you can become a DigitalNow Resource Center partner, please contact us at digitalnow@fusionproductions.com

We can offer you other ways to take part in our community. We invite you to follow us on Twitter.com (our user name is DigitalNow), and you may also submit articles of interest to our blog at DigitalNowblog.com.

Again, we thank you for your interest in the DigitalNow Community group.

Sincerely,
The DigitalNow Team

Imagine my surprise in reading this response this morning. What I had expected was a warm welcome from Julie. And while she may not remember we interacted pretty regularly in advance of last years conference and I even went out of my way to track her down in person to say thank you for her help. However, what I received instead was pretty disappointing. Here is how I interpreted it. I really don’t know who you are and instead of checking my past records to see if you have a legitimate reason for trying to join our group I am going to say no. However, because I am opportunistic I am going to see if I can increase our Twitter follower count by one and see if you are naive enough to give us some of your valuable content as great search engine fodder for our blog.

Had Julie done even a basic Google search (dave sabol digital now – check for yourself) she would have seen the first 6 or so entries related to me and my past participation in the conference. I literally went from a raving fan to a skeptical observer in the matter of the time that it took me to read the email.

Now this isn’t an attack on Julie per se. In my past interactions with her she was warm, kind and wonderful, but this experience left me doubting whether DigitalNow is an event I want to continue to support as an outspoken advocate. I personally know that I convinced a number of friends and colleagues to attend this years event and years past as well. Maybe they don’t want my support and involvement. That’s ok though because I am sure that there are many others who are willing to pay the $600 or $700 registration plus what ever it costs for transportation and accommodations for the privilege of attending such an event.

But that really isn’t the point. I think it’s the underlying message that I was provided with – that I wasn’t worthy and they had to monitor their membership closely to keep out the undesirable elements – is what really bothered me. I have a little more than a little knowledge on building effective and sustainable online communities, in fact that was my primary area of responsibility prior to leaving PMI. So I understand establishing criteria for membership in a specific group, but as a past participant, contributor and advocate who wasn’t allowed in I have to wonder how high that bar is set.

When creating an online community ask yourself a few questions prior to doing so: are you trying to create a community or a country club? More importantly how willing are you to alienate specific member groups to preserve the sanctity of others? If an online community can be found, chances are people, especially those who are enthusiastic about the topic, subject, company, etc., will want to join it. How do you act in a similar situation?

Definitely an interesting situation, one full of learning opportunities for everyone, and something that I will likely never forget…unfortunately.

As a technologist with a keen interest in all things online it’s easy to get drawn into the virtual world that surrounds [read more]]]> Earth Day has come to symbolize many things to many people and I’m not in the position to say who is right and who is wrong. Regardless, I consider it as one day that pushes the environment, and our impact on it, to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to make what we will of it.

As a technologist with a keen interest in all things online it’s easy to get drawn into the virtual world that surrounds me every single day. Fortunately, I also make an effort as much time as possible in the great outdoors. The differences in the two worlds provide me with balance, clarity and perspective and for me the outdoors – and ultimately our environment – is a pretty important topic in my own life. I dug around and tried to find a video that embodied some of my own thinking and the one I found is below:

My fundamental take-away from the video, and ultimately my personal philosophy on our responsibility to the environment, is pretty simple: we can all make a difference if we make an effort.

A wise friend once told me that with one person you can have an idea. With two, you can have a conversation. But with more than two you can create an association – and a movement – and create a lasting impact. Associations embody what is truly possible when you assemble a group of individuals that are passionate about something bigger than they are and make an effort to do something about it. Yet at the same time an association cannot be an association without the individuals who call themselves members and volunteers. The power of the association lies in harnessing the power of the individual and channeling that raw energy into directed effort.

In that same spirit, I want to encourage everyone to make a conscious effort to use less, waste less and be a little more cognizant of what you are doing and how you are doing it. The incremental changes that you make, when combined with those made by others, could have a pretty dramatic impact.