Jonathan Coffman

Working on the site a little…

Jonathan Coffman — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:54:56 +0000

First off, thank you for sticking with me. I’ve really done a fantastic job of ignoring my blog for the last several months. In the mean time, I’ve been spending most of my time over on Twitter where I’ve amassed a nice little following.

In the meantime, there has been a lot of thinking going on in the background as I try to decide where to take my personal site — and brand — next. A lof factors are going into this but I decided in summary:

Drupal was too ambitious for my personal site, I really like the system and remain a big fan, but I don’t have the time to devote to making it work exactly how I want here.
WordPress lets me get up and moving quickly, it’s also typically the first CMS to get plugins developed for new social networking sites and services, this makes sure that I can try things out quickly and efficiently.
On a daily basis I wrestle with form vs function, and for my personal site — as in much of my work — I want this to work for you and me. If it doesn’t function well, there might as well not even be a pretty design on top.

Stay tuned, there’s much more to come here. (I’ll update this post or post again when most of the changes are in place)

links for 2009-02-23

Jonathan Coffman — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:02:25 +0000

PBS Engage | PBS at SxSW 2009 in Austin, TX | PBS

PBS is holding many events at the 2009 SxSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. Visit the PBS area across the street from the convention center to meet with Public Broadcasting Service employees to see demonstrations of our latest tools and services, and help us brainstorm ideas for ways to make PBS more relevant.

(tags: SxSW PBS Public media Broadcasting Service Party Austin)

Gearing up for the Oscars

Jonathan Coffman — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:49:02 +0000

Today I’ll be hanging out at the AMC Loew’s Georgetown theatre to watch all 5 Best Picture nominees, courtesy of AMC Theatres. Be sure to follow my Tweets throughout the day for information about the event, the films, and more!

Here are the films and times I’ll be in them:

“Milk” – 10:30 a.m. – 12:38 p.m.
“The Reader” – 1:05 p.m. – 3:07 p.m.
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – 3:45 p.m. – 6:33 p.m.
“Slumdog Millionaire” – 7:15 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.
“Frost/Nixon” – 9:45 p.m. – 11:47 p.m.

Who’s ready for some popcorn and candy!?

Meet Me at SxSW Interactive

Jonathan Coffman — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:22:34 +0000

Meet and Chat with me and other PBS Employees at the SxSW Interactive Festival March 13-17, 2009.

In just a few short weeks I’ll be headed down to the SxSW Interactive Festival (I’ll be in Austin March 13-17) with PBS Engage. We have lots of very fun events planned and lots of opportunities for you to help put the public back in public media. For several hours each day you’ll be able to chat with PBS employees who can share ideas and show off what we’re working on.

If you’re reading my blog, you probably know the best ways to find me — but if you’re unfamiliar. Hit me up via Email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Be sure to block off time on your schedule to visit the PBS Pub (we’ll be setting up shop at the Moose Knuckle Pub in Austin). For more details and to see my schedule visit PBS.org/sxsw. We’ll be Twittering (@pbsengage and @jdcoffman), live blogging, and even have streaming live video for you to enjoy.

I’ll see you there!

Thoughts on Twitter’s Growth

Jonathan Coffman — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:05:35 +0000

I often write about Twitter, but here are some fresh thoughts on my usage, and it’s value.

Twitter’s growth has been widely reported in both the mainstream, and technology/social media spheres so I won’t get into that today, but what I do want to discuss with you is how the value propisition of the service has changed for me personally over the last year.

Not a lot has changed in terms of functionality of feature set, although I think we all mourn the loss of “Track” — it brought true real-time data from twitter. Here are some other random thoughts on the value of Twitter:

I can only imagine what all of the journalists and news organizations currently using Twitter would be using it for if “Track” still existed.
With the addition of Summize’s search functionality came the ability to many more people to “get it” with Twitter and begin to understand how valuable it is as a business and personal growth offering.
I’ve now expanded to almost 1,500 followers and growing — what hasn’t changed however is what I use it for. I still use Twitter as a means to let people know what I’m doing, enjoying, and thinking about. A TON of value in my own personal Twitter usage stems from sending links that I enjoy to my followers and finding out what their thoughts are.
Asking and answering questions is a ‘killer app’ on Twitter.
There are WAY too many Twitter tools, and WAY too many of them are just mediocre.
My favorite Desktop Twitter clients are Twhirl, and TweetDeck. I use Twhirl for my work account and brand monitoring, while I use TweetDeck to keep track of close friends and family.
My favorite Mobile Twitter client is Tweetie – it is by far the best 99 cent iPhone application available today.

I’m on my way to 2,00 followers, won’t you consider following me?

Where are all the Location Aware Social Networks?

Jonathan Coffman — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:52:33 +0000

Where are all the Location Aware Social Networks?

As someone who spends a lot of time reading, trying out, and evaluating social media products and services I find it very hard to believe that we haven’t yet seen a game changing location aware social network, or at least extension of an existing system.

Sure I use traditional social networks on-the-go, but they don’t actually know where I’m at — geo aware social products and services are the next frontier –.

I’ve tried BrightKite, and it is interesting for a while, but definitely does not have mass appeal yet.

I’ve tried Google Lattitude, and that’s where I’m putting my bets, if Google can’t make location cool again no one can. But, and this is a big But, Google is taking a beating on the stock market like the rest of us and just isn’t innovating at as rapid a pace as they once were (even just a couple of years ago).

I’m also using Yahoo Fire Eagle – which is a really neat idea, it’s an attempt to aggregate your location across multiple services, this is pretty forward thinking and really lends it self nicely to geo data portability.

More to come soon, but until then please let me know if you’ve found a really great mobile location aware application.

Community Management

Jonathan Coffman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:41:36 +0000

Key Social Philosophies:

Doing social media takes a lot of work, understand what you’re getting into.
Putting a personal voice on official communications is always important.
The technology is always changing, know what you’re getting into before diving in.
Take risks, those companies and individuals who aren’t afraid to innovate are the ones who will succeed.

About Jonathan Coffman

Jonathan Coffman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:40:17 +0000

From Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Myspace and beyond – social media is here to stay. You need a guide through the landscape who has developed proven strategies and tools to enhance communication and conversation.

With a background in journalism and product development Jonathan can help you build transparency, trustworthiness, and most of all, conversation with your clients and consituents.

Jonathan Coffman is a social media and online community management specialist who lives, breaths, and participates in the same social networks he evangelizes. To learn more about him, read About Jonathan.

Find and Follow Jonathan

Jonathan Coffman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:38:39 +0000

You can find Jonathan on the following social networking sites:

Or do a Google Search for his name or his online identity.

My Email Process

Jonathan Coffman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:14:11 +0000

I find it fascinating to learn about how others use technology in their lives so today, I present: how retrieve and process email.

First off, I’m not a GTD person, that sounds all fine and dandy but really doesn’t work so well for me. I DO try to stay organized but let’s be honest, I work with and in the technology business and things change fast.

In an upcoming post I’ll share what my to do list looks like (hint, I use Remember The Milk and I recommend you do too).

Let’s get started journalism style:

Who: I use email primarily for business purposes. My work account gets the largest percentage of email of all of my accounts. Written communication between friends mostly happens via text message and Facebook (I wish there was a way to reply to Facebook messages via email, just so that they could all be archived by Gmail.)

When:I check personal email very shortly after I wake up in the morning, usually I just delete everything because it’s newsletters I no longer want or site/script errors. I may also take a moment to glance at my work account and get a preview of anything that may have happened over night. (no replies, I just read the headlines at this point.)

Like many people, one of the first things I do after booting up my work PC is check and respond to email. where possible I close the loop on any outstanding messages from the previous day. My goal is to keep my inbox at 30-50 messages at any given time. This isn’t quite Inbox Zero, but it’s close enough for me.

Work email is of course on an Exchange server which means no tagging, no auto archive of all mail, and horrible searching. Why is this still the case? Just like Google sets the standard for web searching, Gmail sets the standard for Email.

As urgent emails come in through the day I go ahead and respond, but most messages are replied o near lunch, and again around 4-5 pm before heading home for the day.

So there you have it! It’s not a secret any longer, I check email just like everyone else. My only gripe, the office won’t let me check my work email on my iPhone, I have to use the webmail interface for Outlook which we all know is horrible.