Rock the Taskbar

Solving the Gun problem

2009-11-06T10:22:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of chatter on the radio lately about the private members bill to eliminate the Canadian Gun Registry on which our government has spent over $2bn over the past 5+ years. It got me thinking about guns, shooting as a sport, gangs, gang violence, illegal sales of weapons, and other related things. Here's what I think, and I welcome your comments:

People like to shoot guns for sport. This is commonly the argument to keep guns legal in Canada, followed by "You can't regulate insanity-- people will either use a legally obtained gun or buy and illegal gun and go on their rampage--why punish the legal owners?" Well how about this: Make possessing a gun a crime so bad that that 14 year old gangster wanna be will actually consider not doing it.

Imagine if having a gun on you (assuming you are not a FAC licensed person) brought an immediate and unappealable 5 years in prison, whether you've shot it or not. Add 1 month for every bullet found on the person. So someone has a handgun with a 13 round magazine-- they get 6 years 1 month. They're carrying a shotgun with two extra rounds, its 5 years 2 months. They're holding a box of ammo for their buddy (20 in a box?) that's 20 months. TWENTY MONTHS for holding bullets. I would not hold your bullets for you.

If right now, you can be a minor and rob a liquor store and get probation, what is keeping that gun off the street, or motivating that senior gangster not to sell it to that junior gangster, or motivating that caring but troubled older brother from inviting his younger brother along to learn the ways of the gang world. (Note: these examples are heavily influenced by movies and tv).

If all of the sudden the only guns on the street are being held by people who are absolutely going to use them (not just those that need to look touch, threaten, rob, intimidate, etc) then crime will spike a little then drop off dramatically. Why would I want to even come close to a gun if basically touching it could send me away for a long time. What if it sent me far away too. Instead of going to my local prison, (as a youth), I was sent to a neon-rider-esque farm in the middle of nowhere.

OK-- now the non-gun-criminal ideas. Why are companies allowed to bring these guns into the country (if they aren't manufactured here?) because they "are sold legally to those involved in sport, and who have the proper license". I call bullshit. Let the cops develop vendor relationships for their weapons and get everything else out of stores. (I'm talking handguns and assault rifles BTW. I think if someone wants a rifle, they are probably fine)

Eliminate the supply (import restrictions), destroy the demand (ridiculously high jail time for gun crimes), and then put the money that we're saving into community programs and policing.

I realize I made that sound all too easy but seriously, how hard does it have to be? Because the gun lobby is powerful, this will never happen, however if a few people are millionaires, but we're spending billions on a problem, does that really make sense? Plus all the killing and what not.

/rant

Google Dashboard reminds us of what they know

2009-11-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder just what a mega-giant and super data-gathering skynet-like company such as Google really knows about you? Well now they'll tell you. Check out you're own Google Dashboard to see just what data is associated with your account. http://google.com/dashboard

It's handy to have everything so interconnected, but it's also a little scary to think that if something goes wrong, whether that's a computer error or a human error, there's a lot exposed. I like that I could see where my credentials had been used to authorize me on another site, and revoke access if necessary.

Official Google Blog: Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!

$100 in Groceries to the Winner!

2009-11-04T19:00:00.003-05:00

I need to learn from some 'Average' Canadians.

This is a completely un-scientific survey I'm doing with some friends, colleagues and family (and blog readers). Since every effort deserves a reward, I'm going to do a draw for a $100 Sobeys Gift Card (which you can use at Sobeys, Price Chopper, or Foodland) for all those that do the survey. (Clearly I have a limited budget).

Continue Reading...

If it were my budget I'd be pissed

2009-11-03T18:34:00.000-05:00

Just noticed this Facebook Engagement Ad (of the 'Become a Fan' variety) that seems to be a waste of ad dollars. Why you may ask? I became a fan earlier in the day today. Facebook's ad management system knows this, because it even displays that I'm a fan IN the ad unit itself. So why then is it even displayed to me?

I recently had an in-depth conversation with a sales manager for Facebook Advertising in California to understand how these engagement ads are purchased. Different from social ads that are self-service, and can be purchased 'by the click' by bidding a CPC rate that fits your budget, these engagement ads are actually CPM-based, or 'Cost per Thousand impressions' and thus are for bigger budgets and national awareness types of campaigns.

So, who cares, right? Well-- If I were the brand manager (or media buyer, or community manager, etc) for Molson Canadian 67, the new low-calorie beer from MolsonCoors, I'd sure care that my CPM-goodness was being wasted on converted eyeballs. I'm a fan. It's not like I'm just not interested and they need to keep showing it to me until I convert--- I clicked and became a fan already. What's the point? I'd be pissed.
/rant

Google indexes non-private Facebook content

2009-10-30T19:28:00.001-04:00

What does that mean for your brand? It means that there is a high likelihood that in addition to everywhere else on the web where you had to protect your brand from negative comments, you now have to be even more aware of what's happening in the worlds largest social network.

This actually isn't that new. Google has been able to index a lot of stuff for a while, but it's now been made clear that over 53 million pages on Facebook have been indexed for search, and that means a pretty vast array of content. Since a page, a note, a discussion within a page or group, a group wall, a photo caption or video caption or title are all index-able, there's a lot more real estate to deal with.

One of the simplest solutions to protect the brand is reporting unauthorized use of trademarks, using Facebooks intellectual property form, however this can lead to a nasty group simply changing their profile image and adding fuel to the fire. I'm actually planning a different approach (pending legal approval). I'm going to reach out to the group owners. At the end of the day, if there is a product or service issue, any brand out there wants to know about it as soon as possible, and ultimately (if it's fixable) fix it. If there's an employee issue that's brewing, we have policies for that, but people should know that what they're saying could harm their career, not just with their current boss or company, but what about when they get googled in 5 years for their dream job and someone reads all the trash they wrote about their summer job 5 years ago?--not a heart-warming impression they'll make. --but most people either don't think that far ahead when they're trashing a brand online, or they don't care, or they simply didn't know that Google was listening. (...and Google is always listening...)

I think Facebook groups are great for friends and certain somewhat temporary situations, but I much prefer Pages and recommend them for brands or even organizations and associations, because they allow a measure of administration to the discussion. I would love to see Facebook put an expiry date on a group: Example-- If nobody adds to the discussion or updates the group for 3 months, the group disappears. This would ensure that people are only associated with things that they are engaged with, and could also allow fads and trends to die quietly. Example-- "The Get Claire on Facebook" group from 2007 doesn't really need to exist after Claire finally joins, however it takes all the members AND the group owner to Leave the Group before the group goes away. Did you know: A group owner can't just delete a group. If there are people in the group and the group owner leaves, the group still exists.

Anyway, the point of this post was to discuss the fact that Google knows all and is now, more than ever, reading everything that isn't behind the privacy wall on Facebook. Be warned! Brand owners: Try googling your brand like this and see what comes up [ brandname site:facebook ]

I bet you won't like all of it...

Can Twitter Lists improve your credibility?

2009-10-30T14:29:00.000-04:00

Short Answer-- Yes. Lists are one of those things that people are going to use to get an unbiased opinion of a user/brand/account. If someone adds me to a list (which is somewhat manual) they're assigning me some amount of credibility to exist, and they are also categorizing my relationship.

For example, I may have a list for friends, one for family, and then a few work related like Brands, Loyalty, Cooking. If someone looks at Sobeys twitter page and sees that it's listed on a bunch of random peoples lists, and the things that people have named their lists are keywords like Canada, Cooking, Shopping, Brand, or whatever--- that's essentially a public opinion poll and keyword research about the account in question. Credibility.

If I look at an account that I think is spammy, and they appear on NO lists, not friends, not family, nothing work related-- I have to think that maybe they're either really new, know nobody, or are spam. I'm going to think twice.

The next step I see in this evolution is a feature addition for twitter that will actually ALLOW keyword searches. Say I want to find tweeple that fit on lists with keywords like Canada, Shopping-- it shows me a bunch of people who appear on lists with those keywords, not just people who have said they are shopping related (spammers), all of the sudden I have a more authentic experience, and probably some more reliable descriptions of what an account actually is about.

The difference between these lists, and twitter two months ago is that before is was "Here's what I think I am" and now it's "Here's what other people think I am". Just like any marketer knows, your brand is mostly what people think of it, and a little bit about what you tell people it is.

The problem arises when people start to put you on lists that you don't want to be on. Not sure that Twitter has thought of that yet...

Follow me if you like.

Speaking Engagements

2009-10-29T10:51:00.001-04:00

Lately I've been asked more and more to speak with individuals, small groups and leadership teams about social media. Many of these people understand the big picture, and know that they need to make more of an investment in their customers real lives instead of simply 'talking at them' with a billboard or radio spot. My approach is simple: I assume that you've made the decision to invest, and just need to know what things cost, where to spend the money and when.

I'm going to talk to you about authenticity, making sure that you understand that agencies and consultants are great, but your organization needs to be invested both financially and culturally.

I'm going to talk about why certain tactics are worth more or worth doing first, because I'm a nerd, and I read all the things that your agency doesn't take the time to read, let alone share with you.

I'm also going to show you examples. One of the things I get asked for the most in my role is examples: "Tell me about another retailer that's done a contest like this" or "Show me someone who did Twitter wrong, and someone who does it right" or "How much does it cost to start vs. how much to maintain vs. how much to grow and dominate?". Those are the things that leadership needs so they can approve budget for 2010, 2011, 2012...

You have to ask yourself (and your group or organization) how much do we need to be a part of this? Your customer is talking about you-- or maybe they're not and that's the problem. They're talking about your competitor and engaging them. You can also look at is purely from a financial perspective: You just spent $500k on a TV campaign for some awareness. You could have spent $50k targeting the exact people you want with a sponsored engagement ad on Facebook, and reach not only your exact market (geographically, demographically, psychographically) but also their friends and social-graph when they engage and share the content.

If you're interested in chatting about your business (assuming I don't have any conflicts of interest) feel free to get in touch with me. (Links at the top of the blog or email speaking [AT] andrewkinnear [D0T] com). Want me to speak to your marketing group about some tactics? Let's talk.

Know who you're selling

2009-10-27T17:03:00.001-04:00

I just had a terrible conversation with an agency person (who I secretly hope will read this) about various advertising products available on Facebook, and re-sold by this company. (I won't name names).

The problem is that this person didn't prepare. The deck they emailed was mostly stock, highlighting everything we had already covered in the first meeting. They felt the need to walk through it again, just in case there were questions, even though I fully understood everything, and let them know this fact. Don't waste my time.

Then the kicker: They proceeded to sell me on some Facebook page creation and management services that they offer for multi-thousands of dollars. This is my job. This would be like selling a plumber a pipe-fixing service. Do your research. You know you're talking to the Social Media guy-- why not find out if this is something that is needed before you try to pitch. This person was also clearly non-technical, as any even remotely 'tough' question was met with awesome word combinations (which I know because I've used them)like strategic management. You're going to 'strategically manage' my needs directly to the nearest nerd, who won't know anything about what I need.

This person also made a critical error in recommending that I not develop a relationship with Facebook's sales team in California directly, because I will get better service from a Canadian reseller. "Facebook hired us to act as an advertising reseller and provide management for our Canadian clients". Sure they did. Guess what-- I want to know what Facebook charges for this stuff. They may have preferred rates, but they're just as hungry for the business as you are. They are in the ad-platform business, and will have to give up a straight CPM, otherwise risk getting laughed at. (That's what I got when I called them by the way...) In addition to some case studies, official documents about their products, and even specs for what I wanted. They don't need to hide anything--- it's their site!

The biggest problem is this agency's actual product. Because this reseller is in a specific vertical, they are only 'allowed' to sell products that pertain to that vertical, so this sales person spent a considerable amount of effort telling me how we can make my consumer-facing ads have a (industry vertical) focus so that they meet the criteria. (Facebook reviews their submissions to make sure they meet the criteria. Good thing I'm working with a reseller and not Facebook directly). Super-- but what about if I just want to buy some ads and have them have NOTHING to do with that vertical. Well-- uh---... Ya, that's what I thought.

Everyone is out to sell something. It's in your job title, do you think I don't know what account executive means? I was one. I know it means "Salesperson". I think people in sales need to slow down. Take the time to do a little bit of research about the company and person you're dealing with. Isn't that hour of research worth it when you land the 'big deal'? When I was selling POP displays, I would google the snot of the person and company I was about to call, just so I would not sound stupid.

If someone googled me before attempting to sell me a Facebook Management service, they would realize very quickly that I'm a nerd, I'm using the platform all day, every day, and that most of the time people aren't allowed to outsource their own jobs and get paid for it.

/Rant

Awesomest movie ever.

2009-10-16T09:11:00.000-04:00

This movie has 'splosions, pew pew, and basically every old action hero except JCVD and the Governator. It's called "The Expendables" (ha. Yep.) and who knows how long this russian site will be able to host the trailer. Check it out.

Twitter Lists: About time.

2009-10-15T20:20:00.000-04:00

Not everyone is able to use Lists yet. (They opened up the beta to the mad tweeps such as myself today). Why are lists good? You can now do all the following you like, and then when you're ready to read just the junk you actually care about (like Facebook's hide feature in their newsfeed) you can now just see those peoples tweets. It's a filter for the fire hose.

Now here's the kicker. You can share lists, and if you're IN a list, that number will now appear with your other popularity stats like followers and updates. Congratulations popular people, you will now have another number by which to measure your awesomeness.

We'll have to see how this plays out.

Movember: Toronto Crumb Dusters

2009-10-15T10:22:00.001-04:00

As I think about Blog Action Day today, I've started a team for Movember to raise both awareness and funds for Prostate Cancer Canada. If you're a Mo Bro or a Mo Sis, and would like to participate with me, join my team.

It's not rocket science, and unlike all those other Cancers where you have to walk really far, we just have to grow a Mo'. It's brilliant. With each Mo sported in Movember, we become walking billboards for the cause. (Make sure you tell your boss so they don't think you're a slacker)

To check out the cause, and join my team, click here

Corporate Social Media Policies: My Opinion

2009-10-14T05:34:00.000-04:00

First let me disclaim that the views on this blog are my own, not those of the companies for whom I consult. I think that social networking is becoming so entrenched into the fabric of our lives and so important to how we stay in touch with our families and friends that we are moving towards inevitable ubiquity.

There was a time, before I was starting companies or getting jobs, where companies would selectively give people computers based on the work they had to do. Then later, is was "Does this person need email? or Internet access?". That was back before we googled for everything. Productivity actually went up, and more and more people got internet access and computers until they were ubiquitous. Now when you start a job (depending on the work) it's assumed that there's a computer provided, and that there will be internet access from that computer.

Now the decision making, whether at the IT level or the HR level or the Executive level, surrounds what we see on the internet. Filters, screening, blocking, traffic shaping, bandwidth conservation and the like. How soon until everyone can do everything everywhere? It's not as though filtering Facebook or Twitter from a corporate network will stop someone who wants to use it-- they can simply use their mobile device to update statuses, check on friends, arrange social events, etc.

Is it a productivity issue? Will I be more productive at my job (not my job, but someone who doesn't spend all day on Facebook for work)? Is it a trust issue? Will I post something I shouldn't? Am I not smart enough to decide what is or is not appropriate to talk about? Is it a level issue? Junior people who may not be around very long don't have their long-term career in mind when they post something...

Here's an amazing compilation of some research from Deloitte that shares some thoughts and attitudes surrounding social media use in the workplace, and the reputational risk associated with it.

Social Networking And Reputational Risk In The Workplace - Deloitte Survey (July 09)

View more documents from Opinion Watch.

This Social Media Governance site has examples from countless companies on how they're dealing with social media. If you're looking for some help or examples, that's a great place to start, but here's my opinion:

Trust is powerful. The web is surprisingly open. Privacy is an illusion. Honesty is rewarded.

I don't post anything from a public tweet to a private Facebook message that I'm not comfortable handing to my boss on a piece of paper. The likelihood that your boss will ever see anything you post is small, but is not inconceivable. From the very early days of 'Emails can be forwarded to anyone' back in the 90's, I've tried to keep a pretty open and friendly persona. Controlling your reputation online is also important, but I think if people understand that anyone could be listening then all of the sudden there's a click, and things get better.

The challenge (how I see it) comes from the Gen Y and Millenials that have no concept of 'protecting their career' or 'google indexes everything' or 'nothing is really ever deleted'. They tweet their thoughts and feelings from FML to the mundane. That's where your brand and/or company needs to worry.

Ex. I'm sixteen, and I have a mobile phone. I hate my boss for making me do something at work that is in fact my job, but that which I despise. I decide to take a photo or video of something at work, add a funny name, include the company name, and a few swear words. It's on the internet. It's picked up by keyword monitoring by not just the company's internal people, but also the PR agency, the digital agency, the legal team, as well as the company's competitors and their teams. All of the sudden everyone is in a tizzy, having $1000 meetings about what to do and how to respond. Is there HR action to take? Is there legal action to take? What a predicament? How about this: I have 16 followers! The only people who even maybe saw that tweet or post are my friends and family, and they didn't care or even remember 2 days later.

Trust is powerful. The web is surprisingly open. Privacy is an illusion. Honesty is rewarded. BUT: People are fickle. If Michael Jackson dies, all of the sudden we care less about Iran.

Facebook Family Search

2009-10-09T15:53:00.000-04:00

Until today, I had no idea that Facebook has a search feature designed to help find family members (or at least those with the same last name). Available at http://facebook.com/family the search gives you some letters to start off with, or simply start typing in your (or any) name.

Not sure how useful this is, but I think it's neat. Could this be a legacy feature that just isn't linked to anywhere in the current Facebook design? Who knows.

50 Business Thinkers share

2009-10-09T07:22:00.001-04:00

I really liked the Bruce Tulgan interview about how to be a leader for Generation Y.

It's interesting to me how my generation sees certain things very differently from Gen Y. They look at an organization like "How is this company or organization going to fit in my life's story." "What is this company going to do for me?"
Rewards and recognition are also extremely important to this group because of an early sense of entitlement, and other different motivators that what I grew up with. Does anyone work in an environment where they have to lead a large cohort of Gen Y'ers-- comment with any thoughts or advice. See for yourself.

If you knew, what would it be worth? Street View Placement

2009-10-07T14:11:00.000-04:00

If you knew the exact moment that the Google Streetview car would be rolling by a certain billboard, what would that be worth to your brand? Would you put up something special? Would you make it more generic or put a special offer? Would you change anything at all?

Probably the reason the cars go incognito as much as they can (with a giant roof mounted camera).

Google launched the Street View in their Google Maps application today for Canada. I think street view is the most useful of all the maps features when you are trying to find a specific place. Knowing even generally what neighbourhood and specifically what a building looks like is immensely helpful. What do you think?

Chinese little people capitalize on size

2009-10-06T07:10:00.001-04:00

How cool is this: Little people, Dwarves, (or whatever they call them in China), sick of being bullyed by us Normals have bandied together and created their own community. They have a police force and fire brigade, and nobody is over 4'3" tall. Then they did something AWESOME. They made their houses look like toadstools and put on costumes and started charging people to visit their community. Doesn't sound very communist to me. Go team. [via Telegraph.co.uk]

What I saw at Casecamp 2009

2009-10-05T07:34:00.002-04:00

I was at Casecamp 2009 recently, at the CARLU, a benefit for SickKids Hospital. I didn't win my silent auction bid, so technically I didn't donate anything extra to SickKids Hospital, but there were a lot of people there, so I'm sure the Auction raised some money, along with the ticket and drinks revenue.

So-- what I saw (and in some cases learned) at Casecamp. Honestly-- not a lot I didn't know already, but it was reassuring to hear others speak it aloud to a group of people. What I enjoyed most was the personal stories of Jason Scott and his experiences with @sockington or Sam Reich and the stuff he works on at College Humor Originals.

Here's the run down with my thoughts, and some key points:

Keynote: Jason Scott, creator of the hugely popular Sockington the Cat. @Sockington has over a million followers, and Jason thinks about 350k of these are real people, interested in reading what he writes. He also revealed (not a secret) that he pre-writes a lot of the content that Socks tweets to the world, so that he can have a life. It lives on a server and randomly, about three times a day @sockington will share something with his army of loyal followers. Cool guy. The big idea from Jason (for me) was that a) simple ideas can be popular and b)some people can't be bought.

This gave me many ideas for what we can do with @sobeys as far as content, because people want to be entertained. On Twitter, my guess is that not many people are searching for their local retailer to tell them how to do something (like a recipe)-- they're more interested in getting inspiration (maybe) to do something themselves. For example: Here's something tasty (delicious photo and description) What can you make?

Next up was Bryan Segal, VP at ComScore. Bryan has some great data about internet usage, but what ComScore does really well is studies about what's working and what isn't. My big take away was this: "Cookies and Clicks do not tell the whole story." We put so much effort into understanding the metrics we get from our analytics data about who, when, for how long, from where, to where, etc--- that we forget that maybe the click has nothing to do with the ad we ran last month. Maybe it was because we ran the ad FOR A MONTH that we finally got the click. This wasn't what Bryan was saying, but it got me thinking about what we put into things like KPIs at our various companies, and how 'traffic' is what we're looking for. There may not be any kind of conversion-- so to make sure you're doing a good job, we want to make sure you somehow 'show our content' to x thousand eyeballs a month. Anyway, ComScore has some great data, some public and some not, and Bryan seemed like a great guy. Thanks for the 15 minutes.

After ComScore was Will Pate. Will seems like a knowledgeable guy, but his content was stuff I'd seen before many times. The crowd at CaseCamp was diverse, so I'm sure some of the newer peeps got a lot of value from it. My take away from Will's presentation was this: 'Media has changed from an artifact-- something you have, touch, see, read, etc-- to a trajectory-- a direction where you're going that is constantly shifting and needing adaptation and adjustment.' I sort of adapted that a bit, because I wasn't taking notes like a journalist, just a blogger.

Next up was Elspeth Jane and Kenyatta from RocketBoom site KnowYourMeme.com. It was very cool to see the pseudo-scientific analysis of internet culture and the development of a meme. The presentation was so fresh that there was Kanye Interrupts examples and life-cycle analysis, and that was only about 48 hours ago!. I met Ken and Elspeth during the break, and the New Yorkers are friendly and funny. Know Your Meme is now on my radar, because I had been hunting and watching memes the old fashion way-- Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. Now I can be lazy like @benHuh.

NASA Dangerously close to the 'Star trek Replicator'

2009-10-02T07:03:00.001-04:00

NASA has been able to use electron-beams to create specialized parts in a manner that is cheaper and more energy efficient that traditional 3D manufacturing process.

We are getting very close to the Star Trek universe where using raw materials, a computer controlled device called a Replicator can create almost anything, in any configuration. Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.

[Via NASA]

Expense-a-Steak

2009-10-01T09:43:00.002-04:00

How great is it when a classy steakhouse understands their customer SO well, that they go to the trouble of creating an easy-to-use website that generates receipts for their customers so they can avoid getting the evil eye when they submit their expense report?

It's pretty simple: You enter the total of your bill from the restaurant (or anywhere really) and the site generates a single sheet PDF image that you can print out that has real looking crumpled receipts that you could submit with an expense report. They're not saying "Defraud your company". They're more saying "We understand how it looks when you submit restaurant receipts for $300 lunches".

What I want for Christmas (So Far)

2009-09-30T09:28:00.000-04:00

I think we've all had days like today where everything is just cold.

The Hamburger Hand-Warmer from Gadget4All seems like the perfect 'Made in China' product to solve my problem, except I think I need two. And another mouse.

[Via Gizmodo via Gadget4all]

Twitter 'Find on other networks' exposes secret accounts

2009-09-18T11:05:00.003-04:00

By accessing my Gmail contacts through Twitter, my address book was imported and compared to the registered emails used for Twitter accounts. Since only one Twitter account can be associated with any email address, in some cases, multiple account would come up for the same person. (I have about 40 email addresses for various domains, different purposes, single use, commenting, etc)

Where this get's interesting is that when someone registers an account with one address (say their work email) and then they need to secure another account, say for a client or project, they need to use a different email. This 1:1 exposes a secret if you were an agency player, and registered an upcoming promotional Twitter account with one of your own emails (instead of setting up a dedicated email prior to deployment)

So what does this mean? It means that since I've validated myself as someone who probably knows you (since I have your email address in my contacts, Twitter goes ahead and shares all the accounts associated with my people.

I think this is most relevant for agency and marketing types who will actually concern themselves with multiple account, multiple emails, different clients, etc. The average Joe or Joesephine will not be affected (per se) but will still have the same access to the secret (or possibly wrong) information.

Now here's the kicker: Gmail adds every email address I've every recieved or sent to to my contacts. This means that if I'm a guy who does a lot of email and my address book (which could also be imported from anywhere) is busting at the seams-- I all of the sudden could actually get some interesting insight about who's doing what on Twitter.

Here's what I learned:

My dad has multiple twitter accounts
A guy I know at an agency in Toronto has set up a promotional/contest twitter account for one of his clients
A lawyer I hate for trying to sue me has an account with no identifying info (obviously just to creep on people and listen.) One day....Revenge will be mine!
MANY people I'm connected to via email have set up Twitter accounts but are likely not using them (indicated by no activity, no avatar, or both)
There's an account called twitter.com/chorke that has the email address mobile@facebook.com associated with the account--- and thus has thousands of followers who added that account thinking it was in their addressbook, when really it was the upload email address for Facebook for pictures, etc. Weird glitch in the matrix.

Anyway, it's not like I discovered the cure for Cancer here, but for people in the right place at the right time, this could be information exposed that shouldn't be.

I thought about an image, but it's all email addresses and usernames and I didn't think that was cool.

How to make an ipod stand out of a business card

2009-08-31T17:09:00.009-04:00

I was enjoying my lunch today and decided to catch up on a video podcast of some short Dilbert animations when I realized that holding up my ipod touch required an unreasonable amount of effort. I needed a way to balance the device at the correct angle so that I could just sit, enjoy eating, and not have to hold anything.

I decided to engineer a solution out of thin air. I took a business card, made some folds and cuts, and 'Tadahhhh!!!' an ipod touch (or iphone) stand out of a business card. Keep reading for the instructions...

Step 1. Fold a lip on one end of the card. It only has to be wide enough to prevent the device from sliding to the table.
Step 2. Fold what's left of the card in half. This will be the base of the stand. If you were using steel instead of a business card, you could stop now, but as it stands, the ipod is too heavy and squashes the card down. You need supports. Step 3. With the main stand folded, make two cuts into the fold, creating a sort of tab. There are now two sides and a middle.

Step 4. Cut the fold on the middle to release the two tabs. These tabs are going to connect under the peak to keep the stand from splitting apart.

Step 5. To connect the two floating tabs, make a small cut perpendicular to the tab about halfway through. Do the same on the other side, but on the opposite side. These two floating tabs with little slits will now join together forming the cross-bar of the 'A' frame support. It's more than enough to hold together under the weight of an ipod.

For the record, I did this on my lunch break! Work is actually very busy and exciting right now, as we are in the final throws of an approval process that will see me get even more busy!

If I were in a business that had anything to do with mobile devices, I would make my business card come pre-die-cut to accommodate this little bonus. We've all seen cool business cards, but the beauty of this is that you can do it with your own business card. If you're looking for a different way to do it, I just googled instructables method, and it looks pretty good too, however I didn't think that way up from scratch, so who knows how awesome it will be.

Cheers!

Bell internet now hijacking mistyped domains

2009-08-10T20:09:00.005-04:00

I went looking for a domain today for a friend, and as a first check, I simply typed the domain into the address bar. (I changed it for the image grab).

Normally, this would present Firefox's 'Server Not Found' error, OR if formatted like a search, and not a site, then Google would do a 'Feeling lucky' search, thanks to Firefox. Not this time. Because what I typed in 'looked' like a domain name, somewhere in the bowels of my ISP (Bell Internet / Sympatico) they decided to try to HELP me find what I was looking for.

I read about Verizon doing this is the U.S. and actually making money of the ads. There are examples of them hijacking the mistypes for a Yahoo! powered SERP. It's a terrible search result.

So why has Bell followed suit? Money? Brand awareness for those that don't understand what's happening and actually think that it's helping? Who knows, but I don't like it.

Anytime the ISP decides what happens in my browser-- I get nervous. They are the PIPE, and should not try to be smarter. We already know they're shaping traffic, and before today, I just closed my eyes and pretended I didn't know... But now I can't ignore them. Time to start looking for a new ISP--- oh wait, it's them or Rogers. Why hasn't anyone entered this market? (Rhetoric) Why can't some Googley company run some fibre to the curb and give me an internet I deserve! Arrrgh.

Turns out some other nerds like me figured this out a week ago...

How Rogers can improve their company

2009-08-09T12:00:00.004-04:00

I was originally going to title this post much more harshly, using some very descriptive and emotional adjectives, but I decided against it, hoping that maybe Rogers has some social media monitoring in place, and they will ultimately pick this up and want to actually solve a problem and make a customer happy.

Yes, my problem with Rogers stems back to my original beef with RIM and their Blackberry, and the same problems I was getting before. RIM's solution was to send me back to the 'store' where I bought my blackberry. Yes, because people who work in the retail stores for Rogers are incredibly skilled and have amazing and unlimited resources to solve highly technical problems.

No, today's post concerns simple customer service design. Specifically 'Live Chat'. I'm sitting here with another JVM error, pissed at RIM, Rogers, and the world, and the Rogers Website has duped me again into thinking they care. I go to the Rogers website, hunt around in the FAQ a little bit, and decide to try the live chat to see if someone working at Rogers has heard of this kind of problem, and can recommend a solution.I fill out the form, which by the way has an EULA a mile long? Why is this? Because they use the same live chat for Mobile, Internet, Cable, etc most likely, they may need to take over my system, take screen shots, etc "to solve my problem". Well great-- except my problem is with a mobile device, and I don't have the option of NOT agreeing to the EULA.
So then, I get one more warning, telling me that now that I've agreed to everything, Rogers technical support may look at my system, etc, and I have to AGREE again with a big button to connect me to live support (Picture above). This is where my blood boils. After all that, Rogers has the balls to tell me the "shop's not open". Sorry, no live support on Sunday. HELLO? This information would have been extremely helpful 15 minutes ago when I started your process, and BEFORE I agreed to all kinds of useless things in your EULA and BEFORE I gave you my phone number and email address, and BEFORE I thought you cared in the least for your customers.

Honestly. Just put this graphic up when someone clicks live chat when the service is unavailable. Don't wait until the end of the process, because now I'm angry about my original problem AND I'm thinking you have no idea how to design an experience flow. Do you not want my business? Am I too much for you because I actually demand a quality product, with quality service?

Rogers Wireless-- I seriously hope you're listening. I hope Nadir Mohamed, new CEO of Rogers, has spent some effort communicating the value of customer service in this world of digital soap-boxes and Consumerist-reading customers.

Best Buy launches Twelp Force on Twitter

2009-07-27T07:13:00.000-04:00

I recently saw a new commercial for BestBuy, and I couldn't take my eyes off the bottom of the screen. Instead of driving traffic to bestbuy.com/twitter to launch their new customer service engagement platform, they were actually advertising twitter.com/twelpforce. Good for them. But what's this all about? Is it a 'me too' effort, or a well thought out response to a huge market that has constant customer service questions about an industry that is constantly changing? I think the latter...

Consumer electronics is hot. There are ALWAYS new product, changes in pricing (usually as a reaction to a competitor), and numerous intricacies of usability with what people buy that eventually lead to a customer question: i.e. "How does X work? I just bought it at your store..."

Now instead of training the entire workforce, BestBuy can simply put the best of the best online to answer the bulk of the questions, and even maximize their SEO by generating a huge amount of relevant, current, product-related content that drives to one of their many web properties.

Seems like a good strategy. Let's see how well it works and report back in a few months. Don't forget, this is twitter, so no longer can we benefit from a region selector. Any price info is now exclusively U.S. based.