Will WiFi and Cellular technology be the death of us all?  Or are we all in a tizzy for nothing?  I don’t know, I have no answers, but I do have some remarkable personal experience to share with you all.  We will begin this article with a story.

—–

I fondly recall my Grandfather scolding me for sitting too close to the Television one day.  This was before we realized that I needed eyeglasses, so I’d say that I was around 8 years old.

My grandfather was an engineer; an inventor.  He rarely ever bothered to correct my behavior when I was young, but when he ever endeavored to do so, there was generally a very good reason for it.

Also, he never ever played the “because I said so” card.  This was one reason I respected him as much as I did, as I was a precocious child, and never, ever obeyed commands without being on board with them.

I asked him why he thought it was bad to sit close to televisions, and he responded with a lesson.  He produced a mechanical pencil and some graph paper and taught me precisely how a television works.  In fact, he drew out a detailed schematic for our television model, which when later compared to an electronic diagram in Popular Mechanic turned out to be almost completely accurate.  And he drew this off the top of his head!

Common Sense
This is the sort of thing my grandfather called “common sense.”   See, there was no evidence at the time that prolonged exposure to microwaves would or could cause anyone physical damage.  He simply considered it “common sense” that allowing yourself to have cathode rays shot directly at your eyeballs for a few hours every day couldn’t be a good thing.

That was 30 years ago, and I can definitively attribute my own brand of “common sense” to him, and his patient and thorough lessons.  It is from him that I inherited my love for technology as well.  Not a week goes by where I don’t think to myself “Wow, I wish my Grandfather were still alive to see this” [bit of technology.]  He’d have been fascinated with the internet.  He’d be absolutely blown away with the iPhone, and the iPad.  Though as we all fall further and further into our obsession with always-connectedness, I often wonder how and where my grandfather would apply his “common sense.”

—–

A hotbed of microwave activity
My wife Pausha and I have recently started to become concerned about the long-term effects of living “in the field.”  We both work at home, which is great, but as we’re both technology professionals, we require constant connection to the internet to ply our trade.  We have 2 Airport routers in the house, 3 Apple computers, an Apple TV, 2 iPhones, an iPad, and one WiFi-enabled printer, and all of these devices are on, all day and all night long and communicating with each other over our network.

My God, our house is a hotbed of microwave activity!

Additionally, as a tech consultant, I visit clients’ homes and offices to help them fix their various technology issues, and so I’m exposed to all manner of contamination.

I work with 2 people who swear that their home WiFi network was causing them intense migraines.  In both cases, disabling the wireless routers and creating hard-wired networks alleviated their headaches.  This is evidence I’ve seen with my own eyes, and I don’t know either of these two people to exhibit hypochondriacal behavior, though I’ve not ruled out the possibility of the issue being completely in their heads.

So we started doing our own research.
If you’ve looked into this yourself, you’ve likely stumbled upon the work of Dr. George Carlo, http://www.whale.to/b/carlo_h.html who is an outspoken opponent of the cellular industry.  Dr. Carlo has connected cellular contamination with rising autism numbers, genetic and cell degeneration, and even links excessive radio waves to the plight of the honeybee, all of which is serious cause for alarm.

The quote which is often mis-attributed to Albert Einstein is no less powerful for his not having said it: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”

The search for answers leads only to more questions
For every bit of damning information, there’s an equal and opposite bit of published information denouncing the “electrosensitivity lobby” and the “charlatans” who earn a living through fear-mongering.  One particular site that ate 3 soild evenings of my life is Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog: http://www.badscience.net

——–

So who do we believe?
It’s really hard to say.  Without coming off as a conspiracy theorist at worst, or an incurable cynic at best, I always look at the profit motive.  I certainly do not trust the communications industry to do the right thing when it comes to public safety vs. earning enormous revenues.  I’m also a huge proponent of personal responsibility.  So Pausha and I continued our research.

Interestingly, we’ve found far more interesting information on this issue in European news channels than in American sources.  Pausha reads Polish news sites every morning, even as I read my own feed, and she’s turned up a bit of interesting research.

For example: The French Association of Health Safety Environment and Labour (Afsset) is calling for a dramatic reduction in the output of cell tower output, and have called for a moratorium of cell phones and cell phone towers near any school or government building where children under the age of 12 years old can be exposed.  And what’s amazing is that the French government is taking this very seriously.
Source: http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2009/05/26/vers-une-interdiction-du-telephone-portable-a-l-ecole_1198098_3244.html

I’m also seeing quite a bit of Polish, German, and Israeli research pointing to results finally coming in that show people living within 350 meters of a cell tower having 4 times more cancer than other city dwellers.

—–

My own personal punchline
We looked quite seriously at how we might do away with all of the wireless devices in our lives, and realized that to do so would require a very significant reorganization of our lives, our careers, our habits, and neither of us were really ready to move full-time up to that cabin in the mountains that we escape to as frequently as we can get away with.

So here’s what we do:

Every night when we’re getting ready to turn in, we turn off the cable modem, and both Wireless Routers.  We shut down all of the computers.  We shut down both iPhones, and we put the iPad on Airplane Mode, which turns off the device’s WiFi unit, but still allows me to read my books on it.

We figured that turning all of the “stuff” off around 11:30pm, and turning it back on at 9am the next morning would reduce our local exposure to our own microwave farm by roughly 40%.  That can’t be a bad thing right?  (Luckily, our house is also situated such that any WiFi networks owned by our neighbors don’t reach us.)

Now.. before you spend your breath reminding me that I’m being bombarded by microwaves all day long by nearby cell towers, and by radio towers broadcasting AM and FM bandwidth and even the SUN, check out what we’ve found.

I sleep through the night now.  Deeply.  I’ll say it again for the people in the back, and also for the search engines.

Since we began turning off our WiFi network and all of our wireless devices every night, I  sleep deeply at night,  every night.

I used to have a very hard time quieting my mind, because like my engineer grandfather, I’m always problem-solving, my mind is always working.

I’d taken up meditation to calm my mind.  I’ve taken up getting regular exercise, so that I’m more tired at night.  I’ve made major changes to my diet.  None of these things worked.  I would sometimes cross into insomniac territory, and work until 4 and 5am on nights when I’d have a particularly hard time of it.  There were some nights when I would even break down and take sleeping pills.

And then we turned off the WiFi, and I no longer have any trouble falling asleep at night, and remaining asleep until I’m ready to wake up in the morning.

I want to make it very very clear that I have no scientific data to support my claim.  I’ve not conducted controlled experiments, and frankly I don’t care too.  I have my own experience now, and I do admit that there might very well be some placebo effect going on here.  I wish there were a definitive “truth” here.   I hope that all parties will act with integrity and will put public health and safety concerns over industry profits, but until this resolves, we all have to be responsible for our health and well being.

I guess this is the sort of situation to which we shall simply have to apply some of my Grandfather’s brand of  “common sense.”

Steve Jobs announced Ping this week at the special music event in San Francisco.  I’m going to assume that you’re aware of what this new Music-based Social Network is.
If you’re not, head over to this article at Macworld, and get yourself up to speed, and then come on back.

Okay, back?

I try not to rant on this blog, but I just couldn’t hold back this time.

<rant>

My first impression after creating my Ping profile (oh my, I can’t even SAY it with a straight face; I felt this way when Microsoft announced Bing) was “wow, I really no really do not have time for yet another social network!”

My second impression was “wait, a social network based solely on sharing your music purchases with friends and followers?!?”  Hasn’t this been done before?  I can share my Amazon purchases socially, can’t I?  But why on earth would I want to do that?

When MySpace came out, I got that.  I was among the first 200,000 MySpace users.  When Facebook hit the scene, I got that too.  When Twitter came out, I was a little skeptical at first, but I quickly came around, and now I’m an avid Twitter user.  I also dabble with Foursquare, and I have a profile on Blip.fm which I use every so often to share music, and expose myself to new tunes I’ve not heard yet.  See, Blip.fm and even Pandora make a lot of sense to me.  (especially Pandora.)  I’m following some friends on Pandora that I know to have good musical taste, and when I hear something new, I add it to my channel, or I create a new channel based on that track.  Pretty cool, but unless I hear something I really like, I don’t have to actually buy anything. No money changes hands. 

MySpace is free.  Twitter is free.  Facebook is free.  Pandora is free.  Blip.fm is free.  Foursquare is free.  And Ping is free too, but not really; because to get anything out of actually participating in the Ping “social network,” you’ve got to be making purchases quite regularly!

I suppose that what Ping has going for it is that you can follow your favorite bands’ own profiles, and get “behind the curtain” on the hip musical recommendations of your idols.  Apple seems to be growing out whatever traction they’ve gained from their “Celebrity Playlist” feature.   I do spend a fair amount of cash on the iTunes store every month, so don’t think I’m one of these guys who feel that the only good thing is a free thing.  That’s not my issue here.  My real issue is that this is the dumbest “social network” idea I’ve heard in a long time.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and this will spread like wildfire, and Apple will realize quadrupled monthly music downloads, which will, in turn, save the music industry.  Who knows?  I, for one, do not have time to put energy into yet another social network, and especially no time for one whose very existence is predicated on my making regular purchases from within the system.

Good luck Apple on your Social Network meets Storefront experiment.  For now, I’ll stick with iTunes’ Genius feature and Pandora on the iPhone.

</rant>

Of course, if you’d like to follow me on Ping, you may, though I don’t know how to invite you from outside of the iTunes system.  Apple seems to have created a real “walled garden” in there.  My iTunes ID is chris@foleypod.com.  Do a search, and I might just show up.   You can see what I’ve bought and maybe you’ll like to buy the stuff I bought too.

That’s pretty optimistic thinking though.

I finally got around to downloading iTunes 10 (free download) onto the iMac which serves as my main media computer for my home office.  Weighing in at 80MB+, this update seemed significant, and when I launched the new iTunes application, I immediately noticed some design changes.

The iTunes interface has been tweaked a bit to feel a bit more like the Apple’s latest iMovie and Aperture interfaces.  Even the default application icon has finally been updated, and the outmoded compact disk image removed.

The interface is now a lot cleaner, and while I didn’t run any real benchmark tests, the app load time seemed quite a bit faster than iTunes 9 was.

All sorts of little things have been redesigned, from the library column:

to things like status bars:

but what really impressed me was the hybrid view which now fits album covers into the main library window:

It seems as though there are some changes under the hood as well.  This new album cover-list-view inspired me to send iTunes out looking for more album artwork, a search I’d not run in a few months.  It went out and retrieved over 8,000 (!!) album covers that had not come up in any prior searches.  Pretty cool.

I then synced up my iPhone and iPad, and luckily, I had about 300 new photos in my Aperture library which needed to be synced to my mobile devices.  I was very impressed with how quickly these devices synced.

I must mention that I am an iTunes power-user, and employ iTunes in professional situations, not just personal ones.  I have more than 40,000 songs and 200+ playlists that I manage on a monthly basis.  I also spend between $100 and $300 per month on new music.  I’ve been waiting for some iTunes performance boosts for quite a long time, and with Apple has finally delivered with iTunes 10.

To Ping or not to Ping

If you were wondering what I think of the new Ping music social network that Steve Jobs is so excited about, I think it’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve seen in a long time.  I’ve put my thoughts into another article, which you can read HERE, if you want.  Be warned, it’s a bit of a rant.

You can also read this great article on Macworld by Kirk McElhearn entitled Hands On: iTunes 10′s Ping feature.

Thanks for reading!
~ Chris

Get started with Google Apps and unlock hidden, business-savvy features.

This excellent overview of Google Apps comes to us from PC World online, and was written by Zack Stern.  All of the Google Apps basics are covered here, as well as an in-depth description of Google’s Premium Business services, which are fast becoming the way to go for small to medium sized businesses.  We use a fair amount of these tools at FoleyPod, and I suggest Google Docs for my clients almost every day.

Additionally, many medium to large businesses are moving from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, and for very good reason.  If you’re starting to find yourself tired of the Microsoft empire, and especially if you’re considering moving your business from PC to Macs, this article is for you, though all of these services work very well on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

In fact, check out the video on the right to learn why Motorola moved from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps.

Enjoy.
~ Chris

All businesses need basic services such as e-mail hosting, document sharing, and file editing. The ways to set up these functions vary greatly, however–pick the wrong method, and you’ll waste time and money.

For example, you don’t need to cover the costs of your own server, since the various Google Apps for businesses shift these tools into the cloud. Plus, the online approach makes your organization more mobile, since it allows you and your staff to connect from any computer and from most smartphones.

Google’s offerings for businesses differ from the company’s consumer applications. But that’s just the beginning. In this article I’ll reveal tips and tweaks that can supercharge Google’s tools to improve your business’s productivity. Whether you are just beginning to explore Google Apps or are already a subscriber, these tricks will help you get the most from the services.

Google Apps Collaboration Tools
In addition to handling your e-mail, Google Apps can help people in your business collaborate. Many tools are available, covering everything from scheduling to document creation to videoconferencing. And though you save everything in the cloud, Google maintains good security to protect your data.

Google Calendar can help you keep appointments and share scheduling with groups. The business service is similar to the consumer version, but oriented toward clusters of employees. You’ll be able to share workday details with coworkers so that they know when you’re free for a possible meeting, for instance. The tool can send meeting invitations and update itself as recipients verify their attendance.

Google Docs imports and edits basic office-suite files, including .doc, .ppt, and .xls files in its word processor, presentation tool, and spreadsheet app, respectively. Multiple staffers can share documents, each person editing them without worrying about losing someone else’s changes (as they might when downloading and uploading documents to a file server). Google keeps a complete history of each contributor’s updates, and colleagues can even edit files at the same time. This setup can serve as a great group note-taking space for a conference call or during a presentation.

Google Sites, available in each edition of Google Apps, acts as an intranet Website. You can use it as a company bulletin board for everyone, store HR policies, highlight an upcoming event, or otherwise organize information. Google Sites and Google Docs can store any document type, so you can use them for simple file sharing, too.

Google Groups, available in the Premier Edition, acts as a center point for collaboration. Groups allow staffers to send messages within mailing lists at your company, such as a sales-team list. In addition, members can share a calendar and documents as a group. When new people join the group, they gain access to the message history as well as to the rest of the information, so that they can get up to speed with in-progress plans.

Google Video, another Premier-only service, is essentially your company’s own version of YouTube. You can post private, internal videos for training, collaboration, or any other use. The tool also hosts your public videos, eliminating another subscription or service that you might need.

Read more of this article at PC World.

I first saw this on Scoopertino, which is a great site if you’ve got some time on your hands.  Enjoy~

Cupertino, CA — Ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for iPhone. Literally.

Responding to complaints that the new iPhone 4 loses signal when held by a human hand, Apple today launched iHand — a synthetic appendage that makes it easy for anyone to “get a grip” on iPhone and remain connected.

iHand is so easy to use, it doesn’t require a manual. Simply insert iPhone 4 into iHand’s adjustable fingers, raise it to your ear and start talking. With iHand, you get all the functionality of the human hand, without the signal-sucking biology that encumbers most iPhone owners.

“If you’re serious about using iPhone, there’s a right way and wrong way to hold it,” Apple explains in its press release. “iHand guarantees the proper grip first time, every time.”

Featuring Apple’s unibody design, iHand is precision-carved from a single piece of European beechwood. So it’s lighter than a standard medical prosthesis, yet 12x stronger. You can grip iHand either of two ways: by placing your fingers around its palm, or by grasping the aluminized Extender that telescopes from the wrist socket.

The Extender adds up to 24 inches of reach, allowing the user’s biological hand to be positioned anywhere between ear and waist for maximum comfort. You can even use the Extender to hold your iPhone up to a friend’s or colleague’s ear.

iHand is available through the Apple Store for $69, and comes in ten popular pigmentations. Third-party “skins” for iHand offering additional colorings, beauty marks, scars and a “hairy hand” option will be available by the end of July.

Author Credit: Miyoko Yamada

Read the original article (And others!) HERE at Scoopertino.

It’s been said quite a lot recently that the best parts of branding through Social Media are the same as the worst part of branding through Social Media; namely that the conversation and the community’s perception of your company gets very public, very quickly.  I say to my clients in almost every introductory meeting: “Do not embark upon a Social Media campaign unless you are really ready to start talking to your customers, and hearing everything they have to say about just how bad you’re blowing it with them.”

I feel that most conversations should be public.  If I own an airline, and I ruin someone’s travel plans, I want that known, because it gives me an excellent opportunity to show the world how my company deals with a situation that led to customer dissatisfaction.  Every public blow to the brand is a chance to publicly set a new standard in customer service.

Well, sometimes, when you’re not prepared for publicity, accountability can be a real kick in the mouth.  How would you like to be this guy?  He apparently behaved poorly, and had his office assistant resign her position in a very public way, emailing her story to the entire office, and even outing his workday internet habits.  This reminds me of something out of Bridget Jones’ Diary.

I first saw this story on TheChive.com, which hails itself as “Probably the Best Site in the World.”  I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Here’s the original story:  http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

I have no idea whether or not the story is true, or if it’s a hoax, but either way, it’s food for thought.

Enjoy

~ Chris

Girl quits her job on dry erase board, emails entire office (33 Photos)

Brilliant.

Warning

do NOT upgrade your iPhone 3G to iOS 4.  Despite what claims Apple makes on their website, the iPhone 3G is simply not powerful enough to handle iOS 4.

I’m personally of the opinion that the iPhone 3G doesn’t even handle iOS 3 very well, and if you were to test an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 3GS side by side, I’m sure you’d agree with me.  I’ve received no less than a dozen HELP ME! calls in the past couple weeks from folks who have upgraded their 3G to iOS 4 only to experience crashes, freezes, and slow-down.

Well, all is not lost.  You can turn back time, and back down to iOS 3, but there’s a bit of a process involved.  It’s not simple, though it’s not overly difficult either.

Here’s an article that appeared on Mac|Life  today outlining the process.  Good luck!  If you do try this, and run into trouble, or get stuck, or even get scared, click on the big HELP button at the bottom of this page, fill out a ticket, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Here goes ~

Author Credit: Susie Ochs

It’s official. Four out of four Mac|Life editors still using the iPhone 3G have said sayonara to iOS 4. Many of its marquee features aren’t compatible with our two-year-old handsets anyway—no multitasking, no nifty orientation lock, not even background wallpaper. And worst of all, it hobbles our once-functional phones until they’re near-useless. Apps crash, or they’re teeth-pullingly slow to open. Download speeds are so slow we feel like we’re back on dialup. The entire OS even crashes back to the Apple-logo screen. It’s just not worth it. So we rolled back. And if you feel our pain, we recommend you do too. Here is everything you need to know.

Difficulty: medium

What You Need:
>> iPhone 3G
>> iTunes (free, apple.com)
>> RecBoot (free, www.sebby.net/443-recboot-final-release/)
>> iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware image (see Step 3)

1. Check Your Back(-ups)

I’ve got some pre-June 21 backups, but alas they are all for various office iPads.

Not to get ahead of ourselves, but before you restore your iPhone with the older OS, it’s a good idea to consider if you’ll be setting up your newly downgraded phone from scratch as if it were a new phone, or if you’ll be restoring it to a backup. The catch is that you can only OS 3.1.3 backup, not to a backup made after you put iOS 4 on your phone.

iOS 4 came out June 21. So to see if you have any iPhone backups made with OS 3.1.3, navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup and see if any of the folder inside are dated before then. But since iTunes doesn’t keep more than one backup per device, if you’ve synced your iPhone to iTunes after upgrading to iOS 4, you probably don’t have a backup of your phone with OS 3.1.3.

2. Data Dump

3. No Data Left Behind

iTunes can transfer iTunes Store and App Store purchases onto your Mac.

If you buy music or apps directly on your phone, connect it to your Mac and choose File > Transfer Purchases from [Phone Name] in iTunes. You’ll also lose your SMS and MMS messages, so take screenshots of those, or follow the instructions at insend.de to back them up as a PDF, CSV, or XML file. Basically, you need get every scrap of information on your iPhone onto your computer somewhere, because you’re about to wipe your iPhone completely. One more note: Any apps you put back on your restored phone will behave as if you’ve never used them. So if you use apps with accounts tied to them (Facebook, Flickr, Instapaper, etc.) you might want to jot down your account info. And sadly, you’ll lose your progress in any games, plus lose access to the iBooks app, which requires iOS 4.

CLICK HERE to continue reading this important article at Mac|Life.

Here’s a really interesting take on the Apple vs. AT&T relationship.  As an avid Apple and iPhone user (yes, you may call me “Fanboy” if you absolutely have to) I’ve been a vocal supporter of the iPhone, but since the iPhone 4 was released (no, I haven’t bought one yet) I’ve noticed the my AT&T reception has been TERRIBLE.  No, like really terrible.  I have an iPhone 3GS, and it drops at least 6 calls every day, sometimes up to 15 calls per day, and the crazy thing, is that often times my phone will indicate FULL SIGNAL STRENGTH when dropping the call.  What’s up with THAT?

Well anyway, here’s an article I found at Wired that explains what’s likely going on there.

Enjoy.

For iPhone fans, it really was too good to be true. A pair of Apple executives had just described the latest model of the iPhone — the 3GS — onstage at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conferencein June 2009. The audience loved it. The 3GS was twice as fast as its predecessor, it included a camera that shot video, and the updated iPhone operating system enabled multimedia messaging and tethering — the ability to use the phone as a modem. Just one problem: While many customers in Europe and Asia could enjoy all those features, AT&T, the iPhone’s sole US carrier, wouldn’t allow video messaging or tethering at launch. In other words, the most advanced features wouldn’t be available to AT&T customers. What’s more, some current iPhone users who wanted to upgrade wouldn’t get the subsidies that new customers enjoyed. Incensed iPhone fanatics vented their fury on Twitter. “AT&T has been one disappointment after another.” “Is AT&T trying to squeeze more money from us poor suckers?” And they punctuated their complaints with a hashtag — the Twitter convention for grouping conversations — that became an eight-character protest slogan: #attfail.

About a week later, AT&T backed down and agreed to extend the subsidy to some existing iPhone users, but that didn’t appease its many critics. In the following months, the #attfail tag would serve as a kind of primal-scream therapy, a chance to rage against every perceived indignity that AT&T had forced upon them. Dropped call? #attfail. Data service unavailable? #attfail. Bad customer service? #attfail. The hashtag popped up on Twitter more than 5,000 times over the next six months, according to research firm Trendrr. In an attempt to assuage its critics, AT&T produced a video featuring its online spokesperson,Seth the Blogger Guy, to explain that the company was facing “an astounding amount of data demand” and to detail the “time-consuming process” involved in enabling video messaging. But Seth didn’t seem to win many converts. “AT&T LIES to consumers! Seth is not a REAL Blogger Guy!” one tweeter wrote in response. “#AT&T #FAIL miserably.”

AT&T had seen something like this coming. Almost as soon as the first iPhone was introduced in 2007, the carrier realized it might run short of bandwidth. Within just a few months, the first wave of iPhone customers was already sucking down about 15 times more data than the average smartphone customer and 50 percent more than AT&T had itself projected. In a bid to avert the looming problem, a team headed by senior vice president Kris Rinne met with Apple to ask for help. Of course AT&T was planning to upgrade its network to handle the increased demand, Rinne’s team told Apple executives, but that was going to take years. In the meantime, would Apple take measures to help throttle back the traffic? Perhaps Apple could restrict its YouTube app to run only over Wi-Fi. Maybe the iPhone could feature a smaller, lower-resolution videostream or cut off YouTube videos after one minute. Rinne, who had already met with Apple’s iPhone team at least half a dozen times, fully expected the company to play along. After all, manufacturers agreed to such restrictions all the time. It didn’t make sense to build phones and offer features that carriers couldn’t support.

But in meetings with Apple engineers and marketers over the subsequent year, Rinne and other AT&T executives discovered that Apple wasn’t playing by traditional wireless rules. It wasn’t interested in cooperating, especially if it meant hobbling what had quickly become its marquee product. For Apple, the idea of restricting the iPhone was akin to asking Steve Jobs to ditch the black turtleneck. “They tried to have that conversation with us a number of times,” says someone from Apple who was in the meetings. “We consistently said ‘No, we are not going to mess up the consumer experience on the iPhone to make your network tenable.’ They’d always end up saying, ‘We’re going to have to escalate this to senior AT&T executives,’ and we always said, ‘Fine, we’ll escalate it to Steve and see who wins.’ I think history has demonstrated how that turned out.”

Continue Reading this article at Wired.com

Author Credit: Fred Vogelstein

What steps should my business take before we enter into a Social Media Marketing campaign? We’ve been answering this question quite frequently this past year for our own customers, and it’s a very good question.  It’s vital to have your social media marketing strategy in place, and figured out before you launch your Twitter page, or build your Facebook business page.

I’ve been meaning to put an article like this together for some time now, and then BAM!  SmallBizTrends.com beats me to it, and it’s an excellent article.  Here’s an excerpt.

Enjoy~
Chris

Author Credit: Lisa Barone.  She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

You’re going to give this social media thing a solid chance. You’ve heard that social media delivers leads, connects you with customers and you’re confident that you can avoid falling victim to the many social media myths. All that’s left to do is create the accounts hop in.

Wait! Not so fast.

Before you enter in the world of social media, make sure you’re presenting your best possible face. Getting things in order before you take your first public steps will help customers trust your interactions and get things start on the right foot. You wouldn’t show up to your wedding without taking some time to primp, right?

Here are 9 things to do BEFORE you enter social media.

Create a rulebook: Before you step onto that field, memorize your plays. Study the channels you plan to use, listen to the conversation, understand the behavior and create your rulebook for how your company will engage. Identify how you’ll handle common support issues, the tone you’ll take, how you’ll address negativity, how fans will be rewarded, etc. Work up fake scenarios and create a plan for how you’ll deal with them. Look at issues competitors have had in social media and map out how you’ll do it better. The more you prepare, the better off you’ll be. Negative commenters are a lot less imitating when you have a plan for how you’ll convert them to your side.

Assign responsibility: Make it known who is going to be responsible for social media BEFORE everyone stands around looking at each other. Figure out things like:

• Who will be responsible for creating the content, pushing it, talking to people, responding to questions, etc?
• Who will implement any changes/issues discovered through social media?
• How much time should this be taking from everyone’s day and is the number you just came up with realistic or did you just make it up?

Unless social media is someone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility.

Increase your customer support: When you open the social media floodgates, you’re creating a new channel for people to come and get help for issues they’re experiencing. You may need to increase your staff in order to handle that. If you’re a small business, that may mean rearranging your customer support system or, if you’re a little larger, it may mean adding actual bodies. Either way, you’re now going to have a live stream of people coming to you with questions, concerns and things they need fixed. You can’t ignore them. Put systems in place to handle the increases customer service tickets.

Fix your issues: You live in your business. You know that sometimes your service is flaky. You know the number one problem with your product. You know your most common complaints. Do your best to get these under control, or at least on the mend, before you enter social media. People aren’t going to suddenly stop noticing that you could be better just because you’re talking to them. Maybe start your social media effort by TALKING about all the things you’re looking to fix.

Shift your culture: There’s more to being a social company than simply creating a Twitter account. There needs to be an internal culture shift based on creating transparency and authenticity in what you’re doing. You need to be social from inside your organization out and that that may change how you deal with customers, how you treat your employees, and how daily job functions are performed. Make sure you address this before you suddenly have a spotlight on you.

Create content around common complaints: While you’re busy fixing your issues, you also want to create content on your site dedicated to solving, resolving and addressing your most common complaints or anything that may haunt you. By putting the information out there yourself, you give yourself somewhere to link to when issues arise and you also increase the transparency of your company . If you know that sometimes you get negative mentions over a business decision you made, create a page on your site that explains it. The more you can invite people into your company, the better. Answer your customers concerns before they even have them.

Read the remainder of this article HERE at SmallBizTrends.com.

June 2010

Keep On Breathing/ The Delgados
Holiday/ Turboweekend
Only People/ Cantoma
Nobody But You/ The Apples In Stereo
I Don’t Know Why I Love You/ Ivy
Waltz Darling (Introducting Lourdes & Pretty Fatt)/ Malcolm Mclaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra
Bluebird / One Self
Make You Mine /  BreakBot
Things You Don’t Have to Do (DJ Strobe Loungin’ In Ibiza Remix) /   Norah Jones & Peter Malick
Night Dance  /  Chris Coco & Pete Gooding
Everybody Loves a Loser  /  Morcheeba
Static On the Wire /  Holy Ghost!
Crash Years /  The New Pornographers
Er det nu (Pilfingers Remix) /   Marie Key Band
Look Into My Eyes /   Ray Mang
La fée /  ZAZ
Misread  /  Kings of Convenience
With You   / Summer of Space
Untitled Love  /  Still Going
Why Does the Wind?   / Tracey Thorn
A Funny Thing (Radio Edit)   / Penguin Prison
Sweet Jezebel /   Turboweekend
Sun and Rain /   Tenfold Loadstar
Enough’s Enough  /  Jamie Lidell
Take Me to the River  /  Al Green
New Heights /   A Fine Frenzy
Bulletproof (Tiborg Remix)  /  La Roux
Sly (7″ Edit)  /  Massive Attack
Nothing Left to Do (feat. Valia)   / Cayetano
Rome  /  Yeasayer
Sigh  /  Kate the Cat
Adventure We Go  /  Muchuu
Faster  /  Janelle Monáe
Go Get It (feat. Ladi6)  /  Sepalot
L.A. Lights  /  Grum
Never Stop  /  Chilly Gonzales
North Star (feat. Dido)  /  Faithless
Paint Me Rain  /  Muchuu
Sashimi  /  Tunng
Time is Love  /  Be.Alone
When I Am Brave   / Muchuu
New York City (Lazy Sunday In Prospect Park Remix)  /  Norah Jones & Peter Malick