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Working Out At Work

I’ve been frustrated a bit with spending most of my workday sitting. About a year ago I ordered a Magnetrainer exercise bike off of Amazon so I could bike at work. Coworker Nick helped me raise my desk, I lowered my chair adjusted how my laptop sat to use it. It certainly wasn’t a perfect solution: my posture wasn’t great and it was sometimes difficult to type while cycling. It lasted about a week and then it sat under my desk for a couple months until I brought it home. I now use it at home about once every couple weeks.

Last Wednesday, I was at lunch with coworkers Nick and Ian and we got talking about exercising at work in regards to a “Problem / Solution” project where we are tasked with tackling any problem we want and in our free time at work designing a proposed, theoretical or actual solution for it. We talked about some of the reports in the last decade about the pros and cons of using a treadmill built into a workstation. We saw some commercial solutions that were upwards of $4,000 and decided to drive to a used exercise equipment store to see what the possibilities were to modify a treadmill to work with our existing workstation setup at the office. I didn’t realize how expensive even used treadmills were and I was also amazed with how the consoles on all of them dominated the area in front of the person using it (aren’t there thousands of other people thinking the same thing we are?).

Strangely, that evening I was talking with a friend who was trying to help get rid of a treadmill. I figured if I could get it cheap enough, I wouldn’t mind taking it apart for this project. Sure enough, that evening we decided to bring it over to my office in the middle of the night and I paid him $100. The next morning I go up to coworker Nick and say, “hey, guess what I got in the back room?”

Nick, Ian and I spent that Thursday at lunch secretly building our workstation-treadmill. With removing only four bolts we were able to get the top bars and console off. We eventually used small tables to extend the height of the main desk. We positioned the controls so the safety key still works properly. It makes a bit of noise, as most treadmills do, but we’ve compensated by adding some spare speakers we had in the office for music. For the three of us, it was literally only about an hour to complete. I think it looks pretty decent.

After we presented it to the rest of the company a few people wanted to sign up for shifts to use it! I am going to try to spend a few hours every day on it and see how it goes for a month.

Posted 24 August 2008 § Miscellaneous ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , ,

Mix Album: 3:AM

3:AM, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

In the late 1990s, my coworker and now friend Troy became a master at the art of the mix CD: he’d develop elaborate cover art to go along with his eclectic and rare mixes ranging from hot summer songs to Christmas mixes, from truckin’ songs to classics made famous in Vegas, from obscure celebrity covers to road trip music. He’d make tons of copies and design the whole package from scratch. Almost ten years later he still creates mix albums and I literally have a shelf dedicated to them. (Troy also now rocks out at Check The Cool Wax, The Total Recall and a number of other sites)

Anyway, in the 1998 and 1999, trying to follow in his footsteps perhaps, I ended up making three mix CDs. While playing with putting songs up against each other I started getting some of my first real experience with Photoshop and Illustrator. I distributed about ten copies of each. It was a fun little project back then.

My friend Melissa messaged me yesterday asking if I still had a copy of “3:AM,” my third one, as she lent her copy to someone and never got it back. Sure enough, I did, but for whatever reason, the aged CD-R I had didn’t work anymore. I decided I’d revive the mix in MP3 form. For “3:AM,” I wanted to make one of those “last mixes of the night” chill-out albums. In February 1999, this is what I thought that would be:

3:AM

  1. Transglobal Underground - Sky Giant
  2. Tricky - Hell Is Around The Corner
  3. Portishead - It Could Be Sweet
  4. Faithless - The Garden
  5. The Cardigans - Paralyzed
  6. Massive Attack - Risingson
  7. Everything But The Girl - Single
  8. Hooverphonic - Dictionary
  9. Mono - The Outsider
  10. The Starseeds - Parallel Life
  11. Björk - Come To Me
  12. Black Tape For A Blue Girl - Given
  13. Alpha - Firefly (Receiver Mix)
  14. Spiritualized - Broken Heart
  15. Air (with Françoise Hardy) - Jeanne

    16.  

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P.S. Yes, I would have used Muxtape if it supported more than 12 tracks at a time.

Posted 13 August 2008 § Art, Music and Film ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: ,

The Star Tribune’s Changing Headlines

Ever wonder why the Star Tribune includes code that forces your browser to reload periodically? Ever wonder why they don’t have full RSS feeds? I understand that stories evolve as more information becomes available, but watching the Star Tribune’s headlines change online before (and sometimes after) they go to print has been an interesting experience for me the last week or so. My handy RSS reader, Vienna, treats each time a headline changes as a different link and stores it. Below are a few examples. In the final headline I link to the story:

On July 22nd, the Star Tribune published a story titled “Senate votes to move ahead with plan to curb speculation in oil markets that some blame for high oil prices.” A few hours later, the headline changed, pointing to the same story: ”Oil speculation bill provides Senate forum for partisan energy blame game.” This change took the focus off of “oil speculation” being to blame to it being a “partisan energy blame game.”

The next day, on July 23rd, ”Help for homeowners, mortgage giant sails through House, on track to become law” was updated after the vote to ”House approves bill that aims to help strapped homeowners facing foreclosure, mortgage giants” but ultimately the final headline read “Help for strapped homeowners, mortgage giants sails through House after Bush drops opposition,” where it now sounds like Bush gets a lot more credit.

On July 25th, a story that head a headline that sounded like good news for Obama turned into a pro-McCain headline: ”In shadow of Obama trip, McCain works battleground states and raises campaign funds” went to ”McCain claims Obama’s policies for Iraq could have led to war across Middle East” in the afternoon. Before it went to press it became ”McCain mocks Obama policy for Iraq as ‘audacity of hopelessness’ that could have lost the war.” Ouch.

On July 26th, I saw a headline go through eight different versions. “Obama defends decision to travel to Europe, Middle East, says it’ll help Americans in long run” changed slightly to ”Barack Obama defends trip to Europe and Middle East, saying it’ll help Americans in long run” to ”Obama defends decision to travel to Europe, says US must work with allies” to ”Barack Obama defends trip through Mideast, Europe, says US must cooperate with allies” to ”Barack Obama defends decision to travel to Europe and Mideast, says US must work with allies” to “Obama defends decision to travel to Europe and Mideast, says US must work with its allies” to ”Barack Obama rejects criticism of trip, says John McCain moving his way on Iraq, Afghanistan” to finally ”Obama rejects criticism of trip, says McCain moving his way on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The key words here are “Obama defends decision” changing to “Obama rejects criticism.”

Also on the same day, a story titled “Bush signing legislation next week to triple funds for AIDS around the world” changed to ”Bush says he’s eager to sign legislation to triple funds for fighting AIDS around world.” It changes from the fact it will be signed to talking about how Bush is eager to do so.

On July 29th, bad news for McCain: ”John McCain steps back from ‘no new tax’ pledge, gets rebuked by conservative anti-tax group” turns to ”John McCain returns to ‘no new tax’ pledge after criticism from anti-tax group.” Funny though, how bad news for McCain can turn into positive news: after another headline change he sounds proactive: ”Analysis: McCain eager to reassure anxious conservatives he won’t raise taxes.”

On July 31st, ”Bush poised to report Thursday on progress in Iraq war.” After the report, the headline and story was updated: ”Bush declares significant progress in the Iraq war, saying terrorists ‘are on the run.’” Sounds like the same old news right? Well, the headline changes again to ”Bush cites progress in Iraq, suggests further US troop withdrawals possible.” The final version, headline changed later in the day reads: ”Citing gains in Iraq, Bush hints at possibility of further US troop withdrawals this year.” Sounds like great news now.

While not presidential in nature, it was too interesting not to include: Also on July 31st, “Alaska Sen. Stevens, in arraignment, expected to plead not guilty to hiding $250,000 in gifts” turned to ”Alaska Sen. Stevens, in arraignment, pleads not guilty to hiding $250,000 in gifts” which later read as ”Alaska Sen. Stevens pleads not guilty to corruption, gets chance to clear name before election.” Overnight it got its final title, “Sen. Stevens takes ‘gutsy’ tactic, asks for speedy corruption trial in time for elections” which doesn’t include the words “guilty” “hiding” and “$250,000 in gifts.”

On August 1st, “Obama calls for $1,000 energy rebates to be paid with windfall profits tax on the oil industry,” which was mildly edited to say ”Obama proposes $1,000 rebate checks from oil company profits as part of pitch to Fla. voters.” Sounds like a great deal. The headline then gets changed to focus on a right-wing hot-button issue: ”Obama shifts, now says he would be willing to back limited additional offshore oil drilling.” The final story reads: ”Obama endorses energy compromise that includes additional offshore drilling.”

On August 2nd, a headline about Obama and McCain agreeing on debates turned into different story: ”Obama campaign agrees to 3 debates with McCain and 1 between their running mates” changed to ”Obama steps back from McCain challenge for series of debates, agreeing only to standard 3.” That’s quite a different story. The final headline painted Obama even weaker: ”Playing it safe, Obama steps back from McCain’s challenge for a series of summer debates.”

I want to stress that in all of these cases, the changing headlines all link to the same story URL.

I think there’s a pattern here.

Posted 03 August 2008 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Politics, Government and Policy ‡ Comments (12) ° Tagged: , ,

Chris & Rob’s Chicago Taste Authority



Chris & Rob’s "Sicilian" Pepperoni, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Chris & Rob’s is one of the weirder spots in my neighborhood. With bright red awnings and Vienna Beef sponsored signs everywhere on the outside, the inside contains a bright yellow bar with ketchup and mustard plastic bottles and the kitchen guarded off from your germs by large pieces of plexiglass. It’s feels like at any point some rowdy group of kids in little league uniforms could show up. Beyond there is two rooms for seating. The furthest is full of NASCAR framed photos, posters while the main room is covered in Chicago Bears and Chicago Cubs memorabilia and posters. The Fridge and Walter Payton loom over tables and a signed Jim McMahon jersey is framed above another table.

I enjoyed reading framed Chicago Tribune showing a victory celebration hug that the Chicago Cubs were having. I thought, “wait, they’ve never won a World Series since like…” and I realized the subhead read “With 2 wins in 1 day, the Cubs sweep to their 1st division title since 1989.” Well, I guess if that’s what victory is to the Chicago Cubs, put it in a frame on the wall. My favorite was a photo of Mike Ditka angrily giving the middle finger. It’s signed by Mike Ditka.

I wondered where they came up with the CTA sign obviously taken at one point from a bus stop. A road sign directing traffic to Lake Shore Drive sits near a window. Even though Chicago isn’t that far away, it all feels a bit foreign here. And that’s a good thing.

So yeah, these guys like Chicago. Their large menu board behind the counter lists all sorts of greasy appetizers, hot dogs, sausage sandwiches and such but I’m here for the pizza. I’ve had their thin crust before and it’s what you’d expect from a midwestern thin crust so I decided to go for their Sicilian style pepperoni. (I’m surprised there is no Chicago-style deep dish on the menu.)

I did take-out and when opened up my pizza at home I was surprised that this wasn’t really a Sicilian style pizza at all, at least to my understanding. It looked like a thicker hand tossed pizza but cut party style in squares. Taking a corner slice first I noticed that the pepperoni was quite rich in flavor. Not like most pepperoni I’ve had and I’m not sure how I’d describe it. Perhaps, “really meaty”? The crust edges were a bit doughy and chewy and the cheese had a nice bite to it. Overall it is well put together, albeit a bit greasy. I thought it’d go really well with a Berghoff or maybe a Goose Island 312.

My service every time I’ve been by has been great too. Friendly people. Overall one of my favorite pizzas in my neighborhood. They serve a few bottled beers as well, but they don’t accept credit cards. They have a location in Fridley and a brand new one in Saint Paul that I haven’t visited yet. I’ll stop by those soon. Check these guys out.

Chris & Rob’s Chicago Taste Authority
3101 E 42nd St
Minneapolis, MN 55406
612-729-5507‎

Posted 31 July 2008 § Pizza ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

Flak Radio Episode 84



James Norton and Taylor Carik, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

A little more than a year after my first guest host appearance on Flak Radio, I was invited back. Hosted by Taylor Carik and Jim Norton, the studio has traditionally been the guest room at Jim’s house. He has since moved from Uptown to Longfellow and the studio came with it. It’s a bit more roomy compared to the photo above from last time! They even have some space for their audio engineer, Adam Voreis.

Being a guest has its perks. Immediately I’m served a pint of water with ice cubes made with cranberries frozen in them. I’m greeted by one of their cats. I’m offered almost every beer or liquor in the house, including vodka personally distilled multiple times in a Brita filter, as taste tested in a previous Flak Radio segment. I should have taken him up on the offer as my first few minutes I continue to lose my words and stutter a bunch. I can’t say I have much practice behind a microphone and it shows. I loosen up towards the end though.

Some highlights:

Always fun and I hope they’ll have me back on as a guest next year too.

Listen to it at Flak Radio.

Posted 18 July 2008 § Media, Blogging and Technology ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

iPhone Mobile Social Networking Applications



Google Maps, Limbo and Whrrl, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

It’s been more than a day now since Apple released iPhone OS 2.0 and released the new iPhone 3G. With GPS and the ability to add third-party applications, mobile social networking tied with location information may finally take off.

As many of my friends and readers know, there’s a real soft spot in my heart for Dodgeball. It was created way back in 1874 or something and bought out by Google a few decades or so later (okay, about 2000 and 2005, but it feels that old). Dodgeball was the first mobile service that told your friends where you were. Even though there is no longer any active development on it, it is still one of the best, most reliable and most simple services to use from most mobile phones. There’s one other service that might be more simple than Dodgeball but doesn’t currently have location information (for the most part): Twitter.

A frequent joke about all these new services coming out is “if it’s harder to use than Dodgeball, it will fail.” Some technology-minded friends might laugh at the joke because Dodgeball is as simple as saying “@turf club” or “@town talk diner” and you’re done. It’s not so much of a joke though because I actually believe it. My idea of a successful mobile social networking application is one where you can actually spend your time being social. If I’m at a bar or music venue with friends and I need to stick my nose in my phone for more than 30 seconds to make it work, I’m not going to use it half the time if at all. Lastly, if it is not easy for the non-techie to use, those non-techies won’t use it. What good is a social network if it’s all nerds like me? ;-)

I took a bunch of the new iPhone social networking applications for a spin. There’s a bunch I’ll skip because I want to cover the most popular ones.

Limbo

Limbo might be the most thorough and detailed mobile social networking site I’ve ever used. In fact, it blows my mind how big it is. It has everything from telling your friends where you’re at, where you’re going, being categorically specific about the type of activity you’re doing, being specific about when you are starting and stopping activities and even selecting if specific activities you are doing throughout the day are ones you do or do not want to be disturbed during. You can search for other members based off of what kinds of activities you are doing right now. You can search for restaurants, bars and shops near you, you can play social networking games, subscribe to events, weather, tips, sports scores, horoscopes and the like and even accrue points that you can earn stuff with.

Holy crap, I just want it to know where I am and find my friends. In the photo at the top of this post I show a three screenshots. The one on the far left is Apple’s implementation of Google Maps with GPS, which is fantastic. In the middle is Limbo telling me where I am: “It looks like you’re in the Minneapolis, MN area.” Yeah, no shit.

The interface looks nice but isn’t very intuitive on some of the basics. For example, when I click “Find Me,” I don’t need it to give me a dialog box. There’s separate “who” and “what” sections that both list my “Faves,” “Friends,” “Contacts” and Members” but I still can’t remember if I go to the “Who” or the “What” part for different tasks. I still can’t figure out how to change my profile photo. The default it gave me was a scene of smokestacks and smog! Is that supposed to mean that I’m polluting their service?

Lastly, this application takes time. There’s a learning big curve and it takes a lot of time to do anything with it. I can see, though, that if you live in Limbo’s world it could become addictive. I’m uninstalling it though.

iFob

iFob is a simple application that finds people using the same WiFi network you are on that are also using iFob. It alerts you and you can see the basics about them such as their first name, a one-line comment from them and their photo. From their site:

In public hotspots the isolation gets so thick it chatters and hums: people sitting behind their computer screens not meeting — typing email and chats, and clicking through profiles of virtual, distant people. iFob changes this. iFob only shows profiles of people who are so close that they can look up and smile at each other.

An old idea internationally but something that hasn’t taken off here. The application seems simple enough, but I haven’t found anyone using it yet. I’ll keep it on for awhile.

Whrrl

Whrrl comes across as one of the biggest up and coming players but I’m not sure why. Every time I use it I get frustrated. When I use the map, I can’t zoom in or out. In fact (as shown by the screen capture in the top photo on the right), my street is missing! When I show a list of what’s near me, it shows “Auto Mart,” “Honda Town,” “Taco Bell,” “Nielsen Framing Studios” and “Adprint,” none one of them places I’d ever meet up with friends at. When I hit the “current location” button an option comes up if I want it to identify my current location or not compared to the Maps application where it just does it.

In fact, I can’t seem to get anything to work the way I want it to in Whrrl. I gave up and started playing with Whrrl with a browser. Even if it knows my last location as being at home in Minneapolis it says:

Welcome Aaron!
What are you doing right now?

Where in Seattle, WA are you?

Weird. I’ve never been to Seattle in my life. I’m uninstalling it.

Brightkite

Oh wait, Brightkite didn’t release an iPhone application! They have had, however, a ton of hype amongst the tech crowd. They’ve successfully deployed a private beta invite strategy that got a lot of people excited about it and on paper, Brightkite looks perfect: you can declare your location by a specific place, an address or just a city, you can manage your privacy settings and select who gets to know to what detail about your location you want to share and you can attach photos to what’s going on at the location you’re at.

My problem with Brightkite is that it isn’t even close to passing the “is it as easy as Dodgeball?” litmus test. Even their iPhone-friendly website takes too long for me to even check in somewhere. That, and their preferences take a lot of time to go through to get everything just right. The defaults are way too noisy and bombard you with a ton of text messages even if they aren’t your friends nearby. The good news is that the preferences are granular enough for people extremely interested in the service but why not make some good defaults so it is friendlier for everyone else? I figured a nice iPhone application would fix all of this. Where is it?

Brightkite had a lot of hype and now they’re missing the boat.

Twitterrific

Twitterrific, the popular application for Twitter, will supposedly use (at some point) location-aware features that exist with Twitter’s API but are not widely used yet. It doesn’t matter to me much because Twitterrific has two serious faults that prevent me from using it: the UI can be jerky but more importantly it doesn’t pull any of the messages on Twitter between the last twenty and those from the last time I loaded Twitterrific. It is mostly a limitation of from Twitter, not Twitterrific, but it is still pretty important. Once they clean things up and location-aware features are more widely used on Twitter, Twitterrific might be a big player in this arena.

Loopt: “List” view and two “Map” views

Loopt

True story: The first time I opened Loopt after setting it up initially, it automatically found where I was and put my friends that were nearby on a map. I saw my friend Dave was a few blocks away so I texted him and we went out for beers.

That, my friends, is how this shit is supposed to work.

Loopt has been getting some great plugs from Apple and for good reason: they’re the one mobile social networking application you should get for your iPhone. Or Blackberry, even. (By the way, it humorously shows the Motorola Razr on their site but it actually isn’t supported.)

Loopt, like most applications of this type use your mobile phone number as your primary user ID. While some people may argue against this as a privacy issue, I think it is a great assumption: if you aren’t comfortable giving someone your mobile number you probably shouldn’t be comfortable with that person knowing exactly where you are all the time.

Loopt, by the way, doesn’t show friends-of-friends or random people in the area.

Wherever you are at, you can also give a short message about what you’re up to, similar to Twitter. It can give your friends a good idea of what you’re doing at a particular location. You can easily take and attach a photo of what’s going on too. It logs it with your location without needing to think about it.

On the map screen, in addition to your friends you can overlay search results for restaurants, bars and other places. That portion is powered by Yelp, which completely negates needing to download the separate Yelp application because the integration is fantastic. I saw a friend of my map and was able to find a great place to meet that was almost equidistant to our locations.

The integration with other iPhone apps is great as well. If it sees my friend on the other side of the city, you can choose to have it use the Maps application to give you driving directions to where they are. You can easily call or text your friend directly from the application as well.

Loopt isn’t without its faults though, but only the kinds of things that’ll likely clear up in a minor version release.

The “Map” page is powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth. While there may be a few advantages compared to using Google Maps, it is clunky for zooming in and out on the iPhone. If you zoom in on a location, the center of where you zoomed ends up not where you’d expect. Sometimes it screws up and throws my view into the Caribbean Sea! Sometimes, as shown in the screenshot above on the right, the address and the map don’t match up. It seemed like my friend Brian was only a couple blocks away but the address indicates otherwise. So the map is a bit clunky but overall hasn’t been too bad.

The “List” page view gives the option of viewing my friends by how close they are to me or in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order doesn’t do too much for me because I am usually not concerned with my friends out of state. Viewing by “Distance” makes sense, but it shows some pretty stale entries. As I’m looking at my phone now, it is showing me some friends that haven’t updated with Loopt for more than 8 hours. I wish it’d grey those entries out, not show them at all or otherwise indicate that the data is stale and quite possibly inaccurate. Thankfully for now, it does show a time-stamp in small print.

The friend invitation portion of Loopt has a big quirk I’d like to change: It shows your address book and you can choose who you’d like to invite to be your friend. You can also have it search your address book to find if any of your friends are already on Loopt. If you use that feature, by default it selects those people as wanting to receive an invite and you have to deselect them. This is a serious problem if you have people in your address book that you don’t necessarily want to friend on this service. My friend Justine just made a mistake because of this issue. I’d like an option to permanently block those people I never want to add on Loopt or have it never default to send an invite to anyone.

Overall though, those are mostly minor UI bugs and such. Well honestly, I’ve had it crash too. And Dodgeball co-founder Alex Rainert today expressed his disappointment with it. Even with those things, Loopt is still a good version 1.0 app for iPhone OS 2.0 and it’s my favorite of the bunch. I think they have a real chance to become huge because Loopt is easy to set up, very fast to use and it’s simple. You use it to find your friends then you put it back in your pocket so you can be social. If you haven’t already, download it and try it out.

Posted 12 July 2008 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Miscellaneous ‡ Comments (12) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Web 2.0 101



University of St. Thomas, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Yesterday I spoke at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits‘ “Nonprofit Essentials: Nuts and Bolts of Practical Management” event at the University of St. Thomas‘ Minneapolis campus. My session was called “Web 2.0 101.” It was a lot of fun; the group ranged from a few people that currently blog to people that don’t know what a blog is and a few people that have presences on social networks to people that have never seen Facebook or MySpace before. In an hour’s worth of time I wanted to tell a few success stories, answer as many questions as I could and leave with four main takeaway ideas. Keeping it to the fundamental basics was a challenge.

As I didn’t have any handouts, this post serves as my recap, notes and links.

Web 2.0

“Web 2.0″ is less about new technology and more about understanding a philosophy. It’s the idea where instead of translating traditional media to work online, you utilize the power of the Internet to work in new ways and to connect with people more directly. The only slide in my presentation I read out loud was a quote from Tim O’Reilly:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.

I made a facetious but common example of traditional media where an organization may have a press release and that press release gets to newspapers and there’s a chance that the newspaper would want to follow up with the organization on it and possibly there’d be a story. If a story is printed, the newspaper readership may read it and people may talk about it at the water cooler at the office, leaving a huge gap between you and the conversation people are having about you. Organizations are starting to understand different ways to close that gap online.

Listening and Responding

I talked about my friend Bill who used Twitter to broadcast a vulgar message about his problems with a product developed by SAS. He soon got an email:

did you convince sas/graph to do your bidding?

The kicker is that it was sent to him directly from from a guy at SAS in Research & Development. After a couple email exchanges, Bill’s last email ended with:

I got everything working the way I wanted, it just took some time to work through understanding everything that was going on with the preexisting code. Now to clean up those macros and get everything packaged back up again permanently.

Thanks again!
Bill

Bill never asked for the help and he was only broadcasting his message for the intent of his friends to read it. For SAS to be able to, as an organization, be able to respond directly to people that are talking about its products and services and reverse their opinion is, on a basic level, a true “Web 2.0″ success.

I gave a couple other examples and there are a number of ways to try to monitor who is talking about you online. If you are just getting started, the service that will catch a lot of it is Google Alerts.

Publicly Conversing

A lot of people describe “Web 2.0″ as “a conversation” and one way to participate in that is to blog. I spent some time explaining what a blog is but I won’t go into it on this post. Wikipedia has a good entry on “Blog” as well as an even more basic entry on “Blog” in, well, “plain English”.

I showed a number of blogs but paused on a couple local non-profit examples of successful blogging. The Parents for Ethical Marketing has a blog where they talk about things relevant to their mission but not necessarily news items or press releases. Sometimes, it’s just sharing a link or a video, such as a piece on a firm utilizing six-year-old children to sell products and sometimes it’s sharing opinions on corporate-sponsored exhibits on historical public property. The Nonprofits Assistance Fund has a blog giving tidbits relevant to nonprofit organizations such as addressing economic stress and chiming in on Vermont’s new type of hybrid “Low-profit Limited Liability Corporation.”

On these kinds of blogs, the organization has a voice that’s human, many times opinion-based and personal. They have the ability for people to comment publicly on every item. It’s a different way for people to interact, communicate and become more interested in your organization.

I also mentioned Beth Kanter’s blog as she effectively works for nonprofits and blogs about how nonprofits can blog effectively. Thanks to those who laughed when I said that. While Beth and I have sometimes very different tactics, she is regarded as one of the most effective and most influential people with helping nonprofits leverage efforts online. She is absolutely worth reading.

On a side note, if you’re raring to start blogging now and if the people managing your website are not sure what blogging platform to use, for most organizations these I’ve been recommending WordPress.

Publicly Conversing on Their Turf

Many times, if not more often than not, it is more important to converse on sites that aren’t your own than it is to have your own blog. The main example I used is Robert Moffitt from the American Lung Association of Minnesota. I believe they had a blog at one point but as far as I’m aware they do not have one anymore. I don’t think they need one either because Moffitt has become proficient at being the ALA’s side of the conversation everywhere else on the local Internet. I joked that I “see him everywhere online” and it’s true. There’s been a number hot-button issues for the ALA in the last couple years, two of which were getting the Minnesota state-wide smoking ban passed and promoting fuels that are cleaner and cause less air pollution.

If people are talking about these issues online, more often than not, Moffitt will chime in. At the nonprofit news source , he’s many times some of the first commenters on stories such as “High drama in the courts: Bar owners try to skirt state’s smoking ban.” He frequently shows up on blogs such as MNspeak where for an example, a story about how “Ethanol May Fuel Health Problems” the very first comment read: “What do you say [Robert Moffitt]? Does this change things?” It’s to the point where people expect him to be part of the conversation. (Would you like it if people online were begging your organization to give your opinion and respond on the issues you fight for?!)

He responds in part by giving a personal, person-to-person take on it:

The study can’t really doesn’t stand much scrutiny. He used computer models, basically turning all of America in to a super-heated LA of the future, fed only “worst case senario” data on E85 into his machine, crunched numbers on smog-related morbidity and mortality and Lo, I become Ethanol, destroyer of worlds…

…and also gives a more sturdy “official” stance on it:

The American Lung Association of Minnesota does not support issues or projects without rigorously testing and researching first. We have real data, from real vehicles using real E85 and gasoline we bought at Twin Cities stations. We used independent scientists and laboratories. What we have is hard data, proven and replicated by other researchers around the globe.

…and otherwise participates in the conversation. He effectively is able to mix being a human having a person-to-person conversation about the issues while delivering the American Lung Association’s stance and setting the record, in the ALA’s view, straight.

Working Social Media

The most difficult part of my day yesterday was explaining how social networking works on a fundamental level (using Facebook as my primary example) and showing how it can be effective for nonprofits in ten minutes.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, are generally places where people create a page or profile for themselves and they declare who they are friends with on the site. You then can inform your friends what you are up to, what you’re writing and share your photos, for example. In some situations, you also see what your friends are doing and what events you are going to.

It is relevant for nonprofits to be involved in this space because it is a way to promote what you are doing, share your events and publish your messages in a place where people are already communicating with each other. More importantly it is a great way to utilize the people’s social networks as online word-of-mouth promotion.

Whew. I used the Minnesota Historical Society’s Facebook page as one example of a presence on a social network. I showed how when people declare themselves as “fans” of the MHS, it shows up on their profile page for all their friends to see. I also showed how a lot of their content links off of Facebook and back to MHS… many times to places people wouldn’t normally access on their own without the influence of Facebook.

Unfortunately, having a page on Facebook isn’t effective alone. It’s people that make social networking magic happen. To illustrate, I showed some items from a typical “news feed” on Facbook: some of my friends attending a birthday party, some of them declared they were going to a concert and a couple friends going to the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association Land Use Meeting. I wondered, “why would my friends be going to that?” I saw that the event on Facebook was placed by a group called Stop the Destruction of Florence Court and then noticed that more friends of mine were also part of that group. In one minute, I learned about a group of people and an event that I was not familiar with, possibly am interested in, and I already received the best referral: the declaration that my friends are part of it. If it wasn’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t have known about it.

If word-of-mouth is the best marketing, this is word-of-mouth on speed.

There’s hundreds of other ways social networking can be used and this was only a couple small examples. Facebook Business Solutions has a lot of good information on getting started on Facebook, but keep in mind there are a lot of other social networking sites that may or may not be more relevant to your organization and what you are trying to accomplish.

In Closing

Web 2.0 is really about the philosophy of utilizing the medium of the Internet in ways to bring you and your organization closer to people and to leverage that to your advantage.

Not everything will work and there isn’t a solid plan that works for everyone. Plan on some of your efforts failing. The best way to start finding what works is to try. Even if your organization is not comfortable jumping into blogging and social networks yet, do it yourself. Search for blogs on Google that you might be interested reading and commenting on. Start your own blog using Blogger or Tumblr and write about whatever you want. Maybe you want to document a project you’re working on at home or perhaps you’d like to have a record of photos of your new pet. It doesn’t matter what you write about — it’s good to just do it and get a feel of how it all works. If you’re not on a social networking site, sign up as regular user on Facebook or LinkedIn. My guess is that you’ll find friends or colleagues on both.

It was a fun hour. If you attended, I hope you were able to get something out of it. Feel free to comment below or contact me if you have any questions.

Everyone else that reads my site: Agree? Disagree? Think I went wrong somewhere? Bring it!

Posted 11 July 2008 § Media, Blogging and Technology ‡ Comments (13) ° Tagged: , ,

Northwest WorldPerks and I



38,000 Feet, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

I used to be a frequent flier mile junkie with Northwest WorldPerks. I played all the games, signed up for the promotions, did the dining rewards stuff, blew time on the surveys, looked at a bunch of ads, continually transfered all my hotel points and most importantly, I paid every single thing I could using my WorldPerks Visa. Over the years, I used that card for everything except for my mortgage. I never carried a balance. I used it like a check card.

The miles racked up. I used to fly for free regularly. When I didn’t fly for free, I knew how to book cheap flights and play the system well enough to get bumped to other flights — thereby getting more free travel.

I liked my situation but a lot has changed with the recent years of problems with Northwest and its unions, the noticeable tightening up of mile promotions across the board, the increased difficulty in booking decent reward flights (I regret flying through Newark a few weeks ago) and the fears of what may happen with Northwest and Delta’s planned merger. Suddenly these games and the $55 Worldperks Visa annual fee didn’t make much sense anymore.

I transferred my rewards from most of the third-party miles programs I’ve been involved with into miles and closed those accounts. I put the renewal date of my WorldPerks Visa in my calendar so I know to cancel before November. Then today, Bill linked me to the last straw on the camel’s back:

The airline will also add a $15 fee to the first bag, a charge that will go into effect July 10. Northwest charges $25 for a second bag and $100 for a third. Checked bags have been a no-charge service for years, but in recent months other airlines have begun charging for even the first checked bag.

A service fee for WorldPerks Award tickets will be in effect September 15 with a charge of $25 for domestic tickets, $50 for Trans-Atlantic tickets and $100 for Trans-Pacific tickets. And a ticket change fee will increase from $100 to $150 starting July 9 for domestic flights and international flight ticket changes will increase by an additional $50 to $150 per ticket.

Two big problems for me here: I’m used to packing with only a carry-on, even if I’m away for two weeks. Now with every other passenger trying to fit everything in one bag, I’m guessing Northwest will need to tighten up their rules as to what flies as a carry-on. On recent full flights I’ve been on, every overhead compartment was filled and many people were packing what they could under the seats in front of them. That problem will get worse. The other issue is paying for award flights. It’s a small price in comparison to a full fare but with everything else added up it’s not worth it anymore.

It looks like I’ll be taking my last reward flight for awhile sometime before September 15 and I’ll be canceling my WorldPerks Visa around then.

My only other credit card is a Target REDcard, where I get a 10% coupon for Target after every thousand bucks or so I spend on it. It’s free. It’s not a bad deal, but I’m shopping around if there’s a better card I should stick to. Does anyone have any good ideas?

This is just my story as a consumer. Over all of this, the real story today is that Northwest Airlines cut 2,500 jobs.

Posted 09 July 2008 § Travel and Transportation ‡ Comments (18) ° Tagged: , ,

Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition

The Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition runs their e-Piano Junior competition from July 4th through the 11th. In January and February of this year, young pianists meeting the repertoire requirements from all over the world were recorded using Yamaha’s Disklavier technology, recording every aspect of how the pianos are played. The files get played back on the same type of piano so they can be judged together. What a great idea to have a truly international piano competition.

The finalists fly to Minnesota to compete in person at Sundin Music Hall at Hamline University this weekend and throughout the week. The final rounds are at Orchestra Hall on Friday, July, 11.

All performances are open and free to the public. Minnesota Public Radio also has a live stream of the event. What I’ve watched so far today has been fantastic. I’ll likely go see some of this competition in person.

Posted 05 July 2008 § Art, Music and Film § Media, Blogging and Technology ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , , ,

The iPhone 3G’s Really Bad Pizza Advice



Bob Demonstrating the iPhone 3G, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Apple today posted a new guided tour of the iPhone 3G with our pal Bob Borchers with all the hand gestures. I bounced around through it because most of the content is very close to stuff about the original iPhone. I decided to watch the GPS portion about twenty-five minutes into it.

Bob explains that the iPhone will know his location by hitting the tracking button and it shows him where he is: on Pineapple Street at Hicks Street heading towards Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, New York. He says, “I’m going to look for pizza!” Great idea!

This is something I have recent personal experience with. Less than two weeks ago I was only a few blocks away from where Bob was: stuck in a queue in front of Grimaldi’s. Not wanting to wait around, I pulled out my iPhone, had it find where my current location was and did a search for “Pizza.” I saw a few places in the area I recognized such as the well-reviewed Fascati Pizza and Oven, which I eventually decided to walk to and later blogged about. It was great pizza and I’d certainly go again, especially if I happened to be at Pineapple and Henry Streets looking for pizza. After I was home, I realized there were a few more very well-reviewed pizza places in that part of Brooklyn that I’d like to try the next time I’m in New York. Most of them were within walking distance of where I was.

On the iPhone 3G guided tour, after Bob searches for pizza the iPhone becomes littered with pins all across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and the default selection is John’s Pizzeria near Times Square over five miles away. What the hell? He picked the default selection and decided it was where he was going. Idiot!

In the video, it shows the map track literally over the Clark Street station, where he could have picked up the 2 or 3 train that would take him a couple blocks away from John’s Pizzeria. Ignoring that option, he proceeds to get driving instructions and traffic information. The route takes him across the Brooklyn Bridge and then driving through Manhattan all the way up to 44th. The traffic information he pulled up did not contain much useful information as he was going to drive over both the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive where traffic information is provided. There isn’t live traffic information for the Brooklyn Bridge. It does show, however, that there is nasty traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel right near his route which brings us back to the question: why the hell is the iPhone 3G suggesting you drive to Times Square for pizza?

Why didn’t it suggest John’s Pizzeria of Bleecker Street? It’s the original John’s Pizzeria and has one of the few coal-fired brick ovens in New York. It’s been around a lot longer and it is a couple miles closer. In fact, even closer yet is No. 28, which I think would be a better choice. Why not Otto? Lombardi’s? Una Pizza Napoletana? Luzzo’s? Artichoke? They’re all closer and from my experience and what I’ve read, better, more popular choices.

In fact, watching the GPS track, Bob literally drives past some fantastic pizza. After the turn on Clark Street, both Fascati and Oven would have been sitting in the rear view mirror. There were so many great options for pizza but instead Bob is going to be stuck in a car for awhile followed by trying to find a place to park near Times Square… on an empty stomach.

I think the iPhone 3G failed you, Bob.

The guided tour of the iPhone 3G is on apple.com.

Update: Slice chimes in plotting the proposed route as well as posting the relevant part of the video.

Posted 01 July 2008 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Pizza ‡ Comments (8) ° Tagged: , ,