A few weeks ago, I decided to expand the blogs I read.
During this adventure, I found author Justine Lee Musk.
Maybe it’s just me, but more than once I’ve found articles from totally separate worlds that seem to talk to each other. Recently, Justine wrote about the concept of using Facebook or Twitter to get up close and personal with her audience.
As soon as I read this, Seth Godin’s Tribes sprang to mind. I’ve joined a few networks and found them to be fantastic.
I think Justine is trying to get a balance of accessibility vs friction. Facebook / Twitter have a low barrier to entry, but (as was suggested in the comments) has far too much noise.
Brilliant cartoonist Scott Meyer recently had a “ask me anything” Q & A on Reddit.
So there are multiple ways of connecting with your audience.
Personally, I prefer the Networks (or Tribes!) over Facebook or Twitter specifically because they have a higher amount of friction for entry.
The one question Justine didn’t answer was why? Are you looking for a forum to push more product? To connect with your audience? To better understand who out there is paying you attention?
One of the interesting things I’ve learnt from reading blogs, is how the right person can easily influenced what I buy. It doesn’t take much for me to buy Seth’s next book, or to try out a new razor.
If someone at work suggested either, I would tell them to bugger off and stop wasting my time.
Who do you trust?
Seth has a recent post on Teaching the Market a Lesson.
Some book publishers don’t like the Kindle. Either they’re afraid of it or they’ve crunched the numbers and they don’t like what they see.
Worried about the medium, they hold back, delay or even refuse to support it.
Which is fine if you have market power, but you likely don’t. No publisher does, certainly. The Beatles couldn’t stop iTunes from changing the record business by sitting out the platform, and there’s no book publisher who can stop the Kindle alone.
I like the idea of even The Beatles can’t stop iTunes from changing the way we purchase music. But I think Seth is being a little short sighted. The Kindle isn’t available (yet) in Australia – actually it is only available in the US. Compare this to another product that has international reach (iPhone!)
I think the Kindle is a game changer, but I can understand if Publishers haven’t jumped in just yet…
Seth Godin has a great post about Ignaz Semmelweis.
Who was he? He was the dude who figure out that you will save lives by washing your hands before assisting mothers giving birth.
Seth goes onto give examples of Galileo, txt’ing while driving and appreciating expensive wine as ways in which human nature is happy to be ignorant to the most basic human facts.
What basic fact have you ignored today?
Great video from Steve Linder
A couple of weeks ago, I was luck enough to be given an invite to Google Wave.
I clearly remember using Gmail for the first time some 5 or 6 years ago. Gmail was (very!) fast to use, the design was simple and it just worked!
Gmail is email in a browser. Nothing more. At the time, it’s competed with Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, so the learning curve was quite easy.
My expectations were very clear and it was easy to meet them.
Wave is entirely different! What is it?? Even the Wikipedia article is general and non specific:
equal parts conversation and document
I was reading another review by Cathie McGinn which got me thinking. I certainly agree that it feels like you are drowning, not waving.
From my understanding, she is using Wave as a collaboration tool, with her focus on the people she works with. She raised some privacy and general usability issues
Usability I am going to leave. If you take into context what Wave is doing (realtime collaboration with +100 people at a time) in a web browser, I don’t think there is a whole lot you that can be done right now. I would give it at least 12 months for the technically and logistical challenges to be fixed.
Her point on privacy was interesting (branch off a conversation as private, but then no ability to approve who is) is a tricky one.
For me, when I first saw Wave, the immediate appeal was for personal, not professional. Think of Facebook without the noise. I don’t care if the content in Wave is only updated once a week, so long as it was relevant, accurate and without spam – I would be happy!
What do you think?
Seth Godin recently had a post on Trolls that struck a chord.
I recently had an annoying experience on Stackoverflow. Specifically, it was in regard to an Access Question.
I won’t bore you with the details. The short version is that a Mr. David W. Fenton has some very strong feelings as to what a Competent Developer should or should not do.
I can respect his passion for his job, but I have little time for someone so one eyed. I’ll save my response for another day. Let’s just say that his definition of “user friendly”, “mission critical”, “application off line” is WAY different to mine.
He down voted my answer, which surprised me to say the least.
So is David W Fenton a troll? Based on Seth’s observations:
1. trolls will always be trolling
At the time of writing, his Stackoverflow profile says that he has down voted a surprising 266 times (with only 203 up votes)
2. critics rarely create
He has asked 0 questions and it seems his greatest claim to fame is several MS Access 2003 “applications” (Access 2003???) If David is creating, I don’t know what it is…
3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls
I couldn’t see a blog on his website or much more information. His twitter stream is just a mindless rant of fart jokes and Irritable Bowel Syndrome comments
4. professionals (that’s you) get paid to ignore them. It’s part of your job.
Well Seth, that is the hardest one!
Rock on!
I’ve recently moved house and had a nightmare trying to get an internet connection. I thoughtI’d share my experience in the hope it helps someone else
Background: I’ve moved to Kensington, in Sydney Australia. My ISP is TPG and Tesltra is my telephone provider.
On the TPG portal page, I logged onto “Your Account” and went through the Change of Location process. Every day I checked the ADSL Installation Statusand nothing changed.
After 7 days, I got nervous and rang TPG Customer Support. I was told that there was a mismatch between the address I supplied and what Telstra is showing. I should ring Telstra and just ask them to update their Flexstream Database. “Jay” said that TPG had tried to contact me several times but there was no answer.
I asked him what number TPG tried to contact me on, and he obviously realised it was different to my home number. I asked him since he also had my mobile number and TPG email address why that wasn’t used. He had no response.
I went back and forth between Telstra and TPG. Telstra saying the details were correct, TPG said they weren’t.
I rang again and spoke with Jay. I asked who I should speak with at Telstra, what number I should call, what department I should ring. He said he didn’t know and to check the white pages.
Since I have no way of independently verifying what the status is, I was still not sure who is at fault: TPG or Telstra?
Finally I said to Jay that I should just go to another ISP. He said that he would be more than happy to accommodate this???
Lessons learnt:
1. I had the best result ringing Telstra on 13 22 00 and asking for Connections. I was on hold for around 20 – 30 seconds. When I rang Faults or other 1300 / 1800 numbers I was on hold for well over 5 minutes and got no progress.
2. TPG, I don’t care if it is Telstra’s fault. Half the people I spoke with at Telstra hadn’t heard of Flexstream. They did not know or understand what it means to update the database. Those that did, said it was an old system no longer in use.
3. Since it wasn’t obvious to me how I should check the status of this with TPG, next time I will ring each day to check on the progress.
4. It wasn’t until I told Telstra to forget about it, don’t worry. Send the bill to the wrong address and we will see what happens. It was at this point Telstra knew something wasn’t right.
5. I found the best way to get a response from TPG, was to put up a post on the Whirlpool Forums. Frustrating? Yes! But that seems to be the way it is.
Here’s hoping you have better luck than me!
OMFG!
I read this on Rick Seagle’s Blog
How weird? This must be Design By Committee.
Apparently, hosting your own Windows 7 Party is normal, but you need to be shown how…
Have a look:
I’m doing some work with LINQ and outer joins.
I found a few links, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
I then thought I’d try a different direction and found this!
NorthwindDataContext dc = new NorthwindDataContext();
dc.Log = Console.Out;
var query =
from c in dc.Customers
where !(from o in dc.Orders
select o.CustomerID)
.Contains(c.CustomerID)
select c;
foreach (var c in query) Console.WriteLine( c );
This is exactly what I was after! I thought I’d share the love and post a comment – but what? I have to register to post comments???
I would be a little more understanding if Marco Russo’s site used some generic, open authentication system. But he didn’t.
(If you want to know how easy it is to implement Twitter, Facebook, OpenID or other identification methods, IT Conversations recently did a podcast on how they overcame this problem.)
Rock on!
I’m sitting here at the Remix Australian Conference.
It’s your typical talk / presentation / demo. Azure, Windows Mobile, IE 8.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I find the most interesting thing is the behind the scenes. All demos are on Windows 7, if someone opens a browser, Bing is the home page…
Right now, I’m watching Michael Kordahi demo IE8. He’s not a bad presenter! Casual, fun, he has obviously practiced practiced this demo a few times.
I’m just waiting for him to swear!
Rock on!
