After watching, I immediately thought back to the Honda “Cog” commercial, another beautiful example.

And if you like this kind of this, how about a nice “Falling Water” cocktail…

This one, Sticks and Stones, is rather impressive given that everything is setup in nature.

And let’s finish this post out with MythBuster’s Holiday edition Rube Goldberg machine.

What are your favorite Rube Goldberg machine videos?

The argument presented is important, especially for the future of journalism. Plain and simple, the advertisements support the sites and when you block them, the advertisers don’t see the investment in Ars Technica as worthwhile.

But very important to notice: Ars Technica offers a paid version of their site which does not have ads. So if you care about the content and don’t want ads, you have an option to be a paying subscriber.

So think through this a bit. If you are willing to pay for content online, should you still have to endure the advertisements? Perhaps this is what upsets people so much. If the content is free, I expect to be advertised to. However, if I pay for online content why should I tolerate the advertisements. In the move to online, perhaps more sites should consider the model that Ars Technica presents.

Here is the gist of the article. Guy with an iPhone used an application to snap a picture and the application overlays a “ghost image” on the photo. He submitted the photo and the UK’s Sun and Daily Mail newspapers ran with it. Now they feel a little bit silly.

News organizations have a journalistic responsibility to readers to check the facts. Otherwise readers will stop trusting and go elsewhere, regardless of the medium.

From the Official Google Blog: Stars make search more personal

We’ve long believed that personalization makes search more relevant and fun. For nearly five years, we’ve been tailoring results with personalized search. Today we’re announcing a new feature in search that makes it easier for you to mark and rediscover your favorite web content — stars.

What this means is that search engine results are very different from person to person. Google gives you the tools to make your search experience better. Stars is clearly there for this particular use case: You find a site one day, give it a star because you want to remember it, and then days/weeks/months from now when doing a similar search, your starred results are given priority. It is a great tool that improves your personal search experience.

That said, it is harder and harder to find the silver bullet that will get your business website onto the first page on Google, especially if you are trying to be first for everyone globally. Google is now (and has been for a while) delivering results based on your IP address, geography, and in some cases, social connections. However, on the local level, it is getting easier for smaller businesses to be relevant online in the same ways that they are traditionally relevant.

The new date is Saturday, April 24, 2010 from 9am-4pm. Hopefully it will not snow at the end of April.

The second video shows Patrick performing/improvising with the instrument.

If you know where my brain is, you can figure out why this is SO AMAZINGLY COOL!

SunGard is looking for a CEO for Availability Services – http://bit.ly/axDOzg – Go ahead, make me an offer SunGard.

After a couple of posts back and forth between @SomaCowGeoff, I suggested a feature for Tweetie to it’s developer: [view]

@atebits Great idea for Tweetie feature… allow me to see Tweets of those that I follow within a specific radius. (Help from @SomaCowGeoff)

I asked the Weather Channel for mercy: [view]

Hey folks at the Weather Channel, enough with the snow for the month. Please nothing until March. Send it to New Mexico, much funnier there.

I shamelessly promoted my seminar: [view]

“Online Marketing Day of Thunder” – http://bit.ly/1cuHll – First person to use the code “THUNDER30″ when registering saves $30. Go!

I welcomed a friend and seminar attendee to Twitter: [view]

Welcome to @kenkelllaw, a Twitter newbie from my seminar this morning. Hey, say hello to the “attorney that makes house calls.”

I replied to @nametagscott’s fill in the blank: [view]

@nametagscott You don’t need permission to spam the heck out of people that don’t care about you. You can get hate for free this way!

I congratulated Chad Hedrick, one of the Olympians who was given free LASIK by Eyecare 20/20, on his bronze medal: [view]

Congratulations to Chad Hedrick on a Bronze Medal! One of the athletes that @LASIKfortheGold treated… Awesome.

I retweeted an article link from Frank Canna: [view]

RT @MirrorFinish Honestly, there’s more to buying a new car than just signing the papers! http://tinyurl.com/yzvxqk9

I shared a thought: [view]

Remove the term “Email Blast” from your vocabulary. No one likes to be hit by shrapnel, even if it is digital.

Perhaps out of sheer morbid curiosity (or that these people could be potential clients), I let the emails continue. Drip, drip, drip. I could easily unsubscribe, but I wait to see if the company decides to actually do something interesting. Usually they don’t. And they don’t for a very long time.

Week after week, the same tired, boring content. Over and over and over again. What a waste of pixels. Even worse are the newsletters that pack so much content into the message or provide no mechanism to respond to the content. Seriously, I just don’t get it. Once, just once, read your own email as someone who doesn’t care about you yet.

Here is the problem: someone somewhere convinced you that the person with the biggest email database wins. You fall into that trap rather than doing something worthy of attention.

Here is my suggestion: Only add someone to your email database that asks to be on the list. If this means that no one wants to subscribe, perhaps you should rethink your email marketing strategy.

Since you probably won’t trash your existing list, why not create a new list with people that asked to be there. Now change the message content for each list. To the big list of people that don’t know you, invite them in. Talk about why you are worthy of attention. To the small list of people that like you, engage with them rather than broadcast to them.

And remove the term “Email Blast” from your vocabulary. No one likes to be hit by shrapnel, even if it is digital.

On the surface this stinks. Especially if you are a song writer, a band or the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

This doesn’t mean that you stop selling the music. It just means that you cannot bank on it. If all that someone wants is something to listen to, they don’t need to pay for anything. But people like to “connect” with the music that they listen to.

The Grateful Dead had it right: “Please bootleg our concerts. In fact, here is an output from our mixing board. We are never going to play it the same way twice.”

That created loyalty and love for the group. Enough loyalty that people (Deadheads) would buy albums, t-shirts, concert tickets, etc. for any price. The purchase of anything “Grateful Dead” was an expression of love for the group, not just a purchase of a t-shirt or CD. In fact, the Deadheads would follow the band around from show to show.

So imagine for a moment a local band. They have a few hundred followers on their Facebook or MySpace page. So they call the owner of a restaurant and say the following:

“We’d like to do a show at your place. Don’t pay us to play the gig, rather give us 20% of the bar revenue and donate 20% to a local charity. And we will give you 20% of the merchandise and CD sales and we will donate 20% to charity as well. We’ll bring our fans.”

What the band should realize is that its real assets are loyalty and love from its fans. The bar or restaurant is a place to monetize it and a place for the fans to express their love. The band can bring hundreds of people to a usually barren place without any financial risk to the bar or restaurant.

Everybody wins.

And just for a moment, think about how The Grateful Dead would have used Facebook and Twitter. A lot can be learned from the way they connected with their followers.

So if you are the band in the above scenario, ask people that come to the show for their email address and send them an MP3 file of the show. Or even better, find one of your fans that wants to be your ambassador and can organize this for you.

The war was waged on Twitter, and on blogs, and on podcasts and onto CNN, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, etc.

Ouch if you are Southwest Airlines. Apparently they didn’t realize that celebs sometimes fly coach. To their credit, they are handling this in the open instead of trying to hide.

Thank goodness you aren’t a large company, right? Wrong.

Every business, be it a solopreneur, SMB, franchise or Fortune 500 company, works with customers. Customers are people. All people have some form of social connection, both online and traditional.

Marketing is a double edged sword. The forces that create lines at the Apple Store for whatever the latest i-Product may be are the same forces the Kevin Smith tapped into this past weekend.

Again, an example of the “Collective Mind” that Twitter often displays. Trending topics now has localization for some cities. Of course you can always Twitter search to see very specific things in your area and related to keywords.

My question for the day is whether someone has rigged a snow thrower to Tweet, along the same lines as the Twittering Office Chair.

(Again, a shameless plug) Looking on more insight into how you can use Twitter for business, please register for the “What in the Heck is Twitter?” workshop on February 16, 2010 at 8:30a. It is only $15.

As expected the top trend was “Hope for Haiti Now” and people were tweeting comments about the performers. Sometimes people would name the wrong person, but overall, the crowd answered the question within seconds of the next performance starting.

That was a global event and the collective mind was hard at work. But that collective mind happens all of the time: you can learn from it or you can ignore it. As a business owner, I’m more inclined to try to find a competitive advantage using this resource.

And after using the collective mind that is Twitter, I’ve used it to prototype a new variety of my service, which I’ll be announcing mid-February.

(Shameless plug) But if you want some insight how you can use Twitter for business, please consider registering for the “What in the Heck is Twitter?” workshop on February 16, 2010 at 8:30a.

Happy Holidays to everyone. Wishing everyone happiness and success in the new year.

(Go checkout more great photos from Whipped Bakeshop’s Photostream.)

A bunch of good suggestions were posted. My answer to this was as follows:

It isn’t so much about the features. Instead it is about the engagement with customers. Many users do not want to install additional applications so if your fan page requires this, it may potentially turn off users.

Post content that your audience wants and can engage with. Be there and respond to questions and feedback from customers. Make sure to balance the number of posts and updates so you don’t annoy your audience and send them away.

Finally, if you have created a really great piece of content (video, article, etc.), encourage your audience to share the content to their own networks. Remember that a Fan page isn’t about broadcast; it is about stimulating natural conversation.

What are your suggestions?

If your work involves sitting in front of a computer for any amount of time, take a moment to read the following post from Lifehacker:

• Top 10 Ergonomic Upgrades for Your Workspace

From personal experience, I have done everything but the software enforcers, but that is what I’m going to be trying next. I see so many people working with laptops on plain desks which puts your wrists at a bad angle, you back in a strange position, and your eyes staring down. So consider that the perfect holiday gift to yourself is to get a real mouse and keyboard that you can plug into your laptop, and a stand to put your laptop up at eye level.

We are all strapped for time. For many businesses, the thought of adding another task to their already full schedule is frightening. So the thought of posting interesting, compelling, original, worthwhile content on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. could practically suffocate a person, that along with the unfamiliar technology.

Consider this, who is the best voice for the company?

• Option 1: the company president, CEO or founder, possibly the marketing director or customer service director.
• Option 2: an intern or low-cost outsourced person with a script.

Option 2 is convenient, a short-cut, a “let’s try this to see if it is actually worth our time” tactic. So the intern will post safe/boring content that is totally harmless and risk-free.

But the intern lacks the genuine passion for the business that is actually compelling. In other words, option 2 practically guarantees mediocrity.

The Internet has given us the opportunity to create real conversations with prospects, customers, vendors, friends, and even competitors. How will they feel when they realize that they aren’t talking to the person they thought they were? Trust breaks down.

This is the reason that I do not ghost post for my clients. Rather, I teach them how to post themselves, to get over the small hurdles, to learn how to listen an engage in real conversations, build real relationships.

• 16 Lessons in Customer Service from a Car Salesman

My favorite point from the post was at the end:

“So, Lesson #16, don’t treat your customers as opponents to be beat. If you do, they’ll eventually think of you that way, too, and eventually move on to someone who’ll work with them instead of against them.”

For me, I take a collaborative approach with clients, which isn’t the easy route. But when a client relationship becomes adversarial, neither client nor vendor win.

Today, I received this helpful reminder from Plaxo.

Proves my point. The only messages that I get from Plaxo are connection requests and birthday reminders for others in my network there. You would think that they would have figured out that I know when my own birthday is.

Time to send myself an eCard!

In advance of my seminar, “What in the Heck is Twitter?” on November 18th, the theme for the links this week is Twitter.

• Tweet Cheat Sheet: article from Scott Kirsner (@scottkirsner) of the Boston Globe that gives a good overview of Twitter and some basic advice for understanding the language. Perfect for those new to Twitter.
• Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009: from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the study claims that now almost 19% (up from 11% in December 2008) of Internet users share updates about themselves using Twitter or another service. The article also talks about the median age of users for the social networks: Twitter – 31, MySpace – 26, LinkedIn – 39, Facebook – 33. Interesting to note the significant change was for Facebook which has risen from 26 to 33 over the last 18 months.
• Twitter Lists – Frequently Asked Questions and Strategies: article from Mashable that covers the new Twitter lists functionality very well.
• Tweet Blocker: free resource for Twitter users that catalogs and ranks the top spammers on Twitter. It scans through your followers and scores based on the account activity, follower ratio, and age of account. You can preview each account, click a checkbox and block users directly from Tweet Blocker.
• Twitter for Business FAQ: article from Web Worker Daily that answers some of the common business questions surrounding the use of Twitter.

What are your best links for advice or resources about Twitter?

Google has a long history of changing it’s logo to commemorate historical events. And some have been quite elaborate. Certainly, they always get noticed by its users and the media.

Consider that Google’s main source of revenue is from its AdWords program, a product that displays contextual advertisements that cost the advertiser only when someone clicks on the ad and only as much as the advertiser is willing to bid for the click.

But what if Chevrolet wanted to commemorate a historic milestone with its Corvette by introducing a new model. Would Google be willing to sell the homepage doodle logo?

It gives Google a product similar to a Super Bowl commercial, but can be sold on any day of the year.

Here are some issues to consider:

1. Doodles are a special event, so Google couldn’t sell the logo every day. Maybe once a month otherwise it would lose its power.
2. Superbowl commercials cost around a million dollars for a 30-second commercial. Google’s doodle would probably reach an audience about 10-20 times the size, not including the residual PR.
3. Would Google only allow “iconic” brands or “historic” companies to effectively hijack the doodle for the day?
4. How would your impression of Google change if they infrequently sold this prime ad placement? Would you start questioning the validity of the unsponsored results?

Funny that when making the image above, there happened to be an Ad for the new Verizon Droid below the search box. First time I noticed that.

I admit it, I was never one of those popular kids at high school. In fact, I was in several of the less glamorous groups: the smart kids and the music groups. And I was quite proud of this, because it was actually in line with my personality.

With networks like Facebook exploding, I’ve noticed that the popular kids are still popular on these networks for one simple reason: popular kids are good at being popular.

So what do you do with that popularity? After all, if you have a large network of people who want to connect with you, you have a lot of opportunities presented to you. Why not change the world.

The Internet enables the spread of ideas at extremely high speeds and popular kids can really amplify this spread. Oprah is the perfect example. When she blesses something with her approval, everyone notices. To her credit, she also wants to make the world a better place.

Oprah is insanely popular and we all want her to notice us. Perhaps she might notice if we simply get more popular? If you want to get Oprah to notice, take a deep look at yourself and ask the following question:

“Why should anyone care about me?”

If you obsess over the number of connections, followers, friends, fans, etc. and your goal is to be popular, the answer is that no one really cares about you. Sorry, but we don’t and Oprah won’t either.

In thinking about Chris Anderson’s book, “The Long Tail,” I’m reminded that in every category someone or something is “The Most.” Each category gets divided into smaller subcategories again and again. At each level, someone or something is “The Most” in that particular niche area.

Oprah is simply “The Most” in the category of influential media personalities. Subdivide that category down to technology podcasters and you get Leo Laporte. Subdivide that even further to podcasts about Ruby on Rails and you get Ryan Bates. If you develop for Ruby on Rails (which you probably don’t), Ryan Bates is “The Most” in exactly the same way that Oprah is, just further down the tail.

If your goal is to be popular, consider that you need to compete with Oprah, Barack Obama, Paul McCartney, Steve Jobs, etc. Each person didn’t get popular because that was their goal. Their goals were all different and personal and focused.

Do something that you care about and be insanely great, insanely generous, insanely caring, insanely prolific. But don’t do it to become popular.

Twitterfeed is a service that allows you to link the RSS feed from your blog to automatically create Tweets. It can be a huge time saver, but it does come with a downside. Automating posts like this feels a lot like shouting to me.

Seriously, how hard is it to create 140 characters. If you are posting something to your blog, you already have a good title (cut and paste) and you can create a nice short link through Bit.ly to track the number of clicks. And that is the whole process, unless you add a couple of extra words as editorial.

When Twitterfeed made some programming changes and flooded Twitter streams with mountains of old posts, sometimes several times over, one realizes the danger of automating conversation opportunities.

A couple of days ago, I decided to give Pingdom a try. Pingdom is a service that monitors the uptime and performance of your website.

Signing up for the account was simple and setting up the first site to monitor was also quite simple. The only quirk with the setup is this. You tell it how long a “cycle” is, that is to say, how often it will check your site. So I set the cycle to 5 minutes. In the notifications area, it asks when and how often to send notifications of down time in terms of cycles, rather than minutes. So if I want to only receive a notification when the site is down for 15 minutes, I have to select 3 cycles. Once you save the form, they translate this, but it would be nice to work in terms of minutes rather than cycles.

Usually, these services are things that I look at and then ignore. But of course, my site went down one day after setting up the monitoring. Turns out, my hosting provider had a problem with a router and thankfully fixed the issue quickly.

Pingdom worked perfectly. I received the appropriate notifications which corresponded exactly to the hosting company’s post about the outage. It happened while I was sleeping and traditionally I wouldn’t have noticed or cared.

If you only need to monitor one site, they have a limited free account that will probably be all that you need. They do have paid accounts for monitoring multiple sites and services with deeper reporting and such.

So let’s say you purchased the one popular track on iTunes for a buck. Why not allow me to purchase one more B-side track for a small marginal cost, say about $.45.

iTunes already allows you to complete the album. This would just be a small step towards convincing me that it is worth it.

When Wacom announced the new Bamboo Pen & Touch tablet, I was very eager to get my hands on the product. This was to be the perfect enhancement to my MacBook Pro setup at the desk where I already have a great external keyboard and a tolerable mouse. My goal was to have the multitouch that I love so much on the laptop alone extend to the desktop setup and replace the mouse.

As soon as my local Best Buy had it on the shelves, I rushed out and slapped down the $100. (Yes, Mr. FTC, I paid for this myself and was not provided a review unit.) Wacom has made the packaging and setup quite good, and the additional tutorials for learning how to get the most from the Bamboo were helpful.

Houston, we have a problem.

The Bamboo Pen & Touch supports both touch with your hands and the pen stylus basically simultaneously. When holding the pen, your hand will rest close enough to the large touch sensitive area that you get errant taps and clicks. So this amazing feature is actually the biggest problem. I think that the problem would be resolved if the unit ignored touch while it was tracking the pen, or at least some sensitivity or timing setting to prevent these errant clicks.

This all said, I love the Bamboo touch, it is just not what I expected. If you are in the market for a drawing tablet, this is a fantastic choice. If you are in the market for a mouse replacement, move along.

“You don’t get to choose whether people talk about you or not, but you can choose to be part of the conversation.”

Conversations happen everywhere. Blogs, forums, and social networks represent a small slice of that conversation. Time and time again I hear companies want to “control the message.” But that is so much more challenging now that there are millions of people carrying around video cameras that can instantly post to YouTube.

Rather than focusing on controlling the conversation, move towards shaping the conversation. That only happens when you are participating. Participation isn’t something that you start in a crisis or when things are wonderful. Participation starts in between events when the only reason you want to talk is because you want to talk. Otherwise it feels hollow.

Just wanted to congratulate my friends Jeff Backal of Team Builders Plus (#45) and Anthony Mongeluzo of Pro Computer Service (#70) for being among the fastest-growing privately held companies in the Philadelphia area.

This new feature is only available for paid accounts, although they are offering a free one-month trial. Adding some basic CRM functionality to LinkedIn is not quite what I would have expected. However, LinkedIn wants its users to spend more time on the network.

You can already “tag” people into groups in the basic connections screen, although I don’t know too many people that use or understand this feature.

If you aren’t already using a CRM, the light-weight features in the profile organizer might be a welcome addition to your sales or research process. It allows you to store personal contact information and notes outside of the basic information that the connection has stored on LinkedIn.

But the question is whether this feature along with the limited number of InMails and deeper search results is worth $300 per year. I would say that this is a nice addition if you are already a paid account member of LinkedIn, but not enough to convert free accounts into paying accounts. To their credit, it is nice to see LinkedIn developing new features.

I’ve been talking to people about the whole concept of the digital referral: what it is, how to recognize it and how to inspire them to happen. Digital referrals increase when you actively participate on online conversations and create opportunities for others to notice.

To that end, here is a list of 15 things that you can do in less than 10 minutes per day.

1. Share what you are doing with a status update. Be careful to avoid making your posts obvious self-promotion because once you run out of different versions, you start sounding like a broken record. There is no need to cross-post the same update to the different networks, after all, the audiences are very different. On Twitter, a short conversation (through @ replies) will be more powerful than a stand-alone post.
   (Daily on Facebook, weekly on LinkedIn, and whatever frequency makes sense for you on Twitter: 1 minute.)
2. Post a comment. Look for something interesting and post a comment that shows both you and the other people in the conversation in the best possible light. Don’t use comments to pick fights with people. If you have a good sense of humor, use it without making fun of the other person.
   (Daily on Facebook, weekly on LinkedIn: 1 minute.)
3. Monitor keywords and respond. Using Twitter Search, either through RSS or through a saved search directly on Twitter, monitor relevant keywords and phrases for your product, service, brand, name, etc. and respond to the conversation as appropriate.
   (Daily on Twitter: 1 minute.)
4. “Retweet” something relevant to your business or industry. As you are scanning down through your Twitter stream or search results, retweet something of interest, perhaps adding a short comment if it will fit in the 140 characters. People often acknowledge your retweet through an @ reply which shows up to their network as well. Do not overuse this (“Me too, me too, me too…”) otherwise it dilutes your own messages and people start to ignore your posts when everything is a retweet.
   (Daily on Twitter: 1 minute or less.)
5. Wish someone a “Happy Birthday.” On Facebook, look on bottom of the right-hand column which shows you upcoming events and birthdays. Nothing fancy is required other than a simple acknowledgement and the deluge of notification emails from your network will feel good that day. It reminds the person that you care.
   (Daily on Facebook: 1 minute or less.)
6. Invite someone to connect with you. Invite someone from your physical-world network to connect with you in the digital-world. It isn’t your job to “convert” people to use these networks, rather find out which networks people use and connect with them there. Make sure to customize the invitation message to “jog the memory” of the person that you want to connect to.
   (Weekly on Facebook and LinkedIn: 1 minute.)
7. Answer a question, suggest an expert, provide a resource. Specifically on LinkedIn, find topics that are relevant to your business and post answers to “fresh” questions. If a post has a ton of answers already, skip it. If a post looks like someone is trying to market themselves rather than ask a real question, skip it.
   (Weekly on LinkedIn: 5 minutes.)
8. Write a personal email just to say hello. Remember Dale Carnegie? Put some thought into your message. Ask how the person is doing, how his/her business is going, etc. Don’t promote yourself, but have links in your email signature in case the recipient wants to explore.
   (Weekly via Email: 5 minutes.)
9. Post a photo or video. Photos show up more prevalently than a regular status update, so mix in interesting photos. Don’t try to be Ansel Adams as the goal is to share interesting moments. Tag people in the photos if appropriate and not offensive to the person.
   (Weekly on Facebook: 2-3 minutes.)
10. Invite people into your non-business world. If invited people to your house, your guests will learn your different interests. You don’t have to post about everything, but give people the opportunity to find personal connections, such as, “I didn’t know you had young children too,” “We love going to the Franklin Institute,” “That movie was horrible, you should see (blank) instead,” “Had the same problem and (person) helped me out.” If the majority of your posts are business related, mix in occasional personal posts, it reminds people that you are human.
    (Weekly on Facebook or Twitter: 1 minute)
11. Write a recommendation. Make the recommendation meaningful, not plain vanilla, by giving the specifics. Tell a story about your experience with the person, make it powerful but not over the top.
    (Weekly or Monthly on LinkedIn: 5 minutes.)
12. Write a post on your blog or website. Share your professional insights using your voice on a relevant subject. What are the questions that you are asked most at parties? What if your customers discovered something about your industry and you were not the one to tell them, how would they then feel about you? That is what to share. If you share a link to an article, make sure to include your comments and thoughts rather than just the link.
    (Weekly or Bi-Weekly: 10 minutes, you aren’t writing a novel.)
13. Promote an event you are attending. Provide a link and a few short blurb about the event. There is no need to manage the event for someone else, your job is to simply help make the event a little better with a few extra people.
    (Bi-weekly or monthly on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: 2 minutes.)
14. Highlight someone or something interesting. Do something totally selfless. Use the @ mentions format to link properly to the person or Fan page or group. Make sure to include a sentence or two that is your story or reason for the mention.
    (Bi-weekly on Facebook: 2 minutes.)
15. Ask a question, moderate the answers and recognize an expert. Don’t post questions that are veiled attempts at self-promotion, ask real questions. People naturally explore your profile when you post questions. Questions give people the opportunity to show and be recognized for their expertise, so make sure to select which answers are “good” and the one that is “best.”
    (Monthly on LinkedIn: 5 minutes.)

It is up to you to put together your own schedule for the month. I can almost guarantee that if you do 10 out of the 15 things above over the next six weeks, you will get more business opportunities.

My thoughts on this are simple: online social networks make the disconnected and impersonal world of technology feel more connected and human. And in the absence of truly remarkable products or services, businesses rely on remarkable people.

If you have a clear understanding of your business goals and you can make these goals part of your activity in the social networks, then these online conversations will earn their place in your sales toolbox.

Service is free for now while it is in beta and it supports the Curve 8900, Bold 9000 and Tour 9630 on OS version 4.6.

Thing 1: Philadelphia Business Journal Seminar

On September 29th at 8am, I will be presenting a new seminar along with the Philadelphia Business Journal. In this seminar, I will be talking about using the different social media tools specifically for business, but very efficiently, that is to say, in just 10 minutes per day. Here is the link to the event page at the Philadelphia Business Journal website.

Thing 2: Burlington County Chamber Workshop

Also, I will be presenting at the Burlington County Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase and Forum on October 1st at 5:30pm. This new workshop, called “Online Marketing 2.1: Websites and Beyond,” will be at The Merion in Cinnaminson, NJ. More information can be found at the Chamber website.

So I need your help. If your schedule permits, I would love to see you there. But if you cannot make it you can still help by sharing this post with a friend or six. (Perhaps post a link on your Facebook profile?)

Bonus Thing: Appetite for Awareness

This event brings together 25 of the Philadelphia area’s most prestigious chefs, top docs and media representatives to compete for the best gluten-free dish. Over 50 vendors will provide free samples, coupons and tastings of a wide range of gluten-free flours, baked goods, snacks, pre-packaged meals, drinks and more. More information can be found at the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness website.

Special thanks to Jim Harte from 601 Information Systems & Bowman & Co. for hosting the Business Journal event, and thanks to Kristi Howell-Ikeda for providing the opportunity to do another workshop for the Burlington County Chamber of Commerce.

(Cross posted from http://consulting.howardyermish.com/2009/09/24/two-things)

from CNET: Music publishers: iTunes not paying fair share

Without going into the other pieces, the one that really feels strange is that the music publishers want to collect royalties for the 30-second “preview.” They are claiming that the preview should be considered a performance.

The ability to listen to part of a track before purchasing sells music downloads. The sale is a much better deal for the composer or artist than the tiny fractions of a cent that they might earn by collecting a royalty on the preview.

What would happen if this goes through? First, the royalty costs would be passed to the consumer. Second, the length of the preview would be shortened and perhaps eliminated on those tracks that are less popular. In my opinion, the less popular artists benefit most from the previews, allowing people to sample music that they would have never considered or discovered.

Perhaps I should be paying royalties for singing songs in my head? That is the next step, isn’t it?

• from Apple Insider: AT&T 3G MicroCell to offer unlimited iPhone calling for $20 extra

In summary, AT&T lets me pay an extra $20 and I get my own 3G cell network in my home/office that hooks into my broadband Internet connection. And if you are an AT&T customer for broadband and landlines, you might even get the service for free.

My rant about this in the past was that most people complain about mobile reception in two places: in their home and at their desk. A device like this solves the problem.

Sign me up.

Update: It’s true, but not available for me yet: AT&T 3G MicroCell™

• Taking the time to teach

Seth’s point is to avoid the knee-jerk angry reactions, rather to focus on long-term education. If you know me, you know that I’m always willing to share my knowledge to those asking the questions. Perhaps this post explains why.

“In this economy, not losing is the new winning.”

Sounds like “head in the sand” tactics to me, which is of course ironic because the story was about Ocean City, Maryland. If most businesses are thinking “not losing” then only a few will be thinking, “winning.”

Sounds like a huge opportunity to me.

After reading the article, the quote from Mr. Nourry that is most telling is as follows.

“So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: ’we are cutting the price we pay’. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers.”

What Mr. Nourry should really say is there is no room for publishers in the world of Amazon and the Internet.

Perhaps their current business model isn’t relevant anymore? If you are an author (or composer, painter, photographer, etc.) you used to depend on the publishers to help organize and energize your reading audience, but more realistically, get a copy of your book onto the shelves of retail book shops. With a website, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc. an author can probably do a much better job of finding and engaging her audience and perhaps with more “authentic” conversation, instead of a “buy my stuff” broken record. The problem as an author, is that running a website to sell your small collection (1 or more) of books isn’t really what you want to be doing. (Your a writer, right?)

What Amazon has done is create a system, similar to the Apple iTunes App Store for iPhone developers, where the authors can sell directly to the public. Realistically, Amazon presents the new business model for the publisher: a publisher that has infinite shelf space and doesn’t care whether you are writing the next great American novel or a “How To” book or anything, as long as you have the legal ownership of the work.

If I ran a publishing business, I would be making deals with the manufacturers of these devices to make sure that my content was on as many different devices as possible. (Amazon went so far as to create its own device instead of printing presses and binderies.) My value to the authors I represent would be the sheer negotiating power, similar to a powerful Hollywood agent that packages talent together. I would also try to represent as many authors as I possibly could and give them a simple way to get their content onto these devices as quickly as possible. In fact, I would let the authors sign up right on my website. I’d give the authors templates and tools for making their books easy to distribute electronically. I’d even let the authors set the price and define a charity to donate some of their profits to. For that, I deserve a percentage of the sales. As the iPhone App store shows, the developers are quite willing to give Apple a share to bring the audience of iPhone customers directly to the developers’ doorsteps.

Now think a step or two ahead. Where are the other “publishers” in various industries? And does your business model break when a disruptive technological force comes into your market? If so, my advice is to be the one that breaks the model not the one that gets broken.

As a devoted fan and user of Apple products, I’m always trying to think about what is coming “NeXT.” We have heard much of the speculation as to what is going to be there and what is not, but I thought that I would “divulge” the script for the presentation.

Act 1: iTunes 9

Most people would accept this as a given, but the new version of iTunes will include social media features and a new enhanced album format. For the social media features, imagine having the recommendations of the Genius features but now crowd-sourced to your Facebook friends, groups and Fan pages.

For the enhanced album format, think of it as digital boxed sets with extra content, but the real issue, and one that might upset some people, is that labels will be able to sell the enhanced albums as a single unit, without having to sell individual tracks. No one will complain about this detail at first, because I think that we will see The Beatles delivering the first of these digital box sets (see the “One More Thing” below). You do see this “Album Only” purchases already in the iTunes Store, but now let’s go a step further, perhaps adding track markers to “follow” song lyrics on iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPod Nano.

iTunes 9 will also include features for managing applications on the iPod Touch and iPhone, specifically so you can organize which applications are on which “page” and I suspect include the ability to rate/review applications from inside iTunes.

iPhone owners will rejoice at finally getting MMS and tethering support (AT&T will charge $60/month for this) through the iPhone OS 3.1 update. The focus will be the native iTunes application on the phone will allow people to purchase ringtones from the phone directly, as well as better support and management of podcasts, making the phone a “real” podcast client. New podcast episodes that you are subscribed to will be able to be downloaded directly to the phone over a 3G (10MB or smaller) or WiFi connection (episodes over 10MB).

Act 2: iPod Touch

The form factor of the iPod Touch line will not significantly change, but will include the same camera features as the iPhone 3GS. That means both stills and video, so the iPod Touch line may change to have the same speaker and microphone that is currently on the bottom of the iPhone. (I don’t think they will add an “ear” speaker.)

Three models: 16GB at $249, 32GB at $329 and 64GB at $399.

Act 3: iPod Nano

The form factor of the current iPod Nano line will not significantly change, except to add a camera to the back. No extra buttons or microphone and no touch screen. The voice-over technology will make its way onto the Nano by pressing and holding the center click-wheel button, or you can purchase a fancy set of Apple headphones that are not included with the iPod Nano.

The current 8GB model iPod Nano will remain, perhaps in only two colors (silver and black) but the price will be lowered to $99. The new iPod Nano with camera will come in two sizes, 16GB at $149 and 32GB at $249. I think that there will be only a few colors offered, probably 4-5 for the 16GB model and only 1-2 for the 32GB model.

(Side note: The iPod Shuffle will hang around for a while longer at its $79 price tag.)

One More Thing: Steve Jobs and The Beatles

Apple likes to have guest artists at this event, and given all of the other things that are happening with The Beatles on 09.09.09, we could see a performance, perhaps by satellite. And if The Beatles are performing, Steve Jobs will be there to introduce them, complete with jeans and mock turtleneck.

Other Things That Wouldn’t Shock Me

• Update to the Apple TV – larger hard drives, native support for Hulu
• Update to the Mac Mini – faster processor, larger hard drive, HDMI output, Blu-Ray drive (If the Blu-Ray drive does show up, the Apple TV will be killed, or get one.)
• Update to Front Row Software to support Hulu deal

(Full disclosure: I have no official sources for this information other than intuition and guessing.)

From the Philadelphia Business Journal events page…
http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/event/8371

Join the Philadelphia Business Journal and social media expert Howard Yermish on September 29 for a Supercharge Your Sales Seminar to build your business, your circle of influence and your exposure.

When: Tuesday, September 29, 8:00am-10:15pm
Where: 601 Information Systems, 601 White Horse Road, Voorhees, NJ 08043

Make More Money with the Philadelphia Business Journal
Learn how to turn our business news into new business for you! During this seminar, you will learn how to unearth key information from the Philadelphia Business Journal in less than 30 minutes per week, how to recognize sales leads within news stories, how to warm up cold leads, how to discover new networking opportunities and how to PROFIT from every issue of the Business Journal.

Social Media Workshop with Howard Yermish
You have read enough to realize that social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have changed the way we communicate, giving us powerful tools to connect with customers, get powerful referrals and even close business. In this workshop, you will learn the strategies to use the social networks without looking like a spammer or broken record. Howard Yermish will show you the steps to get yourself running with the social networks, how to become a power-user on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and present an action plan so you can do it in just 10 minutes a day.

Originally, I was waiting for AT&T to officially support tethering with my iPhone, but that has yet to officially see the light of day. So I broke down and purchased a Verizon Wireless MiFi card.

In a nutshell, the MiFi is a small credit card sized device that you can either plug in directly through USB to your computer or simply place on the table and connect over WiFi. The device supports the Verizon 3G network, which in my region works consistently well, although it is not a speed demon. (Engadget has a good review of the product here.)

The magic of the MiFi is that it goes beyond the typical broadband connect card and gives you a portable wireless router. So in practical use, I can turn on the MiFi, place in on the center of the table, and anyone (up to 5 people at a time) with a standard WiFi card can connect to the MiFi with a simple password. The process is the same as connecting to a WiFi network at your friends house or a local coffee shop, just by entering a password to access the wireless network.

After the first couple of weeks, I’ve used the MiFi at several clients’ offices, down the shore to do little bits of work, and even once in the car upon arriving early to a lunch during a deluge of rain. In all cases, things were smooth.

At one meeting, there were several of us with laptops, but I was the only one with a MiFi. The others tried to get on the local network WiFi, but couldn’t seem to connect. I fired up the MiFi and within about a minute, four of us were all connected. The only problem was that now all four of us were sharing the connection, so none of us had great speed, but it did give us the access that we really needed.

In one of the more bizarre moments, I decided to turn on the MiFi, connect my iPhone through the WiFi connection and fire up Skype. (Side note: This is exactly what AT&T doesn’t want you to do, that is make calls with the iPhone without using any of your minutes.) I left a voice message for my father, who promptly emailed the message back to me so I could listen. The quality was pretty good, not much worse than Skype through the phone on my home (fast) WiFi network. Certainly usable in those situations where I cannot get an AT&T signal but the Verizon network is alive and kicking.

So the verdict? It’s a keeper. If you are considering getting a broadband card for your laptop, take a look at the MiFi.

(Please note: I was not asked by Verizon Wireless or any other company to write this post and I have not been compensated to do so. I purchased the MiFi at a local store with my own money and do not receive any special discount on the equipment or the monthly service.)

More details are on the way so stay tuned…

Would the Google Voice application be approved for the iPod Touch? The same application on a device without the phone would still be very useful. The feature overlap is on the iPhone, not on the iPod Touch. It doesn’t turn the iPod Touch into a phone, just a way to manage the Google Voice service.

Google has stated that they will do a feature equivalent version as a web application. I’m anxious to see it and use it. The current mobile version is a bit lame.

AT&T claims they had nothing to do with this. Okay, but they are certainly responsible for the network issues, which should include the delayed voicemail messages that I regularly see. Perhaps AT&T should give me the option of getting an email when someone leaves me a voicemail (like Google Voice). Or perhaps recognize that when I’m on WiFi, use that network to deliver service (like Skype).

The problem I see is lack of open cooperation to innovate services.

As of September 6, 2009, AT&T will require that all smartphones carry data plans. Leveraging an available WiFi connection would take huge loads off its 3G network and would improve customer satisfaction. After all, one of the biggest complaints will all cell phones is a lack of reception inside of homes or office buildings, places where there is usually plenty of WiFi.

Thoughts?

Here are the basic steps:

1. Sign into Twitter in one tab or window of your browser.
2. Sign into Facebook in another tab or window of your browser.
3. Now go to www.facebook.com/twitter and click the big green button in the middle.
4. Select your page and click the “Link to Twitter” button. If you manage more than one page, you will see all of the pages listed. If you want to link different pages to different profiles, make sure that you are signed into the appropriate Twitter account.
5. You will be directed over to Twitter to authorize the link. Double check that it is the right account, then click the “Allow” button.
6. You will be bounced back into Facebook and you should see the message “You are now sharing your Page updates on Twitter as hyermish,” or in your case, your Twitter account name.
7. Select the options for posts to Twitter (status updates, photos, etc.) and click “Save Changes.”

That is it! Post a status update on the Facebook page, then check Twitter to test, and you should be all set.

Update: If you read my previous post about automating your status, this is the actual exception. Posts to Facebook Pages are typically broadcasts out to your network. People generally don’t “lifestream” on Facebook pages. Just make sure that you are listening on Facebook and Twitter.

• 20 Tips on How to Write for the Web

One of my favorites is the “one space after a period” rule. In HTML, two spaces in code are condensed to a single space. Now it is a writing convention.

And my second favorite is rule number 4. (You will need to read the article to get the joke with the previous sentence.)

The original purpose of “Piano Inside My Brain” was to have a place to blog that wasn’t affiliated with my former employer. At the time, this domain (howardyermish.com) was hosted on with my former employer and I wanted a place to experiment that wasn’t under company control. (The reality was that I didn’t want to keep bothering the network admin.)

So as part of my overall reorganization of my sites, I realized that I had one too many sites. The “Piano Inside My Brain” blog content has all moved here. It also means that the pianoinsidemybrain.com domain is now redirecting over here. Still trying to work things out so the links don’t break, but the server isn’t quite cooperating. That should hopefully be resolved soon.

Update: Looks like the mirroring is working now. Historical links as indexed in Google are also working properly.

Well, I had been meaning to centralize things in more of a “life stream” format. Today was the day that I finally decided to take the afternoon and flip the switch.

So over the next few days I’ll hopefully get everything configured properly so that all of the website goodness is back in gear. Thanks for your patience.

Okay, you win. The move wasn’t that big.