Saturday, September 29, 2007

Podcamp Ireland - the gift that keeps giving

Well Podcamp Ireland 2007 is over (and Podcamp Ireland 2008 is already being talked about. I'd like to thank everyone who made it possible.

And I'd like to thank those who couldn't make it, but joined in on the Edgecast Media uStream feed chat and kept things interesting... even contributing in some of the panels.

Just when you thought it was all over, more come out. Like this John McGuinness TD, Irish Minister for Trade and Commerce interview he gave at Podcamp which is part of the Intruders.TV series

take care,
and thanks,
Will

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Live blogging Podcamp

Thankfully things started a little late, I'm convinced that the road signs around Kilkenny are designed to stop people finding the city centre. Anyway, currently watching the "social Media and business" panel.

Keith Bohanna Pure Play "Most businesses have no use for microblogging"

Michael Byrne QBC "Conn is my neighbour" which explains how he got dragged in there, despite how suitable it was for his business.

Tom Murphy Microsoft "Social media to me is a whole range of tools to allow people to talk together"
"The blog was the first social media tool"
It was passive, you sat down and watched TV. Now people are making content and watching each others" ... but there is life in old media yet.

Neville Hobson
"It's now called mainstream media" - there is a big back channel

Ellybabes
"its as techie as you want it to be".. "It's about finding your level"

Neville
"You can be online in 10 minutes if you want"

Keith
"Rss goes way over their heads"
"For non-techies, RSS doesn't come in to it at all"
RSS feeds "is exactly the same list as your favourites"... "but you see the new content"

Neville
"How I explain it yo my mother... If you visit 20 websites a day... to see if there is anything new posted... if you ever do think is there a better way of doing this? ... with RSS... All the content is on one screen"
"Does anyone really care what its called?"

Krishna
on RSS "It comes to your door"

Keith
"Over the last year, there is much lower resistance for blogging with small businesses".. after talking to Mulley "its much easier since they have been converted"

Tom
"Its all about your audience"
Neville
"The platform ... automatically generate the feeds"

How do you make money (no consulting fees allowed)

QBC "Value is in the eye of the beholder"... "One company we work with has a rep in Donegal... and another in Munster. If you are a sales manager with a diverse workforce... what do you do? There are lot of books about motivating people ... the number one postulate is 'do not demotivate them'
If the guy in Dingle has a great day, he doesn't get the praise, and if you fall in to a puddle and have a bad day, you want to share that. So I get them to call in to a conference call... That call is tuned in to a podcast internal in the company and everyone hears it"... "The power of this stuff is that it's now and it's instant" ..." and it's heard in the whole internation comany" "when [the marketing people] hear the real stories on the ground are shocked since the perception does not match"
"Adding the value and making money .. means setting up quite strict structures [so the value of the content can be seen] and then you can be creative"

Tom
On companies blogging
"It puts a human face on the company" "Blogs ... give a much more colourful insight to the internals of a company.. and allows you to go much broader. ... Allows the [blogger] to go in to features. ... There are issues and dangers ... people can get

marketing was 'we control the message and you have to take what we tell you' social media is a loss of control to them. ... They 'buy' the value of social media, but they are nervous.

Neville
"What all companies should be doing is paying attention to what others are saying about them out there" ... "you will write about your experience with them"

QBC
"Usually when a customer goes nuts its because of the gap between their expectations and what they got." ... "Send them a twitter before they visit your hotel and ask 'What were you expecting' and another 'what did you get' and let the people in the organization see this" -- Finally a business use for social media!

Directed soundbytes
If you're in the area of business and you are looking at lead generation, what is the one thing (social media) you would engourage
Tom
"Know your audience. If your audience is using this, then use it"

Neville .. PR
"Sign up for google alerts for yourself competitors what ever and technorati (ice rocket, (some are paid for) custom scoop, and the other 4 or 5 places so you have the ways and means to tell what people are saying about you. And the conversations are exponentially growing

Micro/small business
One of the things behind successful blogging is time. Credibility can't come from a well developed website by itself. e.b Worldwide cycling, and they blog about the races for over a year on the pro-am circuit... that gives them credibility

internal
"Mind the gap"... "the experience that the product makes IS your brand"

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

telephone tag

Stephen D. Levitt of freakonomics fame wants people to wear a freakonomics t-shirt if they are audtioning for Sci Fi’s "Brain Trust" reality TV show. When did they show showing sci-fi and start showing reality TV?

It seems that the thrust of the show is to solve previously unsolvable everyday problems. So far so pointless.

But since they want applicants to solve a single everyday problem of no major social importance what would it be? And what out of the box approach would you use to solve it?

So I thought about it...

I would like to get a training programme running for people leaving phone messages. Teach them to slow down when leaving a reply number if nothing else.

How to do this... telephone tag.

A phone based contest where a baton "phrase phone number" is passed from one person to another. Cash (or mobiles) for prizes, but the person who drops it looses out. All contestants must be pre-registered.

Sorry about the "his", its being used for ease, pretend its his/her or her...

A contestant gets a recorded message on his voice-mail with the phrase number and a number to call. The contestant must pass a message and the phrase number and the number he is calling to the number in the message.
This message is recorded, and passed another contestant.

If a contestant does not call before a certain both the contestant and the person before him are deemed to have dropped the baton.

Both are dropped, and the "telephone tag" continues with the rest of the contestants. Continue until you have the required number of winners.

Now could I get Nokia or Apple to sponsor it... (or a launch idea for MaxRoam?)

take care,
Will

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The other financial gap

Why does this spoof on the Onion remind me so much of David McWilliams "Generation Game". I'm not as financially comfortable as I'd like to be (I'd like a Euromillions win this weekend if it can be arranged, thanks) but I don't think that Mr McWilliams quite thought out all of his argument.

RTE seems to be hell-bent on making us nervous as opposed to shaking us from our complacency. How about going through possible fixes so the public can lobby for them (without the need to post nappies please).

Its a guy geek thing, you've given us the problem, now how about helping us find the solution?


In The Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?

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Its smart to be an idiot

"Being an idiot, means losing the sense of self-criticism that is often found in programmers, sysadmins and engineers and truly learning." -- Noah Gift

Thanks to Gordon of Yell if it Changes for passing on to me Noah's article called The Importance Of Being An Idiot which as you can tell from the blog title, its something I believe in.

Admitting that you are not an expert, or don't know everything is hard, however, if you are an indispensable expert... you can't get promoted. And I certainly hope that all CEOs are jacks who hire experts rather than being an expert who only looks at one thing (usually that quarter's bottom line).

And Noah's article has a nice quote from The Edge -- "Most people lost in the wild die of shame. They didn't do the one thing that could save their lives –thinking"

Being an idiot means not being ashamed to ash the questions stupid questions.

Like how do I...

Will

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Pixenate your book

Let me tell you about Walter Higgins...

Walter created the Pixenate site which allows you to do online photo editing (so no need to download Gimp et al).

I think Walter explains it better in his interview with Intruders.TV

Well, at 9.30pm last night, after a bit of annoying him, he started working on a FaceBook version of Pixenate. At 3.30pm today he finished the FaceBook edition of Pixenate... yes folks that's 18 hours later and that time included a full nights sleep and at least on school run.

So now you can edit the photos you uploaded to FaceBook (or like me, failed to upload due to Java incompatibilities with my FireFox)

So please tell me how well it works...

Hopefully I can get to congratulate him in person at tomorrows Open Coffee. unless of course he's gone off celebrating with the Junior certs tonight.

take care,
Will Knott

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Friday, September 07, 2007

Bringing up nerdy

The leaving certificate results came out with a crisis. Too many people are not choosing honours maths.
The CAO / CAS results came out with a crisis. Too few people are choosing science and engineering courses.

If only we could make science sexy...

Well, we can't. We can however make science a little more accessible. When I was young, computers were these strange untouchable standalone machines. Now... well the playstation generation is all grown up. No,it's the Wii ones I'm wondering about. The intrigue of the machines has gone. The stories of new inventions are laid out in the papers.

That go unread by the target... kids.

Which is why I'm glad to hear that Tomorrow's World is coming back to the BBC. The programme showcased pioneering science as well as inventions that never came into commercial use. It was a Top Gear for science, full of cool stuff and the vaguely silly.

However I think it inspired techie people in these islands. And I'm wondering if Irish TV (yes, sorry mass market and all that) should be showing more of this type of thing.

For example, ready to roll and already broadcasting is The Lab with Leo LaPorte (responsible for so many good (sometimes) tech podcasts) and the Labrats spinoff.

And for all thing Irish, I've already mentioned Intruders TV Ireland brought to us by Edgecast Media. Expand these interviews (or include them in a larger tech themed regular night and...

Would that help increase the size tech generation?

Just wondering,
Will

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

So the idiot does something stupid

... because I can.

As much as I would like to blame Grandad for giving me the idea I suppose I can't.

I entered the "Best Blogging Website" contest at The Golden Spiders, partially because I'd love to live blog the show, but mostly because I can.

I think every Irish blogger, and blogger from Ireland, and every blogger not from Ireland but living in Ireland should enter this. Why... because you can. And I'd love to see what happens next. (Besides, Mulley should win it, but since when does the "should-have" actually become the "did-it")

So I filled out the form and off went the entry.
I seem to be asked for a cheque for €0. I wonder if I should send one in?

take care,
Will

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Go to hell (2.0)?

I've been away for a little while and I've seen a few things.

First off, I'll join in the chorus of congratulations to Conn Ó Muíneacháin for his Intruders TV Ireland going live. The interview in Cork was filmed just after the Cork Open Coffee that was streamed on August 17. There might be a few more to follow...

As for the post title... partially to attract attention and I found this song and video today (finally cleared out my e-mail and discovered a few gems). And for something almost insulting, David Ford makes it sound so sweet. A little Damien Rice-ish, but less sulky. The video is also an example of a cheap video done very well.



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