Don Dodge has been a voice that I have followed for several years now.  The excitement, inside scoop, evangelism and passion for the technology industry is unparalleled for those looking to convert passion into a product.

Microsoft in midst of significant cut-backs has decided to part ways with Don Dodge.  Don’s account can be found on his blog here: http://bit.ly/40GW3V

Don has since posted a nice follow-up entitled: “Pay it Forward, Give and you shall receive”

My best goes out to Don and his family and know that his future is very bright because of all the relationships he has built and the people he has inspired.

I had a great time with my masters swim team mates at the Stacy Moor Memorial Master Swim Meet held at RIT on Sunday, November 8. This was the first time I have ever been to a swim meet and was really impressed with the intensity, organization and energy that was in the air.

Being very new to the sport I of course earned a disqualification on what was my best swim of the day, the 100 Fly. The DQ has me looking forward to redemption in future races.

Another point of interest was my shock to realize that I had to start on the block (diving start) as oppose to the standing starts in practice. I very handily demonstrated my rookie-ness by having my goggles blew off of my eyes on the 50 Free swim as I dove in with the wrong head angle. The swim was like a demolition derby as I bounced off of the ropes trying to maintain my sprint with hazy eyesight and goggles hanging off of my left ear.

Many thanks to my team-mates that helped me navigate the complex rules and edict of the great sport of swimming.

50 Free Linder, Leo J 38 NIAG-NI 31.98

200 Free Linder, Leo J 38 NIAG-NI 2:43.04

100 Fly Linder, Leo J 38 NIAG-NI DQ (turn) time 1:30!

Josh Bernoff Vice President & Principal Analyst   Forester Research

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/josh_bernoff

Great speaking @ Groundswell

Some great tips here from Kodak or more specifically their Field General of Social Media, Jeff Hayzlett.   I think that the information is good, brief and understandable especially for brands that are new to Social Media. It is presented as Kodak’s work and not an agency so it should carry some extra weight with those larger brands just looking to get a foothold on the Social Media climb.

http://bit.ly/1lzvUd

Hats off for Kodak for delivering on the promise of “Sharing” and not shouting – hence the sub-title of the document, “Sharing lessons learned to help your business grow.”

Admittedly I am a bit of a software snob in that I have spoiled myself with the big name software titles throughout my digital history. I have opted for open-source and lower cost items here or there for select situations such as the undeniable MySQL, SVN & Eclipse. So now that I have established myself as a named brand buyer of Oracle, Visual Studio.net, MS SQL, MS Office & Photoshop opting for open source when pinched; let me share a great browser based software application that knocked my sox off and is forcing me to rethink my fat desktop apps.

I was in need of resizing and manipulating a few images and did not have my big-horse workstation loaded with Photoshop. So I did what any good internet advocate would do, I did a search on Google. My typical reflex would be to pick out the results for Sourceforge.com or Codeplex.com etc first because I am still a developer at heart and I like to see what the crowd is contributing. Instead I clicked on a link to http://pixlr.com and went to their online editor.

I had a great experience being able to choose an image right off of my desktop, manipulating and resizing just as I would have in Photoshop then easily save it back to my desktop.

All around great feature fast and best of all – no giant install just to do a few simple manipulation tasks.

Way to go Pixlr.com!

Let me string together three items of interest regarding Twitter and clarify my bold, old-neighborhood like title.

First Twitter and Microsoft break the news that they are going to now be providing real-time feeds to Bing’s decision engine so that users have a decant search alternative to the less than stellar seemingly pasted on Twitter Search.  By simply providing some nice attribute filters like # of followers, Hash Tags etc. Twitter becomes much more searchable.  Don Dodge has more on this here.

Good Job Twitter

Second Google then of course comes swooping in to one-up Microsoft and say that Google has also cut a deal with Twitter and announced it the very next day.  Google will leverage the all powerful Google profile information that they so gracefully and effectively leverage like pepper-spray in a riot to search your chosen social networks.  MG covers this here.

Good Job Twitter

Thirdly Twitter announced early this year that it was going to close the gap on its lack of apparent revenue model by selling a range of analytics on what is contained in tweets & email.  This is where I get a little uncomfortable for a couple reasons.  Twitter was built, and will be built on grass-roots evangelism from Social Media Marketers, Analysts, First Adopters and Developers creating applications to activate Twitter’s potential.  By cutting into the ecosystem on such a key point, analytics, Twitter risks alienating their chief water carriers that need that ecosystem to survive.  There is plenty of opportunity for Twitter to monetize their incredibly strong and simple service of being the carrier of 140 character messages.

Bad Job Twitter

I am delighted to see Twitter cutting deals with Bing and Google and being wooed by countless others for access to their Tweets.  This is healthy for Twitter and everyone involved.  I can only hope that Twitter treads carefully when taking food off of the Twitter App Developers & Social Media Analysts table as any company that depends on downstream evangelism can not bite the hands that feed it.

Twitter please sell Tweets NOT OUT on your Developers Applications, Agencies & Analysts

Mary Jo Foley of ZD reports that Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, now has a third lab to add to his collection.  FUSE (Future Social Experiences Labs) will combine the MSR (Microsoft Research Group) and the Creative Systems Group in hopes to explore social media.  Good call

“FUSE Labs’ team will explore new social, real-time and media-rich applications and services that add value to existing products, or could be released on their own.  By combining these teams under a single leader and mission, Ray believes FUSE Labs can achieve greater impact through tighter focus and a more holistic approach.”

I am a Microsoft apologist in general but even my bent perspective can only think that this is an “Ah-Haa” moment after getting donkey-punched by Google’s wave.

Yes I charge forward when I should follow sometimes, but let’s go Microsoft churn out ground breaking planning and streamline the offering.  My belief is that the technology is not Microsoft’s problem but rather too many irons in the fire.  With that being said I think that centralizing Microsoft’s social media’s research efforts into one streamlined lab is a good thing.

Reference ZDNet: Microsoft’s Ozzie to head another new Microsoft lab

At some friends house on Friday evening I was fortunate enough to enjoy the best wine I have ever had.

Barb has been harboring a bottle of Chateau Latoure 1989 for the past 15+ years. The bottle of french ambition was finally brought to justice by Barb, Dave, Flavia and myself.

The description was quite accurate in a strong presence of tobacco, prunes and subtle spice.

Like the atmosphere that wraps the earth, the Social Atmosphere has many layers that all work together to provide an organized body that enables life.  Within one’s Social Atmosphere they maintain many levels of communication with friends, family, acquaintances and professional encounters.  The Social Atmosphere provides a natural order for keeping those conversations at different altitudes and distances between one another.  Even though  these conversations might swirl and churn like storms in the night there is a fragile boundary that keeps conversations personal, relevant and separated.  For instance a new found acquaintance might jump into a conversation on a blog and make an inappropriate comment.  Even though the friendly banter might be welcomed at first there may eventually there may be tension that builds.  If that individual consistently creates turbulence, like two cloud masses colliding in the troposphere, they will be excluded from future conversations or the entire Social Atmosphere might be abandoned in search for a calmer one.

 

Social Atmospheres can also be invaded from outsiders such as overzealous marketers.  Regardless of intent, if a marketer with a timely relevant message wants to reach into a stable Social Atmosphere and make a valuable contribution they need to do their homework first.  An example would be a company looking to provide “Real Customer Care” to people who have bought their product and have commented on the performance or quality of that product on their blog.  Social Media Monitoring (SMM) is a fresh way for the company to take a Social Atmospheric Reading without creating turbulence within a Social Atmosphere.  Once the company is fairly certain that they are reaching out to a “real customer” with a “real need” their probability of successfully helping that person increases considerably.  Furthermore, the mere fact that the company has taken a Social Atmospheric reading prior to entering the conversation will provide the company with credibility and give their message an aura of authenticity that will undoubtedly build good will with that customer.

Enough said about the sign posted next to the elevator on the third floor.