You Think Tech Is Small

Ever wonder how they make that new tech thing so small? Ever complain that you laptop battery does not make it the whole flight? These are the questions that a business person might ask when they are designing new technology. When Coby Leuscke makes something new he wants to know he can make it smaller, lighter, faster and run with less electricity in the harshest conditions on earth.

Cody is the president and stunt scientist for Metanomy a nonprofit in Fort Collins that works to create technology that can anywhere for first responders in disasters and eventually anyone who wants to do extreme things with technology.

One project is BeakGeek that monitors what birds come to a bird feeder by taking pictures and then uploading them directly to the Internet. You might ask why? I did. By taking pictures of birds when they feed all over the country those interested could track birds for science or fun as they migrate around the country. This is great for science students and natural scientists and each unit can be made for around $300 including the solar panels.

Pictures from BeakGeek units are put on Flikr (a photo sharing site) where people from around the world can use social networking to comment, tag and share the images collected. This is open source science.

Another project that Coby highlighted in his presentation tonight to the CNTC group is a trailer that is designed to be a mobile command post that can make it to any disaster in the world and is smaller and costs less than anything else currently produced.

All of Coby's projects are green because the use of solar and other sustainable technologies requires them to be. When you need to make sure a computer stays on for 3 days you ought to be green!

The presentation that Coby gave on behalf of Metanomy was excellent and opened my eyes to many new things.

Please Keep Advertising - The Video

This is a good example of a YouTube video that is being used for commercial benefit.




The premise of this video is very true. We have to keep advertising or we will loose ground with our brand. However, given that there are shifts in the current media market that have impacts well beyond the current economic situation focusing on the right place to put yours advertising dollars is critical. Look at tools in the social media that might save money and have a better more relevant reach.

This video is a great example of a way to post an ad in a social forum and to use the social media to your advantage. The biggest lesson here is that this ad does not look like it was posted by its creator but it was still posted. If you do not use social media your clients or ditractors will use it for you!

The New Denver DataMan Website

I am starting to work on the new Denver DataMan website that will be done by the end of the summer if not sooner and it is helping me refine my process that I do with my client in helping them develop their websites.

When a client comes to me they have an idea what they want from a website. They say things like I want it to look good and be found on Google or maybe they say it they want it to have a blog. I am not much different, I know I want it to look nice, be easy to navigate, have lots of valuable content, be found on search engines and many more nebulous things. Now, I have to take these goals and make a plan for how execute the new site.

Some the key areas that will be tackled in the new Denver DataMan website will be:

• Better design with more graphics
• Better navigation
• Integrated Blog
• Better event registration
• Integration with social networks

Making these goals a reality takes working out the organization of content and then developing a design that matches the navigation. A website is the place that your brand can be most clearly expressed; It is also the place where you have the ability to best share your organizations story. The navigation of your website should move your visitors through the narrative of your brand.

Better navigation will also make it easier for visitors to find the content that is on the your site that right now goes unused or underused. Moving the DDM blog on to the main website rather than hosting in on this Google Blog Spot will help provide more content for Google to index.

Having better event registration will make the site more valuable as a business tool but also be easier for my clients to register for events.

With the site upgrade DDM will be on the new version of the content management tool (Drupal) that we use for websites and there are many more tools for integrating with social networks for us to use. Being more connected with social networks makes it more likely that visitors will share the site with others.

Developing a new website is not easy for reasons far beyond the technical challenges of moving content, users, design, etc. It is hard because if you don’t take the opportunity to make sure you are telling your story better then you are wasting your time.

Welcome to Now

Today I clicked on an ad on from Facebook for Sprint and I got to the new Now Widget which is one of the coolest/strangest things I have ever seen. From this talking widget you can see how many sticky notes are being created, top words being used online, Google searches as they happen and news. This disying aray of content is put together to promote the Sprint Now Network.

I wonder if Sprint will see sales from this site? This site just goes to show you that there are many things left to try with social media and the Internet.

Way To Long

It has been way to long since I last posted on my blog. I am breaking my own rule that companies should blog at least once per-week. Blogging is good for establishing yourself as an expert in the community as well as for providing food (information) for Google to eat up (index).

Now if I was to just right that first paragraph - that would be a cop out and not a valuable post. So, I will tell a story about a photographer I am helping build their potential blogging strategy.

The photographer who will remain nameless is hesitant to blog because he does not know what to share. This is often a common problem with bloggers. You will find that if you make an effort to think about opportunities there are more than enough and you don’t have to be boring or give away trade secrets.

Remember if the data makes you look like an expert, tells a story and is interesting then it will be read and help you define yourself as an expert.

At What Cost

One of the things that I teach people as Denver DataMan is how to be more efficient in the ways they use the computer. This means finding software within one’s means that will help them do a task better than they could do before. This does not mean doing a task quicker, so it does not come out as well or so that you annoy others who will have to interact with the software.

Recently I have been asked to schedule meetings twice on a website called TIMEBRIDGE . It is a great idea. You send people times they might be able to meet and get back what times work and send out a link for the meeting. This is similar to an Outlook meeting request, without having to know that everyone is using Outlook. In theory this is wonderful but when the system does not let the recipient propose a new time. Also when the sender moves the time and the recipient gets three emails back this cannot be efficient for either party.

Evaluating software is like evaluating any tool. What does it do? What does it do well? What does it not do so well? What is the net gain? What is the cost?

With all of the great tools on the Internet we can’t use them all nor do we want to. Find tools that work and make you more productive. If you’re not sure what will work for you then ask a friend or a consultant to help you evaluate a product.

Just because an Internet product is free today does not mean it will be free tomorrow. Lots of products run very long public betas (test cycles) and the software is free at this time. Take Jott.com, this service was free for a long time and then they scaled back what was free and then started charging for everything. This is something else to consider when choosing services and software.

Remember efficiency needs to show a net gain.

The Experience Pros Radio Show

This past Tuesday I had the great opportunity and honor to be on the Experience Pros radio show to talk about Contact Relationship Management and how DDM can help people to leverage it. It was great to be in the studio with Angel and Eric and to learn from them.

I hope you will listen to the show and follow along with the CRM Scorecard.