Time To Pick For SXSW – How To Hire And Manage A Developer

August 13th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Our very own Steve Zehngut has a presentation up for consideration at SXSW Interactive this year and we’d love to have it chosen. About 30% of the decision, according to the SXSW people, is based on the thumbs up of readers. (Personally, I think it’s just a ploy to get lots of links and site registrations, but hey, you gotta play by their rules. Right?)

Steve’s presentation focuses on breaking down the communication barriers that can make working with a developer more difficult than it needs to be. The presentation will cover Interviewing Your Potential Developer, Planning & Project Managment, Using A Version Control System, and Bug Reporting. The session will give the audience a reality check on how to go about working with a developer to get a custom WordPress site (or any digital project) built on time and on budget.

Questions Answered

  • What questions should I ask when interviewing a developer?
  • What are the communication pitfalls that I should avoid?
  • How can clients get involved in project management?
  • What is version control and how does it benefit me?
  • What is the best way to handle bug reporting?

So, help  Steve out. Click Here To Vote

A New Zeek Design Is Coming: The Wireframes

July 28th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Steve Zehngut and I have felt for a long time that our site was cluttered and lacking focus.

Of course, I could make excuses and say that this visual clutter is the reason for my consistent lack of consistency in writing here. But I won’t.  Those are demons to exorcise another day. Suffice it to say, we need to eat our own dog food and stop putting our site last on our development list.

So, today I submitted my ideas for how the site should be organized to our designer. I must have changed these wireframes 20 times over the past few weeks, but I think I’ve finally settled on something that will remove the clutter, get us focused and make Steve and the rest of the team happy at the same time.

For those who want to play along, I thought I’d share parts of the process with you. The first step – wireframes. For those who are unfamiliar, a wireframe is “a basic visual guide used in interface design to suggest the structure of a website and relationships between its pages.” A designer (in this case, our designer, Kiran) uses this basic visual guide to direct her efforts when laying out her interpretation of the graphic elements. What she delivers back are three or four beautiful graphics that are based on this UI direction.

The graphics in this post represent the home page and one inside page structure and were created using Omnigraffle. I hope you enjoying taking a look into the process. I’ll be back when I’ve got some comps to share.

There’s More To A Creative Website Than Pretty Graphics

July 8th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

In large-scale projects, the most creative part of the work is not the graphics, it’s the architecture.

While there is cognitive recognition of this by most of the clients we work with, this is not a concept that is quickly internalized. In the early phases of many projects, we find that even the most sophisticated and educated of clients find themselves distracted by the lure of pretty graphics way too early in the process. When bidding on projects this is particularly true. A heavy emphasis is placed on visual design and the critical  issues of function, how the site is built, special software requirements, and where and how the site will be hosted often take a back seat.

The most creative aspects of site design are often unable to be seen in the browser.

Creative design is subjective. Whether a site can handle a traffic spike created by a link from a highly influential website, like The Drudge Report is not. The design of the hosting services, the architecture of the content management system, and the way different pieces of software work together to insure that a site stays up and working can and should be as as creative as the visual design.

One of the mistakes we see a lot of clients make is basing the decision about what company should build their site on the look of the visuals in a portfolio. If impressive visual design is not backed up by equally impressive programming skills and system knowledge, your project may look good and not function in a way that supports your business objectives.

Design plays an important role in whether a site will be used properly by those who visit it, this is a fact. Great visual design makes a site simple to navigate and leads the visitor to the pages you want them to spend time on. But it is just one of the factors you should be considering when choosing your site developer.

Here are some other factors you should consider.

  • When your developer describes your project, are they leading the technology brainstorming or merely reacting to features that you have requested?
  • Are they using a home baked platform to build your website? If so, this may lock you in to working with that developer to make what would be minor changes with someone else.
  • What open source platforms is your developer familiar with?
  • How involved is your developer in the open source community?
  • What kinds of “pet” projects is your developer working on?
  • Is your developer showing you multiple possibilities to help achieve your goals?
  • Is your developer sought out for their opinions?
  • What associations is your developer actively taking part in?
  • What conferences do they attend?

Feel free to add to our list in your comments.

Cut Through The Noise With A Handwritten Note

June 18th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

I recognize the incredible value of a handwritten note and I suck at actually sending them.

Greg Meyer, from Gist, does not. We received this in the mail today. It was a followup to our face-to-face meeting at Buzzre Portland and conversations about their upcoming API release. We’ve had several digital conversations on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, email and even a GoToMeeting session, but in the midst of all that, this handwritten note stands out. It cuts through the noise like a knife.

We now have “design a card we can use to send handwritten notes” on our to do list. Thanks, Greg.

We Need Better Listening Tools

June 15th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

It’s become routine for me to “tune in” to REBarcamps using Tweetgrid.com/irc. I set up the feed in the morning and let it run all day. I’ll check in once in a while during the day to see if anything of interest catches my eye, but what is of greater interest to me is who the major communicators and what the big topics of conversation were. I’m trying to look at signal vs noise.

I put together some Wordle-based illustrations after REBarcamp Charlotte and they were well received, but I decided to do something a bit different with the data collected for REBarcamp St. Louis. The video below was triggered by two things. First, I lost most of the morning data by accidentally closng the Tweetgrid.com/irc window, so much of the data was lost for the day. Second, so few people were sharing information and so few tweets were created that it made any valuable analysis impossible. The truth, we need better listening tools.

The Prezi used for this video can be found here: #rebcstl prezi

May I Suggest A Small Change To The iOS4 UI?

June 11th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

In my opinion, Apple rules the user interface (UI) world.

And for the most part, the UI changes they’ve made in the upcoming iPhone software, iOS4, are major improvements. And since I use a lot of apps, the ability to group applications by type is one of my favorite new features. However, what I think is missing is the ability to select an application icon or category icon to represent the grouping when viewing an unopened folder. While there is a tremendous overall improvement in the speed with which I can find any specific app, the ability to quickly glance and understand photo content without having to read the folder names would be a huge help.

I’ll take this iOS4 UI over the old UI any day. I’m very happy. The video below will help explain why I could be just a little happier. And don’t we all just want to be a little happier?

Import Your ActiveRain Posts To Your WordPress Blog

May 28th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

A few weeks ago, ActiveRain released a feature that allowed it’s members to “archive” their ActiveRain blog posts. Utilizing that file, however was not a simple task, so we’ve created a WordPress Plugin to make the process simpler.

Click here to download the plugin immediately.

This video will walk you through the process of exporting your ActiveRain XML file and importing it into your WordPress blog. This is for self-hosted wordpress blogs only.

YouTube Preview Image

How To Speak Geek, Part 4 – Bug Reporting

May 25th, 2010 - Steve Zehngut

This is the final installment of my four part series on how to communicate with your developer. Part 1 covered Interviewing Your Potential Developer, part 2 covered Planning & Project Management, and part 3 covered Version Control.

Bug Reporting

Problems are going to occur. The way your developer handles problems is what sets good developers apart from bad ones. I have never found a website that was 100% bug free; not even the largest websites. Knowing this ahead of time may help you handle problems more rationally.

Do your best to keep emotion and drama out of the situation. When a problem arises, take a deep breath and count to 10. Most emergencies are usually resolved very quickly. What may seem like a major problem to you might actually be a minor technical problem that your developer can fix in 5 minutes.

Your bug reporting procedure should be established during the planning phase of your project. You and your developer should agree on how emergencies are handled as well as non-emergencies. You need to agree first on what constitutes an emergency. Typically on our projects, an emergency is when any part of the site is not accessible by the public. This happens when either a page fails to load or the server is acting slow for some reason. For all other situations, we have our clients submit a ticket to our project management system.

Developers do not like guesswork. When reporting a bug, don’t send an email to your developer with something like “My site isn’t working.” Lack of detail is very frustrating for you developer and the “hunting” time can cost you extra money.

Good bug reporting is an art form that can take some practice to master. To report a bug, you need to give as much detail as possible in a concise document.  Start by giving a brief description of the issue in plain English. Don’t try to analyze any technical issues.

Then, give the exact steps to reproduce the problem. Tell your developer exactly what you were doing at the time the problem occurred. Also, include your operating system, browser version and any virus or firewall software you might be running.

An easy way to send your system details to your developer is http://supportdetails.com. Our customer service people at Real Estate Shows use this site extensively. When a customer reports a problem, they have the customer send an email from that site.

VERY IMPORTANT! When reporting problems, make sure you specify the priority. Be realistic. Is this a mission critical problem? Can it wait a few days? A week? If you don’t regularly specify a priority, your developer should get into the habit of asking the priority.

If your site is inaccessible, check out http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com before contacting your developer. This site will let you know if the problem is limited to just you or if the public is experiencing it as well.

A Few Additional Tips

Brainstorming is a good thing, but there is a fine line between brainstorming and feature creep. As you see your project being built, your mental wheels will start to spin. You will be thinking of additional enhancements to these features. However, if you want them added in your current working phase, be prepared to revise your statement of work. There will be an impact on the schedule and/or budget.

Many developers speak in languages that sometimes I don’t even understand. You will hear them refer to technology using terms and acronyms that will make your head spin. And they will rattle them off like you are supposed to know exactly what they are referring to. When this happens, make Wikipedia and Google your friend. Jot down the terminology and look it up later.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that many of the horror stories that I hear could have been avoided with clear communication. While there are a few bad seeds, I believe that most developers are not maliciously screwing up projects. Several factors may have contributed to projects that went wrong. If you have a developer horror story, I encourage you to look back at what could have been done differently to avoid the problem(s). Learn from it so that you don’t fall into the same trap next time around.

May OC WordPress Meetup Live

May 24th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Tonight’s Orange County WordPress meetup is a “back to basics” night. So, I thought I’d give the live blog app another run through the paces. Tonight, we’ll be sending photos through as well.

6:46 pm: And the crowd begins to gather for the OC WordPress meetup.

6:56 pm: Just another photo test. :)

Let’s Get This Party Started

7:01 pm: @zengy is explaining the Live Blog app. This will be tweeted.

7:04 pm: The crowd is much larger tonight.

WordPress 3 Beta 2

7:09 pm: WP3 Release candidate 1 should be “any day now” according to @jefferyzinn

7:12 pm: The big update in WP3 beta 2 was an update to the menus customization. Allows custom creation of different menu types and positions inside the appearance panel. Top. Sidebar. Wherever you like.

7:13 pm: The menu types and nesting features in WP 3 are hot.

Installing WordPress

7:26 pm: Start by creating a new, empty mySQL database, then install a clean version of WordPress in the new directory. Then in wp-config.php change your mySQL host location, name and password.

7:29 pm: Once installed simply visit the site, give it a name and… It’s hard to live blog and answer phones and let people in doors at the same time. :)

7:34 pm: When you set up a WP blog, are there plugins you use by default? “Yes, one of them is Vipers Video Quicktags.”

7:36 pm: Photo-

7:39 pm: @mac_boy recomends seeing if a plugin author is respondingb2 comments on download site.

7:41 pm: Feed WordPress, WP Print and WP EMail are other plugins @zengy will install by default.

7:43 pm: Crowd advice: if you can’t preview a WP template, don’t activate. Bad things happen.

8:01 pm: Feed WordPress is a plugin that allows you to syndicate any rss feed into your blog. To use Feed WordPress you have to update to their recommended version of rss.php. The instructions are contained in the plugin warning.

8:24 pm: Looks like something I did in last update freaked out the Live Blog app.

8:25 pm: It may have been the ampersand. We’ll check that out.

8:33 pm: Just seeing how this handles a panoramic shot.

8:43 pm: Anton recommends css-tricks.com for great WP training videos

8:57 pm: Speed up WordPress w/ caching plugins – WP Super Cache, Squid and W3 Total Cache.

8:58 pm: WordPress is very data intensive. Caching dramatically reduces the database calls.

9:07 pm: Great crowd at OC WordPress tonight. Thanks!

Testing from the iPad version of the app now. (no timestamp)

How To Speak Geek, Part 3 – Version Control

May 20th, 2010 - Steve Zehngut

This is the third installment of my four part series on how to communicate with your developer. Part 1 covered Interviewing Your Potential Developer. Part 2 covered Planning & Project Management. Part 4 will cover Bug Reporting.

Version Control Is Critical

Version control is critical! In case you missed it, I will say it again. VERSION CONTROL IS CRITICAL!!!

So what the heck is it? Simply put, version control is a system that saves each iteration of your code. The code is stored in a central repository and all code changes pass through that central repository. Multiple developers are able to simultaneously work on the code and the system aggregates the changes. Version control also gives your developer an easy way to quickly “roll back” code to previous versions if something goes wrong. For a more detailed explanation, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control.

Your developer needs to implement a workflow where the code has to pass through version control as a way to push changes live to your server. We typically work on all code locally and then push it through version control to a live server. On larger projects, this workflow may include pushing to a staging server first and then to a live server. Either way, the code always passes through version control.

So why is all of this important to you? I am glad you asked. Your version control system protects you if your developer drops the ball. You will always have access to the latest version of the code. If your developer bails, you don’t have to hunt down your code or worse, start over from scratch. You should be able to simply grant access to a new developer.

Three popular version control systems are svn, git and Mercurial. At Zeek, we use git.

It is important that you have access to the code repository for your project. Your developer needs to grant you access if they are hosting the repository. Better yet, host it yourself so that there is no confusion down the road.

There are services that offer inexpensive version control hosting.

  • Beanstalk (http://beanstalkapp.com) offers hosting for SVN and git.
  • Bit Bucket (http://bitbucket.org) offers hosting for Mercurial hosting.
  • Some sites offer free repositories, but your code will typically be public if you use a free system.

Note. If your developer does not currently use a version control system, insist on it. If they refuse to use a version control system, find a new developer.

Up next: Part 4 – Bug Reporting.

How To Speak Geek, Part 2 – Planning & Project Management

May 17th, 2010 - Steve Zehngut

This is the second of my four part series on how to communicate with your developer. Part 1 covered Interviewing Your Potential Developer. Part 3 will cover Version Control and Part 4 will cover Bug Reporting.

Planning

As the old adage goes, “Bad planning on your part doesn’t make it an emergency on mine.” This is exactly what your developer is thinking when you make last minute feature requests that were not in the original work scope.

Planning is about setting expectations. If expectations are spelled out up front, there should be no surprises. This is an ongoing process and expectations will need to be revised as you move forward. Your developer may lack the skills to proactively set expectations, but you can take on this responsibility. The developer will probably thank you for doing so.

The Statement Of Work

The most critical document you need for any size project is a Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW needs to contain a detailed description of the project, the milestones, a timeline and payment terms. Depending on the complexity of the project, your SOW may need to contain specific details about each feature and how that feature is supposed to operate. Include as many specifics as it takes so that little is left to interpretation later.

This is the time to address code ownership. Who owns the code that is generated as a result of the project? Different developers have different points of view on this subject so it is important establish this early. In my work for hire contracts, our clients own the iteration of the code that we develop for their site. This means that we are able to re-use our routines on other projects, but we cannot re-use an entire project elsewhere. If you want to own the code, then you will need to negotiate this in advance and the SOW is a perfect place to do this.

Take your time creating the SOW. Your developer should not write one line of code until this is finalized and agreed upon. When I create an SOW, it typically goes through several drafts. I will submit a draft to my client for their review and then they will make edits and submit it back and so on until we both agree that it is final. You can use Word, Pages or Google Docs for this process. Whatever software you use, make sure you use the “Track Changes” tool so that you can see the progression.

Once the SOW is complete, both parties need to sign a copy of it to signify that they agree. For larger projects, my SOWs get attached as an exhibit to the work for hire contract.

A couple of important notes:

  • You can never over-plan! Good planning and documentation reduces the guesswork as your project gets developed. Anything you can do to cut down the margin for error will save you money in the long run.
  • Always try to avoid doing anything as a rush. You are always asking for mistakes when rushing.

Project Management Site

Your developer should use a project management tool like Basecamp. This will allow you to track your deliverables and project schedule. The site needs to have a good commenting system so that your conversations around a particular task are centralized in one place.

DO NOT use email or instant messenger to track tasks! These conversations tend to get lost in the shuffle. I have found that important parts of the conversation get lost when someone accidentally forgets to cc the group. :)

The SOW should become a road map for your project management site. All of the deliverables from the SOW need to be converted to tasks on the site. This can be done by you or the developer. In addition to task tracking, your project management site should be used as a central place to post feature discussions, technical notes and design comps. Your project schedule and major milestones should also be tracked on the site.

At Zeek, we use a site called GoPlan. GoPlan is similar to BaseCamp, but we switched because it has a good bug tracking ticket system built in.

Take an active part in the project management, but be careful not to micro-manage your developer. And when possible, ask your developer to use a screen sharing site like GoToMeeting.com to explain when you don’t understand something their saying. So many communication issues can be solved if a little extra time is taken at those critical moments in the project.

Up next: Part 3 – Version Control

How To Speak Geek, Part 1 – Interviewing Your Potential Developer

May 10th, 2010 - Steve Zehngut

I spoke recently at Real Estate Wordcamp in Denver. Kudos to Todd Carpenter for putting together such a great event. All of the sessions were informative and the response from the crowd was extremely positive.

My session was appropriately scheduled as the last session of the day. The title was “How to Speak Geek – Communicating with a Developer.” The sessions leading up to mine were about WordPress techniques, creating meaningful content, and some primers on how to dive into code. My goal for the session was to give the audience a bit of a reality check on how to go about working with a developer to get a custom WordPress site (or any digital project) built. It was also well received, so I’m turning the content into a series of posts, broken into these parts:

Interviewing Your Potential Developer
Planning & Project Managment
Version Control
Bug Reporting

Much of what I am about to write refers to boutique developers. These are typically smaller shops or freelancers where you will be dealing with the same people that are working directly on your project. Larger firms will typically have a project manager that acts as your point of contact. The project manager is responsible for overseeing the schedule to make sure deliverables are met on time and on budget. However, even some larger firms are guilty of the problems I am about to describe.

I asked the audience to share some of the problems they may have encountered working with a developer in the past. The answers were thrown at me fast and furious. Here are some of the common threads that I jotted down:

  • “My developer delivered something that was not exactly what I had in mind. I then had to pay them to change it to match my expectations.”
  • “My developer missed the deadline.”
  • “My developer has gone AWOL. They refuse to return my phone calls and emails.”
  • “My developer does not communicate effectively.”
  • “The costs are spiraling out of control with no end in site.”
  • “My developer takes suggestions personally.”
  • “I found out my developer was outsourcing my project to another resource. They felt dishonest.”
  • “My developer does not understand my industry.”
  • “My developer does not have the core competencies to complete every aspect of my project.”

While the audience had a good laugh at some of these responses, none of them surprised me. I have heard them all before. The good news is that many of these problems can be avoided up front with proper planning and a bit of leg work on your part (as the client).

Interviewing Your Potential Developer

Developers are a rare breed. At the risk of stereotyping, I have found that hardcore technical people are lousy business people. The best firms that I have worked with in the past have on board technical people as well as business people. Knowing this ahead of time should help you to communicate better with a developer. Be prepared to listen with a different ear. The developer may not offer up details about your future working relationship so ask a lot of questions. Here are some important questions that you should ask when interviewing a developer:

  • What is your hourly rate?
  • Will my project be billed as hourly or as a flat rate?
  • Once my project launches, is there a maintenance fee?
  • Where does my project rank with the other projects on your production schedule?
  • Do you have the bandwidth to give my project the attention it deserves?
  • What is your procedure when something goes wrong?
  • What is your process for bug reporting and bug fixes?
  • Are you using a project management system, like BaseCamp or GoPlan?
  • Who will be my day-to-day point of contact within your firm?
  • What kind of turn around time should I expect?
  • What version control system are you using?

These questions are best handled in a face-to-face meeting if possible. If a face-to-face is not possible, conduct the interview on a conference call. Avoid handling the interview over email. When you are asking these questions, it is important not just to hear the developer’s answers. Listen to their tone of voice. Study their body language. Are they uncomfortable giving their answers or do they sound confident? Do they speak in “double talk” or do they seem like a straight shooter? This should give you an indication as to how they will handle themselves in a working relationship.

Make no mistake – if you hire a developer, you are entering into a relationship with this person. Take the time to find someone you can trust. If you need to interview a dozen developers until you find the right fit, do it! Finding the right person will save you a lot of headache and money in the long run.

Reality check moment. I am sorry to have to break the news to you, but no one will ever be as passionate about your project as you are. Most developers get off on creating cool technology. It’s a bonus if that can be married with cool content.

Feel free to post any additional questions you might have about interviewing a potential developer in the comments below. Part two in this four part series will cover planning and project management.

Signal VS Noise – Friend Trend

May 3rd, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Continuing with the signal vs noise theme, I thought I’d take a quick look at the iPhone app Friend Trend from AKI Creative Inc.

What this app does is generate a “trending topics” list from JUST the people you follow on Twitter. You can sort for words or hashtags by timeframe. If you find a tweet you want to respond to or retweet, you can do that right from that app as well. This is all Friend Trend does. That’s it. And I like it.

I like it because it’s another tool that allows me quickly focus on what might be signal and ignore whatever I’m considering to be “noise” at the moment. As you can see from the screen shot to the right, it presents me with a list of the top trending words or hashtags. When I click on the individual listing, I see all of the tweets using that word or hashtag. Nice. You can see more screen shots below.

Where does it fall short?

Well, first of all, tools like this will likely fall short for you at some point based on the limitations of the Twitter API. Unless your storing the data off to your own server for analysis, you’ll be limited to what Twitter will feed the apps. You won’t be able to look back very far in time either. Friend Trend has that same limitation. Also, Friend Trend doesn’t give you the option to see the trends within one of your Twitter lists. I follow many lists that contain people that I don’t follow. If you’d like to see how that works,  that filtering feature can be found in Cadmus. Connect your twitter account to Cadmus and it will analyze it and spit back the triends for your friends and your lists. Be prepared for a wait, however. That kind of data crunching takes some time.

Friend Trend is a free app, with this one limitation. In the free app, trends 2-5 are invisible until you pay $0.99 to unlock them. Download it and give it a try. You can decide for yourself whether 2-5 are worth the buck. :)

Signal VS Noise: A Look At The REBCNASH Twitter Stream

April 30th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

I wasn’t going to write this post. I obviously changed my mind.

This is a post about REBarcamp Nashville, but it’s not really about REBarcamp Nashville. Nothing I’m about to say has anything to do with the quality of the 51 sessions that took place during the day at REBCNASH. From everything that I’ve heard from people who were actually in attendance, Brian Copeland ran an excellent REBarcamp, filled with great information and attended by many who were new to the Web 2.0 space. One of the speakers I spoke with mentioned that he was pleasantly surprised by how attentive the audience was. He said that many were taking notes on actual paper, with actual pens.

Signal vs. Noise

I decided to monitor the Twitter Stream for REBCNASH based on a conversation I had the previous day about the volume of noise that was coming from conferences and how hard it was to find valuable content in what was being shared via Twitter. The claim was that these conferences were becoming polluted with noise. They were echoing the feelings Matt Stigliano had while trying to listen to the content being generated on Twitter at SXSW. And I remembered clearly watching his cry for people at SXSW to do more than just broadcast their Foursquare data. You can read about it here: Two Weeks of Social Media Hell.

This is no scientific study, but I did want to be as accurate as possible. So, I cross referenced my main monitoring, using Tweetgrid.com/irc, with Twazzup and Twitter Search,. Luckily, the Twitter gods were kind and the search stream was consistent between the three tools. In total, there were 184 tweets that used the hashtag #rebcnash that day. Those tweets were generated by 77 different people. I don’t know how many were in attendance. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that 77 people decided that they wanted to use the hashtag on Twitter to share something about the event with the rest of the world.

So what did they share?

To analyze the content, I brought the tweet stream for REBCNASH into a spreadsheet and categorized each broadly. A tweet was either “signal” or “noise.” Since REBarcamps are learning conferences, I defined signal as any tweet that gave a piece of information that contributed to learning, or a provided a link to something that might. Everything else was considered noise.

Out of the 184 tweets, I only considered 8 to be signal. And when you see the 8, I think you’ll agree that I’m being generous. Here are the 8 “signal” tweets:

  • 8:10:49 am MauraNeill: Google loves WordPress (via @kdrewien) #rebcnash
  • 8:16:30 am MauraNeill: WordPress is industry standard – @kdrewien #rebcnash
  • “8:27:04 am DawnGrizzell: “”love is a killer app”" with @RealEstateZebra. Learn to be a better agent. I’ll be reading the book! #rebcnash http://twitpic.com/1j4e64
  • “8:42:26 am shabsxu: @serkes you can add “”/rss”" to any WP url and it will give u a feed! #rebcnash”
  • 12:50:01 pm JeremyHelton: #rebcnash social fusion autofeeds, interesting stuff.
  • 12:55:23 pm MauraNeill: Facebook ads – for the first time we can create laser-focused ads that pinpoint a very specific group of people. #rebcnash
  • 1:03:28 pm MauraNeill: Good read 4 REALTORS-check it out! RT @kleighcreative: BLOG POST: If You Bum Rush Me, We’ll NEVER Do Business http://bit.ly/aBPbRQ #rebcnash

Again, I think I am being VERY generous here. Example, I included Jeremy Helton’s tweet because it might cause me to go take a look at Social Fusion. So, I counted it as signal. I could debate the “signal worthiness” of several of the others, but this should give you a sense of how low I set the signal bar. Retweets of these signal tweets (only a few) were not counted as signal.

A Closer Look At The Noise

So, the math is pretty simple. If only 8 tweets were signal, 176 were noise. Example: “no sweet tea here at #rebcnash yet but always hope. Had some awesome sweet tea the other day though. Must have more :-) ” Which is a perfectly fine tweet, (I’ve said similar things on twitter while at a barcamp) just not signal by my definition. There were, in fact, almost as many tweets about tea, 6, as there were tweets that contained any real content.

My next step was to categorize the noise. I wanted to get a feel for the kinds of things people felt were important to throw out into the twitter stream. So I put the noise into one of five categories; praise, questions, statements, location, and photos.

Praise: these were tweets that simply praised some aspect of the conference without really providing any insight. An example of a praise tweet: “Can’t wait to line up the rest of the afternoon at #rebcnash.” These tweets contained the most used word at REBCNASH, which was “great.”

Questions: these were tweets that were predominantly coming in from outside of the barcamp itself. There were 17 questions asked. Only two of them were answered using the hashtag, one of them by me. An example of a question tweet: “Which is the best Twitter app for a Palm Pre? #rebcnash.” This was never answered.

Statements: these were tweets that simply made a statement, often seemingly random. An example of a statement tweet: “Learning more about twitter at #rebcnash” and “Is hanging and sponsoring #rebcnash today. Loving ‘Love is the Killer Ap dude’s jacket!” The last one could easily have been put into praise or even location as well.

Location: these were tweets that simply let people know where someone was while they were at REBCNASH. An example of a location tweet:  “Second half of #rebcnash has started! (@ REBarCamp Nashville w/ 10 others) http://4sq.com/ai3HWT” The majority of these were not Foursquare posts, however, just people letting us know what session they were in.

Photos: these were tweets that contained photos. An example of a photo tweet: “#REBCNASH Schedule is Revealed! http://post.ly/dmq4″ Many of these also contained praise or a location or both, but were only counted in the photo category.

How Do We Increase The Signal To Noise Ratio?

I’m not here to debate why so little content was placed into the Twitter stream during this REBarcamp. There was no WiFi at the event, so a livestream was not possible and computer access was limited. I get it. And once again, just to be clear, those who actually attended are saying emphatically that the information shared in the sessions was excellent. Clearly, however, desire plays a role. First and foremost, you have to want to create valuable content or want to consume valuable content to make any of this work. And you certainly have to be able to identify what valuable content looks like in either case.

Personally, I’d like to do a better job of sharing valuable information. So, for those who have the desire and the ability to recognize or create good content, how do we make it easier to get more signal into the stream and get more signal out of it as well.  @jazzychad has done a good job with Tweetgrid.com/irc and an even better job with Madch.at, but even those miss the mark on many levels. In this specific case, if you were interested in gleaning some knowledge from the REBCNASH stream, having the very best listening tool in the world would still have only netted you, at best, 8 potential nuggets.

And having the best tool for sharing great content only works if people actually share. From my own experience, I know I am more diligent to present quality information if I know it has some legs. It’s one of the reasons why we’re creating the Live Blog app. When I know the information I’m tweeting at an event is going to live as content on my blog, I’m more careful to make sure it’s good content.

Some Questions

  • When you listen in on a conference via the “official” hashtag, what are you hoping to find?
  • Do we have any obligation at all to share the quality content at free conferences with the community at large?
  • Should conference organizers play a larger role in the distribution of the targeted content coming out of their events?
  • Is Twitter even the best place to share that content?  If not, what is?
  • What tools are needed to make relevant content easier to create and consume?

I’m not sure I have the right answers for most of those questions, but one thing I do know for sure is this -  I’m personally going to give more thought to the content I’m sharing at the next event I attend. I’m going to shoot for more signal and less noise. I think everyone will benefit. Including me.

Creating A WordPress Plugin – A Demonstration

April 24th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Our Chief Zeek Geek, Steve Zehngut, gave two presentations earlier today at the Orange County Wordcamp.

His first presentation was entitled, “How To Speak Geek – Hiring And Managing A Developer.” In that presentation he broke down the common communication problem areas the average business person faces when dealing with a developer, and how to fix them. His second presentation was aimed directly at the developers in the audience. “Real-Time Plugin Development” gave Steve the opportunity to get into the nuts and bolts of building a WordPress Plugin. He wrote the plugin, which focused on a more intelligent use of a post’s gallery of images, while at the Wordcamp, then demonstrated the building for the audience.

Below you’ll find the entire real-time plugin presentation. (56 minutes)

Diversion And Drudgery And LibraryThing

April 23rd, 2010 - Jack Pitsker

Cool as a cucumber, the Fool writes to meet his deadline.

A few weeks ago Jeff asked me to take a look at an online game called “CoverGuess” and to write something about it on my Fool’s Manifesto. I clicked on the link, not knowing what to expect, and it brought me to a website called “LibraryThing” – a clumsy name for a website apparently devoted to the written word. I was also not very impressed with the site itself. It was plain and primitive – stark, and difficult to navigate. To my annoyance I discovered that I had to create a profile in order to play the game. I don’t like signing up for Spam, but this site did not require my email address so I grudgingly acquiesced. This was not a good start, and I was not in the mood to be charitable.

I wasn’t charitable.

I wrote a reply to Jeff’s email. “My initial reaction to this “game” is fairly negative. The game, in my opinion, is nothing more than a company’s transparent attempt to get people to tag images to build their database. They even address that complaint in their help file, which should be a warning sign to them. The game is boring.” I went on to complain about various aspects of the game, why I didn’t really consider it a game, blah, blah, blah. I expressed my concern about writing a review for  a game that I obviously didn’t like. I have nothing against writing a negative review; but I didn’t feel right about dumping on this pathetic game on this pathetic website. It felt more like abuse…like kicking a puppy. Jeff just told me to be honest and write what I thought. That didn’t help. The game was a dud, and apparently I was the designated hit man. Luckily, other work got in the way and I was given more time to think about it.

Time gradually gave me perspective and I came to realize that my initial reaction was not born only out of the game itself. I am used to writing about topics that stir some sort of passion in my heart. And I am used to playing games that I choose. If I don’t like a game, I don’t play it. If I like a game – really like it – then I am driven to tell others about it. And I am certainly driven to play it, often to the point of obsession. But when Jeff pointed me to the link to CoverGuess and asked me to write a review, it was not a game at that point – it was a job. And that, I think, is where the trouble started. I was looking for a game, and I found work, and my initial reaction was born out of the contrast between my expectation and the reality.

This is what I have been pondering lately – the division between play and work, diversion and drudgery. What creates our reactions to those two constant elements in our lives? Is it something that we can control? Manipulate? It is hardly an original thought (Hello, I’m the Fool, remember?) but it is certainly worth pondering. We all feel victim to the drudgery in our lives now and then, and we all long to play in whatever way we can. But the division between the two is not so easy to define. It blurs and shifts. It is subjective to our whims and our moods, and yet sometimes feels out of our control.

I love playing with my daughter. She has the unfettered imagination of a child, but is now old enough to really communicate her ideas. Our best games are the ones that happen spontaneously, with jumps and shrieks and giggles. But like a child – like anyone, actually – she likes to try to recreate those moments of play that she remembers fondly. They bring her comfort, and if I forget a detail or deviate the slightest bit from the script written on her memory, I am quickly brought back into line by her stern reprimand: “Daddy, that’s not how it goes!” It ceases to be a game. It’s a job – a ritual performed for an audience of two. I will admit, to my shame, that there are days when I am so tired that I am not up for these rituals, when I greet a cry of “Let’s play pirates!” with a groan and a promise of “Later!” (I’m hearing Harry Chapin singing “Cat’s in the Cradle” as I write this) I’m glad to say that those times are rare. As I said, I love playing with her. My point is that, sometimes, the play becomes work and ceases to be fun for me.

I love the MMORPG genre. I am lucky that these games were not around when I was a kid or I would have flunked out of high school. I’ve played World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online to name a few. I love to create characters and watch them grow, to explore the lands and interact with other players. But at some point, each of those games stopped being fun for me. I would find myself running from place to place trying to mine metal to increase my Blacksmithing craft, or battling the same group of trolls over and over again in the hopes that one of them would drop the special rare weapon that I wanted. Or I would just be grinding away at some task or another. Logging on would become like clocking in at a job, and eventually I would simply stop playing. Again, the game has become work, and the enjoyment is gone.

It works the other way, however. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the scene in Mary Poppins where she sings to the Banks children about how a “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” as they clean up the nursery. Of course, cleaning would be much more fun if we could snap our fingers and make our clothes march into the hamper. Snow White also sang about how if you just “whistle while you work” then it will make your job much easier. Again, having a group of woodland creatures helping out doesn’t hurt either. (Part of me has always wondered if those upbeat ladies would so chipper if they didn’t have animals or magic to help them!) But the point is a good one – work becomes easier if you can even pretend that you are having fun.

I used to go to a Summer camp when I was younger. Part of what made the camp affordable is that all the work was done by the campers. We cooked, we cleaned, we all worked hard. It doesn’t sound like a fun time when I put it that way, but it was great. One of my favorite chores was washing the dishes. My friends and I would put on aprons, and we would sing as we washed. We sang as loud as we could, whatever songs came into our minds, and it was even a little disappointing when the washing was finished. Hey, what do you know? Snow White was on to something there.

So what makes a job a game?

And what makes playing a game into a chore? Is it just our attitude? That conclusion seems dangerously simplistic to me. I don’t believe that a spoonful of sugar is guaranteed to make anything and everything palatable. But I also don’t think that the dividing line between work and fun is entirely out of our control, either. I don’t have any answers. It is something that each person must explore on his or her own. But it is certainly worth thinking about. Especially when you are faced with your next dreaded chore.

I went back to LibraryThing this morning. I added a few beloved books to my library. I uploaded my photo. My username is “wylkyn” if anyone wants to look me up. And I played CoverGuess again. I was annoyed at a few gameplay aspects that I thought should be changed to make the game better: if you are the first one to tag a cover you only get one point no matter how many tags you create; and if only one person has tagged a cover with an inappropriate tag that you fail to match, it doesn’t matter how many great tags you think up – you get zero points. But I found myself tagging cover after cover, and looking forward to seeing how my tags matched those who had played before me. I was suddenly having fun, and what had seemed a chore before was suddenly a game.

Go figure.

Finding Focus And Purpose: Simplify. Explain. Repeat.

April 15th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

The last tweet I looked at last night before going to bed was from Chris Brogan.

Chris is on a private Twitter list called “influencers.” I keep that list private because I don’t want anyone asking me, “why aren’t I on that list.” It’s always the last thing I look at before I head off to bed. His tweet, which I can’t find in his stream now, was: “What Is the Focus and Purpose of Your Blog http://bit.ly/cswlic.” I didn’t make the time to go read it before heading upstairs, but the headline made me immediately say, “Forget that. What is the focus and purpose of my life.” Yeah. I take things too far sometimes.

And then I went to bed.

But all night long that headline haunted me.  I tossed and turned most of the night and went in and out of coherent thought. And I woke up with a moment of clarity. I rolled over and hugged my wife and said, “We need to change Mothers Fighting For Others.” She bit. “How?”

I had already told her about my day in San Francisco at New Marketing Experience. I had also shared my mid-event takeaway from the event in a tweet. “We need a better, more consistent content strategy at http://mffo.org.” As I read it now, I realize how much I still didn’t get it at the time. I’m way better at giving great advice than I am at taking it. But after my sleepless night, I told Rocky that I finally “got it.”

“We need to do three things,” I said, still in bed. “We need to simplify our message, we need to answer just one question, and we need to do it more often.”

When I got out of bed, I took a look at Twitter and there was a mention waiting for me from Susie Blackmon. “RT @chrisbrogan What Is the Focus and Purpose of Your Blog http://bit.ly/cswlic [Ironic post for me and @respres gets photo credit.]” Since I hadn’t read the post, I had no idea Chris used one of my photos. Thanks, Chris, but you should know that I still haven’t read the post. I immediately took Susie’s tweet as a sign that I needed to write.

Simplify The Message

When I read the tweet, “What is the focus and purpose of your blog?” I found I couldn’t answer it quickly enough. And it forced me to ask a different question. What does MFFO do?  So, I asked Rocky, as she lay there half asleep, to answer that question. She did, but with long paraphrase of the paragraph that appears on the home page at MFFO.org.

“Mothers Fighting For Others is dedicated to providing orphaned girls with opportunities their parents would have provided, if they only could; a loving and nurturing environment and a quality education, so they can learn, thrive and achieve their highest potential.”

That’s accurate, but it’s not simple. Since  it’s not simple, it’s also not memorable. For anyone… including us.

What is the simplest way to describe what MFFO does? My feeling is that if we find the simplest way, we’ll also find the most powerful way. Let me try.

MFFO helps orphaned girls become powerful women.

That may not stick, but it’s simple. It’s memorable.  It’s accurate. As a result, it’s also powerful.

Answer Just One Question

One of the tweets I sent from NME10 seemed to resonate with people. It was retweeted a great deal. It was something Natanya Anderson said on one of the panels. She said, “Good content starts with ‘What do they want to know? Not what do I want to say?’” So, I asked Rocky, “What do people want to know when they come to MFFO.org?” She said, “Who? What? When? Where? and Why?” I said, “No. They want to know this: ‘Why should I give you my money?‘”

What do they want to know? That’s the one question we all need to answer for ourselves. In the case of MFFO, people who come to the site want to know what we do, where we do it and why. Sure, absolutely. But what they’re really asking when they land on the site is,  “why should I give my money to you and not to the thousands of other charities they have to choose from?”

And every blog needs to answer that one question… first and foremost. Without doing that there is no possible way to know what the focus and purpose of your blog is or should be. No possible way to harness that power.

Answer The Question More Often

Saying, “I need to write more,” is not a motivating statement. It’s a fact, but it’s not motivating. What I should be saying is this, “I need to figure out more ways to explain why people should support MFFO.org.” And I need to do it with sounds and images… not just words. If I concentrate on that, the ideas will come.

If I focus on answering that one question, that IS motivating. Why? Because I want to explain how we help give young Kenyan girls a voice, how we help them get an education, how we help them grow into productive members of their community, how we provide a home that nurtures and cares for them.

I WANT to do that! The ideas will come. The writing will flow. And then more people who care will be able to answer the question, “why should I give my money to you?” That’s motivating.

Simplify. Explain. Repeat.

And I need to go through this exercise for Zeek Interactive as well. And for Real Estate Shows. And for Stop Child Slavery. And probably for my life. :)

Do you know the focus and purpose of your blog? How will you find it?

photo credit: me

Experiential Marketing

April 13th, 2010 - xmluser

Tim Hayden is presenting on the rise of the mobile lifestyle. He claims this will make what happens offline even more influential for brands and consumers.

12:03 pm: “Alternative Reality” Live > Mobile > Online How do we drive those online to offline?

12:05 pm: Tim is telling a Foursquare story about a recent trip with his wife in the wine country and how a friend made a recommendation based on her experiences. It altered his behavior.

12:07 pm: “It’s the little things, small little things, that the audience is doing that is lifting up brands.”

12:08 pm: “Everyone is a blogger.”

12:09 pm: “People in other countries are using their phones in a more utilitarian way than we are. The Hispanic market may skip owning a computer with the advent of the smart phone.”

12:10 pm: “The more that we’re connected, the more accountable we become.”

12:11 pm: “online = offline”

12:13 pm: “90% of all word-of-mouth takes place offline.” We trust our friends more when we can communicate with them face-to-face.”

12:15 pm: “How do you make your live events unique? Dialogue. Suspense. Intrigue.”

“With the web in our pocket, events, retail experiences and other offline media dictate how and when we connect online. Amplify these efforts, reach the audience who could not be there in person, and improve your lead prospecting and other goals by taking the experience to other physical touchpoints.”

12:24 pm: “Give your audience a reason to show up. A payoff.”

12:26 pm: “At the end of the day, experiential marketers must be held to the same standards. Are we driving sales?”

12:27 pm: Looking for the research on Hispanic smartphone useage.

Good stuff.

REBCPHX – A Live Blog

April 9th, 2010 - xmluser

I’ll be live blogging #rebcphx today using an alpha version of our live blog iPhone app and WordPress plugin. It’s still a rough draft, but we’ve enabled some new features, like this one that removes the timestamp for better formatting of some content. I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs today.

One of the unique features is the ability to selectively tweet content. The last paragraph was sent to Twitter, for example, but this one will not be. Todd Carpenter will be the first person to test it outside of Zeek next week at the Real Estate Wordcamp in Denver.

9:23 am: Finally arrived. Sessions start in 40 minutes!

9:59 am: Let’s get this party started!

Photos And Flickr

10:09 am: “Why are you here? What do you want to learn?” – @ drubloomfield I like thus kind of session. Pure barcamp format. No real presenter.

10:10 am: Many of the people in the room have never really used Flickr.com

10:14 am: “I started taking photos to use in my blog. I started using Flickr and realized my photos were ending up in other people’s blogs. I’m touching people I would never have touched before.” – @ drubloomfield

10:18 am: You should be taking photos of more than just houses.

10:22 am: “You really need to be accurate with your tags and be detailed with your tags on Flickr” – @phxphoto

10:27 am: “And remember to join groups, local groups, that match your interests. You’ll be rewarded with views and relationships.” – @juli_red

10:35 am: “Don’t post a thousand photos to Flickr and then try to go back and tag. Painful.” – @phxphoto Good advice.:)

10:45 am: A discussion of Zemanta WP plugin was mixed.

10:54 am: Great group discussion.

Altos Research

Just spent some time talking to Scott, @altosresearch and it was one of the best conversations I’ve had at an REBarcamp in a long time.

How To Blog Without Blogging

11:13 am: “Confused people don’t buy.” – @altosresearch

11:15 am: “If you’re new to blogging, one of the best things you can do is just google, “how to blog” and you’ll uncover a ton of information” – @JulieZiemelis

11:16 am: “ActiveRain is the 7th most searched website on the Internet” – @JulieZiemelis (really?)

11:19 am: Blogging without blogging requires repurposing content. @jimmarks calls it “DJing content.”

11:20 am: “Here’s an interesting article I just found and this is what I think.”

11:23 am: Don’t forget YouTube. When in a rut, put a comment around a video with relevant information.

11:24 am: Your opinion is the original content. Use others to form the base for your jump-off point.

11:26 am: The lovely @locoheather just got a shout.

11:33 am: “When a buyer is googling a specific neighborhood, they are closer to buying than if they are googling a city.”

11:36 am: “Use you sent emails as a source for content for your blog.” – @altosresearch (let me add the hat tip to Ardell Dellalogia @Ardelld )

11:45 am: “Once you start focusing on blogging, the ideas will appear.” – @julieziemelis

This Is An Amazing Venue

So sad to have to leave #rebcphx early. Thanks to all for your support of mffo.org and your frienship. @headmutha and I are honored to know you! Now, let’s hope we make our flight. :) We just got on the bus from rental cars and our flight lifts off in 36 minutes. We might be here a bit longer.

1:59 pm: At Phoenix International Airport.

2:08 pm: We made it! :)

The End

Face-To-Face Engagement On An iPad

April 7th, 2010 - Jeff Turner

My two oldest boys asked to play with my iPad last night.

That’s not breaking news. What may be breaking news is what I found them playing an hour later. It wasn’t RealRacingHD, a great first-person perspective 3D racing game. It wasn’t ESPN Pinball, the most realistic pinball game I’ve seen in a long time. It wasn’t Labrynth 2 HD either.

It was Checkers. RealCheckers HD to be exact.

And I couldn’t have been happier. They had the iPad on the coffee table between them. One was sprawled on the couch under a blanket and the other on the floor, taunting his little brother with his skills, “I own you!” They were laughing, taunting, being boys. They were engaged with one another.

The size of the iPad, the realistic 3d board graphics and the ability to move the checker pieces with your fingers make this game feel like real checkers. And it is real checkers. It’s “real” because it enables the exact same user experience that a board made from paper and checkers made from wood or plastic would allow – Face-to-face engagement. Only there were no pieces to put away.

This is what I hoped would happen with my iPad. How about you?

The iBooks App & The Grand Itch To Publish – A Test

April 2nd, 2010 - Jeff Turner

As I was reading through my feeds today, a post about the iBooks app availability caught my eye. So, before even reading the post I downloaded the free iBooks app from the iTunes app store and almost went about my business. But I took a moment to read the post and this comment got me thinking. (scary)

“The app’s page also states that only the ePub format is supported and to add ePub books from outside of the iBookstore to the iBooks app, they must be DRM-free and synced to the iPad using iTunes 9.1 or later. The iBook app is free. I think I just heard Jeff Bezos shaking in his reading jacket.”

A Free App To Display Free Books That Anyone Can Create

The “shaking in his reading jacket” comment had me puzzled for a moment. Then it hit me. What the iBooks app is doing is proving anyone with a way to get their book onto the iPad. Of course, you need to know how to get your book into the ePub format, but that’s appears to be a fairly minor obstacle. There are lots of conversion tools.

If you can get your book into a PDF document you can use a site like ePub2Go to convert the pdf to the ePub format. It would be nice if the next release of Pages on the Mac added ePub to its list of export options, but I’m not going to wait for that. Instead, I’m going to do a little test for myself.

The fact that they are shipping a free children’s book with the app, Winnie The Pooh, is really what triggered my thinking. Ines Hegedus-Garcia worked with me on a kids book project a few months ago that will be perfect to test. The book, The Grand Itch, is really a poem I wrote over 25 years ago while working on my Masters Degree. I don’t remember what compelled me to write it, but I found it in a box in my garage and decided to do something to raise money for Mothers Fighting For Others. Ines provided the illustrations, and I did the layout and typography while driving her crazy with my art direction. It was fun (for me at least). And the idea was to give the book away and simply encourage a donation.

The Grand Itch As An iBook.

So, I’ve decided to make the ePub format of the The Grand Itch available over on the MFFO website as soon as I test it on the iPad that should be delivered to my house tomorrow. I’ve already converted the PDF into ePub using ePub2Go and will install it using iTunes on the iPad as one of my first tests. On the back page will be a link that should open to a donation page. Perfect.

I’ll document the process and let you know what technical issues I run into, if any. I know other devices have been able to read the ePub format. But this just feels different. Or maybe I’m just that much of an Apple fan boy. I don’t care. If it looks as good as the iBooks video demonstrations, and feels as good as I hope it will, Mr. Bezos may indeed have something to worry about. The potential applications are mind boggling.

What would you do with this capability?

Why Should You Care About An API?

March 31st, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Last week I spoke at RETech South and my first presentation was directed at Broker/Owners of real estate offices. After the session, I asked a trusted adviser to give me a harsh critique. They didn’t, but  they said something to the effect of, “I think you need to stop using acronyms that are comfortable for you, but foreign to your audience, like API.”

What they were referring to was a point in my talk where I advised the audience members to stop looking at the apps and tools put out by developers as an end unto themselves. Instead I wanted them to start asking the question, “how could I use the ‘ideas’ behind their tools to accomplish my specific goals? Does their API provide a path to use their tool in ways the creators would not have imagined?” As I write that now, I understand that I should have explained further.

So, let me explain further. First, API stands for “application programming interface.” It’s a way of explaining how different software applications communicate with each other. So, if you want your website or tool to interface with another website or tool, the API tells you how to do that and let’s you know what is and is not possible.

Now, the interesting thing about how most API documents are written is that, in many ways, even a non-programmer can get an idea of what’s possible. And this is why you, as a non-programming business person should care. Because if you know what’s possible, doors to new ideas and creative uses may open up for you. Here’s an example.

The Foursquare API

Much to my dismay, Foursquare doesn’t appear to be going away and among the current location-based social networks, it is the leader. But if I’m a business owner, in this case a real estate broker, I don’t want to just sit back and wait to see how the developers at Foursquare are going to move their platform forward. I want to take advantage of the network and make it work for me. First step, understand what it will let me have access to and make sure how I want to use the data is within the limits of their terms of service. The terms are simple enough to get to. Their terms of service are clearly displayed on their API page.

How can I tell what I have access to if I’m not a programmer?

I think most people will be surprised at how much “human-readable” text is contained in a well-done API document. Here’s a section of the Foursquare API that is under the category – “Check-in Methods.”

Checkins

Returns a list of recent checkins from friends.

If you pass in a geolat/geolong pair (optional, but recommended), we’ll send you back a <distance> inside each <checkin> object that you can use to sort your results.

Some notes on how to parse each <checkin> block:

  • if <venue> exists, it’s a check-in to a proper place.
  • if <venue> and <shout> exist, it’s a check-in to a proper place with a shout.
  • if only <shout> exists, it’s a shout (no check-in). shouts are like callouts or tweets to your network. they need not be tied down to a particular place. it’s useful for sending messages like: “hey who’s up for hanging out later tonight?”.
  • if no <venue> or <shout> exists, then it’s a silent check-in (“off-the-grid” as we like to say). this shows up in the timeline so that you know the person is out and about (to make it easy to meet up after they are done with whatever they are doing. it’s useful for stuff like dates, business meetings, etc).

URL: http://api.foursquare.com/v1/checkins
Formats: XML, JSON
HTTP Method(s): GET
Requires Authentication: Yes
Parameters:

  • geolat – (optional, but recommended)
  • geolong – (optional, but recommended)

Even if you’re not familiar with programming, you can learn several things from this section. A quality high school education is probably a good start, but I don’t need  to understand the formats, http methods or how to pass along the parameters to see that if I “pass in a geolat/geolong pair” that Foursquare is going to tell me how far away <distance> each place I can <checkin> is from my latitude and longitude. I know that my phone can figure out where I am and that a programmer can figure out how to get that information from my phone.

So, I now know that I can use the Foursquare API to deliver information about where I can check-in. In the next section of the API it tells me what I can do when I get that information. I can make a “shout” and send it out to my friends. I can check-in to one of the venues they send back. I can create a new venue and tell them about it. Just like I can do with the Foursquare app.

But this is where it gets cool. As long as I’m within the terms of service, I can then use that data to distribute information to places that the Foursquare app might not provide. Where might that be? Other websites? Other tools? I don’t know where it is for you, but you might. I know where that knowledge leads me. And armed with a better understanding of what’s possible, you may be spurred to create a new use for the tools, one that the developers never saw coming.

This is why the API is made public. This is where innovation lives. Diversity – of thought, experience, and need – provide the energy required for growth and change. It’s the beauty of an open system. And I believe that the missing ingredients in fueling commercial growth are the thoughts, experiences and needs of the average business owner responsible for making these tools work for their business.

So, do yourself a favor and take at look at the API of one of the tools you like using. Spend an hour studying it. Read past the programming jargon and sift through the text that feels like common English to see if it sparks some creative juices. I think you might be surprised.

And let me know how it goes. :)

OC WordPress Live Blog

March 29th, 2010 - xmluser

This post is simply a live demo of an iPhone app and WordPress plugin we’re developing.

7:08 pm: Let’s try this again. :(

7:48 pm: I put a few streams of Brandon Dove talking about BuddyPress at www.qik.com/respres

7:50 pm: A good BuddyPress site to look at as an example is www.rideoregonride.com

7:55 pm: Niraj is demoing ScreenSteps, which can be found at www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps

7:59 pm: ScreenSteps uses XML-RPC to post ScreenSteps documents directly to a blog post on your WordPress blog.

8:05 pm: ScreenSteps uses a manual/lesson/step metaphor. Ablog post will be a single lesson.

8:16 pm: ScreenSteps also allows you to update the blog post from the ScreenSteps desktop application. So changes can be made to all docs and the post with one edit session from the desktop app.

8:28 pm: This ends the live blog app/plugin demo. :)

8:42 pm: Sorry, one more thing: magicfields.org is rockin’! Some concern was expressed about WP 3.0 compatibility.

11:20 am: Testing a new feature. Again, pay no attention to me. :)

11:34 am: And again.

11:43 am: Testing a few new features to our live blog app… in the wild. :)

6:57 am: “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Testing A Header

11:40 am: Oh, that was nice. :)

11:45 am: Will be testing new WP livebloghgng features at #rebcphx including new hinternal headlines.

This Is How Internal Headlines Look

11:46 am: Uses H2 tags… Will be configurable in release.

6:43 pm: Testing from iPhone OS 4.0 Beta

Doing Some Testing – 4/26/2010

2:07 pm: We’re refining the UI, so I’m just testing.

2:17 pm: Non-tweet test. :)

Looks like all is well.

10:22 am: Photo test.

4:46 pm: Testing new features.

Gahlord Dewald, Social Media Improvement Via Web Analytics – A Live Blog

March 25th, 2010 - xmluser

7:57 am: Getting ready to live blog @gahlord’s web analytics presentation. #retso

8:01 am: Gahlord is going to be focusing on how to improve your social media efforts using web analytic tools. Find him at meetwith.me/thoughtfaucet

8:04 am: :) @Gahlord is trying to jumpstart his geek brain. Scary thought. #retso

8:08 am: “I like to measure things because it helps me discover more about how things work” – @Gahlord

8:11 am: Analytics help us understand what we can and can’t control and how we respond and make decisions in the wake of those things we can’t control.

8:13 am: Analytics OODA Loop via Jonathan Boyd: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act @Gahlord #retso

8:18 am: “You can generate satisfaction without ever converting.”

8:19 am: “In social media there are two audiences – cheerleaders and customers.” – both have value.

8:22 am: Another objective of analytics is to get repeatable results. Amen.

8:26 am: “I think you should all wake up and say,’I don’t care how many Twitter followers I have.’” @Gahlord #retso

8:32 am: “Campaign tagging” – when you share a link to your site, it will give your more information about where that link came from and why. What are they responding to? Are they responding to a topic, or at a specific time?

8:32 am: “Is your audience awake?” analytics help you know for sure.

8:36 am: A poor man’s reputation management is Google alerts.

8:39 am: It’s important to orient based on channel, by action, by use, by human. “Learn to indentify who is influential.”

8:41 am: “You can develop a clear approach for aligning your social media plan with your business goals.”

8:42 am: Getting people to your website is never a final goal.

8:43 am: Free tool: Google Website Optimizer

8:44 am: Great session.

7:07 pm: Let’s test this live blog app.

The iPad And My To Do List – A Match Made In Heaven

March 23rd, 2010 - Jeff Turner

Old habits are hard to break. Perhaps some of them shouldn’t be broken.

Sometimes I just want the digital world to mimic the analog world. Exactly. It’s rare, but there are times that I don’t want an “vast improvement.” And I don’t want innovation. I just want to continue doing what I’ve always done, without having to change my behavior. I just want to do the same thing, only digitally. And this is the hope I have for the iPad for one specific task – my to do lists.

I have tried to migrate my paper to do lists to a digital format for years. It never works for me. Things begin to fall through the cracks and before I know it, I’m back to pen and paper. I’ve been keeping paper lists on and off since the early 80′s. I have files filled with old to do lists. They’ve come in handy when I want to remember a detail about a transaction. And, they work for me.

Every digital solution I’ve tried has failed. And it’s not really their fault. I simply have not been able to make the changes necessary to adopt the new methods of creating and managing to do list. So, the question I always end up asking is, “if my old way works, why change?”

Enter the iPad.

I’ve really enjoyed reading Russ Leseberg’s “Countdown To iPad” series. His use cases have sometimes been genius and sometimes humorous. They all make you think a bit. And almost from the moment I saw Steve Job’s initial presentation, the notion of creating an iPad application that exactly duplicated how I use my paper to do list has been on my mind. And why not? I can’t be the only person in the world who’s having a hard time giving up the paper to do list. What I’d like to do is keep the feel and mimic the process while adding some digital functionality.

There’s no reason why my process can’t be replicated exactly. Part of the reason my process works for ME is that when a page get’s full, I move the unfinished items to a new page and save the old list. The process of looking at all of my unfinished tasks spurs me to finish more of them. I also like the look of a page with a lot of items crossed off. Yeah, I’m a bit mental. But it works.

The iPad version of my to do list will give me the benefit of typing the to do item in, but the pleasure of swiping my finger across it to mark it as done. I like that feeling. And since I like seeing that I’ve actually finished something, I’ll be able to  leave the finished items visible. Of course, I could still opt to have them removed the moment I swipe, if I wanted. The beauty of an app is preferences. Finished items would be saved and I would have the ability to search them. Only I wouldn’t have to go through my pile of papers. When I fill the page, I can start a new page and move my unfinished items in mass, or choose which ones to move forward one by one, as punishment for not finishing. If I want to change the order, I’ll just drag an item to the top of the list. Simple. Easy.  It should feel just like a paper to do list. And I think Zeek should build it and sell it for a buck.

Anyone else want a to do list app that just works like a paper to do list? Raise your hand.