Scott Pantall » Technology

‘Pearls Before Swine’ Gets It Right

Scott Pantall — Mon, 24 May 2010 06:44:50 +0000

“I just spent 2 hours in front of my computer, but I didn’t get anything done! WHY?”
….

Now you know!

How to Waste Time on the Interwebs

Facebook Thinks I Should Be Friends with Martin St. Louis

Scott Pantall — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:15:33 +0000

If you’re a user of Facebook (and who isn’t), you’re familiar with the little “Suggestion” box on the right side of your home page. It usually suggests fan pages or groups or friends you haven’t interacted with in a while. Sometimes it recommends new friends to you because you have some mutual friends. Sometimes it recommends completely freakin’ random people to be your friend. For example:

Facebook thinks you should be friends with Bob Smith. Bob Smith is 17 years old and lives 2000 miles away from you. You have no mutual friends and he’s into men’s bikini volleyball. Send friend request?

No! Why would I be friend’s with Bob Smith? Why would Facebook possibly think I have anything to do with Bob Smith? These suggestions are usually met by me cocking my head to one side and squinting at my monitor like I’m going to somehow look through the screen to devise the purpose of this suggestion.

Imagine my surprise this morning when Facebook suggested I become friends with some random guy named Martin St. Louis. I don’t know of any friends or family named Martin St. Louis. I didn’t graduate with any one with the last name of St. Louis. As a matter of fact, there is only one Martin St. Louis that I can think of, but no it couldn’t be that Martin St. Louis, could it? So I check out his publicly available information on his profile. He’s in Tampa Bay, FL and this is his profile picture…

Yep. It’s 5 time NHL All-Star and Stanley Cup Champion, current alternate captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning, (mar-tan san loo-e). What can I possibly have in common with a 5 time NHL All-Star player? Apparently Facebook thinks we have something in common.

This entertains me to no end.

So I do what any self respecting person who’s easily entertained would do, I take up Facebook’s suggestion and send Martin a friend request along with this message:

Facebook said I should be your friend

I am so entertained by this bit of internet randomness, I thought I’d send you a request just for the hell of it. I’m not sure what Facebook thinks we have in common except that you play NHL hockey and I watch it. Anyways, enjoy the rest of your season and stay safe!

-Scott

I’ll let you know if he responds.

Week in Review: March 24, 2009

Business Communication (pt 3): Two Examples of Corporate Blogs

Scott Pantall — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:10:16 +0000

This is part 3 of 3 in a series of blog posts talking about corporate use of blogs. It’s a way for me to get extra credit for my Business Communication course and add what is hopefully valuable content to the Internet.

This third and final part of my assignment asks me to research and identify two companies that are effectively using blogs to communicate with their employees or with their customers.

While looking through different blogs, the one constant I noticed in all good blogs is enthusiasm. The two blogs I’ve decided to highlight show great enthusiasm for their company.

Randy’s Journal, Boeing – http://boeingblogs.com/randy/

Randy’s Journal is a blog written by Randy Tinseth, Vice President of Marketing for Boeing. He posts a blog about twice a week, but he only posts about subjects that are relevant to Boeing’s newest planes. The site has a very simple layout with the a column to the right of the posts with a calendar to show when the latest blogs were posted, a search field and a welcome section with a link to a page that tells you about Randy. I cannot understate the importance of telling your readers about the author! People read blogs, not only because of the content, but also because of the people who write them. There is also sections with site navigation links, links to Boeing sites, links to aviation interests and a section to make subscribing to the blog easy.

Randy’s audience consists of prospective clients, current clients, others in the airline industry, as well as aviation enthusiasts. His conversational style appeals to the aviation enthusiasts, but is not too casual to worry clients and others in the industry. He doesn’t just talk about what is new and exciting at Boeing. He mentions his travels and makes the reader feel like they are traveling with him to the different Boeing marketing events. There are also pictures and/or video in every post. The pictures and video aren’t just the professional marketing images, they are also candid pictures of the author at the events. This makes the blog more personal, which makes it more interesting. Very few people would want to read his this blog if it was just a copy of Boeing’s press releases. His enthusiasm and writing style make this blog worth reading.

Comcast Voices, Comcast – http://blog.comcast.com/

Comcast Voices is a blog that allows Comcast employees to announce and talk about Comcast products and services as well as news that affects Comcast and their customers. The timing of the posts vary because it is authored by many different Comcast employees. The site has a simple navigation bar at the top with links to the blog’s home page, archives, about page, media gallery and help. The column to the right of the posts has a lot of information and is, understandably, a little cluttered. The color scheme of the site helps keep most of the reader’s focus on the actual blog postings though. At the top of the column is a link for customer and reader feedback. Below that is a link to Comcast’s customer support page and links to subscribe to the site. Following that is sections for featured media, and lists of authors, categories, key words, previous posts and other sites the reader may be interested in.There is also a gadget that shows the latest tweets by Comcast’s Twitter account which you can follow at http://twitter.com/ComcastCares.

One of the things I like best about this blog is that at the beginning of every post it shows the name of the author with a link to their page, the author’s title in the company and the topic that is being covered in the post. The author pages are written by the authors and have a short professional history as well as personal information and a picture. This is great because it makes it feel more personal! As a Comcast employee, this blog would be a great way to highlight products, issues and news that affects your department, your company and especially your customers. It’s also a great way to show your knowledge and enthusiasm for your job, which is never a bad thing for a supervisor to see. As a customer, this blog shows that Comcast is run by people and not just by policies. It’s also a great way to talk with Comcast employees about general issues. The blog does a good job at making sure customers know where to go if they have a specific problem with their account.

I found both of these blogs from a list on the Fortune 500 Blog Wiki on Socialtext.net. This wiki is a great resource listing blogs by Fortune 500 companies as well as reviews about those blogs.

Business Communication (pt 2): Advantages and Disadvantages of Corporate Blogs

Scott Pantall — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:35:32 +0000

This is part 2 of 3 in a series of blog posts talking about corporate use of blogs. It’s a way for me to get extra credit for my Business Communication course and add what is hopefully valuable content to the internet.

This part of the assignment asks me to locate information and report about the advantages and disadvantages of using blogs for business purposes.

A blog by itself is mostly pointless. Blogging for the sake of blogging is like driving without a destination. It may feel good to just drive, but without a destination you’re basically wasting gas and time. You can get away with this kind of blogging on a personal blog. I don’t really have a purpose for my blog. so if I want to write about hockey today, international politics tomorrow, then video games the next day that’s perfectly acceptable. A business blog, on the other hand, needs to have some sort of purpose. Is blogging part of your marketing and promotion plan? Are you blogging to gain credibility? What do you hope to gain from your blog?

Advantages

As with just about anything in a business, a blog benefits from a clear vision and purpose. Once you figure out that purpose, you can start reaping the rewards of your blog. Some of the rewards of blogging are:

Cheap, Easy Publicity - Without spending gobs of money on ad space and Public Relations your brand and your company can easily become well known because of your blog. I would’ve never known about Duct Tape Marketing, a company that creates products and workshops to help small businesses market themselves, without their Small Business Marketing Blog.
Instant Feedback – Want to know what current and prospective customers want from your business? Encourage feedback and interaction in your blog posts and the feedback will start coming in. People are more likely to respond to blog posts because of the casual nature of blogs.
Personality – The larger the company, the more people are going to think of it as buildings and products and policies and not as people. One of the easiest ways to do this is by allowing trusted employees to start blogs. Sun Microsystems has taken this idea further by allowing ANY Sun employee to create a blog on http://blogs.sun.com.
Community – Creating content on your blog and commenting on others’ blogs is a great way to build an online community that shares your interests. As a business blog, it’s a great way to start and build on relationships with prospective and current clients and partners.

Disadvantages

A blog is a very public entity. Care must be taken to ensure the blog reflects well on your company. A poorly written or maintained blog may be the only impression some people have of your company.

Cheap, Easy Publicity – Yes, this was also listed as an advantage. How can this be both? Imagine everything you say can be heard by anyone with a computer. Imagine everything you say is also archived in detail. Now remember that everything you say isn’t intelligent and insightful. Sometimes what you say can be incorrect, offensive or insensitive. Due to the conversational tone of most blogs, this can be an easy thing to trip over.
Constant Maintenance - When a blog is not updated correctly and constantly, it doesn’t reflect well on the author or on the company that sponsors the blog. A blog is not something you can just set up once, then forget about. Blog readers expect timely and informative posts.
Dealing with Private Information – A blog is a great way for a company to let everyone know what is going on. And I mean EVERYONE: Customers, employees, partners, investors, regulators, competitors, etc. While a blog does a great job at making your company seem more transparent and open, you don’t want to be too transparent. It could get your company into a lot of trouble.
Poor Public Perception - Gaining credibility takes time and effort while losing that credibility can happen almost instantaneously and takes little or no effort. The only thing blog readers have to judge you are your words. Using proper grammar, punctuation and spelling can go a long ways in building your credibility. Too many misspelled words, non-working links or accidental offensiveness can easily take a toll on your company’s public perception.

How to Waste Time on the Interwebs

Scott Pantall — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:01:20 +0000

I haven’t posted much to my blogs lately. I’d like to say it’s been because I’ve been really busy and productive and such, but that would be a lie. Truth is, I spend most of my time in front of my computer wasting it. Here’s some of my all time best ways I’ve found to waste time on the interwebs:

Credit: www.searchenginepeople.com

1. StumbleUpon, http://www.stumbleupon.com – Have you ever tried something only to have it steal an entire day from you because you keep saying “Just one more time”? This genius of a toolbar/website lets you set up your interests, then you click one simple “Stumble” button that leads you to new and different sites that you’ll probably find entertaining until you realize you’re thirsty because you’ve just spent 5 straight hours saying “Just one more time”.

Credit: dbs.homeport.org

2. Yahoo! Games, http://games.yahoo.com/free-games - Do you like simple games that require no installation and no commitments of any kind? Did you like Bejeweled? Do you want to play 50 variations of it? Since this is the only site with games that’s not blocked at work, this site has stolen tons of hours from me in the past couple of months.

Credit: userlogos.org

3. Google Reader, http://www.google.com/reader - “But wait! Google Reader is a useful tool of internet news-gathering!”, you’re tempted to say. I agree with you, but like with any social internet tool it has the ability to suck you dry of useful time. I currently subscribe to 90 blogs. Most of them update at least once a day. I need to weed it down some because it’s not nearly as useful as it should be.

Credit: www.bobkrist.com

4. The Comments Section of a News Site (ie. http://www.denverpost.com) – Imagine being in a room with a rabid Neo-Conservative, an anarchist, a bible-thumper, a tree-hugger, an Obama worshipper, a Greenpeace activist, a racist, and a Glenn Beck wannabe. Now imagine someone is asking for all their opinions on a new story at once and you can hear everyone’s opinion. Generalities are made. Rude nicknames are thrown around. Arguing ensues. Sometimes, though rarely, something intelligent is said. Good fun! (If you want to find me on there, my screen name is ScottP.)

Credit: icanhascheezburger.com

5. LOLcats http://icanhascheezburger.com – Some things are tailor made to waste your time, like the slinky. These cute, funny pictures are the furry slinkies of the interwebs. If you don’t know what a LOLcat is, I’ll explain:

LOL = Laugh Out Loud.
Cat = cat.

So the whole point of the site and the pictures is to laugh at cats. Pointless? Yep. Entertaining? Oh yeah!

Week in Review: March 24, 2009

Scott Pantall — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:40:38 +0000

It’s nice to finally get through a relatively normal week at the new house. And it’s REALLY nice to get this posted on time for the first time in 3 weeks.

Things I Think I Liked

Had my birthday/St. Patrick’s Day party at our house. Lotsa fun and lotsa beer.
Meeting some cool people on Twitter.
I really want to see this: Badass cop car of the near-future.
Ordered my new motherboard and processor for my desktop so I can geek out with friends better. Thanks Dan!
My new neighbor, Mike, is a cool guy.
Chevy started production of the new Camaro.
Found Splinter Cell for the XBox. Now I can turn my XBox into XBMC …as soon as I find the cables for it.
Flowers are starting to spring up in our backyard.

Things I Think I Didn’t Like

WiFi should be a free service! You hear me Starbucks!!
Ashlynn’s leg went all tingly Saturday morning, but was better by Monday so we couldn’t get the doc to look at it. So frustrating!
Is there anyone who likes the new Facebook home page? I don’t.
I had to struggle through 3 REALLY slow nights at work. Good for citizens, but boring as all hell for me.
Spent at least 3 days updating my newly installed Windows XP. Installing Ubuntu has spoiled me.
Dealing with dozens of towed vehicles at work due to greedy tow companies!
Hearing about police officers getting killed hits home a lot more when I work with cops all the time.

Things I Think I Think

As I get older I care more about having friends and family around for my birthday than gifts.
I’m gonna have to do a stand-alone post about Twitter.
People involved in social media really seem to enjoy talking about people involved in social media.

This Week Made Me Wonder…

How many devices can I connect my phone to at once via Bluetooth? Right now I’m listening to a podcast on my phone with my Bluetooth headset and loading a podcast on my phone from my laptop via Bluetooth.
Would Englewood let us set up a Twitter account for the police?
It’s getting easier and easier to find stuff to post on this weekly blog. Are these posts getting to long?

Things to look forward to

Hanging out with my half of the wedding party tomorrow night and getting measured for tuxes.
Finding a furry, fluffy, feline friend for family fun. (This bullet was brought to you by the letter ‘F’)
Installing my new motherboard and processor!

Emergency Alerts in On-Demand World

Scott Pantall — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:15:16 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the digital TV transition and why it’s a big deal. It’s just TV, right? It’s just entertainment! Why does the government care if the public can’t get their American Idol fix? The truth is, it doesn’t care about that. They’re concerned that the public won’t get their emergency alerts without their TVs.

The government, and especially us involved in public safety, have become dependent on people always having a TV or radio around. With so much on-demand content out there now, we can’t count on that anymore. More and more people are watching TV episodes online and listening to their iPods while driving. They’re not connected to radios or TVs constantly anymore. So how do we alert the public now?

Until it’s possible for public safety agencies to send messages (text messages, email alerts, etc) to people based on their location, it’s up to the public to seek out ways to get their information. Some ways to get this info:

Twitter – Search for your local law enforcement/fire agencies on Twitter and you might be lucky enough to live in the boundaries of one of these progressive agencies.
Check your agency’s website. Even some of the smallest agencies have their own websites and most have many ways to stay connected (email, RSS, text messaging, online reporting, etc.). I just found out my sheriff’s office is on Facebook! (Looks like they haven’t done much with it though.)
Check your local news websites. They will probably have breaking news email alerts/text messaging/rss feeds.
amberalert.gov - You can view current Amber Alerts and even sign up for mobile alerts on your cell phone.
weather.gov - The National Weather Service is using RSS feeds as a supplement to their normal emergency alert notifications. You can find them here.

I wonder if people will ever be comfortable with the government providing real-time location-based communications. Would that be too much Big Brother looking over your shoulder? Maybe public safety agencies could use services that are already out there like Google Latitude or Brightkite.