In honor of the new software, I'm using the blog here on RealNEO again, just to keep a hand in it.

 

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Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would! Voting will end at Noon on Thursday, September 4th. Vote!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

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This thing is sick! Dopest case i have seen anywhere on the net. Be on the lookout for more exciting collaborations by InCase and Krink.

Plea to all

    As comments are sometimes posted a long time after the original post, and as innumerable anomalous acronyms numb the neurons, could we all try to print out full name of an entity the first time it is used in a comment or blog? Thereafter, initials would be fine. This might also help out visitors or readers from beyond the pall [or mall].

For me, it would mean I could focus more on the message and less on the mystery meaning of  mnemonics.

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So you just got this *awesome* e-mail forward from your mom/sister/coworker/college friend you haven't seen in person for 15 years. Cool. But before you forward to your entire e-mail list, please consider the following:



1. Is it true? If you get an e-mail virus warning, an inspirational piece ostensibly penned by a celebrity (who presumably has nothing better to do) or a story about a $250 cookie recipe, it's probably bogus. Snopes.com is a helpful site for finding out what's true and what's not.



2. How well do you know the person you're forwarding it to? For example, you don't want to forward a piece about the quality of American public schools and find out the person you forwarded to is a teacher in a cash-strapped urban or rural school.



3. If you do know the person you're forwarding it to very well, are you sure they *want* to read an anti-Barack Obama/anti-John McCain screed, a series of ethnic or sexist jokes, or a monologue about the connection between illegal immigration and increased crime?



4. Is an e-mail forward a legitimate way to keep in touch? If someone is that important that they're in your address book, surely you can take a couple minutes to write a personal note, or better yet, give them a call or send a snail mail letter or card.



Finally, if you get one of these, remember, the "Reply All" option is not your friend.

Plea to all

    As comments are sometimes posted a long time after the original post, and as innumerable anomalous acronyms numb the neurons, could we all try to print out full name of an entity the first time it is used in a comment or blog? Thereafter, initials would be fine. This might also help out visitors or readers from beyond the pall [or mall].

For me, it would mean I could focus more on the message and less on the mystery meaning of  mnemonics.

According to Kevin Rose at Digg, he's seen photos of a new iPod Nano that's taller and skinnier, and will be out next month. Around the same time some renderings of a new Nano case and Nano surfaced online.

The authenticity of the photos, however, is questionable. No one is sure whether or not they're fakes, or if Kevin Rose is even telling the truth about what he's seen.

If the photos are to be believed, the new Nano will feature more rounded edges, and is reverting back to the more elongated shape rather than the short and squatty form of the latest generation Nanos. That would make sense because in changing the shape, Apple ensures that none of the previous cases will fit it, and consumers will have to buy all new cases.

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Case Western Reserve University’s new Web site is showing early signs of success.

Launched one month ago, the Web design with streamlined information architecture has been nominated as a noteworthy site on eduStyle, an Internet design gallery where higher educational professionals submit, review and comment on Web sites.

In its three weeks on eduStyle, the Case Western Reserve Web site has received 13 positive comments compared to only one “not my style” message. The goal of eduStyle is for Web experts in higher education to learn from and be inspired by the work of their peers. More than 2,000 visitors access the eduStyle site each month.

Higher education professionals specifically mention the interactive tools at the top of the homepage, the synch options on the event listings, the location of the search engine and the writing as “innovative” elements not typical of a traditional university’s Internet presence.

“This is really an impressive site design, architecture and presentation,” wrote one reviewer. “Those blow-outs from the green buttons are really innovative. Who would have thought a university would be capable of that?”

Web statistics also are showing a very positive response from visitors to the new home page. In the first three weeks following its debut, nearly 2,000 visitors had submitted information through the homepage, including 250 who completed the apply form and 400 who entered a request for information using the e-business technology incorporated into the green menu items at the top of the page.

The university’s main page also has experienced a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of pages viewed by each visitor and a 40 percent improvement in bounce rate, the rate at which users enter and exit the site from the same page.

A few weeks ago I got to spend a day and a night hanging out with Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary.tv as he was in town for a book signing. The full video experience of my time spent with him will come later, but for now, I have a video about a person I met who was in Gary’s entourage… Marianne Frantz of the Cleveland Wine School.

The video below is an interview I did with Marianne about the Cleveland Wine School, with a funny impromptu appearance from Gary V in a few places. Pretty funny. The video was shot at lunch after a live taping of the Thunder show with Gary in Cleveland Browns Stadium (personal video on that to come later). Go watch, great episode.

Why am I posting this video about a regional company when my blog is read by thousands of people who don’t live in Cleveland? Well, it’s a perfect example of how anyone can make a video commercial for their company with a simple inexpensive camera. Something I encourage all businesses to do. Tell me this isn’t a video you’d like to show to your customers to educate them about your business?

The whole thing took me 10 minutes to edit, and by using the Flip camera, easy to record. Why aren’t you doing video yet? Give me a ring so I can help you get on it, or sign up for my free Online Video Toolkit for some free advice.

Here’s the video on Youtube if you wish to view it there.

Shmuly gets it. He’s taken a traditional piece of Jewish headdress called the Kippah and combined it with current trends, in this case the Presidential election here in the USA. Check out his product at VanityKippah.com. Pretty smart.

In this video I talk more about how smart marketers like Shmuly know to take their product or service and combine it with current events or trends to make more sales and get publicity. It works. You can do it too.

Take a moment and think about how your product or service relates to what’s hot right now. Sports (the Olympics?), entertainment, politics? You get the point. Now make the connection and do something creative. The press will eat it up.

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Music on video from http://cantorgottesman.com/chazzan-first-cd.htm

Fans of Pandora, the internet music site that visited Cleveland back in February, might be in for a scare. The Cleveland Leader is reporting that Pandora says that it will shut down if royalty rates enacted in March 2007 are not altered soon,  as it now claims that it is paying over 70% of its revenue in royalties.

“We’re losing money as it is. The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money. We’re funded by venture capital. They’re not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn’t feel like its headed towards a solution, we’re done,” founder Tim Westergren said.

Let’s hope some kind of deal can be worked out…

Writing in his Enterprise blog on ReadWriteWeb, Bernard Lunn displays remarkable insight into how powerful forces, including social media and the changing of the guard as Boomers leave the workforce,  are changing the structure and organization of the firm:

That is huge opportunity for a lot of start-ups. There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. It also a huge challenge for the incumbents. Big companies need to re-define themselves in fundamental ways to find new ways to be big in a meaningful way.

In ten years, what will a "big" company look like?

Read: Enterprise 2.0: The Nature of the Firm - ReadWriteWeb

 

Over on USTelecom.org, Brooke Oberwetter writes about an NYT article detailing the use of broadband by TV news outlets:

Rather than concentrating resources on expensive, highly staffed news bureaus in just a few locations around the globe, the Times reports that many networks are relying on a “new breed” of journalists–digital journalists…

Is news coverage better when it’s broadband enabled?

USTelecom Blog » Journalism 2.0

Yet another reason to push for 'more green' - it can lead to 'more clean' air. Something that both urban areas and their schools need to address. (Not that suburbia is immune to pollution. Dirty air is everywhere)

Last week was the Affiliate Summit in Boston and I had the pleasure of being the MC again for the show. This time I got to introduce special guest performers The Blue Man Group, who then introduced keynote speaker Mayor Corey Booker.

Below is the footage I grabbed right after I got off stage. It’s part of the Blue Man shtick and part of Mayor Booker’s speech, which, by the way, had people’s eyes watering. Great speech. Here is some more footage, and remember, the entire speech will be shown at AffiliateSummit.tv so go sign up.

Oh yeah, people are discussing it over here on Affspot forums so join in.

Fresh from the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Wired Campus" column comes the amazing discovery that college students DO NOT want to become friends with their professors on Facebook and they don't want to get "tweets" from their twittering profs.

When Professors Create Social Networks for Classes, Some Students See a 'Creepy Treehouse'

A growing number of professors are experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, and other social-networking tools for their courses, but some students greet an invitation to join professors’ personal networks with horror, seeing faculty members as intruders in their private online spaces. Recognizing that, some professors have coined the term “creepy treehouse” to describe technological innovations by faculty members that make students’ skin crawl.

Here's an (abridged) definition of "creepy treehouse" from Jared Stein, director of instructional-design services at Utah Valley University:

• n. A place, physical or virtual (e.g. online), built by adults with the intention of luring in kids. Example: “Kids … can see a [creepy treehouse] a mile away and generally do a good job in avoiding them.”
  
• n. Any system or environment that repulses a target user due to it’s closeness to or representation of an oppressive or overbearing institution.
  
• n. A situation in which an authority figure or an institutional power forces those below him/her into social or quasi-social situations.
  

Having been a college professor, I can testify that the only group more likely to deceive themselves about being young and hip are people who work in ad agencies.
Maybe profs are hip and young compared to their chronological peers. Or maybe having a captive audience of 18-21 year-olds tends to give you the false impression that you're fascinating.

I created private usenet groups to catch the spillover from class discussions, particularly my graduate seminars, at Case Western Reserve Univ in the early '90s. I asked each student to post once during the month for the experience, even if it was just with a question or a "hello world, I got online" message; after that participation was voluntary.

It appears that you can make your students join your Facebook network, but you can't make them like it. You can only make them dislike you. A story in the Guardian called Students Tell Universities: Get out of MySpace! explains that:

E-learning gurus want to exploit their students' passion for the new generation of interactive online communication tools - collectively known as web 2.0 - to deliver academic content. Not content with podcasting mini-lectures to students' mobile phones and i-Pods, they are hijacking the internet telephone system, Skype, and invading FaceBook.

But a research exercise ... has just revealed, amazingly, that students want to be left alone. Their message to the trendy academics is: "Get out of MySpace!"

Stein and his colleagues who study online learning suggest that college professors check out alternative social media systems designed specifically for educators. Those systems allow for the spontaneous and instantaneous communication Twitter etc. provides -- without bringing the stink of work into the playroom. Stein offers one solution proposed by Utah Valley Univ. student Tyrel Kelsey:

Students reject creepy treehouses for one reason: they are creepy. I think a better approach to education is the idea of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) … which [students] can invite the professor into when they feel comfortable doing so.

Question: so what do you do with courses in which the media IS the message, as McLuhan so presciently said.

Increasingly the purpose of courses in journalism, media studies, and communications is to teach students the skills to use this technology, just at journalism students were once required to learn to read the shorthand of teletype or record and edit radio broadcasts on reel-to-reel tape.

Answer:?

Are you planning on coming to the Blogworldexpo in Vegas this fall? If so, or if you’re on the fence, believe me, you want to attend. All the biggest name bloggers (Problogger, Copyblogger) are going to be there, and you’re going to socialize with them, and learn from them.

And hey, if you register now and use my link you get 20% off. But it doesn’t last long.

Still not convinced? Watch me embarrass myself by singing a song about the show below in video form. I’m performing for your attendance! Hope to see you there and we can hang out.

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Today on WCPN at 4:00 (or listen online) but do hear this week's On The Media on investigative reporting and the effects of our changing media on critical issues.

Even though this exists in concept-only, I would like to see this one fully realized:

http://itp.nyu.edu/thesis/spring2007/detail.php?project_id=1509

Hattip to View from W6th for turning us on to Wordle, an online tool for "generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide."

You can type in the text you want, or enter the url of any website -- Wordle parses it, giving prominence according to word frequency. Once your cloud has been generated, you can play around with layout, font, and color variations.

Here's what a word cloud of LilaTovCocktail looks like today. (Keep in mind that if you type in the url of a blog, Wordle will parses only the posts that currently appear on the blog's home page. In the case of LilaTovCocktail, that means the 3 most recent posts.)

Created by Jonathan Feinberg, Wordle is free; the only caveat is that if you use a screen-capture or other image representation of the word cloud you create, you must attribute the image to http://wordle.net/.

I use Tubemogul to upload videos all of the web. My friend Steve coined this term on our online video podcast as promiscuous posting. Pretty clever, eh?

So is this spam? Does Google consider this spam? And should you continue to do this? Should I? What’s the long and short term strategy for me and you? I talk about it in this video. I’m very interesting in your opinions and thoughts.

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Bioneers Conference 2008 Bioneers, now in its 19th year is an acclaimed leading-edge forum that features a solutions-based approach, connecting environment, social justice, health and spiritual networks.  For the second year, Great Lakes Bioneers—Cleveland will bring to Northeast Ohio the excitement and energy of the inspiring social and scientific innovators speaking at the national conference and a wide-ranging line-up of regional and local speakers, workshops and tours to communicate and celebrate the trailblazing work taking place in our region.  This year’s conference will emphasize water and the important and diverse role that it plays in the social, economic, and natural environment of the Great Lakes Region.   

I’m starting a new mission to sing happy birthday to anyone who asks. So here’s the deal, watch the video below, if you or anyone you know is having a birthday and you want me to sing to them, I will, no cost. Why? Well, why not!???

Want me to sing to you or someone else you know?

Send email to jim at jimkukral dot com & include name of person/business/whatever you’d like me to sing to. I shoot these videos every Monday and post them on my blog for the world to see. Subscribe!

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I wrote my last post about a twitter-style team management tool. After I did that, I started thinking about the impact of using a tool or why you would need to use a tool like it - or any management tool for that matter.

Ultimately, I kept coming back to the same reason - the inability to communicate effectively across your team or with your clients. Since the speed of the online world often feels similar to Michael Phelps in the pool, it is often difficult to have complete communications.

So what is it that makes some technology tools so successful at companies and complete failures at others. First, we can examine the tool itself. Some people can be really successful with totally crappy tools (MySpace). However, many tools are accepted and used for their utter simplicity (Twitter).

How do you know the difference? Alertbox is a good place to start. Jakob Nielsen just wrote a great article about the 10 Best Application UIs.

I am getting off track. What makes a tool successful - really? For me, it kept coming back to culture. That word can be interpreted many different ways, but for the sake of this argument, I am talking about Corporate culture. It sometimes is not really about the tool, but the reason your company went to seek it out in the first place.

Do you work for the type of organization where people are trained to communicate and an emphasis is placed on mastering that? Do you work for the type of company where finger pointing happens from the top down? I think you can guess which company is going to be more successful at leveraging communication tools.

If you work for a company where the management expects process to be followed, yet unscrews the light bulb and keeps the ranks in the dark, it is going to be nearly impossible to have constructive growth, create a positive work environment or keep talented staff.

So is this something that we think about at Optiem? Well, you be the judge because it is a panel we suggested for SXSW.

More importantly, what do you think about it?

Check out this ridiculous ass mobile sports vehicle that Nike 6.0 created:
“The 8-wheeled ill-mobile is capable of crossing deserts, climbing mountains and taking the team to any secret spot. Racks for bikes, surfboards, wakeboards, skateboards, mean going anywhere for any scene. There’s an on deck bbq for grilling up fresh meat, a deluxe camper shell salvaged from a junkyard in remote corner of Oregon and a basement couch for a front seat.

Rails to grind are featured on both sides, and a quarter pipe folds down for impromptu sessions. The stereo system requires 2 car batteries, a set of jumper cables and a little luck, but once it’s blasting, it’s like a stick of dynamite in your eardrum.”
Via Highsnobiety

Not yet anyway. This video talks about why people like Jason Calacanis and Shoemoney are now all of a sudden trying to build emails lists. Is it because they didn’t before, or because they’re just trying to be different? I don’t know.

It all just seems a little silly to me. Again, I’m not saying email is dead, yet. I do think my kinds won’t have email. My niece in college doesn’t “email”, only Facebook. What’s your take?

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Ok, last reminder. If you want to win $100 from Zappos, watch this video get your feet moving, literally. It’s soooo easy to win. Just do as I say in the video. As I said in previous posts on this.

You like shoes, no? Well, you will like this contest I’m having with my friends over at Zappos.com. Five people will win a $100 Zappos.com gift certificate to buy anything they want on their site. And all you have to do is… well, watch the video. It’s easy to enter, believe me.

Click here to see all the current entries at Flickr. Yes, ladies, you can wear flip-flops to enter. :)

Look at Shoemoney. It’s pretty horrendous how terrible he is with grammar and spelling in his posts. Ok, I get it. He doesn’t try to spellcheck by his own admission for whatever reason, but it looks really bad… the poor grammar too. Makes him look like a severe amateur.

This isn’t a pick on Shoe (although he’s a poster-child for this post and should be called out for it), but rather a video post about how you are going to ruin your future career by having poor grammar and spelling. Your blog is your resume. Your digital footprint (comments, threaded discussions, photos, etc…) is your legacy. Right now, today, every smart recruiter on the planet goes out and looks at everything you’ve done or said online.

You really think that a professional organization is going to hire you if you can’t spell? You really think that you’re ever going to be taken seriously if you write like YouTube commenter in d00d-speak? You really think you’ll ever get a consulting gig or be asked to speak anywhere by anyone over the age of 30?

You won’t. Clean it up. Wise up. Lecture over.

Read about this in the Victoria Transport Policy Institute’s email:

Connected Urban Development (CUD) is a partnership between Cisco and cities around the world to create urban communications infrastructures that demonstrate how network connectivity can reduce carbon emissions in urban environments. By using network connectivity for communication, collaboration, urban planning, and other activities, CUD will help change the way in which cities do the following:

* Deliver services to residents
* Manage the flow of traffic
* Operate public transportation
* Use and manage real estate resources

Changing the way cities operate has a positive impact on the ways in which citizens work, live, and play…

Wish we were doing it here in Cleveland…

Connected Urban Development - Connected Urban Development - Cisco Systems

What's your vision for Cleveland?

Enter to Win $1,000

10,000 Visions of Cleveland Event

Date: September 6, 2008