Travelogues Part 1 (BCN Edition)

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First I should start off with the fact that this decision to go to Spain was one that was done quite quickly. So after posting onto Twitter that I had some vacation time to burn I received a response from @JoshuaNTaylor that Barcelona should be in my list of choices. And after a little back and forth with him and airfare sites the ticket was purchased.
That leads me to yesterday the 27th of March when I arrived to SLC International to a rather packed gate. Shortly after that, they announced they were looking for volunteers to take another flight due to overcrowding. At which I was hesitant, but after they sweetened the pot I took it (with a first class bump and a voucher). So here I sit, waiting to board the my standing on a couple of firsts. Its my first flight to Paris, and also for the first time boarding as first class.
I have a significant layover in Paris to the tune of 8 hours, intentionally, so that I may wonder around the city of lights for a time. Wish me luck that I make my flight to Barcelona and don’t end up on the wrong Train!

2011
03/28
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Homeless Man with a Golden Voice

This video has virtually blanketed the internet today. I saw it on BuzzFeed this morning, which was pushed there by Reddit some 9 hours ago. Then I saw it on Laughing Squid followed thereafter by Gizmodo, and I hope a ton more.
I’m really look forward to seeing this guy landing a gig out of all this internet hullabaloo.

Watch it, then comment below on whether your think he has a shot.

2011
01/04
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Brought on for Social Media Expertise…

But I haven’t touched it yet.

Recently I was tapped by two separate organizations to begin revamping their social media efforts but months later I haven’t even begun the process. One is missing the point on brand, the other missing the mark on communication.

Social media is pointless if you either don’t have anything to say or don’t know what you are trying to say.

As I slowly peeled back the layers I instantly found in both circumstances gaping wounds that had been constantly bandaged by a new logo here or a kludge system hack there. If your company has issues with e-mail communication carefully consider whether or not you’d like to send out 140 character messages to the rest of the internet. If your company is missing any sort of mission statement or coherent message desired to put forward do you truly think that you’ll be able to communicate who you are to strangers in 140 characters or less?

2010
11/30
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Thoughts on Reciprocity & Twitter

After a lengthy conversation regarding Twitter and reciprocity, I began considering my own usage regarding Twitter and how it has changed over time.  I began going through those that I follow and decided to unfollow a ton of people (this continued the next day because there were so many), but what really took so long wasn’t really the unfollowing but actually adding everyone that I had been following into lists so that I wouldn’t “lose” them. I realize now that as I say this, I’ve basically taken the same approach that I have to BACN (or e-mail that I want, just not right now), because at one point in time I had desired to hear what that person had to say but over time I really had just been ignoring there tweets and moving on to those that I care about anyway, so why not shove them into a corner… :-D

So as I began the process of unfollowing and adding to lists I realized that this isn’t going to be a perfect system but nonetheless one that is necessary for the time being. I didn’t really follow any of the other approaches at unfollowing like JustUnFollow, or others that came before this. Near as I can tell, the only thing that I will lose is for those that I previously was following to DM me. Most of my usage happens at work, other than that I catch replies through my phone and the occasional scroll through as well on the phone. But I believe that now there is more engagement needed I could see access increase at home as well being that now I would be going to Twitter not just to see what was going on but now since I have to actively switch through lists, I find myself thinking about going to Twitter so that I may find out more about a particular subject or group (naming the lists appropriately to fill those buckets).

All of that being said I found myself considering ways in which Twitter could be improved through facilitation of what I’ve laid out here (the adding to lists to find out about specific topics).

The first deals not with the topic thing but instead with the realization that many people are receiving too much noise by following too many people.

  • Follow on a trial basis: Allow the option to follow for on a set period of time, after which the person is unfollowed and added to a private list

And here are a few on how lists could work better

  • I considered user curated lists but I haven’t even seen anyone using them on Facebook yet so…
  • Integration with a service list WeFollow that allows you to assign yourself specific tags, so that users won’t be forced to create the list to add you to (UPDATE: Turns out that Twitter has begun doing this, albeit sneakily)
  • More simple interface for lists, the thought here would be to present the user with those the follow (specifically if it could be more apparent that specific followee’s aren’t associated with a list.
2010
11/22
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Seeking After the Science of the “Half Your Age Plus Seven” Rule

Group of friends and I were out to dinner, and relationships and dating came up and one friend in particular (we shall call him Daniel-san) began espousing some rule that I can’t recall ever hearing before regarding “half your age plus seven” when it comes to determining the age at which someone is datable. Shortly thereafter we began discussing its merits and demerits and I realized that during most of this the rule had become “scientific”. Immediately after realizing that it had become defined as “scientific” I challenged this presumption. And after it being said that “scientists” had made it so, I pulled out my smartphone and began googling it and this is where things got hilarious…

I found people on Wikipedia using Urban Dictionary as a verifiable source for the rule. Then I found people on StraightDope linking it through hearsay that they thought it might’ve been a Muslim thingy or other. Best part as when Ben Franklin got pulled into it through the Farmers Almanac!

Needless to say, I did not find any scientific data purporting that this “rule” was scientifically verifiable, but oh you internet, you crack me up!

2010
11/10
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I Follow Too Many On Twitter

Tonight I spent some time with those guys you may have heard of that are on a crazy road trip across the US inspired on Twitter usage in middle America, @OnTheRoad. And after the conversations that were had this evening at The Beerhive (a mighty fine establishment), many a conversation were had regarding twitter usage (and on a lesser note the Twitter Data Center which has cause all sorts of ruckus here in Utah for some unknown reason). The topic of discussion was regarding how Twitter and its champions have seemingly done the service a… well disservice, when it comes to promoting the ideals and purpose of a tool such as Twitter. When it comes down to it, the usage of Twitter has been all the more beneficial for those that have used it and not decided to engage with every person that has followed them or merely moderately caught their interest. And I realize that I’ve been following too many people that even marginally peak my interest on Twitter. And to that end and to the end of making Twitter more useful for me, I shall be making an attempt to clean up those who I follow. Feel free to get offended, I won’t mind.

If you’d like to talk about Social Media or Twitter feel free to jump into the fray that is the comments, I thoroughly enjoy the discussion!

2010
10/29
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Chronicles of Youth
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Church & Communication

Recently I was approached by the church I attend, K2 The Church, to participate in a team that their primary focus will be to evaluate and to architect the future of K2′s communications.

The breadth and scope for the team reaches quite far and wide, from outlining internal communication, communication within the membership and external communication. They’ve lined up an extraordinary team and I have have high hopes for what it is we’ve set out to do. My primary focus will be on Social Media Strategy, unsurprisingly. Some of the preliminary steps that we will be taking will be evaluating all of the aspects of communication that the church is using as well as simultaneously researching all of the tools available to churches for communication (most undoubtedly some may not even be targeted at churches). Also, and this is my primary reason for posting here is to ask you what your thoughts are on church communication, what tools you know of that are out there and what your churches communication strategies have consisted of and most importantly any online resources that could be provided to help guide and structure our communication strategies going forward.

Here are some of the sites/blogs I’ve found thus far that discuss this topic:
Be Deviant
Tim Schraeder
Church Marketing Sucks
The City

2010
10/13
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Chronicles of Youth
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