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Wednesday Treasures for the Week Ending 1/9/09
Happy New Year! Welcome to a new feature at crazeegeekchick.com = a weekly posting of the coolest stuff I tweet about every day on Twitter!
End of the Year Musings
This post will likely be the last of 2008, so I shall make it my “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year From Me and Mine” post. My aunts send out annual summary Christmas letters, so I think I’m going to make this an annual summary blog post.
Professionally, 2008 brought with it a wonderful plate of goodies. I began my job with McGuire Woods LLP in March, and I’ve loved it there every since. I got to attend the ASP Insiders Summit At Microsoft in Redmond this past July, where I learned so much and met some amazing people both within the Microsoft teams and within the ASP.NET community. The Richmond Code Camp was another wonderful opportunity for learning and networking. I wrapped up the year with the Kansas City Day of Dot Net, where again, I learned a lot and got an opportunity to interface with many people in the community. My learning was definitely not only professional in nature, and I can even find gratitude in that as well!
In the realm of professional and educational development, I had the opportunity to learn more about Agile, SCRUM, Entity Framework, MVC and SEO this year. My brain might feel like mush, but I’m starting to get it. I’m almost finished with my first degree at DeVry and will soon be on my way to a Masters degree in Technology Management. That is huge! I thought I’d be the only person I know who took 10 years to finish an undergrad degree!
Personally, it was a huge year for growth. I must have read 10 books on Zen Buddhism this year in addition to my normal taste for spiritual and philosophical books. I worked a lot on my own inner demons – cleaning out psychic garbage, transitioning unhealthy relationships. I worked with a therapist again for the first time in years and that has been a true blessing. My oldest child turned 18 and is out there “on his own” figuring out that no job and no education might not be the best plan. I learned that tough love *is* hard, but I get to hug my son regularly and for that I’m grateful. My other two children began middle and high school this year and it’s been amazing to watch their growth in just the few months since school began!
This year also brought me Twitter. Where would a post of mine be without mentioning Twitter? I have to say that 50% of my opportunities for networking and learning have come from Twitter this year. I’ve interfaced with people I would have never had the opportunity to meet otherwise. I’ve learned tons from each of those interactions – even those I regret! I experienced customer service beyond my wildest expectations, discovered resources, networked and discussed ideas with peers and have just been blessed like a kid in a candy store with people who educate, enlighten and entertain me an an HOURLY basis. How cool is that?!
I’m so grateful for everybody who has touched my life this year in every single way. You all so totally know who you are! I look forward to the learning, growth, joy and love that 2009 brings.
I wish each and every one of you out there a healthy happy Christmas and a bright and prosperous New Year!
Love,
Dana
(and Woodstock)
See Me Live
I Can Haz Live Webcam!
I've recently been playing with Stickam to see if it's suitable for live broadcasts like Ustream and such. I think I like it! I know I like the embedded player like the one below. There are several you can choose from - even ones with chat. Check back from time to time - see if you can catch me streaming. If you click the little player below, you can launch a bigger version in another window - complete with chat.
WomenBuild - Geek Girls Playing With Legos at the MSDN Developer Conference
What's more fun than playing with Legos? The neat thing about Legos is that if you ask ten people to build something, you'll often get ten very different results. They allow one to apply creativity to the building process, and they make building fun! Well the LEGO® Serious Play Program (LSP) is teaming up with Microsoft to put together an event that incorporates Legos into promoting Women in Technology. If you happen to be at the MSDN Developer Conference during the next few months, be sure to look for an exciting event called WomenBuild. " What is WomenBuild?" you might ask. From the MDC Website, WomenBuild is:
- Designed to address how do we attract and grow Women in Technology through creative out-of-the-box thinking
- A place to brainstorm solutions on how we can make technology and a career in technology more accessible to women
- Combines personal interaction and networking with the use of LEGO® Bricks as a conceptual modeling tool, part of the LEGO® Serious Play Program (LSP)
- A great way to build bridges to solutions with a passionate and creative community of people who care to "pay it forward"
The WomenBuild program incorporates a hands-on process that draws on the power of creative thinking to shift group conversation from talking heads to focused minds. Each team will be run as a facilitated conversation with physical Lego brick constructions that will powerfully shift a group to more productive outcomes by accomplishing a deeper mining of the diverse wisdom within the group and a clearer shared conclusion on inspirational career paths for women in the technical field. Through this workshop, attendees will share real life experiences, discuss challenges, network & build on-going relationships with other women who are attending the conference. Ultimately, attendees of this workshop will find ways to unleash their creative thinking and transform ideas into concrete concepts.
As a bonus, you will have the opportunity to meet senior executives within varying fields in Microsoft who will share their thoughts the power of software to empower women– from career choices to education to your daily routine and lifestyle, software can make a huge & positive difference in all walks of life.
You can take a look HERE at Laura Foy's Channel 10 Report from WomenBuild at PDC this year.
Doesn't that sound fun and exciting? I love it that Microsoft is reaching out to women in the developer community. Make sure to check out the Facebook Group for WomenBuild too! It's an excellent place to get your feedback heard with regards to ways we can reach more women in technology.
You can Register for WomenBuild HERE - *use RSVP code "MDCWIT"
And on December 16th, I'll be helping to facilitate WomenBuild at the Atlanta MDC event, so be sure to look for me and say hello!
Companies Who Use Social Media to Become Heroes
I read articles on blogs nearly every day that offer advice to companies trying to leverage Social Media to reach their customers. Most of it is good advice, and there is certainly tons out there. I have a few of my own opinions formed by a business education mixed with some recent personal experiences. I'm going to focus mainly on my experiences with Twitter. I tweet a LOT. Because I'm always playing with new tools, services, gadgets and gizmos, many of my tweets are about my experiences with those things. I never hesitate to give praise when I have good experiences, and conversely I never hesitate to complain when I find something difficult or buggy. It absolutely blows my mind when representatives from the companies/services in question contact me to try and help to make my experience better.
In the non-digital world, it's often difficult if not impossible to reach real live human beings who have the power to make things better. Additionally, in the non-digital world, I'm a lot LESS likely to call up a company to tell them I didn't like the user experience of their website. With Twitter (and other venues) however, it seems quite commonplace for people to be vocal about their experiences. Those factors alone mean that companies NOT involved in Social Media are missing out on valuable feedback. Here are a few that have made a fan out of me. I hope readers will post their heroes in the comments below.
Some Red Ribbon Winners
Zhiing - I didn't even know what Zhiing was until @grant_at_zhiing sent me a tweet asking me if I'd like to try this social networking application for my Blackberry. Obviously Grant is a savvy fellow and had been scanning twitter for people posting things about their smartphones. This was brilliant targeted marketing. I'll refer you to their website for more information, but I can say that my initial experience with the app on my Blackberry Curve was less than thrilling. It locked up trying to sync up with my GPS system. Grant and I exchanged some emails and he forwarded my issues on to their development team. It made me feel great to know they care so much and it made me feel kind of neat to be able to help them make their service even better. I look forward to future versions! I was very impressed with the way I was engaged.
Qik - After finding out that my Blackberry, now updated with new video firmware, was an acceptable device on the Qik service, I was thrilled. Qik allows you to do live video streaming from your smart phone and I've marveled at many of my peers really taking advantage of this service. I set up my account and began with some test videos. Much to my dismay, I discovered that my video freezes partially through the middle while the sound continues. I initially just assumed it was me/my phone/issues out of my control. In my usual motor-mouthed fashion, I'd tweeted about my experiences on Qik. Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by @broy fro Qik who explained that my problem was some sort of bug having to do with my particular Blackberry model. Per his request, I emailed him the video and he is using my feedback to work with the development team to address the issue! Again, this is simply amazing to me.
BestBuy - I randomly griped one day about the UI experience I was having while searching for something on Best Buy's website. I was soon contacted by somebody whom I assume works on the webdev team asking for specifics and trying to recreate my issue. I admittedly was the weakest link in this particular experience as I never got back to this person, but again - just the fact that my feedback was solicited and I was acknowledged meant the world to me.
And the Mac Daddy Winner of them All - Comcast
Comcast - I know that some readers are groaning, rolling their eyes or muttering in disbelief at this point, but I have to say it. My recent experiences with Comcast changed me from a rabid venom-fuelled Comcast hater to their Number One fan. Why you ask? Well it was via my interactions on Twitter that I fell in love with a support team.
I'm a geek girl. I work from my home. I've been fortunate enough to have a sweet little setup here with many flavors of machine, operating system and peripheral. Since a lot of the work I do is over VPN, a reliable internet connection is crucial to everything I do. Enter – Comcast High Speed Internet. Overall, I've been happy with my service, but dealing with tech support has always been a nightmare. I've had techs out here who did not know the difference between internal and external IP addresses for instance. I have also had them out here who fed me a load of crap. I've gone through the endless hours of being on hold and condescended to by support reps on the phone who made me go through their script when I was trying to tell them I already KNEW the problem. I HATED calling them for any reason - hated it. Fortunately, the service was mostly up.. mostly. Of course, when things go sideways for me, they go way sideways. Thus is the case with my recent conundrum. The problem began about 3 months ago. My connection was dropping intermittently. I called tech support and we went through our usual gyrations. Things were ok until about a month later when it began doing the same thing – just disconnecting me and causing me to have to reset the gateway. I could not work. This was driving me crazy After whining about it on Twitter one of the wonderful Comcast guys, Frank Eliason (@comcastcares on Twitter) contacted me and asked me how he could help. He enlisted the help of of one his team, @ComcastBill and those two singlehandedly saved the universe. Well ok, they saved my sanity. We stayed in contact via phone, email and of course via Twitter and over the next 10 days (yes it was 10 days) they worked with the local office to troubleshoot and even got techs out here for FIVE CONSECUTIVE DAYS until we finally got my problem solved. They dealt with the beaurocracy in the local office for me. They were kind and reassuring. They did what troubleshooting they themselves could do on their end. They truly became my heroes. I'm happy to say that my problems have been resolved, and I even got a month's credit on my bill for the aggravation - without even asking!
If these guys had not been on Twitter, and if they weren't working so hard to help their customers, my experiences would have been the same as they always were. But, THEY HUNG IN THERE WITH ME UNTIL I GOT MY PROBLEM SOLVED!! I was ready to fire Comcast, get FIOS and scream holler and bash them at every turn, but they turned me into a fan! I even just upgraded my service with them and signed a contract for Business Class.
Making Whiners Sing Your Praises
I've also really been impressed with the guys who chime in on the comments in my blog posts. My tool posts have been some of my favorite to do, and I love doing the research and playing with the tools. It always warms my heart when people from those companies post tidbits in my comments or thank me for trying them out. That's really cool! A few (@dimdim) have even followed me on Twitter after such posts!
I think companies who ignore mediums like Twitter et al are really missing out on a valuable tool that enables them to turn mass amounts of people into loyal customers. Guy Kawasaki wrote an excellent post this week on How to Use Twitter as a Twool . His advice totally echoes what I've been saying here. Twitter itself is such a big pool of people who are generally a bit more vocal than many other customers. What a great opportunity to reach others. The companies I've mentioned above have used Twitter to turn me into an Evangelist for their services and products. That is a HUGE gain for business. No brand tee-shirts, mugs, stickers or other swag can compete with pure enthusiastic evangelism from customers! And well I'm just so doggone thrilled with them. They truly are my heroes.
Please give some love to YOUR heroes in the comments below.
27 Free Must-have Online Collaboration Tools
These days teams can be dispersed all over the globe. With outsourcing, telecommuting, distance learning and complex project collaboration, it's often helpful to have tools that can assist with the various collaborative tasks need to be done by dispersed teams. I've put together a great list of 27 free web based tools that will help you and your teammates do nearly all the things you need to do to work together from different locations. There are virtual workspaces, customer service applications, project management tools, mindmapping and even online conferencing tools - all FREE! Have a look and see if you can use any of these to connect with others and collaborate!
Whiteboard, Bullitin Board and Workspace Tools
Stixy is an online whiteboard that allows you to upload photos, add notes, documents, web clippings, bookmarks and manage tasks in a rather freeform fashion. Its sole purpose is to allow people to collect, arrange and share information in the manner in which each individual or group sees fit.
Dabbleboard is pretty much exactly what its name suggests. It's an online whiteboard that helps you to visualize, explore and communicate ideas. The interface will automatically detect basic shapes as you draw them. It's very intuitive and easy to use and allows you to reuse previously made drawings. You can upload images into your Dabbleboard drawings and also export them as images to use in desktop apps.
Mindquarry is an Open Source collaborative software platform for file sharing, task management, team collaboration and Wiki editing that is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Mindquarry runs as a web application with an optional desktop client for Windows, Linux and Mac OS that allows for desktop synchronization and offline work. As a result, you are able to connect with team members and share information from wherever you are, effectively improving team-work and increasing productivity within your team. (from their website) The app is one that you download and host yourself and comes complete with all the source code.
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