douglasmkelly's posterous

I am sorry to all those that have found EvolveSolutions.com instead of this blog. I've had DNS issues of unkown origin since April 10th. It's possible that Posterous changed their IP without informing anyone - well me. Previously I had a custom DNS setting at my registrar pointing to this blog. I've gone through several steps to correct the DNS not resolving and finally, today, we're back. Again, I am sorry for this minor inconvenience. If any of you know of how - all of a sudden - DNS would stop resolving, other than Posterous changing IPs I'll take it.

* If you want to learn more about the steps I went through, see my other blog: Mollaskatude

For most folks, Google plus (Google+) has been out for over a year. I just don't see it gaining much traction from the masses, however. Many people in the Social Media world jumped in at the beginning and many of the more technical folks joined when Google opened it to everyone. But I still don't notice many posting there. There are some SocMe people, I followed on Twitter, that only post on G+ now. They're losing a huge audience by doing that, in my opinion. Pinterest and Klout both integrate with Google+, but I really don't use both of those. {see one previous post}

I wonder if part of the issue is with the fact you can't give out a vanity name like twitter.com/mollask or facebook.com/evolvesolutions. Well if you've not heard, there is a way to grab a vanity URL by using this service: http://gplus.to/ - I've used it to create gplus.to/mollask and gplus.to/DouglasKelly

All you need is your Google number - that long string found by going to your Google Profile like 111800606987439386516. If you want more information about Social Media, including use of Google+, connect with me via LinkedIn or my company website.

Now off you go - get your vanity on.

in a fish bowl

Eli Pariser wrote a book coining the term Filter Bubble. He describes “a phenomenon in which websites use algorithms to selectively guess what information a user would like to see, based on information about the user like location, past click behavior and search history.” (according to Wikipedia). Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and many other sites cater ads, content and search results based on these algorithms. Yahoo calls this personalization - Facebook's algorithm is called Edgerank. I've called it Data Mining, and helped clients do it for years. No matter what it's called many believe this is all a conspiracy. The US Government has asked Google for user data 4,600+ times. That said, the debate is really more about personalization and whether or not you want to have your results filtered for you.

At aimWest, an organization I belong to, based in Grand Rapids Michigan, we discussed this topic a couple months ago. The event was in an open fishbowl format - which if you've never attended one, you have to find one or host one yourself. They're amazing! The topic was riveting, as you can imagine, otherwise you wouldn’t still be reading this post. Our fishbowl had 5 chairs in the middle of a circle of chairs. One chair had to remain open through out the evening, but anyone from the audience could jump up and hit that open chair. Once the 5th was filled, one of the other 4 had to sit down. In case you didn't know, I'm the newest President of aimWest – It's my job to start off and end a meeting – Chief Moderator as it were. I kept the event going for over an hour and a quarter. Generally the speaker portions of our meetings are 45 minutes long. At least half of the attendees seated themselves and joined the conversation.

An aimWest chair sitter did mention that they believed that the entire filter bubble will evolve over the next couple years. Tim Ferris believes that filtering is going bio-metric in the next 48 months. “Ferris uses gadgets and automated spreadsheets that can track our bodies’ biorhythms, including REM cycles, calorie intake, heart beat, blood pressure, glucose levels and even vitamin deficiencies... Those data streams can then be combined to infer how stressed you are, when you’re drowsy and, increasingly, what mood you’re in.” (from The Filter Bubble Blog site) Think about that one as you're formulating your thoughts and comments on the Filter Bubble. Imagine heart rate data being sent to insurance companies. I should think that there will be a huge call for privacy attorneys and engineers in the near future. 

One last thing, we should have some videos, that a board member took at the aimWest event, up on YouTube, if they aren't already. If you missed the event these will just be teasers. You missed a great one. I've included a couple links in this post. Read up on data mining, personalization or The Filter Bubble, how ever you like to look at it – and come back and comment here. Would you like aimWest to do another Filter Bubble Fish Bowl event? In like a year?

I attended (and moderated) an aimWest event this past week. I'm writing a future post about the event topic: the Filter Bubble. It was an awesome event! More on that to come, but this post is on Klout. Klout.com was discussed a little at the monthly aimWest - but more importantly "Have you quit Klout yet?" was the theme of that discourse. Klout is a site that presumes to measure your social media influence. You wind in your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and WordPress IDs for tracking. Those of you that only use Posterous, you're out of luck. Klout only measures from WordPress and Blogger. Also, none of you on Android cells with other social picture sharing apps can increase your Klout - only we iPhone users that have Instagram get the bump. Nice, huh?

So why would you want to quit? Why wouldn't you? is the better question. I know, I know, we humans want to measure and score everything. We like competition. But does Klout really do that for you? For one thing Klout keeps changing their algorithm, stating that the changes will make things more even - more realistic. After the last change, however, Klout's CEO feared (publicly) that he may have made a mistake. I think monetizing people's clout in Social Media was the first mistake, personally. But seriously, did your Klout "score" actually make you want to better engage your audience? Did it change you? Did you tweet more? Did you use Facebook better? Did you actually influence more people?

I believe true influence is noticed on and off line. A friend coined the term "Meat Space" (or at least started using it) a while back. It means to meet in 3-dimensional space - actually pressing the flesh. Touching the meat of someone by shaking their hand, patting them on the back, and interacting in person. To me, you influence someone by receiving a reaction or at least an action. You can see their reaction in person. You can tell you've influenced someone if they take action - like signing that contract. Klout doesn't measure your offline influence. 

I did partake in the Klout.com phenomena for a while. But I never really understood why I should care? Other than measuring myself against others - in that same competitive way that everyone else liked about it - why use it? If any of you can give me a valid reason, I'd possibly consider joining Klout again. Until then, I'm going to use Google Analytics and link shortners to track hits and clicks to my blog, site and other websites. I am going to measure my clout by getting new customers or perhaps new members to aimWest. I quit Klout. If you want to quit too but can no longer find the opt out, do this:

Klout disconnected the link between "profile settings" and "delete your account".  The removed function is now pushed to the very end of the "privacy" policy page which you can only access through a text link at the bottom of your "profile settings" page.

Thanks Sage Telecom For The Push Out The Door

This week, I killed the house land line. There's a little history: Had Sage Telecom for a home phone service. Their service was ok and all, but I under paid them by the giant sum of 1 dollar. They shut off the phone. I called them up - Spent probably about 25 minutes while the very nice lady looked up my account. I'm busy. A home phone was never a priority - not since the cell phone revolution. But there I was. Evidently Sage has this complete automated system that if you haven't paid the full amount, they disconnect you. I DON'T EVER USE THE HOME PHONE! So I went online and made a payment through my bank, whence I noticed it was off. Crazy, there had been less politicians after my vote for a couple days.

After making the payment, I didn't care that the line didn't get turned on right away - I assumed that some person had to "Touch" the account. See loud all caps statement above. However, when it didn't get turned back on for 4 days, I went to the Sage site - I noticed and paid a balance ($20), believing that maybe now they'd turn it back on. Turns out I was supposed to call them to let them know that I wanted to keep my home phone. I'm not exactly sure how I would have known that. So the lady from Sage apprises me that I now need to pay $86 to get the phone turned back on. All OVER A $1!! A dollar? Seriously? Good bye Sage and thanks for over charging me for 3 years for something I barely used. It was mostly a tool for politicians and marketers to call and bug me anyway.

Now for the rest of the story: Everyone, that matters, already has my cell digits so this is just to have something in the house - for the occasional sitter.  First I purchased a tracphone from AT and T. They call their pre-pays Go-Phones. I grabbed 250 minutes for $25 and have 3 months to use them. The cool thing is I set up a new local Google number so it can be given out to friends and family. Google rings my iphone with this new number as well as the "home" phone. Voice mail is emailed - and transcribed - so I can get it from anywhere.

The steps were pretty easy, you just go to Google.com/voice and set up an account (if you don't already have one). It does need to have a GMail account associated with it. Then you select a number or have Google do it for you. You can look up by Area Code or Zip Code. Finally you "point" that new number to an existing telephone - Google rings you up with a code and you're done. You give that number out and it can ring multiple lines. The first to pick up gets the call. The free part is that you go to ATT.com and put in the new telephone number as a free call (A-List). Then when anyone calls that number it comes across to your cell as your new number. With Google Voice you can opt to have everyone state their name prior to you answering. Do this as their number won't register (you want free don't you?).

Note: Outgoing calls from this new line will be charged. Incoming answered calls will go against your minutes too. So you just answer one of your other lines on the account. If you have less than 5 lines on your ATT account, just add a line and it will share the minutes and free goodness. I didn't have that option. This is just an emergency phone. And at $8/month it's worth it. Sorry Sage Telecom - The only way you'll get me back is to give me back my old telephone number, waive the fees and turn me back on. I'd pay the difference of $20, if I have to. The only other issue is that Dish will now charge me $5 for not having a telephone plugged in. Let's see... $48-$57 per month vs $13. The new phone was $20. That's a sum total of $500 per year for an emergency line.

I am not sure how long this particular scenario will last as I have a few other options, like porting my business line over to Google and just forwarding that to my iPhone, then dropping the track phone and switching SIM cards.

Last week a virtual friend sent me this "Hey what's with this post about you" Twitter Direct Message. I actually clicked the link, as I had believed there might be some bad feelings in the local area about my company. Of course I'm not telling you why - suffice it to say a competitor may not like my firm for some strange reason. So Google Chrome saved me from going to that site. w00t! Today two friends' twitter accounts were hacked. They're both very Social Media savvy.

I also received a call today from a lady who clicked the spammer's DM link and got through to that site. Lucky she didn't fill out the form that was there. I DON'T LIKE SPAM! This kind of spam is the worst kind. It plays on your emotions and draws you in - then steals your identity. The viagra spam emails never trick me - I'm not 60. I don't know why they continue to find their way to my inbox. But this new Twitter DMing is a little scary.

Here's one way to not get hacked: Only use https://twitter.com. Its the secure version. In fact, only go to sites that have a security seal or SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certification when in a public wireless area. Facebook has one. My blog has one. The cert's not owned by me, and you might get an "Error" if you try, but it works and is legit. This is only really necessary if you are using open wifi. If you're in a coffee house and browsing the interwebs and log in, you can be "Sniffed" by a FireFox plugin (there are actual sniffing programs too) that can view all your open tabs, and gain access to your logged in sites. If you normally have Safari, FireFox or Chrome (or God forbid, IE) manage your passwords for sites where you have to log in, ensure that you remove this saving feature for non-https sites. That 's' means the site encrypts your virtual transactions, thereby making your password very hard to learn. 

If you get hacked - and you're a business - you need to contact all of your clients and apologize. Then you need to give them the name of a very good internet guru (or this blog post) - and say that even you can get hacked - and if they don't want to get their sites and accounts compromised, they need to get some security in place. Suffice it to say that a guru I use had his twitter account hacked a couple months ago. It can happen to anyone. If it ever happens to me, I'll be referring you back to this post. 

What is your 118 second elevator pitch? Have you refined it down to 118 seconds? Here's mine: "Evolve is an internet business development firm, specializing in Website Design and Development, however we provide soup to nuts Internet Biz Dev. We help companies with everthing from rebranding to being found, from looking good to garnering new customers through Social Media and Marketing and Search Engine Optimization."

I've refined and changed this over the last year since Jeffery Hayzlett asked me that question: http://bit.ly/qdGph4 

So - What's your 118? 

I have been on the Beta - Invitation-Only - Google+, for a few weeks now (thanks Jay!). I don't feel all special and alone, however. Almost everyone, that I get all Social Media with, are in. Actually that's a pretty good thing - as, if they weren't, I wouldn't be having any fun.

So far, I like the cleaness, and I like the lack of ads (so far, right?). Circles are nice - and slightly easier to use than Facebook's lists. I like that I get notifications while I'm using other Google apps. I also like that all the Social Media Gurus and Techies have embraced Google+ and write frequently. It almost has that brand new Twitter feel.

However, I've not been using it as much as Facebook for a couple reasons:

One: I can't publish from Hootesuite or Tweetdeck to Google+. When you post to 4+ social networks, you look for the easiest possible way of transacting with them.

Two: I'm using/playing EmpireAvenue. EA gives you increased share price based on your social media use. It's just a way to monitor engagement. Also, it's a great way to find people to follow and engage people with similar interests in Facebook. Actually I've been contacted by and contacted EA users about all sorts of things including finding speakers for a non-proffit I'm a part of - Oooo Social Networking! Think what you will about EmpireAvenue, however, it is gaining traction in the SocMed sphere and almost all the Fortune 500 companies have a presence/user on EA. So I'm on EmpireAvenue - as it is a way to measure Social Engagement, it is growing, and I'm intregued by a Social Media game. This all said, they're not wired in with Google+ yet. I get no boost to my share price by posting to Plus. I do get the bump from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And hundreds of people that I do interact with often, are on FB. 

So I'm looking for some thoughts and musings from my blog followers here. Are you using it daily? Do you like it more or less than Facebook. Is it as important to you as Twitter? Do you dislike the Mobile App?

Also, I started writing this post long ago, and haven't blogged in all of August, so wanted to get this done and out. Hey it's Summer. I'd rather be outside, or increasing business, or writing other's Social Media Content - than blogging. Call me odd.

Shot with an iPhone 4

Last week I did a bit of camping - so if you missed me on Social Media or wondered why I wasn't blogging... I needed to get meetings out of the way and keep clients happy ahead of going away for a few days. One of the meetings I had was with a fellow entrepreneur. He has had a business for around a year. He wondered to me, how does one take vacations when you have your own business. I responded that I'd only taken anything over 3 days off once in 8 years. I generally work mornings when on "workations".

So the camping involved kayaking, swimming, fishing, beer drinking and a very small amount of mountain biking. To those of you that manage a business or are involved so drastically in the day to day that you don't take vacations or only have working vacations: How do you do it? Do you attach 4 days to a business trip to get some deep sea fishing in? Do you throw a couple days in at the beginning and end to spend with family on the slopes? Perhaps you don't take vacations, you just ensure that you have 2 hours in the middle of each day to eat lunch with your kids and play a little Wii or go cycling. Maybe golf is your game and you set up as many business meetings as you can for the links. 

Tell me your business/pleasure stories.