Pete Reum on the Web

August 16, 2010

Review of Power Friending

Filed under: Media,social media — Tags: amber mac, pete reum, power friending, social media — Pete @ 5:01 pm

In helping clients try to understand social media I have come across many issues. These include but are not limited to such things as: what is twitter all about, should I have a facebook page, how often should I [tweet, blog], how do I build my online identity and many other questions. I have tried to convey my thoughts on social media and met with a bit of success with some clients. Recently in the Sunday paper I was reading the books section of the paper and came across Power Friending by Amber Mac. I marked it as something I might be interested in, and would get to soon. Later that week a colleague asked if I had seen the review. I decided that this was a book that I needed to read to see what Amber had to say.

I got the book from Amazon and was very pleasantly surprised. Amber really does get social media. She is very clear in her presentation and has lots of hints and links that can help anyone from a newbie to an experienced person in learning about social media. As an example she talks of podcasts with some really handy hints on building content. Not sure how to use Youtube or wiki’s she can help you out. Not sure what QR codes are — she explains them. Nervous about how to set up a strategy, let her walk you through that. Interested in some success stories (I remember and loved the #blameandrewscancer). Dissect some failures. This book has it all.

Power Friending and the Dog

My doggie just finished the book yesterday and we had a good chat about how best to show off our new found knowledge. He especially liked the use of “plethora” when talking about location based services! You know dogs, it is all about the nearest “location”, plus he really likes that word! He also suggested that I write a bit about my thoughts and thus this posting.

I also learned that she is part of the twit network. For those of you who do not know about the network it is run by Leo Laporte and he and his “peoples” have built up a very useful podcasting network. I often listen to many of his podcasts but did not realize that Amber was part of that network. I immediately signed up for her net@night podcast because I liked her style in the book and felt that through the podcast I could keep learning cool tricks from her. Upon finishing her book I let Amber know on twitter that I liked her book. She got back to me in minutes! Very cool to see someone who not only writes about her subject but also will still talk to the “little people (me)”. If you are not yet following her on twitter ambermac you should.

All in all I feel that I will be using this book to help my clients and myself to better leverage the social media thing. I highly recommend this book to all interested — regardless of skill level — in social media.

pete reum

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July 14, 2010

The Devil is in the Details

Filed under: General Information — Tags: details, pete reum — Pete @ 4:12 pm

Most parts of my job entail details. Whether it is writing code correctly or helping a client choose meaningful keywords for them details do matter. As a long time programmer I learned a long time ago that details matter. If you misplace a semicolon in some languages then all sorts of things can go wrong. When someone says that they just changed this one thing (usually in code) and it should not affect anything else, my ears perk up.

Some recent examples of details that were ignored: the dead battery on the emergency cut off valve on the leaking oil well in the Gulf; goals that were missed/wrongly awarded in the world cup; the iphone 4 antenna placement; volcanic ash and airplane interaction. All of these issues has to do with details. Everyone has different skills and one of my skills — I think anyways — is details. Now I cannot spell very well as all my clients can attest to but getting the text into the right place at the right time, I can do that.

Here are a couple of details that I have had recent success with. I have done some research into why certain pages on a clients site were so slow to load. I had to dig into the code — the pages are generated with data from a local database and added into a mashup with google maps — and expose different layers where the slow issues might be found. At the end I found out that I had not added an index to a table in the database. Simple solution and the pages came back to life in the fast lane! That was a tough problem that I need a variety of skills and tools to find the issue. Details.

Another example of details in action was doing an evaluation of a clients site. This became a bit tricky for a variety of issues I will not get into here. The end result was that I was able to find a way by using Google Ads to direct traffic to their site using some keyword phrases that for some reason they were not currently using. Those keywords help to drive traffic up to their site significantly. They already had a click campaign running but — details — they had let this set of keywords phases slip away.

I am a details kind of guy and usually like digging in to figure out what is currently going on. So whether it is in code or evaluation of a site or an issue I like getting down to the details of what is really going on with a process. Sometimes this might take a long time and multiple tries. The issue I spoke about above with the database took me months to really figure out what was going on, the fix took minutes to implement. Your grandmother was right — “The Devil is in the Details!”.

pete reum

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February 23, 2010

New Media vs Old Media

Filed under: Media — Tags: nbcfail, new media, olympic coverage, pete reum — Pete @ 4:51 pm

With the Olympics being broadcast by NBC there is interesting experiment going on. While NBC would love for you to be surprised when an event is shown hours after it happened and in a shortened format, that is not the real world of 2010. There are quite a few great articles about how NBC is not making their audience very happy. Here is a good one from NPR. And another from CNET. Both of these are very good articles speaking to the unhappiness of the NBC audience.

Much of the anger is based on the strategy of doing “tape delays” to better promote their content — as the sole US provider of Olympic content — for better prime time ratings. I think that this is yet another example of how the old media do not “get it”. Especially with the Internet available on many different devices how can a fan not know the results of an event that they are interested in? How does that serve the athletes that have trained so very hard for their events? How does that help grow interest in sports that might only come to the attention of viewers once every 4 years, but might have a fan base that could grow?

It is interesting that some of the sponsors of NBC’s coverage of the games promote the ability to view the events anywhere anytime. One problem with that is NBC is unwilling to provide those feeds! So on one hand you have the local stations telling their viewers that they want to interact with them about what is going on in the games in real time via twitter and facebook. On the other hand you have the corporate “brains” for instance showing the women’s downhill in a fragmented format the night of the event — hours after the results of the event are known. Fans will know that the skiers go off in bib number order. Starting the “event” with bib number 4 is not showing the event. Skipping to bib 15 next, really! I was listening on a cool new feature on google. I did a search for women’s downhill on google and they had a streaming portion of the results page. They were pulling tweets real time into the frame and so I was hearing about the crashes and how hard the course was in virtual real time. I knew that there were 2 US women on the podium as it happened. NBC did show some of the crashes later and then again and again and again.

Now the downhill got me all fired up, as I am a skier and love the sport. I started looking at the tweet tag #nbcfail. Very interesting that many people were also feeling my pain at not being able to view the live event. NBC is saying that it is a vocal minority that are unhappy with their coverage. This is very much like the RIAA saying that downloads are hurting their business model. Here is a news flash to you both — you are the dinosaurs and the model has changed. There are so many different ways to view content that you cannot control them. Just talk to the guys over in Iran.

Now my guess is that the “fans” of a sport will actually watch the whole event of their sport (hockey fans Canada vs. US). That will include the commercials — note to advertisers. When only the highlights of USA+ (see the NPR story above for the description) is shown those same fans will only tune in for a very short time to view their sport and then go watch other things — avoiding all commercials in the process. My thoughts are that NBC will not listen to people that are unhappy. I wonder if you contact some of the advertisers and let them know that you will NOT buy their products if they continue to support a company that does not support the fans, athletes or their families. Might that change the way that NBC shows the games?

I would imagine that by the time the next games come around there will be individuals streaming events from their mobile devices to “friends”. They in fact are probably doing that now. The genie is out of the bottle and using the old school methods to try to keep the suspense is outdated and should be shown in the bright lights as a shining example of how NOT to show a sporting event. Just imagine the outrage if a NASCAR or Superbowl was show tape delayed by 8 hours!

The Horror – The Horror.

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January 26, 2010

Clicks vs. CLICKS

Filed under: Clients — Tags: ad words, google, pete reum — Pete @ 7:02 pm

In running Ad Word campaigns I have been, and continue to, learn how to best help my clients. Google is more than happy to take as much money as you are willing to throw at them. You will have to do your homework, but if you get your ad and bids lined up, and people are clicking on them then that is good, right?

Google has gotten the market share that it has because it is very good at providing good, relevant results to what you are searching for. Just because you are willing to spend lots of money if you do not get clicks from your ads then they will not be shown as you would expect.

Here are some things that I believe:

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I notice that most of my click thru’s are for very few of the key words that are chosen. Therefore using the 80-20 rule I believe that you should spend your money on the big hitters for search and not worry so much about the other key words that might or might not bring someone to your site, but can cost you.
Ask if time matters. For some campaigns it might not make sense to run the ad all day everyday. By just limiting your ad to certain times will the clicks be better off for my client? You can limit time to time of day and day of week. If no one is able to answer a phone on the weekend and a phone call is key to the business then pause the campaign when no one is able to answer the phone. This can save my clients money.
How much are you willing to spend? This can be important to limiting time or keywords. Maybe a client cannot spend much but can bet OK traffic by using a set of keywords that are not the biggest hitters but still get good relevant clicks. Why spend as much as possible if you can get by on less. There are always trade offs but it is good to think about these sorts of issues.
Write a compelling ad. This is not as simple as it seems. I have run a number of ads all with similar but different parts to them. I am always amazed of the difference in clicks that a small change can make. Words matter and words are at a premium on Ad Words. Write with clarity and don’t be afraid to get rid of an ad that is not working.

I might not be the best or the brightest but do feel that I can run good solid Ad Word campaigns for my clients. Yes anyone can do it but then you might just get what you pay for. One of my Pete-ism’s goes like this — “there are times to do your own plumbing and there are times to hire a plumber”.

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December 23, 2009

Advocacy

Filed under: General Information,Search — Tags: advocate, pete reum, Search, social media — Pete @ 6:08 pm

Advocacy - the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy; active support – according to dictionary.com. What are you an advocate for? Are you an advocate for your company? If not why not? I have been thinking about this of late. Word of mouth is so very powerful in generating new growth. I think that this is especially true in the small business community. I try to be an advocate for all my clients. I want them to grow and become better at what they do. I always am thinking of my clients first when I hear about any opportunities that might be a match for them. I would like to think that others think of me when they hear about an internet opportunity that might be a match for me.

need a handyman – I know someone
need commercial building work done – I know someone
need your carpets cleaned – I know someone
interested in home automation – I know someone

It has been my experience that the smaller a company is the more likely it is that employee’s are advocates for the company, and for other companies. Having worked in big, medium and small companies I found that my skill set was best utilized in a smaller business environment. I like doing a variety of things and have many different skills. Many times my clients do not even realize that I have a skill that they could use, until I am chatting to them about something else, and it will come up that I know how to do the task that they are in need of.

Search and social media come to mind when I think of skills that my clients might not know that I have. Social media is all the buzz right now. Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Flickr and all sorts of other sites. Ask me about it sometime and I will give you my 2 cents worth. I don’t think that just because you can means that you should — each business is unique and I try to speak to their needs. And not all social sites are a good match for all business operations. Search is a term that could have many different meanings for different people. Some might say search when they mean paid ads while others mean organic search. When clients are not sure of what they want it can be tough to speak to their needs. How do you handle this situation? I would love to hear about it.

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December 8, 2009

Facelift for Web Mountain Technologies

Filed under: Clients — Tags: home automation, upb, web mountain — Pete @ 12:25 am

There are still some details to work out, but Web Mountain now has a new look on the web. Visit the site here. Web Mountain is a supplier of UPB (Universal Powerline Bus). They have created many unique products using the UPB technology. They also provide quite a number of hints and applications information in their applications notes.

Web Mountain started in the X10 business but found that the UPB offered many features that made it a superior technology for their products. They have a love for home automation and that shows through in their product line and the companies that they partner with and supply devices for. Based in Aurora, CO they provide devices throughout the United States.

One of their newer products is the TIM-01. Terry Bolinger from Web Mountain says, “it is the world’s most advanced UPB timer,scheduler and count down timer.” Bolinger continues, “our landscape people love this device and were instrumental in the development of this product.”

With lots of products to show off for home automation and the holidays just around the corner visit the Web Mountain site for a fresh look and good deals!

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November 28, 2009

Mashup – Fun to Say Fun to Do

Filed under: General Information — Tags: google calendar, google maps, mashup, pete reum — Pete @ 10:44 pm

Mashup is a mixing of different data from different places all into one place. Everyone has seen one of these before but might not have recognized it as such. A good example of this idea – mashup – is to place a map, generated by google, onto a website that you own. RCI’s contact page here is an example. Many sites now use google maps as a great source of mapping information that they can access easily and reliably.

Mashups can add a variety of information to a page. RCI has a client that has a need to see a collection of information all in one place. Here is a partial list of their requirements:

Map of the different regions in their system.
Location of their suppliers, in the region of interest, on the map.
Location of their vehicles in the region.
Location of their open trouble tickets in the region.
The ability to zoom in and out and move around the map.

To provide this mashup I collect information from the clients GPS provider from their web interface. I then collect the suppliers geo-information in the requested region from the data base. Then collect the open trouble tickets in the region from the data base. At this time I am ready to create a page that will display all of this different information. On the page I use google maps to create the map that the client will be able to zoom in and out and move around as required. I then add the geo-data onto the map thus creating the mashup.

Map showing Mashup

You can see from the image to the left that there is all the information showing up in a map that you can use to change the look and be able to see all the required information at a glance. The client is able to click on an icon to get more information about that particular item. They can also click on the icons above the map to just see those icons on the map. This gives my client the ability to handle dispatch duties based on their current view of where their vehicles are and the priority of the trouble ticket. It is a very versatile item in their tool box for the dispatchers.

Another mashup is to add a google calendar into a clients web page. This is also a very simple thing to do and provides my clients with a great calendar that is then viewable on their web site keeping their sites look, feel and navigation. Google calendar is very easy to use and has a powerful set of features. Anyone who has a gmail account with google has the calendar function available to them. They can then add/modify/delete events and add other information that they want to share with others into the calendar. I then add the calendar into a page on their web site creating the mashup.

Calendar Mashup

You can see that all the information on the calendar is available and viewable by the client on their site. This mashup provides a great calendar that is integrated directly on the clients site. This mashup is a great solution for a client that is looking for a powerful calendar at a low cost to them (free). All the data for the calendar is located on the servers at google and the display integrates this information into their look and feel. The calendar has all the features of calendar programs and is modified by the user from their gmail account. The changes are immediately available on their site. Links, details and maps can all be added easily and quickly from the google site.

Mashups can be fun and are able to provide a variety of information into a consolidated page that has your sites look and feel. This is the power of mashups — your site looks like it contains all the information — even if it comes from a variety of places. Mashups are a great information consolidation tool.

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November 21, 2009

Tools of the Trade

Filed under: General Information — Tags: java script, pete reum, PHP, web developer — Pete @ 3:03 am

While talking to a client some time ago, they asked if I knew any “programers”. Digging into the requirements that she shared with me about her needs, I realized that she did not understand what I was capable of. She needed a method of job scheduling that would work for her particular needs. She had looked at a variety of product offerings and had felt that none of them provided exactly what she was after. I then offered to create a bid for my solution to her stated needs. She had not thought of me a programmer, and I thought maybe others might be thinking the same thing. Thus this post.

Programmers tend to talk about the languages that they know. For web development I use 2 main languages, PHP and java script. PHP is a server side scripting language. What that means is that the computer where you make the request for a web page — the server — can run this language to create a page that has dynamic content. An example would be a list of links on a site that is stored in a data base. PHP is able to ask the data base what links it has and then create the display that would go back to your browser, maybe sorting the links in alphabetical order. This language allows me to do a number of different tasks that help display many different groups of information in many different ways. In the previous example, the web request client would see a list of the links displayed. However, they would not be able to modify those links. An administrator on that same site would be able to add, modify and delete links as needed as the links changed. I am able to provide a web interface to data that is stored on the server and let my clients be able to modify it without me being involved. More costly at design time but much cheaper than having me modify content that changes frequently.

The other language that I often use in web development is called java script. It is a language that is run on the web clients computer. This language allows me to change the look of a page and to update information on a page without having to reload the entire page. An example of this type of code is when you are inside of a page that is displaying a map from google. As you move around in the map, say zooming in or out, that is the only component on the page that is updated. The main body of the page is not forced to reload to update the map portion. I have explained the difference between PHP and java script in this way. If you display the time using PHP it will show the time that is currently set on the server. If the web server is located in California and the web browser is located in New York the time would display a 3 hour difference. However if the time is displayed using java script the display will show the time that the local computer is set to. Thus, no matter where the server is located, if the time is displayed using java script it will show the local computer time even thought the page came from a California based server.

Using these programming tools I am able to create sites that will display and use dynamic content that the user, my clients, can control and update to a certain extent. My clients are all unique, and by using these tools I am able to give them a web based interface, that can be accessed from anywhere Internet access is available, to control content. My clients love this ability and once they understand what I am able to do for them the requests start coming in sounding something like this — “I know we can change this [insert feature], but can you add the ability to change this [insert new feature]“. I enjoy when my clients start to “get it” that I can add all sorts of features, I just have to understand what their requirements are, or their how they have implemented their current procedures.

I have so far talked about programming but I also have other skills. That will have to wait for a different post however.

Hopefully this will give a better idea of the web development programming languages that I use daily to help keep my clients happy. I do love “Happy Clients”.

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November 15, 2009

Thoughts on Problem Solving

Filed under: General Information — Tags: pete reum, problem solving — Pete @ 11:21 pm

Another winter storm has hit Denver, and has me pondering problem solving. If there is enough snow then it becomes an issue for people to figure out what to do with it. There are many different methods that I have seen over the years. Each person tends to choose a method that suites them, and sticks with it over time. Problem solving when it comes to snow, begins with — do you do anything at all. There are people that just let nature do its thing and never lift a hand to shovel snow. There are others that choose a to use a mechanical advantage. That might include a snow blower or atv type snow mover. Other still choose the manual method.

Snow blowers come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. We generally don’t get enough snow in Denver to need the really heavy duty sort. Most of the machines here are the small to mid range of blowers. Shovels also come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. I have seen people use a regular garden type of shovel while other choose the “back saver” versions. These tools are best to have in place long before a storm starts. Choosing the right tool for you is important.

Once you decide that you are going to move the snow, and have chosen your tool of choice, now comes the interesting part for me. How do you tackle the pattern that you use? Some use the same pattern all the time. Others “wing it”, choosing a different pattern every time out. I would define one type of pattern like this. Start on your driveway and go across it side to side removing snow as you go. Another pattern might be to create a path from the top to the bottom of the driveway, thereby splitting the removal terrain into 2 different sides. Then move down one side at a time and remove from the path you created to the edge.

Another part of the problem is when to start to remove the snow. Do you wait till it stops snowing or try to stay ahead of the storm and remove the snow as it comes down. Each has it merits. If it snows large amount over time if you wait untill it stops snowing there is a larger volume to move at one time. However if you try to stay ahead of the storm then the wind just might kick up, making it look as though had not done anything at all.

We all work this problem every time that it snows without too much thought going into it. The tools are usually available before hand, unless you have just moved, or they are lost or broken. So there is a bit of prep work but not too much of that is required.

I have found myself being a very methodical person using the same method on each storm. It generally works well for me and it is a task that I can complete pretty quickly unless there is just a ton of snow.

I also think that I use a similar methodology in web development. I have a method for certain tasks and tend to do them the same all the time. I have my tools available before hand and they are well broken in and trustworthy. Now one thing different is that in web development there is almost always something new that needs to be learned or implemented. I really like/hate this part of my job. For me it is always very cool to learn new things. I have found that keeping ahead of the storm with web development can be a big challenge. I use many different types of learning material. I really like podcasts. I can walk the dog and still be learning something fun and informational. I also try to keep up with news on the web via twitter. There is almost always someone who is chatting about something new and different. Choosing the right tool to listen to the stream has helped me filter out what it is that interests me from the stream.

I often think of my job as solving problems all day long. The problems differ but still need to be solved. Each of my clients have a different need and I try to stay mindful of those differences. I think that I am pretty good problem solver be it snow or web related issues.

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November 8, 2009

New Iron

Filed under: General Information — Tags: dell, reum, windows 7 — Pete @ 7:20 pm

The boss has let me upgrade my workstation. I was able to order some pretty good “iron”. I now have a new dell 546. The cool part is that I now have 8 gigs of memory with a 750 gig harddrive. It came with 64 bit Windows 7. I had some experience with Vista in the past and was not very impressed with it at all. I have had this new system for a bit less than a week and just love it.

My old system had worked quite well for me for about 3-4 years. However it had been getting bogged down when I had numerous applications open and trying to do multiple things at once. The waiting for completion of tasks had started to become an issue. I must say that when I am looking at getting things done I want my machines to go as fast as I can. That was becoming an issue with the old setup.

In loading up the new system I found that windows 7 was pretty smart in adding applications. I use Adobe CS4 for development work. On my old system it could take up to 5-6 hours to get and install updates to it. I was able to get that same task done in less than a half hour with the new system. It has been very fun with this much memory to have the machine just fly through tasks that used to take a VERY long time.

In all I think that it took me about a day to get all — that I could remember that is — of my applications loaded and working on the new system. Very quick work and it all went very smooth. Start-up and getting ready to do work has gone from a couple of minutes time to something like a minute or less. That has me loading dreamweaver, smartcvs, firefox, thunderbird, skype and tweetdeck. I am very impressed, thank you very much.

As a developer I also felt that I needed to update my skills to keep up to date. My clients expect me to have experience on many browsers, operating systems and all things internet. This upgrade will allow me to be able to have updated skills on the windows platform. At this time I am very happy and I must say pretty impressed with Microsofts’ latest offering.

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