May 24th, 2009
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As stated in Wikipedia: “A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.”
The two most popular social networks in North America are Facebook and Linkedin. Facebook is a social network that is mainly used for personal reasons, where people can stay in touch with each other. Linkedin is used for business networking. If you have been in the business communty for a while, the two tend to blur. You tend to link in first with the people you interact with on a daily basis, which are the people you are currently working with. But as you meet new acquantances, and find old ones, your network expands. And as your current network links in with new links, you can tag along and link in with them also.
It is too early to say if either of these sites have helped with forging any business relationships. But personally, I am able to keep in touch with family and friends scattered across the country. I have received emails from high school and college friends that I have not talked to in years. It is amazing how many are in the technology industry. I am able to keep up with their own social networks and see what they are up to. I have learned an immense about what friends and family are doing personally and professionally.
Professionally, I am optimistic about the benefits of these networking sites. I don’t expect job offers coming in, but ideas are being generated constantly as a result of what others in my network are doing. I am currently reading a book entitled “The Wisdom of Crowds“. And one of the premises of the book, is that a group of individuals is wiser than one individual alone. They do not have to be working together to come up with a solution, but the group as a whole will come up with the best solution when taking all of the inputs. As I listen, watch and learn from others, and I can see myself growing professional and personally. And I am sure that I am not alone.
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter. Based on what I am reading, I am in good company.
May 16th, 2009
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Podcasts are video or audio digital files that can be downloaded to your computer or other device for viewing or listening. The one thing that differentiates a podcast from other digital media is the client software that manages your subscriptions. Whenever there are new releases of the podcast, the latest audio or video files will be downloaded automatically. You dont’ have to manually look for and retrieve any files. You just set your iTunes (or other client software) to subscribe to a podcast series. As soon as a new podcast is released, it will download to your computer automatically when you log into iTunes.
As with any new media, the early adopters were people in the technology industry. This is my main area of interest. I listen to podcasts focused on web development, interactive media and technology in general. I am a big fan of Paul Boag at Boagworld.com (a podcoast on web design and development) and Leo Laporte at This Week in Tech (a technology call-in show). Both are fantastic ways of keeping up with the newest trends and information related to the web and technology.
If you are not interested in technology, don’t worry, there is a podcast for you. There is a wide variety of podcasts that you can listen to. One of my favorites, outside of technology, is Planet Money, a podcast devoted to making sense of the current economic turmoil. And the other podcast that I really enjoy is This American Life, a weekly hour-long podcast of stories of regular and not so regular people. “There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.”
Another benefit is that you can listen to podcasts anywhere and at anytime. I listen on my commute to and from work, when I jog and while doing work around the house. And podcasts deliver an immense amout of substance. Where the mainstream media is trying to cast a wide net for eyes and ears, podcasts can target a narrow audience. Podcasts can devote enough time in a podcast to deliver high quality information on any topic
I highly recommend buying an iPod and finding a podcast for you. It helps me keep up with the trends in my industry, make sense of the world around me, and excercise my brain as I excersie my body.
February 10th, 2009
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I have decided to use Word Press as my content management system. It is easy to install and download a theme that I can modify enough to make it look like my own. There are plenty of plug-ins to use to add features to my site with little effort. With the theme that I chose, plug-ins to flickr.com and twitter were easy to set up. And there are a lot more out-of-the-box functionality that I have yet to start using. If I were setting up a small business and needed a fast, easy and inexpensive way of getting started, I would choose WordPress. No need to create a custom site. I set up this site in a couple of hours over the weekend. And now I can focus on building the site out, rather than concentrating on the look and feel, and the functionality.
One of my goals this year was to build out a nice web site. I have the Adobe Professional products, such as Dreamweaver, etc., and tried at first to use that to build a site. Great tool if that is your job. But if you have a full-time job other than developing and coding, or if you are a business owner who just wants to site to advertise what you really do full-time, then the professional package is not a good option. I also started working with Drupal, but this too is a full-time job. Great for customized sites, but many small business owners do not need that level of customization. I have been using WordPress off and on for the past two years, but have been exploring other options to get a good feel of what is out there. Plus I have a technical background, and have created externally facing sites and internal sites for the company I work for. And I wanted to do this on my own to create a site based on my own design and development. But now I have decided to use WordPress rather create a site from scratch, because you can get a lot further using what others have created. The development base for WordPress is very large and hard to compete with, or ignore.
Recently, I have also been reading and hearing a lot from the web site design and development community good comments about WordPress. And many professionals are switching their sites to WordPress from other blogging/content management systems for their sites. The main reason is the recent updates to WordPress and the growing and vibrant community of WordPress developers creating plug-ins and themes to use. A recent article in Smashing Magazine, the Ultimate Guide to Using WordPress For a Portfolio, touts the benefits of using WordPress to advertise your design portfolio, whether it is web design or photography. Also, Boagworld is one of my favorite podcasts about web design has decided to move its site to WordPress citing the simplicity of using this as a content management system and the growing amount of developers adding plug-ins to WordPress.
