Site Meter What I Learned Today - MG's CIP: April 2008

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Social Media: Dog Blog - They Call Me Cosmo

Some folks I met recently introduced me to their pup "Gingerbread Kase of Greygoose (aka Cosmo)" via the world wide web. Not in the traditional way, you know, like with photos, but by pulling up Cosmo's blog. That's right. First person - or first dog I should say - accounts of Cosmo's life straight from the pup's paws.

http://theycallmecosmo.blogspot.com is a quite comprehensive log of what's happening in the great white north.

I started looking into the secret life of online-animalia and was astounded by the number of sites and participants.

http://dogblog.dogster.com/

and here's a full list of cat blogs:

http://cats.about.com/od/blogs/Blogs_by_Cat_Lovers.htm

That's a dedicated group of animal lovers. Any other species that get a lot of airtime out there?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Technology: My New Headphones and How Speakers Work

I drink a lot of diet soda. The brand I frequent the most has a promotion going on where you can gather points and get stuff from a major retailer - yeah, those guys.

Anyway,through caps, 12 packs, cases, 2 liters, and throwing a few parties I was able to amass the required number of points to get new headphones. I chose the V-Moda Bling Black Extra Bass in ear headphones. The only reason I mention the brand name (as I have avoided mentioning brand names thus far in this post so far) is that I have been so impressed with the quality of the the sound I get from these headphones.

I got to thinking about how speakers work. I, like much of my generation, watched Back to the Future and the super speaker that blew Marty across the room. I was wondering how a speaker can generate physical force... It's all about the pressure of a sound wave.

From HowStuffWorks.com:

"Sound Basics

To understand how speakers work, you first need to understand how sound works.

Inside your ear is a very thin piece of skin called the eardrum. When your eardrum vibrates, your brain interprets the vibrations as sound -- that's how you hear. Rapid changes in air pressure are the most common thing to vibrate your eardrum.

An object produces sound when it vibrates in air (sound can also travel through liquids and solids, but air is the transmission medium when we listen to speakers). When something vibrates, it moves the air particles around it. Those air particles in turn move the air particles around them, carrying the pulse of the vibration through the air as a traveling disturbance.

To see how this works, let's look at a simple vibrating object -- a bell. When you ring a bell, the metal vibrates -- flexes in and out -- rapidly. When it flexes out on one side, it pushes out on the surrounding air particles on that side. These air particles then collide with the particles in front of them, which collide with the particles in front of them and so on. When the bell flexes away, it pulls in on these surrounding air particles, creating a drop in pressure that pulls in on more surrounding air particles, which creates another drop in pressure that pulls in particles that are even farther out and so on. This decreasing of pressure is called rarefaction."

So to my untrained mind, I would guess that the act of creating these pressure waves can generate enough force to physically move air... and (while simplified and overdone for the move) the speaker blasting Marty across the room may actually be possible. Hold you hand in front of an old speaker with the cover off on a good bass line sometime and feel the slight breeze each beat creates to see what I'm talking about.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Enjoy that conference - and Share! Top 10 list.

We have a fantastic mentoring/career counseling system at my current company (as many big time players do) and I am fortunate enough to have a couple of driven individuals who I am responsible for helping shape their destiny.

One of them is headed to the FITC Toronto 2008 Flash conference in Toronto shortly. I've been attending sonferences from the "Industry" side for a while - but it really changes when you get to the agency side in terms of what you should be involved with.

I put together my unsolicited advice on tips for attending a conference based on what I've learned over the last 10 years or so. They are outlined below:

  1. Be the guy with the laptop... type up notes as you go. If you hand-write them, it'll take you too long getting unburied to send them out. And it'll be lower priority over project work.
  2. If you can, send regular notes to appropriate people during/after each session you attend. Make them short. That'll increase the probability of someone reading them and being able to use them. If you have people on Twitter/etc. Do that as well. Just don't let it distract you from absorbing the content at hand.
  3. Ask questions - you're going to have the cream of the crop at your disposal and these people love to spread the knowledge. So give them an opportunity to get to know your interest and deal out the info.
  4. Business cards are key - when you meet someone (potential client, smart individual, speaker - whoever) keep a pen with you and jot notes on the back of it. And make it a goal to run out of yours... If you have any left you a) didn't talk to enough people and/or b)didn't enter enough fishbowl contests for iPods.
  5. Go to the networking events. Don't be the guy wearing the lampshade at the end of the night, but be cordially aggressive in meeting people. Don't wait to be introduced.Introduce yourself. Engage for several minutes before handing out the biz card... standard stuff. I have actual strategies for this if you're interested.
  6. Assume this is the only time you'll see these people ever... Likely not the case, but the more interest you show and contacts you make, the better the chance that you will continue that contact.
  7. Ask for downloads - presentations, links, etc. Get collateral to reinforce the message so you can pass it on.
  8. Plan your sessions ahead of time. Make a concerted effort to not only hit the things you want to learn about but when items may be of use but not immediately useful... keep them on your radar. On toss-up decisions, refer to number 6.
  9. Visit as many booths as you can. Even if it's something you don't care about, there's always carry over to new learning. Capabilities, tools, whatever. If nothing else, you'll be able to tell someone "that won't work because I know what they do" when it's brought up. nowledge is key. I'm notoriously bad at this - and working on it.
  10. Sleep - You're gonna need it to let your mind rest between days. The sponge gets saturated and needs it need it's cataloguing time.

So hopefully that gives some insight into things I've learned on attending these conferences. I've been to technical, marketing, operational, search, etc conferences - and these tips have helped me traverse them all and bring back value to those I work with.

Yep, it's me again. Done hibernating.

I've had a fantastic (in my humble opinion) number of visits through my horribly lax last month and change. I apologize for falling off the map. But in my defense, it's for good reason.

I've been busy learning...

And organizing. I came into this gig without a plan - just a topic. And I stand by my topic. I like it and I've gotten some fantastic ideas and comments on that topic of continual learning. So now we refocus.

Each post will fall into one of these categories:
  • Food
  • Entertainment
  • Technology/Business
  • Everyday Life
  • Wildcard
  • Bonus!! - For any weekend posts that come up

This will allow me to focus my efforts and make sure those faithful subscribers - both of you (thanks mom and dad) know what's coming.

That said - here we go again.