My Flights of Fancy

Must Watch: The Last Journey of Ninoy

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:35:00 +0000

If you are a Filipino and you have not yet seen The Last Journey of Ninoy, you absolutely have to watch it asap.

I missed the first 15 minutes of the program when it aired last Sunday (Aug 23) on ABS-CBN. Thankfully, the entire 55-minute docu-drama is also available for viewing through ABS-CBN's TFC Now service.

A $2.00 subscription to the News On Demand service allowed me to download and watch the film at my leisure over a period of 4 days.

The film's teaser is available on YouTube.

Embeddable YouTube Playlists: the Workaround for 10min Video Limits

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:15:00 +0000

I spent a few hours this weekend trying to figure out how to upload a 48-minute video to YouTube so it can be embedded into a web page for viewing.

The challenge comes from the fact that YouTube now only accepts videos that are at most 10 minutes long.

Turns out the solution is fairly simple:

use your favorite video editor to chop the video up into chunks of 10 minutes or less
upload the videos individually to YouTube (this was the time-consuming part for me, since my connection is slow)
create a YouTube playlist and add all the videos to that single playlist, taking care to ensure that they're in the right order
copy the embed code for the playlist and paste it into your webpage (tweak the height and width of the embedded object as needed)

And that's all there is to it!

The playlist will take care of switching from one video to the next automatically, so the viewer doesn't need to do anything from the time he starts viewing the first clip.

As an added bonus, viewers can easily resume viewing from any of the videos in the playlist if their viewing session is interrupted. No need to load the entire video from the very beginning.

Dear Symantec, you just lost a customer

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:18:00 +0000

The gist

A couple of weeks ago, the Norton Internet Security software installed on my laptop started warning me that my subscription was expiring in a matter of weeks.

Since I've been a long-time Symantec customer, I didn't think twice; I clicked through the links provided then tried to renew my subscription... and failed.

Over the course of two weeks, I tried no less than eight times to renew my subscription. Each attempt failed miserably because Symantec's online store refused to let me complete my purchase; the website kept rejecting my (valid and correct) billing address.

So instead of generating some recurring revenue from a long-term returning customer, the Symantec online store only managed to drive me away.

The gory details

The renewal process seemed simple enough. I clicked the "fix" button on the Norton Internet Security screen and it opened a window that announced I was about to begin the subscription renewal process.

The renewal window then launched a browser that took me to a renewal page on the Symantec website. The page correctly reflected the name of the product that needed renewing, and it recognized that I was in the Philippines and expected to be billed in US dollars. So far so good.

Clicking the "renew" button, unfortunately, took me to the Australian Symantec online store.

I hesitated for a moment, but I figured... why not? The last time I had purchased a Symantec product, I had completed the purchase at the Hong Kong online store. As long as it works, I didn't really care which online store I buy from.

A quick review of the screen showed that I was still going to be billed in US dollars, which was fine. I took one last look to see if there was a way for me to change the country, but the only thing I could change was the currency.

So I click the yellow continue button and hit my first road block: a form that requires me to provide my email address, a password, my customer data, and my address.

Frankly, I wasn't too thrilled about getting this form because I'm a returning customer and the site should know this because I had hit the "Renew" button to get here. I already have a Norton account and had already provided my personal information to Symantec before. So why am I being asked to provide this info all over again as if they had no idea who I was? Shouldn't I just be asked to log in to my Norton account?

Despite this road block, I plod on, determined to renew my subscription. So I fill in all the required fields, only to hit the second and now impassable roadblock: the form believes my address is invalid.

The form kept requiring me to choose one of the Australian states despite the fact that I had explicitly chosen the Philippines as my country (and the Philippines was one of the valid values for country). Choosing "N/A" for state didn't work and all the other options for State didn't match any Philippine state (we have none).

Attempts to submit my data would cause the form to reload with the same error: State value was invalid. And the postcode that I entered was also rejected since it wasn't an Australian postcode.

So despite persevering through multiple clicks and jumping around from site to site, I still had not managed to renew my subscription.

It gets worse

Despite all these road blocks, I (foolishly) wasn't quite ready to give up yet, so I tried a different tack. Rather than going through the generic subscription renewal process, I thought I might have better luck if I start from my Norton Account.

So I head over to https://www.mynortonaccount.com and login in successfully with my Norton account credentials.

Once I was logged in, I could see clearly that I had an expiring Internet Security subscription as well as older subscriptions that had already expired.

Unfortunately, there is no "Renew" button next to the expiring subscription. The only action I could take was to view the product, which I did. The "View Product" link took me to yet another page which shows more data about that specific subscription.

Again, there is no renew button, but there is now another button that reads "Protect Additional PCs."

Since there was no other visible action available to me, I click the "Protect Additional PCs" button to give it a try... and find myself on a screen for Norton Antivirus, which is a completely different product!

This product mismatch was totally unexpected given that I had come from a Norton Internet Security page. If I had not paid attention and had simply purchased the license, I would have ended up paying for the license key of a product that I don't even use.

By this time, I was fed up. I had wasted enough time on this and had tried enough times to renew my subscription. Heck, I wanted to renew my subscription. I was willing to keep giving them money year after year. But that site has made it impossible for me to buy what Symantec was selling.

So, shame on you, Symantec! You just turned a loyal, paying customer away.

As I type this, I'm downloading AVG.

Using Summize to Create Filtered Group Views

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:45:00 +0000

In a recent post at the GetSatisfaction Twitter forum, @sorenj asked if there was a way to create filtered views of the people that he is following.

Specifically, he said:

I'm interested in limiting what posts I see from time to time, topically. For example, if I'm having a conversation with fellow bloggers, I might want to filter my view (via tag) at that time to just the bloggers I follow. If I want to see what my family and friends have said in the past couple of hours, I'd rather just filter by family and view those posts. etc.

I think this is a great idea for a Twitter third-party application to implement. Perhaps if we're lucky, the folks at Twhirl or Twitterific will see fit to add this functionality to their respective apps.

Until that happy day comes, however, we can use the Summize Twitter Search to create filtered group views.

It's a bit of a pain at the start since we have to explicitly enter the names of the people we want to see together in the same group, but once we've got the search parameters the way we want them, we can bookmark the URLs and visit them any time.

Also, there's the added bonus that Summize notifies us in real time of new search results that have come in which match our search parameters.

So, for example, if I wanted to see recent updates from @paisano, @pistachio, and @skalik as a group, I can enter this search string in Summize:

paisano OR pistachio OR skalik
(Click the link to see search results)

As you'll no doubt see, our search parameter is too open-ended. It also return @replies that other people have sent to our three friends. Fortunately, we can use the minus operator to tell Summize to filter out tweets that are @replies to our friends by using this search string.

paisano OR pistachio OR skalik -@paisano -@pistachio -@skalik
(click the link to see the difference)

You can use the advanced search page to enter people's names under "any of these words" and enter the @username versions of their names under "none of these words"

The method is crude, but it works, and can be easily used over and over again once the URLs have been bookmarked. 8-)

------

Edited to add:

Thanks to the first comment below from diego, I just realized that there's a simpler and more accurate way to achieve the desired search results using Summize: use the FROM operator with the OR operator.

For example: from:paisano OR from:skalik OR from:sorenj

Also, this exact same search capability is supported by the Flaptor Twitter Search. In their case, the operators are AUTHOR and OR.

For example: author:paisano OR author:skalik OR author:sorenj.

Future-Dated Posts

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Blogger now supports future-dated posts.

Of course I had to make a post just to see if it really works. If you see this (10 minutes from now), it worked!

How I Use Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:00:00 +0000

I decided it was high time that I sat down and described in detail how I use Twitter, i.e., how I keep track of Twitter without spending all day on it.

The techniques described below may not be helpful to everyone, but they serve me extremely well right now, and there's a good chance that other people will benefit from using these tricks too.

The tips below assume that the reader has a reasonable understanding of Twitter terms, such as direct messages, user names, and @replies.

Choose a distinct and short user name. Many of the tips below will work only if you have a fairly distinct user name. The best names are words or names that you would not normally use in regular conversation. You'll also want to keep your user name fairly short, out of courtesy to the people who will need to type it in to send you public replies or direct messages.
Create a Twittermail account to get @Replies by email. Although the Twittermail service was originally created so you could use email messages to post updates to your Twitter account, I use it almost exclusively to receive a complete copy of the @Replies that people have sent me. The email is in digest format, so all the replies that have come in over a span of time are batched together in one email.
Use Tweetscan to search for and email you tweets that contain your user name and keywords of interest. Tweetscan lets you enter up to five search terms, and emails you a complete list of all tweets that contain those terms on a daily or weekly basis. Make sure one of those terms is your user name. This helps you find tweets that talk about you, even if they're not @replies addressed to you. Obviously, the usefulness of such a service deteriorates if you have a user name that's used in regular conversation.
Use Terraminds Twitter Search to look for users that have similar interests as you. Terraminds offers two types of search -- you can search in updates and you can search in user profiles. Since most people include their interests and their location in their profile, you can find like-minded Twitter-ers as well as Twitter-ers who are nearby using Terraminds.
Use Twitter Track Alert for your username and for keywords of interest. Twitter offers its own Track service. After you've specified the keywords that you'd like to track, Twitter will send you (via SMS or IM) copies of all tweets that contain those keywords. Note that these include tweets from people that you're not following. As noted above, it's not that useful to track your user name if it's a commonly used word. Consider also creating Twitter track alerts for your company, your competitors, and topics of interest.
Use LoudTwitter to create archives of your updates. If you're the type of person whose uncomfortable with the idea that the only copy of all your tweets is on a server that you don't control, then you'll like LoudTwitter. It's a service that takes all the tweets that you've posted in the past day, and creates a blog entry that serves as a daily digest of your tweets. As of this writing, LoudTwitter is compatible with Typepad, Vox, Movable Type, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Wordpress.
If you're online often, add your IM account to your Twitter profile. Since track alerts are only sent to SMS or IM, you'll get the most value out of track if you're online on IM for extended periods. I typically leave my IM account logged in overnight to receive tweets, and I skim those when I wake up in the morning.
International users can work-around SMS limits by creating a separate Twitter account for mobile notifications. International (non-US) users can only receive up to 250 sms messages per week. This limitation is especially detrimental to non-US users because Twitter does not let us specify which notifications and alerts should go to IM and which should go to SMS. I've worked around this limitation by using only IM in my main Twitter account. I then created a second account (which is linked to my mobile phone) that only follows people that I want to get mobile updates from. I also created a track alert on my username in this second account. This set-up means I can't use standard sms to post Twitter updates into my first account, but that's not a problem for me since the cost of international sms is prohibitive to start with. I therefore rely more on IM, Twitter Mobile, and mobile applications to post my updates.
Find a mobile application that lets you post updates via WAP, GPRS, or 3G. Since I use a Treo Smartphone and my mobile service provider bills GPRS charges by the kilobyte, I use a Palm-OS mobile application called TreoTwit to post my updates.

When used together, these different technologies keep me plugged into my Twitter community with manageable interruptions and minimal investment in time and effort. I'm sure there are more ways to squeeze value out of Twitter. If you have your own suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

8 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Me

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:35:00 +0000

My sincere apologies to Bryan Person for taking absolutely FOREVER before responding to the Eight Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me meme that he had tagged me with last month.

I hope late is better than never, because here goes:

College Major. While I was in high school, my dad came home one day with a brand-new Apple computer and I immediately loved it. I decided soon after to major in Computer Engineering and was accepted at the university of my choice when it came time to go to college. Last minute parental intervention caused me to change my major just prior to enrollment, and I ended up with a Computer Science degree instead. I have zero regrets.
Games. I love the old Infocom text-based interactive fiction games; games like the Collossal Cave Adventure, Zork, and Wishbringer. Soon after, I got hooked on RPGs like Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, and Ultima. (Anyone remember: "Lie with passion and be forever damned?") These days, my tastes run towards Real-Time Strategy games like Emperor and Age of Empires. I almost always lose with RTS games, but I still enjoy them.
Star Trek and Star Wars. I love nearly every incarnation of Star Trek except the original series. I know that statement borders on blasphemy for most Trek fans, but there it is. And if you think that's strange, here's something stranger: I haven't seen any of the Star Wars movies, and I don't feel any urgent need to watch them either.
Cooking. I love watching cooking shows but I don't cook. I prefer doing the dishes by hand to cooking, which works out well when there's a need to divvy-up chores since most people seem to prefer cooking to doing the dishes. If I were left to my own devices, I'd most probably subsist on canned corned beef (I never seem to tire of the stuff).
Money. I'm a cheapskate. Case in point: I've been thinking of replacing my computer for over 8 months, and I've so far managed to put it off because I can't bring myself to spend unless I really need to. Natural corollary: I usually don't enjoy shopping, with the exception of books.
Junk Food. When I'm in the right mood, I can eat an entire full-size can of Pringles potato chips in one sitting. Come to think of it, I can polish off entire bags of practically any salty snack food in one sitting: Cheetos, Tortilla Chips, BBQ-flavored popcorn... well, you get the idea.
Travel. I just turned down a free vacation in Macau because I'm currently so sick of travel. I hope to one day regain that bit of wanderlust that I've somehow inexplicably lost.
Faith. I'm an evangelical Christian.

Whew. That was harder than I thought it would be. Which is why I'm going to have to take some time to think of who to tag before I pass this on...

My Week in Media

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Just got tagged by UK-based technology PR consultant Drew Benvie to participate in a My Week in Media meme, where we all talk about what we read, watch, listen to, and surf.

I noticed that all four of the categories talk about our consumption of media, but none really deal with our participation as media creators. So I've added a 5th category which (for lack of a better term), I'm calling 'Where I Participate.'

Where I Surf

Twitter. I usually start the day by catching up on overnight tweets. Due to the number of people I follow (currently 628), it's impractical for me to keep up via SMS, so I usually leave my computer logged in to Gmail overnight and it collects the tweets via Twitter IM. I skim that in the morning, and make a note of links I want to visit later.
Inquirer.net. One of our many local news sites. I track the headlines via Philnews on Twitter, and I click through to read the full article when a headline catches my eye.

What I’ve Watched

Strangely enough, I rarely watch news on TV. And lately I've not been watching TV shows on their original airdates. Instead, I've been catching up via DVDs, and recent viewings have included Dexter, Commander-in-Chief, and Heroes.

Have also been trying, but not quite succeeding, to catch more movies in the theaters (my favorite movie-mate recently gave birth).

Online, I've started watching more videos on the web now that my home internet connection has gotten a bit more stable. Recent viewings include videos from Le Web 3 and TED.com. Have also taken to watching Seesmic videos, but haven't had as much time to do this as I would like.

What I Listen To

On my daily commute, I listen to podcasts. I can't read since I get dizzy if I read in a moving vehicle. There's also the fact that I drive to work. hehe!

The podcasts that I consistently listen to (in no particular order):

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
IT Conversations (which is part of the Conversations Network)
Marketing Over Coffee with Christopher Penn and John Wall
New Comm Road by Bryan Person (though it's been a while since his last episode)
On Point, with Tom Ashbrook because they intelligently cover things I know so little about
PRobecast from Topaz Partners
Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation podcast
This Week in Tech by Leo Laporte

Lately, though, my podcast listening has fallen a bit behind because I've been using my commute time to listen to lectures I've downloaded from Open Yale Courses.

When I'm online and I don't feel like listening to anything long, I log in to Utterz and catch up on what people have been talking about. (I've placed this under the 'Listen' category because I haven't created an utter of my own yet).

What I Read

I'm dependent on Google Reader and have also described in detail how I use it. And while I'm hopelessly behind on my feed-reading, I don't let that fact bother me so much.

I also have a bad habit of subscribing to every interesting online email newsletter I can think of, so I find a lot of reading material that way.

Offline, I subscribe to and consistently read Fortune Magazine. I've got a multi-year subscription, and I find it to be a great way to balance out all the Web 2.0, new media, social media content that I imbibe via the web.

For general enjoyment, I read a lot of fantasy, science-fiction, and chick-lit.

I also read a number of trade journals that are specific to my work (which I won't go into here since they're too targeted for general consumption anyway).

Where I Participate

Aside from the obvious (Twitter), I post photos on Flickr, use Facebook mainly to play Scrabulous, and have lately been answering questions on Get Satisfaction.

Who's Next

And now, the hard part. Who do I tag to continue this meme?

How about: online acquaintances Manuel Viloria, Chette Soriano (sorry, Chette!), and Connie Reece.

Le Web 3 Videos Now Online

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 16:45:00 +0000

Have started watching the Le Web 3 videos online.

They're extremely well-edited, are of fantastic video and audio quality, and the speakers are only given very limited time to deliver their talk.

Here's one that I just finished watching: Evan Williams of Obvious and Twitter talks about creating new products by taking away features from an existing product.

Using Skype to Record Interviews

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:50:00 +0000

I've always wondered how people use Skype to record their podcasts and interviews.

Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani of the Conversations Network answer the question, and more!

Turn on your speakers and click Play.

| View | Upload your own

Good or Bad, Black or White

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:20:00 +0000

Found this 3 minute video through one of Jeremiah Owyang's tweets tonight.

Watched it. Was saddened by it. Felt compelled to blog it.

The part that really got to me was the question 1 min and 26 seconds into the video clip: Can you give me the doll that looks like you?

If I were the child's parent, I think I'd weep.

Wireless@SG

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:45:00 +0000

Had an unexpected surprise today while sitting at a Starbucks in Singapore waiting for a friend. My laptop found an open public wi-fi network called Wireless@SG.

Out of curiosity, I connected to it and learned that it's a service whereby three of Singapore's wireless operators have agreed to blanket Singapore with wireless hotspots in public areas, and make wireless internet access available for free for a period of three years.

The best part: you don't have to be a Singapore resident to use it. Just register online, provide your cellphone number, and receive an SMS message with the password (they sent the password to my Globe phone which was on roaming). My account was activated literally within minutes of my receiving the SMS.

For more details: SingTel's Wireless@SG home

Twitter on CSI

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:17:00 +0000

Video excerpt from CSI Season 8, Episode 7: Goodbye and Good Luck.
YouTube video courtesy of jonathanfh.

Wonder if that scene will lead to an increase in sign-ups. 8-)

Searching for Answers on Terraminds

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:55:00 +0000

Have been having fun the past couple of days using the Terraminds Twitter Search to look for people who have not been receiving Twitter messages via SMS.

I first noticed the problem three nights ago. I'd gotten so used to receiving a couple of tweets every few minutes, so it was a bit unnerving to suddenly have my phone fall silent. Marvlove's tweet expresses the feeling best, I think:

Twitter! Why hath thou screweth me??... (not getting tweets feels weird.. like the first day of a nuclear winter.. and im the only survivor..) 01:45 PM November 01, 2007 from txt

I felt much better knowing that some else was experiencing the same problem, but I still had no way of tell if the problem was limited to just the Philippines.

Terraminds quickly became invaluable because it almost instantaneously let me see that that folks in other countries were experiencing the same problem.

India. Tamil: am not getng sms updates 4 twtr posts over two days. something wrong with twtr or my mobile?
London. mbites: Are Twitter SMS updates down? They are for me...
Malaysia. arsyan: it seems that i havent been receiving any updates on my twitter thru sms. sth is going on. not just me a few others as well.
Syria. cold0zero: i have same problem no SMS
France. LeFoUvErT: Seems that SMS notifications aren't sent anymore there too.
Australia. trib: @jagath - yes, I meant "no twitter SMS". Sucks.
Qatar. mbaa: @yraffah I have the same maxer's problem , no sms received.
Saudi Arabia. TheMaXeR: @mbaa yeah .. i have .. no sms received today
South Africa. IrcMaidon: I'm not getting sms tweets...
Israel. rotemboten: Yeah, I didn't recieve any sms as well.. do I need to do the follow thingy again from the phone?
Beijing. zyicestar: I can't receive sms from twitter and why ?

Misery must really love company, because it's good to know folks the world over are experiencing the same thing. haha!

Refocus-able Cameras in Our Future

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:15:00 +0000

"So... you guys have heard of the camera that's refocus-able after the fact?"

I loved the way Stanford University Professor Marc Levoy oh-so-casually asked the question around 15 minutes into his video interview with Robert Scoble on the Scoble Show.

The idea: when you take a photo, the camera is actually storing more information than is displayed when you're viewing one image. Instead, the camera stores multiple versions for each point on the image. Thanks to the additional data, you can adjust the focus of the image after you've already taken the photo.

Focus shifts from the blinds in the background to the face in the foreground.

Focus shifts from the lady in the foreground to the people in the back.

Head over to Robert Scoble's blog to watch the entire interview, or catch the 5-minute excerpt.

Delivering Killer Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:35:00 +0000

Just listened in on a one-hour BlogTalkRadio show that's hosted by Bryan Person, entitled "How to Deliver Killer Presentations at PodCamp."

The guest speaker, Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting, generously shared several presentation tips and insights, which I feel are valuable to any presenter, whether or not they intend to speak at a PodCamp.

You can also listen to the online archive at your leisure.

The points that resonated with me were [minutes into the online audio archive]:

Interactions can be presentations. Even if you're not a formal speaker, anytime you walk up to someone, and shake their hand, and say hello, that in itself is a presentation. [5:42]
Don't stress out like, I've got to be up there, I've got to be like Tony Robbins, and I need to be high energy, and I've got to be a great speaker, and I've got to learn how to speak. All you've got to do is be effective and useful for your audience. [7:38]
Don't lose sight of the purpose. You're so anxious to get that information out, you're so anxious about what the other people are thinking of you, that you lose sight of the purpose of the presentation. [8:57]
Stop worrying about what you're going to say. Factor that in last. First think: who am I talking to? Take yourself as in-depth as you can about who will be there, why they are there, what they are looking for, and why might they come to the session [9:14]
Get to your room early and chat with people as they come in. Ask them what drew them to the session. Ask them what questions they have and what they're looking for [10:07]
What result do you want to achieve? There are results in every presentation, even if it's just to get people fired up, or to introduce yourself as a thought leader on a particular point. So figure out the results for your audience [11:50]
Thinking about your audience. It's important to prepare for a wide range of audience expectations. So when I'm brainstorming about the audience, I think of a couple of different profiles that I think might be there. [13:22]
Communications is 2-way. It's not just you up there speaking. You need to be watching and listening massively. As you present, you pick up cues from the audience: are they with you, are they zoning out, are they talking to each other... [13:40]
Make things interactive. You can take a room of 500 people and make it interactive by asking thought questions (where you stop and they think in their heads, and decide, and move forward), or using an 'interact with your neighbor and break into groups' kind of interaction. [16:10]
De-personalize the experience of presenting. If someone's leaving (during your presentation) it does not mean you suck. It does not mean you're being ineffective. They might have a meeting with a bigwig. They might have to pee. They might have to eat. That's not something to get too worried about. [17:22]
People are shy. That first question is a bit of an ice break that needs to happen. So instead of smiling awkwardly if there's silence, just say: "At this point, I generally get asked..." and then you ask yourself a question, and then you answer it. That gets the Q&A flow going. [20:29]
Don't end with Q&A. Have some kind of presentation ending that's very focused on your result that's going to follow the QA. As you get towards the end of your presentation, just say: I'm going to stop now, and hear how this has worked for you, and hear what kinds of questions you have on the topic, and then we'll finish up. Because the kind of energy during Q&A, even if it's going very well, is kind of not what you'd want to end on and it's not result oriented at all. [20:55]
Do not confuse the call to action with a call to buy. A call to action is a call to get people to do something physically. Think about the audience result in terms of what they physically do when you stop talking, what they do in the next hours and days, and what they do two weeks from now. That's how you plant really clear seeds. That's the difference between an engaging presentation vs. a presentation that's just a data dump. [25:16]
Think of setting up a website around your whole presentation, so people have a place to go to continue the conversation. With blogging software, it's so easy to do. You can set up a Wordpress blog, and have people go there even while you're talking, and you can collect comments and feedback there. It's a nice back channel. [26:50]
Don't ambush people with your 30-second pitch. It's great to have, but never launch it pro-actively. People are more receptive if you're listening first. If you address someone else's needs first, they'll have a much better impression of you, and they'll be much more open, and they'll think: that was a nice person, how can I help them? [32:20]
The first 30 seconds. Start with the A-ha! The so what? The why do I care? That's a hook to get them interested. In the first 30 seconds with the audience, you have a massive free ride. They're focused, they're listening, they want you to succeed, they're excited about you. Use those 30 seconds. Do something exciting, a bit outrageous, but not too crazy to start out. Keep it short and don't end with "Okay, here's the summary." End with a next step, and make it small and actionable so something might actually happen. [36:05]
Think about what you can control in the room. Is it too cold? Try to find a way to get it warmer. If you can't do anything about it, address it early on. Get through the Ah-a first before addressing it, or have someone address it as an administrative thing before you get to the stage. If they are sitting there being anxious about something, they're not listening to you. So to the extent you can address it, name it, that can help with people's preoccupations and anxieties. [41:10]
Watching videos of your presentations. The first time, just play it back. Don't be a critic and pick apart anything that's wrong. Just pick 3 things you did really really well and congratulate yourself. People learn from positive reinforcement; they don't learn from negative reinforcement. Ignore what didn't go well. The second time, watch it again but with the volume off and spend more time looking at the body language. If there are things you're doing that really stand out, then you can give yourself corrective feedback. The third time you watch, do it in fast forward. This is how you notice every 3 minutes you touch your left ear. You probably do not know you're doing it. When you watch it in fast forward, that stuff jumps right out. [46:13]
Body Language. Walk. Smile. Care. [48:37]
The glassy-eyed room. 5 to 7 minutes is the average adult human attention span. Is it just a matter of time and they just need a change of gears to wake back up? If they do, have them do something. Have them ask themselves a question, or get up or shake each other's hands. If it's just not the amount of time, then maybe they're not getting it. You can say: This is a technical topic and I'm used to talking about it with my friends. I'm not sure how you're used to talking about it. Can someone give me a follow-up question that relates to how you do this? Never be afraid to break away from your script. [52:30]

Check out Laura's blog, Great Presentations Mean Business, for more presentation gems.

Great Catwalk of China

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:25:00 +0000

Fendi, the luxury brand, held a fashion show on the Great Wall of China.

I had to watch video footage from ABC to actually believe it.

Laying down a stable catwalk on top of the wall is no easy feat! I remember almost twisting my ankle several times while navigating one stretch of it years ago.

Fascinating Dreamlines

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:05:00 +0000

Found Dreamlines via Picocool.

Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream s/he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.

Here are a couple of stills from my perpetually-changing painting.

Reflections on Vaseline's Free Kit Promo

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:35:00 +0000

I received an SMS message out of the blue the other day from my mobile phone provider Globe. The message read:

Globe Bidakard member: Congratulations! You are entitled to a FREE Vaseline Total Moisture Trial Kit (Lotion + discount coupons)! Just present this text and claim at any Watson's store from Oct 12 - Oct 31, 2007. [other text omitted]

I must admit I was a bit excited to read that message, because I've always been curious about how direct marketing could be achieved through SMS.

So that day, I made a point of heading to the nearest Watson's store during my lunch break, just to see what the promo mechanics were.

Claim Process

When I got to the store, I showed the SMS message on my phone to one of the cashiers, and asked if any purchase was necessary to claim the free kit.

She said no (whew!), then punched something into the cash register before pulling out a free kit from behind the counter. After the register spat out a little receipt, the cashier then asked me to write my name and signature on the back of the receipt.

She did not ask me for any form of ID to confirm that I had used my real name, nor did she check what I'd written on the back of the receipt. For all she knew, I could have just scribbled something completely unintelligible.

After I signed the slip of paper, she handed me the kit, then asked me to delete the SMS message from my phone. I deleted the message and told her as much. She did not bother to verify that it had indeed been erased.

And that was it! As easy as that, I got my kit.

The Kit

And it looked like this:

Kit contents: 25ml bottle of lotion (left) and a thin blue booklet that contains discount coupons to the following stores: Freeway, Ensembles, Bioessence, Wendy's, Ystilo Salon, Osim, GNC, Body and Sole, Matabungkay Beach Resort, and Ace Water Spa. There was also a P20.00 discount coupon for the future purchase of any Vaseline lotion.

What a Shame: Lost Opportunity to Collect Customer Data

While the kit itself was fine (I really had no expectations as to what its contents would be), I found myself disappointed that the claim process had been left so open-ended. Consequently:

Neither Globe, Watson's, nor Vaseline were able to collect any kind of meaningful data regarding the customers who had claimed the product.
At best, Watson's can only report the number of customers who claimed the kit, and indicate when and where they had been claimed.
None of them can consistently and reliably connect the Globe cellphone number to the person who actually claimed the kit.

Frankly, I was expecting that the cashier would, at a minimum, ask me for my name and cell phone number, because:

If I were Watson's or Vaseline, having these numbers would improve my ability to reach my prospective customers directly, and reduce my dependence on Globe.
If I were Globe, I would now know who among my subscribers are more likely to respond to similar promotions in the future, and I can therefore cut down on the number of messages I'd send out for the next text promo while achieving a higher response rate.

If any of the parties involved was concerned that customers would hesitate to provide their phone number just to claim a prize, they could have gotten around that problem by:

using a unique "coupon code" in each SMS
tracking which cellphone number received which "coupon code"
asking for the coupon code when customers claim the kit

The Watson's cashiers would, of course, need to write down or record the code somewhere when a customer claims a kit. Ideally, that data should be punched into the cash register the way they would have recorded a credit card number or a frequent shopper number during an actual purchase.

Those codes could then be collected on a daily basis together with the point-of-sale (POS) data, and Globe could then have obtained that data from Watson's and merged it with actual customer records to get a better sense of who responds to what kind of promo.

If unique coupon codes had been used, all the companies involved would also have a way of checking whether customers were fraudulently claiming more than one free kit.

Too Simplistic?

Obviously, I'm over-simplifying things a bit when I say all this; after all, it's no easy feat to get data out of POS systems, and it's even harder to negotiate data sharing of any kind between the companies that are involved.

I guess I just felt that it was a shame to go through all this trouble to prepare a kit, send out a call-to-action to so many anonymous customers, and still not use the opportunity to find out who actually responded... all this despite the fact that such knowledge can inform future direct marketing efforts.

Oh well. I guess I just have to wait a little while longer before I start seeing closed-loop, SMS-based direct marketing.

Philippine Journalist Reporting via Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 17:45:00 +0000

Manuel L. Quezon III, the journalist grandson of a former Philippine president, used his Twitter account to provide live updates about the impeachment complaint at the House of Representatives a few days ago.

Talk about wow.

With hat tip to Arnold Gamboa for (what else?) twittering about this.

Twitterfeed posts Flickr photos to Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:50:00 +0000

While writing up my experience testing the FlickrToTwitter service, I noticed that Ouriel Ohayon, a French-Israel venture capitalist and blogger whom I follow on Twitter, had sent a photo-tweet using Twitterfeed.

And that got me thinking. Flickr, after all, automatically creates RSS feeds for each tag that you specify in your Flickr photostream. I realized then that it should be a simple matter to grab whatever RSS feed you want to share and send it to Twitter!

So I looked at the Flickr page for my photos that are tagged with "4twit," grabbed the Flickr RSS feed which is located at the bottom of that page, and fed it to my Twitterfeed account.

I set Twitterfeed to post titles only, and asked it to include a link to the original photo. Then I waited for the requisite 30 minutes to pass until Twitterfeed checks the newly added feed.

The result: SUCCESS!!

And by golly, that was so much easier than I expected, since this approach has far less moving parts, plus the Twitterfeed platform was designed to do exactly this. I feel like kicking myself for not thinking of it on my own.

Thanks for the idea, Ouriel!

FlickrToTwitter Testing

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:15:00 +0000

With some prompting from Dave Winer, I'm blogging about my experience using the Twittergram Flickr to Twitter feature.

First Test: 2 Photos, "ForTwitter" tag

I signed-up for the service using my Twitter account on October 8 and used the tag "ForTwitter" to limit the photos that get posted.
I uploaded two photos to my Flickr account (one, two) and made sure they both had "ForTwitter" as tags (they still do).
I waited for an hour, but nothing showed up on my Twitter stream. So I concluded that something was wrong, and left a comment on Dave's blog.
During the hour that I was waiting to see if the photos would appear in my Twitter feed, I also noticed that a few of the people commenting on Fred Wilson's post about FlickrToTwitter were also not able to see their photos posted to their Twitter accounts.
Within the same day, Dave sent a tweet saying that he'd given the server a little kick and that all was well again. He also did some testing of his own which appeared to go well.

Second Test: 1 Photo, "fortwitter" tag

Since Dave's own FlickrToTwitter photos were showing up on his Twitter stream, I began to wonder if I'd entered my Twitter password incorrectly when I first registered, so I updated my registration on the FlickrToTwitter page, and this time, I used "fortwitter" (all in lower case) as my tag.
I uploaded my third test photo, this time with "fortwitter" as the tag, and waited. That didn't work either, so I asked Dave via Twitter if FlickrToTwitter was temporarily unavailable.
Dave later tweeted that the Twittergram server was looping again and that after giving it a little kick, it started working once more.

Third Test: 1 photo, no tag restriction

Still unwilling to give up, I updated my registration info on TwitterToFlickr but this time, I left the Tag field blank, so there would be no filters applied.
I then uploaded a fourth test photo to Flickr, and out of habit I still tagged it with "fortwitter"
Finally, it worked! FlickrToTwitter posted a total of 8 photos in rapid succession, one of which was my fourth test photo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). However, it inexplicably did not post my first three test photos, which I would have expected to see since they were more recent.
So now it's beginning to look like FlickrToTwitter works fine when it doesn't need to check tags, but it encounters problems once the tag-based filter is applied.

Final Test: 1 photo, "4twit" tag

So as one final test, I decided to use a shorter tag -- "4twit" -- and I updated my FlickrToTwitter registration again with this new tag.
I figured, if this still doesn't work, then it proves that FlickrToTwitter has problems dealing with tags.
I uploaded a fifth test photo with the tag "4twit" to see what happens.
And, after waiting 15 minutes.... still no joy. :-(
So I can only conclude that FlickrToTwitter will work for me only when there are no tags.

Hopefully, this blog entry was clear enough to be of help. 8-)

---

Update 1: Oct 13, 2007
Dave says there is indeed a problem with the FlickrToTwitter feature and he knows where to look.

Update 2: Oct 15, 2007
Dave believes he's licked the tagging bug in FlickrToTwitter. Will give that a test whirl the first chance I get something worth sending a photo about!

Upgraded to Treo 680

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:00:00 +0000

Since my old Treo 600 showed signs of truly giving up the ghost, I finally arranged for a friend who was flying in from Singapore to pick up a Treo 680 (unlocked, GSM) for me.

After using it for three days, I'm ready at last to post my initial impressions.

Things that I Liked
Especially in comparison to the Treo 600

Physically

Fantastic screen resolution (!!!)
No antenna

Lighter and slightly slimmer unit
Removable battery

Photos and Videos

Can record video (new)
Little portrait mirror next to camera lens (new)

Photo viewer / slideshow is very friendly

Can take photos at 2x zoom

Contacts

Can add photo or image for each contact (new)
Can specify ringtone for each contact (new)

Calendar

Can now categorize calendar entries (new)
Can now beam all calendar entries belonging to one category to another phone (instead of beaming per item, new)
Today's Agenda view (new)
Year view (new)

Messaging

Very clean integration of SMS and MMS features
Can delete single message from within a chat thread (new)
Can force messages to thread even if I haven't replied to a message (new)
Can save messages to a Saved Folder (new)
New sent folder provides easy access to my messages outside of chat threads
Auto-select messages in a chat thread as you scroll down (new)
MMSes with long subject names are delivered without errors

Web and Email

Blazer web browser lets me disable CSS and not display images

Gmail configuration is pre-built in, no need to set up POP and SMTP

New: Voice Recorder feature

Fantastic sound quality and playback volume
Great microphone sensitivity

Network

Bluetooth now available

What I Didn't Like:

Physically

Back cover has a slightly clunky feel, as does the side cover for the SD card
Have to remove battery to get to the SIM card (not so with the Treo 600)
Positions of buttons have been moved around and require some adjustment

Photos and Videos

No improvement in camera resolution. Still at VGA
Camera battery drain problem requires the installation of a software patch

Web and Email

Command to disconnect from the GRPS network used to be available from within the browser. Now it's only available in Network settings; requires extra navigation

Network

Still no wi-fi

Also, in the course of playing around with this unit, I learned about a few Treo features that were available even with the Treo 600, but which I had not used before:

You can beam your entire contact list from one Treo to another
You can beam only contacts belonging to one particular category
You can beam all your memos from one Treo to another
You can beam only memos of a particular category
You can use MMS to send an email

Overall, I'm incredibly happy with this upgrade, and in fact find myself wondering why I waited this long to switch!

Obviously, the Treo 680 is nowhere near as sexy as an iPhone, but since I'm very risk averse (i.e., I don't want to deal with a hacked phone) and I don't want to deal with the headaches of migrating data from one type of phone to another, the Treo 680 is just right for me.

Changing the World

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 14:50:00 +0000

Just finished listening to Episode #6 of Foreword Thinking: the Business and Motivational Book Review Podcast that's hosted by Mitch Joel.

His guest in this episode is John Wood, author of the memoir Leaving Microsoft to Change the World and founder of Room to Read, a non-profit organization that establishes schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure in developing nations.

I was moved by the idea that this man would feel compelled to dedicate the best years of his life to battling illiteracy in countries so far from his own home. It's humbling because I live in a developing country, see poverty and the effects of a deteriorating educational system on a daily basis, and yet I don't do enough to help.

Below are a few of the quotes from the podcast which really struck me [minutes into the podcast]:

The Tyranny of Or. Sometimes there's this thing -- Steve Ballmer calls it the "Tyranny of Or" where everything's an Either-Or thing [7:26]
On over-thinking. In a certain sense, I'm glad I didn't over-think it, because I could have talked myself out of it very easily. There's no shortage of people who would tell me exactly why this is a bad idea, or why this wouldn't work, or how difficult it would be. And I think at a certain point, you just have to ignore those voices and dive into what you're passionate about. So looking at it now, where I am today 8 years later, if I'd over-thought it I probably wouldn't have done it and I'd probably still be at a desk at Microsoft or some other technology company [8:05]
Keeping Things Tangible. It's hard to be cynical about charity if you know exactly where the money is going to: you see a photograph of the finished school; you see a dedication plaque; it's very tangible for people. In this day and age when communication is ubiquitous, it's not difficult to raise money to do one project in the developing world. [15:42]
Education as Key to Personal Success. All of us who have done well in life, we have education to thank for our success in life. The fact that there are almost 1 billion people in the world today who are illiterate is a damning indictment on our world. How can we ever break the cycle of poverty for these kids if they don't go to school? It is impossible. [17:37]
Education affects Entire Countries. The United Nations has statistics where you can graph amazing things against the literacy rate. The most literate countries have the highest life expectancy; the most uneducated countries have the lowest life expectancy. Maternal death during childbirth: low literacy countries are losing 15 times as many women to death during childbirth as in an educated society like Iceland, or Norway, or Sweden. [18:05]
Education is not a hand-out, it's a hand-up. You're giving people the skills they need to break the cycle of poverty themselves. [18:55]
It is solvable; you don't need millions of dollars. We can build a school library and support it for the first three years and train a librarian and fill it with books for US$3000. We can put a girl on scholarship and keep her on scholarship and have a strong female mentor who looks after her, and pay her school fees, and give her a bicycle and pay for her school supplies and pay for her healthcare -- all of that is Cdn $275 a year. It's less than a $1 a day to put a girl in school and keep her in school [19:32]
Literate women and girls will educate the next generation. The statistic that I think is most depressing and most damning is that two-thirds of the people who are illiterate in the world today are women and girls. And if we don't educate the girls, we don't educate the next generation. That to me is one of the most important things in the world -- to get girls in school, keep them in school, they will break the cycle of poverty for their family. An educated mother -- I know from my own background; my grandmother and my mother were both educated and they both read to me. If they had been illiterate, my life would be very different today. [20:04]
Keep the solutions simple. Sometimes in the charity world, people make things overly complicated. I have people who say -- I want to help you plunk down a solar-powered, satellite enabled, remote learning station... and I'm like -- Oh, my God. Let's just build a library and put some books in the hands of kids and start with the basics. [20:48]

The hardcover edition of the book came out in 2006. The paperback edition was released in September 2007.

Hardy Har Arrrrrr!

noreply@blogger.com (m) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:20:00 +0000

Got today's biggest laugh when I saw Flickr's new language selection: "Arrr!"

That's a really clever bit of marketing. Not only does it showcase Flickr's multi-language support while celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day... it also prompts people like me to talk about the site!

Click on the image for a larger view of Flickr's Arrr!

Hat tip to Picocool for pointing out that you switch languages in the footer of Flickr's page.