I’m blogging from BlogathonATX, being held at Conjunctured Coworking here in Austin. It’s pretty clear already that this event is a big hit :) I’m in the Talkathon room at the moment, one of the two rooms people can go to for expert advice (the other is Techathon). The conversation is lively, there’s lots of laughter, and people are making all sorts of new contacts. The two Writeathon rooms are quietish, with writers hunched over their laptops blogging away.

Writeathon: Bloggers Blogging

Clearly there’s a demand for this type of event. It’s not quite a BarCamp — there are no presentations — yet, like BarCamps, it’s a free event and plenty of opportunities for attendees to bring up their own topics.

I’m a roving expert, wandering back and forth between Techathon and Talkathon, but one of the really cool things happening here is that pretty much everybody is an expert in something. An official Social Marketing Expert might need tech help, and a Tech Expert might need Social Marketing help. I ended up offering some advice as a Travel Expert, which I sure wasn’t anticipating, but kind of the nature of this event. Conversations are all over the place.

Ilene Haddad is our Ringleader. This is her brainchild, and I’m quite certain she’s astonished at what it’s become. She has done an absolutely fantastic job putting it together. It’s been a blast being part of it — I can’t wait for the next one :)

Appropriate Tweet o' the Day

I’ve been using Evernote for over 2 years (I checked. I thought it was longer, actually, since it’s such a regular part of my work process). I only recently started using it for moodboards. A tweet from @Evernote asking if anyone used it this way caught my eye, I responded, we emailed, and voila! My thoughts are right there on the Evernote blog as part of their Creative Series. Nice!

If you’re a designer and are unfamiliar with moodboards, definitely give this a read. They’re a powerful tool to add to your presentation/process arsenal.

If you haven’t tried Evernote, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. It’s web-based, but there are also desktop, iPhone, and iPad apps that sync to it, and of course bookmarklets that make it easy to clip and save stuff to your notebooks. I’ve used it not only for moodboards, but for market research, read-it-later types of things, recipe collections, shopping research, wishlists, idea lists… the possibilities are endless.

Time Machine is a fabulous backup program. It’s easy, beautiful, and pretty much dummy-proof. If you’re a Mac user, there’s really no excuse for not doing regular backups any more.

But the hourly backups can get to be a bit much. The first few seconds of a backup can really slow down, or even interrupt whatever else you’re working on. And a particularly large incremental background can slow everything down.

I could never figure out why Apple didn’t include a scheduling feature into Time Machine. Every so often I’d think “they must have included it — I’ve just missed it” and dig around trying to find the elusive feature. But no. It’s not there.

Enter Time Machine Editor.

Install this tiny program, turn off Time Machine, and set your backups to take place on a schedule that works for you. You can simply change the intervals. That’s what I did — I’m now backing up every 4 hours. It’s easy enough to tweak if I want something different. You can also choose to back up on certain days

and/or at certain times. Then move the slider to “on” and you’re all set. It works as seamlessly as the built-in Time Machine app. No fuss, no muss.

Oh, and it’s free.

I don’t know who wrote this gem. I couldn’t find any credits on the download page. Whoever you are — thank you, thank you, thank you!

Step 1: Sign on with a big ad network who pays very little if any attention to targeting your ads to appropriate sites.

Step 2: Tell them to run your ads on the iPad with no attention paid to application demographics.

Step 3: Don’t bother to make your site iPad compatible.

Check out this ad, which runs on GodFinger on the iPad. Are GodFinger players looking for loans? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, because you can’t click on the pop-up menus necessary to continue.

Bad move. Not only do you not look cutting edge, Lending Tree, you look lame.

Rework falls into a genre of business books I call Short Attention Span Business Wisdom. Hugh McCloud’s Ignore Everybody, which came out shortly after Rework, falls into the same category.

There’s a lot to like in Rework. Certainly Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, founders of 37 Signals, have learned a ton of valuable lessons on the road to building their successul company. Their lessons are—like their software—simple, to the point, and easy to consume.

One of my favorite lessons is “Why grow?” It’s so easy to get caught up in thinking bigger is better. Most VCs demand it, and many entrepreneurs presume it. It’s refreshing to know a successful software company recognizes where their own sweet spot is, and is proud to have only 16 employees. Money quote: “Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination in itself.”

And I love “Out-teach your competition”. I love the abundant-universe approach. Knowledge is not a scarce resource. Sharing your knowledge makes everyone stronger. And in the case of product companies, that sharing makes for better informed, loyal customers.

There’s plenty of inspiration to be found in these pages, and plenty of common sense, too.

Do you sense there’s a big BUT coming?

There is.

BUT I take issue — enormous issue — with the essay entitled “Learning from mistakes is overrated.” HUH?

Another common misconception: You need to learn from your mistakes. What do you really learn from mistakes? You might learn what not to do again, but how valuable is that? You still don’t know what you should do next.

Wow. This is a remarkably arrogant attitude. In fact, it’s complete bullshit.

Mistakes are a part of every business. Mistakes don’t just teach you what not to do. They teach you better ways to move forward in other areas. Mistakes can open entirely new pathways of thought. And they can teach you a whole lot about yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and where your ego gets in the way.

I’ll be curious to know if Jason and David feel the same way after they have a few good mistakes under their belts.

photo by mspixieears

There’s a ton of social media snake oil out there. You’ve seen it. Crapware that promises you a million Twitter followers and Facebook fans. Social media marketing “gurus” with no experience ready to sell you their secret magic systems.

It makes me crazy. Much of it is apparent for what it is the minute you land on the ugly website with the direct mail design and the coiffed “expert” flashing their pearly whites at you.

These are easy ethical calls. It’s snake oil. Just say NO.

But there’s a wide, fuzzy grey area, too.

A Real Life example: there’s a smart, savvy social media marketing expert out there with a huge following. He gives great advice, and clearly knows what he’s talking about. He will also Tweet — as himself, using his hard-won social media reputation — on your behalf for a fee.

My first reaction to this is “Ugh! Not cool. Ethics FAIL.” But he does tell people that this is how he works. Not in every Tweet, of course, but it’s on his site. Not right up front, but it’s there. So is it ok? My gut says no. How am I to know when he’s Tweeting about something or someone he really believes in and when he’s doing it for cash?

I have a new, fun, very cool client. It’s a local small business. I’m working with them to get more business, and there’s a significant social media element to it. So is it cool for me to occasionally Tweet about them? They’re not paying me to Tweet, per se. And of course I know that I’d only do this for clients I really believe in. But that’s what everyone says, isn’t it?

I talked with Susan Price about this. As usual, she was able to point out how I was rationalizing.

“You should only tweet about them if you’d be tweeting about them even if they weren’t your client. That’s what I do. Else you’re diluting your own reputation on behalf of the client. You’re either selling tweets or you’re not.”

Ouch. She’s right.

On the other hand, when I owned Go Media — long before social media — I would often talk about/spread the word about my clients when I was out and about. How is Tweeting about them — with restraint — really any different?

And from my client’s point of view, part of the reason they hired me is for my knowledge of and access to their demographic.

So now I’m trying to find a happy medium that fits with my own ethics. Facebook and blogging are no problem — I can simply explain. Twitter is another issue.

We need a hashtag. Anything I Tweet on behalf of a client should be noted as such. That’s tough to do that in 140 characters. I used #pimpingmyclient on one Tweet, but that’s too long, and it’s not exactly professional. Would #client be enough?

Suggestions are most welcome.

What ethical quandaries have you bumped into?

Bruce Sterling gave a talk at Lift09 in France last year called “Shaping Things”. As usual, he gave a fascinating, somewhat stream-of-consciousness talk that managed to connect lots of seemingly disparate topics, from spimes to RFIDs to design to tranaparency to recycling.

His thoughts about tag clouds and industrial design made something click for me. He talked about how tag clouds had such promise, but are now revealing their weaknesses. What happens when the tags/words go away? Or evolve?

He transitioned smoothly from tag clouds into industrial design. Industrial designers make coherent things, and name them. But what about the components of the objects? They need tags too. So we end up with tags, and sub-tags, and sub-sub-tags, until we’re left with an organizational mess.

We need a way to filter and and organize.

The same thing is happening with location-based applications.

Location-based apps are hot as hell these days. They were the app-star of SXSWi this year, and new services are popping up all over the place. Personally, I’m using FourSquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl just to get a sense of what they have to offer.

Yes, checking in with multiple services is a pain, but it’s worth it to me to see how they evolve.

But I see another problem emerging, and that’s filtering. Any time I check in, I’m presented with a list of nearby spots. Gowalla seems to be more precise in locating me, but regardless I’m presented with x places. When the place I’m really at doesn’t show up, it’s another step, and often a slow one, to get it to appear. As often as not I just skip it.

I was at the airport the other day. When I went to check in I found listings for half a dozen gates, several restaurants, the Admirals Club, and specific baggage claim areas. It wouldn’t surprise me to see specific airplane seats and bathroom stalls very soon. During SXSWi, I saw checkins for bathroom lines, bus stops, and specific rooms in restaurants. I even saw someone’s moustache listed as a location, and some lucky friend had checked in. Amusing, for sure, but it makes the services much less useful.

We need a way to filter the locations, and fast, or the apps will become unusable and even more tedious.

Today I gave a presentation about Integrating Social Media Into Your Marketing Plan as part of this week’s RISE Austin conference in Austin.

It was standing room only for the presentation, and it was a fantastic audience. Not only did I get some great questions about everything from tools to analytics to psychographics, but there were some experts in the audience who taught me a few new things as well. How cool is that?

I made some great contacts this afternoon, too, including one woman who interviewed me for a class she was taking back in the 90s when I was still running Go Media. Apparently I played a small part in her decision to become an entrepreneur, which thrills me more than you can imagine. I’m looking forward to getting together with her and several other folks in attendance for some invigorating conversation.

Really, this session was so fun — I came out of it energized and excited and inspired. I’m so glad I decided to participate in RISE.

The presentation is embedded below. It’s pretty information packed — I show some analogies between traditional marketing and social media marketing while stressing the importance of both.

My Social Media Ecosystem slide is always a favorite, and that’s here too. I swear I have to update that file every couple of weeks, things are changing so rapidly. Ideally I want to create the same kind of diagram for traditional marketing and show where they overlap and where they diverge. I’ve been working on it, but this is proving to be a pretty big undertaking.

I follow that up with a case study of JPeterson Garden Design, my wonderful gardener, dear friend, fabulous client, and favorite success story.

Thanks to Jan Triplett of the Business Success Center for hosting my presentation.

I get far more annoyed with text message spam than I do with email spam. My iPhone dings every time I receive a text message, and I check it as soon as I can. I really, really resent the intrusion when it’s spam.

And of course there’s the cost. I don’t pay per text message, but lots of people do. I do, however, have a monthly limit and don’t want spammers using it up.

I searched every nook and cranny on the iPhone to find a way to block the spam, to no avail.

Turns out AT&T actually does provide a way for you to block text messages. They just don’t publicize it much.

Put your iPhone down right now and go to http://mymessages.wireless.att.com/. You’ll need to register here, even if you already have an AT&T login for your regular account.

Once you’re there, you’ll have a few different options for blocking text messages.

You can block all SMS messages and multimedia messages sent to you as email. This is how most spammers get you — they send their junk to MobileNumber@txt.att.net or MobileNumber@mms.att.net. I recommend you block both of them.

AT&T does give you an option to set up an alias address, so if there are people you know who send you SMS messages via email, you can give them the alias and still foil the spammers.

I’ve tried quite a few project management programs over the years. Most have been overly complicated and bloated with features I just didn’t care about.

Web 2.0 brought us some solid new options. I use Basecamp for most projects these days, and I love it. But it lacks the ability to show me a visual overview for the timeline of a project.

Enter Tom’s Planner. This is a simple, elegant web-based app for creating Gantt Charts. You name your own project categories and steps and choose your own colors and labels for the bars. The interface is very intuitive once you get in the habit of right-clicking for many of the functions (which they helpfully remind you to do when you get started). Right click to start a time period, give it a color, then click and drag to set the proper length of time. New colors automatically show up in a key at the bottom, where you can name them.

You can also easily edit the timelines one at a time or as a group — just click and drag to select a bunch of rows and move them. You can add your own logo to the chart.

Charts can be exported to MS Project, .png, or published online. The charts themselves are saved on your hard drive as ASCII files, which seemed a little odd, but the contextual help made it a breeze. You can print directly from the chart, but the options don’t include US paper sizes. I’m guessing that will be updated at some point.

They’ve got a bunch of templates for you to work from if you’d rather not start from scratch, including templates for web design, gardening, construction, and a handful of others.

My first use of Tom's Planner worked out great. (click to enlarge)

I jumped in and used it for a real project right off the bat. Not only was I thrilled to be able to so easily create a schedule, it turned out to be a great way to show clients exactly why a simple website can take over a month. My client loved the professional presentation of the schedule, and I didn’t have to do any more explaining about time for content gathering and feedback.

And in my dreams…

… Tom’s Planner would sync with Basecamp. I could click on a time period on the Gantt Chart and automatically update milestones in Basecamp. Maybe some day :)

Tom’s Planner is in Beta right now. At some point they’ll implement a monthly charge, but if you sign up now you’re guaranteed a free year. So go sign up right now.