Meghan McInverny Wilker

Fox Gets Social with Glee

Posted on August 11, 2009

Last year, I wrote about how television networks don’t seem to “get it” when it comes to figuring out how to deal with Internet technology (in that example, it was The CW’s lame decision to not put Season 2 episodes of Gossip Girl on their web site — a decision they later reversed).

This year, it seems that the networks have started getting savvier about using the tools they fear so greatly. Or, at least, Fox has. With their upcoming show Glee, Fox seems to be doing everything right in how they are leveraging technology to build an audience for a very quirky show.

It’s a hard show to explain, but it’s basically about a high school show choir. It’s got Jane Lynch in it. It’s funny and brilliant. But, weird. And a little hard to explain. Which means, if things were to go as they usually do, it would be off the air within a year.

There’s a reason why quirky shows die: they can’t build an audience fast enough. Arrested Development is more popular now than it was when it was on television. And don’t get me started on the tragic death of Pushing Daisies. These shows can’t generate the same audience right out of the gate as extensions of popular franchises (and seriously, how long until they start airing CSI: Des Moines and Law & Order: Animal Control?).

Shows that don’t fit neatly into the cop, hospital or lawyer genres attract a different kind of audience. GEEKS. Theater geeks, band geeks, computer geeks, book geeks. Most geeks — no matter their geek genre — use computers and social media. And they use those things a lot more than everyone else. We tend to be the early adopters and the heavy users.

It seems like Fox did the math.

So, Fox’s first smart move was to air the pilot after the American Idol finale. First, the potential to reach a staggering number of eyes and second, the likelihood that that audience would be open to a show that includes musical numbers (Yeah, you heard me. MUSICAL NUMBERS.)

After the pilot aired, it was made available on Hulu and the Fox web site (and perhaps other places as well), allowing it to build an audience in the months between the Idol finale and early September, when it premieres. By doing this, Fox is allowing Glee to build a passionate audience (mainly through word of mouth) before the show even starts.

To help things along, Fox has also released sneak peeks from the upcoming season (like Bust Your Windows), character outlines, and audition videos. The show’s Facebook page includes regular bits of news and photos, and each of the characters has a Facebook page of their own. (Okay, that one is less cool to me. I dislike it when characters act like people in the real world, but I’ll let it slide.) They’re on MySpace, Twitter, and there’s even a Glee Wiki. Jeebus!

Here’s why I think all of this is noteworthy, though: usually, fans of oddball shows don’t get a chance to rally around their show until it’s time to write letters to the network begging them to bring it back. Fox is using the social web to harness that energy on the front end to build an audience, and they don’t seem scared to put that content wherever we want to consume it: Hulu, Fox, Facebook, you name it.

I only watched the show because Nancy saw it on Hulu, and then texted me that it ruled. I watched it, agreed, and then made my husband watch it. I tweeted and posted to Facebook about it. I told co-workers about it. I’ve told countless people to go check out the show on Hulu. I’m even planning a Glee premiere party at a local bar. Now, perhaps you’re thinking that I have too much time on my hands. But, I prefer to think that it’s because I’ve loved and lost enough shows (I miss you, Ned the pie man!) that if I find something I like, I’m willing to spread the word in the interests of keeping it on the air. I have no interest in seeing another reality show; I’d rather encourage the networks to produce stuff that’s creative. Maybe even a little risky.

So, good job, Fox. I like your moxie.

As for the rest of you, I’ll expect you’ll be watching the first episode of Glee with me on September 9. Send me a note if you’re in Minneapolis and want in on the party.

Nontent: The Scourge of the Internet

Posted on August 5, 2009

Last week, I was ranting at chatting with some Clockworkers about something I dubbed “nontent.” Days later, I saw a tweet by @Carlos_Abler complaining of the same thing, “Sick of Blog article titles dripping w/gravitas, but w/articles a paragraph long. INTERNET: THE LARGEST LANDFILL IN THE COSMOS”

Then, @kylemeyer and I had the following exchange over IM:

Kyle Meyer: seen this? http://wprobot.net/
Meghan Wilker: wtf. that seems redonk! “do a blog without actually doing anything”
Kyle Meyer: most blogs right now are just gathering posts in to lists anyway
Meghan Wilker: my “nontent” complaint
Kyle Meyer: was that a GGG post?
Meghan Wilker: i’m working on one about it
Kyle Meyer: ah. well. perfect timing then

Nontent

What is nontent? Nontent is the useless crap that seems to be proliferating on the Internet now more than ever. The most maddening example of nontent in the wild are blogs that claim to create content which instead, post lists of links to other blogs (which may themselves be full of lists to other blogs and on and on) or nothing more than one to three sentences of barely-useful commentary. Light on facts. Light on anything useful. But with a damn good title designed to pull in a lot of clicks when it gets tweeted.

The fact that this nontent is now multiplying like rabbits on Viagra is, in my opinion, a combination of many factors.

Boost #1: Easy Publishing Tools
The idea of generating content has been gaining steady momentum as online publishing tools have become more accessible and, as a result, more individuals and companies have become comfortable with the idea of being content publishers.

Heck, we all know that publishing, sharing and linking information is the whole point of the Internet. And now that it’s easy for people of all technical levels to create and share information with tools like WordPress, weebly, Blogger, etc., it’s doing its job better than ever.

Boost #2: Search Engines
Search engine optimization techniques aren’t just about using the right keywords in your content, page titles, and image names anymore. They often encourage clients to generate as much content as possible, as often as possible, in an attempt to keep the search engine coming back to your site.

(Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t always a bad thing. If a company or organization has something of value to say, great. What I’m complaining about specifically are content facades; you think there’s something there, but it’s really a lot of nothing.)

In other words, we created search engines to help us find things. We designed them to give more importance to the newest and most popular things. As a result, the production and proliferation of nontent is rewarded by the holy grail of the intarwebs: TRAFFIC.

Boost #3: Social Media
And how do you get more and more traffic? Why, you get on Twitter, you read an article called “How to get a ba-jillion followers”, and you start tweeting about all the articles you are writing on your blog. Your tweet is indexed by the search engine. Your followers re-tweets of your tweets are indexed. Your blog post (nevermind that it contains only three sentences) are indexed.

Don’t even get me started on services like stufftotweet.com (which is, itself, a shameless rip-off of popurls.com) which help provide us all with links to stuff that PEOPLE ARE ALREADY LOOKING AT. Gar!

Rethinking Relevance

None of these things are bad in and of themselves. But, the ease of creating and publishing content and the importance we all lend to what is new and trafficked has also made it desirable for people to create and publish meaningless crap. Nontent. The digital kudzu of the Internet, choking out the valuable content with it’s newness and tweetability. At some point, I hope that we (and by “we” I mean Google) adjust our idea of relevance to mean something more than what is new and popular. I want my top results to be what is valuable, thoughtful and factual.

Content Curators

How to do this is a tougher question. As the ability for us all to create and share content with the touch of a button increases, and as search engines automatically index that content and help us find it, we’ve shifted the power from media outlets to we, the people. But, as part of this power shift, we’ve started to weed out those we used to rely on to curate content. The people whose job it was to separate the wheat from the chaff (like editors) and help us find what we want based on what we mean vs. what we say (like librarians). We must now figure out on our own if our information sources are reliable or not. We now rely on Google to take what we say in keywords and give us what they think we are looking for. We now generate the wheat, and the chaff, and it all seems to have just about an equal chance at gaining attention. Fact and fiction now travel at the same warp speed.

I’m not saying I want to return to the old models, or that I think that in the “good old days” of mass media domination all editorial sources were trustworthy and reliable, but I’m also feeling like the new model is starting to be too Wild West to be trusted. That it’s too easy to game the system.

But, maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe we, the people, will police all of this just fine. (Hell, when Wikipedia was compared to the Encyclopedia Brittanica it held up pretty damn well.) Or maybe nontent will just be another Internet pest to be tolerated and managed, like SPAM.

There are certainly plenty of good people and good sites creating good content. Perhaps they will win out over the nontent echo chamber. I sure hope so. The death of nontent can’t come soon enough for me.

Think I’m full of nontent? Let me know. I can take it.

Geek Chic of the Week: Your Browser

Posted on July 17, 2009

The other day someone asked me, “What is a web browser?” (They had just called a customer support line, and the person asked them what browser and platform they were using, and they didn’t understand why that mattered.) We’ve also gotten emails on the subject, but I thought the topic would be too elementary and boring. But, then I saw this video from Google that illustrates how little people really understand about what a browser is and why it even matters.

So, what exactly IS a web browser? And why should you care?

A web browser is the software that allows you to surf the Internet. Examples include: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Google’s new Chrome browser.

The browser takes all of the code of a site which looks like this:

and displays it for you the way you are seeing it now, reading this.

There are slight differences in how sites look from one browser to another. Try taking a look at your favorite website using Internet Explorer and then Firefox — you’ll see what I mean.

Not only that, sites will look different on different platforms (more on platforms below). So, looking at our site on my Mac using Firefox looks like this:

And on a PC using Firefox it looks like this:

Nothing too major, but notice how the fonts look different between the two?

Why It Matters

Most browsers also release new versions regularly, and new browsers are coming out all the time (like Google’s Chrome, which is the subject of the video above). The browser matters for several reasons:

As a user: you may notice differences in how a site performs or looks from one browser to the next. It can be interesting to pay attention to how things work (or don’t work) if you start using a different browser.
As a marketer or business owner: it’s important to make sure that the differences between browsers don’t cause problems for your users.

So, what to do?

First, keep an eye on your web analytics to see what browsers your visitors are using. If you are using Google Analytics, this is dead simple. For example, this is the browser breakdown of Geek Girls Guide visitors:

So, most visitors come to our site on Firefox, and next is Safari. For the record, this is not typical. This breakdown speaks to the high number of Mac users we have visiting the site. Generally speaking, the #1 browser on most sites is still Internet Explorer (IE) — though Firefox is a close second. For us, IE is the #3 browser. But, that’s not all. Earlier I mentioned different versions of each browser. When I look at the detail on IE, here’s how the visitors to our site break out by version:

Second, make sure that you (or your web developer) aren’t using technologies that won’t work on certain browsers. As an end user, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to do something on a site and then realizing that for some reason it will only work if you use a different browser!

So, when you are developing a new site (and I know! I still owe you some tips on that based on my earlier post!) make sure that your web development team is testing the site (and all features) across the appropriate browsers. Ask them to give you a list of which browsers they are testing on; compare that list to the browsers your site analytics say are the most used (if you’ve got that information). Ask them what users will see if certain technology isn’t available (for example, if a user doesn’t have Flash and there’s a bunch of Flash on your site, what does that user see?). And remember, it’s not enough to know if they are looking at the site on IE — you need to know if they’re talking about version 6, 7 or 8 (for what it’s worth, focus on 7 and 8. Most of us web developers are hoping IE6 dies soon).

Just know that your site will never look exactly the same across all browsers, and you can’t possibly test on every single browser. Just make sure that you’re testing the most common browsers and that the site looks good and functions properly.

Most Common Browsers

What are the most common browsers? To answer that question, you have to understand one more concept: the platform. The word “platform” is commonly used to refer to the type of computer you are using (the hardware), and its operating system (or “OS”, the software).

The most common hardware is the PC (hp, Dell, Sony, etc.), which typically uses Windows for the OS (XP, Vista, etc.). The second most popular hardware is the Mac (iMac, MacBook, etc.) which uses an operating system called OSX (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard). But, these days, there is also a strong possibility that a visitor to your site might be on a mobile device like an iPhone or a BlackBerry. These devices also have operating systems and browsers to consider (iPhones use Safari as a browser, BlackBerries use a proprietary browser, and many other mobile devices use Opera Mini).

Confused yet? I know. It’s crazy. But, with all that in mind here’s a list of the most common browsers today:

For PCs:

Internet Explorer
Firefox
Chrome

For Macs:

Firefox
Safari
Camino

For Mobile Devices:

Safari (iPhone)
Opera Mini

So, that’s that! Your browser runs on your hardware and operating system, takes code (like HTML) and displays it on your screen. Ba-da-bing.

Now, if you are walking through Times Square and someone from Google stops to ask you what a browser is, you can answer. So browse away, my friends! Browse away.

The Five-Minute Guide to Monitoring Twitter

Posted on July 9, 2009

In a meeting last week, I was talking about social media (surprise!) and urging those present to listen to the social networks. We often say that — when it comes to social networks — participation is optional, but listening is critical. I promised that if we had five minutes to spare at the end of the meeting I’d show them how to monitor Twitter for their brand and URLs. (I did go over my five minutes, but only because their wireless connection was painfully slow!)

A few days later, I tweeted about my lesson and was barraged with requests to post instructions. So, with that, here is my five-minute Twitter monitoring guide:

1. Get an RSS Reader
RSS has got to be the least understood and most underutilized technology at the moment. Enough with the blank stares, y’all: RSS will change your life! You can read my three part series on how to get started with RSS if you haven’t started using it already (ten bucks says you’re probably using it via Yahoo! or Google and don’t even know it yet).

Anyway, to take the best advantage of my next two steps you’re going to want to have an RSS reader to monitor a couple of feeds. Bloglines is free and easy; you should be able to get an account set up in a few minutes.

2. Twitter Search
Visit search.twitter.com and enter in whatever terms you want to keep an eye on. Do this one term at a time. The search box works a lot like Google (put quotation marks around words or phrases that you want to do an exact search on). So, to monitor for Geek Girls Guide, I enter “geek girls guide”. Twitter also has some handy search guidelines here.

When you get back your search results, you’ll see an RSS icon on the far right of the address bar. Click that, and you’ll be taken to the feed page. Copy the URL from the address bar, and paste it into your RSS reader (if you’re using Bloglines, you’d click the Add link to add a new feed and paste the URL into the displayed field).

Add a feed to Bloglines

Rinse, lather and repeat for all the different words and phrases you want to keep track of.

Start with as many as you can think of; you can always remove low-value search terms from your RSS reader later. For example, I get a lot of value monitoring the “geek girls guide” search but much less value for the “geek girls” search (because many people use the words geek girls and they’re not always talking about Nancy and I!).

3. BackTweets
There are probably other services that do the same thing (and feel free to mention them in the comments) but I use BackTweets to monitor tweets for the url geekgirlsguide.com. The thing I love is that it also keeps track of links to my site that are “hidden” inside of shortened URLs (see below if you don’t know what that means).

Again, on the search results page, you’ll see the RSS icon. Click that, copy the feed URL and paste it into your RSS reader.

UPDATE January 2011: BackTweets no longer offers a free service. It’s $100/month (!!!). If you have discovered other free services that monitor links within tweets, I’m all ears!

Voila! You are now monitoring a social network. Nice work! Let me know how it goes.

— — — — —

What are shortened URLs?
There are several URL shortening services that allow you to enter a long URL (like: http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2008/09/05/24/geek_chic_of_the_week_rss_part_i) and get back a small URL (like: http://is.gd/1rR6S). The small, shortened URL redirects to the same place as your long, ugly URL.

Why do people use them?
It’s nice for people who are sharing links because if you’re emailing a link to a friend you know the URL won’t wrap into several lines of the email and become unusable, or — if you’re tweeting — it doesn’t take up too many of your precious 140 characters. The most well-known service is probably TinyURL, but there are many others (my favorite is is.gd).

Doing Social Media “Right”

Posted on July 7, 2009

When we launched the Geek Girls Guide, we didn’t realize that we’d be talking so much about social media. But, at this point, it’s the topic that everyone wants to discuss. Recently, someone referred to Nancy and I as “social media experts.” That label makes me shudder.

Here’s the thing: the web has always been social. AOL, chatrooms, the BBSes of yore, all of these were ways for people to use technology to connect with other people. So none of this is really “new” — it’s just that the tools and technology are more accessible than they’ve ever been.

Back in the day, it was just us geeks talking to each other. Now our moms and grandmas are here, too! And because of that — because more people than ever are using these tools — this is all new. No one has really figured out how to do social media “right” as a company or business. What’s the right mix? What kind of investment is needed? How can companies engage effectively? Who is in “charge” of social media within a given company? How can it be measured? We’re all learning. So as far as I’m concerned, there are no social media “experts.”

The companies that are in the best position to take advantage of experimenting with social media tactics are small companies. They’re nimble, not constrained by the beauracracy of large organizations, and are — generally — less afraid to try new things (because, of course, the risk of public failure is lower than with a huge company).

With that in mind, I came across this blog recently (via Geek Girls’ pal Sharyn Morrow) and thought it was a beautifully simple example of how a company can do social media “right.” It’s not totally perfect, but they are doing many things well. And I commend them for jumping in.

The blog (ATTN: Anna’s True Thai News) is for one of my all-time favorite Minneapolis restaurants, True Thai (Seriously, if you ever go there get the kabocha squash curry. Trust me.) and here’s what I think they’re doing well:

1. Tying it all together.
They link to their blog and Twitter accounts on their homepage. Nicely done. (Even better if you can integrate your blog seamlessly into your site, but if you’re doing-it-yourself at least linking from your homepage is a great step.)

The Twitter profile links to the blog, and I think they should link to the main web site (because it’s hard to find the main web site from the blog) but overall they’ve done a good job or making sure that all of their social media tactics are tied together (blog, Twitter, Flickr).

2. Having some personality.
The link to Anna’s blog from the True Thai homepage says, “The queen of all curries commands you to read her blog.” It’s charming and fun. What’s not to like?

3. Updating regularly, but not obsessively.
The blog has a a new post every few days. Even better is that the posts actually say something of value.

Their tweets are more sparse, but also packed with value (like an alert that the closest highway was closed and customers would need to take an alternate route).

4. Talking like a human.
Reading the blog and looking at the photos on Flickr give you a sense of Anna’s personality, which makes you feel more connected to the restaurant.

5. Inviting dialogue.
What gave me the idea to write about True Thai’s blog was this post on the difficulty of serving vegan/vegetarian food. Anna is up front about her challenge as a restaurant owner, and is opening a dialogue with people. This is the whole point of social media: to facilitiate and participate in conversations with the audiences that are important to you.

And how about this – an APOLOGY for an evening on which the restaurant was understaffed! How many times have you had crap service at a restaurant? Can you even imagine the restaurant owner apologizing for it publicly and explaining to you why that happened? I wasn’t there that evening, but this apology post — just like the personal “voice” in the posts I mentioned earlier — makes me feel even more connected to this place. I have to imagine it has the same effect on other customers as well.

In general, they are being a good social media citizen. They’re participating in the community, not just braying marketing messages. They’re open, honest and imperfect. The social networks are just that — social. To fit in to the social networks, be social. Be human.

And hey, if you need more encouragement to just jump in — AdRants published a great post on Twitter last week that includes one of my favorite social networking analogies: the cocktail party.

08/11/2009: Heavy Table has a great interview with Anna from True Thai about the restaurant and her blog.

Hacking Mail and iCal for GTD

Posted on June 24, 2009

GTD stands for “Getting Things Done” (the title of David Allen’s first book) and has become a shorthand way to refer to his methodology. You can read an official explanation on his site.

In a nutshell, GTD is a way to get control of all the things you need to get done by getting it out of your brain and into a trusted system. My favorite line from the What is GTD? web page is, “The only “right” way to do GTD is getting meaningful things done with truly the least amount of invested attention and energy.” Sounds great, right? And it really does work.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my amazing experience with GTD because of a tweet. That post led to conversations with Kelly Forrister, a coach with the David Allen company and, ultimately, an invitation to be interviewed by David Allen for the In Conversation series on GTDConnect. I KNOW, RIGHT?!

One of the things that came up in talking with both Kelly and David was how much of the dialogue online about GTD is led by men. And yet, there are plenty of women who use it with great success. So, I figured — why not blog about it? It’s not directly related to technology, but I think it’s a relevant topic for busy people. And everyone I know is busy people.

So, here goes!

What is GTD?

I don’t want to spend too much time on the question of what GTD is because lots has already been written on that topic elsewhere. If you don’t know what it is, davidco.com and gtdtimes.com are good places to start. I’d highly recommend getting a copy of the book, Getting Things Done, and reading it twice. Once just to get the ideas into your head and the second time to actually follow the steps outlined. Seriously. Read it twice (it’s a quick read). Then come back and read this post.

One of the things that appealed to me when reading Getting Things Done was that it wasn’t trying to sell anything. You didn’t have to buy a certain kind of planner, or device, or software. It’s a methodology that can be applied using a paper and pencil or the latest technology. Whatever works for you.

My System

So, what works for me?

When I started implementing GTD about four years ago, I was working on a company PC. I configured Outlook (as outlined in the GTD and Outlook whitepaper) and everything hummed right along. Three years ago, I left that job and transitioned to a Mac. Suddenly, I was adrift without a system and I ended up falling into a trap that I think a lot of GTD practitioners (and geeks) fall into: I started over-analyzing my needs and evaluating software to the point that my system stopped working very well. I tried Backpack, Remember the Milk, OmniFocus and a score of others.

Finally, I decided the best approach would be to figure out a way to bend the applications I already use all day, every day to my will. Namely, Mail and iCal. Why? Because my big issue with all of the software I looked at was that it was another thing to deal with: a web page I had to visit, an app I had to open. It was either too big a hassle or I would totally forget. So, I set about to make Mail and iCal my “system.”

1. Email

I have nine email addresses that I monitor regularly (work, Geek Girls, gmail, etc.). Using IMAP, I check all my email addresses in Mail. I can go through them at the Inbox level, or I can toggle the main Inbox open and see messages in each individual Inbox. Nice! If you have multiple email addresses (and these days, most of us do), I’d highly recommend configuring them to all go to one or two places (perhaps one for Work and another for Personal addresses).

I also have Facebook messages and Twitter DMs emailed to me so I don’t need to remember to check my Facebook messages and so I won’t miss any DMs sent via Twitter. With those added on, I have ELEVEN “inboxes” down to ONE. Nice!

Beneath the Inbox, I have subfolders for Action, Waiting For and Someday/Maybe items.

I also have a series of folders set up for Reference emails (stuff I want to keep but I don’t need to do anything with). For work emails, these are organized by client and project name. For personal emails, I don’t need to parse things out with the same detail, so I have one Personal folder where messages can be archived after I’m done with them. (I can always use Search to find stuff there if needed.)

2. Lists

A big part of GTD is keeping good lists: Projects, Someday/Maybe, Agendas, Waiting-Fors, etc. I use Notes in Mail to keep those lists. But, Mail then buries those lovely lists down in a section called Reminders and also allows for Notes by Inbox. Yuck. Too complicated. To make this simpler and cleaner, I set up a Smart Mailbox called Notes. Any Notes — from anywhere in Mail — are filtered into this Smart Mailbox:

Another important set of lists is your to-dos by context (@home, @work, @calls, etc.). This is where iCal comes in. Mail doesn’t allow for categories on To Dos — but it does allow for To Dos to be associated with a calendar. So, I simply created “ghost” calendars called @home, @work, @calls, etc.). Technically, these calendars show up in iCal, but I uncheck them so nothing shows up. They exist only as a way to categorize my To Dos. Then, I created Smart Mailboxes that filter these To Dos by context:

All of my Smart Mailboxes (To Do lists by context and Notes) are right below my Inboxes for easy access (Mail allows you to drag and drop your items in the left pane into the order you prefer):

3. Calendar

Another big part of GTD is the “hard landscape” — what do I HAVE to do on a certain day, or at a certain time. I have multiple calendars in iCal that I can use to keep track of dates and filter as needed: personal, Trixie (my daughter), Theo (my son), and family. My work calendar is managed using a different calendar system than iCal, but luckily that system has an RSS feed. So I subscribe to my work calendar in iCal — which allows me to look in ONE place to see everything I need to do. My husband uses Google calendar — which also has an RSS feed — so I subscribe to his calendars as well. So then I’m aware if he has an early-morning meeting that may affect our routine or is scheduled to be out of town on a day when I may have to travel for work as well. Since I set up my system before Google unveiled the ability to sync calendars, I bought (and still use) a little app called BusySync that allows me to add new events in iCal. (So, if I add something in iCal, it updates Google, which updates the calendar feed which means my husband’s view of the calendar stays up-to-date, too!) In an extra bit of handiness, any birthdays that are in my Address Book are also displayed on a calendar so, assuming important birthdays are IN my Address Book, I don’t forget to buy and mail cards.

So, with all of that I have EIGHT calendars all displaying in ONE place. And each calendar has a different color — so when I see “Dr. Appt” I know immediately whether that appointment is for me, my husband or one of my kids.

So, while it took me a little bit of time to get this all set up, now that it’s up and running it takes very little time to maintain. To add to or edit one of my lists takes seconds. And I like using it. That’s key: if what you’re doing isn’t fun and easy — you won’t want to do it.

Plus, it’s portable. Most of what I’ve listed above syncs to my iPhone. The only things that don’t make it over are my To Dos, but I can live with that. (And if I need a quick list to take with me to the store, an index card and a pen come along for the ride.)

Whether or not you “do” GTD, think about what tools you are using every day, and how you could streamline them to make life easier. And if you’re interested in my ninja advice on using calendars, check out this blog post.

The Kevyn Burger Show

Posted on June 18, 2009

We had the pleasure of appearing on FM107.1’s Kevyn Burger show this morning to talk about this site, and our upcoming Social Media 101: A Beginner Bootcamp seminar on June 22.

If you missed the show, you can listen to our segment by using the link below to download the mp3.

On a Mac, hold down the control key and click and select “Save Link As…” and save the mp3 somewhere on your computer.
On a PC, right click and select Save Target As… (in IE) or Save Link As… (in Firefox) and save the mp3 somewhere on your computer.

When you open the file, it should launch your preferred audio player.

Download the mp3 >

or by clicking the cute little button below to stream it in your browser window.

It was fun talking to Kevyn, and we got to meet Sheletta, too (who is just as funny in person as she sounds on the radio).

Follow-up

We talked about a few things:

Twitter. Here are links to three great articles for beginners:
Related to Twitter, we also talked about hashtags. Those look like this: #hashtags and are a way to classify or categorize your tweets. For example, here’s a search on #clockwork (tweets from co-workers at our day jobs) or #iranelection (tweets covering the current situation in Iran).
We talked about the pros and cons of presenting while people are Twitter-ing
Did you know that Twitter and Facebook could make you a better employee? We certainly know it makes us better friends.
We talked about the Motrin Moms thing last year.
- Here’s the original ad on YouTube.
- The whole deal was started by super-powered Mom blogger, Jessica Gottlieb. Think about that: one woman on Twitter was able to start a movement and get a huge corporation to pull an ad. That’s power, baby!

Drop us a line and let us know what you think, or if you have a question!

Listen Up!

Posted on June 17, 2009

The Geek Girls are going to be on FM 107.1 again — this time, on the Kevyn Burger show.

Tune in this Thursday, June 18 at 9:15am to hear us talk with Kevyn and her co-host, Sheletta about…well, we don’t know. But, seeing as social media remains the hot topic of the day, we’re gonna bet that Twitter or Facebook will get a mention. We’ll also be giving away one free pass to Social Media Bootcamp on June 22. You can listen online here, and we’ll also post an audio clip here when we’re done.

In other news, we’re hard at work on new blog posts and podcasts. Stay tuned and, as always, let us know if you have any questions.

Using the Web at Work, by Andrea Vogel

Posted on June 9, 2009

The Geek Girls were recently asked “Is it safe to log into my mint.com account from work? I never have time to work on the budget at home, but during lunch is the perfect time.” This question, along with its sister query “Can my employer read my personal email if I am accessing it from my work computer?” and twice-removed-illegitimate cousin question “Is it OK to surf porn at work?”, is one many of us never had to consider when beginning our careers. Placing whispered personal phone calls to a date or a doctor, sure. Surreptitiously reading City Pages under the desk, of course. But only in the last decade has personal usage of company technology become such a serious issue – one often resulting in employee termination, lawsuits, identity theft and more.

The purpose of this article is to outline the answer to this question on four levels: rules, reputation, ruin and reality:

1. Rules. What can and cannot legally be monitored, accessed and/or forbidden by an employer (as it pertains to technology only – I’m not going to comment on the political propaganda hanging in your cube or the micromini that should have been retired when you were 17. Not in this article, at least.)

2. Reputation. Even in company settings with more lenient policies, consideration of your professional reputation is important and often overlooked. If non-work-related online activity is affecting the quality or productivity of your work, it’s time to curtail it. Similarly, if you are visiting “questionable” (read into this however you wish) sites using company technology, your credibility and integrity could be affected within the establishment.

3. Ruin. As in financial: Identity theft. PIN number swiping. Rare, but unfortunately feasible and a serious issue to address.

4. Reality. Situations in which it is most likely alright (highly caveated that you are not to use this article as your defense if you get busted) to disregard the policies and guidelines from points 1, 2, and 3 above.

Rules

Without exception, it is completely legal for an employer to monitor an employee’s online activity and information on a computer that is provided by the company. During working hours, after working hours, data saved to a “private” folder on the hard drive, emails sent from a work-provided email address, and even emails sent from a personal email address using said computer. This information is all legally accessible by the employer – even if it is password-protected.

Even after an employee leaves a company, the employer is within its rights to access and review activity and information from said employee’s computer during her tenure. This 2008 Techdirt.com article reiterates the fact that “anything on the computer is fair game for the employer (even if it’s password protected).” Now granted, this particular article pertains to a former employee that was stealing from the employer, whereas our reader simply wants to check her finances during lunch. Night and day, right? One would think. But it is important for her to know the facts: Her financial information can and may legally be accessed by her employer if she is using Mint.com on her work computer. Even if her manager condones the employee’s taking 5 minutes to do some personal budgeting during the day, another unscrupulous colleague could very well be accessing her financial information. More on this in “Ruin,” below.

While it is legal for employers to monitor and access the activity and information noted above, it goes without saying that many do not. It’s just important to know that they can. The majority of employers I have had, as well as those of my family, colleagues, and friends, will not admonish a competent and productive employee for spending some personal time online during the work day or at home on a work-provided machine. Let’s face it: Most of us work upwards of 40 hours per week and there are bills to be paid, news headlines to be read, and personal correspondence to attend to—and just not enough hours after work to manage all of it. In addition, more and more employers are encouraging their employees to spend some time online each day in non-task-related/billable activities—social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter or company blogs being examples of potentially positive ways to gain knowledge, share information, and promote the company via nontraditional methods.

Unsure about your employer’s policy on personal use of company machines? Ask your manager, read the employee handbook, or play it safe and do it as little as possible…or not at all.

Reputation

When I informed my manager that I was writing an article on personal use of company technology, he snorted and reminded me that I am on Facebook and Twitter all day. OK, guilty as charged. However, my productivity reports and completed tasks/projects indicate that my manager’s expectations are being met even with these diversions. If this is the case for our reader as well—that her workload is not being affected by her lunchtime personal budgeting—and she is fortunate enough to work for one of the more understanding employers noted above, then her professional reputation should remain intact. However, if productivity and/or performance are slipping, whether noticed only by the employee or by her colleagues or manager, then it goes without saying that personal use of company technology needs to stop during working hours, plain and simple.

Our era of tweets and blogs also brings up another sort of reputation damage control: that of TMI (too much information.) Employees who are using company technology to save/send/ post photos of last week’s kegger, or oversharing via status updates that can be viewed by clients or colleagues can find themselves in a world of trouble. Take the recent downfall of Ketchum VP James Andrews, who insulted the fair city of Memphis when in town to meet with his client, FedEx. FedEx employees immediately circulated the tweet corporation-wide, as well as responded scathingly. Awkward.

Be smart about the sites you visit while on company time and equipment, and what you post on said sites. You never know who might be paying attention.

Ruin

If the reader is using Mint.com, a free online money management application, on a company-owned computer, then her employer has access to any personal information stored within her Mint.com account, even though it is password-protected. It is illegal for her employer or colleagues to use or access that information without just cause, of course, but it is definitely feasible and could lead to theft of finances or identity.

Think twice before accessing financial or personal information on company machines. You could become a victim of identity theft.

Reality

So, in a roundabout way we have answered the reader’s question: Is it safe to log in to my mint.com account from work? No, it is not safe – yet it is likely that if your employer condones occasional personal use of company technology during work hours, and if your productivity is not being affected, it is probably fine. Just save the porn-surfing for your own computer on your own personal time, OK?

Andrea Vogel, Geek

Andrea Vogel is a Senior Producer at Popular Front who leads teams in the development of online experiences for clients including Hasbro, Deluxe and Gustavus Adolphus University. She holds a BA in French with a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota, as well as a cosmetology license, of all things.

Follow her on Twitter: AVogel75

David Allen, Me, and the Thousand Dollar Tweet

Posted on April 28, 2009

A week ago today, around 4:30pm, I was sitting at the Clockwork kitchen table (kind of like I am right now as I write this) and working. While rocking through emails, I saw a note from David Allen about an upcoming GTD seminar called “Making It All Work.” I perked up immediately, as I’m a huge fan of David Allen. I read his first book, Getting Things Done, about four years ago and have been working on adopting his methodologies ever since. I noticed that the closest city he’d be speaking in was Chicago (I’m in Minneapolis). I daydreamed for a moment about being able to go. But, it was in Chicago. And it was $995 (not including airfare). So I gave up.

But, before really giving up on the dream, I tweeted: “I wish the magical money fairy would give me cash to go see @gtdguy in Chicago!” Then, I sighed wistfully and moved on.

And then, a few minutes later, David Allen direct messaged me back: “Meghan, you’re welcome to come as my guest tomorrow at the Omni. My treat. All for posting your note.”

WHAT?!

I nearly passed out. Then, I nearly declined. But, my co-workers were egging me on, “C’mon, Southwest Airlines flies there now! YOU GOTTA DO IT!” So I didn’t say no. I went home and talked to my husband. If I was going to go, we’d need to coordinate me being gone from the wee morning hours until the evening, which meant he’d be on his own for the morning and after-work hours (no easy task with a three-year-old and a six-month-old). He was also presenting that evening at Ignite Minneapolis, and I’d miss his presentation.

Long story short, we worked it all out: I got up on Wednesday morning at 5am to catch a 7am flight to Midway and spent the day with someone I idolize. I stepped off the elevator at the Omni and there he was! In person! I shook his hand and tried not to come off like a dorky fangirl. I got my conference materials and stepped into the conference room, expecting to see 100 people. There were about 25. WHAT? I was about to spend an entire day with with a handful of other people listening to, and talking with, David Allen.

I wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of such a last-minute opportunity if it weren’t for three things:
1. an employer who supported my desire to go and
2. the fact that I already follow the GTD methodology enough that I could pick up and go for a whole day and know, confidently, that nothing would blow up and
3. Twitter.

Think about it: in what other universe would a random woman from Minnesota (me) be able to directly contact a best-selling author who travels the world (David Allen) and GET A RESPONSE? Within minutes, even! That is the insane power of Twitter. If the “celebrities” who use it are using it to actually connect and converse with their audience, they can develop an incredibly powerful connection.

Last night, David Armano led a discussion about the future of advertising (I wasn’t there, but I watched in on UStream and followed the tweetstream from home with a baby on my lap — another social media WIN!). My favorite thought from his presentation was the comparison of the mass media audience vs. the social media audience. That advertisers and brands (and let’s face it: authors, celebrities, etc. are brands) need to weigh the value of reaching millions of potential viewers against the value of thousands of engaged consumers.

I was already an engaged consumer of the David Allen “brand.” I’ve even given informal presentations inside our organization around how people can apply his productivity principles to our work.. Through Twitter, I was able to connect with him in a way that would not have been possible years ago. And, by investing just a few minutes of his time in tweeting back to me (and the cost of giving me a complimentary admission to his seminar) David Allen solidified my loyalty to him, his “brand” and his product. More cost effective than a print ad? I have to believe it is. I’ve told this story to anyone who will listen, including to a roomful of people at Social Media Bootcamp last Friday.

Added bonus? As I boarded the plane in Chicago, and as soon as we touched down in Minneapolis I pulled up the #ignitempls tweetstream and was able to follow along what was happeninig with the presentations. The minute I walked in the door, I pulled up the live UStream feed and caught the tail end of the video. The next morning, I checked out my husband’s presentation. So, while I wasn’t there in person to cheer him on, I was able to send him supporting tweets. I was able to “listen in” on what was happening and tweet to people I knew who were there. They gave him the support that I wasn’t there to give. Through social media, we had a shared experience despite our physical separation.

The real power of social media is in it’s versatility: it can be used for a business or a brand, and it can be used to stay connected with the ones we love.

I’m fond of comparing social media to a hammer: you can pound a nail, you can pull a nail or you can hit yourself in the face. How you use it, and therefore your feelings about it’s usefulness, are really up to you.

Lots of people have asked me about GTD: what is it, how do i use it and why do I like it. I’m working on a follow-up post about that.
Update: I finally wrote a GTD post on June 24: read it here.