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Podcast #25: Facebook’s New Button

Posted on September 24, 2010

In this week’s podcast, we discuss a new button. No, really. A button.

Facebook switched its Friend Request options from “Accept and Ignore” to “Accept and Not Now.” On Wednesday morning, the Marketplace Tech Report had an interesting take on it (which you can listen to here) that got us thinking: what does this mean? How does Facebook change our social behavior and how does it affect social norms? There’s a lot more going on than just buttons.

Here’s TechCrunch’s take on it.

What do you think?

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Have a topic you’d like us to talk about? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

Geek of the Week: Rachel Baker

Posted on September 20, 2010

This week’s Geek of the Week is Rachel Baker, a freelance IT consultant in Chicago. A few months ago, Rachel sent us an email about how much she enjoyed our site and podcasts. When we discovered that she’s quite a geek girl in her own right, we promptly crowned her Geek of the Week. It was a pleasure to talk to her, and we really only scratched the surface of her geekdom. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Rachel as much as we did!

Rachel credits her parents for putting her on the path to nerdery by buying her first computer in 1983, and insisting that she look things up in the Encyclopedia when she asked them a question. She’s worked professionally in technology for over 12 years, and now works on her own doing IT consulting and WordPress web development as Plugged In Consulting.

In February 2009, Rachel and a few friends founded the Chicago Nerd Social Club where they host and throw events for nerds. Yeah, we’re already trying to figure out how to get to Chicago for their next event.

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Have a topic you’d like us to talk about? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

Podcast #23: Entertainment Solutions

Posted on September 10, 2010

In our 23rd podcast we talk about the upcoming Minnesota Blogger Conference, as well as some DIY entertainment solutions for kicking cable to the curb and still getting to see your favorite shows.

Minnesota Blogger Conference

When: Saturday, September 11, 2010

Where: CoCo – coworking & collaborative

213 4th St E., 4th Floor

St Paul, MN 55101

(612) 735-7425

Schedule

Resources: Entertainment Solutions

Keep an eye out in the next couple weeks for the videos and descriptions of our systems as well as some more information on gaming.

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Have a topic you’d like us to talk about? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

SXSW Panels

Posted on August 27, 2010

Today is the last day of voting for SXSW panels. We’ve already asked you to vote for us (but, if you haven’t, today is your last chance!). But don’t just vote for us — there are tons of awesome panel options to choose from.

How to Vote

  • Visit the SXSW PanelPicker. (Our session is here.)
  • Create an account (it reduces fraudulent voting), but don’t worry: you won’t be added to any mailing lists (unless you want to be!).
  • Click the thumbs-up (or thumbs-down) to vote!

Who to Vote For

Don’t just vote for us! There are a number of great proposals out there. Need some guidance on where to start?

If you’d like to support other Minnesotans, check out this post by Kary Delaria that includes a list of panel submissions from MN.

Or you can check out this list of panels that have caught our eye as we’ve been browsing and voting over the last couple of weeks. These are all people we don’t know IRL, but whose topics looked interesting to us. And that’s what this is all about! Explore, find new topics and help decide what should — or shouldn’t — be at SXSW!

Project Management for Humans (No Robots Allowed)
Organizer: Brett Harned, Happy Cog
    • What is the most effective way to gather project requirements?
    • What’s better for my project, Agile or Waterfall process?
    • How can I manage the process as it transitions from UX to Design, to Development?
    • How can I effectively communicate with and educate my clients on web development process?
    • How do I deal with all of these personalities and keep my focus on the project itself?

The Emerging Role of Social Media in Education
Organizer: Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers
    • How are teachers using social media to bring global perspectives to their classrooms?
    • What are the obstacles teachers face in trying to use social media in their classrooms?
    • How is social media helping teachers create better learning experiences for their students?
    • How are mobile devices being used to increase student and parent engagement in schools?
    • Why aren’t more schools embracing the use of social media by teachers and students?

No Excuse: Web Designers Who Can’t Code
Organizer: Wilson Miner, Rdio Description
    • Why should designers know how to code their designs?
    • How can designers use code skills in increasingly specialized teams.
    • How can designers develop code understanding if their job doesn’t involve writing code?
    • How can hybrid designers work effectively with other developers?
    • Is there a place for developers with design sense?

Successful People-Based Acquisition: Buying People, Not Code
Organizer:  Bill Boebel, Rackspace Hosting  
    • What made this Webmail.us acquisition by Rackspace special?
    • What made employees and founders want to stay on board?
    • How can this be replicated?
    • What other companies have had success with this method and why?
    • What has not worked for other companies?

Viral Marketing with The Oatmeal
Organizer: Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal
    • How do I come up with creative marketing ideas for a boring product?
    • How do I get people to pay attention to my website?
    • I’ve created some rad content – now how do I get people to read it?
    • What’s a good creative process for brainstorming effective viral ideas?
    • How do I make funny things? How do I make things that resonate with an audience?

Girl Developers++: Getting Women Equipped to Ship
Organizer: Sara Chipps, Girl Developer LLC
    • How can we get more female software developers?
    • Why aren’t women comfortable in traditional educational settings when it comes to technology?
    • How can I start an initiative to educate women in technology in my community?
    • What are some of the roadblocks women run into when learning how to code?
    • As a man, how can I help make women feel more at home in the software community?

Startup Success: Entrepreneurial Women Share the Team-Building Secret
Organizer: Rynda Laurel, ryndalaurel.com
    • What is a successful team, and how do you build one?
    • How to be a team leader, and how to determine what your strengths and weaknesses are so you can partner up with those that compliment you.
    • How to use Marketing, PR, Social Media and Networking to find your team and build communities around your startup.
    • How to look at the big picture and build international teams.
    • How we did it and still encourage others to take the plunge.

Social Marketing Lessons Learned on the Farm
Organizer: Nathan Wright, Lava Row
    • What cultural factors make farmers and rural people “naturals” at building community?
    • What can other businesses learn from the up-and-down commodity markets that drive ag and rural business?
    • How do Dust Bowl and Great Depression memories make for better business decisions?
    • How are smaller ag-related businesses effectively leveraging social media?
    • What makes social marketing a good fit for agriculture-based businesses?

Podcast #22: The Pain of Self Promotion

Posted on August 17, 2010

In podcast #22, we discuss walking the fine line between self promotion and being an annoying blowhard, and how to get over the resistance to self promote.

Podcast Summary

Originally, we sat down to discuss the ins and outs of Interactive Project Management. But, instead, we decided to talk about self promotion. Mainly because we are dealing with our own feelings of uneasiness about promoting a SXSW panel submission.

We discuss questions like:

  • Is this a “girl thing?”
  • How can you promote yourself without being annoying?
  • Do the people you’re connected with online mind if you talk about yourself?
  • Is there a difference between promoting your business and promoting yourself?
  • How do you get a sense of what your “personal brand” is online? Does it match with who you really are?

Things We Referenced

  • Meatspace:an idiom for the “real world”

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Have a topic you’d like us to talk about? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

SXSW or Bust!

Posted on August 11, 2010

Earlier this year, we gave a presentation at MinneWebCon called “Creating a User-Centered Culture.” The reception the topic received inspired us to submit it to SXSW. We’d love to go, but we need your help getting there!

We made it through the first round, which accounts for 40% of the decision. Another 30% is up to the SXSW organizers. The other 30% is based on the online votes at the SXSW PanelPicker — and that’s where you come in.

We need your help!

  • Please visit the SXSW PanelPicker and vote for our session.
  • You’ll have to create an account (which reduces fraudulent voting), but you won’t be added to any mailing lists (unless you want to be!).
  • Voting closes on August 27, so vote soon! In fact, do it now. Go ahead, we’ll wait.

In exchange for your vote, we offer you this video. We thought it was funny…we hope you do, too.*

*If you don’t think it’s funny, blame these guys.

Geek of the Week: Matt Wilson

Posted on August 3, 2010

This week’s Geek of the Week is Matt Wilson, who has the special honor of being our first male Geek of the Week.

Matt is the kind of geek that wears many hats (or capes, depending on the situation). Sometimes he’s an analytics geek (his profession), sometimes he’s a techie geek (taking things apart), and other times he’s a gamer geek (D&D, anyone?).

We think it will be obvious pretty quickly why we chose Matt: he’s smart, personable, funny and OMG: so geeky. He’s also been a longtime supporter of the Geek Girls Guide, encouraging us and cheering us on from day one. So we love him for that. Also? He’s the dad to two young girls, and he takes a lot of pride in encouraging them to take stuff apart and in making sure they embrace a little danger now and then. Fathers raising geeky girls? Gotta love that.

In this podcast, Matt explains his role as Manager of Digital Analytics at General Mills, talks about his early aspirations to be a doctor, and how he ended up doing web-related stuff for a living.

With so much to talk about, we found ourselves wrapping up after a whopping 45 minutes! He did leave us with a few final words of advice including, “Get yourself right, then focus on your skills, and then on your network. Don’t specialize too much. Being versatile is a great asset, and at the end of the day knowing business in general is better than knowing only how to optimize a web page for search.”

Thank you again to Matt for joining us and being our first manly Geek of the Week. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

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Are you a geek? Do you know a geek? Is there someone you’d like to hear from? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

Since today is Matt’s birthday we had to include a little birthday surprise!

Geek Chic of the Week: Widgets!

Posted on July 30, 2010

The Geek Girls received this reader question recently:
Eeeeek. Tell me about widgets! Are these like a Flickr badge that I might put on my blog? What are they for? How do they work? What’s in it for me or for the widgetee?

Sincerely,
Wondering about Widgets

So let’s begin a the beginning: what is a widget? A “widget” in the interactive world is typically used to deliver content to a web page or a desktop. They usually involve some sort of feed that goes out and brings back the specified information to the location you want, rather than you going to different locations.

Web Widgets

Web widgets are commonly used, well, on the web. Generally, it’s a box containing information from another site that is embedded on web pages, user profiles (like Facebook, Flickr, and Myspace), and blogs. Below is an example of a widget (provided by Facebook) embedded on a different web site.

Common web widgets include tickers, event countdowns, Twitter feeds, photo galleries, and profile badges. These types of widgets are usually available to the user (you) by embedding them on your site via a set of provided HTML code or JavaScript.

Widgets make it easy to incorporate dynamic content into your site, and make it easy to connect all your profiles together. For example, on your blog or website you could embed a Twitter widget to feature your tweets, a Facebook widget to link to your page or company’s page, and a Flickr widget to feature your pictures. All of these things also ensure that people who are interested in your content are aware of all the different places they can connect with you.

It’s important to note that you can only embed widgets on pages that you have access to add or author the HTML or JavaScript code.

Below is an image showing the process of creating a FourSquare Mayor widget for your location’s site or blog.

Step 3 shows you the snippet of code that you need to embed in your site’s code to display the widget. This may feel far too technical for some of you — luckily some of the new blogging platforms make this really easy. You just drop an HTML component on your page, paste in the code and bam! Easy-easy and you don’t even have to dig into the page code if that’s not your thing.

Desktop Widgets

Desktop widgets run on your local machine: y’know, on the desktop. 😉

These widgets are sometimes called applets because they are like mini-applications running on your computer. These widgets are typically associated with content that the user accesses often, like a clock, calculator, weather feed, or up to the minute stock market results.

On Windows Vista and Windows Live they are found in Microsoft Gadgets; on a Mac, widgets live on the Dashboard (pictured below). By default, there is a dashboard icon in the toolbar; clicking it will reveal the widgets.

Who Wins?

So, why bother with widgets? As a web widget user, you get an easy tool to share the widget maker’s service or product, which in turn generates more traffic or notice for the maker’s product or service. Do you think Twitter would have gotten as big if there was no way to share it within spaces that people were already going to? And what about something like Flickr? Widgets make it easy to feature galleries and share images, but you still have to go to Flickr to upload the actual photos. In the end it’s not taking traffic away, it’s creating traffic by using spaces and sites that people already frequent.

Some desktop widgets exists for the same reason: by downloading a news widget you are interacting with the news outlet’s content and, in some cases, going to their site for additional content. You win by getting the headlines delivered to you, they win by keeping you engaged with their brand and driving traffic to their site. Other desktop widgets (like, say, a desktop lava lamp) are more like phone apps; they’re just for fun.

So, Wondering…I hope we answered your question. Let us know how the widgeting goes.

Geek of the Week: Gini Dietrich

Posted on July 20, 2010

This week’s Geek of the Week is Gini Dietrich. Gini is the CEO of the digital PR agency, Arment Dietrich, and the author of Spin Sucks. One of the top rated communication professionals on the social networks, Gini was recently named the number one PR person, according to Klout and TechCrunch, on the channels, and number one on Twitter, according to TweetLevel.

Gini started in the traditional public relations world, but quickly shifted her focus to digital, which lead her to Twitter. Now she has over 11,000 followers, most of whom she follows back and interacts with! The “red bull” question: what’s your take on following and unfollowing?

In addition to Spin Sucks, Gini is also active on the speaker circuit, delivering 2-3 sessions a month on average. But being such an influential person doesn’t mean she thinks she knows it all, in fact she’s got a lot of people who influence her, from Writing Roads to Elizabeth Edwards. Bottom line: Gini strives to be humble and transparent, and values those who are, too.

Gini is smart, funny and engaging — we hope you agree that she’s a fantastic Geek of the Week.

(For those of you who don’t know what she’s talking about when she mentions Summer of Dresses, check out the website here.)

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Are you a geek? Do you know a geek? Is there someone you’d like to hear from? Drop us a line at [email protected] or leave us a comment on our Facebook page!

Podcast #19: The Follow/Unfollow Debate

Posted on July 16, 2010

In podcast #19, we talk about what effect being plugged in with technology can have on our productivity. We also touch on the subject of Twitter follows. Should you follow back everyone who follows you? Does the number of people you follow say something about how engaged you are with them?

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Podcast Summary

First, we have to welcome Nancy back from her summer vacation; things weren’t the same around here without her. During her time away, she noted that she got a lot more work around her home, which got us thinking: does being plugged in affect your productivity?

Then came the dusty muffin discussion…if you’re unfamiliar you can watch the Betty White SNL clip here.

In the latter half of the podcast, we argue about discuss the question: how many people should you follow? Does following more people mean that you’re more engaged, or does it mean you’re stretched too thin? Does not following everyone back mean you think you’re some kind of celebrity?

There are a million different ways to look at this question, and a million opinions about which approach to Twitter is the right one. What do you think? We want to hear from you!