Follow Friday: Mike Ives

Hills [That Shine] Like White Elephants
Image by CarbonNYC via Flickr

I feel that one of the most important and often overlooked things is being observant. Developing the ability to see things happening or unfolding is challenging work. It’s challenging for all sorts of reasons (mostly having to do with, in my case at least, being pretty much focused on myself).

Because it’s important and because it’s hard to do, it’s good practice to identify others who are good at being observant and communicating what they observe in a useful way. Which brings me to this edition of Follow Friday.

Mike Ives, journalist

Journalists who know their craft make ideal observationalists. I had the exceptionally good fortune to meet Mike Ives early in his journalism career when he was working at the local Burlington Vermont paper SevenDays. During his time here I got to know him through our shared interests in music and cross-country skiing.

Equal parts thinker, athlete and adventurer Mike’s the kind of guy that always has an interesting story or insightful perspective. But, and this is important (especially in a world of ego-driven blogjournalism), Mike Ives isn’t a blowhard. He doesn’t embellish or cull his observations to service his agenda. To be honest, I have no clue what his agenda might be or if he has one. But I do know that his writing brings me to a closer understanding of the world that Mike Ives sees.

I recommend you follow Mike Ives for the following specific reasons:

  • His journalism is global in reach, bringing valuable perspectives to specific issues.
  • His journalism is general in nature; he doesn’t have a “beat” and as such he can help prevent intellectual myopia.
  • Someday he’s going to win a lot of prestigious writing awards and you’ll be able to say “Yeah I been reading that guy for years.”

The best way to follow Mike Ives is through his journalism, which appears in a variety of publications. Here are a few to get you started:

Whether he’s writing about economics, politics and the Kyrgistan walnut crop or the future of pond hockey, his writing is engaging and insightful. He provides valuable observations about the world around him.

Burlington Web Analytics Wednesday: Using Google Analytics to Optimize Online Marketing Channels.

bedframe • trellis
Image by origamidon via Flickr

 

Details are in for Vermont’s Web Analytics Wednesday event in Burlington! Or, more accurately for this edition: South Burlington! Logic Supply is hosting and providing the speaker.

 

WAW regular Erika Austin from Logic Supply is going to talk about how they use GA to optimize their online marketing channels. Another awesome in-house presentation from another awesome Burlington (err South Burlington) company. Woot!

        • When? August 31, 2011
        • What time? 6pm to 8ish
        • Who’s presenting? Erika Austin, says so up above!

Format is our usual: Hang out from 6 to 6:30, preso promptly at 6:30, followed by more hanging out.

 

Using the Official Web Analytics Wednesday RSVP helps us make sure there’s enough food and drinks. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

And, if you want to make sure that you never miss an announcement for a Burlington event related to digital/geeky stuff, see below:

 

[contact-form 10 “BTV Digirati”]

 

And if you’re even extra dedicated, follow the official #WAWBTV twitter account.

 

Chittenden County Vermont, a new audience snapshot

One of the things lost in all the chatter about “new media” is the audience. What about the people on the other end of all these social media, mobile branded experiences? Is the audience new? Do they behave any different? Continue reading “Chittenden County Vermont, a new audience snapshot”

Convergence is a fairy tale told by people who miss the good old days.

In January, in the midst of a blizzard, I moderated an afternoon of panels about innovation and technology in the real estate industry.

Due to the heavy snow, one of the speakers was unable to make it. That speaker’s topic was “Convergence.” This is one of my favorite topics so I gladly picked up the slack and gave this presentation.

Thanks to Inman News for allowing me to post this video. This was one half hour of an entire afternoon of great stuff. This was just one of three tracks of content going on at once. Eventually I’ll get around to posting more of it.

Here are the slides:

You might also enjoy the panel about online video which was part of this same afternoon.

Chittenden County Digital Census: Data submission request

Thoughtfaucet president/janitor Gahlord Dewald will be presenting a quick sketch of digital behavior at the Burlington Business Association’s “Marketing in the New Media World” event.

If you want your data aggregated into the census, please fill out the form below. In addition to helping to generate a clearer picture of online activity in Chittenden County, you will receive a custom Google Analytics dashboard that is focused on local traffic. You will like it very very much.

[contact-form 13 “Chittenden County Digital Census”]

Gahlord will be looking at a variety of online customer factors including social media traffic generated, mobile device usage and content engagement.

Whether you attend the event or not, you’ll get a copy of the report he makes from the data.

Possession technology

Possession technology
No, this doesn’t have to do with demons. Not the usual kind anyway. Possession technologies involve making data or content available only to people who possess a specific item or object
QR codes are an example of possession technology. In order to access the data or content a person must possess the object that has a QR code printed on it, or be reasonable close to the QR code.
RFID embedded in objects can also be possession technologies
Augmented reality glyphs are possession technologies which operate much like QR codes
As locative media devices, possession technologies fix a user’s location in relation to the possession object. For example, if a QR code is fixed to a wall then a user accessing that code is assumed to be reasonably close to the same wall.

Continue reading “Possession technology”

Interactive Media Reaches Out to the Real World – A Look into Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s TEDxTokyo Speech

Photo of Tetsuya Mizuguchi
Tetsuya Mizuguchi (photo by Nic Fillingham)

I recently watched Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s TEDxTokyo talk from May 21, 2011. His presentation had some great points that apply to not only the world of games, but the world in which we all live. Specifically, in one part of the video Tetsuya Mizuguchi touches on the topic of location based games. This is something Gahlord and I have been thinking and talking about lately.

Continue reading “Interactive Media Reaches Out to the Real World – A Look into Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s TEDxTokyo Speech”

“Social Web Geek” and “Influential Beyond Vermont”

Thoughtfaucet President/Janitor Gahlord Dewald was voted “Social Web Geek” and “Wider Influence” in the 2011 Burlington Social Media Day poll. The last time Dewald was this elated was when the entire city of Winooski started following him on Twitter. He promises not to let the awards go to his head.
Continue reading ““Social Web Geek” and “Influential Beyond Vermont””

The future belongs to the makers.

Cave Tasmania
Image by SplutterBug via Flickr

Today I was assigned a task by Thoughtfaucet apprentice Brett Chalupa to watch a video about Mojang, the company that makes the game Minecraft. Brett wanted to know what I thought was the most important thing in the video. This post is my response.

Change and control

The video contains a number of useful insights on business, team building and creative control. But the thing that kept coming back to me while watching and while reviewing and doing some light editing on the mindmap (which, if you’re in a hurry, you can find by scrolling to the bottom of this article) was the distinction between Continue reading “The future belongs to the makers.”