In case you were wondering ifwhen I’d be introducing Cooper to podcasting, you can stop waiting.
Big thanks go out to Steve Borsch for the Photoshop work and to Julio Ojeda-Zapata for sharing it with the world.
Month: November 2005
Friday, 11 November 2005
IBM Employee Podcasting Guidelines
In an age when every employee and customer is a few mouse clicks from their own weblog and podcast and Forbes is spreading blog FUD it’s refreshing to see Big Blue is not only publishing podcasts, but encouraging their employees to do the same.
As a nearly hundred year-old company that no one ever got fired for choosing, you might anticipate a hundred page document signed off by every lawyer this side of the Mississippi. Nope. Just seven very reasonable, sensible points in the IBM podcasting guidelines.
I agree with 6.5 of them.
I only half agree with high audio quality. As you’ve heard me say before – if we as people were concerned with high audio quality, telephones wouldn’t exist. That said, higher quality audio quality is easier to listen to over the wind noise in my car. There is a different expected level of quality with the IBM-brand than say, MOMbo.org. IBM is admitting that.
Kudos to IBM for leading the charge for sane employee guidelines.
Wednesday, 9 November 2005
Amazing Race 8 – Episode 7
Looks like the Detour is painting wheels or hauling bamboo (needless to say, I’m not paying as close attention as other weeks). Loading bamboo seems much less tedious than painting wooden wheels.
We’ve watched enough Amazing Race to know the game is won and lost at the airport – finding the right seat on the right flight. As we saw tonight the earliest departing flight doesn’t always arrive first. My favorites – the Lintz Family – caught a flight arriving in Phoenix at 9:35. Everyone else, found a different flight leaving later, but arriving 15 minutes earlier.
Now if you’ve flown at all – you know 15 minutes doesn’t really matter- especially when you have an unfriendly, sour puss attitude towards the people between you and a million dollars. In the Amazing Race, 15 minutes is lost searching for your marked car in the parking lot.
Jen’s taking the 50 laps in the SuperCart.
If you’ve watched enough Amazing Race, you notice how the teams develop cute, patronizing nicknames for each other – like; “ChaChaCha”, “Team Smiley”, and oddly in this season – “Desperate Housewives”. Since the team was in the lead on this leg, that phrase must have been stated a dozen times this episode.
Yes, it’s cool that iTunes is offering next-day downloads of the hit ABC series. It’s even more interesting that CBS is doing free advertising for them on their hit series.
Wow, a 2-hour episode, I really didn’t expect that. Um, just dawned on me – the ‘pause-live-tv’ of Tivo was made for parents. I’m sure all of you already knew that.
360 in a combat fighter plane? I’ve got this one. I need to see how useful my hours of Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Training were.
Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:
- Lintz – #2
Tuesday, 8 November 2005
Say Hi to Cooper Roland Van Buren
Yes, as of 00:55 Nov 7 2005, yours truly is a officially a father.
Light blogging ahead all across the gFeed universe.
Well, everywhere except for Cooper’s Photo blog.
10 fingers, 10 toes, eyes like black olives, and just a tinge of strawberry blonde hair.
Tuesday’s Triple Play – The Robots We Love and Hate
Sony’s dog is just the first step in machines taking over – via our hearts. This week’s triple play is dedicated the androids so near to us me must destroy them.
- “Small Wonder” from the Vandals’ Fear of a Punk Planet
- “Todd the T1000” from Jonathan Coulton’s Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms
- “My Girlfriend’s a Robot” from the Hanson Brothers’ Gross Misconduct
Thursday, 3 November 2005
Power of Podcasting #4 – Thats a Scion – Maybe Kris is in Town
As you know, I’m a big fan of Kris and Betsy’s Croncast. A while back, Kris bought a Scion xB. In a recent episode, Betsy commented how the car fits Kris. How it’s the right car for him and who he is. It’s still a unique enough vehicle round these parts that I notice each one. Every time I see one, I think of Kris. So, yes, Betsy, I agree.
Moose and Sadies Almost Best Coffee Shop in Warehouse District
A couple years back I spent a good chunk of time in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District. Aside from convenience (it’s right between downtown and NE) it’s got a nice comfortable, creative vibe to it. Unfortunately, there’s not a hands down winner for a good cup of coffee.
If you prefer coffee mixed with single speed bikes – the Go Coffee inside the 1 on 1 bike studio has free wifi, great service, great people, and decent espresso.
If you’re looking for a quieter place with plush seats and perhaps a glass of wine instead of their on average coffee, then walk across the street to Marysburg Books.
Then, a block north, there’s Moose and Sadies. My memories of it are dark, cave of a place emanating 50 years of cigarette smoke and stale pastries. When I needed a hit of second-hand smoke, I’d pop in there.
Not anymore.
They’ve completely remodeled the place. Today, it’s bright, sunny, place that’s easy to move around, with a good looking breakfast menu. I was stunned. Impressed. Amazed at the transformation. The coffee even tastes better. Still not free wifi though.
UPDATE 28 Friday 2006:
There’s a Dunn Bros in that neighborhood now – 228 Washington Ave North specifically. So, the race for best coffee shop is fully on.
Wednesday, 2 November 2005
Podcasting with iLife and DotMac at Apple Store Roseville
Sorry for the late notice – if you’re looking for something to do tonight and want to learn about podcasting – specifically with iLife (Garage Band, iTunes, iPhoto) and .Mac – pop up to the Apple Store in Roseville by 6pm tonight (Nov 2nd) and you can get a demo from me.
Who Listens If Everyones Podcasting?
Local NBC affiliate KARE11 came by this morning to talk podcasting and we continued the ‘who’s the audience when everyone publishes?’ conversation.
I don’t think this is a question about too much stuff to pay attention to, it’s a question about ownership of the publication process.
Traditionally, recording companies, television stations, newspaper publishers had an iron grip on the voices that were published. Their whims determined which perspectives received airtime and column inches. They kept the amount of information published down to what their capacity could support – an no more. They were gatekeepers not filters.
I’d much rather have the problem of too much to choose from than gatekeepers preventing things from being published.
Our Memories Are Poor, Measure in Context
“It isn’t as astonishing the number of things I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren’t so” – Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 1912
This Sunday, the Vikings are playing the Lions. I’m confident they’ll be keeping score throughout the game. Yard by yard, play by play. Rather than having the refs remember who played better and declaring an arbitrary score on Monday morning,
There’s a huge, often un-acknowledged difference between what people say they do and what they do. This delta widens with time. If you’re looking for accuracy – metrics need to be captured in context. If you’re looking for fiction – then making up what someone did two days ago is as valuable as asking them to remember (making it up just might be more interesting).
PodcastAlley, Podcasts.Yahoo.com, and a number of the other podcast directories offer ranking and voting for “your favorite podcast”. There are three problems with this;
- The metrics at different sites don’t know about each other – diluting the value of each of them. For example, what does it mean to be #8 at PodcastAlley and simultaneously #23 at Podcasts.Yahoo.com?
- All these systems rank unrelated podcasts against each other – just like Arbitron or Nielsen Ratings. The only people interested in how, for example, meatloaf ranks higher than lawn mowers are advertisers. This ranking doesn’t help the listeners’ enjoyment or the producers improve (in fact it could be detrimental to both).
- I still have to remember to vote, at one site or multiple (just like Arbitron). The action of voting and ranking is separate from listening, so I don’t.
I’ll let Mark Ramsey wrap this one up for us:
“If we want the advertising community to place any credence whatsoever in our measurements, then we are obliged to use measurement methodology which inspires credence.”