Chrome + (Facebook + Twitter) x Steroids = "The Social Web"

I just spent 23 minutes watching the future. Browsers were invented by guys like Marc Andreesson in the early ‘90s to make it easy for people to find websites. It is really the primary piece of software for most of today’s computer usage.

So, why isn’t it innovating? Why doesn’t my primary piece of software learn my habits? Why am I going to the same 8 or 10 websites everyday and looking for updates? Why is customization limited to my iGoogle landing page?

Why am I using archaic feeling things like 3-click or worse, cut-and-paste, RSS feeds? In fact, let’s talk about this… Robert Scoble and Seth Godin both love RSS feeds—the information you want is being served to you as soon as it is available with no need to search! So, why are only 4% of people using this service?

My answer is that it is not intuitive, it’s not simple. We want something that makes sense with how we use it and not worry about how we find it and set it up.

So, I signed up for the Beta version of RockMelt. It is built off of Chrome (my current most-used browser) and, in trying to quickly explain it to a co-worker I dubbed it "Google Chrome on Steroids." But it does some completely distinct things...

I’m not trying to sell RockMelt, so no product review, here, but I am pointing out that smart people are looking at how internet usage and web browsing have changed. And that can only mean good things. Making an experience around how we actually use a technology is the type of advancement that brings on widespread adoption. In Scoble’s interview with the guys at RockMelt they said they’re not worried about monetizing at this phase. Well, that’s because if they get this right, the money will come.

If it is simple and intuitive (Note: Microsoft discussed rebranding RSS to increase it's popularity) and actually helps me to have a better browser experience, I will use this new tool. And I will be back with a product review!

More on RockMelt is available here:

Social Networking Existed Before LinkedIn and Facebook

This Blog is a Repost from My New Blog Here. Go Here for the Original.

I love social media sites. I spend entirely too much time on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter... especially Twitter, but I want to establish a clear distinction between social media sites and social networking.

“Social Media” is the term that generally groups together websites where the majority of content is created by the users. Typically they use log-ins, account names and personal profiles to connect people and focus on the “interactive” elements that have been key to the web 2.0 progression. We think of sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. But "Social Networking" existed long before Web 2.0.

Mankind is a social animal with a long tradition of societal interdependence. Ashton Kutcher, the self-appointed champion of the Social Web, recently said:

“[H]uman beings are born not able to even sustain themselves, so at the end of the day, if you ultimately did something in your life that was great, you at least owe your mom.” –Ashton Kutcher from AK FTW, SKY Magazine, Feb. 2010.

Social Networking is the normal and timeless practice of making connections and helping people out. Using technology to facilitate these contacts makes it easier and more efficient, but just as in the past, "It’s not about the number of contacts you have; it’s how you use them."

Another great quote about the effectiveness of this new tool today and its potential in the future comes from one of the all time greats in peer-to-peer marketing, Seth Godin:

“Social media is either a time-wasting, wool-gathering, yak-shaving waste of effort or, perhaps, just maybe, it’s a crack in the wall between you and the rest of the world. It’s a choice” –Seth Godin

Make your choice. Use your tools wisely.

Who You Need to Run a Company

I have heard it too many times to even know if this needs sourced, but you need three things to run a successful company:

1. The Right People
2. Product(s)/Service(s) that Customers Want
3. Customers

Although all three are worthy of a blog post (and have been written about ad nauseum) I want to write my current ideas on the 1st one. Who are the Right People?

I believe that every company really needs people who fill these five roles:

• Idea Guy
• Legal Guy
• Numbers Guy
• Sales Guy
• Get Stuff Done Guy

Now, I don't believe these need to be five different guys (or even "guys" at all, so don't get hung up on the gender-specific pronoun, obviously these can be girls, too). What I DO believe is that these skill sets need to be represented in the company leadership or out-sourced to someone that can handle it competently. Here is what each role should be bringing to the table:

Idea Guy needs to have strategic long-term thinking. This would be a Marketing or Strategic Planning title at a big company. Someone with vision and lots of imagination. He sees opportunities in places that other people haven't even thought to look. When you're like, "What about an online video contest?" he's already saying "And they can call in on their mobile phones and vote for their favorites-- for $1.99 per call. Bam! Digital revenue stream."

Legal Guy needs to love the law. He gets fired up about reading contracts, licensing, intellectual property ins-and-outs and any print smaller than 10 point font. Legal documents, IP/patents, and law suits are a common part of business today, so someone at your company needs to love it. LOVE IT!

Numbers Guy should also be Spreadsheet Guy. He doesn't just like tables, charts and numbers, he has general ledgers printed on his bedsheets. This guy understands that money is making money even when it isn't creating revenue from assets. He does percentages and long-division in his head, can give your company's current cost per sale ratio in his sleep, and feels physical pleasure when the monthly account balances just right.

Sales Guy is your best friend and your worst enemy. He knows everyone and would rather be on the phone or in a meeting than working alone on his projects. Don't ask him to do paper work, just let him create relationships and get other people excited about what your company does. The people who are best at this are True Rainmakers, not salesman-types looking for a quick deal or taking advantage of customers.

Get Stuff Done Guy is the Executor. It needs done, he finds a way to get it done. He is to a Gantt Chart as a 13-year-old girl is to WhateverLife. Put him in charge of your projects, your staff or your whole company and he will make sure it all gets done within scope, on time and under budget. Do you need to have a presence at a trade show in Albuquerque in 3 days? Give it to this guy and get out of the way.

In this essay by Paul Graham, he refers to Good People as "Animals" and illustrates them as: "A salesperson who just won't take no for an answer; a hacker who will stay up till 4:00 AM rather than go to bed leaving code with a bug in it; a PR person who will cold-call New York Times reporters on their cell phones; a graphic designer who feels physical pain when something is two millimeters out of place."

I think he's on the right track. I would call these people Passionate, but that's because I'm a soft/squishy Idea Guy and not a hardline Sales Guy or a straight-shooting Numbers Guy.

Marketing and Passion

Yesterday a co-worker asked me how I became so passionate about marketing. The answer to the "How" question was rather boring: 4 years in undergrad, 2 masters programs, 5 years in corporate marketing with brands like Home Depot, Rubbermaid and Georgia-Pacific...

But the interesting answer is to the question he didn't ask: "Why am I so passionate about marketing?" Here is my answer to the unasked question:

- Because I love the psychology of buying; answering "Why do we purchase the things we do?" and "What makes this non-necessity item more desirable than another?"

- Because the symbols of the products and services we buy become more important than the Prod/Svcs themselves.

- Because "Consuming" is today's Socio-political Religion. Like the Ancient Greek, who identified a fellow worshipper of Athena by the image of an owl or an olive branch, today's Versace-wearer or Porsche-driver can quickly identify others of similar lifestyle and belief system.

- Because we are living in the era of the shift from Professional Advertising to Authentic Promoting. This excites me to no end. I have blogged before that consumers are no longer waiting around for Madison Avenue to identify the next must-have product, as they did four decades ago. Today, we each turn to our peers, to other people that we know and like--that we identify with--to gather opinions on the products that we choose to purchase.

Seth Godin said yesterday: "It's quite possible that the era of the professional reviewer is over. No longer can a single individual (except maybe Oprah) make a movie, a restaurant or a book into a hit or a dud. Not only can an influential blogger sell thousands of books, she can spread an idea that reaches others, influencing not just the reader, but the people who read that person's blog or tweets."

No Bastilles are being stormed and no shots will be fired, but there is a revolution occuring in the way and reason that we purchase and consume. Rather we are informed or not, rather we are proactive or not, we will all be a part of this. That is exciting. For me, that is something I can get passionate about.

What Brand Authenticity is Not

A magical lesson in Brand Authenticity was learned this week by Johnson & Johnson: You can't fake it. My takeaway from this weekend's Twitter-Fueled Motrin Massacre over the "We Feel Your Pain" Ad is that people know when you don't know anything about them. The ad is here. More on my thesis below.

My wife, an official "baby-wearing" mother and Assoc. Editor at Pregnancy & Newborn magazine, saw the ad and laughed. She thought it was not very sensitive and not very well presented, but she could appreciate what they were going for.

J&J is a huge company with decades of experience in marketing. They helped create the system of running campaigns in front of test audiences and focus groups, so what happened this time? As Seth Godin points out, they treated this ad different because it was viral. Companies look at ads differently for the web than they do for broadcast media. And they should, but they don't know why...

Another case-in-point, a company called Celebrity Smile is trying to use viral to attract potential customers to their website. They created a fake blog about a mother who Wants to Whiten her Teeth that is so coated with insincerity that it is an insult to the internet-using populace. Faking a blog to draw "word-of-mouth" traffic to your site is a fast way to destroy any trust that could have been engendered by the idea of a real blog. It's like copying off the dumb kid in class, you're cheating and you're still going to fail.

An example of a really bad answer on a test question. Funny, but wrong.

And, just for laughs, here is the (fictitious) List of Ideas that Motrin Ditched before Going with the Baby-Wearing Ad.
I'm cutting and pasting my favorite...

3. I’ve always been a staunch supporter of abstinence as a birth control method. Then, right after I decided to run for Vice-President, my 16-year old daughter told me she was pregnant. Motrin: We Feel Your Pain.

The trick with viral is you have to be SO in touch with your audience, you have to already have SO much "authenticity," that your customers hear your voice as their own voice. Your audience has to know that you get them, otherwise they will suspect that you are mocking them or worse, condescending and alienating them. A company with strong branding does NOT own its brand, instead it recognizes that its brand is the property of its customers.

Brands that have done this right: Nike Sports, Mac, Converse Shoes, Weezer, Target

Brands that have failed to do this: Hurley, Microsoft, New Coke, Southwest Airlines, and now, Motrin. Feel free to add your own examples...

McMonopoly: "I'm Losin' It"

For those of you without your McCalendars handy, we are in Week 3 of the 2008 McDonald's Monopoly game. (If you don't know what this is about, you can educate yourself on the topic on your own time using the greatest reference known to man, wikipedia.org, then come back here and read the rest.)

For many of us Die-Hard monopoly fans (I use the 1st person plural, here) this is an exciting annual event where a classic American board game involving fake money and dumb luck is paired with the international icon of American sloth and gluttony. And big macs.

The biggest difference in McOpoly this year (that's mine, by the way, I just made it up but I am registering it as soon as I finish typing this) is that you can not only play it with the old-school paper tear-off "game pieces" tabby-things, you can also play online! Well, that and the grand prize is reduced from $5 million to a $1 million annuity paid out over 20 years, which, using the present value of an annuity formula:

PVoa = PMT [(1 - (1 / (1 + i)n)) / i]

We can determine to be, approximately, something much less than $1 million dollars. (Do your own math, I'm busy.)

All that being said, I am on my 24th consecutive day of eating only McDonald's food -but not just any food- you see, they've tied the tear-off paper pieces ONLY to what he wants you to buy, Big Mac, Large Fries, Large Coke, that kind of stuff. "He" being the clown, of course.

At any rate, I did a little searching to see why I haven't won yet, and I learned this bit of interesting knowledge: my odds of winning are actually “approximately 1 in 184,698,474,” To give that any sort of comparison, the oft-quoted odds of getting struck by lightning are 1 in 244,000. So, I am actually 75 and a half times MORE likely to get struck by lightning than to win the million dollar McOpoly® prize.

You see, the little paper bits are rigged. There's nothing random about it. They're all distributed "randomly" except for 1 piece of each set, the most famous being Boardwalk, of which there are 3. In the world. And don't fool yourself by thinking, Well, I can still win the online prize. That's rigged, too!

The same properties you can't win in "Real Life," namely the last property in each set listed alphabetically and Boardwalk, you can't win online. The code you put in on each paper bit to roll the virtual dice determines where you can land. The Clown has successfully taken all of the fun out of the fake money and dumb luck game that so many Americans have cherished.

In summary, with the 2008 McOpoly® Game, the only Real Winners are the people that did not realize the Game was happening, Collected no game pieces, did not pass Go, and did not endure the ultimate price of contest entry- 1 month of eating reheated burgers and greasy fries.
--Shawn Butler

Oh, and the attribution for the awesome McSticker above is that superhero of the blogosphere, Steve Sneeds. The equally awesome McJoker image is from a post on HALOLZ.com.

Shawn's Bail-Out Plan

Everybody's getting in on it! Bernanke has a plan. Paulson has a plan. McCain has a plan. Obama is working on a plan. Bush... well, I just hope Bush is working on anything. Ryan Peeler has a brilliant plan that will both inject the economy with cash and determine the next president.

Even those Libertarian Madison Avenue-types are getting onboard the Bail-Out planning bus, albeit for different reasons:
But don't worry, even ACTUAL recession won't reduce the Ad Industry's precious consumer spending, let alone RUMORS of recession.

Remember that spike 9 days ago when your mutual fund bounced back and things didn't look so bad? What the NYTimes reported as "the stock market soar[ing] last week on rumors that there would be a bailout." RUMORS, people. Stay with me, here.

And this morning, Goldman shares jumped back towards their pre-Lehman Brothers price just on rumors of Warren Buffet's $5 billion or $10 billion dollar investment. Again, RUMORS.

So JEC Chairman Chuck Schumer (Sen. D-NY) says "Americans are furious" about the price tag on the current plan for bail-out. The people are getting angry--furious--but absolutely nothing has been done, yet. So far it's just talk. Just RUMORS that things are going bad, RUMORS that things are going to get worse.

So, if the largest obstacle to approving the bail-out is the price tag and the strongest force on the US economy today is the rumor mill, I propose a 100% Free Plan to bolster the economy, save the struggling markets and stimulate America's move back to a happy, ignorant, credit-based, stable financial economy.

We need to start the rumor that everything is going great. I recommend it start with a speech from the White House-- George Bush puts one arm around McCain and another around Obama and he tells the cameras that "They'd miscalculated. Bernanke did his math wrong. Everything's good. Going great."

Then we shoot this via satellites and internet, and of course, YouTube, over to Europe and Asia and they hear that the US economy is fine, that the "crisis" was just a "bank error," and it renews the confidence of global financial markets who are quick to swoop up the deals of the weakened dollar, buying more Converse shoes and Michelin tires.

Finally, I suggest we get some people on megaphones to stand around on Wall Street and read government reports on how much more ethanol fuel we produced, how many more pairs of boots, and how much higher our standard of living is compared to years past. We could put a few Squeelers right on the steps of the Capitol building. Just to remind everybody that times are good and that you're not really in as much debt as you think you are.

Either that, or admit that the threat of recession and the entire subprime mortgage crisis was a trick to get Sen. McCain out of Friday night's debate with Sen. Obama.

But more importantly: The Browns are gonna go with Anderson again this week. Anderson! Let's just say we're a country that loves a losing streak.

Globalization's Patent Medicine

Translation Services are today’s Snake Oil and Magic Dust. I have just completed an over 15-hour translation project turning this company's over 75 product descriptions from English into the material for a Spanish/Latin America Catalog. About half of that time was spent with a Native-speaker who is also an industry-insider. At the completion of our translation, I still feel like there may be some confusing descriptions, but at least I've straightened out my terms for "pan" and "tray." You see, the trick in translating Industry-Specific terms, is that even when you have an exactly-right literal translation, it can still be utter nonsense to your expert readers.

So, a Translation Service offers translation into German and is doing the same translation that I just completed, but has no industry experience. She says she has access to an engineer that she uses as a resource to improve the accuracy of her translating. She states that it took 7 hours for the first 2 pages of the document (out of 8 total) and claims it will take 40 to 50 hours to complete the translation. There is no reason given for this time estimate. We pay by the hour.

We have no way of checking that the translation she has provided so far is correct or of verifying that it has taken her as long as she claims. Essentially, our options are:
1) to allow her as much time as she estimates and pay her as much as she requests,
2) to bargain and negotiate based solely on my experience that the Spanish took 1/5 the time she is estimating (and still no guarantee that she is providing usable translation),
3) to find another source that is somehow verifiable and perhaps works faster/cheaper.

She has us at her mercy. Basically, we are going to take whatever she gives us, and we are going to pay her whatever she asks. It's Doc Terminus' Magic Dragon Elixir. The only way to test it is to try it. And if we get back pages full of German words, we have to go ahead and pay her. If only we had someone that knew our industry and was fluent in German?

In October we are going to begin sales into France. We don't speak that language either...

How to Get a Job

Unemployment is currently at a 4 year high in the US. As one of the 8.8 million Americans looking for jobs, I offer tried-and-true advice for job searching.

First, don’t get discouraged. People have been finding employment for 6,000 years. The key is to keep believing in yourself so that other people will feel that they have a reason to believe in you; other people like: your family, your friends, and your network of potential referrals, in addition to your future company. Also, remember that sometimes, the option is not to find another “job,” but to find a new source of generating income.

Facts:
40% of positions are created. Decision makers meet you and want your skills because they are convinced that hiring you will help them make money.
90% of management positions come through networking. How do you create a network? Use the tools that are available. It is embarrassing, but let people around you know that you are looking for a new job. Use friends, family, church, and social connections, and also the internet.

Networking:
Everybody uses this word and we keep saying that you should build one. What nobody tells you is that you should TARGET your networks. Making good friends with just ANYBODY has a much lower chance of revealing a quality connection. Instead, create a network that focuses on your industry or on the specific companies you want to work for: talk to people that know those companies or join groups specific to your industry.

Questions:
All of that requires answering some fundamental questions that will focus your search:
-Are you employed? If not, what have you liked most about your past positions? If you are employed, why are you seeking a new position?
-What type and level of position are you seeking, and with what compensation?
-How are you valuable to a company that is trying to fill that position? And How can you make yourself more valuable in that position?
-What people do you know that could teach you more or help you get to this position?
-What are you willing to do to make this happen?

Timing:
How Long Will it Take? The answer is "NOT FOREVER." I mean, nobody has ever searched for a job for forever. It really depends on how hard you work and how much time you are investing. Job seeking firms recommend 20 to 40 minutes a day. I would double that and then qualify it: You should spend 20 to 40 minutes two times a day, once in the early morning when you’re clearest and then again at lunch hour or at business close. So, 80 minutes spread across the day of focused time should be dedicated to your job search. But here is the qualifier:

“focused” time means you’re writing letters to an individual

or you’re on the phone making calls!

That is the business of “Getting a Job.”

The rest of your activities, such as researching companies and finding names and addresses to send your letters to, are done with your personal time. Think of it this way, if you had a job, you would spend 40 or more hours doing that job. But on the job, you still are expected to put in time at meetings, fill out forms, file paperwork, etc. The point is, perhaps only about ¼ of your work day is spent “adding to the bottom line.” The other 6 hours are preparing you to really shine when you get down to business. Proportion your job search in a similar way. --Shawn Butler

The Job Search: Lessons from Booksellers

What You Can Learn about Job Searching from the Publishing Industry

When you are job searching, it's easy to get caught up in the process and overlook the big picture. So, let’s look at the way YOU will look to your future empoyer by examining the old adage

YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.

“The bookstore browser averages less than eight seconds looking at the front cover and fifteen seconds reading the back cover. You must hook them immediately and keep them reading the back cover or they will put the book back on the shelf.” [1]

The 5th “P” of marketing is “Packaging.” How’s your Appearance? In our society where book covers are the #1 indicator of book sales, you cannot overlook the importance of your own packaging. A career change is the perfect reason to go out and spend some money on a nice haircut and updated professional clothes. Get a good night’s sleep. Use your free time to exercise and eat well. Just because you're Job Searching is no reason to LOOK unemployed! If you feel good about your appearance, then others will see that you have poise, confidence, and value.

“Book publishers spend more than $50 billion on product packaging design. $50 billion, not for the products or even for the wrappers, but $50 billion just for the design of the wrapper.”[1]

What is your wrapper? Or what is the first thing that an employer will see about you that will formulate his decision to Buy or Keep Browsing. A key part of your wrapper is your Resume. Update it with all new things. Don’t just add your most recent position; update your skills, recognitions, awards and accomplishments. Add any new groups you’ve joined. No new groups to add? Quick, go out and join a group. I mean, you’ve got some free time right now, huh? Then, add it to your resume. Also, breeze back over the years of experience you’ve had and do some re-write to touch up those tired histories through the lens of your greater life experience. Add or update your value statement and 2 key accomplishments right up at the top under your name and contact info, like the headline of a newspaper:

Extra! Extra!

Here’s why you should read about this guy.

Remember, this is your leave behind, so in most cases, may be the last thing a potential employer sees. Make sure it gets them excited about what you can do for them.

With your packaging covered, it’s time to get started. Create your list of contacts and your list of companies you’re interested in. These are organic lists, which means they WILL keep changing! Each contact has a network that they can lead you to, the goal is to get the names of decision makers, their titles and their business addresses. Then you’re going to write them a letter. Not an email. Write them a letter.

The letter should say:
I’m this guy, I know this person that you also know. I am interested in your company because … (“It is the top performer in the industry”, “It fits my values and interests,” stuff like that. Just communicate that you know the company.) You’d be interested to know that in my past, I have done these things and would like to help your company do these things. Please feel free to reach me by phone or email at your convenience. Or, I will call your office on this day.

Really, write that stuff? Yes. Employers get upwards of 125 emails a day. They read about 20%. They also return about 20% of phone calls. The question you are answering for them is this:

“How Determined are You to Get This Job?”

Ready for the key secret to this process? Make the Call! Writing the letter already set you apart from every other person that just hit “Apply” on monster.com. Now, when you said you would call about 4 days after you send the letter, you MUST pick up the phone and make the call. Call early in the morning (Before 8:30 or 9:30). Call again at lunch time. Call again after work hours. This way you have a better chance of getting someone who is not the professional Gatekeeper. Or perhaps even getting the person you’re looking for! Be prepared to leave a professional message.

“Hi, I’m this guy. I sent you a letter regarding my interest in coming to work for your company. I think you would be excited to hear how I could help (company’s name).”

If you get the gatekeeper, you can simply say: “I’m calling for whoever.” And when they ask what it is regarding, you can say: “I am following up on a correspondence he and I had last week.” Or even, on a good day, “He’s expecting my call.” Sales people use this technique all the time. Warning: don’t make the Gatekeeper think you’re a salesperson!

So When Do I Use Email?
Emailing your resume is your closing tool. It is your leave behind. You did not include it in your first letter, therefore, it is important that after you have talked on the phone to the person and they have requested your resume, that you get their email address. Ask them if they would like you to include references, and then tell them that you will email it to them. And then of course, you follow through with that . --Shawn Butler
[1] http://www.parapublishing.com/files/articles/ArticleAB-202CoversSellBooks.pdf

A Small World

This is a quick interim blog just to keep up a with the world from here in Paris. My daughter and I celebrated our birthdays last month in our own pseudo-European style, inviting about 15 people over for a party and birthday crêpes.

asmallworld.netshawn butler

After 5 weeks in France, I've decided that I'm pretty much exactly the kind of person that should be doing the Euro scene. To prove that I am now a jet-setting elitist, I am joining the exclusive group at aSmallWorld dot net, where I will be rubbing "virtual elbows" with supermodels and James Blunt. See you when you get there... shawnpbutler@gmail.com

Great News, Fellow MBA Students

I don't know about you, but I loved the Report in the Wall Street Journal last week. Loved it! It is great news for anyone else starting their MBA this fall!

WSJ Monday, Sept. 17, 2007
The New Battle for M.B.A. Grads
“As the competition gets more intense, recruiting companies get more creative.”

THE HEAT IS ON for corporate recruiters. With demand growing for M.B.A. graduates, it is a seller’s market out there, making it tough for many companies to meet hiring quotas using old tried-and-true recruiting methods. At a time when career opportunities are so plentiful that students can afford to turn down even six-figure offers from investment banks, it is especially difficult for traditional manufacturers to make an impression.

So to improve their odds, recruiters are visiting business schools earlier and more often, raising starting salaries and touting their company’s dedication to work-family balance.

What’s more, some also are breaking from the traditional routine of on-campus presentations and cocktail receptions and trying something new: virtual recruiting. They are mining for résumés online, arranging video interviews and using instant messaging to cast a wider net and connect more effectively with today’s tech-savvy students.

“M.B.A. recruiting is a dinosaur,” says Greg Ruf, chief executive officer of MBA Focus, a consulting firm that promotes an online résumé database to corporate recruiters. “To be successful in the future, recruiters will need a different skill set. Rather than being event planners who are transaction-oriented, they’ll need to become more adept and comfortable with technology and the online world.”

(the rest of the Article is Available here.)

The article goes on to talk about how Bigger Money, Fliexible Schedules, and Choice of Location are being included to entice young MBAs, often before they've even begun their programs. Um... that's me. School starts in 2 weeks and I am officially already looking for my Internship. The Wall Street Journal also went on to give its annual list of top MBA programs. And just Look Who is Number 1 on the Regional Rankings... Go Cougs! --Shawn Butler

I <3 New York City

New York City gets a bad reputation. As the most filmed city in the world, it is no wonder that I had many preconceived notions about NYC. Many of them were true. It is bigger, taller, and even more fast-paced than I had anticipated. I had blisters on my feet by the end of day 2. But I also had been lead to believe that this city was full of rude, selfish, busy and impatient people.

I want to say that this couldn't be further from the truth. I travelled the streets of NYC with my wife and our 4-month-old baby. We usually carried with us two bags and a stroller. On the way from the airport and back, we carried all this, plus two suitcases. At every leg of our trip, from the Q33 Bus at the airport to the Q Train to Central Park, without even asking, we had kind people offering us information and helping hands. These complete strangers offered to carry bags for us, to hold doors for us, and even to call elevators for us.

I came to expect that if I looked puzzled in front of the subway map for long enough, someone nearby would ask where we were trying to get to. And when I answered, as often as not, someone completely different offered up the route to get us there. I loved one experience where two separate groups were debating the best route to get us from 53rd and Lexington up to Lincoln Center. When people helped us with our bags or held doors for us, I would respond to their kindness in the way I had seen in movies: I pulled a couple dollars from my wallet. In every case, every case! it was refused with a shake of the head or a wave of the hand.

I want to say thank you to the countless helpful and friendly people of NYC for their kindness and altruistic service. You have conquered forever the unfortunate stereotype of your city. Well, I can't speak for any of the other boroughs, but, we loved the experience we had with the generous people of Manhattan, NYC. --Shawn Butler

Mitt Is It! Romney for President 2008

This Man Has the Ability to Lead America Out of the Slump Created by the Last Four Presidential Terms.

America needs a President that we can look up to. The World needs an American President that is leading the global community in intellect, integrity, and mutual respect. Romney brings back to the White House traditional American values, confident integrity, solid morals, and a platform that understands America's needs. He plans to execute an effective foreign policy that will end the "War" in the only way it can end, a decisive American victory and the long-term stabilization of a local government in Iraq.

I am tired of being embarrassed for the policies, demeanor, and scandals of our nation's leader. I am hard-pressed to understand why anyone would cast their vote for more of the same policies, demeanor, and scandals that we have endured over the past 7 years embodied in the other major candidates in both parties with exception of Obama, from whom I am not sure what to expect. But that is my issue with him, he has no record from which to extrapolate a "what to expect".

If you agree with Mitt Romney's ideas for America, and like me, are tired of suffering humiliation in the global community for our elected leader, then join Mitt on his website MittRomney.com and let him know that you believe in him.

Or you should buckle up and look forward to four more years of this:

Encyclopedia of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Now I'm ALL about Ambition. Biting off more than one can chew is just one of the many pleasures of this thing we call "Sentient Existence," but this guy is just abusing the privilege.

Edward Osborne Wilson is an American Scientist, a myrmecologist to be exact, who has a lofty goal. He grew up in Mobile, Alabama, earned his Eagle Scout award, and loved watching ants. Nothing spectacular, except that he earned his Ph.D. in "Ant Studies" from Harvard.

And so we see that the User Contributed Content of the Wiki-Economic Age has a new catalyst. Dr. Wilson is proposing to harness Web 2.0 to accomplish the online cataloging of the earth's known species. 1.8 million of them, to be precise. And still counting. I wish him well, but am reminded that I have not yet finished the job of cataloging products for Medline Apparel, and they only have 100,000 "species." Hmmm... Maybe I can open source this one. Anyone interested in the Collaborative Authoring of a Healthcare Pamphlet, let me know.



For More Info on This, You've Got to Check Out the Shear Scope of this Project: Click this for his website's demo pages Or simply wander your way over to the homepage http://www.eol.org

There is an additional 24 minute YouTube Clip of him discussing his vision at the award ceremony for Technology Entertainment Design, but I am all about short-attention span news postings. So you'll have to click to that place by yourself. Here's the link, though. E.O. Wilson Accepts his 2007 TED Prize
You're welcome. --Shawn Butler

A Hi-Tech, Effective Networking Tool

I found something cool. This is a site that uses the "Internet" to create "Social Networks" for getting hired into jobs by "Knowing Somebody."

http://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnbutler

It is not "Truly" knowing anybody, like an "Old-Fashioned Network," but it is really close and it's "Free." Once I "Logged On," it asked me if I had anyone I'd "Like to Invite," so I just let it mail from my "Outlook Address Book." It turned out that several of my "Friends" were already on the site.

Then, I went under jobs and it tells me if people that I "Know," or people they "Know," work at the companies I'm "Interested In" and could "Answer My Questions" or "Help Me Get the Job." Cool, huh?

It seems like the idea I was looking for. I'll give it a try for the week and see if it gets me anywhere.

ALSO, if you're already on LinkedIn, add me, I have 6 contacts and I feel somewhat pathetic. Like when I first started MySpace and had 3 friends for months! ha ha