*Everybody clap your hands*

Is from the devil.

It's true.

Otherwise 80,000 people wouldn't go insane for it.

Why not local Gatorade commercials?

gatorade does great commercials, and at the stadium they sound great and almost get fans fired up. But they need to localize the ads. Show DC athletes at a Redskins game!

Improving Google Voice - Let me control the number of rings

 

I had a Grand Central account for a while before it became Google Voice. I have no major complaints it has worked well as a number I can give out to various contacts so they can more readily contact me. This has been and continues to be an issue for me since I have Federal government clients. There are lots of rules about where I can and can't take my cellphone (especially since it has a camera).

I'm attempting to use it for all my business contacts so I can control more readily who has access to me. And one enhancement to the service I'd like to see is the ability to control the number of rings a call goes through at my various numbers. During business hours I may only want my cell phone to ring 3 times, as the odds are I don't have access to it (for a variety of reasons, such is my life). Instead of their standard number of rings, I KNOW I need a faster ring rule at that time of day. So why not let me control that?

I love this picture

From an article about George Mason students who are using open source imagery to map out the North Korean infrastructure. Which includes a water slide from Kim Jong Il.

Trend - Construction materials are declining in cost

I'll be doing several recurring posts here with some snippets from a deliverable I produced for a client. They are a federal government client, who run the facilities for that organization. They asked me to look into some trends affecting the facilities world.

Trend #1 -

The economy will bottom out, potentially Fall 2009, but not boom thereafter. There will be continued real estate challenges for both the construction industry and individuals. The defined end of the recession will also not immediately result in jobs growth, which could be delayed up to a year and a half later. As a result of these economic issues, there has been a one-year 8.92% decrease from the Summer 2008 peak (Turner Building Cost Index).

Questions for the client -

• Have we seen the corresponding price reductions in construction costs?
  
• Do our cost estimate models reflect this?
  
• Can we lock in existing materials rates for a long-term period?

Why can't I import contacts in delicious? Why isn't this standard for any social networking site??

I haven't figured this one out yet - if you are running a social networking site, why do you make it HARD for people to expand their network?

Why are any social networking sites still making people manually enter connections? Why are you making me search for my connections? Just let me upload my contact lists, and select people who I know. I don't get this.

Delicious says this is a "top priority", or it was back in September of 2008.

"Network effect" theory alone says this is as bass ackward as you can get.

There is some catchy phrase people use for things like this. What is it? Hmmmm. When a social networking site makes it hard for you to create your social network...

Oh yes - FAIL!!!



(Image by AJC1)

How do I know how *noisy* I am?

Not in person, online. Especially on Twitter and FriendFeed.

I've gotten three total responses to things I've posted on FriendFeed. Ever.

I rarely if ever get any replies on Twitter. And never have gotten a Direct Message.

Clearly I'm not a big and important person. My blog is lucky to get 50 hits in a day. My most popular post is a hack item on the most popular dog breeds. Though I was once referenced by Sports Illustrated, though I can't even find their linking to me.

I think the answer that Scoble would give is: Noisy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barelyfitz/ / CC BY 2.0

Do you do career planning?

I find that most people don’t, or if they do it is more off the top of their head loose planning.

But it is something almost any moderate sized organization will require. At my previous employer (a Fortune 100 company) it was absolutely mandated/required, and they provided an extensive web application to do the planning in. It also tied into our yearly performance planning and appraisal systems.


Now that I'm at a small company, that falls mostly to myself. We have those types of discussions, and as a consultant it does come into play with every new project assignment.

What types of things do you consider when considering your career plans? What are you looking for out of your career?

For one, I think a lot of people don't think of themselves as being able to even consider career planning factors. I think in this economy they are focused on keeping their current jobs. I would assume many of my friends fit this mold.

Second, I think a lot of people have NO CLUE that they should be doing this. They are more than willing to hop from job to job. I have several friends who seem to fit this mold, and I would bet a lot of co-workers as well.

For me? I consider these things, I try to plan out a loose map, but know I am not doing it well. Why? Because I don't have an end goal, and so far I have found that I am at least making progress. I have learned enough that I can stick with a small business, I could go back to a large one and execute, or could eventually start my own company if I felt that was the right way to go.



Picture by thecareersgroup

Nick Johnson for fins