A reflection

I attended a few social media events recently in Boston and as always it was great seeing people I had not seen in awhile. For people wondering, I have deleted plancast and foursquare so if I run into you at an event it will be a surprise. I like that. The mystery of running into someone rather then just knowing they are present because my phone says so. I like talking to people, interacting, listening to what they have to say, seeing if I can help them somehow.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.
I think the gadgets are starting to take over, and that many of the people using them have lost social skills at their expense. Do you remember when you called your friends and said what are you doing? 
I turned 50 last friday and had a wonderful birthday with my Lady Karen. We stayed down near Fanuiel hall and had dinner in the South end. It was a great day of reflection and being present, enjoying one anothers company, and being in the moment. I am so greatful I have found a woman so beautiful, so wonderfully grounded that I miss her madly when she is not present.
For me personally,  losing some of the tools has allowed me more time to focus on work, friends and family. I still have work to do, but I think I am headed in the right direction finally.
What grounds you these days? 

Why I dumped 4 square

I’m older I have kids a real life and I think letting others know I am not home is fundamentally unsound. If I was better organized I’d rob all your homes while you are at SXSW later this year. many of you plancasted that in September. I plan to not worry where others are in 2011 and worry more about things that really matter to me most. Sorry in advance, but if we are really friends this too shall pass. I should also say that I am interested in what it is your are doing, how life is treating you, and if I can be a better friend and helpful somehow. At midnight on New Years Eve I will checkin off the grid indefinitely.

Happy New Year 2011

I promise to work smarter in 2010, less apps is more.

In 2009, I found myself in constant learning mode. I learned lots more about social media, what works, what doesn’t and what I can use. I also learned about iPhone applications that work, don’t work and the ones I plan to use going forward. I promise to work smarter in 2010 and put iPhone and cool toy blinders on. I figure I cost myself thousands of dollars figuring out new apps when I should have been worrying more about being more profitable.

I have weeded out quite a few applications on the iPhone and I will share my thoughts this is a blog after all.

I will use TweetDeck for twitter on my laptop computer and iPhone. I like it, it can handle 2 accounts on twitter, does facebook and now also LinkedIn as well. As I personally transition to whatever is next in my professional life, I may need a few twitter accounts to pull it off with and with TweetDeck I think I am covered.

I plan to use Posterous. I plan on using it to post pictures and short blurbs too big for twitter but too small to blog. @chrisbrogan used it very effectively until he abandoned all logic and dumped his iPhone and went with an android and Pixelpipe . I give Chris credit however, I cannot for the life of me figure out Pixelpipe, and in keeping with work smarter not harder I pick Posterous.

I am torn between Qik and Ustream for mobile lives treaming of iPhone video partially because both are so new and both need work to make the video streaming better. I cannot therefore make a clear choice between apples and um apples. Maybe Livestream will blow them both away. Until then I will keep both and hope one improves greatly and makes my choosing easier.

I will stick with Foursquare over Gawalla or odwalla or whatever its called. @JoselinMane said to me early in April 2009 that foursquare had too many bugs in it to catch on. It did at the time. I was then using loopt on iphone. Anyone remember that program now? I blame @stevegarfield for my foursquare addiction thanks Steve.

For videos under 10 minutes I will use YouTube, for those over 10 minutes I will use Vimeo. Vimeo has great quality video, a good price point, and good analytics.

I chose Delicious over Stumble upon. I did not think I needed two bookmarking sites. Both are really good bookmarking sites that share the sites you like with others. You can bookmark an article, a blog or website that way and tell others easily.

I added Digg for news. I still have not figured out the blog RSS reader thing but hope to do so in 2010 (time permitting of course)

Other apps I deleted this year. I got rid of Tumblr, it was a good application and app on iPhone but I never used it. Another deletion was Joost, again nice application and iphone app but I just did not use it. Going is a good email about whats going on in Boston but was only a so so IPhone app again just my opinion. Boxee is another program I jettisoned. I was just able to figure out the install for mac TV when the Mac TV upgrade deleted it. Bye Bye Boxee…

I use Yelp and the application Around me to find stuff like restaurants when traveling. I will use around me first then see what people have yelped about it.

I also use the IPhone linkedin application at social media events, and other social events. Mike Damphouse at green leads @damphoux taught me that trick early on in 2009 and it helps you research who you are talking with. Knowing who your audience is certainly helps.

Anyway, I better get back to work I have already wrote too long a blog here and I have some accounting to do, some more wordpress blog to figure out oh joy. I am also working on my new book “Be Seen with trust agents crushing it” . jk

Have a very safe and happy new year.

Four Square 5 minutes of my life I just took back

I am all for keeping in touch with friends as much as possible, but there has to be a cutoff point before you split the atom too finely. The cutoff point for me is Foursquare. Steve Garfield introduced this to me inadvertently and initially I was intrigued.

I guess if you still aspire to go out and drink at cool bars and clubs the novelty of this app and platform might never wear off. If you are a business person however you might want to grab back those few minutes when you need them most.

I joined Four Square and quickly became mayor of the Hynes convention Center and my office here at Brilliant Video Productions. I was at the Hynes for seven days strait so thats not such a stretch.

I see lots of my friends using it to show where they are drinking beer, and if I drank beer still I guess I would be more jazzed. I drink wine, and I don’t live in Boston proper. So I have two more reasons why not to be on Foursquare. For me, I will take back those 5 minutes daily however and put them to better use.