Social Gracious

UberGeek is NOT on the Social Media Bandwagon

I am an unabashed user of Social Media. Like other technology tools I find that it can be both useful and engaging within the right parameters. For my family it has provided a way to get in touch instantly and share pictures, updates, stories and schedules. At work, I often speak with colleagues about why they should care about Social Media. So many people feel that the purpose of Twitter is to share when you're drinking a latte. Really, no one cares if you are drinking a latte, it's about having conversations and providing something of value to people that share common interests. 

I work with Microsoft SharePoint as a trainer and web designer; I learn new things all day long just from the posts tweeted out by my favorite SharePoint Tweeters. I never even have to go hunt for these great pieces of knowledge, they are delivered directly to my stream on my iPhone or on my desktop. Since I am involved with Social Media professionally I also receive lots of interesting Social Media news and articles from people I follow, all without ever searching myself. Often I will Retweet this material so that my followers have access to this information as well. If it piqued my interest they might want to read about it too.

 
Image by Matt Hamm

Now for the value, since I tend to read a few blogs daily and stumble upon useful information myself, I share that with my followers on Twitter or Facebook. It's my return to them for providing me with so much great stuff all day long. There is of course, a little of the personal as well, the fact that it was raining and the only umbrella I could find was my four year old son's Thomas the Train one on my way out to meet the ladies for dinner had to be tweeted.

Because I use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis and other participatory features of the web I am naturally excited about them. I bring that excitement home to my decidedly late nineties style UberGeek. When it comes to writing some bad ass code he is king, but I had to set up his FaceBook page for him. For months he whined and asked me why we couldn't be one of those couples with a joint Facebook page. I stared at him with horror and continued to say no. Finally, I convinced him to get up and running on LinkedIn and then Facebook and within days he was talking about the wonders of communicating with his grade school pals. "I know," I said, "I know." He still holds Facebook at arm's length, occasionally interacting when interacted with, but not really out there, sharing kid pictures with friends and posting occasionally.

Twitter is another animal entirely. UberGeek has much love and respect for my Twitter power but he himself eschews the application. He frequently sends me articles he thinks will be interesting to my colleagues and followers from his IEEE (this is the high society of geeks FYI) readings. He follows my stream online occasionally but mostly he avoids Twitter. When UberGeek works, he is head down, face in the monitor, cannot be disturbed, and he does not hear me if I am right next to him. Even if we are working from home in the same room, which is rare, it is as if we are both alone. He can only concentrate on one thing, intensely, at a time. I have learned that this is his style, it is also why he has to leave his desk each day for an hour at lunch time. While I may eat at my desk, I have worked in productive bursts with stops to say hello to a colleague, or read an industry blog which gives me a cognitive break. UberGeek has worked nonstop on the same page of unintelligible (to me) .net mumbo jumbo for hours and he simply must get up and out of the building for an hour.

I keep trying to convince UberGeek that he has so much cool knowledge to share that it is a shame he is not on Twitter "I prefer to be incognito" he says "I rarely even share this stuff in person." He recently traded in his ancient shift up to text phone for an iPhone so maybe there is hope.

I'm not sure why I take it personally that he does not embrace Social Media. It seems odd to me that there is an aspect of technology that I know more about than he does. I don't take it personally that I love to cook and he has no interest in that, so why the difference with Social Media? Maybe because nobody is missing out on anything as a result of his decision not to cook.

Social Media Club Jacksonville

First Meeting of the Social Media Club of Jacksonville

Tonight I attended the first open meeting of the Social Media Club's Jacksonville division. I thought it would be quite a turn out as the first Social Media Seminar held in Jax was well attended with people from many different industries. Due to quite a few last minute cancellations, and maybe the lack of a sexy venue (held in the library), only three of us and the organizer were in attendance. So, of course, we were the very best three members of the Social Media Club of Jacksonville. I wonder if we will get to be called founding members?

It was still a lot of fun to hear from the organization's founder, Kristie Wells via Skype, about the purpose of the organization, it's values and mission. She shared the resources the national club would provide as well as their experiences starting the organization. It was really interesting to gain her perspective. 

From the national Social Media Club's website:

Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn.

I really enjoy social media as a way to connect with other people and engage in conversation about topics relevant to my life, profession and interests. I think that is the key, it has to be a conversation, two way, providing value to me, and to those I engage with. If you are in it just to sell a product, or your company, it is not going to work and people smell a rat. That is why I am excited that Social Media Club of Jacksonville is looking to engage professionals in all areas, in a conversation about social media best practices and guidelines. I'm looking forward to our next meeting.

Social Night at Broadway Pizzeria

 

Today the kiddos came home from their first overnight trip to Granny and Granddads. From all accounts it was a rousing success including a trip to the fair, pancakes at a restaurant and sleeping in sleeping bags. Granny and Granddad fulfilled our requirements for babysitting, they returned both children alive. On the way to drop the kids off at our house Granny and Granddad passed one of the kiddos' favorite local parks, which we call the squishy ground park, because it is paved in a squishy rubber material. It's a very nice playground with two play areas and the holy grail of playgrounds, restrooms. Eddie Haskell asked if we could please, please, please go there tonight. UberGeek and I had hoped to pack a picnic dinner, put the kids in the stroller and run up to the park down the street from us to get some exercise. Still, Eddie Haskell's eyes were pleading, his will was strong and we had missed the kiddos. We went with his plan, packing the kiddos in the grocery getter and heading to his desired park. We had a great time as expected but then it was getting late and we had to grab some dinner. We decided to head to nearby Broadway Pizzeria on Baymeadows Road. 

  We sat down at a granite topped table in the restaurant, oh how I love granite, and our server greeted us quickly. I looked over and at a table near us, a family was sitting with two dolls in doll sized table side high chairs. I walked over because I just had to know where they had purchased them. The lady of the table explained that she worked for the restaurant company and Broadway had several of them available for customers' children to use. She went on to say my daughter was welcome to bring her doll to dine table side next time. Then she asked her daughters to bring our kids over some toys and games from Broadway's enormous chest of goodies for kids. Now you are talking about a seriously family friendly restaurant. She introduced herself, and I noticed that her daughters appeared to be twins. Suddenly I was pretty sure I knew who she was. The name was familiar from my local twins club, which I'm a member of, naturally. We introduced ourselves in the flesh and it was like old home week. We have actually communicated via Yahoo email group for years. We chatted for a while about social media and how it might benefit Broadway, until I realized at some point I probably needed to order food.

We ordered our meal and then proceeded to color the kids placemats and play various games.   Then I heard someone say my name and I turned around. There was my friend TC, whom I hadn't seen since the Disney Princess Half Marathon. She and her son had come to Broadway for a mother son evening out. She said that she and her husband began their ventures to the restaurant during the days of 25 cent beer night and it later morphed into a favorite family spot for meals. She sat directly across from our table and we did our best to chat over the partition about the state of Duval public schools, our kids, when we were having the momento, beer and scrapbooking night and other similarly exciting topics. 

Our food was delivered and it was delicious, Eddie Haskell had the chicken fingers, which came with his favorite side dish, curly fries. The rest of us shared a pizza topped with ham and the signature Broadway bread, you have to ask for it. Things got quiet and some serious eating was going on, everyone enjoyed the meal. Finally we packed it up and headed home, ready to get the kiddos to bed. Fine dining post preschool playground style!

From Mumbai with Luv

 

A little over a month ago I initiated a support call with Microsoft. Having exhausted all our in house ideas to solve the problem we were experiencing, we reluctantly dialed in for assistance. Come to find out it was a Microsoft known issue, without a current fix. This resulted in multiple calls over several weeks. Because of the ongoing nature of the problem I got to know our Microsoft support contact's voice pretty well, and also her name, Nidhi. At one point I asked her where she was located, wondering if the support center was in the US or abroad. She answered that it was in India, Mumbai to be exact.  Over the course of the next few weeks we would occasionally exchange small talk while we waited for other members of her team or my team to join us on conference calls. Eventually, Microsoft determined a work around that was satisfactory to our team and solved our issue. Nidhi asked to give it a couple days to be sure all was well and then she reported that she would close out our ticket.

Finally Nidhi emailed me ask if she could close out our service ticket. I replied that recently one of our staff members had started a blog on our intranet using MOSS/Sharepoint, and although this had nothing to do with our original issue, I wanted to know if I could ask her a quick question   about it. She agreed and we set up a time to chat. It turned out to be a simple issue and she was able to quickly tell me how to fix it, although she admitted that she was not too keen a blogger. I told her that I myself had recently started a blog and she shared that she too had a blog outside of work. I told her I would email her a link to mine and asked if she could send me one to hers.

Sometime later I went to visit Nidhi's site, the primary blog, Nidhi's Blog, is about Sharepoint, but she also has a personal blog. Her personal blog hadn't been updated for a while but the post, Stomach Teaches Them All, was so poignant. The pictures of Nidhi were beautiful. It's hard to picture the person answering your support calls thousands of miles away, but if people pictured Nidhi they'd probably be less grouchy about calling India for support. I love to learn about different cultures and places in the world, so it was fascinating for me to read Nidhi's blog. As Americans, I think we forget what we bring to other countries when we outsource. Although we mourn the jobs we lose here, it makes me happy to think of the standard of living we help improve for other human beings around the globe. Nidhi told me in an email how she tries to shop for goods made by local people with her paycheck to help invest in the local economy.

Nidhi and I have corresponded a few more times since my support ticket closed. Then recently she left a comment here on the blog, asking me to take a look at something when I had a minute.  I clicked on the link she included; it took me to her personal blog,The water splash where she had written a post about me. Nidhi had been reading my blog and felt inspired to write more often in her own. You never know how you will be connected to the people in the world around you, or how you will be inspired by them. Back at you Nidhi, and much love to Mumbai!

 
Chowpati

I'm Becoming One of Them; I'm Not Sure I Like It

    
Geek in a Bubble

Recently I decided to develop a web form to help my clients gather their thoughts about what type of content they want on their websites. Really it's more than that, it asks them to consider how they want to store content, who will maintain the site, how they will be trained on the site and some other considerations. When I was developing the form it seemed pretty self explanatory to me. I looked it over again for grammatical errors then sent it off to my manager to take a gander at.  A reply came back some time later that the form might be a little intimidating for our users, my clients.  I mulled that over in my head for a minute, then I looked at the form again.  I needed to dial a lifeline, so I called Web Warrior Princess, a good liaison between the techie world and the world of normal people.  She does a good job of straddling the two, in attractive gladiator sandals, no less.

Princess received my form via email and I heard a polite silence at the other end, then came the suggestions, a number of them regarding the need to make the form less filled with technical jargon and obtuse geeky verbage.  Rereading my form with her I started thinking about my own journey from Family Therapist and teacher to Geek.  Just a few short years ago I didn't have any idea how to navigate the multitude of acronyms in the world of web content design and development and social media.  Now I am immersed in it, apparently to the point that I have forgotten how normal people communicate.  

I never think of myself as technical, part of the reason for this is that I always compare myself to more technical people, especially the one I live with.  I do content development, HTML, java script, web 2.0 stuff, some scripting, training, writing, graphics; I call this soft techie stuff.  UberGeek is hardcore, he developed a fingerprint ID system to control access to a restricted area of the Saudi Arabian embassy just after graduating from college.  He then went on to design, together with his geek partner in crime, De-Wek, a single sign on product used by several of the most renowned health care systems in the country.  This product won an award from the Microsoft Healthcare Users Group.  As if that's not enough, he single handedly designed a clinical imaging system to interface with Cerner's Millenium EMR as his current company was not happy with any of the products available to them on the market.  So, seriously, I don't feel that technical.  

 

If I get to feeling too big for my britches, I only have to cruise UberGeek's brother's profile on LinkedIn.  He is a software developer too and a data warehousing expert.  A few years ago, in his spare time, he developed a mobile device application that became so popular that Compaq bought it and included it as standard software on all their PocketPCs.  Umm, yeah, I don't feel that smart most of the time.  Probably the company I keep.  I continue to get geekier but I'm still small potatoes. 

When I was thinking about whether to apply for my current position, I was wondering if I would be technical enough for it.  UberGeek looked at me, the way Obama looked at Hillary at that famous moment during the campaign trail, and he said, "You're technical enough."  I think what I have to remember is that there is value in being able to straddle the world between geek and normal.  As I inch closer to geekiness I need people like Web Warrior Princess to pull me back from the precipice.  I like technology, but I like people more.  Social Media and Web 2.0 participatory features have no value if we lose their ultimate purpose, to connect us as flesh and blood human beings.  

Senior Citizens 2.0, A Cautionary Tale

My father in law never used a computer during his career despite being a Director at a large railroad corporation up through the early 1990's.  We have always assumed that perhaps his administrative staff took care of typing documents and other computer based tasks.  It wasn't until he retired that he began to harness technology to do his bidding, boy did he catch up fast.  Since I have known them my in laws have been pretty up to the minute with the latest technology so I have a hard time imagining the days before Granddad used a PC.  

In general their use of technology is a boon to us, they have easily navigated the world of email, photosharing and the internet.  They are perplexed when other seniors don't see the benefit of current technology.  They use GPS, take digital pictures, travel with a laptop and each have a cell phone.  They don't text but I'm betting that's next.  Despite loving gadgets ourselves we often have trouble finding them gifts for a special occasion since they are usually one step ahead of us.  For seventy somethings they are really cutting edge.

This occasionally has a few drawbacks.  UberGeek and his older brother are often called upon to tend to their parents technology.  UberGeek happily performs various upgrades, troubleshoots the wireless network and otherwise provides technical support.  He never complains, proud of his parents technical savvy.  

Recently I suggested that Granddad and Granny add Facebook to their list of technical accomplishments.  Stepping it up to the Web 2.0.  They had an upcoming European tour to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and we thought it would be fun to track their trip online.  Also, it makes it easy and fast to share pictures among family members.  I didn't really anticipate any adverse consequences.  I helped them get their FB page up, showed them the ropes and they were on their way.  

A friend of mine, Web Warrior Princess, started a social club together with a friend, about five years ago.  The intent was to get more young professionals interested in charitable giving to worthy causes. The way she went about this was genius, she called the club the Thursday Night Drinking Club (THNDC).  For a small fee people show up at local venues, receive tickets for a free drink or two and the money raised is donated to many local charities.  Who wouldn't want to go?  A couple weeks ago Warrior sent me an invite to one of their events via Facebook.  I accepted and the information was posted on my Facebook Wall, I'm always up for charitable events that cost less than $100 a plate and this happened to the be the fifth anniversary party for the THNDC.

 

Not long after this post I received an email from Granddad stating that he was notified via Facebook that I had joined a drinking club and he wanted to make sure that I would not be drinking and driving.  I reassured him that it was in fact a charitable organization with a little alcohol on the side and that I don't drink and drive.  Typically I force UberGeek to be the designated driver if I plan to indulge.    I soon received another email stating that my father in law had Googled the Thursday Night Drinking Club and it appeared to him as if it was more alcohol and less charity.  I responded that at least they call a spade a spade instead of pretending to be a social club that is, in fact,  just an excuse for a bunch of people drinking together anyhow.  No response.  

I love my father in law dearly, he and my mother in law did a fabulous job of raising their children.  Of course, I married the very best one.  The fact that UberGeek is such a great father and husband is testament to the power of their love for him and each other.  My father in law is notorious for his debating powers and has very strong opinions.  Before we had children I loved to engage in debates with him.  My husband does not engage, having been his son for forty years he has learned his lesson.  I was fresh meat and I come from a family that enjoys debate among its members.  For ten years now Granddad and I have enjoyed a back and forth of this type.  I like to think that I am providing a service that both of us enjoy.  Unfortunately my vim and vigor has been tempered by exhaustion since having my two children and I am not able to keep up quite as assertive a debate.  Granddad also is occasionally cautioned by his better half when we really get into it to be careful of his blood pressure.

So it was that I headed out this past Thursday night to the fifth anniversary of the Thursday Night Drinking Club.  I had a great time with UberGeek, friends and a couple colleagues who were in attendance.  The band was great, the cause was worthy and I enjoyed my wine.  I just had to keep quiet about it the next day in the world of 2.0.  Please, no one show Granny and Granddad how to use Twitter.  

A Trained Monkey Could Do It

One of the perils of having a very smart husband with an engineer's mind is that it sometimes leaves me feeling slightly inadequate.  I often want to learn a new tech skill from UberGeek but he does not suffer fools (like myself) kindly.  Usually he ends up giving me a sigh and then pleading with me to just do it himself.  Our minds don't really work in the same way, I read novels, fiction, literature, biographies, anything I can get my hands on.  UberGeek only reads texts, technical manuals, articles colleagues are considering for publication, trade magazines and peer reviewed journals.  There are a couple exceptions, he has read the Autobiography of Tom Landry, Good to Great and Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.  While I am always thinking of how things are related, he looks at all issues he encounters as problems to be solved. 

Up until this past August my husband and I worked for the same company.  He researches and develops new technology and I trained software and provided technical documentation among other duties.  Anyhow, at one point my coworkers and I learned we would be getting the opportunity to also be involved in some software testing.  This was something I had not done before and I was really looking forward to learning something new.  This was about the time that someone from another local healthcare company contacted me through LinkedIn to find out if I would be interested in a new position they were creating.  It sounded like a great opportunity but I was disappointed that I would not have the opportunity to learn the software testing process at my current company before I left.   One evening I mentioned this to UberGeek as we lounged on the couch with the kiddos safely in bed.  "Software testing," he guffawed, "a trained monkey could do that!"  "But," I insisted, "I wanted to learn it before I left Company A!"  This resulted in a promise that I could test one of his various leftover software products in our house for "fun" in my spare time.  Joy.

This was not the first or last time I have heard the trained monkey comment.  Monkeys in my husband's estimation are capable of quite a large number of IT functions.  Once I interviewed for a position that required Visio, a software I hadn't really ever used in any of my jobs.  I mentioned this to my husband and received one of his disappointed looks, "Visio, a trained monkey could use Visio, I can show you how to use it in five minutes, you can use Word can't you?" 

I feel some satisfaction in the fact that in one area I am technologically superior to UberGeek.  That area is social media!  UberGeek had no interest in Facebook until he saw how much fun I was having with it.  Then he began pressuring me to add him to my Facebook as a joint account.  I finally offered to create a page for him and he was up and running.  He also does not text, belonging to the 80s generation for whom phones are supposed to ring.  I am trying to teach him, after all, a trained monkey could do it. 

The crackPhone, I Mean iPhone

Or, How I Fed My Addiction to Social Media
(and hooked the kiddos to gadgetry at an early age)

For many years now I have been living in the cellular dark ages.  I watched the Treo rise and fall, I raised an eyebrow at my mom's Blackberry.  Still, I lived in blissful ignorance with my ancient Samsung, texting only occasionally due to the lack of qwerty and the need to scroll through letter after letter before selecting one.  I lacked even the ability to download a ringtone, garnering pitying looks from my friends who encountered it's tinny stock ring.  Then almost two years ago when my children were two years old UberGeek and I decided to train for a marathon. 

One day UberGeek sent me an email at our workplace.  We both worked together at an acute healthcare provider who was sponsoring a marathon and encouraging employees to participate in the marathon training program.  I had run for fun before my pregnancy with my twins and always enjoyed it but had certainly never run farther than three miles at any time during my life.  Four weeks after they were born I walked out my front door to resume running.  If you have had multiples you might imagine that this was a tad too soon.  I was however, after many weeks of bedrest, ready to get my groove back.  After about a half mile, I turned back, miserable, unhappy, and sure I would never run again.  My body was no longer the one I remembered, it did not respond to my commands, nothing felt right.  My legs were heavy, wooden; I had lost that lovin' feeling.  I walked back to the house and did not run again for two years, although I remained active in other athletic pursuits. 

Then the fateful email from Ubergeek, who by the way, had never run with the exception of the bleachers at high school football practice close to twenty years ago.  But why not run a marathon?  We weren't getting any younger and we could do it together.  So, we began our research into the best jog stroller to push two kids around in, decided on the Bob Ironman Duallie and signed up for the training program.  We decided that I would start with the beginner program on Saturday mornings in June and UberGeek would get started on his own in the evenings.  I showed up at the first training session and noticed one thing pretty quickly, almost everyone had something I didn't, a cool thing called an iPod.  I had seen them before, my neighbor's kids had them but somehow I just didn't see myself using one very often.  That all changed that first hot day on the track, which is where we started training.  Not long after that day I ordered my first Shuffle through our company discount plan, then later my first full size iPod.  Soon my kids had their own playlists, the minivan had to be updated with an all iPod player receiver even UberGeek had his own playlist complete with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader song.  Then an event happened to move us even farther into the Apple iAge, a catalyst if you will.

This fall we finally put our 1998 Nissan Maxima to rest.  It was a good car, UberGeek had purchased it brand new and it was a sweet ride in its day.  Ten years later, however, and it was showing its age.  It had a fender bender a few years ago and we learned that, unfortunately, it had left the Maxima vulnerable to flooding.  This did not appear until Hurricane Fay, during which time the trunk filled with water which spilled into the rear floorboard.  UberGeek was crestfallen but hopeful that it was a fluke and the problem could be fixed with a ShopVac and duct tape.  No such luck and the same thing occurred during the next hard rain.  It was off to the car dealership where we decided to purchase the very unsexy but extremely (MOST safe according to all UberGeek's extensive research) safe Subaru.  The thing about the Subaru is that it had an AUX input for an iPod.  The Maxima didn't, so until then we had not needed a third iPod.  We kept one in the minivan glove compartment for that receiver and I ran with the Shuffle.  Now I needed one for the new car!  The gears in my mind began to turn.  If I had to purchase another iPod I wanted a good one.  Plus, at my job I work with integrating Web 2.0 within our company intranet.  This has led to an increased interest in social networking and Web 2.0 in general.  I often need to also look up pieces of code or other information at work as I do web design and content management.  Sometimes it's nice not to have to unload my laptop if I just need to check into something quickly.  As my interest in social media increases I also spend time on Facebook, Twitter (although infrequently since Twitter does not seem to have caught on in this area or demographic) and other various sites.  So why not something that does both?  It's an iPod, it surfs the web, I can FB all day long and Twitterfon to my heart's content!  I think I NEED the iPhone!

The hints to UberGeek began in October.  Visits to the AT&T store with loving looks at the iPhone and comments about how I really need something like that.  Remarks about other iPhones I noticed people carrying, etc.  The reason for this obvious hinting is that it takes specifics to get results with UberGeek.  Once I really wanted a coffeemaker with an insulated carafe.  I told UberGeek I didn't care what kind of coffeemaker he got for me, the only criteria was that it be one with an insulated carafe.  On Christmas morning I saw just the right sized box under the tree.  When I ripped open the paper there it was, a lovely, gleaming stainless Cuisinart coffeemaker with a glass uninsulated carafe.  UberGeek smiled and said, I know you wanted one with an insulated carafe but I researched them in Consumer Reports and they don't keep coffee hot, this is really the best one.  What could I say?  He's such a sweetheart, I smiled and told him it was great.  Then I cursed it every morning for a long time. 

This Christmas morning there were no presents for me under the tree to speak of.  Only a stocking that was full.  I opened it to find trail mix, my favorite kind, no doubt from the pantry.  There was also a wrapped box.  I opened it and inside was a gleaming, gorgeous iPhone.  That day I was on the iPhone playing all day.  I was up until midnight messing with the buttons, the apps, all the exciting features.  Really, I haven't stopped since, except to work, sleep, play with the kiddos and run.  I have since discovered that the best part about the iPhone is the App Store.  I found a number of applications geared toward the preschool crowd.  Two of them, Preschool Pals and Animatch keep my kids busy while we cruise Target or wait for our meals in a restaurant.  Now Diva and Eddie Haskell ask for the iPhone by name and remind me to charge it each night so they can play "their" games on "their" iPhone.  Gamers at 4, who knew?

So far I am satisfied with my iPhone although frightened by the crack-like addictive potential.  My latest discovery is the world of podcasts.  My last iPod was almost full so the thought of daily subscriptions to loads of content was impossible, now the Podcast world is my oyster.