Web Site Tracking

I tested Google Analytics with both the blogs and the home site. I placed the code snippet on 5 pages. Seemed to work capturing 4 of the pages. So, it is possible the “body” segment doesn’t execute in the index.htm. It all takes place in the frame. At least that’s an explanation.

I updated 10 more pages today. That should give me coverage for the major paths through the site. It’ll take a little time for my testing to be reflected in the reports. I should leave the site from different pages to see how that shows up. Also need to visit the site an hour later, just so it looks like a different visit.

I don't sell product through the site. It is mostly an information source. But I'm intrigued to see if it can report navigation.

Analytics

Added a Google-Analytics account to the 9EdgeDown Blog. Very similar to "sitemeter" in that they give you a code snippet to install in your web page. In this case the older template version of blogger, I didn't convert Piqueroblog, at first.

I had trouble registering the site using my Firefox browser. So, tonight I switched over to IE and the continue buttons appeared. May be that I had popups blocked in Firefox.

Opportunity Knocks

Got a call from Houston. Possible class this Summer. Still in the very preliminary stages but she didn’t seem put-off by my answers as far as cost & time. Her principal currently uses Version 6, has upgraded to 7. There’s been some promotional offers of late that has him interested in getting the staff trained.

For the most part, I’m more economic if you have more than 5 people you want trained. One person’t travel and living for a hotel stay is cheaper than 5. And the 5 don’t have to take time out to travel.

In a way I charge for my travel time, just like my prep time is built into the rates for a class. Other than copies of some material, I have very little additional expense to Piquero when I teach another class. And I now have a laptop that runs Ver 7. The old one was just that, too old.

I’ve “commuted” to Houston before, in a previous life. Taught classes in Dallas too. It’s a long ride, but if you pick the right time it isn’t too bad. It’s the drive home, at 5pm, that’s the killer.

Load and Download

Well, 95% success with the new laptop. Got most of the software I want loaded and activated. My only failure seems to be my accounting program. The reboot didn’t behave properly. It may have been my fault for removing the CD before powering down. It launches the "splash" but doesn’t come up.

As it stands I have the Microsoft Office apps (Word, Excel, and Power Point), the Lotus apps (Word Pro, 123, and Freelance), and Microsoft’s Visio. MS Office was preloaded. I also installed Mind Manager Ver 7 and Paint Shop Pro 8.1.

I installed the PeoplePC dial-up program. The laptop has a wireless antenna built in, so I can use hot spots like the Round Rock library for higher speed access. Used the high speed access to download the Firefox Browser and the Adobe Reader.

Now the challenge is to migrate the needed files. I had always separated my engagements into subdirectories under a “Client” directory. That means duplication of files but an easy structure to migrate. And Jump Drives make the task easy.

Hardware Upgrade

Got the new laptop in the mail yesterday. Now starts the task of getting the settings and the software loaded. Part of the trick is remembering where the software is.

I normally use an analog connection. As soon as I established that connection, the web browsing got real slow. The anti-virus software is smart enough to start an automatic update. After 17 meg (at 45 kbps) I disconnected.

Today I'm at the library, which has a free hot spot. The live update was a total of 45 meg. A lot quicker through the wireless network. But, it forces a system reboot to take effect. Got to finish this post.

Class A Success

Got through the classes yesterday. The feedback was positive. As usual there were some lessons learned.

• One of the boxes on the Word Export Settings Dialog allows you to generate and embed a table of contents. This would be useful for larger multi-page documents.
• Your throat gets sore after 5 of the 7 hours. I learned that in Detroit and forgot. Next time I'll bring some hard candy with me.
• Always make sure the IT Tech is available at the start-up of the class. We didn't have any major problems, but some of the computers were asking for a sign-on (which was "enter").
• At the end of the class it took an admin sign-on to remove the Mind Manager programs. The Tech had loaded them the day before but didn't think signing on as administrator was out of the ordinary. The student sign-on didn't allow the deletion of programs from Control Panel.

And, most important event, I got the check the same day as the class. Always nice to get paid promptly. Industrial clients are often 45 days, standard terms.

Another Class

Gearing up to teach another Mind Manager Fundamentals class next Friday. This one will be slightly different because of time pressures (for the client).

Instead of the normal 7+ hour Fundamentals, I’m going to be teaching two 4 hour classes back to back. The students are all pretty busy. So giving up 4 hours was doable, while 7 hours was not.

After the classes last Fall I went through the manuals with my technical editor eyeshades on. The new training director at Mindjet used my notes (which I sent him) to update the student manual. So, I now have 12 of the new student manuals for the class.

Adjusting the class wasn’t too hard. I dropped the Project Management and the Knowledge Management Modules. I’ll need to trim the thinking styles presentation.

Virtual Worlds

While I'm on the subject of business and the web. How about the merging of your real life office with a virtual world application.

An article by Dave Greenfield titled Doing business in the virtual world discusses industry trends in that direction. It appears in the March 10th (2008) issue of eWeek.

In a nutshell, it isn't just telecommuting by taping into the corporate network. This more like having people interact in virtual conference rooms, like they would in Second Life.

ARGs

A little out of the ordinary for this blog. I read a paper on gaming that was very interesting.

First, the article is Alternate Reality Gaming by Jeffrey Y. Kim, Jonathan P. Allen, and Elan Lee. It is the Feb 2008 issue of Communications of the ACM (Vol 51, No 2). It is a very readable article, no equations. Unfortunately, unless you can get to the ACM portal, it isn't available on-line.

Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) is a mixture of web based puzzles and real-world information transfer (in the case sited through payphones). The ARG was a marketing effort to promote Halo 2. By the time the game ended, 12 weeks, they'd had over 3,000,000 unique visitors.

It is a viral marketing approach. A creatine way to generate buzz for a product. But the article describes the make-up of the design team. And, how they kept the gamers engaged. You don't always find business breakdowns for tech projects.

It peaked my interest because of marketing. There will be more ARGs in the future. It is something I need to be able to discuss with some of our high tech SCORE clients.

Frozen Topics

We had a problem come up in the Dallas class that again shows I have much to learn about the Mind Manager tool. After "brainstorming" the topics appeared to be frozen in place, you couldn't rearrange to positions on the map. And, that begs the question of unlocking them.

Brainstorming is a 3 step process. (1) ideas (2) groups and (3) ending the session. Near as I can tell, moving the groups to the central topic and “removing” the group topic, without closing the brainstorming session, freezes the topics. There seems to be something about brainstorming mode being active that sets a flag of some kind.

I found that saving the “frozen” map, and then reopening the map releases the topics. You can move them around.

I also found if I follow the three steps, as the tool suggests, that the topics will behave normally. So the key is to group your ideas but close out brainstorming mode before dragging the group to the map.

On The Road Again

Just returned from Dallas. Went up to teach a Fundamentals class. Had about 9 students in the group.

Most of the students were in the Quality Assurance group of the company. So, I used some examples of process audits that they had sent before the class.

We spent the last hour of the class talking about real world ways to use the Mind Manager tool. The class examples are fine from a teaching viewpoint but I think it helps to bring their everyday workplace concerns into the discussion. We demostrated brainstorming by looking at potential specific ways they could use Mind Manager, tomorrow, on a current project. It generated a large list of ideas.

For me that means the class gave them enough insight into the tool that they could see the applications.

New Tricks For An Old Dog

It is often said that teachers learn more from their students than the other way around. I suspect that's true. I had some time to kill in DTW on the way home, so I did an After Action Review on what I learned.

1. 5 to 6 people trying different things during an exercise finds new stuff (and features).
2. Check all the hyperlinks on the presentation map the day before.
3. The zoom box on Pan & Zoom can be stretched and compressed, with a corresponding zoom in/out of the map.
4. Resources can be entered as Bill;Mary;Dave but will each create a separate icon marker.
5. Mingle with the group during the exercises to help, they are more likely to ask questions.
6. Quiet ones ask all their questions during breaks, expect that students take breaks but you're "on" all the time.
7. Use a map for the day's agenda, add links to the documents for each topic. (see #2)
   
8. Use "pps" files for shows, ppt brings up the editor.
9. Right-Click on news feed directory on map parts, the menu asks if you want to add a news feed. This is easier than the macro route.
10. Visit the facility the day before and make sure everything is set up. (I knew this but wanted to have a top ten list.)
    

I'll bet there was more, but these are the ones that jumped out at me.

Web Site Update

I've got a project for the week-end. Noticed that I have some out of date information on my web site. I'm going to use the excuse of being capable of teaching Mind Manager Version 7 as a good reason to update the web content.

Mind Manager Training

Managed to visit Detroit in late September without being snowed on! Except for spotty rain showers it wasn't too bad. The flight delays were systemic but understandable for frequent fliers . Arrived too early - gate wasn't empty. Last flight out, we delayed to get the stragglers before pushing back. This stuff happens all the time.

If I had been running to get that plane 'cause my Washington flight was delayed into Dallas, I would have been very grateful they waited 15 minutes. Unfortunately, been there - done that, and have experienced both possible outcomes.

Detroit beckoned because I had been asked to Train the Trainer for Mind Manager Ver 7. A two day class. It was a fun experience. The class is populated with people that, for the most part, know the product. Unlike the Fundamentals Class, where experience with the product is not-so-good to expert. The class size is smaller, we had about four, so the interaction and one on one coaching is more prevalent.

Classes like that, when you're teaching, cause you to more than just "brush up" on your skills. You have to prepare for the class by using functions and features that you don't use much in everyday operations.

Found a couple more Mind Mapping sites to add to the Creativity link list.

Syndication

Upgraded the blog's template in blogspot. The conversion wasn't too painful, mostly putting the custom code in the right places. Sitemeter and the Eco-System links are back on the sidebar.

I converted because the new template tools make adding links easier. And the new template provides for an Atom XML Feed.

I'm still tinkering with the Bootstrap On-line capabilities. They allow for feeding your blog (in Bootstrap) from external sources. I'm testing that feature with this post.

Social Networks

I've received an invitation to have an Austin SCORE presence on the Bootstrap Online Social Network. I am only vaguely familiar with Facebook or MySpace, though I understand the concept. And, for small business marketing, I certainly understand the value of networks of people.

I'm exploring the various ways I can increase the SCORE Chapter's marketing. And I'm learning a little about current web tools that I hadn't bothered to learn personally. Blogs I've been playing with for a couple years now.

Facebook or MySpace strike me as places to meet high school kids. They rarely have business problems or hire consultants. Bootstrap, however, is at least attempting to attract entrepreneurs.

Marketing The Workshops

Last month I picked up additional workshop efforts. The task of getting the SCORE workshops onto various calendars and into the Austin American Statesman has defaulted to the workshop committee.

I've created a new blog, Austin SCORE blog, where I can post workshop announcements and notes after the workshop. The primary goal is to have a more permenant web presence for workshop descriptions. Craig's List should scrub postings after 45 days.

I also added a site meter to watch the traffic.

The Long Tail

Followed up on a Wikipedia link from the Web 2.0 discussion. The link lead to the October 2004 article in Wired by Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail.”

A lot to mull over in the article. Most of his examples are from the entertainment industry. But that doesn’t invalidate the observations for other industries. The main argument is that removing the physical shelf space and distribution of physical media opens up the larger audience of “non-hit” customers. Sometimes sales in the non-hit “tail” can equal to or exceed the mass culture hits.

To succeed, however, both the hits and the non-hits need to be available. The popular items become the lure for new customers. Then, making recommendations help move the customer “down the Long Tail.”

This seems to be a double edge sword for the small business person. Hard to compete on the high volume side (direct competition with Wal-Mart for example). But Chris points out that the big retail chains only stock the hits. There is a huge number of products and subgenre that the big stores can’t economically or physically stock. The small business person, however, can attack the niche demands.

But attacking the niche may not work for all products. Chris also points out that many businesses only draw from a limited geographical area. The larger client base of the Long Tail may not be within 3 miles of your retail location.

I’m not sure that says everyone needs to be online, exclusively. It does argue for an online presence and a distribution strategy for non-local customers.

I understand Chris has expanded the article to a book. And he has a blog concerning The Long Tail.

Technorati Tags:The Long Tail, Web 2.0, Social Bookmarks

Web 2.0

I haven't looked into this name too much. Not everyone thinks it is appropriate. I'll do a little further research and figure the nomenclature out.

In the interim, I thought I'd look for more applications, like the Writely app in an earlier post.

I found a blog entry by Christian Mayaud, which referenced an extensive list originally compiled by Bob Stumpal. This has mutated into an Open Directory of Web 2.0 Items. A much better list than I could compile myself.

I'll need to explore the Directory further. A very large mixture of personal oriented sites, but also some business related sites. That's my real interest.

The initial poking around yielded an article by Dion Hinchcliffe, looks like a column/blog associated with ZDNet (an electronics publisher). The article has a list of apps, but more important a graphic that seems to be the continuum from Technology to Social for Web 2.0 applications. Worth the read.

UPDATE: The Wikipedia entry credits O'Reilly Media with coining the phase as currently used. Some of the common characteristics: web as the platform, data driven with the user having control over the data, and networking effects such as social networking.

Collaboration

I need to get out more. I'm getting my high tech news from a site devoted to the SCO & IBM law suit. Groklaw is a fascinating read. So what has that got to do with collaboration?

Getting documents and court filings posted as text is a group effort. In this post they also discuss the tools they used to edit the OCR created text file. They used a Google tool called Writely.

Writely is a free application (in beta test I think) that lets you edit a document via a web browser. It allows you to upload and download documents. And, multiple people can view and/or edit the document simultaneously. (Multiple people editing can work, but you need to coordinate your efforts.)

I can visualize multiple people writing sections of a final report, for example. And, we don't have to send the file around or merge it at the last minute.

This paradigm also means I wouldn't have to carry diskettes or a jump drive. I can reach it from any computer, and download it, if that's what is needed.

I've only begun to play around with an existing document, that I uploaded. The interface is similar to some of the text note capability in MindManager. I can't begin to say how well it would work for a complex document with footnotes and an index.

There is a similar application called Google Spreadsheets that allows a spreadsheet to be shared.