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Electronically, having given up on the flat tire we got on the way to a meeting. The thing was really stuck on there, only giving way after some serious pounding from the roadside assistance guy. Note – a mallet of some sort might be helpful to have in your spare tire kit. Anyway, while waiting for that we booted up and shared the connection (mighty easily on the Mac might I say) from one mobile wireless card. But the look on our faces here I think still tells the story that we’re not entirely loving the situation. Here’s a shot of me taking a turn on​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ the jack while we were still under the illusion we’d be on our way in a jiffy:

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Andrew Crowe Categories: General, Technology

We’ve certainly never installed a camera this deep!

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Gadget, Technology, Web

Back from BlogWell — a riveting, fast-paced look at how some of the big guys do social media. I caught presentations from The Mayo Clinic, Proctor & Gamble, Sharpie, and Molson (who filled a spot at the last minute and brought much beer). Consistent themes included:

• Start with a simple campaign or technology, then grow.
• It’s not about marketing. It’s about interacting.
• Be proactive about transparency and disclosure.
• Don’t pour beer into a frosty mug (drop a note in the comments to find out why)

I was especially struck by the presentation from Susan Wessel at Sharpie (and not just because of the limited edition Barack Obama Sharpie’s), who indicated that for all their visibility, Sharpie is actually a pretty small company. As the primary PR rep for the company, she engaged in blogging and Twitter on her own time. I think this is the way it’s going to be for businesses for the foreseeable future who are unwilling or unable to commit additional resources to social media campaigns. In this case, she wanted to prove its value and the only way to do that was to do it. This is truer of blogging than any other form of marketing I’ve seen. The worst thing you can do is never start.

Maybe I especially remember Susan since I got her very last limited edition Barack Obama sharpie marker. Good word of mouth there.

Here are a couple of photos of Andy Sernovitz from GasPedal/The Blog Council and Adam Moffat from Molson mid-beer:

Here’s a good write-up on BlogWell from Chicago Tech Report.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Web

It’s time to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Macintosh. I was pretty young, but remember this time well. We had an Apple IIc in my house for several years before our first Mac IIsi. What a sweet machine! When Apple (the company) turned 20, they released a special edition 20th Anniversary Mac. It was pretty sweet at the time, but wholeheartedly over-priced if you’re not nuts about this kind of thing. I doubt they’ll do anything to commemorate it this year with product, but you never know.

Here is a great photo of nearly every Apple computer ever made. It’s like looking at a family photo album.

Every once in a while I meet someone who isn’t familiar with the famous 1984 Super Bowl XVIII commercial Ridley Scott directed to launch the Mac. If you are one of those people, you need to check this out:

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Gadget, Green, Marketing, Technology

I’m attending the BlogWell social media conference today, which is put together by Andy Sernovitz at GasPedal and The Blog Council. Really looking forward to hear how some larger companies are embracing social media, as they often have a harder time adapting to change and truly adopting the notion of transparency.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

Here’s a couple quick tips for things I recently figured out in IIS 6. Sidenote – I just saw whatever IIS version Vista has, and it’s TOTALLY different. Not sure what’s in Microsoft’s latest server OS, but if it’s along the same lines I hope all the differences add up to improvements and are relatively easy to figure out. Wouldn’t hold my breath about that. Anyway, here are my version 6 nuggets:

1. By default, the referrer log data type is not selected. So your logs won’t include that unless you specifically enable it. Seems like you would almost always want to know that.
2. In order to get those kinds of settings applied by default to newly created sites, set them on the properties of the folder in which your sites are created in IIS.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: Technology, Web

Speaking of change, click the image above for the full size version. It’s a bunch of statistical snapshots from 2000 and 2008, presented in amusing graphics. I’d like to see these same measures in four years. I’d HOPE they’d paint a rosier picture!

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Andrew Crowe Categories: General

He promised change!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse-gov/

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Katie Hawkey Categories: General

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The Astek crew still at work in front of the TV before Barack took the stage. Wow. What a speech!

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Andrew Crowe Categories: General

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

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Andy Swindler Categories: Fun, Gadget, Technology