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Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category

Several years ago, I produced a half-hour public affairs program which aired on several different radio stations in New York State’s Capital Region on the Sunday night before Martin Luther King Day. While doing my research and listening to the speeches, I realized how much I didn’t know and appreciate about the man. Click on the picture below then click the play button to listen in.

Click to play

Since I learned about it last summer, I’ve become intrigued by the possibilities offered by Augmented Reality or AR technology. Some of my earlier blogs have highlighted AR applications which can be used to help you “try on” clothes prior to making an online purchase, to get information on your mobile audio/video device (aka phone) about a business as you approach it walking down the street or to find your car in the mall parking lot.

I showed this Pranav Mistry “SixthSense” TED video to my students last night and could tell that it opened some of their eyes to new possibilities. Mistry describes “SixthSense” as a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

Watch it and I think you’ll be amazed, too.

What do you think?

In Seth Godin’s end-of-the-year blog he writes: “on a micro level, on a personal level, this was a decade filled with opportunity. The internet transformed our lives forever. Opportunities were created (and many were taken advantage of). And, like every decade, just about everyone missed it. Just about everyone hunkered down and did their job or did what they were told or did what they thought they were supposed to, and just about everyone got very little as a result.

Maybe ten years is too long a period of time to plan for. So how about seven?

Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you’re doing right now?

If your answer is, ‘not much,’ perhaps you should consider a new plan, one that might generate a different answer, or, at the very least, be a more fun way to waste seven years.”

My friend, Bill Sobel shared this perspective: “We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room-by-room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

Considering all that we’ve been through since Y2K, it’s a challenge not to become cynical. Although my nature is to look on the bright side, too often over the past few years I’ve found myself dwelling on the negative. As they say in the parenting courses, “Energy grows where attention goes so don’t feed the weed.”

Advice that always made sense to me was to do work that you enjoyed doing (loved, felt passionate about) rather than focusing first on those activities which might bring financial rewards. Of course, sometimes that approach takes a long time to pay off or never pays off. Beverly Beckham wrote in The Boston Globe about a painter whose work now sells for $30,000 or $ 40,000 but who had to wait 94 years for her ship to come in.

As we enter this next decade, many of us Baby Boomers are facing some daunting challenges. We can sit around, wring our hands and feel sorry for ourselves or we can take a “glass-is-half-full” attitude, think about what we’ve dreamed of accomplishing, allow ourselves to take baby steps towards achieving those goals and stay focused on our potential.

John Kelso in the Austin American-Statesman suggests that we keep our resolutions this year small and achievable rather than overly ambitious and doomed to failure. For instance, “I promise not to crash a state dinner at the White House so I can get my picture taken with Joe Biden.”

My daily personal goals are to do something for my mind, something for my body, something for my spirit and something for my soul. More long-term goals involve working to be a better partner for my wife; achieving a more solid level of financial security for my family in the short and long term; focusing on a career that’s psychologically, spiritually & financially rewarding; and helping our youngest daughter to accomplish her goals.

What potential do you see for yourself in the next 7 years?

E.B. White wrote: “The miracle of Christmas is that, like the distant and very musical voice of the hound, it penetrates finally and becomes heard in the heart over so many years, through so many cheap curtain-raisers….So this day and this century proceed toward the absolutes of convenience, of complexity, and of speed, only occassionally holding up the little trumpet (as at Christmas time) to be reminded of the simplicities, and to hear the distant music of the hound.”

Feliz Navidad ! Joyeux Noel ! Buono Natale !

Earlier today I was interviewed about augmented reality on Bob Cudmore’s radio show which is simulcast on radio in the Amsterdam, NY area on Lite 104.7FM and 1570AM and which is also streamed at www.1570WVTL.com

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, John C. Havens first made me aware of augmented reality this summer on his BlogTalkRadio series. Since then, BusinessWeek’s Stephen H. Wildstrom has been following the trend while Esquire magazine, John Mayer’s new album and the new book about Michael Jackson have actually employed the technology.

To clarify, with virtual reality the environment is totally computer-generated and the user becomes immersed in that computer-generated world where nothing is real. (Think The Simms and Grand Theft Auto). With augmented reality, computer-generated applications
(apps) are imposed onto the real world using the web camera on your computer or SmartPhone to provide additional information or to enhance your real-life experience.

Zugara’s Webcam Social Shopper lets you try on clothes (virtually) then take pictures to send to your Facebook friends to get their opinions:

Baby Boomers might watch this video about Microsoft’s Xbox Project Natal and think it’s just about games but the last part of the video shows some very practical applications for augmented reality technology:

In an earlier posting, I’ve talked about some new iPhone apps which Baby Boomers might find useful.

At one point, a lot of us thought that GPS units were a little frivolous. If you have a GPS unit now, you probably think of it as essential.

I’d be interested in whether or not you can foresee augmented reality becoming an integral part of your lifestyle.

Our experiment with new media continues. We’re learning how to successfully integrate my blog into my new Brindle Media Facebook fan page. http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=Brindle+Media&init=quick

I tend to be a bit too analytical and so focused on a goal. Unfortunately, when I’ve finally done everything necessary to achieve that goal, my reaction will be more, “OK, that’s done. What now?” rather than one of joy. I get so wrapped up in the details of the work that I forget to celebrate the accomplishment. That’s not a good quality-of-life strategy.

So, I was moved by a recent Harvey Mackay column which reflected on holiday season celebrations and observed: “I often wonder why we limit our celebrations the rest of the year.”

In his book, “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future”, Daniel H. Pink notes that Henry Ford fired assembly line workers for laughing or even smiling while on the job. Ford felt that workers who were having fun were a danger to efficient production. Fortunately, that kind of thinking is as outdated as the Model T.

Harvey Mackay feels that work should be done “in a place where we can be excited, enthusiastic and passionate about what we do.” So here are some suggestions he makes:

1) Celebrate often
2) Big celebrations are great but get-togethers to celebrate small
successes are good, too.
3) Be creative in your celebrations. The basics are food, fellowship
& fun. Build on that base.
4) Share the responsibility of creating a celebration. A fresh
perspective can create unexpected positive results.
5) It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s the intention of the
celebration that’s important.

You can read Harvey’s entire column here: http://bit.ly/Mackay

So, what should we celebrate next ?!

Augmented reality is the overlaying of digital data on the real world. In a world where pretty soon that mobile device most of us use to make phone calls will also replace your laptop, your GPS, your radio and who-knows-what-else the concept of augmented reality is not as outlandish as it initially seems.

In a recent article, Mashable listed what the editors deemed “10 Amazing Augmented Reality iPhone Apps”. These were the ones that seemed the most practical for Baby Boomers like me:

This app identifies Wi-Fi hotspots and potential workplaces like coffee shops, bookstores, libraries,etc. and provides user reviews. Right now, it’s only available in London but versions for Manhattan, San Francisco, Berlin and Madrid are due to be released soon.

With this app, you can use your iPhone to gauge short distances up to a foot (30 centimeters) and, using the built-in camera, shows an overlay onto the live image on your phone’s screen which changes as you move the phone.

And when was the last time you forgot where you parked? Once your car’s location is set, Car Finder creates a visible marker that shows the car, how far away from it you are and tells you in what direction to head.

Do you think you’d use these apps? What apps would you like to see developed which aren’t yet available?

You can check out the other apps that Mashable recommends at http://bit.ly/iPhone_app

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about John Mayer is using augmented reality with his new album and how the technology will be incorporated into a new book about Michael Jackson which will be released just in time for Christmas.

Augmented Reality is becoming a hot topic. BusinessWeek magazine has an article in its November 23rd issue about the Dutch startup, Layar which makes free software that developers can use to associate digital info with specific locations. On the BusinessWeek website, technology editor Peter Elstrom interviews Stephen H. Wildstrom who wrote an article, “Augmented Reality:Not That Real Yet” for the magazine. You can read the article and listen to the interview here:
http://bit.ly/2kWiRx

Meanwhile, the December 2009 edition of Esquire magazine with Robert Downey, Jr. on the cover is titled the Augmented Reality issue. I think you’ll enjoy this video:

And you’ve got to watch this from Pranav Mistry at TEDIndia

So, how do you see augmented reality being incorporated into your life?

In September, I wrote about about a customer service problem I experienced with my local Home Depot. Since Brindle Media’s services include marketing, branding and customer service, I thought it would be useful and fair to the Home Depot organization to to share my experience and post this follow-up.

A brief overview: Due to negligence on the part of the plumbing subcontractor that installed a water heater which I’d purchased at Home Depot in late July, our laundry room was flooded. The plumber paid for an emergency crew to dry out the laundry room and installed some dry wall which had to be removed but refused to take responsibility for restoring the room to its original state. The plumbing company then proceeded to turn the victim into a victimizer and accused me of trying to rip them off. That whole process took us to mid-September. When I complained to the local Home Depot who had hired the subcontractor for installation, their position was that I needed to negotiate directly with the subcontractor. This is where social media and customer service entered the picture.

After blogging about the problem on September 14th, I Twittered about the blog and hash-tagged Home Depot. Within minutes of that tweet, I was contacted by Michael at Home Depot’s customer care center in Atlanta who then connected me with Stephanie in the company’s Customer Care Social Media department. Within 48 hours, I was connected with Sedgwick Claims Management and on October 22nd received a check to cover the cost restoring our laundry and family rooms to a semblance of their pre-accident state.

As a customer, I was very satisfied with my treatment by Michael and Stephanie on behalf of Home Depot and by Tammy at Sedwick CMS. The good news is that the situation was resolved. The bad news is that the resolution took three months. It was interesting and disturbing that no one on the regional or local level at Home Depot ever bothered to follow up.

So the lesson here is that when you encounter a customer service problem with a national retail chain, social media tools like Twitter and Facebook can provide you the leverage that you need to get the attention of the customer service department and help resolve a problem using a top-down rather than a bottom-up approach.

Hopefully, you won’t ever find yourself in a situation where you’ll need to employ this advice !