What a refreshing, inspiring and motivating speaker he is. Straight-forward would be an understatement. I’ve yet to experience a speaker who was that ‘transparent’ and open about their success. I thoroughly enjoyed – not only the great food at the Intercontinental Hotel – Jeff’s presentation and style.

In true celebrity form, his introduction was followed up by another introduction; in video format. The 3ish minute video talked about the transformation of the Kodak brand and company itself. It was hilarious. Very well done and entertaining. Kudos Kodak!

After the into(s) Jeff started right into his presentation. What made this even better for me is that Jeff presents in a way the Kelsey Ruger is currently posting about. He presented a story, with emotions and humor and a feeling of really connecting with what he was sharing.

I jotted down some key points I took away from his storytelling/presentation. One thing that really stood out was the Kodak, a company built on capturing our memories, uses the phrase: Kodak creates emotional technology. Wow – that’s deep and so true!

Recap:

• 40% of commercial printing is touched by Kodak.
• Kodak’s online photo-hosting service has more high-resolution pictures than anyone. Anyone. He noted that if you’re using services like Flickr or some such – you might be loosing out in the end.
• Every Best Picture winner and nominee for the Academy Awards® was shot on Kodak film.
• 70% of their digital business is B2B.
• Kodak’s transformation is the largest turn-around in business history.
• Kodak has 13 products with account for 80% of their revenue. Half of which didn’t exist a year ago.
• Being trustworthy and reliable is their main focus. As should it be for other businesses.
• Quote: “A brand is a promised delivery”
• Kodak’s social media practice uses the 4 E’s: Engage • Educate • Excite • Evangelize
• When Kodak started using social media, they encountered 43% complaint traffic. It’s now down to about 7%
• Business owners/Executives need to understand social media ROI isn’t Return on Investment, rather Return on Ignoring.
• Email Tom@Kodak.com for a free copy of Kodak’s Social Media Tips. I’ll save Tom’s inbox and give you the link.
• What Kodak tries to do – and does well so far is – link the science to the soul (creating emotional technology)

Jeff, if you ever come across my humble blog. Thank you! You get it!

If you get the chance to hear Jeff speak, take it! You won’t be disappointed. Have you been to a Jeff Hayzlett presentation? What did you think?

Note: Banner image is from the Kodak website featuring screenshots of this years Oscar nominees hand-picked by the movies cinematographer’s.

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Over the last few weeks, my (very pregnant) wife has been telling me to get her some of her favorite girl scout cookies; Samoas – or Carmel Delights, as they were once known. Since I don’t make it point to go to the grocery store every day, we waited till the weekend to do a little shopping with the ulterior motive being; find us some Samoas!

I took to Twitter and Facebook before venturing out to 10 different places that had some girl scouts posted in the front. No luck there, unfortunately. Luckily, Dreyer’s also makes limited edition flavor of, you guessed it – Samoa!

This brings me to my plea to both Girl Scouts of America and all you awesome Application Developers – I’m a Mac, so iPhone in this case.

I would love an App that allows Girl Scout Troops to ‘check-in’ – much like FourSquare – and then the app itself plots their location and you, as the user can search based on your location. This would be a great tool during this time of year to help frustrated husbands, fearing for their lives, find girl scout cookies on-the-fly.

What do you think? Can this magic I speak of become reality? I sure hope so. And, if it happens..I sure hope I get a little credit

Photo by: Rex Roof

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Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for web developers! Soon will be the day where we don’t have to worry about PNG hacks, stacking list items that don’t know how to float. Thank you SkyNet…er…Google!

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I stayed away from doing the fall-back top [fill in the blank] list of the year that past blog post. Mainly because this year has gone by so quick I couldn’t tell you my top anything list of 2009.

So you’ll be happy to read that this isn’t a top anything list of last year or even my 2010 resolutions. I’m not really a fan “New Years Resolutions” because it’s a set up for failure. Most people do the “I’ll lose weight” or “I’ll do this or that” and then they fall off the wagon, gain 20 pounds, smoke even more and say “I’ll make it my resolution for next year”. Why wait? Just do it already. I digress.

So what does “The year we make contact…or connections” mean for me? It means I want to do more personal brand development. Speak at more events (on social media, leadership, religion <gasp>) and share more ideas. I want to make more contacts and connections to better not only myself but to help our community grow.

Here’s to 2010, where’s my flying Delorean?!

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1. Review: Flavors.me
2. Social Transparency: Mixing Business & Pleasure Online
3. There’s a Game On! Let me tell you every detail!

I recently came across a new service, Flavors.me. The service is still in beta but you can sign up for invite codes. Mine was ‘heat’, maybe it’ll work for you. If I’m not suppose to give that out, oops – enjoy.

Flavors.me allows users to create a very simple and elegant personal website. It aggregates different social media platforms like: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr and even allows you to pull an RSS feed. I set my Flavors site up in less then five minutes.

When you first login, you create your basic profile page with short bio. Then you can choose up to three layouts for your site: Widescreen, Accordion and Simple. You can customize the background and fonts for the layout.

Check out the demo for more details.

Click here to view the embedded video.

All-in-all I think it’s really cool service with a lot of potential to be a sort-of online business card. As a suggestion, I’ve told our Project Coordinators at work to use it as a means of introducing themselves to our Clients. Rather then being a voice over the phone, they now have a personality and image of who you are.

Flavor.me can also serve as another (free) way for businesses to promote themselves. Some upcoming features of Flavors.me will be custom URLs. Currently, the URL structure is as follow: flavors.me/username. From the welcome email I received, then new structure will allow subdomain URLs like: username.flavors.me which will be sweet for SEO purposes.

I see this being a really cool, fast, clean tool for businesses, social media mavens, celebrities and anyone else wanting to set up a quick spot for themselves on the Web.

So, what’s your Flavor?

Related posts:

1. Putting Out Fires with Social Media: My Houston Zoo Experience
2. Better Business with Social Media
3. There’s a Game On! Let me tell you every detail!

Upon initial installation and setup for my new laptop, I was very surprised at how easy Windows 7 made everything.  I booted up, put in my registration info and then the setup automatically found my wireless connection, asked for my pw info, and it was good to go.  Although a lot of the interface has been laid out  to make getting around easier, there are still plenty of options and back end settings that more experienced users can go through.  The customization and feel of  shortcuts, programs and new layout features make Windows 7 a breeze to navigate through many windows and applications running.  Granted some of the features were copied from Mac style OS’s (such as the dock with shortcuts on it), but they are implemented in the right way and make a great addition to this new OS.

While application compatibility might delay some users from upgrading (as vista had application issues, where xp did not),  Windows 7 has reportedly had little to no application woes as of yet.  Microsoft seems to have really done a good job with this OS.  Despite all the bells and whistles (which are rockin’), I am very pleased with my upgrade to Windows 7 and look forward to using it.  So for all you tech junkies out there, let me know if you come across any cool add ons or gadgets for Windows 7.

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Having worked here before on their site and on various projects, the web part is pretty straight forward for me.  However, having to jump into the IT/Networking field can be a little frightening at first.  It creates a sense of technological responsibility that I have yet to experience.  Anytime something goes wrong in an office with someones computer, fax, internet-etc, everyone likes to shout out for the IT guy to come and fix the issues.

Luckily,  my web experience should help me understand and take in the IT knowledge I require.  I am excited about the opportunity to be able to learn new things and increase my value in the world of networking and web development.  In this field, its not always what you know but who you know.

So to all you tech and web junkies out there, if you know any good online sites to brush up on IT and networking or you are a guru, let me know!

Photo credit: Jamison_Judd

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My Pick of the Litter ModxCMS

MODx is an open source PHP Application Framework with Powerful Features that help you take control of your online content. It empowers developers and advanced users to give as much control as desired to whomever they desire for day-to-day website content maintenance chores.

Modx began back in 2004 with creators Raymond Irving, Ryan Thrash and Jason Coward. You can read more about how they started and their team on the Modx site.

Before I became an avid Modx user, I was diving into the world of WordPress. My excitement grew each day as I learned how to customize and theme my own sites. To date, however, I’ve only done two WordPress as CMS sites. One of which is for the Israel Benevolence Fund.

While I was learning the ins and outs of WordPress, my former employer wanted our web department to find other CMS tools to use as a standard. Then we were introduced to ModxCMS. The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s been close to two years now since I’ve started using Modx exclusively and until someone can show me something faster and better, I’m sticking to it.

Why my undying love for Modx? It’s fast, search engine friendly, designer and developer friendly, standards compliant and winner of the 2007 Most Promosing Open Source CMS Award.

Check out Squidoo’s review on How to Build a Beautiful Site with ModxCMS.

I look forward to continuing to grow in my knowledge of Modx and all of it’s powerful features. In the coming months a few of us are even venturing into being contributors to the Modx Project. Until then, I welcome your feedback, reviews or your picks for awesome CMS tools!

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