David Herrold

Want fewer emails?

Posted by Dave | Filed under Business, Communication, Networking, Social Networking, Software, Technology

Here’s a quick tip for reducing the number of emails you get in your inbox every day…

Send fewer emails.

Yep, that’s it. That’s the entire secret rolled into one sentence. For every email you send out, there is a good chance you will receive a reply. If you’ve copied multiple people in your outgoing email, you will probably receive numerous replies.

We live in a world with numerous forms of communication, yet most companies disproportionally rely on email for the majority of their contact throughout the working day. Depending upon the situation, email could be the worst form of communication to use with your coworkers, clients and business partners.

Here are some alternate forms of communication you should consider before firing up your email program: face-to-face meeting, collaboration tools (wiki, BaseCamp, Salesforce.com, Google Docs, etc), instant messaging (AOL, GTalk, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Skype, etc), social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), phone call, text Message, video conference, video chat, blog, fax and last, but not least a good old fashioned hand-written note.

Here are a few instances when email is NOT the best tool for the job.

1. When you need a simple yes/no answer. Use an instant messenger, text message or Twitter direct message. You’re in and out and nobody loses much time in the process.

2. When multiple colleagues need to edit and/or approve a document. Use collaboration tools like Google Docs, BaseCamp, a wiki, etc. Emailing a Word or Excel document to six of your coworkers to edit is shear insanity. Stop the madness. Seriously.

3. You sent an email to several colleagues and you got a reply from someone who clearly confused. Unless you are absolutely sure one simple email reply will clear up the confusion, pick up the phone and call this person. Chances are, one 10 minute phone call will prevent 3 or 4 more emails.

4. You need to sell something. Whether you’re selling a product to a client or an idea to a supervisor nothing beats a face-to-face meeting.

5. Someone just emailed you the funniest joke along with a hilarious photo of a kittens. I beg of you. If you really need to tell the world just how funny this joke is, post it to your blog. Please, under no circumstances should you forward this joke email to your entire address book.

So tell me, are there any communication tools you use (other than email) throughout the day?

Let me know in the comments.

Micro-connections and the speed of news

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Design, Social Networking, Technology

I think we’ve forgotten something recently.  I think we’ve forgotten how easily social networks allow us to connect with unbelievable speed and accuracy.

There was a time when connecting with old high school or college friends meant contacting your reunion coordinator.  Sending emails.  Phone calls.  Snail mail.  Or worse yet, actually attending a reunion (I’m joking…sort of).

Now, we are able to locate old friends with Facebook accounts in 5 minutes during a coffee break.  One friend leads you another – and down the rabbit hole you go to find dozens more by accident.

Well, not really by accident.  It seems like synchronicity when you stumble upon a friend through another friend’s Facebook account, but it’s not luck at all. It’s good design.

A new speed

So what if we could take this speed to the next level?  What if we could temporarily connect with individuals involved in specific events while they are actually happening?

Yes, we have the ability to peer into blogs, Twitter streams, Brightkite check-ins, Flickr photostreams, etc.  But there isn’t a mechanism to allow us to connect with hundreds or thousands of people at once.

I am talking about something like the Emergency Broadcast System, but using a temporary two-way communication instead of a one-way communication.  Since it would operate over the internet (and not the airwaves) targeting could incorporate very detailed geographic information.  It would need to operate across multiple social networks to incorporate as many users as possible.

Is this a crazy idea?  Probably.  Ok, absolutley,  but think of the amazing life-saving information it could facilitate.  Think of it as crowd-casting at the microscopic level with with gateways to networks opening and closing when needed.

What do you think?

(The photo above is race car driver Bob Burman, from the Library of Congress.  He drove in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911.)

Tags: Communication, crowd casting, crowd sourcing, emergency broadcast system, news, social networks

LinkedIn’s launches application platform

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Design, Development, Productivity, Social Networking, Software

LinkedIn has launched its application platform to function much like Facebook, but for professionals. But unlike Facebook, the a LinkedIn application will be required go pass an approval process to be included on the platform. Users will also be limited to a maximum of 15 applications on their profiles.

According to TechCrunch:

“Beyond the quality assurance process, LinkedIn is also limiting the flexibility apps will have when it comes to monetization. Apps won’t be allowed to use third party ad networks – instead, they’ll have to work with LinkedIn’s ad system. For now applications will only have access to LinkedIn’s current ad inventory, which could make targeting ads less effective (though it sounds like there will be more options for targeted ads in the future).”

I’ve always thought the elevator pitch for LinkedIn was “a Facebook for work.” This solidifies the metaphor. I wonder how many newspapers would be interested in creating LinkedIn widgets?

Wanna place bets on how soon the Wall Street Journal launches a LinkedIn application? Or Monster.com? BaseCamp? I’m guessing pretty soon.

I’ve already installed a Slideshare.net application showing my most recent mobile presentation. The Slideshare application is a pretty simple one, but cleanly designed.

You can see it here on my profile.

Current available applications (at the time of this post) are: Slideshare, Box.net, Google presentations, Amazon reading list, Wordpress, Blog Link, Company Buzz, My Travel and Huddle Workspaces.

The applications FAQ can be found here.

What applications do you think would make the biggest impact on LinkedIn’s platform?

Tags: applications, linkedin, slideshare, Social Networking

BarCampHouston3 recap

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Development, Marketing, Mobile, Networking, Social Networking, Software, Technology

Photo - Best name tag I saw at BarCampHouston.

Justine and I attended BarCamp Houston at the Houston Technology Center yesterday and had a great time. A big thanks to all the organizers (Marc Nathan, Kelsey Ruger, Josh Tabin, Scott Stolz). You guys made the event a smashing success for everyone. And thanks to all the sponsors for helping to make BarCamp Houston possible.

For those who don’t know what BarCamp is, here is a brief explanation:

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. – Wikipedia

This can be simplified to “day camp for nerds.”

I watched some great presentations and participated in some interesting discussions throughout the day. BarCamps are only as great as their participants, and we had some great participants this year.

Ed Schipul’s presentation on PR and social media was sharp. His creative use of a green laser pointer kept the crowd in line (as much as possible) as he explained how to “put the relations back in public relations” using social media. It’s a pleasure to watch a pro on stage engage the audience as well as Ed does.

Josh Tabin spoke about how start-up funding works. I found his discussion about the ins and outs of financing to be pretty enlightening. I left the discussion knowing a lot more about how start-ups make that initial leap into businesses.

Tracy and Imelda whipped up an impromptu discussion on digital photography and social media. I’m pretty sure there should have been a cover charge for the room and IDs checked at the door. Tracy had the room in stitches for a solid 30 minutes, while feeding them great advice for managing their photos in Flickr.

Katherine Druckman also jumped into the mix with an impromptu presentation about Drupal, the open source content management system. The crowd had lots of questions and she fielded them like a pro.

Wynn Netherland and Jim Mulholland from Squeejee.com gave a great presentation on virtual collaboration tools. I’ve gotten used to keeping much of my work “in the cloud” and Wynn and Jim did a nice job of rounding up the most useful tools for working with teams spread across the globe (they even did their presentation live on Google Docs. Cool.)

Here’s a photo of the schedule board in the lobby. A little something for everyone.

My own presentation about mobile web design & SMS went pretty well (at least I think so…it’s hard to gauge while standing behind a podium). I used a live SMS poll to determine how the crowd used their phones the most (talking, email, text messaging or mobile internet). Email and WAP came out on top, which isn’t surprising given the technologically savvy crowd at BarCampHouston. (Screenshot of the BarCampHouston3 mobile poll results.) I also posted some photos on Flickr yesterday.

(Update: I just found out my presentation deck was featured on the homepage of Slideshare today! Woot! Here’s the screenshot.)

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

P.S. – Bill Shirley posted a nice BarCampHouston update, too. Check it out.

P.P.S – Steve Evatt also recapped BarCamp Houston and took some cool photos as well.

Tags: barcamp, barcamphouston3, conference, houston, Technology

Houston Chronicle on Twitter

Posted by Dave | Filed under Business, Communication, Networking, Social Networking

I recently realized that we have quite a few fans of social media here at work. So, here is a list of some Twitter users working at the Houston Chronicle. You may even find your favorite writer or editor in this list…enjoy.

Web operations (designers, developers, system admins, etc):
@cmason
@wiredrogue
@sevatt
@elegantmachines
@big_dead_fish
@glove
@tes735

Editorial (writers, reporters, editors, content producers, etc):
@dsilverman
@LauraWeisman
@deanbetz
@houstonbands
@rjustinchan
@scifirantergirl
@lsteffy
@mcberkowitz
@rickdunham
@matt_stiles
@joeyguerra
@juliemason
@SydKearney
@howarddecker
@sbuggs
@corilyns
@kyriememo
@nick_anderson_
@mrglenn

Sales / Marketing (account executives, marketing specialists, etc)
@linafuh
@krmichell

If you know of anyone missing from this list, please post their user name in the comments and I’ll update the list. Also, here are a few Houston Chronicle Twitter feeds so you can keep up with local news via Twitter:

@TechBlog
@ChronSports
@TubularTV
@HoustonChron
@traffichouston

(Oh yeah, and you can find me at @davidherrold)

Have fun meeting some Chronicle folks!

- Dave

Tags: chron.com, houston chronicle, twitter

Decentralize me, please.

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Social Networking, Technology, Usability

Our content is becoming decentralized…and we love it.

Most bloggers I know are tangled up in multiple social networks, photo sharing sites, messaging services, networking sites, bookmarking platforms and a plethora of addictive attention-grabbing web services.

The concept of a “web presence” has changed so drastically over the last several years it’s become difficult to tell people “where” you are online. Blogs or personal home pages used to be our single point of existence online. These were the places we could refer colleagues, friends, family, etc if they wanted to see “our website.”

That’s not the case today.

Our lives are now split into dozens of different networks and spread across the internet like strategically placed digital confetti. We are on Facebook to connect with old friends and meet new ones. We are on LinkedIn to find jobs and stay connected to our business contacts. We are on Flickr to share our lives in photos. We are on Twitter because we have five spare seconds in line at the grocery store and saw something funny we need to share with the world. We are on Del.icio.us to keep track of all the amazing links we find and StumbleUpon to share them with the world.

Like a cheesy Zen proverb, we’re everywhere.

This is both frustrating and fantastic at the same time.

The fantastic part can be found in the amazing services we have access to for free. These services have connected old friends, gotten people out of foreign jails and made grandparents smile at newborn baby photos.

The frustrating part is trying to pull it all together. Some sites are friendly and speak to other sites; but most don’t. More often than not, our collection of platforms and services float like little islands unconnected in any meaningful way. We are forced to keep asking the same friends to connect with us on multiple services.

Some very smart people are working on pulling it all back together, but it still appears to be stuff of dreams at this point.

For now, many of us simply link all our networks, sites and services somewhere on our blog (as I’m doing in the right sidebar of this site). It’s not ideal, but until someone figures out how to bridge our isolated islands in a meaningful way, it’s what we’re forced to do.

What do you think? Will we end up with connected islands?

Photo by Harris Graber

Tags: Blogging, del.icio.us, facebook, flickr, linkedin, open social, openid, social networks

My Tweetwheel

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Social Networking

Tweetwheel is visual representation of the connectedness of your Twitter friends. How many of your Twitter followers are connected?

My Tweetwheel. (may take a little time to load)

Tweetwheel (via Bob Lee’s tweet)

Tags: Social Networking, tweetwheel, twitter

My Tweet Cloud

Posted by Dave | Filed under Blogging, Communication, Social Networking

This is my Tweet Cloud.

Interesting, eh?

Tags: data clouds, tweet cloud, twitter

Twitter in plain english

Posted by Dave | Filed under Blogging, Communication, Networking, Social Networking

Video link.

I’ve been using Twitter for a while now and thought this was a great explanation of exactly how the site works. Look me up on Twitter if you’re interested.

Tags: twitter

LinkedIn launches company profiles

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Networking, Social Networking

LinkedIn recently launched Company Profile pages that display detailed information on companies like the Houston Chronicle. I must have forgotten the shear volume of data LinkedIn has from all of its members diligently entering all their connections, past jobs, associations and groups.

I thought it was pretty interesting to include information on popular career paths (jobs before and after) and other companies most connected to (see screenshot to the left).

This is a nice addition to LinkedIn, however, it looks like they plan on adding even more functionality to the profiles eventually:

Coming soon, companies will be able to do the following to their LinkedIn company profile:

* post targeted jobs, recruitment videos, and other promotional material for recruitment
* post information about products and services
* upload company images
* and more…

This sounds great, but I’m betting LinkedIn charges for some of these new services…especially job posting. They’d be crazy not to.

The age, sex, title and school breakdown of employees within the company are also very interesting data to consider. I think you could learn a lot about a company by giving these stats a quick glance.

The stats will likely be skewed to younger and more technically savvy employees because the data comes from only registered LinkedIn users (not every employee in the company). But, hey I could be wrong.

It would be more accurate if it came from the HR departments of each company, but that would fairly labor intensive for LinkedIn to pull together.

The last feature I think is interesting is the “Popular Profiles.” Not sure why I showed up in that list, but it gets me one step closer to becoming the most popular David Herrold on the internet.

At which point I will retire and dispense wisdom from a mountain top.

Here is the link to the Houston Chronicle’s company profile on LinkedIn.

Enjoy.

Tags: linkedin, Networking, Social Networking