emlarson

I want to like Evernote. I really do. I hear good things about it. Same with Pinterest. But, for the life of me, I don't "get it" -- not for either one, which means I have issues hangin' out with all the hip and cool kids because they "get it" and I don't.

Can someone explain exactly how Evernote is supposed to revolutionize my life? Maybe point me to a blog post or video or something that could act as a brain-dump and bring me up to speed?

I also roll in some Dweeb Thoughts podcast clips on the topic of cheap technology (like MP3 players and ebook readers) and lecture capture. Fun stuff!

Call with comments, even though it might not work quite right, to 206-339-ERIC, a.k.a. 206-339-3742, or email them to me (eric) at ericast.com and they'll get here.

Who am I? Why am I here? Who hasn't asked those questions, right? Well... there's a good chance that a lot of folks haven't. I have. A lot. And this episode touches on my latest self-examination project through the "LifeKeys" program/seminar/thing.

I then go on a huge tangent about the MBTI; read about my INTP-ness (just don't read that phrase out-loud) at the Wikipedia entry on INTPs.

What's your type? What do you think of the iPhone 4s? Any opinions somewhere in-between? Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and add your voice to the Ericast community!

Every so often an episode arrives with so much heart-felt passion that, in my exuberance, I totally forget to mention the episode number at the beginning. This might be one of those... or maybe I just forgot. It's episode 184. It includes a clip from David Allen's "Getting Things Done," which I mention in these show notes not because it's terribly vital but because it gives me a chance of finding the reference when I search for it later so I don't have to depend on dedicated listeners like Chad to do that work for me.

(As promised in the podcast, the quote is from Page 8 in the section titled "The 'Big Picture' vs. the Nitty Gritty"; you can find it with an Amazon text search of the Getting Things Done book itself)

Speaking of dedicated listeners, keep those calls coming to 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC), email me (eric) at ericast.com, or get in touch through Facebook and Twitter and all the other places you can find me.

Oh! Drones? Didn't I have a Dweeb Thought related to drones? Here's a link to the Parrot AR Drone on Amazon -- I ought to set up affiliate links on all this traffic I'm sending to Amazon, shouldn't I? -- so you know what I was talking about in that segment...

One last tease: Can you identify the audio clip at the very end of the podcast?

Yes, indeed, I'm launching a new podcast! Head on over to DweebThoughts.com for my off-the-cuff technology-related observations... or stay right here and listen to this podcast because the same thoughts are polished and rolled in here.

So, don't worry -- this one isn't going anywhere. It's like adding a new member to the family; there's more to love, right?

How's that workin' for you? Let me know -- 206-339-ERIC a.k.a. 206-339-3742 or send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com and give me some feedback on the format.

Wrapping up the "cars of Eric's past" conversation... though I only get a few Mercury Sable comments in before I ran out of time, so I could do a "Cars, Part 3" episode... but I bet nobody would be interested in that.

Would you? Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and let me know if you want more car conversation (I dare say "car talk"... no, I won't say that) or if you'd like me to switch to a different topic.

(If there are any other '86 Merc Sable fans out there, let me know! Let's bond over cool cars that were ahead of their time!)

Down to the wire in getting the last Ericast of 2011 out-the-door and the rate of speech in this episode betrays that... but, nonetheless, it's an interesting podcast about my new belated Christmas gift to myself in light of the cars I grew up with.

Having run up to the 20 minute mark without any exciting details of the Mercury Sable, you need to call me and encourage me to finish the story: 206-339-ERIC a.k.a. 206-339-3742, or send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com.

See you in 2012!

Oh... and, to whet your appetite about those photos I mention in the podcast... here's a sample:

This episode features and discusses a clip from James MacDonald's message "The Power of Biblical Friendship" at Harvest Bible Chapel in suburban Chicago. (full video) If you're not Bible-oriented, don't let the title scare you... though, I'll admit, the topic might push you (and me!) out of our comfort zones a little bit as to what a "friend" really is.

Hint: A"friend" isn't just who you connect to on Facebook.

Thoughts? Objections? Refinements to the topic? General holiday wishes and greetings for an upcoming new Ericast year? Call 206-339-3742 (206-339-ERIC if that's easier for you to remember) and leave a message with your comments!

An awkward episode this week, simply because we're spending a bunch of time talking about something that we all agree we shouldn't be talking about. Intrigued? Take a listen, then call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and share your thoughts!

For a variety of reasons I've had the topic of "charitable giving" on my mind lately. In what might be a short series (or, who knows -- maybe a one-shot episode if nobody responds?), this week we feature an interview with Tom Oscanyan (long-time occassional Ericast interview subject) as we discuss the "business" of giving to charities.

What do you think? Are we spot-on? Off-base? Other-hyphenated-things? Let us know with a message on the Listener Feedback Line: 206-339-3742 a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC. Or, if you must approach this in a textual form, send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com.

A special episode for Chad which, I realized after recording, doesn't exactly capture the whole experience of watching a huge trebuchet firing in someone's backyard.

It was cool. Really, really cool. Does that help?

Links:

Olympus WS-320M (which I'm using to record this episode)
Minnov8.com (where I got inspiration for car-recording from Phil Wilson)
Obituary for Tom Keith (sound effects man from A Prairie Home Companion)
Trebuchet information
Vintage (circa 2000) site of NOVA's Trebuchet project
Video (not mine) of the Trebuchet event I attended

Questions? Want more details? Give a call to the Listener Feedback Line -- 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) and leave a message!

Don't worry -- the rest of you are welcome to listen as well! But, holding to my promise last week that I'd steer the show in whatever direction you, the listener, would like to steer it... and Matt's call to the Listener Feedback Line (206-339-3742) kicks us off!

So, in a way, this is "Matt's show" per his requested topics. Discussion this week: my standards on Facebook posts, antidisestablishmentarianism, my new domain purchase, and my photo scanning technologies.

Questions? Ideas? Call 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) and share!

Yes, I'm back! Please tell me you're still listening! Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) right now with a "welcome back!" or a "where have you been?" message.

Topics of this episode? How about autumnal "excitement" that's separate from home life, Facebook etiquette, God as a vending machine, jubilee years, the Year 2000, Amethystium, amethyst, MP3.com, The Outernet, "space music" vs. "new age" music, philosophy, Orion, astronomy, ISS sightings, Fitbit, scanning, birthdays, hamsters, heating vs. air conditioning, domain names, about.me, local candid photography, and "two-thousand twelve" vs. "twenty twelve" decision points. And I didn't even mention my renewed vigor in FTA satellite television.

That's quite a summary of my life overall, isn't it? Let me know what you think -- 206-339-3742 with any and all thoughts or responses.

Just a quick text-based greeting to my dedicated listeners; I'm not gone and the summer cold wasn't the end of me, but I was clobbered by the usual start-of-term crush at work (plus a few exciting variations thrown in). ..

But "Emma" might just have inspired me to return to the world of podcasting a.s.a.p. with her lovely comment:

Hello there, I was looking for same kind of information what your website have. I kinda like it. Excellent content. Please keep up this good work. Hope to come back again.

Regards,
British Shopping and voucher code directory

This hasn't just been a case of "a bad cold" where you blitz yourself on cold medicine and go on with your life; this thing has been going on for weeks and weeks. Thus, my excuse for not giving you an episode in the past month or so.

Discussion this week of the Burnsville Center (thanks to input from Jonzer), the Minnesota Twins and Cricuts. How's that all tie together? Listen and find out!

Questions? Comments? Call 206-339-3472 (a.k.a.) 206-339-ERIC or drop an e-mail to me (eric) at ericast.com.

Just a quick update during VBS week... that has nothing to do with Vacation Bible School. Instead, the question: What happened to Burnsville Center?!?

No, really! What happened?

Ideas? Comments? Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and leave a message on the Listener Feedback Line!

Download the file from

http://imtransfer.im4mobile.com/vr/uploads/460813116430441613/2011-07-25_08-11-06.MP3

The file will expire in 7 days, if you need to keep the voice message longer, please save the file.

We're back with what seems like a discussion of the Airship Ventures zeppelin visit to the Twin Cities but what actually ends up being a discussion of IT support and the idea, hope, goal or dream of "making every potential contributor the center of an unbounded personal network of social and technical resources."

(That comes from an EDUCAUSE Podcast with Sally Jackson and her reference to the vision statement of IT@Illinois.)

It's quite a mix, if I do say so myself. Give a call to the listener feedback line at 1-206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 1-206-339-ERIC) or send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com and check in with your thoughts and comments.

With the vague hope that Michael Buffer will call in to the listener feedback line at 206-339-3742 and leave a greeting for the Ericast community (rather than sending an attorney after us with charges of violating his wrestling catch-phrase trademark with our vacuum-related parody in the title), here's an episode that focuses entirely on a $10 yard-sale find.

Amazing what this podcast can do for your life, isn't it?

Roombas are cool. They are. I wouldn't pay retail for one... but here's the story of how I didn't.

Questions? Comments? Anything else that Patrick Rhone wouldn't ask for on his extremely cool Enough podcast? Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or email me (eric) at ericast.com.

No, it's not really "quarterly feedback," but it feels like it; it's been way too long since I've actually included your calls (rather than just saying, "I should include some calls!" week after week after week without actually doing it).

From iPads to coffee foam to bicycles to dead terrorists to tourist stop-offs, this podcast has it all! Well, maybe not "all," but it has big chunks of stuff.

In the spirit of cool recursive stuff, feel free to comment on the comments by calling 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or emailing me (eric) at ericast.com... or leaving a random off-topic disparaging remark on some form of social media. (Preferably not the latter but, as you'll learn from this episode, even that is useful and appreciated.)

Back in the metaphorical saddle after a mid-week trip to Duluth, Minnesota. Discussion of touring the William A. Irvin ore boat (which is a diesel-punk's dream... though it's more "diesel" than "diesel-punk") and the Duluth Depot.

Questions? Comments? A burning desire to hear the coupon story teasingly mentioned in this episode? Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and leave a message on the listener feedback line!

Don't worry -- I'm not going to freak out and break off all my friendships and dump my Twitter and Facebook accounts and podcast from a library or a mountaintop somewhere... but it's an interesting thought, isn't it?

This week's podcast ponders the question of "TMI" in the social-media world -- is it possible to have too much information flooding at you? Is this any different from the wad of dead-tree information that was once dropped on the doorsteps of homes across the country? (Short answer: Yes, it's different, because it comes directly from people you know, hence there's a relationship, hence there's a need -- or at least the feeling of a need -- to engage in that information more closely.)

How do you handle/maintain your relationships (in various communities or "networks")? That's a question regarding a) any practical tools/advice/methods you know of, and b) the mental/emotional "bandwidth" required to keep track of everyone and everything they're up to.

Comments and opinions, as always, are more than welcome at 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or via e-mail to me (eric) at ericast.com

A quick(-ish) podcast on the pretty typical "customer service" theme, this time asking whether complying with a customer's request is always the "best" customer service... or is there a time and a place for "education" that doesn't necessarily jump to do what the customer asked?

Intrigued? Listen to the podcast. Then call with questions or comments of any kind: 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) or email me (eric) at ericast.com

When getting a free cup of coffee isn't just a free cup of coffee, but an opportunity to ponder marketing and customer service and the full use of human resources who can do everything from pouring basic coffee from a glorified percolator to sculpting espresso foam into kitty-cats...

...Yes, welcome to the kind of Ericast episode you've always dreamed of... and one you'd like to comment on, by calling 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or emailing me (eric) at ericast.com.

Bonus resource: "50 Fancy and Pretty Arts of Coffee Foam"

I need a developer, a statistician, a psychologist and... a cosmetologist.

Why?

For years I've been interested in the "Ginger vs. Mary Anne" question: What criteria do different individuals use to prefer one attractive person over another?

If you walk down a hair-color aisle in the drugstore or leaf through a fashion magazine, you probably find different models more or less attractive. They're all "beautiful people" of course, but don't some seem to be "your type" while others aren't? Why is that?

As far as I know, there aren't studies or tools that address this. There have been projects to determine the "perfect average" of male and female attraction... But I'm looking for something that that ties to individuals with particular preferences.

What good would that be?

1) it's interesting
2) it might be useful in a dating site, to find who you're physically attracted to
3) it might be useful in a dating site, to warn you about a physical attraction. "You're not going to be able to assess this person's personality as a match or not because you're going to be blinded by your physical attraction."

What would this system look like?

You'd access the tool (through a website or such) and would be shown pairs of forced-choice head-shot photos of models of the gender you're attracted to. You'd rank one over the other. This would repeat and the statistician on the project team would have determined the best pairing algorithms -- high-high, high-low, etc.

The cosmetologist on the team would have developed a behind-the-scenes "impartial ranking" like you find with Pandora's "music genome project" and each photo would have multiple categories. (high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, bangs, whatever.)

Through the magic of programming and statistical analysis, the system would look at your preferences and find your personal top determining factors of attraction. "Eric, you like redheads, with 'prominent ears' being a secondary preference." Who knows?

That's the plan. So... How do we build it?

Years ago (when the series was new) we played with posts related to Kari Byron (of MythBuster's fame) here on the "educating eric" blog because, having mentioned her in passing once, we started getting tons and tons of related hits from people looking for more information about her. I moved all that conversation over to the att.ention.net blog but every once in awhile something comes up that's just too interesting to pass up.

From the laslow.net blog which is having all sorts of loading problems right now (I wonder why?), here you go...


Why is this a big story right now? Because:

I heard a hauntingly pretty song by some nameless young woman on the Muzack in the coffee shop and wanted to look it up. But what was that lyric?

"You put your arms around me and hold"?
"You put your arms around me and fall"?

I couldn't make it out, and there sure are a lot of songs out there about arms doing hugging-like things... but I got lucky:

It's Christina Perry singing "Arms" and the lyric is:

"You put your arms around me and I'm home."

Which is beautifully poetic... but since she turns "and I'm home" into one melodic syllable it's really hard to figure out what she's singing.

Now you can Google "Christina Perry Arms" and see what you can come up with.

You're welcome. :)

I'm so angry at the StarTribune.com comment process, I could spit.

That's what I get for bothering to engage on their site.

It was Paul Walsh's story about the Farmers Airship arriving in the Twin Cities (lifted from the AirshipVentures.com press release) that got me interested in watching the landing with my daughters. In the article, Walsh wrote that "In a nod to its sponsor, the airship is scheduled to pass over the Farmers Insurance regional headquarters in Bloomington."

If you don't know where that is, Google the phrase and you'll find:

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?&cid=14673487912694924028

That office is easy to find; it's at the corner of 494 and 100 which, to my non-local readers, is a major intersection north of the Flying Cloud airport where the airship was heading.

We watched the tracking site from our home in Eagan and I left with my girls at what seemed like a reasonable time, and saw the ship in the distant sky to our south-west. That meant that we should head up 77 to west-bound 494 and meet up with it at Hwy. 100. Perfect.

Except, it didn't go there. It stayed south and went straight to the Flying Cloud airport.

Paul Walsh then updated his Star Tribune story to the present-tense without changing the planned fly-over or noting that it didn't happen, saying, "In a nod to its sponsor, the airship passed over the Farmers Insurance regional headquarters in Bloomington."

But it didn't.

It didn't, it didn't, it didn't.

And I don't mean "I expected it to fly so close that they could drop a beanbag out the window and onto the roof." I mean that it was nowhere near Bloomington, as far as I can tell.

So I wrote that in a comment on the StarTribune.com site that night:

emlarson Jul. 12, 11 8:55 PM

I don't usually complain about news articles, but as far as I know the Farmers Airship didn't go anywhere near the "Bloomington headquarters." I can understand that this morning's article was just pulled from the press release and they might have intended to fly there... but to just switch that poetically phrased plan into the past tense and write "In a nod to its sponsor, the airship passed over the Farmers Insurance regional headquarters in Bloomington" (which has to be the district office at 494 and 100) is just downright wrong and means we have a news story misrepresenting the facts of an event. Not cool. (I know it wasn't there, because I swung north and cut across 494 with my kids as we ran late and drove west, hoping that we could catch a glimpse of it before it landed. No luck because, as far as I can tell, it actually came straight across Burnsville and Savage up to Flying Cloud.)

bigj111 Jul. 13, 11 11:50 AM

emlarson: "I know it wasn't there, because I swung north and cut across 494 with my kids as we ran late and drove west, hoping that we could catch a glimpse of it before it landed. No luck because, as far as I can tell, it actually came straight across Burnsville and Savage up to Flying Cloud"-----In fact, you ARE wrong. I watched it out my office window near Hwy 100 this morning. Get yourself a new map.

• Airship Ventures sends a press release saying they're coming to the Twin Cities and plan to fly over sponsor's headquarters as they arrive.



• Newspaper reporter quotes that verbatim.



• Zeppelin arrives late and avoids sponsor's headquarters by several miles.



• Newspaper reporter simply updates now-inaccurate schedule to the present-tense without verifying that it happened.



• Commenter points out this error that evening.



• The next morning, Airship Ventures does fly over the headquarters. The scheduled event did happen, but not on the schedule that Paul Walsh said it did.



• BigJ111 then lifts my comment from the night before, quotes me by name, mocks me with the insult of "Get yourself a new map," and puts my words in the context of that morning's zeppelin trips (which were completely different things on completely different days).

...is gonna be big...

And I wonder if I'm still ranked in Google. :)

Not that anyone's interested in reading about me or my thoughts (that's not self-deprecating false humility; it's proof that I have a firm grasp on reality), but I figured I'd expand on a couple comments or lines-of-thought from this morning's Social Media Breakfast.

And, if nothing else, you can learn something about the grateful (but reserved when not on Twitter) guy who won the MixMobi give-away.

First, brief background: I've worked at the University of St. Thomas full-time since 1996 in one form or another of "academic technology support". When I finished my M.A. in Human Resource Development (a field that you can steer in the "career coaching" or "instructional design" directions -- I went with the latter) I moved over to the Web and Media Services department as a Business Analyst, where I first encountered the Social Media Breakfast (and attended meeting #3). I've attended off-and-on (mostly "on") ever since. I've dabbled in all-things-web ever since Gopher (how's that for an obscure reference?) which explains the odd Kari Byron references on this particular blog; I mentioned her in passing once and checked my stats only to find that there were lots of geeks desperate for information on her, so I figured I'd have some fun with it... and it's still my #1 search result.

I'm also a Capricorn and like long walks on the beach.

And long sentences.

Usually.

Anyway, my SMBMSP interest today was to see how we can move beyond (not "instead of" but "in addition to") the "typical" mobile conversation about retail sales and physical check-ins. I totally "get it" for that kind of business relationship... But what about using mobile technology to mediate relationships that aren't "sales" oriented?

And, I'd argue, "donations to non-profits" is really just a different spin on "sales".

But what about building relationships through the mobile side of "social media"? What about getting people more engaged in causes that they profess to value -- and probably do value, if only they can be nudged in the right way at the right time.

• Churches and other communities of faith relating to their members?
• Faculty connecting with their students... and students to each-other?
• Charities who want people to engage with them using more than their checkbooks?

Years ago when Ruth and I were first married and eBay was in the realm of "somewhat popular," I bought a set of inexpensive vintage Haynes prints of Yellowstone National Park. They were very nice (four still hang framed in our living room) and arrived with their original envelope...

...on the back of which was written an old "poem" of sorts, in all capital letters, pencil on brown paper:

SMILE WITH ME
MERRILY
SING TO ME
DREAMILY
LOVE WITH ME THE COLOR OF HER EYES
AND ENJOY WITH ME THE SMELL OF HER THIGHS
AND GIVE TO HER THE SONGS OF A THOUSAND MINSTRELS
THE CHIRPING OF BIRDS
A SOFT BLUE LULLABY
SMILE WITH HER AND I'LL BE SMILING TOO

TASTE HER WARM LIPS
SMELL HER RADIANT HAIR
TOUCH HER SMOOTH WHITE SKIN
LISTEN TO HER WORDS +
       SHE'LL DANCE LIKE AN ENCHANTRESS
WITH HER HEAD IN A RAINBOW AND HER FEET
SURROUNDED WITH LILIES
     AMONGST

I'm no poet (though I'm pretty sure that lines like "smell her radiant hair" are... bad. Unless her hair was giving off those comic-strip "smell squiggles"?)

But, seriously, I wanted to capture this here (as I'm about to pop four more of the prints into frames I got free at Menards -- you new there had to be some sort of timely connection to this, didn't you?) to pay homage to some anonymous guy (we assume it was a guy?) who was moved to scratch out these thoughts a few decades ago.

A friend said something interesting this morning as we had our weekly breakfast meeting to help steer what our church calls an "adult bible fellowship" (also known as an "adult Sunday school" though I think "Sunday school" has too much baggage and that title's acronym isn't one you want to use in church).

As we talked about the challenge (for the class and for ourselves) of helping people engage in the material and stay motivated for personal growth, we realized something:

At our stage of life (parents of young kids) we now have lots of competing time pressures and priorities. Conversely, our college years were marked by an externally applied "demand" that we learn and grow; even if we didn't enjoy sitting through calculus class, we couldn't help ending that semester having been "changed" in some way. Today, we no longer have a mandate of personal growth imposed on us.

My first podcast was recorded in 2005. More than five years later... recording, editing and distributing a podcast isn't any easier.

Isn't that a bit surprising?

I've lamented the loss of GigaVox Audio Lite, which became Podango ShowBuilder Lite, which became totally nonexistent. I figured something would step up to take its place.

Nothing has.

Phone-to-podcast solutions came and went -- Gcast, Garageband, etc. I finally became excited about the idea again when I discovered that drop.io offered the service... only to find they discontinued it. (The phone number reference still appears on accounts but it doesn't seem to do anything.) The few I've come across so far (UHaveAudio.com, ipadio.com -- which has nothing to do with the Apple iPad -- and Yodio.com) don't seem to match the ease/simplicity of Gcast -- nor do they have the posting speed. (I don't want to have to wait a few hours to see if my call was successfully recorded.)
Paul Colligan image by Neezee via Flickr
Paul Colligan offered PremiumCast.com which seemed to do some of the same things as ShowBuilder, but that's now become "Nanacast" but from its features list I'm still having a hard time figuring out what it can do for "automatic show assembly". And with it starting at $97 a month, it's not really good for the academic/hobbiest market.

And for what it's worth, years after I first mentioned it to Paul, both the PremiumCast terms of service and Nanacast terms of service still list as one of its "Restictions on Use" that "you may not (and may not authorize any other party to) ... (iii) hyper-link to this site, without the express prior written permission...." I don't know about you, but if I'm offering a podcast at a site I should would like to be able to link to that site. (I know that's not what they mean, but that's what they say, and the fact it's still not fixed causes me to worry about what else might be lurking in the TOS...)

I figured, "Maybe I can do the 'best of breed' thing and use multiple services, then combine those different feeds into one..." but the only tool around (other than the "running out of some guy's basement" level of developer service) is Yahoo! Pipes and reports are that it's flaky. In my experience, it works fine except that it won't sort the feeds by date and just tacks one onto the end of the next, which isn't very helpful.

Is there something out there that I'm missing?

I mentioned in passing on a recent Ericast that I've owned emlarson.com "since 2002". I have... but I bought it in December of 2000 so I've owned it for longer than that. Why was "2002" stuck in my brain? Because it's this Blogger blog that I've "owned" (have been writing at) since then.

But what should I write here?

This "home" pre-exists Posterous, Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc. etc. I bumbled into the popularity of mentions of Kari Byron and Ginger Alexander (which I moved over to att.ention.net once I realized that there were people out there who were searching for them) which really have nothing to do with me as a person, but which became hyper-popular.

I've dabbled in Google AdSense here... and found that people might read about TV starlets but that doesn't mean they're motivated to buy anything that someone might want to advertise with those starlets in mind.

Looking back eight years, this blog started out as a "web log" of links and interesting sites... but that's a role better served by Delicious.com now (which also appeared on the scene after 2002)...

So part of me thinks that I should just stop writing here (hence the "folding up the blog" post)... but the other part me thinks that I should write more here and get back to a "journal of thoughts" view of blogging.

Though I'm sure anyone's reading... but I always advise bloggers to write for themselves (in the sense of "writing for your own good and benefit" as opposed to "write as if you're your own audience" -- the latter might not make sense) so maybe I should take that advice and write more?

Anyway way I slice it, I think I need a new design. :)

By the way, Zemanta analyzes text and brings blogging to a level that borders on auto-blogging; let's see what they recommend based on a couple minutes of dashed-off thoughts here:

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Some people are "adrenaline junkies" and do bungee jumping or rock climbing for the thrill of it.

I'm not one of those people.

In fact, I'm WAY not one of those people. I'm an anti-adrenaline junkie; I like things peaceful and quiet.

But... I think I get the same feeling as those "junkies" from "learning new things" or "exploring new ideas," and by helping others to do the same.

For me, there's a tingling emotional rush when "the lightbulb goes on" -- when you're pondering or struggling with a concept and you "get it." I see it in myself, and in my daughter, and in my clients...

I guess this is why teachers like teaching, right?

So, if I'm right about myself and that's true... how can I structure my life to experience more of that? Conversely, how can I structure my life so I'm not just "living for a high" -- that I maintain a healthy and realistic balance?

While everyone who asks me has then turned around and shared a horror story that's equally bad (some much, much worse), I'm getting tired of explaining this over and over... so I'm going to write up the state-of-the-state and point folks here when anyone wants details of our billing limbo at Children's Hospital.

Here's the personal backstory as to why I get ticked off in the midst of receiving the world's best health care: I'm a customer service guy at heart. Anyone in customer service has plenty of opportunities to be stuck with (or to even perpetrate) some major screw-ups. So I usually give people a lot of latitude.

But when something that ought to be trivial becomes impossible to solve, I get frustrated.

And when that something is grounded in a power differential that has the capacity to really victimize an innocent citizen (typically found in cases of police misconduct, but also in unethical billing practices that corrupt credit ratings and land people in court), I get downright angry.

Even if it's not happening to me personally, "It's the principle of the thing."

We're not there yet with Children's... but at the rate we're going, I have no reason to think we won't be in a few months. Yet I really have no idea; Rule #1 is "Keep the victim guessing."

Since those in authority always claim that HIPAA keeps them from saying anything useful, I'll disclose right away that our daughter Chloe was born with a cleft lip and palate. Because that basically means that her head wasn't knit together quite right in the womb, she also has fluid in her ears and needs to be assessed for hearing loss -- a standard cleft-related issue.

We go to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis and have had great luck with their "Cleft and Craniofacial Clinic" -- Dr. Sidman's team is nice (though his partner Dr. Lander has better bedside manner than he does) and Dr. Rich did a good-looking lip surgery. We haven't had much experience with the rest of the team (and, given our current experience, we're not going to if I have anything to say about it...)

Much more than just "fixing a lip," clefts involve speech therapists and dentists and orthodontists and ENTs and audiologists, so the "cleft clinic" will schedule one annual appointment where you come for a whole day and rotate from one doctor to the next to the next and get a "team report" at the end.

Our appointment was in early April, we're still dealing with billing problems, Children's has promised four times to fix them, and we have no idea when the problem will actually end.

We've got insurance -- "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota," which says it's "the largest health plan based in Minnesota, covering 2.7 million members in Minnesota"... so I would have thought that Children's had dealt with them before.

It doesn't seem like it has.

When hospitals submit an insurance claim, they "code" it so the insurance company knows what it was. Cleft stuff is coded with some sort of "cleft code" that reveals it's mouth related, and hearing stuff is coded with some sort of "ear code" that reveals it's hearing related.

Blue Cross Blue Shield apparently doesn't look at "secondary diagnosis" when they process claims... which I think is strange, but that's how these things work.

So when Children's billed the audiology session at our team clinic appointment (in three separate bills for some reason?) as "cleft" (with a secondary diagnosis of hearing loss) Blue Cross rejected it outright. To their computers, that's like seeing someone get a foot exam because of their heart attack; maybe it was medically necessary for some reason, but the computer sure doesn't like it.

So, we make a call to Blue Cross: "No problem; we don't look at secondary diagnosis, so just have Children's re-submit those audiology bills with the audiology code as the primary diagnosis and they'll be covered."

Call #1 to Children's Minneapolis billing department: Wife is told "We don't have any record of that submission." Wife explains it's in paper right in front of her. Wife is told to call back in a couple weeks when it's in the system.

Wait. Bill comes.

Call #2 to Children's Minneapolis: Wife is told outright, "I don't understand what you want me to do." Wife spends 20 minutes explaining to rep, who promises to send it off to the billing department. Wife is also promised that the account will be flagged as under revision so we don't get any erroneous bills.

Wait. Another bill comes. Same amount.

Call #3 to Children's Minneapolis: "Would you like me to transfer you to the last rep you spoke with, ma'am?" No, please don't do that. Rep promises to re-submit the claim to their "coding department" but "depending on whose desk it lands on, it could be two or three weeks". Okay. Could you please note it in the system that this is actually in progress so we're not treated as deadbeats who won't pay our bills? "Sure, I can do that."

Wait. Another bill comes. They're getting angrier. Same amount.

Call #4 to Children's Minneapolis: "No, ma'am, we can't make those kinds of coding adjustments; that has to be made by the Dr.'s office." Wife: "Do you have any idea why it is that after four calls you're the first person who has told me that?!?" "No, ma'am, but that's who you have to talk to."

(Why do they put the number for the billing department on the bill if the billing department isn't the right place to call, they're not even going to tell you that secret until the fourth time you call them?)

Call #5 to Children's Minneapolis: Wife talks to the coordinator in the Dr.'s office, who promised to look into it and call back with news.

We're waiting for that call.

So were the first three reps... Incompetent? Liars? Or were they correct, the fourth rep was wrong, and we're going to be dealing with this all over again in a couple weeks?

Here's my issue: People screw up all the time. Companies screw up worse because they're composed of bunches of people. I understand that. But for some strange and magical reason I've never seen a billing mistake in my favor. Hmmm.

So, here are some rules:

1. When I point out your error... If you promise to fix it, then you'd better fix it!
2. And if you value me as a customer or client or patient or victim or whatever term you prefer, you'd better not threaten me while you take your time fixing your problem.
3. And if your employees have given me the run-around, then you'd better not give me more runaround while telling me that if I'd known your process I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in.

I heard back from the good folks at StaplesTweets who asked for details on the problems I've had with rebate programs, since I mentioned them as part of a tweet on my less-than-fun experiences:

"I'm amazed at how companies (@bestbuy, @officedepot, @staplestweets) make their "rewards" programs so convoluted & frustrating"

With rebates, there's kinda the understanding of "If you jump through these hoops, we give you an insanely good price on something". But the "rewards" stuff is branded as "You're a loyal customer so if you buy things with us instead of our competitors, we'll treat you as 'special' and give you some money or coupons once in awhile."

So, let's take Best Buy as a hypothetical example... I bought a Wii and a cheap Insignia camcorder for Christmas. No points showed up, for weeks. When I re-entered the receipt number, it said it had already been entered. So I just went back in [to the Best Buy rewards site], found that I had a $5 certificate waiting with one month before it expires, but that $89 and change had been "forfeited" on 2/5. And when I checked my preferences, I found that "e-mail me coupons and things" had been unchecked, which I know I'd had checked before -- and which I'm sure is why I didn't get any sort of "birthday coupon" in January.

Thus, what's my feeling about Best Buy? Certainly not the warm, fuzzy, "I like shopping here" thing that they're going for. With rebates, I understand that it's a "game". But the "rewards" thing is supposed to make me happy and make me like them, isn't it?

Sometime soon I have to podcast about the opposite -- the AWESOME way the Burnsville Hope Depot handled their Saturday morning kids program (in contrast to the Apple Valley one).

Anyway, it's just frustrating -- not personally, but in that "No, squirrel! Don't run under that car that's speeding toward you!" sense.

Just had a bunch of problems with trying to update Adobe Acrobat in a computer lab; I'd get the error:

Update Failed
Cannot install the update
Please run Adobe Acrobat Repair
Error: 1500

Running the Adobe Acrobat Repair from the Help menu gave me an error that my U: drive couldn't be found... which is what gave me the solution.

Long story short, our computer labs map the My Documents folder to a network drive but my administrative account doesn't have a network drive so its "My Documents" folder is invalid.

The problem is that the Adobe Acrobat update requires a valid My Documents folder.

Right click My Documents on the desktop, choose "Properties," choose "Restore Default" and get a working path to My Documents, adn the update ran fine -- I didn't even have to run the Adobe Acrobat Repair utility.

It's been... quite a few years (7? 8?) and I'm pondering whether I should basically "archive" off the Blogger blog here and move to something different like Posterous (which I'm using at the moment for my "random thoughts that don't fit into Twitter" -- emlarson.posterous.com, if you really want to take a look).

I've also put out a call on Twitter for design advice on emlarson.com in general; it always was an "aggregate of various things and interests" but, at this point, all of those things and interests will fall under a different site (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Posterous, PicasaWeb, YouTube, att.ention.net, etc.) or not at all... right?

Any ideas or suggestions? Drop me a note or leave a comment here... not that it's easy to find the place to comment given how much I've broken the template to get it to conform to the old emlarson.com look-and-feel... but that's a different issue. :)

This was a big story back in October: "I Thought I had Insurance"

But whatever happened to them?

United Healthcare admitted it was wrong... but did it ever "fix the glitch," or are Heather and Greg Mroz still on the hook for a half million dollars of costs that they don't really owe?

According to a cached copy of a page from Health Care for America NOW,

Heather Mroz, 24, Coconut Creek, Florida, and her husband, Greg, face $480,000 in medical bills after United Healthcare canceled Greg’s $1,260 a month policy he had through his construction job for “failure to negotiate” new premiums prior to the premature birth of their twins, Hannah & Wyatt, in June 2009. Greg‘s company went out of business in March, and the family arranged to pay UHC directly while COBRA was being worked out. UHC gave the hospital approval in writing, saying it would pay for everything connected with the pregnancy even if it was high risk because she was having twins. Heather was hospitalized at several points to stop premature labor, and the babies were born premature and needed extra care. Heather then learned during a doctor’s appointment that UHC had canceled the policy - though there was no notification, and UHC continued to accept their premiums. UHC demanded reimbursement, and then the family was “bombarded” with bills from the hospital and doctors. The family is facing bankruptcy and had to move in with Greg’s parents. The strain of the situation has contributed to the couple’s recent separation and pending divorce.

I've yet to see a LiveScribe pen in action and I don't like the idea of being stuck with specialized paper... but a faculty member mentioned a couple weeks ago that a student had one and took notes with it during the entire semester.

That got me thinking: Can you play back LiveScribe notes as a "movie", with animated writing paired up with the audio recording?

If so... could you tie multiple note-taking movies together (merge them on one screen?) so that you can see what different people were jotting down at the same time?

Okay, after a full 24 hours of soul-searching, I think I've got it. Bear in mind that I live in a mental world of metaphors... and that's what it to come up with the following, with full props to Rick and Mylk and everyone who works on the excellent Social Media Breakfast here in the Twin Cities...

We're looking forward to the upcoming CPBMSP #23! This month's Breakfast will continue to explore the new (but rapidly maturing) phenomenon of "Cocktail Parties" with a multitude of topics:

• Drambuie vs. Glayva: Bringing Variety to your Cocktails!
• Marketing plastic storage containers through Cocktail Parties
• How to mix Selling Candles and Sipping Cocktails
• Cocktails and Cooking: Hold a Pots and Pans Party!

In planning our upcoming meetings, we're also hoping to have a discussion about some emerging uses of Cocktail Parties:

Some religious groups will gather in homes in what they call "Bible Studies;" since the consumption of cocktails at these gatherings is more limited than usual, are they truly "Cocktail Parties"?

Art galleries are begining to hold Cocktail Party gatherings where the focus is on discussion of the art rather than monetizing the relationships with the artists.

And on the artistic front, actors will sometimes greet theater-goers after a performance; is this kind of activity something that we'll see more of in the Cocktail Party space?

See where I'm going with this?

It really boils down to one big "DUH!": "social media" is just one means or venue for conversations -- for engaging in relationships. There's a little bit of value in talking about venue itself, and it's inevitable that (some) people will jump to the "how can we make money from this?" question. But if probing of "social media" as a definable, tangible "thing" ends there, there's not much point.

Today's SMBMSP discussion of social media in health care was a great example of the (potential) value of "social media" as it's used for some sort of societal benefit -- to make people more healthy, in this case. For me, the hope of these tools (or any technology) is that it can be used for some sort of "good" rather than used for its own sake... and that hope is either really hard or really easy to get a handle on.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s Social Media Breakfast because its topic (health care) has the potential of talking about something that actually means something.

Let me back up.

I’m a fan of the “get rich quick” internet stuff (ever since the pre-internet magazine ads attracted my attention in the 1980s; I was too cheap to send in the $19.95 to find out the “secret to millions,” though I suspect the answers lay along the lines of “Run ads in magazines asking people to send $19.95…”). The problem is that most of the “get rich quick” marketing appeals to others who are marketing the same thing – “buy this $1000 seminar so that you can learn my secrets that have gotten me rich as I sell seminars”.

There are a few “real products” like weight loss or stock tips but, aside from Russell Brunson’s star pupil Joy Anderson (who sells information on how to start a preschool out of your home), it seems there’s very little “real content” to be had or sold.

I feel the same way about “social media”.

What?!?

It seems that the folks in the “social media” space are either 1) using social media to talk about how great social media is, or 2) using social media to sell something.

The latter is fine – we live in a capitalist society and I realize that “sales” is what makes the world go ‘round – but you have to remember that I’ve grown up and have always lived and worked in an “academic space,” which has the opposite problem: people charge (sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly) that academia doesn’t live in reality either, and nothing we do is “real”.

So, somewhere, I’m hoping to find the “happy medium” where we can talk about “social media” (or any technology, for that matter) used not for its own sake, and not to just sell something or other, but to do some real good for a genuine purpose.

Two questions:

1. Does that make any sense, or do I need to work harder to try and raise this thought to the level of basic coherence?


2. Do you have any suggestions/alternatives/examples of social media being used outside of basic marketing (typically for a product or service but, in worst cases, merely for itself as a concept)?
   

I keep hearing how cool/revolutionary/hip this "Foursquare" thing is, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Perhaps part of my problem is that I've got a Blackberry which, for some reason, doesn't yet have a Foursquare client. It works fine from its web browser, I'm told, but... this doesn't make much sense to me.

Question: Does the Foursquare client for other smart-phones have some sort of geo-location feature (using cell towers or such)? Because, when using the web browser on the Blackberry, all it does is narrow my options down to the "Twin Cities" (which, if you don't know, is pretty big).

I'm 0 for 3 in the Foursquare locations I've searched for, and the search process seems really awkward. When it finds something, the results seem random; that's probably because the locations are manually entered by other Foursquare members, but it seems to lead to a mess.

For instance, this morning, I was at the Holiday station in Eagan. There are three Holidays in Eagan, in fact, but none of them appeared in Foursquare search. What did turn up was permutations of "Holiday Gas," "Holiday Station Store," etc. -- some with locations in their title and some without, some with complete addresses and some without.

What I want is an app that behaves like your contacts on your phone: Based on cell-tower location, a list of known sites is populated, and as you type parts of the name ("Holiday" or "gas") it would narrow down the list.

Plus, I'd like some sort of "scrubbing" of the data on the back-end, so that duplicate entries are matched and removed.

Is that something that other incarnations of Foursquare do and I'm just suffering on a bad client, or is what I'm dreaming of just way too complicated for today's technology?

Here's something I'm pondering in my spare time -- and I'm hoping that some of my web geek friends can pitch in with some suggestions.

The background: I love the 1980s. And 1990s. And nothing captures the spirit of those times like commercials and TV news clips. Thanks to my pack-rat tendencies and the miracle of home DVD burning, I've been able to go through my ancient VHS tape archive and put clips up for all to see on YouTube.

But I also own the BigHair.TV domain (where nothing sits at the moment) and I'm hoping to build out a site that features (but isn't limited to) that video content. For instance, I'd love to track down some of the old TV personalities for "Where Are They Now?" interviews... but if it's written rather than video, it would need to be posted somewhere other than YouTube.

But, I don't want to be manually "maintaining a blog" -- I don't want to have to post something to the YouTube channel, then go to the blog and write a post about it. Somehow, I want the YouTube content to be pulled into the site automatically (though, admittedly, I don't really know what "the site" would look like at this point).

I can't be the only person thinking about this kind of thing -- a web site whose main (but not only) content lives on YouTube. How would you build something like that?

For Mac users who are trying to get their e-mail from a Microsoft Exchange server, the new (new-ish) Exchange Web Services of Entourage (Entourage EWS) held a lot of promise.

And it works great... as long as you don't need your calendar or contacts.

That's quite a limitation... and I don't think it's supposed to be that broken.

Any suggestions?

Here's the situation: If a contact or calendar item is "born" in Entourage EWS, it syncs to the Exchange server just fine. And if you delete that item from another client -- from Outlook Web Access (OWA) or Outlook 2007 on Windows, then it disappears from Entourage EWS on the Mac.

But if you create a calendar item on something other than Entourage, it never makes its way into Entourage.

That's bad.

You can watch Entourage EWS "poll through" all your calendar and contact items -- it says it's downloading them, but they never actually appear anywhere.

I turned on logging and see a lot of the following in the huge resulting log file:

m:GetItemResponseMessage ResponseClass="Error"
m:MessageText
An internal server error occurred. The operation failed.
/m:MessageText
m:ResponseCode
ErrorInternalServerError
/m:ResponseCode
m:DescriptiveLinkKey
0
/m:DescriptiveLinkKey
m:Items /
/m:GetItemResponseMessage

...

[ 689611us, d 0us]
Entourage Exchange Web Services: Engine
[Exchange folder Calendar]: Reading remote record 722
[ 689611us, d 0us]
Entourage Exchange Web Services: CSyncEngine::
FetchRemoteRecords Continuing from recoverable error

Yes, it's been ages since I've posted anything here -- sorry!

A quick update which will be meaningless when examined decades from now... but which makes for a slightly pertinent question at the moment: Did anyone see all of my old posts re-populate the RSS feed a few days ago? When looked at from my Yahoo! feeds page, it says that everything I've written in the past year was written "5 days ago"... which it wasn't.

Odd...

Today, my wife forwarded me an interesting e-mail she got from Half.com (a.k.a. eBay.com a.k.a. Mean Faceless Corporate Giant).

For starters, you should know that I've been buying things on eBay since 1996. No, that's not a typo and I'm not off by a decade; back when the auction site was named "AuctionWeb" (the reason that eBay e-mails had/have "aw" in them) tucked under the domain "eBay.com" (which was the "holding company"), I was buying brochures and guidebooks from the 1939 New York World's Fair there. So I know eBay pretty well, and have seen it shift from a cooperative community to a bloated money-making-venture for its owners to a dying site that has driven away its sellers by victimizing them in the name of "buyer protection".

Which brings me to today's topic. Years ago (just shy of four years, to be exact), we listed some old books for sale on Half. There weren't many sales... though one notable one went to "peaceandhope060" who gave Ruth her first and only negative feedback after claiming a book never arrived. For some reason, "peaceandhope060" didn't bother to contact Ruth and tell her about that before permanently messing up her eBay feedback rating. (Knowing Ruth, regardless of things like post office delivery receipts, she would have just refunded the purchase price and shipping cost just to avoid the hassle... but, hey, the experience taught us that it's the ones named "Peace and Hope" that you have to watch out for...)

Anyway, point being, the Half.com experience was never a good one for us. We took that set of books, set them to "Suspended" so that they were no longer included in the Half.com database as available, and figured we might get back to selling them someday.

Today, having paid very little attention to Half.com for a very long time, a surprise appeared in the Inbox. Before reading, note a few things:

• The book in question wasn't for sale. It was tied to our account in "suspended" state, but nobody could buy it. (In fact, it was part of a collection that we gave away last year.)
• We have no way of knowing what the problem really was. The book has already been deleted. eBay and Half.com: Judge, Jury, Executioner, Sender of Form Letter -- in that order. In a nutshell, the message is "Trust us; there was something wrong, but we already obliterated all evidence of it."
• If we do it again (what, exactly?) the punishment will be worse. "You don't know what 'it' was, but so help me, if you do 'it' again, we're going to 'escalate' on you, though we won't tell you what that means, either." Nice.
• None of the suggested issues could possibly apply. The only comments that we added to our listings are regarding quality (e.g. "Name on inside" or "Some highlighting"). It wasn't an international edition or teacher edition. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an 8-track tape.

Hello ----- (-@-------.com),

We are writing to inform you that the following item(s) were removed from your Half.com inventory:

12357068252 - Sociology : David M. Newman (Paperback, 1995)


When creating a listing at Half.com, sellers must match the ISBN, title, author, edition, binding format, publisher and publication date on the catalog page exactly. It is not appropriate to use the seller comment field to change any of this information. If an item your want to sell does not match an offering in our retail catalog, you will not be able to sell it on Half.com. Your item was ended because it did not match the catalog page exactly.

You can request that your item be added to our catalog by using the form below. If your book is not in our catalog and is out of print, published before 1990, from an out of business publisher, or vanity press we strongly suggest that you list the item on eBay instead of requesting a catalog edition.

http://pages.half.ebay.com/help/wizard/result_2_7_20.html

The following items can not be listed on Half.com and should be sold on eBay. In some cases you must be in possession of distribution rights.

- International edition books
- Teachers editions books
- Book club publications and Music Club releases
- Prepublication editions books (ARCs, galleys, proofs, etc)
- Promotional music cd's (including items with drill holes and saw cuts)
- The cassette, LP, and 8-track music formats

We have already deleted the item from your inventory. If you have any specific questions regarding your recently ended item please reply to this email and include the ended ITEM NUMBER and ITEM TITLE indicated above. We do ask that you find some time to review our list of prohibited items and compare it to the items in your inventory. Please delete any prohibited items from your inventory. If Half.com is continually ending your items it may escalate into stronger administrative action against your account.

Sincerely,

Half.com Trust & Safety