Can a broken arm kill Jim’s love for technology and social media? Stay tuned:
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Loyal listeners of The Hopkinson Report know a few things about me:
- I never miss a week (once in the last 118 episodes)
- I love technology, being online and all things social media
- I love mountain biking (I compared the ‘flow’ of biking to a business in Episode 113)
So when I was away for the first part of my vacation while mountain biking some epic trails in Seattle, the capable Brandon Werner filled in. But then the unexpected struck when I came back to the east coast to go biking in the rocky trails of the Pocono mountains.
Photo: Happier, 2-armed times near Seattle just days before my crash
Do you believe in social media karma? No less than SEVENTY-FOUR different people wished me happy birthday on Thursday August 19th. It was great. Everyone was so happy, and people wished me the greatest day of the year!
Well, as fate would have it, my upper arm (distal humerus) would face a 3-foot high karma boulder head-on. And lose. Badly.
The next week turned into a whirlwind of hospitals, travel, surgery, second opinions, friends, family, pain, insurance red tape, and frustration before finally making it back to NYC.
My friends said that I would somehow find a way to link my broken arm to social media.
In truth? I went the opposite way.
What did NOT matter in that week, was twitter, foursquare, facebook, marketing, viral videos, podcasts, and blog posts.
What DID matter, was family, friends, coworkers, communication and old school doctors screwing a piece of metal into me to put me back together.
I will say this:
- Text updates were great for quick communication
- Facebook is a great way to post gross photos
- E-mail is a good way to tell a story once to many people (helpful with one arm)
- The iPad is a great way to kill 3 painful hours on a train
However, all this is nothing without a real world network.
On this special edition of The Hopkinson Report, Jim is on vacation, so I, Brandon Werner (Intern 1.0 for long time The Hopkinson Report listeners) guest-hosts. I explain why Social Media is the new dividing factor between Generation Y and their Baby Boomer parents.
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On Hopkinson Report Episode 102, Jim interviewed me on my research on my generation, the millennial AKA Generation Y. This group is also called the echo-boom, as they are the children of the famous Baby Boomers. Since recording that episode, I had a revelation that will be the topic of this episode.
When I was a child, I remember my parents (baby boomers/teens of the 60′s and 70′s) used to tell me stories of how their parents “just didn’t get it”. Their formative teenage years were filled with Woodstock, the anti-Vietnam movement, Nixon… These were the years of Rock ‘N Roll and there was a sharp divide between the baby boomers and their “Greatest Generation” parents.
Through my teenage years, I never really felt that level of misunderstanding between my parents and I. In fact, my parents “got-it” almost too well. I wanted to learn drums and be in a band, my dad taught me how to do it from his own experiences, If I tried to dye my hair, my mom would show me how. The classic parent/son anti-piercing or tattoo fight? They actually encouraged them (so I didn’t really have any drive to get them). I would say I wanted to go to a Green Day concert, and my dad would ask to come with me.
From talking to my friends, this is pretty standard. Where was our rebellion or revolution? Where was our Rock ‘N Roll? Recently, after a few failed attempts to communicate exactly what I do for a living, I think I found it. Our Rock ‘N Roll is Social Media.
Do you have “computer skills” listed on your resume? Get rid of it, it’s obsolete! I explain in this week’s podcast, or the blog post below.
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Over the weekend, I met with a person I’m mentoring. She went to the same college as I did, found me through our alumni network, and wanted to talk about her next job and look over her resume.
One of the things that I saw on there that was interesting, was a section called “Computer Skills.”
I went through each of the items and called her on it:
- Adobe Bridge Software?
What is that? Is it important? No. Take it off.
- iMac basic programming?
You mean, you used an iMac computer and did some things? She nodded hesitantly. I asked her, do you REALLY know how to program? She shook her head no. Gone.
- Datanet and Filemaker?
OK, so you used these programs to maintain some files. But are you an expert at it and did you really use them all the time? Not really.
- Google Apps
I don’t mind that it’s on there, but she already used it earlier in the resume, so that one gets removed as well.
- Lastly, Microsoft Office
You graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree. You live in New York City. You speak French and Italian. You’ve managed to send me your resume converted into a PDF. Proving you know Office is pretty much understood.
So that got me to wondering. For anyone that graduated with a Bachelors degree from the year 2000 and beyond, is the “computer skills” section of your resume completely obsolete?
And if the answer is yes, what goes in its place?
To answer that, we have to go old school for a minute. This is when having myself as your Generation X host comes in handy.
Need I remind you, I graduated in 1991, when there were NO cell phones, NO internet, NO email, and Photoshop 2.0 had just been released. For those keeping score, the concept of Photoshop layers wouldn’t be invented for 5 more years, and they’re basically up to version 12 now.
In my junior year Microsoft Windows 3.0 had just been released, along with Office version 1.0.
Social media? Ha! Mark Zuckerberg was 7.
So as someone that legitimately graduated with a degree in Computer Information Systems, putting a “Computer Skills” section on your resume really meant something.
When I started doing most of the hiring for the multimedia startup I worked for in 1994, it was a real challenge to determine which people had true computer skills, and which had played a few hundred games of Solitaire on their computer and claimed they knew Windows.
Thus, I came up with a computer test that I gave during interviews to see how people shaped up. It became legendary around the office, as no candidate had ever received a perfect score.
What’s interesting is back then, typing speed was a huge differentiator. You could sit in the conference room with someone in their brand new suit and listen to them smoothly talk about their tech skills, but when you sat them down in front of a keyboard and asked them to drill down into a subdirectory and alt-tab to another open application, you knew right away.
Dug into the archives and actually found my resume from 12 years ago:
Today I’m going to talk about a concept that stems from a single word called “flow.” I’m not going to get too deep or spiritual with you, but I think it’s a very important state of mind to recognize and strive for, both in your life and in your work.
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It’s approaching August here in New York City, which means it’s hot as hades, things are starting to slow down a bit, and in the next few weeks, both the city itself and the offices around town empty out as people end the summer with much-needed vacations before cranking things back up post Labor Day.
Quick flashback on my life … I lived in Seattle for 3 years and just about every Thursday after work when the weather was good, friends and I would head to a trail called Tiger Mountain just outside downtown to go mountain biking. It was the perfect release after 4 rough days of work, with a brutal 40 minute uphill climb the second you left the parking lot, followed by a 45 minute descent through rocks, roots, and flowing singletrack trails. On the weekends we’d venture further from the city and find other amazing trails. It was some of the best times of my life.
Jim’s guest is Deanna Zandt, author of a social media book. They talk about how she got a book deal, raised money to fund it, and how she got free pizza.
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Deanna Zandt is the author of the new book, “Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking” which you can find out more about at her website, DeannaZandt.com.
During our interview, we talk about the following topics:
- How the former corporate employee and self-proclaimed ‘webmonkey’ went from independent consultant to author
- The process she took to turn her training seminars into a book idea
- The “Jedi Mind Trick” philosophy her publisher uses, and how she used “the force” of social media to raise funds in order to work on her book
- How she used crowdsourcing on everything from the title to the cover — and how people reacted to it
- The free software program she used to dramatically ramp up her productivity during the writing process
And yes, she explains how she scored a free eye exam and free pizza along the way.
Apple’s iPad is flying off the shelves. Jim gives his real-world results after 30 days with it, reviews the Wired Magazine app, analyzes market share trends and asks, can it be beat?
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iPad iPad iPad.
Everyone is talking about the iPad, and so am I. Lets take a look at three things today:
1) My experience with the iPad 3G after one month with the iPad
2) My thoughts on the Wired Magazine iPad app
3) Analyze Apple’s historic marketshare and drill down to see the future of tablet computing and if the iPad can be beat
Note: All thoughts are my own opinion and not that of Wired or Apple. I have no affiliation with Apple and was not compensated.
Summary of the podcast below. Listen to the entire show for the full experience.
OK, so I’ve had the iPad for 30 days of real world testing.
I’ve installed various apps: the Entertainment Weekly Must List and Weather Channel (good, but could use some work), ones with solid functionality (Kayak, Pandora, MLB at Bat), ones that I normally wouldn’t use (Marvel’s comic book reader and games such as Asphalt 5 and Labyrinth), and Conde Nast’s own (Epicurious, GQ, and Wired).
Jim talks about what Sting and The Police can teach us about finding your voice when blogging or podcasting.
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Passion.
Millions of teachers, authors, parents, friends, clergy, poets, and musicians have tried to help others find their passions. But I’ll tell you where you can find yours.
In your voice.
When you’re speaking about something you’re truly passionate about, there’s a change in your tone. Your heart beats a little faster, your eyes get a little wider, and sometimes the thoughts and ideas cascade from your brain so quickly that they trip over themselves in a rush to exit your mouth.
In this episode, I interview entrepreneurs Michael Lewis and Tim Kress-Spatz from Suite Arrival, a new business that lets you be discreet, get a treat to eat, and keep your travel plans neat.
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We’ve all been there
Admit it, the TSA and the terrorists have combined to make it much more difficult to travel. Long gone are the days of rolling up to the airport for that 10:15 flight at 9:45.
Oh no… you’ve got to get there early, have all your IDs ready, make sure your bags are not too plentiful (the fees! the fees!) or too heavy, watch out for metal belt buckles, take off those shoes, remove those jackets, and take out your laptops (which can only add to the fact that 10,000 laptops are stolen from airports PER WEEK).
This episode is an interview I did at SXSW with Matthew Inman, the author of the popular web comic called The Oatmeal. Find out how he went from social media favorite to a book deal.
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Background
Matt got his start at online marketing and SEO firm SEOMoz. He went from there to coding an online dating site completely by himself in just 66 hours, and then turning around and selling it in only six months. The key discovery while he was there? The comics, quizzes and viral content he used to market the site were even more popular than the site itself. And thus while concentrating on just the viral comics themselves, The Oatmeal was born.
How does a company turn their email file into a list of powerful social media influencers? They go to Flowtown.
Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:
Podcast Episode 101 is an interview I did at SXSW with Ethan Bloch of Flowtown.com, a service that turns email addresses into social profiles. After discussing the best way to survive the festival on no sleep and Green Tea, Jim gets down to business to find out Ethan’s story.
Topics covered: About Ethan
- Ethan’s amazing start as an entrepreneur, importing video game components and driving $13,000 worth of revenue — at age 13!
- How marketing, finance, and technology have been the three pillars of his career thus far
- His move to San Francisco, subsequent job loss, and founding of a new business
About Flowtown
- A platform that allows businesses to connect with their customers
- Starting with their email list, Flowtown generates a list of the social networks their customer base is on, allowing them to write better posts, send better tweets, and more easily target their customers
- Not only does Flowtown return age, gender, networks, and the top 50 locations, but it then creates a sort of “iTunes Smartlist for Marketers,” showing the top 50 influencers that really move the needle
The Marketing Angle
- What is Flowtown’s approach to marketing their business?
- Where does Flowtown get their customers?
- Is all this a good thing? What about user’s personal information being exposed?
- Is email dead?
Advice for Startups
- What are the challenges of being a startup?
- What is the main advantages of being a small company?
- How the “lean startup” process enables them to make quick advances in technology
- Lessons learned through a failed project, which led to 3,500 new customers on their next project
Try it yourself
Check out flowtown.com and enter your e-mail address (it’s not stored) to find out which networks you’re on.
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