DesertStandard

Good conversation at Ignite Phoenix on Social Media Best Practices. Authenticity and transparency are topics that keep coming up. I like the Marc Cuban or Bob Parsons method of open mouth insert foot and collect cash. Sure you are going to piss people off, guess what? You are going to piss people off not matter what you do or do not do. Don’t walk around in a stupor worried about making everyone happy. Make enough people happy to stay viable but if you don’t keep it honest about who you are it won’t last. Either you will get tired of it or everyone will see that you are forcing yourself to act that way.

Best Practices links:
BoingBoing
Marc Cuban
Bob Parsons
Scobleizer
Calacanis
Guy Kawasaki
Dan Rayburn

Good article on Seeking Alpha by Dan Rayburn about Limelight Networks’ recent earnings call. They are growing but so is their debtlosses, which has been an issue since they went public last year. They have gotten some big wins recently with the Olympics and coming soon the NFL. Lots of speculation about their being bought by a major telco though.

Just sat through the presentations at AZ Tech Council Partnering Conference. It was a short/micro presentation format with 14 speakers in just under 2 hours. Very similar to how Ignite Phoenix is going to be done.

The speakers were all businesses and some were more interesting than others. I tumblr’d them here. Overall it was a good time and its good to see more tech stuff happening here in PHX.

Via Jmoriarty’s suggestion I went to the Tech-e Tuesday which was up till recently known as Tempe Tech Oasis, which is slightly confusing but we all know about name changes.

Anyway it was a good time. The main speaker was Ed Koeneman of Kinetic Muscles Inc. He went over the fun of starting up a Tech company in Arizona: grant writing, prototyping, and sales. They started off using a reseller but have since shifted to running that in house. They create devices that help people recover from strokes, which is a really good thing.

Everyone got 20 seconds to introduce themselves so I pitched Ignite Phoenix really quickly. There were at least 30 people there. It was at some bar that used to be a Pita place by the Tempe theater.

I was then able to circulate a bit and talk to a few people I thought would be good presenters for Ignite. The whole thing is put on by Herb Finkelstein of ASU’s R&D Services in the Engineering School. Oh and the next one is also on the same night as the first Ignite Phoenix. Doh!

You wouldn’t really be able to guess that Phoenix is the 16th largest city for tech jobs in the country if you were to read the traditional media here. In the 41 stories published to the Phoenix Biz Journals RSS feed this week 6 of them talk about tech in the valley.
Yet there is this story:

Tech jobs spur some growth in Phoenix area:
The Phoenix area's technology community has seen some growth after shedding jobs for most of the decade, according to a study by the American Electronics Association.

Where is the info about what companies are driving this growth? What are they doing? Who are they?

Of these 6 stories only one of them actually talks about a specific company: Unicorn Media which is a startup by some of the folks who did Limelight Networks.

Where is the story about Limelight’s current issues with patent Lawsuits with Akamai?

This is more and more reason for the grassroot/groundswell action that Refresh, Social Media Club, Tempe Nerds, Refactor, and Ignite Phoenix to name a few.

From my weekly newsletter at Dollar Stretcher Tips:

Instant Weed Killer

Weeds that grow between bricks on your walkway or sidewalk are
unsightly and can easily be killed without weed killer. Simply
boil water in your teakettle and pour it on the weeds. This is
better for the environment, too.
Kristel W.

Well that settles that debate, looks like wikipedia is the winner.

As much as the world might need something like this, one can see ardent Wikipedia supporters decrying Encyclopaedia Britannica’s move, since it attempts to make private what Wikipedia makes public (information ownership). If that’s the case, Britannica editors may have their hands full wading through bogus submissions.

Encyclopaedia Britannica To Follow Modified Wikipedia Model | Epicenter from Wired.com

I am being very immature today but this made me chuckle.

On a serious note this is a new situation to consider when using Cox Internet. I dont use bittorrent a lot but it is useful for a number of legitimate things.
Contentinople - Jeff Baumgartner - Report: Cox Blocks P2P Traffic

I love law talk its got so many ways to say what we regularly say but in no comprehensible manner to normal people:
Patent Law Blog Patently-O: Formalism at the CAFC: Equitable Plea for Revival is Rejected

Interesting article on how Brands are entering Social Media but what caught my eye was this quote:

“Swisher…Swiffer. I wouldn’t put that on my [Facebook] profile,” said Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of monetization.

Followed by these facts:

Don’t tell that to a dozen or Facebook groups devoted to Swiffer, although these groups are sparsely populated. “Ive Discovered The Joys of Swiffer and I Can’t Stop…” has 55 members. “I love my swiffer duster!!!” has five members who made this appeal: “Cleaning nerds that love there swiffers should join this group…because we f*ing rule!!”

It seems that even though you work for the fastest growing Social Media Network doesn’t mean you necessarily ‘get it’. Good read.

Swiffer, Social Media’s Cinderella - ClickZ - News and expert advice for the digital marketer since 1997