The Flurry Blog

This post is in response to Seth Godin’s post on calls to action.

Yes “all calls” are annoying, when we can’t filter them out. We live near a car parts lot, and every day they used to make loud announcements from the classic horn. This became intrusive, if you were anywhere outside your house. I have not noticed it for a long time. It may be that I have just filtered it out.

That brings me to why there are still good reasons for some all calls. I have made some great discoveries using the all call on Twitter. It has mainly been when I was trying to wade through a massive google search for either a product or service. I found Drop Box via a friend’s suggestion, a cool BlackBerry tool from @nanpalmero (he is especially helpful), and many other solutions by just asking simple questions of my community. Now mind you, I try my best to search out my answer first by asking a specific expert or I use the search tools at hand. But I don’t hesitate to ask my community if my quest is not fruitful. Is that wrong? I don’t believe so. Have I annoyed anyone? I hope not.

My key point is that the all call is useful, if you have exhausted all other means or time is critical. Example: (tsunami approaching Maui and my nephew and his wife were only able to receive text messages. They received news, after I sent out an all call via Twitter. They were sitting at an evacuation center waiting to hear if their house on the beach had been destroyed or not).

Would I not follow you if you constantly sent out annoying all calls that could have been answered with simple detective work? Yes, but I have seen the occasional all call stimulate discussion and problem solving when used well from Twitter, facebook and other community sites.

There are several types of all calls that feel negative: email spam, mindless cc’s (people have learned to not send them to me), facebook’s insistence on sending email to notify us of every follow up comment in a thread. But besides these, all calls work. If you have social capital with your network they can be a great resource. I enjoy helping others out when they ask something I know. We build community to be a community.

Regarding social capital, here is a great post by Mitch Joel.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Over the last few weeks I have seen a noticeable drop in conversations on Twitter.  At first I thought it was because people were not engaging as much. A few friends began to comment about the same issue. I had to wonder if it was the result of us not engaging others first.  After all, if we go to a party no one will talk back if all we do is listen to dozens of conversations.  We have to find the conversations to engage in.

Many of the twitter accounts I use are steadily growing and so the number of messages in the main river has become a bit overwhelming.   On my personal account I only follow three types of accounts and for a few reasons.  First I follow personal friends, next I follow friends within my sphere of interests (company culture, marketing, tribal leadership, publishing/writing, and non-profits). Last, I follow news sources and brands I like.  With that number growing I have found that I need to divide them into digestible lists (these lists are still being built). I am very social and find it hard not to try to read through all the followers I have. They all have some value or I would not be following them. That number has become unmanageable though. Rather than unfollowing anyone I have divided them into lists.  In a previous post I talked about one list that I follow and why, the authors-engaged-online list.

What I have noticed, now that I am using my lists to read tweets, is that I am once again finding the conversations to engage.  As I reengage, Twitter again becomes the valuable tool that I have always loved it for; a place to find and share discoveries.

To create your own list, I have found it useful to find out first what your focus is, and two (maybe more important) what others look to you for or what questions are they asking you to answer.  If you are adding any type of value, this won’t be hard.

Also, check out some of your friend’s lists.  You may find ones to adopt as your own.

Scott Gould summed it well in a post this morning that caught my attention:

Deepen your existing connections. …. Value trumps volume. Connections trump community.

We lose conversation if we are not engaging in the community we have already built.

How are you finding ways to reengage in the ever increasing noisy spaces that sites like twitter, are becoming?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Having ordered my iPad to be delivered sometime after April 12th and not at all thrilled to be standing in lines, I had settled into a the comfortable state of monitoring iPad news and seeing friends and others report on the device the first day of release.  I was surprised to receive a call from my friend Chris Nordyke, who was standing in our local town’s Mac Store looking at a stack of stocked iPads.  There were no lines and no hassles.  With a quick cancel of my apple.com order, I was on my way to the store.  My Saturday turned into a fun and interactive day, talking and sharing details with other friends who had purchased the device.

Like many, I have been researching the iPad on it’s  rumor filled journey to debut.  As a web technology and community professional, I have been looking forward to the iPad to supplement my other productivity tools.  I was not prepared for what the iPad would offer.  To break it down, I use a home and office desktop pc for heavy computing. I have a 6 year old laptop that is reliable, but seriously hobbled due to a short battery life. It  will soon be obsolete as Microsoft slowly pushes xp out of commission.  My mobile devices are an HTC Eris and an Apple iTouch.  Out of all the devices I probably use the iTouch the most to monitor and engage with the non-profit and business communities I am involved with.  The apps I use handle everything I need to stay productive and connected.  What it lacked was a good word processor and a media reader/viewer of decent size. Basically I was pleased with the iTouch.  While traveling or away from my desk it was my device of choice. So I knew that the iPad would supply the same excellent experience as my iTouch, but I was not prepared to be as impressed as I am.

Having the same capabilities on a larger scale would have been enough for me.  But it goes way beyond that.  The inclusion of a built in microphone allows voice recognition software  use (see my list of apps mentioned below) and phone services like Skype. On the iTouch you need the proprietary headphone and mic combo from Apple. Some have complained that it is difficult to type on the device, but I am finding it easy.  In fact I am writing this blog on it. The Twitter app that I have come to love on the iTouch is even better in the iPad version.  Beyond that, all the the other apps  that I use are all slowly releasing iPad version that integrate it’s great functions.

Last, the iPad is just a pleasure to use.  It’s rich video and built in stereo speaker make it a great mobile media device.  And while games were fun on the itouch, they are mind blowing on the the iPad.  It is going to take a while for many apps to catch up to releasing HD versions (there are currently 1,000), but I believe the experience will only get better.  (most iPhone/iTouch apps play in a small screen version of their native resolution and can be expanded to the full screen with degraded resolution with a 2x button)

Some have said it is foolish to buy a first generation Apple device, citing the far from great first version of the first iPhone.  But really this device feels like it has had a thorough testing and quality evaluation.  Like I said before, Apple scored by just building off of it’s senior sibling the iTouch.  Yes improvements will come with 2nd and 3rd generations, but it has taken me 6 years for my current mobile computer’s use to run it’s course.

Here is a list of a few of the outstanding apps I have found.   What has been your first impressions? I’d love to hear them as well as any great apps discovered.

And yes there are a few things that are a bit annoying, but the fact that it took 3 days to bump into them I don’t think they will be deal breakers for most (no flash support, copy and past between a few apps does not seem to work, and no video camera built in).

Pages- (incredible word processor)

Twittelator Pad (power user Twitter app)

Netflix

Dropbox (Syncs files with your pc and laptop)

iBook

Amazon Kindle

The Wall Street Journal

Pandora

Skype

WordPress

Dragon Dictation (a surprisingly accurate dictation app)

Marvel (Visually stunning comic app)

WeatherBug

Mashable

TweetDeck

Popularity: 7% [?]