Thursday, July 29, 2010

Examiner Happy Hour was a Success!

The recent Examiner Happy Hour at Opal's Marina was a rousing success partially due to my own efforts but largely due to the support of my Twitterfriends who tweeted about the event relentlessly for me in the week leading up to last Tuesday's event. Thank you to each of you for taking the time to spread the word.

Opal's are great people to work with for a happy hour because they have Carol Hickey handling all those arrangements and their Twitter account. I simply rang her up, told her what I needed and she took care of speaking to the manager, booking the room in the back and so on.

The primary reason for this post is to highlight all the support I received trying to spread the word about the event to folks. To do this, I decided to try Keepstream (beta version) created by Jim England who describes the application like this on his blog:

Hashtags on Twitter are AWESOME; they can organize tweets around a particular topic. However, the value of a hashtag lies in the "here and now". If I search for #sllconf during or right after the event, I get tons of sweet content. However, searching for #sxsw in June gives you a wasteland of useless tweets... all the cool stuff was from March, when the event was happening.

Enter Keep Stream: A collection of tweets that can be "kept together" to tell a story. I imagine this will be used for real-life events, news stories, and twitter conversations. Think of it as a way to preserve and organize the best of the real-time web.

Check out the collection. I'm curious what y'all think of it and Jim's product.

Examiner Happy Hour at Opal's Marina
g_ack with 15 sources
Powered by keepstream
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Friday, July 23, 2010

A Roaster's Paradise: Austin's Kohana Coffee


This morning my friend and coffee lover, Piper Jones invited me to tour Kohana Coffee's roasting facility located in South Austin. Piper is responsible for Operations & Roasting at the small, locally-owned quality coffee bean roaster. Her love of coffee, the process of roasting the beans and her PASSION for her trade is part of what makes Kohana stand apart from the crowd. It was Piper's enthusiasm about drinking coffee on Twitter which got my own taste buds curious.

I consider myself a bit of a foodie which was inevitable considering my parents adventurous nature regarding culinary explorations. When I began noticing friends on Twitter here in Austin commenting on the fine coffee they were buying called Kohana, I took notice. Eventually I became friendly with Piper via Twitter and we met in person at Lani & Ben Rosales' fantastic Big Ass Twitter Happy Hour a few months back.

Piper and I became fast friends because of our common love of food, our shared experiences in marketing and because she's the most likable person you'd ever hope to meet. Positive energy radiates from her and you generally just want to give her hug when she's around. What's more, she's responsible for producing some of the best roasted coffee beans I've had. Ever.

Touring the roasting facility was fascinating because of the attention to detail required to produce the high-quality beans that Kohana is known for. Piper is constantly checking the beans for quality, color and consistency throughout the roasting process. She also records the time, temperature and yield for each batch of beans that are roasted. At Kohana, each batch is roasted to order, weighed, sorted into bins and then carried into the shipping office where Nate and Matt are hard at work packing the beans into bags for shipment to their customers all over the country.

Check out the TwitVid of the roaster going full-steam below. Kohana Coffee will be handing out FREE samples of their beans at the Examiner Happy Hour on Tuesday, July 27th. See details at the top right sidebar. Connect with Greg Ackerman here.



Piper's enthusiasm for the process was contagious and in no time, I was eagerly sorting through the beans looking for defects and pouring raw beans into the roaster.


Piper even has this amazing chart to gauge the different flavors one tastes during the roasting process as shown below.


Kohana gets their coffee from all over the world







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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Pandora, AT&T, Tim Westergren & Me


If you've just read the title of this piece, you may be familiar with all the names except mine or Tim's. More likely if you're reading this, it's Tim's name you don't recognize. He's the CEO and founder of the free online music service, Pandora that's grown by leaps and bounds over the past year. Mr. Westergren's philosophy of providing superior customer service is the primary reason I'm a fan. There are plenty of internet music sources out there. But not many can claim the CEO takes advantage of the opportunity for one-to-one connections with his customers like Pandora's leader can.

Way back pre-iPhone (god, how did I LIVE then?), I'd been listening to Pandora's service on my desktop computer. In anticipation of traveling out of town, I investigated the cost to add the service to my mobile phone (a Samsung A-707). According to the literature on the web, the base cost for Pandora service was around $35 a year. However, when I tried to download Pandora to my phone, the cost quoted was nearly three times higher.

I wondered what the deal was with the mark up, so I sent an email to Tim Westergren of Pandora. I was on one of my business trips, this time to Orlando. While I was walking back to my hotel after dinner, I received an email from Mr. Westergren. It stated that he'd received my email and explained AT&T was charging his company a lot of money to access their network. In addition, Pandora had to pay the record companies each time the song was played.

He was working on ad revenue offsetting the costs described, but the service was new. He couldn't afford to lower the retail costs yet. Furthermore, he wanted my support on a congressional bill that would ensure prices to license the music for his service stayed in line with his current model. He was spending money in Washington to ensure his customers got value for their money. Could I help? You bet I could. I copied the letter his attorneys had drafted and forwarded to my representative.

What's more, I became an ambassador for Pandora. I tell this story constantly. So much so, that a stranger in an airport encouraged me to share it on my blog. This was such an obvious and brilliant idea, I actually woke at 4am to write this all down. My purpose? To help business folks understand the multiple ways social media and email can improve your business.

Mr. Westergren recognized an opportunity to connect with his customer and he took advantage in the best way possible. The same scenario could have repeated itself on Facebook, Twitter or even the comment section of a company blog. Think about the different ways your customers try to connect with your business. Are you doing everything you can to meet them on their preferred network or line of communication? The impression left with the customer will be a powerful one.


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Saturday, May 29, 2010

How to Turn an Ugly Monday into a Beautiful Thing


This past Monday I awoke to some incredibly upsetting news. My good friend, Nanette had just completed a procedure to biopsy a lump in her breast. Immediately I had a lump in my throat. My eyes stung. I was shocked. Unbelieving actually. How this happens to the one person I know in Austin who epitomizes best for me, what it means to live in Austin I have no idea.

Living in Austin, Texas means many things. Nanette and others over the past ten years have reached out to me in friendship. It's the main reason Austin is the amazing place it is. The people. They're gregarious, friendly, caring, courteous, generous, intelligent, respectful and loving. They're my neighbors, coworkers, friends, shop keepers, grocery store clerks. They're people just like me who searched for Austin exhaustively until we found our home.

So naturally when one of the best examples of a human being I have the honor to know posts on her blog about how she's going to kick cancer in the ass, all I can do is stare in awe. If it'd been me diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, there'd be all kinds of denial, anger and depression (most likely). Then after I'd taken a figurative psychic dump, MAYBE I could begin to function normally.

I was at Galaxy Cafe on Tuesday for a Co-working Jelly. I'd just arrived and Nanette came in at the same time. It was a relief to see her as she always appears, in a hip-chic outfit (That day it was a dress). She was so poised and relaxed on the exterior. I knew inside her mind was churning. There were a thousand questions to answer. How long will this treatment phase last? How were her children? Was everyone being nice because she told them she'd gotten ill? What were the test results going to reveal?

In the end, Nanette decided she couldn't sit at home and WAIT passively. That's just not her style. For example, her friends in Austin encouraged her to use social media to boost her real estate business. In a short time she's demonstrated publicly via SM why she's been successful in the industry thus far. Her blog is one I read regularly. The posts are often insightful, pointing out beautiful elements of Austin or life I may have missed.

Nanette is a long-time volunteer at SxSW, organizes the music for the Austin Marathon and generally makes herself of service to the local music community. Her business name, Rocknrealty describes Nan to a T.

There's no way Nanette's going to let something like this slow her down. If you read her post, you know the attitude she's taken towards the challenge presented is one to admire. It is graceful as well. In today's world, we could all use more grace.

I ask of you, reader, only one thing. That when you have a quiet minute during this long holiday weekend, that you think of my friend, Nanette and others battling cancer. Say a prayer for her. She deserves our love and support.

UPDATE: Nanette is having surgery this week. For some reason, she was on my mind more than usual last week while I was wrapping up a business trip in Las Vegas. I believe it was because she was dealing with this new reality as she has from the start, with her characteristic grace and wit.

I'll be praying for the best possible outcome as I have since learning of Nan's diagnosis. Join me friends. Namaste.
~Greg

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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Live Music in Austin, TX

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Monday, April 12, 2010

Rock Raizer Fashion Show & Concert benefiting Big Brothers/Big Sisters Austin


Rock Raizer and event founder, Julie Taylor are hosting the first of two annual fashion shows. This event will benefit some children participating in Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Austin and local foster children on Saturday April 17th at Encore Club ~ 611 Red River in downtown Austin. The fashion show will feature the designs of some of Central Texas' hottest new fashion designers, including 2009 Texas Next Top Designer, Megan Summerville .

In keeping with Austin music tradition there will also be an afternoon concert line-up of six kids bands. The fashion show will follow with swag bags for all paid guests. The show will conclude with a concert by Eleven-Fingered Charlie (EFC) and Sun Salutations. Here's EFC's Reverbnation bio:

"Eleven Fingered Charlie is an inventive genre-crossing rock/reggae project based out of Austin, TX. Since 2001, the band's status has been expanding with each passing year through word-of-mouth grass roots efforts. EFC's devotion to their musical career has opened the door to opportunities such as the Barack Obama Political Rally as well as many shows with major artists like The English Beat, Pepper, OAR, The Expendables, etc. Dedication and creativity remain paramount as EFC continues to push forward, writing new music, building new friends/fans and sharing their interpretation of what the future of rock and reggae music can sound like."

VIP tickets with preferred seating and bonus swag bags are available as well at http://rockraizer.eventbrite.com/.

Links:



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Saturday, April 3, 2010

In Store Product Demo: Does the iPad Live Up to the Hype?


After waking uncharacteristically early this morning and reading tweets about people waiting overnight in line to purchase a bright, shiny, iPad. On impulse, I got in the car and drove to my nearby Apple Store in part to witness the hubbub. The main reason was to play with a new iPad and see if the enormous hype is warranted.

My first impression was the iPad is a larger version on the iPod Touch. There are some discerning differences between the devices, mainly the 1 gigabyte of RAM on board the iPad, while the iPod Touch (2nd gen.) has only a quarter of that capacity at 256 megabytes. This means the iPad can do a lot of things iPod Touch cannot.

The dimensions of iPad fit it's intended function. It's weighs 1.5 lbs which is not too heavy. It felt pretty comfortable in my hands. Typing on the iPad was fine once the machine was oriented horizontally and the accelerometer flipped the screen view around. In order to be comfortable typing for an extended period of time, one needs a stand to tilt the display up toward the user. Typing while the iPad is laying on the table flat is just too awkward. My guess is portable soft cases that convert into makeshift iPad stands will sell well. It should be interesting to see how many proud new owners will be seen using their new toy in public. I suspect it'll become a status symbol the same way the iPhone did.

The video quality was astonishing as iPad allows for High-Definition video making the device excellent as entertainment tool. The next obvious question is will the device's battery last long enough to view an entire movie? A resounding yes according to Apple's listed iPad specifications the current wireless only model(3G released end of April), will last up to 10 hours. A road-warrior who spends a lot of time on airplanes will drool over this feature alone. If I did not have a Mophie for my iPhone I'd be even more jealous of today's new iPad owners than I already am.





Just like iPod, iPad has no camera. For an iPhone user, this was disappointing until a friend pointed out the specifications presented left room for a camera at some point. Let's hope. As a New Media Director for Build Texas Media, if I'm working on my iPad on Tweetdeck for example, I want the ability to take photos within the app like I can on my iPhone. After participating in a focus group for an iPad Twitter client app, I am convinced this is a feature users will demand from Apple.

Update: Quita Culpepper of Austin's KVUE News interviewed me:



Stanza is used on my iPhone occasionally,I was curious how iPad's reader performed. The presentation was gorgeous with most of the same features I enjoy about Stanza. The pages actually turn with a finger gesture. One touch moves the user from reading a novel to the library with cool animation turning the bookcase around to reveal the 'hidden' store behind it. Stanza gives users the option to download some classic titles free. According to Apple's description of the free app, there are many gratis titles just like Stanza. The book-sized iPad is a makes viewing the digital presentation even better than iPod or iPhone because the user no longer has a need to enlarge text. It's already novel sized.

The techie guy next to me was impressed with how Keynote functioned on the iPad. Due to my guilt over monopolizing one of seven demo models on the table, I did not delve into Keynote too much. My demo neighbor did remark that the stripped down Keynote for iPad was in some ways easier to navigate than the desktop version. He was excited about the possibilities for business presentations. I concur. Apple has usually been intelligent about developing applications that are inherently user friendly and simple. Keynote for iPad fits into this mold nicely.

The Photos App is great,more functional and attractive than iPod or iPhone. The way the pictures are presented in the album in stacks that can be picked up is cool. So is the display when looking at all the albums but it all reminds the user that the machine they are holding does not have a camera. No still pictures can be taken. No video shot. It seems like a large omission. As stated above, I believe users will ask for a still camera inside the iPad at minimum.

You may want me to  review more cool games, utility apps and other innovative features (Omar Gallga tech writer for the Statesman loved the Marvel Comics app) of the iPad, however, that is a bit inappropriate considering I'll be waiting for the second or third generation of Apple's new product just like when they introduced the iPhone.

The results speak for themselves. Less money was spent purchasing my first iPhone than others and the product has effectively been "field tested" by techno-zealots who have an insatiable need for new technology. Although I am puzzled by these consumers willingness to be guinea pigs, I'm thankful they're doing the beta testing.

What are your thoughts on the new iPad? Are you an early adopter or a skeptic about first generation products like me? 
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010




iPhone Applications I Love

One of the bewildering aspects of iPhone ownership is choosing applications from the App Store that we find useful to us. Usually one finds themselves browsing aimlessly through the Apple App Store, attempting to locate the perfect app for their phone without even knowing WHAT they're looking for. A conundrum for any iPhone user. While traveling from California back to Texas, I realized that friends recommendations, simply reading online articles and speaking to others over that last few months had eased my own confusion and led to increased iPhone use efficiency in my own experience. So here's a few suggestions. Some are recommendations from my friends, some I found on my own. Feel free to use the comment section to suggest any Apps you feel I've overlooked (there's over 100K to choose from).

Utility Apps
This category is my personal favorite due to the resulting increased efficiency. They also make me feel smarter for having downloaded them.

1. Google Voice Search ~ This App is handy when you're driving and need to access information quickly. It does just what you think it will. Open the App, touch the mic icon on top right, say to Google what you'd like to search for. Touch the result you're seeking. It's THAT easy. Google conveniently saves your past search items on the home page for a quick review of recent search results. Magical & intuitive.

2. The Weather Channel ~ For an App that will quickly become indispensable for the business traveler, head to the App Store and download this FREE (actually ALL the Apps listed here are FREE because I'm about as thrifty as they come). What's nice about The Weather Channel App is it's full-featured. You can view current weather, hourly forecasts, 10-day, traffic cam shots, video and more. Each time I use this program on the iPhone, I'm amazed at how much it can do.



3. Bump ~ Are you a networker? Sales? Lazy? All of the above? Then get Bump.
Download the FREE App, input your contact information and you're ready to trade contact info with the next Bump user you meet at your neighborhood Tweet up. You literally knock fists while the app is open and ready Can be a little buggy at times, but the idea is golden. Such a time saver. It's fun too!



4. Dragon Naturally Speaking ~ Have you ever been stopped at a red light and suddenly remembered you had to send someone a text message? I have. Dragon is the most efficient way of sending a text message quickly. Just tap open the App, say into the iPhone what you'd like to text and click the send icon on bottom right and choose send email or SMS. Select or enter contact you'd like to message and paste your words into the message bar. Then click send. It's “naturally” accurate most of the time. Works best without ambient noise like the radio blasting.

5. Google Calendar ~ (quick note about Google Apps. If you open a Google App in Safari, the App will automatically pop up a tab and prompt you to make it into an iPhone App. Press the plus symbol and choose save to home page. Ta-daa! App created). There are many reasons why I love Google Calendar on my iPhone. It's easy to share it with others, simple to use, convenient to access, integrates with other Google tools and keeps me organized. Any questions? Ask Google. LOL!

6. Touch Mouse ~ This App is a great one to impress yourself and your friends simultaneously. It turns your iPhone touch pad into a wireless mouse. Set-up is simple. And the thing works great for those times you wish you “just had a regular mouse” Because it uses wireless technology to connect to your Notebook, Laptop or Desktop computer, it also doubles as a great pointer and teaching tool if you're in the coffee shop helping a client through a tutorial. Neato.

7. Photoshop Mobile ~ We all know about the limitations of the iPhone camera. What we all did NOT know was Adobe has created a simple application to assist you in adjusting the contrast, brightness and cropping of pics taken while snapping shots of your favorite band while you're out. I recommend installing Adobe's native application on your desktop or Notebook if you're not familiar with this product.

8. Skype ~ Voice over IP technology has improved a lot in recent years rendering services that once were quite buggy like Skype useful. When our friend was in Canada it was easy to download Skype and set up an account (FREE). Once that's done, you can speak to your friends on their computers or mobiles running Skype. Just like roaming data networks, the service can be great or inconsistent depending on how easy it is to access your local network. Again, the convenience factor plays heavily here.


Next post will focus on iPhone Apps for New Media freaks like me. See y'all next time. Oh! Please remember to leave any other great App suggestions in the comments below. Cheers!

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