Last night I got an email from a college buddy with the subject line that read, “Yup this is happening, just watch it 
” It came in over my iPhone so I couldn’t click through to the video until now. I thought he was going to tell me he just got married in Vegas.
Looks like I was wrong.
I’ve got some follow up thoughts and a good example of how someone would want to manage their online search even though they might care less. But more on that in a later post.
Family Mustings
A few minutes ago I got an email from my dad with a link to the news story about my brother Chris. The Morning Journal is a paper from my home county in Ohio. For me it is very exciting to see Chris doing so well with soccer. I remember him playing with us in the back yard and while he was about 6 and I’m 8 years older. It made for good beats, I mean easy wins. Actually he tried really hard then to hang with his older brothers. So I can see how overcoming the age gap has focused his skill and drive. Right on man. I can also live the dream with him because I chose not to pursue soccer in college. So hopefully he’ll be an all American next year and get a chance to play with the national team.
iPhone App of the Moment
I’ve been playing the free version of this app Sol Free and I finally decided to splurge on the $1.99 upgrade. This is probably the best game app I’ve downloaded. To be fair I haven’t gotten too many apps but of the handful of game apps I’ve tried I really wish there was a free trial period for all games. Some looked great but you can’t return the ones that aren’t what you expected. Anyway Solebon is the upgrade and it is worth every penny. I haven’t even played all of the solitaire games yet but my current game is Agnes Sorel.
In the non-game department I’m in love with Foursquare. I know this is almost a game but I’ve had a lot of fun checking in with the points system. If you have an iPhone, blackberry or other smartphone you can play by checking in at various locations around town. The best feature is that you score points and earn badges and mayorships for how many times and where you check in. Earlier today I was crowned mayor of Subway, on Smithfield Street near AiP. Obviously there aren’t that many people on Foursquare or the competition would be a lot fiercer. It is fun to get caught up in this app of the moment, kind of reminds me of when brightkite first came out.
New Projects
I’m excited about two project that are developing at AiP. One is continued development of AiP Minute, an internal blog site for the PR department to use for school news and happenings. The other is a project aimed at students to improve their digital relationship with AiP. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag yet but it will be fun to see this come to fruition.
Finally I’ve been talking to a few people about a travel blog concept that isn’t really a travel blog but a community service project in the digital space. Basically the idea involves donating a website to small town USA and bringing them to the web. I’m working out the kinks on the project but stay tuned for updates. I’m really excited about the idea and have gotten a lot of great feedback and verbal support.
In two conversations I’ve had yesterday about Google the issue of search results about “you name” have been trending topics. I feel confident saying that most of the PodCamp Pittsburgh community knows how to influence search results on their name. If not a comprehensive technical understanding at least a “If I blog, I will rank” sensibility.
For the non-internet among us, which probably includes most of our friends, family and coworkers, understanding how search results come in, is like me saying Spectral Procession is one of my top 10 magic cards. Over the past month I’ve had a handful of people asking me how to influence their search. From those interested in ranking better to those who are worried about the “slutty” girl’s Facebook profile ranking higher than their own link, people don’t know the first thing about search rank.
So this brings two questions to mind:
1. How important is it to manage your search results?
I think this question is important to understand because (I’ll use @pcpgh as the bar) most of the PodCamp community is going to rate the importance a 9 out of 10 most of the time. However for those around us who don’t live online why should they care. Their name might not even rank in the top 5 pages of a google search, and if it does it might just be a newspaper mention or college graduation list. Bran Strom, superman that he is, doesn’t get a link about him until page 8, unless you search for “Brian Strom Pittsburgh.” However if you search for Norman Huelsman this blog ranks first and if you search for “Huelsman” this blog also ranks first (thanks to everyone who links to me with keywords Norman Huelsman). I beat out every other Huelsman in the country even those who are businesses. But, I live online and have a rather large digital footprint compared to those other namesakes. My point is, how important is it to manage your search results if you don’t live and breathe online? (@rebelliousflaw I’m looking at you to blow our minds with your sleuthing skills)
2. What are you doing to educate those around you about search?
And this question doesn’t need a long explanation, but here is one anyway. I ask because if we determine that question #1 is important then educating those around us should be a priority. Now I don’t think there was a session on managing search results for your name at PodCamp, but there were lots of sessions about how to get rank for your website. Whenever I get the question about influencing search I always tell people it is easy, “If I blog, I rank.” The other option is to get @woycheck to scrub you from the internet.
In my interest of time I’m reposing this little blub I wrote on the PCPGH website.
PodCamp Pittsburgh 4 has come and gone and the organizers couldn’t have been more proud of this years event! We hope that you can take what you have learned during PodCamp and improve your new media ventures. If you are just starting out remember you have a whole community rooting for you, don’t for get to ask them to help. Over the next few days, weeks and months as you create blogs, videos and podcasts share them with the PCPGH community through our various channels listed below.
There has been a great call for the session videos. The PCPGH organizing committee is working to quickly make those available to you. As we work out this process for the first time we’re asking for you patience. Check back on this site (subscribe to the RSS Feed) or keep an eye on the #pcpgh4 hash tag for updates. With that said our goal is to make them available by the end of the week.
Thanks again to everyone who made PodCamp Pittsburgh 4 a success from the sponsors to the organizers to every rockstar.
Today is PodCamp! Go to podcamp pittsbugh.com to watch live.
Yesterday I spent the latter part of the workday putting this image together. Today it was rejected for a postcard. Apparently the suit is too wrong. I agree that it doesn’t fit the guy but I’m worried we are being a little over critical here. Upon further understanding of the Fashion program I will admit this image isn’t quite right. We should be going with something a little more in the concept clothing department and less glitz and glam. Sigh. I really like the mood of this image too.
Seriously September what is going on. You took our perfectly happy 2009, slightly in resecession, slightly not a big deal, and ripped us a new one. If weeks could kill, for me, this is the week that could do it. The only positive outlook is that if the to do list doesn’t get done then the week passes and that was that.
I know that next week is the crazy week for most people. So I’m glad I’m in the trenches now and get to kind of sit back and not poop my pants as the G-20 hits Pittsburgh.
As a Dollar Bank customer I don’t know if I should be outraged or just dismissive. Last week I noticed some high orange construction barriers out front of the Dollar Bank branch on Fourth and Smithfield. At the time I thought they must be doing some Redd Up on the building. This morning I realized how wrong I was. Take a look at the above photo taken this morning.
Notice anything wrong? Look closely. The Lions are gone, disappeared, missing. Did Creation Rex and the Lions run off to some crazy party over the weekend and only Rex returned?
If you forget what the lions looked like, maybe this deception is working and you didn’t realize what this scene used to look like. Look at this photo:
My guess is they were removed out of fear of protesters from the G-20. So I’m all kinds of WTF on this. On one hand I can sympathize with not wanting you figure head to fall victim of potential vandalism. I’m concerned that Rex will become a target. On the other hand I’m thinking this is a huge waste. Sneaking the Lions off in the middle of the night and covering it up like nothing doing. I just hope they will be restored to their original condition.
Update
If you look in the contacts section you’ll see Jim’s link to the real story. What is pretty cool is that the lions are being stored and restored in Oberlin, OH. This is the next town north of where I grew-up. Pretty cool.
Click here for the story. Go Chris!
PodCamp Pittsburgh 4 Videos On the Move
This week we are getting the recorded sessions from PodCamp Pittsburgh 4 online. By the time they are all uploaded you will be able to fully relive PCPGH4!
Below is the opening keynote where I had the privilege of introducing Justin Kownacki and Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto.