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Re: 11 Problems You Can Solve in 2009: Part IV - Lending

danielklotz — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:11:47 -0000

Paul, I'm a blogger in need of suckers, so thanks. As for the man in the pic, it's Max Weber (German, so it's "VAY-ber"). He's one of the fathers of sociology, and the person who identified the "Protestant work ethic"--good Protestants (traditionally) work hard but don't indulge in materialism, so their savings tend to pile up. That leads to both problems and opportunities.

Re: 11 Problems You Can Solve in 2009: Part IV - Lending

danielklotz — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:28:23 -0000

Thank you for such a thoughtful and detailed response, Harl. It's exactly the type of civil discourse I dream of facilitating with this blog, far from the screaming nonsense of the newspapers' TalkBack forum.

Your thoughts dovetail beautifully with what I was going after in this post--that local entrepreneurs have good ideas that need funding. It's unlikely that anyone with a mindset based on an obsolete economy is going to want to invest in new and untried ideas. So if we do want to foster new ideas and new enterprise, we do need to find new money to fund them.

I do hope someone brings locavesting to Lancaster soon and in an effective way. And as for those taxis, I look forward to riding across town in one.

Re: 11 Problems You Can Solve in 2009: Part V - Telecommuting

danielklotz — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:14:38 -0000

Kyle, thank you for reading and responding to this post. You address some of Harl's concerns with more authority and direct experience than I can offer. As you continue to find ways to make your working arrangement "work," I know we'd all love to hear about how you do it.

Re: Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem

danielklotz — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:19:08 -0000

Nick, thanks for the catch and the correction. I've edited my post. Her poem is largely iambic, but it's hardly pentameter. (I was lazy in adopting the erroneous observation from <a href="http://watching-tv.ew.com/2..."Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly, without scanning it myself.)

Julia, I wasn't very balanced in my critique, focusing on the things I didn't like. And as you know, I have a penchant for going overboard. Even though I said it, I don't think it was truly a "bad" poem so much as one that I thought (and wish) could have been better. The excellent line will certainly stick with me, "In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun."

I should also say that I much prefer Elizabeth Alexander's poem to the gripes and fears of those who say writing an original poem for a president's inauguration is impossible. Thanks for your thoughtful comments, all.

Re: Paul Dewar, poetry lover

danielklotz — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:04:41 -0000

I didn't like the poem, but not clapping out of politeness does strike me as rude, in a context that is all about ceremonial appearances.

Re: A New American Poet - Magazine - The Atlantic

danielklotz — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:24:06 -0000

This comment comes so late and so far down, it's unlikely to be read. I just want to say that I think a fondness for this poem is well-justified. I offer a full explication of the poem on my blog at http://danielklotz.com/2009/01/22/meaning-of-elizabeth-alexanders-inaugural-poem/. I think that the structure and flow of the poem are being over-ignored, and I found that that is where a lot of the poem's richness can be found.

Re: 3 Step Plan To Finding A Perfect Topic

danielklotz — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:25:15 -0000

I like your set of first- and second-priority questions. I wonder if the "monetized" question should be moved to third-priority, though. Everyone should consider blogging about their passion, whether or not there is money to be made from doing so, imho.

I'd like to hear even more advice on "finding your passion." A lot of people blog about blogging and social media, but is that really their passion or just a current way of focusing a deeper passion? A lot of us are still trying to work out what our passions are, and any good guidance on that would surely be a shot in the arm to the blogosphere.

Re: Your Focus: Successful Children or Being a Successful Parent?

danielklotz — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:06:28 -0000

I'm a member of Generation Y, and my observations of myself and my peers has been that the "to parent or not to parent" question is less of a big deal than it was for our parents. I feel absolutely comfortable having no strong reason for why my wife and I don't expect to ever have kids.

My wife and I don't wring our hands making a choice between career or children. No one really grills us to find out why in the world we wouldn't be like normal married couples and have children soon. I think it's respected more as a personal choice, not an abnormality to be analyzed and understood.

For one thing, the notion of "career" is, of course, different for us Millennials. I'm 26 and have been in three different bona fide careers already. What used to be a set of clear career ladders is morphing into a gigantic career web. So if I wanted to be a stay-at-home dad for a while, I don't imagine that as putting a "hold" on my career. Rather, I look at it as one thing among many that I would do in my life.

I do think that for Millennials, we want to do whatever we do well, but not necessarily "right." I know that my grandparents thought there was basically a right way to raise children, and then there were a bunch of wrong ways. For us, there are many reasonably good ways to raise children. I think that creates business opportunities for creative and innovative ideas aimed at parents my age. I have a friend who uses an old iPod as a white-noise generator to help his newborn fall asleep. Another asked if she could bring her baby along to a breakfast Tweetup. One challenge Gen Y parents face is keeping it fresh, not giving up mental stimulation and trying new things.

Re: Investment 1.0 vs Capitalism 2.0

danielklotz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:02:22 -0000

I couldn't agree more, Umair. I think one of the best ideas going in this sphere is the notion of bringing back local stock exchanges. Debt financing for a small- to medium-sized business only works up to about a $250,000 level. Equity financing (e.g., from angel investors) only kicks in at $1.5 million or so. One way to fill that gap is to allow local economies to create mechanisms for equity financing of their local, successful businesses, particularly in the range of $250,000 to $1.5 million.

I also think Muhammad Yunus's innovative thinking on "social businesses" will be foundational as we move toward Investing 2.0. Just as entrepreneurs can go into business for reasons other than primarily making as large a profit as possible, investors can put money into those businesses hoping for intangible positive returns more than financial gain. VC 1.0 is about big chunks of money being invested strategically to earn a lot more money. I think VC 2.0 will, at least in part, be about smaller amounts of money from a much larger pool of investors (grassroots style) being invested to improve the planet and the lives of people... and maybe, when possible, earning a small return only to compensate for inflation.

Re: How to Revise an Email So That People Will Read It

danielklotz — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:58:59 -0000

Advice #2 is outmoded, incorrect, and unhelpful. Yes, specifics are good, but "the project is currently way behind schedule on major tasks" is a helpful sentence for managers and executives. Unless that manager or exec is acquainted with the details of the project, she may not know that hamburger buns in Des Moines is a "major task."

Worse yet would be to strip that sentence of its adverbs and adjectives: "The project is behind schedule on tasks." Useless! "Way behind schedule" signals "be warned!" while simply "behind schedule" signals a business-as-usual yawn. "Major tasks" signals "big pieces are missing," while simply "tasks" signals "predictably, some details haven't fallen into place as we might have hoped."

Time to ditch the "advice" from E.B. White and Mark Twain, and read their actual writing, which is rich with adverbs and adjectives.

Revising a common e-mail three times sounds like a waste of time. That's basically asking everyone reading this to allow themselves to be buried under the avalanche of e-mail they receive.

Re: Weekend Poll: Twitter Clients

danielklotz — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:50:45 -0000

I like TweetDeck because it is complicated. It takes a lot of time to set up, but the benefit is that I can get it to divide my incoming tweets exactly how I want them to. Like Hiram, I appreciate its new integration with Facebook and MySpace.

I used to use FriendFeed to pull my tweets onto my Facebook wall but without pushing them into the newsfeed that all my friends see. The latest update to the FriendFeed application has changed that, so I'm looking for an alternate solution.

I got my Verizon Blitz specifically to make it easier to send tweets while on the go from my phone.

I think Twitter has done a good enough job keeping up with their own service that there is still a lot to love about the Twitter.com web interface, too.

And on my netbook, TweetDeck uses too much screen real estate and RAM, so Twhirl is great there.

Re: The New Facebook: It's Actually Very Simple

danielklotz — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:10:07 -0000

Thanks for this informative post. It definitely saved me an hour of time that I would've whiled away figuring it out.

Re: The Return of the Weekend Music Game

danielklotz — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:56:46 -0000

1. John Coltraine - Resolution (Part 2), A Love Supreme - One of the great "conversion" works, among which I'd also include Zwan's "Mary Star of the Sea."
2. Benjamin E. Morsberger - Near - something indie
3. U2 - Vertigo - something arena rock
4. Lonestar - Amazed - something country, and hence something added to iTunes by someone else
5. Chapeau Claque - Last Dance - something wimpy
6. Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine - a song that get stuck in your head and you don't mind
7. House of Pain - House of Pain Anthem - something from the streets
8. Twelve Stones - Fade Away - something hard
9. Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines - something mushy
10. James Brown - Get up Offa That Thing - something funky

Re: 5 Reasons Why I'll Block You on Twitter

danielklotz — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:25:35 -0000

It's fascinating to me how many intelligent, philosophically consistent schools of thought on how to use Twitter have sprung up in just over a year's time.

It's also fascinating to me that you don't say you'll block or unfollow people who tweet all the time. Oops, I didn't mean "fascinating," I meant "unsurprising." Heh.

Re: Weekend Social Media Fun: Viral Videos

danielklotz — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:14:07 -0000

Gonads & Strife (Lyrics NSFW)

Schoolbus (a sequel)

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Salad Fingers

Charlie the Unicorn

None of these are dance related. You can thank me later.

Re: Facebook’s New Contest Rules Hurt Small Businesses

danielklotz — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:59:05 -0000

Ken, I'm curious what you think about the concept of giveaways as opposed to contests. I mean a case where one day a T-shirt, or a gift certificate, or a gift bag is given to me out of the blue, with a simple request that if I like/appreciate it, won't I be so kind as to tweet/blog about it?

Re: Friday Fun: The Google Game

danielklotz — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:07:50 -0000

Daniel is right.

Re: Are We Entitled to Free?

danielklotz — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:22:43 -0000

The examples you give are gifts. People are giving stuff freely, but they have value as gifts. Sometimes giving a gift to someone else does much more for you than getting money from them would. You build a relationship. You establish trust. You create a reputation for being generous. You demonstrate that you have so much going for you that you can give really good stuff away for free.

So, are we entitled to "free"? I agree with you: no. That's precisely why we're grateful to receive things that are free--because we are not entitled to them.

We're not entitled to free. That's why I think the world of people generous enough to give good stuff away freely.

Re: Our 9 Social Media Predictions for 2010

danielklotz — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:32:02 -0000

Interesting predictions, Ken. I hope 2010 is indeed the year bad SEO-for-SEO's-sake dies, but performing well in search engines will remain extremely important and knowing where to focus your energies to do so will continue to require the involvement of experienced professionals.

Four predictions to add:

1. I agree that Facebook's growth rate in terms of new users is unsustainable through 2010, but I think we will continue to see astonishing growth in the amount of time people spend on the site. Right now the average user spends 50 minutes a day on Facebook. I expect that to go higher in 2010. Also, I expect Facebook Connect to get much bigger, so that when we're on the Web, we're rarely far from Facebook.

2. I'm with Jeremiah Owyang in thinking that Social CRM is a very hot sector to watch.

3. As more companies participate more actively on the social Web, social media monitoring will become much more important and valuable.

4. While companies will increase their overall spend on digital, they will at the same time put the spending under more scrutiny. If a website doesn't achieve measurable objectives, expect the agency that maintains it go get fired. In 2010, we won't figure out how to measure ROI on the Web perfectly, but it will become more important for agencies and consultants to demonstrate that what they're doing is making the company financially stronger.

Re: Bob Newhart, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Social Media

danielklotz — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:47:16 -0000

I agree and share the expectation that down the road, talking about "social media" will be like fish talking about the water in which they swim. At the very least, I would imagine that we'll drop the "social" bit, since practically every medium will have integral social elements.

Come that day, what will your job title be?

Re: Friday Podcast Parade! The Wonderful World of Augmented Reality

danielklotz — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:52:37 -0000

Thank you for the generous shout-out to The Lancast, Jolie. I really enjoyed sitting down with Ryan to talk about augmented reality, and I'm glad you enjoyed our discussion, too.

Re: 6 Critical Services Agencies Must Provide to Stay Relevant in Social Media

danielklotz — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:52:55 -0000

This was a great presentation yesterday, Jay, and this post based on it is a clear example of "atomizing content."

A core takeaway for me, which now seems so obvious, was that agencies like ours should differentiate by being different. You said yesterday, "Social media as an umbrella term is unhelpful and impossible." I'm a social media strategist in a digital-only agency, and that statement for the first time gave me permission to admit to myself that I feel overwhelmed by everything I expect myself to know and be able to do.

By breaking "social media" into defined pieces, we will not only be standing out and serving our clients better, but we will also be placing more realistic expectations on ourselves. Being an expert in "social media" isn't possible; being a team of experts with "specific, advanced social media capabilities" is the way to go. Thanks for helping me see that clearly.

Re: Facebook Once Again Hinders Small Businesses

danielklotz — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:29:33 -0000

They've changed their minds. From the woman who broke the story: http://www.marismith.com/de....

Re: Default Landing Tabs Back – Facebook Apologizes

danielklotz — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:32:04 -0000

Thank you, Mari, for keeping us so well-informed as this story has unfolded.

Re: Social Media Creates Opportunities for Creativity and Collaboration

danielklotz — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:07:45 -0000

Big props to Jeremy and Jeff! We really love having Jeff on board at YDOP as our inbound marketing analyst. It's amazing to find a person with such a creative side who is also an Excel ninja and numbers nerd.
.-= Daniel Klotz´s last blog ..Resource Friday – May 28, 2010 =-.