Salvation

In blank spaces
in between the trees
where I've walked
with the secrets
of stones and creeks and grasses
only given to
insouciant passers by
on their way to death
with no time for anything but truth
with the trilling sound of worms
rising
in chorus to meet each new day
filled with echos of laughter
we used to bring with us
in back packs and school lunch boxes
when we missed our mothers and fathers
long gone on roads of their own choosing
with blame
and convalescence just a phone call away
that never gets made
because we're so fucking wise to god's ways
and how the puzzles get played
into the darkness we'll go
amazed, amazed at how little we see
on these back roads, these side roads
so sure of salvation
and knowing
one beautiful day she'll come

copyright 2009 Tim Wolters

iGloves and ski runs

Just saw this posting today on ArsTechnica. I suppose the world needs an iGlove. After all there are huge numbers of iphone users living above 40 degrees latitude that need to keep their hands warm while texting or using the iFart application. Really? I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine about the comforts of heated steering wheels, so this doesn't seem outside of the realm of necessity at this particular moment. Perhaps the screen can be heated as well to provide further comfort for when that moment of co-dependent connectivity strikes in the bitter cold.

I guess I sort of feel like we've lost our way a little bit and become too attached to this virtual world and less cognizant of the immediate physical world floating near our sedate and corpulent lifestyles. I am so guilty. Yesterday I had a wonderful time skiing with a friend. No time for texting, twittering, friending, or following when careening down a black slope, edges committed to avoiding trees, bumps, other skiers and the occasional bare rock. I was waiting for a response from a request I had made and for the first two runs felt anxious and wanting to check my phone. This quickly melted away with the afternoon snow and later felt grateful for the physicality and leaving the digital behind if only for a time.

Now I'm back, online, and blogging away, and better, more clear headed from my digital respite. This new hyper-connectedness is great, but it's also great to take a break.

Boulder Twits

Just became aware of the BoulderTwits site. This is kind of a fun analysis of twitter interconnections in the Boulder area. There are a few people that I don't know listed here but not many! I will certainly remedy that.



credits:
I'm sorry Brad, I think Amy brought this to my attention before you did, but only because I missed your blog entry :(

Passport

Passport

just once yearling
rise above these eaves
escaping gravity
and soar through the heavens
grown deeper than imagination
to that place that never sleeps
and always plays
some song or other
on the wind
where laughter never fades
but sits in that moment
without care
alive and being

copyright 2009 Tim Wolters

New Year's Resolutions

I was checking out tweetstats today and realized that it's a fairly good indicator of things I've focused on over the last year and perhaps I could use this as a mirror to reflect on what I might do differently in 2009. I've included the Wordle for 2008 along with a litany of words I would like to appear more/less in 2009.

(deep breath), here goes...

2009 resolution words:

• fun - while I had a lot of fun in 2008 I apparently didn't tweet enough about them. Next year the fun will be more celebrated.
• socialmedia - at the core of my business. This was actually fairly big so really trying to continue the trend. I hope to tweet or retweet what's going down in this area.
• run, swim, bike - all words that will symbolize (my obvious ;) preparedness for some tbd tri event in 2009.
• metrics - collective intellect is an analytics company. I want to start pushing out some of the more interesting and curious metrics we uncover in the social media landscape
• meeting - these are fairly mandatory, but hopefully can do with less of them in 2009 and more action
• blog - retweets of great found blog posts and especially more of my own blog posts
• writing - ahem, yeah, I need to do more of this overall. not just blogs, but poetry and more (sort of a teaser, I know).
• music - love finding new artists to listen to. Let's ramp this up a bit ... with a little help from my friends.
• sucks - seeking balance. post more on the useless, inane, amateur, unfriendly, buzzkill encounters with life. honesty and transparency with humor.
• yoga - I think I'm destined for this one. I've had a few people wanting to get me into some yoga moves. Do I not look flexible enough??

See you in 2009!

Boulder Ignite 2

With Ignite2 just around the corner, had to give my home girl Tara some props for getting up and giving this presentation comparing the tech startup to doing comedy at the previous Boulder Ignite. I wasn't able to attend the first one but this video is brilliant. Sorry I missed it Tara and will see you all tomorrow night at numero dos.

HotDog!

In early November I had the pleasure of attending the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) conference out in lovely Las Vegas. Aside from my streak of bad luck in the Vegas casinos the event was fun, well run, informative, and laden with people wanting to crack the social media code for developing and running a successful word of mouth marketing campaign. There were widget companies, PR firms, advertising firms, SEO, SEM, measurement firms, affiliate network companies, and damn near everything in between. But the hottest thing had to be the dog parked in the lot.

The Oscar Meyer wienermobile has been around something like 70 years and still generates smiles, cameras, pointing, and now tweeting. I befriended two of this year's hotdoggers and got the total legit ride in the wienermobile down the strip. The song was blaring and people were looking. This thing just screams word of mouth. well done hotdoggers, well done :)

For those who care the wienermobile blog is alive and well and tracking the vehicle's trajectory at http://hotdoggerblog.com/index.php

VU Meter Flicker Sound

I have dozens of poems and not sure where to go about publishing them, so at risk of alienating the entrepreneur/technologist/socialmedia/triathlon crowd ;) perhaps I'll put a few here. Any and all feedback welcome.








A VU meter flickers.
Out of habit
I cannot walk
Or cry, or shout.
I can no longer
Walk along the deserts
Or tropics of your
Imagination.
In code we trust.
No longer taught
By the hands, the lips,
The bones of our elders.
Indeterminancy corrupts
The spirit yields
To non life forms
Now mobile and embedded
In our structures.
With prescient care she approaches
Me
Wan and recently lost
From the umbilical pixels
Born anew into
Smooth and painful
Analog space.
Her hand now upon my chest
Exploring downward
Hoping for acceptance
Teeth bared I'm
Awakened Awakened
To this new world of old.



copyright 2008 Tim Wolters

Real Example of the Power of Social Media

The above ad for Motrin went up on their website late yesterday afternoon. After only 20 hours and a huge blogger and twitter outcry, motrin.com was taken down. Here's a link to one of the bloggers who spoke out. David Armano has provided a more complete analysis of the entire event along with some advice for brands.

Times are indeed changing for companies. Social media's reach and influence is broad and word spreads quickly over loosely knit networks of passionate people.

In addition to David's advice I would say

1. Get to know the social media community. Find the bloggers in your target market.
   Reach out to them. Ask them what they think of your campaign messaging.
2. Baseline the community talking about your products and services with social media measurement applications.
   
3. Monitor increases in discussion volume and sentiment. Live monitoring will provide an early warning system if an adverse reaction to the campaign forms.
4. And most importantly, reach out to the community when warranted. Motrin must be commended for their genuine outreach once they determined the ad wasn't being well received.
   

11+ tips to help survive the downturn from John Doer

Came across this blog entry from Christine.net recording the 11 things John Doer says entrepreneurs should do to survive in an economic downturn. I've copied below and you can get to the full post here. Thanks for blogging this Christine.

1. Don't take a meat cleaver to the core of your business; use a scalpel when making changes.
2. Cut once, and cut deeper than you need to.
3. Keep 18 months of cash flow, being conservative on cash flow from revenue.
4. Defer facilities expansion – don’t spend money on tech or physical expansions.
5. Reevaluate R&D priorities.
6. Renegotiate all contracts that you have, even leases.
7. Remember that everyone in the company needs to be selling the value proposition.
8. Offer people equity instead of cash – e.g., equity bonuses.
9. Secure the cash with things like government-backed securities.
10. Figure out what the leading indicators are for your business so that you can react quickly when things don’t turn out.
11. Communicate honestly with everyone, including all employees, and don’t sugarcoat things.

I really like 11 and think it builds respect and trust. We're all in the boat together after all.

I would say two additions are:

• Truncate deals that are not core to your value proposition. Unless you are still firmly in experimental mode with plenty of cash and small burn SELL WHAT YOU HAVE! Also goes back to the tenets of Focus, Focus, Focus
  
• Pay attention to cost of sales - do you need to travel or can more be squeezed out of inside selling efforts?