I’ve been here from Toronto since Sunday and this joint absolutely rocks and it’s cool to be Common in Chicago (Had to toss that in for big C). In 5 days Code Academy has taught me how to be an expert in all things Ruby and Rails (notice I [...]]]>

I’ve been here from Toronto since Sunday and this joint absolutely rocks and it’s cool to be Common in Chicago (Had to toss that in for big C). In 5 days Code Academy has taught me how to be an expert in all things Ruby and Rails (notice I didn’t say Ruby “on”)… Well, ok, the geek noids out there are probably saying whatever and ready to go ape shit on the keyboard, locking themselves into their code monkey cage and preparing to blast me out into the hack universe of “You don’t know jack shitville”. Although, I’d prefer they chill out, relax, work on getting laid for the first time, and hopefully know I am just yanking their nerd chains – they’d be right.  I know squat after a week and I won’t be an expert when I am done.  I am cool with that. It has been one week, and I am definitely not an expert – hell I am not even a beginner, but I have to say the Code Academy crew is awesome and the learning insofar has been fun.

I am fortunate and crazy enough to be doing both the Development and the Design class at Code Academy.  Jeff Cohen teaches development and he is well –  awesome, and the dude loves hockey (more on hockey in a minute).  He is a very patient teacher who knows his stuff and he is able to break things down very easily and explain them in a fun manner and there is no dumb question in his world.  Carolyn Chandler is a smart cookie who leads our design class and she is a design heavyweight who is well respected in that community.

In her class, we get to sketch, think lean methodology, and learn to think about design while listening to some awesome music from time to time on Pandora (Arivn (Pron: Irvin) Dang tees up some trippy beats).  For example… that damn door in our class!  I wanted to pull it the first few times and I found out I wasn’t alone, only to find out the design is messed.  And the bathroom  – well what gives with the paper towel being hidden (almost) under the mirror?  One of my sketches portrays this irritant I have…  anyhoo (yes, anyhoo you coding urban mutants) I need to take a break but here are some pics to chew on.  I am going to chew on some pie (Pizza. ended up being a sub which was good) with my design mentor Jake Downs. Thanks Jake! Oh speaking of mentors – a big shout out to Don Bora of Eight Bit Studios . Don is my development mentor who took me to Burger Bar for lunch this afternoon. Thanks Don!  If you like burgers you should run to this place.  It is a hungry man’s dream right here in Chicago.

The Dyson Hand Dry under the Public Washroom long water and soap dispense.  My drawing… really sucks…. but!

We all need a dispenser sensor man in our life!

My Design brain is kicking in… Maybe Don Norman would be proud! Or not…

Then wildly and unexpectedly I got invited to watch the Blackhawks last night and even more crazy was the fact I landed in the dressing room, out on the bench area (although the bench was removed in preparation for the upcoming basketball game. They move fast at the Madhouse) and I walked out on the ice. Let’s just say we all get to be lucky once and a while, and  I have that good fortune here.  The blackhawks have amazing and very loud fans with an amazing scoring jingle.  Here are a couple pics.

This Dude walks by me with a hat on and lo and behold it was Kaner stopping to sign a jersey and he was off. The man looked busy so I had little desire to bother him.

It’s been a fun week in Chi town alright! My blogging will have to taper off as Code Academy ramps up!

Peace out,

Jaret

I was recently asked to take a look at a dataset on BuzzData that outlined Major League Baseball salaries for all players spanning from 1988-2010.  Before I get into the crux of it, BuzzData is an open source platform for people, companies, organizations to host, converse, post related [...]]]>

I was recently asked to take a look at a dataset on BuzzData that outlined Major League Baseball salaries for all players spanning from 1988-2010.  Before I get into the crux of it, BuzzData is an open source platform for people, companies, organizations to host, converse, post related articles, debate, create visualizations, download, fork, clone, upload and download data on any topic, idea, or event that you can possibly think of. Beers on tap, marijuana prices, forest fires, hurricanes, ecological & environmental concerns, NASA studies, United Nations research… you name it, Buzzdata awaits data from one and all. For coders and programmers, think of BuzzData as GitHub for data. For the non-Github & geeks of the world, think of it sort of as a much simpler sexier Facebook of sorts for spreadsheets (I dislike the fact I am using Facebook to describe BuzzData given I am not a fan of them) - sorry BuzzData please don’t hate me for that analogy but I have to get my point across. One Love.

I will profess that I am not much of a baseball expert.  My heyday of watching baseball was during my punk teen years rallying behind Canada’s then beloved Toronto Blue Jay’s who managed for the first time to bring the World Series title north of the Bars & Stars for two years in a row in 92 & 93 – Back to Back baby! It was an impressive feat and I will never forget the dinger out in left field by Joe Carter that sealed the deal for the back to back title.

One of the original things I looked at from the dataset mentioned was the highest paid players for each year and to my surprise there was only one year where the team with the highest paid player won the world series, and that was the New York Yankee’s in 2009 with A Rod (Alex Rodriguez). I created a simple dataset to outline & confirm this fact because I was in disbelief.

The original dataset sparked a healthy debate and some interesting visualizations from people like Artful Geek and Gary Storey. From there I wanted to dig deeper and analyze some more numbers by creating a dataset with the team payrolls from 1988 -2010 (Keep in mind there was no World Series in 94 due to a strike).

Over the 22 year period the World Series was won 7 times by the team with highest payroll but only two teams achieved this. The Toronto Blue Jays had the highest paid teams in their back to back titles in 92 & 93, and the payroll king New York Yankee’s won with the highest paid team in 96, 98, 99, 2000 & 2009. If my math is correct the highest payroll during this period constitutes a 33% World Series title win rate. The average winning payroll ranking sits at around 7 but if you look above, no 7th ranked payroll team has won, however there have been three 8th placed teams, and just last year the 9th placed San Francisco Giants earned the crown.  This graph sheds light on a newer trend as well. During the last decade, the highest payroll team has only won once or 10% (Yankees 2009) and the top 2 team won twice ( 20%: Red Sox 04 & 07). What gets really interesting is that the other 7 titles (70%) during the last decade have went to teams ranked 8th or higher in payroll (as high as 24th: 2003 Florida Marlins) with the ten year average sitting at 9.6.  Based on this statistic alone, the 2011 payroll stats has the Detroit Tigers ranked 10th.  Will they be your World Series champions for 2011?  I have no idea but I would love to get more people engaged on BuzzData to join these datasets and discussion.

I looked at some of the most influential and followed “Baseball & MLB” twitter users and it would be great to get them and others dialed in:

Alyssa_Milano (Yeah that Alyssa Milano. She’s a smart cookie & loves baseball)

Keith Law

KFUCKINGP

SFGiants

KashiwagiAkira (BuzzDataへようこそ)

SI_JonHeyman

jaysonst

BillPlaschke

GlobeSox

MLBONFOX

stl_cardinals

robneyer

GIZMONATION

Forestbookuruoi

YESNetwork

ToddZolecki

NickSwisher

espn

SportsCenter

liderendeportes

AmyKNelson

CBSSports

tribetalk

Send these people and other baseball nuts a tweet and tell them about this awesome site.

I see @BuzzData for the serious, leisurely, and humorous alike. It is a repository to store, foster, and grow ideas from data, and I believe such a platform is necessary for us to advance democracy, our environment, ideals, and at the core – our future! Imagine more governments offering up data to the public in pursuit of better solutions, a business looking for help in solving complex problems, an organization looking at ways to improve the environment.  It is happening and BuzzData is setting out to further unleash this open data frenzy.

The use case for sports will be interesting as well.  I believe the networks and gaming companies that truly understand this will harness platforms like these to propel their businesses. Gamification and social engagement around data has huge potential.

Thoughts?

@JaretManuel | Jaret Manuel on BuzzData

This is a fascinating video for all Designers, Engineers, Artists, and startup enthusiasts.

Simply one of the best talks I have watched in some time.

Enjoy! @JaretManuel

Blogging or life streaming made easy with Posterous or  Tumblr.

Digg and contribute worthy information.

Everybody wants the Gist : contact aggregation.

So you say you have no mentors, nobody that you can lean on for sound “been there, done that” startup advice or tech information?  Humbug I say, so quit your non-sense talk, tune into twitter, and you’ll be surprised who will help you if you only reach out.  The [...]]]>

So you say you have no mentors, nobody that you can lean on for sound “been there, done that” startup advice or tech information?  Humbug I say, so quit your non-sense talk, tune into twitter, and you’ll be surprised who will help you if you only reach out.  The following are people I listen to, engage with, sometimes ask for advice, debate with, and ball bust for fun.

Either way, there is an abundance of experience & knowledge at your finger tips, and I am only happy to share with you some of the people I follow & look up to on Twitter.  Almost all of the following are fairly to very active in the Twitterverse, making their TweetGreed very low which is awesome. I have a domain set aside called TwitHead.com.  TwitGreed may be a good idea to measure.  Bi-Directional tweets in proportion of followers/following, etc.  Just a random thought.

@albertsupdates Made first cool million at 16, sold a couple companies since, and now a Garbage collector @Kontagent in San Francisco. Had the pleasure of meeting here in Toronto. Awesome & very humble guy, hence his garbage title.

@wbrettwilson Very successful businessman turned investor, and a part of the infamous Dragon’s Den on CBC here in Canada. Very humble & often responsive in the twitter community.

@dharmesh Awesome & humble presenter, and super smart. Founder at Hubspot.com (I think this is his 9th company he has been a part of) and creator of OnStartups.com, and author of Inbound Marketing. Great guy and constantly giving back.

@ericries lean startup movement. Very informative tweets. There is more I should be saying so feel free to chime in.

@danmartell Hails from New Brunswick, transplanted to San Francisco after selling a successful startup, and now founder of ever popular Flowtown.com. Always seen mixing it up in TwitVille.

@davemcclure Founder of StartupVisa.com Movement, Geeks on a Plane founder (I think), large & in charge in the valley, ball buster, swears like a sailor, and just managed to get in front of Hillory Clinton for the Startupvisa movement.  Love his no holds barred, say it how it is style.

@zappos Tony Hsieh “Shay”: CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos. $1 Billion anybody? Sure, my name is Amazon and I want to buy you. Sold. Screw gambling, book a trip to Vegas to get a tour of Zappos.  They are all about it. Very impressive story.  Wait a minute, Tony sold another company to Microsoft for in excess of $200 cool ones, yeah you got it, pimp daddy millions. But you would never know it from Tony.

@FredWilson A “Reputable” VC Holding down NYC, like Jay Z being Breeze E on 5th Avenue. I could easily go on and free style you some what you know about my writes? (De La Soul if you got lost during my flow). Fred is very respected in a not so always the case Venture Capital community.

@JasonFried 37Signals Founder, Author of Getting Real and latest book ReWork. Hater of poor design and over complicating things.

@dhh David Heinemeier (@37signals co-founder) & founded Ruby on Rails.

@AustinHill Akoha.org, Investor in Bumptop & StandoutJobs.com. Straight out of Montreal & often in destinations unknown.

@Pkedrosky Always has an interesting perspective on the economy, the valley, startups, VC, and he is Anti-Facebook (to the best of my knowledge).

@pegobry 10 Things you Should know around 6AM on Silicon Alley Insider. Informative.

@balsamiq Founder Awesome Web Mockup Tool Balsamiq.com. Great Guy from what I hear.

@HnShah Founder of Kiss Metrics.

@bsaren Citysquares.com Founder. Funny Guy.

@Zeldman Web Design Guru, Author, Founder at Happy Cog, and publisher of  A List Apart.

@MattMireles SpeakerText.com CEO. Interesting information. A straight shooter from what I have seen so far.

@MattCutts He quit Facebook, so by default I am impressed, and he is a Google dude, so no doubt he is super smart.

@MarkRuddock multiple successful startups under his belt. Viigo.com was the latest to be gobbled up (by RIM).

@DrewHouston Founder of amazing service that I tell all my friends/family DropBox.com.  Offers solid advice for startups also.

@kn0thing Alexis Ohanian Co-Founder of Reddit (successful Y Combinator Grad), Breadpig.  Great speaker, funny, and an awesome contributor to this world. AlexisOhanian.com

@yegg Gabriel Weinberg is Founder of @DuckDuckGo, the alternate to Google Search, and he has a very informative blog. In fact, I see a February Video up of Alexis (just above) there right now.  How ironic.

@EnglishPaulM Huge fan, never met. PaulEnglish.com, huge success.  Btw..  He is not a heavy user on Twitter but dig up what you can.  Seems like an amazing guy.

@CDixon Chris Dixon absolutely Rocks. I paired down my toolbar and I absolutely had to add ChrisDixon.org back in.  Amazing resource & informative content.

Who am I missing? Who is on your list?

I am sure you could add to this list of people you look up to, respect, and reach out to for mentoring, startup advice, guidance, and tech information, etc.  By all means, the floor is yours.

@JaretManuel

I recently had a little debate with some friends back east, and I basically said some of their web work was crap because they were using a Dreamweaver Template tool and I thought that approach would be a mistake for helping another friend with their business.  Harsh I know. [...]]]>

I recently had a little debate with some friends back east, and I basically said some of their web work was crap because they were using a Dreamweaver Template tool and I thought that approach would be a mistake for helping another friend with their business.  Harsh I know. We bust each others balls a lot, and it was written in an SMS text so some things may have been taken to heart, and I apologize for being a ball buster and the way I approached it. My bad but get over it. My other friends are starting their new SUV Limousine service in St. John’s, Newfoundland, I think to be named Elite Limousine, and they are getting this friend to help them and I am sure it will rock.

If one was going to design this limousine site from a template angle I would highly consider wordpress because it is agile, lean, and extremely cost effective to the point that someone like myself, who is not technically inclined, could produce something of a professional design, and fast with a boat load of tools to boot. Don’t believe me? A friend of mine manages two high traffic sites that runs off of WordPress: Screenrant and Notebooks. The website could be designed in numerous ways such as HTML, PHP, HTML5 (this will be the new de facto way, bar none. It’s Kick Ass), or the template approach, etc.  If you want to see some great design then I highly suggest TheFWA and I would recommend something more extensive beyond WordPress for a business, but if you need something fast and cost effective, then it will more then do the trick. If you don’t know people to design a site for you, then you code look into Top Coder and host a contest but take more time in this area as it is easy to get plenty of crap in return.

How to get a Website up in 1 day:

1. Register your domain name.  There are many but Godaddy is solid (just ignore all the bells & whistles they try and sell you. Get the domain, and that’s it). $10-15 /year.
2. Run your domain off of Google Apps (up to 50 Users free). For example, steve@BrownieBus.com . If you use this and you use Firefox, then WiseStamp is a great Email Signature tool.
3. Help Pointing Godaddy to Google for Email.
4. Get hosting for your site.  There are a plethora of hosting sites like Dreamhost, Godaddy, & I prefer IX Host . $60ish per year.
5. Design your site using a template, a web designer (this may take more then a day), or you can download WordPress for your domain. You will need a WordPress.com (the previous link is wordpress.org to download the file to put on your host account) Account for some API keys, etc as well.
6. You’ll want a WordPress Theme.  There are many and the link is a suggestion only for free templates. For a Limo Site, I would keep it Photo rich. If you know PHP really well then you can design your own.
7. If you go with WordPress, then you want to have Smartphones accounted for with the WordPress Mobile Pack.
8. WordPress SEO Pack is a must as well.  Once your wordpress is installed you can search plugins and download them internally. Research core plugins for pertinent to your site, but try and avoid getting caught up in Plugin overkill.
9. How are you going to manage your information regarding your customers/leads? CRM or Customer Relationship Management is something you should strongly think about. 37signals and Zoho are cost effective, and Salesforce (Group Edition is $25/user/month) is more expensive but far and away the leader. Plus, Salesforce now has WordPress to Lead Integration. If you choose a web design other then WordPress, and you go with Salesforce, you can use their Web to Lead function built in their Group Edition.  Even in a limo business, you should keep data of people & businesses inquiring, and ultimately using your service.  These people are a great recurring and referral revenue source, so stay in touch with them, and thank them for using your service, and you can send them links to the cool video you are about to make.
10. How are you going to handle your accounting and invoicing to businesses, etc?  Look no further then Freshbooks. They have 1 million+ users and make your invoicing task easy. I am not certain the cost, but it is cheap.
11. Are you going to accept online payments?  This will take more then a day to setup but in Canada I would advise Moneris.
12. Get a Twitter account and post a twitter icon on your site.  See my Hockey Site PuckDrop.ca. Twitter is not hard. You simply need to know Hash tags that people search on like: #limo #stjohns #GeorgeStreet #HavingATime #DonnieDumphy, better yet, create one and run with it… like #PuckDrop . Once you have a Hash Tag of your own, get people tweeting and taking pics with that hash tag, and you can linkup to CrowdReel or spread the word about it. Use it, get your friends following you, and chatting it up.
13. With Google Apps (See 2.) it comes with a pretty solid calendar that you can share with your team privately, and I would integrate it with Tungle, and link your Tungle URL on your website so that your Calendar (Free/Busy Slots Only) can be shown public. Tungle is free.
14. Get a Vimeo (It’s like Youtube but better for posting videos) account. Here is a super simple video to show you how to embed Vimeo in WordPress.
15. Do you have a professional phone service?  Grasshopper or Ringcentral.ca is the way to go.
16. Facebook for websites (a little more advanced but give your nerdy friend something nice and they will hook you up). This basically makes your site a fan page all unto itself. And of course, promote your site on Twitter and Facebook.

Now you are up and running.  How do you market your site?  Well, there are many ways and you can start by putting Vimeo to good use and make a funny video that your friends talk about and share.  Drive around St. John’s, Signal Hill, the Lighthouse, Cape Spear, and make something funny. The JK Wedding Dance is almost at 5omil views so anything is possible and that didn’t cost them much if anything to make. Be funny, creative, and really think around social media that your friends will find funny and want to talk about, and share on Facebook, etc.  Traditional ads are expensive, and hard to track… on that note I almost forgot. You should also utilize Google Analytics. This is more important for broader geographical marketing and more in depth traffic analysis, however you have the link in case you need it.

When you are in Newfoundland & you need a good photographer: Photos by Tom.

If you have ideas then by all means feel free to comment.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A64KwbeQLrI

As a proud Canadian I love our country and think we have it pretty damm good here.  I mean we have a boring leaderless government and political opposition but the upside of that is that we are not out pissing off other countries too much.  We have great people, [...]]]>

As a proud Canadian I love our country and think we have it pretty damm good here.  I mean we have a boring leaderless government and political opposition but the upside of that is that we are not out pissing off other countries too much.  We have great people, some rave about our health care, and of course there is our crack like addition to Hockey.

All of that good stuff aside, our government seems to embrace a lack of competition for certain industries.  Take the telco industry and the very recent CRTC decision to slam and shut out Globalive as a fourth national wireless carrier.  What, you mean that would entail more choice for the consumer?  Heaven forbid Watson, we mustn’t do that…. The Oligopoly would be bruised.  It seems our government wants only a few telco players, and that down right sucks.

Which leads to the “How to Piss Off a Customer!” part. Fido, now a wireless brand under Rogers, used to be a company called Microcell.  Back when they where around, they had these amazing phone packages (that were probably losing money) by Canadian standards and they got Grandfathered when Fido bought them out and they still are today under Rogers.  800 LD North America minutes, 24/7 unlimited local calling anywhere on the FIDO network, no access fees, and the list goes on.  I got super lucky and it is a plan that Rogers/FIDO simply would rather not have me on and I have to sign a 3 year contract in order to keep it.  The plan is amazing so I bite the bullet.

So the iphone comes out a while back and I wouldn’t mind getting it so I make a call to FIDO, and see how I can get one. Well sir, you can’t get the iphone because you are in a contract and you have to wait 6 months until your agreement is up before you can entertain that.  I tell them “are you kidding me? I praise you guys up and down the line, and your service is great but this is a bit much”.  Tough luck, no dice.

So a while goes by and I determine I could use the business apps on the iPhone so it moves towards a Need vs. a Want. So I call again. Same thing, no go. 3rd call, 4th call, and then I go on Jigsaw to find the first EVP that I could find and I cold call one of them in Montreal and some executive assistant tells me he is no longer with the company so I say put me through to retention as this has gone too far. I get a nice lady on the phone and I simply told her that I will call everyday and drive you guys crazy if I don’t get that phone.  She said there is nothing you can do. I said put me on with someone who can make it happen and that I am willing to sign a new 3 year agreement.  I mean, I am the customer so give me what I want but they realize they don’t have to because there is no true telco competition in this country.  Well, this lady ended up being awesome and she somehow (magically made it happen) and with some further negotiating I got the phone. Woo Hoo, love the phone, but I am not a happy customer.

If FIDO was smart, they could have embraced the fact that I loved the service, the package and they could suck up the fact they are not making enough money off of me and appreciate the fact I tell friends how great FIDO was.  Instead, they pissed me off because they were offering something and as a loyal “locked in” customer, I cannot have it (not to mention I upgraded the data plan, hence more Revenue for them).

The second part of how they continue to piss me off is that not only do they not want me on the plan, they send me mail saying what a great deal I can get with their latest offer.  The problem with this is that their offer is about 1/10th of what I have right now, which tells me their promotions department doesn’t even know which plan I am in, which means they are wasting trees and money, which means they are clueless, and what does it say to me as a customer.  They don’t care and until Globalive gets the CRTC stamp (or other serious competitors emerge) they don’t have to care because there is no imminent threat.

If you want a sure fire way to piss off your customers, threaten them with the plans you have them on now (if you have plans that are grandfathered.), send them offers that don’t compare to what they already have, and wave it in your face that there is nothing you can do about it, and do not reward locked in loyal customers. FIDO has me because I lucked out with my plan and there is nothing close to it being offered otherwise I would have left. But as a customer, I am still pissed and maybe the telco exec’s were pissed (loaded) last night in joyous celebration that a potential “real” competitor got rejected.  For now at least.

In the meantime, Globalive’s Wind Mobile Videos say it best:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAm6MTtu3KA

The founders of Hubspot and MIT Alum Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah  have produced a knock out punch with their new book called Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs.  What I liked the most about this book is that it was [...]]]>

The founders of Hubspot and MIT Alum Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah  have produced a knock out punch with their new book called Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs.  What I liked the most about this book is that it was very simple to read, and it is not just a great book but it is a fantastic resource that you can resort to often.

Every chapter has easy and practical tips to help your customer base find you in a language that anyone can understand, regardless of your technical ability.  Gathering attention in this noisy, busy, and cluttered world doesn’t have to be as hard as you think if you apply their useful suggestions. From blogging, Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, and more, Dharmesh and Brian have it covered in spades.

The days of interrupting and “pushing” are increasingly less effective because it is easy for consumers to block and tune you out.  That doesn’t mean there are less customers out there, in fact, they will beat down your door if you have what they are begging for, and this book shows you how to “pull” them in via Inbound Marketing without annoying the hell out of them.

Gravity is always at play where you can fight or you can harness this force by working with it. Inbound Marketing is the smart and efficient approach that can be accomplished with a low to no cost, and the potential return is astronomical.   This book is a must read for businesses big and small wanting to attract more leads, exposure, buzz and revenue, as well as bloggers striving to gather a larger audience.  I highly recommend you buy it for you and your employees.

*Dharmesh Shah also Blogs on a kick ass startup site called: Onstartups.com. Inbound Marketing can be purchased on Amazon.com, Chapters, etc, and their site is inboundmarketing.com/book.