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Improvisational Ponderings of Moderate Nefariousness

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What my Twitter cloud does (and doesn’t) say about me

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Twitter now allows you to build lists of people that you think others should follow, and group them into categories. The idea is to allow others to subscribe to those lists as a single group, based on topic.  A few weeks back the most excellent Jay Baer posted on his Convince and Convert blog an idea to take all the lists you are a part of and make a tag cloud and upload it to the best cloud storage
. It would give you a snapshot of your personal brand online.

Tag Cloud for @jmoriarty

jmoriarty Twitter tag cloud

It was both interesting to see the most common terms, and the oddball one-offs like “zzzzt” and “naked” (?!?). It’s also skewed towards the positive, which always does the ego nice but is what I’d expect from a tool for recommending others. Who is going to recommend someone for “bad hair” or “horrible puns”? I wasn’t surprised to see Phoenix in here so large as it’s not only where I live, but also because of my assorted hobbies out here.  I was glad to see Ignite Phoenix show up fairly small, and “writers” show up at all given my lack of 140+ character writing in the past few months. It was also reassuring to know I qualify as people… but then so does Soylent Green so maybe that was a gimme.

You Are Not Your Brand

I liked this exercise not because it provided some great insight – it is a small piece in an overall puzzle – but because it gave me a view from others eyes on how I am perceived.  When I first started poking around with the idea of “my brand” with my avatar photo shoot, I was genuinely confused by which pictures others felt best represented me. I learned that my perception of my brand was not entirely aligned with what others saw, and I could either roll with it or really work hard to create the image I felt I should have.

For me, the latter option felt too forced. As the great philosopher Popeye once declared, I Am What I Am*. I went with the avatar that the community chose and tried to understand the perception so I could take it as personal feedback. I’m a different person than I was when I started this project, but it has been through following my own path and plenty of trial and error – not trying to craft an ideal image to hang on myself.

The moral of the story is that in spite of your best efforts your image may not be what you think it is, and if you’re not actively listening to what others say you’re never going to really know.  Oh, and a bonus moral of don’t build your house out of straw or sticks. Go with bricks.

* Actually he said he “Yam What He Yam”, but I’m no Yam.

AC/DC 2008 – Dirty Tweets (done dirt cheap!)

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With apologies to Angus and friends.

If you’re havin’ trouble with your Google rank
It’s givin’ you the blues
You wanna get first page but not break the bank
Here’s what you gotta do
Grab your iPhone, I’m in the zone
Txt me any time
Just ping 1.36.24.36 hey
I lead my life online

Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
(Dirty tweets and they’re done dirt cheap)
(Dirty tweets and they’re done dirt cheap)

You got problems in your web designer
You got a broken link
He’s double dealin’ with another site
That’s when the clickthroughs drop fella
Grab your iPhone, I’m in the zone
Or make a website crawl
Log right in, forget ’bout him
We’ll have ourselves a blog!

Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
Dirty tweets, done dirt cheap
(Dirty tweets and they’re done dirt cheap)
(Dirty tweets and they’re done dirt cheap)

If you’ve got a spammer and you want her gone
But you can’t block that putz
She keeps emailin’ you night and day
Enough to drive you nutz
Grab your iPhone, I’m in the zone
It’s time to trash her brand,
For a fee, I’m happy to be
Your linkjack man!

Social Media Stupid Metaphor Exercise (bel Grande)

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I’m prone to random ideas, and last week it struck me that just about any danged crazy thing could (or has) been used as metaphor for Social Media, Web 2.0, or whatever you want to call this stuff. I had some time waiting for a program to install, so I threw out onto Twitter for people to “send me a noun” that I would then attempt to form into some faux profundity about Social Media.

Well, leave it to Twitter. The nouns flew fast and furious, and I had to cut them off quickly or I would have been at it all day. Below is the list of people, the words they gave me, and my replies. I won’t vouch for the quality of the replies, but it was definitely fun. Sometimes the best creativity flows when you’re really under the gun.

  • The rutabaga is a vegetable similiar to the turnip. The Root O’ Social Media is building communities. (@JeffReidAZ)
  • Getting old corporations to adopt new media is like curing a giraffe of a cough. It takes a while and you’re gonna get kicked. (@TSDivaDani)
  • Like a noun is the crux of every good sentence, honesty is the crux of every good blog. (@c_reed (nice one!))
  • Travelling snake-oil salesmen used to sell from their suitcase, now they just use twitter and my InBox! (@snakecharmers)
  • A good blogger needs a good pair of overalls, because like a farmer at some point you’ll be covered in ****. (@maniactive)
  • Like parsnip cowers in the shadow of the mighty carrot, spammers will never quite measure up to the honest blogger (@smlacy)
  • Even the mighty blue whale knows the difference between the soggy plankton and the nourishing krill of the internet. (@memestorm)
  • Like the mighty aardvark, you must plunge your moist snout of curiousity into the anthill of social media! (@jeffmann)
  • L is for the layers of conversation social media brings to discussions, from the meaningful to the totally contrived. (@deanouellette) (ed: Not sure L was a noun, but what the heck)
  • Many enter the social media vestibule, but they’re not entering the main hall without purchasing a Ticket of Sincerity. (@timedalkat)
  • Social Media is the soup of the internet. You have to stir through lots of broth and peas to find the tasty bits of meat. (@spellwight)

I’ll definitely give it another try someday. Maybe make a whole book of these things.

Trivial Super Powers: What would you choose?

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On Twitter yesterday Ronji talked about a poll which asked which Super Power you would have. Most people at his work chose Invisibility, but I would personal take Flying. In fact, you would never get my butt back on the ground if I could fly. Easy choice.

So I wondered what Trivial Super Power you would have, like Never Having To Wait In Line or Always Having Correct Change.

Below are all the replies I received from Twitter and Facebook. Parking and laundry related powers seemed to be the most popular, but I really liked being able to detect Wi-Fi hotspots.

  • emantion: Would “being able to sense Wi-Fi hotspots *and* if they are free or not” fit into your list? I would love that 🙂
  • burpingdog: Trivial superpower I’d love … the ability to mute the real world… but with closed captioning
  • KRGiron: Always Know What To Say, Having the right words for every situation
  • alandd: Asked my lunch buddies: Being a Kept Man, Always Have $10 in My Pocket, Always Have Ironed Shirts
  • HatshepsutGenie: Folding bedsheets without another set of hands? That would be a pretty handy superpower!
  • tdhurst: being able to clean and iron clothes just by shaking them.
  • billpearson: I’d like to need less sleep. I envy the people who can function with three or four hours a night of sleep.
  • Kinchie: Is healing sickness a trivial superpower? That’s the one I would want, at least today since I’m feeling horrible but must go on.
  • blogan: I’d like to be able to remember names flawlessly.
  • jakressaty: never waiting in line.
  • TDJensen: Dumb detector – being able to visually pick dumb people out of a crowd and avoid them…..I see dumb people.
  • WhiskeyChick: I would want super-fast laundry folding skills. Or the ability to chart music by sound. How’s that for trivial?
  • halfacat: i choose never having to wait in line as cash is going away. soon it will be known simply as visa.
  • JacquiD: i would want “snapping my fingers for perfect hair/makeup/clothes” for my trivial superpower.
  • austinmiles: i kind of like waiting in line, it gives me a break that i don’t normally get. So i think i am in favor of change.
  • todd_logan: How about killing fail whale by snapping my fingers? Probably not trivial enough, but it could be a lucrative and *secure* job.
  • Jerry_Makare: I always wanted to be raffle winner guy. That’d be pretty sweet I think.
  • ScottGentzen: Convenient Parking
  • mensan98th: My trivial superpower: Always get a good parking space. (Hey, I live in DC.)
  • MelonCamp: Never running out of coffee cream!
  • ronji: that wasn’t a choice, so i picked ability to fly. i’m hoping the people in or running the line will let me cut to the front =)
  • crazeegeekchick: always being able to find lost objects
  • Tony Johns: Fear my Nuclear Conversational Zingers
  • Aaron Tersteeg: Never having a hangover
  • Michele Gartner: Perfect red lipstick, even after eating an apple
  • Sorina Popescu: Never having to iron
  • Sarah Gregory: Remote Mute – I want to be able to silence someone *else’s* phone line on a conference call, not just my own.
  • Sharon Greenfield: Owner of Cats Who Can Feed Themselves Instead of Clambering Onto Owner at 5am Mewling, Kneeding, and Sticking Cold Noses Into Ears.

If I missed any good ones, let me know.

Halloween Post: Poe’s The Raven… twitter version

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Once upon a Tweetdeck dreary, while I Twittered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious snurl of meme-passed lore,
While I groaned, nearly bailing, suddenly there came a failing,
As of something poorly scaling, scaling on some maxed out cores.
”Tis some n00b,’ I muttered, ‘scaling on a single core –
Only this, and nothing more.’

Thusly here I clicked to Send, when, with what became a great portend,
In there appeared a smirking whale of whose sight I’d soon abhor.
Not the least apology made he; not any helpful info gave me;
But, with mien of poor design, loaded into my screen’s d?©cor –
Loaded into the browser of Mozilla in the focus of my screen’s d?©cor –
Loaded, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this cyan mammal floating my sad patience was eroding,
By the silly and flighty decorum of the struggling birds it bore,
‘Though the image be used and stale, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure of small detail.
Ghastly smug and bloated whale flitting from thy server’s shore –
Tell me what thy pixeled name is on the Net’s Spamtonian shore!’
Quoth the Whale, ‘Nevermore.’

And the Whale, always gloating, still is loading, still is loading,
On the browser of Mozilla just above my apps galore;
And his teeth have all the gnashing of an application’s that is crashing,
And the back-lash o’er him washing throws his funding to the floor;
And my tweets from out that leviathan that is my screen’s d?©cor
Shall be loading – nevermore!

(with profound apologies to E.A.P.)