Chatterbox : emerging technology

Geek Speak: Do you have a voice?

Steve Pham — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:17:00 GMT

Google Voice that is... but wait, what is Google Voice?

Google Voice is an internet based call forwarding service, FREE of charge unless placing international calls. It's currently released by invite only but it's pretty easy to get an invite. Just ask me how if you're interested. Now, I am sure your thinking "Whoopty Doo", what can it do for me? Well, here is what it did for me.

It gave me a local number (you can choose any number you want, from anywhere in the US). This helped a lot. I moved to Charleston not too long ago from another state and do not have a house line. Now I won't get a confused look when I give people my phone number.
It also seconds as a business line. I can make outward calls using the Google Voice number.
Another awesome feature from Google Voice is the option to screen all calls before answering. By screening, I do not mean caller-ID. I mean Google Voice informs you of who is on the other line and blocked numbers will not go through unless they announce themselves. No more random phone calls you send straight to voicemail.
Google voice also has phone management, which is similar to email management. If you are familiar with Gmail, then you will be familiar with Google Voice. You can manage all calls, voicemails, text messages, and contacts using Google Voice.
You also have a block list. You can block any calls from annoying telemarketers, relatives, exes, etc.
Oh yea, did I mention it transcribes your voicemails for you? Well it can! You can get an email, text, or both of your voicemail. No more "wait, what number did they say?" or "what do they want?"
A feature I haven't used yet but can see myself using in the future is the ability to add multiple lines to the Google Voice number. So instead of just forwarding it to my mobile, I can forward the number to my house, work, another sibiling (in the case it's your parents), and more.

As you can see, I've discovered a lot of great features and I just started using it on Tuesday. And knowing Google, I'm sure they will continue to develop it. One key note... Google is very smart about adding a revenue model into the majority, if not all, of their products. Make sure to pick a number that you like or otherwise it will cost you $10 to get a new number.

Don't forget to comment and let us know how you use Google Voice and what benefits or flaws you see. My one wish right now? I wish they would let you have more than one number.

Firefox 3.5: What's New?

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:42:00 GMT

I’ve had my head down for quite some time now (haven’t you noticed everyone is so busy lately?) and the launch of Firefox 3.5 almost passed me by without much notice. Well, it almost did until my browser kept crashing unexpectedly and I noticed it recommended I could update. Sure, why not I said because I was already losing time and I really was resisting the sage advice to reboot. Rebooting is my arch nemesis even if it somehow fixes things.

After downloading and installing, something in the new features jumped off the screen. It was a development I heard about but had completely forgotten about. Firefox 3.5 now supports HTML5 and embedded video. The idea being with the new version of HTML they could specify a common video codec for all browsers to use so you wouldn’t need to download any plug-ins like Flash, Silverlight, or JavaFX. They’ve run into some problems getting all companies to agree to this common video codec but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Someday, we may be able to watch video on a website without any extra software installations. The browser would play the video based on the website’s code.

For me, this is a big deal because when the industry can agree on a common standard, then support for video on pages can improve. Someday, this could mean you would have the ability to see video on any computer, platform, or device. Uniformity can equal improved performance.

As a technical communicator, when they can agree on how to improve watching video online, it can mean finding ways to embed video in help documentation. Currently, we can’t embed video without serious consideration for making sure your viewing experience is positive and headache free. If you have to install something extra, worry about browser stability, and consider performance issues (like internet bandwidth) then the help becomes not so helpful. Therefore, standards and consistency make me happy. Even I have to admit, I don’t like to have to stop my website browsing to install something just to watch a brief video. I also get upset when I can watch video on one website but not another on my iPhone.

It will take a while for this movement to take effect because websites will have to start authoring in HTML5 but now it’s more possible to see it taking effect when a browser like Firefox supports it.

Other notable features include: private browsing mode, location aware browsing, an improved awesome bar, one-click bookmarking, and more. More information is available on the Firefox website and this great overview video http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/. I think I’m just excited because the internet browser market is getting more competitive, faster, and more options to customize your experience.

Geek Speak: Twitter Tools to Twind Tweeps to Twollow

Steve Pham — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:57:00 GMT

Try to say that title one time fast (yeah, don't even bother with three times fast)! Phew!

Why the alliteration? Well I recently signed up for Twitter a few months ago to see what it was all about, and it wasn’t until I understood the power of it that I began to really dive in. After a month or so, I began to get frustrated because I wanted to find people to follow, but not just anyone. I wanted to follow those who had something to say or those who I could potentially build a professional relationship. So naturally I turned to Google to solve my conundrum. My results? Well, that's what I'm hoping to share here in this blog post. Here's a list of tools that helped me.

Twitter Search – I used Twitter Search to see if anyone I knew was on Twitter. You can also use it to find a conversation about a particular topic. Great to use when you're just getting started.
Twellow – Twellow is definitely not the prettiest tool to use, but it contains a massive database of users that you can search by location or category. Great tool, just a bit clunky.
LocalTweeps – Local Tweeps is fairly new. However, the database is growing and the main focus of this is to find Tweeps (Twitter people) that are in the same locale as you. I found quite a few people to follow using this tool.
WhoShouldIFollow – Who Should Follow is an interesting site, you enter your Twitter name and it finds users that match what you have tweeted, your bio, and who you are already following. This tool didn't help me as much because lately my focus has been finding people in my locale because I just moved to the area.
TwitterLocal – Twitter Local is an Adobe Air application that is great. Basically you follow conversations that happen in specific areas - based on city, zip code, state, etc. It's great to see what is going on locally and to see who the big players are in the area.

Each of these tools helped me find more people to follow.

Other Helpful Hints -
It's also a good idea to see who the people you are following, who they themselves are following. Typically they are interested in the same people, so it's always good to check that out. Also, one of my favorite things to do is to check out the twitter user's ration. What's the ratio of who they follow to how many people follow them. I like to make sure its kind of close, however, if you are following a celebrity or a group or company, you cannot expect the ratio to be close. In addition, I also tend not to follow people without avatars, or a few quality updates. I do a quick twitter history check to verify quality and not just quantity. Sometimes those with quantity lack conciseness and worthwhile tweets.

These are just a few things to look out for when you are looking for more people to follow. Hope this helps and happy tweeting.

Feel Free to follow me @Phamtastik and Lindsey @lindseyrobbins

Can you Digg It?

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:35:00 GMT

I confess. I don’t Digg and I have no idea what to use it for. In fact, just the other day I submitted my first article. And it doesn’t even really count since it’s one of my own blog posts. I just wanted to test the process. Sadly, as of today, 6 days after posting, I still only have 1 digg (my own). I’m sure it’s because it was my own content and I have no idea what I’m doing. However, I wanted to see if I could make sense out of this tool everyone else seems to be using but me. Maybe I’m not really at the cool kids lunch table?...

In case you need an intro to Digg like I do, here’s an overview of the website:

Digg is a place for people to share with others their favorite content they find anywhere on the internet.
Once you post, others vote on your submissions. The more diggs, the better.
People, collectively, determine the value of content.
Most content people submit are news articles, videos, and images.
If your content really rocks - people will submit your content, you’ll get digg’d a lot, and then you’ll get published on their front page. And published on the front page means you are really awesome and will get a lot more publicity.
They make it pretty easy to comment and share the stuff you find on Digg.
And, you can even make friends because you might trust their opinion on good or bad content and want to follow what they digg. And if not, you can always digg for content by topic category (technology, science, gaming, entertainment, etc).

So what do you think? Should I Digg it and how should I use this site?

Supporting Your Causes in Facebook

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:58:00 GMT

I noticed this week that Causes in Facebook seem to have improved their ease of recruiting. I was recruited to a couple of my favorite local nonprofits and in return could invite others all without much effort. The other nice part about Causes in Facebook? Once you invite someone and they join, you can thank them! We all like thank you’s and it shows that you appreciated someone supporting your causes. The value of social networking – shared philanthropy and hope of making the world a better place.

Other Causes features I love:

Easy to Feature the cause on your profile (on your wall, info, and boxes tabs)
When you thank or recruit someone, it can show up in yours and their news feed. From the news feed, people can click to join, view, or invite people to the cause.
Hall of Fame for top recruiters – recognition!
Media Board to share links, photos, and videos
Discussion Board and Wall to spark conversations.
Easy to Donate!
And lots more, check out http://apps.facebook.com/causes for more information and to see how you too can make an impact. Halos and Fields to Families are great examples of two small nonprofits jumping into social meda!

Paring Down the Tweets

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:25:00 GMT

A week later and my experiment with paring down the number of people I follow has worked wonders (so far). I’m back to following people without as much anxiety and I can keep up without dedicating my every working moment to watching the stream of collective thought dumps.

Talk much?

My excessive tweeters somewhat followed the same people Joe Meehan mentioned in his comment:

"But as I've discovered, the excessive tweets I've experienced fall into two categories: One - from news orgs I follow (USA Today, LA Times Busines section, CNN Breaking News). A bit much at times - but it's news (at least to someone).
The other category is people who tweet their every action/thought/response to others. If I have to scroll though a full web page of tweets by the same person, it's the virtual equal to the guy at the party who doesn't know when to end a conversation.”

My addition to his two is a third category of people I felt I should follow but wasn’t learning anything particularly valuable from. Don’t we all have these people we keep around because someone else thought they were important yet you’re not really sure what to do with them once you start listening?

I still find tweets from people (I value and want to listen to) with links to relevant information particularly useful. In fact, now that I can find and read them much more quickly I’m able to follow their thoughts and links much more easily.

Who went and who stayed?

I don’t want to divulge too many specifics but here’s in general who I dropped.

Technical communication people in my field who weren’t contributing valuable information, tweeted too much, or weren’t tweeting at all.
People I find vaguely interesting because they have a huge following on Twitter but in general I don’t really care what they have to say on a day-to-day basis.
Large organizations I have no personal ties to and the government feeds I initially liked but had no use for after the general intrigue wore off.

I kept many people. In fact, I’m still following 82 people/orgs. Who and why?

I’m still following people I work with. I find it important to know what’s going on at work and we can feed each other great content (and sometimes funny fluff too).
I follow select technical communication people who I respect and can continue to develop a networking relationship.
Friends. You can’t drop your friends! Even if I use twitter mainly for work related items, I still find it comforting to see funny or meaningful things from non-work people.
Local organizations and organizations I have ties to. I kept the local news, local nonprofits, and even Clemson football feed (although the way they are playing, I might have to drop them than think about the season).

Going Forward

I still find it difficult on busy days to follow the thread of information thoughts floating on twitter. However, following only the people that can meaningfully contribute to my day makes it much easier. And I plan to hope, as Chad commented in my last post, that Twitter figures out the social filtering. I would have liked to follow many of the people and organizations I dropped, just not on a daily basis.

So my recommendation to those out there considering to tweet and considering who to follow, sometimes it’s okay to join the fray and make some mistakes. But, as you go along, watch the trends of what you like to see and what you don’t. And most importantly, don’t twitter everything!

A reverse invasion of media

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:36:00 GMT

We all know in the last year or two tv and movies have invaded the Internet in all new ways. (My favorite... hulu.com). But yesterday, when I got home from work I was flipping through the channels and stumbled onto Oprah using Skype on her tv show. What? When did that happen? She had a regular show on her favorite music artist discovery of the summer Charice. I don't know much about Charice and would have changed the channel except Oprah had two regular ordinary people on the show participate via Skype (phone and video). I think they were just fans of the singer. They participated from their own home. I thought that was pretty cool. Usually TV is heavily produced but bringing the audience into the show, even if they can't come to Chicago, is sweet and oddly feels more authentic!

This week's task is to finally bite the bullet and learn some more about Skype. After all, if Oprah starts using it, you know all the rest of the media are going to jump on the bandwagon.

Are the emerging social media tools becoming ingrained in mainstream media? If yes, I guess we need to start looking further on the horizon for even cooler ways to interact.

The Business Case for Twitter

Lindsey Robbins — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

(Originally appeared on From the Doc Side)

Lately, much has been said about Twitter. Chad wrote a great post (Twitter Makes Relationships Work - Right Now) with an explanation of what Twitter is so I'll skip the overview and get to the business case.

Let's start with a little confession I should make… For a while, I had a twitter account but didn't use it much. I wasn't quite ready to be a twitter evangelist. Everything changed for me when I chose a focus for how I was going to use twitter. What I realized was while I didn't always like the concept of letting people know all the mundane things I was doing in my average day, I did like how it could improve my professional and business connections. Here are some ways to use twitter in the business/professional sense.

1. Follow your colleagues. Not only do you create connections across teams but you can stay informed of the latest news in their world. I am following a few leaders in my company with specialties in technology, webby things, marketing, customer support, etc.
2. Follow fellow professionals. This is perhaps my favorite way to connect. I love learning about what other people in my field are learning, doing, finding. I could never keep up with all the changes in technical communication and I don't have to. Instead I can look to peers and mentors for what they find interesting. I share the things I find interesting and our worlds really do expand.
3. Promotion! Share your work content. I am posting a link to our From the Docs Side... blog every time I write one. If we do something else cool, I'll share that too.
4. Tweme the possibilities. If you don't know what a tweme is, it's adding a hash mark to posts so they can easily be found in public streams. I had such a good time at my recent technical communication conference by tweming with other conference goers. Here's our example. Just by putting in a hash mark we could follow each other's post on the same topic. There are so many possibilities with twemes. You could create one for your local professional chapter, a conference, topics in your organization you want to separate, etc.
5. Tweetscan. Tweetscanning is searching all twitter streams for specific keywords. You want to know about technical communication, type that into tweetscan.com and you can find what other people are saying about tech comm and perhaps you'll find some cool new people in your field to follow.
6. Want to know who's the most popular in twitter, go to a site like tweeterboard.com. This site ranks people on popularity. This is again, another way to find noteworthy people tweeting.
7. Support social causes. Movements are happening on Twitter. Just google Frozen Pea Fridays or read here and you can learn how they started a movement to support a woman with breast cancer and ultimately raised money for research.

Either way, definitely re-consider your use of Twitter. You get to control who's in your network and who you want to follow. Also, if you type twitter apps into google, you'll discover new apps are being created daily as people are learning to harness the power of micro-blogging. After all, not everyone has the patience or time to read long blogs like this one. Instead, we want quick updates under 140 characters in length.

Even these guys are tweeting and they're no slouches -

Guy Kawasaki - http://twitter.com/guykawasaki
Robert Scoble - http://twitter.com/Scobleizer
Kevin Rose - http://twitter.com/kevinrose

So, are you ready for the twitter movement?

Wikis Need Some Love (and best practices)

Lindsey Robbins — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

(Originally appeared on From the Doc Side)

Since June of 2006 I’ve been moderating wikis as a part-time job for a company in Seattle. And then soon after at Blackbaud, we’ve explored and researched the use of a wiki as a help file. Since then, I’ve been focusing my efforts on creating an internal documentation wiki as a team development tool. Through my experiences, I’ve learned a few things about how to encourage best practices in wiki use.

Before you implement a wiki, spend time populating it with common topics and a basic set of information. Don’t just hand out a blank one to your team and expect them to figure out what to do with it. By establishing content already in the wiki, people are more comfortable following an example.
Before and during implementation, you need to spend time on the organization. Pages will be added, moved, and deleted. You need to keep the pages organized so that users don’t freak out when they see a mess of pages. People like boundaries, rules, organization – it provides a comfortable structure for them to contribute towards.
People need prompts and templates. Thinking about style and creating easy to use templates always encourages people to contribute more. But don’t expect them to use these things perfectly, clean up will need to be done. And prompts are always good to help guide people towards the behavior you want them to exhibit.
Be an active member yourself. People like strong leadership in a wiki especially where so few will become active participants.
Don’t underestimate providing multiple modes of navigation. Search, most recently updated pages tool, traditional table of contents hierarchy, and tag clouds are just some examples. I’ve also had a lot of success changing up links on the main page to continually bring new content and pages to users’ attention.
Peer to Peer messaging works. People can easily forget what they were doing two minutes ago so I don’t expect them to think of the wiki all the time. Instead, it’s extremely helpful to send P2P messages to users with a combination of prompts and links.
Users really like recognition, polls, and comments. If you can include these three things, you’ll be doing well. Recognition for contributions may be only a pat on the back but it means a lot to community members. Polls are great for opinions and everyone has one. And comments, well that’s a way for community members to connect, ask questions, and in general feel safe from the pressure of actually editing a page. Chances are if you can get them commenting, you’ll eventually get them editing.
WYSIWYG is a given. But going above that, see if you can provide a way to make adding pictures, video, widgets, and more easier. This will not only make the wiki more dynamic but people aren’t always lovers of long pages of static text.
If pages are getting longer and scrolling gives you hand cramps, do your wiki users a favor and break up the content into sub-pages. You can then use the main page as a starting point and create links. Wikis aren’t meant to be books or just content storage. It’s interactive, ever evolving, and (shockingly) fun!
Don’t underestimate the importance of a good moderator/editor. Life in wiki land can easily get out of control if you don’t have someone watching, loving, and caring for your wiki. Or, it can get all dusty and desert like if no one provides some attention to growth whether it’s encouraging participation, providing opportunities to contribute, or keeping pages clean and organized. It will also help if this moderator/editor is an expert in the wiki topics because then they can verify the content as they supervise it. As we all know, wikis can bring the best out of our collective knowledge or the worst and when it comes to work wikis, we all want the best.

Those are just my top ten tips for wiki use but I’ll continue to post on wikis if anything new develops, if you seem excited about wikis, or if I learn something geeky cool that I just have to share with y’all.

And please, if you have questions about my experiences or if you have a problem and want to troubleshoot, just send me an email or add a comment below. I definitely would love to share my passion for wikis with others. I don’t know why it is, but something about community created content gets me all tingly inside.

Where's the download button

Lindsey Robbins — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

(Originally appeared on From the Doc Side)

Google posted on their blog today that Google Sites is now open to everyone. Curious as I am, I checked out what this new Google Sites feature was. After all, I knew they had acquired Jotspot a while back and now we get to see how they reconfigured it.

It appears to be a combination website/wiki creator. You can control who can edit the pages, view content, etc without having to know html. I love WYSIWYG more than I probably should but even that love will probably not make me an earlier adopter of this option for professional reasons.

The one major flaw in all these websites that make creating websites and wikis customizable and personal is the inherent flaw that instead of you controlling access to the information by having it on your own network, they are all hosted online. And if by some chance there is an option to host it yourself on your own network, well that’s where the fees kick in.

Even though this is a particularly sensitive issue for someone like me who works for a public company, I think it’s an important issue for every organization – private or nonprofit – to consider. I love the value of having software hosted but only if it’s done within the scope of a contract and ensuring your data is protected like we do here.

However, as massive as Google is and as smart as they have been with their apps in the past, I still don’t trust keeping our information on a hosted website. Too vulnerable.

This is something I’ll continue to follow because I have this ongoing dream to have an internal documentation wiki for the Documentation team. We have a lot of information that needs to be managed in order to successfully share with each other and pass on to future technical writers. I’ve been downloading and testing as many free apps as I can find with no luck yet. You need to have more programming knowledge than I have to install. I really think if they can make hosted versions online easy for consumers, why can’t they make installable versions easy too?

In the meantime, I guess it’s back to figuring out the good and the bad about Microsoft’s SharePoint wiki features. Yikes!