Jon Lowder

Transition

Well I survived SCIP08 and thus my tenure working with the folks from SCIP came to an end.  As of today I'm working with the folks at Fletcher/CSI.  More later.

Good Day at the Office

Well, just sold the last available exhibit space for my client's annual conference and the sponsorships are starting to roll in as well.  Good for the conference, bad for my fingertips and brain.  My fingers are feeling kind of QWERTY and my brain feels like oatmeal.

BTW, if you're in the competitive intelligence field I have some killer sponsorships available.  Just sayin'.

Time for a beer and a long sleep.

Home Office Fun

Working out of a home office has some definite upsides and downsides.  The upsides include not having to shave every day and working in sweats.  The largest downside is being your own tech support.  Take this morning (please)...I get up to my office and find that I cannot get to my email or get my browser to "find" the web.  Strangely my VOIP (Vonage) phone works and I can access my client's VPN (virtual private network).  To rectify my situation I resort to all my old tricks:

1. Re-boot the computer.  No joy.
2. Unplug the modem/router for a couple of minutes.  No joy.
3. Unplug the modem/router and the Vonage converter for a couple of minutes.  No joy.
4. Re-boot and unplug everything for a couple of minutes.  No joy.
5. Start cursing. No joy, but some relief.

I run down to Celeste's office to see if she can connect.  No problemo for her, so that means that the problem's with my PC.  Using her computer I Google my issue and get some tips involving manually resetting DNS's, pinging and other nefarious and hideously technical actions.  I continue cursing.

Upon returning to my office I decide to plug the cable from my router directly into my computer, thus bypassing Vonage.  Voila I'm online.  Still haven't totally resolved the issue, but hopefully I'm getting close.

Still cursing.

Cool Way to Manage Information

Yesterday I wrote on my business blog about searchCrystal and noted that I liked the graphical display of its search results. Today I stumbled upon a couple of sites that deal with visual information management.  First I came across VisualComplexity.com which is best explained by this description from the site's "About" page:

VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field.

From the VisualComplexity site I found TheBrain.com. These guys have visual content management products, one for individuals and the other for enterprises.  They describe their products this way:

 

TheBrain Technologies is the leading provider of visual content management solutions. The company was founded in 1996 and has been delivering award-winning information management solutions for over a decade. By connecting people, processes, and information, TheBrain's products provide unparalleled context for smarter information discovery and more informed decision-making.

        

TheBrain technology can be utilized on corporate intranets, desktops, and the Internet. Some       applications include: customer care, project management, dynamic mind mapping, IT management and helpdesks,       impact assessment, competitive intelligence, marketing and sales support, and personal information management.

         

TheBrain has two primary products: PersonalBrain for         individual users and BrainEKP, an enterprise knowledge platform for group collaboration.

I've always struggled with content management.  In the physical world I'm a "pile don't file" kind of guy because when I file it I forget about it.  (A happy compromise for me is binders; active projects are organized in binders that I keep on my desk and then I shelve the binders once the project is complete).  I'm constantly hunting for files online because my folder systems tend to get too complex and so I forget if I saved a file under "Taxes" or "Accounting."  These products offer hope for folks like me.

Fun With Maps

One of the things I do for my day job is manage the sales of sponsorships, exhibit space and advertising for a non-profit professional society.  For a variety of reasons I'm often asked where our customers' offices are located.  For instance my client might have a local event and want to target companies in that region for sponsorships.  Typically I just do a search of my database by zip code or state, which works fine for areas I'm very familiar with, but it's tough for me to get a sense of how many companies we deal with in an area I'm not familiar with.  For instance I'm very familiar with the northeast corridor of the US so I don't have a problem pulling the data together very quickly for a Philadelphia event, but I'm not at all familiar with the western US so I'm not at all sure if a company in Calabasas is a good prospect for a local event in San Francisco. 

Yesterday I decided to take some time and use Google Maps' new My Maps feature and load in my vendor database. Note: I wouldn't do this if you couldn't make the map "private" so that it can't be searched or found by others, but I can share the page with whomever I want which makes it a good collaborative tool with my client.  Since there are several hundred records in my database I decided to input only the exhibitors from this year's conference to see if it was worth the effort.  After putting in the 60+ companies I looked at the result and was amazed to see how much it changed my perspective.  Not only did it give me a good sense of how my exhibitors were distributed, but it allowed me to zoom in on a city and click on the little balloons for each company and see who was in Washington or Philly or wherever.  Very cool.

I did a little more playing around and found out that I could download the map to view in Google Earth.  That caused me to remember an article in Business 2.0 about a company that allows you to "mashup" your own data with Google Maps via a free service called Geocommons.  I went to Geocommons.com and signed up for a free account, and then tried to upload a file but found that it had to be in KML format which I know nothing about (i.e. I was in over my head).  So I did a search on KML and found a website called batchgeocode.com that will take data from an Excel spreadsheet or any tab-delimited file and convert it to KML.  I used the site to convert my vendor data to KML and then opened it in Google Earth.  Voila, all of my vendors are now mapped on Google Earth and I can zoom in and click on the little icon and see all the contact information right there.  VERY cool and I didn't have to actually type in all the data.

I'm sure there are applications for this that I haven't even imagined, but if you give me enough time I'm sure I can find something totally ridiculous to do with it.  If nothing else I'm good at figuring out how to quickly turn the useful into the inane.

Running on Empty

I apologize ahead of time for the whining.  This time of year is usually tough for me because there's too much work and lots of stuff going on with the kids, like baseball, soccer, tennis and such.  Truth be told this year feels worse than the last few because, truth be told, I'm not getting any younger.  Right now I'm sitting at the computer trying to wind up my day after getting up at 4:45-ish, heading to the airport for a 6:30 flight to DC, heading straight to SCIP's (my client's) office and I'm still here at 8:30 (that's PM) with another hour of work to do.  I know there are lots of people who have it worse, but I'm telling you my tank's about dry.

I'm hoping to sleep hard tonight, but I'm one of those people who can't sleep well in a hotel so I don't hold out much hope.  The worst part is that this is the first day of an eight day trip.  The last four will be brutal as we put on SCIP's largest event of the year.  Everyone here will be on the clock from 6:00 a.m. until some time after dark, and everyone in SCIP's office has had it as bad (actually worse) than I've had it for the last few weeks.  I wouldn't want to be trapped in a closed room with any of us come Wednesday of next week. The upside is that these are a great group of people to work with and I seriously don't think I'd be doing it if they weren't. 

BTW, if you're in New York next week you should drop by the Marriott Marquis and check out the conference, especially if you happen to be in the competitive intelligence business.  It ain't free, but it's a great conference.  If you're not in CI then maybe you can just drop by and check out the elevators in the place; they're fast and they go way-high (49 floors).

Yep, I'm exhausted because even as I write this I know it's one of the dumbest, most self serving things I've written yet.  I know it's self serving because I've yet to mention what Celeste has to deal with while I'm gone: games that overlap and necessitate scheduling gyrations and begging for carpools, single-handed homework checking, and dealing with two teenagers and one tween for eight days solid.  It'll be a miracle if I don't come home to find her in AA.

But, it beats the alternative of unemployment and everything that comes with it.  With that I declare this whine-fest over.  Everyone have a great week.

Nothing Like Timing

It's my busiest time of year.  My client's big annual conference is in two weeks and I'm responsible for all the exhibitors and sponsors.  This is the week that I get scores of calls and dozens of email every day with questions about the conference.  So of course this is exactly when I lose power and cable (i.e. internet and IP phone) for days on end.

Thank goodness for Panera and my wife's old laptop.  This experience also highlights the severe limitations of my PocketPC, which is great from updating documents and doing light email but is not suited for hardcore work.

Stress now at Defcon 5.

Jon

Fried Router and Google Desktop on Today's Menu

There are lots of pluses to self employment and/or working from home.  Not having to shave for days on end, wearing sweats and a t-shirt on a daily basis, showers-optional, etc.  On the other hand there are some definite negatives like bad-smell-syndrome and anything related to technology.

This morning my router was fried (me thinks it had something to do with the crackling I heard emanating from my power strip) so without the convenience of tech support it was off to the store to buy a new router.  The router that was fried was a Linksys Wireless G router that I purchased when the G standard had just been produced, I think around four years ago, and this morning as I was driving to Circuit City I had a vivid recall of the decidedly non-automated set up procedure for the old router.  In other words I remembered how painful an experience it was for your average non-tech-geek to install a wireless network.

I bought the next version Wireless G router (with speed and signal booster!) and ran back home.  I popped open the box and saw these magic words on a big red sticker: "RUN CD FIRST: Do not unplug any existing PC or Networking Equipment".  For once I followed instructions and two minutes later the router was up and running, the security settings were set up automatically without me having to re-learn all that crazy lingo (WEP, WAP, whatever) and my computer, which is the only one cabled to the router, had a nice internet connection. 

Next I was asked by the install program if I wanted to install other computers on the network.  When I clicked yes it asked if it was wired or wireless.  I clicked wireless and then it asked me if I could temporarily attach it by cable to the router for the install.  I said no and it then asked me if I had a USB flash drive.  I said yes and it prompted me to plug in the drive and then it installed a setup program and said all I needed to do was plug the drive into any other computer I wanted to install on the network and the program would automatically configure the computers for the network (assuming they're all running Windows XP).  SWEET!

I went downstairs to Celeste's office and kicked her off her computer so I could get it back on the network.  I plugged the flash drive into her USB port and then waited, and waited, and waited.  What the hell? So I pulled up Task Manager and saw her CPU at 100% usage.  I looked at what was running and noticed a butt-load of memory being chewed by Google Desktop and other Google Pack goodies.  I shut them off and she instantly went to 23% usage.  Hmm.

As soon as I turned off Google the Linksys install program launched and we had her online in about 60 seconds. When it was done loading and I'd confirmed her connection was good, and that she had a much stronger connection than she'd ever had with our old router, I uninstalled all of her Google stuff. 

All told my tech support job cost me about an 1 1/2 today, but the result is we seem to have a much stronger wireless network and I'm coming to believe that Google really wants to be like Microsoft.

Workin' With Librarians

I've spent the last three days coordinating the SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals; www.scip.org) booth at the Special Libraries Association conference in Baltimore.  Long show but got to have a great meal at dinner last night...very large hard shell crabs that were perfectly steamed and served with a cold glass of Yuengling.  Who says work can't be fun?

Meeting an Apprentice

Okay, meeting doesn't quite describe it.  I was in the audience at the annual American Society of Association Executives SpringTime event to hear Kwame Jackson's keynote speech.  Mr. Jackson came in second place on "The Apprentice" (first season), and hasn't looked back since.

His speech was better than I expected, and it's nice to see that he's doing a lot more than just riding his "Apprentice" fame on the speaker's circuit.  His Legacy Holdings LLC venture looks interesting, and I think Prince Georges County, Maryland (just outside D.C.) where they are building the Rosewood mixed-use development can really use a lot of the energy and promise that Kwame exudes.

One interesting thing he talked about was how his buddy, and current business partner, David J. Smith actually called him, told him about the show, and talked him into applying for "The Apprentice."  And he convinced Mr. Jackson that this would be their ticket to a successful future, even though they both already had lucrative positions on Wall Street.

Instead of just going through the normal channels Mr. Smith picked up the phone and called the casting director for the show.  He convinced the casting director to come to New York and meet with the two of them, and from that point on they had an inside track. They still had to send in a videotape and application, but basically one of them was pretty much a sure bet to be one of the 50 called to Hollywood to audition for one of the 16 spots on the show.

Now it looks like Mr. Smith was prophetic, and things are going just as he and Mr. Jackson planned.  Actually I think it would be just as interesting, if not more, to meet Mr. Smith as it would be to meet Mr. Jackson.  I think we'll be hearing a lot more from both of them in the future.