I love this video from Sasquatch Festival which takes place annually at The Gorge in Washington. Its hilarious and it also speaks volumes about human nature. You see a guy (better known on the internet as Sasquatch Dancing Man or SDM) dancing very crazily to the music. At first the guys is dancing alone and slowly, one by one the entire crowd joins him in dancing. At 1:23 one other person joins the guy then at 1:47 another person joins him. By 2:10 the entire crowd is stampeding to join in.

This video is a great metaphor for how people behave on the web. Most new technologies, products and ideas that are innovative and game changing seem very strange at first. The more original and revolutionary the idea, the crazier it will seem. If its good enough a few early adopters will start using it and convince others to use it. Then it reaches a tipping point and people flock to it in droves.

If you’ve got something remarkable that you are working on watch this video. Stick with your instincts and if you believe strongly enough in what you are doing others will eventually latch on to it.

Check out this blog post which makes some great points about building an online presence:

• It takes persistance to build a following.
• Early adopters are crucial for bridging the gap.
• Participation begets participation.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to teach my kiddos about environmental responsibility. For a four year old its such an abstract concept but one that is important for them to understand even at a young age.

I remember growing up we were taught not ti litter and got paid money for recycling cans but the environmentalist movement was just starting to take place.  It wasn’t till I read Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang that I started to think about the footprint that humans have on the earth. 

Here are some activities I’ve been doing with my little girls to teach them to be environmentally friendly:

• Plant a garden. The girls got a kick out of playing in the dirt and picking some fruits and veggies to grow. Everyday they love to go take a look at the garden grow.
• Before bed time, tell stories by candlelight. Explain to them that you are trying to conserve energy for mother earth. The idea is pretty abstract for them but it gets them thinking about conservation.
• Assign somebody to be the “green monitor” and make sure that lights are turned off in rooms that nobody is in.
• We don’t live far from the grocery store and school so when possible I like to encourage them to walk places.
• We set up some recycle bins in the kitchen and have been working to help them understand which items go in the recycle bin and which go in the trash.
• Whenever possible we try to buy produce from the farmers market. In doing so I hope to encourage them to buy local.

If you’ve got some tips/tricks for teaching kids to be green, please drop them in the comments below.

Your inbox is a to do list, to which anybody can add an action item

– Chris Sacca

I’ve freed myself from email exhaustion using an amazingly useful cloud service called OtherInbox. I’m now consistently achieving email mecca: INBOX ZERO! OtherInbox acts as an auxiliary inbox to my main inbox allowing me to coral email that doesn’t require my immediate attention. It does this in a very convenient and innovative way by providing me with an infinite number of ad hoc email addresses. I can view messages sent to each of my ad hoc email addresses in my “other” inbox. Each address gets its own mailbox so I can go straight to the more important messages and ignore the email I care less about.

For example, my OtherInbox username is mprice. The email address associated with my facebook account is facebook [at] mprice.otherinbox.com. For flickr its flickr [at] mprice.otherinbox.com and for twitter it’s twitter [at] mprice.otherinbox.com. Since messages from facebook, flickr, and twitter don’t require my immediate attention I can just log in to Otherinbox once every couple days and get these messages on my time. Now only the messages that require my immediate attention hit my regular inbox. The best part is that I don’t have to do anything to set these addresses up, I can simply start using any @mprice.otherinbox.com address. In case I forget to check OtherInbox sends me daily notifications about the messages I’ve received. I’ve reduced the number of messages that I recieve on a daily basis by about 70%!

When I need to post my email address publicly or sign up for a service that requires an email address I just provide an OtherInbox address and I don’t have to worry about my regular inbox getting infiltrated with a bunch of spam. When I get tired of receiving mail from a service I simply block the mailbox in OtherInbox and I never have to see another message again. I can’t tell you how invigorating it is to block a mailbox that is being spammed!

OtherInbox went into public beta a couple weeks ago at SXSWi. Its free so give yourself a break and put your inbox at bay by signing up now!

SXSW starts this week! I’ve created my schedule for the interactive panels and can’t wait to check it all out! Now if I could just figure out how to be in two places at one time I’ll be set! I’d love to meet you at SXSW so email me or send me a message on Twitter if you’d like to meet up! Here is my schedule:

Friday, 13 March 2009

02:00PM Everything You Know About Web Design Is Wrong (A)
02:00PM My Boss Doesn’t Get It: Championing Social Media to the Man (B)
02:00PM User Generated Content: State of the Union (C)
03:30PM F@ck Stats, Make Art (19B)
03:30PM Games By the People, For the People (C)

Saturday, 14 March 2009

10:00AM How Not To FAIL At Web Services (Hilton A)
10:00AM Even Faster Web Sites (B)
11:30AM Lessons Learned from the Open Source Software (Hilton A)
11:30AM Not the Same Old Story (Hilton C)
11:30AM Curating the Crowd-Sourced World (C)
11:30AM Bootstrap Your Startup (Hilton D)
11:30AM More Secrets of JavaScript Libraries (Hilton B)
11:30AM iPhone: The New Gaming Platform (6)
12:00PM iPhone Programmer’s Road Map: A Guided Tour of the Official SDK (Day Stage)
03:30PM Playing to Learn – Educating Kids Through Gaming (7)
03:30PM Scaling Rails Applications in the Cloud (Hilton A)
03:30PM Designing for Irrational Behavior (Hilton C)
05:00PM Building Your Brand with Web 2.0 Tools (C)
05:00PM Should I Build My Startup on Ruby on Rails? (Hilton D)
05:00PM Collaborative Filters: The Evolution of Recommendation Engines (B)
05:00PM Politics, Technology, and Pop Culture (9)
05:00PM Designing the Future of The New York Times (Hilton C)

Sunday, 15 March 2009

10:00AM Version Control: No More Save As… (Hilton B)
10:00AM Is Spec Work Evil? The Online Creative Community Speaks (A)
10:00AM Ditch the Valley, Run for the Hills (C)
10:00AM Neocartography: Mapping Design and Usability Evolved (Hilton C)
10:00AM West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer (Day Stage)
11:30AM Kick-Ass Mash-Ups with Punk Rock APIs (Hilton B)
11:30AM AJAX Accessibility: An ARIA Duet (Hilton A)
11:30AM How to Create a Great Company Culture (Hilton E)
02:00PM CSS3: What’s Now, What’s New and What’s Not? (6)
02:00PM Sunday Keynote: Stephen Baker / Nate Silver Interview (A)
03:00PM Learning Rails (Day Stage)
03:30PM Old Media Finds New Voice Through Twitter (5B)
03:30PM The Web In Higher Education: What’s Different? (19B)
03:30PM From Flickr and Beyond: Lessons in Community Management (A)
03:30PM iPhone Development for Experienced Web Developers (Hilton B)
03:30PM What Do I Do With Myself, Now that the Economy Has Collapsed? (9)
03:30PM Social Media: If You Liked it, Then You Should Have Put a Digg on It… (10)
04:00PM Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (Day Stage)
05:00PM Video Blogging: Turning Wine into Gold (A)
05:00PM Pitfalls and Opportunities: How to Fund a Startup (Hilton E)

Monday, 16 March 2009

10:00AM Scaling Synchronous Web Apps (Hilton B)
10:00AM The Invisible Web and Ubiquitous Computing (9)
10:00AM Beyond Aggregation — Finding the Web’s Best Content (Hilton A)
10:00AM Finance 2.0: Money Management to Save this Generation (18BCD)
11:30AM Outsourcing 2.0: Is the World Flat or Not? (8)
11:30AM Entrepreneurship in the Belly of the Beast (18BCD)
11:30AM Browser Wars III: The Platform Wins (Hilton C)
11:30AM How Safe is Your Domain Name? (Hilton D)
02:00PM Monday Keynote: Virginia Heffernan / James Powderly Interview (A)
03:30PM Tinkerers Unite: Let Me Show You How it Works (5B)
03:30PM Building a Web Business After Hours (18BCD)
03:30PM Using the New Digital Social Media to Accelerate Sustainability (8)
03:30PM Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government (Hilton D)
05:00PM Back Off Man, I’m A Scientist: User Generated Discovery (B)
05:00PM Developing Super Senses: Tools to Know Your Users (Hilton C)
05:00PM Dad is the New Mom (18BCD)

Tuesday,
17 March 2009

10:00AM Is Aristotle on Twitter? (B)
10:00AM Are Music Games the New iTunes? (Hilton C)
11:30AM Getting Things Done the Simple Way (5A)
11:30AM Online Content: Transforming Piracy Into Profit (Hilton B)
11:30AM Designers and Developers: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? (8)
11:30AM Building Strong Online Communities (A)
11:30AM Help! My iPod Thinks I’m Emo (Hilton C)
02:00PM Touching Me Touching You: How We Feel Technology (8)
02:00PM Tuesday Keynote: Chris Anderson / Guy Kawasaki Conversation (A)
03:30PM Guitar Hero: From Console to Mobile (Hilton C)
03:30PM The Mobile Web for Good: Hype or Reality? (10)
03:30PM Designing Change in America (8)
05:00PM Music 2.0 = Music Discovery Chaos? (Hilton E)
05:00PM Using GPS & Location to Enhance Social Networking (C)
05:00PM Rawking SXSW Year Round: Staying Inspired (9)

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about how eventually one social network will reign supreme over the social network war the way Google won the search war of the 1990s. The argument goes something like this: The social network that has the most users, is easy enough for grandma to use and makes it possible for you to share all of your digital media will be the dominant social networking site. This argument doesn’t take into account the fact that people use different social networking sites for different reasons. People have different types of conversations in different social environments in “real life” and the same is true on the web. People have different conversations in different types of social networking sites. Here are some of the different ways that I use some of the popular social networks:

Twitter

Twitter has two primary uses for me. First, I use it to meet and have conversations with new people. I may not know the person in “real life” but would like to meet them so I’ll reach out on Twitter and attempt to forge new friendships. The second use I have for Twitter is as a way of finding great content on the web. I like to follow people that share great content and I find some of the best articles, music and video content out there because of those people. Twitter has replaced my rss feed reader.

Blip.fm

I’ve been having tons of fun on blip.fm lately. I have a blast sharing music and finding new music with it. I’ve met some great people and I enjoy having light conversation with people and coming up with clever ways to incorportate music into those conversations.

Flickr

When I see something odd or noteworthy I’ll snap a shot with my iPhone and quickly upload it to Flickr and leave a little comment. This might be something that doesn’t have much value beyond my immediate interest. I also like to upload all of my photographs to flickr and create groups based upon the events that the photos correspond to. My groups usually correspond to vacations or holidays. My intention is that over time I will have a photographic archive of my life.

Facebook

I use Facebook to connect to people I already know. I generally post personal content on Facebook that wouldn’t necessarily have value to people that don’t know me. Pictures of my family or information about what I did this weekend goes on Facebook.

LinkedIn

I use LinkedIn for connecting to people that I’ve done business with or am hoping to collaborate with in a professional capacity. It is a great way of reconnecting with former coworkers and employers.

The stimulus package gives me hope that the economic problems we are facing will be short lived. As a husband and father of three, the recession has me worried about providing for my family. So needless to say I’ve been wondering how to maximize my value in the workplace. Here are some of the actions I’m taking to increase my professional skills and make myself indispensable:

Educate

I’m a software engineer so I’ve made an attempt to branch out and expose myself to new (new to me anyway) technologies including Ruby on Rails, Django and Python. I’ve also made a point of expanding my knowledge of the technologies I’ve traditionally used to build applications(.NET). Additionally, I’ve been investing time in learning new skills that is outside of my core competencies. For me the skill set that I’m trying to get better at is marketing.

Expand

Once you’ve fulfilled the duties that are within your job description, make every attempt possible to work outside of my your description. If there is a task that you can volunteer for that adds value do it. Especially if that task allows you to learn something new. If there is something that you can possibly do to help somebody else at work do it. In order for companies to succeed through economic down turns it is absolutely imperative that employees band together and combine creative energy.

Network

Get out there and start meeting people. Find focus groups that are interested in the same things that you are. You’d be suprised how invigorating it can be to connect to people with similar interests. And if you do end having to seek new income streams then you’ll be glad you have a network to tap into. If you haven’t already, read Tribes by Seth Godin. It will change your perspective on social networking.

Metrics

Do you have an idea of how valuable your work is to your employer? Does your boss? Get familiar with your metrics. If you are in sales figure out how much revenue you are generating in a quarter. If you are in services figure out how much billable work you complete on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. If you are in marketing figure out how many leads you are creating. Metrics will give you a benchmark that you can use for improving your performance. It will also give you negotiating power if your boss ever approaches you with a pink slip.

Innovate

Don’t be affraid to be a heretic. If you have an idea that will benefit your company implement it. It is the best of the best that will prosper during this economic crisis. This is because there is no room for mediocrity. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, “when all the sucky people are making bank and winning its not right.”

• I am originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• I currently live in Austin, Texas.
• I graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2004 with a Computer Science degree.
• I have worked for Cerebus Consulting, Justice Systems Inc, Vitel LLC and CompIQ Corporation.
• I am currently working for Inquisite; a small Austin company that does web survey software. I work with a group of incredibly talented people who enjoy what they do and have fun doing it.
• I have three adorable daughters and a loving wife.
• I am a guitar nut and Mac enthusiast.
• I enjoy designing and developing cool websites and applications.
• Lately I’ve been getting into Ruby on Rails.
• I like to record music using ProTools and am fascinated with composing music on the iPhone (have you played with beatmaker yet?).

I enjoy meeting new people and having great conversations about technology so lets talk on twitter, flickr, linkedin, facebook, blip.fm, last.fm or by email.

Namaste