FUEL Social Media Presentation

I had the opportunity late this afternoon to do a presentation to FUEL, a relatively new group sponsored by the Rochester, MN Chamber of Commerce, on “how to use social media to grow your business and advance your career.”

Here are the slides:

After my presentation, we had a panel discussion that included Wade Beavers and Joe Shriver of DoApp, Becky Ross of Fox Sports North and Fox Sports Wisconsin and Alan De Keyrel of Corporate Web Services.

We started a Twitter hashtag for Rochester community conversations, #RSTMN.

It was a great discussion with lots of good questions, and I appreciated the perspectives the other panelists brough. Becky made the great point the given the intensity of sports fans, it was important for @FSNorth to keep up a strong Twitter stream, because people who follow them. Alan beat me to the punch in saying that people need to stop thinking about the separation of personal and professional lives in social media, and realize that the distinction is really futile. I don’t think it’s even really desirable. Wade and Joe also brought a lot of good insights.

When It’s This Cold (Part II)

Here’s my last weather-related post for a while. I couldn’t resist the update though, especially when we hit -22 Fahrenheit yesterday morning. Here was the Old Main thermostat reading:

53degrees
As before, the setting on the right is the target temperature (69), while the big number is the actual indoor temperature. It’s a little warmer upstairs, but still awfully cold. There’s no way for the furnace to keep up in a big old house like ours. Yesterday’s high was -11, and we’re not talking wind chill.

So here’s a fun little video to illustrate the benefits of our SMUG North Annex (also known as the Lewis J. and LaVonne A. Aase Motor Fleet and Retreat Center.) When it’s this cold, I’m not spending much time in the attic, but I’m glad our vehicles have a slightly warmer place to be. It’s kind of amazing to watch the car thermometer reading drop after I backed out of the garage.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6sNad4S8IU]

And as I started to say (before my Flip batteries gave out), I really appreciate having a nice warm bus (with wifi) to ride instead of having to drive.

The good news: today we topped out at 2 degrees above zero, and tomorrow should be in the 20s.

This has been a hectic week, as I’ve been working on the launch of a major new work-related blog. I’m looking forward to telling you all about it later on next week.

Meanwhile, I expect now to be able to resume some of the regular SMUG curriculum development over the weekend.

When it’s this cold…

…it doesn’t matter where you set the thermostat. In the first photo below, you see the Old Main thermostat, with the target and actual temperature. The furnace just can’t keep up.

I tell people Minnesota weather isn’t that bad (which is better than “isn’t that good,” for those of you who don’t speak Minnesotan), and that we usually have 3 weeks a year in which the temperature stays below zero F.

This is one of those weeks.

I’m on the way to university of St.Thomas for a journalism seminar. The second photo is the traffic, which is making me late (but also enabling me to compose this post via WordPress for iPhone.)

No animals or humans were harmed or endangered in the writing of this post. Traffic was stop and go, with more stop than go.

Updated: When I got to St. Thomas (about 9:45), I added this video I shot during the stop and go traffic. It’s not my best work, because I was paying attention to the road (though I was only going about 3 mph), but I think the message is good for young people considering journalism or PR careers.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNW38ta84sI]

High-Speed Blogging (In a Sense)

This is a REALLY cool new benefit of my daily commute on Rochester City Lines. We now have WiFi on the bus!

I took a little video of one of my bus buddies, Dave, asking him what he thinks about this new service, and tried uploading to YouTube while we were traveling. I will likely be posting that video likely when I get home, because with the speed of the connection I have my doubts as to whether it will be done by the time I get off the bus.

This is a combination that show both how cool the Flip video camera is, and what you can do with bus WiFi.

I will say that the speed of the WiFi is slow (at least today.) So when I call this high-speed blogging, it’s referring to my velocity through space (about 60 mph), not the bandwidth. I’m just going to publish now, and will embed the video from home.

Video blogging may not be the best commuting application, but I’m thinking Twittering would be great.

Thanks to Rochester City Lines for providing this new service!

Updated: Here’s the video referenced above. Not likely to become a viral sensation, but an example of what you can do really quickly with the Flip (and with mobile WiFi on the bus.) Considering that I started this post about 90 minutes ago, it’s not too bad. You get to see what this bus-WiFi unit looks like, and I get to embarrass my buddy Dave.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSejq54bRk]