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Sep 03 2010
2 Comments
Faith

The Pop-Culture Glenn Beck Religion and Theology

Linus in his great wisdom instructs Lucy well, sound theology is a great comfort to the mind, but I wonder how that would be written in the 21st century. I try to read a small dose of poetry every day in my quest to understand this complex and powerful form of literature, and this one, “Theology” by Paul Laurence Dunbar was so funny, sad, and true, I had to share it today. Some days it seems there is such a Christianity culture shift going on in our country that Christians themselves are trying to re-write what it means to be a Christian.

The New Hipster Christian

Each generation sort of does this and re-defines how they see the Church and tries to make it their own, which is fine, better to revive and revitalize the church than leave it all together (which many young people have done too). The danger is when we re-write the Gospel message to meet our pop-culture needs, and turn Christianity into our own personal Jesus (as Depeche Mode put it about a decade ago). Christian theology isn’t something a generation can choose to define, it was defined for us, by Jesus himself.

A recent article in Christianity Today by Brett McCracken entitled “Hipster Faith” (also from his book Hipster Christianity) put it so well. This pretty much nails it.

It’s [hipster Christianity] a world where things like the Left Behind book and film series, Jesus fish, and door-to-door evangelism are relevant only as a source of irony or nostalgia. It’s a world where Braveheart youth-pastor analogies are anathema, where everyone agrees that they wish Pat Robertson “weren’t one of us” and shares a collective distaste for the art for Thomas Kinkade. The latest incarnation of a decades-long collision of “cool” and “Christianity” is in large part a rebellion against the very subculture that birthed it.

It’s a rebellion against old-school evangelicalism and its fuddy-duddy legalism, apathy about the arts, and pitiful lack of concern for social justice. It’s about a rebellion against George W. Bush-style Christianity: American flags in chruches, the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evagelical leaders who get too involved in conservative politics, such as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

They prefer to call themselves “Christ-followers” rather than “Christians.” They cringe at the thought of an altar call, and the prospect of passing out tracts gives them nightmares.

Nothing is inherently wrong there except I do find that the “hipster Christians” do not give anyone the respect they deserve, like the aforementioned Dobson and Falwell, but I don’t see them giving due respect to hardly any of their “elders” per-say. They may disagree with the method (I always hated the thought of door-to-door myself) but much of their theology is very sound. We all far pray to our own culture, it is just part of being alive. You can follow me and my exploits around on Twitter just like you can McCracken, but where do we get our theology today.

Theology, Get it Wherever You Like

So they/we get theology from CCM (Christian Contemporary Music), and the pop-trends of the day. The latest craze that includes us older generations with Glenn Beck (see Beck Wants to Lead, But Will Evangelicals Follow? and a great article by Dr. Russell Moore God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck, and for another look, And Glenn Beck Shall Lead Them). Beck calls for a return to God, and then on Chris Wallace’s program (see video) Beck made it quite clear that he totally understands the Gospel message, and the differences between the LDS Church (Mormon Church) and Christianity. Sometimes it seems that the only ones who can’t see the difference, and there are plenty of differences, are us Christians.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

I guess the question is, who are we looking to for our theological base and teaching, Beck? I don’t want to just pick on Beck, I like his show. While he is a super pop-culture-talking-head and has many good points, should we really be taking our theology from Beck? He would probably even say that’s not a good idea. Luckily, Christians today can go right to the source and skip all the middle men. The unchanging God of Abraham is still there for us. We are the ones who change, not Him.

I was going to post the poem, “Theology” by Paul Laurence Dunbar here as well but this post is too long already, so look for it in the next post shortly.

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May 18 2010
2 Comments
Tech

Are You a Linchpin, Answer

This is a followup from my previous post, Are You a Linchpin, Assignment, see also Linchpin and the Art of Photography.  The easy answer to this question is, yes, of course I am a Linchpin.  It’s about like asking someone if they think they have any value in this world at all.  Well if they didn’t think so, they probably wouldn’t be here.  The hard part about the answer is not the yes or no, but the why.

Explaining to someone why you have value is not as easy to quantify.  I have value to my family because I cut the grass and hopefully bring joy to their lives, I have value to God for a variety of reasons, but can you quantify your value at work?  The value we have at work is the value we create.  It isn’t given to us by our boss, or written in a manual, or presented to us on a nice easy to follow map. Value is what we make of it, and how we use this creativity of ours to add value above what we are paid, because we want to, not because we are paid to do so.

I add a created value to my team, not for the tasks that are easily documented, but for the unique perspective I bring that only I have because only I have lived my life.  I am a technology troubleshooter, teacher, trainer, arbitrator, writer, photographer, problem solver, and all around idea negotiator, who generally doesn’t like hard and fast rules but concepts and ideas to work with.  If it can be easily explained and easily written down, anyone could do it, anyone could easily replace my value.  It is the unquantifiable that makes me a Linchpin.

To me being a good editor is an art, the art of a Linchpin.  I know how to edit content and copy, but I am lousy at it.  No matter how many times I read something I still miss obvious grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors that leap out to a good editor, or even a fair one.  We have a great editor on our team (@farrowj on Twitter) but even if you could write down exactly what she does, and if I tried to follow it, I would still be a lousy editor.  I doubt she has ever written it down either.

Being a Linchpin or not is more about choice than destiny or fate.  You aren’t just born a Linchpin and you are made one by your boss or customers.  You are a Linchpin if you choose to become one, choose to share your unique art with others beyond what is written in a manual.

Are you a Linchpin, and if so, why?

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Apr 09 2010
6 Comments
Tech

Telecommuting Can Save Your Business Money

Some of you may or may not know that I have been looking for a good job match in a full time IT related field for about 3-4 years now (yes I said years). So far, it has been one of the most frustrating ongoing experiences I have had in business.

I have been denied a lowly $7-9/hour job to work out of my home office because I had too much experience, and have turned down a $60,000 job because it wasn’t a good match between my personality and their culture.  There is nothing easy about finding a good career match any more, and I have a lot to offer a company.  Almost 20 years of business experience, education, flexibility, a low required salary, and a willingness to travel.  See also my post Top 5 Tips to Help Your Job Search.

How I Can Save Your Business Money

What is astonishing to me, is how many potential employers will not look at the possibility of having a professional (and I mean that in every sense of the word) work out of their home office when the typical IT job really doesn’t require a physical presence in an office, or anywhere for that matter.  I understand some do, and that’s fine, but not all by any stretch.

It’s simple math.  If I can be hired to do a job in a middle-income American city for $50,000, which requires me to move, I can do the exact same job from my home office for $40,000.  That’s $10,000 a year in payroll expenses your company doesn’t have to pay.  Computer equipment they don’t have to buy, phones, office space, parking, gas, and food that doesn’t have to be purchased.  If your company has a tight budget and really needs to control expenses, why ignore this potential savings?

My Office is Better Equipped Than Most Office Buildings

How old is your office equipment? What tools are you missing to get your job done in an effective and efficient manner?

I have 4 different phone lines/numbers I can use including a landline, cellular, and VoIP.  A network of 5-6 computers (PC and MAC), laptops, desktops, mobiles devices, a reliable 6M high speed DSL line, 10 TB of data storage (yes Tera), data backups, and my office is even wired for a 20KW backup generator in case of power failure with 250 gallons of propane on site.  I am probably better equipped and better prepared than the standard office building in middle America.

With that said, I have no problem going out of city or state for the right position, it will just cost everyone more money.

What Comes Around (To Get Down, Timo Maas)

This week I had a few different conversations with potential employers, some very promising.  One of these companies was so unique in the way they required applicants to submit information I decided to go the extra mile and respond to their creativeness with creativity by making a portfolio video.  Videos like this are nothing new but I made it specifically for them for an added personal touch.

Below is the video, (with the names removed to protect the innocent of course), but if you are one of those out there looking for a job, don’t just do the exact same thing that all the other applicants do, that accomplishes nothing but allowing yourself to blend in.  Be creative, stand out, showcase your skills.  Not all employers will appreciate this approach for sure, but a company looking for a Linchpin instead of a door knob will.

See the full size version of The Portfolio Project here.

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Apr 09 2010
2 Comments
Tech

Top 5 Tips to Help Your Job Search in this Economy

In my ongoing pursuit of the perfect full time employer I have compiled more information than I could possibly have imagined a few years ago.  I could probably write an HR book called HR, the Good the Bad, the Ugly but I am sure someone else has beat me to it.  After writing a post about a recent interview I decided to put down a few quick tips I learned just in case someone else out there is also looking for that perfect match.

The Match-Making Job Market of 2010 Is Fluid

Today is a different market than even just five years ago.  Potential employers are doing more with less, and are in no hurry to bring on a new hire that may or may not be an exact match with the company’s existing culture.  As a potential employee, I am also just as picky when it comes to looking at a potential employer.  I don’t just want any job, I want a good match, but in 2010 it’s more like online dating or match-making than job hunting.  Don’t just automatically jump on the first offer, really look at what kind of match you are with the company culture, business model, and their clients.

Flooding the Market with Resumes Doesn’t Work, Be Creative

I have sent in hundreds of resumes, made countless followup calls, gone out of my way to not be in the way when needed, met tons of new people, offered to move to all over California (my native land), Texas, Florida (wife’s preference), New York, Wisconsin, Montana (those two were a stretch), Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky.  Yet, it’s the end of another week of meeting new people, making new connections, learning new companies, and waiting.  One thing I have learned, flooding the market with resumes doesn’t work.

If you want to be seen, you need to do something creative and unique.  Don’t just do the same old thing that everyone else does, that doesn’t do any good at all.  Find a unique way to stand out to the HR person or hiring manager.  For an example of what I did this week see this video I did for How I Can Save Your Business Money.

Become a Major League Scout in Your Search

You need to seek out new prospects like a scout looks at potential minor league players.  Traditional job sites like Monster have been almost worthless to me.  Today, employers will post on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, craigslist, and on their own websites.  Where are the creative companies posting their new positions?  Don’t limit yourself to finding a great job by only looking on the traditional websites.

Do Your Own Research, Don’t Just Skim the Surface

When you do get an Interview, phone or otherwise, do you know more about the company than the HR person?  Impossible?  Not at all, and many times I have known far more about the details of a company than even their own employees do.  Do your own research, and dig deep.  A good example is to look at the company on LinkedIn.  Look at their current employees on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook (are they happy with their job), their former employees (why did they leave, where are they now), and all the associated websites you can find.

Keep in mind your potential employer is doing the same research on you.  Don’t give them a stupid reason like a photo on Facebook to hire someone else.

Don’t Try To Hide, Control Your Internet Footprint

If you are on Facebook and you hide your account from a potential employer they will probably wonder what you are trying to hide, and if there is good reason, perhaps fixing that first would be a good idea.  I have created a one stop shop on Google where potential employers could find out every thing there is to know about me (http://www.scottfillmer.me), professionally and personally, and from there they can find their website of choice without having to give them 10 different places to look.  You can still be publically seen and control your private information, just use common sense.

What are your favorite job search tips?

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Mar 20 2009
2 Comments
Faith

How a Church Communicates in a Generation Gap

Tweetdeck on Twitter

I read a few interesting articles today in Entrepreneur Magazine and Marketing Pilgrim, about how people communicate, and have difficulty communicating, between the generational gaps.  Each generation has a different way of embracing new forms communicating that becomes comfortable to them but where gen-x and gen-y ‘ers seem to have adopted to new forms of communication, the boomers have let is slide and still prefer their face-to-face and over the phone exchanges.

Face-to-Face, Phone, or Twitter-ific

The reports go on to talk about how that makes it difficult to properly communicate between the boomers and gen’ers who don’t really care for face to face and hate making an actual phone call.  All that got me thinking about how we communicate within the church.  Poor communication in a church can kill its momentum, growth, or relationships, but “poor” communication is not universal and what is poor communication from a 20-something to a boomer is acceptable among their peers.

Being Unaware Creates Mis-Understanding

It doesn’t take long to see how mis-understandings in communication methods between generations can cause problems.  As an example, I have found that the farther away you get from the Baby Boomer generation the less an actual response to something is deemed necessary… a response to a phone call, email, sms, facebook comment, tweet on Twitter, whatever it is, the younger you are, the fewer responses are deemed to be needed where the closer to a boomer you are, the more you expect a response to everything.

Where a boomer-ish person is offended by a non-response, the gen-y’er doesn’t even give it a second thought.  Being a Gen-X’er myself, I get quite irritated with non-response but always try to remember who it is I am communicating with, then interpret what their lack of response means.  What it means is that they don’t communicate in the exact same method I do, and I shouldn’t hold that against them when I don’t get a response.

Of course that is a generality and certainly not scientific, but it highlights that an understanding of how each generation prefers to communicate is needed, especially within the church body. If we want the church body to grow, if we want to reach new people for Jesus, we have to understand how the younger generation likes to communicate, what is important to communicate to them, and what they could care less about.  As we all get older, it isn’t about what makes us happy and what we like, right?

Who is the Church Trying To Reach Anyway?

Who are we trying to reach?  If we are trying to reach the Boomer’s, they are probably still looking for those traditional forms of communication from the church like a weekly snail-mailed newsletter, a printed paper bulletin, a pictorial directory of church members, and even those phone calls to the house.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Gen-Y doesn’t care a thing about getting something in the mail or receiving a bulletin when they walk in, that just isn’t what they are looking for in a church, it doesn’t add any value to their experience.

They want to share ideas.  They could possibly be the most sharing generation the world has seen, but it isn’t sharing face-to-face like the boomers, it is sharing stories, ideas, life dreams, it is life lived as open source. Even email is unimportant, and becoming less and less important as time goes by.   It is just considered to be spam (even if it isn’t), and sending an email newsletter is irrelevant to the generation that lives on rss feeds.

Produce, but Don’t Push Information

Like each past generation, they want to communicate with each other in the manner they are accustomed to, which is electronically.  They get their information proactively, and don’t want it pushed onto them, this means we have to produce the information and let them come get it.  Communicating things in that manner may seem backwards to traditional means (because it is), and may be more difficult, but push methods will be rejected by the Gen-Y’ers.

So how do we produce information we want them to see and just hope they find it?  Carefully I guess, but I know if it is meaningful enough to them, they will find it.  Word of mouth still rules with Gen-Y as it does with Boomers, so maybe that is the bridge over the generation gap.

Check out the chart below.  I think if we make an effort to understand how each generation prefers to communicate we can better know how to serve each person.  Serving someone in a manner or custom they could care less about it totally ineffective and a waste of everyone’s time.  Wouldn’t it be better to know how best to serve (communicate with) each individual person instead assuming all will respond in the same way?

Learning the Differences, is Important

Communicating in the Generation Gap

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Mar 03 2009
3 Comments
Journal

Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin :: Review

Catalyst Conference in Atlanta

Catalyst Conference in Atlanta

I have written over 615 blog posts on this blog that span some 8 years from March 2001 until now, and today I am breaking new ground on my blog.  Back at the beginning of 2009 I decided that this year I was going to read more, which wouldn’t be to hard to achieve.  I have never been a big reader of books, although I read a ton of material on blogs, news, and other media areas, but it almost always comes from looking at a computer screen, not paper.  Taking a small amount of inspiration (I say small because I can’t keep up) from Brian on his quest to read a book a week, I thought I would just try to read “more” than I did last year.  So, this happens to be the first book I finished in 2009, and therefore the first review as well.

This particular first book, Tribes by Seth Godin I happen to given a copy by the author during the Catalyst conference where he was speaking.  Naturally I do have some photos of Seth talking about his theories on Tribes just before he gave away 12,000 copies to every person in the arena that day.  I will not have personal photos of each author, but in this case I do.

Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us // Seth Godin

I asked someone who finished this book before I did what he thought about Tribes, and his reaction was lack-luster but interesting.  He said “it wasn’t a how-to book, I didn’t know what to do with it when I was done”.  That was actually a very good description of the book, Tribes isn’t a how-to book, but a book that talks about how we go about being successful as leaders to build a following, or how we can fail at it miserably.

More than about the Internet, yet spawned by the growth of social networking, barriers to building a tribe have been removed and we have basically been set free to build (lead) our own tribe of followers.  In many cases we are already leading a tribe and don’t even know it.  Blogs, facebook, iPhone users, Twitter, or amazing restaurants that only open once a quarter all have followers that need a leader.

Probably my favorite line in the whole book comes down to this: “Change isn’t made by asking permission.  Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.”

Tribes is a great leadership book, a quick read, and Seth follows his own advice in the book at the end when he says:

Give this copy to someone else.  Ask them to read it.  Beg them to make a choice about leadership.  We need them.  We need you.

Here are a few of the highlights I took away from the book

  • Leaders don’t care for the “official blessing” they use passion to lead not threats to manage
  • In every organization everyone rises to the level at which they become paralyzed with fear
  • Heretics are too numerous to burn at the stake.  So we celebrate them
  • Change isn’t made by asking permission.  Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.
  • Religion at its worst reinforces the status quo, often at the expense of our faith.
  • Real leaders don’t care about getting credit where credit is due

If you have a chance to pick up the book I would recommend it, if you know someone who has a copy and has already read it, tell them to read the last page and hand it over.

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Feb 26 2009
1 Comment
Journal

Catalyst One Day in Atlanta and No Film or CF Card?

I am in Atlanta right now getting ready to shoot the Catalyst One Day event at Northpoint Church and later the Off the Blogs at Buckhead Church.  This was one of the most last minute shoots I was ever asked to do, but being that it was Catalyst (and the Off the Blogs) I was pretty excited about accepting the last minute offer.  Step one as a photographer is always always pack your film (or in this case digital compact flash cards).  Without a medium to record any images on, it makes your equipment and time pretty useless, and up until this month, over the last 10-12 years, I have never forgotten those precious cards (or film), but I did today.

I did the same thing a few weeks ago when we went to the Butterfly Day Center at Callaway and wanted to make sure I never did that again (same reason as today, I switched camera bags at the last minute) so I guess this makes number two.  Thank goodness there is a Best Buy in the same parking lot as my hotel and I can go pick up something I already have tons of, but can’t do the shoot without.

I am really looking forward to the day today and can’t wait to hear and worship with everyone at Northpoint.  I doubt I will be able to post any pictures throughout the day here but you might look for some over on Twitter, but I should have some shots of Andy Stanley, Fee Band, Carlos Whittaker, Anne Jackson, and several more posted here over the next few days.  Now off to our favorite neighborhood Best Buy.

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Feb 13 2009
1 Comment
Tech

A New Website About to Launch at Cornerstone Church

Cornerstone Church Splash Page

It is not to much of a surprise (outside of the actual look) that Cornerstone is about to launch a new website.  I had the privilege of working with Brad Ruggles, a website/graphics designer and creative developer, on the launch of this new site.  Two of my three earthly passions are faith, technology, and photography, which means I was pretty much able to combine all three into one project.

This project was something that took a few months to put together, and was the collaborative effort of every staff member at Cornerstone, but it was something I have wanted to work on for many years now.  Not just a new website, but a new mindset into what potential the Internet has in the Church body.

Tools like Twitter, Facebook, rss feeds, podcasts, videos, and all the things that make up the Internet today can be utilized for kingdom purposes, and done in a professional way.  This isn’t a new subject for me personally (see The Church’s New Drug of Choice // Part 1, Does a Church Really Need a Website?, The Church Body and the Internet, Part 1, The Church Body and the Internet, Part 2, to name a few past posts), I have been on a quiet campaign for relavant church websites for the better part of 10-15 years.

This is (to me) what people expect out of their church today, and especially those Believers and visitors in the 19-29 age range.  It is a connected world, a connected society, and they don’t want or expect to walk into a church today and see 20th century technology.  We don’t need to or have to spruce up Jesus. The Salvation message has remained the same for 2,000 years, but each church in the Church body reaches different people according to its purpose, and a website is a great place to start.

I say start because a website, a well designed, relavant, media based website, is where you can start to bring people to the Church and where they can learn and connect with others that have a love for Christ.  It is no longer about displaying something static that shows the worship times and directions, it is about how do we connect with each other and grow in the Body.  I can’t wait for the new site to go live.  I think this is exactly what Cornerstone is to me and my wife when we arrived about a year ago and I was thrilled to have some part in putting it together.

I know there are a few other Church IT people that read my blog so I will be writing some additional posts on how it went together and how to even get started.  What to look out for when choosing a website design company, and what you should be able to expect from your developer.  I think we chose one of the best in Ruggles but throughout the course of the project I did meet several other companies, some good, and some very bad, and hope to share that with you in the upcoming months.  Hope you enjoy the new site, it should be live some time this weekend.

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Feb 11 2009
1 Comment
Tech

The 5 Most Useful Twitter Apps and Clients

We are just about to launch a new website (details coming closer to the end of the week) and Twitter is highly integrated into the framework of the website, so I thought I would highlight some of the better applications you can use with Twitter for Free (mostly).

People often ask me, “what is twitter”.  I should just write a post about that, but this is assuming you already know about Twitter, at least a little bit.  Some of you Twitterholics will recognize most of the top 5, but be sure to check out the ones at the bottom which I consider up and coming.

What Is Twitter?

If not, I have determined there is no one answer to “what is Twitter“, but for me, it is a free flowing exchange of ideas and thoughts with people who may have never been able to meet or contact in any other way.  I have talked to musicians, politicians, and a lot of other ians that I would never have access to before Twitter.  It is a two way street of course, but Twitter is far more than just “what am I doing”.

Because Twitter has made their service somewhat open (meaning they provide an API for their systems) there have been many people and companies that have developed great applications and services for twitter.  On a side note, I would argue (slightly) that Twitter is at risk of becoming the next AOL without making themselves a true open source project, but that is also for another post.

So if you are looking for some great things to do with Twitter, here is my short list.

1. The Ultimate Desktop Application, TweetDeck

TweetDeck for Twitter

If you read no farther than this first item, you have hit the best right off the top.  Tweetdeck is THE desktop application that pulls out the potential that is Twitter.  Tweetdeck really deserves a post all its own so I will make this recap brief.  Once you get to the point where you are following more than about 25 people on Twitter it is time to install Tweetdeck.

It allows you to add twitter groups to filter out different users (I have a group just for news where all Twitter news feeds like CNN, AP, etc, go so I can see them independently of all my other tweets.  You can view Twitscoup which is a live running tag cloud of converstions on Twitter, and of course you can send out new tweets with a shorten URL field for posting links.

2a. Mobile iPhone Apps :: Twitterific

Twitterific for Twitter

If you have an iPhone (or Blackberry), that will really unlock the potential of Twitter (a Blackberry will do but honestly, the apps really don’t compare to the iPhone, but they do have corresponding Blackberry apps too).  Twitterific is the place to start.  This free iPhone app is one of the best ways to follow a larger number of people with basic @reply, direct, and tweet functions.  You can also see user info and tag favorites within the iPhone app.

Some of the features I like about Twitterific is you can click through to links and photos and they open in a twitterific type browser on your iPhone that allow you to open and close without having to launch Safari.  What I have found that you can’t do, is see a list of your favorites, which is something I would like to do, but that is minor for what this app does.

2b. Mobile iPhone Apps :: Tweetie

iPhone App Tweetie

If you can ignore the name, Tweetie is probably hands down the best iPhone Twitter app available.  It costs $3.00 through your iTunes account but is well worth the price.  It has far more functionality than Twitterific (the free version) but I don’t find it quite as fast to use.  What you can do with this iPhone app that I have not found with any other desktop or mobile app is manage multiple accounts.

If managing multiple accounts is important to you, this is about the only way I know to do it without having to log out and log back into the other account.  For that I would have paid $10 for this mobile app.  Some of the other things you can do with Tweetie is view @replies on one page.  For those who complain that they are overwhelmed by the people following them and replying to them, Tweetie is built just for these popular Twitter divas (I love you. I really do€¦but€¦) who are just so popular on Twitter it is impossible to keep up with effectively on anything else.  I am going to pick on Anne Jackson just because I love her blog and her work in general (sorry Anne).

Tweetie is one application that will allow you to still follow the conversation with anyone and everyone that wants to send you an @reply without actually following them.  Just tap the button at the bottom for @replies and see all those replies coming in from people you don’t follow.  Tweetie also has several unique functions under the “more” section.  One that is really wild is the “nearby” link.  This will allow you to see who is close to your location by using the GPS on the phone.  I used this last time Deb and I went to Gulf Shores and it worked great.

3. Tweet Grader

Twitter Grader

Do you love stats.  Then Tweet Grader is for you.  Find out how you are doing amongst all the other Twitter users, find local people using Twitter, and see a host of different stats about your own usage.  This and the next one may be the vain uses of Twitter but I find them very very useful to help improve everything about how I use Twitter.

Tweet Grader, if you notice, is a user entered stat grade, and you can check anyone, not just your own Twitter ID (like mine here, still sitting at #6 in Twitter Auburn behind some great people).  This has several uses as well but all in all a great stat tool for Twitter.

4. Mr Tweet, the Networking Assistant

Mr Tweet for Twitter

This is the most recent addition to my Twitter life.  Mr Tweet is quickly becoming the most useful tool that I have found for Twitter.  Tag lined as “Your Personal Networking Assistant for Twitter”, it allows you to do three things. (a) find new people based on my recent activities, (b) find recent followers I am not following, and (c) check my own profile and usage stats.

What this does is pull data that you can probably not find by just surfing around.  It gives you useful information like how likely the person is to reply to your tweets, how many tweet per day they average, and what their network of followers looks like.  You have to follow Mr Tweet on twitter before they will start calculating your information, and it is updated every two weeks.

5. TwitPic

Twitpic on Twitter

Being a photographer (even one on Twitter), this is my favorite of all Twitter uses.  Twitpic has become an incredible source of information.  That actually posted one of the first photos of the US Air flight that crashed in Hudson river here http://twitpic.com/135xa.  It ended up almost crashing the Twitpic servers but it showed how useful Twitter is as a journalistic tool for everyday people.  This photo was one of the first to circulate the Internet after the crash.  It wasn’t by CNN or Foxnews, or MSNBC, it was by a Twitter users using Twitpic.

Twitpic is one of the easiest Twitter tools to use.  All you do is sign into Twitpic and they give you an email address that uploads to your twitter account.  You can take a photo with your cell phone (for those who have cell phone cameras) and upload it to twitter on the fly, right then and there on the spot.  Facebook has done this with their iPhone app so it works in a similar way if you are familiar with how that works.  If you don’t have a cell phone with a camera, just use the desktop uploader and start sharing your pics.

Are You Ready for Twitter Now?

So if that isn’t enough for you to ponder on Twitter, there are a few other cool tools of note.  With Twitter allowing the use of its API data there are almost endless applications available, but the great ones find a need and build upon that to make something we will find value in using.

  • Twhirl (desktop app)
  • Hashtags – a great search tool – http://hashtags.org/
  • Eventbox – combines all kinds of social sites
  • Summize – Twitter search, Summize before Twitter bought them, great job on this one
  • Twingly (http://www.twingly.com/) – something I am pretty hip on using right now
  • FriendFeed (another combining tool)
  • Dial2Do – very interesting tool that might prove very useful

So take the plunge and get started with Twitter.  Just don’t tell me no one cares what in the world I am doing.  It is far far more than just that.  It is a free network to exchange ideas and thoughts with the world.  Oh, and if you want to follow me on Twitter, here you go http://www.twitter.com/scottfillmer or @scottfillmer on Twitter.

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Feb 06 2009
5 Comments
Journal

Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium Photos :: Friday Feet

City of Atlanta Street

CNN Center in Atlanta

Georgia Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium

Deb in the Atlanta Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium

Today for my Friday Feet post we made the drive over to Atlanta and finally went to see the Georgia Aquarium.  It has been on the bucket list for a while and it was nice to get out of Auburn for a short period of time today.  It is easy to forget what kind of traffic issues we have here in Auburn (none unless a football game is going on) until you drive into downtown Atlanta.

Deb and I did make our way over to the CNN Center for lunch and walked around Centennial Park in Atlanta before making our way over to the Georgia Aquarium.  The Georgia Aquarium is a collection of several different displays totaling an 8 million gallon display of fish from all over the world.  It is the largest aquarium in the country (so I have been told) and well worth the trip if you are going to be in the Atlanta area.

I did think it would take a little longer to go through than it did.  All in all it was about 2 hours to walk through all the displays, and the jellyfish display was really the most impressive tank out of all the aquariums in the building.  It was a bit pricy to me at $27 a ticket and I wanted to see the new exhibit with the Titanic artifacts but for an additional $7 we opted out.  I actually would have paid the extra $7 to see the museum on the Titanic, but the kicker was I had to leave my bag outside and couldn’t take any photos in the museum.  Since I had all my camera equipment with me and was there to take photos, we decided to leave it for another day.  What I found really great is the Georgia Aquarium is actually on Twitter (as @GeorgiaAquarium), way to go.

It was nice to spend my day off with Deb, a long overdue few hours of time together today, and we managed to do something new for Friday Feet.  It does take some effort to get out of the house and do something.  One wouldn’t think so, but it is far easier to just sit and soak or just do more of the same thing each week, but why do what is easiest… but… coming up with new ideas is not always easy, so I may do what Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs has done and take suggestions from my readers.  Any suggestions for a Friday Feet post you would like to see?  Just let me know in the comments below.

Hope you enjoy the photos of the day.  You can see the full shoot I uploaded on the Georgia Aquarium and Atlanta on my flickr page gallery here.  Have a great weekend everyone.

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