Taken from: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/135/made-to-stick-getting-your-ideas-to-fly.html

Excerpt from article on viral marketing:

Viral marketing has become a hip, low-cost way to reach a lot of people very quickly — with little effort.

It’s emotional — in fact, if you believe it, it’s terrifying.

There’s another emotional angle: When someone shares this legend with you, they feel like they’re doing a public service. They might believe they’re saving your life. And that’s the second trait of viral ideas.

Rosen calls this a "trigger," and it’s the third trait of a viral idea. A trigger is an environmental reminder to talk about an idea.

 
Putting Twitter’s World to Use 
Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14twitter.html?_r=1&hp

Taken collectively, the stream of messages can turn Twitter into a surprisingly useful tool for solving problems and providing insights into the digital mood.

“Twitter lets people know what’s going on about things they care about instantly, as it happens,” said Evan Williams, Twitter’s chief executive and co-founder. “In the best cases, Twitter makes people smarter and faster and more efficient.”

“Twitter reverses the notion of the group,” said Paul Saffo, the Silicon Valley futurist. “Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”

Surgeons twittered throughout a recent operation to remove a brain tumor from a 47-year-old man
Taken from: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23hfhns

Let Them Eat Tweets
Taken from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-medium-t.html?emc=eta1

The implications of Sterling’s idea are painful for Twitter types. The connections that feel like wealth to many of us — call us the impoverished, we who treasure our smartphones and tally our Facebook friends — are in fact meager, more meager even than inflated dollars. What’s worse, these connections are liabilities that we pretend are assets. We live on the Web in these hideous conditions of overcrowding only because — it suddenly seems so obvious — we can’t afford privacy. And then, lest we confront our horror, we call this cramped ghetto our happy home!

Inside the Minds of Twitter Users
Taken from http://mashable.com/2009/04/22/twitter-attitudes

People use Twitter for all sorts of reasons. But what are those reasons, exactly? Is it about marketing, gathering intelligence, connecting, community? Is it for social reasons?

Twitter as a Customer Service and Support Application 

Recently seen on Twitter:
JetBlue Airways <http://twitter.com/JetBlue>  

Have a question? Follow us and let us help! – Currently on duty: Morgan, Alex
and Justin

Twitter related resources and tools:

http://www.twistori.com
http://www.twazzup.com
http://www.tweetbrain.com
http://www.twittercounter.com
http://www.hootsuite.com
http://www.twitpic.com
http://www.tweetgrid.com
http://www.twitterpowersearch.com
http://www.twitip.com
http://mashable.com/2009/04/04/twitter-trends/
http://hashtags.org/

Great video from Robert Scoble on How He Reads Tweets

Getting started on Twitter

20 Plus Takeaways from DigitalNow – Renato Sogueco

Digital Now 2009: What Will You Do on Monday? – Frank Fortin

• "we are struggling to get heard in a world of alternatives"
• Born again converts are the biggest believers.
• “Hi, I’m from the internet."
• It never ceases to amaze me the number of spare  cycles people have to publish content and contribute to the message.
• Michael Dell moment – ended up working with the bloggers. Just another way to receive feedback and interact with customers.
• Control was 20th century
• The ClueTrain Manifesto – our reach exceeds your grasp, empowered users
• How do we take this interesting stuff and make it useful to people.
• Companies need to come down from their ivory towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.
• Lego created the Brickwiki for there Mindstorm customers.
• The Dove self esteem fund
• Brands have to take on issues and change the world you live in. The socially responsible aspect, want to be followed like a movement.
• Conversations go on in the community, good and bad. How do we help brands go to where the conversation is?
• Customers can broadcast globally
• Best Buy example, had a bad experience with Sears. Best Buy support person reached out to them.
• Digital is not a distribution strategy but a mindset
• Build a story that people want to share and build a campaign around it
• Most of the conversation happens elsewhere, not on the website (Web 1.0). Make your site a hub for conversation. Syndicate, Invite.
• Fundamental concept – build around where the conversations are happening, the virtual campfire
• People get involved in the conversation, not to make money, but because they have an opinion and want to be heard and care.
• Moving from role of one’s who deliver the message to a role of facilitating a conversations.
• Change is emergent, bubbles up from the bottom. Listen to the market. Be market driven.
• Engage the twenty somethings to get their ideas
• Curiosity to do the right listening, take resources to put behind those great ideas.

Opening keynote: Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody

In the emerging world of web-based collaboration and experimentation, organizations are learning that loosely coordinated groups may be the best way to work on large, complicated undertakings. The open source software industry is the most visible demonstration of this phenomenon. Collaborative networks are changing the face of media, entertainment, outsourcing and all technology-based industries. We’re witnessing the migration from an information economy (the work of the individual mind) to new forms of collective intelligence and collective effort. For good or for bad, this is a fundamental change in the way our society is structured. Clay illustrates these fundamental forces at work and how they will change the world’s organizations and ultimately, us.

Group action just got easier, with Sharing, Collaboration and Collective Action. Clay shared examples of each of these areas.

Sharing: example was Flickr and the HDR photo example and conversation.
Collaboration: example was Wikipedia. Interestingly enough, the number of edits and editors was a graph that had a long tail. Just because there were people with only one edit doesn’t mean that their participation was not valid. Pluto example.  
Collective Action: example was Facebook and the “Stop the Great HSBC graduate Rip Off” group created, which led to the organizing of a potential protest, etc.

Heard throughout the day:

Old school – we are the hub, you must go through us.
New school – connect directly to each other. Sideways conversations. Don’t have to go through the hub.

Old school – Gather then share.
New school – Share then gather.

My Closing thoughts:

Twitter, facebook, web 2.0, etc are not about content per se, it’s about creating the connection, conversations, belonging, contributing and community. Web 2.0 creates engagement and helps build trust.

At a deeper level, I think that people have a need to belong and are searching for identity. I think that people also need a cause, will rally around it and will give back.

Wanted to blog more from today but need to work on presentation for tomorrow.

Check out www.digitalnowlive.com

Download for SQL Server 2005

Download for SQL Server 2008

Overview

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 (Data Mining Add-ins) allow you take advantage of SQL Server 2005 predictive analytics in Office Excel 2007 and Office Visio 2007. The download includes the following components:

• Table Analysis Tools for Excel: This add-in provides easy-to-use tasks that leverage SQL Server 2005 Data Mining to perform powerful analytics on your spreadsheet data.
• Data Mining Client for Excel: This add-in allows you to go through the full data mining model development lifecycle within Excel 2007 using either your spreadsheet data or external data accessible through your SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services instance.
• Data Mining Templates for Visio: This add-in allows you to render and share your mining models as annotatable Visio 2007 drawings.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.
• If installing the Table Analysis Tools or Data Mining Client for Excel, Microsoft Office 2007 with .NET Programmability Support.
  Supported editions of Office 2007 include:
  • Professional
  • Professional Plus
  • Ultimate
  • Enterprise
• If installing the Data Mining Templates for Visio, Microsoft Viso Professional 2007 with .NET Programmability Support.
• 40 MB of available hard disk space.
• Note: If SQL Server 2005 is installed on the computer where you are installing the Data Mining Add-ins, make sure that the version of SQL Server 2005 is a final release version (RTM, SP1, or SP2). The Data Mining Add-ins will not work correctly with Community Technology Preview (CTP) versions of SQL Server 2005 SP2.
• Note: The Data Mining Add-ins require a connection to one of the following versions of SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services:
  • Enterprise Edition (RTM, SP1 or SP2)
  • Standard Edition (SP2) with cumulative hotfix package build 3152 applied

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007

Presented by John E. Dorman, CPA, COO, Texas Medical Association and Grant McInnes, Director, Business Intelligence & Software Development, Texas Medical Association

DigitalNow 2009 Powerpoint Download

Overview

Are you aware of the powerful predictive marketing tools that are free add-in options for Excel? Coupled with SQL server, these tools can provide an analysis of those attributes which are the best predictors of joining, purchasing or attending.

Learning Outcomes:

• Gain an understanding of basic predictive modeling concepts.
• See new Excel data mining tool add-in options demonstrated.
• Identify key attributes contributing toward joining, purchasing or attending decisions by your members.
• Apply those key attributes to your target markets.

History of Business Intelligence at TMA

• Initial engagement with Consulting Company, built a snapshot cube for Analysis
• Used Proclarity to drilldown and drillthrough to detail in the snapshot cube
• Discovered Excel Pivot Charts that can connect to a cube
• Last year, learnt about Excel Data Mining Add-In
• Beginning implementation of OBIEE platform for Analysis and Reporting

Resources

Tutorial/Walkthrough from Hands On Lab

This is a post of my experience getting Microsoft Windows Server 2008 setup on my Dell Latitude D430 along with links to referenced articles as well as what I have not been able to get working, both hardware and software wise.

There are some excellent posts already available and the primary website I used is http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/.

I started out by downloading the .NET application referenced at
http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/2008/07/17/windows-server-2008-workstation-converter/.
I then ran through the UI and tried to enable and implement as much as possible.

Where I had to use the blog post and do manual steps:
http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/

1. Enable Wireless Networking
2. The Themes and services were enabled but I used the article to select the Aero and Vista themes and personalize.

Applications that I have not been able to install so far:
1. Windows Live Writer
2. Silverlight 2.0 beta 2

Hardware that does not work (or I haven’t attempted to get working yet):
1. Bluetooth