AnywhereMan

Image via CrunchBase

A few weeks ago, fellow Freelance Jam host Brian Casel and I discussed some of the ways that we each use Twitter during a quick “jam session” on Ustream. One of the topics that came up was how many people we actually follow.

Brian follows only a select few so his stream doesn’t get too noisy (makes sense!). I tend to follow a lot which in turn makes for a lot of chatter in the public timeline. I like to be accessible by DM to people who take the time to read my tweets and vice-versa, and I sometimes think people might be offended if you’ve interacted yet don’t follow back.

To combat the noise of the public timeline, I’ve made use of Twitter’s list functionality to pay close attention to specific friends and people who tend to share and talk about things relevant to my profession.

In addition to using lists, I do most of my tweeting and listening through Seesmic’s web-based app. It’s as smooth and smooth can be and it even has sound alerts when you get a new mention. It also allows you to create columns for mentions, lists, the public timeline, and saved searches. Having columns makes it easy for me to focus on a specific niche of people I follow depending on my needs at any particular moment.

With my 13” MacBook Pro, I can fit four columns on my screen at once. Here are the contents of the first four columns and some reasoning as to why I choose to show each specific one.

Column #1: Mentions

I obviously want to know when someone replies to something I’ve tweeted or mentions me in their own tweet. Having this column placed first makes it easy to skim.

Column #2: Friends

The people that I add to this column are considered genuine friends. I want to make sure I stay current with what is happening in their life and things they are working on. Watching this filtered list of 100 or so people is so much easier than watching a steady stream of 2000.

Column #3: Web Folks

In order to keep a pulse on the web industry, I’ve created a list specifically for people who work in web. This helps me keep track of the latest trends and news. It also acts as a list of people I can go to for advice and specific questions about web development and design.

Column #4: “Keep An Eye On”

I use this list for exciting entrepreneurs, bloggers, potential clients, people whose opinions I value, and other VIPs that don’t fit into my other lists. I’ve got people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Matt Mullenweg, and Chris Brogan in this list.

Other Columns Not Visible By Default

If I scroll to the right of my four main columns, I also have the general Twitter stream of ALL the people I follow. I also have a few saved searches including one for #genesiswp which is the official hashtag of the Genesis Theme Framework (affiliate link), my preferred WordPress framework. Another is a search of the general #wordpress hashtag.

Who Do I Follow?

As you can see, having various saved lists and searches allows me to focus my attention on micro-groups all while following a decent-sized group of people. I feel that following back is important when it comes to people who are courteous, fun, helpful, and authentic. I wish to be accessible to them, but I also need to make sure I’m not drowning out tweets from the people I’m most interested in. Twitter lists plus Seesmic help me do that.

And as always, Twitter is not about the number of followers that you have. For me, it’s about the collection of authentic, engaging, and informative people that I choose to follow and engage. I tweeted about this yesterday: If you declare yourself as a social media marketer, expert, guru, ninja, or chef, yet I don’t see a single @ reply in your first 100 tweets, you won’t get my follow. But if you follow me, say “hi”, and don’t auto-DM me, I’ll typically follow you back.

Image via Wikipedia

Today is Twitter’s fifth birthday. Happy Birthday, Twitter!

For me personally, Twitter has been a major component in connecting with others in my field, connecting with potential clients, and keeping a pulse on trends and topics that are relevant to my business.

In fact, I’ve got a call this afternoon to discuss a project with a client that I initially responded to on Twitter a few years back. He was complaining about his then current web developer. I stepped in and offered my services. We struck up a great working relationship and are now onto new projects.

I still remember my Twitter “aha” moment that started soon after I started freelancing full-time. I even wrote a post about my initial discoveries.

So, do you use Twitter? It almost seems like a silly question. I know most of you probably do, but maybe some of you don’t. Why or why not?

If you DO use Twitter, how has it helped you and/or your business or career? Has it ever hurt your brand in any way?

Friends of AnywhereMan.com are doing some exciting things in the next few months and I want to share a couple of them that you need to check out.

Where Do You Work Naked?

First, Lisa Kanarek of WorkingNaked.net (see my interview with Lisa) is doing a month-long contest called “Where do you work naked?” and she wants photos and a quick description of your home office. She’s giving away some excellent home-office related prizes and it’ll be worth your while to go and enter the contest. Be sure to subscribe to her blog, too. She’s always sharing helpful tips for working from home.

Market Your Business On The Web

Next, Aaron Weiche of Five Technology is helping put on half-day Local University seminar in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area that will help you and your small business better understand marketing on the web. Representatives from both Google and Bing will be there to discuss their respective search engines as well.

I will say this about Aaron: The guy knows his stuff. I keep my eye on the way he interacts on the web and he’s getting a huge amount of ROI with minimal effort, right down to the things he shares on Twitter. I know that the ROI of you attending this workshop will be equally impressive.

Oh yeah, you probably want to know about the deal. Aaron is giving AnywhereMan readers $40 off the price of the seminar, cutting the price from $129 down to $89. Visit the Local University Twin Cities page and use code “anywhere2010″ at checkout to receive the discount. I might try to make the 3.5 hour drive down there myself!

Got Good Deals Or Events?

If anybody else has something useful or fun going on that might be of interest to my users, just let me know. Please don’t be offended if your event or promotion doesn’t make the cut, but it never hurts to ask.

Did you ever see the clip of comedian Louis CK talking to Conan O’Brien about how everything is amazing, yet nobody’s happy? If you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes to watch it before reading the rest of this post. First of all, it’s hilarious, and second, it’s 100% true.

Two nights ago I realized how amazing things are. Specifically, I realized how amazing it is that I can do what I do and interact with the people I do.

I was sitting in our local Caribou Coffee getting some extra work done for the day. Okay, first amazing thing: I was getting work done from the place that serves my favorite coffee. Caribou is awesome, and the only thing more amazing that being able to get work done there would be for them to give me my own dedicated Dave-only table that I could use all-day every day. I think I’m pushing my luck, so I’ll continue…

The second amazing thing was that I was having a few conversations on the side using Twitter. Just think about that: I am able to have casual conversations with folks, most of whom I’ve never met, who are hundreds and thousands of miles away. Twitter is an amazing tool. I’ve met many new friends and clients using the platform, and I’ll say it again: it really is the world’s largest water cooler.

Okay let’s continue down the social media path for a second. Not only is Twitter amazing, but the social media concept in general is amazing. It’s so flippin’ easy to find folks with the same interests, hobbies, career, and concerns as you. It’s so easy to keep in touch with people you haven’t seen in years. Personally, there are a ton of past friends I interact with on Facebook that I might never have talked to again just because of geography and losing touch. It’s amazing!

Lately I’ve been making it a point to use Skype a lot more. It’s been much easier on my MacBook than it ever was on my PC, for some reason. Skype is amazing. I feel like I’m almost in the same room as the person I’m talking to. It blows my mind! Tuesday night I was on Skype with a friend (from Twitter, whom I’ve never met in person) and he was on the road for his job. He jokingly said that if I was the AnywhereMan, he was the EverywhereMan. Having Skype allows him to interact with his wife and son in a way that’s a lot more personal than just an audio-only phone call. It’s not a replacement for actually being there, but it sure helps.

Any plain old chat application is amazing. When I was sitting at Caribou on Wednesday night, a chat message from my wife popped up in Google Talk. “Did you unhook the computer from the TV?” she asked. Being able to ask that question with just a quick little message versus a disruptive phone call is pretty slick. And yes, we’ve got an old Dell PC hooked to our TV and we watch our Hulu shows on it each week. That is also amazing.

Finally, the Work Anywhere concept is blow-my-mind amazing. I sit in the basement office of my small house in Grand Rapids and shape and mold the interwebs for clients who are mostly NOT in Grand Rapids. In fact, the largest concentration of Lift Development clients is actually in California. I’m in my shorts right now prepping to do some work for a bunch of them, my kids are upstairs playing, my wife is making coffee, and that is just plain amazing to me.

While there are always plenty of things to bum us out, focus on the little amazing things you might have never taken notice of in the past.

What’s amazing in your life?

Even if you don’t have a Work Anywhere career, there are still plenty of amazing things if you just look around. If I still had to commute these days, I guarantee being able to automatically download podcasts to my iPod Touch on a daily basis and listen to them during the drive would be among my list of amazing-ness. In fact, I kind of miss that…just a little bit.

Somehow, some way, I won a brand-new DLP HD projector from a Samsung Twitter contest. The point of the contest was to let them know why your Superbowl party was going to be the best. The reason mine was going to be the best? We would be having it outside in the snow and cold of Minnesota (in true AnywhereMan fashion). This video displays that experience. It was incredible!

Thanks again to Samsung USA for the sweet projector, and be sure to follow them on Twitter at @SamsungTweets. They are definitely a big company using social media the right way!

On Twitter, everybody’s trying to get more followers, get re-tweeted, get responses from famous or semi-famous people, launch marketing campaigns…but is that what it’s all about? What if nobody really is listening to you? Does that even matter?

Nope. I think the important thing is that YOU are listening to THEM. I think Twitter is a lot more useful as a listening tool than a broadcast tool, and I discuss that in today’s video.

Thanks to Jeremy Lattimore for asking the question.

The Twitter phenomenon has been absorbed into the daily lives of most of us, and as someone who works from home, it has become my “water-cooler” outlet (as I’ve mentioned before). The idea of keeping followers updated on “what’s on your mind” has become a staple of the web today.

Apply this idea to a team of telework professionals all working for the same company but in different locations.  Imagine being able to constantly keep each other updated on what everyone is working on at any point in time.  The public (and spammy) nature of Twitter wouldn’t work well for this.  

Enter Yammer,  the “internal communication platform” (and a great social network for virtual teams).  Here’s a quick description from the Yammer website:

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: ‘What are you working on?’

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. Information is never shared with third parties.

In a way, Yammer behaves much like Twitter, but instead takes place within the safety of an organization. In fact, Yammer offers a way to create an org chart for those involved with a particular account.  How does it know who should be in an account? It uses the domain on the member email addresses.

For example, I signed myself up to try out the service. The domain on my email account is liftdevelopment.com.  It then created a central “Liftdevelopment” account, and any other users who sign up with a liftdevelopment.com domain will get added to that group.  

Those that are signed up can then publish their status throughout the day and view statuses of others.  Files can be attached to statuses, messages can be bookmarked, and RSS feeds can be added.  Within a specific account, groups can be created.  Plus, there are desktop, iPhone, and Blackberry versions of Yammer available to take the tools just about anywhere.

Yammer is free, but there are premium paid accounts available that allow you to set up a central admin profile.  Companies with one of these premium accounts can manage users, delete messages and files, export data, remove former employees, etc.

For a one-person company like mine, the functionality of Yammer isn’t something I need. However, for a scattered team of individuals, I can see the collaboration features bringing value to communication and collaboration.  If you fall into this category, be sure to at least check it out as Yammer is getting a growing amount of buzz.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Yammer’s Big Night: Launches Threaded Conversations, Push-Enabled iPhone App, And More (techcrunch.com)
• What’s best for business microblogs: Hosted services or installed software? (news.cnet.com)

He loves social media. He loves promoting other companies. He loves taking pictures and making videos.

He loves shirts.

Of all the discoveries I’ve made on Twitter in the past year, none have been as entertaining nor engaging as Jason Sadler. Jason wears shirts, just like you and me (or most of us). But the thing is, he actually gets paid to wear shirts, starting with $1 on January 1st steadily increasing by $1 each day until he hits $365 for December 31st.

If you do the math on that you’ll realize Jason will be making a nice $60,000+ salary this year.  And that doesn’t include monthly sponsorships which cost $1500/month. 

So what does the price for a day get you? Jason will Tweet about you (to his 15,000+ followers), talk about you on Facebook, write you up in his blog, do a live video on Ustream, put together a daily recap video (always entertaining!), and take pictures throughout the day and post them on Flickr…all while wearing whatever shirt you want to have him wear. 

Oh yeah, and don’t bother trying to book him to wear your company’s shirt this year because he’s all sold out. And so is almost half of 2010 already. (Act fast to get in on the action!)

Did I already mention he gets paid to wear shirts? Why did you or I not think of this?

The reason I’m introducing you to Jason here on AnywhereMan is that he is the perfect example of someone living the Anywhere Lifestyle. Since he is getting paid to wear shirts, and a person can (and generally should) wear shirts in all locations, Jason is able to take his “work” with him. Just this past week he was in New York City and was able to do his daily social media routine there. In the past he’s taken vacations and gone on other trips without missing a beat. All the guy needs is web access and a shirt and he’s good to go.

I encourage you to check out IWearYourShirt.com, get involved with Jason’s shirt-wearing antics, and even tune in for his daily Ustream show.  Plus, the guy gives a lot of stuff away…or at least his sponsors do.  You’ll have to check out the winner of the June contest.  That being said, I look forward to meeting Jason in person this coming week at BizConf! (as well as his buddy Evan who will be sharing shirt-wearing duties with Jason in 2010)

Jason’s business idea is something that inspires me, the AnywhereMan. Just think of the risk of selling a day of shirt-wearing for $1 on January 1st in hopes that doing it for cheap then would result in the reward of people being willing to pay $365 by the end of the year. That risk has paid off, Jason is able to really mold his work around his lifestyle, and his followers are getting an entertaining dose of super awesome antics…and shirts.

PS – Vote for Jason in the StartupNation Home Based 100 contest.

IWearYourShirt Sample Platter:
 

• IWYS interview on CNN LIVE
• The First Day (this kinda cracks me up – Jason’s come a long way)
• WineLibrary.TV day and Jason drinking all sorts of stuff
• The Tiny Shirt
• The 25 Shirts

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media + Wearing Shirts = Lucrative Career? (mashable.com)
• Your Social Media Reality Check (marketing-helper.com)
• Twitter Downtime: What Did You Do Instead? (mashable.com)

In Part 2 of my Twitter response, I continue with my discusson on how Twitter relates to the “work anywhere” lifestyle and how I personally incorporate it into my daily workflow and free-time.  Most importantly, I answer Jake Olson’s honest question: Does my wife think my Twittering is a complete was of time.  

Hopefully my wife doesn’t see this. 

So, do you think Twitter is a waste of time? Do you use it more for work or play?

Today I respond to some viewer questions about Twitter and how I incorporate it into my flow as a freelancer.  Thanks to Jake Olson (who lives and works in Turkey!) for emailing some great questions.  If anyone else ever has questions or has a topic they would like me to cover, go ahead and email me at dave (-at-) liftdevelopment.com or post it in the comments here on AnywhereMan.  

This is a 2-part response, and I will post part 2 on Monday. 

Okay Work Anywhere-types, how are YOU using Twitter?