Twitter … when circumspection is the investment equivalent of tuberculosis – New quote I love

I love this quote and is adding it to my long list of of Quotes I Love,

“Correctly accounted, the company [Twitter] makes not a dime. But who cares when circumspection is the investment equivalent of tuberculosis.” – John Gilbert, Chief Investment Officer, GR–NEAM (General Re-New England Asset Management) (confirmed via Google web cache)

Note: I read this on Seeking Alpha and found a cache version of a GR-NEAM publication that you can read via Google web cache.

Oreo Super Bowl Power Outage Twitter Ad campaign – Chat & Analysis

“This is an opportunity. The entire world is watching and there is nothing on. So  quickly, everyone pull together a design, a caption, the folks from Oreo were in the room, and we got something out in just a few minutes [kempton’s note: 360i was ready in only 5 mins after the power outage but waited for 5 more mins to confirm that people were safe before they tweeted].“ – Sarah Hofstetter, president of 360i (WSJ Video interview, Feb 4th, 2013)

I LOVE smart Ad campaign . I especially love one of them during the Sunday surprised/not-so-surprised Super Bowl Power #fail. Great job @Oreo with its Super Bowl Power Outage Twitter Ad campaign! As I was telling a prospective client recently, the best ads are often the ones, once you paid to initially get it made, you pay very little or nothing to get it spread because people are sharing it as content!

It was my pleasure the Monday morning after Superbowl to host an event to have an insightful chat with Kim Beasley and Trev Warth to specifically talk about the very successful Oreo’s “Power Out? No problem.” tweet campaign. Here is a video of our chat. See my reference notes below for more detailed research.

Oreo Super Bowl Power Outage Twitter Ad campaign – Chat & Analysis

References:

Official blog post post account by 360i: “How Oreo Won the Social Media Bowl with a Single Piece of Content”

– WSJ Video interview, Feb 4th, 2013: ” How Oreo Stole the Super Bowl Spotlight – A quick response from Oreo’s social media turned a timely tweet about the power outage into the brand’s most successful social media message yet. Sarah Hofstetter, president of 360i, joins digits.“

– Oreo’s “Power Out? No problem.” tweet

– 360i Company site

– 360i leadership

– Cool tweet by Adam Kerj, Chief Creative Officer of 360i

Goodbye Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013)

Hi Aaron,

I wish I had the opportunity to know you before you left us. In the words of George Bernard Shaw,

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

You were one of the brightest & most unreasonable men we had. With your sad & tragic passing, it is up to us to carry on your work and do our part.

May the tears

in our collective eyes

help energize us

to clear our collective minds

to see injustice better &

to try to make progress in this world

for the limited time we have.

Goodbye, Aaron.

In the words of Aaron in “F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”“.

Note: This also my first post to tumblr and the reason I created my tumblr account.

For more, see articles & posts from Cory Doctorow, Larry Lessig, Guardian, TorStar, CBC, and “ongoing posts about Aaron, his memorial service, his death, and the malicious prosecution brought by the DoJ against him“.

2013 Jan 17 update re: Twitter #PDFTribute to Aaron:

– Washington Post video interview with Eva Vivalt, the woman behind the campaign, tells us why she launched it, “Aaron Swartz honored with #PDFTribute”

– TechCrunch, “PDF Tribute to Aaron Swartz Attracts Roughly 1,500 Links To Copyright-Protected Research”

– Fast Company, “Researchers, Academics Remember Aaron Swartz with #PDFTribute”

– PC Magazine, “Twitter Campaign ‘#pdftribute’ Roars to Life In Tribute to Aaron Swartz“

TED & TEDx talk videos – My baker’s dozen of favourite videos

Inspired by all the TEDxHongKong chatters I had last night with some attendees, I’ve finally done my version of top nth TED videos that inspired me. So here is my baker’s dozen (12+1) of TED and TEDx talk videos that I love and enjoy over the years. Some are popular and some are not.

May be we share a few common ones and we can chat about them in the comments. And if you see a few new ones that you haven’t watched, thats cool too and we can chat in the comments. And may be most important of all, please do share some of your fav! I love to check them out and hear why you love them!

In no particular order, the following are my baker’s dozen (12+1) tweets of my favourite TED & TEDx videos (with links added):

#1 tweet) In no specific order: #TED Malcolm Gladwell, UT alum & best selling author’s Choice, happiness & spaghetti sauce is great

#2 tweet) #TED Malcolm Gladwell‘s “The strange tale of the Norden bombsight” talk is better but unloved because of the harsh message

#3 tweet) A great #TEDxCaltech talk on Richard Feynman by Leonard Susskind. If u never heard of Nobel Prize winning funny man physicist Feynman, try this, you may start to love him.

#4 tweet) #TED Susan Cain is so cool & insightful. Here “The power of introverts” is a must watch for fellow introverts (me INTJ)

Technology alone doesn’t solve problems. Social media does not create revolutions. Its a tool. – New Quote I Love

Adding an insightful entry to my list of Quotes I Love and Quotes I Love (videos).

“Technology alone doesn’t solve problems. Social media does not create revolutions. Its a tool. Nothing more or less. Real revolutions are born out of righteous anger and courage and vision. […] The issue is not how accurate a bomb is. The issue is what to do the bombs you have. And more importantly, whether to use bombs at all. Technological problems are not the hardest part of the future. They are the easiest part. The hard part are the human problems that accompany the rise of technology.” – Malcolm Gladwel‬l at University of Toronto: Malcolm Gladwell, Convocation 2011 Honorary Degree speech video (starts at about time code 6:38)

CNN Jun 17th, 2011 report “Malcolm Gladwell: When technology fails”

Note: As I see more and more power in G+ Hangout as a tool for reporting and researching news, I try to remind myself of ‪Malcolm Gladwel‬l’s cautionary tale of the Norden bombsight. ‪Gladwel‬l reminded us of Facebook’s and Twitter’s magical roles in the revolutions in the middle-east may be over-exaggerated by the creators of these tools.

Brett Wilson interview – Leaving Dragons’ Den, TV offers, Uno, Risky Business, Canoe Financial, Twitter, Facebook, and Maya Wilson

Few days ago I had the great pleasure of chatting with Brett Wilson, Calgary entrepreneur, investor, former Dragon, and philanthropist. We chatted about a wide range of topics and I have posted the five video clips on YouTube with transcripts.

* Brett Wilson interview – 01/05 – Leaving CBC Dragons’ Den, TV offers, Uno bike, and Ben Gulak (with transcript)

* 02/05 – New TV show “Risky Business” (Info and chat about Brett’s new show “Risky Business”, coming this fall) (with transcript)

* 03/05 – Canoe Financial (Brett has a substantial investment in Canoe. We talked about his involvement) (with transcript)

* 04/05 – Social Media (Twitter, Facebook) (How Brett does his Twitter and Facebook magic?) (with transcript)

* 05/05 – Maya Wilson (Brett talks about the recent passing of Maya Wilson, his beloved chocolate brown flat-coated retriever) (with transcript)

***

June 28th update: Here is a lovely video of Maja Wilson.

Democratic right Twitter-blocked by @MPJamesMoore

You would think no Canadians should be blocked from following minister’s *public* policy announcements and *public* discussions/debates with Canadian journalists/citizens, right? Well, you would be wrong. I had to jump through hoops (very time consuming, if possible at all) in order to follow what is going on.

When the current Canadian government is charged of contempt of Parliament and will likely fail a confidence motion because of said contempt, I thought it is time for me to take my own democratic right more seriously. Democracy is not free, so I took some time to write and send in the following complain. I know my chance of seeing any positive changes is really small but sometimes one has to do what is right.

Here is an excerpt for the record.

To: Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper (Member of Parliament for Calgary SW)
cc: Heritage Minister Mr. James Moore
Opposition Party Leaders
Mr. Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal Heritage critic
Mr. Charlie Angus, NDP Heritage critic

March 24, 2011

Dear Mr. Harper,

I am writing you as a Canadian living in your Calgary SW riding. I hope you can promptly help me to restore my democratic right to be an informed citizen so that I can vote in an knowledgable manner.

Recently, ministers have been announcing important policy decisions on the social media platform Twitter and using Twitter for active debates and discussions with Canadian citizens and journalists. With a possible election coming soon, Minister James Moore‘s (note: new Twitter account, the letters “MP” have been expunged and _org added) discriminatory act of blocking me from following his Tweets (see background info below and attached files) has become impossible to ignore. Let me emphasize, Moore’s discriminatory act of blocking me on Twitter has become increasingly detrimental to my ability to exercise my democratic right and duty to be informed & engaged in public discussions/debates, and to stay informed on Canadian government policies when I vote in an election.

How Charlie Sheen Got His Twitter Account Verified So Fast

An insightful and timely article from AdAge, reposted here for the record. (emphasis and links added, my comments are preceded by “[Kempton:” or “[K:”)

March 3rd, 2011 Update: New entry, “Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on Bloomberg“

How Charlie Sheen Got His Twitter Account Verified So Fast – Ad.ly Helped Take Handle From Squatter

by Edmund Lee, Published: March 02, 2011, AdAge

Only 24 hours after Charlie Sheen got started on Twitter with @CharlieSheen, he had amassed more than 900,000 followers [Kempton: as of March 3rd, 2:35pm MST, Charlie has 1,352,677 followers), easily one of the fastest follower roll-ups the service has seen. Howard Stern, who signed up nearly a month ago, still only has 355,000.

But how did the all-over-the-news actor get his handle from whoever was squatting on @CharlieSheen before? And how did he get it verified so quickly?

Enter internet startup Ad.ly, which says it brokered his account with Twitter. Ad.ly, which runs celebrity endorsements through Facebook and Twitter, represents a range of bold-faced names on social media, including Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton and — though there isn’t any deal in place yet — most likely Charlie Sheen eventually. If advertisers will have him.

The U.K. edition of GQ first noted Ad.ly’s involvement.

We spoke with Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh about how it all happened. [Kempton: In case you are interested. Here is a link to Arnie’s US Patent application 20090177532 “SELF SERVE ADVERTISING SYSTEM AND METHOD” filed Jan 7, 2009]

Ad Age: When did this all start?

Arnie Gullov-Singh: Yesterday morning, Charlie’s team reached out to me. This is not unusual, we do a lot of this for Hollywood celebrities.

Ad Age: And what did they want?

Mr. Gullov-Singh: They told us he wanted to get on Twitter because he wants to have a direct conversation with his fans to tell his side of the story. [K: “direct conversation” is very important] So we got him the @charliesheen account, which was being squatted on.

Ad Age: It was already taken.

Mr. Gullov-Singh: Yeah, and then we got him verified through Twitter.

Ad Age: I thought Twitter doesn’t verify accounts any more. [K: This is exactly my thought. Officially, Twitter said it doesn’t do verified account anymore!] How were you able to do that for Charlie Sheen?

@NHLFlames makes fan in Hong Kong happy

It is cool to see @NHLFlames using Twitter very well to make a Flames fan in Hong Kong (ryantoy) very happy by featuring his tweet! Judging from the following tweet, looks like Ryan really loves hockey,

“Took so long to get setup with a club and gear for hockey in HK, but now ready…and so much hockey in the next 2 days (3 diff practices)!“

Go Flames Go !!!

P.S. Go @NHLFlames Go !!! Keep up the good work with Twitter.

Debating complex political issues in tweets 140 characters or less

Whether you are ready or not, I think we are in the age of arguing/debating complex political issues in tweets 140 characters or less (see article),

“From Industry Minister Tony Clement’s tweets yesterday, looks like the government has made up its mind to order the CRTC to start over on the issue (see also “CRTC must reverse internet usage ruling: Clement” [from CBC]).

What I like

* The openness in the discussions and directly from the source.

* The source can be quoted and linked directly.

* The exchanges between politicians and reporters/academics/bloggers are “fun” to watch.

What I don’t like

* Tweets in 140 characters or less may not be the best medium for debating complex issues.

* 140 characters or less = Soundbite and headline ready

Concluding thoughts

I like the openness in the debates and discussions. At some point, I like the ministers (and even prime ministers) to go one step further by add links to mini-blog entries to expand on some of their thoughts and positions.

Weekly interesting articles: Nenshi, Twitter, Sungjoo Group, and more

– “Google in ‘significant breach’ of UK data laws“, BBC News, Nov 3, 2010

– “Bottle picking pays better than begging, Calgary’s homeless discover“, Calgary Herald, Nov 3, 2010

– “Britain and France sign landmark 50-year defence deal“, UK Guardian, Nov 2, 2010

– “MRU: Nenshi, social media and the purple pandemic“, Calgary Herald

– “Twitter, Twitter, Little Stars“, Bloomberg BusinessWeek

– “Sungjoo Group’s Sung-Joo Kim“, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, July 2010

KitchenAid to the Aid using Twitter

I expect a lot from well respected brands like KitchenAid, which was why I tried to get two, in my opinion, poorly designed and engineered pans replaced. You can read more in “Getting help from KitchenAid via Twitter” (Sept 2010). Here is an excerpt,

“Yesterday, I tried to get some help from the nice people from KitchenAid via their twitter account. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see them replied promptly. Wow, KitchenAid is listening, very cool.”

It took a few weeks for Meyer (the company that owns the KitchenAid brand) to get things resolved and now I am happy to report the extraordinary steps Meyer took to fix everything.

Once I described the pans’ problems to a nice Meyer consumer relations manager, he immediately agreed to fix the problems for me. He ended up shipping two beautiful Anolon advanced hard anodized pans (with “the best nonstick coating in the industry, Dupont Autograph 2“) that are upgrades to my old KitchenAid pans. And when I later told the consumer relations manager that UPS had mistakenly charged me customs duties for the replacements, he sent me a cheque to cover the $60+ duties.

Thanks Meyer and KitchenAid. Thanks for taking the extraordinary steps and setting a great example of Customer Service Excellence.

P.S. Here are some beautiful pictures of my Anolon advanced hard anodized pans.

Getting help from KitchenAid via Twitter

Note: Photos were taken when we bought these beautiful pans earlier this year. And yes, I know I am a geek that loves to cook. :)

Seriously, we love our KitchenAid appliances, I think I’ve become a better cook ! :) We started with a KitchenAid range and then bought a powerful blender. So when it came time to replace our worn out nonstick pans, we  went shopping around and finally decided to give KitchenAid pans a try.

Because of the lovely design and fire red, we felt in love with the KitchenAid Porcelain Nonstick Cookwares earlier this year and bought them. Unfortunately we ran into problems immediately when we started using them to cook and the problems, again unfortunately, haven’t gone away and in fact have gotten worst over time.

You see, the problems we have are with the pans bulging (seriously bulging) under heat. As I mentioned, we have a nice KitchenAid range. The range has a perfectly flat and easy to clean cooktop. But now, because the pans have bulged and have created a single point of contact instead of a flat bottom, the pans will literally spin on the cooktop. As a result, the bottom of our KitchenAid pans (see photos below) and the cooktop have been scratched. And I do feel a little bit worry/unsafe when I cook with the pans as I have to watch them carefully and don’t let them spin out of control.

Yesterday, I tried to get some help from the nice people from KitchenAid via thier twitter account. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see them replied promptly. Wow, KitchenAid is listening, very cool.

To help explain the problems, I figured some photos for “show & tell” will help. And as a reporter/blogger, since I got the photos already and twitter is too short to explain things, I thought I might as well write this up as an article.

Dear KitchenAid, you’ve been a lovemark to me in my mind. I hope the nice people at KitchenAid can help me.

P.S. The cooktop has scratched and become quite rough and spilled food get to stick to them more.

The lovely big pan with glass cover (7 months later).

The smaller pan without cover.

Following Pat Stogran Canada’s Veterans Ombudsman/Ombudsman des vétérans du Canada

Make sure Pat Stogran Canada’s Veterans Ombudsman/Ombudsman des vétérans du Canada is getting your supporting in exposing a ‘deceptive’ Veterans Affairs and dishonourable treatment of our vets who accept unlimited liability in service of Canada.

Follow Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran on Twitter and Facebook and help Pat fight this battle on Canadian soil.

Here is what I wrote on Facebook this morning,

I am not brave enough to risk my life to fight with our vets overseas but, as a Canadian living in the Prime Minister’s Calgary SW riding, I will do my best to flight alongside our vets against the ‘deceptive’ Veterans Affairs and Harper government.

Twitter debate btwn @doctorow & @mpjamesmoore (Minister of Canadian Heritage)

This is one insightful twitter debate about Canadian copyright, Apple’s digital locks (TPM) and more, [via @doctorow captured by David Eaves]

“Twitter debate btwn @doctorow & @mpjamesmoore Moore defended Apple’s digital locks. US now says ok to break http://bit.ly/9Pp3uw“

No LUV for Southwest Airlines: How to crash a brand in less than 100 hours in a perfect social media storm – A business case study (draft / beta)

Please note that this article serves as a placeholder for an ongoing business case study of the Southwest Airlines social media storm. Information contained here will be under constant update and revision.

***

Business case background:

Southwest Airlines was a respected brand only a few short days ago. So what had happened to the brand in less than 100 hours that caused people to say out loud that they will NEVER fly with Southwest again? Thus no LUV for Southwest Airlines.

The purpose of this business case is to look deeper into the causes leading to Southwest crashing its brand in a perfect social media storm. And how other businesses can learn from Southwest‘s mistakes.

photo credit: av8pix @ Flickr

Keywords:

Dis-Revenue per Employee, Revenue per Employee, Southwest Airlines, Twitter, Social Media, Social Network

Raw research materials:

1) NOT SO SILENT BOB by Christi Day – Southwest Airlines, Emerging Media Specialist

2) MY CONVERSATION WITH KEVIN SMITH by Linda Rutherford – Southwest Airlines, VP Communications & Strategic Outreach

3) Smodcast #106: “Go Fuck Yourself, Southwest Airlines – In which, surely, our hero is Too Fat To Fly. And don’t call me Shirley.”

4) Smodcast #107: “Thinicism – In Natali [the lady Kevin Smith talked about in #106] tells her story.”

5) I’ve linked to some materials here in the blog entry “Southwest Airlines – From a loved brand to a damaged brand – Kevin Smith & Linda Rutherford”.

6) More to be added.

Principal researcher:

Kempton Lam  B.Sc., MBA

Background of Principal Researcher:

Kempton received his undergrad degree in Computer Science (with high distinction) from University of Toronto and is well versed in social media technologies from his years of blogging experiences. His MBA degree from University of Calgary has also prepared him to deliver comprehensive insightful study/report on time and within budget. During Kempton’s undergraduate and graduate studies, he has received multiple scholarships and awards for his academic excellence.

A Business Case Study (draft / beta)

It will take some time to complete the full report so please be patient.

What Kempton plans to do is to update this report in different draft versions. And keeping it as a “draft/beta” version until it is completed.

Concluding note for now

This report will study some serious issues and topics even though the trigger of Southwest‘s troubles may seem “trivial” to some people. But let me assure you, the business implication is deep and significant.

Just so you know I can laugh at myself and the absurdity in whole mess for Southwest. Here is one of my favourite ad, it serves to remind me to be humble and always be ready to do what is needed and right (and to learn).

Social Media – A Force for Good (Repost)

Check out this insightful forum discussion (video via Fry) with the following three insightful participants plus host.

Stephen Fry, Biz Stone, Founder and Chief Executive of Twitter; and Reid Hoffman, Founder and Chief Executive of LinkedIn will discuss the phenomenon of social media and its future impact. [Location: London, UK]

P.S. For those that only know Stephen Fry as a funny man (of which he is), Stephen was exceedingly insightful and eloquent in this forum sharing his perspectives on things. Go check out the video. For those that care about social media and social networking, it is a must watch. Enjoy.

Twitter Evan Williams @ Web 2.0

[via John Battelle]

Miley quits Twitter

EW, CTV, and Access Hollywood. For people who care about Twitter, social networking, etc, there is an important lesson in this public goodbye.

White House Twitter Mystery

White House explains a Twitter mystery with a link to this article (an interview with White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton).