My blog n'at

It’s 1:22am and I have no idea why I’m wide awake. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately with my birthday coming up this month (woohoo), how I consume media and what I’m doing next.

Take for instance this post. I’m writing it on my DROID from my bed when I should be sleeping. Should I keep up a blog or use my Tumblr feed more?

Every day there is a new hot service that pops up and since I work in social media for a living I need to decide if its worth my time or that of my employer to have a presence on it. Not as easy as it may sound.

Keeping up with what we do have is already very tedious and exhausting but hopefully new tools I’m pushing to have in place will take some of that burden off.

Oh yeah February. Almost forgot about ya for a second fella. o O (Fella? How do we know Feb isn’t a lady? Why do I even care? Focus spoon!)

So this month will be an interesting one. Weather should be incredibly nice, taxes need done, county should bend me over and shove a new assessment up my rear soon and a certain utensil turns 3. Mix in pgh beer week duties, that podcast thing I do, write and get merchant ideas together the shortest month could be a pain.

Life moves pretty fast. If you stop and take a look,  you’re probably blocking traffic. Get the hell out of the way.

A package arrived for me today which I completely forgot about redeeming for online. I had to think for a second before I realized what was in the box.

Because of my “Klout” score I received a free copy of Stephen King’s “Bag of Bones”. I don’t read non-tech books and I don’t read books for pleasure. Never have and eh, I might someday. Since I got this free I may give it a shot so we’ll see. Now if I was as cool as The Girl Blogger I would have found a way to get a free flight but since I’m not, I got a book. (By the way she’s a 38 and I’m 57. I should get a RT plane and beer tour of the west coast since I’ve never been there)

Baby steps…

Klout has been a questionable service for awhile with social media diehards because there have been found ways to cheat the scoring system. Personally I’m honest with it and just roll with the ranking.  For the longest time no one knew what the algorithm was they were using and if you weren’t on twitter you were basically toast.

Since I do social media for a living spanning different subjects I try to stay on top of everything so I know what’s new and what to watch out for. (Have you heard of Path yet?)

Do these scores need to be taken seriously? Let me put it this way, they’re making a name for themselves and really takes no effort on your part to use it. I’ve already had inquiries because I have a high score when it comes to Craft Beer and people writing for publications that aren’t as social savvy use sites like this for stories… which means my name gets out more… which means I get gigs… see where I’m getting at?

Google + for businesses was just released to the masses and as expected all of us with social media jobs jumped on the chance to lock down our account. But why? What value are we finding here?

I’m about to nitpik and you can tell me “oh but its new, what do you expect. Hey its free, deal with it.” I get that and you know what, that’s no excuse. A vendor of mine said “we’re in an ADHD society now and if you can’t come out guns blazing to give the customer what they want, they’ll forget about you and go with someone else.”  Now really how can you forget about Google BUT when you’re a giant like them and you’re going up against the world’s largest beast in Facebook you should have some basic features put together before you launch.

Here are some issues I found right off the bat and I mentioned on twitter yesterday when I set up the SIDT page. Ends up I’m not alone.

1) no admins – You manage this from your personal account. If you work for a university with Google Apps installed this is very easy. If you don’t have a gmail account you better get one. If you’re a local business make it you and not the web guy that can jump ship on a moment’s notice. other downside is that I don’t want to associate some of my work accounts with my home account so there’s no way to switch that after its been made.

2) no analytics – everything we do online has some type of stat associated with it. I LOVE me some Google Analytics on all of my sites so why its not available yet on here makes me scratch my head. Could just be that the sites need to be around for a bit before reports can be ran. Either way when you’re in front of management or potential sponsors and they want to know your social impact you better know what’s what and not show your Klout score.

3) Yet another place to post so how do I sync – It seems like the only people on Google + right now are geeks and craft beer fans. Even if people do start to embrace this there aren’t that many people using it so what value do I have posting in yet another spot and since I cant see how many are looking at it, is it worth the time and energy to post there? This past weekend was a great example of this. I had a ton of videos and pictures to post from Learn to Homebrew day (which is being posted shortly after this) so I had to upload/tag/title on 3 different sites because I want the communities on each format to be able to comment and see.

Item 3 actually makes me think that we’re beyond social media overload which is why people like me are hired to come in and streamline your feeds. Even with a team the hours are long to keep content fresh and always watching for the newest trend but hey I live for this. If your crowd is ADHD you need to be also. Once you lose sight of your customer base its all over.

We need a solution and I started to come up with one today. If a beast like this exists already please direct me to it (and yes I do use tumblr).

I was chatting with Phil about this today and this is from our discussion “Screen 1 – Are you uploading/posting <blog, photo, video, image>. Screen 2 – Select the services to publish to <based on the ones you have already synced up>, Screen 3 – Enter title and content – then each following screen will have formatting for each service. You upload photos and tag them accordingly and it shows up in Google +, Facebook and Flickr”

I have this whole product already designed in my head, now I just need to see it happen.

Earlier this summer when Ginny asked me if I would introduce her to craft beer I thought maybe she was setting me up for one of those prank shows. Since the day we met its been like a brother and sister bickering when it came to the best fermented beverage. She loves Zima and me… well you know. A conversation wouldn’t last more than a few minutes before she’d get me fired up over her love for the now extinct clear malt beverage (well here in the states at least. you can still buy it overseas). Even if she never said it I know she would shoot me looks saying “Hey Doug, this beer has lime and salt in it. YUM!”

We finally found time in our crazy parental schedules to meet up at Bocktown and let the lessons begin. How’d it go? Well you can either read “PittGirl Discovers Craft Beertopia” online or pick up the August issue of Pittsburgh Magazine which is now available on newsstands.

I don’t think what I did was anything more than what most craft beer fans would do. I absolutely love talking about craft beer and seeing the look in someone’s face when they have that “ah ha” moment. As advocates for craft beer it is up to us to sit down and talk to people less familiar with our favorite beverages and talk them through the beer. What do you smell? taste? breathe in when you drink and see if that changes the flavor.

There is a serious problem right now with, as sickpuppy and I like to call them, “Beer Snob Bitches”. This isn’t the beer geek that has a cellar full of homebrewing gear and aging bottles. I’m talking about the jerks whom belittle you because you’re not “at their level”. They’re all over the place and quite frankly give the rest of us a bad name. So what if you can pick out the yeast strain or all 7 of the hops used? No one cares but you. The elitism in a lot of circles is getting out of hand and it needs to end.

Craft beer is for celebration. Its for the appreciation of hard work, passion and craftsmanship. Craft beer is meant for YOU to enjoy and not for others to tell you what you should or shouldn’t like. There is a handful of new breweries opening in the Pittsburgh region this year and next. This area is a hotbed for incredible homebrewers and now they’re taking the jump from passion into career.

On the flip side I see a lot of reverse asshattery from the macro drinkers. Those who are hardcore Bud/Miller/Coors drinkers who put down craft beer fans because we like a higher quality beverage. They’re usually the ones saying you’re drinking a chick beer or “oohhh you’re all fancy” because they don’t understand craft beer and use the high school thug attitude of what they don’t know must be stupid.

Craft beer is genderless. There are plenty of great craft brewers who are women and in fact when this country was founded who do you think it was making the beer? Take a look at “Put the ‘ale’ back in female.” and read about a view of brewing you may not have considered before.

Will Ginny become a homebrewer? Eh could happen but for now chalk one up for the birth of a new fan. We’re not going to win over the entire beer drinking population but we can chip away at it one at a time.

cheers!

I really should start “Shit my mom says” as a category.

Last week I’m talking to my mom on the phone and in 1 conversation I was told that the pedophiles are around because of the internet and asked, in complete sincerity, “Douglas, why didn’t you invent Facebook?”

I did everything I could to not crash my car on the Parkway while trying to process that one.

Mom learned about The Social Network on Oprah and ever since tells me how its amazing that such a young man is a billionaire. Anytime she hears of someone in their 20/30′s making it rich I usually get the “why didn’t you do that?” speech. I had to roll back the history and once again tell the tales of my history to her.

While in my freshman year at Pitt (94/95) I had my first taste of working on computers. Enough so that I wanted to change my major from Psychology to Comp Sci. That’s when they dropped the bomb, direct quote from her and my dad was  ”you will NEVER make money in computers.”

I could go into greater detail about the lack of support because they didn’t understand and blah blah blah but really, wait for my biography or buy me a pint and we’ll chat. Honestly I think its an Erie thing and why so much talent flourishes once it leaves.

I still get phone calls asking to fix computers and you know what, they were right, I could never make a living because everyone wants their computer fixed, a website made or a social media strategy for free.

OK this post is taking a turn I wasn’t expecting when I started writing it. nice.

With world changing on an almost daily basis don’t discard someone because they’re not doing something you understand. We don’t know what the next big thing will be. I was told by a family member to quit podcasting when I started because it was a “waste of time” and in the 5 years since I started I think its treated me rather well.

I still hear “whats wrong with that person” because you dont follow the 1950′s idea of a professional. That is until someone makes money and your mom asks why you didn’t do it.

Don’t even get me started on the craft beer thing…

trainwreck

waste of an hour

jumped the shark

I’ve never seen 50000 people bail so fast on a webcast in my life. I stayed tuned in to see what would happened and what I got was an hour of public access quality writing and sfx of fart jokes and applause. The only saving grace was the girl who would get up once in awhile and bop around while the others sat there sucking what is left of Charlie Sheen’s fame.

I’m sure the only time my kids will ever ask about this moment is when they have a school project on social media disasters but when they do I can point to this post and say “boys, I was there.”

I think this train may end faster and more harsh than the one Ted Williams was on.

It was just announced that I, along with a co-worker, won a Silver Accolade Award from Council for the Advancement & Support of Education (CASE), District II. The award is for the work we did on the Walking Tour of Downtown Pittsburgh which is available for download in 10 different languages and featured on VisitPittsburgh.com.

I’ve won awards in the past but this is the first for work that wasn’t given from the place I’ve been employed from or from a charity so needless to say I’m pretty stoked.

The tours were the first assignment I had when I was hired so I have a soft spot for them. They are downloadable as mp3′s and, having tested myself, go along great with the walk. I’d like to think of what we could do next with them though.

This is another one of those things on my “ok, what can we do next with it” list.

Yes that would be me at 16. Chicks dig facepaint

There is a trend on Twitter today called #tweetyour16yearoldself (which for me was 18 years ago already) and I played along. So far I’ve done

• @stoosh10 still has that Slash tat on his ass. You dont know? wait, DONT GO TO GYM CLASS!
• You just watched the last winning season for the Pirates until you’re at least 35.

That got me to thinking about what few things I would say to my 16yr old self if I did have the chance. There have been times when I’ve gotten home from a beer promo or I just tied one on watching the Pens play where I’d find myself outside for some air and always wondered what if my past self showed up in a fashion close to this.

So what would I say to a 16yr old me?

• When you’re 18, watch out for that MACK truck.
• The glasses are going away and so are the braces.
• Spend more time with dad.
• You have a knack for a/v. Get more involved no matter what the family keeps telling you. Your day will come.
• Don’t listen to your guidance counselor at PREP. He’s full of shit.
• While the nuns at St James insist you’ll become a priest they’re not completely off on that.
• Listen to future Stoosh when he tells his 16yr old self “There are a few of your oldest sister’s HS friends that have crushes on you and @douglasderda. Act accordingly.“
• Thats not the first time dad will blow up the backyard.
• You and your wife already crossed paths, neither of you know that though.
• There is better beer than the Golden Anniversary you just stole from your mom’s stash.

That’s all I can think of right now. I have to go change the diaper of your future kid. They still havent invented a way to stop them from stinking.

Like most instances at Podcamp Pittsburgh this is one of those “things just happened” that has now become a staple of the establishment. Waaaay back at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 we met a fine young Canadian gent by the name of Tommy Vallier. Tommy is not only a social wiz but an instigator and purveyor of fine alcoholic libations.  It was on this night all of us would learn how the Great White North stays warm, you mix whatever you have together and drink until you’re blind.

Justin Kownacki, Podcamp Pittsburgh founder and helluva model American when the laces are out, explains exactly what a 6-4-9 is.

Scared yet? Probably should be. Tommy said to us it has to do the lottery, we say its a cruel trick to test the fortitude of your liver.

Below is the short, yet official, history of the shots along with video so you too can see how its done.

Sunday morning when you wake up with the worst hangover of your life just remember, 6-4-9

The almighty Sorg posted this morning a link to the movie “The Social Network” coming out in October which tells the story of how Facebook was founded, the drama and blah blah blah. Other White Jim also posted on Facebook (ironically) about it and I got to thinking, if one was made about the Pittsburgh social networking scene who would play you? Let me know in the comments your top 2 choices. Yinz outside of Pittsburgh feel free to chime in also, you can have a cameo.

I’m taking first dibs here and saying Zane Lamprey or Jack Black