It’s been a month since I’ve been on Twitter – I didn’t delete my account, just logged off from it. If you’re curious where I am learning over the course of the week, it’s not from there.

• PlayMakers Laboratory is the new name for Barrel of Monkeys, a non-profit youth arts/education organization in Chicago I have support and was on their Board a few years back. Part of their offering is That’s Weird, Grandma, a live performance of sketch comedy adapted from the writing of their students. They have now taken this online and you can watch and support them through Patreon.
• I read a couple of great articles this week. One was by Marc Andreessen with a great assessment of what we need to do to get beyond this pandemic, saying It’s Time To Build. If you’re not familiar with Marc, he’s the co-creator of the first graphical Web browser Mosaic.
• The other article I read was by my friend John Wall on The Great Shutdown. If you’re not familiar with John, he’s been podcasting before most people knew what it was, and is co-host of the long-running and highly informative and entertaining podcast Marketing Over Coffee.
• When everything is important, nothing is important. The same holds true if everything is !important… and the exclamation point before the word is not a typo. It is a “hack” that bad Web developers make when coding the cascading style sheets or CSS of a Web site, and something good developers avoid. As you may guess, I also learned about the bad Web developers doing this.
• Following examples like the one I mentioned last week from Crowded House, the school music teachers in my kids school system did a virtual rendition of the Bill Withers hit Lean On Me, and I think it’s awesome, though I think the flute-playing teacher may not like that she got cut, twice.
• In 2008 I participated in Nokia OpenLab, a social media gathering of people from around the world hosted in Helsinki, Finland by the then-world leader in mobile technology. Leading up to it a Wiki page was created and updated by the attendees to connect, and thanks to Cybette I know it’s still out there.
• Starbucks reopened many stores around the country this week, and mainly ones with drive-thru windows. And just in time for gas prices to rise, but I digress. One thing I noticed in the updated version of their mobile app is the tipping options have expanded to $5.

Congrats Christine and Colin!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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At some point we switched from saying "disaster recovery" to "business continuity," and I think it's time to switch it back.

Perhaps it started in the 1990's when a wave of buzzwords and political correctness came into vogue. The phrase “disaster recovery” has such a harsh tone to it, where “business continuity” is so much more positive, isn't it? Positive, sure, but did losing the edge of the phrase diminish the need for how we often apply it, in creating a disaster recovery plan?

Disaster recovery planning is creating an action plan and related activities in preparation for a disaster in one’s life. It is typically something a business does, but individuals and families can prepare one as well.

By calling it recovery rather than continuity, we have a sense of urgency and a goal of pushing forward, wherever it takes us. Continuity implies we will still be the same afterwards, where as we are living now that may not completely be the case. By using the term disaster rather than business, it means it impacts all of us, not just businesses. Individuals, families and related organizations all need a disaster recovery plan and to be included in a business’ plan too, including the resources to execute on that plan, and I’m referring to more than pallets of toilet paper. The contents of a plan would be different based on a focus of more creative options.

The onset of a pandemic on a free-market, capitalistic society has been devastating. Now in the third calendar month of it, we are seeing daily reports of businesses - not just small businesses but large ones too - filing bankruptcy or closing altogether. This is on top of record layoffs and furloughs leading to record unemployment claims. The "disaster" today is not just with companies but with people as well. Many of both were not prepared or prepared to the degree they needed to be.

So what do you think? I welcome your thoughts in the comments to this post.

Deconstructing Disaster Recovery

Words matter. By softening them it may pease some people, but it could also be detrimental to the goal of using those words. Disaster recovery says there was something bad, and we are going to come back from it. This phrase - and goal - is what we need right about now.

Image of cap generated from The Washington Post

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Gladly trading my technical firefighter’s gear for a pen and paper to jot down the few things that came to mind this week.

• I broke my streak of writing a full post every week (note, this is not what I consider a full post, but worth reading nonetheless!). I did write something, however it didn’t turn out as I wanted it, so I am putting it aside for a few days and will readdress and hope to hit the mark next week. To paraphrase Paul Masson as told by Orson Welles, I will not publish something before its time.
• I’ve always said, “don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer.” Of course not taking my own advice, I learned the hard way I should never ask, “so what else could go wrong?”
• Crowded House is a band I liked from my college radio days in the 80’s. This is the 33rd anniversary of their best known hit, “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. To celebrate this, the band recorded a version of it with all its members in their home studios and it was pieced together. The song was surprisingly good, though I think lead singer Neil Finn’s voice has gotten a little higher pitched over time.
• A local museum, The History Museum at The Castle, is asking the public to engage in a journaling project called “Let’s Make History” where people write or record about sheltering at home during the worldwide pandemic. When all is over they will then submit what they created to the museum who will curate it into its collection which includes Harry Houdini’s magic secrets and a giant bust of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Where the idea is intriguing, I am finding writing in general and publishing here to be more therapeutic than simply penning about staying home.
• A local tap room McFleshman’s is now canning its beer as they are not allowed to open for guests to imbibe their cask conditioned beers on-site. When I picked up a 6-pack over the weekend, I noticed the pack ring looked a little different. When I tried separating a can, it was harder than a normal ring. Because it wasn’t – it’s an Eco 6 Pack Ring which is made from what looked like molded paperboard. So if one of these rings ends up in the Fox River, likely they will dissolve before any aquatic life tries to consume them.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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It’s May!

• An anonymous person bought me a coffee last week using the button on my blog for Ko-fi. Whomever they are, thank you! Since I added the button to my blog a few years ago I have only received a few, so it was nice to see the button still works.
• Google is shutting down the mobile app for its AdSense ad program, replacing it with a Web site. The app was a nice way to see what ad revenue you earned on a daily basis... until ad revenue bottomed out for most people who put ads on their sites. Like me.
• This past week the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Single-A baseball team offered a Ballpark Dinner To-Go program. The dinner for 4 included burgers, hot dogs, brats, baked beans, potato salad, cookies and cotton candy. It went well with watching A League of Their Own
• Draft Kings, the Boston-based fantasy sports and sports betting company went public last week. It’s great to hear about the IPO of innovative companies, and even more so when a friend works there.
• I never heard of oat whiskey until I bought a bottle of Central Standard Oat Whiskey at Tandem, a local wine and spirits store. The clear spirit over ice was very smooth, and the price was right at $8 for the bottle. As it was a closeout, and checking the distiller’s Web site, they no longer carry it, I have to go back and get what’s left.
• My good friend Alex Ryan and her Evolve Solutions Group is hosting a free Webinar next week titled Changing the way we work: Selling Remotely. If anyone can give a presentation like this it’s her, and I will be on it.
• When I registered for Alex’s Webinar through Eventbrite, I subscribed to the calendar rather than just adding it as an event, something I had never done before. It’s not obvious how to undo this on an iPhone, but I found this tutorial on how to unsubscribe to a calendar.
• The other day I walked on the other side of the street from the main street near my home, as usually I walk on the same side. Low and behold, there’s prose in the sidewalk as shown above. Many sidewalk projects in Appleton have some poetry or verses incorporated in them. I enhanced the photo so you can read it better.

So glad you could join me today.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Recently I gave a “brown bag lunch” presentation on Web Accessibility. For those not familiar with the term, it refers to an informal business gathering at lunchtime where everyone brings their own lunch (thus the reference to brown bag) and one person gives a short presentation followed by a discussion as everyone eats their meal. I have participated in and presented at many of these over the years and they are a fun, casual way to learn and connect with your team.

The audience for this were fellow members of World HeadQuarters, a co-working space in Appleton I joined a few months back. In this case, the presentation was virtual as the space is not open these days. That being said, it was as close as you can get to the in-person experience with about a half dozen online participants.

A Broad Topic In Short Time

How do you talk about Web Accessibility in about 10 minutes, and to an audience that this may be completely new to them? This was my challenge, and I gladly accepted it. I decided to keep it at a high level, not getting into too much jargon while giving the audience information and takeaways for them to explore more on their own.

I’d like to share my presentation here. While there is no recording of me actually giving it, the slides I prepared provide the essentials. The slides are embedded below for viewing from SlideShare, and you can access a PDF of it here.

I welcome any feedback, as well as if this was useful to you. As I look back in on it, I can think of changes and refinements to it, like anything you review after the fact. It was also a great opportunity for me to keep my presentation skills sharp.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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