The back of one of my tax receipts, which I had long digitized and set to my accountant, served as the log of my learnings for this week. Where I didn’t learn anything from the receipt, I wondered why we still have paper receipts for taxes, or why we don’t have a flat tax and just fill out a postcard like Steve Forbes suggested. But I digress.

• With new or refurbished windows covered in plastic in place, plus the lack of noise pollution from building materials being dumped down a metal chute subsided, it is my presumption the rehab of the former Chicago Athletic Association into a boutique hotel has now begun. The yet-named hotel, to be owned by a member of the Pritzker family, who know a thing or 2 about hotels, will be a welcome addition to the Loop neighborhood of Chicago. So is the ceasing of almost 9 months of the dumping of building materials down the metal chute! I look forward to the opening of the hotel and neighborhood room discounts.
• The colder than normal spring here in the Midwest, including a snowstorm the Thursday before Easter, timed just right for me to experience first-hand the process of converting maple tree sap into maple syrup. From trees tapped to boiling down of over 200 gallons of the clear liquid to make only about 5 gallons of syrup, for this guy who grew up in New England and has roots in Vermont it was the first time I really saw it first-hand. Click on the links above to see Vine videos of the sugaring process. Special thanks to Brent of Heikkinen Farms for the grand tour!
• Bourbon is the new bacon.
• The very people who could benefit from crowd-sourced fundraising, and have some of the most compelling stories which would warrant the contributions, are probably the least likely to be aware of it or know how to go about the process.
• Motorola Mobility debuted its new headquarters in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart this past week. But as its staff has shrunk under the ownership of Google, and with it being sold to China’s tech giant Lenovo, how many people will really end up working there? Only time will tell.
• Simple video editing, such as what I did with last week’s Trump game video, was a chore on the PC. I did not want to learn a full video editing suite as I did not need all of that capability. After trying literally 6 different tools, I found something decent with Any Video Converter. What I learned here is simple: I need a Mac!
• In thinking about team cohesiveness and collaboration I recalled a great sports analogy - 25 players, 25 cabs, which was a term applied to Boston Red Sox teams of old, ones which never won a World Series. When you bond and spend time together above and beyond just the task at hand, you gain a greater understanding of each other, and this makes your bond as a team stronger. Not to mention winning 3 World Series trophies in the last decade.
• I continue to be reminded of a phrase once told me by a wise man, that it’s easier to get someone to quit than it is to fire them.
• This past week cereal giant General Mills changed its privacy policy on its Web site to attempt to bind customers who interact with them online to arbitration in the event they attempt to sue them. No sooner did this come out did the Internet flurry with comments on how impractical (aka dumb) this truly was, and they later backed down from it and reverted to their previous privacy policy. I could go on about this but reading this analysis on General Mills’ move by Shel Holtz says pretty much what I would have said myself.
• Now that I have a way of doing simple video editing, namely splicing and cropping, here’s another gem from my past that I discovered from one of my old VHS tapes. Here I am interviewed by a local TV station in April, 1989 for a softball marathon at my alma mater. In watching this I observed a few things, namely that I had a lot of hair back then, and you don’t see reporting like this anymore today. You can watch my TV interview on YouTube or it is embedded below.

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

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Blogging • Business • Technology • Thrive • What I Learned • (0) Comments • Permalink

So I took the photo above early last Friday morning, as it was the view I woke up to. Then as I went to fire up my Dell I realized I had left my list of what I had learned for the week at home. Oops.

• I have been experimenting with Bit Torrent Sync for a few days this week and so far I am liking it. It is a peer-to-peer synchronization tool, which in layman’s terms means you can sync files directly between 2 computers, whether they be PC, Mac or mobile. As it is direct, both devices need to be powered on and active. It is touted as a replacement for Dropbox without your files being copied and stored on Dropbox’s servers. It may take a little extra work, but it may be worth the extra privacy.
• There is a big difference between paid time off, or PTO, and vacation.
• From the above learned item it can be inferred I was off of work last week, and a lot of the time was spent on purging and simplifying – well, at least a start to it. I learned that if something was packed in the same box it was in when I moved to Chicago almost a decade earlier that I most likely did not need it, and it should be sent to Goodwill, or in the case of some items, to the American Liver Foundation. They were the recipient of, among other things, the 15+ year-old filing cabinet that I don’t think I have even opened in the last few years. Its contents, or at least what I am saving, fit in 3 paper boxes, and most of that will be eventually scanned to PDFs.
• So far 2 people have used my personal DRYV discount link to earn $20 in free dry cleaning and laundry which meant I have earned $40 in free services. If you’re in Chicago, give it a try – click the link or use code 6H1A to earn free services, and thanks in advance.
• Speaking of requests, 3 people have thus far responded to my blog post on sending me Box Tops for Education for my daughter’s school. Now her school is having a contest, for which class collects the most Box Tops, and I want hers to win… and so does she. Please follow the link above and thanks in advance.
• I took my first bike ride of the season along the north side of Lake Michigan. It was awesome. Then the next day the temperature dropped in half and a day later it was snowing.
• When looking for new lights (or simply, lights) for said bike, I got Blackburn Flea 2.0 Front Headlight and Rear Light Combo with USB Charger. Lights I can charge with my computer or external battery pack is a good thing. And yes, that is an affiliate link, so buy some for yourself and I will earn a few pennies.
• The Pandora streaming music service has had an alarm clock feature, where you can awaken to music of your choice. Imagine setting it to wake up to Morrissey.
• The quote of the week goes to billionaire entrepreneur and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who in response of paying a US$25,000 fine after his public address announcer criticized an NBA referee on Twitter, said, “Like I said, it’s a hurricane in a urinal, we flush and move on.”
• Part of my simplifying is getting rid of crap or getting it into a more manageable format, like scanning paperwork to PDFs and converting old VHS video tapes to DVDs. I tried the latter with a few tapes and unlocked some real gems, many going back over 20 years. One example is a news story where I am in a couple of camera shots when Donald Trump visited the Milton Bradley headquarters after the launch of the Trump board game. I was technically covering the event for my college radio station WNEK-FM, and you can see me weaseling the microphone into one camera shot. The reality is that I was a huge Trump fan in the late 80’s and through a connection I got into meet him. I also met the videographer who shot this footage and had lunch with him after Trump flew off, so maybe that’s why I got so much coverage? I have embedded the news story below or you can watch me and the Donald on YouTube.

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

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Where most of you reading this post from The Hot Iron blog are looking at the text on various computing devices, and a few of you may be using screen reading software to convert the words on the screen to speech, did you know anyone reading could have this and every other post read to you?

For years, going back as far as the earliest posts, the ability to listen to my blog posts has existed, but for some reason I didn’t promote is much as I should have. As there’s no time like the present, allow me to introduce to you The Hot Iron read to you by odiogo.

Odiogo is a service that converts text to speech into an audio file and distributes the files in MP3 format. You can bookmark this page and listen to the audio for the last 10 posts. There is also an RSS feed which you can subscribe to in your favorite RSS feed reader and podcast player.

Odiogo started as a free service, changing to a paid service model last year with an exception to non-commericial blogs. As I have yet to be able to retire to the Cayman Islands from the money I (don’t) make here, I have been able to keep the transcription of these posts, as everything else here, free.

Odiogo uses a digital voice to read posts. One major reason why I added it was because it was able to convert “Maddaloni” very well! Typically an audio version of a podcast is available within an hour or so of when it was posted to the site.

Along with writing this post, I have made the link to the odiogo page much more prominent in the sidebar of the site. I also invite you to listen to one of the audio transcriptions and let me know what you think of it. Have you already added it to your podcast app? Will you never listen to it again? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below.

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

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Last week was a productive and fact-finding week, and as transcribed from an index card of all things, here’s what I have added to my learned knowledge.

• My good friend and fellow former Boston Jaycees board member John J. Wall has released an audiobook version of his runaway best-selling marketing book, B2B Marketing Confessions, which you can get through Amazon, iTunes or Audible. John reads the book himself, and if you’re wondering what he sounds like you can hear him weekly on his marketing podcast, Marketing Over Coffee. Though I am long overdue on writing about this great book, it is a tactical trailbook for not only marketing but overall business.
• Speaking of Amazon, they are raising the price for their Amazon Prime service, which includes everything from free 2-day shipping of most items to free movies on demand, from US$79 to US$99. Knowing that I have spent that much extra for some crappy drinks at crappy bars in Chicago over the years, it’s a no-brainer I am sticking with it.
• I got together with an old friend and colleague whom I worked with early on in my career, for me it was 1 year after college and it was right after for her. In thinking back on catching up, sharing stories about consulting projects and the people we worked with, I realized how “foundational” that experience was for me, both in my growth as a professional and as a person. And to imagine it was a time before everyone had cellphones and email.
• Needing to demo a mobile app to remote users, I learned from colleagues about Reflector, software you can run on a PC or Mac where you can “mirror” your iPhone on the computer using the built-in AirPlay service. Note I had to run this from home as I ran into issues with my work wireless network and n`ot being able to launch AirPlay, but otherwise it was a great way to get the iPhone on my PC screen, then use remote meeting software to present it.
• It’s one thing to survey customers, it’s very much another to bring them into the same room with you and talk with them in person. I know I need to do much more of the latter.
• As I was going through my storage unit, I realized I would rather have a picture of me with a famous person than to have their autograph.
• I finally saw the movie Frozen when the DVD arrives at our home, much to the delight of my daughters. It is a nice story with some amazing animation, though I have to admit I am more of a Tangled fan.
• A video on Chicago from the 1940’s surfaced at an estate sale in the city and the lucky buyer digitized it and uploaded it to his Vimeo account for all to watch and where you can see it if you can’t see the embedded video below.

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

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Though today is March 21, 2014, I am finally publishing what I learned for the previous week. Just as I was about to pass on the list from last week and focus on this week to be current, I get the latest newsletter from CentUp, which featured several items from the last few What I Learned posts! Needless to say this piqued my interest in finally typing up last week’s list. And the ego stroke wasn’t bad either.

• The Pringles brand of potato “crisps” is now owned by cereal giant Kellogg’s and has been since 2012. Is it only a matter of time when the Pringles breakfast cereal comes out?
• I pre-ordered a domain name with one of the new global top-level domain names (gTLD). I won’t say what it is as I don’t want to jinx it in case others registered it. But if I get it, it will be put to major use.
• I don’t know who Victoria Carpenter is, but I have no idea why or how she is liking my Facebook status as being “so cute” over and over and over again, especially as I quit Facebook over a year ago. Yes, I realize it is spam, and it’s clearly not working.
• A new app was announced to pay for parking meters in Chicago. Where it will offer the convenience of adding more time to your parking from the app remotely (aka not running back to the car), I can only imagine the problems that will come from this. Currently in Chicago you buy a paper receipt to put on your dashboard for your time to park. Even with this “foolproof” system, many parking tickets are issued to people who have paid for parking – I know some personally. The only way to fight it is to go to court. I have no idea what the app or software that the meter checkers will use, but I can only see more headaches for parkers.
• Most people do not know how to take a screenshot or screen capture from an iPhone, let alone a PC or a Mac.
• Despite what Dr. Seuss wrote in his first children’s book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” Bliss Street does not intersect with Mulberry. I know, as I used to live near THE Mulberry Street in Springfield, MA.
• The domain name digital.com is up for auction. It’s last major use was as the primary domain name for Digital Electronics Corporation, or DEC for short, the former mini-computer and PC manufacturer based in Maynard, MA. As someone whose first mini-computer was a DEC PDP/11 and grew up knowing many people who worked for DEC, it is sad to see it for sale. At an opening bid of US$100,000 I am not sad enough to buy it myself.
• I have been asked to be part of a career-mentoring group for a trade organization in Chicago. The group is one of several “pillars” the group is building to work with young people starting in their careers. I am excited to get started with it and will surely report more on it soon.
• The week before I mentioned my good friend Andrew Cornelius who is a talented actor, comedian and improviser. He has created a new demo reel of his work, and present it for your viewing pleasure. I would have included it in the last installment, but it was trumped by the Name.com video featuring me. There’s that ego again.

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

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Announcements • Blogging • Business • Domain Names • Social Media • Technology • Thrive • What I Learned • (2) Comments • Permalink