Basking in the glow of being complemented with “... thank you for your warm approach you gave on the chat, it was indeed a great pleasure assisting you today...” from the Amazon customer support live chat person I interacted with this week (guessing most don’t go so well), I share with you what else the week that was for me.

From Social Certifiable to Certified – Where many of you reading this would likely concur I am certifiable, I crossed the chasm to certified... in social media that is. I completed the HubSpot Social Media Marketing certification course and became Social Media Certified. The course itself was very well done and engaging. Even though my own personal use of social media has decreased significantly, it’s not that I don’t believe in it at all. This is a great course for anyone who is using social now for their own business, as it provides great structure and tactics.

Social Flashback – Back in the day when I was much more involved in social media, I was all over the original post my friend James Whatley re-shared this week about the human element in social media. It was also nice to re-read my comments on it too.

Why My Snow Blower is Gassed and Ready – Last week we got more snow here in Dairyland, but it was unlike what I had ever seen before. It resembled those small styrofoam balls that stick to whatever Ikea furniture you are trying to assemble. In talking with a friend, there’s a name for this kind of snow – graupel.

Get a Bonus to Pay for Snow Blower Gas – Where I got no “bonus” when I moved to where I live now, there are cities across the US who will pay you to move there. Why? Some places need more residents, so they are paying people who are remote workers to live there, and will pay more if you get a job locally. The Web site Make My Move lists such locales. For example, you can get upwards to US$15,000 to move to Vermont. That money will come in handy buying gas to clear the snow as well as all the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream you can eat at the factory there.

Not Breezing Through the Windy City – Only 11 Intersections in Chicago Have Accessible Pedestrian Signals but I know many more have red light traffic violation cameras.

Glad This Is Here – I am a fan of Adam J. Kurtz’s work. 1 Page At A Time is a great creative journal with amazing prompts. Things Are What You Make Of Them is a great compilation of motivational stories and quotes. So when I heard his latest work, You Are Here (For Now): A Guide to Finding Your Way, is available for pre-order, I jumped on it. His simple yet elegant art coupled with quirky yet thought-provoking narratives are a nice departure from the everyday rat race.

My First Clubhouse – This past week my friend Eric Patel invited me to co-host a “chat” on Resuscitating Underperforming Friendships on the relatively new audio-only social media platform Clubhouse. If you’re not familiar with it, anyone can do a “chat” or talk (or whatever they call it) and people can listen and be brought up to the stage to participate. Not sure how many people were listening, but at a minimum it was good practice at public presentation. This was also the first real time I used the app, and the jury’s still out as to how this will mix in with the few podcasts in my queue I don’t have time to listen to.

Because It Needs to be Repeated – Many have heard actor/producer/media mogul Tyler Perry’s award acceptance speech from last weekend’s Oscars awards. If you haven’t, or even have, it’s worth watching again and every once in a while.

A Database That Hopefully Won’t Be Needed Much Longer – I came across the Canceled People database where people who have been canceled in business, politics and popular culture are stored and can be queried. It’s sad something like this even exists, let alone the data that is populating it.

You Get a QR Code, and You Get a QR Code – You’ve seen the square bar codes called QR codes just about everywhere these days. They have been around for a long time, and about a decade ago there was a big push to use them, but they never took off. Why? Because Steve Jobs wouldn’t build-in a QR code reader on the iPhone. As there is one there now, you see them much more often. If you have ever had the inkling to create one, check out QRCode Monkey where you can create one or more for free. They have other paid options for tracking snaps, etc., but for free you can do a lot.

A QR code fun fact is that the code doesn’t always have to go to a Web site. You can even embed a message in one!

A Class Action Out, A Check In – In the same week I heard about this anti-trust class-action lawsuit against BlueCross BlueShield I got a check in the mail for another class-action lawsuit over text messages sent without the recipient’s opt-in. It comes as no surprise I spent the US$2.50 all at once.

This is My Kind of Camping!

Still Sticking – As my new co-working space is in a downtown area, I have been getting out at lunch for walks and noticing things I hadn’t before. One such is this advertisement pictured above for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum painted on the side of a bar. Clearly it’s been there for a while, and it was nice to capture this sign from a time where such painting was prevalent.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

What I Learned • (2) Comments • Permalink

On this day in 1939, Ted Williams hit his very first home run. Or as I and my fellow Red Sox fans call it, one down, 520 to go. Not bad for a 2-decade career that was interrupted by war and no pliability studios near Fenway Park as they are today. More closer to the twenty-first century were a few this that hit it over the Green Monster for me.

Started Locally, Acting Globally – This past Thursday was Earth Day, an annual recognition of the planet and environment that, unbeknownst to me, started here in Wisconsin. One of the original organizers, William Cherkasky, is actually from the city I now live in.

Not Worth the Servers It Runs On – Starbucks periodically has “games” – Web sites where you can play each time you make a purchase. Without fail, each of them tends to be a less than stellar experience. Their latest one, Starbucks Earth Month Game, sadly took that track record to an extreme. Of course playing is not required, and I have endured one of these for the last time.

FeedBetter? – FeedBurner started as a start-up in Chicago in 2004 where you could run your blog’s RSS feed thru their service and get analytics and add advertising to it, among other features. After Google bought it three years later, slowly many of those features were discontinued and its user interface remained frozen in Web 2.0 time. Out of the blye this past week Google announced it was going to move FeedBurner to a “more stable, modern infrastructure” (whatever that means) and kill off its email subscription feature.

The very blog you are reading still uses FeedBurner for RSS feeds, after moving email subscriptions to Mailchimp several years ago. Why Google isn’t killing FeedBurner altogether is somewhat of a surprise, as it killed off Google Reader, an RSS feed aggregator, over a decade ago. I think it’s time to finally move the feed out from under FeedBurner.

Another Look on Voting – U.S. Senate bill S1, also known as the For The People Act, has been presented to create federal reforms to voting. Among them is a mandate for paper ballots. Where many will not have a concern or worry about this, it could present an Accessibility barrier to those with disabilities. In defense of this, the National Coalition for Accessible Voting has presented this statement on S1.

What could help those with disabilities? Purely digital voting. Many do not know that some US States are already voting electronically. Where it may take some time to adjust the paradigms of the masses to voting online, a paper ballot mandate won’t help with the research and testing needed to make digital voting more of a widespread reality.

Yes Kidding – I recently discovered tasty goat’s milk cheeses made by a local dairy LaClare Creamery. A trip to their facility last week was a treat, complete with a café to taste their great cheeses, baby goats you can pet and even full-sized goats you can pet when they are not climbing the above-pictured, several-storied wooden silo. Shopping local also helps the earth, right?

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

What I Learned • (0) Comments • Permalink

Have you ever done something repeatedly and it gets to the point that you do it without putting too much thought into it? This was the thinking I had when I picked up a copy of the book A Simple Explanation of the Mass at the end of a Mass I attended at my Catholic church.

As someone who embraces the term “practicing Catholic,” I certainly don’t pretend to be a religious scholar. That being said, I went through traditional religious education (aka CCD) as a youth, and I should already know everything in this book, right?

As I read through this short yet encompassing book, I had a few takeaways.

Reminded of the Smaller Details – From the origins of some prayers to some of the things the priest says in the course of the Mass that the congregation may not hear, there were several reminders or refreshers on some of the things that are important in a Mass but can be easily overlooked.

More than a Commentary – The subtitle of this book, by Catholic priest Fr. Eamon Tobin, is “A Step-by-Step Commentary on Each Part of the Mass and The Seasons of the Liturgical Year.” Where there is some opinion throughout the book, I say this is more of an explanation and guide to the Catholic Mass. Sports books I have read and shared takeaways from here at The Hot Iron tend to be more commentary than this work.

A Good Explanation and Guide – I was pleased with the format and flow of the book, first walking through the elements of the Mass from beginning to end, then the liturgical calendar for the Catholic Church. Where I of course learned all of this over my many years, I don’t recall it in such a well-structured format.

Whether you’re a Christmas and Easter Catholic or someone who is there every Sunday – or someplace in between as I am – you will find A Simple Explanation of the Mass a good read and refresher of what you, like me, may be taking for granted. As I pass along all books I read, I am going to drop this off in a new Little Free Library that is in my neighborhood. Perhaps this will shed some enlightenment on someone as it did for me.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Book Take-Aways • (2) Comments • Permalink

I tried not to preoccupy myself with the new user interface for Amazon Fire TV. Ok, why the main navigation is down the middle of the screen is odd. I did figure out how to change the default apps with enough clicks of the remote. And the issue with the back button not working seemed to go away when I restarted the Fire TV device. Perhaps I did obsess a little on it?

Trell–oh! – I have been using the Web-based productivity tool Trello for some time now, but I always felt there was more to learn. After taking the course Trello Essential Training on LinkedIn Learning I now understand it writ large. This 2+ hour course is lively and covers many features and how to use power-ups. My biggest takeaways were on checklists and how to copy them, assignments, due dates and covers.

Clarity on Privacy – I also took a course offered by Siteimprove Academy on the European Union privacy law GDPR. This course is only available within a customer account, and was a good high-level overview of GDPR and provided me with the areas I need to dig deeper to understand and verify plans are in place to comply.

And if you ever saw it... – An interesting idea I ran across is Nosy which is a filtered covering for your nose and your nose only. Seeing is believing for me and likely for you. I didn’t dig deep enough though to see if it would fit over a nose as grand as my own.

Proclamations to Nobody – I read earlier this week that April 5 was Golden Rule Day here in the childhood home city of Harry Houdini. This of course was well after the day. Had I not read this on the All Things Appleton site I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have seen it elsewhere. Perhaps it was posted on social media and no other place? Am I overanalyzing this like the Fire TV UI?

The Frozen One – Congrats to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (better known as UMass) for winning the NCAA Mens Hockey Championship. I remember when UMass started a hockey team and joined the Hockey East conference where my team, the Boston University Terriers, dominated for so long. As someone who often, um, socialized on the state university campus when I was matriculating elsewhere, Go Minutemen!

Can You See My Email Now? – I often get text messages from friends saying email from me goes into their spam or marketing folders in their email program. I then tell them to setup a whitelisting rule so that doesn’t happen. They then give me a strange look. I found this week a list of how to whitelist email addresses on popular email platforms from Progress Software.

Vote For New Paradigms – This week Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a podcast that he would like to be able to vote from his iPhone. Shortly thereafter Ohio’s Secretary of State expressed his disagreement.

I’m on the side of Cook on this one, and have been for a while. Digital voting is already being done in some US states and around the world. The comparison to billions of dollars of transactions every day is a valid one. Will someone try to hack a purely digital system? Of course. Computer security is a constantly moving effort – now and in the future. The benefits of digital voting go purely beyond convenience, as many who lives in lower-income areas use mobile devices as their computer as well. It also addresses issues of Accessibility, and as I have said on this little blog before, Accessibility efforts help everyone. Digital voting must be invested in for it to become a valid reality. And with that, I will step off of my soapbox.

Just Didn’t Do It – My friend Nick Gracilla wrote an inspiring piece on the word “just” being a four-letter word to him. There are many words and phrases which, you know, like that can easily be replaced or edited out of a sentence altogether, and just is one for him.

Out of Time – This week I participated in some of VirCon, the virtual conference offered by HighRoad Solutions. The conference had a Back to the Future theme, and some good topics. That being said, as it was in the middle of the workday, I registered but only caught live a few sessions. My plan was all along to watch the recordings after the fact, and being live in some was a bonus.

Time On My Side – Shortly talking with Kim at HighRoad Solutions about VirCon I pulled up along-side the above-pictured original DeLorean modified to look like the very car Doc Brown enhanced. I see this car around a lot, and the timing of it all was intriguing.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

What I Learned • (0) Comments • Permalink

I wonder how often domain names are taught at the university level.

This thought was in the back of my mind as I developed and gave a guest lecture in the Fall of 2020 to students of Dr. Sara Steffes Hanses at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh on consulting. I have had the honor to present to her classes in the past to share my wisdom and lessons learned over the years as a consultant – and how I think as a consultant even when I work for a firm. Where this lecture was virtual, my plan was to deliver it with the same enthusiasm as I have in the past.

The class I gave the guest lecture to is part of a program called Interactive Web Management, or IWM. It is a unique hybrid of business, technology, marketing and journalism, and students in the IWM program get a well-rounded education and experience across all that encompasses a Web site today. Especially in today’s world of hyper-specialization I see this program as a great way to offer the big picture, and allow graduates to choose their specialty or specialties.

Timing for my class was around the first meeting students have with their “clients,” non-profit or university organizations for whom they will consult to, which is the basis of their semester work. As I have given this guest lecture before, there are many elements that are continued. That being said, I fully re-evaluate it based on my own experience and the marketplace since the last lecture.

This is also why I introduced “extras” a few years ago – topics that were not core to the lecture but related and important nonetheless. For one of my extras this time, I chose domain names. If you have read anything else I have written here at The Hot Iron, you know I work a lot with domain names and have opinions and advice on them. I decided to cover domain names as an “extra” as many may have some familiarity with them, but not all aspects.

Two slides were dedicated to domain names, as you can see from the presentation linked and embedded. Where the bullet points were brief, there was a lot of substance I spoke to. As an introduction, I reaffirmed likely to all what a domain name is and how you can use it. I also talked about the selection of a name, giving an example of how one friend and former client, Foresight Childproofing, came up with their primary domain name, ChildProofHome.com. I then concluded this with talking about the various top-level domains, or TLDs, available, and recommended people have a great experience with working with domain names at Name.com.

As the first slide focused on registering a new, available domain name, I could have stopped there and felt good about the knowledge I shared. However I decided to go deeper and explore with them the world of the domain name aftermarket – when a domain name you desire is already registered and is available for registration at a premium price from a broker. I feel if people know very little about domain names in general, they are completely clueless about the aftermarket. Here I described what it is, and shared stories of how I acquired domain names from the aftermarket for clients in the past. I also recommended they explore DomainMarket.com, a larger and reputable marketplace.

I have shared the slides to my guest lecture here for all to review and “leverage” for their own use on SlideShare, whether for work, academia or personal use.

Deconstructing Educating on Domain Names

There’s no time like the present for a teaching moment. As a guest lecturer, it is your role to contribute something unique to the class – whether it’s a unique topic or point-of-view. Bringing a heightened awareness of domain names to this class was my way of offering both. Did it resonate with the students? I can’t say for sure, as most had their cameras off.

---

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

---

Did you enjoy this? Subscribe to The Hot Iron by RSS/XML feed or Read by Email

Announcements • Technology • Thrive • (0) Comments • Permalink