I get way too much spam in my inbox, even just counting things I've signed up for myself. Most of it I delete, but today's email from CoTweet stood out, and is worth mentioning. A while back I signed up for CoTweet, just to check it out -- nutshell: CoTweet lets you collaboratively monitor and manage multiple Twitter accounts -- but after my initial exploration I didn't go back to it. There may have been a reason, there may not have been. So, CoTweet, noticing my cold start, sent me an email, as any customer-aware and responsive web service should:
Subject: Is CoTweet for you? Hi Nick, We've noticed that no one has logged in to the @nickgrossman Twitter account through CoTweet lately. CoTweet is not for everyone. It's designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations. .... No other tool allows you to engage customers one-on-one like CoTweet does. ....
They seem to have struck a nice balance between being self-promoting ("No other tool allows..."), while being self-aware and honest ("CoTweet is not for everyone"). In particular, I found the ordering of the argument to be effective. Here was my thought process:
Cotweet: "We've noticed that no one has logged in..." Me: "Yeah, yeah, I'm busy" (reaches to delete) CoTweet: "CoTweet is not for everyone" Me: "Ah nice, they're not trying to just straight up sell me. I appreciate that" CoTweet: "It's designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations" Me: "Oh wait, that's me" (
I get way too much spam in my inbox, even just counting things I've signed up for myself. Most of it I delete, but today's email from CoTweet stood out, and is worth mentioning. A while back I signed up for CoTweet, just to check it out -- nutshell: CoTweet lets you collaboratively monitor and manage multiple Twitter accounts -- but after my initial exploration I didn't go back to it. There may have been a reason, there may not have been. So, CoTweet, noticing my cold start, sent me an email, as any customer-aware and responsive web service should:
Subject: Is CoTweet for you? Hi Nick, We've noticed that no one has logged in to the @nickgrossman Twitter account through CoTweet lately. CoTweet is not for everyone. It's designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations. .... No other tool allows you to engage customers one-on-one like CoTweet does. ....
They seem to have struck a nice balance between being self-promoting ("No other tool allows..."), while being self-aware and honest ("CoTweet is not for everyone"). In particular, I found the ordering of the argument to be effective. Here was my thought process:
Cotweet: "We've noticed that no one has logged in..." Me: "Yeah, yeah, I'm busy" (reaches to delete) CoTweet: "CoTweet is not for everyone" Me: "Ah nice, they're not trying to just straight up sell me. I appreciate that" CoTweet: "It's designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations" Me: "Oh wait, that's me" (
clicks sign in link
)
So, thinking about my own work, there are two takeaways here: 1) make sure you follow up on cold starts (lord knows we don't do enough of this with some of our projects), and 2) when you do, phrase it in a way that's disarming, honest, and helpful. (looking forward to the email I get after I don't use it for another 3 weeks)
So, thinking about my own work, there are two takeaways here: 1) make sure you follow up on cold starts (lord knows we don't do enough of this with some of our projects), and 2) when you do, phrase it in a way that's disarming, honest, and helpful. (looking forward to the email I get after I don't use it for another 3 weeks)
I can't say enough about ScribeFire. It's a Firefox add-on that gives you an in-window blogging client. Here are just a few reasons why it's awesome:
You're blogging from within Firefox, and you can move among webpages while keeping your blog post editing window open. This comes in really handy when looking for references, quoting things, finding pictures, etc. It also makes it really easy to fire off quick posts -- no need to open up a new window, log in, etc., etc.
When you copy something to your clipboard, it's automatically pasted to the "insert link" dialog. So, for example, you go to a webpage (while keeping your editor open, see #1 above) and copy the URL from the URL bar. Then you highlight your text and click the "add link" button. Bingo! The URL is already pasted there, and all you have to do is press OK. Sweet.
You can write to multiple blogs from the same place. Very nice. Also a bit dangerous, as you could conceivably post to the wrong blog very easily. Hasn't happened to me yet, but I do have a lingering uneasy feeling about it.
So, if you blog and you use Firefox, get Scribefire. Go get it now. I promise you'll thank me.
Cramming the population of a city like New York into a maze of underground cars creates a forced melting pot that’s a perfect breeding ground for class and race divisions.
There's no question that the NYC subway is a forced melting pot -- but it's the assertion that it's a breeding ground for class and race divisions that I take issue with. In fact, I'll say it's the exact opposite. Most (all?) of the above-ground city is actually divided by race and class. It's the subway where we all come together each day; the subway is perhaps the only place where people from all races, classes, and neighborhoods really mix. In my experience, that is not cause for further division; rather, it's a uniting force that gives us shared experiences on a human level. One of the commenters on the Infrastructurist post summed it up nicely:
I think the necessity of sharing space with strangers is what makes cities the diverse, creative, wealth-producing places that they are. Far from being a necessary evil, it is the most distinctive feature of urban life. The elimination of this feature was one aspect of modernist city planning, but we reject that now. So we want mass transit for the type of civic interaction it creates, not just for sustainability and practicality.
I can't say enough about ScribeFire. It's a Firefox add-on that gives you an in-window blogging client. Here are just a few reasons why it's awesome:
You're blogging from within Firefox, and you can move among webpages while keeping your blog post editing window open. This comes in really handy when looking for references, quoting things, finding pictures, etc. It also makes it really easy to fire off quick posts -- no need to open up a new window, log in, etc., etc.
When you copy something to your clipboard, it's automatically pasted to the "insert link" dialog. So, for example, you go to a webpage (while keeping your editor open, see #1 above) and copy the URL from the URL bar. Then you highlight your text and click the "add link" button. Bingo! The URL is already pasted there, and all you have to do is press OK. Sweet.
You can write to multiple blogs from the same place. Very nice. Also a bit dangerous, as you could conceivably post to the wrong blog very easily. Hasn't happened to me yet, but I do have a lingering uneasy feeling about it.
So, if you blog and you use Firefox, get Scribefire. Go get it now. I promise you'll thank me.
Cramming the population of a city like New York into a maze of underground cars creates a forced melting pot that’s a perfect breeding ground for class and race divisions.
There's no question that the NYC subway is a forced melting pot -- but it's the assertion that it's a breeding ground for class and race divisions that I take issue with. In fact, I'll say it's the exact opposite. Most (all?) of the above-ground city is actually divided by race and class. It's the subway where we all come together each day; the subway is perhaps the only place where people from all races, classes, and neighborhoods really mix. In my experience, that is not cause for further division; rather, it's a uniting force that gives us shared experiences on a human level. One of the commenters on the Infrastructurist post summed it up nicely:
I think the necessity of sharing space with strangers is what makes cities the diverse, creative, wealth-producing places that they are. Far from being a necessary evil, it is the most distinctive feature of urban life. The elimination of this feature was one aspect of modernist city planning, but we reject that now. So we want mass transit for the type of civic interaction it creates, not just for sustainability and practicality.
