Many pundits have proclaimed that RSS is dead but I firmly disagree. I think RSS is still one of the easiest and most flexible medium to get information how you want it when you want it. However, with everything information related there is always the [read more]]]> While I normally keep my posts a little less technical I decided to jump into the technical realm based on a number of questions that I have seen on Twitter and particularly due to a request for help from a friend.

Many pundits have proclaimed that RSS is dead but I firmly disagree. I think RSS is still one of the easiest and most flexible medium to get information how you want it when you want it. However, with everything information related there is always the challenge of managing the barrage of information that everyone of us is dealing with every single day.

The purpose of this post is to illustrate an easy way to merge multiple site feeds into a single source to make it a little easier to manage and maintain. One perfectly good reason to do this is if you are an association who offers multiple/many individual feeds from your site and would like to offer your members a consolidated feed – but the utility doesn’t end there. It’s really only limited by your own need/imagination.

Let’s get started.

For the purposes of this brief tutorial we are going to use Yahoo Pipes largely because I believe it is the most flexible and easiest to use of all of the similar services available. If you have a Yahoo! (think Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, etc.) account it is really easy to get started. If not, the first step is to sign-up.

Once you are signed-in, click on the “Create A Pipe” link in the top menu bar:

You will then see the following screen which is the Yahoo! Pipes main stage where you can work your magic:

While the myriad options can be overwhelming, we are going to keep things simple and get right to the task at hand. We’re only going to be scratching the surface of what is really possible with Yahoo! Pipes so if you are really curious I’d encourage you to check things out in greater detail at some point in the future.

Our first task is going to be to add a few modules to the main stage. The first one we are going to add is the “Fetch Feed”. To do this you will have to expand the “Sources” menu on the right side of the screen and then “drag-and-drop” the module on the stage.

Above you can see that I have added three “Fetch Site Feed” modules to the stage. This is because I am going to be merging feeds from three sites into one. Once you have the modules on the stage, simply enter the URL’s from the sites that you want to merge. Because we are using the “Fetch Site Feed” module, not the “Fetch Feed” module, all that you have to do is enter the URL of the site(s) that you want to merge. However, the process would be the same if you knew the URL’s of the feeds and used the “Fetch Feed” module instead.

It would be tempting to simply try and merge the feeds together straight away, but we are going to hold off on that for a moment and add a few other modules that provide us with more control of the output. If you look at the navigation pane on the left you will see an option labeled “Operators”, you will want to expand that to gain access to the next two modules that you are going to want to add to your stage.

Click on the “Operators” option and that will reveal a new set of modules.

As I alluded to earlier, you can see that you have a bunch of options. For those of you with less of a technical orientation some of the options may sound like they are in a different language, while others may appear to be much more intuitive. Fear not. We are only interested in two of them for the next few steps: “Truncate” and “Union”

The “Truncate” module allows you to control the number of feed items that you will “fetch” from the feeds that you are merging. The “Union” module is where the true magic of this tutorial takes place and what is responsible for the “merging”.

Using the drag-and-drop method we used previously, you are going to want to add the “Truncate” module to your stage.

You should add as many of these modules as you have “Fetch Site Feed” modules. For the purposes of this tutorial you will see that I have added 3.

Once those modules are on your stage, you can fill-in the amount of items. I have chosen to use 10 from each feed.

The next step is to add-in the additional module from the list in the left pane that I referenced above: “Union”. Again, simply drag-and-drop this module to your stage. Once it is added, your stage should look similar to what I have below:

Take a deep breath! You are almost done. There are only a few more steps left to complete. You have all of the components on the stage that you need to merge your feeds into one. Now all you have to do is “Pipe” them together. To do that all you need to do is literally “connect the dots”. Simply place your cursor over the circle/bubble at the bottom of the module and you will see that cursor transforms into a hand. Drag the mouse to the top of the module below it. It sounds more complicated than it is, so just give it a shot. Below is an image of the modules on the stage, piped together.

Once you have everything “piped” together you will want to save your Pipe. To do this simply click on the “Save” button located on the top-right portion of the screen.

Doing this will enable you to “Run” your pipe and generate the output – which in this case is your merged feeds. All you have to do to “Run” the pipe is click on the “Run Pipe” link that will appear at the top-center of the screen if your pipe saved properly.

This will open a new tab/window and you will be presented with the results of your merged feed. Mine looks like this:

At this point all that is left to do is get the URL for the newly created RSS feed. You can see that you have plenty of options. However, if you are planning on offering it as a link on your site the most obvious choice is RSS.

Here is a link to the Pipe that I created for this tutorial: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=EsPef6lq3hGOG39MKX1_0w. You can take a look at it to see everything in completed form and also can clone it if you don’t want to go to the trouble of creating your own merged feed from scratch.

I hope it helps. Let me know if you have any questions or run into any problems in the comments below.

The other day I found a new pastry, called ‘Long John,’ in the vending machine at work. My first thought was that the name suggested a colloquialism other than “pastry.” Colleagues in my department thought the same thing because we didn’t know that there was this type [read more]]]> Just this morning I received one of the funniest serious emails that I have seen in a while from a former colleague at PMI. The title of the message was “In Poor Taste”. Her message was short but animated:

The other day I found a new pastry, called ‘Long John,’ in the vending machine at work. My first thought was that the name suggested a colloquialism other than “pastry.” Colleagues in my department thought the same thing because we didn’t know that there was this type of donut.

Apparently she did some internet research and discovered that: “During the NAMA Expo, the company previewed its latest premium pastry, the 4-oz. white iced raspberry jelly-filled Long John, which will be available in January and vend for $1 or more.”

She closed her note emphatically stating: I don’t plan on trying this “premium pastry.”

Attached to the message was a camera phone shot of the questionable delicacy.

Her whole experience started me thinking about how, in a time where access to information and easy to use communication tools empower millions every day, this situation could have been a boon or an absolute disaster for the company involved. Case in point, this could be the most delicious jelly-filled vended treat that one could possibly find to satisfy a mid-day snack attack, but many people will never know simply because the imagery and the product marketing appear to be more suggestive than it has to be. Some may even interpret it to be perverse or offensive. Personally I think it’s one of the funniest things I have seen – at least in a food product – in quite some time. I guess it’s all about interpretation. But all you need are a few people who don’t like it and the buzz-storm begins. They tweet about it and blog about it and tell their friends. Then one of the blog posts gets Dugg or Slashdotted and then it’s drawn into the national spotlight. It’s a vicious cycle all caused by a poor choice of words. Would it ever happen? Probably not in this specific instance, but it could and it has.

The moral of the story: It’s imperative to make sure what you are saying is consistent with how you are saying it. How do you really want to be perceived? I believe the adage from Edward Bulwer-Lytton: the pen is mightier than the sword is perfectly applicable here. If you are responsible for communicating specific messages choose your words very carefully. Let’s make it personal, how many times in your personal or association-related communications did you intend to convey one message only to end up communicating something totally different? I know that it happens all of the time.

So while this is a pretty humorous situation – at least for those of us who don’t have to deal with the impact of it – it’s also a powerful reminder of just how imperative clear communication is.

What you say matters, but how you say it is key.

Your thoughts, opinions and reactions are always welcome.

I am not totally with [read more]]]> Peggy Hoffman started a bit of a meme challenge regarding volunteerism to coincide with the Great Idea’s Conference. This isn’t just a “throw something against the wall and see if it sticks” concept because there was a caveat: the volunteer job can’t involve committee work, long-term commitments or “gobs of time”. As a result of Peggy’s post, I was pulled into the conversation by Kiki L’Italien who issued a challenge to me to build on the ideas and suggest my own.

I am not totally with Kiki on her post; I do actively seek out volunteer opportunities and have already served on ASAE’s Professional Development council and their Social Media Task Force since becomming a contributing member of ASAE. However, since my membership has lapsed due to my financial and employment circumstances I guess they count but only in a past-tense kind of way. Currently I am involved in the Open Source world and somehow found myself (ok I admit it, I stepped up) as the volunteer project manager for the Drupal Open Learning project. So I think I can draw some inspiration from the FOSS world largely from my Drupal and WordPress experience.

Why can’t volunteer opportunities be actually related to contribution as opposed to title? I have created WordPress themes and plugins and given them back to the community. If my countless hours of coding don’t amount to something I don’t know what does. I think association need to take a cue from that type of situation. How can members give their time to something without it being sanctioned by the association? How can they lower the bar to make it easy to contribute as opposed to a bureaucratic decision that requires sign-off and approval? When I worked for an association I continually heard about protecting the brand and legal liability. My thoughts? Get over it. Make it easy to contribute and people will. Put up barriers and people will contribute anyway…but they will want recognition and ownership of their contributions…Notice the problem?

Anyway, enough of my soapbox, I think the idea is that it has to be easy and open. With that in mind I would take Kiki’s idea’s – which are all really solid – and add my own:

1. Guest blogger – absolutely! Let’s call it a subect matter expert and then it transcends a single medium. Authority in a subject matter area is key – social media, training and development, component relations, marketing, etc. Let’s face it, as association execs you may know stuff, but your members probably know more.
2. Informal advisor – why not line up your best contributors and use them as formal/informal sounding boards. Again, you may have good ideas, but members who have been around a while may be able to shed a whole new light on why it may or may not work.
3. Item writer – granted this isn’t original but the one thing that I loved about my work at PMI was the fact that we gave our certified members the opportunity to help develop the certification exams of the future. They’d give a day of their time – generally coinciding with one of our events and in return they would gain recognition and some sort of non-monetary remuneration. Professionals love being involved in helping shape their field.
4. Twitter contributor. It seems like Twitter has gained a ton of traction in the association community. Why not acknowledge the contribution of members who are actively engaged in events by contributing to the Twitter-stream. Even better, establish a hastag(#) for your even then you know exactly who and how they are contributing. I believe that every little bit counts.
5. My last Great Idea is actually another simple one. Why not make all of the associations content easy to share (e.g. ShareThis, AddThis or something similar) and make it easy for members to share the content with their colleagues? Is it truly volunteerism? In my mind, if you aren’t getting paid to do something and it’s contributing to the betterment of something or someone else, you are volunteering your time. Going back to my original theme, make it easy for all members to get involved and I think you are going to be satisfied with the results – provided that you have content worth sharing.

There are plenty of ideas out there if you put some thought into it. Perhaps the ultimate ideas is not to overthink it and just go for it. I’d love to hear from some folks who I think have better ideas than I do:

Jeff Cobb – @missiontolearn
Jamie Notter – @jamienotter
Chris Busse – @busse
Frank Fortin
Rick Johnston – @rjohnston

Among the keynotes was one of my favorite authors and presenters: Clay Shirky. Shirky is an adjunct professor at NYU who studies social media, and author of the book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing [read more]]]> The Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by TechWeb and O’Reilly Media, is a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next generation web. It just wrapped up it’s East Coast run today. The conference featured a number of phenomenal keynote and general session speakers.

Among the keynotes was one of my favorite authors and presenters: Clay Shirky. Shirky is an adjunct professor at NYU who studies social media, and author of the book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. During his keynote Thursday at Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Shirky examined the problem of information overload. His premise was the fact that the problem is not that we have too much information to process. The problem is that our filters are inadequate. And privacy breakdowns are a similar problem — privacy is threatened because the filters we relied on to keep our private data confidential are broken, and we haven’t evolved good mechanisms to replace those filters yet. I thought that it was one of his best presentations and I’ve shared it below.

For a thoughtful summary and evaluation of Shirky’s presentation, take a look at Mitch Wagner’s post on Information Week’s Digital Life Blog titled: Clay Shirky Busts The Myth Of Information Overload At Web 2.0 Expo.

To take a look at other great presentations from the Web 2.0 Expo, take a look at the videos here and the speakers presentation files here. Definitely looks like it’s a well run and worthwhile event to attend.

I raised the question to him on how he considered himself on good behavior if he was Fogdirogging all over the place to which he responded that it “was [read more]]]> Ok, since this conversation originated on Twitter I thought that the most appropriate tool to use to adjudicate the decision was Twitter. Earlier this afternoon, Ben Martin aka @bkmcae, the boy genius of the A-List Blogosphere as recognized by Mensa, proudly stated that he was “being good today“. A short while later he had a Fogdirog outburst.

I raised the question to him on how he considered himself on good behavior if he was Fogdirogging all over the place to which he responded that it “was just an outburst“. The whole conversation got me thinking about what the proper terminology is for a Twitter-powered outburst should be really be called and I asked the question, again via Twitter.

Matt Baehr aka @cardcat suggested that the most appropriate term to describe a Twitter-mediated outburst should be “fogdirog” in honor of our good friend and A-List Blogger Jamie Notter, and went so far as to update the official Fogdirog wiki to reflect this new usage. @bkmcae came back and suggested “Twirade” to which Mickie Rops aka @mickierops was non-committal stating that she liked “Twirade” but that it was also hard to go wrong with “Fogdirog”.

So my question to all of you is what is the best term to describe a twitter powered outburst? We’ll use Twitter to help me to facilitate this highly unscientific poll.

If you believe that it is indeed Fogdirog send an @tweet to me in the following format:

@desabol Fogdirog

If you believe that is is a Twirade send an @tweet to me in the following format:

@desabol Twirade

If you believe that it should be something else send an @tweet to me suggesting the recommended alternative in the following format:

@desabol Alternative term

I will keep the poll open for the next two days at which time I will post the winning term forever to be committed to our official lexicon of Twitter-related terminology.

This video from Will It Blend with special guest Forrester analyst and Groundswell co-author Josh Bernoff reinforces that thought.

It’s all [read more]]]> There is no doubt that social media has gained a foothold in our personal and business lives. Yet despite the fact that many businesses and associations are embracing it’s use and realizing the qualitative and quantitative results/benefits from adopting specific tools for specific purposes, for many the decision and choice are still a crapshoot. Having a clearly defined objective is essential for choosing the right tool/service/media.

This video from Will It Blend with special guest Forrester analyst and Groundswell co-author Josh Bernoff reinforces that thought.

It’s all about having clear objectives and using the right tool for the job. Otherwise, as the video illustrates you end up with nothing more than a pile of dust. If you need a refresher to help you get focused or even a starting point take a look at a few of these eBooks:

• Geeks Guide to Promoting Yourself With Twitter – Geekpreneur
• The Zen of Blogging – Hunter Nutall
• What is Social Media – iCrossing
• A Primer in Social Media – SmashLab
• We Have a Website. Now What? – Craig Rentmeester
• Social Web Analytics – Social Web Analytics
• Blogs & Social Media – PRSA

For a number of other great eBooks on Social Media, check out Chris Brogan’s recent blog post: 20 Free eBooks About Social Media.