Miles is a young boy battling leukemia who lived out his dream of being a Batman thanks to Make-A-Wish and the city of San Francisco. The story has reached around the world. It even drew responses from the likes of President Obama & recent Dark Knight actor Christian Bale. The day designed for Miles was nothing short of awesome. I got to watch for a bit as the adventure took him to the Giant’s stadium – right next to my office. I was amazed by the generosity shown to make this wish come true. From the Lamborghini Batmobile to the hours of coordination and service. The best part though was the cheering crowds. There were thousands of people at each of the stops – all of us there because we felt touched by the story. I watched San Franciscans cheer and hold up signs. I heard the crowd chant ‘Batkid!’ as he saved our mascot from the
I’m going to start this by agreeing with a sympathy that I think most men hold: Valentine’s day is a bit of a silly holiday that is a big deal mostly because of backing from card & flower companies. That said, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to change it, so here is how I think about it. Valentine’s day is a sport. Like all sports the rules are basically arbitrary. They were decided before you started playing the game. In a way, you are confined by them, but that is part of what makes it fun. Within the confines of the rules of the game, you get to use your creativity, skill and dedication to help you achieve optimal results. Winning! Valentines Day is a sport. It is a sport that all men in relationships are automatically signed up to play on one night of every year.
I gave a talk last month at the San Francisco Quantified Self meetup about the time tracking project I’ve been doing over the past 6 years. I would say more, but I don’t want to steal my own thunder.
Reposed from the Hearsay Social blog – See the original post here One of the things I love about working at Hearsay Social is the freedom to explore new tools and methods of analysis. I recently spent some time digging into the open source data visualization program Gephi and decided to share some of the insights I came across. Many marketers still measure the value of their social media pages by a count: either a count of fans or a count of engagements (likes, comments, etc.). Unfortunately, the insights provided by these measurements are nominal. If you want to know the true value of your fans or how your social media communities are contributing to real ROI and sales results, then these basic counts should be a start, not an end. We have already learned that not all fans should be valued equally and that local fans can be worth as much as