Blog: Safety tips? Or how to interest a 4 year old in Geography!

I’ve been meaning to play around more with Glympse for a while now (tagline: Share your where). Simply, it allows you to share the location of your smartphone with one or many people, for a time-limited window.  It’s been around a while now (founded 2008) and certainly constitutes a stable platform rather than something beta.

The use case outlined on the site is a new take on that age-old problem of running late for a meeting. Send the other person a text from the Glympse app on your phone. Limit the visibility to the time you expect it to take. As you and your phone move towards the destination, the other party can see your progress nicely mapped out, zoomable for detail or total progress.

It came back into my mind recently as a result of the London riots, overhearing conversations about getting home safely in the evening. If you used Glympse to send your partner a text or email, they’d be constantly aware of your location, able to see if something knocked you off the expected route.

I tested it out again on a recent journey back from a client meeting, sending my wife a Glympse via SMS. Got a text back minutes later, saying “seriously fantastic, love it”. I think that’s an endorsement….  What I didn’t expect was subsequent usage though – my eldest (4 years old) was pestering, wanting to know when Dad would be home – so she pulled the Glypmse map up on a laptop instead and Harry watched as I drove back across the South East, my phone regularly sending GPS updates on my location. Turns out, he was fascinated!

A sample of the Glypmse map is below – thoroughly recommend checking them out.  Only one caveat so far – tracking your position on GPS and transmitting a regular location update murders your battery life. Fine when charging in the car, not sure I’d be so happy on the train…

Blog: Android mobile app testing at #srconf

You might recall I had early access this year to an app called Social Ties.  It was in private alpha test at the time, and I had a little fun with it at #TruLondon.  Well, it’s moved on.  It’s now in public Beta for Android phones – and I believe an iPhone version isn’t far behind. I plan on giving it another run out at the Social Recruiting Conference next week – and you’re welcome to join me.

The app is designed to pick up attendees of a conference, then combine the public details of you and others in the room to make recommendations based on social information. It also provides you with a groovy little cheat sheet – the Bio from their Twitter account, conversation key words, recent tweets….

Currently, it picks up delegates from the Lanyrd event platform – go here to register on Lanyrd for #SRConf – you can use a Twitter account to sign in. I know a number of other hook-ups are in the pipeline too, including FourSquare and #hashtag recognition.

If you have an Android phone and want to try it out, the download installation file is here, or available from their home page. The event will appear listed in the app a couple of days before the event.

Don’t be surprised if I come and introduce myself, already appearing to know a little about you!

Blog: Highlights & poll results from #SMART_2011

I’ve been  invited by Keith Robinson to write a review of the SMART 2011 conference for one of his publications, which I’ve gladly done (many thanks for that invitation!).  During the course of writing that review, I went through many of the tweets on the day to get a feel for what others experienced.  I’ve pulled a selection out for your delectation here – some mine, some from others. I’ve also endeavoured to name the speaker on stage at the time of the tweet – let me know if you spot any errors!

 

How does your organisation use social media?

From Charlie Osmond‘s opening address:

• “Don’t chase viral outcomes – ongoing conversation has better long-term results.”
• Brands on social are often focussed purely on conversion. Compared to 16 yr old boy at party. Time to grow up & think wider.
• “This is the year Social moves from hype & headlines to data & understanding”

Steve Fogarty of Adidas:

• Talent Management session at #smart_2011. First, Steve Fogarty from #adidas opens with “40000 staff, 16 recruiters!”
• Adidas on using the web for recruitment: “6 degrees (networking) Community (conversation & engagement) Marketing (attraction)”
• Adidas had to fight to get on Facebook for recruiting. “Marketing wanted to retain sole ownership for product sales.”

Does your organisation have a social media strategy?

Andy Headworth of Sirona

• “95% of career sites are cr*p – when did you last use your own site to complete an application?”
• Try Addict-o-Matic for free social measuring – start listening.

Mark Johnson, The Economist

• “Social media doesn’t mean have to dumb down. If ask for lot from readers, you’ll got a lot.”
• “Regular debate questions significantly aid engagement”

Who should own social media strategy?

Sarah White, Independent Consultant

• Career site “power of 3: Attractive, Sustainable, Candidate Centric”
• “Goal of all social efforts should be to bring traffic back to Career Site”
• “If you build your candidate attraction in Flash, you’re excluding iPhones, iPads, etc…”

Nick Halstead, MediaSift

• “People will follow content, not search for it. Fundamental shift.”
• “I predict death of #SEO in the next 5 years” … big rumble in the room.
• “Sentiment analysis is inaccurate because computers don’t understand sarcasm”

What's the biggest risk of social media?

The data on this page comes from electronic polling of the delegates on the day. If the images are a bit small to read the legends, just click – they should open up to a larger view. I hope I captured it all correctly at the time, but if anyone from SMART has final figures, I’d be glad to amend.

How your iPhone / Android / BlackBerry defines you

I’ll confess now….  I’m Android. And no, I don’t feel good about this.

But I’m smiling!

Credit: DailyMobile.se