Well, what if I told you that a blog post here may have encouraged a Boston City Councillor and Mayoral Candidate to not only re-vamp their strategy, but to do so in just one day?

Would you then begin to appreciate how social media (and that includes blogging) breaks down communication barriers and helps important issues bubble to the top and get fixed quickly?

Michael Flaherty Talks To Us, Not At Us

Because that might be the situation; just one day after my article from last week about how Michael Flaherty’s campaign failed to engage on Twitter, his Twitter stream began to become populated with @replies, RT’s and followees.

To jog your memory a bit, last week I wrote that:

When your Twitter stream has nothing but updates from you, meaning zero replies, zero ReTweets, zero interaction, and you’re following zero people, you fail. You come across as an automated yes-bot.

It was a swipe at the Flaherty Twitter stream, which as of that article was following zero people and was broadcasting instead of communicating. Then, just one day later @mffboston09 began talking to us, instead of talking at us. And today, we see the Twitter handle following 240 people, talking to those people, and RTing others.

Take a look at the new and improved Twitter stream from Michael Flaherty:

Michael Flaherty, now engaging on Twitter

Much better! Do note that now that he/his team is engaging with us I’m now following him.

Did we sway a Boston mayoral candidate?

When discussing the power of blogs to enact quick change in the political scene, we don’t need to see yes we can, instead we can proclaim yes we did! Sure, this revamping of Michael Flaherty’s Twitter profile may have been a pure coincidence and my blog post had nothing to do with it, but I think it played some role, even if it just re-affirmed to the campaign team that they needed to communicate, not broadcast.

Note: After writing this post, Michael Flaherty’s Twitter profile responded to my inquiry and stated my article had nothing to do with the change in approach.

But more importantly, it wasn’t just this blog post. It was you, the people who ReTweeted the post, shared it on Google Reader and linked to it. Thanks to all of you!

While we’re at it, let’s send some commendations to Michael Flaherty and his campaign team for listening, improving, and engaging. The real moral of the story is that none of us are perfect. If we approach social media with an open mind, we can all learn how to improve ourselves and connect with the people around us better.

Whether my post and your awareness helped drive this change or not, the change is a good thing and that’s what really matters. It’s a good thing for the City of Boston and its residents to have our mayor and mayoral candidates utilizing social media to communicate with Bostonians. Let’s hope this change is a small sign of things to come.

Thanks to jungledrumsonline for the photo.

This iPhone Can’t Tweet

Most Bostonians are familiar with his campaign, he’s got signs and advertisements everywhere comparing the incumbent Mayor Menino to old technologies and himself to new technologies. Like the picture above, where Meninino is an old-school blocky cell-phone from the 80′s, while Flaherty is a slick new iPhone.

It’s a really slick marketing campaign, but when you don’t back it up, you fail. It makes you come off as all talk and no walk, and worse makes your campaign seem disorganized and discordant. When you say you are new technology, but then fail to utilize new technology effectively, your proposed image and actual implementation end up contradicting each other.

How does Michael Flaherty fail?

In numerous ways, but for today’s example we’re going to focus on Twitter, something the “iPhone candidate” should be up to speed on, right? I mean, they do sort of go hand in hand. They’re both the latest hot piece of technology. The iPhone is a portable, handheld internet enabled computer while Twitter is one of, if not the, most popular online social messaging systems. Sure, every Twitter user does not have an iPhone and every iPhone user does not tweet, but the majority of the hardcore users of both likely have at least a base understanding of each other.

Twitter is for Communicating, not Broadcasting

There’s a huge misconception amongst many people that Twitter is for sending out inane updates about what you had for lunch or broadcasting your product to the masses. It is neither. While sending out tweets about your product or food choices can be effective at generating sales and showing your personality, if that’s all you do it shows a clear lack of understanding about the core of Twitter. More importantly, it likely won’t work. There’s exceptions, but for the most part, if you don’t engage no one will listen.

Let me break it down simply, for everyone, Twitter is a communication platform.

Twitter is not a:

• billboard
• lunch menu
• bullhorn
• something only web geeks do

It’s actually an immensely simple idea that got out of the way of people and allowed them to communicate quickly, easily, and freely.

When your Twitter stream has nothing but updates from you, meaning zero replies, zero ReTweets, zero interaction, and you’re following zero people, you fail. You come across as an automated yes-bot.

Take a look at Michael Flaherty’s Twitter stream:

Michael Flaherty's Events Calender/Twitter Stream

As you can see it’s basically his events calendar.

Wow Michael, you just got out of a city council meeting, that’s amazing! Thanks for informing us that you’re doing your job!

Let’s Talk, Not Stalk

The problem which Michael’s tweets, is that I don’t care about any of the information there. If I wanted to know where he’ll be, I’d check his web-page and look for an events calendar. Twitter is for communicating, and when used correctly could be a potential revolution in how constituents can interact with their government. When used to broadcast messages one way, it shows a complete failure for even the most basic of understandings about how the system works.

Don’t talk at me, talk to me.

You know what, that last sentence is so absolutely crucial to using Twitter well, and being a good Mayor that I’m going to repeat it and highlight it.

Don’t talk at me, talk to me.

Look, I don’t expect Michael Flaherty to ingrain himself in the Twitter community but I do expect him to bring someone in who gets it and to get advice before just throwing up random content (by the way Michael, if this article hasn’t completely turned you off, I am available for social media consulting sessions).

Now, if Michael didn’t brand himself as a candidate that is an improvement over the incumbent, then I wouldn’t care much. You don’t need to use Twitter, but if you brand yourself as the equivalent of an iPhone and do brand yourself as an improvement over the incumbent, then I would expect you to tweet well.

In this case, Mayor Menino’s Twitter stream is done well. Sure, it’s done by a staff member, but I could care less. If a tweet gets sent that needs the Mayor’s attention, the staff member can relay it on. I’d rather have an intermediary do it well than to have whoever do it poorly.

What’s worse, is that Flaherty doesn’t understand a relatively simple piece of technology like Twitter. What does it mean when the 80′s cell-phone uses a new piece of technology better than the iPhone?

Yelling in my Ear in Real Life

At the Dorchester Day parade, Flaherty’s campaign was the only one that brought a truck out that had a guy inside yelling loudly into a bullhorn:

VOTE FOR MICHAEL FLAHERTY FOR MAYOR OF THE CITY OF BOSTON FOR 2009. MICHAEL FLAHERTY MICHAEL FLAHERTY MICHAEL FLAHERTY

I get it. Your campaign thinks Michael Flaherty is a swell guy, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter. Personally I could care less about the candidate, his attributes, his personality and his accomplishments. Frankly it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, it’s not about the candidate, it’s about the constituents.

Michael Flaherty may be a god amongst men, but what does that mean for me, a citizen of Boston? Whether Flaherty wins or not, we won’t be living in Flaherty land, we’ll still be living in Boston. Whoever wins will not be managing the entire city, their staff will. The direct impact of the person who’ll have the title will be minimal. How he interacts with his staff and how both interact and work with the citizens of Boston will determine how effective the mayor will be.

Someone who talks at me, not to me, does not sound like a team player. Someone who thinks it’s all about him, not about me and the other citizens of Boston, will fail. Someone who doesn’t realize it’s a good idea to ask someone with expertise in a field before diving in sounds like an egomaniac who will refuse to listen to outside ideas. That, to me, is not a mayor, it’s a dictator.

Twitter is Down: Denial of Service

Twitter joins 4chan, reddit, and the Gawker Media sites as the latest to fall victim to a Denial of Service attacks. What is going on lately with these DDoS attacks? A few weeks back, a large number of internet users experienced a web-wide slowdown due to a DDoS attack against some of the biggest U.S. sites, and since then it seems there’s been a new attack every few days against a huge site. With Twitter going down today, web geeks panicked as they had little recourse to send out messages about ___ being down.

As of 1 PM, Twitter is back up and functioning normally, but will they be attacked again? Who will be the next target? Is one group responsible for all these recent attacks or is there a copycat effect going on?

Facebook Struggles as Twitter Falls

Of course, the first place the majority of Twitter users would flock to would be Facebook. Unfortuanetly for them, Facebook too was having network issues today. As of 1 PM, I’m receiving errors at Facebook.

Facebook's Network Struggles

Die IE6, Die IE6, Die

CNN reports that the movement to kill off Internet Explorer 6 has been renewed with vigor. They’re not the first to break the story but are the biggest mainstream media outlet to report on it. Back in July a few major web companies begin announcing they are dropping full support for Internet Explorer 6. Mashable reported on the trend as well as listing a plethora of reasons why IE6 should be killed off and forgotten. Since then, the kill IE6 movement has been snowballing, reaching new heights today with the CNN article.

But, at the end of the day, most IE6 users are stuck in the antiquated browser because the corporation they work for has too many applications developed in-house that break outside of IE6. I don’t think anyone out there is willfully using IE6 because they think it rocks. Rather, they’re stuck using it.

Warning: Internet Explorer 6 is in your PC!

Still, going back to my corporate days I remember that it wasn’t exactly difficult to get Firefox running alongside IE6. Even Microsoft wants users to upgrade from IE6, but since it’s not easy to get fully working, fully supported versions of IE6 and IE8 running on the same desktop (I have such a setup for testing purposes, but it isn’t bug-free) we’ll likely continue to see corporate IT departments holding back the web by keeping IE6 on the corporate desktop.

I’m all for this movement, but it’ll take more than Youtube, Digg or Facebook not working properly to kill off IE6. It’ll take a truly huge site that corporate users must have access to, something like Google. Until then, web developers have three choices, ignore IE6 users, create a skeleton version of the site for IE6, or handicap their overall site by ensuring it works in all browsers by default.

Paying for Online News

Last but not least, Rupert Murdoch announced that he’ll be switching all News Corp. web-sites over to a paid format. The key quote from the announcement:

“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,”

Does that mean the Fox News web-site will remain free?

Seriously, paying for news isn’t a terrible thing. It’s unlikely to work, but if the quality is truly there, meaning news is reported pro-actively instead of re-actively, and has investigation behind it and doesn’t simply regurgitate press releases, then people will pay. How many is the real question.

Thanks to the Rich Man for the photo of the four horses.

That means all your columns from your home computer will also appear on your iPhone. The syncing is done in the background to reduce the processing strain.

Growl Notifications

Upon opening up Tweetdeck, you’re greeted with a few notifications in the top left of the screen, showing you the tally of latest tweets.

Welcome Screen for TweetDeck iPhone

You can access this tally via the updates menu at anytime in the bottom left corner.

Updates menu in Tweetdeck

Columns

You can switch columns via the left and right arrows in the top left and bottom right corners (respectively).

Switch columns from within a column.

Column view lets you flip through columns similar to flipping through windows in Safari.

Use column view to switch columns.

You can add a new column in the iPhone app and sync it to the cloud server to have the same column on your desktop. Create a user group, search, all friends, mentions, or direct messages column.

Add new columns and sync with the cloud

Settings

Both versions of Tweetdeck now come with full support for multiple accounts. It’s a very welcome feature and is implemented via adding more columns. Tweetdeck now supports unlimited columns, allowing you to add tons of accounts and scroll or flick through them.

Multiple accounts!

There’s a few cool general settings in the iPhone app. Settings include auto-correct, growl, choice of twitpic or yfrog, show real names, and option to shake to refresh the screen.

Tweetdeck general settings

Quick Follow

At the bottom of the Tweetdeck screen, there’s a row of icons. They include updates, refresh, add column, settings, and more. The more button pops up a screen with two options, sync columns and quick follow. Clicking sync will check the cloud for updates and allow you to then sync your columns.

Quick follow pops up a screen allowing you to type in someone’s Twitter handle and follow them with a quick click.

Quick Follow (handy for tweetups)

Tweeting and Bios

Creating a new tweet takes you to a relatively standard window allowing you to type up your tweet. There’s options to shorten a link, upload a photo, and update your profile location. You can also send out a map link to your current location. Cool tool for sending out directions.

Update bio location and add a map link (works on non-GPS too)

You can also look at individual tweets, which gives you options to reply, retweet, send a DM, favorite it or email the tweet.

The individual tweet window

From the individual tweet screen, you can also check out the user’s bio. Mostly standard stuff, but if you scroll to the bottom there’s an option to block/unblock the user and add them to a group.

The bio page, add to groups, follow, @, DM, or block

So far, I’m really digging the new Tweetdeck application for the iPhone. Up until today, I’ve been a staunch user of Tweetie and didn’t even bother looking for anything else. Tweetdeck has crashed a few times on my iPhone, but that’s to be expected for a first release (which is also free).

It might be due to my original (non 3G) iPhone or a few bugs they need to work out. But it’s happened rarely enough to not be a huge detriment so far. Aside from the couple of crashes, I love everything about this app. It’s a really intuitive interface for the iPhone and the columns translate really well to the smaller touch screen.

Read more about the new Tweetdeck desktop and iPhone applications on their blog. If you’re all set and ready to try out the update and new app, install Tweetdeck for the iPhone or Tweetdeck for the desktop.

Have given the new Tweetdecks a try? What do you think?

Tweetups are basically events that are organized and attended by Twitter users [Twitter + Meetup = Tweetup]. As you might suspect, there’s a healthy amount of Bostonians on the micro-blogging platform so Boston tweetups are usually well attended and are a great way to meet awesome people in your industry.

Rooftop Tweetup

@Sarah Merion organized a rooftop tweetup for tomorrow, June 4th at the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill (hashtag is #roofup). The roofup runs from 6PM to 10PM but there will be a lot of people attending this one so try to get there early!

The roofup is also co-hosted by @BostonTweet [aka Tom O'Keefe] and @URWingman [aka Thomas Edwards].

The Rattlesnake Bar and Grill is located at:

384 Boylston Street
Boston, 02116

Here’s a few great reasons to attend:

1. Good People
2. Yummy drinks
3. You get to hang out on a roof
4. You might win a Johnny Cupcakes t-shirt
5. You might win an Annie Mulz t-shirt
6. You’ll get to eat some Kickass Cupcakes
7. You might win a RUNmyERRAND.com giftcard

Sounds like a blast, @AdamPieniazek will be there for sure! Join me and a ton of other great Bostonians by registering for the roofup at eventbrite.

Tweetnetworking

Mark J Carter, founder of Tweetnetworking, organized the Tweetnetworking event, a tweetup for Boston social media users and those interested in learning about social media. The event is being held June 9th at the Red Sky Restaurant & Lounge from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

The Red Sky is located at:

16-18 North Street
(Near Faneuil Hall Marketplace)
Boston, MA 02109

Networking for a Cause

Mr. Carter also organized Networking for a Cause Boston, an event where non-profits meet with professionals who are willing to help non-profits out for free. It’s a great event that connects skilled indiviuduals with non-profits who need help in web design, social media, marketing, computer programming, and other skilled professions. The event is part of the Networking for a Cause organization.

NFAC Boston is also being held at the Red Sky Restaurant & Lounge on June 11th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

The 42nd Estate will be giving away a four hour social media consulting package at the event to one lucky non-profit. The package will include a review of the organization’s current web-site and social media campaigns and include advice on how to improve their outreach efforts and streamline their marketing tasks. If you’re not a non-profit, check out our unrelated concert where we’re giving away three free hours of blog/social media consulting.

The tweetup event will also feature a social media audit giveaway from John Haydon. 4 copies of the book “Saving The World At Work” by Tim Sanders will also be given away at the event.

I’ll be attending all three events and hope to see you there! If you know of any other Boston tweetups happening in the next two weeks, let us know via the comments below.

Down for scheduled maintenance, eh? Would’ve been nice if they just went ahead and took it down yesterday, according to schedule rather than randomly but alas, such is life when fail whales dominate the day.

supporting Skynet by linking Facebook and Twitter.

Having earlier taken the “Could you survive a Zombie Invasion?” quiz, I knew we would be safe from zombies as I am apparently all that is man when it comes to destroying zombies. Skynet, however, worries me greatly. Thus, my comment in response to the Skynet connection was:

Lucky for us the zombies will come before Skynet. We’ve got a chance against zombies, Skynet will p0wn the heck out of us.

Oh no! It's already here!

To which his amazing comment was:

Vin Diesel + Zombies = Vin Diesel …. Vin Diesel + Skynet = Skynet …. I see what you are getting at….

Which brings us to the The Vin Diesel Formula for Whether You Should Proceed with Potentially Dangerous Technology, which is basically:

Vin Diesel + ___insert potentially dangerous technology____ = x

Where if x = Vin Diesel, you may proceed with the potentially dangerous technology (you hear that UMass BioMedical center directly across from the cemetery in Jamaica Plain? – keep doing what you do).

However, if x = potentially dangerous technology, immediately stop, halt, do not proceed further.

Thanks to @nmarsceill for the The Vin Diesel Formula for Whether You Should Proceed with Potentially Dangerous Technology. [Follow me on Twitter, so we can strategize during the zombie/Skynet/Cylon attack(s)].

Photo of Skynet by Ben Patio.