iSawToday – The Coolest Thing I Saw Today on the Web

While some of you might think my lack of writing is due to mourning the demise of LOST, it’s not.  It’s been a busy summer transitioning to a new role as the COO of an online sports game company and landing some big, new deals for RecipeBridge.

Aside from that mtn. biking, lots of tennis, and sailing on Lake Michigan consume most of my time.  One of my good friends sent me a link that was just too awesome not to write about so here I am.

Snow.com has created not only one of the most beautiful homepages I’ve seen recently but one that displays a video detailing how social, mobile, and web technologies can be combined to do something just flat-out awesome.

1. Identify a niche that has existing, natural community and apply technologies to compliment (not replace) typical mountain communication.  Have you ever been on the mountain and wondered where everyone else was?

2. Engage those a degree away from the primary community, lodgers, parents, and children. Businesses including mine, have so much going on we can barely engage one community let alone reach secondary networks.  This video shows how well-thought-out technology can make this a snap.  This video shows not only the skiers and boarders engaged but friends back in the lodge can locate and communicate with friends.  Parents can monitor their children on a dedicated children’s version of the site and on and on.

Check it out:

http://www.snow.com/epicmix/home.aspx

Popularity: 7% [?]

The morning news informed me that Wisconsin is to be the recipient of $810 million dollars in federal grant money for the construction of a high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison, WI.

Now I love trains, in fact my parents attic is piled high with HO scale model railroad gear form my younger days.   Trains that I plan to recover and enjoy with my children some day but I can’t help wonder why we would put in a high-speed train without asking the people first?  Even the Simpson called a town hall meeting  and held a vote. If Doyle is any sort of governor he should be able to sing and dance us into submission in no time!

Why not hold a contest in which engineering firms and designers from WI propose ways to spend the money? Thereby encouraging innovation and creating blue-collar jobs.  The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 used that approach and out of it came the Ferris Wheel, Moving Walkways, and numerous other innovations.

Oh and if you wonder how the Simpson’s monorail story goes, hop on over to Shelbyville and ask.

Cheers!

Popularity: 9% [?]

*Shameless Plug Warning*

2 weeks ago I was asked to speak to 30 small business owners as part of an alumni event at the local college. Although everyone thought they were coming to hear about social media I felt some reality would be more beneficial than the typical SM hype so often pitched these days. I reviewed each attendees online presence and decided to give them a GTD approach for things they could do to bolster their online presence.   Here is my presentation:

If you’re interested in learning more or would like to have me present to your group?  I always require a minimum fore-knowledge of the attendees so that I can adjust the GTD to-do’s appropriately for the group.

Feel free to email me via linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/theimer

Testimonial:

“We invited Andy Theimer to speak at our Business to Business Networking Night on the topic of social media marketing, and we could not have been more pleased with his presentation.  Andy presented to a group of about 30 alumni on the topic, “Getting Things Done with Social Media,” and it was clear from his presentation that he had done research into the attendees, their websites and their businesses and incorporated an attentiveness to their specific situations into his presentation.  His presentation was energetic, clear and well-organized, and not only were attendees taking notes during the presentation, but they also asked lots of questions afterwards and kept Andy answering questions well past his presentation, and even the end time of the event! Thank you for recommending him to us.”

Popularity: 12% [?]