L&S Unscripted

A very intersesting survey about how people’s habits have changed while the Olympics are on.  Are you changing your household routines to tune in? I’ll use any excuse not to do the laundry…too bad the Olympics are only on for two weeks, every two years. And men are admitting to tearing up!?

Updated Winter Olympic Results:
Based on the first 13 nights of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games (through Wednesday, Feb. 24), NBC is estimating a total tune-in to-date of 177 million viewers on the networks of NBC Universal. Average viewership is 24.9 million — 20 percent above the 20.7 million for the comparable period in Turino in 2006.

According to NBC Sports:

-46 percent of Olympic viewers changed their typical routine to watch the Olympics.
-34 percent delayed doing laundry or other household chores — including paying bills — in order to watch the Olympics.
-59 percent said they didn’t watch some of their “regular shows” in order to watch the Olympics.
-35 percent of viewers cried or became teary-eyed while watching (25 percent among men).
-66 percent of viewers cheered aloud while watching the Olympics.
-63 percent stayed up longer than usual to watch, resulting in 42 percent being “more tired than normal.”
-42 percent of viewers said the Olympic sport they would most like to try is bobsled.

BTW…I’d love to try the Alpine Downhill Skiing. What Olympic sport would you like most to try?

One of my favorite courses in the Computer Science program at DSU was titled “Programming Languages”. As the title suggests, this class was devoted to learning about not just different programming languages but the differences between programming languages. The class was just a semester long, and it only covered a basic overview of what there is to know about programming languages. (For more on programming languages, visit your local library.)

Knowing that there are multiple programming languages (I just told you so, remember?), one reasonably wonders, “Why not just one programming language?” My brother wondered the very same thing in an email to me, which inspired this post. As children often do, his question revealed to me a greater query that I hadn’t stopped to think about before: why NOT just one programming language? (The joke here is that my brother is in his mid-twenties.)

One reason why there isn’t just one computer language is that there isn’t just one type of computer; there are thousands of different types of computers. Computers all speak a language called “machine language“. This, essentially, is the 1s and 0s of binary. Jotting down 1s and 0s would be a terribly ineffective way of communicating with a computer, so programming languages were devised.

The different programming languages came to solve different problems. The C language, for instance, was created as a systems language. It’s goal, as a language, was to build servers and operating systems. Prolog, on the other hand, is a logic language, designed for use in artificial intelligence. SQL makes it easy to manage data in a database management system. None of these languages are useful for creating webpages easily. That’s why we have Ruby, Java, PHP, ASP.Net, and CFML (ColdFusion).

Sometimes, a programmer will like the concepts of one language, but they’ll want the syntax of another. So, they create a new language. Some languages only exist as proof that a concept is possible. Some languages are specific to the platform for which they are written. For instance, a mobile phone might have it’s own simple operating system with a special programming language used to write the cell phone’s applications, or a social networking site might develop a language in their API for developers to use to get data from that social networking site.

Perhaps an analogy is in order. Programming languages are like tools. When you’re trying to hang a painting, a hammer is better for driving a nail than a mallet. A mallet will do the job, but that’s not quite what it’s supposed to be used for. And, most importantly, you couldn’t do everything you needed to do with just a hammer. You could do a lot, and get close to almost all of it, but in the end it’s nice to have other tools in the box.

Another analogy is out of order, but I’m just that crazy. Programming languages are not like natural languages. People hear PHP, Ruby and ColdFusion, and they think of German, French, and English. RESIST THAT URGE. Programming languages are not at all equivalent to natural languages. The main reason for this is that natural languages sprang up from a human need to express the scope of intellectual thought and the breadth of expression capable in their speakers; computer languages just make computers do stuff and junk.

Using the programming language criteria above, are a French-speaking person and an English-speaking person so fundamentally different that they require different languages? Of course not. A French-speaking person is just as capable of learning English as an English-speaking person. Similarly, French doesn’t solve any problem that English can’t solve. You might be inclined to say that French poetry is much easier on the ears, or that English is a much better business language, but these aren’t properties of the language per se. English might be considered a better business tool because of its wide adoption, and French… well, I guess it IS easier on the ears, but that’s not the reason French was created.

At L&S, I usually find myself playing in ColdFusion (CFML), HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but I’ve also played with PHP, Java, Python, and Classic ASP. On a recent project, I found myself using ASP.Net and C# for one half and CFML for the second half. In my personal time, I’ve played with Rubyand Google’s Go, among others. I’m not listing this all out to impress you, but let’s be honest; some of you are really impressed. I’m listing these languages to show just how varied the Internet landscape is right now. In fact, looking at this list, I think my list of languages might be light for a web programmer these days. No Perl? No Clojure? No Scala? No Processing?

As servers get better at deploying (and virtualizing) the ability to utilize these languages in an integrated environment, web developers are getting more interested in picking the right tool for the job. Better server performance means giving developers more tools to play with and utilize. That, in turn, means faster, more efficient websites and, regrettably, a whole lot of developer ego.

Those guys can get pretty insufferable. Trust me.

If you are a small restaurant, hotelier or attraction in the tourism industry, it may be overwhelming to jump into the social media game. I recently presented a step-by-step roadmap on how to get your social media program off the ground at the South Dakota Governor’s Conference on Tourism, and wanted to share those tips here.

So what is social media and how does it relate to travel planning? Well, it’s many of the things you already do to promote your business or attraction: you talk, you relate, you share, you collaborate, you advise and you comment. Social media is simply word of mouth, gone digital. People already believe what others are saying about your business. Your job is to get people talking and build a network of brand evangelists in the online space.  Here’s how:

Social Media Travel Tip #1: In a digital sense, tell people who you are and where to find you. Maps are at the core of many online applications; therefore, sharing your basic contact information is critical.

• Customers are searching for you on Google – make sure they can find you. Visit www.Google.com/LocalBusinessCenter to add or check accuracy of your local business listing (this gets you on Google Maps as well). Be sure that your listing includes your physical address, phone number and hours of operation. Take your listing one step further by adding photos, videos or coupons. All of this is FREE.
• TripAdvisor is the most-visited digital travel advisor. Make sure you exist by searching at http://www.tripadvisor.com/UserReview. If not, add yourself by clicking on the “Tell us more about it” link. Then, encourage your customers to add reviews of your business/service.

Social Media Travel Tip #2: Monitoring should be the cornerstone of your social media plan. Track your brand and know who’s talking about you online through blogs, reviews, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Visit www.Google.com/Alerts and you’ll find an easy web form to create your Google Alerts. Tell Google what terms you’d like to monitor (your business name, for sure), how often you’d like to receive the alert listing and what e-mail address to deliver the information to. Again, FREE.
• www.Addictomatic.com is an awesome tool to aggregate all social media activity about your company or industry. Type in your business to see what you find!
• There are many other free social media monitoring tools available, including www.Technorati.com/search, www.Search.Twitter.com, www.Tweetdeck.com, www.Facebook.com live feeds and more.

Social Media Travel Tip #3: Get people talking. Encourage your customers to post reviews on TripAdvisor or other social media review sites.

• A great success story of how The Hotel Giraffe, The Library Hotel, The Casablanca Hotel, and The Hotel Elysee gained the highly sought-after top five ranks among all New York City hotels on TripAdvisor: http://www.ftnnews.com/content/view/8345/26/

Social Media Travel Tip #4: Join Facebook. It’s a must – There are more than 350 million active users and today, Facebook hit a new milestone of 100 million mobile users. 50% of these active users log on to Facebook every day. Some things to keep in mind:

• Create your personal account. Facebook accounts are for people, not businesses, so the first thing you need to do is set up your personal account. Next, set up a fan page for your business. Under the facebook logo in the upper left corner, click on “Ads and Pages”, then click “Create Page”.
• Invite your Facebook friends to become fans and encourage them to invite their friends. This is how something “goes viral”.
• Name your fan page something that people would search for. Do not abbreviate. For example, if you are the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Bureau, you would not want to name your page LV CVB, rather something people would actually enter into the search field – Las Vegas, Nevada. This will make it easy for people to find you.
• On your fan page, develop engaging content including posts, photos and videos.
• Be active and responsive, but not annoying. Offer special values to your fans. Remember that you are representing your business, but have fun!

Social Media Travel Tip #5: Focus on mobile. People will continue to use their mobile phones for travel planning, including flights, lodging, dining and activities; therefore, think about the mobile applications for your industry segment:

• Hotels – Lodging.mobi, Travelta.mobi – these applications are changing every day, search for lodging options in your town from a mobile device and if you don’t show up, work with these providers on your options.
• Dining – Urbanspoon or Yelp are two leading mobile restaurant finders. Also, consider restaurant reservation sites like OpenTable.
• People will search for travel options from the medium that’s most convenient for them, so if they’re searching from their mobile device and you’re not there it’s a missed opportunity.

The key to success: Don’t be pushy. Engage and interact, but don’t sell to your network and don’t market to your network. Just build relationships with your customers and the rest will take care of itself. Let people get to know your employees, share behind-the-scenes secrets, share fun pictures in an effort to let people be a part of your world.

As a precursor to formally announcing his candidacy for Mayor of Sioux Falls on February 1^st, Pat Costello, with the help of Lawrence & Schiller, launched his new website on January 15, 2010. Encompassing Costello’s overall position, (the future is now) the website takes a comprehensive look at Costello’s family life, professional and political experience and vision for Sioux Falls, focusing on five platforms: A Safe Sioux Falls; City Finances; City Relationships; Commerce and Entertainment; and Communication. The site also includes a photo gallery, voter information, and a contribution page. With email signup, a constant social media feed and the ability to submit questions or concerns to Costello himself, the site is interactive and user-friendly.

 Check out the site at www.costelloformayor.com

 The 2010 municipal election for Sioux Falls Mayor will be held Tuesday, April 13, 2010