Mike's Daily Lockup

Foursquare, Gowalla, and You.....

It has been a while since I have written a post here on The MDLU. I can blame it on travels, work, lack of ideas, etc. But really I just miss the opportunity to break a few more keys on my keyboard.

With the increase of geo-location "check-in" apps, such as the originals Foursquare and Gowalla, seeing where people eat, drink, sleep, shop, and, even in some cases, where they live, is starting to become part of the back chatter of social media. A lot of us tried Foursquare before it went big, some of us tried Gowalla, and others then updated their Yelp apps so they could "check-in," we have become "Mayors," "Founders," "Leaders," and "Regulars." There have even been times where people have become territorial over losing their mayorship's and then the times where you run into someone just because they checked-in and decided to look up from their iPhone for a brief second. 

Some of us have earned the "10 coffee shop" pin, we're "Jet-setters," "Photogenic," "Jobs" (Apple fanatics), "Animal House," and "Players." But in most cases "Don't Stop Believing" that we're "Over sharing" to the "Socialites," "Gossip Girls," and "Douchebags" who rode "Ziggy's wagon" while "on a boat" to be "Brooklyn 4 life" while on a "School night." (Yeah, I had fun with that sentence...)

Right now these geo-location apps give the user a sense of control. The applications don't auto check-in as the user has to do so manually, but I'm sure with a few tweaks Android and iPhones could easily do this. But for now, thankfully, the user still has to start the app to check-in. Some users have established set rules for when they check-in while others check-in to every location they step foot in (or in the case of a recent tweet, where they "window shop.") While the user is policing his or her own level of information control, there are times where others just through caution to the wind.

When it comes down to the rules, there is one rule in which I have seen very few people observe: Do not use your home as a check-in spot. Using where you live as a location, in my opinion, is never a good idea. When I pull up Foursquare or Gowalla I can count at least five or six check in locations nearby. Another rule I have is to use discretion when you check-in: "Mike's Shag Pad" (ha ha, ya I know...funny) will never happen (even though I have been amazed what comes up when you check-in while near a college campus...). We sometimes don't need to know if you blazed a path of destruction in Las Vegas. But if you did, cheers! (Although keep it in Las Vegas).

So what led me to writing this post was the two things that occurred to me today: one, I lost a mayorship and two, a person said "hi" to me after a check-in. But in both of those activities I managed to make additional connections and to learn more about the people in my community. I’ve made friends based on check-ins. I've checked into places in Seattle and have connected with Soccer fans during the MLS Cup, I've checked in at places in Vancouver and made connections with fans during the Olympics, and I even managed to make connections at the local microbrewery (and learn some great beer making tips in the process).

While these apps allow us to make connections, we still have to extend a hand, raise a glass, or cheer on your team to make the final human connection.

 

Scarves Up L.A. (and even in The OC)

Last Friday I was able to snag a few tickets to the Western Conference Championship game between the LA Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo. Houston defeated my second favorite MLS team, the Seattle Sounders in the first round (I was hoping for a LA v. Seattle match up) and headed to Home Depot Center in an epic battle with the Galaxy.

Now for the record I'm not a die hard MLS fan, I'm more of a casual fan. I could tell you about a few players, name some of the teams, and even tell you some of the history of the Galaxy, but that's about it. My knowledge of Soccer is also rudimentary, but I know enough to stand for 90 minutes, when a player is offsides, when there should be a penalty kick, the game is more important then a beer run, and when the supporter section is rocking, dive in...so that's what I did on Friday. It also helps that I learned alot of this in the student section at a Soccer match in Salzburg, Austria.

I stood with the Angel City Brigade.

That's right, during the game we had two power outages. As David Beckham joked in the locker room afterward, us Americans were always trying to get four quarters in Football. The game also nearly caused me to have a nervous breakdown, see I bought tickets for the MLS Cup a half hour before the game not knowing if the Galaxy were going to make it or not. With it being Friday the 13th, I thought what the heck, roll the dice and let's see what happens. For all I know I could have been going to Seattle to see Chicago and Houston (Shudders...)

Stay tuned to the MDLU as I'll try my best to provide updates via twitter and qik of the MLS Cup live from Seattle.

Blogging from the road...

Howdy from above the 45th parallel.

Sometimes I do crazy trips for no reason, well maybe with some reasoning, but I always want some adventure.

I did learn one thing that Oregon has in common with New Jersey, you can't pump your own gas.

So if you're playing at home three states: California, Oregon, and Washington.

And the next time you do a drive, do it in a blinding rain storm the whole way. That's how you know you're alive.

Got to love adventure...

ComicCon 2009

It's Saturday at ComicCon...more later.

The MDLU West Coast Summer Ballpark Tour

It's Summer and being a fan of Baseball, I decided to go on a crazy last minute summer baseball tour of the ball parks of the West Coast. A few years ago, I visited almost all of the ballparks of the East Coast (Old Yankee Stadium, Shea, Camden Yards, and RFK for the Nationals).

So far the MDLU has made stops in San Diego, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Francisco. A future tour date is scheduled for Seattle. Oakland might be added to the list, but later in the season.

For those of you who want to see the sights and sounds of baseball in the summer, visit MDLU on TwitPic and Qik.

That is the end of another Anaheim Ducks Season....

Well, we made it this far. The Anaheim Ducks forced a game seven against the dreaded Red Wings, this was after eliminating the top seeded San Jose Sharks. Neither team was easy, but it was against the Red Wings where the Ducks showed their future strengths and their current weaknesses. While some can place the blame at the feet of the officiating crew, league officials, etc... it all comes down to the energy and tenacity of the the team that wanted it more. In this case, it wasn't the Anaheim Ducks.

 The team here that showed they really wanted it was the Red Wings. I hate to say it, but they were preventing the Ducks from setting up the zone, they did a good job blocking Hiller's view of incoming pucks, and they just dominated the checks along the boards (as well as a few cheap shots along the way).

So with the Ducks out of the playoffs, and the view of the possibility of a combination of either the Red Wings/Blackhawks v. the Hurricanes/Penguins, it looks like an interesting race to Lord Stanley's Cup.

 But if I have to make a prediction: Blackhawks v. Penguins (And don't expect a big West Coast TV Audience for that one).

Some of the sights and sounds of Playoff hockey here in Orange County:

LaidOffCamp Los Angeles

Today I jetted up and over to the westside of Los Angeles to LaidOffCamp. LaidOffCamp is an informal gathering of folks all in the same situation, and you can figure out the common element based on the title.

The topics covered how to leverage LinkedIn in a job search, how to update your resume, and marketing your "brand."

While this was out in LA, I have spoken to a few from Orange County.

PBS Newshour was also visiting and interviewing LaidOffCamp attendees.

Through the eye's of the MDLU: San Diego

Sorry for the lull here on The MDLU. While the blogging may have stopped for a while, those of you who follow the MDLU may have noticed that I was still going on twitter and also through Qik.

Lately I have been stepping away from my computer and relying more on my iPhone for my daily computing needs. With the right applications, you can do almost everything you can do with your laptop on an iPhone. With this extra time I decided to pick up and complete a few books that piqued my interest: Made to Stick and Wired for War. Both great books that are definitely from two very diverse areas of  Marketing and War (One could intertwine the two books based on some of the issues raised by both authors. In the case of Wired for War, you can learn the general issues that we will have with the growing use of robots in warfare through the TED conference webpage.

As for travels, I've been to San Diego twice in less then a month. The first was to see Japan take on Cuba in the World Baseball Classic at PetCo and then recently it was for the Crew Classic.

Here was my view from the beer tent in San Diego:

Closing out 2008: "Everything Must Go!"

With the end of the year soon upon us, the economy is in the toilet, everyone from Banks to Automotive companies are asking for bailouts, and American's are loosing their jobs at a record pace, it's time to look back at 2008 one more time.

This year has been an interesting one. It is the last year in the eight years of the Bush Administration (depending on your political leanings, one can look at that in one of two ways). Election 2008 lead to the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to be the President and Vice-President of the United States. For the first time since Clinton/Gore I finally picked the winner in a presidential race. (I'm going to forget about what happened to Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry.) We may soon be able to call Al Franken, "Senator Al Franken." Gee, that now sounds really funny, and it is not a joke. Now might be a good time for me to read Al Franken's book, the one that I have had sitting on my bookshelf since last year. As for the Obama/Biden presidency, I'm glad to see a guy like Biden as the VP, the man has been through so much in his life and his career in the senate that he deserves it.

The Holiday season has been tough on almost all Americans this year. Every week we read more and more about the bad economy. Some of our friends and family have become part of the unemployment statistics and companies are cutting back on benefits. Every time we as Americans go through a tough economic time in our lives we come back with a stronger economy, we need to innovate our way out of this economic muck, we need to do what we do best, invent, create, and build the technologies that will lift us out of our troubled times. We need employers to value education, we need them to stop outsourcing American jobs, we need to provide incentives to the American workforce. Only then will we climb out of the deep hole that we are in.

Just as we finish the presidential election, Californians will soon be preparing to return to the polls for statewide races. With the election in 2010 and the state party conventions just around the corner, names are being thrown about for Governor and Attorney General. In the Governor's race the names of Brown, Poizner, Newsome, and Feinstein are being tossed around. While in the Attorney General's race the names of Harris, Liu, and Kelly are starting to crop up. Harris, the San Francisco DA would be an interesting choice, but would she play well in Conservative areas and the relative newcomer of Kelly, the Cheif Privacy Officer for Facebook, might make this race interesting. Kelly could leverage his experience with the social networking site to build a social network for his campaign that might be similar to the one established for the Obama Campaign. And we all know what happened with Obama...just saying.

So I bid 2008 a fond farewell and don't let the door hit you on the way out. I've got Jan. 20, 2009 circled on my calender, I'm putting the peddle to the floor after the holidays, and I can't wait to see where life takes me in 2009.

So to all my readers: Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year from the MDLU!

Happy RickRoll Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008 from the MDLU!