Kerri A. Hicks

I spent much of today online in live conversations about social media. I’ll be doing two more webinars tomorrow. They’re important discussions to have, and I’m glad to be loading them all into a couple of days…then take some time to digest.

The hardest part has been the presentations themselves. Most of the folks leading these discussions have been involved in social media for six months or so. Maybe a year. Listening to that kind of a talk can kind of feel like watching your dad dance to rock and roll music.

Were you on Friendster? Orkut? Do you know what FriendFeed is? Have you squatted your username on Brightkite? Forget about Twitter and Facebook — I mean, don’t forget about them, they’re hugely important…but if you’ve not studied up on the past, and not looked in the niches (hey, tried TopHarbor?), this probably all looks bright and shiny to you. The original online social network was probably Usenet.

So, I just wanted to share a few things that I’m thinking about in this social networking space.

* The notion of monetizing social networks, or measuring their ROI, is like the notion of measuring ROI on telephones.

* Different social networks serve different functions, and have different audiences. LinkedIn is data driven. Who are you, where do you work, what do you do, how many TPS reports did you push out? Facebook is a publication — you and your life. Pictures of the kids alongside your latest contract win at work. A picture of you as a person, and a place to keep in touch with other people. Twitter is a conversation. It’s a way of establishing relationships with other people, doing customer service, enhancing customer relations, while allowing companies to show a human side, and humans to establish relationships.

* Protecting your Twitter updates is silly. Of course you protect your Facebook stuff — you don’t want strangers downloading pictures of your kids. But Twitter? The rule is, never say anything on the internet that you wouldn’t say to your mother, your kids, or your boss.

* Social media is a public utility without a monetary framework. It’s not the tools, it’s the people. It’s what you say and do in this public town square that enhances (or doesn’t) your brand, your name, your reputation.

With two more webinars tomorrow, I probably will have more to say about this tomorrow. Also, after sleep.

A few people have asked me recently what tools I use to do the web work I do. So I thought I’d do a rundown of the top apps that make me productive. In writing this, I have realized that I may, in fact, have the most boring jam-packed Dock in all of Mac-land.

BBEdit [text/code editor] (and not just for the obvious reasons) — When I first started using a Mac professionally, it was out of necessity. My Windows machine had blown a motherboard, and the only available loaner was an iMac (StudioDV, the smokey one). I was the only one in the office who was still using Windows, so my colleagues were more than happy to offer me help and advice on appropriate software. BBEdit is the reason I stuck with the Mac. Edit over FTP? Things like ‘Process Lines Containing’ and built-in Tidy and an instant live Preview…it works like I do. Light, powerful, and can clean/update/edit/create faster than anything else out there. I spend most of my day in BBEdit, and not just writing code…but jotting notes, lists, doing information architecture, etc.

LaunchBar [app launching tool] — Shortly after I got my first Mac, I installed LaunchBar. Since then, I’ve gotten quite a few new Macs (hmm…let’s see…at least eight or nine…) and the first thing I install is LaunchBar. I don’t know where any of my apps live. I don’t need to clear off my desktop or have them in the dock to launch them. (Also finds people in the Address Book.) Command-space and the first letter or two, enter. It’s in my muscle memory. Saves me many minutes every day.

Fugu [SFTP client] — Free, BSD-licensed, academic. It’s simple, clean, and always seems to work. Can’t ask for more than that from a client like that.

Fetch [FTP client] — Free academic license (thanks Jim!), and for the one server I have to log into with FTP, it works a treat. Fast, and cute puppy.

xScope [visual design support] — I tried xScope on a whim when it first came out, and I have saved insane amounts of time since. It allows you to measure web-page objects, among other things. So, I have a photo that I want to replace…rather than viewing the image and getting info, or opening it in Photoshop (neither of which necessarily gives you the right info, as the image could be scaled in the CSS or HTML), you just hover over the image, and the pixel dimensions show up. I highly endorse this product and/or service.

LiveScribe Desktop [digital notebook] — This software is the interface between my Mac and my LiveScribe pen. Being able to open that up, type in someone’s name, and find all the meeting notes for all the meetings I’ve ever been in with that person is quite handy.

Yojimbo [information aggregator] — I like junk drawers. I can always find what I need in my junk drawer. Same is true with Yojimbo. I keep all my serial numbers, passwords, and receipts from stuff bought on line in here.

FileMagnet [iPod/iPhone sync] — Some info is important enough that I want to have it with me all the time, but I don’t want it in the cloud. It’s primarily stuff I export from Yojimbo, and then transfer with FileMagnet. Works great. (I posted some details of the Yojimbo/FileMagnet workflow on the Yojimbo talk list.)

Photoshop [image editor] — If BBEdit is my right hand, Photoshop is my left. I don’t LOVE it, but working on the web without it would be like trying to slice bread without a knife. There are tools that are lighter and sleeker and cooler and written in Cocoa, but there’s nothing that comes close to the brute-force power that Photoshop has. Period.

Camino [web browser] — Sure, I use Safari and Firefox, too, and the Web Developer Toolbar is crucial for some tasks. But for some reason, I enjoy browsing in Camino better. It’s faster than either. And even though it has that bug where it doesn’t know how to display buttons properly, I still find it to be the best choice for me. Of course, choosing a browser is like choosing a flavor of chocolate.

VMWare Fusion [Windows virtualization] — I have to test everything on IE. Because people still USE IE you see.

SLife [time tracker] — Gives me a broad view of which apps I spend the most time in, and vaguely what I was doing. It’s kinda neat.

UPDATE: In the two years since I originally posted this, my palette looks remarkably the same. I sidelined FileMagnet for Dropbox, and SLife got too depressing — not the application itself, but what it showed me. Too much time on overhead…sigh. My browser of choice is Chrome these days, although I still have to use ‘em all for testing. And Twitter.

Tomorrow is my last day in the office. I’ve been at Brown for twelve years — twelve *and a half*, if you want to be precise about it. It is the third proper job since college, and by far the longest. I’ve had at least five different titles, and no fewer than eleven offices. On balance, I’ve liked each one. Even the cubicle with no windows in the center of a basement of a concrete bunker was all right, because I had some really smart, cool people in that bunker with me.

It will be sad to leave, I think. But it really hasn’t hit me. The notion that tomorrow is my last day is completely foreign. I will drive to the office, park, walk up the street about a half mile (or maybe take the shuttle), card my way in, and waltz into my lovely corner office — a space with three windows and my purple leafy curtains. The desk is still cluttered with papers, wires, and who knows what. There are still a couple of bags that I never unpacked from the last move a year and a half ago. Bookshelves are full, and my shrinkwrapped MacWrite 1.0 and MacPaint 1.0 are still on the top shelf.

I’ll sit down at my desk, and realize that there are still things that have to get done on at least one of my pressing projects (in fact, I just this moment, 9pm, got ANOTHER email from a professor who has ‘one last thing’). I’ll probably read email, check Twitter or news, and try not to get sucked in for more than five or ten minutes. If I can finish the work that I need to get done by noon, I can start packing. Three hours should be enough, I hope…because that’s when the party starts. We’re expecting about forty people in our conference room, and frankly, I hope it’s packed to the gills. There’ll be beer…in fact, all I asked for was beer and cupcakes. Even regular cake would be fine. But I think that’s a fitting sendoff. No pretentious hors d’oeuvres, no fancy speeches. Just some of the people who have made the last twelve years great for me (and some who’ve made it a challenge, but still) hanging out, having a beer on a Friday afternoon. I can’t think of anything better.

What is going to be weird, though, is Monday morning. I don’t have to rush to work. I have to…er…well, I have a meeting at the Benefits office at my new job (which doesn’t start until the 23rd) at 10. Then I have to…er…the house is pretty clean. So is the car. There’s really no gardening to do, and it’s going to rain anyway. Hmm.

Maybe I’ll schedule a massage.

I hoped that writing this would make it more real, but it doesn’t. I know I will always be welcome at Brown, and I know that many of the friendships I’ve made there will last forever. But I also know that of the forty people at that party, I’ll likely never speak to or set eyes on at least half of them ever again. It’s comforting to realize that for the rest, when we do touch base, it’s likely to feel as though no time has passed at all, and we pick up right where we left off.

And I’ll make new friends, tackle new projects, drive less, and maybe relax more. I’ll have to navigate the scary waters of bureaucracy that I haven’t had to swim in for more than a decade…but I think I can do it. I like to smile, and people like smiles.

Tomorrow I’ll smile. I don’t know if I’ll cry. Probably not. If I don’t, maybe it’ll be because I’m older now. It’s work. It’s less emotional. It’s not baby seals and starving children, it’s just a job. Or it’ll be because it’s just not real. Either way, though, I think there’ll be cupcakes.