Jill and Eric Penne

You cling to your past and create your own little world that you protect at all costs. You don’t notice the others around you doing the same. Everybody doing this creates some protection. You also don’t notice that the others are missing and you are alone, just the next to be taken. It could’ve been dela…yed or prevented if you worked with the others – ANY of them but its too late now. Your past prevented your future.
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Hallmark’s Shoebox Greetings has a blog. This week, the blog published a delightful cartoon on the subject of Christmas creep.

It’s particularly ironic coming from Hallmark, a company that debuts its Christmas ornament collection around the time that school lets out for the summer.

If this came out as an actual Christmas card, I would purchase it to send to carefully selected friends and family.

Chuck & Beans [Shoebox Blog] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)

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Yes, that’s a full-sized bicycle in there.

Innovations in folding bikes have helped urban cyclists cram their vehicles into tiny apartments for years now–and the designs keep getting better and better, and smaller and smaller. And this new folding bike concept by Victor Aleman may take the cake–as you may or may not be able to tell, even the wheels fold up on this b…Read the full story on TreeHugger

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The fourth annual Dirty Duathlon is coming up fast — Saturday, Oct. 24! If you don’t have this race on your calendar, pin it now. Online registration will be up shortly.

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Interesting article about the “Right-to-repair bill”….

The federal “cash for clunkers” program succeeded in bringing customers back to new car lots after a long absence, but most people are still driving the car they had. Increasingly they are driving to their local mechanics to make sure those cars last even longer.

That is good news for the independent automotive repair industry because car owners are now willing to spend their money on repair work rather than take on new car payments, and they are saving on those repairs at independent shops.

But while consumers appear content to keep their older cars on the road, they are increasingly discovering that their car’s computerized systems may be conspiring to force them to turn to more expensive dealer repair shops even when those cars are out of warranty.

Most consumers experience this when they see a ‘check engine’ light or another warning that suddenly appears on their dashboard. When they bring it into independent (non-dealer) shops like ours, they simply want the underlying problem fixed so that pesky light goes off.

Sometimes, however, we can’t shut off that light even when we can make the underlying repair.

Most legislation on Beacon Hill is controversial and ultimately difficult to decipher, but Right to Repair is straightforward: You own your car and you should have the right to choose where it gets repaired and not be forced back to dealer mechanics.

House Bill 228 and Senate Bill 124 are controversial only because car manufacturers don’t want car owners to have unfettered access to their own repair information and are fighting it vigorously. That alone should flash a warning light for legislators and consumers that might read: Check Manufacturer’s Motives Now.

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Digg this!
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Inter-organizational synergistic cooperation

Groups in Linn County area that deal with bicyclists:

LAMBA – Linn Area Mountain Bike Association
LCTA – Linn County Trails Association
CR BAC – Cedar Rapids Bicycle Advisory Committee
CR CMTP SC – Cedar Rapids Comprehensive Trails Master Plan Steering Committee
ICORR – Iowa Coalition of Off-Road Riders
RCCC – Rockwell Collins Commuter Club
HBA – Hawkeye Bicycle Association
CRBMX – Cedar Rapids BMX

What a cluster$%^& of information. Everybody doing their own thing trying to build an internet presence and nobody getting it right. Hard to follow website, poor email list, broken forum, exclusive membership, lack of way to deliver information, etc. are all bringing us to mediocrity.

I personally believe that our LAMBA forum is our most valuable asset on the internet. LCTA has a wiki (think Wikipedia) that can turn into a very powerful way to store “domain” knowledge. LCTA and LAMBA both have Google Calendars that are underused. CR BAC and LAMBA using Facebook is a good start. When I do the LAMBA front end website, I believe it will be the best one for disseminating time critical information in the area. CITA’s website is a good start but doesn’t include all the information I like. QC FORC has a lot more information and is closer to my desires.

The only collaboration I’ve seen between these groups so far is that ICORR has a Forum for Sugarbottom in the LAMBA forum. I know people can talk and coordinate some things between the groups, the websites show a lot of disjointed attempts. A lot of the websites are set up by people that don’t know about how the web organizes and transfers information. It can be confusing to learn how to “push” the information to people instead of having them “pull” the information and have that information be dynamically updated. This is similar to leaving somebody a voicemail message with useful information that ends with “you don’t need to call me back”.

A lot of this seems to boil down to developing “guidelines” and “howtos” but not “rules”. You should never force your “rules” on other people or they will just join a different group or you will lose them altogether.

Here is an example of things you need to run a “group” or “internet community”.
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Website

• Blog format is useful to convey up to date information. This format also makes it easy to modify the front page content without a degree in Computer Science.
• RSS Feed from front page website so people don’t have to go to your website to see the latest information. It will be aggregated in their chosen software so they can just get to the stuff they are interested in.
• List of upcoming activities on front page. This makes it easy for new visitors to the site to see what is coming up quickly.

Calendar

• Using a dynamic calendar on the internet that has an iCal or ICS link. This allows people to “subscribe” to your calendar in their chosen software and compare your calendar to their personal calendar. If you change your calendar, their subscription will also change (eg. race rained out so it moved 1 week).
• The dynamic calendar makes the updates to the front page calendar easy, automatic, and consistent with just one change.
• The dynamic calendar also makes it easier for “Local Event” coordinators to include your activities in paper published event calendars.

Forum

• The forum is your “community” of users. It doesn’t fit everybodies style because they don’t like to go to a website to see what is happening. Sometimes the best laid out forums can be confusing to even experienced internet people.
• The forum also needs an RSS feed.

Email list

• The email list is another “community” of users. Some people don’t like it and prefer the forums but it is the original “push” technology that puts information in peoples hands without having to hit multiple websites.
• Using an email “list server” usually allows for easy subscribing and unsubscribing by the people themselves and doesn’t require lots of moderator intervention to maintain.
• The “list server” also can provide a web interface for viewing emails sent to the list and archival messages.

Wiki

• This portion is very powerful but only if people contribute their “domain” knowledge. Experts in the field are not required since anybody can start a topic and hopefully any ambiguous parts are cleaned up by somebody more knowledgeable on the subject.
• Wikis can also have RSS feeds so people can see any updated or new information that is posted to the wiki.

Phone number

• No matter what you do with all the internet enabled technology, not everyone is connected all the time.
• A phone number that people can easily write down and save in their cell phone is very useful.
• The message should be updated routinely (~3 days) to show it is maintained. If it never changes people will stop calling it.
• Voicemail on that number allows for issues (good or bad) to be transferred to the appropriate people.

Other forms

• IRC – real time chatting in the old school chat room format.
• Twitter/Status.net – talking to masses of people real time through their PC and text messaging.
• Facebook – very similar to blog posts on the front page.

  Twitter and Facebook allow stories and links to be posted automatically from the front page of your website. it reaches more people but doesn’t take more effort.

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I’m sure I’m missing some of the ways to connect with people but I do know that nobody around here is doing it correctly. I think at a minimum we should band together and use a common forum and wiki. Front page websites would all be independent and conform to whatever rules they want because there is a lot of identity that is transmitted in the front page.

FYI: These are things that help your business also. If you get these things right you can make a lot of information available without a lot of hassle. Don’t half a$$ it and don’t always take the advice of somebody that claims to be an expert.
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