BillBlevins.com :: Mostly about 2.4mR sailing

Management superpowers

Sean Michael Kerner writes about Mike Shaver, co-founder of the Mozilla project, who recently presented on the topic of how people contribute to open source projects.

Here are two quotes that could be broadly applied to management in general:

To an employee (sic): “Think about what is the thing that you do best. Whatever it is, that’s your X factor, your superpower. Think about how you can you use that.”

On being the manager: “I help people match those things up. That’s my call to action.”

Tags: management

Election day help on ‘Earth’

The Google Earth folks have been preparing for Election day, Nov. 7, by gathering information on every candidate running for office from all 436 congressional districts. If your addicted to “Earth” like me, then you can find the “2006 US Election Guide” folder in the ‘Layers’ sidebar.

Tags: google

Get Social Around Video

This week, Bambi Francisco wrote a wealth of information about vendors and sites working in the online video space. She interviews tool providers for connecting video users too. You have to jump back and forth between her MarketWatch column and her personal blog to put the pieces together. I’m not being critical, I realize that posting to the one probably pays more than the other! In the Marketwatch piece she states the takeaway nicely at the end of the article: “The online world is just waiting to get social around video.”

Tags: social, videoblog

RAS heads to Denver in December

My friend Tim Rasmussen has just announced that after spending four years heading up the photography staff at the South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, he will be heading to Denver. Starting in December, he will lead the photography and visual efforts as the AME of photography for the Denver Post. Tim is a great journalist. It won’t take Denver long to appreciate that! I know he will be happy to be out in the ‘Wild West’ again and I wish him and his family all the best.

Tags: friends, newspapers

Dow Jones sells 6 papers to CNHI

Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. (CNHI) is buying six newspapers from Dow Jones. Two of the papers are in New York, The Daily Star of Oneonta and the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh.

Those two are just over an hour drive from my house. Chris and Wendy, you better stop by and say hello when you come up this way!

Tags: cnhi, dow jones, newspapers

VideoBlog software for OS X

One morning in late 2003 I walked in to the newsroom at Fredericksburg.com and said, “We need to use this iSight. Do something fun.”

Brian Baer and Alex Russell recorded and posted “The Baer Facts” videoblog within hours. They continued on somewhat regularly and invited in guests to comment on sports, features and weather reports. Volunteers from the FUG community, (”FredTalk Users Group“) were regulars on the show.

“The Baer Facts” was recorded on most mornings through early 2005. Someone decided that it was too much work and killed the idea. Today, the only remaining evidence I can find are a few videos which include a few classic outtakes.

We hacked together freeware for the recording and taped scripts to the side of the monitor. Just this week I was reminded of that show when I was pointed to a video recording program that would have been perfect.

If you are contemplating a simple videoblog, check out VideoCue 2 from Vara Software. There are two versions and prices. One comes with a full-screen teleprompter.

I’m downloading a copy now. I’ll let you know how it goes. Next week I’m going to walk into my office and say, “We need to use this software for something”.

Tags: apple, coolapp, os x, software, videoblog