Robert Stinnett

I'm a gadget geek, an automotive enthusiast, a Kmart kid and a marketer-to-be who is nuts about social media. "I'm a PC" and believe in living a life without walls. Technology can take you far, but your imagination and your desire to learn more about the world around you can take you even further. Never stop learning, never stop exploring and never stop asking questions -- life is to short to sit in front of the TV.

As some of you know, especially those I see in the “offline world”, I’ve been working to lose weight.  In fact, I’m down a little over 30lbs and feeling great.  I still have a long way to go, but I’m motivated to keep on taking it off.

As someone who struggled for years to lose weight I finally just one day found my motivation – being young!  At 35 years of age I just felt too old.  I wanted to go shirtless at the pool and listen to hip-hop artists such as Black Eyed Peas and feel good about myself.  So I just decided to get off my butt and do it.

People soon began to tell me I should chronicle my journey and help others find the motivation they need.  I thought about it and one night while looking at domain names came across one that just sounded “right” – JoinOn.In.  So I decided that I’d invite others to “Join on in!” and find the motivation they needed to achieve their fitness goals.  I figured that together we all could be the motivator for each other.

So I’ve started working on the site and even hired a professional graphic designer to help come up with the logo – which I’m proud to debut for you all.  It’s simple, but I really like it – and it sums up what the site is going to be all about in one simple statement, “Get Motivated!”

Of course, I decided that I was going to do this right – and the marketer in me just started to have more and more ideas.  At work they recently handed our wrist bands for our new ad campaign and I thought “these are way cool” so off I went and ordered 300 wrist bands to get the site started – freebies that I plan on handing out to help people stay motivated! 

Of course now the fun part begins – creating the content and other materials that will actually make up the site.  I’m planning on doing both written and video content, but I’m going to be leaning heavy on the video content.  Probably around 60% video, versus 40% written content.  The reason?  We are living in a connected world, and video tells a story that text can’t.  Besides, I can talk in front of a camera all day and night long – so I might as well put that talent to use.

If all goes well the site should launch around the 2nd week of July.  I’m taking things slow because I want to make sure the launch is something I can be proud of.  No need to rush, and I’m still working with the behind-the-scenes stuff anyway.

Hopefully, if nothing else, the site will be a way for me to connect with others who need motivation and really do want to live a healthier life.  Hopefully together we’ll be able to encourage one another and reach out and form support groups no matter how far apart in real life we really area.

Together we’re going to Get Motivated!  So come on, JoinOn.In!

Even with computers on every desktop (and kitchen counter) and smart phones that can do everything but make coffee (though I’m sure that is coming soon) there is still a need for the occasional call to 411.  In fact, I’ll be honest, I’m an addict when it comes to 411 service.  It’s so much easier to call 411 and get the info with a hands-free headset than to navigate on a tiny screen while driving down the road (and much safer!).

Now it should come as no surprise that the old Ma Bell telephone companies love to charge for this service – have you made a call to 411 on your landline (remember those?) lately?  If so, you know that you can get socked with an outrageous charge just to find a phone number.  So when Google launched their 411 service it was an instant hit with me.  Now I could use it anytime, anyplace without worrying about having to pay for it.

And so I did… and was happy with the service.. until Bing launched their 411 service.  Then I was no longer happy – I was addicted!

Bing continues to impress me – more relevant search results, and the ability to find what I am looking for within the first ten results.  That alone has made me a fan since day one.  Today I came across a Twitter post about Bing 411 and had to try it out.  I spent a good 15 minutes just playing around with it.  This was what 411 should be – this wasn’t basic 411 from the phone company or the business-only 411 Google offers.  This was 411+.

Weather, traffic – even cheap gas prices – all waiting for you to just ask for it.  My first lookup on Bing 411 was for Copeland’s Auto Service in Boonville, MO.  For some reason Google 411 has an awful time locating this business that has been around for over 10 years and it takes me at least 4-5 tries to get it to find it.  Not so with Bing!  The very first result was what I was looking for.  Woo hoo! 

Next I decided to have fun with the cheap gas locator.  Now, granted, its still in beta – but sure enough it worked!  I found a station near me in zip code 65201 that had gas for 3-cents a gallon cheaper than what I thought was the cheapest gas in town!  Woo hoo!

About 5 minutes later I had deleted Google 411 from my cell phone and replaced it with Bing 411.  Because, I’m telling you, this thing is just plain cool.  It’s like that Black Eyed Peas song “Boom Boom Pow” – Bing seems so 3008 and Google seems so 2000 and late.

Interested in trying Bing 411?  Just call 1-800-BING-411 and enjoy!

When I was a kid growing up in St. Louis I spent many a hot summer day at the Carpenter Branch Library of the St. Louis Public Libraries.  When you are a kid who loves to read, and your parents don’t have air conditioning, the library is a “cool” place in more ways than one!  It was back then when I discovered the power of the card catalog (which was computerized) versus the librarian.  Sure, the card catalog could return a ton of listings on my search query – but it was the librarian who could actually understand what I was trying to find and in what context and then guide me to the material that would be most beneficial to me.  It’s this same model that Microsoft is now using for their newly launched Bing.com search engine.

Bing bills itself as a decision engine and promises to free us from search overload.  I have to admit, I’ve been using it for two days now and so far Microsoft is living up to the promise.  I’m highly impressed at how Bing can focus in on determining what I am asking and trying to give me relevant results instead of just throwing everything in its database at me.

Case in point.  I’ve recently became a very active fitness buff (feel free to come follow my progress over on Nike+) and wanted to pick up a new pair of Nike Shox M1+ running shoes.  I had went to the mall after work and didn’t really see what I wanted, so though OK I would give Bing a try.  Not only did Bing find me the shoes at $20 less than I expected to pay, but it also found them locally at a store I had walked right past in the mall!  Now THAT is relevant results that I can use!

Ok.  So maybe Bing just got lucky.  Time to throw it some curve balls.  I live in a rather small town of about 10,000 in Missouri called Boonville.  Nice place, and a great river town.  We don’t have a whole bunch of restaurants, but we got enough to give us the variety we need – and they are all locally owned for the most part.  I asked Bing to show me the restaurants local to me.  I was impressed when the results came back with not only the restaurants, but pricing and reviews as well.  Cool!

Now of course there are always a few rough edges in any new products, so I have to admit that a few restaurants from nearby Columbia, MO (about 20 miles down the road) snuck in – but hey, to be fair, the same thing happens over on Google as well.

What Bing is doing, and I think doing rather well, is that it is just not throwing back a bunch of results like a typical search engine does and saying “have fun”.  It’s actually trying to narrow down your query and focus in on relevant results that fit the context of what you are searching for.  Just like the librarian at the library, Bing is trying to understand exactly what you are needing and not just throwing back the entire card catalog at you.

I’ve been a Google fan for years because even though it threw back all the results, it threw them back in a manner where at least in the first 20 or so I could find something that was relevant and then go from there.  Now with Bing I’m finding that I’m getting back relevant results on the first try which is really nice.

Has Microsoft finally found their footing in the search engine marketplace?  I think so, and I think in finding their footing they have also reinvented search and coined a new phrase which I predict will be around for a while to come – the decision engine.

Google, Yahoo, Ask and others – meet the new librarian.  It’s name is Bing.

Is it just me, or are blogs becoming yesterday’s news?  I realized today that it had been a month since I updated my blog here and thought about what to write to keep it fresh.  It dawned on me that perhaps what I was trying to do was fit my lifestyle to the tool instead of the tool helping me with my life.  Let me explain.

Blogs were great back in the days when pretty much all the content came from the “big companies”.  Blogs were a way for people to have their voice heard and to actually use the web interactively instead of just one-way.  It was no longer acceptable on the web to have a static web page in which you blasted out information about your product/company/etc and only update it once a year and have no way for the readers to interact with you and the content.  Blogs allowed us (and businesses) to update their sites non-stop and for discussions to be two-way.  They were the first step into the Web 2.0 world.

Today, blogs are just a pain to maintain – at least from my perspective.  It’s so much easier for me to Tweet my current thoughts via Twitter in 160 characters or less, or to update my Facebook status (and even then I’m wondering is Facebook is getting to be a little 2000 and late).  In a nutshell, I find that Twitter is giving me everything I need without taking up a lot of my time.  Even better, its allowing me to find the topics that interest me via a real-time search engine.  The important stuff bubbles to the top because of the re-tweeting taking place, and those people I trust the most I follow so I can always see what they have to say.

Now before I say blogs are dead and gone, let me state I do think that blogs still have a purpose.  After all, you can’t dive very deep into a subject when you are limited to 160 characters!  I think blogs are becoming the website instead of being a part of the website.  Take my site for example, sure I have this “blog” if you will on the front page – but really the entire site is a blog.  I’ve just adapted it to display the information I care about.  I might not update it for a month, or I may update it every day for a week – but the idea here is to share information that I want others to add to and use over time.

Compare this to Twitter where I am interested in sharing information and collaborating in real-time.  A year from now (or even a month from now) I am not interested in what happened on Twitter 30 days ago – I only want to know what is going on right here and right now.  A real-time search engine.

Blogs at one time were the public squares of our time – where everyone went to shout out their thoughts, opinions and advice.  Today that role has been taken over by Twitter – and instead of a lengthy speech we hoped a few people would read now have bullet points that we shout out to the crowds in short, digestible chunks.  Sort of like moving from a Microsoft Word document to a PowerPoint slide if you think about.

Now this is what I call 21st century customer service.  My satisfaction of Sears went up automatically the moment they engaged me on Twitter.  This is one company that really GETS what social media is and how it can help them!

 

How many other companies do you know (especially ones that are as big as Sears) that would engage with you 1-to-1? 

 

If you aren’t on Twitter, the only question I have for you is, “Why?”  Get on there and then start following Sears to see how Twitter can be used as a customer service tool.

This week I’ve been visiting the folks at BMC Software in Houston, TX.  It’s been a very busy, and highly productive week.  Learning so much about CONTROL-M, Patrol and the BSM strategy that BMC has put forth.

One of the “fun” parts of the trip was that my colleague and I went into the BMCtv studios and shot some video.  I did this before, about 3 years ago, and the video (here) has always garnered me name and face recognition whenever I bump into CONTROL-M folks.

This time around we were talking about BSM and the BMC support structure.  I snapped a shot of my colleague Jerry up on the monitors in the control room.  First, it’s amazing at all the gadgets and equipment they had in here – second this was all being filmed in high definition so the price tag for the equipment was pretty steep.  They were telling us one of the studio cameras cost over $100,000! 

I’m impressed with the quality of work they do – and it’s great to see a company like BMC that is willing to invest in this type of technology to help “get the word out” about the products and offerings. 

As I was walking down the hall at BMC up on one of their display walls they had my video from about 3 years ago playing for CONTROL-M.  I couldn’t help but grab a shot of myself!  I guess you could say that I finally got my “5 minutes of fame” – after all, how many people get to see themselves up on 6 different screens at the same time!

One of the most powerful things about social media is it lets you find out more about a person or a company than you might want to know.  On the internet, your name and/or your brand live forever.

In the past year, I’ve talked about a lot of things with a lot of people.  I’ve interacted with social and professional networks.  I’ve written in my blog, and commented on others.  What type of digital footprint have I left behind?

 

What will the rest of the world find out about you? What will you find out about the rest of the world?

* World clouds generated by Wordle.

Today I got a $700 raise and I didn’t do a darn thing to deserve it.  The best part about it, I’m pretty sure there is another $300-$600 on the table still for me to grab. 

Now, before my co-workers storm my desk tomorrow, let me explain – this wasn’t a pay raise.  This was something even better, something that I think everyone can get in various amounts.  This raise was courtesy of me cancelling all the stuff that we don’t use anymore.

We all have it, those little charges that are $5 here, maybe $7.50 there.  Seems like such a tiny amount – until you add it up.  Things like cell phone insurance plans, television channels you never watch, and land-line phone services that you haven’t used since the 1980s. 

Today, I happened to be working from home while waiting on the repairman from Sears to come and fix our oven when I took a break and started looking at some bills.  Before I knew it I had my calculator up and running and was amazed at what all this added up to.

• $22.00+ for an “Essentials” package for our land-line phone from AT&T that included call-waiting, three-way calling and other nonsense we haven’t used in years.
• $12.99 for Starz from DirecTV – we have better things to do than sit in front of the TV all day and night.
• $20+ for AT&T wireless “insurance” on our cell phones (all 4 of them).  Of course, they charge you a $50 “deductible” (in some cases $100 depending on the phone) plus activation charges if you use it which makes this totally worthless in every sense of the word.
• $10.00+ on two credit cards for “payment protection” – another worthless product. 

I added this all up and I was astounded to find that in a years time this was almost $700 going down the drain for stuff we never used.  It took me about 30 minutes, but I cancelled every one of them.

It just goes to show how little things can creep up.  I still have more stuff to go through to weed our frivolous charges and I’m confident I can give myself another $500 raise with a little work.

This past week our television in the bedroom went out.  It was a standard tube (CRT) television that we used to watch the news, Letterman and Craig Ferguson.  Nothing fancy, just a basic model for basic television viewing.  So when it went out I thought “no problem, I’ll just get another one to replace it — $150, $175 tops!”

It turned out I was dead wrong.

For over 5 hours my dad and I drove around Columbia, MO looking at what the retailers had to offer.  Best Buy, Sears, Office Depot, Staples, Target – you name it.  Every store it was the same thing, “Oh, we don’t sell those anymore – nobody buys them – but we have this great LCD flat panel starting at only $500!”

I did not want to buy a $500 TV, I wanted a $150 no-frills television.  The one you used to be able to buy everywhere.

We eventually just gave up.  Apparently retailers no longer care about what we want to buy (I talked with others who were facing this same problem), but instead they are pushing what they want to sell.  Right there is the disconnect – customers, especially in today’s world, don’t like being told what they are going to do.  They are the ones who tell the retailer what they want.

I was ready to give up when I thought to myself – I’ll see if Amazon had any for sale.  A few clicks later and I found not one, but 7 different models!  In less than 10 minutes I made a choice, purchased it and it was on its way.  What’s more it arrived the next day for only $3.99 (I subscribe to Amazon’s Prime program).  They shipped a 50lb television via Fedex overnight and only charged me $3.99 – wow!

The total cost – with the $3.99 shipping – was $161.98.  Right in the middle of my budgeted amount.  Plus, I was able to avoid paying sales tax by buying online and the television can pick up the new digital signals and convert them to standard definition should I ever want to use this as an over-the-air TV.  Not bad for $160 and change!

Amazon understood what their customers wanted and provided it.  The local retailers, even the national chains, instead wanted to tell me what I was going to buy.  They probably make a nice profit margin selling those LCD TV’s, but some genius forgot that not everyone wants (or can afford) a flat panel television.  Some people just want a basic television.  How many lost sales are they missing out on?  What if just one retailer would buck the trend – how much increased business would they do?

It’s all about the customers – and businesses that fail to realize that aren’t going to survive.  Not in this ever-connected world where if you don’t deliver what I want I can just click over to someone else who will.

In my day job at CARFAX we keep up with what’s going on in the industry, and sometimes we get information before it hits the mainstream press.  Well late this afternoon we found out that GM has announced it will be purchasing Ford for an undisclosed amount.  Talk about an amazing development.  I don’t know much as the details are still coming in (and keep in mind the stock market is already closed for the day), but here is what I’ve been able to pull together:

• GM will be buying Ford for an undisclosed amount.
• GM has announced that it plans to immediately bring the same “sound GM practices” to Ford.
• Fuel efficient Ford cars, such as the Fusion, will be discontinued as of April 2, 2009.
  

  Rick Wagoner is back at the new GM-Ford

• In an amazing turn of events, Rick Wagoner, the CEO ouster from GM on Monday, will be returning as the CEO of the new company.

Apparently CNN had some exclusive coverage of this event and just had Rick Wagoner on television.  He was quoted as saying “We figured if GM was going down, then Ford’s going down with us!”  Talk about having a chip on your shoulder!

This of course now means the US could be left without any auto industry should Chrysler and the new GM-Ford company declare bankruptcy.  What’s even scarier is one analyst who reported that GM may be in talks with Chrysler for a merger, leaving only one US auto manufacturer — GM.  I guess they figure they will get people to buy their cars one way or another.

You can read the press release and CNN interview here.

More as I found out!