May 2009
23 posts
“Killing the troll isn’t easy, but you have to do it if you want to monetize your...”
– from The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It) by Sonia Simone on CopyBlogger
“If you build it, congratulations, but don’t expect too much. If you build it,...”
– From Patience and hard work by Des Tranynor on Contrast’s always excellent blog.
“Even if I could find all the relevant official records digitized on the...”
– From Sharon Tate Moody’s article “It takes details to bring your ancestors to life” in the Tampa Tribune, May 24th, 2009.
I found today’s broadcast of “The Story” on NPR...
“There’s no use going to a show if you don’t know why. Answers like, “because...”
– From Steve Blank, Going to Trade Shows Like It Matters
At NGS, I thought we managed to generate awareness, build rapport with current (registered) customers, get press, get additional partners, and build our mailing list with quality names. We did many of the other things he suggests too. But I...
“The social technologies we see in use today are fundamentally panoptical - the...”
– Joshua-Michéle Ross, The Digital Panopticon, via O’Reilly Radar.
The author uses a fear-inducing analogy to explore what we risk and potentially give up when we casually share truths about ourselves on Facebook, Twitter, et al. I don’t see things in quite so ominous terms, but the...
“When it starts accepting clients in June, Ancestry.com’s ExpertConnect service...”
– Nice mention today of Genlighten in Diane Haddad’s Genealogy Insider blog, part of Family Tree Magazine’s online presence.
“I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to you, dear family, and to all those...”
– Lowell’s e-mail message for this week. Details would be nice… :)
“The golden rule of the ethics of viral spread is: try to only do things on a...”
– danieltenner.com — How to make your application viral (via hiten)
We need to do this…
Some NGS09 Highlights Today
Several potential providers who signed up a year ago or more are still eager for us to finally get launched
Nice people from several genealogy magazines stopped by the booth today to offer support and encouragement
Bunch more beta signups today not directly related to NGS09
Positive mention from kind Twitter follower on Transitional-Genealogist message board
Updated Tour pages and homepage...
NGS2009 -- Busy at the Booth
Well, yes, but not necessarily because there’s been tons of traffic. There was first thing Wednesday morning, and at occasional intervals since. But today’s been much quieter.
I’ve been cranking on everything I can do myself to get ready for the Genlighten private beta. Provider tour copy and screenshots. Revised client tour copy and screenshots. Revisions to the Terms of...
Mother's Day Call
We celebrated Mother’s Day today with the traditional call to our son serving a mission in Ukraine. We set up a Skype conference call so Amelia and the grandparents could join in. I had long list of questions which Lowell duly answered, most about the area, public transit, investigators, teaching, language learning, etc. He seemed positive and upbeat. And he’s on his third...
NS2 Talent Show
Cyndy played fiddle in a three-number set to open the NS2 Ward Talent Show this evening. She’s been practicing on Tuesday nights with two ladies from NS2, one of whom takes Irish drum lessons while the other is learning accordion. I thought their performance seemed relatively polished, had a nice musical quality, and really reflected the hard work they put in to it. Nice job!
Stake Scout Leader Training
Spent the morning at the Foster building running a training session for Scout leaders in our stake. NS1 scoutmaster Chris Ward acted as SPL and I took on the Scoutmaster role in a mock troop meeting. We also sampled a bunch of games the attendees could use with their units and talked a lot about the importance of training and boy-led troops.
Genlighten AdWords Experiment
This was the week the Kellogg MBA Student Team launched their Google AdWords campaigns for Genlighten.com. So far, only a small trickle of people have clicked on their ads. I suspect we’ve managed to kill our PageRank pretty quickly. But hopefully they will learn from the process, and I’ll learn from their learning. I’ve already had at least one very positive e-mail exchange with...
