Turner's Perspective

I Am Always Inspired By Generosity.

The photos you see to the right are the evidence of generosity. They are the physical manifestation of an outpouring of kindness that began in one special moment when an inspired Mother reached into her purse and gave $19 to another inspired Mother.

Underwear For Africa Was Born Just 21 Days Ago.

And today, thanks to the the help of many Mothers here on ActiveRain and many other Mothers around the United States, five 20 x 20 x 20 boxes stuffed to capacity, each weighing 50 pounds, are making their way to Nairobi, Kenya via Virgin Atlantic.

The response to "How The Sight Of Underwear Brought Me To Tears" has been amazing. I'm sure the folks at NP Dodge had no idea what was going to transpire when they put together the backpack for my wife.

That Was Just 10 Days Ago.

This is the power of social networks when they are called into action. They work with great speed and the power of large numbers works to create results in mere days that would have taken weeks to achieve using traditional methods.

Those Of You Who Gave, Thank You.

You know who you are and so do I. I can only hope that when you look at these photos, that you have a sense of joy and pride. And when you see the photos of the faces as they receive your gifts, I hope you will take a moment to let those feelings rise up again and inspire you even further.

There Were Many Tears Shed Tonight.

My wife is fulfilling a dream over these next 21 days. For years, Rocky has longed to go to Africa to provide assistance. And you have helped to take that dream to a new level. For that I am extremely grateful.

I was reduced to a slobbering idiot as I watched a very happy, very tearful Mother hug her children goodbye this evening. She had not let herself believe it was really going to happen until the very last moment. Then it hit her all at once. This was really happening. It was pure joy.

And, with any luck, it will continue to happen.

We received a large box of underwear today that could not make it on this journey. There will be others going on their own journeys who will become the messengers for future boxes. But these boxes are going to tell a story. You can follow along if the mood strikes.

My Journey To Africa - an online diary of her journey.

Mothers Fighting For Others Flickr Photos - photos taken along the way.

Mothers Fighting For Others - the official MFFO blog.

There will also be a video diary and I will come back and update the link for that when it is available.

Once again, thank you to each of you gave your encouragement, either in the kind words uttered in the comments, or by your actions over the last 10 days.

You have helped fulfill a dream.

When was the last time you looked at a new Web 2.0 startup and said to yourself, "I must be getting old, because I don't get this one at all!"

This morning? Yeah. Me too!

That's why I like SuckyStartups.com. It's a blog that aims to prove that sometimes the Web 2.0 ideas flying around the Internet that I "just don't get" are just really bad, poorly conceived ideas. Sometimes it's true that I can't understand a concept because I'm not 18 years old and don't live in that world. But a lot of the time it has nothing to do with my age! It's not that I just don't "get it" because I'm not part of Gen Y and don't have gangster rap blaring behind my MySpace profile! Sometimes I don't get them because they really don't make any sense!

Two examples from SuckyStartups.com:

• MadKast.com: The headline from the August 17th post about this startup says it all... "MadKast helps you send links because emailing them is just too darn hard..." Good point. I get social bookmarking, but why do I need a site to help me send a link? (Yes, I did watch their video. I still don't get it.)
• Twitter.com: SuckyStartups.com's post, Why Twitter Sucks, is more of a rant, but it gets at some of what I have felt all along. I wrote about Twitter on March 31, 2007. I said at that time, "Can I guarantee you'll get it? No. I'm not sure I do." Here I am almost 6 months later and I still don't get it. I know this throws me out of favor with all the cool geek kids, but it's true. In fact, I don't get it to the point that I'm not going to use it even more than I'm not using it now. I'm going to follow the advice I gave to NP Dodge Real Estate Agents and quit doing one thing that isn't bringing a return on my investment (time) and do something else instead.
  

I have not agreed with everything this writer has said about the sucky startups he writes about, but the logic he uses to address each startup helps me ask better questions myself. For that he gets a plug.

I don't really care if you start reading SuckyStartups.com. That's not the point of this post. In the end, this post is meant to encourage you to do two things:

1. Trust your gut. Sometimes when something doesn't make sense... it just doesn't make sense.
2. ALWAYS ask yourself the critical questions: How will this help me and my business? How much of my time will it occupy? What will be my ROI?
   

I wrote a post a few days ago entitled, A Closer Look At Google Presentations. In that post, I included some very general instructions on hosting your own presentations, Google or otherwise, that included the comment, "download the Google Presentation to a zip file, unzip it and load those files to your own server using FTP." I then said, "If you don’t know how to do this, let me know and I’ll prepare a separate post about uploading files via ftp." I received several emails as a result.

Several readers wanted to know more about how to FTP.

So, I thought a video on how to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) applications was in order. In addition, I've also tried to explain how URL's work, so you can properly name and structure your files on your web server. In the simplest of terms, the "slashes" in web addresses are basically saying "then go here." The graphic below illustrates how this works. The files for this demonstration were uploaded to our server at www.realestateshows.com and placed in the "presentations" folder, then in another folder named "googleftp" and then, ultimately, pointing to a file in that folder named "index.html."

As you can see, the URL is made up of parts. Each part is referencing a different "folder" on the web server. When you upload your files using FTP, what you are doing is creating a file structure not unlike what you do on your own hard drive. You name files and place them into folders to make them easy to find. Web URL's are really just short hand for how to find them.

Before you will be able to get started, you'll need to know your FTP address, username and password. Your web host can provide this information for you. You will enter this information into the appropriate fields provided by the FTP software of your choice. Save the information in your favorites and you'll never need to do it again. It will look something like this:

Here is a video which takes our Google Presentation from being hosted on Google's servers to being hosted on our own servers. I apologize if this goes further than those who requested it might have like, but it wasn't possible to explain FTP without explaining a few other things as well. I did not attempt to cover what FTP software is available, since they all work basically the same. I use Transmit on the Mac, but it's simply a personal preference.

All over the country, universities put on what is called "The Last Lecture Series."

It's a unique program. Faculty members are invited to give a hypothetical final lecture, as if it were the last lecture they were ever going to be able to give before they die. They get to choose the content and it gives them and the audience a chance to hear what they feel is the most important thing they could share before they left.

This past week, 47-year-old Carnigie Mellon University professor, Rancy Pausch was invited to give one of these last lectures. Only in this case, it wasn't hypothetical. He has only a few months left to live.

His topic: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. (Or enabling The Dreams Of Others)

I heard about the presentation yesterday morning while driving in traffic on the way to Marina Del Rey. Excerpts of the presentation were presented in audio form and I could not resist finding a video of the presentation to watch in full. It's brilliant. It's motivational. It's inspirational. Randy Pausch is one of the creators of Alice, a 3D authoring system that teaches children how to program while having fun creating animations. "The best way to teach someone something is to make them think they're learning something else," he says.

He starts off the presentation describing what he was NOT going to talk about: Cancer, things more important than childhood dreams, like his wife and children, and spirituality & religion. However, he did say he had a recent deathbed conversion.... "I just bought a Macintosh." :)

Some of his advice:

• Decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.
• Never Lose The Child-Like Wonder
• Help Others
• Loyalty Is A Two Way Street
• Never Give Up

This is NOT a short lecture. The speech itself is an hour and fifteen minutes long. In my opinion, it was 75 minutes very well spent. Gather your teenagers around the computer and make them watch it. It's some of the best "television" they're ever going to see. And a lesson in how to approach life.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

We will probably find out on November 5.

Yesterday, Google held a private meeting with 15 tech giants to discuss their plan to deal with Facebook.

The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I’ve now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.

This should be very, very interesting. Why?

You don't have to read much further to find out. Google appears to have some very large plans. Right now those only include a few of their applications, but speculation around the web is that this is an overarching strategy that will impact every aspect of what Google does.

Read the entire report from Engadget here: Google To "Out Open" Facebook On November 5.

Google Presentation's Greatest Strengths Are Collaboration And Interactive Presentation

When I introduced Google's latest app yesterday, I was in a bit of a hurry and really didn't do a very good job of illustrating it's capabilities or explaining what I thought it's strength's were. Today I'd like to take this just a bit further and talk about the two features that distinguish it and also show you how you can use it and other existing presentation tools to generate content for your own website.

Collaboration

By far, the best feature of Google's new Presentation App, is the ability to collaborate in real time on presentations. This is true for all of the Google Apps, including Docs and Spreadsheets. In this case, making a presentation application collaborative has some real advantages. A team working on a listing presentation could all be working on the same presentation at the same time to generate a better document faster. I can see this being a tremendous benefit to a real estate office.

Interactive Presentation

Built into the new Google Presentation App is the ability to host a "webinar" around your presentation at almost no cost. You can can have one or more people on a conference call looking at the document at the same time, but you would be the one controling the presentation and talking through it live, answering questions, etc. We use Microsoft's Go To Meeting for a live demos, but if you're presenting a powerpoint like document, this makes an incredibly powerful alternative.

Hosting Your Own Presentations

Once you've created your presentation you could also host it on your own website. If you're not going to use the collaborative features, or the document is complete, or you don't need to interactive sharing functions, you can download the Google Presentation to a zip file, unzip it and load those files to your own server using FTP. All of the files you need will be contained in a folder and you simply need to upload that folder to the directory you want them to appear. In my case, I created a "presentations" directory and uploaded the folders there. I left this public so you can see the structure: http://www.realestateshows.com/presentations/ (If you don't know how to do this, let me know and I'll prepare a separate post about uploading files via ftp)

Google Presentation Published

This is how the Google Presentation looks when you simply publish it. Google Publish Live Demo.

Self-Hosted Google Presentation

This is how a Google Presentation looks when you download the contents to your hard drive and host it yourself. You loose the ability to control the presentation while other watch, but you gain control over the traffic. If you are not going to use the interactive presentation options, this is a way to use the Google Presentation tools to create content for your own site. Preview Live Demo Of A Self-Hosted Google Presentation.

Export From Powerpoint to HTML

If you already own Microsoft's Powerpoint, you have a couple of options. You can upload your existing PPT files to Google's Presentation app and use all of the feature there. Google sucks in the template information and does a pretty good job of replicating the look and feel, as you can see above. Both of the above illustrations were created by uploading a PPT file. However, you can go straight to html from Powerpoint and host your presentations your self as well. As with Google Presentation, you will loose all of your transitions and effects, but it works. Preview Live Demo Of Self-Hosted Powerpoint Presentation.

Keynote Self-Hosted Presentations

If you're a Mac user, you get a little bonus. Keynote allows you to export to html as well, but it gives you the option of saving each stage of your builds as a separate image. It also handles images and text graphic elements differently, so your presentation will look exactly how it looks on your mac. Preview Live Demo Of Self-Hosted Keynote Presentation.

Of course, you could export from Keynote to an interactive flash presentation, but embedding that into an html file takes a bit more work. The html export features on Google, Powerpoint and Keynote create all of the files and links for you.

Give It A Try

Google has made this simple to use and it costs nothing, so give it a try for yourself. And if you'd rather push traffic to your own site, you can use it and other presentation apps to do that as well.

Digg, the popular social bookmarking site, has launched new profile tools that will make this more like a social network and making it easier to see what trusted sources and your friends are digging.

Watch video of new features here.

Digg also announced new features coming later this year:

• Digg Images: A dedicated images section (with thumbnails). Still on track to launch in late October.
• Revamped Comments: No more ajax loads, new clean and lightweight design (similar to the old comment system).
• Digg Alerts: Alerts will give you the ability to create customized email alerts - when a story becomes popular, summaries of popular stories on specific topics, and when your friends recommend stories.
• Story Suggest: Dozens of servers crunch the math to provide you with real-time recommendations (stories and friends) based on what you’ve dugg in the past.

Some People Just Get Relationships.

I flew to Omaha Monday to give a Web 2.0 presentation. The invitation to do so was extended by Nate Dodge and Mike Riedmann of NP Dodge Real Estate. They are tremendous hosts and organized a great showing at the Omaha Marriott. After the presentation, I went back to their main office to meet with their residential real estate management team, including Jodee Drake-Soto and Robert Wiebusch.

When I walked into the conference room, there was an NP Dodge backpack sitting on one of the chairs. Mike said it was for me, "just a thank you," he said. I unzipped the top and couldn't believe what I saw.

I Saw A Packet Of Little Girl's Underwear

I didn't go any further. I couldn't. I was so moved by the thought that went into the gift, that my throat began to swell and my eyes began to water. I'm usually not at a loss for words, but at that moment I feared that opening my mouth would also open up the flood gates.

Why? Because the only way they could have known to put children's underwear in that backpack was if they had been reading my wife's Mothers Fighting For Others blog. They knew my wife was going to Africa in 10 days and they also knew she had started an Underwear For Africa drive.

The orphanage my wife, Rocky, is going to work in identified underwear as their greatest need and Rocky later found clean underwear is a major need in Africa. So, Underwear For Africa was born. Jodee was the one who got the task of shopping for the underwear. I could tell by the look on her face, she enjoyed it, even if Robert Weibusch had teased her about ditching work to go underwear shopping.

They knew, without ever asking me, what was going to bring me the most joy.

The web made it possible. The irony in that is killing me. But their desire to build a lasting relationship is what made it happen. I meet lots of great people as I travel around the country, but the team at NP Dodge completely blew me away with their care and kindness. When I got home, I learned there were lots of pairs of underwear in the bag. I wasn't surprised.

NP Dodge Gets Relationships

Nate, Mike, Robert, Jodee and everyone on the NP Dodge team... from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

"Buying a home is a personal and private decision."

This quote comes from Doug Scott, a client in Houston, Texas. He said this in response to an explanation I gave him for how people might use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace when they are in the process of making a decision to buy a home.

I told him that someone might want to share a tour or a listing with their entire Facebook friends list to get their opinion on a house.

Doug didn't buy it. He thought they would share with their friends AFTER they bought, but not before. Just exactly how they do now.

We didn't spend more than a few seconds on the topic. We didn't talk at all about Facebook Maketplace and it's search capabilities. it wasn't the real purpose of our call. But his statement has been in my head for the last two weeks.

I initially thought to myself, "Doug is just not allowing himself to understand how this new generation thinks." Why wouldn't I ask my friends their opinion on a home before I bought it? Why wouldn't I use my social network to get their opinion on a few homes I was looking at buying?

The more I thought about it the more right Doug became.

I used the Internet heavily in my most recent home purchase. The home we ended up buying was a new home, so there were photos of the models and floor plans available online. I But I didn't get anyone outside of my wife and kids involved in the pre-buying process. I don't remember sending a single email to my closest friends asking for their opinion of the photos. I asked about the community we were thinking of moving to, yes, but not about the home.

In fact, I didn't even take my mom to see the models until after we had already put down a deposit and were ready to begin picking flooring. My closest circle of friends played no role at all in the decision process. I didn't email them links and photos. And I even ignored their advice about leaving "the valley" to live in the burbs. Thankfully.

This is how I acted with my closest friends. The people on my "friends" list at Facebook are predominantly casual acquaintances... most of whom I've never met in person. Isn't that true for you? Isn't that true for most?

I'm convinced I spend way to much time reading technology geeks. Even this forum may not be the best place to ask these questions. We all spend too much time buried in cyberspace. Doug's simple words, "Buying a home is a personal and private decision," aren't speaking to technology. Those words speak to psychology and sociology. They speak to the underlying motives for behavior.

What do you think?

Are social networks really going to change who we consult with when making buying decisions on a home? Or are they just going to make it easier to share the decision once we've made it.

This Is Another "Mac User Only" Post.

With the recent launch of iWork '08, Apple has has added new frame features to their Pages application. I've been using these frames for my photos both here and on the Real Estate Shows Blog. I used it again on photos from our mini AR gathering in Las Vegas.

Jennifer Wilson emailed me asking how I was doing it and and wondered whether it was a Mac thing. It is. There may be a program out in PC land that will allow you do the same things, my purpose here is not to say there isn't. My goal is to let my Mac friends know how to make it happen if they like it.

You must have to have iWork '08.

Then, open a blank document in Pages.

Drag a photo into the page and select "Frame" from the image edit menu.

Once you've applied the frame, click outside of the image to get rid of the selection points.

Then, do a screen capture of the image. Press Shift-Command-4 at the same time. This will allow you to drag a selection around your image and will save that image to your desktop.

You can select from any number of options that will create a 3d feel for the photos. I love the one above, because it really helps the image jump off the page. But others accomplish the same goal as well. Here is that same image, taken on my iPhone while flying into Vegas, displayed in a couple of different frames.

Enjoy!

I love the time I spend online with folks here at Active Rain.

But each time I actually meet, live and in person, someone I've struck up a friendship with here online, I'm reminded of how much better real life is. Yesterday was no exception. I got to spend the entire day with John Novak and see how he presents Web 2.0 technologies. He does an excellent job explaining the benefits to his Keller Williams counterparts. I've spoken to John on the phone many times, mostly late at night, but being able to shake his hand and look him in the eye... nothing can replace that. John, thank you for being a great host.

And then there was Renee Burrows.

I've read her blogs. I've written posts about her, spoken to her on the phone, but she is simply wonderful in person. She has a refreshing edge to her that really compliments how attractive she is. And she is. She also came with an unexpected bonus... her husband, Mike. Mike is a guy's guy. He's strikingly handsome and just naturally likable. Renee thinks he'd make a good blogger and so do I. So, I'm calling him out. Write a guest post, Mike! What are you, chicken? :)

I was also able to interact with with Ernie Gonzalez and Ron Costa. I'm sorry to say that before this morning I had never read a single one of either of their posts here on AR. So this time it's going to work in reverse. I've met them live, now I get to interact online. I know it's going to work just as well!

And... I walked into the airport and right on the plane. It was boarding as I made it to the gate. Perfect. More time with friends. Less time in the airport. :)

A Few Photos.

We took three different photos and couldn't get Ron's eyes open in any of them!

L to R: John Novak, Ernie Gonzales, Mike Burrows, Ron Costa and Renee Burrows.

See also: http://activerain.com/blogsview/196670/One-Lucky-Chick