Matthew's Blog

With a break in the racing this past weekend and my mind still on Nascar, I decided to do a little investigation and analysis on how all of the drivers in the Sprint Cup Series handle their social media images.  Almost every driver has a website so I didn’t spend much time investigating this established channel.  What I wanted to see in more detail was how the drivers are using Facebook and/or Twitter AND to see if they had any strategy to cross promote.  Here are my findings and conclusions:

+ Every driver except for a handful have a strong Facebook presence.  I’ll get into those details in a bit.  Most drivers have at least a Fan Page on Facebook and some even have personal accounts that fans can friend.  There is no question that the drivers see the value of Facebook and use this to both connect to their fans and hear from them.  Many are also using this as a channel for additional eCommerce activities which makes sense.

- As of this date, the drivers that either have a weak or non-existent Facebook presence are:  Elliot Sadler, Clint Bowyer, Travis Kvapil, Mike Bliss, Regan Smith, Paul Menard and Marcos Ambrose.  Sorry to call you out on it but you really need to get in gear here.  Although I fail to see why anyone would NOT have at least a fan page on Facebook, I do excuse Marcos Ambrose given his nationality (maybe it’s an American thing?).  The rest of the drivers without any Facebook presence really are a bit of a mystery.  You cannot blame age (heck even Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon have pages), you cannot blame nationality (all are americans), you cannot blame experience (they span from new to well seasoned) so who is dropping the ball (tire?) here.    My guess is their PR people either haven’t seen the light or maybe, just maybe are working so hard at a super strategy that they yet to “go public” with it.  If I have to put money on this, I’m going with the former.

+ Not surprising is most drivers have a Twitter presence although, as a rule, these accounts definitely lagged behind their Facebook presence in maturity, coverage and use.  Unfortunately, this group does have some repeat offenders with the Facebook miss-list above AND it includes a few drivers that make you go hum…..  It was no surprise that the activity (posts and followers) and maturity of their Twitter accounts were clearly below that of their Facebook accounts – these guys are drivers not marketers.  Some accounts were the bare bones while some had a bit more style applied to them – do a search on them and you’ll see what I mean.  One thing to be aware of is the number of fake accounts out there.  Some are well named while others require a review of the post to determine they are just some well meaning fan or two.

So now into the meat of this post.  Who are the key winners from Nascar and how they are using Social Media.  Here goes:

For Facebook, these drivers get it and have a active following:

Ryan Newman – over 20,000 fans

Mark Martin – over 22,000 fans

Brian Vickers – over 30,000 fans

Kasey Kahne – over 35,000 fans (wonder why?)

Jeff Gordon – over 60,000 fans

Tony Stewart – over 82,000 fans

Carl Edwards – over 90,000 fans

Dale Earnhardt Jr – over 135,000 fans

However the clear winner in the Facebook Fan Contest is none other than Jimmie Johnson with OVER 459,000 FANS!!!  Yes, that’s right 459,000+ fans!!!

Moving over to Twitter, as stated above this was much less represented however there are some drivers who clearly “get it”:

David Ragan – over 4,500 followers however only 80 Tweets

Dale Earnhardt Jr – over 16,500 followers

Jamie McMurry – over 17,000 followers and 500+ Tweets

Tony Stewart – over 21,000 followers however ONLY 12 Tweets!!?!?!?

Kasey Kahne – over 28,000 followers with a reasonable 300+ Tweets

The clear winner at this point is: Kevin Harvick – over 34,000 followers and OVER 1,000 Tweets!!

The above have been the single platform winners but this story would be remiss if I didn’t point out the cross platform winner who is Kyle Busch.  No other social media presence showed any real cross marketing activity or strategy EXCEPT for Kyles.  There are multiple cross references between his accounts that promote this activity on Twitter from his Facebook Fan Page and vice versa.  He has over 13,500 fans on Facebook and over 17,000 followers on Twitter with a respectable 890+ Tweets.  Well done Kyle!!!  Way to embrace technology to connect to your fan base.

I might, just might be warming up to you now!!!!

We’re getting ready for our annual trip to Daytona Beach this weekend for the kick-off of the 2010 Nascar season.

This year will be even more spectacular than previous years for the following reaons:

1)  Through a former co-worker, we now have VIP driver introductions on Saturday.  This should be awesome and will result in tons of up close driver pictures.  Stay tuned for an update after the race weekend.

2)  We have now accumulated close to 6 feet of snow here in the northeast and the bright Daytona sun will be a welcome diversion for 4 days.  I hope most of the snow melts while we are away!!!

3)  Rule changes – probably the biggest change this year is the Restrictor Plate size increase to make the cars more responsive.  I’m all in favor of creating more competition while not compromising driver safety so I hope this helps!

Will he be a 5 time champ??? Stay tuned......

4)  Jimmy Johnson – Will he be able to achieve his 5th Championship?  Are he and Chadd so dominant that nothing will stop them in 2010?  How will this help/hurt the rest of the Hendricks cars?  My prediction for Jimmy is he will have a good year but will not get his 5th this year.

Last year with Hendrick?

5)  Speaking of the rest of the Hendricks cars – I think this is the last year for Junior.  He must produce this year or I suspect his contract will be in jeopardy and more importantly, his fan base will continue to erode.  I wish   I  had more confidence in Junior however I think he will have a so-so year at best and give his fans some moments of hope along with a ton of disappointments.  I truly hope to be wrong on this.

6)  Joey Logano – will his star continue to rise or will he fall into the sophomore slump hit him?  I certainly hope its the former because he will be one of the future stars of  the series.  As long as he remains focused, I think he’ll have a great year.  With Greg Zipadelli and the rest of Joe Gibbs behind him, it’s his year to make it or break it.

7)  Tony Stewart – I think he will continue to be a threat for the championship and bring/keep some of the excitement in the series.  I predict an easy top 10 final placement and possibly a top 5 or the championship!!!

Kyle Busch - Daytona 2009 Intro

8)  Kyle Busch – I’m not sure what my prediction is for Kyle this year.  Given his disappointing season last year after coming off a rocket of a year in 2008 I just don’t know.  Did he learn from 2009 or was that the beginning of a trend?  He has the skills and equipment to do well so what held him back?  As of right now, I will predict a mid-field finish for him.  I may be wrong…..

9)  Last but not least is Danica Patrick.  There is certainly a ton of “buzz” about her entering the Nationwide Series.  Will she rise to the top and gain the respect of the established players or will she be a shooting star that flashes in front of our eyes?  I like the diversity and the additional interest that Danica brings to the series and hope she does well.  The Nationwide race this weekend will be pivotal for the tone she sets this year.

Either way, I hope with the rule changes, the new drivers and an improving economy this year recaptures some of the excitement and intensity that has been missing from the series the past few years.

Maybe it’s time to re-think the race for the chase?  Stay tuned…….

As the spring breaks the grip of winter, it is time to break out the cars for the Tuesday Night Cruise.  Cars start to arrive in the late afternoon and generally stay until dark.  There is food, a band, ice cream and good
“car people” every week into the fall.  It is actually very family friendly (the ice cream helps) and you can see some pretty interesting cars and trucks.  As a rule, the better the weather, the more vehicles that show up.
Typical number of vehicles can be from 50 to well over 200.

There is a core group that always tends to show up along with a scattering new people that may attend once or become part of the consistent group.  This is also a great source of “how to” type of information.  Many of these vehicles were assembled by their owners and they have a wealth of information and are very glad to help.

2009 – Evergreen Cruise In (Every Tuesday Night on Route 70)

How many fans of Smart Home Technology are out there?  My assumption is you found this page which probably makes you a fan however what about your friends or family?  Any of them using Smart Home Technology?  My guess is probably very few.  For the record, I have been an avid fan for over 10 years now and have automated many of the basic functions around our home.  If you’re like me, most of my friends and family just smile when I bring this up and hope the pain and suffering is not too long!!!

Smart Home Technology allows you to automate many of the functions that you typically do manually around your home.  Turning lights on at dusk and turning them off at dawn or before are some of the basic functions you can perform with this.  Turning on your alarm or being called by your home if the alarm is tripped are other basic examples of Smart Home Technology.  You can take this up quite a bit in both service value and/or complexity.  It doesn’t have to be both however many times it does include both increased value and complexity.  You can start to link events and actions but before we go there, back to my story.

My experience started while we were building our latest home which featured an option for Smart Home Technology.  Given everything that was going on at the time (new home, another baby and general chaos at work) I had little time to really investigate all the capabilities of this technology.  I knew, as a techno-geek, that it sounded very helpful (and cool) so I installed an Omni Pro package to get started.  I quickly found Smarthome and became one of their most frequent online customers.  Things started off with the basics – mainly automating lighting both inside and out using Switchlinc products.

I was given a copy of HAI software to control my system which at the time was clearly dated.  It reminded me of a Windows 3.1 program and this was in the late 1990’s.  As a former programmer I was expecting quite a bit more from the program and it’s capabilities.  Either way, I jumped in and started to figure out some complex scenarios like:

If night time and the fire or security alarm is actived – turn all lights on

If dark and garage door is opened – turn on kitchen lights

If dark and backdoor is opened – turn on basement lights

Strange noise at night  – turn all the lights on from the console

I won’t bore you with all the other permutations but you get the drift.  This was interesting for a while however I was looking for much more.  I then added a pair of OnmiStats (we have 2 zones) for thermostat controls.  These gave us the option to control at the thermostat and also from the OmniPro controller.  In addition, we also could call into our home if we forgot to raise or lower the temps plus allowed us to turn on our systems while we were away for extended periods.  Good stuff!!!

Over the years, we continued to add devices and to increase the complexity of the programming enjoying the various products and enhancements in the market.  Fast forward to the end of the year 2009 and we’re now using the our iPhones to interface with our home and all things are good.

I can’t wait to see what happens over the next 10 years in this space!!!  How are you using Smart Home Technology?  Any Insteon users out there?  Hope you enjoyed the article.

Dead Trees from Beaver Dam and Damage

We recently watched a documentary on Beavers with our kids.  This topic has special meaning for us because we have a family of beavers living in the woods behind us for the past few years.  Beavers, if you don’t know, are the only other living being on the planet other than people that alters their living area to suit their needs.

Every couple of weeks (months?) I try to plan out what I call an Adventure Day for my family.  It is my responsibility to figure out the agenda and experiences that will result from each unique adventure plus it gives us time together to bond in ways that we sometimes forget in these hectic times.  It is also a great opportunity to help teach our children about some of the lessons that aren’t necessarily taught at our school or give them exposure to other experiences.  Our mission was to find the latest beaver dam and take some pictures of it so the girls could talk about it in school.

For this Adventure Day, we didn’t have to travel far.  We literally walked out to our backyard and kept on walking.  We have a large tract of woods that is partially owned by our Homeowners Association and also privately held.  My guess is that it spans at least 100 acres when it’s all added up.  Running through this tract of land was a little stream that carried enough water to make it a good jump or more.  As I stated above, we knew the beavers had moved in a few years ago and I started to watch the progress (destruction?) that they did to this little tract of woods.    Since they have moved in, our little engineers have succeeded in turning this woods into a huge lake!!!

Beavers skin the trees for food.

I’ve have tried to get the local Fish and Game department to trap the beavers and clear this area for several years.  They have knocked down the dam several times only to have the beavers move further into the woods and thus more protected area to rebuild it.  According to Fish and Game, trapping the beavers only causes another problem – what to do with them?  If you don’t move them far enough out, they will find their way back to their original grounds.  Shooting them seems a bit extreme (IMHO).

The latest beaver dam. It may not look big however there is a lake as a result of this.

So the moral of the story is to let nature take it’s way.

As some of you might know, I race offroad motorcycles in Enduro races.  In order to get into shape and stay that way, we go riding on Sunday mornings with a group of guys.   Here’s the recap for one of those days.

Started off with Ed, Skins, Mo, Mark and I.  The “no-shows” know who they are.  Ryan started off leading with Skins hot on his tail going down the Uth Trail.  Within the first couple of miles, Skins decided to “tattoo” a tree using the underside of his frame as the writing implement.  Tree survived, bike survived however Skins, more specifically his right thumb, took most of the hit.  Once the stars settled down in his vision we proceeded across Oakshade road and did the upper loop up to and through the smaller mud hole.  Special mention, should I say the pink streamer award, goes to a tie.  Skins, Mark and Ed attempted to take the award after Mo and I went through the mud.  The three of them just starred at the mud looking for a line.  Obviously, when asked where to go, Mo and I just pointed anywhere to try and get them across.  Once the fembots crossed the massive (?) mud hole we finished off that side of the road and went back across Oakshade and headed towards the bridge and out towards the bone trail.

1988 Yahama YZ250

After the bridge, Mo noticed his tire was a little low and bailed.  After we lost him, we headed out to Chews Road and the junk yard and worked the trail back in the opposite direction that we usually do.  We punched around a bit and did some log jumping and such.  No real news in that area.  Worked back to the bone trail and the blown down tree that Sven used his Husky Chainsaw on.  At one of the breaks, I suggested we take the 5 mile trail in as the last bit of conditioning however the screams from the women folk convinced me otherwise (you know who you are).  We looped back to the Uth trail and called it a day after about 40 miles.

What are you doing here!!!!!

At this point, I must defend one of our “fallen” riders.  Mike, aka Manpon, is still recovering from a debilitating arm injury.  Evidently, while “flying solo”, wheels in the air and all that, his hand slipped and aggravated his tendons and/or ligaments.  He is resting comfortably now and hoping to get back on his ride somewhere around Thanksgiving.

Mark your calendars now – there is a special Thanksgiving ride on Saturday (11/29).  I’ll get the details and forward them to everyone that’s interested.  It will be a few minutes further out towards the Lebanon State Forest area and work it’s way back towards Indian Mills.  I understand there might, just might, be beer at the end should you need that extra little push.

We're smiling so we must have had fun!!!

Lastly, if we do need to cluster away from Mo and Ed’s, let’s meet on the sand road by the stump field NOT the gun club.

So, there you have it.

What started as a day of learning and challenges ends on a happy social note.  It is Saturday and after a long day online I had to write this story so hang with me.

Many of us are under pressure to find and/or keep our jobs these days so it can become all about us.  This is a story about helping others, about giving back, about mentoring the next generation of leaders.

In my professional life I have met many amazing people.  Some you think you will only work with and never see or speak to again.  This does not have to be true if you care and want to give back.

My story starts with my first trip to India in 2003.  I was traveling there on behalf of my company at the time (Elsevier.com).  We (Rick Komyanek and I) were going there to evaluate several vendors and would be meeting up with several co-workers the next evening.  We arrived on Saturday night to get settled in after coming from the states.  We actually arrived about 1:00am on Saturday night (Sunday morning) and were scheduled to be picked up at 7:00am for a day trip to the Taj Mahal.  After getting a few hours of sleep we went down to the front desk to meet our “escorts” for the day.  It was there I ran into Rajat Pandit (rajatpandit.com) from HCL (HCL.in).  Honestly, I did not think twice about Rajat at the time.  He did a wonderful job getting us to the Taj and back so we had a great day.  He helped us get from New Delhi to Agra and back which is quite a long day.  Rick and I told him our observations as we navigated the roads between the two cities.  We all laughed about the cultural “differences” between what we were used to and what is normal in India.  I honestly thought that was the last time I would see or hear from Rajat.

As we progressed with our negotiations with HCL and eventually started to build up their team and transfer work to them, Rajat was assigned to our account in London.  I was pleased to see a familiar face and glad that he quickly became part of the overall team in London.  Through my periodic site visits I always tried to see Rajat because of the energy and enthusiasm he brought to work each day.  This relationship lasted for several years until both he and I decided to part with our respective companies and seek greener pastures.  Although we parted on good terms, the distance between us seemed like a huge obstacle (he being in London while I was based in the States).

Enter the advent of Social Media sites such as Facebook (www.facebook.com) and Twitter (www.twitter.com).  As I jumped into these new sites, I started to build out my circle of friends and followers working my way through contacts I made over the years.  I was lucky to find Rajat out on Facebook and started to chat with him here and there.  This went on for a few years and was a nice way to “chat” but nothing really became of it (from my perspective).  Rajat moved onto Yahoo and a couple of other leading technology companies and continued to hone his technical skills.  Here is where the story gets interesting (or at least to the point of he post).   As I stated above, Rajat is a very sharp programmer / architect.  As such, he was helping this former engineer (moi) overcome some learning hurdles with some of the newer internet technologies.  Always willing and helpful, he would walk me through this and that with a smile on his face (and in his voice).  I was happy for the help and he seemed more than eager to offer it.  All was good.

Today, Rajat asked me for some career advice.  I was honored for him to ask me because you never know where someone is that appreciates your experience and consul.  We share a similar background albeit separated by a few years (his just a few years my junior).  We both come from the technical ranks and eventually face decisions as to where to go in your future career progressions.  Rajat asked how I made the transition from a Systems Engineer to being a leader in IT an organization.  As I stated above, I was honored to offer him my advice on what it takes to be a leader, both in general and in an IT organization. In addition I was happy to relay the specifics on how I moved from being seen as a programmer to being thought of as a leader.

Leadership is about a vision, it’s about a story of where you’ve been, where you are and where you should be going.  It’s about selling the vision of the future, a better place for all the right reasons.  Leadership is about confidence, an understanding of the business/technical issues and how your vision will bridge them to the other side.  It’s about leading from the front, rolling up your sleeves and showing/doing what it takes to implement tactical and strategic change.  It’s about taking calculated risks and delivering the rewards from them.  It’s about inspiring others to stretch to the next level, to grow, to be challenged, to be scared and to overcome.

I’m glad I had the time today to start on this journey.  I did not expect to end up here however am very glad I did.  I took the time and hope it pays off in spades for Rajat (blog.rajatpandit.com).  Have a great journey my friend.

Tomorrow ends the 2009 season and the 6th year that the Race for the Chase rules have applied.

The 2009 Champion?

I still have mixed thoughts on this setup to this day.  The purpose of the Race for the Chase has been to tighten the championship point structure down so many more drivers are in the running.  I’m not sure it is working as designed because as it stands now, Jimmy Johnson is just about a shoe-in to win his 4th championship (consecutively as well).  Can it be that the combination of Jimmy Johnson and Chad Knaus is so strong that even teammates like Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin are long shots tomorrow?   Forget about Junior – his head is NOT in racing anymore and I doubt he will be back at Hendricks next year.  I am searching the web now for comparison statistics on how Jimmy would have fared without these rules and will update this post once I find them.

http://www.nascar.com/drivers/dps/jjohnson00/cup/index.html

Like many of you, I too, am working my way through this new rich playground called Social Media.  This quest allows me to combine my love of technology and my passion for always learning new things by applying them to situations in my life.  So here I am.  What have I done to date?  I have the required accounts at:

www.twitter.com

www.linkedin.com

www.facebook.com

I have spent many hours to build these out to reflect my experience, skills, personality, etc and have acquired quite a few friends and/or followers however still do not feel like it’s all coming together hence why I started this blog.  Over the past few weeks, I have started a new project for a non-profit that I donate my time to with the expressed purpose to drive their membership up using Social Media.  For now, the name of this non-profit is not important.  What is important is how to harness the power of social media to achieve the goals that you set out to do.  Being a technology professional I quickly realized that I needed help so I started to surf the web to find those more knowledgeable in this area.  I quickly found several people that I’d like to recommend to you.  The first is Jeff Bullas who hails from down under (Sydney):

twitter.com/jeffbullas

jeffbullas.com/

This guy is a Social Media ANIMAL!!!  Check out his twitter page and also his blog.  You will spend hours here learning new tips and tricks.  I’ve been following and reading him for the past few weeks!!!  I’ve also found some local people that are much more advanced than I on their Social Media Scale such as:

twitter.com/aaron116

livefromnj.com/

Between the two of these guys, you will greatly increase your Social Media knowledge.  I know I have.