Jason Thibeault's Blog: From My Pen, page 58

Will Standardization Help?

I recently came across a new organization dedicated to defining standards for consumer cloud usage: The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC).

From their charter,

The council will separate the hype from the reality on how to leverage what customers have today and how to use open, standards-based cloud computing to extend their organizations.

The Cloud Standards Customer Council is an end user advocacy group dedicated to accelerating cloud’s successful adoption, and drilling down into the stand...

Quote: Preparation is 90% of the Battle

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.”

-Navy SEALS (US Special Operations Force 1962

Originally posted 2011-09-12 08:22:01.

Storytelling 101: What Makes a Good Story?

This was originally published on the Limelight Networks Blog as part of my day-to-day responsibilities as the Sr. Director of Marketing Strategy.

Storytelling is the future of digital marketing, plain and simple. If you aren’t on board yet, you are living in the past and each day you are “advertising” your products instead of “storytelling” about your business is another day your competitors are getting ahead of you. But before we jump into some ideas about what makes a good story, let’s look...

Now You See Me, Now You…Recognize Me?

It’s purported that Apple will be including facial recognition in the next version of its iOS 5.0 software:

http://mashable.com/2011/07/27/face-detection-ios-5/

Exposing multiple APIs for developers, you may soon be able to carry out activities in applications using facial recognitions. So perhaps the next time you want to add a smiley to an email, you just need to grin [image error]

Originally posted 2011-07-27 08:42:47.

Is One Cloud Enough?

A recent outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) that brought down such sites as Instagram and Netflix has launched cloud into the public eye again…but probably not for the right reasons. In fact, even one outage in 99 is more than enough to undermine user confidence in today’s world where 250 milliseconds of delay can scare them off to competitors.

But does this outage really illustrate public cloud unreliability? I would argue with anyone that it doesn’t especially for services where there are r...

How-To: The Twitter Sales Pitch

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Social Media is great, allowing you to engage with your users and customers. But do you have what it takes to make effective use of it as a way to drive incremental business? The folks over at SproutSocial have put together a nice piece on utilizing Twitter for sales pitches:

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2011/09/how-to-write-twitter-sales-pitch/

In short:

Don’t think of Twitter as a place to pitch your business, products, or services. Instead, think of Twitter...

How Do You Use Your Smartphone?

An interesting recent article on ReadWriteMobile posted data about analysis done on how people use their smartphones during a typical workday:

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After reading this, I started thinking about my own smartphone usage and find that the bulk of my time is spent between messaging and voice. When I have time, I tend to use it for entertainment such as playing Angry Birds. Browsing really only comes into play when I need some information. What is your usage like?

Originally posted 2011-07-25 13:58:53.

Quote: Happy Anniversary to a Hallmark in Human History

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

– Neil Armstrong (July 20, 1969)

Originally posted 2011-07-20 09:47:16.

Photos: Really Cool Things Don’t Need an Explanation

Translucent ants eating colored liquid. Nuff said.

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Scientist Mohamed Babu from Mysore, India captured beautiful photos of these translucent ants eating a specially colored liquid sugar. Some of the ants would even move between the food resulting in new color combinations in their stomachs. Read more over on the Daily Mail.

Originally posted 2011-08-08 14:27:45.

Comic Books as a Reflection of Social Issues

Comic books have always held a special place in the collective social imagination. Although often relegated to the fancies of children, there are many lifelong comic-book fans that enjoy the outlandish and often impossibility represented by superheros and their ilk.

But the comic book industry has seen a steadily-increasing downturn in readership despite many of the recent Hollywood successes with on-screen translation. In order to understand why that is happening, we really need to understand...