Rusty's Blog

I don’t buy everything Kimberly wrote about on this list of how social media is ruining your life, but there is some truth to some of it, like any good piece of link bait.

I’m not really interested in fisking it, I just want to focus on one part. For a while I was becoming one of those obnoxious people she mentions who constantly texts/reads and takes photos during times when I should have just been enjoying other people’s company. I’ve been working on not doing that as much, with varying degrees of success.

I think it was around the first Sex 2.0 that I realized I was spending too much time documenting my life and not enough time living it. I guess it was ironic to learn I was abusing social media at a social media conference. The event was a lot more fun than other events I’d been to because people didn’t sit around and live blog and post their photos to Flickr in real time much. They, and I, were too engaged in conversation to bother with any of that, and the experience was richer for it.

A lot has happened in my life I haven’t been writing about here. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to come back and read this years from now and wish I’d written more about one thing or another. And I very well might.

I didn’t write much about our house-hunting process. I didn’t write about our house warming party at all. I didn’t write about going to Six Flags last Saturday with some friends, other than a brief Twitter message or two.

At one point in high school when I was going to a lot of concerts I realized I was fixated on getting concert t-shirts so people would know, by golly, that I was at Nine Inch Nails or Aerosmith or whatever other band I was seeing that week that seems a little lame now. Then I realized I would have more money to go to more concerts if I didn’t spend money on souvenir t-shirts. So I left subsequent concerts with nothing but my memories to show for it, and the funny thing is I think I enjoyed the concerts more knowing ahead of time that’s all I would leave with.

Blogging about all the positive things in my life feels like that sometimes; like I’m fixated on taking a souvenir away from my good memories instead of just enjoying them as they happen and then leaving them in the past when I’m done.

I also am realizing my life probably won’t take the sweeping arch that a lot of people’s lives take, and I am at peace with this. That knowledge has caused me to focus on simple pleasures like hearing the birds chirp on my back deck, the smells of food cooked on my grill, or mowing the grass with a slight beer buzz on a Saturday afternoon. I spent four hours the other night making five tablespoons of tomato paste from scratch. None of this would make for exciting blog fodder, but it’s what I’ve come to enjoy lately.

My complaints feel trivial compared to other people’s and to my own from a few years ago, so I don’t want to weigh myself down focusing on those either.

If you’re not hearing as much from me about my life on here, that’s probably why. And I may need to point my future self back to this post if I find myself wondering why I didn’t write more.

I failed to mark the actual day (Thursday, Jan. 29) that we bought our new house on my blog, but I do want to write something down. So here’s a summary of some recent events:

• The process of buying and closing on our new house went surprisingly smoothly. It was quick and there were no major snags to speak of.
• Everyone we dealt with was both nice and competent. Our agent and lender were awesome. I’m now Facebook friends with both the seller’s real estate agent and with the closing attorney. The seller left us chocolate and champagne in our fridge.
• To be that person who talks about social media and calls it by its name for a second, it’s a very small world now. As soon as we walked in the office for the closing attorney, we were instantly recognized from Flickr photos Amber had tagged “East Atlanta.” Tagging Flickr photos “East Atlanta” causes them to show up in a badge on the EAVBuzz website, which is where the attorney saw them. There were already people talking about us and the house on there (which was simultaneously nice and a little weird).
• We’re planning to paint three rooms before we move in: the bedroom, the guest bedroom/Amber’s office/pole studio, and the kitchen. In that order, meaning if I’m sick of painting or we run out of time after the first two rooms are done, the Tennessee Orange kitchen may have to wait until after we move in. I’ll eventually want to paint my office, but it can wait until later.
• Painting will probably take us longer than it takes some people because I’m a firm believer you always need to use a coat of primer, even if the walls are already painted. Some of you will probably think that’s overkill since the walls are a slightly off-white cream color now, but you’re wrong.
• I’ve been shopping for tool sheds. I’d love to build one, but time, money, Amber’s aversion to wood sheds, and my aversion to plastic sheds won’t permit right now. We need to have some sort of storage out there by the end of March. That seems to narrow the options to an Arrow Shed. I dread buying one of these because of all the people writing about what a pain in the ass they are to put together. If you have a better idea, please share it.

That’s it for now. The lease on our apartment doesn’t run out until the end of March, which ought to give us a decent amount of time to paint and get moved over there. That date will creep up quick though, I’m sure.

Apparently, I am the first guinea pig for a new AJC Twitter account.

A few nights ago, I complained on Twitter about the AJC reprint permission form being down. I wanted to post an Atlanta Constitution clip from the 1930s that featured my grandfather here. Unfortunately, after I filled out the form, it crapped out on a 404 page. I then went on to fill out the form on the stacks page (yes, there are at least two request permission forms for AJC articles). A couple of days later, the ajchelps account followed me and responded to my message. This piqued my curiosity since I was the first person they had responded to, so I contacted them and asked some questions.

What follows is an email Q&A with AJC employees Chris Heisel and Jennifer Morrow. Heisel is Director of Online Development, and Morrow is External Communications Manager. Also referenced is Alan Segal, Director of Audience Development. Questions and answers are unedited.

Full disclosure: I have never worked for any Cox-owned company, but my girlfriend Amber is a former employee of COXnet, which operates mostly-separately from the AJC’s online outfit.

1. RT: How did the idea for the ajchelps Twitter account form? And from whom (editorial, tech, management, etc.)?

   CH: I don’t know if the idea sprung from any one spot. We both had set up some AJC twitter accounts (@ajc and @ajcalerts) before to feed headlines and news updates to our audience on Twitter. These seemed like a logical extension once folks started twittering about problems with the site.

2. RT: How would you describe the basic utility of this account? What problem does it solve?

   CH: It’s pretty simple. Folks can follow and @reply or direct message ajchelps if they’re having a problem with ajc.com and we’ll try and solve it or direct the problem to folks who can. We also set up an account with getsatisfaction.com to facilitate that kind of communication.

3. RT: Are you familiar with the comcastcares Twitter account? If so, what are your thoughts for how your plans compare to what Comcast has done?

   CH: I’m not a Comcast customer, but I found out about comcastcares at the Web 2.0 conference this year. I thought it was a great way to engage users!That plus the problem you were having certainly inspired the creation of the account.

4. RT: How does the idea of answering questions on Twitter tie into the AJC 2.0 strategy Julia Wallace has laid out?

   JM: We believe it’s important to communicate to our readers using the channels they most prefer. Social media will play an important role when we launch our enhanced Sunday newspaper in early 2009. Since we’re still six plus months away from the launch, we’re now working on how best to use the various communication channels available to us, including Twitter.

5. RT: How did you find the gripe I posted to Twitter since the ajchelps account wasn’t following me prior to that?

   CH: There are a couple of Twitter search services, we used Summize (now search.twitter.com) and TweetScan to look for anything with the words “ajc” in it.

6. RT: How many and what sorts of AJC issues other than mine have you noticed on Twitter?

   CH: I don’t have any firm numbers on hand, but anecdotally I haven’t seen many issues twittered, just yours and a few others. We’ve gotten some feature suggestions from some of our Twitter users. Someone asked for the feed that we send to @ajc to be made available with just the headline and the link — hence @ajcheadlines.

7. RT: What sorts of questions might be better answered on Twitter than in other media?

   CH: I don’t know if there any particular questions that are better suited to Twitter than to other media, per se. But it is a good medium for establishing a dialogue with users, and a particularly good listening device.

8. RT: Who will be responsible for monitoring issues on Twitter, and how much time do you expect them to spend doing so per day (or week or month)?

   CH: Right now it’s just Alan and I. It doesn’t take a lot of time out of our day, so far. I just include it in my list of feeds I regularly sweep in NetNewsWire.

9. RT: Once you ensure the web site is functioning properly and that’s no longer someone’s issue, will you be able to pursue the issue further to make sure it’s resolved? For example: It’s been more than two business days since I submitted my article reprint request. I haven’t heard anything back, even though on the form it says someone will get back to me in two business days.

   CH: I think that’s a great point, and something we’d certainly keep in mind as we get more adept in using Twitter and GetSatisfaction.com and other social media as part of our customer service.

10. RT: Of the buyouts which were offered to long-time employees recently, roughly how do they break down across departments? i.e. advertising, editorial, ajc.com, etc.

    JM: To remain the leading media company in the Atlanta market, the AJC will continue to take steps to improve performance, including developing new products, reallocating resources and seeking efficiencies. The current staff reductions, which will occur in late August, will take place primarily in News and Revenue (specifically, Advertising Sales and Operations). To ease the transition to the new department structures, the company first offered voluntary separation programs to eligible News and Revenue employees. As of the deadline of July 31, 73 News employees and 136 Revenue employees have opted to participate in the voluntary separation programs. Despite these changes, the AJC remains the area’s largest newsgathering and media sales organization.