Note there is a question at the end....
I'm tweeting these days. In fact, you probably started reading this because I tweeted out a link to it. In the process, I'm gathering some followers. And, of course, I'm also losing some because they realize what I want to tweet about is not interesting to them.
More importantly, I trying to determine who I should follow. Because I do this "for work" some choices are obvious. I don't follow the people involved in MLM (multi-level marketing schemes), or have content that is nsfw (not suitable for work). In contrast, I definitely try to follow those who are interested in the same technical areas I am. Then, of course, there is the grey area. Real people who follow me but probably will never have a mutual business or technical interest. I'm of the tendancy to follow them until they prove to be in one of the categories I don't (or can't) follow.
However, at the same time, I'm an introvert (and have a primary job that requires most of my mind most of the time), so it's real hard for me to keep up with all the people I follow, especially on those occassions where I get someone who tweets a lot on my list and they start drowning everyone else out. which is a real shame as it might cause me to miss something from another person who tweeted something that was real interesting that I could respond to or retweet.
So I was wondering, how do I get people who follow me (and would like me to follow them back) to tweet to @intel_chris some message explaining why I should follow them, as in what the connection will be. Do you think asking people to do that will add too much noise to the system?
Do you think I should just DM each person I follow back with that question? Will that seem rude and pretensious?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Not quite a corporate spokesperson
@jowyang Intel has a formal SMP (social media practioner) program that have gone through training and be blessed to blog & tweet. Sounds like corp spokesperson.
I've been through the training and am so "blessed". However, I'm hardly qualified to be a corporate spokesperson. The training was mostly a few common sense items and reinforcing the "code of conduct", where we should not disparage our competition or leak insider information or make claims that can't be shown from public materials. We were also taught to publicly and clearly identify ourselves as Intel employees and the biases that brings. But, that's about it.
We aren't even picked from the marketing, management, or sales arms, although a couple of us (not me) have that background. I'm just an engineer, with some delusions of grandeur.
To be perfectly candid (that's the training kicking in) I do have a nice 2nd title as "Director of Embedded University Programs", because I volunteered to run the annual conference when my previous boss left and had to divy up certain jobs, and I liked introducing all the speakers at our annual conference. However, the title is essentially honorary (it doesn't reflect my day job) and I don't control the budget, although I do get to be the chairperson of the committee that reviews the annual grant program that one of my bosses (2 or 3 levels up) funds.
But back to the point, how did they pick us? They had a brown bag lunch one day talking about this program they were piloting, and asking for volunteers. I've always liked expressing my opinion publicly--my big call to fame is that I posted alot to the comp.compilers newsgroup over the years (and I parleyed that into writing a column for ACM's Sigplan Notices for a year or so--for which I could call myself an editor).
And, what do I write about, nothing particularly Intel related. I'm interested in compilers, regular expressions, automata theory, and because of my day job at Intel, network security. However, because I'm a little cog in a very big wheel, what I know about Intel would be very uninteresting. I do hope that my contribution makes it into a chip someday, but even if and when it does, I work in a niche group solving a niche problem. And, when I do comment on things that are work related, I will be very careful, because the Intel corporate culture which the training reinforces is to not show any bias or favoritism toward any of our partners or clients.
And, BTW, what do I think about network security, since that's my day job at Intel, that the biggest problem is and always will be social engineering, and although I'm working on a technical solution that will help against viruses and things, it won't touch that problem, because we don't know a technical solution to it (and there probably isn't one, at least not before our computers are smarter than we are).
Still, if Intel was training us to be corporate spokespeople then either their training was very subtle or I slept through more of the 30 minute web-based training than I want to admit. ;-) Intel does have spokepeople who can comment on legal and business items, but the new round of us tweeters aren't it. We're just kids given some fun toys and told not to make fools of the company.
I've been through the training and am so "blessed". However, I'm hardly qualified to be a corporate spokesperson. The training was mostly a few common sense items and reinforcing the "code of conduct", where we should not disparage our competition or leak insider information or make claims that can't be shown from public materials. We were also taught to publicly and clearly identify ourselves as Intel employees and the biases that brings. But, that's about it.
We aren't even picked from the marketing, management, or sales arms, although a couple of us (not me) have that background. I'm just an engineer, with some delusions of grandeur.
To be perfectly candid (that's the training kicking in) I do have a nice 2nd title as "Director of Embedded University Programs", because I volunteered to run the annual conference when my previous boss left and had to divy up certain jobs, and I liked introducing all the speakers at our annual conference. However, the title is essentially honorary (it doesn't reflect my day job) and I don't control the budget, although I do get to be the chairperson of the committee that reviews the annual grant program that one of my bosses (2 or 3 levels up) funds.
But back to the point, how did they pick us? They had a brown bag lunch one day talking about this program they were piloting, and asking for volunteers. I've always liked expressing my opinion publicly--my big call to fame is that I posted alot to the comp.compilers newsgroup over the years (and I parleyed that into writing a column for ACM's Sigplan Notices for a year or so--for which I could call myself an editor).
And, what do I write about, nothing particularly Intel related. I'm interested in compilers, regular expressions, automata theory, and because of my day job at Intel, network security. However, because I'm a little cog in a very big wheel, what I know about Intel would be very uninteresting. I do hope that my contribution makes it into a chip someday, but even if and when it does, I work in a niche group solving a niche problem. And, when I do comment on things that are work related, I will be very careful, because the Intel corporate culture which the training reinforces is to not show any bias or favoritism toward any of our partners or clients.
And, BTW, what do I think about network security, since that's my day job at Intel, that the biggest problem is and always will be social engineering, and although I'm working on a technical solution that will help against viruses and things, it won't touch that problem, because we don't know a technical solution to it (and there probably isn't one, at least not before our computers are smarter than we are).
Still, if Intel was training us to be corporate spokespeople then either their training was very subtle or I slept through more of the 30 minute web-based training than I want to admit. ;-) Intel does have spokepeople who can comment on legal and business items, but the new round of us tweeters aren't it. We're just kids given some fun toys and told not to make fools of the company.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
gooseGrade -- crowdsourcing proofreading
You might notice the gooseGrade button on this blog. That allows people to comment on my grammar, my spelling, my punctuation, my facts, my poor parallel construction in this sentence ;-). The idea is to harness the power of the web and the collective crowd to make our writing better. If it improves my blog, that's a good thing. I'm hoping that it does.
More importantly, I hope that in recommending it to you, if you write a blog, that it helps improve your blog too. Just go to http://bit.ly/4fmxQ, register, and then drop the appropriate button on your blog. It's that easy.
Of course, if you know something about writing, I think it will help if you review the pages they put up for checking. That's the other side of the coin. Nothing is completely free. For someone to benefit, someone must contribute. Here is my thanks in advance to those who are contributing. Better writing improves us all. Those who help are truly noble and ennobling.
As a security researcher, I would be remiss in not reminding you that registering and putting a button on your blog that executes code, you are doing something risky. Eventually, especially if gooseGrade gets popular, someone will hack gooseGrade and use it to serve up some form of malware. Now, I'm trusting that it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, if I do my job properly, we will make doing so harder. Still, it is a risk. If pushing the gooseGrade button on my site or registering for gooseGrade gets you a virus, I apologize for trusting too much, and in doing so giving bad advice. Unforutnately, trusting too much is in my nature.
More importantly, I hope that in recommending it to you, if you write a blog, that it helps improve your blog too. Just go to http://bit.ly/4fmxQ, register, and then drop the appropriate button on your blog. It's that easy.
Of course, if you know something about writing, I think it will help if you review the pages they put up for checking. That's the other side of the coin. Nothing is completely free. For someone to benefit, someone must contribute. Here is my thanks in advance to those who are contributing. Better writing improves us all. Those who help are truly noble and ennobling.
As a security researcher, I would be remiss in not reminding you that registering and putting a button on your blog that executes code, you are doing something risky. Eventually, especially if gooseGrade gets popular, someone will hack gooseGrade and use it to serve up some form of malware. Now, I'm trusting that it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, if I do my job properly, we will make doing so harder. Still, it is a risk. If pushing the gooseGrade button on my site or registering for gooseGrade gets you a virus, I apologize for trusting too much, and in doing so giving bad advice. Unforutnately, trusting too much is in my nature.
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