Will the real BRAD BALDWIN please stand up?

Grandpa’s been gone for four years

Brad — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:44:02 +0000

My brother Scott Baldwin captured this video on a trip to my Grandfather Baldwin’s home a couple of years before his death. While I love to hear these stories and view my Grandpa and Grandma, I still remember a much more vibrant, young, and energetic version of the same man and woman. My grandma gave me a pair of red socks for a birthday present when I was around 8 or 9. I still remember that day and the many others where I was able to spend time with her and my grandpa. I remember going fishing once with my day and Grandpa at a lake somewhere in the desert of central Idaho where my Grandpa’s brother had a big ranch. It was a great time.

Grandpa, I miss you. Look forward to a heavenly reunion.

Winners: UTC Golf Event

Brad — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:35:24 +0000

I had a lot of fun in this year’s UTC Golf Tournament at Talon’s Cove. I enjoyed getting to know three new guys that I had not met before the event. It was a team effort all the way around. Lee who put up with me as a cart partner and took off pressure when he hit putts for birdie. Preston who sunk an eagle putt on the short par 4 16th. Brandon nailed a number of long drives, including beating out the Pro who was an “extra player” on a par 5 and a monster snaking birdie putt on our first hole. Enjoyed the day, lunch, and putting the prize money in my pocket.

Left to right:
Lee Jarman (Clearplay)
Preston Jensen (Tanner)
Brandon Perkin (Sundance)
Brad Baldwin (Rocky Mountain Voices)

Brad preps for long par 3.

Swing … hit this one pin high, left of the green.

Twitter Error : gateway timeout - HTTP 503 response

Brad — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 02:35:37 +0000

Anyone else tired of this Twitter Error? Is this a Twitter API issue or a Twitterific issue? Regardless, I’m just wishing that the insanity with uptime would stop.

“There was a “gateway timeout - HTTP 503 response” error while communicating with Twitter. This is a problem with their server, so contact Twitter at http://twitter.com/help if the problem persists.”

Foremski Suggests that CMOs Need Social Footprints

Brad — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:20:39 +0000

Tom Foremski is a smart guy with keen insight into the happenings of Silicon Valley. I interacted with him on a few occasions through PodTech.net and at the Bloghaus at CES. Foremski’s post today is targeted at marketing professionals.

The Question:
“Think about two equally educated candidates with similar experience but one candidate doesn’t have the same social or professional footprint in the mediasphere as the other. Which one gets the job?”

Marketing technology is requiring a new training ground. Classical marketing principles can be leveraged, but the instantaneous feedback and interaction available today is game changing. And while good marketing people have always listened to the prospect or customer, today marketing pros must listen, listen, listen to the “networks.”

Good stuff Tom.

I’m Getting Old

Brad — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:54:30 +0000

My sister Jodi sent me this card for my birthday this year.

Funny. I used to get the cards telling me to have a “sexy” or “manly” birthday. Now I guess I’ve reached the age for diaper cards. Thanks Jodi.

Thanks to all who said hello on by snail mail, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, txt, and good old email.

Design is so Underrated in Tech

Brad — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:59:48 +0000

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s an Apple iMac vs. typical Dell desktop computer.

I had some friends over the other day. He was amazed at the lack of cabling at my iMac in the family room. I actually “added” a network cable because I wanted full-speed, 100 Mbps data transfers inside the network.

Engineering “complexity” out of technology is underrated. When did [why did] the consumer begin to accept complexity as a feature in a technology solution?

Storage to Match Small Form-Factor Mobile Devices

Brad — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:06:51 +0000

Seeing Samsung’s next-generation 256 GB SSD makes my mind contemplate the mobile devices just over the horizon. A 1.8 inch solid state drives with the capacity that was in servers not all that long ago. But the performance is perhaps more impressive: sequential data reads at 200MB per second, and writes at 160MB per second. Tiny computing devices will be capable of carrying whole libraries and still leave space for are own creations. Of course if all those devices come with HD video recording capabilities, then we’ll fill it up quickly. Better get on that 512 GB version Samsung.

The Power of Community

Brad — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:26:11 +0000

I’m amazed at Twitter. In fact Twitter may be the biggest case study in the strength of a digital community.

Despite its regular outages that would have crushed any other Web business (1.0 or 2.0), I come back and everyone else I know is still is there too. We complain. We get frustrated. But we still post messages. Why? The power of Twitter’s connected network of users keeps people coming back.

Like a hot 50’s burger joint that doubles as the night spot, Twitter is the place to be seen and heard. Even when it’s down (closed), we still attempt a drive-by to see who’s there. As soon as it’s back up, there we are posting away.

Jeremiah Owyang, social media analyst at Forrester and former PodTecher, comments today that he “signed the customer company pact,” basically telling Twitter he’d “be patient, understanding, and to show the company the same respect” that he’d want shown to him.

While the customer company pact is good, getting people to shift to another service will depend entirely upon the community it’s built on. I still prefer Flickr, PodTech, Utah Bloggers, etc. over others because of community. There is sticking-power when the community is there.

USA falling behind in Broadband Speed

Brad — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:27:46 +0000

The WSJ has an interesting article today that shows the USA falling further and further behind the rest of the world in broadband speeds.

The U.S. has fallen behind in speed, too. In the same study, conducted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, the U.S. ranked 15th in the average advertised download speed, at 4.9 megabits a second. That’s slower than the 17.6 megabits a second in France and the 63.6 megabits a second in Japan, which ranks No. 1 in this category. In other words, it takes a little over two minutes to download a movie on iTunes in Japan, compared with almost half an hour in the U.S. The average U.S. download speed is even slower, according to other estimates.

I pay $55.00 a month for “basic” speeds from Comcast. I could get faster if I would also buy my cable TV service from them. This may have been the direction I went when I first moved into my new home 5 years ago. However, Comcast didn’t offer cable or high-speed when I moved in because they didn’t have my new neighborhood “wired” when the development was created. Since I produce videos, uploads speeds are nearly as important as my download speeds. I’m averaging only 43-48 Kbps uploads. I would love to get some of the Japanese speeds here in the USA.

vSpring v|100 class of 2008 Member

Brad — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:38:26 +0000

While this is old news at this point, I thought I’d reference the list of vSpring v100 members for 2008 as it’s now available on the vSpring Capital site. I’m looking forward to catching up with members and friends at the v|100 luncheon May 28, 2008.

I just counted and realized I’ve interviewed about 20 percent of this year’s members as part of my social media and marketing exposure efforts at Rocky Mountain Voices.

Rick Alden, Skullcandy, CEO & Audio Guerrilla

Kirt Bailey, Celio Corp, President & CEO

Bob Barnes, Zonder, CEO (filmed with Dennis Wood)

Jay Bean, OrangeSoda, CEO

William Borghetti, Sendside Networks, CEO

Adam Edmunds, Allegiance, CEO

Bjorn Espenes, Infopia, CEO

Jeremy Hanks, Doba, Cofounder, Chairman & President

Richard D. Hanks, Mindshare Technologies, Chairman & President

Nathan Hatch, Center 7, President & CEO

Scott Johnson, AtTask, CEO

Kimberley Jones, Vérité, CEO

Jeff Kearl, Skullcandy, Chairman of the Board

Abraham Knell, AtTask, Co-Founder & Vice President, Sales

Darren Lee, NextPage, CEO & President

Ty D. Mattingly, Primary Colors, Managing Director

Dr. Tom Ngo, NextPage, CTO

Brent Nixon, Cymphonix, President

Michael Proper, DirectPointe, President & CEO

Eric Smith, Control4, CTO

Jack W. Sunderlage, ContentWatch, President & CEO

Cydni Tetro, NextPage, VP Marketing

Will West, Control4, CEO