Community Guy – Jake McKee

Friday Fun: Photo Style

Linda Rains snapped this hilarious picture on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Classic.

Will Wright Smoothness

I swear, as nerdy as he is, I could listen to Will Wright talk about how to design games for hours on end.

Choosing difficulty (one for the space nerds)

If you’re a space nerd, you’re going to love WeChooseTheMoon.org. What is it, you ask?

Wechoosethemoon.org is an interactive experience recreating the historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in real time. Once where only three men made the trip, now millions can. Live event begins 9:32 AM EDT July 16, 2009. Exactly 40 years after Apollo 11 lifted off.

The site is a very nicely done experience, complete with a widget to track the (re)launch.

And if you’ve never seen John Kennedy’s Rice University speech which kicked off the race to the moon, you really should take a few minutes to listen, read, or watch. Amazing. I still get goosebumps every time he says “We choose to go to the moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.”

Travel Goodies

Since I’m in Chicago this week, and since I’m cleaning out my inboxes (both virtual and physical), I thought I’d share some good stuff related to travel.

Need a great airport snack?
Keep an eye out for Peeled Snacks, dried fruit that’s literally JUST dried fruit. Damn tasty and sans-chemicals. Head to the site and fill out a 2 minute survey and they’ll hook you up with $10 e-credit to their online store.

Love WWII history?
I stop at every WWII museum, exhibit, or bookstore history section I can. So you can imagine my pleasure when a gas stop on my recent cross-country road trip turned into one of the most amazing museum stop I’ve experienced in years. If you find yourself in Lexington, Nebraska, plan on spending several hours at the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles. It’s a HUGE collection of beautifully, perfectly, wonderfully restored WWII vehicles. I think 42 of them. They even let me take the dog in, since it was 100 degrees outside!

Feel like you’re flying in Chicago
If you’re not scared of heights, check this out. I’m not going to spoil the surprise… just check it out.

Hodgman: Obama is the first nerd President

If you do any public speaking, be sure to watch this video. John Hodgman is an amazing (and hilarious) storyteller and his presentation shows it.

The McKee family is Seattle bound!

If you follow me on twitter (@jakemckee) you know that I’m in the midst of pretty big life change. That’s right, after 6 years in Dallas, our family is moving to Seattle!

When Sean and I created the new and improved Ant’s Eye View in January, we wondered if it made sense to have us geographically spread out so that we could more easily service regional clients. But almost immediately it became obvious that we needed to be in the same physical location. After all, the Wonder Twins can’t active their powers if they can’t fist bump their rings.

Not to say that I’m comparing Sean and I to alien Super Friends.

Ant’s Eye View World HQ (aka thinkspace) is located in Redmond, WA and we’ll be living right up the street. We’re pretty dang excited, both to be Seattle area residents and to get this damn moving stuff completed. Oh, and of course to be a member of Social Media Club Seattle and SEALUG!

Dallas has always been great to my career and my life. After a total of 12 years living in Dallas, I’ll miss it. But I’m also really excited about the move.

And for the record: yes, I know it rains a lot there. Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for the memories, Ford!

A few weeks back, the folks at Ford recently reached out to offer me a test drive of the new Lincoln MKS.

I was a bit skeptical at first, considering the history of the Lincoln brand. Namely, I didn’t figure I was quite old enough. Lincoln is the brand my grandparents drive. Lincoln is the brand of the Land Boats of my childhood. Or at least that’s where I started the weekend.

But after driving this MKS for a few days now, I can see that Lincoln is working on building a product that younger folks would be interested in. The car was feature laden, and for a gadget guy like me, that’s tasty fun.

Here’s a quick run down of some of the fun features:

• Badass cruise control – this was probably the most enjoyable feature about the car. The dynamic cruise adjusted to deal with obstacles around you (i.e. other cars) and slows down and speeds up to keep a safe distance from the car in front of you. Even if the car in front of you has recently occupied that space. Very cool. When you put this car in cruise control, it really controls your cruise, so to speak. Unlike typical cruise controls, it doesn’t make you hit the breaks when someone changes into your lane.
• Seat heaters… and coolers! Yeah, it’s cool to heat your seats. Unless you live in Texas. I’ve dreamed of a day when I could drive to a meeting in a nice shirt on a Texas summer day without walking into the meeting with sweat marks down my back. Gross, sure. But if you’ve ever been in this situation, you’ll feel me.
• THX Sound – who knew they did cars and Pixar movies!
• Microsoft Sync – Worked pretty slick for my iPod, but I couldn’t for the life of me get my iPhone’s bluetooth to connect. Looked pretty cool if it had though. Had I had the car longer, I would have googled to figure out how to fix it.
• Seats and mirrors that readjusted automatically if changed. I didn’t have enough time to deal with figuring out how to set my own preferences.
• Smmooooooth ride – like any of the Lincoln models I’ve been in over the years, this one had a pretty smooth ride. A bit on the rough side on the freeways (though not “rough”, really) but on city streets it absolutely floated over bumps.

As much as I liked the car overall, this is definitely not a kid friendly car. The car seat barely seemed to fit overall, allowing The Girl’s feet to be well within kicking distance of the passenger seat. The bottom seat anchors for clipping the car seat straps in were aligned really poorly and were far too far apart to make the short strap on our car seat actually work. And the trunk, while big enough to fit a body, wasn’t very deep. I often find myself changing The Girl in my trunk, or letting her play in it while I deal with bags or strollers. (Don’t worry, I leave the lid open!) The way the MKS was designed, it doesn’t really work for that.

Of course, families with 2 year olds certainly aren’t their target market!

Thanks to the kind folks at Ford for the drive. I’d be happy to drive anything else you want to loan me!

Check out some more photos on Flickr!

A story to tide you over…

Moving. A two year old. Co-owning a new business. Selling a house.

Let’s say that things have been busy lately. Blogging has been slow, so as I was cleaning up my desktop tonight I found something I thought I’d share. I submitted the story below to Fray for their “Geek” theme. (It didn’t make it)

Please try not to make too much fun.

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In 1977 my Mom gave me a toy that changed my life. I don’t remember it, of course; I was 3 years old at the time. But it charted a course that still impacts my life to this day. The toy was one of the first LEGO sets to be found in the United States after they migrated from Europe.

By the time I was 7 years old or so, no Christmas or birthday celebration was complete unless there was a shiny new LEGO set to unwrap. To this day I still have vivid memories of the Rescue Helicopter, Knight’s Castle, Motorcycle Shop, and the Moon Surface Transport. My dream job as a kid? LEGO Designer.

Well into my teens, I was building here and there. That likely has to do with my younger brother starting to get interested in LEGO about the time that I was at the age where I “should have” lost interest, and didn’t really share with friends that I still partook in this particular activity. How uncool would that have been?

When I went off to college, I was completely broke most of the time. But I always found a way to pick up a small set here and there to keep the obsession fed. I didn’t build much simply because my LEGO brick collection was still at home, turned over to my brother.

One day in 1999, I found myself in Toys R’ Us shopping for a gift for a co-worker’s baby when I stumbled upon the most amazing thing I’d ever seen: LEGO had released a line of Star Wars LEGO sets. Here in my hands I was holding the dream of so many children of the 70s, a vision in grey, something I never thought I’d see. The LEGO X-Wing set.

I snatched it up, as well as several other LEGO Star Wars sets they had in stock. After talking to a stock boy who was as equally enthused about the product line as I was, I discovered that they only had a few sets out of the full line that LEGO had produced. And in true geek style, I spent the rest of the day driving all over the Dallas metroplex trying to complete the line.

Before I knew it, I had reclaimed my 10 gallons of LEGO bricks from my parent’s house, joined the online LEGO fan community, and was buying sets and building creations like my life and career depended on it. Turns out it did.

As a way to learn a new Web programming language, I started building an online store where I could sell individual LEGO elements. I generated a few bucks and built a pretty decent customer base, but also attracted the attention of the LEGO Company itself. I found myself interviewing in New York City for a job with LEGO Direct, the newly formed direct-to-consumer business unit of The LEGO Company. Then I found myself walking in the door for my first day of work.

The 7-year old kid who made his relatives chuckle when he told them what he wanted to do had delivered on a promise to himself to make it happen.

I spent five years traveling the world, working with fan groups, and learning about online and offline community. I wrote a book, designed two different LEGO sets and two minifigs (the little LEGO people). I saw the power of the LEGO brick to excite and delight kids and adults alike. I learned that the brick is a universal language that can help people communicate ideas and emotions even if they can’t speak the same language. I saw 5 year old kids and 55 year old adults meeting each other at eye level to smile and point and admire amazing creations. And I’ve heard countless stories from programmers, engineers, scientists, and professors who confidently point to the LEGO brick as the reason they are in the profession they are.

But I know that my singular geek fixation brought me to the place I’m at now in life. I wish I’d known that as a teenager … I would have been much more proud of my age inappropriate connection to the best toy ever created.

The Ants Continue to March

I’m proud beyond words to share our latest announcement over at Ant’s Eye View. Long story short, the illustrious Sean McDonald (of Dell community fame) is joining our team!

Welcome to the Grassroots Age!

At Ant’s Eye View, we think every day about how to Elevate Customer Experience. You can no longer afford to look down on a mass of customers and treat them as a market. If you do, you will be left out of the real world and the real conversations that are shaping your identity and impacting your brand’s integrity. In order to elevate customer experience, you’ve first got to change your point of view – learning how to get eye-to-eye, ant-to-ant and even tweet-to-tweet with your customers. Differentiated brands will learn to listen, engage and integrate the voice of the customer seamlessly into everything they do.

At Ant’s Eye View, our job is to help our clients develop and implement strategies focused on integrating the voice of the customer and driving social engagement as a cornerstone for innovation, customer service and word of mouth marketing initiatives. Central to our brand promise is bringing leadership to you in the form of proven corporate practitioners – leaders who have made it happen in brands you’ve heard of. With that in mind, we’re incredibly pleased to welcome Sean McDonald to Ant’s Eye View and announce the opening of our Austin, Texas office.

Welcome Sean!

Sean has spent 11 years at Dell in Executive positions in Marketing, Customer Service, Online, and Communications. Since 2006, Sean led the design and operation of Dell’s online community activities on Dell.com and online conversations off dell.com. An online community affords Dell.com users an experience to Learn, Share, and Explore technology with variety of content and interactions. Last year 250 million visits occurred on Dell communities including Dell Community Forum , Direct2Dell , and Idea Storm. Dell communities operate across 6 languages. Dell is mentioned approximately 5000 times every day on non Dell websites. Sean and his team joined these web discussions-adding value by resolving customer issues and answering product questions. Learn a bit more from his talk at SWOMfest, or from industry coverage:

• Forbes.com
• Fortune.com
• Business Week
• Mashable.com

Sean joined Dell in 1997 as a Marketing Manager in the newly formed Consumer Business and was responsible for the Marketing Operations of a $1.7 Billion segment. His operation provided the financial analysis and forecasting to enable the business to grow 70% annually. Additional roles included Brand Management, Product Development, Call Center Operations; reaching sales $4+ Billion in 2004.

Prior to joining Dell, Sean spent 2 years with Deloitte Consulting Group as a Senior Management Consultant and 7 years in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant in Logistics. While in the U.S. Navy, Sean was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and Navy Achievement Medal for operational excellence and leadership.

Sean holds a BBA and MBA from The University of Texas at Austin, the city he and his family call home. Sean is married to Liz Rescia and has two children, Keaton and Fallon. You can ask Sean just about anything related to Beatles trivia and you’re likely to find him spending time with family near any body of water. (You know those Navy boys!)

You can find Sean on Twitter at: @iamseanmcdonald

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With Sean’s addition to our team, we are also pleased to announce the development of a new 1 day workshop:

The Social Engagement Practitioner Lab: LEGO, Dell and Microsoft as only insiders could tell it

Interested in more info or scheduling? Contact us. And be sure to meet all the Ants at Ant’s Eye View!

March on!

My easy took thousands of hours of work

As you probably noticed, I’ve updated the look and feel here at CommunityGuy.com. In a matter of minutes, I found a great (and free) theme to customize, used MAMP (open source) to be able to modify and test locally, and then updated my Wordpress (open source) platform with the new theme design.

Although it took me about an hour to do an impressive update, there were thousands of hours that went into making that ease possible. People from around the world have been working on these three projects. When that dawned on me, I couldn’t help but feel humbled and appreciative.

Nerds from around the world, I salute you.

As far as the new design goes, please let me know what you think and if you see any problems. I never really liked the last theme I had in place, but I’m digging this one! I’d love to hear your thoughts.