Chris Boivin knows...

Fast Forward 90 Days

Chris — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 04:43:09 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve written, but luckily it’s not because I was trying to avoid accountability or anything. In fact, a bunch of really cool things have happened in the last 90 days!

I’ve completed a 2nd triathlon (well, it was really a duathlon – run/bike/run – because the risk of rip currents was too high)
I got a great job working at a credit union (if you don’t know what credit unions are, exactly, they’re a totally awesome financial institution – way better than banks b/c they are a cooperative. Banks are owned by shareholders so to make money for them they tack on fees and find other ways of extracting money from customers to be more profitable. Credit unions are member-owned, so there’s no profits going to anyone but the members. Rates are better, fees are extremely low and service is tons better.)
My wife and I have our beehives and are learning a lot and having a great time as beekeepers
I’ve now lost a total of more than 100 lbs! (2 lbs away from my lifetime goal)

Now I’m training for an Olympic-distance triathlon (0.9 mi swim, 25 mi bike, 6.2 mi run, or if you are in a country that actually adopted the more easily manageable metric system: 1500 meter swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run) and I have a few ‘adventure’ races on the calendar, culminating with Tough Mudder December 1 in Tampa.

One thing I’ve tried with my training and competition is adding energy gels/supplements. I’ve tried several, and here’s my quick and dirty review of each.

Gu Energy Gel - Taste good (my favorite so far is the Strawberry Banana), give a good, long-lasting energy boost (i dont’ use caffeinated ones – don’t see the point since caffeine works much more slowly than sugar)

Powerbar Energy Gel - Taste ok, a little liquidy (by design, I know, but still not my preference). Decent energy boost (takes maybe a touch longer to get going), but the biggest problem to me is that I seem to get nauseated after about an hour or so into my cardio training.

Quest Bars - I’ve got an assortment of these and have only tried one so far but I really liked it (wild berry was the flavor I tried). The selling point of Quest bars is that hey have very few “active carbs” (i.e., alcohol sugars) and a good dose of protein. Feel hard as a rock in the wrapper, but actually have a pretty good texture when you’re eating them. Non-chocolate flavors are a little better than the chocolate flavors, IMO.

CLIF SHOT BLOKS - I like these a lot – little gel blocks. 3 = 1 energy gel pack. Seem like there’s more moisture in these so you don’t need to wacht them down with so much water. Plus you can take fewer than the whole energy gel pack more easily.

Honey Stinger - Pretty neat product, tasty little wafer endorsed by Lance Armstrong. Can’t recall how well I felt it worked, but have another one on deck to try!

I think it’s a coincidence, but on some of the weeks where I’ve not lost as much weight or *gulp* gained a bit have been weeks when I’ve consumed a few energy booster products. I’d like to find the balance between over-carbo-loading and ‘bonking’ (just learned that term – know what it is? It’s the term marathon runners use to describe what happens when they go beyond the point where their bodies are using sugars for energy and dip into their protein (muscle) stores for energy. Now you know what it is, too!). I’ll keep experimenting. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

So, that’s the skinny. I’ll try to share some more about all of that a little more frequently. Look forward to hearing any comments or suggestions. Thanks so much for listening!

81.4 Ways [Not] to Fail at Losing Weight

Chris — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:18:39 +0000

So I guess it’s a good time for me to write about my experience with weight loss. Over the past year I’ve lost 81.4 lbs. The pic of me is a before and almost after (that’s about 10 or 15 lbs ago). The after pic is at the finish line of a sprint-distance triathlon.

It’s been a long journey and it’s not over. In fact, it’ll never be over. (Well, I don’t mean that I’m going to keep losing weight until I disappear or anything, just that even when I hit my goal, I’ll be working to maintain a healthy weight from there on out.) I’ve learned so much from this experience (and plan on learning a lot more). Mostly, I’ve learned how all the bad habits I (and you, c’mon, let’s face it) have had in the past were recipes for failure when it came to weight loss.

Rather than list all 81.4 ways (though I bet I could), here are 4 that have made the most difference to me.

(1) Recipe for Failure: Restrict yourself from things

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is “What diet did you do?” Answer: none. I joined Weight Watchers. The rest of this is going to sound like the result of the brainwashing equal to that of our finest insane religious cults, but it’s all true. Weight Watchers is not a diet. ”Diets” are restrictive, usually short-term because of the intensity of the restrictions, and typically provide short-term results. Weight Watchers is a lifestyle plan. The tentpoles are journaling, education, healthy lifestyle habits and mutual support.

I can – and do – eat anything I want. Anything. An-y-thing. Last night we had barbecue, sweet potato pie and chocolate cake. A week or so ago we went to a concert and I had a soft pretzel and beer. The fact of the matter is this: if you restrict yourself, you’ll fail. Eventually you’ll give in to your cravings and slowly but surely break your good habits because you feel restricted.

So, I didn’t do a diet. And you don’t have to either. You don’t even have to join Weight Watchers…

(2) Recipe for Failure: Out of sight, out of mind

Usually, when we eat something once it’s gone, we don’t think about it anymore. The damage is done. Or even if it’s something healthy, we don’t think much about it because we focus all our energy on the delicious garbage that we love to hate.

That’s where the journaling helps sooooooo much. A study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that people who journaled their food six days a week lost twice as much as those who only journaled one day or less a week.

This is why I’m saying that you don’t necessarily need to join Weight Watchers to lose weight. If you journal your food, you’ll lose. Journaling makes you accountable for what you eat to the one person it matters to: yourself. It also helps you control the volume of food you eat (you’re more likely to pay attention to serving sizes when you write things down), and helps you develop and maintains healthy eating habits.

Journaling makes you more accountable to yourself, and that’s great. But what happens when you start cheating yourself? Well…

(3) Recipe for Failure: You don’t need anyone’s help

Sheer tyranny of will can be a very powerful thing. Unfortunately, most of us (unless you’re Mohandas Gandhi or Lance Armstrong or someone like that) don’t have it.

Having others’ support while you try to reach a goal or overcome an obstacle is another key to success, in my experience. I’ve taken advantage of others’ support in at least two ways: (1) I attend Weight Watchers meetings where others are going through the same thing I am, including our awesome meeting leader, Anita, who is also a member and fights the good fight every day, and (2) I share my successes, trials and tribulations with others through social media channels, where I get a great deal of advice and encouragement.

The encouragement and inspiration is definitely an important component of getting others’ support. But the real power of sharing with the community for me is the accountability. I built a habit of sharing my successes AND stumbles with my social circles regularly. On my weekly weigh-in days, I share the results, good, bad or indifferent. And as I go through my week I share things like my activity completions and unique or unusual places/things I eat.

Am I just trying to get people to stroke my ego? No. (Well, not JUST doing that.) I’m making myself accountable by creating passive peer pressure for me to do the right thing. I’ve had people message me when I haven’t posted activities for a while asking what’s going on; I’ve had people offer great support and encouragement even on those weeks when I gain a bit of weight; I have had people challenge my eating choices when they appear to be taking me off track. 3rd party perspective can be very powerful.

So what about those times when the needle on the scale moves clockwise or you eat a big slab of Zoe’s chocolate sheet cake (oh my God, is it worth it…)? Well, it’s not all about the scale…

(4) Recipe for failure: Be a slave to the scale

Sure, I’ve lost quite a chunk of lbs. And it’s awesome, in aggregate. But look at this picture, it’s a chart showing my progress in terms of weight. It’s not one continuous, smooth, decline, is it? Not even a smooth, modest decline. Nope, it’s riddled with jagged edges that slope up and down every week for the last umpteen weeks (too lazy to count them now, and how often do you get to write the word ‘umpteen’ (which doesn’t set off spelling alarms, by the way… weird.)). Seeing the scale change is great, but it is not what it’s all about.

Even when my net weight goes up a touch or stays the same, there are so many other indicators of progress that I can – and do – celebrate. Clothes fitting better might be at the top of the list. Yesterday for the first time since maybe college or a little after, I was trying on jeans and pants with a 38 waist. Might sound big to you, but to me that’s pretty awesome. I’ve been wearing 44-46 for years now. And some of the 38s: too big! Clothes tell the tale. I’ve donated piles of my larger clothes to veterans via www.clothingdonations.org (free pickup! and they take other stuff, too!) and plan on donating more.

My fitness level is also a great indicator of success. I ran a triathlon. A TRIATHLON! How cool is that? Well, to me, it’s very cool. And not only that, I kicked a bit of ass in the swimming leg and biking leg (still working on my running). But it took time, patience and persistence to get to that point. I went from failing at running (my knees couldn’t take it) to walking to swimming to biking to adding back running.

So even on those weeks when I gain a pound or two, I still revel in the fact that I can fit into my clothes, run without dropping, swim 1000 yards non-stop (on my way to being able to swim a non-stop mile), bike 20 miles and feel good when I’m finished… And there’s also sitting comfortably in airplane or theater seats, walking up and down stairs without giving it a thought, walking between tables in a restaurant without turning sideways and shuffling through… All great.

I’ve got a lot more habits I’m thankful I’ve learned and lots more changes to my lifestyle and attitude that keep me going, but that’s a pretty good summary of some of the top things that have helped me get to where I am now. So, whether you are trying to lose weight, get fit, work smarter, finish a tough project or achieve a goal, I think all of those things can help.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by restricting yourself from things that make life awesome. Good food, drink and fun are all important to keep you motivated and happy.
Track and journal things to remain aware of what you’re doing that’s good, bad and indifferent.
Share your experiences with others and let them help you, whether they realize they are helping or not.
And don’t be a slave to the scale, whatever weight or measure you’re tracking against – look for success and progress in non-tangible or differently measurable ways. The motivation you seek doesn’t all have to come from one source.

What do you think? Anything else help you achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Look forward to hearing from you all!

EPILOGUE: Tonight was my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. I weighed in 1.2 lbs higher than last week (current wt loss 80.2 lbs). But no worries. Likely contributing factors include normal daily fluctuations (your weight can vary up to +/- 2 lbs in a given 24 hour period), balance between last week’s big 5 lb loss, and a possible adjustment to losing a Weight Watchers daily point because I passed another weight threshold. One week and one number won’t make or break me. Looking forward to plowing ahead! – CB)

If you want to see some other things I’ve written about fitness, you can read them here. (http://chrisboivinknows.com/category/triathlon)

3 Things My First Triathlon Taught Me

Chris — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:06:53 +0000

Well, I did it. Finished my first triathlon – a sprint-distance tri: 500yd swim, 14.2mi bike, 3.1mi (5K) run. Felt pretty good throughout. My results (i.e., my Personal Best):

8th (of 9) in age group
Overall 48th (of 63)
Swim: 4th in age group Time – 10:07
Transition 1 – 3:37
Bike: 7th in age group Time – 53:07
Transition 2 – 1:33
Run: 9th in age group Time – 35:28

Here’s a few things I learned from the experience. Hope they help you with your first triathlon or next triathlon or anything else you might be able to apply them to!

(1) It’s better to be tapped on the foot

The triathlon I did had the swim leg in a pool. The course snaked back and forth from one end of the pool to the other, and each swimmer started about 5 seconds apart. I positioned myself at the back of the line to the pool, thinking that I might be slower and I didn’t want to be holding anyone up.

I shouldn’t have underestimated myself. Many people in triathlons apparently do not do much, if any swim training. I’d kept my training fairly balanced, and done well swimming. So, by underestimating myself, I did what another competitor told me: “I’d rather be tapped on the foot than kicked in the head.”

Lesson I learned: Be it swimming or other aspects of your life, don’t undersell yourself. If you’ve worked hard and you know that you are in a certain class, don’t let self-doubt get to you. Take your rightful place in line and let others tap you on the foot and politely pass by if they must. You don’t deserve to get kicked in the face.

(2) Pacing works

As I was about 1/3 of the way through the 14-mile bike leg of the triathlon, somebody passed me. It’s not a big deal because most competitors are really competing against the clock, and I passed people, myself; that’s just the way it works. But something about this person’s style bothered me.

In cycling, cadence is the name of the game (read my article about it here). Pedaling at 90-100RPM (i.e., the number of times your pedals make a revolution during a minute – that might be self-evident, sorry) does so much for you in terms of efficiency and endurance. I’ve worked hard to build myself up to keep a cadence in that range and was doing very well with it during the race. This person who passed me, though, was clearly chunking along using more pure force than cadence to move ahead. They were pushing their pedals much more slowly and because of basic brute strength, they pulled past me and away.

But I thought “I’ll see him later!” And sure enough, about another 1/3 of the way through the course, there he was. Tired out, still pushing those pedals, and beaten down by the brutal headwinds we faced that day.

Lesson I learned: Slow and steady really does win the race. Not only have I experienced this in athletic performance, but I’ve also lost more than 70 lbs in the last 10 months on Weight Watchers and it came off at about 1-2lbs per week. No radical diets or shortcuts, just persistence and dedication. It’s truly so hard to keep going when you see others burst past you by taking a shortcut, exploiting some apparent advantage or bullsh*tting their way through life. But take solace in the fact that if you’ve done your research and listen to those who know the truth, you’ll be the one with the reserve power and extra gears under your feet when it’s time to make your move.

(3) Know where the finish line is

The last leg of the triathlon was the 5K run – my weakest link. Running isn’t my favorite thing to do, and while I’ve improved as I’ve trained more and lost the weight, I haven’t conquered it. Yet.

So, aside from the fact that I didn’t take my heavy, wet biking jacket off, I slogged my way through the run. (Bonus lesson learned: I didn’t take the biking jacket off b/c my race number was on it and I didn’t want to take the time to repin it. Next time, I’m definitely going to have a race belt like this one so I can easily move my number around without having to worry about pins.)

The course was half cross country (grass) and half rough road, so the softness of the surface was very different from my road training. Still, even after I got my legs to adjust from the cycling, I lightly bounced along the path at a very slow pace. Sure, I was tired from the other events, but I acted almost like I was saving energy up for something.

But saving for what?! I was only a few miles from the finish line of a very long race and after that, I would be done! Even if I took it easy for a mile or so, I could have recovered a little and engaged my legs to finish a little stronger. I might have felt some burn, but as long as I didn’t go to the point of knowingly injuring myself, I might have found enough reserve energy to keep up a steady and strong pace.

Lesson I learned: When you know where the finish line is, don’t waste that knowledge and just go for it. I knew that I was in the home stretch and still ran very conservatively. Knowing the distance, direction and steps to get to the finish line is such a powerful bit of information – again whether it’s an actual finish line of a race or a deadline or goal in your life or work – and you are killing yourself for no good reason by squandering that knowledge. Finish strong. You’ll have time to take a well deserved and well-earned rest after.

Those are three things I learned among many other great things I took away from my first triathlon experience (including: triathlon competitors are really friendly, nice people who are happy to share information and encouragement at every turn – even during the ‘race’). I’m planning on doing more tris, and on challenging myself in other ways to have fun and keep progressing in fitness and health (next event: Warrior Dash, March 31). Next time, I’ll be setting myself up for success in swimming, staying the course on the bike and keeping in mind that while the running comes after the other events, it’s just that last thing between me and the finish line.

Hope this was useful for you if you’re running, swimming, cycling, doing all three, or just looking to get ahead in your career or your life. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for listening!

3 Things that Make Pinterest a Little Clearer

Chris — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:00:08 +0000

In this article I expressed my exasperation with Pinterest, the visual, social bookmarking site that’s experienced explosive growth in recent months. Perhaps because of my gender and/or online habits, I just wasn’t getting it.

Well, I received a ton of feedback (thank you, everyone!), so here’s three things that I found helped make the purpose and value of Pinterest a little clearer.

(1) Gathering (rather than Hunting)

Many of the responses I received suggested that Pinterest fits more of a “gatherer” mentality – a trait that is generally associated with females (perhaps supporting why 97% of pinners are women). Irrespective of gender, though, anyone who has a propensity for gathering or collecting is likely to find Pinterest to be a useful tool in curating the web.

If you like to collect and organize things (I used to collect stamps and coins when I was younger), Pinterest can be a fun, visual way to capture and store all that information that you scan as you surf the web. If you prefer the hunt, clicking your way from link to link, scrolling through pages of search results until you find just the answer you’re looking for, Pinterest may not be for you. Well, it may not be for you as a pinner, but if you appreciate visuals, check out key number 2…

(2) Visual browsing

This theme came up again and again in the responses I collected: looking through pins and pinboards is like flipping through the pages of a [beautiful] magazine. That analogy makes sense, doesn’t it? But this could be the key to bolstering the male adoption of Pinterest (were that a goal of the network).

Visual/spatial research indicates that men are visual learners. Puzzles, diagrams, maps, building blocks are among the things that males use to understand the world around them. Pinterest boards have a lot of those elements: the images selected for the pins are somewhat indicative of content, but not always, so there is some investigation and discovery required to get the value out of a pin. Also, the feature of being able to suggest organization schemes or boards is something I think men might like to do.

Besides browsing through the “magazine” of others’ boards, the one main practical application people point to, and the one thing I’ve used Pinterest for most is…

(3) Research organization

I recently worked on a consulting project where I needed to develop a marketing strategy for a subject that was fairly new to me (channel partner marketing – that is, using your business partners as a communication channel to help market your products and services to current and professional customers). Creating a board for the project helped me bookmark blog posts, pages, and other information that I found while conducting my research. When I went back to work on the strategy, it was so nice to have an easy to manage folder with large visual tabs that I could refer to. It will also be great if I do another project on the same or similar topic and/or industry.

I used to use Digg a lot, but it doesn’t seem to work as well as it once did. Pinterest is a great social bookmarking site that integrates well with today’s browsers and has a simple and clean interface. Whether you’re conducting research for a business project, planning a wedding or party, working on home improvements or decorating, or any similar project, Pinterest can be a good space for collecting and organizing the information you want to bookmark while surfing the web.

There are some people who are using Pinterest in other ways – to upload and catalog their own content (think about cataloging blog entries or your company’s product and service sell sheets), to support search engine optimization, and more. However, I found that the three ways above – gathering, visual browsing and organizing research – seem to form the foundation that keeps Pinterest accessible, active and growing.

I hope this helped you appreciate Pinterest a little more, as it has helped me find value in a site that I otherwise was struggling to understand. Now, not only will I be able to enjoy Pinterest as a user, but I also will be able to build upon that foundation and help organizations add value to their marketing and communications strategies with this platform, and I hope you will also.

What did I miss? Please keep the conversation going! I look forward to hearing your comments, questions and suggestions. Thanks for visiting! Tell your friends

PS Please note that there are great concerns being shared in the news about Pinterest as it relates to intellectual property rights. Proceed with caution when using Pinterest and keep an eye on how the story unfolds.

Can You Explain What It Is You Do in 7 Words?

Chris — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:05:30 +0000

I found this on a LinkedIn group and loved it so much that I thought I would borrow it. I can’t wait to see your responses!

Here’s the challenge: Without using “I” or “me” or the name of your company, explain what you do in 7 words.

Let’s hear ‘em!

3 Ways You’re Wasting Your Workouts (And What To Do About It)

Chris — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:20:45 +0000

I’ve been training for a triathlon for several weeks. My mantra has been “faster, longer, harder” (that’s what she said) – I’ve kept pushing to cover more distance, ride/swim/run for a longer amount of time, and work to get more power out of myself to incrementally improve. And it’s worked pretty well so far, I think. I’ve increased my net speed in each activity, have more endurance, am losing weight at a good pace, and vitals test in the healthy range whenever I have them taken.

But I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do a little better. And you know what? I think I can. And I bet you can too. Here’s how you and I may be wasting our workouts and how we can turn that around and do much better.

(1) “I just want to exercise, I don’t want to race”

I’ve fallen into this a lot. You think that you are just exercising to be healthier – and that’s definitely a positive thing – but you do it without a goal or plan. But think about that – if you want to be healthy, you probably have some measurements in mind that will let you know if you’re achieving or maintaining what you believe to be “healthy”. Whether it’s weight, waist, biceps, cholesterol, or something subjective but meaningful, somehow you will know or have a sense that you’ve met your goals.

But if you don’t set a goal, you might just plod along, languish and give up. Why continue if you don’t really have any destination or milestone?

So, set a goal and keep yourself focused; create a track that you can stay on. You don’t have to qualify for the Olympics, but why not plan to run (or walk) a 5K? Or if you don’t want to register and participate in a 5K, just do a 5K program (Runner’s World has an excellent 8-week 5K program). If you swim, try the zero-to-1650 workout plan and swim a straight swimmer’s mile. You could even do some good by entering a charity 5K or bike ride and have a goal and some extra supporters… But why not consider something to make your exercise program a little more motivating and measurable than “just for the sake of exercise”?

(2) Start. Finish. Repeat.

In the beginning triathlon app that I’m using (First Time Triathlete), they build in drills to most workouts. The one I finally did the other day was for cycling. ”Hill repeats.” You find a hill along your path that takes 1-2 minutes to climb, climb it 10 times, spinning easily on the way back down. I avoided injecting this into my workouts, but the other day I just made up my mind and did it. Wow. By the end of the repeats, I was climbing the hill at or above my flat road cadence and speed, and I was able to maintain my target cadence range (88-95) at a speed of 18.5-19.5 MPH for the remainder of my ride (I previously was spinning in that range, but only getting about 16-17MPH from the gear I was in).As I mentioned above, I had done my workouts mostly just straight through. Get on the bike, ride, get off the bike. Run, finish. Swim lap after lap. It worked well, but I was skipping something very important. Drills.

So, don’t neglect the little drills. I know that I won’t be. And bonus: not only is it valuable for your training, it’s kind of fun to have more than a “finish the workout” challenge ahead of you. Give it a try! Make the miles count!

(3) Don’t stop.

Rest is vital to maintaining and improving performance. Whether it’s taking a day off from working out or taking a short break (possibly even as short as 10 seconds) while exercising, the incremental improvements can be tremendous. Yesterday was a swim workout. In addition to a warm-up and cool-down and a few drills, I had an 800-yard (32-lap) segment to swim. Well, actually this was the prep for Sunday’s 800-yard segment. It was laid out as 4×200 yard segments with 10 seconds in between each. Each tiny break helps me to keep my form up, and stringing them together so closely lets me get the feel of doing the whole 800-yard segment (and knowing I can handle it just fine).

Rest also helps you navigate change. After donating blood, I stupidly did some exercise the next morning – a 40-minute run. After about 20-25 minutes, I couldn’t keep jogging. I listened to my body, took plenty of walk breaks and finished the walk/run in decent time. Knowing that my recovery would take a little longer, I moved my usual Friday rest day to the day after the run, and now I’m back on pace.

So if you’ve been getting bored with your workouts or not seeing/feeling much improvement from one to the next, Give these things a try.

Sign up for an event to work toward a measurable goal (if you’re in Northeast Florida, check out 1st Place Sports for dozens of running events, or find events anywhere in the U.S. at Active.com),
do some drills (sprints, repeats, etc. – find them at Runner’s World, RTK’s Swim Workouts (one of the BEST sites for swimming workouts including the 0-to-1650 plan I mentioned above), and Active.com has a bunch of drills, too), and
rest (pre-emptively and in response to your body’s signals).

Do you have anything to add? What do you do when your workouts get stale? Or how do you mix it up to keep getting results?

Look forward to hearing your suggestions and comments! Thanks for listening!

Help Me Understand 3 Things About Pinterest, Please!

Chris — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:46:42 +0000

What's the deal?!

This would be more in the “Chris Boivin doesn’t know” category.

I have a Pinterest account. I’ve pinned a few things and scanned a few boards. I follow a few boards related to some things I’m interested in, but still I maybe go there once every 1-2 weeks tops. I truly don’t get it.

I’m not trying to belittle anyone who is a regular pinner by any means by saying that I don’t get it. I know that I am not in the user demographic (reportedly 97% of pinners are women), but I would like to know why that is, too.

It boils down to three main question categories:

Are women the target demographic or is that incidental? If you are a woman, what do you think about the service appeals to women? If you are a man, what is your experience like that may suggest it’s not built or operating for men.
If you are active, what keeps you on there and what keeps you coming back? Is it the layout? Content? Functionality? Usability? Percentage of your social network that is on there? What?
If you were on Pinterest but have abandoned it, or lapsed in your participation, why do you think that is? What was it that took you away or has kept you away for a period of time? Did you hit a wall? Get bored? Get confused or frustrated? Figure out another way to do what you did there?

I partly ask this out of personal curiosity, but I also know that with this network totally blowing up that Pinterest is going to be on the minds of everyone when it comes to business strategies (especially marketing and sales strategies, since there seems to be a tie-in there).

Let me hear it! Call me names! Tell me that it’s a secret like when they separated the boys and girls in 4th grade. Whatever you like, but please help me understand what the deal is with Pinterest! Thank you in advance for your comments and links!!!

- Chris

3 Steps to Being Taken Seriously on LinkedIn

Chris — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:33:35 +0000

LinkedIn came a little late to the party with their news feed. The Facebook-style, personalized news feed didn’t show up
on LinkedIn until about 8 months ago (years after Twitter and Facebook were letting users push updates ad infinitum). This may have been for good reason, as LinkedIn is a different type of social network more geared toward professional networking and communication.

For one reason or another, the LinkedIn timeline seems to have become a little chaotic. Not so much because people are actively posting lots of different things on there, but because of automation, especially with respect to Twitter.

If you want to keep a high quality of content on your LinkedIn stream, there aren’t any content filters or content grouping algorithms (e.g., Facebook’s “Chris Boivin and 5 other people shared a link…” content grouping feature that keeps you from seeing the same video of the sneezing baby panda 6 times on the page). All you can do is leave people on, or hide them. Here are three quick and easy steps to avoid being hidden or ignored:

(1) Take control of Twitter

In an attempt to spread the Twitter brand and hallmarks (hashtags (#), short links (t.co), @replies) throughout the ether, Twitter lets users automatically copy their tweets to LinkedIn. How great, right? What a time saver! Well, if you look at LinkedIn timelines, you’ll see that people (not you, right?) might have forgotten that their tweets are going there. Or that EVERY ONE of their tweets are going there. And that’s ALL that they’re sending there.

When on LinkedIn, you are usually in a business/networking frame of mind, so endless streams of retweeted clever quips, movie theatre check-ins, aged-looking photos of lunches, etc. seem to interrupt the LinkedIn news feed. And if that’s all that you’re sending there, you’re probably going to be hidden. (Furthermore when you port your tweets to LinkedIn, only those that have Twitter accounts can respond. Generally there are fewer social networkers on Twitter than LinkedIn, so you’re setting yourself up for a dead feedback loop.)

The #in and #li hashtags to the rescue! If your tweets are not private, you can link your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts but ONLY send things to LinkedIn by adding the #in or #li hashtag to the tweet. Click here to link your accounts and make sure you keep the “Send only those tweets with the hashtag #li or #in to LinkedIn” checked. Now that’s cool! And responsible. And will keep you on the news feed.

(2) Reconsider “Bullhorn Reach” and other recruiter automation services

There are many different automation feed services out there today. People are busy and trying to get the most out of their social media presence. There are two problems with these services.

First, they’re not perfect. They often post and repost the same content at different times of the day in order to keep them in front of readers at “opportune” times. That can be noisy and frustrating – I see a post about a job, I get excited, but I see that it’s the same job that i’ve already seen 5 times (the job that I’m not qualified for or interested in). Grr.

Second, they eliminate the humanity of social media. There are dozens of job search sites out there. If I want to see listings, I’ll go to indeed.com or look on LinkedIn’s job listings. If someone has a job that they’re looking to fill, I’d much rather they put out the call in a genuine status update on LinkedIn, thereby inviting me to start a conversation. Posting one after another update from the same posting service is distracting and it seems to send a message like “Hey, you’re not important enough for me to take a few seconds and write my own updates for, but I still want you to trust your career success with me!” That doesn’t fly.

Take the time to talk with people on LinkedIn. Write a quick update to let people know you’re looking for someone with a certain skill or that you’re looking to help people find their next career opportunity. The Internet should not be an excuse to replace humanity with robotic interactions. It’s “social” media for a reason.

(3) Participate – don’t precipitate – in LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn Groups are wonderful vehicles for meeting others with the same professional or social interests, discussing issues, solving problems, doing research and learning about events. Posting and responding in these forums is one of the best ways to truly enjoy LinkedIn and it also helps keep you high in LinkedIn’s search and display algorithms (you’ll show up more in people’s searches and more often be recommended as a connection for others who might know you). For those that receive email updates about group activity, your name will be in front of them more often as well.

That’s all well and good, but be careful about dominating groups, reposting events and announcements, and posting off-topic content. You may not think people are paying attention, but when your name comes up over and over again posting innocuous open questions in groups (especially in more than one group), or your posting for an event shows up every other post, and especially when you post self-serving articles (like this one in groups that are specifically for other topics, you stick out like a sore thumb. And then, people start to skip right past your posts, and you even might be filtered out by group administrators (and in my opinion, the best groups are the ones that have someone managing posts – not necessarily approving every post, but paying attention to group member activity and putting controls in place where possible).

Use good judgement when posting and respect group parameters (stick to the group topic/area of interest, try to match the rate or volume of postings in the particular group, and give more than you take (i.e., respond to other participants more than you post your own things)).

Hopefully, these observations ring true and some of the guidelines I’m suggesting make you a more productive and valuable LinkedIn member, leading to more quality interactions, strong relationships and more useful information as you navigate the network.

Thanks for listening! Look forward to hearing your feedback!

4 Things That Will Enhance Your Running Experience

Chris — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:43:16 +0000

… or at least they enhance my running experience and I think they’d be good for you, too!

I’m still a novice runner; I actually don’t even truly “run”, I am still doing jogging/walking intervals. Today I ran a 5K route with a jog 6 minutes/walk 1 minute interval. And I have to say, I enjoyed it more than I ever have! Here are the things that I’ve done or added recently that made this the best run to date:

1. Professional Shoe Fitting at Jacksonville Running Company

You know how everybody is like an a**hole because they all have opinions and advice (or something like that)? Well, the one piece of advice that I finally took was to get a professional shoe fitting. I’d been using some old cross trainers and while they basically protected my feet from the elements I did find it a little taxing to run in them.

So I went to Jacksonville Running Company and Bobby, the Training/Events Manager, took the time to learn about my running experience and plans, measured my feet, do a couple of computer/video analyses and let me try on and try out (actually jog with) several pairs of shoes until I had one that was just right. Not only did he walk through all the analysis, he explained everything along the way without making me feel ignorant as a new runner or overwhelmed by information.

I love my shoes I (a great pair of Brooks shoes which are highly rated for heavier men)! Wide enough for my feet but not too loose, good support for my high arches and very stable. As I was at the store there were two other customers who each received the same personal attention as I. This is a great store, great staff, and an extremely valuable service. Highly recommended! While there I also picked up…

2. Yurbuds Sport Earphones

These ingenious “twist-lock” earbuds are designed to stay in your ear and pipe the music right where it should go without letting sweat or moisture in.

Not only are Yurbuds fantastic earphones out of the box, the little twist lock earbud covers easily slip off and slip on to other earbuds. I love that feature because I like to use my iPhone’s earbuds with the mic and remote (great to be able to adjust volume, use Siri or take/end a call while on the bike or on the run). I slip the twist-lock piece on and I get the same benefits as the native Yurbuds headset.

Since I’m hell bent on using my iPhone, might as well use a great app to track and time my runs…

3. Track with the iMapMyFitness App

The iMapMyFitness app is one of the best apps I’ve found to log and record workouts. I used to use the one by the company with the swooshy logo but it had a couple shortcomings (only for running, voice feedback is buggy, poor GPS responsivness). The app is great at recording workouts using GPS tracking (includes linear and elevation measurements), and it works for cycling or running. You can also log swimming workouts, gym workouts, adventure workouts, and so on.

Another great feature is the “stats” view. While you’re running or riding you can view your workout map or you can switch to view a screen of 4 stats (time, speed, and a host of others that you can set, including ones that interact with other devices like ANT+ heartrate monitors).

You can also pre-map routes on the website for the app. And you can connect w/ friends who use the app, and then see them while they’re on their workouts. And… you can post your runs to facebook and twitter, including a link to the map of your run/ride… So many great features and the app is free! (There’s an advanced, ad-free $1.99 version of the app that I’m going to upgrade to, but the free version is really fantastic and the ads are very unobtrusive. )

Listening to music while on the run or ride is great, but you do need to be aware of what’s going on around you. While the Yurbuds still allow ambient noise, you never know who or what might trip you up on a run, so just in case…

4. Get a Road ID (www.roadid.com)

Road ID is a nice little piece of insurance. For less than $30 you can get a wristband (or dog tag, like I have) that has your name, emergency contact info and even a code that First Responders can use to look up a full personal profile in the event that something happens to you on the trail or road or ocean. RoadID is one of the most professional, engaging, quality service organizations I’ve encountered. They are amazing communicators and really know how to anticipate your questions and make sure that when you buy your ID it’s an effortless and satisfying process.

Go to www.roadID.com today and get one for you and/or a runner, cyclist, swimmer or outdoorsy type that you love. It’s the best money you can spend for a little peace of mind while braving the great outdoors.

So there are 4 things that I think can make your running (or cycling or outdoor activity) a little more comfortable, enjoyable, productive and safe. They’re definitely doing the trick for me so far. If you have any experiences with any of the above to share, my readers and I would love to hear them!

Thanks for listening!

Valet Parking for Park and King?

Chris — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:19:35 +0000

In the revitalized Riverside neighborhood at Park Street and King Street, there is a lot of consternation about current and potential parking problems. There are many thriving restaurants in the area, led by the success of Kickbacks Gastropub (go there if you haven’t – it’s an awesome place: delicious food, tons of different beers and eclectic design), and this means more people who need to park their cars in the commercial and residential space.

While parking is not an overwhelming problem now, Kickbacks is planning on opening a new restaurant that will seat about 250 more people in the area (with maybe the best Dr. Seussian name ever: “Goozlepipe and Guttyworks”). Many residents and groups, including the Riverside Avondale Preservation Society (RAP) are protesting the expansion, largely because the area can not support another wave of parked cars on a regular basis.

So here’s my ill-formed idea on how to help the parking situation and raise funds to support a long-term solution: valet parking!

1. Lot between College St. and the railroad tracks

The first hurdle I see is: Where will the valets park the cars? There appears to be some paved (possibly not maintained, but partially paved) land just a couple blocks east of Kickbacks on College Street next to the train tracks. It would take some money to secure the area and possibly do a little resurfacing, but it looks like several cars could be parked there and it wouldn’t be so far away that it would take too long to retrieve the cars if…

2. Bicycling valets

The lot I’m suggesting is a little too far for valets to efficiently run back and forth from the King St. area, but cycling valets could get back and forth pretty effortlessly. Cycling is immensely popular in Jax and I’m sure one of the area cycle shops could donate some bikes for the cause. And that also opens up the possibility of…

3. Bicycle rickshaws

They have those bicycle rickshaws around the Jags’ stadium, why not put some in the Park/King area to get people to remote lots or from one part of the area to another?

The rickshaws and the valet service would not be free, but small fees for the services would provide funding to offset some of the costs involved (and I’m sure there are businesses and passionate residents that might donate to help fund such a solution if it were found to be feasible), and eventually support some type of parking structure for the area.

What do you think? Got something better? Look forward to hearing your comments!