Jordy Blog

If keyword search volumes were stocks, I’d be buying “Daylight Savings” right now. I’m pretty sure it’s just about to hit the J curve.

I’m not too sure how long I would keep it past Sunday though… :)

Did you know that Daily Savings Time was Benjamin Franklin’s idea? Here’s the essay where he introduced the concept. Just think how many hours of sunlight you owe to our founding fathers! Not to mention freedom from tyrants, etc.

On a side note, I don’t know why, but I really like cyclical data. Other fun cyclical (seasonal) Google Trends searches:

1. Why I’m so busy at work
2. Why autumn and winter kick butt (statistically speaking)
3. Why my wife is hyper-susceptible to advertising during Q1 & Q2
   
4. Why druids party all year long

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Utah Job Market, Collaboration, Product Life Cycles, and More (Oh my!)

I had a great time at the Phil Windley’s CTO breakfast this morning. (I’ve actually been anxious to go for months, but just haven’t gotten around to it until today.) It was fun to mingle, see old acquaintances, talk about current tech issues, etc. It was pretty informal, like sitting at a table with a few of friends, except the table is really big and there are a lot of friends. Everyone just chimes in about whatever they want to talk about, and Phil just facilitates. I imagine he’s a really good teacher.

There were lots of good discussions. I particularly liked hearing employers’ perspectives on hiring in the local job market. Basically, now is it a great time to be working tech in Utah. There are tons of openings to fill, and not near enough qualified people to fill them.

I also enjoyed a discussion on why Google Docs and Spreadsheets haven’t really taken off, despite being functional, relatively feature rich, and easy to setup and share. When it comes to collaboration, Google Docs really does make sense on so many levels that much of the group concluded that reluctance must stem from security and privacy issues. I think there might be some of that, but that doesn’t stop most of us from using Google for search, personal email, site analytics, and everything else. I’m personally starting to slow down on some of these Google-usage fronts, supposing that there really could be issues someday if Google were to become less benevolent; but I think for most non-nerdy people it’s a mute point, at least until they’re aware –which most people aren’t.

My analysis: I think online doc sharing just hasn’t reached a critical mass yet. It’s too new, and too early in the product life cycle, especially when other (albeit clumsy) solutions are already in place. I had the hardest time getting my classmates to use a wiki for collaborative writing, and that was only a year ago. I’m sure that some of them will use them in the workplace or on social networks now that they’ve tried it out, but it was a hard transition. A true WYSIWYG editor would have helped to level the learning curve a little, but long years of editing and forwarding email attachments have proven hard to shake, despite being a clearly inferior way to collaborate. But wiki, Google docs, and other newish collaboration software will be huge in no time. Just give the early adopters (geeks and nerds) some time to do their thing.

I also had a chance to plug the Utah Open Source Conference. I think there were a few people interested, but I also think people will want to see more concrete progress in Utah Open Source Conferences before there will be real widespread buy in. All in due time…

Anyway, CTO breakfasts are fun. I plan on coming a lot more often, and I hope you will too. :)

TagJungle (still in private beta, but tentatively set to launch this week) was recently accepted into the Launch: Silicon Valley Venture Showcase, a huge biz & tech event that will go a long way toward attracting the eyeballs, users, and momentum it will need to succeed. There’s still a long way to go, but presenting at Launch may well attract the people who can help take TagJungle to the next level.

So congrats to 42co friends and former coworkers Phil, Carolynn, Jimmy, Paul, Brian, Kory, and Andy; as well as everyone else that has been making TagJungle become a reality. (This almost makes me wish I could afford to not eat so I could still be along for the fun. I know, I know. Some of you are are looking at my picture saying, “Dude, you can afford not to eat.”)

Anyway, best of luck, guys. I hope TagJungle goes big and someday rocks search in the free world! Until then, I look forward to the release. :)

In case you didn’t already notice in your blog dashboard, WordPress has released version 1.0 of its powerfull “Multi-User” platform. Go team!

Janet Meiners posted about an upcoming Wasach Online Marketing Association (WOMA) meeting with CJ (Commission Junction).  It sounds like WOMA does some really fun stuff, but for being all about internet marketing, I’m surprised that it has basically no internet presence at all.  Month after month I’ve been waiting for a WOMA website to appear, but alas, nothing.  If it weren’t for Janet constantly keeping us clued in, I would never have heard of WOMA.  That’s bad, considering that I’m probably its target audience incarnate.

WOMA, let me help you set up a simple blog site to give some credibility to the fun & interesting things you do.  It makes no sense at all not to have one, especially for you.  I’m sincere about being willing to help because I love Internet Marketing and really think Utah can benefit from a group like this; but nobody will be benfited if nobody knows you exist. Please setup a website so Utah can know what’s going on.  If you want help, there’s a contact me section on my blog; I could have it up for you in 15 minutes if you give the URL.

Congrats to “Mr. E” and KFactor Technologies on the recent 5.0 release of their popular open-source flagship product, AgoraCart. AgoraCart is a secure e-commerce solution written in Perl and included in CPanel. This new version has a lot of new features and is going to get some massive distribution, but you don’t need to wait for CPanel to pick it up to get yours. :)

Ian Roberson will present on Jamon, a text template engine for Java, tonight at the Utah Java User Group (UJUG).  The meeting starts at 6, but Ian’s presentation isn’t until 7.

Ian is one of my Overstock.com colleagues.  He’s very smart and real approachable.  If you’re in Utah and into Java, you should check this guy out.

More meeting info at UJUG.

I’ve been fascinated with Netflix ever since I did a giant research paper about the company for my senior project for business management.  Particularly fascinating to me were the technologies Netflix uses to estimate demand and the Netflix Recommendation Engine (Cinemax), which I have posted about previously.

Well now it looks like Netflix has placed a bounty on an algorithm to make the Recommendation Engine even better.  My friend Peter Abilla indicates he might give it a try. He’s also posted about the rules and the $1 million dollar prize. I wish I had more time because this is one problem I would love to help solve. (I’m pretty nerdy like that.) Plus it would be cool to have a million bucks.  :)

One thing I would recommend (kind of unrelated to the algorithm) is to allow users to rate movies with half, or even quarter starts.  More precise input means better output, and I know I’ve had to round many times when I thought a movie deserved 3 and a half stars, etc.

Netflix has already unknowingly taken some of the advice my group suggested in the paper.  We should have sent it Reed Hastings so we could claim credit for some of them.  :)  On a side note, if you have some free time and enjoy investigating companies and writing about them, there’s a pretty good opportunity for authorship at Startup Review. It’s a non-paid position, but you’d have an automatic audience.  (Their readership numbers are pretty darn good.)

BYU’s CEO club is hosting the final event for Student Entrepreneur of the Year this Friday. It should be cool, but I doubt I’ll be able to go because of the time.

Another upcoming event that should be cool (if you can afford to dish out some cash) is the Mountain West Capital Network’s UTAH 100 Award Banquet. Since I can’t find a permalink, I’ll just post the info here:

MountainWest Capital Network UTAH 100 Awards Banquet
October 26, 2006
Grand America Hotel – 555 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah

Join us for the 12th annual UTAH 100 Awards Banquet. We honor the 100 top performing companies in the state for highest revenue growth over five years’ time.

MountainWest Capital Network members can attend this luncheon at no cost. The nonmember guest luncheon fee is $45 per person or $400 for a table of 10 until Thursday, October 19. Late registration luncheon fees are $55 per person or $500 for a table of 10. Please RSVP for this event by Thursday, October 19, at noon or for late registration by Monday, October 23, at noon. Last minute questions can be directed to Cheri at info@mwcn.org. Guests and members can register and RSVP on this website by clicking the link below.

My friend Michael Choi of BOOMyeah started blogging recently.  Michael is a cool guy I met while doing some tech consulting.  I’ll be bookmarking him; I hope you’ll check him out too.