In order to quantify all the responses, I had to essentially transcribe each entry into tags that I could sort and filter. For each question, I would run through the responses and extract the pertinent information… the things I ate or drank, where we went, the topics we discussed. Everything was reduced to a tag with as much specificity as provided.

Personal metric maven Nicholas Felton had that to say about the data he collected for his 2009 Annual Review. He’s really on to something, as I’m sure you can gather. But it’s something that I don’t think he specifically addressed. Measurable data is widely available for us, as marketers, to tally, measure, analyze and use. Surveys aren’t a necessity any more; they’re a nice to have.

I’ve always had issues with (filling out) surveys. For one, I’m constantly trying to figure out what the survey is really getting at. Second, they are typically too long and when they are offer me choices, like a multiple choice question, the answer I want to put is never there (it’s easier to measure though is what we’re told). And lastly, what’s the incentive for filling out the survey truthfully?

My belief is that we can use the internet for our surveys. Take for example, Turkey Twitter. We started out with the specific hashtag we wanted to measure (#turkeytwitter), however as we saw what was happening we realized there were 3 or 4 different hashtags that would gather better information.

Now, how can we pull data bits that are valuable out of a tweet that says, “I’m #thankful for friends, my dog beau, this cranberry sauce and world peace”. It’s easy. By analyzing what is in the data set we can break down that this person was thankful for “friends”, “dog”, “cranberry sauce/food” and “world peace”. It sounds simple, but I’m not sure how well it’s being used. Maybe someone could point me to some examples out there (companies using this data, tools out there, etc)?

So, I guess my point is that the web has allowed us this infinite pool of data to use for our research. I propose we, as marketers, do our jobs and use this data more routinely in our work.

PS. Having said all that, I do want to use a similar survey mechanism that Felton used for his survey. I think that’s powerful data and the quantified self is something I’m very interested in. In his case, he had to initiate the data through a survey as there are likely no tweets that will specifically address a meeting with him to the level of data he was interested in tracking. Sounds like a pretty good excuse to get some letterpressed business cards!

Two (s)mashed potato recipes to try: Smashed Lemon-Shallot Potatoes and Horseradish Mashed Potatoes. Carbs!

WARNING: this is an intense 4 minute video; it made me cry. It will capture you though and you’ll be happy you watched it. It will help remind yourself of how much you do love your dog. Now, I need to go scratch Beau‘s ears.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

This is awesome. I was just reading an article from my hometown paper about one of my good friends, Seth Newlove, and his wife, Amber, and the new addition to their family, Snyder. Seth and Amber had planned to adopt a child from Haiti for a few years and were following the process when the earthquake hit and drastically sped things up. It’s just an awesome story. My prediction, Snyder breaks ALL his dad’s scoring records; he’s already sleeping with his basketball, so it’s bound to happen!

Looks like there’s a possibility we may be seeing Chad Ochocinco kicking field goals in the Pro Bowl. I hope so. And, I hope they run the triple-option with him.

I think if I ever have my own clothing line it would look a lot like Frost Birgens. Basic items with fun accents and colors. And, very young fogey. And, an appearance of being artfully disheveled. And, an attitude of west coast preppy. I think that covers it.

Please allow me to welcome you to JoshPremuda.com version 2.0. I decided this site needed a new feel, so I re-branded the whole site. I was never really happy with the previous look and hadn’t finished what I had planned – I’m sure you could tell – so I scrapped it all. While I won’t say it’s complete (it’s always a work-in-progress), I will say that the majority of the site is complete and updated. For further detail into things, read on. WARNING: it’s long, but I’m proud of my site, so please read it.

SUBSCRIBE
I’ve made it much easier to subscribe to www.joshpremuda.com. There are three ways (at this point) you can get your JP fix: (i) visit www.joshpremuda.com, (ii) subscribe via RSS and/or, (iii) subscribe via Email. You pick. I just want you subscribed, please. And, as added motivation, I’m planning on deleting my Facebook account, so that’s one less way for you to stay up-to-date with me.

By the way, I’ve subscribed to the email version of this site and it’s a rather cool way to take in my content. One email shows up with the days posts. You get to see it in your inbox and it’s shows how my mind progressed (or digressed) that day.

SPONSOR
It’s much easier to sponsor me. I’m cheap and I like to barter; I really just want this site to pay for itself, so if you have something you’re interested in promoting, contact me and we can work out an arrangement. You get your ad above the fold, a couple of tweets and likely a post or two, so it really works out to your advantage. First sponsor is my company, CurrentBlend (I’m in the process of updating that site as I type this – more on that later).

STYLE
The most obvious change is the color palate. I’ve always enjoyed the color orange and figured why not use that here. I wear an orange watch band daily and apparently it has some pretty cool meanings (I’m not sure that’s the right word, but you catch my drift). All hyperlinks should appear as orange, so anytime you click one of those, you’re going to a new page. Also, those little orange rectangles on the main page (above the posts) are the permalinks, so click those (or the link called “Comments”) if you want to comment or read more of the comments. And, the big orange rectangle will always take you back to the homepage. So, I guess you can say now that orange is my new black (although I don’t really like black outside of a tuxedo or athletic gear, but that’s a completely different story).

Also changed is the font choices. I went with Helvetica since I think it’s much easier to read, and it’s tons prettier. Titles are Palatino (and are typically hyperlinks – but they’re grey, not orange like all other hyperlinks; I misspoke earlier – so they should take you somewhere should you click on them).

ORGANIZATION
I wouldn’t say I reorganized everything, but I did make some changes to the presentation. I’ve added a “Comments” counter on the main page along with a more visible tagging display. This way I hope you begin to comment more and use the tags to explore other posts that are related.

I’ve updated the About, Archive, Contact and Subscribe pages and have plans to add a few more pages (e.g. Beau, Sponsor, and Reviews to name three).

There are a few other items I’ll leave up to you to find and I will also be rolling out some other pages and such (updated footer, contact page, random post function, twitter implementation, archive re-org), but will let you know as those happen.

COMMENTS
I’ve gone with Disqus to control comments and I’ve made the comment link much more prominent on the main page as I’d like to encourage discussion. The fun part for me of posting all this information is the responses I get in return. Rather than on Facebook where it’s a limited conversation, I’d prefer to have all the discussion take place here on this site.

Using Disqus will allow you to subscribe to comments via email so you can stay up on the discussion. So, let’s get the conversation going. Having said that, you can always send me an email: joshpremuda AT gmail DOT com.