Twitter Management

As some of you may know I started a few months ago connecting with people through twitter.

My goals of this were simple. Connect with people of similar knowledge, skills, interest, and objectives as myself.

I realized quickly that this was a hard task. With thousands and millions of people out there finding the ones I was interested in seemed harder than I expected. And also, it was time consuming to manage.

Pretty quickly I figured out I wanted to automate many of the tasks I was doing manually. The problem was I didn't have the time to develope the tools and still do everything else I need/want to do. I was a customer looking for a solution. :)

My requirements were simple:

1. Automatically follow people who tweet keywords I'm interested in.

2. Follow back real people who follow me.

After days of playing with different tools I didn't find it. And then one day my friend Ray Levesque says, hey check out Tweet Spinner.

The problem with Tweet Spinner is the UI. The simple layout hides the powerful functionality. In addition it isn't intuitive how to configure and setup the options.

But once you do have them setup its great. If you like to Autofollow people you can do that but unlike other features this one allows you to filter out people based on keywords they use. It doesn't eliminate ending up following bots but it reduces it a lot.

But the feature I like best is the Follow On Keyword. Tweet Spinner monitors the public domain and if someone tweets about something I'm interested in I can follow them.

If anyone has other questions about Twitter I'll be glad to answer if I know something about the question.

Dungeons and Dragons

I haven't been blogging much while I focus on my Outsourcing site content development.

But I wanted to blog about my newly rediscovered interest in D&D.

As a kid I played D&D and the friends I made playing the game are still close to me more than 20yrs later. The game for me was an activity, a hobby, an exploration of who I wanted to be and a way to stay busy as a kid.

The benefits of playing were:

1. An increased interest in academic fields expecially European history.

2. An increased understanding and interest in the nature of things, physics, and psychology.

3. An increased expression of creative energy and exploration of my creative process.

So as I reach 40 I realize that there was something I desired in my life and that is a giving back to youth and youthfull ways.

My love of games has never really died down including 3 yrs of playing World of Warcraft. But today I find my desire is more to connect, create, and learn than to accomplish. Online MMOs are more about accomplishment since the world is created for you, the stories you can tell are limited by the lore of the game designers. So that has led me back to Paper based games.

Well recently I have been visiting gaming stores. Those gaming stores have brought me closer to another understanding. I want to be a presence in the lives of younger people. To help them find themselves and reach their potential. Gamers are my peeps. Playing games is my hobby and therefore is a perfect synergy for me.

So I'm working on a D&D Campaign and I'll begin running it next month at the local gaming store. Its going to be a blast. I'm looking forward to making new connections and exploring my creative side.

Recovering From Surgery

Over the last week I've been in for surgery for a repair of an umbilical hernia. Can't say as it was a big deal but since I've only ever had two procedures before in my life it is not normal course of business for me.

I fared well. I am healing and have been off the pain pills for more than 24hrs. The surgery was on Wednesday morning and my last pill was Friday in the middle of the night.

In that time I've done really well emotionally with plenty of rest and relaxation. I can tell you that the experience has been a good one for me and I am glad I took care of this minor health issue instead of waiting. 

Some of the things I've done to help my recovery:

1. Listened to and followed my Dr.'s instructions.
   
2. Was mentally and physically prepared before the surgery by getting plenty of rest, exercise, and healthy eating the previous two weeks.
   
3. Was mentally prepared from being away from work. As many of you are, I am an important team member. Being away produces stress for me because I have a desire for things to go well at all times. I have a very high bar around project execution.
   
4. Prepared my spiritual practice ahead of time and invited others to pray for me. 
5. Empowered the people in my life to make decisions for me. I did not stress over any detail of running the house, getting food, finding keys, etc... I let others take that burden and let whatever perceived mistakes happen just be "the way it should have gone."
6. I did not invoke stress as a coping mechanism against fear. I let my feelings come and go and kept free of worry and anxiety. When I felt fear I reviewed the information I had and if I didn't have any questions I realized I was hooked by unrealistic fear and meditated instead.

These things really helped me in staying clear, being alert and attentive to what was happening, and in the end contributed to a fairly stress free experience. 

I think I'll be doing these things more when I'm not going in for surgery.

~Dave