I was chatting with someone yesterday about how encouraged I am about being able to reconnect with family members (aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, etc.) - near and far. Of course I would love to connect with them on every social network in which I participate. Yet I have to recognize that there are several that don't even have access to a computer. Or, as one uncle said, "I can't even remember my email address!"
That's true for a lot of people in general. The new media playground consists of numerous tools, websites, and the like. While some people are early adopters of social media tools and new media technologies, others prefer a slower approach. It may take many months or years before someone close to you decides to get on email or start writing a blog, let alone record a podcast or even join a social media network.
Another interesting dynamic in social media is the idea of being connected to many people or just a few. Some people want to be connected to a few people with whom they can build close relationships; others like to be connected to everyone; still others choose somewhere in between.
I used to be critical of one approach over the other, but I realize that each serves a purpose. I can appreciate that people like Chris Brogan, Christopher Penn, Robert Scoble, and Mitch Joel have decided to be super-connectors. I also can appreciate that Clarence has decided to connect with only a handful of people. I myself have opted for somewhere in-between.
Some folks like to be connected to others all around the globe, while others prefer to remain local. The same can be said among certain user groups, such as podcasters, bloggers, people looking for jobs, others in the same industry, and so forth. You find all kinds in social media.
As we play in the new media playground, I strongly believe it's important to let others play as they like and be ready to help others try out something new - if and when they ask.
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Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr, chris+brogan, christopher+penn, robert+scoble, twitter, social+media+networks, new+media+playground, blogging, podcasting
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
New Media Cincinnati Meetup, January 2008
New Media Cincinnati meetup:
This is an informal meetup for people in the Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Dayton areas involved with or who have an interest in new media (podcasting, video podcasting, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, social networking, etc.).
When: January 12, 2007 4:30-6:30 PM EST
Where: Panera Bread Company, 405 East Kemper Road, Springdale, OH 45246 (map)
Everyone is welcome to come.
For more information on the store, please visit their local website: http://www.panera-centralohio.com/
The restaurant management has reserved the meeting room for us and politely requests that the group collectively spend at least $25 while we're there. I don't think this will be a problem.
The store has free wi-fi, so feel free to bring your recording equipment. There is currently no single topic of discussion planned. However, if you have something that you'd like to share with the group, please contact Daniel Johnson, Jr.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
(513) 373-4442
danieljohnsonjr@newmediacincinnati.com
Facebook: http://www.newmediacincinnati.com
Google Calendar: http://tinyurl.com/2caxxp
Twitter: http://twitter.com/newmediacincy
Jaiku: http://jaiku.com/channel/newmediacincy
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/newmediacincy/
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6323616508
If you have a Facebook account, please RSVP over there; otherwise, you can send an email or RSVP in the comments below.
-----
Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr new+media+cincinnati
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Reorganizing clients in Darwin provides opportunity for SQL Server clean-up
This is a post where I share more of the technical aspects of my job as a 'conscientious programmer/analyst'.
The company I work for is reorganizing clients into new databases in the Darwin business system (a customized version of Microsft Great Plains Dynamics), and the business sees this as a great opportunity to clean up a lot of things. This view is especially shared by us who work in the IT department.
The 12 current databases are, for the most part, the same in their structure; i.e., same tables, views, stored procedures, and so forth. The company has used these multiple SQL Server databases to for specific types of clients, based on their industry classifications, etc.
It may be easy to imagine, then, over time, and as clients come and go, that the databases would have lots of various codes. Mirror that across 12 databases, and it becomes more complicated. Furthermore, I've discovered that the code descriptions are not consistent from database to database. That the business has a need to reorganize clients into new databases presents a great opportunity to clean things up, as a result.
Yesterday, the Director of IT and the Director of Special Projects asked for a list of active codes for active employees, across all 12 databases. I am the guy they turn to in order to get this done quickly. Because of my experience with how the databases have been set up, I usually know pretty quickly which tables to use in my SQL scripts.
In this particular case, I was interested in the Transaction History table, since it contains the three most important elements my internal customers needed: check date, transaction type, and paycode.
I initially set up the script to pull all paycodes, but I found close to 10,000 codes in use since the business started using Darwin in 2005. I checked with the Director of Special Projects, and she asked me to limit to just those codes in use since October 2007. Thankfully, that narrowed the list to just under 2000. I also included, at her request, the name of the database in which the codes were used. This proved especially helpful, since not all codes are in use in all the databases.
On my way home last night, I called into Jott to remind myself to set this up as a stored procedure.
Just another way I'm able to help keep the business engine going.
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Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Utterz by danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr, sql+server, programming, business+intelligence, microsoft+great+plains, payroll, peo, darwin
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
05 Nov 2007 - Utterz from the road
Three topics discussed:
- Effects of Daylight Savings Time ending one week later this year, especially on the commute home.
- New Media Cincinnati: http://www.newmediacincinnati.com or http://danieljohnsonjr.com/2007/11/new-media-cincinnati-meetup-november.html
- Dashboard-types of reporting I've been doing to provide a good pulse on the company. I love doing this kind of marketing-type of analysis.
Hear all my Utterz: http://www.utterz.com/~h-danieljohnsonjr/list.php
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Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr
Monday, November 5, 2007
New Media Cincinnati Meetup, November 2007
New Media Cincinnati meetup:
This is an informal meetup for people in the Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Dayton areas involved with or who have an interest in new media (podcasting, video podcasting, blogging, Twitter, social networking, etc.).
When: November 17, 2007 4-6 PM EST
Where: Panera Bread Company, 9444 Civic Centre Blvd, West Chester, OH 45069 (map)
Everyone is welcome to come.
For more information on the store, please visit their local website: http://www.panera-centralohio.com/
The restaurant management has reserved the meeting room for us and politely requests that the group collectively spend at least $25 while we're there. I don't think this will be a problem.
The store has free wi-fi, so feel free to bring your recording equipment. There is currently no single topic of discussion planned. However, if you have something that you'd like to share with the group, please contact Daniel Johnson, Jr.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
(513) 373-4442
danieljohnsonjr@newmediacincinnati.com
Facebook: http://www.newmediacincinnati.com
Google Calendar: http://tinyurl.com/2caxxp
Twitter: http://twitter.com/newmediacincy
Jaiku: http://jaiku.com/channel/newmediacincy
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/newmediacincy/
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6146127822
If you have a Facebook account, please RSVP over there; otherwise, you can send an email or RSVP in the comments below.
-----
Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr new+media+cincinnati
Saturday, October 20, 2007
New Media Cincinnati Meetup, October 2007
How was your Saturday? I and about 11 others met up today, the first New Media Cincinnati meetup, at the Golden Corral just off exit 32 at I-75.
Some big thanks go out to people for helping inspire and organize and otherwise contribute to making the event possible:
- Mark Blevis and Bob Goyetche from the Canadian Podcast Buffet, for recommending getting a website as a landing place for meetup information.
- Andy Osier for buying newmediacincinnati.com and for setting up the New Media Cincinnati Facebook group
- Everyone in the region who has expressed interest in meeting up, whether you could make it to this one or not
Here are the people I met, with links to their websites/podcasts/online presence:
- The Smith Family, The Smiths' Occasional Podcast
- Jim Caliguri, 10 Minute Lessons
- John Buehler, 10 Minute Lessons
- Daniel Lewis, D.Joseph Design and The Ramen Noodle
- Cliff Ravenscraft, Generally Speaking Podcast Network (GSPN)
- Andy Osier, Halftone Media
- Diane Houdek, Catholic Colbert
- Ann from Ohio, Twittering on the Edge
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Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr new+media cincinnati mark+blevis bob+goyetche canadian+podcast+buffet andy+osier halftone+media djosephdesign gspn cliff+ravenscraft the+ramen+noodle smiths+occasional+podcast 10+minute+lessons john+buehler jim+caliguri catholic+colbert twittering+on+the+edge
Monday, October 8, 2007
Daniel Johnson, Jr. Interview on Post It Cast Live on Tuesday
Post It Cast Live
Host: Michael W. Moss
Episode: Interview With Dan Johnson Jr.
Host Of The Journey Inside My Mind Podcast: http://jimmpodcast.blogspot.com/
Also huge promoter of a great cause: http://onevoicewalk.org/
Tuesday, 09 October 2007
6:15 pm Eastern
live podcast
724.444.7444
Talkcast ID 32555
Answers Here
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Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr
Monday, September 24, 2007
Keeping upper management knowledgeable and salespeople paid
This is another post where I share technical details about a project I have been working on.
SITUATION
Sales executives within the company receive monthly commission checks based on active client employee counts and gross payroll, for clients that they have brought on. In addition, upper management needs to see high-level numbers such as active clients, active employee counts, and gross payrolls - dashboard-type information.
A easy-to-use tool to generate this information did not exist at a user level. Previously, upper management relied on IT or the Controller to generate this information and send it to them.
Through some personnel reorganization, the process for generating this report fell through the cracks. Salespeople were waiting for their commission checks for the previous month, so the project was both urgent and important.
As usual, this information needs to come from the multiple SQL Server databases the company uses to manage client information through the Darwin PEO System, a customized, version of Microsoft Great Plains for the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) industry.
TASK
I was asked to develop a tool that upper management can use to generate information themselves. Some of the application requirements and thoughts that guided the development:
- Let users pick the date range, click a button, and have the system produce a report.
- Develop the application quickly to meet the immediate needs of the organization, yet with the ability to be reused whenever upper management so desires.
- Since upper management is most comfortable with Microsoft Excel and will want the data in a workbook anyway, use Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) within a single Excel workbook to produce the results.
- Choose Excel over Access because the application overhead is low (i.e., no need for tables, forms, reports, etc.).
- Since the company doesn't mark employees and clients as inactive in the system immediately when they are terminated, define an active employee during a date range as a paid employee.
- In addition to a paid employee count, obtain a total check count and gross payroll amount for each client during the date range.
- If an employee received a check and it wasn't voided, it counts.
- Take advantage of server-side processing to achieve the best performance.
I first developed the SQL statement to unite data across the twelve SQL databases, based on prior knowledge of where to find information. Then I wrapped the SQL statement up in a stored procedure, with start and end dates as parameters.
After testing the procedure with different date ranges to make sure the information was accurate and made sense, I moved on to the Excel piece. I wrote code in Excel VBA and ADO to execute the stored procedure and output the results to a worksheet in the workbook.
Once I had tweaked the completed application to make sure everything ran smoothly, I e-mailed it to the director who requested it.
RESULTS
Within a few minutes I received a phone call from her, telling me how awesome I am. She also sent the application to the owner of the company so that he can run the report as often as he wants.
Now they are able to generate the information in a matter of seconds themselves, versus waiting for the Controller or someone else in IT to generate it for them; or, even worse, spend hours compiling the information themselves.
-----
Check out my other blogs:
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
Get That Job!
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr business+intelligence sql+programming microsoft+great+plains data+mining
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