John R. Gallagher (Assistant Professor of English at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) provided an extremely useful workshop on web scraping at DePaul today.
The workshop was introductory, and used the XPath query language and Google Sheets to begin, and then mapped out how R and Python could be used to automate.
Planning to come back to his resources and dig in deeper.
Touch of Modern
This is a particularly interesting case of dumb design. The Touch of Modern website forces the prospect to login or to create an account to simply view the site and the available items to purchase. I have no idea how the site owners were able to justify this their web designer, but this is a classic example of stupidity. I cannot imagine how many potential customers are irked by this and decide to take their business elsewhere.
I was lucky enough to visit LinkedIn’s Chicago offices (525 West Monroe Street, Chicago) last week, organized via DePaul’s Kellstadt Marketing Group. I got a quick tour of the offices, and then got to hear about the nature if their work from a panel of account executives, managers, planners, and consultants.
LinkedIn Presentation
Based upon the presentation, there are two areas of LinkedIn that I feel I need to investigate:
There were also some nice touches that I noticed touring the offices (which have a distinct Google vibe to them).
LinkedIn Vending Machine
A vending machine contains various computer accessories that a LinkedIn employee might need. The employee simply has to swipe their ID card to get the external keyboard, cable, battery, mouse, etc. that they need. A clever idea that allows for employees burning the midnight oil to get an essential item with a minimum of fuss.
LinkedIn Service Kiosk
The tech desk / help desk has a simple kiosk where you can provide feedback via happy and unhappy faces.
LinkedIn Chicago Decal
The halls have been decorated with murals and designs that incorporate Chicago iconography and places of meaning.
Lastly, all the employees have adjustable height desks. I did not take a picture here, as I did not want to alarm those happily at work. However, this particularly impressed me. I liked how LinkedIn employees could easily adjust the height of their desks and move from sitting to standing. I don’t know which type of desk they used, but it looks like they could be NextDesk Terras.
I had several questions that I wanted to ask that day (Lynda.com, certification, growth issues, etc.) but the questions were not the right ones for the panel. However, it was nice to meet some new folks and see how they work.
The IMC Handbook, 3rd Edition
I was lucky enough to contribute again to the The IMC Handbook (Readings and Cases in Integrated Marketing Communications). The third edition is out now, and can be ordered online from Racom Communications.
I wrote the chapter on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search. Looking forward to receiving my copy soon, and seeing what my colleagues wrote.
I have just finished teaching the 29th version of Practical Internet Marketing. As usual, I enjoyed the experience and getting to see how everyone planned to market using the Internet. However, as Chicago gets a little colder I am looking forward to getting home at a decent hour Monday nights.
One of the students shared a picture of her cat presenting the Practical Internet Marketing certificate. Reposting here…
Looking forward to the next class.
E-ZPass Phishing Email
This has to be my phishing email of the day. The “here” link obviously goes somewhere you don’t want to follow, but the email is targeted well for the unwary.
I had not heard of TweetBinder until recently, but this looks to be a good service for Twitter tracking for events. No idea on pricing, because they don’t publish this on their website.
It seems like everyone on the Internet received a “Congratulations on your new arrival” email from Shutterfly this morning. Whatever algorithm they are using to predict new parenthood is not as finely tuned as it could be…. Unless this was their cunning plan.
Courtney Seiter (Buffer) and Jimmy Hang (Twitter) presented a Hangout on “The Science of Creating Must-Click Content on Twitter.”
The presentation contained some useful advice and statistics that can be gleaned from watching the recording, or grabbing the slides from SlideShare.
Google Partners
Google Engage is now “Google Partners.”