Jon Hickey

I love the Twitter community.  I often find myself refreshing my browser, excited to see interesting articles people have stumbled upon, small tidbits of wisdom, or fun, character-building status updates.  In my 3 months on Twitter, I have been pretty happy with those I’ve followed.  That is, until recently.

I am admittedly a newbie to Twitter, but I already have developed a pet peeve that I believe should be considered bad Twitter etiquette - noisiness.  What do I mean by noisiness?  When someone posts a tweet every 10 minutes, I consider them to be too loud.  Essentially, they are spamming my Twitter feed.  I recently had to block someone because they were posting so much, I couldn’t read anyone else’s tweets.  This behavior is a little rude, in my opinion.

One of my favorite users on my feed is King County Executive Ron Sims.  Yes, our county executive is active on Twitter!  Better yet, he is a model Twittizen.  (Note: I thought I was clever when I came up with that, but Urban Dictionary tells me otherwise…)

So what makes Ron Sims so great to follow?  He is very active (5 or so tweets per day), but not overwhelming.  Most of his posts include a short thought followed by a link to a relevant article.  I am always learning from Ron Sims, and I feel like I know him better as a person.  If I saw him on the street, he might be a little creeped out, because I’d probably try to give him a fist bump.

In addition to his informational posts, Ron (Like I said, I feel like I’m on a first name basis with the guy) sprinkles in personal tweets that reveal his character.  One of my favorites: “Our Christmas tree is decorated and the lights are on. The tree is framed by our windows and there is snow outside. Perfect!”  I also learned he enjoyed Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Maybe I should check it out.

So thank you Ron Sims for being such a great Twittizen!  I look forward to your future tweets.

My research for my next laptop has begun!  Because I don’t game very often, and my laptop use is usually limited to basic Photoshop and Dreamweaver, I was thinking maybe a high powered netbook would be nice to have.  The great portability and long battery life are very appealing to a guy that often works [...]

Dear MacBook Pro,
I know this is a little weird to do through a blog, but I don’t know any other way to confront you about some issues I’ve been having lately.
When we first got together this summer, things were great.  Sure your keyboard randomly stopped working, and your speakers shut off on occasion, but I [...]

With the success of the Obama campaign, governments are finally starting to talk about web 2.0 and how it can be used to improve services.  In a recent essay, Bill Schrier, the Chief Technology Officer for the City of Seattle, presents ways in which government can use web 2.0 to create a better community and [...]

I admit I don’t ride the bus as much as I should.  I am one of those people that preach public transportation, but generally opt for the irresponsible car option.  That being said, I do take the bus about once each week.  Because I don’t know the bus routes very well, I use the King [...]

My business partner, Mike, and I just got our first website to go live a few nights ago for our new business Sayenko Design. The site is for a small window cleaning business in Bellevue. The site is simple, yet professional, and we are pretty happy with it.

The name of the business is ProCare Advantage.

We tried to design the site in a way that allows the client to update content easily. Both the text on each page and the forms are easy to edit through Wordpress.

A blog was also included to help put a more human face on the business, while boosting search engine optimization.

John Dickerson of Slate V made a short video highlighting some political advertisements of the past. Looking back on the ads reminds us that the dirty tactics of today are quite similar to the dirty tactics of yesterday.

My co-worker and I have been talking about the change that is going on in marketing due to the growing popularity of social media.  Traditionally, marketing has been about branding and grabbing the consumer’s attention.  Flashing banners, dancing mortgage ads, and pop-ups that swoop across the screen are standards of web advertisements.  To me, it’s [...]

I’ve watch the polls jump around every day since the Republican National Convention, which has got me thinking about modern polling.
Certainly, people have always been wary of polls.  There are always questions about quality samples and what questions are being asked.  While these are very legitimate concerns, statistics show that polling done in the right [...]