• @VistaTekUSA it’s beat if a company has a personality around their Twitter account. If multiple people, then put names in description #

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When using MS SQL Server for multiple website environments (i.e. development vs. production sites) often time you may be connected to both in a single session. You may be querying production data, while programming SQL on the development side. If you’re not attentive, you could accidentally modify our production database with something you meant to do only in development. It’s probably happened to every developer at least once in their career.

A few months ago I found an easy solution to this dilemma: SSMS Tools Pack extension. This awesome pluggin color codes your query windows in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). When you run a query, a color bar on the window tab tells you what database you are connected to. A simple feature that should have been included in SSMS years ago.  There are many other features in here that are worth the download too: Query templates, SQL formatting and automatic insert statements are a few of the features that I’ve often used.

The SSMS Tools Pack works with 2005 and 2008 express editions of SSMS.

Ever since kindergarten when my mother told me wisely, “Don’t talk to strangers,” I’ve been doing gradually more and more of just that. First it was Yahoo! Chat, then MySpace, then Facebook, then Twitter, and last night it was finally foursquare.

I was hesitant to jump on the foursquare bandwagon for a variety of reasons:
• Do people really need/want to know every time I’m making a run to CVS for more Tums?
• Do I really want people to know when I’m running errands for more Tums, potentially alone?
• Finally, the biggest reason, my safety. I’ve chosen to have my Twitter profile on public, so any creeper who really wanted to know where I had just checked in potentially could, and could show up. For those of you who don’t think this would ever happen, a story: I was chatting with a lovely female blogger, and was asking her why a lot of women chose to go by an alias, such as ‘Southern Mommy.’ She said that it’s to protect her family and herself because there are real horror stories of fans showing up on doorsteps because they knew the blogger’s name. CREEPY!

Now, back to me. Yesterday I finally made the decision to concede to Foursquare because I wanted to better understand how I can apply the technology to client work. I begrudgingly added the app to my phone, added my friends and waited for the right time to check-in. What happened next was foursquare magic.

I arrived at Sawatdee in St. Paul and decided this was the time. I found the location, and then I saw that there was actually a ‘tip’ from another Foursquare user,

“…If you’re brave, say you’re a Rossmor resident and get a discount. -Nicholas B.”

Since my boyfriend and I had just toured a condo in the Rossmor building, I decided I would give it a go, and we got 15% off our bill.

That, my friends, was a foursquare success and I am now a believer. My name is Cydney, and right at this very second you can find me on the second floor of 550 Main Street, New Brighton, MN 55112. See you soon.

fbCal lets allows you to automatically synchronize your Facebook events to a variety of other calendar services, including Google Calendar, Apple’s iCal (including directly in the iPhone), Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Sunbird, and Lotus Notes.

Read more at Inside Facebook or install fbCal on Facebook

@jaredroy

• Risdall’s “Busting and Grinding” arictle in TwinCities Business http://tinyurl.com/yjco2nk #
• Local Online Marketing Seminar Feb 25 8:30am-12:00pm at Risdall Marketing Group http://tinyurl.com/kjt6gh #

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TCB Senior Editor Gene Rebeck on Business, Trends, and Whatever

I’ve been getting a lot of questions and comments about Foursquare. When I ask most people if they have heard of Foursquare I get a blank look like I’m speaking another language and others find it annoying when their Twitter friends are checking in all around town.

So what is Foursquare? Here is a description from their website.

Check-in to places
People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places – cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices.

You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. Not only is it a great way to meet up with nearby friends, but you’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover.

Share your experiences with friends
Think of foursquare as an “urban mix tape.” We’ll help you make lists of your favorite things to do and let you share them with friends. Think beyond your standard review – we’re looking less for “The food here is top notch” and more for “Go to Dumont Burger and try the most amazing Mac and Cheese ever.” Foursquare will keep track of the things you’ve done, help you create To-Do lists and even suggest new experiences to seek out.

As you check-in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, it’s not uncommon to unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking-in.

Earn points and unlock badges!
Every foursquare checkin earns you points. Find a new place in your neighborhood? +5 points. Making multiple stops in a night? +2 points. Dragging friends along with you? +1. And as you start checking-in to more interesting places with different people, you’ll start unlocking badges. There are badges for discovering new places and for traveling to far away places. Spending too much time singing karaoke or been hitting the gym consistently? Yes, there are badges for those too.

Become the mayor! Unlock some freebies!
We all have our local hangouts and foursquare keeps tabs on who’s the most loyal of all the regulars. If you’ve been to a place more than anyone else, you’ll become “the mayor”… until someone else comes along and steals your title.

It may sound a little silly until you see the list of places that are offering freebies to our mayors – free coffees, free ice-cream, free hotel stays – it pays to be a foursquare loyalist and check-in whenever you go!

Keep Track of Your Friends
When I was growing up we didn’t have cell phones and getting a hold of people and leaving messages through landlines was a challenge. You would leave a message and maybe the next day you would get a call back. Now we have Foursquare and many more location-aware applications. If I was trying to hook up with my friends when I was in college all I would have to do is check their Twitter stream or see where they checked in on Foursquare and I would know where they were.

GPS Your Children
Have you ever wanted to put a GPS device on your children so you would know where they are at all times? How many of you growing up told your parents you were going to your friends house to hang out for the night and you promised them that their parents were home, but then you jumped into your car and went to a house party? What if your parents made you check in on Foursquare at all of your stops? As a parent, I’m looking forward to all of the location-based applications. If my daughter tells me she wants to use the car to go to the mall, she will be required to checkin on a location-based application like Foursquare when she arrives at the mall.

Foursquare is the Ultimate Easter Egg Hunt
Imagine checking in for your ski vacation in Breckenridge at your property management company, Great Western Lodging, and you happen to also check-in on Foursquare and a message comes up that says, congratulations your stay is on us and thanks for checking in on Foursquare. Then a message comes up that says go and check out The Hearthstone Restaurant and receive a 1/2 price dinner. The next day you go to The Hearthstone and check-in on Foursquare and show the waiter your 1/2 price coupon and then a message comes up that says come to Clint’s Bakery and receive a free Latte. The next morning you check-in on Foursquare at Clints Bakery. This could go on and on during your vacation. Every time you check-in you never know what you are going to get.

So how is this relevant? All of your followers on Twitter and Foursquare will be notified of your check-in and you just might say to them, “I just had the most amazing dinner at the Hearthstone Restaurant in Breckenridge”. Maybe next time one of your friends is in Breckenridge, Colorado they may just visit the Hearthstone because they consider you as someone they trust.

What if you could offer specials based on someone’s influence? If they are the mayor of a couple locations, have a large following on Twitter and Foursquare? I imagine a dashboard that you could login to and base your criteria for give-a-ways based on an influence algorithm.

Are you ready to get your business on foursquare? Sign up as a business here.

Follow me on Foursquare here

Jared Roy

What are your thoughts?

Last night I attended the kick-off of the third season of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. Edward Boches (@edwardboches), Chief Creative Officer/Chief Social Media Officer, MULLEN (Boston) spoke about his personal evolution as an agency leader in the face of historic change.

Edward believes everything has changed, but the real change is the individual’s new power, influence, participation and control: both as a consumer and individual.

I’ve been talking to Edward for about a year now over Twitter, so I felt like we already knew each other. I worked at Mullen in the past, so we had that connection but we both also are avid cyclists which brings an even stronger bond. Unfortunately I didn’t get to work with him when I was at Mullen.

Here are some key points from the presentation as well as my thoughts.

Regarding Facebook:
• We are interested in a brand’s Facebook feed, but we won’t visit their fan page on a regular basis. We will read their feeds, so make sure you have content that is interesting and engaging
• Why take out a Facebook ad if your target is mostly iphone users. This is a great point. Just because your audience is on Facebook it doesn’t mean that they are viewing Facebook in their browsers. I read all of my Facebook feeds through TweetDeck, I will never see your Facebook ad you are trying to serve me.

Content:
• Social media must 1st start with a content strategy. If you have no content to engage your audience, your social media outreach will fail.
• There’s a mindset in PR that’s more adaptable to the concept of conversation strategy. Mullen has decided to put the bulk of it’s social media outreach within the public relation’s team. PR has a history of great writing and communication, so it is a great fit. I believe PR, Social Media, Search should all be integrated.
• The agency of the future: be fearless, experiment, and create content that your audience cares about
• The mp3 is good enough. Why do you need a million dollar TV commercial?

Community:
• There’s no such thing as perfect, only perfects. The old marketing where you had the data that said Males 40-44 have this behavior, and hang out here is over. There is no perfect ad buy anymore. You have to create community and content where your audience is
• Crowdsourcing will grow in popularity whether we like it or not.
• Curator/choreographer will emerge as the new important role
• Targeting + creative + conversation strategy will be the new formula
• “We used to watch. Now we create.” ~ “Community is the new source of content.”
• Turn analog events into digital. A great example of this is Mullen’s Brand Bowl 2010
• Crowd source a blog. Check out The Next Generation
• Inspire consumers to create stories with you
• Attention is the new scarcity. Inspire and start building relationships with your audience
• Community is our new source of content
• We want to do business with a person
• If you are not talking to consumers as participants and still as audience members, you are doomed

Key points to ponder
• The new creative brief. Build a client site that pull in Twitter, RSS feeds, videos etc. “see” your audience. Check out Magnify
• The future marketer has to be a choreographer and a curator
• ad agencies are betting on: platform, talk value, community, crowdsourcing … Not on consumer as an audience
• Whoever hires the best digital talent will win. Creativity will matter more than ever since you can’t buy attention