podcast: nancy

It’s been a hectic 2012 so far. We finished our book, Interactive Project Management: Pixels, People, and Process, and it’s now available for pre-order from Amazon! Or, add it to your Goodreads list so you remember to read it later!

This is also our first podcast of the year (sorry!), so allow us to be the last people to say Happy New Year to you. We hope it’s been great.

In this podcast, we’re talking about Pinterest (hey, who isn’t?!) and the idea of anonymity and privacy online.

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Links & Related Info

• Sasha Westin – Fabuliss
• Meghan on Pinterest
• Nancy on Pinterest
• Meghan’s thoughts on Pinterest on Arik Hanson’s blog
• Pinterest hits 10 million users
• 4chan’s Chris Poole: Facebook & Google Are Doing It Wrong
• Sh*t Interaction Designers Say

Lordy, Lordy, look who’s 40! It’s our “over the hill” podcast and we spared no expense with this one…on sound effects. Because they’re free.

As usual, topics were wide-ranging. From Meghan’s sister’s wedding (also known as Purminerny), an almost-finished book, owning the term “girl” to about two seconds of a Styx song, and our annual freakout about all the Christmas shopping we haven’t done, this podcast is full of reasons to celebrate. Happy Holidays! (And yes, we recorded it on December 22 and then didn’t get around to posting it until January 3. That’s how we roll.)

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Our e-book, Social Media for Humans: Minding & Managing Your Personal Brand Online, is seriously going to be available like, really soon. IF ONLY WE KNEW SOMEONE WHO COULD BUILD WEBSITES.

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After one final summer trip to the lovely Geek Girls private island, this week’s podcast focuses on ways to customize your online world for privacy or for fun. 

Examples:

Pregnant but haven’t told the fam yet?: Turn your Facebook wall off so your dad doesn’t find out about his first grandchild via the son-in-law that he doesn’t really like posting a picture of Harley Davidson baby clothes.

On a friend’s computer and stumble upon a long article about some body abnormality that you’d rather not discuss?: Set up a Google+ circle with no friends, co-workers or relatives so you can share things with yourself for later. (Depending on what you search for, you might want to delete the browser’s history after you’ve successfully posted it to your page.) 

There are plenty of small ways to think outside the box when it comes to social media sites. Any other quick and easy suggestions for customizing your social media spaces?

We also prove, yet again, that despite our geeky status we have no idea what we’re doing when it comes to audio. NANCY IS VERY LOUD IN THIS POST DESPITE OUR ATTEMPTS TO FIX IT IN POST-PRODUCTION. You’ve been warned.

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Links & Related Info

• If This, Then That
• Check your authorized Twitter applications
• LastPass
• UPDATE 9/14: Our pal Carol in San Francisco also reminded us about Unsubscribe.com: a site that will analyze the apps you’ve authorized and recommend ones you might want to delete. Check it out!

Have you heard?! Facebook is taking all of your contact numbers from your phone, posting them all over the internet and selling them to terrorist organizations around the world! Okay, so that’s not entirely true, but with all of the posts on Facebook the past few weeks, you’d think Gaddafi was about to call everyone in your phone to see if he could crash with them for a few days until things settle down at home while Mark Zuckerberg laughs maniacally in his giant bed that’s stuffed with $100 bills. (Psst, it’s not that big of a deal.) In this week’s podcast, we give you the lowdown on the newest wave of Facebook panic and try to calm your nerves a bit.

We also discuss a few ways to back up your Facebook profile and Memolane, a site that aggregates your social activity into a timeline.

Also, we sing.

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Links & Related Info

We referenced a lot of stuff this time around! We’ve tried to put links and videos in the order that we mentioned them.

• The reason for this clip will make way more sense after you listen to the podcast. But, it’s a classic.

• Geek Girls Guide Books!: We’ve got ’em! Soon, you can buy ’em. Totally up to you if you bother reading ’em.
• She’s Geeky MSP:Sign up for a super awesome unconference for geeky women in Minnesota.
• The Social Network. It’s a movie. In case you hadn’t heard. Also, it’s FICTION.
• Mark Zuckerberg at Web2.0 2010. Long, but a really great (and interesting) interview. Also, it’s NON-FICTION:

• Facebook’s Phonebook explained
• Sean Parker talks about the transition of social networking power from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook:

• Great article about Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
• How to download a .zip of your Facebook profile
• Anonymous and the “threat” against Facebook
• Meghan’s Memolane profile

Next time we’ll talk more about music stuff like…

• Turntable.fm
• Spotify

It’s the music episode and the request line is open, so give us a call and dedicate a song to that special someone in your life.

Now that everyone (including commoners like Nancy) has access to G+, we look at it again to see what benefits it could have (who wants to meet us at a G+ Hangout?! Anyone? …Hello?).

We also have an announcement that we, uh, already announced, so it probably won’t come as much of a surprise, but we’re excited anyway so we’re going to announce it again. You have to listen to find out though, because we’re not going to type it here. Pretty sneaky, huh? 

As usual, we meander through a bunch of other topics including the iPhone photo app Instagram, Foursquare, and the fact that were are not, in fact, life partners. To each other.

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Links & Related Info

• Instagram
• Extragram
• Instagram Book
• New Riders

Remember that one time Nancy cried at work? In front of a client? Let’s talk about that.

And, is Google+ our new social media savior or just another place for us to bide our time until the next big thing comes along?

Also, we swear in this one. Be warned. Even more frightening: we sing.

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Links & Related Info

The Double-Bind of Women in Leadership

Note: Meghan misspoke in our podcast, this isn’t a Harvard Business Review article it was a study published by Catalyst.

xkcd’s take on Google+

NY Times article: Upending Anonymity, These Days the Web Unmasks Everyone

Gettin’ Techy

• Pystar
• Lifehacker Night School
• Girls in Tech (Minneapolis)
  • There are other GIT chapters in other cities, search for one near you!
• She’s Geeky
• Fresh Workshops by Adria Richards

You may have been asking yourself, “Where are Nancy and Meghan? Are they okay? Have they forgotten about us?” It’s been a busy couple of months in the Geek Girls’ world, but we finally had a chance to hop back into the podcast studio and fill you in on what’s been going on in our lives. We’ve been traveling from coast to coast, attending conferences and spotting celebs (well, one celeb and a few Law & Order extras).

Oh, by the way, who could take a home computer set-up and make it sound dirty? Nancy, that’s who.

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Links & Related Info

Girls in Tech MSP Happy Hour

June 29th, Moscow on the Hill

More details & RSVP here.

She’s Geeky MSP
September 23-24, Science Museum of Minnesota

More details coming soon here.

More information about Rebecca McDonald’s speech.

Minnewebcon Keynote

In our 33rd podcast, we chat with home entertainment guru Kyle DeLaHunt. Kyle, a second generation A/V geek, has been nerding out about home entertainment since the age of 8. We asked him to come down to the studio and discuss how to make simple digital home entertainment systems to fit your needs. We talked about his setup, and each of our own (which we cover with photos and video on this blog post here).

Kyle (@dels) and Kate (@cleverkate) will be hosting a Twitter chat for this topic on Wednesday 3/23, from 8-9 PM. Follow them on Twitter for more information!

More about this week’s geek: Kyle grew up in a household full of electronics. His first computer was an Apple IIC. His first CD was ‘Slippery When Wet’. Were he to become independently wealthy, he might very well travel across the heartland, playing Wolfenstein on a IIC while listening to Slippery When Wet on repeat. With that not being too likely, he will continue to advise music students, take photos and play music for fun (and money occasionally), and prognosticate on the future of your tech industry of choice.

Check out our “Home Entertainment How-Tos” blog post for videos and pictures of Kyle’s, Meghan’s and Nancy’s home entertainment systems.

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Whether you’re still in school, looking for a career change, or just want to meet some bitchin’ new contacts in your field, informational interviews can be key in connecting with your dream job. It’s up to you, though, to get the most out of your time with the interviewer.

In Podcast 32, we discuss how to reach out and request an informational interview, as well as what to do and what NOT to do when you’re finally face-to-face with the person you’re interested in learning about.

And, hey: we had so much good advice we decided to write it down, too. Here’s our blog post on Informational Interviews.