CrowdFire

The Crowdfire App (Formerly JustUnfollow)

My Twitter Feed started to feel a lot like Facebook. Sure, I was following a lot of people, most for very good reasons, but the noise level was finally drowning out the signal. Promoted Tweets were not helping, and I had reached the "why am I doing this moment". I needed a Twitter reset.
 
How can an application change from "JustUnfollow" to an application to grow your engagement? Crowdfire makes the transition, and here are the steps to leverage their tool. 

 Opening the Kimono - My Twitter Stats

Click for larger image.

Twitter provides a unique platform for communication. But when the communication channel gets crammed with noise, it starts to fail. Ever have a conversation in a noisy restaurant? Well, my feed was like having a conversation at the Indy 500. It was either give up, or make significant changes. 

JustUnfollow 

The JustUnfollow app on a tablet provided the ability to see "inactive" users. Click to discover if someone had not posted a Tweet in 30+, 60+ or 90+ days. This was reasonably handy, but it was limited to the people that you follow. This is a great place to start - with a simple premise: if someone has not posted in more than a month, they are not really communicating. 

Spring Cleaning Process

My goal on Twitter is not to have a million followers. That would be nice, but communicating with impact to a million people is not where I want to be. Reading Tweets from celebrities and other media types is boring - a total time sink. 

Even the mainstream news people on Twitter are boring. They are unlikely to break news via Twitter - when they are paid to break news on their broadcast or cable channel. "Catch my show at 9:00", "My Special Guest is Joe Expert", "What did you think of the XYZ package?" Yes, I want to see the conversations, but they do not need to be in my normal feed. (Texas people: ever go to a BBQ place and have them hand you a full loaf of white bread with your order? Same thing - a slice or two is nice, but an entire loaf just distracts from the main course.)

Politicians are also pretty boring on Twitter. Inability to speak from the heart on a platform with a microphone, becomes dyslexic, tongue-twisted torture in 140 characters (or less). A mistake at a gathering in South Carolina will hit the airwaves for 2 minutes, on Twitter it echos... and takes on a life of it's own. 

Action Item: Move all Media People and Politicians to Lists, then Unfollow.

Twitter Fans on Crowdfire

I follow plenty of people that do not follow me back. [Hello: @CondoleezzaRice. Follow me, maybe?] I scrub new followers to remove the "Buy Followers", "Please Fund Me", "Check Out My New Photos" Twitter-trolls. Crowdfire provides a quick list of "Fans" - people that follow me, that I do not follow back. The count was surprising (356!), some had dropped from Twitter, they would not be in the Inactive User List, some were doppelganger accounts (yeah, some of my favorite accounts end up in Twitmo on occasion), some accounts were just odd. 

Action Item: Scrub the "Fans" list 

Manually reviewing 350+ profiles forces the tough decision making process. Why are they following me? Do we have followers in common (is that enough to keep a fan)? Review their stream, are they posting stuff that is important to me? Are they posting original thoughts, or just re-tweeting noise? Verdict -- 356 fans reduced to 52. Some were moved to lists, some were followed, but the vast majority Blocked. Twitter does not have a elegant way to force people to unfollow. (Sorry)

Action Item: Scrub the Followers list

This is a total pain. Not only is the list longer, but the clicks required to block any follower is monotonous. First - remove inactive accounts. Crowdfire includes a small data element showing when the account last posted. If you haven't posted in the last 30 days, you're off my list. Second - if your posts are in a foreign language, and only occasionally in English, sorry. Finally, if you are solely on Twitter to promote a business (of any kind) and are not providing content that I need, bye-bye. 

Question: How many times can I read the "10 Ways to Improve your LinkedIn Profile" without seeing anything new? The Tweep that has supporting content stays on my list. 

270 of the 1570 followers were cut. Pretty close to 80/20 Pareto Perfection.

Bottom Line: 

My feed is much more focused, the signal to noise has been improved dramatically, and Tweeps that I really care about are getting more of my attention. I added a couple of items to my Twitter task list:

1. Review Lists (Politicians, Media, etc.), as needed, for content
2. Build Lists in specific areas (Central TX, Technology and OneNote, Education) 
3. Build Community (Writers, Authors, Publishers)

Crowdfire changed their product offering from JustUnfollow - it really helped me to prune my Twitter account. Now, onto building my community. 

~Tot1

Sig Sauer Mosquito - Sour Taste

Sig Sauer Mosquito - Sour Taste

 

The internet is always right… most of the time.

 

Last year I purchased a Sig Sauer Mosquito (22LR) for two specific reasons. First, I wanted to have a pistol that was easy to handle, reliable and not over-powering - so that my wife and kids could get accustomed to  shooting. The second reason was to provide home defense since we lived a full 30 minutes from any police response.

Sig Sauer link at Cabela's

 

The allure of the Mosquito is the compact size - scaled at 90% of a regular pistol, and ability to shoot 22LR - which is really cheap - under 10 cents per round. Several YouTube videos made the specific point that the Mosquito: is easy to handle, does not have much recoil, and uses cheap ammunition, which makes for a great training gun.

Over the winter we put several hundred rounds through the Mosquito, will deteriorating results.

See our previous blog: Shooting Log

Sig Sauer Mosquito FTF
Low confidence for use in home defense.

Problem: Ammunition - Reliability and Availability

Several YouTube videos pointed to problems with Failure to Eject and misfeeds. Crappy ammunition was blamed. Our initial experience with CCI Mini-Mag showed flawless performance. Ammunition by anyone else, well, not so much. The availability of 22LR is a problem, and the availability of the good stuff (CCI) is even worse.

The spouse and the boy got used to clearing a misfeed, which is fine for the "training" part of our goal. After all, any pistol can have a misfeed or misfire which requires intervention. But this behavior is a total "fail" for home defense requirements.

 

Pointing a pistol at an intruder might discourage a few intruders. A single, well-placed round of 22LR might discourage a few more. But not being able to dissuade a motivated intruder by unloading an entire clip is a big problem. 

 

Range Experience

 

Red's Indoor range has a lead control solution that requires cold outside air to be pumped into the range. The cold air flows from behind the shooting line down the entire length of the lanes. When it is cold outside, it's cold inside. And, when it was cold the Mosquito performed very well.

 

Once the weather started warming up, and once we tried to use less expensive ammunition, we started seeing the ejection and feeding problems. My cleaning routine does not leave a pistol wet… clean - yes, lubricated - yes, but wet - no. After two shooting and cleaning sessions in April, I am convinced that dirt (and lubrication) is not the issue.

Solution

 

I'm torn about the solution. We shoot 22LR in both the Mosquito and a Henry Golden Boy. Unlike others at the range, we often run through a couple hundred rounds -- for under $20. The ease of handling and low cost make range time very productive. But for home defense the Mosquito does not inspire confidence.
 

Options

• Move to a new platform (9mm?)
• Find a solution to the Mosquito misfeed
• Find a supply of CCI and keep it for home use only
• Other (Hey, I'm open to suggestions)

Bottom Line

 
Meatloaf was wrong… "two out of three" is horrible.

 

~Tot1 

Wisdom of Crowds - NCAA March Madness Version

March Madness and the Wisdom of Crowds

 
You don't have to look far to find tear stained brackets from the NCAA March Madness Tournament. Millions of people created brackets and millions were wrong. The question continues to deserve inspection:

Which advice is better, the advice of an expert, or the advice of a crowd?

Did the Crowd get March Madness right?

Cow-ontology, Bracketology and
The Wisdom of Crowds 

Why is Bracketology Important?

Chris Godfrey (@DaWordOfGodfrey) provides an enlightened reasoning:
 
"As an added bonus, the winner of the Busted Brackets from Busting Brackets Tournament Challenge (copyright pending) will also receive — a man’s hat.
 
Allow me to explain. In college, my buddy Sam (a frequent contributor to my mailbag and a future member of the Order of Canada) would annually organize a bracket pool where the winner would receive a random item. For example, one year a stuffed rat was involved. It was our college basketball answer to the ridiculousness of rivalry game trophies in college football where teams play for random stuff all the time (boots, skillets, bronzed pigs, a slab of bacon, etc.).



The most coveted item we ever competed for was a man’s hat. I can’t tell you why the hat meant so much. We literally found it on the ground outside of our apartment. However, I would have killed a man for that hat. It was our grand prize.
 
It was a man’s hat.
 
It was special.
 
This year I nominate this snazzy number as the hat that will go to our winner."

 

Clearly the answer is: Brackets are important because they are.

Bracket Busting Metrics:

Not only was Warren Buffet's Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge killed (damned lawyers), but it's clear that he knows how to offer an un-winnable bet.

• Washington Post - Don't Worry, Everyone Else's NCAA Tournament Bracket is Busted, too.
• ESPN Bracket (11.57 million people): Just 14 Brackets Get  Entire Sweet 16 Correct
• President Obama's Bracket - Declining Success, Year over Year
• Yahoo Sports -  Millions of Brackets Busted in Less than Five Hours
• BustingBrackets - NCAA Tournament: Busted Brackets from BustingBracks

 
At the end of the NFL Season I posted a blog with several important questions about my success, and the general success of players in the Yahoo Pro-Pickem pools: NFL Pro-Pickem - Wisdom of Crowds.

If the Crowd is so Wise, Why can't the Crowd win?

My brackets are dying. A slow death by a thousand paper cuts. Four of my first round eliminations were decided by a single point. The Second round was equally soul crushing.  

• Purdue (1 point game)
• Indiana (5 point game)
• Oklahoma State (6 points)
• Baylor (1 point)
• VCU (3 points)
• SMU (1 point)
• Iowa State (1 point)
• Providence (13 points)

My East bracket is dead (Villanova), and if Kentucky, Wisconsin or Gonzaga fall, I could be watching Professional Curling on ESPN-Canada-4. I certainly won't be glued to the TV to see my teams in the Final 4.



Clearly the answer is: The ability to of a crowd to guess the weight of a cow is not the same as asking thousands of people to predict a perfect bracket.

More Data Please

In my previous post I asked if a math wizard at Yahoo Sports would take on the challenge to explain why the Crowd lost. 



The ask was for:

1. What was the mean Pickem selection?
2. Would Yahoo Sports create a "player" with a Pickem profile to recognize the exact mean picks
3. Would they recognize the people that made the best tail picks - the least likely (most standard deviations away from the mean) picks -- that were correct.

Bottom Line:

I predict that someone will earn a PhD and will write a commercially successful book based on the failure of crowds to win at Bracketology, Pro-Pickem and other pools.
 
And, I predict that I will continue to challenge the Wisdom of Crowds.
 
~Tot1
 Also, I predict that climate-deniers are correct.