The Westerman Way

Looking for information about Gustav? It’s all over the web.

Weather Underground has this page dedicated to Gustav info. Here is MSNBC’s interactive hurricane tracker and another cool rendering at StormPlus.com. The NHC has it’s usual robust collection of text and graphic data in both standard web presentation and a custom mobile edition. You can track the storm surge graphically here. MesoWest provides this interesting resource with detailed current condition reports from around LA.

K3GRN and the guys over at Interdictor have an Internet Relay Chat channel up and running where you can watch events unfolding across the impacted areas. If you are a licensed radio amateur have an Echolink account, use one of the reflector channels (VKEMCOMM, N5API, KC4QLP-C) and avoid the WX_Talk conference during the height of the storm, unless you are filing a report. You can listen to a Windows Media stream of the Echolink traffic here. The national hurricane net on the low bands is 14.325. You can listen in on the public service frequencies in New Orleans here.

Our friend Dennis Dura, K2DCD is on the case at the headquarters of the American Radio Relay League. The League’s hurricane page is here, along with links to the Hurricane Watch Net, and VOIPWx.net. Want to listen live to broadcast radio from the region? WWL’s website has an audio stream. A list of scanner streams can be found here. Want something more visual? Weatherbonk has this link to New Orleans traffic cams. MarroonSpoon has a page set up with all four New Orleans TV stations streaming simultaneously.

There is a special social network now active in the Ning constellation, where folks are encouraged to share their experiences and well wishes. Here are some special Twitter accounts you can follow that are Gustav or Hurricane specific. @redcross @dfwgustav @gustavreporter @milvius @gustavalerts @gustav08 @hurricanealerts @hurricanes2008. And.. If you want a feel for how the world is reacting to Gustav, check out this Twitter real-time search.

Finally, here’s the un-official, official Gustav Wiki. Our good friend Andy Carvin is behind this effort. It’s similar to a wiki he created during Katrina.

What’s most exciting to me is that much of this stuff has blossomed without any government funding or intervention. Watching this happen in real time on Saturday across the Twittersphere and on Echolink was a sight to behold. It’s just a bunch of good people with smart brains and a passion for community service, working together quickly and efficiently to get resources and information to folks who need it.

We are headed to Florida to celebrate Shelby’s 29th this weekend. Looks like Gustav and Hanna won’t be a factor for us during the visit, but the 2008 hurricane season definitely has had more “features of interest” than was the case last year.

Doncha love the cool Ibiseye widget at the top of this post? Here’s a bigger look at it.

Shelby, Stephanie and Brandon were here. Details on current Atlantic storms..

8/22/08 Shelby says: Well it has been quite the morning/afternoon here in Jax. Starting last night, all through the night and in the early morning hours wind gusts were audibly blowing rain up against my windows. Mike had to go to work around 8:30..despite all the weather chaos. So I got up shortly there after to let Gracie out and go downstairs. It took 3 attempts to get Gracie to go potty because the wind was gusting almost continuously. Not to mention the rain… which was not coming down hard.. but with the wind made it seem that much worse. After attempting to go out with the umbrella and it being blown inverted, Gracie finally “sucked it up” and went potty. We came in and I actually had to towel dry her and myself. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

I admit it. I’ve never gotten over my love for radio. Even as the art of terrestrial broadcasting recedes into anachronism, I’m still attracted to a well executed Top-40 format. There are few who can do it the way I remember, with personality that doesn’t offend, contagious exuberance, and a presentation that seamlessly blends each element in a symphony that touches your very soul. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

Since The Queen is a dyed in the wool fitness freak, it was only a matter of time until the acquisition of a Nintendo Wii Fit moved to the top of my honey-do list.

We’ve had the game system (our first since we bought the original Nintendo way, way back when) for a couple of weeks. She’s already beaten me at bowling, tennis and yup, even boxing. And since it’s a WiFi device, she was able to view all of the Wii Fit video propaganda from the comfort of our living room. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

Few things are more frustrating to web surfers than a page that doesn’t display properly on your device.

Being deeply steeped in geekdom (a nice way to say that I have a lot of different Internet appliances), I look at the web on a Blackberry, a Dash, a Chumby, and I-Pod Touch and three different types of browsers. Each has its own particular way of dealing with HTML, Javascript and graphics. If the web server doesn’t recognize and customize the content for a given browser, the output will be slow to load, can be hard to navigate and will quickly expend my nano-second ADD attention span. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

(Check the bottom of the story for updates)

We’ve watched them rise and fall. Jaku and Pownce to name two, have tried.. and failed to unseat Twitter as the dominant micro-messaging application on the Internet.

Now, perhaps, there’s a new contender who may get some traction. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

With Colleen traveling and a rare rainstorm inundating Albuquerque, I’ve been cleaning up my home office. I found a piece I wrote in 1989, about my un-spectacular start in radio. Looking back at it from almost 20 years later, the writing isn’t as good as I’d like, but since the detail is starting to fade, I’m glad I put it down on paper.

In a 1974 interview with the Michigan State News, I told Michael Savel that, throughout my life, I had only considered three real careers: Railroad engineer, Percussionist, Radio Announcer.

As a kid growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I used to have great adventures on my bicycle. During summer vacations, I would bid my Mom farewell after breakfast and crisscross the streets of the city for the entire day, usually ending up at the old Ann Arbor train station at 5PM to watch the Wolverine come into town.

I still recall the Beemans Gum vending machines, the never changing list of trains that passed between Detroit and Chicago, and unique railroad smell of the terminal. Although steam locomotives had been 15 years replaced by the diesel electrics, the bricks retained the smell of coal. The underside of the Broadway Bridge still carried the signature of the smoke belchers. I would stand on the platform next to the railway express agency office and watch the silver snake slide majestically into the station.

I dreamed of putting my foot on the dead man’s pedal and moving the throttle ahead to full. I could hear the diesel electric prime movers respond to the call and feel the juggernaut lumber beneath me toward important destinations.

That dream started to fade as my Dad and I tracked the downward trend of New York Central railroad stock. By then I had different desires. Radio! Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott Westerman

I rarely write here in my day-job role as a Comcast exec. The family blog expresses a few of my other passions. But I saw this post over at the Consumerist today and felt like sharing another opinion. I posted the following in the comment section, but since some folks don’t get all the way to the bottom of the chain, I’ll repeat it here.

Speaking as one of the 100,000 employees here at Comcast that serve our customers, I can tell you that the document does not reflect the attitude of the vast majority of our team members.

I’m proud to work with a great group who is dedicated to improving the customer experience. In an organization as big as ours, we’re bound to make mistakes. But the goal is to deliver a superior customer experience the first time and every time.

Size makes us an easy target. It’s easy for people to throw rocks. If you look hard enough, it’s just as easy to find uncomfortable customer experiences in our competitors houses. See here, and here, and here, and here, and here. But all of us want to provide excellent customer care. At Comcast, we’re listening to the blogs and engaging on FriendFeed and Twitter to learn where the areas of opportunity are. We try to put out the fires but at the same time seek to understand the root causes.

And we’re making progress. Over the last 12 months, we’ve made significant investments in additional human resources, training and technology, all focused on improving customer care. Our customers have asked for more price points, more HD and faster Internet speeds. We’re delivering on all of those promises and there is more on the way.

The world changes and we’re changing with it. The choices we have today are light-years ahead of what anybody envisioned when I got into the cable business 27 years ago. We’re operating in a competitive environment that keeps us all focused on innovation and continuous improvement.

But at the base of it all is our desire to build great customer relationships, one at a time. That’s our common passion at Comcast.

If you have an unresolved issue, we want to hear about it. Our local teams are the first best resource. 1-800-Comcast will connect you with the office that serves your area. But if the chain of command isn’t working, you can directly connect with us, via email at we_can_help@cable.comcast.com or @comcastcares on twitter.

We’re listening.

Scott Westerman
Area Vice President - Comcast
scott.westerman@comcast.net
@comcastscott on Twitter

By Scott Westerman
TweetLater is one of the growing number of support applications that can help us leverage twitter as a messaging machine. Here’s how to use it.

Signup for a free account at www.tweetlater.com

You’ll see a dashboard where you can add one or more of your twitter accounts to the system. Adding an account is as simple as inputting your twitter identity and password. You can also set up some preferences to auto-follow anybody that follows you. While there’s some debate about the pros and cons, I like to follow everybody who follows me.

Once you’ve set up your account, you can click the “Manage Tweets” link to set up future Twitter tweets. Click “New Tweet”. You will be able to input your 140 character message and set a specific delivery date and time. At the appointed hour, your tweet will propagate across the Twitter network, just as if you had manually input it at that moment.

Tweetlater doesn’t interfere with your normal Twitter activity. You can still type tweets to your hearts content on your normal Twitter home page.

The benefits: You can input a week’s worth tweets in one sitting (I do this with daily almanac data for www.keener13.com). You can send a post out at a special time, even if you won’t be in front of your computer. You can schedule posts to hit when you want folks to see them.

Imagine Tweetlater as a friend that calls you to tell you about something cool that’s happening right now. “Hey, I’m gonna watch When We Left Earth on Discovery HD tonight. See it at 8ET!” or.. “About to watch Steve Jobs WWDC keynote on UStream.”

As you schedule, remember that Twitter is like a river of information which people generally consume in near real time. Internet users are more prone to ADD and generally take action when they see something. Set up your tweets to fire at times when you think your audience will be watching and ready to act. For example, avoid sending your stuff out at 8 in the morning, unless it’s associated with something hot that’s happening at that time.

Remember that your success in attracting and keeping Twitter followers is subject to the same rules that apply to all good Internet content. It should be interesting, relevant and timely.

Feedback or additions? Ping me @wscottw3 at www.twitter.com