Marie-Lynn Richard

Klout is a strange social network that claims to calculate your social reach. However, the way it works is dubious to me. Take into account this laughable pop-up that grants me a ‘Klout Addict’ achievement for accessing the site THREE (3) times! If this wasn’t funny, I would be insulted. Not only is this ‘achievement’ entirely self-serving for Klout, it’s completely ludicrous! I only access Klout to keep an eye on its continuing self-destruction. I have a Klout score of 42, which I have not dissected to understand why but it gives me access to a lot of ‘perks’ which are interesting to dissect. In fact, Klout’s ability to provide perks to strategically influencial social media users is its ONLY commercial value (see below).

I am in no way influential in social media because most of my social media activity is directed ONLY to my Facebook friends 75% of whom are people I really know. All of my social media efforts are aimed at getting my clients and friends efficient at blogging and tweeting. My higher Klout score cannot even count in the fact that I have been driving online communities for 20 years. In fact as I use precious little spare time I have right now to make portfolios of my online activities I smile at my eBay and Etsy feedback which are tied to actual commerce and not only lip service! But since Klout offers achievements based on a user’s activities promoting themselves and Klout, it cannot be a sincere and accurate measure of one’s influence. In a perfect world, influence is measured regardless of the subject’s (or their staff’s) efforts at brand promotion.

Also, I hate how Klout uses my Facebook friends list to con me into adding Klout member who haven’t even signed-up for the service yet.

DISCLAIMER: I’ve been working on a vaguely similar concept as Klout since 2007. However, it is an idea propagation and influence measurement system that cannot be gamed by its subject, social media self-promoters or online celebrities. How Klout is viewed and used is of some scientific interest to me and I will continue to watch it.

I cannot wait to see what kind of achievement I will unlock in a few months when I log onto Klout for the FOURTH (4) time!

Example of a Perk offerred to users with a klout score of 35 or more.

Wahooly earns you equity

Wahooly and Klout have partnered to give a select group of influencers the opportunity to get a piece of the “next big thing”. 20,000 positions are exclusively available for Klout users with a score of 35 or higher.

Wahooly is making it possible for you to earn equity in emerging startups by using your influence as an investment.

Overview found here on January 11th, 2011. This is an interesting concept. However it seems to me that people with a Klout of 35 or more would already have, in their surroundings, plenty of aspiring start-up developers who can use their insight and help. This creates a much more interesting and valuable collaboration in the end.

I have 24 items on my to do list for 7 different clients. Why am I working on a Sunday? Because it would appear the next 5 days will not be enough to accomplish everything I want to do. I am giving myself a head start on a day where I am all alone and it is quiet (all alone and quiet being two things I consider luxuries… oh and being barefoot, I also enjoy living barefoot!) I have been making good use of the additional 25 weekly hours I bought myself by moving back to the West Island. I had my first meeting with my startup co-founder this week about the whole process of incorporation. We have A LOT of people requesting use of our solution but I am still closely monitoring my latest releases to make sure we do not overwhelm our platform. Basically, if I deploy too manyu contests and run into scaling issues, the support cascades would eat up the entire time I need to develop new client-facing functionalies (Which ones you ask? The self-serve interface and the super awesome infographic-inspired report.) Jergens’ really attractive promotion alone has driven over 10k fans in a few weeks only with ZERO glitches system-wise so I am in a very happy mood.

Boîte à concours is not the first suite of products I have managed. In 1995, I teamed up with an arts PR specialist who maintained Quebec City’s massive database of shows. Jean-Noël Basquin was the person you called if you had any kind of arts-related PR event or show so as not to step on anyone else’s toes. We published this information and I quickly conceived a search engine (by date, name and type) to let people search the database of 1500 shows. The video below shows this functionality in action. It was brilliantly built very quickly by a Electric Engineering student from Université Laval and we didn’t use a database, just a CGI script that looked up and parsed info from a flat file. I did monetize this venture offering PR agents paid placement and eventually syndicating our content to a major newspaper.

I am posting a June 14th, 1996 interview I did with François Taddei of Micro-Info. I was very surprised to be invited to this show because it has always been full of the same computer nerds who have been systematically setting me aside in the world of computers since 1980. I am posting this because I had scheduled this weekend to work on my portfolio and since I spent all of yesterday tediously crafting an Iroquois Halloween dress for and with my daughter, I no longer have time ‘play around’ with concepts of timelines for the 250 items I want to feature in my credits…

The improvisation cut work piece I showed here a few months ago has been short listed for an encyclopedia. Regardless of whether it is selected or not, I really can’t wait to get my hand on this book! Last week I went on a bender of British Victorian and Regency documentaries. I am also enjoying Downton Abbey. As a former nanny and housekeeper I enjoy shows and movies that focus on ‘the help’ but I am mostly awed by the costume design.
My little bout of lady’s work produced this shisha embroidery sampler in the form of a coin.

N’ayant pas de petit miroirs pour pratiquer les appliqués Shisha indiens, j’utilise des pièces de monnaies. Cette improvisation, créée avec des bouts de fils restants, contient 52 cents Canadiens avec un pièce souvenir (oiseau) datant de 1967. I do not have mirrors to practice indian shisha embroidery so I use coins! This improvisation contains 52 Canadian cents (including a souvenir bird penny from 1967). It was sourced entirely from my waste thread pile.

I have been happy with my Powershot Pro 1 which I bought in June 2005. I paid a pretty penny for this camera, again around $1000. But then again that’s what I paid (and then some) for the two other Powershots I enjoyed before that since 1998. I enjoy small tiny things so I require the macro setting. At 8 megapixels, my old Powershot Pro 1 remained useful until recently when I tried to do action and indoor martial art photos. With only a moment to capture awesome shots, it was a catastrophe… So I decided to add another. After looking at the latest Powershot, I was disappointed because it felt so cheap compared to my heavy sturdy workhorse… So I went up a notch and got an entry level EOS Digital Rebel XS. Now I am a completely useless photographer so it will take a while for me to understand how to use this camera but I am already in love.

And because I m the queen of bad ideas, I decided to take my camera sport shooting in October, in a lake, while it’s raining cats and dogs. Some of the photos turned out great despite the gloomy gray weather. I love the portraits featuring real rain!

Russian Martial Art student Gabriel Charbonneau demonstrates a perfect Systema roll in 4 inches of water. Taken on October 2 at Plage du Cap-Saint-Jacques, Pierrefonds, Qc.

My spouse says I am the only one who can make him look cool. Stéphane Beaudin is a Systema Instructor (and Human Mobility Genius!)

All photos from the shoot are available on the Club Nagaika Facebook Page.

Years ago I took a great picture at a football game at Riverdale. It was the only good shot out of 100! I have moved back next to Riverdale and will try again, this time with my latest Canon.

I recently read Alain de Botton’s book How Proust Can Change Your Life and what do you know, it prompted me to make a decision! I have decided to move back to the West Island in order to be closer to my daughter’s school and to her friends. I am very fortunate to have such a trooper. For many months she got up at 5:30 in order to trek to school (and back). For me the total travel time in a day in order to get my daughter to school and back is 5 hours. I have been very transparent with my clients about how my week is cut short an average of 25 hours because of this endeavor. But now that ALL my available hours are sold a few months ahead, I would like to have this commuting time back and invest it in fun activities.

During the summer, it was very practical for me to be on-site at the school to organize the many activities and seminars but now that most of my work is product development and programming, I need quiet! Hochelaga is anything but quiet!!

My most recent software is in soft launch with international brands and my new startup company has signed with the largest portal in Canada for Facebook contests. Stéphane and I will be unavailing a brand new HUGE project very soon :)