Blog | Chuck Tomasi

Parsec Award

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Chuck

This past Labor Day weekend at DragonCon, Kreg Steppe and I were honored that our podcast Technorama won a Parsec Award in the Comedy/Parody category.

Earlier this year one of our faithful listeners nominated us back in May. A month or so later we found out we were a finalist and began the process of reviewing our our material from the previous year. Daughter Julie, who has been a part of the show for the past couple years, was also very helpful in picking just the right elements for our “sample clips.” What an honor to once again make it to the finals after four years!

A few weeks before DragonCon, Susie Murph asked us to present one of the awards (not our own category of course.) We happily agreed. Kreg and I worked on our presentation. We later found out that all the finalists in our category were presenting, and we happened to be the only ones AFTER our category was announced (that should have been a clue.)

Saturday night came all too soon. We were up against some pretty stiff competition (many of whom we are proud to call our friends) including Comedy4Cast, DragonCon*TV, and others. When they announced the winner, we were thrilled, then realize we really hadn’t prepared an acceptance speech because we didn’t expect to win. We spent our time working on our award presentation, not acceptance (lesson for next time – if we are lucky enough.)

This one award makes the last 7 years, 8 shows, and over 1000 episodes worth it. I think I said some of this in the acceptance, but here it is officially… Thank you everyone on the Parsec committee for your time and talent, thank you to the guests on our shows, a huge thank you to all the people who have helped us and influenced us along the way, thank you to my family for putting up with the time, cost, and modifications to the office, and finally thank you to all the listeners over the years. You are the best!

Podcasting has directly and indirectly changed my life for the better and I look forward to continuing as long as possible.

Posted in Hobbies | Tagged dragoncon, parsec award, podcast, technorama | Leave a comment

Keep Sticking Out Your Hand!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Chuck

If you do nothing else this year, keep sticking out your hand and saying hello to new people! I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it (since it took me so long to get it through my thick head)… your network of relationships is one of your most valuable resources you have. It can open doors for you that you never imagined. It transcends jobs, geography, and other events.

My latest example is from work. When I first got my (former) job as the global IT service desk manager, I immediately got involved with a professional organization known as HDI. My intent was to learn as much as I could about the help desk industry and what it meant to be an effective help desk manager. What I got was so much more in terms of career fulfillment. Recently they’ve grown from the help desk industry to include the desktop support group too. If you’re involved with front line IT support, I highly encourage you to get involved with this group and become a member, an officer, or some kind of contributor. You’ll be rewarded in ways you cannot imagine.

OK, back to the example. Since joining HDI nearly three years ago, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the HDI folks, other chapter officers, and quite a few members. I’ve attended (and spoken) at the last two national conferences, and served as an officer (currently president) for our local chapter. Now as I look forward to our next conference (9 months away) I was approached by our marketing team at my new job. They’ve been looking for ways to get their toe in the door to some of the IT organizations (HDI, ITSMf, AITP, etc) and I have a list of contacts that they want to leverage. It’s like I’m a sales guy and I brought my list of accounts from my successful old job. What a valuable asset. Call me near sighted, but I didn’t think of the friends I’ve been making over the past two years as leads. Even if not directly, some are program chairs for next year’s tracks and can improve our chances of speaking opportunities which increases visibility to the company and our products.

At first blush, this might seem a little cold hearted. “Chuck, are you just making contacts to get more business?” That’s not my primary reason for building relationships. First, I want to get to know a person. People are interesting. The more you talk to someone, the more you realize how much you have in common. Where there are differences, you can often complement each other and build a stronger bond. Since my friends are in charge of finding speakers for next year’s conference, I talk to them to find out what they are looking for an help them find people that may not otherwise have known how to approach the speaker submission process, in turn gaining them visibility as subject matter experts and growing their network. As the network grows, so does the business. See how that works?

Now get out there and talk to (and more importantly – listen to) people!

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I’m done with Foursquare

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Chuck

There’s no value to me. I tried it for five months, I became mayor of a dozen places, and earned a similar number of badges. So…

The idea behind using Foursquare is:

Easily check in to locations (e.g. work, school, restaurants) letting people know where you are
Know where my friends are (and perhaps meet them.)
Perks for frequent visits like a 5% discount.

Sorry, it’s not working out that way.

Let’s start with the ease of use. My iPhone supposedly knows where I am at all times and will locate Foursquare venues near by. If the one I want isn’t listed, I can create one. That’s not too bad, until I either a) get whacky results form my phone “You’re not near that location” or b) three other people have added the same venue with different information. (Check in to O’Hare airport and you’ll see some crazy results. People – you don’t check in to flight 161!) There have been numerous occasions where I run out for a quick errand and forget to check in. That’s my fault – which means it’s not as easy as it should be. I drop off the kids for school, but I’m also supposed to wake up the iPhone, enter the unlock key, bring up the Foursquare app, wait (sometimes up to 30 seconds) for it to find where I am and the locations around me, then four taps on three screens to check in, and two more to go back. That’s not simple IMHO.

OK, One of the extra screen taps was to decline the tweet (or Facebook) of my location. When I broadcast my location, a often received replies such as “What is this foursquare thing?” or “Is that secure, letting people know you’re not at home?”. It’s annoying to many and confusing to others. Having to explain it got old so I stopped tweeting/FB.

I also got lots of friend requests from people I either didn’t know, or didn’t care where they were. Sorry, even though you may be a great friend of mine, if you’re in another state or on another continent, it’s not likely that I’ll run in to you or even care what coffee shop you’re frequenting. I don’t drink coffee.

And those perks? Sorry, most vendors don’t even know they’re listed on Foursquare (probably because they didn’t put it there or use the tool.) I got one luggage tag from our local airport. That was nice. I’ve even mentioned to the lady at the cleaners “I’m the Foursquare mayor here. Any discount?” All I got was a smile and a full charge.

There’s no value to me. Bragging rights for being mayor of a place that doesn’t even know about the concept of social networking is not worth my time so I hereby delete the app from my iPhone.

So long Foursquare.

Posted in Hobbies | 1 Comment

Farewell Old Friend

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Chuck

Today I received news that one of my earliest friends had passed away. There are only a handful of people I can say were my friends from grade school. I’m proud to say that Chris Hauptman was one of them. We met Chris in the fourth grade and connected instantly. We had a lot of great times as kids. Looking back, he had an early influence on my interests that came in handy later in life. I can still recall collecting the stubs from our milk tickets, coming up with phoney company names and pretending we were businessmen, and lots of messages written in code (a sign of computer interest.)

Unfortunately, we grew apart as we grew older. This past week I was thinking of Chris as I mentioned one of his interesting childhood talents to my daughter. I reached out to Steve, another friend from Parkview Elementary, today on Facebook and asked him if he knew what happened to Chris. It turns out he moved from Michigan to Florida some time ago, started a family, but got very sick in the last couple years and passed away last fall. I had to read Steve’s message several times hoping I had read it wrong. Maybe he mentioned Chris’ dad or someone else, but it wasn’t so. I was extremely saddened by the news and wept for a few moments

Chris was of one of the first people who accepted me for who I was (not easy when you have a physical difference.) I felt a deep sense of regret for not keeping in touch with him over the years. Would it have been so hard to reach out and start looking for him a year ago or two?

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Reach out to someone from your past and reconnect. The Internet makes it so easy. You’ll be glad you did.

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HDI 2011 Annual Conference

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Chuck

I’m pleased to announce that I have been selected to speak again at this year’s HDI National Conference in Las Vegas, NV. The conference runs from March 29-April 1 at the Venetian.

This year I will be doing a morning “brain bites” session entitled “Fired to Hired in 23 days“. I offer actionable advice how to be prepared and get results should the inevitable layoff happen to you. After 22 years at my former organization, it happened to me and thanks to great preparation, I was able to secure a new and exciting job in just a few weeks. While I cannot guarantee the same results, you’ll be able to take home many of the lessons learned and start using them immediately. It’s a lot of information to pack in to an hour so you want to ensure you get your morning coffee.

I will also be spending some time at the Serivce-now.com booth meeting customers/prospects and answering technical questions. If you can’t find me there, look around for the HDI officers and I won’t be far away.

I look forward to seeing you there.

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New York Anxiety

Posted on November 6, 2010 by Chuck

I have to admit that I have never been thrilled with the thought of going to New York City. I can’t really put my finger on it. Perhaps it was the fact that driving and parking were terrible (how is that different from many other large cities I have been to?) Perhaps it is the stories of people getting robbed or mugged. That happens elsewhere too, but it seems to be more known in NY. Perhaps it is just because I grew up in a modest midwest town and got used to that lifestyle. I am not sure what it was, but it made me uneasy when I was told to travel there to help a customer with their software implementation. Continue reading →

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Inspiration From a Tree

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Chuck

I am inspired by the crab apple tree in the front yard. Each spring it is the centerpiece of our “estate” with white flowers all over. That lasts about a week, then it goes to work producing fruit. While some falls to the ground, a large amount stays on the tree well in to winter. By some unknown clock, birds descend upon the tree in February and eat the majority of what’s left. Perhaps it’s fermented and they need a little birdie-buzz?

The inspirational part is the tough times that tree has had. When it was still fairly young, something ate most of the bark at the base of the tree. (Without bark, the nutrients cannot get back and forth between the roots and branches.) The tree held on and eventually healed.

This past summer, we had a severe hail storm that wiped out most of the leaves on the tree. A few weeks later, that tree started shooting out new leaves and even blossoms – never before seen after the spring bloom! How could I tell they were new leaves? The old ones turn dark green, have spots on them, and many even fall off in the effort to pass on the energy to the new apples. New leaves look lighter green and fresh.

So here we are in October. Frost is occasionally on the roofs and lawn in the morning. The ripe, red, dime size apples are starting to fall from the tree, but it continues to produce a blossom here and there. It continues to put its best effort to continuing on even after devastation. It continues to put a positive spin to a difficult situation. It perseveres.

How about you?

Posted in Family, Professional | Leave a comment

Dragon*Con 2010 Wrap Up

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Chuck

For the second year in a row I attended Dragon*Con in Atlanta GA over the Labor Day weekend. There were several similarities to last year and several new things that made it a wonderful time. Thanks to everyone, old friends and new, for hanging out with us. Continue reading →

Posted in Hobbies | 2 Comments

iPad after two months

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Chuck

In May I purchased an iPad after Donna told me to give myself a present for landing a new job so quickly. I have now been using it for two months and have some feedback about this interesting device.

1. I love the touch type keyboard, however I might get an external one. One of the critical success factors for me to purchase the iPad was the ability to touch type on it. I wanted it to be a fairly efficient note taking device as well as crank out email faster than touch typing on the phone. When I tried one out in May it seemed to meet the requirement well (although getting used to the location of some of the non-alpha characters is still taking some getting used to). I also notice that I need to tweak my typing style a bit since I normally hit keys like x, c, and n with the tip/nail of my finger and that’s not good enough for the touch screen. I had thought about getting the wireless Bluetooth keyboard for a while, but don’t care for the idea of hauling two items around all the time. Since I work from home, I am never too far from my laptop anyway.

2. I wish they would upgrade to iOS 4. Since the iPhone has upgraded to iOS version 4 earlier this summer, I am surprised it has taken so long to upgrade the iPad to the same. I really enjoy
background processing on the phone and wish I could play Pandora, for example, then switch apps on the iPad. I also love the idea of folders to group icons together on the iPhone. Just because the screen is bigger on the iPad doesn’t mean it is easier or quicker to navigate around 50 or more apps.

3. It makes a great photo frame. I know, this is one of those simple pleasures and specific applications, but since I already have an iPad, why should I spring an addition $50-100 for something that only displays photos. Besides, out single-purpose photo frame doesn’t stand up all that well.

4. It is a great Netflix viewer. Watching movies works well if you have WiFi, but the 3G service doesn’t keep up very well and can get expensive if you are on the 200MB plan. Not only is the app a movie viewer, but it also allows you to manage your queues. The netflix app UI is very similar to the website in terms of navigation so there is no learning curve to watching your favorite Instant Queue movies.

5. Having 3G service is handy. Although it was a premium on the device, I find it very handy to use while traveling and the ability to turn it off while I am not using it. Around the house and several other places that I frequent, WiFi is the preferred method. My only wish is that I could send and receive text messages. The device has a phone number and this *IS* a data plan after all, isn’t it?

6. Having a case like the Apple one or Incase is a must. One of the first things I noticed when I first got my iPad was that it was heavy and kind of difficult to hold for an entire 2 hour feature film. Also, typing on my lap was a bit tricky with the rounded back and the angle it lays on the lap was sub optimal. The challenge was to find a case. I should note that while I looked, the device was protected with neoprene sleeve. I had two options in mind, the Apple jacket or the Incase leather book jacket. Both protect and double as a stand that improve the angle for typing. While the Apple case is less expensive and thinner, I started hearing people report that the case started to get lint and other funk on it. I opted for the Incase sleeve because it offers three stand angles and is a bit more padded. I ordered it online and it took about two weeks to arrive.

Got one? Want one? Leave a comment.

This article was composed and published from my iPad.

Posted in Hobbies | Tagged iPad | Leave a comment