eric rochow

In November of last year I started The Greenhouse ( which runs on top of Ning )as place for people who watch Gardenfork and Real World Green to get together. One reason for starting it was as a solution to answering individual viewer mail. I encourage people to ask everyone, not just me.

 
photo posted by Greenhouse member

The number of members is not huge, but it does reflect the 1% participation rule of Web 2.0 . I think more people read posts on the site than those who are registered.

The people who sign up are what one could call the dedicated.

The Greenhouse’s small size is a virtue, its not Facebook. People are attracted to it because its not this huge entity. Facebook is like walking into a Bed Bath & Beyond Store. It can be overwhelming. The Greenhouse is more like Broadway Panhandler, a quirky niche place. When I walk into BB&B to find a potato masher, its daunting, not so in a smaller place.

This sentiment is reflected in comments people have posted on my Member Page:

Thank you so very much for the great resources. Living rural Wisconsin, sometimes I think that there will not be the same opportunities available to us; I was very wrong. Thank you for the link and video. This site is just becoming such a valuable tool for living! You should be very proud of the good things you are helping make possible.

Getting notes like that make it all worth it.

Reading a post on AllFacebook about Career Builder working with Facebook “to help clients run job recruiting through the site”, it reinforced for me the importance of what you put on your social network member pages.

Are you looking for a position as a Project Leader? Then put that in your profile page. Headhunters and employment firms search through social networks, keying in job descriptions.

AND, this may be obvious, but it seems it isn’t; whatever you put on the web, people are going to find it. It doesn’t matter if its somehow password protected or viewable by friends only.

A friend recently told me of interviewing a prospective employee, the interview went well, but after checking their Facebook page, the prospect was not offered a job.

I check on Facebook 1 or 2 times a day, its not the perfect place for me to be all the time, and now its even less.

I was looking thru my ‘Entourage’ and right above it is this:

Now, I know on most sites, this is a joke, but the button looks like a regular Facebook button. So I clicked on it, and sure enough, you can win an iPod, but you must jump through a bunch of hoops by signing up for services that you probably don’t want.

‘Participation’ its called. Ads like this annoy users and will drive them away. You’d think a social network would be more transparent, but no. If something is an advertisement, it should look like one and say it is. This makes people feel tricked, and its not a great confidence builder.

This slipped past me and its a big one to let slip past. I did not realize The Clip Show had done a review of Gardenfork last fall. Some very nice things were said. A big thank you for Jim Kirks and Charlie Baker for putting Gardenfork on.

Started by a spur the moment Twitter by Cathleen Ritterreiser,

a few of us who are not going to South by Southwest decided to have a get-together here in NYC. The crew at For Your Imagination came on board, offering their great loft for the event, next Monday, March 10th.

There will also be a virtual get-together via Cathleen’s Twitter and maybe some live video.

Come by this Monday, March 10th, 7 -9 pm. Its a BYOB or make a donation

22 West 27th Street, 6th Floor

www.foryourimagination.com

You can RSVP on our NONE Facebook event page here.

My friend Gary of Winelibrary.com sent me this video clip of a talk he gave to a group recently and he made a few good points here.

Gary says “You are your own Brand” and I’ve found this to be very true.

His point about business cards has happened to me many times. Someone wants to connect with you at a meeting or event, and they don’t have a business card, or the information on the card is incomplete, or you can’t read it without a magnifying glass.

I am not the most prolific blogger, for some reason it seems to take me a long time to write simple blog posts. I do do a lot of microblogging on Twitter and on Chris Brogan’s blog.

Chris recently posted an invite to ask his readers to tell our readers about his blog. Chris writes and speaks better than I do, so you should subscribe to his blog. I am better than Chris at truck repair.

My friend Mabel, who is one of the smartest people I know, has launched Tot Swap Shop, a website for people with children who want to give items they no longer need to people who do need them and vice versa.

Mabel bought me lunch several times while developing Tot Swap Shop to get my input on the social networking world, and I’m really impressed by what she has put together here.

What rings true here is that Mabel, being a mom, saw a need and built a solution, and its a really simple and elegant solution, which is what works best on the net.

Tots Swap Shop only wants to do one thing. We want to offer a community to exchange second-hand children’s products and advice relating to these products.

Parents everywhere, especially those with limited storage space in their homes or apartments, are looking to rid their growing children’s toys, books, clothes, etc. all the time. Whether they advertise in a newspaper or at their local grocery store, or setting up a garage sale, everyone would prefer that these items go to a happy new home rather than to our ever-growing environmental problem.

The idea to provide an online environment for swapping children’s items came naturally to the founder because of her decade-long experience as a web developer and as a mom. The Internet is the ideal platform for such transactions because of its universal reach and its ability to build communities of like-minded individuals.

I’ve been on the road a lot lately, and as I looked at a highway full of traffic, I saw a few semi trucks, thought about the truckers talking to each other on their CB radios and remembered when CB radios first came out.

I would sit in my father’s car after dinner and try to chat with people on his CB. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t. It was fun, though. Had to be careful not to drain Dad’s battery.

While watching the traffic crawl, it occurred to me that Twitter today is very much like the heyday of CB radio, a bunch of people reaching out and talking to other people interested in talking.

I just checked on Gardenfork’s iTunes page, and noticed some new viewer reviews, which are always fun to read. Haven’t gotten any angry comments yet. I can’t really put it into words, but people watch an episode of Gardenfork and there is this ‘connect’ that happens to a lot of those who watch.

Here are a few of the new reviews:

• My Ultimate Favorite Podcast
This is how podcasting for real people is done. Real everyday life lived from the heart, spirit and soul. Eric and his wife make Real Living look fabulous. This is a must for people who love to return to old fashioned life a little.

• Garden Envy
This podcast is very engaging. I love that the producers are willing to record the trails and errors that are likely to occur when one is working on a garden project rather than gloss them over and make gardening seem as though its an exact art. Its been a nice dose of gardening entertainment for a poor apartment dweller.

• Best Video Podcast
I’m glad I found this podcast, is by far the best cooking podcast I’ve seen. I love how humble not out of the ordinary Eric is, love the labbies and the home made feel, yet professional.