As Geek In Charge at CurrentMarketing, I'm a tough boss -- a veritable taskmaster.

For the past few months in our new suite upstairs, I've denied the other geeks a conference table to meet at next to our monolithic white board. They've been forced to huddle near it standing!  I know, I'm horrible, but at least it amused me for a time.

However, even I tired of their incessant whining and mewing, so I finally bought our new table.  I tried to find one that would be as ugly, uncomfortable and torturous as possible.  I think I succeeded:

Pay no attention to the whiteboard, that is our secret programming language. It might look like:

A skull
A submarine
E=MC2 ---> Web 2.0

But don't ask, your mind couldn't even handle it.  Seriously.

Other than the new table, I've also forced upon them two hideously devious chores:

First of all, once every few weeks, someone in the Geek Suite needs to give a post-lunch presentation.  It can be on anything they've learned, discovered, taught, read or so on.  In a few weeks, I'll be hosting an advanced SQL presentation to talk about some neat tricks I've been using in a recent project.  And just today we had our first volunteer.  Jonathan brought in his Arduino/Flex/Nintendo Nunchuck kit he's been hacking on and shared his code and app via a projector onto the whiteboard (and using our new table!)

Secondly, everyone can use a small part of every week to work on their own personal project that benefits CurrentMarketing.  If it is personal, how does it benefit CurrentMarketing?  Well, there are lots of cool ideas floating around that we don't always have time to work on, or that are necessarily billable work.  Flash/Flex apps we want to make.  Widgets for websites that are drop-ins.  Process automators that we've always meant to do, but haven't.  Without deadline, without a project manager hanging over you, bounded only by their imagination.

Sickening right?  I know I'm evil ...

... but sometimes when I'm not looking, I think they might be enjoying all this.

Masochists I say.

We were back at again this year at Run for the Rose with a kick butt team, light rain, toy horses and of course the bottles of wine! Best part, no one on our team fell.

Thanks to the CurrentMarketing players who took part in the race while the rest of us stayed back at the office:   Allison, Nick, Brandon, Lindsay, Megan, Jonathan, Rob, Jacky, Donovan, Dennis, Mel, Cathy and Luke!

I had a great time at SXSW:Interactive 2009 and I think going back next year is a definite. I'm no party goer like some of my other Louisville comrades, but I did get to meet a lot of people and get a great pulse on where all things interactive and social media-esque are going.

I do have a few notes to share though:

• Holy crap, you have to walk a lot.  Especially if you're on the other side of the bridge from downtown.  On the plus side, I had lunch with a bat in the hotel and got to check out the SoCo (Southern Congress) side of town.  Which means I got to see Leslie Cochran -- the link speaks for itself.
• How to talk to programmers and the developer/designer divide are big topics to be solved.  Katy Miller and I took part in a core conversation that turned into a complaint-fest.  So after saying our peace about how we approach the topic, we ditched out.  However, we impressed several people apparently, because we were sought out for additional comments for the next several days!
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a still a big "huh?" to a lot of people, as well as being a dirty word to others.  I had a great session that went over everything CurrentMarketing already preaches, and learned a bit here and there as well.
• Tony Hsieh is an awesome, humble speaker.  He talks the talk and walks the walk of Zappos culture and his presence on stage isn't dominating, it is subdued and personable.  Gave us plenty to think about concerning our own culture.  Always great to see how the big boys do it.
• A few too many of the panels I attended were more on the salesy side (I'm looking at you Adobe and Hulu). But overall I'd say 75% of the sessions I attended were either reinforcing what I already knew/thought or gave me plenty to think about for days after.
• iPhone development appears as I had surmised from looking at the outside:  painful.  I sat in on a iPhone programming for web developers (like me) session and came away with lots of "We don't know why you have to do X" and "Yeah, it is confusing, but you sometimes have to do Y".  That and Objective-C is ugly.  The Interface Builder is sweet though.
• There is plenty of free beer to be had.  Nothing much more to say about that.  Just lots of free, beautiful beer.
• Giveaways were a big thing.  Both Zappos and Adobe had similar Match 5 Cards type of games.  And in one session, Adobe gave away a Master Collection of their suite of software.  Plus, I came home with about 10 new tshirts, not all of which fit me, but still.
• The Austin Convention Center was designed by a madman.  You can take an escalator from the 1st to the 3rd floor, but if you want to get to the 4th floor you have to go to a completely different escalator on the other side of the building -- and it doesn't connect to the 3rd floor.  One SXSW volunteer tried to convince me that I was already on the 4th floor, not the 3rd, when I went asking for directions.
• And finally:  SXSW Interactive is the place to be to stay on top of the curve and to check signals that you're going in the right direction.  It is also the place to be to see a bunch of social media nerds getting drunk and socializing outside of Twitter and Facebook, their natural habitat.

It may just be that I was tired.  It may just be that I was upset with commercials getting in the way of an exciting 4th quarter (that was awesome wasn't it?).  Or it may just be that I'm spot on, and the 4th quarter commercials seemed to have almost nothing redeeming about them.

Did the advertisers just give up and go back to old stuff or what?  It seems like every commercial was a replay I had already seen, or was just a rehash of what we've already seen from their brands.  There seemed to be only a few highlights worth mentioning and like Katy I'm going to break mine down into 3 categories:  The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

Definitely my favorite was Alec Baldwin's Hulu commercial.  Equal parts funny and creepy, it made me finally want to go check out Hulu.com.  Sure, I'm an internet nerd, but I've never had a reason to go by Hulu beyond its initial launch.  Definitely going to check it out now.  Hulu is an evil plot to destroy the world -- I should probably keep my eye on it.

And of course the clear awesomeness of Miller High Life's now famous "1 second commercial" early in the quarter.  Pure genius.

The Bad

Cash 4 Gold ads are always bad, but bringing MC Hammer into this was a kick in my junk.  I don't own much gold (it is tacky), but what little we do have at home I think I'm going to hide it from the likes of him.  And who is Ed McMahon and when did he become a TV Personality?  Nick, you're old, do you recognize him?

The MacGruber Pepsi commercial was funny, but they've done it before and it wasn't exactly as charming as it was the first time.  Bonus points for Pepsuber though, I don't remember that from the first MacGruber commercial.

The Ugly

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed, but there seemed to be a ton of local commercials running.  And by far the scariest, ugliest, down-right most embarassing-uh-est was Darryl Issacs's "Hero" ad.  Hope he doesn't sue me for that.

We're busy. We're growing. And we're busy .. did I already mention that?I'm looking for a couple more entry-level geeks to add to CurrentMarketing's web department. Benefits include plenty of video game talk, free soda, maybe some beer, and you'll probably even get paid!

If you want to come work with a Geek In Charge, Code Ninja and Wonder Boy (yes, those are on our business cards), you'll need to know some things from this list:

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• Perl
• Photoshop/Fireworks
• OS X

You don't have to know all of the above, but the more the better of course. If your language of preference isn't listed above, well, no worries. Tell me what you do know and we'll see what happens.

Put your resume up online somewhere and post in the comments of the blog entry.

Or seek me out on Twitter and send me a message there.

If it is one thing a geek needs, it is electricity.  I can pretty much turn any computer at my disposal into a workstation -- but only if I can power it on first.  When the wind storms hit our area this month, I  first noticed at home.  No video games, no TV to watch, no video games(!!) -- what was a computer geek to do?

Well, first things first, I broke out my iPhone and checked on our client sites that are hosted at Peak10 in Louisville (we have others in Dallas).  They were up and responsive, and an email from Peak10 confirmed that though they were without power, the facility was running on their massive generators.  With clients safe, I next found out that our HQ at Bakery Square was down.  So, my home was out and my work was out and we were sitting at the beginning of one of the busiest weeks of the year for us because of The Cup Experience which had a website that needed a ton of updates as events unfolded.

But we actually didn't skip a beat.  Code can be written and even tested offline, so even without an internet connection I was still producing.  And when there was a connection, I could securely access any and all of my servers for day-to-day maintenance, backups, fixes and website changes with no problem.  In fact, my department was probably even more productive than normal simply because we didn't have the distractions we normally do during the course of the day.  No walk-ins to throw us off our game so to speak.

All in all, the CurrentMarketing Geeks had no problems with setting up mobile work spaces.  Sure, not having power at home was the biggest pain, but with my trusty Linux laptop, some ethernet cables and a switch I was able to set up shop first at my parents' house and another time at the apartment of one of the other programmers.  We just sat back and worked as normal -- the field changed, but the game stayed the same.

4 work days with no power later, I'm the first to know our offices have power.  Peak10 gives me a call to let me know they see my internet connections (dual-T1s) come back up at Bakery Square.  I drive down to confirm and then I send out a mass text message to all the employees to let them know to show up Friday morning.

Even without power, we're all still wired in somehow.

Recently, I had reason to complain about some poor customer service I received from a rep at a call center for Network Solutions.  I had two client  accounts that needed to merge in order to setup some E-commerce functions, but not only was the fellow I spoke to not helpful at all, I could barely understand his accent.

So what did I do?  I vented on Twitter about it.  Even with the recent bad luck they've had with downtime and unreliable service, I've not quite decided to be a Twitter Quitter either. For a while I was close to it, but I've decided to stay and post maybe 3 - 4 times a day.

I'm glad I stuck around, actually.  What happened after I vented was quite interesting.  After figuring out the problem myself, I went to my Twitter page and I had a direct message from @netsolcares, a Network Solutions customer assistance rep on Twitter itself.  And this wasn't the first time he's contacted me on there!

Yep, I actually meant to blog about this the first time @netsolcares contacted me about mentioning Network Solutions on Twitter.  I got into a discussion with him, not about the issue, but about how he was using Twitter and how he found my message.  He used Summize, a search engine for conversations going on at Twitter and found my message within hours of posting and contacted me directly to see if he could help at all.

Now that is proactive customer support!

How can other people use this as an example?  If you have a product or business that people use, try finding out where and what they are saying about it online.  You'd be surprised at what you find, both positive and negative.  Seek the positive remarks and chime in to say thanks.  Find the negative comments and poke your head in to see if you can change their minds.  That is the future of customer service online.

Do not wait for problems to come to you because they can boil up beyond your control, which would be a shame if a single proactive approach and a "sorry" could have kept the issue small.

The Bouv has been asked to answer 3 questions about his day-to-day life at CurrentMarketing.

The Bouv Abides.

1: What's the most interesting tool you use to do your job?

This may seem funny at first, but as Geek In Charge around here, I'm not going to say the programming editor I use or my favorite browser. I'm not going to say it's the command line of the nice UNIX soul behind my Mac OS X workstation.

No, the most interesting and useful tool I use is Mac OS X's Spaces program. Not all you Macheads even know about this feature of OS X 10.5, but it is the application that I most often use throughout the day. Spaces allows you to have multiple desktops to help organize your other applications into functional groups.

For instance, I have one area for browsers, mail and instant messaging. I have another for my programming tools (editors, terminals and sftp windows) and a third desktop for iTunes or other multimedia apps. And the coolest one is Desktop 4 where I can run Windows Vista full screen.

Just take a look:

I can push Control + 1 thru 4 on my keyboard to cycle through my desktops to get to any area I need. If I click on an app on my dock that is already open in one of those desktops, it automatically moves me over to that area. Spaces really is the most interesting and useful tool I use to keep productive daily.

2: What website do you visit most often?

Why, UnderCurrent of course! I mean it's the blog of Louisville's Leading Interactive Marketing Agency!

3: What website do you REALLY visit most often?

Google without a doubt. I have a customized Google home page that feeds in my personal Google mail account, my Google Reader list, and my Remember The Milk todo list. 3 websites for the price of 1. I could put more on there but I don't want it to be cluttered.

Well, Hulu officially launched yesterday after many months in beta. Better late than never? The "video online" market is fairly crowded right now, but Hulu does bring the powerhouses of NBC and Fox under one umbrella, not to mention many other smaller channels as well (like Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, and Oxygen). In the last year and a half all the broadcast networks have really ramped up their online video presence.

The Wall Street Journal posits that Hulu is coming out as a competitor to YouTube. Does anyone else out there have an issue with this? The bread and butter of YouTube is not shows (though they are pirated on there, or show up in snippets only), but UGC -- User Generated Content! Hell, its one of the biggest successes of the Web 2.0 "amateur created" internet fad we're all wrapped up in. YouTube is popular because it shows cats tackling babies, old ladies punching other old ladies in the face and of course The Evolution of Dance video.

Now, Hulu does have a good shot at doing this better than its competitors. Its archives are ripe with much wanted older episodes of popular shows (*cough* Simpsons *cough). And the ads that it is serving can be targeted towards the end-user (I get to choose what type of ads I see) and big companies are going to eat that up. Especially since ads in video is still experimental for marketers and there is a lot of drool over the expected ROI.

That is until someone makes a site that rips the content, strips the ads and reposts everything free of annoyance. The legality of this is of course obvious, but that hasn't exactly stopped people from posting shows online already, has it? If anything Hulu might be making it easier. Now all a site needs to do take the videos and keep the ads there, but put in "jump points" to allow the user to choose to skip the ads. They're there, but the user decides to skip them and jump to the next point in the real show -- definitely doable.

HuluDVR.com upcoming? Totally predicting that.

Yesterday morning Gary Gygax passed away, so I'm a bit nerd-sad at the moment. Like many other computer geeks, growing up I was into roleplaying games and Gary Gygax was an icon as the Father of Dungeons & Dragons. Though it was in person, sitting around with some pencils, paper and dice was our social networking back then. Later when the internet was picking up, but before the label of "Web 2.0" was slapped on it, to have "online friends" was still seen as anti-social.

And now everyone and their mom has a Facebook or MySpace page. If you don't, you're the odd one out now. The irony is particularly interesting because the nerds, geeks and dweebs of 15-25 years ago are now leading the technology behind Web 2.0, social media and all things "hip" about the Internet right now.

If anything, I'm more anti-social now than I used to be -- except for the fact that I interact with more people online now than I ever do in person. I've put down the d20s (those are twenty sided dice for you non-initiated) for now, but I'll always be a roleplaying nerd at heart.