Michelle Judd, Global Communications Manager @ Ergotron

Anyone who has ever shivered under the weight of a heavy 18 to 20 letter word to descibe their back condition can rejoice! October 4 through the 10 is Back Awareness Week in the UK. Sounds good to me in the US as well.

My own ailment was called Spondylolisthesis, an anterior displacement of a vertebra or the vertebral column. Several surgeries and months of traction left the scars to prove that backcare is no joke. 

Working at Ergotron, where ergonomic workstations are a given, has reminded me that my post-opt recovery is never really over. Taking time to create an environment that is healthy for me 8+ hours a day is a must, not a nice to have. 

I’m taking avantage of Back Awareness week in the following ways. I’m finally going use the workspace planner to plot my “numbers.” I’m moving the annoying filing cabinent that keeps bumping my leg. And I am going to lighten my load in my shoulder bag.

What are you going to do?

In the weirdest “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” week of the year so far, I was among the throngs of private business owners celebrating their growth at the Inc. 500/5000 conference in Washington D.C. last week, with business luminaries Bill George, Seth Godin, Jim Collins and Tom Peters, encouraging us.

I took a look at Tom Peter’s Blog, in particular, his entry, All Else On Hold.

According to Tom Peters, of In Search of Excellence fame, and FYI, this is not verbatim, the “Federal Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. – the most conservative free-market economy titan, performed an act of pure socialism to keep the world from slipping into a global depression. . .”

And Bill George at the Inc. 500/5000 conference, called it the “worst (financial) crisis since 1929.”

No doubt, these are turbulent times. However, perhaps Jim Collins summed it up best when he said, we need to “retain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail to the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.”

It may be appropriate to reference Bette Davis at this point: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Jane Payfer, Chief Marketing Officer @ Ergotron

David Munger, Quality Assurance Engineer @ Ergotron

I installed a LX Arm (45-179) Fairview Southdale Medical Center in Edina, MN. Chris M. was very pleased!! Showing it off to everyone.

I found the installation to be quite easy. Only problem was with the grommet mount. If the long screw gets pushed up into the base/pole, you need to take the bottom plate off to get the screw back through the hole in that plate.

Sorry, no pics.

As a supplier partner to many market making PC OEM and display companies around the globe, we’re asked routinely at Ergotron what our “green” initiatives are.

If you’re not green these days, you’re nowhere.

While we have extensive recycling and packaging/containerization efforts going on, I’ve said, and my team thinks I’m using marketing spin, that Ergotron’s products are  beyond green: they are designed for re-use.

I’m not being flippant.  I’m very, very serious.

Many companies these days build their products to be “disposable.”  They build for obsolescence.  They count on a “refresh” cycle to have an annuity business model. Ergotron doesn’t.

Quite the contrary, we build our products to outlive the flat panel monitors, notebooks and large displays they attach to.

We build them so well, we know they frequently outlast two monitors’ fields lives.  We see some factory floors that still have our Command Center arms and pole mounts that were shipped in the early ‘90s. 

How does making something that lasts and lasts to begin with play in today’s green washed discussions? 

What’s the more ecological trade off? 

Building something to last and in so doing, not consuming double raw materials or energy for a second or third time?

Or, building something using sub-standard, but “green” components, and then having to make a second and possibly even third product to deliver the field life of the less green version?

You tell me.

Betty Grogan, Director of Channel Sales @ Ergotron

I installed the Neo-Flex Combo Lift Stand for Dawn G. at Dedmon Insurance in Mokena, IL. It was easy to install; learned a bit about non-port replicator impacts (cables coming out the side). The new version of the product coming out in July will help eliminate some of the issue as we’d want, in this case, to install the notebook on the other side.

Dawn told me she absolutely loves this. This product allowed her to eliminate having to work on two computers! First two pictures are the “before” – notebook on desk, desktop on credenza; hunched over to work on laptop; last two pictures are the after.

Lynne Johnson, Sr. HR Representative @ Ergotron

Sam, Diane and I all were there to install the LX Dual Desk Mount Arm for Kelly and it went very well.

Kelly had this to say about the installation: The installation went very well! My desk space is very small, but the installers identified ways to make my workspace more ergonomic to suit my needs. Although it took some getting used to, I love having my monitor and laptop off of the desk surface. My coworkers may get jealous and request a similar set-up!

Joel Hazzard, CEO Ergotron

How many times in our lives are we in a hurry and something happens that disrupts our plans? The other day I was in a hurry like normal and the garage door opener broke with the garage door half way open. I thought about how many times in today’s fast paced world our plans are disrupted. Late or canceled flights, flat tires, meetings that run too long, road construction, weather disruptions, etc. There are so many outside factors that throw our schedules and plans right out the window. Our lives are all about adjusting and gaining every edge that we can which is the exact reason why we rapidly adapt to new technology and productivity tools – to gain back that edge. Tools like Noteobooks, PDA’s and Cell Phones with global Email and Internet access and everything else thrown in so when that flight is late we can still do our jobs, we can adapt and pull out our cell phones or our Notebooks and in seconds setup our office and get back to work.

Back to that broken garage door opener – Last Sunday afternoon my wife and I were in the process of replacing it and we happened to be listening to the Kim Komando Radio Show when a caller asked her what kind of LCD Computer Monitor she would recommend. I was very surprised by her answer because she recommended that the caller buy two monitors and realize a 25% productivity gain. Kim had first hand knowledge that two monitors directly contribute to increased productivity because she recently upgraded her office with a dual monitor setup. She was spot on with her advice to the caller and it re-enforced to me that in today’s world we are so focused on productivity tools that help us adjust outside of the office that we are missing a big opportunity to gain productivity when we are in the office, productivity resulting from a dual display work space that helps us all do our jobs faster which in turn helps us achieve more family balance.

I sent Kim an email letting her know that she got it right. I know first hand because I enjoy the wellness and productivity of a dual screen work space (Notebook screen and Monitor) with our Neo-Flex™ Combo Lift Stand in both my home and work office. Once you go dual screens you will never go back. That next great technology is right in front of us, it’s affordable now and the productivity results are real.

If you’re confused by everything happening in Web 2.0 you’re not alone. Things are changing so fast it seems impossible to track everything that’s being said about you, your company, your products, and your brand online. But regardless of the enormity of the task, you’d be foolish to ignore this new media.

I’m going to warn you, this is a long post, but don’t worry, most of it is a list of resources. So if you’re new to social media and/or you want to understand it better, I think you’ll find it worth your time. If you don’t have time to read it now, go ahead and bookmark it and read it later.

Later in this post I’m going to show you a tool you can use to research your brand online. But first let me give you an overview of social media/networking itself.

What is this new media? Here are a few sites which comprise the new media:

Blogging (A few of my favorite blogs)

• Zen Habits – Simple Productivity
• Write to Done
• Louis Gray
• Direct2Dell
• TechCrunch
• ReadWriteWeb
• Chris Brogan
• aimClear
• BuzzMachine
• Michael Graham Richard

Microblogs

• BrightKite
• identi.ca
• Jaiku
• Plurk
• Pownce
• Twitter

Bookmarking

• Delicious
• Diigo
• Furl
• Ma.gnolia
• Mister Wong
• StumbleUpon

News Aggregation

• Slashdot
• Techmeme
• Google Reader
• Digg
• Mixx
• Reddit

Video

• Seesmic
• Vimeo
• YouTube
• Qik
• Kyte

Social Networks

• Facebook
• Pulse
• LinkedIn
• MySpace

Photos

• Flickr
• Smugmug
• Zoomr
• Picasa Web Albums

Seems overwhelming, doesn’t it? So what can you do track your brand online?

Sean McDonald, Director of Community Conversations at Dell recently shared some information about how Dell engages with their customers via social media. They started tracking online conversations in April 2006 with a customized Technorati search and an Excel spreadsheet. Now they use a online solution called Radian6.

I use HowSociable. It consolidates searching for your brand across multiple social networking/media sites in one simple package.

You can drill down on specific social media sites by clicking on the view results link here:

For example, here are the 228 instances of ‘ergotron’ metioned on flickr.

Overall HowSociable is a good way to get a high level look at your brand on the internet, while also giving you that ability to drill down for research.

The cons? It isn’t comprehensive and there isn’t any way to keep notes or track history. But it’s the best thing I’ve found for the price (free).

Steve Olson – Technical Manager, Ergotron, Inc. Blogging about Technology, Social Media, Lifestreaming, Productivity, Lifehacks and anything else that’s interesting.