Michael H. Babcock

Cheese Lover. Social Media Addict. Higher Education Marketer. Hockey Lover. From the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[mhbabcock]

Personal Branding

On my to do list always sits personal branding. In a 2017 marketplace, it’s vital. This website and blog has always served that purpose, but my efforts have been minimal. Let’s fix that. 

Over the next few months this will be improved, and a regular habit will be created. Follow along regularly to see it happen. I’ll be posting updates about the projects I’m working, the tools I use, and those who motivate me. 

If you’re interested in connecting, please connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn. The links to both are below. If you add me on LinkedIn, be sure to include a personal note on who you are and why we should connect. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhbabcock/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/michaelhbabcock

[mhbabcock]

What to do on Isle Royale?

Early this summer my wife and I are heading to Isle Royale for six days. Six glorious days of no cell phone service, no cars and more than 1,000 moose (sadly, only three wolves). 

Isle Royale is the largest island on the world’s largest lake. It has zero year-round human residents. It’s picturesque. It’s pure. We arrive Saturday, June 13. We head back Friday, June 19. Our plan: hike, fish, hike, sight see, hike, camp and repeat. 

Where, when and for how long are all details we are looking for your help with. What should we do? Where should we go? 

Photo credit: Carl Terhaar. 

[mhbabcock]

Fish tank refresh: Bring on the African Cichlids

Over the past 10 or so years I've enjoyed mostly gold fish, but a few other random other types in my 20-gallon fish tank. I've always been curious about trying a breed of fish called the African Cichlids. 

They're energetic, aggressive and colorful. The perfect mix, right?

We got two of them about a week and a half ago and added four more last night. Three are Electric Blue Johanni, and three are Melachromis Auratos. We're really hoping to have the fish reproduce. For those unfamiliar, it's a neat process. The female Cichlids keep the young in their mouth to protect them until they are too big, then they're set free. 

I posted a video below from our tank. This was shot with my new iPhone 5S. Sadly, while using iMovie on the phone there doesn't seem to be a way to show off the cool new slow-mo feature. 

Enjoy the video, and feel free to post any experiences you've had with this breed of fish.

[mhbabcock]

Think globally, wear plaid locally

Open up that closet and find your favorite plaid (and your Stormy Kromer), it's nearly the best day of the year: Plaidurday. 

OK so maybe not the BEST day of the year. But awfully close. October 4, 213 is the third annual Plaidurday celebration. It's a day where people wear plaid, and are gosh-darn-it-all-to-heck as happy as can be about it.

 Plaidurday: The Worldwide Celebration of Plaid.

Started in 2011, it's been celebrated by thousands (possibly millions, it's really hard to estimate) of people around the world. This year, of course, will be the biggest and best. 

For the second year in a row, I'm working with Plaidurday founder Justin "Bugsy" Sailor to host an event at the Keweenaw Brewing Company in Houghton (photo above is from last October). If you're around, be sure to attend. RSVP to the Facebook event so you don't forget to attend!

I hope to see you out there, enjoying a beautiful Copper Country fall day in some gorgeous plaid.  

[mhbabcock]

Porky Pig Out launched by Bruno's Spices

On Saturday morning I got to post a big announcement for Bruno's Spices, a client of mine. The product is Porky Pig Out, the third spice made by the company, which was founded in 2009. 

This was one of my first experiences with a product photo shoot. I could definitely get into that, and I'm looking forward to playing with it a little bit more over the coming weeks. I'll be posting more of these photos on the Bruno's Spices website as we move forward. 

Like Bruno's Spices' Facebook page to find out when you'll be able to get your hands on some of this spice. We'll also be posting a couple videos featuring the new spice soon!

[mhbabcock]

Checking into my wedding 11 minutes before my beautiful bride walked down the aisle. #foursquare #socialmedia

[mhbabcock]

Yahoo! needs to seize a big opportunity Thursday

Yahoo! has spent billions of dollars in the past couple months to attract new users ($1.1 billion last week alone), but their most effective move to show users that the company is heading in the right direction could come Thursday when Fantasy Football is launched.

Why? Because Fantasy Football brings in millions of users to Yahoo! that otherwise avoid the site like the plague. This is a huge audience of people who tap into only a corner of what Yahoo! is. This is an audience that Yahoo! could, and should, make a run at. I have no numbers to defend the size of this audience besides my personal circle. I'm in two leagues that have 12 teams in them, and I'm one of only three, maybe four, people who use Yahoo! Mail between those two leagues. I'm sure if I asked the people I play with they'd say they haven't been to Yahoo.com in years.

However, they're locked into the site because they love fantasy football. More specifically, they love the experience on Yahoo! It's a very competitive market, and Yahoo! might be the class of the show right now. They advertise like they are. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have its shortcomings, and in my leagues I know the idea of switching is discussed annually.

As you can see above, the company is teasing several new ways to enjoy the game. Below is a couple things I'd like to see in the next edition of the game, and I hope we see Yahoo! take advantage of this opportunity to impress. A year-round club house. This is one of two features that ESPN has that I'm jealous of, and it's a feature that will keep people coming back to Yahoo! all year. It's kind of a no brainier. Make each league home page somewhere managers will have even in the off season. Many teams will complete trades, discuss rule changes and talk smack throughout the year. I know both of my leagues would. The game is big enough to draw a sizable amount of hits even in the off season.

Integrate Twitter. Each manager's Twitter handle should be listed and smack talk should be easy to do on Twitter right through the fantasy football website. Possibly even a custom hash tag feed for each league. There are all kinds of things that could be ran with.

A true hall of fame. This is the other ESPN feature that I love. Give me a trophy room that shows a truly integrated history, including custom awards. This would also include a revamped personal profile and history.

Integrate Facebook. This could be much more in depth than the Twitter integration. Some of the Twitter things would be cool, but it would also be cool to open up a player profile and see which of my Facebook friends have him on their teams. Maybe have conversation threads under each player that only your friends have access to? The possibilities are endless.

Keep the mobile improvements coming. In 2012 the mobile app for iPhone and Android took major steps forward. Continue that advancement, and add support for Windows Phone and Blackberry. Be that company. Own mobile.

Customized league message boards. Right now there are threads for each fantasy match up and a general message board. Expand that message board to sections. This could be especially impressive if the league is open year round.  

Video. This one is extremely obvious, and I'd be shocked if they don't at very least allow you to embed a YouTube video. The real game changer will be their own video source built in, making them the one and only owner of the video. This would NEED mobile integration, and would be very exciting. They could monetize the videos like they've done with nearly everything else on this Fantasy Sports league. Video could also be embedded into the draft. Last season I did a Google Hangout during a draft, it was a great experience. Definitely the next best thing to an in-person draft. 

As a Yahoo! Mail user since 1999, and a fantasy football/hockey/baseball manager almost exclusively on Yahoo! as well, I really hope they're able to do at least some of these things. Hopefully the company realized that they should make their strengths stronger as well as investing in new worlds. 

[mhbabcock]

My three days with Windows Phone

Using Apple's iPhone has been a joy for me for years. The iPhone 4 was amazing, the iPhone 4S drastically improved a great experience and Apple wasn't lying when it said the iPhone 5 is the most amazing iPhone yet.

However, the grass continues to be painted greener on the Android and Windows Phone fronts. I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on a Nokia Lumia 920, my first non-iOS smartphone experience since the HTC Shadow in 2008. Needless to say, I was excited.

After three days of all-out use, it became extremely obvious that Windows Phone isn't quite there yet for me. That's the bottom line. With that out there, here are five takeaways from my three days. 

The camera is legit. A cell phone's camera is vital to me. I need it to work well. During my three days with the Windows Phone I took 75 photos. I take that back, I'm sure I took closer to 150, but deleted half of them on the spot, which is absolutely normal for me. Here's an example with my cute little cousin Elsie.

I'd put it right up against my iPhone camera for the most part. The only thing that wasn't as comparable to me was the ease of snapping the photos. 

Windows Phone needs more apps. I wasn't expecting to find all of my favorite apps from iOS, but I was expecting to find most of them. Some pretty basic apps weren't there, and it was very disappointing. RunKeeper, iHeartRadio, basically anything Yahoo!, Wells Fargo, Snapchat were some of the ones I was surprised by. I didn't expect everything, but these are basics to me. The list of my everyday-use apps that were MIA was too big.

The Lumia 920 is HUGE. I don't see a need for a bigger screen than the one found on the iPhone 5, but I'm open to the idea that I could be wrong on that. What I know I'm not wrong on, the Lumia 920 is WAY bigger than it should be. How in the world did Engadget name this phone the best phone of the year? If I was going to use a Windows Phone, I'd definitely go with the Samsung or HTC options that are out there. Even with the lack of the Lumia-specific apps. None of the apps make it worth dealing with the sheer size of the 920. 

The keyboard was the final straw. Maybe there's a way to get a new keyboard, I'm not sure. I didn't find a way. Maybe I just needed to give the phone more time. In three days time I still wasn't used to the new keyboard. Not only was I not used to it, I consistently got more and more annoyed with the sheer size of it. When doing normal tasks it filled ~60 percent of the screen. When using Excel in landscape mode it filled ~80 percent. These are not exaggerations.

 Live tiles have a lot of promise. My favorite part of the phone never got boring. It was the moment after I unlocked the screen and looked at my customized live tiles. The different sizes, the movement, the sharp boxes, the bright colors of them. It worked well for me. It was extremely easy to navigate. This setup of the OS is something that could catch. The color schemes were neat, the customization was promising, and I think Microsoft could be on to something special. 

My time with the Windows Phone was short and sweet, but overall positive. There are several deal breakers that could easily be fixed 12 months from now. Hopefully it continues gaining traction.

[mhbabcock]

Top three photos from January 2013

Back to the monthly top photos. Below are my favorite three photos that I took from January 2013. Not my favorite month ever, but posting is half the battle. Right? #CultOfDone 3. Selfie on Wild game day

This was me as I prepared to go to the Wild's home opener. NHL is back, means I'm a happy camper. Wild won, and it was a great time. Probably only selfie you'll ever see as one of my favorite photos. Go Wild! Taken with iPhone 5. 2. Harju nets first hat trick

Something about sepia always does a photo good. This is in the Calumet Wolverines locker room after a game. Pictured is rookie defenseman Josh Harju after he scored his first career hat trick against the the Fond du Lac Bears. Read more about the Wolverines weekend sweep at CalumetWolverines.com. Taken with iPhone 5.

3. Panoramic at McLain State Park

It's been a great winter in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. This was a bight day at McLain's State Park in Hancock Township. Panoramic photo taking apps have been around on iOS for years, but leave it to Apple to do it better. The option for panoramic photo taking on an iPhone is a great example of how Apple just kicks butt. It's so simple to use and produced great results, all the time. Enjoy winter, we only have about another month of it! Taken with iPhone 5.

[mhbabcock]

NLHL website redesigned

It's always good to have a website revamp. There's no exact formula for how to do it, but one thing is obvious: It's needed from time to time.

For the NLHL, that time was now. Partially because it was ready. The news code (CuteNews <3) had become a mess, something in the back had gone awry. Problem solving it wasn't going well, and I knew it was time. I quickly examined my options, and decided to call in Scott Niska for help. Niska is the owner of Smart Creative Marketing, a new marketing/web design company in the Copper Country. We have previous experience together (see: Great Bear Chase), so I knew we could make it happen.

The new website offers a much better experience with updating, and a very clean look. Thanks to Scott for the quick help. Take a look for yourself at NorthernLakesHockey.com. 

[mhbabcock]

Remember in 1964 when Michigan College of Mining and Technology became Michigan Technological University? Apparently Apple remembers it, as they made sure to include it in their brand new revolutionary maps program. They've also included Suomi College in Hancock, which became Finlandia University in 2000. I was expecting much, much better from Apple. 

[mhbabcock]

NHL Lockout Official: Time to lock them out

For the second time in eight years the NHL is locking out. This is frustrating on so many levels.

Billionaires vs. Millionaires: While the world economy is at a low, including what's near an all-time low in the United States, two groups of people that are obviously doing well (owners, players) can't agree. There are people who can't find jobs. People that can't pay their bills. People that have to make real concessions on a daily basis. No matter what happens with this pending agreement, the concessions made by owners and players are nothing compared to the concessions a struggling family has to make.

This just happened: It wasn't very long ago that the NHL locked out before. It was devastating for everyone involved. Millions of fans were lost, and though many have come back, there are millions that lost all respect for the league and didn't come back. That's going to be much worse this time.

Fans get nothing: I shouldn't say we get nothing, we get worse than nothing. We're going to miss training camps, we're going to miss games. In the end, ticket prices will go up. On Oct. 11 roughly 70,000 seats won't be filled. That's 70,000 people who aren't going to experience an opening night on Oct. 11. For every game that's missed there's another 15-20,000 fans who won't experience it. That's not even counting the fans watching on TV. All of us get nothing.

Legends: Imagine a playoff in 2004-05. As a Wild fan, I can safely say my team had a chance. Wes Walz, Richard Park, Manny Fernandez, Filip Kuba. These are players most casual hockey fans have never heard of. What would have happened if that's the year the Wild got hot? The team was good enough in 2003 to make a real run, why not 2005? These players could all have lifted the Cup. If not them, some of the team would have done it. Maybe we're looking at a Joe Thornton, or Daniel Sedin, or Saku Koivu, or Jarome Iginla, and we're not seeing them as a great that never could win the Cup. Someone would have won in 2005. If that happens in 2013, that's two opportunities for many of these players that will have been completely wasted. Unacceptable. 

No one will win: In the end, Gary Bettman will announce they've come to an agreement. We'll all cheer. The argeement will leave no one happy. Both sides will have met in the middle and be bitter about it. In 2018, they'll do it all over again. 

My lockout plan?

I'm going to sign on Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare and Facebook and unlike or unfollow every NHL team or player I'm subscribed to. Is it a big deal? Nope. But it's all I can do. I suggest you do the same. 

[mhbabcock]

A blink of an eye, the death of two

The only person left standing was the adult, the mother. Her two kids and family dog, a shaggy black and white terrier, were 10 feet in front of my Pontiac. Blood covered my hood and the ground. A rush of adrenaline was making its way through my body. A moment of serene silence quickly ended with screams, squeals and regret.

The e-mail that beeped, causing me to look down at my phone was in the back of my mind. Now that my 6,500-pound car had collided into two little girls and their dog, probably weighing a combined 100 pounds, that e-mail finalizing the location of our meeting next week didn't matter.

Instead, my drive home was a test of my first aid skills. Hopefully no one would die.

  What really happened is a bit different. For whatever reason, I didn't look down. I heard the beep of my phone, I had received that e-mail. Call it luck, chance, intuition. I'm not really sure. I didn't look at my phone, though.

So when I turned that sharp corner, the one I had turned hundreds of times before, I made eye contact with the mother right away. I took the turn wider, I slowed down to a mere crawl. I still only missed the family by about 6 feet.

Had I looked down, which I may usually do, I'm not so lucky. My first aid training (which is minimal), becomes vital.

Closest call I've ever had, a close call that when you don't think about, isn't a close call. I did think about it, though, and I hope you will too. That one moment, a half second of looking down, could have been the difference between those two little girls dying, or them continuing their walk on a bright sunny day. The difference between all of our lives changing for the worst, or me going out on my dock to cast a line.

I didn't look down. I never will again. I hope you don't, too.

[mhbabcock]

The pure joy of Superman ice cream. #summer #kidslife (Taken with Instagram at Witt's Splitz n Dogs)

[mhbabcock]

pro-pixel intensifying fuaxtanical hyrdo-jargon microbead extract is the perfect tool.

[mhbabcock]

That kinda day. #relaxed (Taken with Instagram at Woodfield Village)

[mhbabcock]

Fantasy Baseball Report: Injuries are making it tough

In Fantasy Sports you have injuries. It’s part of the game, but this year has been absolutely unruly for my team in Fantasy Baseball.

Check out this long list of names:

Carl Crawford (out since before the season started, and now it’s looking like another 2-3 months)

Jacoby Ellsbury (out since April 14)

Cliff Lee (out since April 19)

Ryan Zimmerman (out since April 21)

Huston Street (out since May 5)

Mariano Rivera (season-ending last week)

Jason Werth (likely season ending over the weekend)

Four of those are players I had as keepers to start the season, Rivera was my second round pick, Werth my seventh and Street my ninth. In pre-season ranks they were 98, 13, 24, 30, 166, 75 and 103. Meaning, it’s not just quantity, it’s quality. However, when you can only have 21 players on your roster and seven of them are out, the issue just compounds.

Is this the worst fantasy season for injuries you’ve ever heard of?

The good news for my team is that because of some extremely fortunate matchups, I am No. 1 in my league with a 3-1-1 record. Solid play from my pitching staff of Brandon Beachy, Johnny Cueto and James Shields has kept me competitive. Through five weeks I’m tied for third in wins and saves, fourth in strikeouts and second in ERA (2.87). Each of those pitchers was drafted at a bargain spot, so I’ve been OK. I've also had good luck with some free agents. Carlos Pena, Chase Headley and Jordan Schafer have been solid. Better than most of my remaining drafted players. Can it keep up though? I’m off to a brutal start this week, and my batting stats are miserable on the year. Dead last in Runs, 10th in home runs and RBI and 11th in Average. The only saving grace on offense is I’m second in steals. In our league you only need to win a majority of stats in a given week, being above average in five of nine stats will do that! Check out the league at http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/17030. It’s in its sixth season, and second with keeper players. It also should be noted I’m only 1.5 games up from 10th place. Tight league this year.