@JoelECarlson – Welcome to Twitterview #2 for today. Our guest is @petebocken, so lets get to geek’n, I mean Tweet’n. :)
@petebocken – Thanks for having me Joel!
Q – #1 So @petebocken, where did you grow up and what were some of the life steps that you’ve taken to get you where you are today?
A: Grew up in La Crosse, WI. Always lived and breathed tech! Started with keyboarding class back in Kindergarten…
Took a bunch of photography, art, tech classes in HS.
Just couldn’t escape computers. They were a good way to express myself.
Did some IT here and there, but I really took to web design.
Q – #2 So what kind of work do you do now, and what kind of clients do you have?
A: Help out @westwords_paula at Westwords Consulting, web dev/design for the most part. IT support, the techy geeky stuff.
We pride ourselves on having a personal work relationship with people at all levels of experience and business size
Clients range from single individuals to large corps.
Q – #3 So how quick of an adapter were you to Social Media, and which ones have you used?
A: MySpace first, left that quick! Then Facebook for friends, family. Twitter more for work networking, new relationships
LinkedIn for …. i don’t know, haven’t had much use for that yet. But I’ve connected to everyone i’ve worked with.
Q – #4 I see. Have you used any of the geolocation tools like Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebooks new one called Places?
A: I knew you would ask! ;) No! Not for me. Don’t like the idea. Plus everyone would know I don’t leave the house much!
Q – #5 Hahaha! That’s okay. Do you have some people that you feel you’ve benefited from following on Twitter?
A: I’ll plug @SocialNicole cause she’s been trying to get me to use Twitter for some time now. Think I finally stuck
Follow everything @chriscoyier does for web dev, design, css, wordpress
I use TweetDeck, so I’ll just use searches a lot for stuff i’m watching to keep an eye on
Q – #6 Ah. Any new technologies, hardware, apps or software on the horizon that you think will be a “game changer” soon?
A: Mobile has obviously skyrocketed the last few years. That will continue.
Hopefully standardization on social networks continues as well as data liberation.
I see casual computing not needing a typical computer, we are seeing that with what Google is doing
Q – #7 Now for your FAVS: Favorite – restaurant, store, gadget and summer activity.
A: I don’t eat out that much, but fav restaurant is either Chipotle or Dave & Buster’s (Chuck E Cheese for adults!)
Fav store is amazon.com, brick and mortar is Target
fav gadget is my iPhone of course
Fav summer activity, can’t say i have one. pastey white dudes & sun don’t get along
Q – #8 That’s okay. Are you a @MinnStateFair kind of guy, or do you skip that?
A: Yup, we always go. My wife & I have our tradition of the photo booth every year. This will be our tenth year in a row.
Q – #9 That’s sweet! :) So to end today and Twitterviews for this week, what thought or mantra would you like to share?
A: Was told a long time ago. “Don’t be a leader or a follower, just be yourself.
@JoelECarlson – Thanks @petebocken for that final comment! Have a great weekend and thanks for your thoughts!
@petebocken – Thank you Joel!