This is the beginning of an experiment to create a personal assistant using Microsoft’s Kinect. All activity that you see on the screen is being triggered by my assistant GLaDOS.
All rights to GLaDOS and all sound effects used are owned by Valve.
Here are some pictures and videos of the U2 concert at Soldier Field on July 05:
Bono
Here is a video of Bono and Edge coming over to play ‘Mysterious Ways’
U2 Live at Soldier Field 07/05/2011 from Corey Thomas on Vimeo.
Adam Clayton
The band performing ‘Beautiful Day’
U2 Live at Soldier Field 07/05/2011 (Beautiful Day 1/2) from Corey Thomas on Vimeo.
U2 Live at Soldier Field 07/05/2011 (Beautiful Day 2/2) from Corey Thomas on Vimeo.
Yesterday I had a great discussion on QR codes with the founder of Tourtek. This sparked some ideas on how to use QR codes as promotional materials but still track the response using Infusionsoft. While this does require some API code, it is pretty straightforward and I will provide the code to make life easier on everyone.
Here’s how it works. We are going to generate a QR code using Google’s Charts API and insert an Action Set ID and Contact ID into the QR code. Then when each person scans the QR code, it will redirect to an API processing page which runs the actions on the corresponding contact and then redirects them as desired. If that is a little too techy for you, don’t worry. It’s not as hard as it sounds.
First we need to create our API script to parse the QR code info and run the actions. The following code is PHP written for use with the Infusionsoft iSDK.
include 'isdk.php';
$app=new iSDK;
cfgCon('YOURCONNECTIONNAME',"off");
//Get info from QR code
$actionId = $_REQUEST['as'];
$conId = $_REQUEST['cid'];
//Run action set on person
$result = $app->runAS((int)$conId, (int)$actionId);
//Redirect them to desired page
header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com' ) ;
?>
For more information on setting up or using the Infusionsoft API, checkout the Infusionsoft Developers Site.
Next, we are going to generate the custom QR code. I have already done the hard part here and formatted the URL appropriately. All you need to do is add you custom data. The URL for the custom QR codes is:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300x300&chld=H|0&chl=http%3A//www.yourwebsite.com/qr_api_file.php%3Fas%3DXX%26cid%3D~Contact.Id~
You will want to replace “XX ” with your action set Id. You will want the URL to be pointing at your API script that we created above. You will also notice that we added an Infusionsoft merge field at the end of the URL. This will allow the QR code to automatically be set to the appropriate contact.
Now that we have our link, we can insert it into an Email or Letter template inside Infusionsoft.
For email, go to:
Setup -> Template Library -> Add a Template -> Email. Edit the email body using code builder. You can add the QR code image by inserting it into the desired location in the code. The highlighted area of the screenshot below shows the exact syntax required.
That’s it! You can now send emails and letters from Infusionsoft that contain automated QR codes. For added security, you can insert more merge fields (such as First and/or Last Name) and have the API script validate that it’s a match with the ID. If you appreciated this tutorial, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!
In my morning reading today I came across an awesome article on Slashdot talking about Antimatter being created in thunderstorms. Here is a cool picture showing how it happens.
For more info, check out the NASA article.
The folks over at the Infusionsoft Blog have asked me to write a few articles as a guest blogger on their site! More info as it comes. I’ll be sure to post links when the article is live.
This Christmas, I received a present that is easily in my top 5 favorite Christmas Presents: A Darth Vader toaster. Not only is it black with the Star Wars logo, but it toasts Darth Vader’s helmet into the bread. At last the prophecy has been fulfilled. The chosen one has brought balance to my breakfast.
I spent some time today with the folks over at the National Speakers Association. They are a talented group and have some impressive members. We’ll be doing a lot of work together in the future so expect to hear more about them down the road!
While it may be in the middle of nowhere (Carthage, Missouri), Precious Moments is certainly a brand that is well recognized and loved by many. I had the pleasure of spending the last two days with them, putting new systems in place and going over some new marketing strategy. They are a terrific and capable group company with fantastic employees.
If you are ever in Carthage, MO, be sure to stop by their visitors center where you pickup something at the gift shop, see original artwork or visit their chapel. Special thanks to Brian Johnson for having me and letting me help out.
I’ve had my eye on Microsoft’s Photosynth technology and finally decided to give it a try. This is especially helpful if you have a nice camera and a tripod. Unfortunately, all I had was my iPhone. This is my first try so it’s not fantastic. Overall, a pretty cool technology.
Zappos Insights is an Infusionsoft client and last month I went to Vegas to help them with their marketing, sales and operations automation. They are responsible for all the culture products and training that happens at Zappos (the world’s largest shoe online retailer, now an Amazon company). Well, today in the mail I received an signed book from their CEO and a cd with this video on it:
Talk about a fantastic company. They were a pleasure to work with and it is no wonder why they have had such tremendous success.
