Social Media – The new ‘Internet’, hello 1998
Anyhoo. history aside, I was struck the other day at a MHSMC meeting that social media is the new ‘internet’. Mainly this relates to my love of all things Cluetrain Manifesto. One of the of the primary things I took away from Cluetrain in my first reading as a lowly Software developer at a mortgage company where marketing outnumbered IT (as well as my many subsequent readings), was that it’s important, and beneficial for enterprises to let their people be people. Lower the walls, don’t raise them. I thought we were making progress here.
It seems that social media is moving away from that if MHSMC is any indicator. The presentation this month was on Corporate use of Social Media.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
It’s been an interesting year. More so than normal years. It’s also the end of a decade, so I’ve got some thoughts on that too. Fair warning. This is a longy.
Decade first:
in 2000 I worked for a company that was basically an IT Staffing firm that decided to get into software. I worked internally on a web app that would (in their terms) revolutionize staffing. I bailed, they failed, it was 2000, that happened a lot to a lot of people and companies.
I spent most of the 2000’s as a programmer, first doing ColdFusion, then moving to Flex. It never occurred to me to try out M$ tools, or any other. I liked Macromedia (Now Adobe) offerings and stuck with them.
twitter lists and why I’m not playing
The nonconformist in me hates lists for the simple reason that everyone else is ga ga over them. ditto for google wave.
But for lists there’s a bigger reason, and Chris Brogan hits the nail on the head, They’re exclusionary. They’re the new “hottest kid in school” list posted in the locker bay. Those on it feel more self important, and those not on it, feel like less than people, and in the end, they’re completely meaningless and 100% arbitrary.
There’s few things I hate more than internet popularity contests.
How the Library can survive and Thrive.
Tom and I were in LA for Adobe MAX a few weeks ago. On our last day before heading to LAX, we walked around the LA Public Library. It’s a cool ass building, I gotta say. Massive pillars, cool art, immense open space. I hadn’t been in a library in a long time, it’s nice to be surrounded by books, and people who like them.
As always we started talking about technology, and in particular eBooks, and eReaders, and how the library of tomorrow won’t look like the one we were walking through.
Here’s the idea we came up with, looking at the crowd of people in the library.
Offer a Kindle (or a Nook, or whatever) to each library member. Of course they’d need to be subsidized somehow, and you could probably get away with charging something super small, $20 maybe? Just to put a value on it to holders. It’s Library property, so you could also enforce some “Lose it, buy it” deal, and give the $20 back if it’s returned in working order. Otherwise it’s a lifetime deal like a library card.
The Nook, From “I need” to “I’ll Pass” in a week.
So in the span of a week, the nook from Barnes & Noble has gone from zero to hero and is now hovering around, “dude I kinda look up to, a little, but not enough to want to be him”
The quick turn around was largely due to new facts coming out, like this. Turns out, the lending feature is pretty much destined to be vaporware.
You can only lend 1 book, one time, ever. That’s it, lend it to a friend, and you can lend it no longer. And of course, while it’s lent out, you can’t read it. Sure a real book works like that, but this AREN’T REAL BOOKS. It’s an eBook, the “e” allows for things that the dead tree model can’t afford.
The lending feature, much like the Kindle’s now never turned on, Text-to-speach feature is at the mercy of publishers. Which to me, from experience, means, it’ll be turned off on 95% of all eBooks. Cuz of course, why would the publishers want us to use things we purchase, in ways we like?
Matt and “The Monster”- Rock Art Brewery vs. Monster Energy Drink
This is just so uncool!
As if I or anyone else should need more reasons to hate big biz, corporate america.
Really? Any use of the word “Monster” now is off limits?! If you use English in your name, you can’t keep people from using [...]
Events, fun and why i do them
360|MAX
Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.
360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.
It was a good time.
Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.
The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!
National Comic Sans day October 1
So we have CSS Naked day (apr 9), and talk like a pirate day (Sept 19) and even Zombie Crawl day (Props to Danny!) and just to show that we need to not take ourselves so seriously all the time, I’m starting national Comic Sans day.
Yup, damn straight, National. Comic. Sans. Day.
Wasn’t gonna post about 9/11 but
I came across this iPhone app (iTunes Link) called 9/11 Numbers that simply shook me to my core.
I can remember very clearly walking into my office in Orange County, seeing some co-workers in the big conference room with one of those TV/VCR carts (didn’t even know we had any) watching TV. It went down hill from [...]
I WANT TO SMACK STEVE JOBS IN THE FACE!
OK This shit is just funny! I know MMS is coming, but this dude is hilarious! I hope he bumps into His Steveness on the street one day.
“Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs come over here!” SLAP!
“That’s for taking so damn long to get MMS on the iPhone”
Too. Funny
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