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Friday, December 31, 2004
The end of the year
Looking back at the end of the year of 2004 I find myself thinking a lot about many diverse things. On one level, this has been one of, perhaps the, best years of my life. For the first time in my life I have been in a relationship for an entire year, marking an important first for me, one that I treasure each and every day.
Business wise, while the beginning of the year was not particularly promising, the final quarter of the year was fairly decent, though I am still awaiting a major payment from one client, so that will make a big difference in the final reckoning for the year.
On another personal note, this year marked two of my best friends getting married, I made it to one wedding, but not to the other, so that is a minor note of sadness, but overall it was a great year and one that perhaps marks a new phase in my life and that of my friends. It is also notable that while in previous generations this might have meant our twenties, in this generation it means our thirties (all of my friends who have gotten married were over 33, I am 30, my girlfriend 34).
In the upcomming year I expect to have many complex challenges professionally, I hope that I will have a good year from a finacial perspective, but it is always a challenge as a small businessman to predict what my future will hold. In the upcomming year I hope to expand considerably my consulting business, to hold MeshForum successfully, and to, I hope, expand in a few other interesting ventures. On the non-financial front I hope that my contributions to various groups and organizations which I believe in will continue and expand, that each group I support will grow and further their mission, with my contributions help as much as I can.
On a personal front I hope that my relationship with Julia continues and strengthens, that no matter what the upcomming year may bring in our professional lives that we continue to grow closer to each other and get to know each other more deeply and in new ways. Her smile inspires me, her laughter helps me, I only hope that I can help her, that my quirks and idiocyncracies amuse her.
While we start out this year here in Chicago it is not impossible, indeed it is somewhat probable, that we may end the year in a new city (perhaps even a new country). While this is exciting, it is also a bit nervewracking, if I thought that small moves within Chicago were complicated, what might a move to another city (let alone to another country) entail. A challenge we will face when and if it comes.
My goals for the year, in no particular order and by no means a complete list are:
1. Clean and organize my home, especially my papers, placing the last decade into a bit more order.
2. Catch up on the pile of unread books, which means reading books at a higher rate than last year, probably 3-4 books a week which would be the pace I read at for most of my life, but not the past few years.
3. Expand my business, adding at least three, but ideally more like 6-10 new clients for JigZaw. Ideally by this time next year I would like to have 3-4 employees at JigZaw whom I am keeping busy on a nearly full time basis (i.e. nearly fully billable at a level that compensates them well and keeps JigZaw's clients very happy)
4. Continue this year's travels, perhaps even at a higher pace, with a visit potentially planned for Brazil, ideally with other visits to NYC, San Fran, LA, Santa Barbara, Washington DC, London, and who knows, perhaps other parts of the globe (a return to India would be great but may not be financially in the cards)
5. Write. Write. Write. Both here on this blog and elsewhere on the Internet, but ideally for publication in multiple places. I have a number of non-fiction topics I would like to expand upon and turn into articles. As well I hope see some of my fiction or poetry published somewhere and to try to finish at least one of my novels in progress.
6. Network. Attending a number of good conferences, as well as monthly local networking opportunities, as well as increase the number of new people I meet with each week. People I know have a goal of meeting with (in some form at least) 4-6 new people a day - not sure if I can match that, but I should make an attempt to do so - it can only be a good thing for me in the long run.
Above all, I should and will enjoy life - I am blessed by love of family, of Julia, of friends. In the upcomming year I should and will concentrate on returning that love, on remaining close to those whom I hold dear.
12/31/2004 05:58:00 PM
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Some Notes on India
Ideas for India trips
1. Have friends (or at least friends of friends) to call and ideally visit
2. Get a cell phone, program it with friends' numbers (and your hotel etc)
3. STAY IN FIVE STAR hotels or with friends
4. If you find a great cab driver, keep using him
5. Try to get cabs early in the morning as the better (and English speakers tend to be there).
6. Bring energy bars, vitamins, and some other snacks - useful for days when you can't easily find a safe looking place to eat (or are on a long journey)
7. If possible avoid all "Cottage Industries Emporiums" and other related tourist traps - ideally have local friends show you where to shop for what, and even help you a bit with the bargaining (see #2 above for note on cell phone - do use it to get a Hindi speaker on the phone to talk to someone about prices, quality, directions etc)
8. Arrange for travel inside of India early in your stay - i.e. don't leave until the last minute complex tasks such as buying train tickets or arranging for long trips.
9. Investigate alternative options such as trains vs. buses vs. hired cars for long trips (such as a day trip to Agra, the train is a viable option, but better yet might be planning on sleeping the night in Agra)
10. Don't be reluctant to ask local friends for advice LONG prior to your trip - i.e. don't neglect to share with them before you commit to anything what you are looking at doing - in our case we might have saved some hassle had our hostess known of our plans.
11. Wherever possible call hotels ahead and/or talk with friends who have stayed there to determine whether or not what is listed as a "five star" truly is (we found at least one that was severely lacking heat - not good in the winter)
12. Bring layers - evenings, especially in Dec. can be cooler than you expect - layers are very helpful.
13. Where clothes with extra pockets and/or carry sealed bags - having space to important items such as wallets and passports which can be sealed are helpful in preventing theft - whether by monkeys or people.
14. Don't be afraid to say NO to touts, peddlers and beggars, but also don't be afraid to just keep on walking past, or to ignore them while they rattle the windows of your car. Spend your money where and when you choose.
15. Money changing fees and rates can vary considerably. If at all possible seek our your own bank (or the bank your business uses and change money there - fees typically will be waived and the rate far closer to international exchange rates than if you change money at your hotel or in a shop. We found one hotel offering a rate that was very low as well as charging a 3.5% fee - while another hotel offered a higher rate (a full .5 rupee better against the dollar) and which did not charge a fee. But both were beat by the bank my girlfriend works for, who exchanged money for us (they have retail operations in India) at a rate nearly that of the international exchanges and for no fee.
16. Realize that as a foreigner you will be paying higher rates than your friends who are Indian (whether they are natives or not) deal with this and accept it, but also don't worry too much on the small things - save the worry and effort for when it matters (big purchases for example) - small purchases of less than 1000 rupees are less critical. Keep in mind the exchange rate - on a dollar basis 10 rupees is about a quarter while 100 rupees is about $2.25. Tipping a cab driver you got you where you wanted to go, dealt with your changing mind and varying needs/schedule and didn't try to steer you to too many tourist only shops an extra 100 or even 200 rupees is Karma that will come back to you in spades. On the other hand, don't arbitrarily spend money if you don't have to (see #2 - use your cell phone and local friends, or your hotel in the worst case, for help avoiding problems)
17. Be sensible in what you do - from what and where you eat, to where you try to go when, to how you go, to where you shop. If it doesn't feel right, listen to your instincts and say no, back away, change plans etc.
18. For your first trip don't try to do too much, even on return trips, building in flexibility in your schedule and plans is crucial - India operates on "Indian Time" - so trains will be late, deliveries will occur hours, perhaps days late, even International Flights often can be delayed - roll with the punches and keep your plans flexible and adjustable. Build in contingencies into your planning - asking for a late checkout from your hotel for example can give you an afternoon's grace period when you need it most.
19. Whatever you forget at home or don't have time to deal with you can probably get in India. See #3 - Five Star Hotels get there on the basis of services they offer - when you realize what you have forgotten or that which you need - USE THE SERVICES of your hotel - get that adapter you didn't have time buy, or get a space toothbrush - whatever it is that you require. For critical things, such as water - don't skimp either - saving a few rupee is not worth your health.
20. Bring BIG suitcases, wherever possible with expansion capacities. That said, realize that you have a weight limit of about 32-33 kilos on your checked bags. If you need it, use the scale most 5 star hotels provide in your room to check the weight of your bags and adjust accordingly. Expect to be bringing back to the US more than you arrived with - so pack accordingly, leave extra room, pack items you will use up/leave behind, bring gifts etc.
21. We brought more money back with us than we planned (about $50 in rupees - approximately 2000 rupees). Spend it before you get to the airport (though leave some money in your pocket for services at the airport such as shrink wrapping your checked bags, tipping attendants in the bathroom etc. See if you can find a way to donate it (many hotels will offer you an envelope for this very purpose). Technically it is illegal to leave the country with rupees (I think - check this) so take steps to avoid it in large extremes.
22. You can use visa/mastercard/am ex in many shops (though typically this is a sign of higher prices, sometimes also higher quality) - but for every day tasks in India - transportation, snacks, tips, admission to tourist attractions you will need money. Tourists will pay more to get into many sights. If you can and have a great driver, bring him with you - in most cases he will suggest this and it offers you a very easy way to avoid "guides" who will try to get you to spend money - sometimes as much or more than the admission fee for their services - which are highly variable and while generally informative can also intrude on your contemplation of many monuments. Allow time for exploration of sites that may not from the guidebook sound like they will take very long - some of the coolest things I saw were in the odd corners of sites I had not initially planned on getting to.
23. Bring your camera and keep plenty of batteries charged and handy (or packed if your camera uses regular batteries). A digital camera means no need to buy film but don't neglect to have lots of memory available.
24. Be open to talking to people - especially families you are traveling with - say on a train, or to groups you encounter while out and about in the city. Avoid, generally speaking, individuals you approach you on the street and try to befriend you - more often than not it is a tout/scam of some form. Groups, on the otherhand, often (though not always) are what they appear. We spent a wonderful and highly enjoyable afternoon taken around by a group of college students on holiday who were hiking up to the same temple we were hiking to - great fun and at the cost of a few photos.
25. Bring business cards or alternatively consider getting receiving cards printed while you are in India (it can be done very cheaply at a multitude of places, especially in the Old City of Delhi). Very handy to hand to people in lieu of writing down your details.
26. Expect to get asked questions that are unlikely to be asked in America (such as "are you married" by someone you nearly just met, or "What are your qualifications?" - meaning what degree(s) do you have for whatever career you have.
27. Expect to pay for quality - from hotel rooms to pashmina to custom suits to food - high quality usually means higher prices. Though the converse is false, high prices do not always mean higher quality - indeed in many of the tourist trap type places cab drivers will and do take you, high prices are just high prices. Asking a question such as "is that your best price?" usually can in most stores get a discount, though while books talk about up to 20% or higher, 50% or higher not uncommonly according to them - in higher end shops this may not be the case (or we don't happen to be good negotiators, but we found discounts of more likely 6-12% more common in higher end shops - but found discounts of 75% (or more) not uncommon in other places.
28. Paying a little bit higher than might be expected can make someone's day at very minimal cost to you - paying a porter 100 rupees when 20-50 might do doesn't really cost that much and can have a huge impact on them.
29. Expect to see what appears like dire and horrible poverty, working conditions, and lives all around you in India. That said, don't ignore the looks on people's faces, the kids who are playing and the smiles even in apparent desperate situations. Remember that this is a different culture - but also realize that there are many complexities to the situation (and that in much of the country at least temperatures and climate are such that large, modern buildings are not always the "best" solution to the climate. You will see goats, cows, and pigs across the street from 5 star hotels (indeed shanties may be built right up to the walls)
30. Relax, have fun, and leave time to just sit someplace peaceful and rest. This can be difficult perhaps - but many temples, mosques, even tourist sites such as the Taj Mahal which might be full of pressures and touts as you enter and leave, can be peaceful and quiet once inside.
31. If you are up for it, get out of the tourist only shops and hit "real" Delhi (Indian) markets and shops. Haggle a bit, negotiate, listen, observe and ask questions. After you find great shops and great shopkeepers, don't be reluctant to ask for their suggestions for places to go for other (best typically related) products. Or for brands to look for or quality clues, perhaps even pricing help. Realize that similar looking products can have prices ranging from a few hundred rupees to over 300,000 rupees (from acrylic/wool shawls to intricate, hand embroidered 100% pashmina of the highest quality with workmanship that took over 2 years to complete.
32. Even when paying small amounts for items - look for the best quality you can find for that price - why not get it (and/or use this to get discounts) We found identically priced goods most of the time with quality of considerable variability - carved items with cracks, other items with chips etc.
33. Check bills carefully - look for complex conversions in hotel bills (but sometimes you might get a major break - depending on conversion rate etc - we got a hotel for $51 instead of $250 for reasons we don't quite understand, but are not complaining about in any case.
12/31/2004 11:01:00 AM
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Back in the States
Quick update - long posts will be following before the end of the week and keep an eye here for a link (or more) to photos from where I have been these past few weeks...
Namely - I am literally just hours back in the States from a long trip my girlfriend Julia and I took to India for a very good friend's wedding. We spent two weeks in Delhi and in Shimla, with a day trip to Agra. The wedding was great fun, the touring fantastic and overall it was one of the best trips I have taken in many, many years - definitely a country I look forward to my next visit (hopefully even longer, perhaps with some work aspects as well).
In the upcoming days I will post a long set of comments and suggestions for future travels to India - both for myself and for anyone who might be venturing there in the future. Then I will also be posting links to photos from our travels, and likely many other years end comments (as well as hopefully an announcement or two about JigZaw and my plans for 2005.
If you are in my personal addressbook, you should also be expecting an email from me with a year's end summary, updates, and lots of other links and details - if you are not already - please contact me (or leave a comment here) and I will add you to my personal mailing list - about one email every three months so no worries about lots of mail from me).
Until then - Happy Holidays!
12/29/2004 01:28:00 PM
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Saturday, December 11, 2004
What is a the Web equivelant of a club?
Last night, for the first time in a very long time, Julia and I went out to a club here in Chicago. A friend of mine had invited us to the Chicago premiere of an independent film she had been the assistant director on and after the screening there was an afterparty a local club here in Chicago.
We left relatively early, around 11:45pm before the second DJ went on, driven out by the smokiness which bothered us, but as I thought about the club last night I wondered what the web equivelant was.
At the club last night (Dark Room here in Chicago) we sat at a table with my friend who was born in India but now an American citizen and her husband who is German. One of the actors in the film stopped by, he's from Zaire. His friend stopped by as well, he is from Malawi. Throughout the club people were clearly of all races and ethnic orgins. Dancing together, sitting together, flirting with each other. Relaxing and enjoying great djs and large, inviting space. Ages ranged from 20s to late 30's (perhaps even a few people who were in their 40's).
Where is such interaction, across races, religions, cultures, and borders occurring online? Where do people mix to talk politics, art, and work but also to pick up each other, to flirt, to relax with friends?
Online, many forums while open in theory to anyone, quickly become groupings of like minds, like passions. Some which are across all borders, but many which replicate borders in a virtual space. Where are there spaces that are connected by some common threads perhaps (great pulsating music and drinks) while remaining open and accomodating to great diversity to casual, friendly, non-judgemental interactions?
I am encouraged that Chicago has a club like Dark Room. Many other clubs which I have been to, though admittedly it has been a while as I have not been out clubbing much for the past 5+ years, have been much more narrowly targeted to a very specific crowd - rarely very diverse racially. Perhaps I just had been going to the wrong clubs.
12/11/2004 10:05:00 AM
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Friday, December 10, 2004
Google Suggest beta
Google Suggest Beta
How cool. Auto-completion for your searches. Not 100% accurate, but very useful nonetheless. (a search for meshforum showed no results in the autocompletion which indicates an estimated number of results, but there are hundreds of real results in the actual search)
That implies slightly different cuts of the index are being used and/or that not 100% of all search phrases are in the auto-completion index. Even so, it is highly useful and even insightful as by typing just one or two letters you can get a sense of what people may be searching for based on the ten suggested options.
12/10/2004 10:54:00 AM
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Wednesday, December 08, 2004
"Guard your Queen"
While watching the West Wing this evening on Bravo, President Barlett ends a scene playing chess with the line "Guard your queen". On hearing this I recalled a lesson I learned over 25 years ago when I first learned chess.
At the same time, I have been thinking a lot of late about my career, about who I am, about my own personal mental identification as a "geek" (nerd, 'gifted', etc.) Another show on cable of late is "My Greatest Years" a new show on VH1 about people looking back on their high school years. A recent episode had a bunch of famous people who were self-identifying themselves as having been "geeks" in high school, and admittedly they seemed to mostly have been.
At a bit older than 4, my family had recently moved to New York, to a suburb of NYC now famous for being where the Clintons bought a home. Later that year, I think either that summer or that fall, we were at my fraternal grandparents' home ourside of Philidelphia. There, in the living room, my grandfather taught me how to play chess.
He taught me how the pieces move, which pieces were more valuable than others, and showed me some of the basics of how to open the game and start playing. We then played a number of games, mostly with him starting without some of his pieces. But more than the technical points of how to move the pieces he taught me the mores of the game and what he taught me was subtly different from how the game is usually taught here in the US.
When you move a piece in chess to put the king in jepordy, you announce check. If your opponent has not options to move or remove the threat, then it is checkmate and you win. But my grandfather taught me to also announce check, or "guard the queen" when you place the queen in danger as well. This is not typically done, but it is how my grandfather taught me.
Years later, in my moment of high geekishness, as the captain of my high school chess team (from my sophomore year through my senior year) I had to unlearn this rule, it gave an advantage to my opponents, it was not how things were done. I played tournement chess nearly every week in high school, practiced with the team many nights after school, played chess many weekends.
Once I played two games to the full limit of the time control back-to-back. That meant that I played chess for 12 hours one day over a weekend, with more games to follow the next day. Perhaps one of the most stressful days of my life until then, and still ranks right up there.
By announcing check on the queen I was forced to be very aware of the most powerful piece on the board at all times - when I moved whether I was threatening my grandfather's queen and when he moved whether he was threatening mine. This taught me skills that helped me improve my game years later, but it also taught me a lesson about fair play and strong competition.
The last game I played with my grandfather, I finally won, however he had started the game a piece back and I still think that he may have given me, about 6 1/2 at the time a bit of a break towards the end of the game. But I still recall bits of that game 24 years later, and even more I remember being in my grandparents home, surrounded by family in the other rooms, all watching me play and finally win. I think it may have been a Thanksgiving or perhaps Christmas, we still (I think) lived in New York.
A year or so later, we would move here to Illinois, to Oak Park. I never got to play another game with my grandfather, a real game, all the way through, without him giving me any breaks. A piece of writing I wrote years ago I noted that one of my regrets what never showing him how far I had come, and by that I was referring to how I played the game in my senior year of high school, 14 years ago.
I have gotten better, much better since then. But I still have the same regret.
A book on chess is, perhaps, the most important book of philosophy, and one of the most important books in general, I have ever read. It is "Manual of Chess" by Emanual Lasker. It teaches chess, but more it teaches the philosophy behind how to play chess well in the process teaching lessons about how to compete and how to think in life.
Chess is a game without luck, it is between two people and mistakes made by one have to be seen and exploited by the other, if you lose, you have yourself to blame, if you win, you have yourself to credit. Against an oponent of similar skill you will generally end up with even results, lots of drawn games and a fairly even split of wins and loses. After a while, players exhibit styles and tendancies, types of positions and games which they are most comfortable in.
More than anything, chess is a mental exercise. When I play it regularly, I knock the cobwebs from my brain, I feel invigorated, rested. I also learn a great deal of the mind of the people I play against. A bit unfair perhaps, but I've concluded that only rarely should I employ anyone who can't at least compete strongly against me in chess (better still might be to try to mostly hire people who could even beat me, though taken to the extreme this might be problematic, as I'm close to the point where to be significently stronger than I requires someone to play chess nearly full time, to be above an Expert level).
I describe myself as a geek, and probably I am, but more than anything I was raised with an appreciation of and a celebration of learning and thinking. From time to time I neglect this, don't challenge myself enough, don't stretch and exercise my most important muscle, my brain.
In a week I will be traveling to India for two weeks, for a very good friend's wedding and then for a week or so of traveling and touring with my girlfriend, Julia. Together we'll see the Taj Mahal, explore Rajistan, do some shoping, spend a lot of time together, and I hope relax and recuperate. Besides fantasies involving Julia, which I won't write about here, my other fantasy, that which defines my idea of a real vacation, is to read a few great books - to rest, to spend time in a very comfortable, relaxing, calm place, with a great book and no commitments or deadlines, just a great book and some good food.
Until then, I will continue to "guard the queen", think of my next move and the next one after that - but even more, think about what I want to accomplish and work backwards from there to see how to achieve it - one of the lessons I learned from Lasker.
12/08/2004 10:19:00 PM
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Monday, December 06, 2004
www.FredHolstein.com
www.FredHolstein.com
My parents are folkies.
They admit this in public, heck they admit it live on the radio here in Chicago (and on cable stations nationwide) as they are one of the sponsors of Folkstage, a great program of live (well recorded live at least) folk music performed at the studios of WFMT here in Chicago.
More recently they have taken their love of folk music yet another step by producing their second album of Folk Music - in this case a double CD "Remembering Fred" which is the live recording of a tribute concert to Fred Holstein which was performed at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
Check out the website, buy the album and enjoy some great Folk Music.
(sometime next year I hope to get them to make a few of the tracks available online in some manner as well)
12/06/2004 04:16:00 PM
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Sunday, December 05, 2004
Transperency and Business of the future
Shel Israel emailed me a question in reaction to a comment I posted on his blog.
I really like your thinking on this one, Shannon. While technology
will change while we are writing this book, business is built on fundamentals
and evolves slowly. I am still having difficulties with writing the
transparent book. Do you think most businesses will pay the price for
total transparency? Their basic instinct is to keep competitors, publics and
even employees in the dark until shortly before taking a final action such
as launching a product. What are your thoughts?
Shel highlights a challenge that all businesses will face increasingly in the future, and many already do face today. Whether making physical or "soft" goods, it is increasingly possible for competitors to react seemingly immediately, so there are many incentives for attempting to keep future moves secret and/or strongly protected via copyright, trademark, and patents.
On the other hand, the counterargument is that in an increasingly connected world business is rarely entirely conducted internally, so someone "outside" the corporation has to learn about the plans fairly early on, whether it be suppliers, service providers, consultants, partners, media, regulators, select customers, even potential employees sooner or later people learn about future plans. And as soon as anyone learns, it is fairly likely that the information or at least hints about it can be "leaked" online. This can be seen whether you look at product company's new products, a car company's new cars, a movie studio's future releases, or a new game. The music and other industries that are essentially selling data have to deal with the expected full release of their product, not just news about it (bands changing release dates of albums in reaction to the album appearing on p2p networks was recently in the news).
Different industries are reacting to this reality in very different ways. The movie and music industries have, mostly, been reacting via increased legal action as well as preemtive attempts to make distribution of their content (or at times information about their content) illegal and perhaps physically prevented via changed to hardware. (new laws and actions to prevent videotaping in movie theaters, DMCA and follow on laws, both the various regional recordings of DVDs and the newer "broadcast flag" to prevent some actions with content recorded from TV etc.). In contrast the software industry is moving significently towards open source, where often not just the released product, but ongoing development of the product are available for anyone, including competitors to view and potentially use.
While the business model of open source is not 100% proven I think it is getting there. Further, I think that it points to an important distinction that may help resolve the issues that Shel raises with respect to both writing the book and towards corporations being "transperant" in general.
Even if all the tools and framework are out in the open, a corporation can still add considerable value with the data that those tools use, with the services provided by those tools, and with how the tools are configured and applied. Whether it be a car company which makes available all the information about the car - allowing other companies to build booming businesses selling parts and aftermarket upgrades - or a software company showing how their tools work, but still "selling" the tools as a way to access specific information and resources, configured specifically for a particular client real businesses can succeed even when relatively transperant.
In terms of the book, I think that many people will be engaged by and during the process of writing, but will pay for the completed work printed out, bound, and available in a very easy to read format (sure, Cleartype is nice but reading 100's of pages on screen is a different experience than curling up with a great book in bed). Likewise, blogging can open up how a company is making decisions even where they are planning on going in the future, perhaps even give a sample or a taste of what those directions will be, but customers will still pay for the finished result.
Further, the corporation (or in this case the authors) benefit by the potential for immediate and early feedback which can avoid many potential failures.
There is a danger that should always be considered, that of too much feedback, so the corporation (or authors) have to balance feedback with editorial control and creative license. People do not always have the words to express how they will react in the future when presented with something new or different (this is the entire subject of Malcolm Gladwell's new book Blink, out early in 2005 btw) so feedback whether on a new product or a new book has to be tempered with creative vision.
But likewise, in our increasingly complex and diverse world, few products are really the creation of just a few people - from movies to cars products and creativity are spread out amongst large teams (though in the best cases lead by just a few people exercising control and strong editing of the process). Blogging offers an opportunity for the voices at the corporation to document this process and to control (to a great extent) the level of transperency.
A fascinating issue which will be played out over future years on the pages of the Wall Street Journal as well as online.
12/05/2004 09:11:00 AM
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ItSeemstoMe: I?m Not Joining Scoble at MSN Spaces
ItSeemstoMe: I?m Not Joining Scoble at MSN Spaces
And yet another comment from me - not sure if I'll continue noting all of my comments or not.
12/05/2004 01:35:00 AM
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ItSeemstoMe: Scoble & Israel: an Odd Couple
ItSeemstoMe: Scoble & Israel: an Odd Couple
And my second comment on the upcomming book - looking forward to the conversation as it is written, and to the result when it is published.
12/05/2004 01:26:00 AM
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The Red Couch
The Red Couch
Scoble and Shel Israel are going to write a book on corporate blogging. I offered a few comments/thoughts (note - Scoble's blog appears to limit the size of comments or else I would have gone on longer.)
Here are my comments:
A few basics to add to your FAQ (just the questions, need answers I suspect) - not too difficult I hope.
Okay, this may seem very basic, but I suspect it gets a bit more complicated as you stare at it.
"What is a blog?" - i.e. when is a "frequently updated website" a blog and when is it "just" a website?
Are comments needed to make a "blog" a blog?
What about RSS feeds?
Does a group blog differ fundementally from a blog by a single person?
What about this thing called "WIKIs" how do they differ/compliment/contradict what blogs are? (note, I have some ideas of answers to these, posting these questions to spark conversations)
If a blog is published but rarely read, is it still a blog? More seriously, I think it can be argued that a blog, even without active readers, can still be a highly valuable tool for the individual or for a corporation. That is, the process of "blogging" can by itself add value - whether or not the posts that result are themselves ever read widely.
Shannon
12/05/2004 01:01:00 AM
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Thursday, December 02, 2004
Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel
Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel
Report sent to the UN with a large set of proposed changes to enhance global security. I find this report fascinating and generally speaking hopeful - it is a direction I hope will be adopted.
That said, as a realist, I realize that the chances are much of these proposals will get bogged down in the usual, slow, deliberative process of any large governmental agency.
I'm just one US citizen, but I hope that a world consensus is slowly emerging on global security.
12/02/2004 09:31:00 AM
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Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Piet Zwart Institute - Flowmaps, The Imaginaries of Global Integration
Piet Zwart Institute - Flowmaps, The Imaginaries of Global Integration
This is very much what I have been thinking a lot about in terms of economics - mapping the connectiveness of people (and countries) vs. the more traditional model of "assets" (which is a virtual world hold a very changing meaning in any case).
My instinct is that there are very new and major implications to be made via looking at and viewing the world and economics in terms of connectivity - something I hope to pursue in some long form in the future (perhaps a book if I ever have time).
12/01/2004 04:34:00 PM
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