Searching for the Moon

This blog has been moved

2007-08-09T06:47:00.000-05:00

I have moved Searching For the Moon to wordpress.com. I did so because when I moved blogspot.com was no longer very useful, since then it has been improved but I am happy with my new blog location.

Furniture shopping in San Francisco

2006-07-25T19:25:00.000-05:00

I have moved into my new apartment (wish it were a condo, I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it were for sale, though I doubt I could really afford it) and for the past few weeks I have been exploring the furniture stores of San Francisco (on my own) and trying to figure out what will work in my new place.

This is a story about the good and the very bad (and not to mention the tons of cheap, cheesy and/or cheaply made yet overpriced).

If you don't know me (that's my photo up on the side of this blog). I'm male, in my early 30's, and today I am dressed in a nice blue dress shirt and grey slacks, carrying a Crumpler computer bag (which if you don't know is a very good but not all that cheap bag) and today I was listening to my ipod shuffle. My haircut's recent, though today I am a bit scruffy (didn't shave this morning). But I mention all of this because today I had a serious study in contrasts - and one of the most puzzling, rudest and most basically annoying retail experiences perhaps in my entire life.

I have always been told that one of the keys to retail is to not make assumptions about your customers - and especially here in the Bay Area I would think that stores, even relatively high end stores, really would need to heed that advice - I am probably very similar in apprearance to hundreds of software/tech industry millionaires (though I'm certainly not a millionaire yet), and while I'm not a millionaire, I do have money earmarked for furniture - and it is much more than an IKEA/student budget - I have about 1700 sq. ft.+ of apartment to furnish, I like to entertain, and I want to create for one of the first times in my life a space that is true to myself and my tastes - and one that I can share and enjoy with friends.

In short I am a very real customer, with the money to buy, and I have been shopping for a number of weeks.

So today, when I walked into the store "In Your Element" (not going to give them the benefit of a link - go search for their website if you like - but read on before you think about shopping there).

They have a window display of very nice looking modern furniture, and a sidewalk display stand pointing people to how to find them - nothing on any of that sign or on their doorway indicating that they are "for the trade only". I walked in and as I am wont to do started looking at the pieces that caught my eye, feeling the fabrics, and looking at the prices. They were high, but not unreasonablely so, and the quality looked to be very nice, almost everything was from Italy, and there were a couple of pieces in particular that caught my eye. One was even relatively speaking affordable - it was one of a series of very simple, yet elegent, small tables that they had, some bar height but some not bar height, and most under $500.

Possibly ideal for my kitchen, where I want something simple and elegent, but with a touch of style and some practical elements. Nothing fancy about the materials, though they were elegently used (and most definitely not the cheap country pine furniture or shoddy particle board/mdf stuff I've seen in too many places and on craigslist).

So I wanted to seriously inquire, however as I was walking through the store one of the employees after briefly greeting me, quickly started avoiding me and running around the store picking up the pricetags and cards that described all of the furniture in the place - in an attempt I can only guess to get me to leave and to prevent me from learning their prices or what the pieces were.

It was truly incrediably bizzare.

And by far the rudest experience I have ever had in a retail environment (ruder even than the, also Italian, man who kicked me out of his 'private' club for also looking at the prices and menu while thinking about getting gelato, makes me wonder if there is something non-Italian about looking at prices?). That at least was direct - if also incrediably rude. This however was quietly rude and grating.

I attempted to engage him - I asked for the dimensions of the table options - and he did in fact give me the dimensions - which were, unfortunately, exactly what I am looking for, (32" x 32" - not clear if it was counter height or not - would prefer not). But when I tried to ask him about the price - he gave up, stonewalled, and was about as rude as he could possibly be.

To test that it wasn't something I had eaten at lunch or some "be rude to me vibe" I was giving off, I walked up the street to my destination, a great furniture store called Khyber Pass Outlet (I'll try to find a link for them - they are hard to find - one related resource I found while looking for them, however is a great Guide to buying Rugs which I will probably refer back to in the future).

This was my third time looking in Khyber Pass Outlet. It is a crowded but easy to explore furniture store, specializing in imported furniture, much of it direct from China, and quite a lot of it very very nice, great woods, well made, with lots of attention to details. And lots of options to look at.

I will probably return there to order a mirror for my hallway (large, leather wrapped standing mirror - nearly 40" by 69" - not cheap (and it looks it) but not crazy expensive either - and it will be a really stunning addition to my entryway where I plan on placing it.

I may also return there for a really great, pale Elm table they have from China. Made in China by Americans who have incorporated a combination of modern design with traditional craftmanship and quality - resulting in a really stunning set of pieces. If I go that route I'll end up with a 72" x 38" pale blonde Elm table with four square legs and a really elegant yet simple design. Very wide, solid planks and a really functional and beautiful table, one I would treasure for years (my other option I'm considering is also very stunning but in a different way). It is just a bit too big for one thought I have had, which is to buy TWO tables and use them as desks (getting two 5' x 3' or close tables) against the walls of my living room, moving them out into the center only for entertaining.

If I went with the Elm table that plan is out - and I would very tempted to buy a matching, stunning sideboard (will be measuring tonight if it would fit) which would make for a really amazing piece in my room and a great place to serve large meals (and lots of storage for linens, silverware and place settings as well as serving platters etc).

And I would consider looking at their selection of rugs, though I don't know if they have quite the right mix of quality, colot, design, and price for me (not sure I want to spend $3000+ on a rug, even if it is handmade and pretty amazing that's a lot to spend on something that can get stained).

Anyway it was quite a study in contrasts. I was able to talk with the salesclerk at Khyber Pass, discuss the options I am looking at, take measurements, get prices (even get offered a discount off one of the prices on the mirror which I may take her up on) and she didn't blink when I mentioned that I would be going to another store, The Wooden Duck, later this week for their bi-annual sale in Berkeley. From them I plan on buying at least two benches, and very likely a table (which would also work as a desk - though it may be so stunning that I don't want to use it as a desk) and I'm going to look at a number of their other pieces. I'm also considering buying a table and four chairs used from someone on Craigslist, going to look at a similar table while I'm in Berkeley.

In fact she had the confidence to suggest I buy the pieces there that I know I want, and see how they look in my space - as well as offered to let me take a rug home to see if it would work in my space (with an impression of my credit card as collateral). All very reasonable and very confident - and given how frequently their inventory turns (and they have three stores in LA in addition to the stores here, and seem to buy furniture very frequently, new shipment arriving tomorrow in fact, that makes me more confident in coming back to them in the future to get pieces that I would like.

More on the rest of my shopping - mostly bad experiences - after this evening' s networking.

On the watching, or not, of fireworks

2006-07-05T01:27:00.000-05:00

I went and saw, alone, Superman Returns this evening. Then I ate halfway decent Chinese food at one of the few places still open in Berkeley, and came home where I sit and type this entry, procrastinating the packing and other items that loom in front of me. Having returned from Seattle this past weekend I had over 4000 emails to download yesterday, today I have to start working my way through the real ones (about 1000 or so, many of which I have already dealt with).

And there are many people from Gnomedex I have to follow up with, more on Gnomedex at piecing IT together where I will also blog about my next projects. The MeshWalk on Sunday was a great success and I will also be blogging about that on MeshForum.

But more about the lack of fireworks. Or to be fair, not much more.

It is strange but for a while now, July 4th has been a special holiday for me, a time of friendships, a secular holiday, one that any American can celebrate and enjoy. For a while, it was also an aniversary for me, but not this year.

So this year there were no fireworks.

Tomorrow I start moving, packing, preparing, negotiating my second move this year and prepare to move into the fourth place I've called home in less than a year. A bit scary, but also exciting. My new place is pretty darn cool - much more about that in future posts - and I look forward to living there for a long time to come. But this week will be hard as I pack and move, while working on the many projects and ideas that sprouted while at Gnomedex.

A little bit about my new place - it is in Noe Valley in San Francisco, in a more residential area than I have lived in anytime in the past decade, so that will be an adjustment, but it is still quite near the Muni and some great cafes and restaurants. The place is technically a 1 bedroom, but has a lot of special features.

A bedroom which will fit a king bed with much room to spare, has a walk-in close, and french doors to the living room
A kitchen, partially updated, with space for a small eat in table and chairs, plus a gas stove, an older fridge and just a portable dishwasher, but overall a very functional room
A large living room with a bay window, French Doors and some other great spaces
A great sun room off the living room, a perfect space for a desk and reading chair, a space I'll use frequently

But it is the second closet, in the living room, that decided the apartment for me. In that closet is the best feature, a large spiral staircase that leads down to the "bonus" room. The bonus room has two windows (opaqued), hardwood floors, and a steel beam running the down the middle of the room. The space is about 25 x 30 (possibly larger, I'll measure it tomorrow) and is, in short, incrediable. A secret den, a workshop, an amazing media center, a recording studio, the potential uses are countless.

For the moment my plan is to use it as my library, to keep an air mattress there as a guest bed, and to set up my newly won xbox 360 there once I get a projector and screen. I'll then get some desks to place by the windows, couches and/or theater seats for the media spaces, and a large table to use as a work surface or game space, plus some benches and other seats.

In short, it will be my lair, the space where I, and I hope many others, work to build and create, play and laugh.

And I'll set up the upstairs to be a fully functional apartment, plenty of room in all of the rooms for everything I need, I'll probably set it up so you almost wouldn't guess about the extra space that lurks below the apartment...

So that's my fun for the week.

And if you are in San Francisco (or passing through) you have a place to stay if you need it, and this weekend if you are around, I'll probably hold a housewarming - contact me for the evite.

Bloggercon - emotions and blogging

2006-06-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

I am sitting at Bloggercon where I am listening to a discussion about emotional blogging and what to put/not put in your blogs.

I tend to write and live in a very open manner - I assume that having been online for so long that pretty much my entire life (warts, glasses, bad habits and all) will show up online and in fairly simple searches. (search flickr for me - you'll see what I mean)

I'm in the midst of looking for a new place to live - moved to the bay area in January and signed a 6 month lease in Berkeley - now I'm looking for a place in San Francisco (possibly with roommates - so not unlikely that you might be reading this very post). My personal relationships are also changing - which puts me in a bit of an awkward position about how/what/if to write about it.

More on that later (if you know me personally, ask I'll explain)

The (RED) Independant

2006-05-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

Go and read The (RED) Independent today.

Independent Online Edition

It is an example to learn from and admire.

A great website and use of online media by an offline brand.

And a powerful statement and impactful gesture by a leading media brand in the UK towards helping with the Aids crisis in Africa. As a reader in the US, it is also a pointed indictment of the debates here in the US about how media might stay relevant. The tone and quality of the writing is much better than I encounter here in the US (good enough in fact that if I were living in the UK I would serious plan on subscribing and reading The Independent on a regular basis).

But as much as that is the case, I am also admiring of the high quality of the ADS on the Independent's website. They are clear, concise, and very well integrated into the site and relevant. I dove into a section of the Independent about education and post-graduate degrees, curious what they were publishing and what their take was. On the upper right, Bloomberg LP had a highly relevant ad, well writen (with a minimum of words) noting that they were hiring.

In contrast in my limited use of US newspapers online, the ads and even the overall experience is much more limiting and the relvance of the ads much lower, as well as the quality of the content much less.

I did not, at least in thie special edition, see any content from The Independent that was not directly from their own writers (or guest editorials). In most cases at the end of the article as published there was more information - about the author at the very least, but in one case a link to the full transcript of the interview which was published (see http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article484987.ece)

So go, read the issue, and do what you can to support Project (REF) (and in the process also encourage more voices of the media to be of as high a quality)

joan miro - Google Image Search

2006-04-20T03:48:00.000-05:00

joan miro - Google Image Search

Check out the Google logo today.

Perhaps my favorite painter - I'm not sure why but Miro is.

I remember an Art Chicago where I spent a lot of time in a booth at Navy Pier looking a very large Miro that was hanging in a gallery from Canada's booth.

For a "mere" $1.5M I could have had a very large, truly incrediable painting by Joan Miro.

And looking at it I realize a small bit of why I really like his work - the colors, the intensity, the patterns and sense of thought, yet fluidity and variablity, the simplicity - but a simplicity that belies a lot of thought and a clear, strong style. You see a work by him and you know that it was by him.

(the logo today is very well done btw)

Art, even unobtainable art is worth attention.

And, very seriously, when I have the money I do hope to have a work by Miro (though unless I am very lucky unlikely a large work like the one I viewed years ago in Chicago).

When my move costs are covered, my condo in Chicago is sold, a new (cheap) car is purchased etc - and when income starts coming in more regularly and significently I plan on starting to more seriously purchase art. My current collection is very eclectic and hard to display - a few pieces by my sister, a few other random pieces, and a collection of Plages magazines (a French art magazine, quarterly, each issue being a limited edition of all original works - so each issue is in fact unique though related to the other issues in that the artists who contribute each make as many versions of their work as there are issues of that quarter's magazine.) And each quarter's issue is on a specific theme.

A very cool but strange work - and my collection has lapsed, so I may have to renew and purchase some back issues the next chance I get.

So for the moment I will just support art via doing things like inviting a number of artists to exhibit and present network related works at MeshForum 2006 May 7-9 in San Francisco

Bill Gates lands role in 'Doctor Who' | News.blog | CNET News.com

2006-04-03T23:55:00.000-05:00

Bill Gates lands role in 'Doctor Who' | News.blog | CNET News.com

And yet another reason I will have to get my hands on some episodes of the new Dr. Who one of these days...

With the exception of the current new series, I have seen EVERY single episode of Dr. Who which survives, and even most of the ones that only fragments of which survive. In high school my friend Dwight Sora and I had a collection of Dr. Who items whch included tapes of nearly every episode, most of the then published books, and many many more items. I still have my half of the collection in boxes at my parent's house in Illinois.

I was not a serious fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, I was always more of a fan of Dr. Who. For me, the series had much more complexity and possibilities than either of the more "American" SF series and special effects aside, I always found the ongoing universe of Dr. Who vastly more compelling and engaging. As well, as a fan, I loved how interactive and long standing the series was, with more recent shows (including the latest which I have yet to be seen) clearly being the work of long time fans such as myself.

SF Web Innovators Feb 2nd at Adaptive Path in SF

2006-01-25T21:07:00.000-06:00

I am co-hosting the SF Web Innovators Network event on Feb 2nd at the offices of Adaptive Path in San Francisco. We are very pleased that the law firm of Fish and Richardson and Adaptive Path have agreed to co-sponsor this event.

SFWIN events are open to any interested in new and emerging web applications, we bring together a great mix of investors, entrepreneurs and service providers (and some users). For the Feb 2nd event, RSVP at the SF Web Innovators wiki. The cost is a $20 donation at the door which will help cover the costs of future events.

Hope to see you there - and by the way it is now official, I am a resident of the Bay Area having rented a house in Berkeley and flown here this afternoon.

Chicago ex-pats Bears Party on Sunday Jan 15th

2006-01-09T01:29:00.000-06:00

On Sunday Jan 15th, though I will be in my new home of Berkeley CA, I will gather with friends and fellow ex-pats to the West Coast from Chicago to watch a little Bear's Football.

Sure, I'm a geek but I'm also a somewhat secret sports fan... and I'm most certainly a fan of the Chicago Bears. I remember vividly watching the Bears win it all in 1985, watching all of the games at homes of childhood friends as my family didn't yet have a tv (side note about that, my parents still only watch the one tv they got nearly 20 years ago - which was a used tv at that!)

So, on Sunday, I am organizing a gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area to watch the Bears beat the Carolina Panthers. If my new Berkeley home has both a TV and cable signal I may host this gathering there... though since I likely won't yet have such minor details as seating... most likely this gathering will be at a bar (or perhaps cafe or restaurant) somewhere in San Francisco, less likely somewhere in Berkeley.

Even if you are not a Chicago ex-pat you are certainly welcome to join us, just keep the "da's" to a minimum... I'll post the venue when it is set, if you are interested or have a suggestion for a venue please leave a comment or send me an email.

Some hints on the Stripping of Wallpaper

2006-01-07T00:01:00.000-06:00

I wrote this as a response to a FreeCycle offer I made for some leftover wallpaper stripping supplies, I post it here in the hope that it will help someone else as well.

Well we mostly followed the instructions but a few things we found:

- the spray bottle while good in theory didn't work as well in practice as we might have liked - better for many areas was a paintbrush (we used the DEF gel, diluting it for a second coat)

- scoring with the paper tiger definitely helped - as did getting off the first outer layer(s) to the extent that they would peel off dry

- a large brush and washcloth, used in conjunction with each other worked extremely well to get off the final layer of glue, though it helped having someone rince off each frequently

- for the stripping a good scrapper helped considerably (we ended up with three different styles, the best/most effective being ones with razer blades though you have to be careful not to damage the walls) but we also found that an old metal spatula worked very well for the well soaked layers of paper, often better than the stiffer blades.

- we also used latex gloves but still found that the frequent soaking in water left our hands fairly raw after the stipping of paper

Hope this helps,

Shannon

On peeling paper

2006-01-04T02:15:00.000-06:00

As the year starts I find myself engaged in the first real big home improvement project of my 9+ years of home ownership, the same month as I am on the brink (I hope) of selling my first place.

While this morning, when I met with my realtor, my condo was fairly clean and well organized, now as I type this, I am surrounded by piles and dust from a hard day's work.

Tomorrow we finish what we started today, then we spackle, sand, and put down primer, perhaps also paint. It will be a long and busy afternoon tomorrow, but at the end my condo will look better than it has ever today.

So back to today - after my morning meeting with my realtor, I then spent the rest of the morning going through three of my last "random" boxes of personal files, business files, and other random objects. As I finished with the last of these boxes (a blue milkcrate which held a rather random mix of papers from 6 years ago mixed with projects from a few months back) the handyman/cleaning man whom I had hired arrived.

Vincent (of the appropriately named "Vincent's Obsessive Cleaning") is a very good friend and former roommate of the husband of a good friend of my girlfriend (whose wedding we attended a while back and with whom we spent New Year's Eve). Today, however, rather than cleaning (other than some light dusting), we decided to spend the afternoon stripping the wallpaper which was (great phrase - was...) on the walls of my kitchen.

I should describe this - it is hard to believe. It was an off-yellow striped wallpaper with small flower details, then topped by a horrible floral border. All laid so badly that (at least on some walls) the seams were peeling and clearly visible.

This had hung on the walls when I purchased the condo, I had always planned on redoing the whole kitchen, however my finances for the past few years as well as time availability prevented ever doing that (plus I really want a gas burner and in the high rise I live in that is not possible). So I have lived with some of the ugliest wallpaper possible for the past 9+ years.

But no more. It is all down, including the underlayers of two other wall papers (which were more like cardboard with a white checker pattern!). Sure, it took us 7 hours, three people, $50 in supplies and a lot of sweat but we go it all down. Tomorrow we get the remaining bits of paper and all the massive amounts of glue.

This evening, after we finished with the stipping for now, Julia and I went to Home Depot, where we bought more there than I have ever before - two gallons of paint matched to the current cabinets, primer, brushes, dropcloths, spackle, sandpaper, a new fire extinguisher, a new smoke alarm, and new hardware for all of my cabinets (which need it - the old hardware looks to be from the late 70's/early 80's).

Tomorrow we strip glue and paper, spackle, prime and hopefully paint!

Then, when this is all done, when I have paid Vincent, photographed my clean new home, given away various random items to remove them (office supplies, misc. kitchen items, etc) and can relax, it will be time for me to leave Chicago and head back to Berkeley where I start a similar process in reverse.

There I move into a nearly empty and unfurnished rental - we'll be ordering a bed and mattress shortly so I can sleep - and then I'll start finding furnishings one piece and room at a time.

It is a challenge and at times stressful, but also it is exciting and invigorating, somehow perfectly suited to the beginning of a new year. In a few short days I will be in my first new home in almost a decade, and my first home outside of Chicago for over two decades. I'll still follow the Bears in the post-season (contact me if you want an invite to the Chicago expat's party on either the 14th or 15th in the Bay Area) and in my heart I will always hold Chicago close, but I am thrilled at all that awaits us in Berkeley and the Bay Area.

My family has many ties to California, it is the state my mother grew up, my grandparents have always lived there (grandmother in Southern CA and grandfather in Northern CA), where my aunt lives and where my parents met. But there is a vast difference between the occasional visit, mostly to relatives or very close family friends, and living there, spending every day there for weeks, months, hopefully years.

It will be a change, gone will be the dramatic shifts of seasons from the bitter, freezing cold of Chicago winters to the oppressive humid heat of August in Chicago, but with my favorite seasons inbetween where Chicago does get great weather. In its place will be real hills and elevation changes, an ocean instead of a lake, and incrediable diversity and beauty all around me. Sure there are many cars and cookie cutter developments in the suburbs but San Francisco and some of the older communities around it (Berkeley for example but also Oakland) have a rich and old history and tradition of their own as well as amazing restaurants, farmer's markets, artists and activities.

On a professional front there is still no substitution from the easy access and interconnectivity of Silicon Valley. In just over a month there at the end of 2005 I accomplished far more professionally than I had in the past 5 years in Chicago (with the possible exception of pulling off MeshForum). In my short time in CA I greatly deepened and strengthed my relationships with lots of people, I met many new friends, and had a number of exciting opportunities for the future. As these continue into the new year, look here and at my professional blog, piecing IT together for all the details.

Happy New Year and may your year be full of new opportunities, great friendships and opportunities for quiet reflection and engagement.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-01T03:34:00.000-06:00

A quick post - thanks to all the wonderful friends I've made in 2005 - it has been an exciting ride and hopefully 2006 will be the year where it all comes together in many different and wonderful ways.

In 2005 my dream of a few years ago happened - MeshForum 2005 was a great success and brought together an amazing group of people. What was just a glimmer of an idea a few years ago happened and now in 2006 come the hard part of doing it again, only better and bigger.

2006 will be a year of major changes for me - starting later this month I will be moving from my long time home of Chicago to Berkeley CA. I leave behind friends, family and a city I love, but I join family, friends and a wonderful new state and city. In CA I will continue to run and organize MeshForum. I will also pursue a number of business opportunities through JigZaw and will continue to work with great non-profits such as Hope Street Group.

My consulting in 2006 will take me, I hope, in a new direction. Besides continueing to assist companies large and small with understanding their products, business opportunities and technical resources (both internal applications, purchased products and possible partners/products in the marketplace) I will also be pursuing another long held interest, Flow Economics.

Flow Economics (my name for a field of Economics I am exploring) is the study of Economics as a Network. That is, the implications of looking at economic activity as occurring on, creating and destroying a network. Where nodes are entities and links represent transactions.

In 2006 I will explore this concept through articles, blog posts, possibly a book, and definitely consulting work with enterprises (and possibly other types of organizations such as foundations, universities, government agencies etc.). In my work with organizations, we will start by looking at the implications of a network perspective, then we will analyze the actual flows of value throughout the network of the enterprise - from external sources to internal resources to external entities. This analysis will be very importantly looking at these flows over time - looking at both the structures which evolve as well as where value is created, stored, and used.

It will be an exciting year - I hope you are enjoying it with loved ones and that the new year brings great opportunities for all - personally and professionally.

On the Holidays

2005-12-25T01:45:00.000-06:00

I was raised Roman Catholic, so as a child we celebrated Christmas, yet every year in my stockings there was also a small bag of Hanukkah geld. A small reminder from my mom of our family's Jewish roots as well.

Now, as an adult, my family still celebrates Christmas, but as an atheist I find myself somewhat at loose ends this time of year. I enjoy, though it is stressful as well, the process of finding gifts for others - finding that perfect item for someone whom I love. And certainly I do not complain when others give me gifts - always a good feeling.

When asked, by a survey or the like, I will self-identify as Jewish, though more out of ethnicity than religion, but at the same time I go through life with a desidely Irish name - Shannon Clark - so in some manner I'm a "stealth" member of the tribe. Many people find it somewhat surprising that I'm Jewish, but I certainly qualify (mother, grandmother, great-grandmother who are all Jewish).

As a child, however, I attended a Roman Catholic elementary school (yes, with nuns as teachers) and nearly everyone (outside of some family members) whom I knew were Roman Catholic. I distinctly remember as a child assuming that the whole world was Roman Catholic (and yes, I know my own mother and other relatives should have been a rather obvious counterexample but that was the reality I lived in for a time).

This perception of the world, perhaps, was strengthen by the lack of a TV in my family until I was in junior high (around the summer after 7th grade). In 7th grade I attended a public junior high and certainly many of my classmates there were not Catholic, though the subject rarely came up. I had skipped a grade (never finished 2nd grade when we moved from NY to Chicago I started 3rd grade instead of complete 2nd grade) so I was younger than most of my classmates. Around 8th grade or freshman year of high school most Catholics get confirmed. Confirmation, one of the seven sacraments, is the public announcement that you will be a member of the Roman Catholic faith, that you will raise your future children as Catholics and that you will live your life as a member of the Church.

I chose not to be confirmed, at first by simply avoiding the subject, but later on in high school very deliberately. I had long held serious doubts about God, in the 3rd grade I had failed a test in Religion class when I had turned in an empty page for an assignment requiring us to "draw a picture of God" - I knew that they wanted a picture of an old man with a long white beard or something like that - but all I could imagine at the time was that God, if existing, was everything and nothing - and certainly not an old man in a white beard no matter how much that was expected of me.

I studied philosophy, fairly seriously, in high school, taking a full year course in Philosophy my sophomore year and then doing additional independent study in philosophy with one of my teachers. I found in Existentialism (though not in the later Marxist phase of Sartre) a philosophy of the world that agreed with my own views - and which gave priority to the importance and responsibility of choice.

I made the active choice not to be confirmed because had I been confirmed I would have been publicly making the choice then and into the future of living my life as a Catholic. I valued that public declaration and did not want to make such a declaration if I did not intend on honoring it. I had too much respect to disrespect the ceremony if I would be making a statement I did not believe in - and the starting point of "I believe in God" was one I would not publicly state.

My philosophy of the world is complex. I very firmly believe in the priority of individual choice and action. This is often hard and challenging, it does not allow me an amorphous "other" in the form of God (or society, chemicals, other individuals or groups) onto whom to shift blame and responsibility for my life. It is not a forgiving philosophy or an easy one, it is why I have never once in my life been drunk, it is why I avoid taking drugs that impact mental capacity (and why I do have a serious philosophical debate with myself over my consumption of caffeine).

As the party choosing to take those substances I do not then shift responsibility to the substance for any action which I might take while "under the influence" so, preemptively I choose not to imbibe. I will, occasionally, have a glass of wine or a bottle of cider, but not much more.

I'm certainly not perfect, and in fact I often avoid making a choice and thus via inaction effectively make a choice but somehow a less explicit one. This is not a good behavior on my part - and one I have to watch and continue to learn to avoid.

But to bring this back to the holidays. I find myself increasingly taking care that I focus on "the holidays" and not on Christmas (or Hanukkah) whether in a card which I send or in my speech.

This evening, I am home alone, my girlfriend is visiting her family flying back tomorrow to have Christmas dinner at my parents. I went out for an early dinner, then sat in a Starbucks for a little while before going and seeing Fun with Dick and Jane - which was fun but didn't live up to the promise of the premise. As I walked the mostly empty streets of Chicago I found myself as always during these religious yet general public holidays feeling a bit removed from the rest of society.

I find myself much more comfortable with purely secular holidays - Fourth of July for example - and less comfortable with these religiously based holidays. I feel that I am on the outside, and I wonder how the millions of others who live in the US but who are, like myself, not Christians (or in many cases not even having been raised in a Christian background) feel this time of year. My Jewish friends joke about going out for Chinese or a movie and there are many a Jewish singles event this time of the year (I went to one years ago when I was single) but I wonder how my Buddhist, Muslim, Pagan or Hindu friends feel.

The US society is still very much dominated by Protestant Christianity. I wonder, how many people, like my youthful self, just assume that the whole world, that "everyone", is believing the same as they do, is celebrating in the same ways and the same events that they celebrate. I suspect that the numbers of people who hold this view of the world is quite large, though I hold out some hope that growing connectivity driven by the Internet but also 100's of channels of TV and a global entertainment marketplace may be helping to increase the intuitive awareness that there are other ways of viewing the world.

But it is equally possible that you can still (perhaps even more easily now than ever before) isolate yourself and view only those things that reinforce your own views of the world and "reality". Customized news, TiVo, radio and other mediums all supporting just one view can render it increasingly easy to never encounter others of different faiths and beliefs (or lack of belief).

I wonder very seriously about the growing number of people who are being home schooled, who never get the complex opportunity of a public school to encounter others of different backgrounds and religions. Though that assumes, of course, that at a public school there will be diversity, this is not always true of many (perhaps most) communities in the US. I was fortunate to attend a high school which was exceptionally diverse - racially, religiously, economically. Students there were in public housing while others were given Rolls Royces when they turned 16. Every year 20 or more exchange students (and teachers) would attend the high school. At graduation we were given a speech which talked about how different the rest of the world and likely our college experience would be - how less diverse most places were.

We were lucky.

In 2006 I will be moving from Chicago to Berkeley. I leave the city where I have lived for the past 23+ years for another which I grew up hearing about (my parents met at U. C. Berkeley). It is a diverse community in many ways, but not in all ways. The tech community, of which I will be a part in the Bay Area, is not as diverse as it could (and I would argue should) be. Many events and companies are extremely male-dominated, not always very racially diverse, and in many cases (as is not uncommon with smaller firms) very uniform in their makeup. There is also passive (and at times active) discrimination against people by age - with the bias being towards younger developers. In places like Berkeley there is also an extreme lack of political diversity.

In any of these cases, like my younger self in the Catholic elementary school, it is all too easy to assume that "everyone" is like those with whom we spend our days, with whom we work and play, with whom we live and interact with. Even when presented by evidence to the contrary - a homeless man, an occasional colleague who didn't vote for Kerry, a developer still working with Java (or C or Fortran or Lisp or even using IE) - we can still act and have the impression that everyone is mostly like us.

So my holiday wish is that everyone - whether religious or not, atheist, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, IE user, Firefox promoter, Republican or Democrat or not a US citizen - will make a point to remember that we - humans - are diverse and different and celebrate, remember, and embrace that diversity. Make a point in this upcoming new year, and throughout this holiday season to engage with the other - to seek ways to continually remind yourself that there are many faiths, many viewpoints, many experiences of life.

I wish you a happy holidays and a great new year. If you are reading this, please feel free to engage with me - whether via a comment here, email, or in person. I welcome your interactions and I look forward to the challenges (and choices) ahead of us all in 2006.

Evil Genius Chronicles - Apprenticeship

2005-12-16T10:13:00.000-06:00

I left the following, long comment, at Evil Genius Chronicles - Apprenticeship

To offer a somewhat different perspective, I think what people respond to in the various reality tv shows (and now also webshows etc) is not that someone 'has' a job or gets one - but the specific, usually unusual and relatively rare job which the winners get. i.e. six figures (plus lots of recognition) 'running' a line of business for a billionaire; running a music studio, being on air talent for a major (cable) network etc.
There is also a great related branch of 'reality' tv shows which illustrate at least to a degree an interesting side of many jobs - from extremes like 'dirty jobs' to more practical examples on HGTV and others about real estate, design, or building. Even shows like 'monster garage' etc while clearly entertainment, are also showing creativity as well as working in teams.
Now don't get me wrong, I was raised without a TV for much of my life and go without one frequently (the past month and half for example) but I'm also not as pessimistic as the previous commentator - tv shows, including some (but clearly not all) of the 'reality' shows have in many respects been getting LESS mindless not more. They compete against entertainments in many mediums - but the long story arcs of the best shows and the problem solving / creativity of the best of the short shows is markedly different than earlier eras of TV.
Stephen Johnson discusses this to some degree in his book 'everything bad is good for you' the phenomenon of the growing complexity of thought required by the best of modern media.
(news noteably usually not being in this category - there the thought required has mostly gone down not up - though it was never very high to start)

ThinkGeek :: Polarity - Magnetic Boardgame

2005-12-09T01:47:00.000-06:00

If you are reading this and are wondering what types of things I might like for the holidays... ThinkGeek :: Polarity - Magnetic Boardgame

Okay, let met get this straight - hovering pieces, controlled chaos in game play? Count me in...

On a serious note, I love to see new games like this - strategy and gameplay in new dimensions, sounds really fun and mind-bending, probably quickly to play, but also rewarding of repeated play with the ability to get better, while still having some room for randomness and variation.

Windows Live Safety Center

2005-11-01T17:41:00.000-06:00

Windows Live Safety Center

I left a comment here about my experienaces.

Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety

2005-11-01T15:33:00.000-06:00

Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety

A useful service which is part of Microsoft's launch of a variety of services under the live.com site. I'm testing this out on my primary laptop and will see what (hopefully nothing) it finds.

I'll also test this with less updated/secured systems, my windows 98 machine for example and see how/if it handles that.

White Sox Win!

2005-10-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

What more is there to say - 88 years - many generations and as a Chicagoan I'm thrilled and excited and very happy - I didn't think it would ever happen and now it has in very convincing fashion.

If next year the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox were to play it would be the 100th aniversary of the last time those two teams met in the World Series - the 1906 World Series. Something to hope for (imagine how impossible those tickets would be to come by... )

My record of not making it to any Chicago team's games when they have a winning record remains intact - I missed all the Bulls games in the 1990's, the Bears in the 1985 and now the White Sox in 2005!

Flavors of Fall

2005-10-26T20:01:00.000-05:00

While the weather here in Chicago while gloomy and wet is mostly fall like, unlike my friend Ethan in the Bershires, we are also rapidly approaching the end of farmer's markets here in Chicago. So this past weekend and week we have been cooking fall flavors as a celebration of the season before Chicago as it is want to do switches to the long winter.

Over the weekend I went a bit wild at the Green City Market, a local organic farmer's market. I then spent all day Saturday cooking and invited friends over to taste.

Starting with a bag of apple seconds (bird bites etc) which I purchased for $2.00, Julia peeled and cored them, we then slowly cooked them on the stove in an inch of water with three cinnamon sticks.

As this reduced I started the first of many dishes which required our oven (wishing yet again that we had double ovens - a feature we'll look for in any new abode). First in was some pinwheel beets, so named because when prepared correctly they retain a pinwheel pattern on their insides when cut in rounds. They also have the great feature of not bleeding and of being somewhat sweeter than many other beets, in short a perfect beet for salads.

To prepare these I cut off the green portions just above the bulb (but left the tails) and washed them. I then put them in a Pyrex baking pan with a half-inch of water and covered the whole pan with aluminum foil. I preheated the over to 350 degrees and put them in for about 30-40 minutes (until a knife stuck in them went in easily without resistance). When I took them out I then washed them in cold water (alterntating between two glass bowls until the water was cool) and peeled the skins. I then set these aside and moved on to the next dish.

Next I cut in half two acorn squash. I cut these across the middle and scooped out the seeds. I then placed them on a lightly oiled baking pan and placed brown sugar, then a scoop of butter (about a teaspoon) and then a bit more brown sugar as well as salt, pepper and a sprinkling of maple sugar candy crumbs. I lightly oiled the edges of the squash with extra virgin olive oil. These I cooked at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes.

When I took the squash out I placed them in individual bowls and covered each with aluminum foil to retain the heat.

The next dish was a pork steak. This was an organic pork steak I had purchased at the farmer's market from the farmer who raised the pig. It was frozen so I had let it defrost all day while my other dishes were cooking. I spiced the pork steak with salt and pepper (french sea salt and very good black peppercorns freshly ground) and a maple spice rub I purchased that morning from the Spice House. I broiled this for about 10 minutes on a side.

While the pork cooked I prepared the beet salad.

This was a bed of fresh baby organic lettuce, drizzled with organic extra virgin olive oil (from Trader Joes) and 7 year aged balasmic and sea salt and black pepper. I then added the beets in slices (with a few smaller beets cubed for variety). Then I julianned a golden russet apple (This is possibly the best apple I have ever gotten from a local farmer's market and amongst the best I've ever had - not pretty to look at but unbelievably tasty and very firm - ideal for salads). I added these very small strips of apple which soaked up the balsamic. Then I topped the salad with a great stilton which I had purchased that morning from a wheel the cheese stop up the street from me had opened for me to taste - just the right flavor and texture for this salad.

With dinner I drank fresh apple cider to complete the perfect sampling of fall flavors.

Julia and I ate together, then two friends of ours stopped by, for each friend I prepared a salad and a sampling of the other dishes - homemade apple sauce, pork steak, baked acorn squash and beet & apple salad. They each enjoyed their tastes.

That was Saturday. On Sunday while we were out shopping for other items we stopped at Whole Foods and purchased some pork chops and some pasta. I prepared the pork chops with the same maple rub - extremely good. I also purchased some other beets and made the same salad but with different beets (still good but not quite as good as the pinwheel beets which were sweeter and softer in texture).

The pasta we purchased was pumpkin filled pasta, I prepared that for dinner last night with a light alfreddo sauce which I prepared while the pasta cooked (butter, milk, cheese, small amount of garlic powder.

We've also been making other dishes this week - an angel food cake (from mix) which we have been eating as dessert along with some of the apple sauce (and vanilla ice cream). For lunch the other day I sliced some hard boiled eggs with a julianned golden russet apple to this I added some of the 7 year old balsamic and some sea salt and ground pepper - very very tasty and fast.

In short this week has been a celebration of fall colors and flavors - pumkin, squash, apples, beets, pork. Later this week I plan on making homemade butternut squash soup and continue our celebration of the fall.

What dishes have you been making this fall?

?My heart?s in Accra ? Travel Writing

2005-10-02T11:58:00.000-05:00

?My heart?s in Accra ? Travel Writing

My friend Ethan Zuckerman has seperated out from his regular blog his writings about his travels. All are very well written and engaging, worth a look when you have a few minutes.

Movies I want to see

2005-10-01T13:29:00.000-05:00

At the moment there are more movies released which I want to see than I have time to go to the movies, here is the list of currently released movies which I want to see (and why), it is surprisingly long, probably the longest such as list has been in the past 5, perhaps 10 years.

Mirrormask - Neil Gaiman's new film. Here in Chicago only showing for one week. So this is likely the first film I'm going to go see, probably this weekend or next week.

Serenity - Josh Whedon's new film based on the Firefly TV series. While I haven't yet caught up on the Firefly series, given his track record with other series and the previews, this is near the top of my list of films to see.

Proof - While I have heard some mixed reviews, the ones I trust have all been very positive about this film, given my own interest in math as well as my many friends who are mathematicians I want to see this film.

Lord of War - I'm rarely disappointed in Nicholas Cage's films and in this one he plays an anti-hero arms dealer.

Oliver Twist - Roman Polanski's newest film of the Dicken's classic. I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Everything is Illuminated - while I haven't yet read the book, this story is one I feel I have to see.

A History of Violence - sounds like the type of story I would find fun.

The Aristocrats - for the overview of the history of comedy in America for nearly the last century.

Capote - not yet out in Chicago but when it is out I want to see this.

And still in theaters and I haven't see yet:

Fantastic Four - seems like it would be better on the big screen.

I'll add more links and details later, but this a quite a long list for me other than one or two films above I would regret not seeing all of these films while they are playing in theaters. And besides these there are many other films I wouldn't mind seeing as well as lots of great films coming to Chicago in upcoming weeks for the Chicago International Film Festival and other fests.

Returning to the blogosphere

2005-09-30T05:20:00.000-05:00

I have been absent for the most part from the blogosphere for a while now, writing quietly on my lalptop and digesting what I have been doing this summer. Now that we have entered into the fall I will be trying to get back into the blogging habit - across all three of my blogs. Here at Searching For the Moon I will blog mostly personal items - generally sites I find that are interesting but perhaps as well thoughts about restaurants, movies, plays, or other events I attend or see. I hope to also post some of the photos from my recent trip out west as well as detail some of the many things we did while traveling.

On my professional blog, piecing IT together I will be posting about my research, consulting work and business related articles, websites and events. My focus for the Fall will be Flow Economics, which is my term for the new form of economic analysis I offer my professional clients - looking at the relationships of an enterprise in terms of a network and then analyzing the flows within that network. This offers a new perspective on business whether small or large.

At MeshForum we will be blogging about Networks, our past speakers, and the process of organizing MeshForum 2006 (May 7-8 Chicago). We have a number of annoucements we will be making in the next few weeks, including some big names as speakers and an upcoming MeshForum dinner on Oct 5th here in Chicago.

Travels throughout the West Coast

2005-09-15T17:46:00.000-05:00

I am back in Chicago having been out on the West Coast for two weeks during which time I was in Santa Barbara, Berkeley and San Francisco, Myers Flat, Coos Bay, Portland, and Seattle. With many other stops along the way.

While I will be posting more about this trip, including photos to Flickr and specific comments in my various blogs, this is just a quick heads up here in case anyone was wondering where I have been - we returned home on Saturday but it has taken me until today to get caught up and I still have a few thousand emails to get through, a large inqueue of feeds to read, and many other items to take care of and complete - "vacations" are hard work, at least when you return.

Hilary Rosen on Larry Lessig's blog

2005-08-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

After the comment storm I participated in a few days ago, Hilary Rosen has posted her responses to the comments on Larry Lessig's blog.

I added the following additional comments:

"There is a critical difference between the "Internet" and other spaces governed by US laws.

For one - the "Internet" is truly global (I think the last country without connectivity has now been connected) and while it is true that US legal decisions have a way of being written into treaties and/or copied around the world - as we have recently seen in the case of the EU rejecting Software Patents this is by no means universally true.

So when the US, as in many recent laws like the DCMA, tries to legislate for the Internet as a whole it may in a very real sense be fighting a losing battle, with the biggest losers possibly being US citizens (and our corporations) who will be prevented from the full potential of digital technology.

In the case of online gambling, for example, this is a complex subject - but it is also very clearly one where companies (and their millions of customers) in other countries are seeing a great deal of innovation and revenues.

In the case of innovation in less politically charged realms - from patents to music - I personally find it striking that some of the most innovative music I have heard recently have been mashups, mostly from Europeans (though they are likely difficult to license in Europe as well as the US).

On a more legally clear example, I listen to a large number of podcasts - however here in the US they are restricted heavily by limitations (specifically the lack of legal universal licenses ala radio licenses) to allow podcasters to mix and play any song they would like to. However other countries have adopted radio-like universal licenses and the result is one of my favorite podcasts and a mix of music better by leaps and bounds than any radio station I have ever heard (on or offline) - Karin's Themed podcasts. These are about 1 hour blocks of music bound by a common theme - often a very international selection of music, but even when she selects only English language songs her groupings and selections cause me to hear old songs in new ways.

She pays the licensing fees in the Netherlands to be in legal compliance - so the artists she plays do get compensation from her playing of the music, in much the same way they do when a radio station plays them - and as a fan I gain the great benefit of hearing old music in new, creative ways.

I think for many forms of non-duplicative creative use (i.e. not selling a CD that is an exact copy of the artist's CD) a form of universal license such as the radio license - though probably tiered and/or with a per-unit percentage of price capped fee - could make much more sense than the current "clear every right with every possible rightsholder". Especially since the number of "orphaned" copyrights is huge and growing (even works created just years ago can be difficult if not impossible to track down the copyright holder of. A simple example, I wrote to many USENET newsgroups in the early 90's - my writing gained am immediate copyright - however if you were now to want to print, in full, the content of a specific USENET newsgroup you would have to find each poster and get permission. I am no longer at the email address I posted under, which was a university account, a quick google search of the Internet does turn me up as the first "Shannon Clark" and indeed I list on my profiles that I attended the university where the posts came from - so it is probable that I am the same Shannon Clark - but how can you be certain? There are literally dozens of other Shannon Clark's in the US. And I did this fairly simply, I posted under my own name - what about someone like "three blind mice" - how would you go about including his comments, in full, in another creative work?)

The point is that the requirement "get permission first" is increasingly untenable.

Here in the US we do not currently separate out commerical and moral rights - in the EU they have taken the approach that these rights are separate (which creates the complication that in the EU creative commons licenses or attempts to put new content into the public domain may still be bound by "moral rights" which apparently the authors may not be able to waive completely).

I think we should make it easy for the "public domain" to grow again - both by cleaning up orphaned copyrights (Lessig's suggestion of a minimal registration fee would clear things up pretty quickly and separate out "commercially viable" copyrights from the millions of orphaned ones - and have the further advantage of making it clearer which works were/were not in the public domain) and by making the process of offering up works to the public domain easier (and perhaps making some areas, such as comments especially anonymous ones, USENET etc areas where the public domain is assumed - that is by posting publically unless you attach restrictions you waive future need to contact you for permission to quote, remix, etc)

Moral rights - i.e. the right not to have your words used in ways you do not agree with are a much trickier issue. I think, however, it might be possible to expand the concept of "misrepresentation" (and/or libel) to cover this without much difficulty. (i.e. you can use what I right without first clearing it with me - but you can't use it in a way that makes it appear that your changes/remixes are my original work - i.e. use my works to claim that "Shannon Clark wants there to be no public domain at all" via the means of selective editing and insertation of new words into my text.

You could, however, use my words in a quotation (even an extended one that might go beyond "fair use") as part of your pamphlet or book arguing against my position. If my writings had a way of being placed in the public domain OR if you had a way of obtaining a "radio like" license then I (in the US at least) couldn't object to your usage and use that objection to prevent (or make commercially onorous) the publication of the book.

It is not always going to be a clear line - and multimedia examples will be complicated (does the music playing a documentary imply that the musicians condone the actions appearing on screen to their music? what if it isn't a documentary but a commercial? what if it isn't a 'commercial' but is a 'reality tv show'?) but I think there are alternatives which offer great benefit than the current stasis and uncertainty.

Shannon"

Feedster Top 500 blogs

2005-08-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Feedster (sf) :: RSS Search Engine

I'm clearly not listed... but worth a look lots of great feeds and blogs I was not previously aware of and very good to see friend's sites highly ranked.

Hilary Rosen on Larry Lesig's blog

2005-08-15T23:44:00.000-05:00

I left a comment on Lawrence Lessig's blog.

"Hilary,
An example for you - and really just the tip of the iceberg.
From a recent interview in Paste Magazine (http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_id=1816) Beck says ?The only difference is that it?s pretty much impossible to clear samples now. We had to stay away from samples as much as possible. The ones that we did use were just absolutely integral to the feeling or rhythm of the song. But, back then, it was basically me writing chord changes and melodies and stuff, and then endless records being scratched and little sounds coming off the turntable. Now it?s prohibitively difficult and expensive to justify your one weird little horn blare that happens for half of a second one time in a song and makes you give away 70 percent of the song and $50,000,? he laughs. ?That?s where sampling has gone, and that?s why hip-hop sounds the way it does now.?
Pretty much says it all.
If an artist with Beck?s level of success in the past, and likely future successes, can?t express himself via sampling and remixing in the ways he would creatively like to, we are indeed seeing works being stifled and limited.
Outside of music a very similar problem exists in print publication - where the long common practice of quotes and citations is increasingly being prohibited by publishers. If even academic works are being stifled in fairly clear fair use situations, again works are being stifled.
In essense the demand by many owners of content that not only do they own it nearly in perpetuity (continually extending the life of copyrights meaning that the public domain stops somewhere in the 1920?s), as well as the ever more restrictive environment for anyone interested in using works of others as components of their work makes it ever smaller the domains where people can comfortably and legally operarate.
.

Indeed I wonder if great works of are such as the collages of Matisse or others would be allowed in today’s environment - or would the artist and his (or her) representatives have to “clear” each image and item they reuse and repurpose - each little corner of paper…. (not to mention would Warhol be able to do what he did with Cambell Soup Cans?)

I’m a technologist and writer. When I create I want to be able to create in the ways that my muse dictates - however if, say I wanted to write a story which mentions brand names, which quotes from other publications, which uses real places - I may have resistance from publishers. And when it, if it is, is tried to be made into another medium - TV or Film for example, each of those brands would (in today’s environment) only be used if that placement were paid for. (it is a source of personal annoyance and pain when in a “reality” show there are no real brands just fake ones, a few paid placements, and lots of blurred areas).

Sometime soon I think there will have to be a backlash to this blurring of reality.

Real people operate in a world of brands - in a world of content from many sources - the music and tv clips in the background of many people’s private films of reality means that those same clips cannot (today) be shown in a movie theater or put on TV without great expense due to the enforcement of many different “rightsholders”.

(see the example that Lessig cites frequently of the man who made a film that won awards at Cannes for a cost of about $400 but would cost 1000x to clear all the rights if he wanted to show it here in the US. That is stifling creativity.)

Shannon

Philip Greenspun's Weblog: Best Car for Chicago

2005-07-31T03:02:00.000-05:00

I added a long comment to Philip Greenspun's Weblog: Best Car for a 25 year old woman in Chicago.

My comments were about driving in Chicago, great discussion though I'm not the only person to suggest the option of "do not have a car at all".

Unix style recent history - for dummies

2005-07-28T07:21:00.000-05:00

One of the funniest things I have read in a long while - Sun Ray Blog.

A history of recent events in unix command line format, but with comments and explanations for the non-unix geeks out there. As one of the commentors mentioned, may be funnier than the version without the comments, even to a long standing unix geek like myself.

Hidden Villa

2005-07-12T15:52:00.000-05:00

When my mom and aunt were growing up, they attend a unique, multicultural summer camp - Hidden Villa.

My sister and I then attended when we too were growing up.

Hidden Villa is a unique, amazing and special place. Founded over 65 years ago, it is an organic farm, 1600 acres of partial wilderness, a hostel, and a chance for people of all races and creeds to come together.

While not without flaws, it is one of the more special places in this country and a place very dear to me.

Blogging and job prospects: from the academy to the SCOTUS

2005-07-11T20:08:00.000-05:00

on Ars Technica, the following (Blogging and job prospects: from the academy to the SCOTUS) gets it, I think, nearly completely wrong.

Were I giving advice to a grad student at the moment, I would advice them TO blog. A good, well done, and engaging blog will likely connect that grad student to their peers, both other emerging scholars and more established academics in their field(s) of interest.

By providing a service online, and by mastering new forms of technology and communication the grad student only enhances, not diminishes their own job prospects and possibilities.

Why do I say this when, as this article points out, there are counterexamples?

A few examples:

- Ester Hargatai and others at Crooked Timber (http://www.crookedtimber.com) a fantastic online community and resource, and clearly a source of engagement and support for all who are contributing, and one which helps all of them raise the profile of their work and research.

- Mary Anne Mohanraj. A very good friend of mine, she has been keeping an online journal since 1994 (yes well before "blogging" ), her active readership there has helped her build up an audience for her writing, which in turn led to successful editing jobs for a number of books, some smaller releases of her works, and eventually to a 2 book deal with Harper Collins for two books, one of which her dissertation just was released in hardcover this month. Her journal and readership helped her as she wrote her disertation and books, and in her job search (successful) - she has been teaching at Vermont college and is about to teach here in Chicago at Roosevelt University (see http://www.mamohanraj.com) - but also a google search for Mary Anne turns her up first.

I am a conference organizer. When I went lookig for speakers and presentors, I looked online. Those academics with minimal to no web presense were significently less likely to get an invitation from me to present than those who have an active online engagement.

Podcasting - Blog Maverick - www.blogmaverick.com _

2005-07-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

Podcasting - Blog Maverick - www.blogmaverick.com _

I left a long comment about Podcasting and MeshForum on Mark Cuban's blog this afternoon.

It is important also to realize that some Podcasts - like IT Conversations (which is a mix of conferences, radio shows, and new content - are at a level of attention well past what most streaming online radio shows ever reached - IT Conversations gets as many as 20,000+ people to download each show they release (and that was pre-iTunes, I suspect they may reach 50,000+ on popular shows pretty soon) with over 100,000+ monthly unique listeners.

Those numbers are compelling.

They also are changing the conference business in some radical new ways.

My conference - MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org) reached 50+ people in person in our first year. A respectable turnout for a first year conference on a complex topics (Networks - social, technical and physical).

Via IT Conversations, where our first session has just gone live this afternoon (see http://www.itconversations.com/series/meshforum2005.html) we will reach probably 20,000+ different people with at least one session from MeshForum 2005.

That is a 400x increase in our reach.

A year from now when we hold MeshForum 2006 that increased reach can only help us - by helping get great speakers and participants but also by yet again increasing our reach to I would guess 50,000+ people for MeshForum 2006.

As a conference organizer this changes how I structure the conference - I have a new and very important audience to consider.

As a podcast listener the content I get from podcasts is content that for the most part does not exist anywhere else. It resembles the best of independent radio (or in some cases the best of public radio) but it is much more focused, liberated of the constraints of the FCC, and in nearly all cases (and all of the cases that I listen to) driven by personal passion.

Shannon

When tech support works - IBM

2005-06-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

For the past couple of months I have been suffering from a laptop with a keyboard where the keys were not completely functional, my space bar in particular would often not register meaning that as I was typing, and I type very fast, occasionally the space bar would not hit and two words (or more) would run together. The result was that over the past few months I have been finding myself resisting writing as much as I usually do and since what I get paid to do is very much based on written results, this was a problem.

So, yesterday I finally looked up the phone number and called IBM tech support for my T40.

A few specific ways in which they made this process better than painless.

1. On their website they had a quick and easy tool which looked up my details automagically - so in one single web window I had my product type and serial number (no need to turn over the laptop and squint at worn codes on the bottom).

2. Their phone number was answered immediately, the automatic system was clear and concise with just a few options and with the most common option being 1 (i.e. I called for hardware support and the choices for hardware support were generally 1) all told it took just a few seconds to get to a person, who then answered on about the second ring, so no long wait on hold.

3. When I explained that my keyboard was sticking and was broken, all that I was asked was what my model and serial number was, he then located the right replacement keyboard, confirmed my shipping address (I had to have it shipped to my home not my business address, which was no problem at all), and he then directed me to a page on their website, accessible via just a few steps, which gave me detailed instructions on how to replace the keyboard.

4. The keyboard arrived this morning at 10am - so less than 24 hours after I called them. What's more, replacing an IBM Thinkpad keyboard is something the consumer can do (without voiding any warrentees) and all it required was that I unscrew 4 philip's head screws. A few minutes after getting the new keyboard here I am typing happily away on a brand new keyboard.

As always, the IBM keyboards on their Thinkpads (well Lenova now) are great, the ease with which it was replaced was fantastic. And though they did make a small change in the look, it functions perfectly and I am a very happy IBM/Lenova customer.

In constrast most other firms I have dealt with insist on tying you up on the phone for pointless delays and waits. IBM just identified my problems, provided me a solution and then that was that.

Fantastic and a reminder of why I picked an IBM (and why I got a 3 year warrentee when I did).

Real Estate Commissions

2005-06-08T00:13:00.000-05:00

Philip Greenspun's Weblog:

I left a short comment on Philip Greenspun's blog about real estate commissions.

Streamload - Share Videos and Photos - Online MP3 Storage and Access

2005-06-03T17:50:00.000-05:00

Streamload - Share Videos and Photos - Online MP3 Storage and Access

Unlimited data storage - fee for download.

Clearly a business model which can only grow and one which I can see a lot of personal uses for - for example as a backup system. I would be very happy to pay $50-100 for the month when I needed to recover my system.

Also as I think about launching a Podcast and other media ventures, a service such as this, including the ability to accept large (up to 50GB) data files from anyone via their xStremMail service, seems like an interesting one as well.

Google Sitemaps - My Sitemaps

2005-06-03T17:17:00.000-05:00

Google Sitemaps - My Sitemaps

An experiment that Google is offering to allow managers of websites to provide Google with a sitemap of all of the URLs of the site, in standard formats, to help the google crawler update new pages more frequently.

I hope that plugins for Wordpress, Moveable Type, and perhaps something for blogger.com come out soon to auto-generate the sitemaps for blogs in a way that helps get more archives into the google search engine, a problem which those of us with years of archives feel most strongly.

Speak Up: The Promise of Girls' Education

2005-05-27T13:24:00.000-05:00

Speak Up: The Promise of Girls' Education

I left the following comment, which will be posted eventually I think, about the importance of woman's education.

Richard,

Yout should take a look at Prof. Jeffery Sachs' recent book "The End of Poverty" and the work of the Earth Institute he heads up at Columbia (http://www.earth.columbia.edu). He specifically talks about the importance of female eduction in the developing world and adds to your list of reasons that educating woman (and more generally helping children survive childhood) leads to lower fertility rates and reduction of population growth from rates that are currently doubling populations in very short periods to more sustainable levels.

He also adds to the importance of School Lunches by way of a story he tells of one school, I think in Kenya, where prior to instituting school lunches they were ranked ~110th out of 200 schools in the region. After just adding school lunches for the 8th grade they raised their school ranking (on the basis of national tests) to 2nd in the region. Prof. Sachs is working with NGO's to extend the school lunch program there to all grades.

Thomas P. M. Barnett in his books and writings also emphasizes the critical importance of woman's education on closing the gap between countries. Countries where girls get an education and woman have rights and opportunities tend to move forward in many other areas (environment, development, stability).

Shannon

Project Syndicate

2005-05-26T15:43:00.000-05:00

I recently found Project Syndicate (http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/2). To quote from their about us page:

"Project Syndicate is an international association of quality newspapers devoted
to:
bringing distinguished voices from across the world to local audiences
everywhere; strengthening the independence of printed media in transition and
developing countries; upgrading their journalistic, editorial, and business
capacities. Project Syndicate currently consists of 235 newspapers in 111
countries, with a total circulation of 38,241,201 copies. Its activities fall
into three broad categories:
disseminating the highest quality commentaries
and analysis to its member papers; fostering institutional links among member
papers; Project Syndicate is a not-for-profit institution. Financial
contributions from member papers in developed countries support the services
provided free by Project Syndicate to members in less advanced economies.
Additional support comes from the Open Society Institute, Politiken Foundation
and Die Zeit Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius Foundation. "

Contributors include Prof. Jeffery Sachs of Columbia among many other distinguished thought leaders. It looks to be something which the blogosphere should (and could) use as a source, and given the very global scope definitely should be looked at by the Global Voices programs at the Berkman center etc.

They have an rss feed at http://www.project-syndicate.org/ps.rss

Here's the link for their member papers - in 46 different languages and 111 countries (http://www.project-syndicate.org/member_papers)

From their notes on prospective members, the following bit about translation struck me as something many people would find interesting:

"Distribution
Project Syndicate distributes its columns via
email.
Translation: Project Syndicate offers translations of its commentaries
into Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. While we
strive for the highest quality of the translations, we provide these
translations as a courtesy only and always note that the English text is the
sole authoritative version. Feedback on the quality of our translations is
always welcome and helps us maintain and improve their quality."

Looks like a great project and one the "blogosphere" should link to and support.

Plazes and Working in Cafes

2005-05-24T14:08:00.000-05:00

I have added Plazes to my home page for this blog. A modification of my "Working in Cafes" plan, if the WIFI goes out at one café, as it did this morning, I'll move to another here in Evanston and update my location via Plazes. I'll also look at using a service like Jambo, however I like the wide ranging yet useful aspect of Plazes.

www.podcatch.com : Essay on media and podcasting

2005-05-24T11:51:00.000-05:00

www.podcatch.com has a short essay from Dave Winer about watching what you are agreeing to when signing a contract with a media exec.

My comments are about the possible model of Oprah.

A model that might be looked at is Oprah.
i.e. if you manage to do the following trifecta, you can collect big:

- Generate a large, passionate, ongoing audience (which stays with the station/channel who air you giving them an incentive and value to supporting you)

- Own the content yourself and negotiate for a significent portion of the advertising revenue (and ideally manage a mix of local/national advertising)

- Continue to add other content and outlets, as well as maintaining a strong brand and connection to your audience.

Shannon

BP Crosses a Line - Tom Peters Blog

2005-05-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

Another post from the Tom Peter's Blog: "BP Crosses A Line".

I left a long comment here as well.

This also makes for an even more short term focus.

One of the major roles of the media, historically, has been to spark and foster debate. Coverage of many issues has started with an initial report, perhaps full of inaccuracies or errors, which then over time is reacted to, corrected, and refined getting a bit closer to "the truth" but also importantly fostering public knowledge of and debate about the issues (and the facts).

If we are entering an era when most media from the blogosphere (see Apple's lawsuit) to major newspapers and magazines to TV think only of the immediate, short term, initial reactions to everything they write about - then we are unlikely to see ongoing support for investigative research, or coverage of anything which can not both be simplified to a single story and vetted by advertisers. Small bastions may remain in the publications supported by foundations or interested groups (Mother Jones, Unte, New Yorker on the Left, other publications on the right) but their circulations are a far cry from the New York Times or the reach even now of Network TV news.

Shannon

Death To All Panel Sessions: Corante > Get Real >

2005-05-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

Death To All Panel Sessions: Corante > Get Real >

I left a long comment about MeshForum and what we did for MeshForum 2005 as a response to Stowe Boyd's rant about bad conferences.

We tried to address some of these issues at MeshForum 2005 (http://www.meshforum.org)

A few things we did which seemed to work.

- spent a lot of time planning and thinking about the speakers and the order of the speakers to help reinforce each other and minimally overlap

- brought together a mix of speakers - academics, business professionals, consultants, military experts

- though we did have a bit more PowerPoint than I would like to see at future MeshForums, most speakers were introducing new ideas, had a lot of content, and were given enough time to get their ideas across

- we scheduled speakers for a significent amount of Q&A and had an audience capable of asking great questions without giving mini-speeches.

- MeshForum 2005 was a single track - so everyone attending saw and heard the same speakers. We also had a majority of speakers who attended for the whole conference and thus had heard the speakers before them, brought their talks into their own presentations, and were able to later interact with later speakers

- Held the conference outside of the "usual" venues (not a hotel, not a resort, not an auditorium). The flatness of the space with just a low stage, yet a slightly elevated section allowing for great sightlines for everyone, led to a sense of connectedness to the speakers and easy interaction

- We incorporated meals and evening events into the conference, this was critical to allowing people to interact, truly network, and follow up with questions and thoughts for future action

- We ended the conference with an entire day in Open Space. This format allowed for a fully interactive workshop - everyone who attends that portion of the conference sets their own agenda, picks the topics they want to work on. Though smaller than the full conference, the workshop led directly to lots of future action and helped translate the conference environment into one that will lead to ongoing, continuing interactions and relationships.

I welcome feedback about what we did this year and how we can hold the best conference possible next year (our plan is for May 7-9 again here in Chicago), we hope Corante can once again be a sponsor and be an even more active and involved sponsor this year. :)

thanks,

Shannon

Tom Peters's blog on Selling (Out) Broadway reprise

2005-05-24T00:34:00.000-05:00

Selling (Out) Broadway reprise

I left my longest comment yet on the Tom Peter's blog:

As a writer myself, I find this trend a mixed one - I certainly see the branding value of what people at Springwise/Trendwatching (http://www.trendwatching.com) call "branded brands" - i.e. the use of one brand (Broadway, Hollywood, TV shows) to promote another brand (though in fairness to Springwise, they focused on branded products using other branded products such as Smuckers Jam as an ingrediant in another item).

But like the all pervasive use of 555-####'s for phone numbers in the media, brands are rapidly becoming signs and reminders of what (and who) paid for the show, and in their all to often blurred state indications of who did not.

If you watch most of TV you see a very removed version of "reality" - the only brands visible on most shows, especially on a network like MTV, are those brands who paid to be there (or much less often brands that weren't seen yet as brands). The cast of most reality TV wear shirts not with actual logos but with made up slogans or catch phrases, the kitchens are full only of specific products, even scenes of "reality" are filtered and blurred.

It is a small item, but it is also a grating one - it shows how divorced our creative products have become from the reality we all experience. Who knows, perhaps this will lead to a generation who demands clothes and items without brands. :)

On a more serious note however, by adding an assumption that "visible brand == payment" it raises new issues of the chinese wall. It is one thing for the supporters of a show to be mostly anonymous to the show itself (clips mixed in, occasionally "sponsored by" messages as in early Radio and TV) but as the brands become an active part of the experience of the show they clearly have the strong potential to influence the show itself.

Further, I wonder how this will change our view of history over time. Plays are studied usually by reference to the text - does this sponsorship "change" the text of Simon's play as performed elsewhere, or just for this run (I assume just for this run). On TV will future reruns (or DVD boxed sets) have logos from brands which fail. Technically I suspect that some shows at least may substitute one brand for another for future reruns (or market segmentation, I think some live sporting events show different ads based on the audience, inserted electronically and not visible to people attending the game)

As well, what happens to the next piece sponsored by a future Enron, Worldcom, or Tyco? We've begun to see this as sports stadiums get renamed/rebranded, but as brands work their way further into all entertainment (and increasingly only there if payments changed hands) this problem will be one that happens with greater frequency.

A great topic.

Shannon

IFTF's Future Now: Google Alerts and keywords of the future

2005-05-24T00:33:00.000-05:00

IFTF's Future Now: Google Alerts and keywords of the future

I left a long comment.

IFTF's Future Now: Google Alerts and keywords of the future

2005-05-24T00:14:00.000-05:00

IFTF's Future Now: Google Alerts and keywords of the future

I added a long comment about this idea of using Google alerts - my thought being to look at somehow using Amazon.com's SIP's as well.

Don Park's Daily Habit - Role-Bloggers

2005-05-22T00:40:00.000-05:00

Don Park's Daily Habit - Role-Bloggers

I left a short comment about the World of Darkness.

Sacred Cow Dung: The Dream: A Email System For High-Volume Email Management | Realized TODAY ...

2005-05-21T23:52:00.000-05:00

Sacred Cow Dung: The Dream: A Email System For High-Volume Email Management | Realized TODAY ...

A great description of a solution to email problems available today.

I use something similar, though not precising the same and I think there are some features here I should look into and consider, as well as changes to my current practices which I should look at doing. But a good starting point for discussion.

piecing IT together - blog from JigZaw Inc launches

2005-05-21T03:56:00.000-05:00

This morning I have launched piecing IT together a trademarked blog from JigZaw Inc and myself, Shannon Clark.

Over the next few days I will be adding many of my technology and business related posts from this blog to the piecing IT together blog.

In addition I will be writing new, long form (typically) posts which will, I hope, help answer the question that even my friends often ask "what exactly do you do, Shannon?"

Topics will include:

Networks
Due Diligence of early stage firms, vendors, competitors, and without naming names clients
Software architecture and design
Philosophy of consulting
Project management methodology
and many others

I may add guest bloggers in the future and expand the blog from just my posts to include other consultants with whom I have worked. Initially the design is pretty basic, I'm using b2 as the software. In upcomming days I'll likely be adding payment and contact details, links to applications we have written, google adsense content (possibly), tags, and hopefully further improvements.

If you have any suggestions - design, content, or otherwise, please leave them there as a comment.

Summation: Power verses Integrity

2005-05-20T22:04:00.000-05:00

Summation: Power verses Integrity

I left a short comment (with some fun links).

Joi Ito's Web: Becoming boring

2005-05-20T20:29:00.000-05:00

Joi Ito's Web: Becoming boring

I added a comment to Joi's discussion of whether or not he is becoming a boring blogger.

Follow Up On "What's Going On At Technorati": Corante > Get Real >

2005-05-20T09:32:00.000-05:00

I added a short comment about odd Google/Technorati behaving to Stowe Boyd's Follow Up On "What's Going On At Technorati".

Crooked Timber ? ? Isolated social networkers

2005-05-20T02:39:00.000-05:00

Crooked Timber ? ? Isolated social networkers

I left a comment here about MeshForum, looks like a blog I should follow.

Chicago Bloggers

2005-05-19T17:23:00.000-05:00

Chicago Bloggers

A nice directory by El/train stop of Chicagoland bloggers. I've submitted my blogs here and have also added the "neighblogs" links to my left hand column from another resource mapping blogs by geocoding.

Working in Cafes - Tues and Thurs - open invitation

2005-05-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

Starting Tuesday May 24th and continuing through at least the summer I will be working, and extend an open invitation to others, from Cafe Mud at 1936 Maple Ave in Evanston.

This is an experiment in creating a virtual community of entrepreneurs and consultants, here in Chicago (or visiting Chicago).

The café has free wifi, good coffee, large concrete tables and plenty of space and power outlets. During the daytime, they tend to be quiet and the overall space is an easy and productive environment.

I have seeded this experiment with invitations a couple dozen consultants and entrepeneurs I know and have worked with here in Chicago. If you are reading this and live in Chicago, or are visiting Chicago, feel free to stop by Café Mud on a Tuesday or Thursday and join us.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - The Problem With RSS Readers Inspired By Outlook

2005-05-19T11:38:00.000-05:00

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - The Problem With RSS Readers Inspired By Outlook

I tried to post the following to Dare's blog, getting an error when I do however.

There are some categories of information we call get you missed:

- SPAM - I get a lot of this, spam filters get rid of much of it, blacklist kills most of it on my blogs, but some still gets through

- Low priority emails - events coming up months from now, amusing articles from friends, general reference articles etc

- High priority emails - changes of location/time for an upcomming meeting, question from my girlfriend, news from family or friends, inquiries about possible projects, responses to proposals or requests, etc (generally speaking a response to what I wrote - a reply to an email, comments/trackbacks about a comment/post I wrote etc should get high priority

On Bloglines - I love it, use it all the time, but there is one feature I wish worked better.

Specifically, I wish that when I "mark something as new" (i.e. keep it around in my primary view) I could do so in way that would behave differently from "new" as in "unseen" messages.) Yes they have a clippings folder/blog which can be used to move items and store them - but since I view the updated page all the time (since it changes) while only view my archives (saved items) very rarely this goes unused by me mostly.

Which brings me to a key point:

- we visit and monitor those views which can CHANGE. When they do, we need ways to quickly and reliably see what HAS CHANGE/IS NEW. (this btw is why I often don't like WIKI's takes a different view and a lot of work to see what is new and changed)

Think about your calendar. If, like many of us, you are the only person who adds items to your calendar then no matter how often you do so, your calendar is unlikely to be a view you visit frequently and often, probably just in the morning when you see what you have planned for the day, perhaps during the day as you add notes, new appointments etc.

However, if you are in an environment (usually a corporate environment) where your calendar is open and other people (assistants, co-workers, bosses, perhaps even clients) can add items and schedule you, then you very likely monitor and view your calendar on a regular and very frequent basis. That view has to show you quickly and easily what is happening, possible conflicts, and perhaps visually highlight "new" items (perhaps "tentative" items) etc.

Generally speaking when we (as developers) design tools we should think about why would users visit and use the tool? If it is "just" for themselves with only content they create then the tool will work and serve one set of purposes, useful perhaps but vitally different than if the tool involves the pushing of content down to the user - then the user has to have ways to work within the tool over time (modern email clients make it easy to see what is a "new" message vs an old message, though many don't clearly show "new" vs. "unread")

Hope this helps,

Shannon

Scripting News: 5/19/2005

2005-05-19T11:19:00.000-05:00

Scripting News: 5/19/2005

Dave Winer is calling for the reinvention of the radio DJ, though he doesn't recognize that.

Tod Maffin is a fantastic source for new podcasts. We ought to organize this better. Somehow we built a centralized system, and we already know that centralized systems suck the life out of communities. How can I ask this question. Tod, I have an hour to spare. What should I listen to? Or alternatively, let's say I want to give Tod my Tuesday walk-time. Every Tuesday he's got something good for me to hear. He had to make a gut-wrenching decision because there are really 18 things he knows I should hear, but I'm only giving him one hour per week. I have six other days. Who else should I give a day to?

Ummm Dave - that's radio. A DJ (or station programmer) fills an hour with what they think you would like to listen to. In a podcast manner it is time-shifted but otherwise how is this different from a radio show? (or for that matter from what Adam Curry is doing with the "podshow" on Sirus?

I see podcasting as something different. I program my own radio via podcasts - at some point in the day I fill my iPod (a 512 M shuffle in my case) with those shows I want to listen to - typically a mix of speakers/talk with music shows, with the occasional "other" (cubscast for my daily dose of sports talk and news, KOMO news for short blurbs of topical news, etc)

Fractals of Change: Are You an Entrepreneur?

2005-05-19T10:47:00.000-05:00

Fractals of Change: Are You an Entrepreneur?

One of my favorite bloggers, Tom Evslin, does it again with his amusing (yet accurate) list of top 10 ways to know you are an entrepreneur.

I should add to his list... but won't at the moment. Lots to think about.

Chicago crime database | chicagocrime.org

2005-05-19T01:54:00.000-05:00

Chicago crime database | chicagocrime.org

Chicago crime data + Google Maps = cool and useful new app

(especially if you are thinking about, as I have been for a while, moving)

48 hours in Europe

2005-05-16T14:04:00.000-05:00

On the Tom Peter's blog, a post aboutthe number of hours you may be able to work in Europe.

I added my comments:

I'm in the US and as an entrepreneur I set my own hours - that said, under these guidelines I would have a severe problem working in Europe.

For one - and this is not such an easy question - "what is work"?

Seriously - as a consultant am I working when I read and search/monitor the web? When I'm thinking about a client's problems in the shower? What about when I attend a networking event in the evening? (Martha Stewart recently had this problem due to her attending an event - she claimed and I would tend to agree - that her attending such events was part of her job)

And for another, a lot of my work and those of many other consultants and IT professionals is cyclical. I spend relatively resonable hours in research and preparation, in the meeting with clients and preparing, but then frequently may have extremely long hours as we reach significent milestones and deadlines. (One project involved a call Friday morning, working all day and night to understand an app which had failed, then all day meetings on Saturday and Sunday to create a solution which could be rolled out early morning on Monday).

Which points to just one of the other issues involved - extra time is frequently needed in the middle of crisis - and it is unlikely that people will be looking at their watches and in the middle of critical events leaving saying "well that's my 48 hours for this week - see you next week" (if anyone I ever worked with did this, I doubt I would ever work with them again. Yes there is a time and often a need to take a break and recover, but there is also at times a need to stay and finish.

Shannon

Some things Dave Winer is wrong about...

2005-05-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

I listened to Dave Winer's podcast of May 14th and I have to disagree with him on many many points.

One, I have heard him repeat many times that "he was the first blogger" and that "all the first bloggers in 1997/98 were using Frontier". Dave is simply flat wrong here. There were people who were keeping online journals (not called blogs but effectively the same thing) for not just a few months but for many years before Dave's blog. How do I know this? At least one of them is a very good friend of mine, Mary Anne Mohanraj (her journal, online since 1995 is at http://www.mamohanraj.com/Diary/diary.html ) and I think there were even a few others who posted online journals prior to Mary Anne.

Two, Dave makes a point which he (and others) have made that there are "not many woman bloggers". (I'm male btw if you are reading this via rss) I looked over the 166 some blogs I read via RSS, nearly half of them are by woman. Further, there are dozens of other blogs I read not via RSS which are mostly by woman. A common trait for many of them - they are not blogging about tech. I think often Dave (and others in a certain circle of bloggers) think that "blog" == politics & technology. Even with the examples of podcasts, LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, Yahoo 360 and a few million other blogs (many not in English) all who are blogging and talking about music, personal lives, loves, writing, tv shows, movies, games, sports, and dozens of other topics.

In that world, there are millions of bloggers, many of them woman.

And one final point.

Three, Dave goes on to put out a call for "non-professional", "not the best quality" etc from podcasts. Perhaps that what he wants to do, perhaps that is what he wants to listen to, but it by no means whatsoever what I as a listener listen to or what I seek out (or when I think about producing content seek to produce). Rather, I look for people who have consistent quality, produce content that engages me, and generally (unlike Dave) content I can listen to as I want to listen - but don't have to drop everything I am doing to just listen - i.e. sound quality stays the same, threads of content don't ramble (too much) and the overall product is very high. As I have posted previously (and commented on many times elsewhere) most of the podcasts I listen to are by semi-professionals (Dave's being an exception).

In a few weeks I'll have podcasts which I'm on going up on IT Conversations - recordings from MeshForum 2005 - like everything Doug Kaye puts up, only the highest quality recordings will go up (unfortunately this means a few of our speakers may not air). While disappointing this is also why IT Conversations is as good as it is.

Dave (if you are reading this), this is not personal, and you are certainly welcome to attend MeshForum 2006 (or other future MeshForum events). I do, however, think that there is a vast and complex world (of blogs and other activities) which you have been ignoring to a point. As technologists we should remind ourselves that at the end of the day it is the vast, complex networks (my personal interest) of people who will be using and interacting within and around and through the tools, platforms, events and technology we put together - their uses may not be how we imagined, most likely they will ignore 90% of what the tools "can" (or as many would say "should" do) in favor of what people actually want and do.

BBC - Cult Television - Doctor Who - Ebooks

2005-05-15T16:42:00.000-05:00

BBC - Cult Television - Doctor Who - Ebooks

Free Dr. Who books! Yeah. (thanks BoingBoing)

In High School I was a huge Dr. Who fan - watched every single episode (including all the pieces to one of the "lost" episodes), bought many of the books, and even met a number of the former Doctors at various events and cons.

So free Dr. Who books are very cool - I'm looking forward to looking at them when I have more time. If I had a PDA at present, I would fill it with these and read them when I had a free moment.

Darci Riesenhuber on TomPeters.com

2005-05-13T19:46:00.000-05:00

tompeters! Guest Blogger: Darci

I added to this discussion about when a public company should take a position on social issues.

I posted about this a few times in comments on Robert Scoble's blog and on my own personal blog (http://searchingforthemoon.blogspot.com).

I think that corporations whether small or large have a significent social responsibility. But even more importantly, corporations have to be consistent and transparent in their positions - when a corporation such as Microsoft claims one set of standards for internal behavior, but then shifts from those positions to a very different one in its external engagement - the message which is sent is one of great distrust, lack of leadership, and inconsistancy. Whether you are an employee, potential employee, business partner, customer or even a shareholder this is not what you (well at least I) seek in businesses. Consistency and transperancy allow me no matter what my relationship with the firm is to understand and make decisions based on clear choices - I want to trust that while a firm is doing and stating one thing it is not simultanously working at cross purposes someplace else.

I also think that as a society and as business people we are misunderstanding the structure of businesses and the relative importance of different stakeholders. Literature and the popular press typically focuses on the "shareholders" - often to the exclusion of all other stakeholders in a corporation. However especially in a firm such as Microsoft (with billions in cash/near cash assets and significent cash flow) shareholders actually should in many ways play only a minimal role in Microsoft's business actions.

Why do I say this?

One, corporations care about their share price (the corporation as a whole, we'll talk about individuals with stock or stock options in a moment) primarily only if the corporation is planning selling additional shares on the open market. Less often corporations may have financial instruments pegged to share price (bank covenents, listing agreements with markets) so corporations do care about some minimum per-share price. When a corporation is planning on using shares to purchase another party then the share price may matter, though again corporations often have many options to finance purchases.

For a corporation such as Microsoft they have cash on hand and if anything are a net purchaser of shares on the open market (to fulfill options issued to employees). Should they require financing, they have bond and bank recourses which they would use prior to the step of issuing new shares.

The power of shareholders at many firms is often overstated. Many firms, Microsoft included, have majority blocks of shares in the hands of a few parties (founders, large mutual funds, pension funds etc) These blocks frequently have sufficient votes to handle all but the most exceptional of occasions. Further, most shareholders sell shares of corporations they no longer believe instead of casting votes to encourage change.

The exception to this is employees and others who have restricted shares or who are holding options. They have a strong, personal interest in specific pricepoints for the shares and may (as in the case of shares held in 401k plans or restricted stocks) be limited in their opportunities to sell shares to express disagreement.

In short, I would argue that for corporations who do not expect to sell additional shares on the open market and do not expect to make significent acquisitions with stock, that they should take a longer horizon view.

As part of this they may as many firms are look at ways to also shift executives and employees away from short term, quarter over quarter share price connections and also tie their interests to long term success (cash bonuses, profit sharing, options and vesting tied to business performance etc).

Firms should also look directly at those stakeholders who will no matter the share price have a direct and immediate impact on the business - namely first the firm's employees and secondly the firm's customers, partners and suppliers.

If the firm can take steps and stands which will enhance opportunities and ease challenges faced by customers and by employees (i.e. in the recent Microsoft case making personal sexuality not a reason for discrimination in housing for example) then the firm will benefit by having more focused employees and more generally by lowering the challenges faced by customers.

At least that's my view.

Shannon

This is going to be BIG! - Who are all you people?

2005-05-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

This is going to be BIG! - Who are all you people?

My answer, useful to have elsewhere as well:

I'm an entrepreneur and consultant based in Chicago. I wear two hats - one non-profit and one for-profit (and actually a few additional non-profit hats). My non-profit hat is MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org) a conference on Networks I started and which was first held at the beginning of this month here in Chicago. We had speakers from around the world, including Esther Dyson and many others.

My for-profit hat is JigZaw (http://www.jigzaw.com) a software and consulting firm I started five years ago in May of 2000. While we started out with angel funding and software ambitions, at present my focus through JigZaw is very high end consulting and the occasional contract software development - typically involving complex data analysis. I describe our consulting as being a bit more technical and in depth than what a McKinsey & Company can offer - I provide business analysis, but also can go deep into the actual code of an application or system to analyze it to make recommendations about whether to enhance, replace or build a new solution to complex business problems.

Our business tends to either be for very large, often Fortune 100 sized firms, or (and this is why I read your blog and Fred's) for early stage startups.

I've been active on the Internet (to the point of managing my own servers) since 1991. I have many friends across the globe who are at various stages of launching businesses. I try to stay up to date on emerging technology, on the VC community, and on general technology and business trends.

(I'm also the technology director of a non-profit, non-partisan public policy think tank - Hope Street Group (http://www.hopestreetgroup.org) and I'm the webmaster for a few other non-profits)

Keep up the interesting writing!

Shannon

Jon Udell: Envisioning information

2005-05-13T15:46:00.000-05:00

Jon Udell: Envisioning information

A trend I hope continues and a company I plan on researching further.

j|turn ? Podcasting is a Bad Idea

2005-05-13T15:30:00.000-05:00

j|turn ? Podcasting is a Bad Idea:

"Shannon Clark Says:
May 13th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
I read about 150 some blogs (about 160 feeds in my rss reader, but ~10 of them are search results etc)

I subscribe to about 35-40 podcasts.

For me they serve very different and equally interesting purposes.

Blogs I read for content, to follow friends, less often for entertainment.

Podcasts, at least the ones I follow, I listen to mostly for entertainment, occasionally to learn. I subscribe to about 20 podcasts which are mostly music - various IndieFeed podcasts, Rock & Roll Geek Show, Coverville, Karin’s themed podcasts, the $250 Million Radio Show and a few others. These have entirely replaced listening to radio for me - they play great music, selected with care by someone who cares and usually puts the music together in a way that is very compelling - great listening and vastly better than commercial radio (though I would be happy if they included ads especially if that meant they could continue to do what they do).

A few other notables - WeFunk (nearly 2 hours of great radio, broadcast on radio but available on the web); The Thomas Edison show - from NJ, a 1 hour show also broadcast on radio but available as a podcast of early turn of the century recordings, many from the archives of the Thomas Edison museam.

I then also subscribe to a handful of other podcasts - Adam Curry’s because I enjoy it, Dawn and Drew because I mostly enjoy it, KOMO news which would be even better were I in Seattle but shows how commercial radio can use podcasting very effectively 30 second to 2 minute short news stories - great stuff and good to shuffle amidst my other listening. And I listen to IT Conversations for deep, rich, highly interesting tech interviews and conference recordings - much more compelling than reading a powerpoint presentation or even a report of a presentation - and vastly more portable than trying to view a small video/web presentation if that were even an option (full disclosure, the conference I run, MeshForum will be distributed by IT Conversations later this Spring).

And I listen to a few other shows like the Podcast Network, David Winer, Benjamin Walker’s Theory of Everything, Le Show from Harry Shearer etc.

A common theme to most of the podcasts I listen to - they are made by people who if not professional radio people are very close, and in most cases have a significent background in audio recording and often in radio. i.e. They put together a well recorded (usually) and compelling show. Some, like Benjamin Walker do a lot of audio editing, others record and do no editing, but all sound good.

I think of my ipod shuffle as my self-programmed radio. For me podcasts offer a mix of music and tech (mostly) with bit of politics mixed in which I can set up quickly and listen to over the course of the day.

So I encourage you to give other podcasts a chance.

One final note - based on the podcasts I subscribe to 15-20 megs is a more accurate average and quite a few that I get are more like 50+ megs. I think this reflects deeper more comprehensive content - might be worth looking for larger podcasts to sample them.

Shannon

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Kicking the Mule

2005-05-13T03:16:00.000-05:00

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Kicking the Mule

added a short comment about taxis in India to this thread

apophenia: identity crisis: the curse/joy of being interdisciplinary and the future of academia

2005-05-13T02:44:00.000-05:00

apophenia: identity crisis: the curse/joy of being interdisciplinary and the future of academia

I made a long comment to Danah's post:

Danah,

I'm outside of academia but have just finished running MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org) a conference on Networks where we made a lot of effort to bring together a truly wide range of academics, business people and government experts around multiple aspects of and views on Networks.

From this a few thoughts - I would argue that the growing study of and understanding of networks which has blossomed in the past 5 years represents a truly interdisciplinary and important development. Social scientists, physicists, economists, and dozens of other fields finding a common language and means of collaborating together to address very real and important problems.

At MeshForum we had a number of people who's careers illustate real work across disciplines:

- Dr. Anna Nagurney of U. Mass - Amherst. Dr. Nagurney is an economist but has professorships in both the school of management and the school of engineering. She has published and/or edited 8 books on Networks - including works specifically on transportation networks and Network Economics. Her talk at MeshForum brought together work from operational engineering, transportation, economics, and many other fields.

- Dr. Noshir Contracter, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Contractor is in the school of communications, but his research interests and works (over 250 papers and books) have been with researchers from many other fields.

- Dr. Eivind Almaas, University of Notre Dame. Dr. Almaas is a physicist but his research at Notre Dame in Dr. Albert-Lazlow Barabasi's lab is on biological networks. Dr. Barabasi's work (see his book Linked) includes studies of computer networks, social networks, and physical networks.

Just a few examples from speakers we had - our other speakers are also great examples.

My own interes (well one of them) is in studying economics through a lens of networks. To do this, I am learning as much as I can about networks in every context - social, physical, biological, technical etc. I expect to adapt techniques from many fields to address the issues I'm studying.

Hope this helps,

Shannon

Smart Mobs: TheAssBook.net: collegiate social hookup networking

2005-05-13T01:19:00.000-05:00

Smart Mobs: TheAssBook.net: collegiate social hookup networking

I left a short note - happy to see that the Scavenger Hunt tradition is going strong (and continuing a long tradition of getting media attention for the University of Chicago - my favorite which unfortunately took place after I was a judge being the time students actually succeeded at making a nuclear reactor - a small one, but functional nevertheless)

Hiring is Obsolete

2005-05-11T01:22:00.000-05:00

Hiring is Obsolete

Good advice. More later.

HotRecorder - Recorder for Skype and other VoIP applications

2005-05-10T01:59:00.000-05:00

HotRecorder - Recorder for Skype and other VoIP applications

A tool for me to look at in the future when I plan on launching one or more podcasts.

Ming the Mechanic: Tax Haven Trillions

2005-05-10T01:52:00.000-05:00

Ming the Mechanic: Tax Haven Trillions

Filing this away for the future - as I write up and think through my views on economics via the lens of Networks, the issue of tax havens may make for a very intriguing paper (or two or three) and/or a chapter or two of the eventual book.

Basically I would claim that by looking at tax havens - both the countries and the businesses inside of those countries - through a lens of networks will offer a powerful and important tool, as well as suggestions for future actions, which will I think provide a better and more accurate view macroeconomics than current economics (at least as commonly accepted and used) is capable of modeling and discussing.

bad fr yr health? on Flickr - Photo Sharing!#comment3480063

2005-05-09T00:34:00.000-05:00

bad fr yr health? on Flickr - Photo Sharing!#comment3480063

I left a long comment on Esther Dyson's recent flickr post on time.

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Waterfalls and chaos

2005-05-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Waterfalls and chaos

an interesting article/paper linked to via Robert Scoble's link blog on the topic waterfall development vs. chaos in looking at how people solve problems.

Interestinglyhe does not mention how I solve problems, or how I have been trained to work on problems - interative development - process development which involves a deliberate process of cycling back - often in a "Spiral" form working out to the solution.

Salon.com Politics

2005-05-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

Salon.com Politics

Related to my comments on Robert Scoble's blog about Microsoft's position, Farhad Manjoo writes a good summary of why Microsoft's position on discrimination is important.

An idea for Networks and the Law

2005-05-06T22:18:00.000-05:00

An idea, some notes and thoughts on it, will work on this further and post more later.

If you take a law firm and do the following, I think there is a possibility of interesting applications of network technology.

First, start by researching the normal patterns of citations in legal cases (Lexis/Nexis has done this in conjunction with an unpublished paper - link will follow)

Using this data, look at the patterns of citation, specifically co-citation (along with results of cases where applicable) and look for the general trends determining whether citations are age related (i.e. frequently cited articles get more citations because of age) vs. the portion of the citations which are due to other causes - i.e. not age but something else such as being a good case and precedent.

Then within a law firm do a similar analysis of the legal documents prepared by the firm (not contracts etc but legal documents which involve citations of precedence - i.e. filings with various courts). Look at the patterns of citation used by the firm - look at the results of those filings (probably available somewhere within the firm's systems). Compare citation patterns internal to the firm with the general patterns from the Lexis/Nexis data.

My thesis is that when you do this a few things will show up:

- certain patterns of citations which are effective - i.e. core cases which should be cited in a given type of case

- some patterns in citation internal to the firm which are different than the more broadly found patterns in the Lexis/Nexis datasets. Possibly including an ability to determine which pattern is more effective (i.e. it is possible that for some types of cases the patterns of citation used within the firm are more effective than the general pattern seen in the Lexis/Nexis datasets)

This historical analysis could be a good baseline for the firm to then do the following:

A lawyer takes a draft document and sends it to the system.

The system looks at the pattern of citation and determines how the draft document compares with other prior internal documents as well as historical documents from the public record - it can then suggest citations which might logically be included, as well as perhaps citations which might best be removed (i.e. correlate with ineffective filings perhaps).

Obviously this it non-trivial and would only work for the largest of law firms, but I think it might be a fairly interesting and probably valuable system to build - and a possible source of competitive advantage for a firm which used it.

Joi Ito's Web: Creative Commons and BzzAgent

2005-05-06T00:11:00.000-05:00

Joi Ito's Web: Creative Commons and BzzAgent

I suggested that Joi get in touch with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association in a comment I left on his blog.

RSS:- sponsor a pundit

2005-05-06T00:07:00.000-05:00

Sponsor a pundit or Dave Winer tries an experiment and I leave a short (for me at least) comment about it.

Scoble asks about Target and blogs

2005-05-05T00:54:00.000-05:00

After meeting with Target, Robert Scoble asked for some ideas for Target on why they should blog.

As I am want to do, I guess reflecting the end of MeshForum 2005, I left Robert a very long comment, repeated below for my records.

A few thoughts. I like Target, have enjoyed every time I have shopped there, but haven't shopped there in years.
- why not? Well the simple answer is we (my girlfriend and I - and before you assume anything, I'm male - name is confusing online) both sold our cars a few years back - as a result we rarely shop anyplace we can't easily walk or take public transportation to.

- But a more complex answer is "I don't know what I would shop for at Target" - why should I go there? Even more specifically, why should I go there this upcomming weekend?

Almost every week my girlfriend logs into the Walgreens website, downloads the circular for walgreens (specifically, I think, for the walgreens down the block from us) and looks for specials and coupons on products we need.

Were Target to have a blog - and more specifically - were Target and especially target.com to have a blog - which featured the stories about their products, perhaps specials, but even just the backgrounds, why I might want to buy it, and reminding me that it is an option - they would get business from me more often. And we're certainly well within their target demographic (and "the Target..") - urban, young, professionals who care about strong design, quality, as well as fair prices. We're not the Walmart demographic - I've been in a Walmart I think once in my entire life.

Recently I purchased, on the somewhat spur of the moment, a jacket from Wilson Leather, in no small part because it was featured in a post to Boing Boing. In a similar manner were Target to have a blog, in which they told the stories of products they sold - especially the everyday, basic, but very well designed products which are one of their specific niches - it is not unlikely that besides the specific readers of their blog, other blogs, perhaps even major sites like BoingBoing would pick up on these items and mention them as well...

(it strikes me as I write this that even more so than Target, CostCo really should blog - they have dozens, perhaps hundreds of items each year which are unique, special, and often extremely good prices - and they have a very specific challenge to consumers that you never quite know which products will be in stock any given time you go to the store (and if, like me, you don't have a car a trip to Costco is a big commitment but worthwhile when I had my membership).

Some models to consider specifically.

- Woot (http://www.woot.com) - they blog, they have an RSS feed, they sell a single item per day - and nearly every day sell out of that product. Why can't a Target or a Costco adopt a similar model - possibly on a per-store basis, taking a cue from Woot of injecting a personal touch when describing the products - yet retaining a highly accurate and reliable touch as well - and offering fair prices for interesting products.

- Design Within Reach. They have a newsletter which is content rich, but also does a lot to convey the mission and passion of their company for design - even beyond just products they sell. The newsletter creates a personal connection and passion for the store even before purchasing products - I feel engaged and interested. And they use this medium for more than just marketing and specific sales messages, they also use it to recruit new employees as they open up new stores - a clear winner as they start by recruiting people who already have formed bonds and ties to the firm, even before working there.

I want to like a company such as Target - but as I said, I am also while favorably inclined, not a recent customer.

To those who wonder whether or not blog readers are sufficient to make an impact on a non-tech company. A few considerations - done well, the "blog" would and could be reached by many different ways - say by including it directly on the pages already present for people who search for details about their specific local Target store.

Blogs for the specific stores, as well as general blogs for Target could also serve as a permanent counterpart to ongoing advertising and marketing campaigns - rather than one-time-use domains as many advertisers seem to try out these days, and rather than rather cryptic but apparently effective ads as Target does today - why not incorporate an online component and counterpart to offline ads - this could be done as a very low cost.

One idea: ad a URL to the end of existing Target ads.

At that URL, a blog which details ALL of the items seen in that spot, highlights the current prices and/or sales on those items, and takes a potential customer through to related products and other specials as well as the stories behind some (all?) of the items - at least those which are unique to Target.

Sure, for the branded items you might (but only might) have to incur a small extra fee to use them online as well as in the spot, but clearly Target in their current advertising is very willing (or at least hsa been in the recent past) to show other brands alongside with the Target circle.

I think a consumer company such as Target should focus on their connection with those consumers - a blog for suppliers & partners is something very different, perhaps useful, but I would think not the best and most impactful place for Target to focus.

Another thought - with a good, accurate and passionate story brands and items acquire a different level of price flexibility. That is, when you know and have been told the story behind a product, believe (and better understand the reality) of why it has advantages over the generic, run-of-the-mill example of that type of product - people have a willingness to pay more because with that purchase they also get the value created by that story.

Now I'm not arguing for spinning yarns or half-truths, but for a firm such as Target when they do invest carefully in design (and I hope as well into quality) they should find ways to tell that story - it likely could result in solid sales without resorting to as many discounts and/or allowing for higher prices. And clearly anything which might allow for higher margins should get Target's attention.

Hope this helps and is interesting.

Shannon

Shannon Clark • 5/5/05; 1:49:31 AM

My main points - Target should blog, possibly on a per-store basis, and should focus on exciting and engaging customers and friends (possible guests). They should look to other, successful merchants who are using the web and online media effectively, and they should consider how to use Target.com as well as individual stores in a way that can create passion - and with that focus on related tasks such as recruiting.

Scoble on Steve Balmer's letter re Washington State human rights bill

2005-04-23T23:01:00.000-05:00

I left a lengthy reply to Robert Scoble's comments on Steve Balmer's letter at Rober's blog

I do not work for MSFT (nor am I currently a direct shareholder, though funds I own probably are) - and I do have the luxury of owning my own firms - that said, I think that large, multinational corporations, especially market leaders of the size and importance of Microsoft are exactly those firms which should not (and I hope will not) be neutral about social issues as well as business issues.
Discrimination and as importantly the growing influence of religious groups are issues which major corporations should take a stand on. There will be some corporations (unfortunately in my opinion) who take a stand in favor of religious influence - if they do this at least in public then I can choose not to invest in, work for/with, or otherwise support them. Likewise, there will be, I hope, some corporations, and I would like to see Microsoft as one, who are active in resisting religious influence and actively supporting anti-discrimination efforts, such as the bill in question.

Why does this matter?

Well, in a global marketplace any large firm, such as Microsoft, employs many people - and will seek to hire and employ many more, who are not Christians, who are not supporters of the religious right. From employees in India to many here in the US a move such as this current position of suddenly being "neutral" can and possibly will be seen as bowing into preassure from Christian religious right groups - and while some of those employees may or may not personally support the bill in question, they will (as I do) wonder what Microsoft will do next? What other bills and issues will Microsoft decide to remain "neutral" on? Will any of them be bills in which the discrimination in question is not against gays but against immigrants? Against non-Christians?

Consider as well Microsoft's marketing messages - if they are a company which intends to provide the tools and systems which will let anyone be anything they dream of (seemingly the message from many of their current TV ads) then perhaps it would be wise to not be seen as being neutral when there is a chance to help pass a bill that would assist many whose dreams and aspirations are denied to them in countless small (and in many major) ways.

I'm straight (and male) - but I have many friends of both genders who have non-mainstream sexualities, gay, bi, etc - and as they (and I) age, form families, have children etc - I want them to have all the same rights available to me, even more so for those who, unlike me at the moment, enter into formal relationships (i.e. marriage) - I certainly don't want them to be denied visitations rights, health benefits, etc.

We (my girlfriend and I) recently considered the possibility of working in England, as part of that process we looked into how I might obtain a work visa should her company transfer her to their London office. In researching it we found that the criteria was simply for us to be able to prove that we were in a longterm relationship - there wasn't anything in the criteria that required anything about gender - just that we had cohabitated for a fixed period of time and could prove that and attest to it (I think the period of time is two years), the transfer didn't go through but we both found the overall impression and the nature of the policy very openminded.

As a result, my opinion of the UK, already good, has risen by more than a bit - for an often conservative country, a very sensible policy which also does not discriminate on the basis of sexuality or gender - is very refreshing.

So just a few thoughts - my view, as someone who might consider working for Microsoft at some point in time, and certainly as a technologist will have to engage with Microsoft on many levels in the future, I would prefer to work with (or for) a company which was not neutral, especially if it is the case as Steve's letter seems to state that he and Bill Gates are personally in favor of the bill - while yes, Microsoft is certainly not a "family" company where the whims/views of a single family or a single founder should hold sway - neither is Microsoft the same as older, less personally established firms - Bill Gates clearly "is" Microsoft in a very fundemental way - and I think it behoves him and Microsoft to avoid situations where they act at cross purposes.

Shannon Founder, MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org)

The back and forth - problems with Microsoft's "fix" for Outlook

2005-04-22T20:17:00.000-05:00

Okay so as many of you know I am organizing a fantastic conference in a few days, MeshForum 2005 (don't forget to register - if you read this, you can use the Academic price of $499.50 if you haven't already gotten an even better offer from me or another group...)

As part of that process I am sending out a batch of 800 some emails this evening reminding people to register and especially to reserve their hotel rooms at the Essex Inn by Monday April 25th to receive the MeshForum group rate of $129/night (again if you read this and happen to be coming to Chicago May 1-4th, you can also get this great rate...).

So, to avoid sending out an email with a blank to line (i.e. by sending to everyone as a bcc:ed message) I am using Microsoft Office 2003's mail merge feature, something I have done many times in the past to somewhat good success.

However, this time around I have encountered a very serious "fix" that is giving me "fits".

Unknown to me, a recent security patch (recent I conclude since it did not behave this way a few months back when I last did a mail merge) has changed how Microsoft Office handles mail merges (specifically how it handles any VBA action to send mail)

It now pops up a notice PER EMAIL that "A program is trying to send email on your behalf..."

You have to select yes.

As a further "feature" the "yes" button is GREYED OUT for 5 seconds each time this message is popped up...

In other words to send out 800+ mail merged emails, I have to click on the yes button 800+ times, and wait OVER 66 minutes while doing nothing but selecting yes every five seconds.

No "yes to all", no "yes to all for the next 10 minutes" or "yes to all for the next 100 messages", no way apparently to change this behavior, no notification about what will happen - just a really annoying new "feature" to attempt to prevent outbound emails/viruses.

Enough to make me seriously consider switching to another application - and I am a serious, heavy duty, power user of Outlook 2003 (over 2 gigs of email, 500+ messages a day, lots of rules and plugins etc) - but if I can't use real, useful, features such as mail merge how I want to - and in a way that actually, in fact, saves me time and effort - then what value is the tool?

Very annoying.

This is going to be BIG! - Pimp My Web!! (Beta)

2005-04-20T17:27:00.000-05:00

This is going to be BIG! - Pimp My Web!! (Beta)

I added some suggestions and comments for this project of creating screencasts to illustrate how to use the web.

Ten really belated things

2005-04-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

My friend Jed just posted a list of "Ten Belated Things" to his journel Lorem Ipsum.

The meme is to list 10 things you have done, that at least no one else reading (and possibly no one else period) have done. So here goes my attempt (this is considerably harder than it may look).

Ten things I have done that most people reading this probably have not done

1. Disassembled a particle accellerator. So, it was a smallish one, but the summer after my senior year of high school I was a summer physics intern at Argonne National Lab. One of my first tasks was to take a part a desktop particle accellerator which had been taking up a lab room. Took about a week to take it fully apart.

2. Started a conference on Networks. (MeshForum, registrations still available)

3. Started a science fiction convention which is STILL happening every year 15 years later. (OPCON, a one day science fiction convention I helped start and named which happens every year at my old high school).

4. Related to that, started and ran a science fiction convention BEFORE I ever attended a fan convention. I had attended GENCON (gaming) and at least one for-profit media convention, but hadn't ever attended a science fiction convention prior to starting one of my own.

5. At my first Worldcon, which I attended as a gopher (since one of the con chairs had attended the convention we had started and she suggested that my friend Dwight and I work as gophers at Worldcon), I spent an hour in the green room entertaining Frederick Pohl and serving him tea. Then at the Hugo awards instead of sitting in the far back of the room, my friend Jennifer insisted that we sit with her dead center of the first row.

6. Also at that Worldcon, witnessed a panel like few others ever in worldcon history - Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson, Some random guy from Tor, and Timothy Leary. Together in one room for a panel on "high wierdness" - my friend Dwight somewhere had a tape of the panel, one of those long lost items I hope to someday get a copy of...

7. At age 30 I have never once in my life been drunk. Not for religious reasons, just out of personal choice made many, many years ago.

8. Worked for seven weeks on an archeaological dig in Isreal. Best diet ever - bad, kosher food & hard physical labor in the desert (even if on a cliff overlooking the Med.) - lost lots of weight, learned a great deal. Would do it again were it not for the 98 % of the other volunteers who were seemingly evangelical divinity school students (I exagerate only a little).

9. Had something I found during that dig, in a slightly smaller form, make the COVER of Archeaology Magazine. A piece of Corinthian ware I excavated (which as we removed it from the ground split into three pieces) had the largest of those pieces featured on the cover of Archeology Magazine.

10. Broke a timing belt on my Acura Integra 108 miles from nowhere in the middle of Washington State on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. And then, when AAA asked where to tow it instead of paying a little bit and being towed to Seatle, I chose to go backwards and be towed to Spokane -where I proceeded to have to spend a week, without a car, in the middle of nowwhere....

I could have mentioned "grown up without a TV" but I think that while rare, others reading this probably have done that. Or "gone roofing at the U. of C." (but I'm sure some people reading this, who were possibly there, have done this as well).

Probably "been on the U. of C. Scavenger Hunt Judging committee twice" would qualify...

A fun exercise...

A VC: Drowning in Email

2005-04-19T08:44:00.000-05:00

I left a very long comment on A VC: Drowning in Email.

The comment:

A few suggestions (I get about 500 emails a day, though a large portion of that is spam and much of the rest is mailing lists not personal emails)

1. If you do not already, use automatic rules to at a minimum pull out mailing lists and other subscriptions into separate folders (I use one folder for each mailing list and some catchall folders like "vendors" to stick general requested but not personal commercial emails, another for event notices/communications etc)

This should help keep your actual "inbox" to just personal emails and non-yet-auto-sorted mass emails.

(and at least much of the time as you get a new form of mass email, assuming it is useful, you should take a few seconds and set up the rule right then)

2. One of the most efficient email people I know uses his own software (Activewords - http://www.activewords.com) to give him a set of standard text he can auto-insert with a few simple keystrokes. He uses this for commonly needed replies (such as in his cas a request for a trial license or his fulfilling an offer for a free full license etc).

By using Activewords, or a bit less efficiently by setting up some templates and/or a library to cut and paste from of your commonly needed replies you can make at least faster the process of replying to many emails.

I use something similar as I manage the email communications re MeshForum (http://www.meshforum.org), the process of organizing a conference means I am sending the same info to many people, by using rapid text substitution I ensure consistency and save lots of time typing.

3. Another trick a sales person I know and highly respects uses is he blocks of time OFFLINE (very critical) during which he both composes emails to people and works his way through his inbox replying to people. By being offline while he is doing this, he avoids new incomming distractions, and finds he can efficiently and quickly catch up. I do something similar at least once a week (and regret it when I don't) during which I go through my inbox, file mail I have read and dealt with, and reply to mail which requires a response.

4. Having a series of checks & balances as well as fairly consistent ways of moving mail out of your inbox as you deal with it is very, very helpful. I try to file messages immediately after reading them (assuming I have dealt with them, or I flag them if I have to wait before replying). I have project folders as well as catchall folders for this purpose.

I also make use of Outlook XP's feature of saved searches to help me monitor for and catch important mail that gets autofiled outside of my inbox, or which gets backed up inside of my inbox (in my case one such search looks for any email with "meshforum" in it that is not sorted into my MeshForum folder already)

5. Some of the people I know who get even more email than me also use multiple email addresses to help manage their email, it all probably shows up into the same tool, but they have "public" and "private" addresses, the private addresses are never published on the web and only given out to family and friends - this can be a simple yet highly efficient way to auto-flag and deal with email from those who are closest to you.

Hope this helps!

Shannon

Robert Paterson's Weblog: Schools on PEI & the Noodle House - The Frog is Boiling!

2005-04-14T03:41:00.000-05:00

Robert Paterson's Weblog: Schools on PEI & the Noodle House - The Frog is Boiling!

A discussion about schools and students today, with a social network angle of a suggestion that classes and gorups over 150 are not possible.

I left a very long comment, quoted below, where I disagree with the value of groups because of the problem of those students (such as my younger self) who are rejected by the group.

I'm not a parent (yet) but some comments from my own experiences (in the 80's and early 90's) in American public schools, as well as my observations since.

1. Groups and cliques have significent dangers and negatives. Not all kids will be "accepted" - being on the out with the whole class (or seemingly so) is not a recipe for a happy childhood, or a good educational environment (I'm speaking from personal experience here from the 3rd until well into high school, I was definitely on the outside looking in)

2. Building on this, people in groups act differently than they do in one-on-one situations. And it takes a great deal for someone, especially a child to stand up to a group of their peers and disagree, go against the tide, or support the underdog.

This means that while yes, a very large, impersonal school has problems, the schools you describe have serious problems as well. Any difference from the group can become a problem (whether the group is a group of punk rockers or the glee club) - in my own case as a child it was an accent, having skipped a grade, being smart, and not having a TV which rippled into not knowing pop culture).

In the high school I attended (http://www.oprfhs.org) grades were very large (650-700+ students), and though divided into "homerooms" for attendance purposes, the unifying ties were activities and to some degree classes taken - i.e. the 100-150 some students who took advanced classes were distinctly different from the students who took the "regular" classes etc.

That said, even within the various groups there were many students, myself included, who were mostly excluded. (if you can imagine it, I was the butt of jokes from the science fiction club, which was not exactly the bastion of the social elite of the school). Nevertheless I did manage to survive and move on - but I have a rather strong concern about cliques and groups.

So while I see the advantages you depict, I am cautious and concerned - there will be more students like myself who will not fit in, who will be on the outs with the group (at times for very good reasons, at times for very trivial ones). A good school should have the support systems and formal structures in place to help such students, both the teased and the teasers - the "in" crowd and those who are not.

I strongly believe that generally speaking people, and especially students, rise the level of expectations which are set. And further, that people while they behave badly when in groups, can and will change, especially if given the cover and the opportunity to break up the group in a positive manner.

Some small examples of ways this might (and does) work:

- celebrations that honor achievements in many fields and areas, so official awards and acknowledgement/accolades are given not just to say the winning quarterback but also the debate team, chess players, academic leaders, volunteers, musicians, actors, etc.

- provide a wide range of activities, as much as possible scheduled and arranged so that choosing to participate in most is not a choice of one thing to the exclusion of all others - i.e. try to find a way to allow even the football players a chance to also participate in the local science fiction club, chess team, etc. That is, don't force students to make a choice of one thing to the exclusion of all others.

Building on this, encourage students to take part in activities outside of their usual groups. Here I would disagree with your suggestions - I would actively and significently promote the school formally finding ways for students to have a chance to work together across groups and cliques. More people have a common interest than most would guess - but all too often we (students and adults alike) judge people in a very one-dimensional manner.

i.e. the cheerleader is "just" a cheerleader, so unlikely to hang out with the "smart kids" (however one of my best friends in high school was a cheerleader who also happened to be in many of my AP classes, shared my interest in film, was very serious about her ballet studies, read Psychology Today for pleasure and in short had many dimensions). Likewise a "science geek" may also be a poet etc.

On a related note, at least when I was in high school, it was still possible for a student to have teachers who were also friends. In my case a philosophy teacher whose intro to philosophy course I took as a sophomore and who then proceeded to teach a number of us an independent philosophy course for the next two years, meeting afterschool, in the evenings, and over the summer to discuss great books and talk.

Not a typical teacher perhaps, but the best teachers, I would argue, rarely are.

Great topic!

Shannon

Fractals of Change: Managing CEOs for Programmers (Continued)

2005-04-13T01:41:00.000-05:00

Fractals of Change: Managing CEOs for Programmers (Continued)

I left a long comment.

Release 1.0 / Event Calendar

2005-04-12T14:05:00.000-05:00

Release 1.0 / Event Calendar

Esther Dyson will be attending and speaking at MeshForum 2005, the conference on Networks I am organizing in Chicago May 1-4th.

If you are interested in attending, registration is still open. Register today for only $749.50 (just $499.50 for academics and government employees).

A VC on Google Map's new features

2005-04-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

I left a long comment toA VC: Cool! post on Google maps' new features, specifically noting how I am using the new satellite images during my condo search.

Speak Up: April 2005

2005-04-04T19:39:00.000-05:00

Speak Up: April 2005

A great discussion by the CEO of Edelman of the future of the PR industry, in it he issues a call for emerging leaders and intellectual capital. I'm not a PR professional, but I am the organizer of a conference on Networks, MeshForum 2005. As such, I am very pleased when the CEO of a firm which is a leader in its field issues a call for growing and investing in intellectual capital.

Projection Rejection

2005-04-02T12:14:00.000-06:00

I left a long set of responses to a discussion on Fast Company Now about Projection Rejection.

(my comments there were posted twice due to a hiccup in my connection)

"To generalize a bit from Chris' suggestions:

- Start with a clear understanding of what the situation is today. This may not be simple to achieve - try to look at what the drivers of the business are, what you can track and measure

- Then look to a discussion of what of those drivers of the business the innovation effects:

Does it increase the number (or potential number) of customers?

Does it expand services to existing customes? If so, will they pay for the additional services/features/functionality? (in many industries the answer may be no)

Does it help retain existing customers - i.e. cut down on "churn" or other costly changes to your customers?

Does it directly affect your relationship with customers? Note, not all innovations will, many may help you manage costs, retain employees, enhance productivity.

If not directly related to existing customers, what is the impact of the new innovation?

Building from that, how will you track and measure that impact over time? What is your starting point "pre-innovation"? (turnover of employees today, time it takes an employee to do a given task, productivity of a line of business, costs of current suppliers etc)

With the above questions answered, you can then look at what projecting forward the innovation could achieve, how to measure and track it going forward, and from that parameters of success. (don't forget to include in your costs the costs/efforts involved in measuring/monitoring - which can in some cases be significent)

You likely can then start to look at qualitative discussions - is the impact of the innovation worth the risks and costs of the innovation? What is the downside of going forward (risking $x, spending time/attention, etc)? What are the upsides? What is the risk if you wait or do not go forward (in many industries, take cell phones, the risk of stopping to innovate is dramatic downturns in your business)

If it is so radical of an innovation that you are proposing that the current metrics of the industry no longer matter (switching from per-minute billing to flat rate in the long distance/telcom market - so metrics built up around # of minutes etc had a diminishing value) you will want to look carefully at what you are measuring (and projecting from) and look for the underlying reasons behind the old metrics when proposing your new ones.

- i.e. the old metrics tracked the drivers of top-line revenue, so to use the telcom model in place of minutes the new metrics would likely have to track # of customers, revenue per customer, "cost per new customer" and churn rate. Metrics you may have tracked before, but which had a different impact previously.

You'll then move metrics like "minutes used" into a different category, one that now looks at the "costs per customer" and might help you identify profitable customers (and unprofitable ones) - and then track the impact of changes on those meatures.

hope this helps,

Shannon"

Delayed actions - an idea

2005-04-02T04:34:00.000-06:00

A thought.

"Could a system be set up to perform web related actions based on input from the web itself"

The idea being that I set up a series of actions. I then define a trigger, the trigger being something which the system managing this can monitor and watch in a fully automated manner, when conditions are "right" my action or actions are initiated without further intervention on my behalf.

Some real case studies to illustrate this idea.

I hold a portfolio of investments. For purposes of simplification let's suppose that my portfolio is relatively simple. However I have an action I wish to execute, in a fully automated manner, but which is significently more complex than a simple order I could leave with a broker (sell if the price hits $X)

So what I might want is something like "If the price of Oil goes over $75 sell each of transportation stocks I own IF that firm does not have more then y % of it's projected sales from hybrids or other near zero emission vehicles."

Or, if I have not posted an entry on my primary blog for more than Y days (or hours), check my publically available calendar for scheduled events, if it is a holiday OR if I have a scheduled event, post to my blog a note of the form "Shannon Clark is on holiday to the .... conference in Florida, will return on ... date"

Or, if my public calendar shows me out of town for more than a full week, contact the magazines I subscribe to (pulling that data from somewhere I publish it), checking first that they have an issue expected to be delivered to me while I would not be home, and arrange for that month's issue to be either held at the post office until my return, or held and my subscription extended. Likewise take care of other regularly scheduled events/deadlines I might otherwise miss.

Does this make sense? Suggestions?

Bloglines - new of the day

2005-04-01T12:06:00.000-06:00

Bloglines | News

"Bloglines Helps Bridge the Vastness of Space".... go read.

But for the best of the day... see the following parody of one of my favorite blogs...

Especially note the "ads" - capture lots of subtle yet well executed parodies....

All in all so far at least a fun, if foolish, day.

MeshForum 2005 schedule posted

2005-04-01T09:53:00.000-06:00

I have been quieter here than usual, mostly due to work on MeshForum 2005.

Just today we have published publicly the schedule for MeshForum 2005

Lots of announcements I am very pleased to be able to make - Valdis Krebs will be joining MeshForum 2005 as a speaker. See my sneak peak and updates on MeshForum 2005 post for more details.

For the rest of this month I will be working almost nonstop. Between projects for JigZaw and all the countless details of planning Meshforum (don't forget to register), I will be very busy indeed.

On Wednesday evening I attended the a blogger dinner here in Chicago, held before the ABA Techshow, it was a gathering of a few local bloggers and mostly legal bloggers who were in Chicago to attend the show. Overall it was a great dinner and chance to mingle and connect with bloggers from around the country (and a few from Canada).

Workbench: FeedBurner Users: Playing With Fire

2005-03-26T16:25:00.000-06:00

Workbench: FeedBurner Users: Playing With Fire

I left a long comment in support of Feedburner and ads.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - William Morrow, 2005

2005-03-20T21:29:00.000-06:00

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - William Morrow, 2005

A book which I will be looking for when it comes out later this year. The authors have a blog and discussion boards already set up.

Micropayment Smart Codes

2005-03-20T19:37:00.000-06:00

Micropayment Smart Codes: New Online Payment System to Help Artists Make a Living

A highly interesting article and proposal from John S. James on a new micropayments idea. I've invited Mr. James to MeshForum as there is clearly a strong correlation between what he is thinking about and proposing and Networks - namely in the structures that he technically is suggesting might be created and maintained.

I have to reread his proposal, and follow it in more depth by reading his defensive publications, but I think there may be many directions for his idea which I am intrigued by thinking about how to explore. In some ways it also reminds me of what my friend Britt Blaser has been talking about for a long time.

Google Scholar: Social Networks

2005-03-11T22:47:00.000-06:00

Google Scholar: Social Networks

And I will search on many, many other topics. Scholar search is a beta search from Google that searches only academic ("scholarly") sources. As I prepare for MeshForum (and don't forget, 50% off - only $750 until March 17th) I will use this search to prepare references for MeshForum attendees, to look for groups to contact as potential attendees, and even to look for some further speakers.

Sometimes in April - HBO Films March 19th

2005-03-10T21:52:00.000-06:00

This evening I went to an advance screening of "Sometimes in April" by HBO Films

When this is shown on HBO films on March 19th - watch it. Buy HBO if you have to. Make friends with someone who does.

Only, while this is an important film to see, don't see it expecting something fun - it is about the genocide in Rwanda - from the perspective of two Hutu brothers. One who was in the military and married to a Tutsi woman, the other a radio DJ (eventually to be tried by the genocide tribunal - the radios were used to incite the genocide).

A powerful, unflinching film. Every American should see it. But see it when you have time to reflect, when you are surrounded by loved ones, and don't have a very full stomach (not without gore - but if a film about a genocide where over 1 million people died didn't have some dead bodies and violence...)

Not a film for children, certainly not young children - though older children will be challenged and probably should see it - but be prepared for very tough questions and lengthy discussions.

AlterNet: Queer Eye for the Green Guy

2005-03-09T23:01:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of WorldChanging a funny, yet to the point article from AlterNet: Queer Eye for the Green Guy.

My favorite line by far "Stop complaining about capitalism and make it your bitch."

Now, I, entrepeneur that I am don't complain fundementally about Capitalism, but I have a lot of belief in much of the green message - but also agree with the problem that this article raises, you have to get taken seriously. The most effective "greens" I know are those who are able to interact with and be treated seriously by corporations and government leaders at the highest levels. Appearance, but even more the attitude behind that appearance, is a real factor in that.

A VC: VC Cliche of the Week

2005-03-09T09:07:00.000-06:00

A VC: VC Cliche of the Week

I offered my comments to this thread about VC cliches.

And the Radiophonic Workshop lives once more from Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent

2005-03-08T10:47:00.000-06:00

And the Radiophonic Workshop lives once more from Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent

Dr. Who is back in the UK - but apparently the first episode is available via a bittorrent. That's good news for a Dr. Who fan like myself, but small consolation since the SciFi channel passed on picking up the series... may be a long time before we see it here in the US.

Torres Talking: MSN - Early adopters and "influencers"

2005-03-08T02:48:00.000-06:00

Torres Talking: MSN - Early adopters and "influencers"

I added my comments to this discussion about MSN - though I didn't get to all of them... as comments are limited to a very small number of characters by msn spaces - annoying, and part of why I typically don't use MSN for my web services.