I recently took a nice, long and overdue break from online living and it was great - everything I hoped it would be and more.
Too much connectivity is neither healthy nor recommended. I come back with the intention to put technology in its place. It is to serve me. I do not have to serve technology. So I had my first real vacation in years and I can report that it was great- I am going to take more.
On that note I spent some time catching up on the latest news and happenings. Although I have given up on the e-mail backlog. During my time off I had a few frantic friends e-mail, twitter and they finally resorted to the phone. I admit it was lame not to tell anyone I was taking a break, but good to know after a time friends would send out a search party.
FOUR REASONS I STAY
I observed, during my catch-up reading a lot of people grumbling about Twitter down time and wanting to leave. Many complained the service was flaky and patchy. I will admit Twitter has its problems. I stick with Twitter through the good times and the growing pains, (not to mention writing and readingabout the reactions) for four reasons.
Free: It is free. Even though I would gladly pay for the service it continues to remain free.
Works: It serves my needs in experimental media. At this moment it does what I need.
Community: My friends and colleagues use the service. Community is everything and I have developed some great friendships and business using Twitter.
Fandom: Most importantly, and the most important reason- I am a fan and I am loyal. True fandom cannot be bought.
IT IS O.K. TO BE LOYAL
It troubles me how fickle people seem to be these days. They are happy to dump something because it isn’t perfect or a service is experiencing growing pains. Twitter started a really neat way of self reflection and more and more people showed up.
Of course we turned it into a new medium for conversation and communication because that is what people do. I think the laws of systematics are in effect. The more people that are present the more complex the system tends to become.
I admit at times it is a virtual “Tower of Babel”. However, new technology comes along to augment the service so communications can continue. It also continues to change how we interact and use the medium. I think it is exciting to be a part of this change. (Hat Tip to Sam Harrelson for introducing me to the service.)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT- BACK TO BASIC TWITTER
Since I am on the topic of going off-grid and the values of self-reflection let me give readers a useful exercise as a parting shot.
Twitter asks: “What are you doing?”
Four very simple words. I thought about them quite a bit on my vacation. What am I doing with my life, my family, my job, my friends, my career or just what am I doing right now? Am I living in the moment? I know at the end I will wish I had those moments back… Life is so fleeting and so fast that I, and perhaps others, often forget to really live in the moment and enjoy just living.
SIMPLE QUESTION- EASY ANSWERS?
I also played with the inflection of the different words sounding out each word and adding stress as a sort of meditation or personal exercise.
Try it yourself and see how the question is changed.
WHAT are you doing?
What ARE you doing?
What are YOU doing?
What are you DOING?
It is intersting how a question’s intent can be changed by a minor alteration in emphasis. So I stick with Twitter. It asks a question, a very simple and very important question.
A post for my family. Each of you can decide which video goes to which person.
Neural Nets Simulation
This is a pretty awesome neural nets simulation. This is roughly what the creator imagined our brain cells work like”…organized chaos
Artificial Evolution with Cross-Breeding by Jonathan McCabe’s
The patterns are made by repeated foldings, rotations and shifts, and then each point is coloured depending on its positions during the operation. A process of artificial evolution was employed to develop the final images, involving repeated variation, selection and “cross breeding” of the recipes used to generate the images.
AI Tetris
However I think the future is shaping up like this- we won’t need to play games, we will have artificial intelligence to do it for us. More time spent fishing I guess, although I like Tetris.
Locale: NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Robert Karplus Lecture: Can String Theory Be An Educational Force Multiplier?
Presenters: Sylvester J. Gates, Jr. John S. Toll, Professor of Physics
Overview of Talk The Public Of A Science Educational Possibility NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Key Slides on the Slideshow
Slide 7: Being Informed By The Public Of A Science Educational Possibility NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Slide 8: String Theory Has Made A Breakthrough In the Public Consciousness * A search on “string theory” at www.google.com reveals 1,080,000 webpages.
Slide 10: String Theory Has Made A Breakthrough In the Public Consciousness * A search on “string theory” at www.google.com reveals 1,080,000 webpages. * “The Elegant Universe,” a book by Brian Greene, was an international best-seller and paved the way for numbers of other such books. * “The Elegant Universe,” a NOVA/PBS television documentary, repeated this success for video presentations. NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Slide 11: Hundreds of popular-level presentations on this topic have been given at lectures, symposia, etc. at universities, laboratories, colleges, libraries & museums. NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Slide 14: ‘Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality,’ (a 12 hour, 24 DvD collection of lectures on string theory at the popular level) generated approximately half a million dollars in sales within six months of its release.
Slide 15: This Raises Questions: “Can This Remarkable Amount Of Public Interest In String Theory Be Made To Serve An Educational Goal?” “If The Answer Is Affirmative Then How Is This To Occur?” For several years, considerations and deliberations on this have occurred for the speaker. A model course was envisioned to test this as a project in curriculum development.
Slide 23: Five Course Intellectual Foci (Examples) CULTURE & SCIENCE The Two Cultures: An Essay by C. P. Snow HISTORY & SCIENCE Leucippus, Democritus & the Atom Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, the Size & Shape of the Earth J.G. Stoney & The Electron NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Slide 24: Five Course Intellectual Foci (Examples) PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematiics in the Natural Sciences: An Essay by E. Wigner Karl R. Popper & Science as Falsification Thomas Kuhn & Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Slide 25: Five Course Intellectual Foci (Examples) RELIGION & SCIENCE Giordano Bruno & Galileo James Clerk Maxwell and the Christian Proposition Einstein’s View of Creation Father Georges-Henri Lemaître: A Jesuit Cosmologist NSTA 2007 Conference SJ Gates, Jr University of Maryland
Slide 26: Five Course Intellectual Foci (Examples) SCIENCE Illustrative `tour’ of the major strands of physics: • Theory of Newtonian Physics, Theory of Thermodynamics, Theory of Electromagnetism, Quantum Theory, Relativity Theory , Theories of Particle Physics & Cosmology NSTA
Slide 49: Interim Report The course is apparently serving distinct purposes for its two populations: (a.) non-STEM students learn they can ‘get it,’ contrary to their own expectations.
Slide 50: Interim Report (b.) STEM students are being forced to confront issues outside of science that are important (history, philosophy, communication skills, fostering serious science related discussion, faith-based beliefs, and scientists responsibility to society).
Slide 51: Interim Report (c.) The unforeseen level of popularity of this course with STEM students has had the benefit that a high degree of peer-to-peer mentoring (p2pM) occurs.
I apologize for the late April Fool’s Joke, but I prefer being out of sync, …(Scott Jangro has a funny video on April Fool jokes and includes some of my own history around jokes). You see why I had to publish something after the day of joking around. I also liked Jen Goode’s Penguin page. However Sam Harrelson sort of blew up every possible neuron I had left for lack of a better word. Hat tip to all you pranksters and story tellers. I laugh and I cry.
So on with my story on collissions and the value of generalization in a world of specialists and why being a specialist isn’t always great…I am thinking out loud because I can. (My Isaac Asimov beard is almost ready for video.)
Attention Serves Many Masters
My recent posts on Twitter and collisions received some play as I found it Stumbled, on many social networking pages and in some RSS feeds. Neat. It also got my attention as I ran through some stats and saw an alarming change in SERPs for my own blog (e.g. Right here.). I admit that I do not pay much attention to SEO because resources are better spent elsewhere and this blog often serves as my own sounding board, or “thinking out loud” place for others I know. I run small and large experiments, try creative approaches, and sometimes just keep an eye out for who (or what) shows up. Primarily I like to explore and share observations or give an opinion. I am not a lawyer.
I do not mean one should disregard SEO best practice- Don’t Be Evil is nice but perhaps too vague or too simple for the here and now. I think best practice might be to try to add to the value of the Internet through participation, discussion, and perhaps some basic common sense.
As a marketer if your site does not follow some basic architecture rules for Search Engines you will miss out on some of the “influentials” (potential collisions) that can happen.
If you rely on “search” as your primary attention tool you are probably missing out on a number of emerging technologies that connect people to people and therefore people to information. There are lots of sources of free information, there are plenty of people, but putting it together takes knowledge, experience and time and perhaps even a bit of luck. (Makes a side note to Ev- what might have caught your attention was not Unicode but perhaps the nature of chance e.g. gambling on Twitter or it could have been pure chance, on a quantum level just about anything “could” be responsible.)
Quick Review
I allready knew that my blog was dated and I have started the processes for cleaning up and proofing it for problems. In short a “force unknown” injected some pretty nasty links into a YouTube video post about self learning and another repeat injection another entry. It was injected in such a way as to be cloaked and the content I found extremely “disturbing”. Having researched, as a trade, some of the shadier sides of the Internet economy it really has to be nasty to make me flinch. This was pretty rude.
I am still tracking down how it happened, but it did get my attention as I realize how difficult it is to make everything secure in a period of hyper-change. The charge of being the steward of one’s own blog is a tough task today. However I realize that exploration means a trade-off in security. I value exploration and the liberty to do so and believe it worth the risk. Life is all about taking risks and the outcomes from those risks determine the future. I am a skeptical optomist.
I am not the only one battling it with issues of security, stewardship and liberty as I note various search engines and large media sites have either struggled, are struggling or trying to find their own way in a very chaotic world or at least one that seems chaotic. Reality is broken to the point of being “fake”. Actually I would argue “reality is not even real”, but that is beyond the scope of this post and my understanding. Remember I am merely thinking out loud.
Quick thoughts for my friends to ponder:
- Assume new rules are in play and have been in play for some time.
- Computers are truly acting and growing exponentially in ability.
- We need to start assuming personal responsability for our actions.
- This will take some time as no one wants to be ultimately responsible.
- Technology is pacing faster than our legal system and even our human brains can handle.
- A good place to start practicing stewardship is at your home- and online your home is everywhere.
- Wayne should heed the very advice he gives, but he sometimes gets lost in exploration. (Smack- because he is only human.)
- It is ok to make mistakes and learn, but try not to keep making a mistake over and over.
The Outcome and Dust
Over the next weeks you should expect some dust here as I clean-up some things, update Word Press and the various plug-ins I have tested, and continue working on streamlining my own “work processes” for better vigilance, productivity and fun. I add fun because I know I will be a better steward if I really love what I do and I really enjoy games. Make no mistake, as much as I like Word Press, a quick search on any specialist’s sites about various security vulnerabilities and it gives you an idea of how fragile the concept of security can be.
Think about this- There is much talk in game circles about “gold farming” and World of Warcraft. What does it mean when people start outsourcing their fun?
Spammers Kindle Interests
One cannot spend all the time dwelling on the negative- much of the media will happily do this for you. This is a part of the learning process and step one is a reality check. No amount of money, formal education or mentorship can replace experience. I could spend all day, and probably many nights, talking about the nature of reality, but I won’t bore you with mental gymnastics or semantics. I will add that I firmly believe in getting one’s hands dirty. It is important not to accept everything at face value. It is important to remain as explorers and to try to understand that the very construct we operate in shapes what we do or do not do. Even technology can obscure what we do, how we think, and our intent. We are not even aware of this layer.
So a nasty spam injection on an entry about informal learning forced me to open my eyes up further to how Search Engineers might have to cope with this stuff from a pragmatic standpoint, from an engineering standpoint and from an internal and external competition standpoint. I can cite cases like WorldCup Blogspit technique, Spazbox or the Kmeth worm as prime examples of past research I have worked on and just how difficult this can be to sort out. Search Quality Assurance guards another very important ecosystem- SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It makes me wonder if the philosophy of “Right Livelihood” can, from a pragmatic view, be maintained and who gets to set the rules?
Quality Really is Relative
I admit years of going after spyware pushers and scummy adware makers may have left me blinded from a more “holistic view”. I go on record that I dislike spam. However, I must see spam for what it is- a key parasite that sends signals about our society and our systems.
“Although parasites are often omitted in depictions of food webs, they usually occupy the top position. Parasites can function like keystone species, reducing the dominance of superior competitors and allowing competing species to co-exist.”
To put it bluntly, as much as I hate it- spam, in certain periods, probably serves a more important function than a WII Mote.
Motivations Behind Spam and Stewardship
I would guess that quick economic gain is the primary motivating force behind a spammer’s actions, however this doesn’t mean economic gain is intrinsically “evil”, it could mean that short-term thinking is not healthy for our species as a whole. This has been rehashed over and over recently in the hot debate around affiliates (note Google’s recent moves with Performics and DoubleClick). From experience I know that affiliates are often “the patsy” for spam, lacking resources they will try and test many systems to survive. However, not all affiliates are spammers, nor are all spammers affiliates. Bad apples do exist, but to lump everyone together is a dangerous road to walk down.
It is important to remember gain can be money, influence, social capital, etc. Where and how it is converted is important. “Right Livelihood” is a philosophical concept you can look up in a basic philosophy primer or probably one of those “guides for idiots”. As I examine my own life and experiences I have come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, what I want to strive for is good stewardship. My father taught me this action by example. He maintained very complex communication equipment over a large region, yet he would never hesitate to do the most basic tasks he would ask of other technicians. When leaving a tower site he always took the time to use a broom to clean the site.
It is odd how small actions I see over and over shape my vision and even other’s perception. I am sure in ways I do not know and cannot know. (e.g. Johari Window Communications Theory)
Power of Collisions…
In my interim posts about “collisions”, and a good and constant reason to be a social collider I happened upon a real-life metaphor on how powerful colliders are being built. I found this via Phillip Lessin’s bookmark on his FriendFeed. (Note my FriendFeed and disclosure of using an Amazon “affiliate link” as a crude form of “attention measurement”. This is like caveman era measurement.)
The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.
Wow. That is some heavy stuff, yet companies are spending much more on mobile marketing. That is a constant you can bank on for a little while anyway.
Yet, and I cite the New York Times again:
“The possibility that a black hole eats up the Earth is too serious a threat to leave it as a matter of argument among crackpots,” said Michelangelo Mangano, a CERN theorist who said he was part of the group. The others prefer to remain anonymous, Mr. Mangano said, for various reasons. Their report was due in January.”
Double Wow. This is the New York Times and while we are looking at weird mobile advertising figures while some physicists are potentially creating collisions that could make the earth a black hole, in theory. What next? The cure for cancer? Even if we had such a cure I think it would be important for many people to talk about it first because we probably couldn’t handle it. I would suggest printing it on the back of baseball cards in some sort of statistical code so people could find it later. Everything takes time and time is a finite resource for people. Come to think about it, baseball might not be valuable so I might use rocks or stone.
The Meme Code- Spam or Brilliance?
A game from the creator of FriendFeed…
I think it is quite interesting, yet I worry about diversity. Note how the web pages are encoded to “die”.
The meme code generates a page from a visitor who arrives from Google, the page will create a new modified and randomized version of itself via a database back-end, and creates a link to it in a visible place. The new page will continue do the same as the old page. After some time a page is taken offline or “dies” although how it dies is not made clear.
Over time several pages would be able to specialize on search niches in the Web – word combonations people are looking for that are not yet covered online are created. This makes “evolutionary pages” turn up in the top results which people will actually click on. A search phrase entered by a search engine visitor is just like food in our nature’s ecosystem. Primarily our ecosystem is full of corn- I might add as an aside. The dynamic process of the meme game means there will be specialized or niche pages to catch this “food”.
A page’s “meme code” will lead it to become a successful species with a lot of offspring, or if not popular it will die and be forgotten…this is not new as Lessig’s game has been around for sometime….even affiliates have been doing it with web services and/or datafeeds too only I doubt they encoded a “termination gene” into the pages. Limited resources and financial incentives would probably force smaller publishers to ensure all pages live and to not practice disclosure because it selects against their visability.
See Kids Forbidden to Use Google this is good food for thought. The comments are even more illuminating. As I collide along I start to make some neat connections and new ways of seeing and experiencing the world. I share them because I am able to do so. I think therefore I am.
How Can You Collide with People and Have Fun? Here is a simple and short list. Five simple concepts or exercises.
Break your pattern: This is much harder than it seems because patterns are so ingrained.
Talk with others outside of your core discipline from time to time. Exchange information. Be tolerant.
Spend some time in the humanities, music, or philosophy to find common ground or evaluate new and old views.
Understand that collissions can be bumpy, but you will grow your business and you will grow. That is OK.
Help someone out. I don’t want get into the philosphical arguments about the nature of altruism (selfish or not)- just help someone or take the time to thank them. It simply makes the experience here more fun.
Example Exercise. Think about Music and why you listen to what you do? How does it make you feel? Today my son is using the Wii to play songs on Guitar Hero. The songs or genres he finds “main stream” did not even exist when I was his age, and when I was a foolish teenager they were considered “taboo”. I am an adult, I am still foolish yet wise enough to know I am foolish, but at any age I can appreciate music.
Here is some music via a video (Semi-Random- I selected it from someone’s Last.fm feed) and it is not a band I follow: Faith & the Muse - Burning season. Do you like it or not? What do the images conjure in your mind? Who listens to this? What neurotransmitters change in the brain when you watch or listen to music? I don’t know- that is the downside of being a generalist in a specialized world. I am asking the same questions because I think they are good questions to ask and by building bridges I can find some experts.
So excuse me while I randomly select someone from Twitter or maybe somewhere else for my next experiment. I plan to use a new O/S, and a couple of dice rolls, and the room temperature to help with the randomness- there are some things in life I don’t want to outsource e.g. being random.
The Edelman & Scobelizer Monkey Phone Call Butler.
a) Dial: Sorry this has been discontinued….UPDATE: I am updating this post to let you know you can now talk to a bot- Spleak. Spleak is a chatbot created by IMT Labs. http://celeb.spleak.com/
b) Cry, Rant, Rave or praise…either way I may or may not listen to you depending on how funny you are or how much time I have…ok I will listen and post interesting responses.
c) Hate mail is not needed, but it is also appreciated.
d) If it isn’t working- give them a monkey phone call. I am not a qualified telecommunications person.
I hope you enjoy this, naturally if it is an emergency- like you stick a pen in your eye, or cut off your knee with a chainsaw, or accidentally eat cyanide- please seek medical assistance ASAP.
Want your own private number for the web, MySpace, FTP if you can figure out a way- whatever… Also great for dating sites- to get rid of losers. Forget it they cancelled their serviced- but we have an alterative- it is called VoIP. Select a provider of choice.
Twitter experiment results are coming soon- the summary is taking longer than I expected. It worked very well. Better than expected…The Renaissance is happening.
While I have an audience gathering I wanted to make a point of citing this really neat hacking post…it really shows how wonderful and how dangerous a position we all occupy and will also greatly improve your chances at winning online games. Seriously.
So, there you sit behind your terminal. Monitoring all traffic in and out, upgrading your latest snort IDS rules, patching your BSD box and drinking exotic beers. Not knowing that you are insecure due to the fact that you’ve installed WordPress, PHPBB or some other software package which can be abused to own your network. All this software had holes, others still do. Code vulnerabilities pop up like mushrooms and there is no way to patch all systems that run it. Everyday a dozen new exploits are released for open source or commercial software packages.
Master of Collisions
Most “social media” types, or even “normal people” will never interface with the old or new school hacking forces. I mean the really brilliant types that really don’t care if you do not know that hash is something other than a drug or a checksum has nothing to do with your checkbook or that Firefox is no longer secure and private as once thought…
Collider Class Ten
You have to have social collisions in order to grow and that is one of my rare talents. I am going to teach you how to be a master super collider. You will become more irritating, yet more humerous and magnetic…and like me you will get to know lots of important, famous, smart and wealthy people. Mistakes are valued and risk is appreciated and your life will be different.
Yes, for those that know me on a personal level, that is how I do it. I collide.
Diversity Trainer
I have worked in film, security, games, e-commerce and long ago I even worked in medicine. I have done some pretty neat stuff with brilliant people. I am good at many things because I can make connections most cannot. It can be a gift and it can be a curse.
Colliders Caused Brain Surgery
Do you want a carpenter doing your brain surgery? No. However, brain surgery started out with people holding saws and playing with drills. If the first guy hadn’t started drilling holes in someone’s head to relieve the pressure we wouldn’t be doing the incredible things we do now- like brain surgery.
Niche is Sweet but Generalists Are Humble
We now live in a world of niche and speciality. I am a generalist, so it is more of a curse by conventional measurement. My goal is to help you collide with others and increase your unique thought by virtue of being curious. Most people just aren’t curious.
What I am offering hasn’t been invented yet, or I am not educated enough to realize what it is. This is what makes it work. Education is powerful, but too much education means you forget how to “try” and remember it is more a long-term process.
Naturally there is something in it for me, several things actually. I want to see if I can replicate some of these traits and create a legion of colliders. This is different than an influencer.
A social collider would ask… Can we do this?
Most people would say no. A collider will do it anyway.
It is Like Candy
When chocolate and peanut butter came together the world got a Reese’s Cup. Who in the hell would have thought of putting them together would kick? I don’t know who did, but in the commercials it was usually some crazy collision and happened by accident as people fell down and required brain surgery.
I will increase your rate of having accidents and mistakes…and show you the wisdom in this. I am like you, very human and prone to error, but how I process errors is probably different.
Good Examples are Great
I will help you find great examples to weld into your thinking and conversations. For example, my new found communications’ wizard Ike Pigott writes the best damn quotes ever. I know I will not get close, but I will try and to show him how grateful I am. I might teach him monetization skills. Things might happen.
More Good but Not Great Quotes
“I want to invert social network theory and get the wrong people talking together!”
That is what I would say. Ike would say, and it is on his blog which you should read….
“Those who fail to re-examine the rules of the game get beaten before they know it. Don’t re-create the wheel, when what you should re-create is your perspective.” -Ike Pigott
Re-Create Your Perspective…that should be on a damn coffee mug and Ike should never have to put forth any money to get his messages into the stream.
Some Attempts at Precision
I will never be like Ike, but I can be unique and I am happy with that. In fact after reading the fragment on social networks I would say something gloomy like…
“The entire social network can be gamed, hacked, defaced, erased or spoofed at anytime at anyplace and you cannot defend against it all. It is software and peopleware vulnerable.”
Did I mention I know all kinds of important security people? I really do. It is a good thing too, because security is hard work and I prefer to spend my time just thinking. Imagine colliding with a mental giants who can solve all kinds of mathematical problems, but mostly like to sit around and read weird comics? I know many of these people and they are wicked smart, that is why they read comics.
You Get to Measure Yourself
Remember that motivations are many. There IS more too life than money, fame or power. Monetary gain is one form of measurement. You get to decide how you measure things. It is all relative and a matter of perspective.
Don’t let anyone tell you different. This is a natural side effect of unique thinking…in fact, one of the smartest colliders I know chooses to live in a house without running water in rural Appalachia.
I really appreciate every glass of water I get at his house! I have to get it from the well myself. He was talking about the stuff you read today ten years ago.
Brownian Motion Rocks
Think about that…All you need to do is spread the thought around and break your patterns. Once you do you can make remarkable and unusual observations like I do all the time. I am not a genius I simply know where to accidentally “fall” and my life is more interesting because of it. It appears to be brilliant.
You will get to meet rich, famous, and brilliant people if you wish…if it were anyone other than myself (who grew up poor, obscure, etc) I would be very skeptical. Skeptics are good. Skepticism is the foundation stone of a collider. This is your opportunity just listen and then act over the next weeks. I will tell you what to do.
Why Collide?
Because I am feeling lucky and I have to do things like this when that happens…I am even growing a new beard to celebrate my luckiness factor.
Steampunk style. It is a trend I have known about for some time. This is the kind of stuff you might be the first to discover.
It was very cool being a part of “Fleep”, Chris Collin’s, “first epiphany” and doubly ironic since she has been such a positive force for me and I dedicated a Second Life Satellite Convention to her and other teachers and people who have had a positive influence on my life.
I have cited a sample below, but there are many, many more at the Twitter Cycle list and I urge you to take the time to read it.
Heather Dowd - heza - Started tweeting (twittering?) in February 2008 after reading about Twitter before going to the IL-TCE conference (ICE - Illinois Computing Educators). I was thinking of giving it up, but maybe I will just stay on this curve. I think I am currently in the “who are all these contacts?” phase.
Fleep Tuque http://twitter.com/fleep - First Tweet: March 11, 2007 First Epiphany: Crossing paths with Wayne Porter First Evangelizing to Educators: Posting on the SLED list Now closing in on 700 followers, have gotten much more selective about what I tweet. What felt like a conversation among friends or friends of friends now feels like a shouted conversation in a really crowded party where I know some of the people but not sure who all might be able to hear me. Still find it incredibly valuable, but not sure what I should be adding to the network.
Joel Zehring - http://twitter.com/joelz - Started April 27, 2007. With very limited time, should I blog it or to twitter it?
Phillip Long - http://twitter.com/RadHertz - First Tweet April 24, 2007. Had to look back to find my first Tweet (424 of them). That’s 50,880 characters of Tweeting (if ea were 140 chrs. long). Wow!
Colleen Carmean- http://twitter.com/carmean - First Tweet May 15, 007. Stopped in now and then. Got sucked in more and more, especially via distant connection to friends at a conference. Got scared cuz I’m a wimp (see Jim Groom’s thread), now sneaking back in slowly to get my dose of tweets. Still murky. Going to use it to connect to my online students next few weeks and see if ‘learn by doing’ will wipe away fuzzy understanding.
Chris’ Basic Adoption Pattern:
- Joins and answers the standard question- What are you doing right now?
- Has an epiphany, among many I am sure, looking at the chain of collisions, when we “cross paths”.
- Begins to evangelize to other educators about the power of Twitter
- Now has over “700″ followers, which is quite a few people, making her an influential educator.
- She notes that it now feels like a crowded conversation.
- She is now much more selective about what she “tweets”.
- Not sure what or who she should be adding to the network…
So-Called Social Media Fatigue
This seems to be a frequent cycle people go through and I think it is a misnomer to call it “social media fatigue”- it is more about going in without strategies and good tools. It is all also dependent on what and how you plan to use Twitter, or any nano-blogging or micro-communication platform. Tactical formation of your network and even how often you use the tool is predicated on your strategic goals.
As an educator Fleep can certainly gain insight by following expert marketers, administrators, analysts, futurists or people OUTSIDE of her core competency. That is one of the most powerful aspects of Twitter. Whether you get it or not, it is an important shift.
Fleep may not use it like Gary Vaynerchuk a master marketer, or a technology futurist and author like Sam Harrelson, a video maven like Steve Rosenbaum, a famous virtual worlds designer and pioneer, an academic administrator and Hebrew scholar like Chris Brady, a reknowned security ace like Chris Boyd, a technologist and publisher like Steven Hodson, a seasoned programmer and developer like Ruud Hein or someone like myself. (I am a bit hard to define.) The great thing about Twitter, or the nano-sized communication format, is the ability to get a little bit closer to some amazing and diverse people!
“Twitter allows you to form bridges into new social networks and the chance to build diverse and rich relationships.”
Wayne’s Top Tactical Twitter Tips
Try to avoid over-use of the @symbol, although it is o.k. for “micro-conversations” to break out- they will happen. You can also use brackets like [@wporter] or send a direct message.
Don’t tweet every single blog post or photo upload, etc. unless you know your audience really well.
Avidly look for interesting people outside of your normal network so you are exposed to new ideas.
It is o.k. to emit some “noise”, after all part of the medium is to be fun, but avoid sending so much noise that people stop following you. You will develop your own “style” as you go along. Be human.
Look at your blog posts and tweets and see if you can correlate jumps in your “follower” growth or a trend in the “types” of followers to other activity in media.
You do not have to follow every single person on your list. You should frequently review new followers and see if you can find interesting people, and even if you don’t follow them, you can certainly stop by their blog or page.
Ensure your Twitter URL points to a site or page where potential people evaluating whether to follow or reciprocate with you. This way they can get more information about you and make a better decision. They are about to make an investment in their time so help them make it.
Occasionally reach out and spend some social capital by helping or simply a “thank you”. For example, thank someone who inspires you with their writing, or someone who helps you out, that you admire, or you find contributing to the commons. Sometimes they will respond in surprising ways.
Find technically advanced users or resources that will teach you how to effectively handle all of these emerging technologies like a pro.
Be genuine, be polite and have fun.
Summary
I hate the term “social media”, but it has stuck so we are forced to use it… I think the final take aways are to get your hands dirty, explore people and thoughts out of your normal haunts, and make contributions when and where you can.
“If you are always in your comfort zone, you are not getting real value out of services like Twitter.”
For Fun
This post’s random Twitter person… I don’t know them and I have never read them, I went to the public timeline and pulled out a name… mayobrains. Patricia Mayo “My Brain is Random Access - New Media Publishing smarty, Social Media Strategist @nowsourcing, Wordpress podcast co-host, Serial Entrepreneur, & workaholic, etc”.
Another cycle begins…
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sometimes i hate blogging. scoble nailed it this morning
thinking about rolling it all up into one crispy paper ball and throwing it into the fire.
whatever it is… i guess i’m referring to the blogging aesthetic. so completely f**ked up and unnecessary.
didn’t we invent this blog s**t to counter the stogedy crap that was flowing from the pro’s?
what happened to punk blogging?
we sold out.
for shame.
fix it?
Let us recall the roots of blogging.. Blogs originated from Zines, Chip Rowe, Book of Zinesmight be our key text…Fix it? Merely return to the roots, return to the muse…perhaps return to the “creative fringe”?
Quality is relative…
Amazon.com on Book of Zines
When asked why 90 percent of science fiction was crap, Theodore Sturgeon replied that 90 percent of everything was crap. With zines that figure probably rises to about 99.9 percent. Luckily, we have editor Chip Rowe to sift through the detritus of the zine world and distill this entertaining volume. Included are selections from such well-known zines as Beer Frame (wherein the author discovers the horrors of canned pork brains in milk gravy)…
Card catalog description
Just below the surface of the mainstream lies the eccentric world of zines - homemade magazines created for fun rather than profit. Distributed largely through word of mouth, zines touch on everything you’d expect from a copier counterculture - sex, music, politics, dating, TV, movies, work, food, drugs. The Book of Zines collects, for the first time, the best writing on pop culture from more than 60 choice zines, including Beer Frame, Ben Is Dead, Bust, Cometbus, Crank, Crap Hound, Farm Pulp, Murder Can Be Fun, Pathetic Life, and Rollerderby.
Once again Sam Harrelson talks me into a late night look at Next-Gen Marketing with a few practical examples over at Revenews. Long one- so good time to change the oil on the car (time shift) and listen…some might find it very relevant- no matter what reality you exist in, or think you do.
Sam says: “The podcast runs about 90 minutes and we discuss Wayne’s conception of Next Gen marketing and possible futures of online and affiliate marketing.”
Wayne says: “As usual, this podcast runs about 90 minutes and we discuss science fiction books, Next-Gen, games, my experience with ARGs, multi-verses, engagement from twitter to Second Life, Sam finds value in an OPML file, engagement metrics, incubation of fan bases, engaging smart people, Twitter, personalities, a bunch of books like: The Book of Zines, The Adventures of the The Stainless Steel Rat, Media Virus, etc. Not that many would care, but for the observant we also plod into Assyriology, cuneiform, ancient civilizations and why that crap is important to us. As usual I interrupt too often (why does he always catch me tired?), but we move along and didn’t even touch Mobile Marketing or iPhone stuff or blending it with RSS. At any rate this is sort of what “industry insiders” talk about…sort of.”
Another good cast, and Pinnacle Best Blog Award Winner- Sam Harrelson, speaks (what are you cloned or what?) at AffiliateFortuneCookies.com giving more clarity as Next-Gen, Virtual, Affiliate, and A Whole Bunch of Stuff Most Can’t Even See are heading for a whacked out, giant ajax-style real-world mashup collision thing. Maybe.
Rick van der Wal, aka Digado, a blogger I have great respect for, recaps Ren Reynolds lively taxonomy discussion at Terra Nova:
* Game world
* Lucid World
* Metaverse
* MMORPG
* MMO
* MOO
* MUSH
* MUD
* WoW
* RPG
* HUD
* RCE
* RMT
* Synthetic World
* Social World
* Thick Virtual World
* Thin Virtual World
* Virtual World
If you can get past the emergent nomenclature I suggest you read his entire take-away on immersionism and augmentation and the comments.
The Views
He notes and adds, as I believe, they are NOT mutually exclusive…
Immersionist’s point of view
Virtuality is… a new reality, a new world (or as Philip Linden/Rosedale once said - “A country”), a new frontier.
Most common issues: The Avatar as a person, new builds and ‘In-world’ developments, in-world authority, the community and underlying relations, the future (a long-term time frame of 10-25 years from now).
Virtuality is… a tool - a medium, a game and an extension/evolution/continuation of the internet and communication.
Most common issues: Perception of mainstream media, elevating the platform of Virtual worlds as a tool/medium, how virtual worlds influence the real world - economic, education, entertainment for ‘real people’, the timeframe of now until 3 years from now.
Key elements: Adoption of Technology, opportunity, verification, research, return on investments, benefits of virtuality, cross ‘realm’ communication.
Boiling It Down
1. Immersion and augmentism are not mutually exclusive.
2. Immersionists are a movement based on escapism.
3. Augmentists are opportunists.
Rick I think they are blog worthy issues and thank you…as I have been trying to find a good blend of “not mutually exclusive.” None of these schools of thought are “black and white”. That is why I think VR communities should pay attention to the thought leaders struggling with revenue generation and Web 2.0- and pollution- not to mention concentration risk. See my latest on Revenews.
“Reality is fundamentally broken, and we have a responsibility as game designers to fix it. We have a responsibility as the smartest people in the world, the people who understand how to make systems that make people feel engaged, successful, happy, and completely alive, and we have the knowledge and the power to invent systems that make reality work better.”
“Computers the size of blood cells will create fully immersive virtual realities by 2033,” leading inventor Ray Kurzweil has predicted. If so this sucks for me. I am to late. Death = phail.
“Today you can put a pea-sized computer inside your brain, if you have Parkinson’s disease and want to replace the biological neurons that were destroyed by the disease.”
He said a billion-fold increase in computing performance and capability over the next 25 years coupled with the 100,000 fold shrinking, would lead to “blood cell-size devices… that can go inside our bodies and keep us healthy and inside our brain and expand our intelligence”.
He said the blood cell computers would be able to “produce full immersion virtual reality from inside the nervous system”. People have more freedom in virtual worlds. He said the games industry had to be thinking about the future development of computing now.
“The games industry fits in well with the acceleration of progress; in no other industry do you feel that more than games.” Mr Kurzweil, who invented the flat bed scanner and text-to-speech synthesis, said the virtual world was a misnomer.
“In virtual worlds we do real romance, real learning, real business. Virtual reality is real reality.”
He added: “Games are the cutting edge of what is happening - we are going to spend more of our time in virtual reality environments. “Fully emergent games is really where we want to go. We will do most of our learning through these massively parallel interactions.”
“Play is how we principally learn and principally create,” he said.
Mergers Take Time
The merger is already occurring…in very small steps. Here we get a glimpse of conversation on discordant issues. Avatar to Avatar or human to avatar- anyway you want to slice it.
…often cannot be measured, let alone seen. We can only measure some of the after images.
Many messages are never heard because they do not rebound back or recurse to the media in a plain or readable format…nor can the impact be measured accurately due to hidden impediments. No other commentary from me. This is a hidden conversation made open. Anonymity assured. Tiny alterations made. You normally would never hear any of it. You would only see the after images… I am not going to make any comment on what it means. e.g. FIC.
I left a response for Jason Calacanus here on feedback. No, I am not angry at Jason, but I don’t need to thank him for what I, and others have been blasting on about for several years…in the trenches fighting some very, very bad stuff. Search engine spammers and good content taking over ranks? I have a collection of busts that make SERP spam child’s play. Nor do I need to benchmark myself- but feel free. I open sourced myself awhile ago. Painful to do, but I did it.
What I really want to do is to be able to thank Jason, Mike Arrington, Robert S, and all the other technical evangelists in the valley, for getting involved and dialing up the pressure- but doing so in a way that preserves those who act with integrity, and not wiping them out because they are “small”. We can usually spot spam right away, but the idea that people can define the quality of my aesthetic is not where we are going. The leaders need to lead and smaller is fine.
I also see no problem with Mahalo and as noted below, and blogged here somewhere, it passed my annual “malware” around “game cheats” stress test. Admirable. I even offered up Caledon at Revenews as a prototypical community of curators and content makers. Sam Harrelson notes the challenges and I simply say Jason- don’t forget community. Community is content. It might be hard to grok, but you have my digits now- happy to explain what I discovered.
I didn’t make it to the keynote, nor did we get a chance to speak at the dinner, which is a shame…what you said is nothing new to me however. Actually, in many ways it seemed to be naive….e.g. “but also the FTC, which doesn’t take nicely to covert marketing.”
Really? I was on the Spyware Panel with MSFT, AT&T, MIT and Webroot…two or three years later, at Esther Dysan’s summit, I sat in line with Eric Howells and said “WTF? Why are we still playing this game of semantics? Three years later?” No- the government is not going to stop it.
At any rate I am preparing a blog post on what Sam archived, plus some additional rambling stuff…but obviously I just don’t have as much social capital as you and that is ok- my job is to influence the influencer here. You can help by listening because I know the core of the problem far better and if a strong influencer, like you, and others in your sphere would talk with the right people, work with the “affiliates” (btw- merchants are my affiliates- that is how I see it.) and understand the issues on a very granular level- we might win this war. Because as one who started very small and has been all over the major press for years, at panels, summits even speaking at RSA. I feel I have failed…and I am worn out.
This is why I hate the A list label and think it is bad. Basic network theory says elitist groups becomes cliquish and homogeneous and there are no bridges for carriers of new ideas or viewpoints to enter. (Network gets too big- you can’t control it.)
Hopefully I can stay up long enough to finish it at Revenews. Creating Mahalo is nice, and hey it passed my malware test for gaming cheats, but it isn’t enough. I expect more from you and I think you are missing a core component.
If you and other tech. evangelists, etc do not step up TOGETHER and work with others- it will be toast or the reaction is going to be full of collateral damage that really sucks because there is nothing wrong with starting out small and working hard and doing it on your own dime. Every giant company was small once.
This is beyond money, this is Snowcrash, this is a digital society in decay.
Old books show us the pattern and we are at an inflection point- pay attention at the very least, but I am asking for action instead of apathy. It isn’t all about search and content and how timely for Esther Dyson to invest in the social- the same Esther I spoke with years ago. I don’t need to search and click as much if I have a community of trusted peers to ask. Steve Boyd notes “years ago” and we are about to pass over that horizon. The pattern was written long ago:
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor Books): Ender Wiggin battles it out with the Formics in this Hugo-Award-winning novel that is perhaps the quintessential guide for the new blogging metaphor. Pay special attention to Peter and Valentine as they control the nets through alternate personas. Make special note of the protagonist’s psychological development and monitoring by the “Mind Fantasy Game.”
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Bantam Spectra Book): Snow Crash is a fast-paced romp through cyberspace laced with satire and dark humor. The novel weaves everything from Sumerian mythos to visions of a postmodern civilization ready to fall. Readers should pay close attention to the Sumerian elements and how the culture of Sumer used a primordial language for control. In addition, the novel explores themes of reality, imagination and thought, all in the context of a virtual world experiencing a state of rapid decay. This has useful applications when studying the groups and behavior of citizens in a purely digital world like Second Life.
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (Putnam Adult): The science of pattern recognition aims to classify data based on previous experience and through statistical mining of patterns. In this contemporary novel, the readers explore the concept of “cool spotting,” which has been in use in marketing for many years, through the eyes of Cayce Pollard. Pollard is an incredibly intuitive market-research consultant. Marketers should get an idea for new metrics and perhaps new ways to measure the efficacy of campaigns as well as the importance of looking ahead for future trends.
And it is…all in the context of a virtual world experiencing a state of rapid decay. Who do you blame?
Sam Harrelson ferrets out the kind of stuff that really interests me with a take on Darmik.
Rather surprising, as I recall the ZeFrank issue too. Google Checkout appears to have opened their doors…and I like it as transactions seem to go as low as 10 cents US. Nothing like pushing pixels…can someone hook me up with the Google Base guys?
Darmik is an incredibly profound and interesting experiment in selling, music sharing, job listings and virtual economy.
Last year, Ze Frank was booted from Google Checkout for attempting to sell virtual duckies on his popular video show because he wasn’t selling a real world product or service. PayPal allowed him to do this, but Google Checkout had a problem with his actions. That was later remedied and now Checkout allows for the selling of such virtual “services.”
Darmik throws that to the wind and opens the doors of virtual commerce and classified listings…
Using Rapleaf for reputation management no less…more on Darmik.
Darmik gives sellers of digital content the ability to credit rights holders as well as rights holding organizations with funds from the sale of digital content
Darmik uses an affiliate and supra distribution model that creates the possibility of an infinite amount of sells and distribution channels.
Any content, digital file or product listing that is entered into Darmik can earn multiple streams of revenue many times over.
Darmik gives content owners and sellers a powerful and easy to use product and listing management commerce platform that allows for the organization, pricing, and distribution of both real world and digital Products.
Darmik product pricing, and distribution administration system allows for the centralized management of the entire sales and distribution process.
Darmik members only need to log in one time to purchase content from any site that is Darmik enabled.
Darmik can be used by companies and organizations that need a fast, easy and flexible way to sell or distribute real world products, digital content, and listings internally or externally.
Sam goes on to say:
However, with the growth of MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies (my favorite… yes, I know it’s a horrible platform but I still enjoy it) and EverQuest along with developing virtual worlds such as Second Life, these sites could continue to grow and expand in popularity.
Perhaps one future of affiliate marketing is selling less of virtually more. Content creation will continue to become democratized and PayPal can’t handle the load in a monopolistic fashion forever.
For the many who scoffed or wondered months ago what or why I cared about virtual worlds- well now you have a clue. Sustainability is the next equation and I am getting close to solving that one- I think.
Virtual or Real…Virtual IS Real. It is all negotiated.
Posted in Blogging by wayne.porter on February 26th, 2008
Yes- I am back at Revenews kicking it off with the Wayne Porter Marketing Legend Award. (shakes head). Check out the winner this year- Brian Littleton.
On that note another thank you to ContentRobot- makers of this rather nifty Plugin and Theme for WordPress to make it nice and optomized for iPhone and iPod touch.
What Does the iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme Do?
The iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme automatically reformats your blog’s content for optimized viewing on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. It detects the iPhone/iPod touch’s User Agent and serves up the content with the special theme only to iPhone and iPod touch visitors, all other browsers will view your WordPress blog with your current theme.
Please keep in mind that this is an early beta release (v0.1.2) and provides basic WordPress functionality. We will be enhancing it quite a bit, so keep checking back for an updated version. If there is a feature that you want added, let us know in the comments below and we will do our best to implement it. Also, if you are using our plugin/theme on your site, add its URL to the comments.
. First post and I can say- yes it is nice. Still some tweaks left too do, (e.g. fix individual RSS) and some positioning and cleanup, but already you can tell the difference.
They note:
We have been working hard on performing a Movable Type 4 to WordPress conversion project for our friends at ReveNews.
This has proven to be another project not for the faint-hearted with 10 years of data, 72 blogs, over 2,500 posts and over 10,000 comments!
Yes- it is quite a task and I am happy it wasn’t me. Almost a decade of content really gives you headaches. I am getting old. This co-founder of Revenews thanks ContentRobot as well. /tips hat
Every year the AffiliateSummit grows, and Summit West 2008 is no exception with approximately 2,700 people in attendance. As it grows, social networks change, and it gets harder and harder for me to meet new people, and sometimes the veterans of the industry…simply finding them…
With that in mind please feel free to be proactive and contact me via Linked In in case we do not get the chance to meet. Some may not like the platform, but it works well for me. Linked In email wporter@gmail.com to expedite the process. Feel free to drop me a line via e-mail and also Twitter.
Either way the Summit is simply too large in some respects feel free to go ahead and link-up. I look forward to meeting either in person or virtually.
Andrew Wee makes an interesting observation about Facebook and how painful it can be to face mountains of invitations for applications, which he likens to Google Adsense blindness.
Being hit by irrelevant application invites, and with Facebook system where multiple people can keep sending you invites to the same app over and over again, and the best part is that you have to deny/ignore each application request one at a time, means you could be spending 15 - 30 minutes each day just getting rid of application requests…
So is this effective social marketing?
Should you still go out and develop a facebook app?
Effective? For the short-term- yes. Long term- no. Should you develop an application? Yes, but Facebook should be more astute and take a lesson from Dunbar…
Andrew notes that I like a certain game and asks for feedback:
Social marketers, I’m keen to hear what you’ve to say, maybe Jim Kukral, Sam Harrelson, Wayne Porter (whom I know is addicted to a particular insidious Facebook game…), Stephanie “Internet Geek Girl” Agresta, Robyn “Sleepyblogger” Tippins, Shawn Collins, or if you the reader might like to weigh in, drop a comment below…
Ironically the same game Andrew mentions I am addicted too is a game he had already mastered. Who knew we shared an interest in a certain insidious Facebook game?
Dunbar’s Number
I get many invites to groups, games and friend requests, and I don’t think I am near Andrew’s friend count of over 300. That is a significant being double that of Dunbar’s number. Dunbar’s number, approximately 150, represents a theorized cognitive limit to the number of individuals that one person can maintain stable social relationships, the kind of relationships that go with knowing who each person is and how each person relates socially to every other person.
Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (4): 681-735 .Dunbar used the correlation observed for non-human primates to predict a social group size for humans. He predicted a human “mean group size” of 148 (casually represented as 150), a result he considered exploratory due to the large error measure (a 95% confidence interval of 100 to 230). Note it is exploratory because of the margin for error and this should serve as a caveat. Christoper Allen does some deep analysis and notes that 150 is probably on the high end if one is looking for group cohesion.
“hovers somewhere between 25-80, but is best around 45-50. Anything more than this and the group has to spend too much time “grooming” to keep group cohesion”
Posted in Future Shock by wayne.porter on May 10th, 2008 