Information Overload

When did it really hit me that I'm feeling the pressure of information overload? A few weeks into deciding to write a weekly blog post for work. It's pressure. There are so many industry blogs and articles out there. Where do you go after covering links from your favorite blogs? You can't just write about topics and provide links from the same 8 or so blogs. I'm starting to think I can and want to. I like simplicity. I like Occam. I like diversity, but when I can do it at my own pace. The weekly business. Sheesh. Too much information. I like to find 8 or so sources and stick with um. Stability, structure and repitition in order to eventually free up my mind to come up with my own thoughts. Chaos leaves me feeling ADHD or ADD or whatever in the hell it is every kid supposedly has these days. I need to go check my Google Reader; got a blog to write tomorrow.

Ignore Everybody - 39 Keys to Creativity

Today I swung through BookPeople on my way home from work. I came across a book called Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity while perusing gapingvoid.com. I'm a fan of this guy, Hugh MacLeod. He' funny. Witty and doesn't seem to give a flying you know what about what others think - that's always inspiring.

In the book, one of the keys is the idea that there isn't going to be a big bang moment where your idea hits it big, or where your life says, "Well, you're a real life adult. Here have some honest to God freedom." If you're waiting to be discovered, it'll likely be a long sad wait.

Growing up, I always thought that once I reached my mid-20s I'd have that ah-ha epiphany moment. It'd be like having an idea hit it big, having it go viral. It'd be the moment things click, fall into place; you're older, wiser, have it all together (especially in this head of ours), have freedom (more money), have...a bunch of shit basically. That's all it really is - shit. Stuff, plastic, cotton, wood, metal, more plastic and a lot of high fructose corn syrup. Branded. Labeled. Seduced. Bought. Utterly middle class.

But, it all just flows together.

A demarcation line does not exist in my mind where I can point to and say, "Ya see! Right here! It's when I had this epiphany I knew I'd have as a boy." Nope. Nada. It all flows together. No promises.

I'm Fat and Nobody Likes Me

HR Departments...

Or anyone in a department that has arbitrary control over some facet of a business...this quote...it's exactly how I feel about an HR department:

Question: Do you think there’s a position for CTOs (chief taste officers) in companies?

Answer: Probably, but then here’s the tricky part: who do you appoint to find and hire them? You have to understand elegance first to find it.

Philadelphia Union Logo FTW

(Image from ESPN.com, click for full story)

Thank god for the Philadelphia Union actually designing a logo based on some sort of historical precendence rather than caving to the big shoe companies.  Everything doesn't have to be commercially shallow, right?

Emptying Out My Head: X's and O's

I came across this link on Twitter: http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/05/06/school-of-art-and-design-creativity-test/.  Using X's or O's, draw as many things as you can using said "shapes."  It'd be cool if I could pull out an internet pen, start drawing on my screen, attach that image to this post and then boom, release it to the world.  Alas, I cannot.  So, the word association game.  Write a sentence.  Any sentence.  There are a lot more than 27^140 options.  Take the last word.  First thing that pops into your head, run with it.  Hand in hand.  Create the next sentence.  Ready? Go!

laying on the futon listening to a tribe called quest.  love of the roots crew.  not j.  that place is too expensive.  like fine wine.  flu.  the coop.  or the co-op.  robo-co-op.  perhaps a bit too shiny for a photo-op with that devastating silver suit.  like the surfer.  of webs and jungles.  he's king of the contrete jungles.  juggles 3 jobs, works 4 am to 5 pm dawn.  keeps his shoes as clean as a plate bathed in dawn.  juan de marco.  polo.  nearly as expensive as fine wine, j crew and banana republic.  strawberry nation-state.  your mind. your business.  yes, your mind is your business.  speak it and make it public enemy number one a la chuck d.  chuckin' uncomfortable lines that lasso your mind and gets you eye 2 eye.  doctor. j.  dilla.  pickle.  politics is about getting into pickles.  brining your business in others' minds eyes.  tossing back and forth ayes and nays.  

Debt:From The American Scholar

I picked up the latest The American Scholar during my trek to find a Ruby on Rails guide for right-brained people.  From my cursory travels into the Computer Language sections of various bookstores, it seems many of these books are for the left-brained.  Granted, that's not exactly surprising since I'd hypothesize a lot of programmers are left-brained - logical, sequential, objective, et cetera - but still, us right-brainers have questions dammit!  I have a lot of why's.  Anyway, the last few pages of The American Scholar always contain quotes about a topic and this issue's is debt.  Check it:

As the circulation of money was very slow, a law was made for the Egyptians that a man might have that money lent to him which he needed, by offering as security the dead body of his father.

-Herodotus, Histories, Vol. I

This little orchard will be part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.  This vineyeard will belong to the bank...The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all.  Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground...The food must rot, must be forced to rot.  The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed...In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

-John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 1939

He uncovered his face...and said:..."Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?" The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else?  There was no answer to the question.

-Plato on the death of Socrates, "Phaedo"

[To pay for the printing of my book] I sold the few pieces of furniture I owned.  The watch my father had solemnly given me, on which he had had two little crossed flags enameled, soon went off to the pawnbroker's.  My black poet's suit followed the watch...and off I went into the street carrying my books on my shoulder, with holes in my shoes, but beside myself with joy...ink fresh and its paper still crisp, that enchanted and ecstatic moment.

-Pablo Neruda, Memoirs, 1977

Wal-Martization

I stood in the doorway, torn between staring at the television screen or walking into the room to do nothing. I couldn't recall exactly how I found myself caught in the invisible web that had managed to spin itself within the confines of my doorway. He's looking at the TV, but there aren't any thoughts going through his head. I guess I'm no different than the majority of the television viewing audience these days. 

Rad - as his friends jokingly called him, a reference to the skater days of the eighties - finally found the fortitude to wrench himself away from the pull of commercialism and nothing. He took a step back to gather his thoughts, which had fallen out of his ear and onto the hardwood floors covered in cat hair. Cow the cat had a shedding problem. HAD a shedding problem as he unfortunately fell do his death the previous week. Rad assumed old age had something to do with Cow's inability to right himself midair because as everyone knows cats are the ultimate flip-floppers. 

After gathering his thoughts Rad realized he needed money if he planned on actually buying something at the book/music/video/DVD/instrument/t-shirt/video game store. One of your everyday "Wal-Mart"-type stores - it's a monopoly at its finest. I know I put that five dollars somewhere. Where or where can my five dollars be? It's a good thing it's a unitary five dollars, otherwise I'd be here all day looking for each dollar bill. Ah ha. In my pocket. He always held out hope that he'd find something exciting in his pocket searches - just like everyone else. A long lost friend perhaps. 

The heater kicked on. It sounded like the house was about to take off. That means jacket weather Radcliffe reasoned. Why else would the heater punch on unless it were cold outside? Rad made his way through his chaotic room. He saw stability in chaos. So too does the Second Law of Thermodynamics - entropy is always increasing, why not help it out by tossing his clothes on the floor? I'm a tree hugger. His mother didn't buy the argument. Too bad. He always offered it to her at bottom of the barrel prices. Remember, Always Save! 

The walk-in closet that doubled as Rad's stowaway area - he like also to think of himself as a clothes abolitionist - was cold. Oddly enough, each time he walked into the cabin of his room he always caught a chill. It made putting on clothes that much more fun after a long night of sleeping in a room chilled to the core by his incessant ceiling fan. Rad wondered why ceiling fans had to be classified as such. Anytime fans came up in everyday conversation the location of the fan could usually be figured out by the context of the conversation and if not, who cared that the fan found a home up on the ceiling? They both pushed air. A proper good job when compared to pushing rock for instance. 

Why do I have so many jackets? It's as if I'm a female but without the shoe collection. I guess that wouldn't make me a female then. Gotta match, gotta match. That's what my ex-girlfriend always said. Let's see. I'm wearing a bright green shirt with a stern looking Russian man on the front. He's pointing at you. Just like Uncle Sam. Wait...no couldn't be. "Have you joined the volunteers the shirt reads?" He bought the shirt because he found the picture and the caption to be funny. Not funny he he, but funny ha ha with a tinge of fear. It doesn't look like this guy would take no for an answer. It's a good thing it's the "volunteers." 

Faded blue jeans. Dumb blue shoes - I apologize. Rad's a connoseur of corny jokes. Except that all seem to taste good, so maybe he has a problem. Bright blue shoes with a golden yellow swoosh. Golden yellow. McDonalds. Commercialism at its worst. I'll wear this khaki jacket. Does that match? If only a fiddler on the roof were handy. 

Radcliffe stood in the doorway, on his way to the multi-talented book store. The television spoke of insecurity. Order this product and you'll have the best band-aid money can buy. Where did I put my five dollars?

Baby Jesus thought it was Halloween and dressed up as a bunny

I sat at my table at work looking at the clock and wondering what I would do this weekend. No plans had yet been made, but I wanted to do something, anything. My phone rang and at the other end sounded good news, an opportunity to gather with some friends, watch a basketball game or two and drink some beer slash liquor. Press 7 to delete the message and begin to pack up my laptop. By now the building has emptied itself of occupants with the exception two or three of us. It’s so quiet. It’s so The Office. Organize the stack of CDs, move the sugar laced walnuts to their position in the phalanx, place my notepad on top of it all, like a makeshift tin roof and finally zip up my laptop. Which way to I need to go in order to escape the rush of the rest of the convicts on their merry ways home? Okay, I go to the end of the highway and turn right and I’m almost there. Liquor store? Next to Subway, in the mini strip mall located at the edge of the suburban compound. So many choices I feel rushed and pressured to make a decision quickly. Vodka? No, I’m not in college anymore. Rum? Hmm, maybe. Tequila? No, no drugs for me tonight. How about gin and tonic? Good on the stomach with the inclusion of those bubbles. Yes, yes, gin and tonic the hedge hog it will be. Oh, didn’t even notice this section - whiskey. By far, the whiskeys are the best dressed. The Jack Daniels line is fabulous. Certainly can’t pick it up at Target or Wal Mart or HEB. Nope, we’re talking boutiques baby. Keep moving. Just make it to the cashier. Stop. New seasonal beers have just arrived. Nope, just gin and tonic. Thank you, you too. I arrive and the dogs greet me with slobber and wagging tails. A platter of 150 chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A sits on the table, or as my dad says Chick Filla. Hilarious. Pour, sizzle. Pour, ice. Shake. Wash, rinse and repeat. For best results, use the gin and tonic conditioner. Greetings. Time to take a seat. It’s a blow out. Wash, rinse and repeat. Beer is a great conditioner. I decided to walk over to the nuggets, who haven’t been ravaged or opened for that matter. Commercial break. Pop, the sound of a plastic gong opening. It’s the sound of delicatessens. Ranch and honey mustard. Tag team champions of the world I tell ya. Grab, dip, pop and repeat. We make the trek down the street to play Rock Band, raze hell and retreat once we’ve over stayed our welcome. I see a friend from a previous job. We step outside and catch up. Time to rock. The bottle of gin sits on the table looking like a groupie. Tonic left him. Just me and you buddy. It’s a sabotage. Beastie Boys. I can’t stand it. Time to play the drums. This is hard. Much harder than the last time I played drums in a band. The gin is working it’s surround sound magic and I’m floating. Eventually, the hosts disappear. Time to make our retreat. We walk back to the house and talk about who knows what. Time for me to head home. I’m tired. I open my laptop and sign in to Facebook. I wonder if any plans have been made yet. Nope. I’d like to do something tomorrow, anything. I don’t pack up my laptop before falling asleep. I don’t even remember falling asleep. I don’t even unpack myself. I wake up the next morning fully clothed. I wonder if there are any plans for today?

C R A P Design

Website usability is design. Robin Williams' four basics of effective graphic design fits flawlessly with effective website design:

Contrast. "If the elements (type, color, size, line thickness, shape, space, etc) are not the same, then make them very different.

Repetition. Repeating visual elements "helps develop the organization and strengthens unity" or your website, brochure, etc

Alignment. "Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily.  Every element should have some visual connection with another element on the page."

Proximity. "Items relating to each other should be grouped close together."

Karimanifesto

Excerpts from Karim Rashid's manifesto on how non-professional designers can incorporate design sensibilities into our lives.  I came across the list in a book I'm reading called A Whole New Mind:

1. Don't specialize - I particularly like this one.

2. Before giving birth to anything physical, ask yourself if you have created an original idea, an original concept, if there is any real value in what you disseminate.

3. Know everything about the history of your profession and then forget it all when you design something new.

4. Never say "I could have done that" because you didn't.

5. Consume experiences, not things.

6. Normal is not good.

7. There are three types of beings - those who create culture, those who buy culture, and those who don't give a shit about culture.  Move between the first two.

8. Think extensivesly, not intensively.

9. Experience is the most important part of living, and the exchange of ideas and human contact is all life really is.  Space and objects can encourage increased experiences or distract from our experiences.

10. Here and now is all we got.

Full Highlight - Manchester United v Aston Villa

Manchester United v Aston Villa

Manchester United versus Aston Villa - 3/5/2009: Game Winning Goal

Tribes by Seth Godin

I recently bought Seth Godin's latest book called Tribes. I've decided to read and take notes along the way and hopefully turn those notes into a somewhat cohesive blog post for my work blog. So, in an effort to get that cohesive ball rolling - imagine a softball sized ball of tape, rolling along the floor, nabbing hairs and dirt along the trip - notes on my personal blog before work blog.

Primary thought after reading first quarter or so of book: Social media allows businesses, organizations, associations, anyone to lead a tribe. SM is certainly derided as frustratingly difficult to track (and I agree on the point), but it provides a potentially explosive opportunity to businesses. Standing on the sidelines because you personally do not like social media is short-sighted, egotistical and, in the end, it's really not about you. It's about the user. Your constituents. That's the beauty of the internet.

Joel Spolsky is Changing the World

• Joel's passion is talking about how to run a small software company
  
• By its nature, search is about the how – people are looking for information
  
• Tribe = group of people, a leader and a connecting idea
• Tribes need a leader and an idea
• To be a tribe, a group needs a shared interest and a way to communicate
• As a business with a website, you have commons, a meeting place
• Obviously, have a way to communicate

Grateful Dead

• Did not necessarily succeed economically – at least it was not their primary goal, but they created a blue print for a tribe
• Humans want to belong to a group
• Tribes make our lives better
• “…being in a tribe is a big part of how we see ourselves.” Page 3

Tribes Used to be Local

• Internet eliminates geography
  
• Explosion of tools that allows us to connect with people, other tribes, to connect interests
• Becomes more about our interests as opposed to who we know as a first move (Facebook, Myspace)
• More on interest networks: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2008/10/interest-networks-are-at-a-tipping-point.html

In Search of a Movement

• Many groups stuck – they drown out dissenters and those with views different from the status quo
  
• These people are aching to be a part of a movement
  
• Similar to The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
  

Tribes Aren’t So Squishy Anymore

• Prior to internet, tribes hard to connect
  
• Instant communication makes things taut
  
• Barack obama can raise $50 million in 28 days
  
• Important point: the internet is a tool, it’s about us, about the people. You don’t need a keyboard to lead, but the desire
  
• We are hardwired to be social, internet – youtube, Facebook, twitter, ning, yelp – allows us to be social
• Okay, if you don’t the desire, let someone else who does have the desire lead the tribe
• If you are the CEO, the director of marketing, it’s important to recognize those individuals in your company that are impassioned by blogging, tweeting, facebooking. If they can sell you on their efficacy, then give them the power to use their authenticity to garner recruits to your tribe. Nothing worse than disingenuous online interactions – people pick it up and revolt (see uproar about guy Kawasaki and his use of twitter http://outspokenmedia.com/internet-marketing-conferences/twitter-social-media-tool
• “generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the self-efforts of someone doing it just because she can.” Page 7
  
• Googlers view on authenticity, etc: http://tins.rklau.com/2009/03/eight-lessons-learned-as-brand-on.html
• It does not cost much (just buy Red Bull for the knowledgeable 23 yr old in your company). It can yield long term ROI.
  
• http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2009/03/top-web-analytics-questions-twitter-edition.html
  

US vs El Salvador, World Cup Qualifier

South Bye

ive not written a plain jane entry about what ive been up to in quite some time. i think i said id post more in an entry below, but that seems to have fallen through. the door was left slightly cracked and i didnt have any plaster to seal the deal so i got plastered off of laziness and here i sit.

sxsw was tiresome, but fun. i must admit i do not get the rush of adrenaline i once did when going to music festivals. am i old? no. old soul? likely. i simply prefer a quieter dive. close friends. no need to yell into an ear. still, it was fun having my sister in town. sebastian granger and the mountains took top prize for me this sxsw. there might have been a better band, but we didnt make an attempt to traverse the foot traffic or set out a plan for that matter. it was...hear music, walk to music. see no cover, enter venue. drink beer. drink water. be merry.

the grates put on a great live show. the gal is eccentric. a good showwoman. she seemed to be having the time of her life. the men in the audience looked up at her, eyes glazed. strong voice. sweet, up to her boobs shorts. the gal in back in a leotard jumping rope was simply the icing on the cake.

as for work, i feel a bit sapped. actually a lot sapped of creative juices. it's to the point of too much to do to sit and think about what im doing. well, not so much that im not providing quality to my clients. nonetheless, im a muller. i mull. i need time to think in order to have ah ha moments. perhaps i just need to learn to be more organized with my time. structure my procrastination a bit better. it's still fun. the sleuthing. the consulting. the teaching. the writing. just need a few more minutes to sit and think about it all.

pic: stranger than fiction.

Structured Procrastination

by John Perry

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important...

Knowledge, which is neither objective nor subjective, is always personal. Not individual: personal. The concept of the individual has been one of the essential misconceptions of political liberalism. Every human being is unique, but he does not exist alone. He is dependent on others (a human baby for much longer than the offspring of other animals); his existence is inseparable from his relations with other human beings.

-John Lukacs

Thoughts: 1 Month into my current job

I've been rummaging through My Documents (it's very important those two words are capitalized) checking out documents whose names don't immediately strike me as familiar. I came across these sets of thoughts which I wrote down one month into my current job. Interesting...

Sense of entitlement in the younger generation due to the market place mentality, which seems to be more prevalent among this generation? This is a market place. If you can’t keep my attention, because you’re not as interesting as something on the internet, then I have the right to simply turn you off and tune into the internet.

*Does this jive with the fact that a lot of this younger generation seems to be more concerned with social/political causes? Or, the fact that they are more open-minded in terms of race and sexuality? I take this opinion for granted, so to speak, as each generation is, almost by default, more open-mined than the previous ones. The world continues to get smaller and as a consequence these younger individuals have the opportunity to experience and much more diverse slice of the population.

Some of the bloggers, who fancy themselves journalists/reporters (please) take their fan boy/fan girl attitude toward certain internet icons, Zuckerberg for instance, beyond what can be considered rational and normal (normal as in having the ability to take a step back and put these revolutions in perspective)

*On the surface, they appear to mirror those individuals Hoffer talks about in his book The True Believer. It’s comforting and appealing to join a group and a revolution.

*However, just as Myspace is waning in popularity, so too will Facebook (follow AOL/Netscape, Angelfire/Geocities/Blogs/Social Media/Networking, WebCrawler/Lycos/Yahoo/Google, Myspace/Facebook, basically community always there, just different platforms and more people). In an arena where the user has the ability to vote for change and see that change appear rather quickly, by default almost, all the hot industries of the internet today will turn into tomorrows forgotten Super Bowl runner-ups. Our attention capacity is shrinking. What makes them think anything on the internet will stick? It is also escapism. As it is outside of us, it will never fulfill whatever need we are attempting to quench and consequently, the hot seat is actually a revolving door with windex clear windows.

Now more than ever, companies need creative individuals who do not have the specific skill set the employer is looking for. Why? Because the old business model is going down the tubes with the internet devouring tectonic plates left and right. Again, the power bestowed upon the user by the democracy of the web necessitates originality more than ever in content and products.

*We live in an ironic, cynical age. Cut the bullshit and simply be yourself in your work and allow your employees to do the same. Who do you respect more, the person who, while you disagree with them fundamentally on many issues, speaks his or her mind or the person that impishly follows the status quo or does just enough to fit in and get by? Easy answer.

The arbitrary nature of language, on the whole, epitomized in study conducted by Google on web authoring statistics. Results of study revealed many of the common markup mistakes made by individuals/group designers. From what I can gather anecdotally, a new version of HTML is under development, HTML 5 to be exact, and rather than attempt to penalize individuals for improper coding, designers will look at how the code is misused and incorporate this misuse into the new language, making the improper proper. I think this is awesome. For example, “Next we have the last sane name value worth talking about, namely copyright. This, and the fact that copyright is a really popular class name, suggests that either (meta name="copyright") (blogger wouldn't let me use <>, what?
) should be an official way of giving the copyright, or that the Web needs a element, or both.” (http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html)

In Warren Buffett's words, "We won't 'smooth' quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you."

Social media, I dislike that phrase, isn’t new; it’s always been there. They’re called message boards, people. Who said a social media, I dislike that phrase, site had to offer the user the option of putting her picture up on the site? Wait, message boards have avatars. Who said a social media, I dislike that phrase, site had to offer the user an inbox? Wait, message boards have inboxes. Bulletins? It’s a message board. What am I getting at? What’s “cool” is always a fad and ever changing, just like fashion. How many people were wearing hipster-esque clothing in 1999/2000? How about the big sunglasses? Those nasty skinny jeans? It always changes and by definition, cool will always change, just like the suburban style communities living on Myspace and Facebook. Some people will always use them because it fulfills a simple desire; the ability to keep up with people without always having to pick up the phone or see them in person. But just like white flight, there will always be another “cool” social media, I dislike that phrase, to escape to. In the end, I think it will all devolve into niche sites. Product loyalty? Creating a community (yeah, okay) around a product? Only if your product can be used as a hobby or comes with emotional attachments, cameras or computers or medical bracelets for instance. Otherwise, who in the hell is going to create a community (yeah, okay) around razors? Or bubble gum? Or shampoo? No one.

Albert Einstein said, "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."

The explicit lines of "communication" between the participants of Facebook or Myspace are not necessarily any more conductive than the indirect transmission of ideas between networks or across seemingly discreet boundaries. Douglas Rushkoff, http://edge.org/3rd_culture/christakis08/christakis08_index.html

This is the difference between ideology and norms. People see these images of super models, but they might be less influenced by them than by the actions and appearance of the people immediately around them. For example, we see that people might behave badly and engage in criminal acts. We still have the ideology that the Bill of Rights holds and the Constitution holds and that there is goodness and there is evifl. But people still behave badly when they are surrounded by people who behave badly. Again, it is the difference between norms and ideology, and this is how we square the circle in terms of why it is that there can be a spread of obesity, or an obesity epidemic, even though as a society we still seem to revere a different kind of body type from the one we are increasingly seeing. Cristakis, http://edge.org/3rd_culture/christakis08/christakis08_index.html

Myspace and Facebook take off has more to do with our hardwiring – pursuing norms, groups, comfort even – than it does with the actual media tool. Again, they serve the same purpose, but the pendulum swinging from one site to the next has more to do with whom in your social, real-life (BOO!), circle is using what site.

This blog post is an example of the horse...stuff that passes as some sort of in-depth analysis:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/igniting-viral-campaigns-session-at-ses-new-york/6543/#more-6543

There is no recipe for making something viral. Everything that happens to be “viral”, another ridiculous term, is so because it’s all about the user, as usual, both the user who created the content and user who finds it funny and/or entertaining. Those who have it, have it, you can’t teach that sort of creativity. He essentially said nothing of substance. “Get people to talk about you”? Are you kidding me? That’s like answering, “How do I become an NFL player?” with, “You play really, really good” (good inserted on purpose). Timely? How does that have anything to do with anything? Time is completely irrelevant. People on the internet, particularly those who rabidly search Youtube, are ALWAYS ready to be entertained – that’s why they’re on the internet, duh. Paid to write this?

What are some of the consequences of personalized search? Google is moving in that direction. Firefox is moving in that direction, Mozilla has laid the foundation in Firefox 3 and perhaps will implement in four. Does having an excellent ranking become even more vital to our clients if search results are tailored to their browsing patterns/habits and history? That is, will the likelihood of a user un...

Windows Azure

I found this still-born blog post in My Documents folder.

Microsoft’s head is up in the clouds

Microsoft unveiled a new web-based operating system at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. This “Windows for the cloud” works under the same premise as Google Docs, a cloud computing suite of applications that stores a persons data on the internet rather than on his or her own computer. According to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, Windows Azure takes this idea a step further, though, by creating computing infrastructure within the cloud rather than simply applications.

Today many people have numerous computers within their household, whether it’s a laptop and a desktop or a desktop for the parents and a desktop for the kids. It’s becoming more and more burdensome to manage multiple computers and one way of streamlining this management is through cloud computing.

So, what exactly is cloud computing?

Cloud computing, “…is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc.”

The cloud is a metaphor for the complex infrastructure of the internet – for the science nerds out there, think the electron cloud with more precision!

In laymen’s terms, when you log into your Google Docs account, add a number or two to the spreadsheet, log out and continue with your work elsewhere, you’re partaking in cloud computing – the application can be accessed from anywhere and the data is stored on the severs within their cloud. Cloud computing is fast, light weight, requires zero installations and lets you work with other people online.

With Windows Azure, individuals would be able to not only access applications on the internet from exotic locales, like Starbucks, but would also be able to access their software and operating system.

This new move is certainly important. Amazon and Google currently utilize cloud computing and with another big player, loaded with money, hopping onto its own cloud it signals the potential for widespread adoption of cloud computing by the public at large.

There is a line in The Clouds by Aristophanes that reads, “But who is it that compels the clouds to behave this way? Isn't it Zeus?” Zeus might still have something to say about the outcome of this development, but Microsoft is doing its best to usurp Google’s internet supremacy and compel the cloud to behave as it sees fit.