Archive for December, 2008
Music of my Mind #2
If there’s an aspect of my life that brings out the inner-writer in me, it’s my love life. For reasons beyond my comprehension, my search for love often is the manifestation of a narrative structure that places high value on fate, loss, love and the passion that welds the three together.
Because of that, my relationships often become vast romantic tragedies whose plot lines don’t reveal themselves until after the relationship’s first act. There’s something in my mind that feels that love is not something one can feel until it is stripped away from them – whatever that means. I’m probably not alone in the way I process this, after all, Hollywood has crafted mines full of cinematic gold based on that simple concept. Yet, it still pangs me as I romanticize the past and current flames of my life all because of some narrative draw that, while I’m aware of, I can’t quite control.
Musings on the Evolution of SMM
Recently, I stumbled across a great post by Amber Naslund entitled, “Are we sharing Solutions or Soundbytes?“ The article caught my attention because, as I start developing my ideals for the Social Media program for Crocs, Inc, I want to develop solutions. Yet, in my constant research, reading, and dialogue – all I am encountering are buzz sayings that anyone with 48 hours and Google can learn.
This isn’t a particular attack on any specific person or people. In fact, I see it more as a challenge. The “rules” of Social Media Marketing have been written – but, as more and more diverse companies enter the realm – those rules need to become guidelines. And, as even more companies will soon enter the fray, they need to be reevaluated and the medium will need to evolve.
Communities and Memes
I was tagged in another meme – and while I hate doing these things – one of my goals was to blog every day of my vacation so this takes some of the stress off the next twelve hours or so. Andrew Hyde – fellow Boulderite, Start Up enthusiast, globe-trotting, and all around nice guy – tagged me for the “6th photo on Flickr” meme. It’s somewhat ironic, because the photo has to do with him – it’s from Ignite Boulder 2 – one of the community based events that Andrew is involved in. Anyway – check it out and I happen to smirk when I read the slide I happened to immortalize:
My friend Fayza already tagged me in the “(insert number) random things about you” meme – which was my previous post.
At the end of Andrew’s post – he talked about memes worth doing and mentioned the “flash mob” culture. I love events like that – whether organized online or offline. From the Boulder Naked Pumpkin Run to Giant Pillow Fights – these things demonstrate, in a humorous way, our ability to organize in a community. I love those kind of things. While not quite a flash mob type event – I have something planned for next year that will hopefully take off. I just need to build the website and/or blog to start the preparations….
My original foray into the online world – some 10 years ago – was to have a place where my friends can keep tabs on me. Today – it can be used to actually “play” with your friends. One of my favorite examples of this was done by my friend Meghann’s friends. They did a “World Scavenger Hunt” where they would challenge their friends to take pictures of a somewhat universal object or action and, as shared authors of the blog, would share it there. While somewhat under-utilized – Meghann and her friends probably don’t share the affinity for blogging that some of us have – it was a great concept that I would love to do with people.
Memes, for the most part, cater to mass appeal. Whether it’s LOLCats and the like, – their viral nature is due to the fact that we can find someone easily who would enjoy the memes contents. If we can harness that energy and build local or global communities – then we’re on the right track. I look forward to hearing ideas on how we can do that.
As for tagging others with this, I don’t think I know anyone that hasn’t done this recently. Perhaps Kezza or Alana Marie will want to. Or maybe some of my mystery readers out there. One thing though – if you do it, come up with a way we can use memes and meme culture to build something special…
Meme about Me
So, Fayza tagged me with the command to write 6 (or 8?) random and awesome things about myself. Since I am on vacation from the 18th to the 5th, I will have plenty of time to think about what I could write about. But, why think? These things are best done off the cuff, with little preparation and even less wit. So, to that end, here is my list of random and awesome things about myself:
1.) I’m OCD but lazy: Yeah – this one’s a little weird, but that’s the only way I can explain it. My closet is organized ROYGBIV with t-shirts, ROYGBIV with long sleeve T’s, ROYGBIV with dress shirts, etc al. I used to organize my books by the amount of times that I had read them. My iTunes is insanely organized. The lazy part? There’s a pile of clothes waiting to be hung. There is a stack of CD’s waiting to be ripped. My books are all a garbled mess (not my fault – my bookshelf broke in half and fell on top of me and I don’t have room.) So – while I have vastly ornate organizing systems – I’m often to lazy to really utilize them.
Music of My Mind #1
A married couple at work gave me a Christmas present this year – a set of CD’s. They told me that they give it to the people that they feel make their lives great. It was a very thoughtful gift – with a specific CD tailored specifically for me. The interesting part about the gift was the fact that they include CD’s from all the previous times that they have been giving this same gift. Which means, I received eight CD’s – dating back to 2000. I did not even know these amazing two people even existed two years ago – eight years ago I was still in college and never even daydreamed about moving to the Front Range of Colorado. Yet, here I am, listening to their Christmas present alone on Christmas Eve.
Sometimes I feel that I have this illicit relationship with music. It exists for everyone, yet I feel that there are secrets that only I share with it. I’m sure everyone feels this, but I like to pretend that I’m special. As the notes of these hand picked songs dance into my ears, I can’t help but contemplate what music would tell the story of “George Smith.”
The great guitarist Carlos Santana once said, “some songs are like tattoos for your brain, you hear them and they’re affixed to you.” I love that quote because the power of music is how it affixes to you. There are the songs that remind you of moments – the flutter of a guitar floods your synapses with visions of people and places long gone. Other times, there are songs that remind you of feelings – but not of a permanent place or person – just emotions not bound by specifics. Then, there are other songs, that you carry with you your entire life. They mean more than emotions, more than singular moments – they are who you are at heart. All these songs comprise the Music of my mind (hat tip to Stevie Wonder). This is the first in, what I hope, will be an examination of songs that have the characteristics I mentioned above.
Hope and Hallelujah
The introspection starts around my birthday. Moments of speculation, moments of wonder – the cosmic questions posed and answers hypothesized and deduced. Maybe there’s a god above, but all I’ve ever learned from all of this is simply that the answers are never truly clear – but they do ultimately come.
2008 will be looked at as a good year for me. From start to finish, I was able to accomplish a lot – such as a move into doing something I love full time. I have been surrounded by great friends and have developed a stronger rapport with old ones. I saw marriages, pregnancies, and child births. I smiled and laughed. I even cried – but those tears brought forth change and evolution to my life. For once, my year wasn’t about waiting or transitions – it was merely about growth.
As 2009 comes around, the only thing I’m “missing” is a love life. I put missing in quotation marks because it’s not a void that I notice. My life is so busy, my job and friendships so fulfilling that I don’t necessarily feel the need for a relationship. Yet, in the check list of things society deems necessary – it is the only thing I am really missing. I wonder where I will meet them or how. I get advice from plenty of people. From a VP at work telling me to hold on to my date to our corporate Christmas party to Gwen Bell speculating in jest that I’d meet that special someone on Twitter (like she did) – I hear it from all around. All that does is reinforce the fact that I don’t know where or how anything will happen in the future. The goal is to simply live your life with the passion and zest that you want to have – and the rest will fill in the blanks. I have to believe that’s true because, in 2008, it was true for everything else.
So as the clock turns to Christmas Eve and a week until the end of 2008, I can’t help but feel anticipation for what’s to come. Everything seems to be building to an incredible climax that I hope to carry on for years and years. It feels great to be so optimistic about life and illustrates how far I’ve come since my days in Massachusetts, Michigan, Syracuse and so many others. Hallelujah, indeed….
Friendfeed Discussions
Last night, Robert Scoble posted a screen shot from his FriendFeed stats. With Scoble being Scoble, it naturally become a starting ground for some great conversation. After all, with the following that he has – his activity generally become hubs for people of all types to come together for these conversation.
The idea of a “social super brain” came up last night – with our online activity of posting, sharing, “liking,” etc working as “bionic human socnet filters”(love that term). My comment illustrated that, for the most part, online activity is designated into different groups – saying, for lack of a better phrase, “Birds of a Feather flock together.”
Mike English wrote a blog post examining and asked this: “The real question now is, what social object can bring together the most diverse cross-section of the population and get them talking to each other?” I find the question interesting and have been pondering it all day – and then it dawned on me.
The social object is the Internet. The internet as a whole provides that great cross-section. While people may congregate in areas that have their interest and like minded people – people aren’t just a single interest or group. They are varied individuals and they interact in various different platforms on the internet. While they may be the 1% of active users in one area, the 8-9% in another, there are times when they are the 90% of lurkers. Their behavior changes as they enter and reenter various environments. Individuals themselves interact across many different platforms – and they change their behaviors as they themselves change. A few years ago, there was a 21 year old college senior posting pictures of her parties and fun times. She may be a working professional with a professional reputation via LinkedIn, a newlywed posting photos on TheKnot.com, or even a mother writing a great Mommyblog. The behaviors on the web will change over time, between platforms, etc – trying to create a unified theory of social media isn’t important – because it’s in constant flux.
As to Mike’s fears at the end of his post, I don’t fear that. While I see segmentation as a natural part of the conversations that occur, it’s not completely exclusive. We all bring our individual venn diagram of interest to every conversation we partake in – whether in Social Media or in the Real World. New ideas will infiltrate even the most segmented groups and these small segmentations will tip if the idea has traction. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter if the group is all encompassing or small – ideas/thoughts only go where they will be received. While I believe no one platform will ever represent the collective mindset of the populace – I do believe that these interactions, no matter how segmented are a boon to bringing societies closer together.
Finally, I simply love the fact that people can come together and discuss topics like this. While I may gravitate toward the tech circle and conversations on Social Media, one can find discussions on every topic under the sun on the Internet. Our segmentation breeds great topical discussions on niche subjects that we return to the collective of the Internet. The important ideas, the ones well thought out – make their way to the top eventually. Or at least, that’s the optimistic hope I have for humans in general…
Not Going Home (or Holy Crap! That’s a lot of Snow in Syracuse)
Despite having an extended vacation – I decided not to travel home for the holidays. Instead, I stayed in Boulder. My roommate Kezza, who happens to be from the same hometown, did travel home. As her video commentary points out – Syracuse was receiving 3″ of snow an hour. Go here to check out her videos (Front Yard and Back Yard)
So far, I have to say I’m relieved not to be traveling this time of year. My friend Vanessa had to reschedule her flights because of a storm in Chicago, my friend Alana arrived in Detroit to lots of snow, and there was that whole thing about a plane crashing at DIA.
So, I’ll be spending the next few days in reading, writing, and catching up on those things I neglect during the busy work week. It will be nice and relaxing – a real vacation – versus what everyone else seems to be going through.
How Not to Blog
Over the years, I have created many different blogs. Some were personal, some were topical – but mostly they served the same broad definition that this current one has: whatever catches my fancy. Content wise, I feel that I provided an interesting window into who I was as a person. I would get feedback from my friends and family – often bringing the topics I wrote about on the blog into every day conversation.
As I moved my entire blog to wordpress and bought a domain name, I noticed that my reader stats dropped and haven’t fully recovered. While my readership was mostly personal, the fact that I kept committing one of the worst sins of the blogosphere – changing my blog. You see, when I first started blogging along with some of my friends, we all hyperlinked to each other. My continual blog jumping ultimately was too much to keep up with and even some of my closer blog friends haven’t updated their blog rolls with my new domain. At first I was a little upset – I sent out notices to update their ‘rolls – yet, why should they update? I have changed blogs almost on perfect rhythm – around 6 months – and that’s just far too much to keep up with!
It’s not that I expect my blog to ever reach A-list status. It’s not even that I expect it to register above people that know me within a few degrees. It’s that, because of my lack of consistency, I haven’t even been able to capture the core market that my blog is directed at: the people that know me.
Consistency is the most important aspect to a good blog. Whether it’s a consistent URL or consistent publishing schedule, consistent tone and subject matter – the fact that you know what you’re getting from a blog seems to be the baseline level to start success at. Hopefully I can maintain a consistency with this blog as I work toward elevating my own “personal brand,” but to those people that have been loyal to following my travels around various URL’s – thank you! Your support will help me become more consistent with everything.
