seth gray

Great ID: Another Bloody Water

Seth — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:55:45 +0000

via logochief.com

I like this. a lot.

Posted via email from Seth Gray

Grammar Schmammer

Seth — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:40:55 +0000

Posted via email from Seth Gray

Dear Yellow Pages: there’s this thing called the Internet…

Seth — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:40:14 +0000

via obsoletethebook.com

Posted via email from Seth Gray

Trend: Rediscovering Real Life

Seth — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:45:35 +0000

"Drive Thru?" by snailo86 on Flickr.com

Maybe you missed it, but that’s understandable. I’m talking about Society and Social Media, of course. Wedding of the century, and they friggin eloped back in ’08. After two and a half years, though, the honeymoon is over. It was great for a while. All they wanted to do was spend time with each other. They were so cute… all shiny and new. But in the process of falling madly in love, they lost their sense of self. They lost their personal identity. Can’t really bring much to a relationship if there’s no “you” anymore. And that’s natural. It’s part of any healthy relationship. So, Society is reconnecting with her roots while Social Media reconnects with his.

Seriously, though, I’ve noticed more and more stories about people rediscovering real life. Some great examples:

A bike ride across Europe, where the trending topics were the direction of the wind, and some dude’s knee.
Why Peter Bregman returned his iPad
I’m too cool for the Internet
GOOD.is project about finding solitude in the city

3 Implications/recommendations for businesses:

Your shiny new Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare presence doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. Yay! You made it to the party. But did you bring sales brochures or bratwurst? Be helpful first. The sales will follow.
Experiences are more important than ever. All this new tech stuff is supposed to make it easier for your customers to interact directly with your employees. Kill your phone tree. Seriously. Think about the immediate connection with, education about, and empathy for your customers you’d have if every single one of your employees had to answer the phones. Make it random. Related note: get rid of metrics based on length of the call.
Simple is powerful. Simplify your product offering & pricing strategy: good, better, best, works pretty damn well.

What do you think? Do you see Real Life as the next Twitter?

By the way, I’m pretty sure Social Media is sitting on his couch in his underwear playing GTA.

How To Save Newspapers

Seth — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:08:46 +0000

"Godfrey's Pelican Scroll" by Jeff / Godfrey

I recently read a blog post “Newspapers And Thinking The Unthinkable” from Clay Shirky. Not sure I’m adding anything new, but here’s how I digested his thoughts.

How do we save newspapers?! We don’t.

Ok… how do we save Journalism?! We don’t.

Did we save scribes after the printing press was invented? Nope.

Now that I’ve thoroughly pissed off all you journalist-types…

The way I see it, the rise of the publishing industry was based on three premises:

People want information: news, entertainment, education.
It takes a lot of time/money/effort to get information to people: printing presses are expensive. So are foreign correspondents. And sports writers.
Economies of scale, FTW!

Premise one is still valid. Premise two? Nope. Premise three? Still valid, but who cares? Premise two is a big ol’ number two. Creating and distributing information is so easy, my 4 year old son can do it by accident.

No. Seriously. I set up an old laptop and put shortcuts on the desktop for Chrome, Paint, and Notepad. In Chrome, I added PBS Kids and Starfall to the fancy little visual bookmarks/new tab page. Yes, he has to ask to use the computer, and yes we limit the time. And yes! we monitor him, which is why I have this enthralling anecdote. The little dude is big on writing his name– usually with Notepad, sometimes with Paint… sometimes with real paint. On the wall. Anyway. One time, like any good, curious, experimenting kid, he opened Chrome and typed his name instead of clicking one of the visual bookmarks. He hit enter to start a new line, only it didn’t start a new line, obviously. It searched the interwebz for his name. 14,000,000 results. Don’t worry, nothing bad came up on the first page. But that’s a lot of content, and he found it by accident.

So, if we don’t pay professionals to report the news, there will be an unprecedented amount of terrible, worthless, idiotic reporting (and movies, music, and books) brought to us by amateurs! Yep. Just like sacred texts were no longer painstakingly (and beautifully!!) copied by hand after the printing press made it easier to translate things into common languages so that (gasp!) amateurs could interact with the text. That was a long sentence. Sorry. I’m an amateur. Anyway, society adapted. Think about what happened in the two centuries after the printing press was invented: first, the Reformation destroyed the Catholic Church’s monopoly on information. That paved the way for the Enlightenment. Which paved the way for shopping malls, SUVs and Time Magazine

But who pays the people that pay the professionals that report the news? Subscribers and Advertisers. Well, not so much anymore. Google and Craigslist already stole the advertising cash cow. So what about subscriptions? Not gonna work. At least, not like before. See, we amateurs used to put our limited resources in after the fact: we paid to subscribe. Now, we’re putting our limited resources in right up front: we’re creating the content. We’re subsidizing on the front end.

With platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Google, the problem isn’t how to create and distribute information to the world (or the one person who reads your blog… hi mom). I can follow someone in/search for information in Columbus if I want to stay up to date. The problem is how to filter it all… but that’s a thought for another day.

Oh. One more thing/geek/parent tip: I’ve turned PBS Kids and Starfall into “Application Shortcuts” in Chrome now, so no more address/search bar fun for the offspring.

Loneliness King (a song I wrote)

Seth — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:12:04 +0000

Loneliness King by San Frantonio
Download now or listen on posterous

Loneliness King.mp3 (5897 KB)

I am a lonely moon shadow
floating on a midnight trail
down the hill to the hollow
where I’ll sing a song of betrayalDarlin, the fire’s out.
I can’t see through the window now.
How will I keep the darkness at bay
without your spark?

As I stand on our rusty old porch, dear
and open that creaky front door,
dust and sheets cover memories.
Ghosts of a life I had once before

Darlin, the fire’s out.
I can’t see through the window now.
How will I keep the darkness at bay?
Darlin, the fire’s out!
I can’t see through the window now.
How will I keep the darkness at bay
without your spark?

Well, I slept through that long frigid winter
and now, the birds think it’s spring.
They’re singing their little bird love songs
but I’m still the Loneliness King
without your spark.

Posted via email from Seth Gray

How to Forecast Weather (without gadgets)

Seth — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:33:56 +0000

via marisys.com

Posted via web from Seth Gray

Greg Laswell at Stubb’s BBQ in Austin

Seth — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:55:14 +0000

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How to do Crowdsourcing the Right Way (and some Friggin Idiots)

Seth — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:41:58 +0000

Which Way? (by kevindooley)

You come up to a group of people and ask “which way to Athens?” All but one point to the left. One solitary soul points to the right. Why does it matter? The one pointing to the right is the only one who’s actually been to Athens.

This is of course, a very common, very bad argument against ”crowdsourcing.” The argument is constructed such that the masses are uneducated, and only the enlightened can truly provide any real value. See, on this series of tubes we call the Internet, you can find a group of people who just happen to be an expert on anything. As a shiny and related side note, you can also find about a bazillion more groups of people claiming to be experts, who are, in fact, friggin idiots.

The problem with the Interwebs and crowdsoursing, though, is how to you find those bona fide experts. Well, some adventurous souls in the education industry are taking a shot. Einztein, which will start beta testing later this year, looks like they’re trying to create a filter for the plethora of free online courses & materials… and the filter will be experts in the field. Pretty cool. I signed up to be part of the beta. It’ll be interesting to see how this all works… or if it works.

But I think they’re on the right track. Crowdsourcing is great, as long as you can find the right crowd.

How to Make Money Performing on the Street (123 Party!)

Seth — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:56:57 +0000

Awesome. Go check out 123 Party!

How To Make Money Performing on the Street on Howcast