If this works, you should be able to hover over my twitter name — now @gregcohn by the way — and see a hovercard. You should also see a Like button at the bottom of the post (full post), along with pictures of any friends who’ve liked it.

UPDATE: After trying 2 different twitter plugins, I’m still getting an error on the hovercards (“this does not appear to be a valid account”). No time to troubleshoot — any ideas welcome. In the meantime, a few more to try: @barackobama @ev @chucknorris_ @cnnbrk

I currently include links that I bookmark on delicious in this RSS feed (via feedburner), and now that I’ve started using packrati.us to monitor my tweets and bookmark those with links into delicious, these are going into the RSS feed too.

They are a good amalgam of what I’m reading and conversing about (Twitter being my generally preferred form of posting at the moment). But I realize the volume has gone up.

Not yet included would be my shared items or stars from Google Reader (though I imagine there’s a way to do that) or Instapaper (which would be cool).

Any comments or suggestions?

One of the things I love about the tech community, and about my job, is the sheer number of ideas, entrepreneurs, technologies, and investors I come into contact with on a regular basis.  Almost all of them have something inspired about them, or worth learning from; in aggregate, they are awesome.  It’s also been a big year for me on the personal front.

So here are a few things (big, small, and somewhat random) that inspired me to be a better person, work harder on the important things, or help do my share to pull things in the right direction.  In no particular order:

1. Being a techstars mentor.  There’s nothing as rewarding as seeing ideas become reality, and the opportunity to help that along a little.  Seeing this scale as a model is exciting too.
2. The Twitter ecosystem. In particular, the innovation from companies like Bit.ly, CoTweet, Wildfire, and Brizzly, and the way Twitter is encouraging that.
3. Facebook connect.  Changing the game for publishers very much in the way I’d hoped MyBlogLog would, and making the internet better for people.  The future needs to be more open, but FB connect is helping a lot of people get convinced about the power of the social web.
4. Kiva.  I had the good fortune to spend some time this year with the founders and in the offices of Kiva.  In addition to distributed microfinance being an inspired idea well executed as a product, they are really managing their growth with a thoughtful and strong hand on the tiller, and demanding excellence in their organization.
5. iPhone apps.  This is what I always wanted the internet to be when it grew up, and it’s amazing how quickly this has mainstreamed.  Despite the legitimate issues with their closed ecosystem (see #3 also), this is due largely to apple’s execution.
6. Intelligentsia coffee.  I was skeptical of a newcomer to my well-caffeinated, eastside LA neighborhood, but the focus on quality coffee, roasting, preparation, and staff immediately ranked them head and shoulders above anyone else.  It’s a great example of passion and focus in a startup — just doing One Thing Well.
7. Kinnernet, & the Isreali web community.  Yossi Vardi’s invitation to participate in Israel’s equivalent of Barcamp meets Burning Man seemed like a lark, and it did have its share of mentos fountains and robots, but I’m glad I went — there is a terrific tech community being built in Israel and supporters around the world, and some of the most fearless entrepreneurs I’ve met are working there.
8. Jerusalem.  It’s impossible to summarize the unexpected and moving experience of visiting the nexus of so much cultural history, extreme orthodoxy, and conflict, but I highly recommend putting it on your life list.
9. Getting married.  Another good thing for your life list .  Getting married was by far the highlight of the year for me, and a great excuse to convince a large number of friends and family to come celebrate together.  I’ve enjoyed getting closer to Amy’s tightly knit family — and her grandmother Gogi shared some very spirited (and hopefully useful) words of wisdom after decades of marriage.
10. My Uncle Steve, who passed away this year, and who will be missed and remembered for his irreplaceable personality and involvement in our family.
11. The stream.  The general adoption of the real-time, social “river of news” approach is important and has only just begun.  JS-Kit and GetGlue are two companies that I’m really enjoying right now who are engaging with it.
12. Tim O’Reilly.  While I always find his “do things worth doing” approach inspiring, I’m particularly glad to see it applied to Government 2.0, and the community response to this.
13. Gourmet food trucks.  I live in LA, home of the twittering Kogi bbq truck — and within a handful of months, dozens of gastro-hyphenate and gourmet busses, trucks and stands, ranging from architectural ice cream to french bistro fare.  These are the foodie equivalent of cheap web software and SaaS-based startups, and it’s awesome to see just as much innovation and passion coming out of it.  (Check out findlafoodtrucks.com)
14. The Bon Iver sunrise show at the Hollywood Forever cemetery.  While the show this terrific band did at the Wiltern was arguably better, they had an Idea — that having an all-night party in a cemetery, and playing an outdoor show of their stirring music at sunrise, following chanting monks, would be interesting and fun and worth the red tape — and they Made It Happen.
15. The FCC.  For doing what they are doing.
16. The Flaming Lips, who, I got to see at the Greek Theater.  For continuing to do what they do.
17. Glen Hansard.  I stumbled with some newfound friends into a private, music industry showcase show in Boulder.  Not only was he cool, he turned in a political statement about payola in the record industry — biting the hand that feeds rather while promoting his new record.  We need more artists like this — plus he’s great.
18. The Kindle.   Awesome and transformative, and only getting better.  I probably read more books this year than in the previous two combined.  Still – open it and make it social, please.
19. Cory Booker.  A grad school classmate who’s now the Mayor of Newark and taking an inspiring and iconoclastic approach to what can be done to change things for the better.  Cory adopted social media this year with results that are nothing short of amazing.  In a world of tech evangelists, vapid celebrities, and self-described social media consultants, he’s one of the few who deserve the follower base (1,000,000+!) and RT’s.
20. Matt Logelin & David Beach.  Two friends of mine who’ve shown incredible courage in the face of personal adversity and used social media to talk about their difficulties.  There are so many more — #drewscancer and the pablove movement come to mind — but these gentlemen put a personal face on what it means to be brave, exposed, and inspirational (whether intentionally or not) in a world of oversharing.
21. The GTD community. David Allen’s GTD summit was refreshingly free of gurudom and dilettantes, and replete with people who believe that productivity tools aren’t fashion accessories but rather tools for doing things right.
22. Austin musicians.  I took at least three trips to Austin this year and made a point of seeing good, live music on each.  At SXSW, I even dragged a few folks with me, and was able to hire two great bands (Jesse Dayton, Dave Insley & the Careless Smokers) for my wedding.
23. Indie 103.  An attempt to un-clearchannel the LA airwaves and a bit of a throwback business model, Indie gave up the ghost this year, but having punk-rock dj’s on prime frequencies was fun while it lasted.  Once we have internet in our cars, it won’t matter anyway ’cause we’ll all be listening to Pandora.
24. Barack Obama’s inauguration.  His words then, and the collective optimism we had in them, were as inspiring as any political event my generation has experienced.  I’m still hoping he will do more to live up to the vision.
25. Andrew Wyeth, who died this year.  Sometimes dismissed as a lightweight, Wyeth was an iconoclast and an experimental, expressive, honest painter who didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought.  In my view, he was one of America’s true great artists.
26. Unclasses.  I love this idea, and the general idea that amateurs and hobbyists have a lot to teach us and the desire to share.  I hope it spreads.  Speaking of sharing, let’s add Neighborgoods too (friend me if you join).
27. Wikipedia, Creative Commons, OpenID, OpenSocial, and all of the other emerging open web repositories, formats, and ip frameworks that are making it possible to do good things and make incremental contributions to the greater good of the web commons.
28. Friends.  I have so many friends pursuing their passions, big ideas, and family dreams right now.  I’m amazed by what people do every day.
29. Kickstarter.  Go check it out, and fund something that inspires you.

I predicted years ago (as a book editor at the time) that a powerful author would be the first to drive real disintermediation of publishers. At the time, I also believed it would be Stephen King! (He’s played with this before, but not with such good execution as I know the Kindle will deliver.)

More importantly, I’ve been delighted by my Kindle 1 and am thrilled to see it continuing to get better and reach more mainstream readers, while also helping break the back of the retail distribution chain for books. This is good for writers too: more reasonable distribution costs = more reasonable pricing for consumers = more room for author royalties.

With any luck, other variations of this technology will continue to arrive and Amazon won’t get to the point of punitive pricing. . . .

Anyway, if you’re thinking of getting one, consider this a +1.

Ok, can I just say, “Ouch!”

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of counting our blessings, but I’m prompted this year to take stock of them even more than usual.

Maybe it’s the prospect of change on the horizon for our country, which is long overdue if you ask me. Maybe it’s yesterday’s news of terrorism in Mumbai, reminding me that, for all our education, prosperity, and quote-unquote civilization, we still have a long way to go to coexist peacefully with our neighbors in the world. Or maybe the thought that several of the people Amy and I were delivering meals to the homeless with so joyfully this morning just had their basic civil rights stripped away by a popular vote promoted by religious zealots and supported by garden-variety folks all over the state.

Without a doubt, the manic-depressive state of the financial markets — some say the inevitable outcome of 2 decades of “Boys Gone Wild” on Wall Street with their parents’ Ferraris — proves to me yet again that government is so broken it can’t live up to its most basic mission of protecting its citizens effectively. And while the latest crisis is far from over, and I can actually fill my gas tank again without hitting the $50 mark, the astonishing levels to which we’ve mortgaged the future to keep ourselves afloat may very well impact the quality of lives available not only to us, but to our children’s children. It may be ironic, but for me it’s a sharp reminder that we have it pretty damned good, actually — if we compare ourselves, say, to the billion or so people in the world who lack access to clean water and basic sanitation.

And so onward we go. Because, just as history, proverbially, is what gets written down, life is what you live. There are births to celebrate, weddings to cheer, graduations to attend, and lots of other rites of passage and grateful moments that are bigger in our lives than all this world gloom and doom times ten. This year, I got engaged, had loved ones survive strokes and even plane crashes, helped (in some small way) a political cause I care about succeed, helped create important technology, and still had the excess good fortune and leisure to spend lots of time traveling and listening to great music and generally living well, all over the country. In this bounty, I find much to be grateful for.

The floodwaters of global warming may be real on the horizon, but they have not yet reached our door. Happily, I still have a job to return to Monday morning (at least for the time being). So you can be sure I will spend the rest of this weekend celebrating with good friends, eating real turkey and pumpkin pie, drinking good wine. . . and raising a glass with a thought for you, and to your being able to do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving and much love,
Greg

I am inspired by his literacy, his integrity, and his quality management style. So many politicians talk about running the country like a company, but I actually believe him and think it’s more the staffing that needs to be viewed that way. (See Fred Wilson’s great blog post about what we can hope for here.) There is no substitute for talent — especially when compared to cronyism.

I am electrified by his transparency. The first twitter president. An open transition. Change.gov. This is a far cry from the guy who has been suing to keep his meetings private.

What this means most to me, as I reflect on it, is that Barack Obama is raising the bar on what it means to be president. Significantly.

He has the opportunity to inspire us to act like the citizens of the world we are capable of being. And to be proud of living up to our potential.

Here’s to hoping we can never go back. I made two more kiva loans today, both to photograhers in Nigeria named Elizabeth Olaleye and Fumilayo Fatolu, to celebrate our good fortune — and hope.

After requesting absentee ballots twice and not receiving them, I was preparing to go to LA’s only early voting location today (12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk, CA 90650). Internet reports said lines were stretching around the building all week and would be worse today, so I called trying to request an “express ballot” (a procedure I discovered thanks to a commenter on California Faultline) to possibly bypass the line.

Suprisingly, I got through on a saturday after only a few minutes on hold. Encouraging – but not for long. After asking my name and address, the woman argumentatively told me that a ballot had been mailed to me and returned undeliverable. She did not have a record of my second request. We went back and forth a few times, her challenging me about the validity of the mailing address (it’s perfectly valid), etc., before I finally said, “Look, either way I don’t have a ballot and would like to exercise my right to vote, but I’ll be out of state tuesday. Can I do that?”

She then told me the lines were around the block, and I should use the federal postcard oath to fax in my vote. She said it was designed for overseas folks who didn’t get paper ballots in time but could be used for out of state. She told me the link for it was on the lavote.net site, but I couldn’t find it while we were talking, and she didn’t know where the link was (“people are finding it,” she said), so I asked if I could just come in.

“Well you’d better bring snacks and lunch, because the line is around the building,” she said, discouragingly. I asked about the Express Ballot. “Oh yeah, you did request that,” she said, not particularly encouragingly. I decided to dig into the fax option a bit more anyway and signed off.

I eventually found the overseas voter instructions and the oath/signature form (pdf). While the woman had clearly stated these were being used to record out of state votes, the form itself requires you to sign an oath that you are military or a US citizen residing overseas. I did check the fax number she gave me, as I thought it might be jammed with people trying to fax military ballots and whatnot, but I got right through to a fax machine.

I decided to try my luck with an express ballot. A friend and I have appointments for 2pm, and I’ll update this blog on how it turns out. For anyone else who wants to try this, the number is 1-800-815-2666 extension 2. You must ask for an Express Ballot.

But my question, for anyone who might know, is whether that overseas form would be a valid way to vote. If it were to be valid, would you have to sign it as is (ie an oath stating you reside or are temporarily overseas even if you are just out of state)? Would you modify the statement to be truthful, or would that invalidate your vote? Would it be counted if you’d already requested an absentee ballot at a U.S. address (ie, strongly suggesting that you are not in fact overseas)?

I may need to fall back on this method, and I suspect lots of voters who are not able to get to Norwalk and/or get through the lines there on time would want to know, so any information folks have will be helpful.

Thanks – and please vote!!

UPDATE:  In and out in 20mins via Express Ballot. They laughed when we told them we had a reservation for 2pm, and it looked like lots of folks were waiting longer, but they looked us up by last name, our ballots were there, and we were immediately able to vote. Good thing, because the walk-up lines were heinous.  Photos of that here and more to come on flickr.  Still no answer on the military thing, though.