Alphabet Soup

You Are Your Service

2009-02-19T13:05:00.001-08:00

Some times an article comes along that crystalises certain views.

This is one such article.

Topic? "Entertainment as a Service".

DING!

It's not a product. Something to mass produce and have consumed.

It's a service - something you do for your (pro/con)sumer.

What really struck me was the following point -

Pirates are ahead not just on price, but on service

Pirates offer the best service. Cost isn't an issue, it's the fact you can download it at your pleasure, without ads and without waiting for it to come to your doorstep.

Pirates provide the ultimate service - content.

Strip away payment, ads, dealing with Harvey Norman, annoying sales staff, and you simply have the product.

At the end of the day it comes down to service is a tool for value creation.

Time to look at the sales of Team Fortress 2 to see the impact of the updates on revenue. Holy s#!%. The sales spike by huge amounts everytime there's a sale or major update. Steam sales went up 106% after a free update. Player minutes went up by 105%. Gifting has thrown a 71% sales increase. Surprisingly, sales from retail stores also went up by 28%. Finally, it saw 75% increase in new users. Knock knock. Who's there? Steam. Steam who? Steam is so successful it hurts.

Bam.

Current Media Forecast

2009-02-13T17:43:00.001-08:00

Tucker Max writes in regards to companies falling in the future -

You are going to see a MAJOR shakeout in the media sector over the next year to 18 months. Every part of it:

-At least one major publisher, and probably a dozen smaller, will go under or be absorbed
-At least one major distributor (Weinstein Co is my best guess), and many indies, will go under.
-At least ten mid-major newspapers will go stop publishing this year, and probably one big one.
-At least 500 smaller magazines, 25 mid-major magazines, and maybe up to 5 large titles will shutter this year. My guess on the biggest: US News and World Report. This prediction wasn't hard--It's already started.
-Not really news, but you are going to see a major US city without a conventional daily newspaper by mid-2010. My outside prediction for which one: Los Angeles. The site is in the black (and pretty good), the paper is in the red, and they are one of the only papers preparing for the future. They might make the leap (which I think would be a good thing).
-The music companies have been going under and/or being absorbed for the past two years, so predicting that is nothing new. What will be new is the fallout from the Ticketmaster-LiveNation merger. Not good for the music business--those two companies are evil.
-You are going to see a TON of smaller studio/production companies flounder. It's already started--Lionsgate is in serious trouble right now. This is a studio that, five years ago, was considered the model for how to be. Quite the fall.
-A BUNCH of internet type companies are going to get hit hard, esp. the ones positioned for the old media model of success. Best example is Yahoo--it's a dead man walking already--sell your stock now before it goes any lower.
-No idea how many radio stations will shit the bed. A lot, including the satellite ones. They have so much debt its incredible.

It's not even that all these companies will go cash flow negative. Some of them will even be mildly profitable on the balance sheets when they go under. No, its much more complicated than that.

The problem is that over the last five years a lot of these companies took on a shit load of debt to finance any number of stupid projects, loans that were based on projections that were WAY to optimistic. What happens when they aren't making 20% margins? They can't service that debt. So what happens when a media company with assets can't pay its exorbitant interest costs? It's sold for its parts. The next two years are going to see this scenario played out over and over:

Media company can't pay it's debt, either goes into bankruptcy or defaults to creditors, and is sold off in pieces to other media companies. EXCEPT because of the credit crunch, there are hardly no private equity companies available to finance this, so the valuations are going to be INCREDIBLY low, lower than anyone is guessing right now. This is going to result in a huge re-adjustment on all media company evaluations, which has a ton of unintended consequences. Fast forward past all the complicated steps, what this is going to result is in the collapse of the media universe as we know it, creating a huge vacuum in conventional content production. And that's not even assuming it's a public company. If it's public, you have awful stock and investor issues to deal with that SUCK. It makes it about 10x times harder to deal with short term problems.

Bad news short term, good news long term. This is because it is going to create a HUGE space for innovators come in and provide content under whole new models that are designed to work under the new technological and social assumptions of the 21st century.

It's going to be rough for awhile, but only for the established media. It'll be a gold rush for the smart entrepreneur and the hustler artist.

Now on Reddit, I see -

Directed by The Purchase Brothers, The Escape From City 17 is a short film series adapted from Valve's Half Life video games.

At first the team only wanted to test out a number of post production techniques (the special effects are impressive for such a small team), but the project ballooned into a multi-part series.

The project was filmed with very limited resources; the first two episodes were made on a budget of only $500.

The Video -

They came up with this on a budget of $500 (for the first 2 episodes).

Simply put this is amazing. The fracturization of the old media companies is going to come hard and fast if artists can create and distribute content like this.

It's Always Usually Someone Much Smarter...

2008-12-28T22:28:00.001-08:00

Once again, Tucker Max says what i have been having difficulty saying in terms of my thoughts on business -

No wonder so many think anything "corporate" is a monstrosity. They're right - if the implosion of the investment banks tells us anything, it's this: when what we do is meaningless, it's neither economically valid, strategically viable, nor truly value-creating. The macro crisis tells us in no uncertain terms: without meaning, businesses devolve to the lowest common denominator: empty exercises in trivial gamesmanship - not next-generation institutions built to fuel another century of economic growth.

Value creation. Doing good, not evil. Work it yo.

Breaking News

2008-11-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is why news on the web needs to be far more interactive -

STUART, Fla. -- A student at a Florida school has been arrested after authorities say he was "passing gas" and turned off his classmates' computers.According to a report released Friday by the Martin County Sheriff's Office, the 13-year-old boy "continually disrupted his classroom environment" by intentionally breaking wind. He then shut off some computers other students were using.The Spectrum Junior-Senior High School was arrested Nov. 4.

A school resource officer placed the boy under arrest after he confessed about his behavior, according to the report. He was charged with disruption of school function and released to his mother.

There is so much funny here, that it needs a multi-tiered comment system just to manage the lulz.

Transaction Cost & You

2008-11-23T18:52:00.000-08:00

Transaction Cost has bottomed out. No longer do we have to purely associate with individuals due to their close proximity (social, cultural or genetic). We can now connect with people who think the same way.

How will these new idea tribes change the the predominate role of cultural and genetic heritage in modern society?

A Little Bit More On The Current Financial Crisis

2008-10-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

An interview on the WSJ goes into the fundamental cause of the collapse...

This is not due to a lack of money available to lend, Ms. Schwartz says, but to a lack of faith in the ability of borrowers to repay their debts. "The Fed," she argues, "has gone about as if the problem is a shortage of liquidity. That is not the basic problem. The basic problem for the markets is that [uncertainty] that the balance sheets of financial firms are credible."

So it appears that it is an issue with corporate transparency, which is indicative of the deeper failure of the financial markets - Broken DNA. But what can be done about it and where do we go from here? Umair says...

Tomorrow's sources of advantage aren't like yesterday's. They're not built on being able to exploit, dominate, or coerce more strongly than others -- they don't result from being harder, better, faster, stronger. They're about exactly the opposite: being softer, better able to fail, having the ability to be slower, gaining the capacity for tolerance and difference. Ultimately, they are about a true advantage -- one that accrues not just to the corporation, at the expense of people, society, or the environment; but one that accrues to all.

So what changes can be made to fix up the problems?

BAM! Wikinomics.

Openness, Peering, Sharing & Acting Globally.

But these are practical ideas that can be put into place.

Radical Transparency - where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly, as espoused through the business practice of Corporate Transparency. The framework and strategy exists, it now just needs to be fused with corporate DNA.

Specific. Local. Relevant.

2008-10-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

Andrew McMillen has an good post about a music e-zine that has been dumbed down with a generic site redesign. I don't understand why companies move to generic, broad stroke, one size fits all models for it's consumers these days.

Sure, this would have been a good idea a few years ago when transaction costs were higher, where communities and like minded individuals were not as easily able to organise, and as such precluded people with specific interests from getting together to communicate, interact and create. A broad stroke system was needed to make sure you "caught" everyone in the net, as it was far harder to develop a popular base for your product.

But now you are able to get a popular by focusing on specific segments of the market.

Lowered transaction costs are allowing people with highly specific, and varied interests to communicate - the old model of appealing to everyone to reach critical mass is superfluous, slow and now lethargic. Time and time again we see companies with clear directions create tribes of their own, due to the simple fact the internet allows us to cheaply and easily find like minded people.

Small is the new Big. Be highly specific. Be highly local. Be highly relevant.

AngryAussie response to Aussie Internet Censorship

2008-10-20T02:55:00.001-07:00

iTunes Music Price Inconsistency

2008-10-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

Australia pays $1.22 USD for a song that costs Americans $1.

Australia pays $12.26 USD for an album that costs Americans $9.99.

This sucks and is unfair. Other people have it better and others have it worse. One universal price. Stop dicking the customer.

Blogging Vs. Journalism

2008-09-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

Mark Day believes that Blogs [are] no match for ad-supported investigative journalism.

From the article -

By definition this is a job for private enterprise because governments cannot reliably scrutinise themselves. Journalism that reveals information that some people do not want you to know is time-consuming and costly to sustain. Therefore it can be supported only by a profitable business.

The cost of Journalism is also being chipped away at - there is no transaction cost on the internet anymore - it's a level playing ground for all involved. But to say that traditional journalism is the only way to get respected news is old school thinking. People Twitter live political debates, tech-heads blog Apple conventions, people use social networking websites to coordinate relief for victims of national disasters.

There is no need to drive quality investigative work through a paper any more - look at the example of the Huffington Post. Alternative information outlets are emerging that are competing with Newspapers BECAUSE of their Consumer Contribution. The key is collaboration.

There is only one model I know, or can see, that can do this, and that is the traditional advertiser-supported model that has sustained newspapers for more than a century.

To say there is "one model" of anything these days is bunk. Technology is constantly evolving and adapting giving us new ways of creating, delivering and interpreting information in any industry.

The challenge, then, is to transfer the workings of newspapers to a web-based delivery system while maintaining the journalistic standards and characteristics that made them profitable businesses.

I don't see this as a challenge, but as an opportunity.

Andrew Bolt has come back with a very good response, but I don't think he takes it far enough.

I’ve found readers of this blog most useful collaborators in sending me items - both reported and unreported - that help me fill out columns with telling anecdotes, evidence and examples.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Peer collaboration.

There has never been a time where we have the ability to collaborate, interact and socialise on such an even playing field before.

An article now doesn't start with the News, get reported by the Journo and end in the Paper. It is now discussed on blogs, critiqued, analysed, and its the breadth and depth of the people discussing it that we are able to create a level of perspective never dreamed of before.

The value of a news article has been absolutely smashed by blogging, commenting and discussion, but only as long as that article stays static. Once introduced to a collaborative environment, the discussion takes on a life of its own, offering greater value than previously only given by the Journo. No longer does the buck stop with the Journo.

Commenting systems like Disqus are already being used by bloggers, to provide an integrated conversation system for not only people to report on, but to have fully fledged web-wide communication. Users can even rate posts and posters to help stem garbage posts.

For the SMH, Daily Telegraph and The Australian to survive they NEED a better comments and moderation system. This will allow further growth that has been stifled through morons with anonymous accounts arguing off topic about global warming.

There is no need for a combative view of Traditional Media Vs. Blogging. They NEED to feed off each other, remixing, interacting to produce a far more unique and deep story. This is inevitable, otherwise old school media is going to be left in the dust.

Recent Posting

2008-08-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not, I am currently in Europe!

I am posting at http://theeuro5.blogspot.com and uploading photos to my Facebook, so add me as a friend and check it out.

Motivation

2008-07-08T15:06:00.001-07:00

I am at home, sick with the flu and I am trying to write a few blog posts at the same time. I am ready to throw in the towel because to be honest the concepts are making my head hurt.

And then I remember a very simple truth I hold in my life, from a book I found very inspirational.

A man is measured by what he can produce.

And it keeps me writing because I want to measure up to my own standards. And I want to hit it out of the park -

“What’s the difference between the mediocre and great? It’s usually not talent. I’m not the greatest writer or businessman or filmmaker or whatever, but it doesn’t matter because I work the hardest. Let’s say you’re faced with 10 important tasks. A loser will do few or none of them well, an amateur might do 5 or 6 pretty well but do ‘just whatever’ on the rest and let them slide. A pro will step up and hit all 10 out of the park, and then do the same thing with the next 10.”

The Worldly Entrepreneur

2008-06-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

From the Wikinomics blog,

Wikinomics argues that businesses’ value is increasingly coming from their communities. As corporations own fewer and fewer physical assets and lose their ability to control their intellectual property, employees and customers are able to bypass shareholders and recreate a business in a new image overnight. This is even more true in an era where value is created by prosumers and outside-collaborators.

Will this lead to the innevitable rise of the global entrepeneur? Decentralised specialists in product engineering, development and evolution, working for a number of companies who can use their specific skill set? Every individual displaying a unique brand, as espoused by your online content? Is this the most effective way to maximise skillsets and minimise down time?

Your Favourite Sammich

2008-06-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd throw this one out there, see what happens.

My folks own a takeaway shop and are looking to revamp the gourmet sandwich menu, so in the spirit of collaboration I thought I'd throw this one wide open.

Post your favourite(s) in the comments. If it's new, tasty and gets a run on the menu we'll even name it after you!!

E.g. Mine is:

Roast Beef
Chutney
Gooey Cheese
Rocket/Lettuce
Tomato

Why Seth Godin is amazing, and why The Daily Telegraph can Improve

2008-06-19T18:12:00.001-07:00

Simply, he gets it.

What happens to reading habits when you can buy all the books you want for $40 a month? What happens to book consumption when books become social objects, commented upon by you and your participating friends or network? The conversations surrounding books are often a prime driver behind book sales ("You haven't read it yet?) and the conversation-enabled Kindle takes that to a whole new level.

Collaboration on a prosumer level of books and all manner of content will one day be the norm. Those who adopt it quickest and most effectively will be on the forefront of next media revolution - the road to riches paved in gold and quality content. And YET, the mainstream media is yet to catch on that the leveraging of their consumers is possible, or if they do recognise it, they fail to fully explore the value on offer.

I was having a discussion with a friend who works at The Daily Telegraph,who is very excited about a new feature, effectively a place for users to upload certain content and for the DT to host.

This would be a great feature...

If it were 3 years ago. Before Youtube COMPLETELY changed the landscape with videos, content & collaboration.

Vetted content uploads, no commenting system, and most importantly - the innability to effectively share your video's (apart from a e-mail forwarding feature - come on) reinforces that this is a limping entry to a global media system on fire.

The GREATEST strength The DT Website has INCREDIBLE leverage. It is the most read newspaper in Australia, and along with news.com.au, is ranked as the 544th most visited webpage on the Internet.

All these website viewers, not just consumers but prosumers, the ability to create true interactivity with their site visitors, and they DON'T LEVERAGE IT.

The thing is, if they don't do it, someone else will - the internet is a great equaliser. Google came from nowhere to topple Yahoo and Microsoft in a matter of years. The vice like grip the old media companies hold on the industry will not be able to be maintained where speed, responsiveness and community development are moving forces. Just look what the Huffington Post has acheived in terms of popularity and user collaboration.

The New Apple Store - Sydney, Australia

2008-06-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

A Youtube Video and a few Pics I took today whilst on my lunch break.

Chasing Kevin Smith

2008-06-05T03:40:00.000-07:00

I watched Chasing Amy for the first time last night. It is an amazing movie simply for the earth shattering honesty that the characters exhibit. Sure, there is a bit of cheese, but it's eclipsed by the strength of character development.

Then it got me thinking back to a series of blog posts by Kevin Smith that I read whilst the post production of Clerks 2 was going down. In it he had a blog series about how he became friends with Mewes', and dealt with Mewes' subsequent battle with heroin.

It was simply one of the most amazing stories I had experienced in ANY medium. Detailed, painful, epic and just plain honest to the point where it makes an incredibly deep connection with the reader.

I tried looking for it today online but couldn't find it - it appears he has removed it from the website to include it in his book. Whatever - get the book. The story is amazing and well worth the purchase of the book, purely for Mewes' story alone.

Once Upon A Time In The East (Part 1)

2008-06-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

It is a coasy little house in the suburbs of Pagewood. It is rather nondescript, apart from the polished marble tiles leading up to the house, and the large white collonades. There is no picket fence, but steel spikes painted in Santorini white. The grass in the front lawn is kept minimal and Spartanly short. This is the home of off-the-boat first generations Europeans, and if you didn't figure out by now, the smell of fresh Pististis and traditional pancakes give it away.

Warmly welcomed like a long lost relative, we sit down in chairs that seem vintage to the untrained eye, but they have meerely been wrapped up in plastic until not too long ago, which gives it that old but new look. The small dining table fits 5, and it's glass table reflects the owners austerity.

I was a visitor in my friends home, on the day of his Grandfathers)73rd Birthday. We had caught the tail end of the dinner, arriving just after the parents had left, but (luckily) in time for home made pancakes and donuts. The pancakes were thin and sweet - a long time favourite of mine, always promised to be made whenever I was around. Jam was served, a sweet strawberry flavour, only able to be bought from those import only warehouses that store every kind of awesome wog food imaginable that can only be found in these stores (or in the mother land).

Our chat naturally turned to their past, and I ventured as to ask about how they came to meet and come to the country. The Grandfather was born in 1935 in Croatia. To put it simply, it was not a pretty time. Between persecution of the both Serbs and Croats and a savaged economy after WW1, it was a difficult place to live, especially after WW2, where it now became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In the heart of Communist Croatia, he decided to escape. Leaving his small villiage of cows and goats, he enrolled himself at boarding school. Not long after he seceeded to Italy, but was caught along the border by the guards and sent back. After being sent back to boarding school, he made the escape again, but this time with 3 other friends in tow. They made it successfully to Italy, living in refugee camps.

He didn't mind his time in the refugee camps. They were over crowded, unhygenic and well below his living conditions in the boarding school, but it was a much better option than living elsewhere (or worse yet being deported).

To Be Continued...

Social Networking Advertising

2008-06-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, why are there so many ads for THINGS?

Sunglasses, Shirts, Pants, Computers, Mugs and Weight Gaining Protein.

What. The. Fuck.

Surely you would think on a Social Networking Site they would be able to advertising group Sky Diving Lessons, or Scuba Diving Courses, or Salsa Lessons - all for people with similar interests.

Am I missing something?

Can I Get a Hit? HIT!

2008-05-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here watching James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause punch a wooden table like a drunken fool. He wants to punch someone, but ends up taking it out on a table. He has a fair go (for an onscreen performance), punching and kicking. What struck me though, was that after releasing his aggression on this inanimate he feels like a prize jerk.

Generally, anger is a short term reaction, which has evolved to stimulate mental and physiological responses to help shape and deal with immediate danger or decision making. Not only is it an emotion, but due to neural circuitry, "anger is a reproductive organ as surely as your liver." It lives, breathes, adapts and develops.

Depending on which way your Anger is expressed, the internal responses can vary. Lashing out is usually the "chosen" response. It maintains the visceral and immediate nature of hate (instead of letting it 'stew' with patience). Ironically enough, the stimulus of hate also provide validation for your current emotions. When you lash out at someone, you are validating your reality by their response. By them reacting to you, it makes your anger more real and more present, which in a funny way, makes you feel good. You feel good to let it out, to let someone cop it, to show people that you feel this way, and maybe they should too.

But consider it in a different scenario. When you expel this anger on to an inanimate object, like Dean did, you just end up feeling like a total dick.

Why?

The object on which you are taking out your aggression on exists in a reality where your anger exists. If you attack something nonreactive, immovable, unbreakable and unshakable - your sense of sense of self and reality immediately deflates, as you end up with the realisation there will be no response, your anger dissipates. It shows you the fickle nature of your emotions, and how uneven andd short-sighted it was to react to it, and give in.

Seneca has a 3 system method that is very useful for dealing with it. To be quite honest, I am more of a fan of the Tolle system; breathing, giving it space, feeling it and letting it dissipate. Thoughts, opinions and most importantly, critiques??

How It's Always Been Done

2008-05-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

Openness, Peering, Sharing, and Acting Globally.

These are the four basic principles espoused in Wikinomics (and echoed strongly in most of Bubblegen). All four are allowed to flourished due to low transaction costs and cheap coordination that the internet offers.

The funny thing is, these systems were put into place well before the Internet gave us the afformentioned cost advantages, and led business to seeing them as viable options.

Maverick is a story of Richardo Semler who revolutionised Semco using the afformentioned Wikinomics principles. He did this in the face of a tumulteous Brasilian market, angry and very reserved peers, not to mention the fact that he was charting the unknown.

By openess, he legitimately democratised the promotion process, boss evaluation, and even letting the employee set their own wage.

He fostered peering and acted globally by encouraging Semco employee's start their own businesses from whom Semco could buy products off,. This reduced Semco's costs and staff, while promoting entrepeneurialship.

In Sharing he saw the true value of resources in the market. He would actively ensure that talent was not pooled within the company, and would let highly skilled workers go if there was no need for them. He also introduced a profit sharing scheme.

All this occured in a pre-Internet age.

At a time where transcaction costs were high, and information was uber valued within walled garden systems - these principles still drove faster product evolution, design and development, allowed workers to have the ability to think independantly of the global machine and have their ideas judged on their merits. Finally, an individuals' success was directly tied to the companies success. It was measurable and quantified and people were responsible for their performance. Awesome.

Setting the Foundations for Me

2008-05-08T03:57:00.000-07:00

The more I read the more I find, explore, discover and cement certain world views. They come from a range of sources, from fiction, to science, self-help, economics and management.

First of all.

"I Swear by life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor will I ask another man to live for my sake."

Everything shall be done by my own accord. Everything shall be done by conscious mind. I will be the alpha and omega in all my decisions. I will take full accountability and total responsibility in all realms. Obviously there are times when I cannot control everything, but where I can, I will.

By nature of the first rule, I am completely responsible for my own happiness. I will not allow others to detract from my happiness, and not look to others to find happiness. I will only allow others to add their happiness to my own. By this same rule, I will not seek value from others, as I know that by my own virtue of reason and logic, and being the person I am, I have VALUE.

Too many times, people go out with the idea of taking value. Of being in a conversation, then scanning to see if anyone of greater value is around to go talk to. Why walk around with a half full cup of value, looking to get filled by someone else? Hope springs eternal, and so does Value. OFFERING value instead of taking it is one of the largest conscious paradigm shifts I have taken recently - I hope it becomes competently unconscious after some time...

Finally... I do NOT give a FUCK about what anyone else thinks of me. I will be me, unapologetically, at all times.

I cannot stress this enough. This almost feels like a first step every single time I try it. It is the hardest, but I have faith in the process, and the reward will be total comfort in myself, in all situations and environments.

I cannot claim to have reached any of these ideals, but thats just the thing. We rarely ever reach the ideal, since once we get there - we move the goal posts just that bit further, to see how much more we can evolve and develop, or to stay ahead of the pack. But at the end of the day, you must measure against your own milestones, values and goals - these should not be set by anyone other than yourself, after all, whose perspective, values and reason are more important than my own?

BTW, I cannot stress how important and influential the Blueprint Decoded has been in my development (attempts hehe). Check it out, you will not be disappointed.

Some Thoughts on Twitter...

2008-05-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

For awhile know, I have had a few keywords being tracked on twitter via my gmail chat client. It sends me all tweets with the following keywords -

"strategy", "rmmb", "web2.0", "goog", "aapl", "yhoo", "amzn", "nflx", "dis", "igoogle", "gta4", "analytics", "apps", "opensocial", "obama", "god", "athiesm", "evolution", "satan", "science", "blog", "economics", "recipe", "pickup", "rsd", "joke", "web2open", "sunrise", "sydney", "australia".

It effectively allows me to plugin to any topic I want, 24/7, and keeps me entertained for the most part of the day when it gets a bit slow.

Then I came across http://twistori.com/ - a very artsy representation of twitter (really reminded me of grouphug.us).

It really seems that a recombination of of tweets out there, under a common theme of 'love', 'hate' etc, really amplify the message across, and tell a very interesting 'story'.

I am unsure as to the utility of it all, but on some level I find it very cool that we are able to instaneously plug into the emotions of people around the world. That leads to the next question, How can we mixup, develop and recombine this knowledge to make long lasting change with value creation? Is it even possible? I absolutely think it is, but it will require a few more steps with bootstrapping, without the traditional hits out of nowhere.

To me, the conscious representation of these unconscious emotions offers a huge amount of value in terms of polling information from people. In comparison to cognitive flow of most blogs, the active respresentation of emotions, which come and go in short bursts, fleeting yet powerful, are perfectly delivered via Twitter.

This just further goes to show that Twitter is the perfect medium for live events where decision making, snap judgement and first impressions are key.

The Power Of The Community & Learning

2008-05-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

From here -

Murphy's assignment for this class was a 500-word paper. Something that any educated person could read and understand but has a lot of economics in it. [...] If by the age of 40 I can write things that everybody can understand but have a lot of economics in it, I would call my chicago education a success.

This really struck me. The ability to effectively communicate is going to be the chief ability in the information age.

The skill to have a complex idea, and to simplify it for mass consumption is simply incredible.

This is why I am so freaking over the moon with TED. I can't believe I have been on the internet for so long and haven't stumbled upon it earlier.

Greatest minds of the worlds.
20 minutes to effectively communicate their idea.

The one common theme is... the power of the COMMUNITY.

A few awesome ones to watch-

Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics - How the power of communities are messing with economic models. a lot of this stuff is common sense social sharing and exchange stuff that umair talks about.

Dave Eggers: Once Upon a School - Open source schooling - industry people giving away their time to tutor kids, which leads to great results.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo - Technology that gathers metadata of photos on internet, and links them together to one congruent image. This one is jaw dropping.

EDIT: More on open-sauce (hehehe), Web2Open "unconference". Decentralised talks with active listener participation. Awesome.

My First Day In Perth

2008-04-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Pana pana85@gmail.com
Date: Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 2:35 PM
Subject: my first day in perth
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alright, I have a bit of time until Dan the Man (the electrician) gets back with the 411.

Well I woke up at 4am much to my chagrin after 3 hours sleep. I had to wipe the sleep out of my eyes with a shovel, got into a cab at 5am and slept to the airport which took only 20 minutes as the streets were dead silent.

So as I'm about to get my online ticket, in my brain dead stupor I accidentally tick that I am bringing Dangerous Materials on to the plain. It only hits me after I hit the button. Damn. I try to just reissue my own ticket. A flashing screen comes up saying "WE CANNOT ISSUE YOU A TICKET, PLEASE SEE A CUSTOMS OFFICIAL." BUT, I must give it to customs, I really am glad they are adopting a 'trust' system with dangerous materials.

I wait in a line for 30 minutes to see a customs official who after checking both hand luggage and luggage allows me onto the plane.

Now on the plane I am in an aisle seat and the trolly keeps banging my knee every time it goes pass. Couple this with the fact the woman sitting next to me speaks NO English and can only communicate by pointing at things and grunting (i.e. me opening her bottle of water). Not only that, but she keeps inconsiderately extending her arm over the armrest, whilst at the same time I deal with turbulence which would make the Pirate Ship at Wonderland (RIP) question it's thrill giving status.

We finally make it off the plane, and as I am in thongs, jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt, I decide to put on the suit that I brought so I can give at least a (semi) professional showing at RW Perth.
So I go into the men's bathroom with my backpack and suitcase. I look around and realize there is no way I'm getting changed in there with all the piss and spit on the floor.

So I find the disabled bathroom and enter the pre-bathroom area. The door is currently busy. I wait for two minutes when this sweet looking girl comes out. I shoot her a GRIN™ and she smiles and says Hi back. I ponder at her cuteness as I walk into the bathroom, reinforced by my suave and sophisticated techniques of "hello".

That is until I am suddenly assaulted back into reality by the most nauseating smell.

The bowel is open, and staring up in full gory glory are tissues covered with blood. Now I'm no rocket scientist, nor human biologist, but since she came out of there looking relatively healthy I can only assume this is not a from a cut or pimple, but is indeed... period blood. I gag like I have never gagged before. I dry reach into the sink. My eyes well up and it feels what I can only say capsicum spray feels like. I look around, find a can of Glen20 air freshner and deploy half the bottle into the ozone, while flushing the toilet somewhere between 40 to 47 times. I gasp at the clean air and a relative normalness returns to my biology.

Believing my drama filled day would now start to chill out, I open up my suitcase and start getting changed. Half way through me undressing someone starts trying to open the door. I muffle a response that the cubicle is currently in use. Not even 30 seconds later the door shakes again, but this time the voice is clearer- "WHO THE FUCK IS IN THERE!?!?!"

I manage a stronger response this time – "I'm in here, I'll be two minutes." I hear a muffled series of words that sounded like "Fuck, fine then, I need to piss", followed by moaning and a high pitch squeel.

I finish dressing and open the door with mild trepidation, expecting to be trampled by an individual needing to piss. It creaks open and what greets me??

A woman.

In a wheelchair.

Who was waiting for 5 minutes, while I was in the disabled bathroom. Guilt instantly assails me. Our eyes lock, and I KNOW she knows that I'm a fake as her eyes flicker forth between the disabled sign and me.

So I do what anyone else in my situation would have done...

I start to walk with a limp.

Yes, not my finest moment, but it's the only thing that would assuage my conscience.

She goes into the bathroom, I hear the lock snap shut, and I slowly slide into my normal walk. Verbal Kint to Keyser Soze.

As I am walking out of the airport I realise that I have to go to the bathroom for real. So I enter the mens bathroom (stiill with crap over the floor) to take a piss.

The deed gets done, and I start walking to the exit doors when I catch a faint reflection in the windows.

I hear the soft motion of wheels on carpet…

She rolls past.

I know my jig is up. She know's I'm a faker, and there is nothing can do about it. Hey presence burns into my soul with shame and disgust.

Regardless of this, I do what any upstanding citizen would do when a lie is exposed. I switch up my walk and start dragging my right leg again. Digging deper.

I skulk to the Taxi stand and wait inline while she gets in a disabled taxi. I will never forget her look lads. Shame, hurt, pain, suffering, embarrassment but most of all... hate.

Then I finally get to the Perth office, after all that drama, AND THEY'RE IN FUCKING CASUAL CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!!!