JR says... (whether or not anyone is listening)

Go wide (or narrow) with your Blogger Template

2008-07-08T16:12:00.006-05:00

When I created this blog, I couldn't seem to find a blogger template that had both the look I wanted AND full-width (filling the browser window as it re-sizes - both wider and narrower)... So, I took the template I liked the most (thanks Darren) and then fiddled with the template code a bit to make it fill the width of the screen the way I wanted it to and to fill the empty space between the top header, the main content area (the posts) and the right pane (side-bar).

A few people have asked me which template I used (I know, hard to believe), so I am finally posting both a sample blog using that template and instructions on how to use my adjusted template... I figure at least I'll have a place to point the people who have asked for this.

The sample blog shows how the template looks and gives a link to the template file itself... Don't be scared off by the colors, as those can easily be adjusted using the blogger layout tools from the dashboard.

Explaining death is hard enough...

2008-06-26T17:10:00.004-05:00

It was a special moment - a memorable one - when my sons both got their first pets as birthday gifts from their Aunt. A first pet is just so magical - no matter what kind of pet it is. In this case, it was 2 hermit crabs - crab-like critters who live inside, and drag around, abandoned snail shells. For a couple of weeks, my sons were rather good with them - the younger for *not* using his crab as a stringless yoyo ;) and the older one for thoughtfully feeding and caring for both of them.

From the moment those creatures entered our house (the crabs, not my kids) I knew their longevity would be unpredictable, and I'd eventually need to have that dreaded, but important, "what is death" conversation with my kids - I just didn't think that day would come so soon.

So... the other night, after the kids went to sleep, while cleaning the "crabitat", I picked up my older son's crab, and the limp limbs and body of the crab just fell out of the snail shell. I practically jumped back, I was so shocked... and then I felt really sad that my kids would have to deal with this reality.

The next day, I called them both to the tank, kneeled in front of them, and said to my older son, "Your crab is no longer with us - he died yesterday". Well - he went through the classic stages of mourning... demanding a new crab "now", then jealous that his brother still had a crab, then anger (that I killed it, of course), then, finally, sadness, followed by the logical decision that he didn't want another crab at all.... Ok, maybe these aren't classic stages - but this was all new to me.

They actually both dealt with it well... so, after the boys were sleeping, I began preparations for putting the crab into his final resting place (NO! Not the toilet!) - a small paper bag, that we would bury together in the backyard.... I picked up the crab's snail shell again and turned it over... and saw.... AHH! The crab! Alive! I had this sudden nervous energy... I kept thinking "boy, that death conversation was hard enough - but the resurrection conversation is going to be even harder!"... so I grab their "Hermit Crabs for Dummies" book (you think I'm kidding?) and quickly realize that I made a classic, well documented mistake. Molting hermit crabs are often mistaken for dead. Whew... It's not resurrection, it's just the "daddy made a stupid assumption that when a creature's limbs all fall off that it is dead" discussion.

Anyway - the kids were pretty happy about the end result... young son may have been slightly confused that this previously dead crab was now alive, but older son said "I told you he was molting!"... and you know what? He did... a few days earlier - after he read that darn book for daddies - I mean dummies.

A Friend is a Friend - but...

2008-06-25T22:22:00.009-05:00

The lyrics of this lesser-known, but great Pete Townshend song keep running through my head practically every time I use any web site with any form of "friends" community... (doesn't hurt that it's on my ipod at the moment)...

"When eyes met in silence - a pact can be made"

I visit facebook after a few weeks' absence, and see that I have 6 or 7 new friend invitations. Of course, human nature strikes first - and I think "yay!" - and then I see that I only actually really know a couple of them... so I quickly accept those and then click on the names of the others to jog my memory - clearly I must know them, but just don't remember... let's see

"A lifelong alliance - that won't be betrayed"

This first person's name actually sounds familiar, and we do apparently have 3 friends in common - hmmm... two of whom are popular bloggers with, in one case, 5,000 friends (I think I just saw the facebook friends limit)... so now I notice that this 'friend to be' of mine has 2,300 friends himself...

"A friend is a friend - nothing can change that"

...and so, clearly this person really is depending on my friendship ;) - so I accept (for the first time, actually giving in to becoming friends with someone blindly - unless my memory is really failing me here and I actually was roommates with this person in college or something). Hey - a new "friend" - what could be bad about that.

"Arguments, squabbles - can't break the contract..."

Then I look at the profiles of some of these other friend invitations - hey, they're pretty friendful too... 1800, 1300, etc... is that good or bad? Clearly some of those hundreds of electronic friends are actually friends - but can they tell the difference anymore?

"...that each of you makes - to the death to the end"

And now I feel compelled to look at my own profile. 131 friends. huh. Is that too few? or is it too many? I remember a while back, when I stumbled upon my proile page on YouTube, it boldly announced back to me in something close to a 24-pt font,
"You Have No Friends".

I stared at that message for a while and really contemplated it with an ever so slightly broken spirit (drama: mine)... thinking about my friends... Luckily, I was able to conjure up a few real friends at the time and closed that window with a slightly higher velocity, middle-finger click. Interesting that when I went back to find that message again (wish I got a screen shot), it was no longer there... even though I still have no YouTube Friends...

"Deliver your future - into the hands of your friend"

So, I'm sure, as I know you are too, that online friends are a mix of offline-online friends and online-only friends... but I'm also wondering to what extent the simple peer pressure to have lots of friends has driven the activity - the compulsion - to connect to people online. Clearly there is monetary motivation for bloggers and recruiters. Fair. But for the rest of us - once you go beyond your "real" friends and acquaintances - and start inviting - or accepting - online friends... what's the motivation? Is the usefulness of that action becoming diluted - and will we reverse the process eventually - where everyone online is everyone's friend - and then the compulsive action can be to trim down the list to the smallest possible list of true friends.

In the real world - when my laptop is off - YouTube(0) isn't right, but it is closer to the truth than Facebook(131)... Being a good friend to a dozen or so people is plenty if they really are friends.

"A friend is a Friend - nothing can change that" - Pete Townshend

I really do have more than 4 friends (I think)

2008-06-13T08:43:00.003-05:00

You've probably noticed that I added this new feature to my blog which lets people become "members" of my blog... It's the Google Friend Connect product. The features I'm using let people show interest in my blog and even leave comments - not on a specific blog post, but on the blog as a whole. It definitely adds a level of connectivity to my blog which was missing before. Readers can now connect more directly and tell others about my blog through their membership...
I love it! but...
... like other online social networking tools and sites, there's a level of transparency that can either be encouraging or seemingly require defensive justification.

In the case of my friend Orli, it must be encouraging! She's got tons of friends immediately joining her site as members, and even press coverage of her use of this new tool..

In my case - uh... I really must say that, uh, all my friends are not on the web... well, actually, they are... but they're pretty busy, you know... no time to become members of my blog.. 'cause that would take like 2 clicks... well... maybe all my friends are on vacation without their laptops... oh, wait... How many "real" friends do I actually have?... let me see... (1, 2...uh...5... hmmm....... 6...) - yeah - 6. So... let's see... 6 members today, not including me and my mom (seriously)... So, on a percentage basis of real-life friends to Friend Connect members, I'm pretty popular!!

Spreadsheets are sexy?

2008-05-31T20:39:00.003-05:00

The Google IO conference got plenty of press coverage, as this CNet video proves... It was actually a fun interview, but what was i doing with my hands? Is it better to lock them behind my back or let them fly around uncontrollably in front of me? ;)

In another video, a local reporter with independent station KRON4 in CA used some special effects (ok, just some editing) to avoid my flying monkey arms... See that video clip on the KRON4 site - Tech Report with Gabriel Slate (what a cool name).

The two things I liked about this conference: First, it really did feel a bit like a day at Google (with a little bit more junk food than normal), and second, the focus seemed to stay with educating developers rather than getting across a corporate message.

me? biased? probably... but trying not to be.

Lots to learn at Google IO conference

2008-05-28T13:55:00.006-05:00

If you're looking for one of your web developers, you can probably find them in San Francisco at Google IO... a conference for developers to learn more about Google development tools and web services. Reported in varying levels of detail, and focused on many vertical topics, by plenty of bloggers... so no reason for me to give detail... but the energy here is very high and the sheer number of cool tools to learn and use could keep me busy for a decade.

I realize now that adding FriendConnect to my blog last week was a good exercise in learning more about the Social tools being made available to web sites and to people who trust their friends more than they trust other sources. If you want to start somewhere - start there... It's those two boxes on the top right of my blog - where you can see who has "joined"... think about how useful it might be, when you're using the web or web-accessible services/information, to be able to ask "what do my friends use? Who do they trust? what do they think? Expect to see this in more places than my insignificant blog so you can get that advantage of friendly advice and guidance for any web page, business listings, etc... and be able to combine the power of your relationships with your activities on the web. Have Fun.

Heaven on Earth for some of us

2008-05-21T21:24:00.004-05:00

There's a special place, near Princeton, NJ, which my Dad and Mom discovered (as far as I'm concerned, it didn't exist until they discovered it). They would go there together constantly, as it was close to home for them - in fact, it was 'home' for them (if, like my Dad, you listen to Roger Waters and believe that "everybody got somewhere they call home").

There's art amongst the trees and ponds and open fields. There's vision and beauty and mystery. There's love and friendship and childhood dreams. It's practically an imaginary place you'd visit in your dreams - but it's all right there for you to touch and experience with people - which is probably the part that makes it so special. It sheds the one most regrettable part of a great or mysterious dream - the inability really share the experience with anyone.... At this place, called "Grounds For Sculpture", you can share it.

That's what my parents did. They shared this place with each other and they shared it with us ("the kids")... My Dad always told me about this place and gave me that "Jonathan... in your wildest dreams..." pitch (which I just loved), but, regrettably, I never got to experience it with him... so I guess that part will always make this place seem just a bit dream-like for me.

On the day these photos were taken - which, by the way, don't do justice to the place like my Dad's photos did - we happily and permanently made this a place to share with my Dad. We dedicated a bench to him - at his favorite spot, overlooking the sailboat in the pond, in the foreground of the painter's scene. His best friends and family helped make this happen - and now, we all have a new place to sit... a new home...
Thanks, Mom.

Convert Anything on a spreadsheet

2008-03-24T21:46:00.004-05:00

Ok, maybe not 'anything' - but pretty close... It uses a lesser known feature of the Google search box. For example, If you want to know how many feet there are in 12 meters, you type "12 meters in feet" and you get your answer. Or let's say your british friend tells you he has a friend who wants to get to know you better - and you say "describe him" and he says, "right... he's got a good personality, and...well... he weighs 14 stone". Of course, instead of seeming like a naive American (of course not, not you), you quickly go to the google search box and type "14 stone in pounds" and then decide... and maybe then you can use this same method to figure out how many USD (yes, that's dollars) you'll need to buy dinner in GBP (of course, that's pound sterling) - it's not a pretty answer.

Well - now that you know that trick - here's the real trick. In a spreadsheet (yes, on Google, of course) you can send that query to the Google search page in the background, get back the answer, parse it and display the answer in your spreadsheet. All this through the magic of the "ImportHTML()" formula.

I'm not going to go into the details of how to do that here - but I will give you a link to get your own copy of this sample spreadsheet (yes, you'll be asked to login to your google account, if you aren't already, to get this spreadsheet added to your doc list).

I must admit, I've had this fun thing (wha? you don't think this is fun?) lying around for a bit - but I figured I should clear the decks given that I've got some new ideas to post...

Digital Culture what?

2008-03-10T07:11:00.008-05:00

In February, I was interviewed on a show (which, for you wine enthusiasts, is the equivalent of the second label of Good Morning America) called Good Morning America Now - shown on cable TV and on the web. This was a bit of a tanget for me, but there was definitely some relevance to cloud computing and the intersection of our social lives and the web.

Funny part #1 was to see how sensationalism drives the media. It's clear from the way they framed this story, that it was deemed interesting only due to the snippets of sensationalism which could be drawn from a consumer survey. Funnier part #2 was how they titled me in the first half of the clip... almost Seinfeld-worthy.

Whatever the result, it was really a fun experience...

A dinner-time story to break the monotony

2008-03-04T23:10:00.004-05:00

I looked at my blog today... and I didn't like what I saw... a very sparse set of posts, all of which seemed like boring recalls of what I've been doing in the world of conferences (ouch! I just yawned so wide I pulled a muscle)...
so... just to break that cycle... here's something complete irrelevant:

I haven't felt that feeling of uncontrollable laughter in a while - but last night at the dinner table, my four-year old son triggered it.
he: "Daddy - I saw a squirrel today.."
me: "oh, really?"
he: "yeah...it was dead"
me: "awww... that's sad"
he: "his eyeball popped out"
(I swear, he said it so matter of factly... and at the Dinner table!... and I'm supposed to be the "that's not proper dinner-table talk" daddy, and instead I'm trying to hold back extreme hysterics)
me: (bouncing up and down from in-audible laughter) "oh... uh... that's not great dinner table talk..."
he: "yeah... and a bird was eating it"
me: all-out laughter... no holding back... too much pain...

Sometimes it just feels so good to be 4 again.

Web Services at UPenn's Wharton

2008-03-03T06:10:00.004-05:00

I spent my Friday at the Business Technology Conference at Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania). Besides feeling under-dressed next to all the MBA students in suits, it was a very satisfying day - I met a new group of great people and learned things about activities in this area (Web Services) which is slowly becoming a standard part of the foundation of business and life.

The Panel I participated in was really high energy (I thought) and interactive. It was entitled: Internet & Web Services Panel, Subtitled: The Web as Platform: How Cloud Computing Will Change the Software Industry. The Panel was moderated by Jeff Barr - Senior Web Services Evangelist, Amazon.com, and the panelists were:

Alex Chan - Director, Connected Systems Division, Microsoft
Ramon Estopina - Strategy Director, BT Design, BT
Adam Gross - Vice President of Platform and Developer Marketing, Salesforce.com
Rick Treitman - Entrepreneur in Residence, Adobe Systems
Me

Too bad there seems to be no recording or video of the panel - and not even too much blogging activity about the content, 'cause I think there were some good questions and good points made. If you attended, feel free to comment to either counter that point or provide some detail that you might remember (....crickets...).
Hey Rick - How'd you get the title? I gotta get me one a those ;)

More conferences and panels about web 2.0

2008-02-11T17:54:00.000-05:00

Somehow it seems I've gotten into the habit of logging my participation on conference panels and speaking opportunities here on my blog... not in a timely manner in most cases, but logging nonetheless. So let's continue the tradition with two conferences and panels from the past 2 weeks:

Today (hey - that is timely!) I was at the Web Services on Wall Street conference, on a panel entitled "Beyond Web 2.0" (with a much longer subtitle which related it back to the enterprise). On this panel, I joined Tom Steinthal from BSG Alliance (Moderator), Marc Adler from Citigroup, and Michael Ogrinz from Bank of America. This session really dug up some old (for me) large corporate investment banking memories and challenged me to relate all that to my current role... interesting... fun...

Two weeks ago, I was at the Web 2.0 conference put on by WebGuild in Santa Clara, CA two weeks ago - my panel was called "Future of the Web Office", where I was joined by Raju Vegesna and moderated by Ismail Ghalami.

Computing in the Cloud at Princeton U

2008-01-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

I participated on a Panel at Princeton University last week, as part of the "Computing in the Cloud" workshop, hosted by the Center for Information Technology Policy. Definitely a valuable experience for me... I met great people and learned from other panelists and participants. The panel I was on - moderated by Andrea LaPaugh and called "What's Next", included Reihan Salam and Jesse Robbins - both of whom are great story tellers and brought completely different perspectives to the subject.

Overall, panelists and attendees of the workshop conveyed a general net positive attitude, balanced with useful caution regarding privacy and security, with strong hope that Cloud Computing (should I be capitalizing that?) will bring increased transparency to such things as government collected information. As in most areas of new technology ("new" is a relative term), there are some valuable pessimistic views which keep people like me - call me a pragmatic optimist - deeply appreciating the skills of security and legal specialists who act as the sherpas (lower-case 's') in their respective mountain ranges (or jungles). I personally still have a strong view that "I trust the cloud more than my laptop" - to sum it up as simply as I can. You can watch the video of our specific panel (that one alone is 90 minutes - and all the others are also posted thanks to the UChannel). I also thought it might be useful to post the notes I put together before the panel, to organize some of my thoughts (opinions) about Cloud Computing...
(click here for the whole post, including my pre-panel notes)
My notes used at the panel:

Computing in the Cloud - "software and data being served from the web" - will continue to grow and will be the norm. The benefits for vendors and customers simply outweigh the risks
- Software distribution is an obvious win. Ridding the distribution process of physical delivery gives:
  - higher margin for the vendors
  - lower prices for the customers
  - better service for customers - bug fixes, security issues, new features can all be delivered to customers faster, since there's less motivation to batch these up into the next costly snail-mailing.
  - better products - similar to the above, this gives good developers the ability to respond to user feedback and deliver improvements continuously.
  - happier developers (working remotely and getting quick feedback from real users)
- NOTE: I have an XO from OLPC (OLP2C - one laptop per 2 children, soon to be OLP3C, once the little one notices)... that further convinced me, seeing how this super-light technology gave me basically everything I needed since all I needed was the browser (notwithstanding the slow speed or issues with that specific browser)
Some are still betting on desktop-to-cloud synch products - like SoonR bought by Cisco (mobile access to your desktop).
I've learned to really hate explicit SAVING of my desktop stuff... Somehow, easy autosaving came along with the web products I use.
Capitalism will drive "good" products (doing the right thing if people demand it)...with companies meeting the needs of other companies and individual customers... INCLUDING all the new challenges
- privacy, security, safety
- relevance, integration, convenience
Collaboration will be an expected feature
- so much of what we create is intended to share...
- existing products and services take on new value with collaboration...
- Creating content TOGETHER, reviewing expenses TOGETHER, planning projects TOGETHER
MICRO-INNOVATION will grow fast as it becomes more achievable - can you say "Gadgets!" ?
- Platforms, tools, delivery
- "pay-as-you-go" Operations and commerce
- Commoditized services make operating a micro-innovation more viable... for example, legal agreements, support, etc.
CONTENT value with further differentiate:
- Original, creative, popular content gets market-driven value assigned, while repetitive, derivative content gets super-commoditized
Simpler integration / commerce / delivery will give better channels to creative talent, allowing them to:
- easily syndicate
- easily gain attribution (back to their service/site)
- easily monetize
- gain celebrity status (e.g. Youtube publishers)
Collaboration brings new productivity - and new issues.... (see "issues" section)
INTEGRATION between services will increase...
- Integration can be more seamless, bringing customers to even the smallest granular service.
- Access to customers / markets
- Micro-Innovation becomes profitable - with canned legal process, pre-defined service delivery and support, etc...
- GADGETS become a platform not only for micro-innovation, but for integration of services.
- Web Services finally become a reality.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for web services and data will become more important, but they will be simplified, standardized and improved - driven by the Service Integration Supply Chain (below) and the need for simplified "service commerce" (the buying/selling of services).
A new "service-integration-supply-chain" exists and will expand:

> Containers for gadgets > platform for gadget development > gadget types (content free) > content-relevant gadget instances
Collaboration and aggregation of services will result in derivative (sometimes larger) products/services
Do-It-Yourself web creation tools will be improved - to meet new(ish) demand.
- the tools are too disparate and hard to find, and still hard to use
Great Development tools - still an opportunity, since new components are available for integration (and new methods)... supporting micro-development and distribution
Great User-Interaction design (UX) still wins
- Usability and designs really do improve applications and the web overall
Semantic Web-like Structure for much more interesting products
- we used to cal it a "data model"
- Great contribution products (community tagging) will drive this...
Ubiquitous Identification - let me be me wherever i go... without worry.... (OpenID?)
Increase in Premium Services model - advertising has been over-used by non-relevant publishers
- Maybe even a Premium "absolutely private" web

ISSUES LIKELY TO OCCUR - which, themselves, drive opportunities...

Ownership and control of Content:
- Collaboration:
  - who owns that document which 3 people collaborated to create?
  - 3 people collaborate - 1 leaves and "shuts off access"...
- Integration:
  - Content from one source being used in another service - how to split value?
  - example: 1 company publishes data - 2 others use it as a basis to create their own service - who's the owner? Who gets the revenue?
  - similar issues as those in traditional media - e.g. actors or writers demanding part of the revenue stream of syndication...

Note: These were just my notes that I used for the panel, since the format included each panelist giving a 10-15 minute no-slides discussion of their views. Nothing Google in here - just some semi-random personal views and not organized into a standalone presentation.

Sarcasm can ruin a kid's vocabulary

2008-01-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

(First of all - Happy New Year to those of you who haven't heard that useless greeting enough already - I know, none of you)...

Over the break, I had a few interesting revelations... well... one... well... maybe not interesting, but, revealing, if nothing else...
My 4 year old asked me something about something (huh?) - I can't remember actually what it was - but it was something like "Hey Dad! " (which I'm sure he repeated 7 times before being convinced that he had my undivided attention) - "look at this thing I made! Isn't it cool?"...
...to which I replied: "Yeah - that's great!!"
(here's the semi-interesting part...)
He said: "What does that mean?"
JR: "What does what mean?"
4yr-old: "great"
JR: "great? You know what 'great' means! ... don't you?"
4yr-old: " " (stare at daddy until he realizes that you thought you knew what it meant until now)
JR: "great - you know, 'GREAT!' - like 'That's really great!' - it means really really really super good!"
4yr-old: "Oh, yeah... 'great'!... that's great!"

Then I realized... He had heard the word 'great' lots of times... from me, and others... but in a very different context... like, when he spills milk all over the table and floor, and I say 'Oh, that's great'... or when we miss his brother's school bus, and I say 'oh great'...
You get the idea...
great = 'not so great' in the bizarro world of sarcasm where adults find minimal humor in the context of something not so great and kids who are learning their native language find confusion and reverse meanings for everyday words.
My seven year-old, on the other hand, loves sarcasm - and is likely half the source of his brother's confusion...

It might kill the effect to add "That was sarcasm - I actually mean the opposite of what I just said" to the end of every sarcastic comment I make at home - so maybe I'll just stop....

nah.

A Toy Company That Roks

2007-11-29T07:54:00.000-05:00

I love toys. I mean as an adult, I really love cool toys. I mean kids toys really, not adult toys. I mean I love adult toys too (no, not those kind of adult toys)... like cool phones or i-prefixed digital thing-a-ma-bobs... but this is about kids toys.

One toy in particular - Rokenbok - has so captured my attention from the moment I saw it practically 8 years ago, that it has literally been blamed (or thanked, actually) for convincing me to have kids, as the only sane justification for me to buy this toy ;)

So, now I have kids, the boys are old enough, and we own this incredible toy.

Rokenbok is a creative building toy and a multi-vehicle, remote control construction site toy. You build a site which becomes the playground for the trucks. The building is just as much fun as driving the trucks once you're done. Each truck has a purpose, just like on a real construction site, and... well... I'll stop there, 'cause that's not why I'm writing this post (or I would have wrote it a year ago).

I'm not writing this post to thank Rokenbok for the incredibly responsive service I've gotten when I've emailed them about issues ("hey, this bulldozer won't go!"; response: "Give us the code from the bottom and we'll get a new one in the mail today" - and they did).

I'm writing this post to praise Rokenbok as a product company, particularly for their focus on kids and safety. They recently posted a new page on their website which describes their safety testing process - to re-assure parents in the wake of this horrendous rash of lead-ridden toys coming out of manufacturing plants in China. If you have a kid with a red Thomas-Train half in her mouth, you'll understand why this is such a big deal (or you should read other articles).

Rokenbok is not just re-assuring parents as a defensive measure, I think they truly have a strong, DNA-level commitment to the importance of safety in the products that they put in kids' hands - and they deserve credit for that.

Rokenbok has remained focused on they end user over all else. That was clear when we dropped (ok, drove) our first truck off a high ledge on an early site we built - and discovered that it was clearly built to withstand much more abuse than a normal toy... but the safety focus - from design to manufacturing - that's proof of their commitment. One example, besides that they don't dip their toys in vats of chippable lead paint, is the design of their admittedly choking-hazard-sized "Roks" (the balls scooped and dumped by the trucks). They designed them with "vents" so that "if one were accidentally inhaled, a child would still be able to breathe through the vents until professional help could arrive". If only all companies had such a focus on great products as a priority over cheap delivery.

I've heard that Rokenbok recently had a significant change in management - let's hope they maintain the same values.... Thanks Rokenbok!

22 years ago, dinosaurs (and my friends) roamed the earth

2007-11-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

Seriously – 22 years is very long time... I recently hooked up with a close school friend whom I haven't seen in 22 years... a lifetime. By “close”, I mean that’s what we were then, but I haven’t seen her since. And while I feel like practically the same person, the world around me is pretty much a different planet. Country boundaries changed, some wars finished, new wars began, and technology changed a bit (!) and, well, my friend from 22 years ago turns out to still be a good friend :)

We looked at old pictures and new pictures of people we knew - people we know... and it really made it clear how much time has passed. I started to think of the things lost and the things gained in those years... so let's start two lists:

What we have today that we didn’t have 22 years ago:

Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace.
WikiPedia, Technorati, Techcrunch.
Firefox, Safari, YouTube.
The web.
Laptops, iPods, flash drives, USB, 250gb hard drives the size of a British cucumber sandwich.
Digital Cameras (?).
Cell Phones (well... there was one I saw the size of a microwave oven).
Windows Vista, XP, NT, 3.1, 2.0.
Fear of Interns in the Whitehouse.
Fear of Republicans in the Whitehouse.
Azerbaijan and many other countries.
This blog, any blog, the word “blog” (and so many other words!)
Avaya, Agere, T-Mobile, Netflix
Brittney, Paris, Lindsay.
Virgin (Records or Atlantic)
K-Fed, J-Lo.
The criminal O.J. Simpson.
Shoes off at the airport security gate.
My kids.

What we had 22 years ago that we don’t have anymore:

The Soviet Union.
The big 8 accounting firms (Ernst & Whinney, Arthur Young, Arthur Anderson, Peat Marwick Mitchell, Price Waterhouse, Coopers & Lybrand, Delloite Haskins Sells, Touche Ross)
Wang Laboratories, Typwriters (I'm assuming they're extinct)
The artist Michael Jackson
The ex-Football Player OJ Simpson... Nicole Brown, Ronald Goldman
The artist known as Prince
Phil Hartman, John Candy, John Belushi, Chris Farley
Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Chemical Bank, ,
Floppy drives
DOS, Windows 1.0 (just barely)
Almost 3,000 innocent people lost on September 11, 2001, including some friends.
My Dad.

I could probably go on with this for a while..... but, I gotta get busy with the next 22 years...

How Come I forgot about this NYTimes Story?

2007-10-18T07:55:00.000-05:00

A good friend of our family who has been running a web hosting business since dinosaurs roamed the earth (well, you know what I mean - 1992), sent me this ancient (in web terms) article from the NY Times... It quotes my dad (!) back in November of 1996. The author references his HowCome site (which really was a blog-before-there-were-blogs, and so retro-cool looking at it today). The founder of Webscope (David), was also the founder of my Dad's passion for the web.

The look back at this is really fun...just as a reminder of where we came from: "In September 1995, Long Island had 904 officially registered commercial organizations at Internic in Herndon, Va. This year the figure was 4,933."
- I wonder what that figure would be today...

...and, of course, anything linking back to my dad makes me smile.
(Thanks, David!)

"May I have your attention, please"

2007-10-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

Attention... Some want it. Some need it. Some give it. Some don't.
...and, yes, the mere existence of this blog puts me in category one, I guess.

An interaction with my 7-year old son brought up this whole stream of thought... He and my nephew were making impressive noise right at our feet while we were trying to have normal adult conversation about something which was completely irrelevant to the lives of these two resourceful first-graders. They decided that blowing a whistle and banging a drum – loudly – was the best way to get our attention. At first I treated the noise as part of the persistent, expected din you find in any house with kids. Then I realized that I was practically yelling to make myself heard, and finally shouted to them, “ENOUGH!... “ (hey, that worked). Followed by the gently delivered comment that every sensitive father must learn: “Please. Stop blowing that whistle or I really will crush it”.

“We’re just trying to get your attention!”.

I have to give them points for honesty and awareness - it's usually much more sub-conscious than that.

It struck me later that “getting attention” might be more a basic human need than just a phenomenon of competitive commercial coercion (although the latter is much more common). And now that web-based social networks have finally become recognized as potentially a more effective attention channel than others - here come the herds.

(this post grew pretty long... click here to see the whole story)Any business marketer, advertiser, publication, author, blogger, entrepreneur, actor, musician, politician, even Uncle Arnie is looking for anyone who will listen (“...you know why oil prices will never go lower? I’ll tell you why...”). And while most of us play both parts – attention seeker and attention giver (or withholder), we walk through life now being blasted from every angle with people blowing their whistles or banging their drums.

So we invent filters, methods, channels, for optional listening. Specialized cable channels, Syndicated feed readers, NetFlix, podCasts and iTunes. On our social networks, it's our circle of friends and connections which (apparently) "control" the flow. And attention-seekers invent new ways to blast us. Spam, Pop-ups, elevator video screens, billboards, even street performers. So, while the attention market is mostly based on gaining customers, there are three other goals at work here...

First, friend seekers. Date-seekers in many cases, but also the likes of Uncle Arnie, looking for people to agree with him – to find people who share his view, trying to get attention in small ways, maybe just to prove to himself that he’s right or to get some recognition that he is smart – or hopefully, looking for more diverse opinions which can help him refine his own ideas.

Second, fight seekers. Like that dude at the party who moves from group to group just waiting to find someone who disagrees with his theories so he can more loudly describe them (after all, it’s hard to justify telling people your detailed theories when they already agree. It’s more fun for this category of person to try to convert others to their cause).

And third, is a common one: Fame. There’s a high degree of respect given to those who become famous (even ignoring, I think, the potential monetary value of such fame)... and, therefore, there’s a powerful draw for people to win the kind of attention that brings fame. Like the guys from that show ‘Jack Ass’, who, week after week, would risk personal harm, humiliation, and hatred just because that was their best devised shot at becoming famous (which, they eventually did).

Now comes the popularity of social networks - LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut, etc. as semi-controllable (implying semi-uncontrolled) communication channels... and here come the attention seekers. First the date-seekers and friend-seekers, then, the fame seekers (they only come after there's enough people watching to create fame)...and then, the professional, commercial attention-getters (businesses, advertisers, etc). I'm suddenly getting poked, compared, bitten... I'm getting virtual gifts and invited to play games... all by people I either know well or at least recognize as those I've invited into my virtual social circles. I'm also getting some valuable attention requests from people with really good ideas and invites to keep in touch with old friends. These new(ish) channels can really be powerful to control the inflow once you learn how - but they're even more powerful for the attention seekers, as we are all more likely to give our attention to someone who has already gotten the attention of one of our friends.

No matter the channel, we each have this powerful resource we can either offer or withhold – our Attention. But manage your network of friends or you might find you've opened your door to more attention seekers than ever. Just like the theory of email-bankruptcy - where people are just starting over and tossing aside their old email piles, you might find yourself declaring social (network) suicide, and killing off your current social profile and the network of 'friends' as the only way out from under the weight of that news feed.

When we are looking for entertainment, or a product or a service or a friend, we can offer our attention and listen for a while, or we can say “Please, stop blowing that whistle, or I really will crush it”.

Porn Potato

2007-10-01T08:22:00.000-05:00

In case you don't get the reference in the title... The origin is here.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I was on the train last night. I found a seat, but before I sit down, I find my eyes facing the back of the 50-something guy seated in front of me and my eyes are immediately drawn to the full-screen image on his phone. It’s Porn.
On his phone.
And he’s clicking the screen... to another image. He’s surfing. On his phone. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”.

He can definitely sense that I’m right behind him (I’m barely 2-feet away) and others are just as close, looking at his phone screen as clearly as he is, and he makes no defensive, nonchalant, screen-blocking gestures, no dirty looks. So I don’t feel embarrassed for him, because he has no embarrassment... which is all fine.

He’s just thinking “That’s right. I’m here on the train ride home, checking out some porn. On my phone. Yes siree... great way to unwind after a tough day in the salt mines”.

Dude! What’s up? If your wife calls on that phone, you gonna say “yes, I’m on the train – I’m getting off soon” (oops)... And it’s not even an iPhone... so he can’t zoom in with his sweaty little fingers. Imagine Apple marketing to that use case... I could just imagine the white silhouetted iPhone porn surfers to go along with their cool ipod campaign.

I know... Half the people reading this will probably think I sound uptight("It’s just porn".) On his phone? The other half will probably be offended that I could even mention this whole story ("That's disgusting, don't give other people ideas").

Now, every time I see someone hovered over their phone, I’m just gonna wink, smirk and give them a knowing nod.. or maybe I’ll add, in my best Borat voice, “Niiiice – you make a sexy time on your phone!”.

Social networks might actually be semi-anti-social

2007-09-25T23:02:00.000-05:00

It struck me the other day, watching several phone potatoes doing their "social" thing, that while people are communicating more than ever – on phones and through (ahem) “social” networks and email and text messaging – that they (we!) might actually be more isolated than ever.

You know... Head down over the keyboard, smirking about that zombie bite you just got, or crunched up to our phone screen, hanging on to every word of that really useful twitter from Sally, about how she "likes the hot pepper dip" she's eating while she sits there alone twittering (sounds weird - doesn't it? Sally, sitting alone, "twittering"). Yeah - seems pretty isolating...

What I’m not sure of is whether we are using time which we would be alone anyway to now communicate with others, or are we taking time which we otherwise might have spent with others, physically, to now be alone? Have we just harmlessly, and maybe beneficially, moved the communicating part into bits, bytes and broadband? or have we lost something?

So the “networking” part of “social networking” isn’t arguable, but is it really “social”? I know that It’s more interesting for me when I am in the physical presence of people with whom I want to socialize, but I just don’t have that much time to socialize in the same physical location with others as much as I’d like.

So maybe that’s the key to “social networking” – maybe it makes up for our modern compression of time, to allow us to continue to communicate with others without the normal requirement to plan it and physically travel to a common location. Maybe it’s just like video conferencing at work, which, in theory, saves a trip. The experience is not as satisfying and not as productive, but it’s good enough. So “social networking” is really more like “virtual socializing” ? That puts a negative spin on “Socializing”, rather than a positive spin on “Networking”... but who wants to admit that our lives are just so full of interesting things that we’ve had to downgrade our social experience... Yuck – that sounds really negative – where actually, it’s only negative if technically-based social networking has replaced physical socializing.
It’s actually a positive change if we haven’t reduced real socializing but rather use online social networks and our mobile phones as an add-on to getting together with friends... yeah... I love virtually-social-electronic-communication... really, I do.

Planning Trips Together

2007-09-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

Planning trips can be fun...(Ha!) ...vacation trips, not business trips. But no matter what type of trip I'm planning, there's almost always a need to share the itinerary, if not the planning process itself, with other people.
So, of course I see an opportunity to use a Google spreadsheet here (yes - I know Google Calendar is the more natural choice...). I was inspired by another spreadsheet I found online - where Disney trips specifically were being planned - to create a generic template that anyone could use to plan a trip. Knowing how hard that was (the Disney trip), I could relate to the value of having a 1-page view of the whole trip - particularly the meal reservations (don't get me started on that topic).

The main feature of the template is the automatic creation of the "Agenda View", which is a shortened version of the schedule (yes - I know Google Calendar has the best Agenda view)... so as you fill in the Trip Planner matrix on the front page, the Agenda View is populated with that data. You could even share a link to the published version of that simpler Agenda View with people - and as you update your plans on the main page, they'll always see the most recent version (as long as you use the "automatically re-publish" option on the "publish" tab).

Definition: Phone Potato

2007-09-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

I mentioned this in a prior post, and got a couple of sideways looks... so.. here's the definition of a Phone Potato (aka "mobile 'tater", derived from the english "couch potato, which is also taken from the latin root "potato" which means "useless until cooked and eaten").

You’ve seen them. They are always “on the phone” – not always talking, but always on... in one of two positions...
Position 1: phone pressed to head - lips blabbing.
Position 2: phone clutched in hands - fingers flailing.
They’re totally connected to anyone they know for... well, whatever...
They never look up at you, even if they decide to talk to you.

These people are in their own state of aloneness, interacting with a device which may or may not include others on the far end (It’s not just for phone calls anymore). They can not bear to be without their phone and they are always actively using it, regardless of what else might be happening at the time. They’re doing it while they walk, while they drive, while they eat, while they hang out with their family. There’s no place they won’t answer the phone – car, restaurant, doctor’s office waiting room, even the potty is in-bounds (regardless of whether their counterpart on the other end cares to hear toilets flushing and, whatever else - they probably even shamelessly say “one sec” while they absolutely need both hands for... you know...). These are the people who would probably halt sex to read that text message.

How do they keep their phone charged? Talking is just one thing – texting is the other... doing everything from finding out what street corner their friends are hanging out on (which is sort of useless, since they have no intention of actually moving their body to that location when they are perfectly happy texting), to checking out the latest buzz on celebrity-gossip or, more likely, school-gossip.. AHA! School...yes... these are often kids... The mobile marketers must have an official age range they target – probably 13-18. They’re a huge crop of potatoes, but they’re not the only ones... the ultra-mobile (ultra-young) professional might be the next largest crop. Always on, always working. They equate being on the phone with working, or, when they are physically at work, they’re multi-tasking across their social and professional existences, which are likely so overlapped, that they are virtually one thing.

Quick - Here come a few now! Get me a pot of boiling water and some sour cream - I'm hungry...

Phones ARE more like TV, but not because of new content

2007-09-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

It’s not just the addition of content from television which makes mobile phones and PCs the new TVs. There’s a deeper analogy which struck me (and, yes, which I thought I should share... hey, if you don’t like it, change the channel ;)

The historical adoption of TV into the majority of homes seems to have an interesting parallel to what we’re seeing now with technology products – that is, in theory it connected people, but in reality, while it connected some people in a shallow sort of way, it isolated many others deeply. As TV became mainstream – starting in the 1960’s (?) – people probably used the physical presence of others (in the same room watching the same TV) as a way to justify the sedentary act of watching actors be active rather than being active themselves... “It gives the family a chance to be together”. Right. Sure. Family interaction was the benefit of TV. Each family member in the same room doing the same thing, looking in the same direction, laughing at the same time, acknowledging each other’s presence during commercials (thank goodness for ads!), but otherwise, cognitively alone. I don’t doubt that this is actually true (the good parts) for many families who watch the once-or-twice weekly “24” or “Idol” together as a family. I’m more thinking about the every-nightly spud family.

Becoming a “couch potato” was probably an un-recognized issue for a decade, particularly since remote controls didn’t exist (yes – you had to actually get off your butt to change the channel... but there were less than 13 in the US, so the 10 feet you had to walk for each channel change could not happen often enough to be considered exercise, sorry). The couch potatoes germinated there on the couch whether in the presence of others or not (afterall, potatoes are grown in crops of many, not alone), whether they were trying to do other ativities or not. Once people started eating dinner in front of the TV, it was all over...

Which, finally, brings me to the analogy... The Phone Potato. The person who just can’t stop using their phone. For example, during dinner... They’re not just making that “are the kids ok with the babysitter” call... no, they’re just chatting, or texting... You’ve seen them – maybe even in the mirror (yes, you). And the same is true of the Laptop Potato (who, me?).

I am not being critical of the communication aspects of TV or the mobile phone or the web... the speed at which (valuable) information travels across all technology medium is amazing and absolutely beneficial. The part I’m being critical of is the replacement of otherwise social, creative, innovative, physically active and interactive activities between people (or alone) with the anti-thinking behaviors often observed in the Couch Potato, Phone Potato or Laptop Potato (uh oh... I think that last one might be me!). It's is a sad change which just needs to be, well, recognized, before it consumes too much of our lives without adding value or happiness.

The sad part is that I almost always observe the phone potato behaviors in teenagers – probably parallel to the observations in the 60’s, when young people at that time learned couch potato germination and farming as an innate human activity, which it is not - but through young people, it is being sewn into the fabric of modern human existence (i know, too deep).

"I'm the slime oozing out from your TV set"
- Frank Zappa