Welcome to Lilliput...

Listening to @Pistachio addressing the Montreal Webcom in November 2008 on the value of Twitter... I note her "What's it DO?" slide #21, that includes the following benefits of Twitter: "Surround you with motivating people" and "Flatten hierarchy."

Follow me as we slide down the rabbit whole, googling "greater than quantum." I click on the following...

Quantum Leaps: 7 Skills for Workplace Recreation - Google Books Result

by Charlotte Shelton - 1998 - Business & Economics - 212 pages
There are several ways that we can use the graphic The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of the Parts Living revisited Parts whole greater than sum of Quantum ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0750670770...

"God eternally geometrizes." - Plato

R. Buckminster Fuller describes the effect as "synergy" - where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. All part of the Twitterverse. Scrolling down I find...

Amazon informs me that the following quote that appears in Quantum Leaps is also included in 41 different books: "Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for." - Gary Zukav author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters

Wikipedia tells me, "The phrase Wu Li in the title refers to one possible Chinese translation of the word "physics," as translated by the Tai Chi teacher Al Huang, emphasizing alleged philosophical commonality between western science and eastern mysticism. The chapters of the book are each titled with other alternative translations of Wu Li, such as "Nonsense" and "I Clutch My Principles."

Zukav says, ""When I wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, I had never written a book and I had never studied physics."

The book was first published in 1979, before there was an Internet, before Twitter. It was based upon experiences and impressions Zukav gathered at an east-west physics conference held at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, in 1976 - hanging out with smart friends. The same reason I have come to replace my former trips to Esalen with daily Twitter-fixes. I like hanging out with smart people. I follow them on Twitter @by_designwise.

So this brings me to my New Year's resolutions... I have intended to read that book for years. I now have it in my hands. I am opening the cover, reading the Foreword which confirms my latest Daoist focal point... that subject and the ground within which it exists are inseparable and have a direct effect on each other, which is why I twitter.

Resolution #2: I will finish reading The Dancing Wu Li Masters on my next trip to Esalen.

Happy New Year!

Blogger templates...

Here's just a sample of...
30+ Great Resources for Blogger Templates

AllBlogTools.com - A collection of over 100 templates from an assortment of a lot of smaller designers. You can look them up by layout, color, subject matter and so on.

Blogger-Templates.Blogspot.com - Keeps a small selection of top-notch Blogger themes up and running.

Blogger-Templates.Deceblog.net - A small selection of unique themes for Blogger accounts.

Blogger-Templates-Directory.Blogspot.com - A large directory of Blogger templates, links to resources for further development and a whole lot more.

"The Medium is the Message" and the message is Video

In Marshal McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964, his famous quotation raised awareness of the effects of the media itself on the content it carries. He went even further in saying that the media itself "is the message." Television was the emerging media at the time and McLuhan compared and contrasted TV's cultural impact to that of print and film. He rated media in degrees of hot vs cool, depending upon the amount of sensual interaction and the depth of envelopment each provided.

Then, something new and perhaps unexpected happened. Media started to blend, signaled some say by the e-mergence of MTV, where music and film intermarried with TV. Now, in the technologically enhanced electronic world of Web 2.0, where "power to the people" should be revived as the mantra of the moment, everyone has the opportunity to produce, publish and watch each others' videos.

If you are reading this blog, I am sure you are already watching YouTube videos. When will you start creating your own? "Who me?" Yes, you... it's not "if," it's "when..." you begin to create and publish your own video content.

Here's a collection of tools and tips on video DIY:

Dave Kaminski at Web Video University says, "Because the Internet has become so over-saturated with “amateur” and “homemade” videos (it’s estimated that 100,000 new videos are added to YouTube every day), consumers have become 'quick to pull the trigger' on videos that don’t immediately grab and hold their attention."

He has a 4-week course that will teach you to the tricks of making professional videos for a reasonable fee, and his weekly free blog tips are worth watching. Here's one of his latest, a Video Interview with Thom McFadden, all about how to present yourself on camera. Thom is an acting coach and creative consultant in Hollywood.

You don't need to spend a fortune on equipment to get started, but be sure to enter at the HD level... shooting high def is soon to be standard. There are some very nice pocket-sized cams with plenty of memory for $150 - $200. Weighing only 3.3 ounces, the Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder is one of the most popular and highly rated. Watch for the new Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder (pictured left) with 8 GB Video Storage and 2x Digital Zoom, which might be even better... coming out next week.

Video marketing online: 5 Most Common Myths

Howard Rheingold's Latest Work...

I have been an educational design consultant for more than a decade, working for Marquette University starting in 1997, designing distance learning applications for the Colleges of Nursing and of Education. It was while simultaneously studying for a Masters Degree in Education that I discovered the works of Howard Gardner and quickly came to realize that the multi-media computer provides the means to speak to students in whatever manner their particular learning style prefers.

More recently the dawn of social media has added another layer of opportunity to the design mix. I continue to explore and research the ongoing development of social media, educational design theory and the creation of an interactive learning interface. One of the early pioneers in the study and application of social media is author Howard Rheingold.

On Monday, October 06, 2008 Howard Rheingold and Sam Rose launched a new project...





"The Social Media Classroom is a set of free and open source social media—forums, wikis, blogs, chat, social bookmarking, micro-blogging, social video, and other media — together with curricular materials, resource repositories and an online community of practitioners. The set of social media itself, without the accompanying pedagogical resources, is also referred to as the Social Media Collaboratory (or, the Colab for short). It was initially created by Howard Rheingold and Sam Rose, together with a team of developers and educators, supported by an award from the MacArthur Foundation and HASTAC. Ongoing development, maintenance, and support is to be provided by a community of SMC users."

Business Cards 2.0

Today's discovery... Retaggr as Mashable says, "blows Google’s Profile card out of the water with its extensive features, seamless aggregation, and various functionality. Your Portable Interactive Web 2.0 Profile"

I am going to create my own example... at StephenKastner.com so I can:

• Consolidate my online presence into an interactive online business card
• Display content like recent tweets, blog posts, and photos right in that card
• Have it appear alongside my interaction across the web and on my sites and blogs
• Create a great first impression when people discover me online
  

There are currently more than 170 sites supported, and they say I can add my own content from anywhere. I will expand and update this post as I build my new Retaggr business card and apply the knowledge to some of my social media client accounts. If you are interested in learning more about the use of social media to advance your marketing campaign contact me at DesignWise.net.

Blogging Redux... two sites worth tracking

Sixteen days ago Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger launched TwiTip and the traffic grew so rapidly that today he is moving it to a more robust server. Twitip.com is all about using Twitter and is worth tracking...

I also want to note "Smart Advi$e.info; Blog Traffic 101-Tips, Strategies On How To Increase Blog Traffic" a site with several cool incentives to promote traffic and comments - not to mention a bunch of great tips and advice from blogger and template design guru, Shri Nagesh.

I promise to be good, and post more often. I am so busy working in social media that lately I have had little time to comment on social media. This includes the redesign and coordination of a sm campaign for Nourishing

Social Media as Social-ism

Maybe a slave-revolt will take place... once people realize we all work (play) in the "walled gardens of social media" for no pay! Might I become Che Guevara 2.0? a neo-media socialista?

Over a million hits in 24 hours

When Britney Spears applies the Twitter concept @therealbritney, launches a new blog, enlists Team Britney as soldiers in a marketing campaign and then, as she tweets it, Womanizer (her latest single) "Jumped from number 96 to number 1 on the billboard charts- and broke some records in the process" ...Ahhh, don't you think it's about time to investigate this Social Media thingy? Oh yeah, and the title to this post refers to the stats at her new Web site: britneyspears.com. That's not the same as her new social media network site: www.circusvip.com and then there's the top secret cover of the Rolling Stone.

Second Life Mashups...

Second Life is an on-line world that evolved out of a game or as they say, "an online 3-d world imagined and created by its Residents." Many businesses are seeing value in developing a representative presence there.

Huntington Junior College (HJC) in West Virginia is finding that a mashup created in Second Life is helping to boost their distance education retention statistics. They recently went public with their year-long early-adopter use of Campus Management's CampusLearning, a suite of services that provides for real-time, two-way integration between proprietary portals and student information systems and the Moodle open source course management systems.

The school said its virtual campus enhances faculty-student interaction while automating management of rosters, grades, drop/adds, and other administrative chores. Students log in once to the college's portal, and can leap into their Second Life campus, attend class, and participate in online cafe conversations.

"We are trying to overcome the distance you feel in distance education by being socially connected," Cathy Snoddy, assistant director at Huntington says. "You develop socially as well as intellectually in college. That is the challenge for all educators. CampusLearning helps make the relationship real between students and HJC no matter where learning takes place."

The Second Life Grid™ platform enables your organization to create a public or secure private space using the leading 3D online virtual world technology behind Second Life.

Free Web Seminar:
Increase Distance Learner Retention with Second Life

On October 15 at 1 PM CDT, Huntington Junior College’s Cathy Snoddy reveals how a one-stop-shop web portal that integrates with Moodle and Second Life allows students to attend class, participate in online cafe conversations and interact with other students and faculty. Get keys for building a successful distance learning program and discover the advantages of integrating your SIS with Moodle in this free, hour-long event sponsored by Campus Management and moderated by Campus Technology’s Matt Villano.

Cone Business in Social Media Study...

Harder-to-reach audiences are ripe for social media interaction

BOSTON – Almost 60 percent of Americans interact with companies on a social media Web site, and one in four interact more than once per week. These are among the findings of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study.

According to the survey, 93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media. In fact, 56 percent of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.

“The news here is that Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media,” explains Mike Hollywood, director of new media for Cone, “it isn’t an intrusion into their lives, but rather a welcome channel for discussion.”

When asked about specific types of interactions, Americans believe:

• Companies should use social networks to solve my problems (43%)
• Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41%)
• Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37%)
• Companies should market to consumers (25%)
  

Hard-to-reach consumers

Men, a much sought-after target in the online space, are twice as likely as women to interact frequently (one or more times per week) with companies via social media (33% to 17%, respectively).

“The ease and efficiency of online conversation is likely a draw for men who historically do not seek out the same level of interaction with companies as women,” says Hollywood.

Likewise, of younger, hard-to-reach consumers (ages 18-34), one-third believe companies should actively market to them via social networks, and the same is true of the wealthiest households (household income of $75,000+). Two-thirds of the wealthiest households and the largest households (3 or more members) feel stronger connections to brands they interact with online.

“All of this is great news for marketers,” Hollywood explains. “Men and younger consumers are traditionally the most challenging to reach, while the highest income households are typically very desirable; here they are saying ‘Come market to us and interact with us online.’ This is really a license to put more energy and resources into this medium and do it effectively.”

About the survey:
The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study presents the findings of an online survey conducted September 11-12, 2008 by Opinion Research Corporation among 1,092 adults comprising 525 men and 567 women 18 years of age and older. The margin of error associated with a sample of this size is ± 3%.

About Cone:
Cone LLC (www.coneinc.com) is a strategy and communications agency engaged in building brand trust. Cone creates stakeholder loyalty and long-term relationships through the development and execution of Cause Branding, Brand Marketing, Corporate Responsibility and Crisis Prevention and Management initiatives. Cone is a part of the Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com). Omnicom is a leading global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, interactive, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

The GTD Model...

"Collect that stuff, then within 24-48 hours everything should be zeroed out!" says author David Allen. This is GTD... getting things done!
There are 2 components to GTD - that mainly focus on freeing you to move ahead by getting all of the stuff that takes over your attention, out of your mind. You accomplish that by gaining control and perspective. Each of these two aspects have a different set of operating principles. Here are the five stages of how to get control:

• capture all of the stuff that has in essence captured you... and your attention,
  
• then clarify them,
  
• organize them,
  
• back off and keep looking at them,
  
• then make choices about what to do about them.

He says there are six horizons to gaining perspective. I guess I will have to read David Allen's first book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity to find out what they are. This video is a great introduction:


You can pre-order David Allen's new book, to be released December 30, 2008: Making it all Work, Winning at the Game and Business of Life. Check out the upcoming GTD Global Summit March 11-13, 2009 and the GTD blog.

TOOLS:

I'm using Evernote to easily capture that information in any environment using whatever device or platform that's most convenient to make the information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Create a Right-Brain File and see what your mind comes up with when it’s not thinking.

"What are you doing?" about the risk of identity loss...

Over the last few months Twitter has become one of my favorite tools, much like a Swiss Army knife. Just when it seemed to be getting somewhat stable, USA Today decided to write it up in a feature story. Yeah, I know, that's a sure sign that it's yesterday's news. But...

When mainstream media starts to promote the question, "What are you doing?" the spawning effect inevitably brings on a ton of new users. It was no surprise to witness the reappearance of the Blue Whale, but I didn't expect the Twitter spam police. Here was I, hoping the recent infusion of $15 million in venture capital would be a boost to the Twitter dev-team, helping them keep up with the ever-expanding tweetflow. The latest crash leads me to think they must have taken a different path.

Many long-time Tweeple, tired of the "Twitter is over capacity" error messages had already put their plan-b's in place, migrating or complementing their Twitter accounts with one or more fall-back alternatives. Plurk, BrightKite, Identi.ca and Friendfeed, started to attract members of SM's inner circle. Like many of them, I came to discover and appreciate the value-added features found elsewhere, like conversation tracking in Plurk and the location-based Bright Kite. But, I return to Twitter because I simply couldn't take my friends there with me.

This wasn't a critical concern until last Thursday, when it came as somewhat of a shock to see my @by_designwise account sheared by more than 50% of the Followers and Following friends I had amassed. I had no way of knowing who I lost, no backup plan and no real way to trace my virtual lost friends on Twitter. I tried backtracking my own Tweets archives and recovered a handful, but even the archive was clipped after about a hundred entries.

Aurelius Maximus says, "Twitter just pulled the Ace from their sleeve and lit it on fire." Like any battered survivor, I quickly come to realize the value of having a risk-management program.

I consider the people I follow on Twitter as a valuable resource - my resource. But nothing is farther from the truth. In the current world of social media nothing is yours within the walled garden. Your Social Footprint is made up of a thousand puddles spread all over the social media grid, none of which are under your control.
My virtual friends are like fire, typically providing me with a warm, steady flow of thought-provoking information, occasional dialogue, a way to both promote and research my own work in public relations marketing and at least a chuckle now and again. When social media is all about the power of grassroots activism and the development of a public grid that sidesteps the mainstream corporate media, the latest Twitter meltdown should be seen as a wake up call - a facesplash of cold water from the Whale's tail. Big Brother may unexpectedly pull the plug on your virtual reality at any time, leaving you stranded like a Crusoe on a deserted isle. And like Crusoe your social footprints may be washed away by the next big wave to hit the beach.

"What are you doing?" about the risk of social identity loss...

just published Anyang City and the Oracle Bone Script http://ping.fm/nvgZg

Due to the fundamental importance of fire in society, it is quite likely that pyromancy was one of the earlier forms of divination http://ping.fm/HPgxH

Dawn of the Noveleet...

Following the twisting path of my friend and Chicago playwright R. O'Donnell, I have just written/crafted/assembled my first Twitter novel - this literary work, just dubbed a Noveleet, is a form R. and I are inventing through cross-pollination. My Noveleet form is based on my previous Burroughs, cut 'n paste media work using radio-dial-divination and book-divination. This noveleet consists of 5 spontaneous in and outbound Tweets - of not more than 140 characters each. It was created in about 10 minutes beginning at approximately 2:28 AM on July 8, 2008:

Love at First Byte...

"If you are not willing to lose yourself and burn in love, do not embark on love's journey.".: - Rumi
Stephen Kastner about 2m ago via twhirl

Mickipedia And you may find yourself in a crappy apartment with a fat ugly wife and you may ask yourself "Well How did I get here?"
Mickipedia about 1h ago via web

@Mickipedia Hold tight wait till the partys over
Hold tight were in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Stephen Kastner about 1m ago via twhirl

" Be drunk on love, for love is all that exists." words of love, longing by 13th century Sufi poet, whirling dervish Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi
Stephen Kastner about 2m ago via twhirl

Techmeme Hans Reiser leads police to body, believed to be his wife (Henry K. Lee/San Francisco Chronicle) http://tinyurl.com/57nwvw
Techmeme about 9m ago via web

R. O'Donnell's Noveleet form is taking off on a different track which can be pursued by following @spooncity on Twitter.

Mikipedia is a genuine roller derby Queen. Her real name is Micki Krimmel, the founder of Sugar Packet, Inc., a tiny company with a big mission: To fundamentally change our relationship with material items. She also works as a web strategist/consultant when she's not dancing to techno or practicing roller derby. Los Angeles is her primary residence with the Internet coming in at a very close second.

In just a decade... The Book of Changes

My former friend Del Close once casually explained away any amazement I had at how books that I open to any random page, will speak directly to me. I walk over to a bookshelf, pick any volume, flip it open to anywhere and read.

"It usually speaks to me about the moment at hand or my life's current status," I gush.

"Oh, that's just book-divination," he tosses off.

Like some kind of a two-bit card-trick, I continue to be fascinated with book-divination and have gone through the greater portion of my life as a semi-serious student of Taoism and the I-Ching or Book of Changes.

Sad to say, Del passed away almost a decade ago and since then, the Web has greatly expanded my horizons... welcome the Information Age. Now it seems my Firefox tabbed-browser is filled with cross-referenced Web-divination, where one thing leads to another and another. Just like Alice, I leap into the rabbit-hole and find real treasures like the following.

In 1998, Boyd Rossing, Community Development Specialist at the UW Madison's School of Human Ecology, put together a Concept Sheet for the Family Living Program Conference. Today, Professor Rossing teaches about real communities, directing a project, through the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in the School of Human Ecology, to engage, network, and empower African American families in the neighborhoods of South Madison.

Ten years later the Concept Sheet he prepared for the brick 'n mortar community has much to say about whole-system thinking and the successful formation of virtual social network communities.

Wholistic Systems Thinking: A Foundation for Healthy, Sustained Community Collaboration

A cloud masses, the sky darkens, leaves twist upward, and we know that it will rain. We also know that after the storm, the runoff will feed into groundwater miles away, and the sky will grow clear by tomorrow. All these events are distant in time and space, and yet they are all connected within the same pattern. Each has an influence on the rest, an influence that is usually hidden from view. You can only understand the system of a rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any individual part of the pattern. (Senge, 1990 pp. 6-7)

While we intuitively know that rainstorms and other facets of our lives function as systems we generally do not view the world in this way. From an early age we are taught to break problems apart, to fragment the world. This apparently makes complex tasks and subjects more manageable, but we pay a hidden, enormous price. We can no longer see the consequences of our actions; we lose our intrinsic sense of connection to the larger whole. (Senge, 1990, p. 3)

Today, we are ever more cognizant of the complexity and dynamism of the situations we face in communities and around the globe. We are becoming more conscious of the complex inter-connections of natural, biological and social systems. Examples of systems include biological organisms, the atmosphere, diseases, ecological niches, factories, chemical reactions, political entities, communities, industries, families, teams and organizations. The idea of a system is an organizing metaphor providing a way of organizing our thoughts about the world.

Peter Senge defines a system as "a perceived whole whose elements hang together because they continually affect each other over time and operate toward a common purpose" (Senge, 1994, p. 90). Issues in communities are usually nested within many inter-connected systems. Bronfenbenner sees the development of individuals as embedded in ever larger systems beginning with family, peers and neighborhood and expanding out to include work, government, culture and environment. (Santrock, 1997, 46-48)

We are also coming to understand that systems follow a dynamic and creative process of growth and change. Drawing from studies of cellular life, animal evolution and evolution of ecological systems three distinct phases have been identified. They are

• needs-based bonding,
  
• commonality-based bonds, and
  
• potential-based bonds across differences, the latter being the mature phase of development.
  

Transitions between phases are called break-points because processes leading to success in the past begin causing failure and require adoption of new processes. Break-point periods are turbulent times of struggle and crisis. Today, as we face crises in our localities, whole systems thinking invites us to develop communities that draw on all the diverse potentials that exist in our environments thus moving to the mature phase of our community systems (Jarman & Land, 1995, pp. 24-28).

As we have paid more attention to the social dimensions of complex problems we have also begun to shift away from hard systems thinking that emphasizes rational selection of efficient means of achieving desired outcomes and where learning is not a concern. We are shifting toward soft systems thinking in order to address fuzzy, ill defined problems, where process is as important as product and where learning is emphasized (Walker, G. & Daniels, S., undated) The view of wholism goes yet further and views systems as organic living entities, where a wholeness and connectedness between all beings and things is perceived. (Gozdz, 1995, pp. 63-64)

Flood and Jackson (1991) elaborate on the implications of the soft system concept for intelligent communal action. According to a soft systems view, problem situations arise when people have contrasting views on the same situation. To address soft systems the people involved in the system engage in a learning cycle where participants reflect on and dialogue about their perceptions of the real world, constructing and considering a variety of systemic models and selecting and acting on those that yield improvements in mutually desired outcomes. Inquiry and problem-solving are both logic and culture driven. With a plurality of viewpoints many legitimate problems and goals emerge for consideration.

Thus, along with recognizing the complexity and interdependence of systems we are seeing a need to adjust our learning, decision-making and action processes to better account for this complexity. Accordingly on the community level approaches that emphasize collaboration of various actors who have knowledge of different aspects of complex systems have become common and on the large organization level approaches under the title of learning organization are proliferating. These approaches promote a systemic and ongoing learning process in which a temporarily shared culture is created that allows understandings to be shared and mutually developed, conflicts resolved and actions taken. These processes can be called collaborative learning. Successful collaborative learning sustains quality discourse, including constructive discussion of ideas, and collaborative argument by following interaction guidelines that emphasize listening, questioning, clarification, feedback, modeling and collective meaning-making through framing and reframing (Daniels, et. al., 1996).

Each participant brings a piece of the "truth."

When participants face the reality of multiple viewpoints together they develop a sense of true connectedness. They then have the potential of translating that experience into collective intelligence through collective learning and action. (Gozdz, 1995, p. 60)

Twellow, Twitter's Yellow Pages

Twellow.com is currently grabbing publicly available messages from the Twitter.com micro-blogging service. They analyze and categorize each of the users responsible for those messages into the various categories found at Twellow.com.

If you find that you are not in Twellow, but have a valid Twitter account, follow these simple steps to have yourself listed on Twellow:

1. If you haven't already, create an account and fill out your bio information at Twitter.com.
2. Use Twellow's Get Listed form to request the user information from Twitter and have it added to Twellow.

Twellow was launched on June 24, 2008, by the makers of WebProNews...

Worth Tracking...

"In all of the excitement around Crossing The Chasm, Unleashing Your IdeaVirus, Tipping, Blinking, Cluetraining, Groundswelling, Long-Tailing, or what-have-you, a fundamental truth is often forgotten: We're in the business of making a case, persuading an audience, and articulating a point of view." - Phil Gomes, VP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. His blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL.

Shel Israel writes, speaks and does video reporting for FastCompany on social media's impact on business and culture. He co-authors, with Robert Scoble, of "Naked Conversations--how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers," and serves as a senior advisor to several promising social media start ups. He's a senior advisor to both the Society for New Media Research and the Social Media Club and serves on the board of directors for YourTrumanShow a video blogging site. Follow him at Global Neighbourhoods Social Media's impact on business & culture.

The Dark and the Light sides of Social Media...

"In 1999, in a book entitled The Control Revolution, journalist and legal scholar Andrew Shapiro described two futures that the Internet might take. The first was the familiar story of increased individual freedom, as the network gave us greater control over our lives, and over the institutions, including government, that regulate our lives. The second was a less familiar warning—of the rebirth of technologies of control, as institutions 'disintermediated' by the Internet learned how to alter the network to reestablish their control." - Lawrence Lessig in The Future of Ideas (download the book)

Are you trapped in a walled garden? It may appear to be beautiful and fun from inside, but what happens if and when you want to leave? Can you take anything out of the garden that you have collected?

This is the ethical dilemma under continual debate in the cybersphere.

Who owns your social identity when it is made up of scrapbook pages and lists of friends, all housed in a data mine under the lock and key of MySpace or facebook? What happens if you get banned for inappropriate behavior? There are no tools to export your personal data. In other words you have no rights.

The more time you spend in MySpace the more money MySpace makes from advertisers. Do you deserve a share?

Trebor Scholz explains, "What the MySpace generation should know about working for free."

Finding Twitter's tops...

Thanks to Marifer for the tweet about reading The Essential Guide to Social Media, a free e-book by Brian Solis. He blogs at PR2.0, bub.blicio.us, and is among the original thought-leaders who paved the way for Social Media. Look PR2.0 over closely because there are at least 4 more valuable free e-books there to be downloaded and studied (hint: on the right sidebar at the bottom).

Twitt(url)y is a service that tracks what URLs people are talking about on Twitter and posts the top 100 most popular URLs over the last 24 hours on their home page. The 24 hours are constantly sliding, with an advanced algorithm in place, you always see what people are currently talking about. Today one of the rising stars, Twitter: Ultimate Time Waster or Great Tool?, is a recent presentation by Chris Winfield delivered to an SES Toronto audience that he posted on the 10e20 Blog.

"The best way to learn about Twitter is to have Twitter do my presentation," says Winfield, President and Co-Founder of 10e20 .

He tweeted the following series of questions starting at 4:45 PM EST, with no pre-planning or promotion around it at all:
By 6:04pm EST when he asked the final question he had more 275 answers - a presentation in less than 90 minutes. The 10e20 Blog has all of the answers plus a ton of other valuable ongoing information posted by more than a dozen authors who work at 10e20. It's a gold mine!

What is the Whuffie Factor?

Author Tara Hunt says: “Stop! Money isn’t the capital of choice in online communities, it is Whuffie - social capital – and how to raise it is the heart of this book.”

In the Web 2.0 world, market capital flows from having high social capital. Without Whuffie you lose your connections and any recommendation you make will be seen as spam, met with negative reactions and a loss of social capital.

Jeffio explains whuffie...

"I believe the term was originally coined in the sci-fi novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003) by Canadian author Cory Doctorow. In this story, Whuffie is a “reputation-based” currency that replaces money, is constantly being updated and is instantly viewable to anyone at any time."

Tara Hunt who tweets as Missrogue presented the following slides as part of her Fuel conference presentation on Whuffie, in London a few days ago...

| View | Upload your own

Learning the finer points of Twitter...

I am gaining a much better understanding of the value of twitter, which at first glance seemed to me like a hopeless distraction. The value it delivers is entirely your own personal responsibility. In other words, garbage in = garbage out. If you have intelligent things to tweet about, you will probably start to attract a following of other intelligent persons with equally valuable tweets. So, lately I started to cultivate my twitter connections. This recent tweet...

UstreamTV Twitter show just started - http://www.ustream.tv/chann... about 3 hours ago from web

...points to a very information-laden show that was just starting a live broadcast on the UStream network, all about Twitter. It was hosted by BlogCatalog.com. Not only did I just learn about a social network for bloggers and one of the largest blog directories on the Internet, but I also had an extensive live lecture featuring embedded chat for simultaneous live Q&A with Erica O'Grady, the teacher and other "students." Erica talks about twhirl, a desktop client for twitter, her current favorite among the 48 different clients you can use to track tweets. Twitterholic.com ranks the top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers (don't your thumbs hurt yet?).

Watch the episode and learn more with Erica live every other Monday...
Video clips hosted by Ustream


Her five key values to social networking are the same as the Quaker key values: simplicity, equality, integrity, community and peace. She likes Flock - the browser for people who like to be connected; uses Summize to search Twitter in realtime and Twitzu to blast out event invites to Twitter followers. More Erica O'Grady shows here.

Recommended reading: Tara Hunt on Tweeting for Companies 101

MySpace set to release big changes this week...

Described by some as in competition with Facebook...

Ars Technica reports, "MySpace is kicking off a major redesign on Monday of five key aspects of the site, from the homepage to user profiles to its MySpaceTV Player. With a focus on community, search, and usability, MySpace is re-arming itself in its battle for global social network dominance."

PC Magazine says, "MySpace will roll out the first phase of its redesign on June 18 in five areas: homepage, navigation, profile editor, search, and MySpaceTV player... As part of an ad campaign, an undisclosed major advertiser will take control of MySpace.com on launch day, with the full redesign debuting on June 19, according to the company... searching for people will display profile returns as usual, but results will now include tabs so you can find information about that person on MySpace as a whole, on the Web, within the Music section, or MySpaceTV."

According to Alexa Rankings, Myspace is already ahead of Facebook among the Top 10 Social Sites. Check out the list in the Friday Traffic Report.

Webware's Guide to FriendFeed...

I have been consolidating my footprint(s), handprint(s) in order to seek out greater authenticity. So much hype in Facebook coming from the schemes and dreams of getting rich on auto-pilot... enough already!

Richard Laermer sums it up in 7 Ways to Act More Social, "Friendship has now gone the dinosaur route."

"FriendFeed is a powerful service you can use to follow all the public online activity of your friends. It takes all your friends' activity on Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, and 30 other sites and creates one giant uber-feed that you can display in one place. Furthermore, people can comment on what their friends are doing, and you can read those comments, so the service acts as a good way to discover the things your social network thinks is important." - Webware: Newbie's Guide: FriendFeed

MyFolia.com is the facebook for gardeners

Lately I have been spending more time working with garden plants and growing vegetables to balance out my life in the virtual world. I just signed up for a free account in MyFolia, the social network for plant lovers. OMG now I can connect to my "gardening buddies" and add cool MyFolia Badges and Widgets that let people know that I have great rhubarb. I am working on my Folia profile @ doorcountygardener and will soon add my gardens and an inventory of their plants, then even swap real plants with other gardeners and research new varieties.

Using Web 2.0 technology, I will be able to create a valuable garden journal that helps me track the growth and prosperity of plantings. There's also a plant reference wiki to help identify the unknown. MyFolia gardeners are indexed by USDA zones so you can relate to people in similar climactic regions.

Other social networks for gardeners include The Garden Network and GardenWeb.

Merging my special interests...

China's Prime Minister Wen Jia-bao just joined the ranks of hundreds of politicians with pages in Facebook. If you click Browse more Politicians in the upper right corner of any political fan page you gain access to a list, ranked according to their Facebook popularity by the number of on-line fans they have. Premier Wen is very rapidly moving up the ranks of the top ten... currently at number 8, with 25,659 supporters when I joined at 1:26 PM today.

My other special interest, beside the phenomena of social networking is China... and oppose the way we are led by western media to hold negative opinions on one of the oldest cultures in the world. I blog the good news about China and its people at ChinaBright.blogspot.com.

When Corporations listen...

Panasonic is paying close attention to the eyeball migration from top-down network TV watching to the grassroots, bottoms-up, everyman, Web-based video production and distribution channels. Viera Cast technology will link the new line of Panasonic high end TV sets coming out this summer to YouTube, Picasa, Bloomberg's stock ticker and The Weather Channel. A high speed ethernet cable connection to the Internet or a third party wireless adapter is required.

Work-Life personality mind meld...

Thanks to Mari Smith, I am linked into a live teleconference with Richard Laermer, the author of 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade. Here's what I am gathering from Richard:

We live in an era of mediocrity, an unnamed decade, one without any real meaning. This pause that we're in right now is a great opportunity to find all that's new. One big change... the consumer rules now. It's time to embrace a whole new attitude, or get left in the dust. Companies like Sprint that are just after more and more numbers, while they fail to service their existing customers, are doomed.

"If you can't communicate and you can't write, how will people know you're smart?"

It’s more important now to be interesting, to be able to share knowledge and to be able to learn a little bit about everything, by listening. Richard confesses to being an intellectual voyeur.

The work place is changing so drastically. Whining is over. Stop your bitching, No one cares and the air's polluted enough with negative energy. So become a mensch! It's about finding ways to bring our real selves to work... to develop a Work-Life personality balance. Be your real self all of the time instead of having a separate work-self.

Flexibility is the saving grace of the world. Gumbitude (from Gumby) is this idea that we're not necessarily about other people helping us find a solution... it's about finding the way yourself, one way or another. Decide that you will always get it done.

Slow down and sleep more... naps are better for productivity. People who sleep less eat more. In the next couple of years people are going to be learning how to sleep better and become more productive, more insightfiul and more creative. The run, run, lifestyle is not working.

“I can’t tell whether you're careless or stupid…”
Everything you are putting out there needs to be so focussed. Pandering to people on social networks does not work. Have something to say that is so focussed and so alert that people will "get it" and then begin to talk about it. Be a responsible communicator.

In his latest book, Laermer divides the forecasting secrets of top professional trendspotters into the following nine categories:

• Read the signs
• Influence the trends
• Embrace new and reject stodgy
• Anticipate change
• Ask experts the right questions
• Seek out visionaries and snub fakers
• Separate the trends from fads
• Use technology-for everything
• Cash in on being ahead of the competition!

Find out more about Richard Laermer at:

RLMpr.com
Laermer.com
The Bad Pitch Blog An award-winning public relations resource from Richard Laermer and Kevin Dugan, since January 2006. Read our Wrath.
PunkMarketing.com
twitter.com/laermer

BJ Fogg's Psychology of Facebook

Just two class periods remain in BJ Fogg's Psychology of Facebook course at Stanford. If you haven't already, now is the time to tune into the class via web video, live each Thursday about 1:35 PST at this URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/psychology-of-facebook

This week they're exploring the psychology of Facebook App Adoption and the psychology of Facebook as Ritual. You'll find readings listed at this page: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcqn4jpj_230f4phghfm&hl=en

Join this Facebook Page to keep in contact after the course ends to continue learning together: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Psychology-of-Facebook/21745304968

BlogTalkRadio.com

In their own words, "Now it's your turn to share your voice with the world. Become a host and come join the conversation."

BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer, hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. The network has produced tens of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.

Share and study slideshows...

While researching The Psychology of Facebook, an edited volume being created by BJ Fogg, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the Persuasive Technology Lab of Stanford University, I found participants posting a slideshow on slideshare.net.- another info-goldmine worth exploring.

BJ Fogg describes himself as, "...an experimental psychologist who explores how we can use computing technology to change people behaviors and attitudes, an area I call captology. In industry, I lead innovation projects, speak, and facilitate. I also help teams innovate. But I'm mostly known for my work at Stanford. I'm motivated by working with good people to make the world better. Seriously."

The word captology is derived from the first four initials of the words, Computers As Persuasive Technologies. Sam S. Adkins explains why he and other learning professionals are Captivated by Captology.

BJ Fogg says, "A new form of persuasion emerged in 2007: I call it 'mass interpersonal persuasion' (MIP). This phenomenon brings together the power of interpersonal persuasion with the reach of mass media. I believe this new way to change attitudes and behavior is the most significant advance in persuasion since radio was invented in the 1890s."

Learn more about MIP in this white paper by BJ Fogg - Mass Interpersonal Persuasion: An Early View of a New Phenomenon.

Bubbles, tiny bubbles...

After spending way too many years in the virtual world and not enough time in the garden, I recently started feeling blurry. The pathway to my dissolution began innocently enough by creating a MySpace identity. It was a great way to connect with my teenage kids and my musician friends.

Then, I discovered the grownup version of MySpace, or at least the college-level of social networking. I started a page in facebook. It wasn't long after, that I remembered I had a LinkedIn account that I had created a long time before, at the request of a friend. So, I dug that account back up and started working in the LinkedIn business world of social networking.

Meanwhile my YouTube account started sprouting broader social wings. I had an identity there to polish up as well. I discovered how to become a registered expert at SelfGrowth.com and began to meet up with other experts. Now, I need to build a Lens or two or three. Oh yeah, and I have five blogs, two e-zines and three business Web sites.

Help! It feels like I am dissolving into a sea of disparate identity bubbles.

Tiny bubbles in the wine,
make me happy, make me feel fine,
tiny bubbles make me warm all over
with a feeling that I'm gonna love you 'til the end of time.

Don Ho may have been happy staring at those tiny bubbles but I was in a daze...

Then I discovered Bubbl.us and I began mapping myself:



Making a site plan of my virtual identity makes me at least feel like I am the master of my domain(s). The Bubbl.us map i am building is a work in progress as is the application that makes it possible. The developers say bubbl.us 2.0 will provide even more enhanced editor control.

Sharing Advice from the Experts...

Internet Marketing guru, Matt Bacak says here's how to, "Slap Google like a RAG doll with one article :-)" - read his blog for a complete set of details on the following 9 steps:

STEP 1: Write an article.
STEP 2: Submit your article
STEP 3: Rework Your article into a press release and then submit.
STEP 4: Rework Your article into a video.
STEP 5: Submit video.
STEP 6: Turn your audio into a podcast.
STEP 7: Create a blog entry.
STEP 8: Create a Squidoo Lens.
STEP 9: Bookmark your video links.

"What's a Squidoo Lens?" you might ask.
At Squidoo.com you can create a topical Lens on anything that matters to you. It's a single web page that can point to blogs, favorite links, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, Google maps, your eBay auctions, CafePress designs, Amazon books, music... and your Web site. Squidoo says, "Build one lens, build a hundred. It's fast, fun, and free." Plus, they pay generous royalties from ads and affiliate links to you and/or to charities.

1. Squidoo currently has more than 450,000 hand built pages.
2. Squidoo has been reviewed by the New York Times, Mashable, BoingBoing and sites and papers around the world.
3. They are one of the 300 most popular websites in the US.
4. They generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual royalties to charities and to Squidoo authors - 5% goes to charity, 45% to themselves, the remaining 50% goes to charity or to you, the author (your choice).

Sharing the wealth...

by Stephen Kastner

"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed," says cyber-punk, sci-fi author William Gibson. Here are two ways that seek to restore a bit of balance.

In the White Men Can't Dance department, Rushmore is a new search engine with an algorithmic black attitude. Owner and publisher, Johnny Taylor says, "We want to change the way black community drives the Web ...with everything you get from mainstream search engines like Google, PLUS an added layer of black-specific information."

The site is much more than a black Google. It intends to unite people of color in a social network by providing free membership affiliation, a black news forum and a job network. Taylor says, "The more we use it the better it will get," and of course the better will be his bottom line... $20 million a month? That's how much sites like this are making.

Yuwie.com has a different idea, one that seems a bit more democratically $ocial. Call it the "Amway" of social networking, where users get a cut of the action. Yuwie has created a rewards-based system that pays a percentage of their revenues back to Yuwie members for page views, and for friends, of friends, of friends - 10 levels deep.

ARTICLES & DISCOVERIES:
I just joined Scribd, now billing themselves as "the world’s largest document sharing community." I was looking for a copy of the free PDF version of Scott Siglers' new podiobook Infected. Someone at Crown Publishers decided to promote the hard cover release by giving it away as an e-book, on-line for the 5 days preceding its official bookstore release on April 1, 2008. I don't understand the logic, but now I'm reading the book, and I can...

• Upload and share documents.
  
• Find all kinds of valuable and interesting documents by category, by topic group, by searching,or by just browsing the library.

Professional publishers and developers may wish to check out the Scribd Platform. Get the latest announcements and updates at the Scribd Blog.

Estonia's Digitized Garbage
Bruce Sterling reports on an Estonian cybergreen millionaire's web 2.0-style participatory scheme to clean up his country's illegal garbage dump sites using Google Earth-tagging - and it worked!

Sharing my Social Networking Notebook...

by Stephen Kastner

In 1995 Classmates.com launched the first, open, public, social database. It was soon followed by a wave of social networking sites that would come to redefine the way we use computers, shifting the workspace from the desktop to the global environment.

The concept of Web 2.0 is said to have been created in 2003... instant messaging, wikis, video sharing, mobile technologies and, 20 million bloggers later, we live in a new social sphere. In a world where an explosion in the volume of information processed is equaled only by the spontaneous generation of a new social grid work, there are brand new marketing models continuously spawning and evolving - that see the market as a conversation. This blog is intended to serve as a scratch pad where I note and share my discoveries and observations regarding the ever-emerging world of Web 2.0 technology with anyone who is interested.

I wanted to attend the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, April 22-25, 2008 but even the admission tickets were beyond my current budget. I am glad to see that the presentation files from speakers are available on-line. Thanks O'Reilly!

At the bottom of this page I have included a video search tool that should seek out and display continuously fresh content regarding the latest YouTube clips about Web 2.0 and Social Networking. In ten days the DesignWise video channel should be also be accessible and I'll add my related YouTube playlist.



ARTICLES:
Social networking meets search: Sightix
Posted by Rafe Needleman
I wouldn't say that Google is broken. But after looking at concepts by Delver (review) and Sightix, it has become clear to me how much better search can be - in theory - when it knows more about the person doing the searching, and when it knows about their social network.
Read more

Digsby makes Facebook chat work like it should
Posted by Josh Lowensohn
Do-it-all communication app Digsby put out an important update yesterday that's made this blogger's life easier. It took Facebook's Web-only chat service and integrated it into a desktop application.
Read more