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