from TED talks: $8 billion iPod

i wanted you to see this talk. an amusing and telling perspective on internet impact on media.

e-mail disease

what are the symptoms?

e-mail disease

what are the signs?

e-mail disease

what is e-mail disease. thus, i offer the teaser to a rant that follows the next few days.

you probably have your own definiton. e-mail revolutionized communication. but what has been it's most enduring legacy: e-mail disease

colors of the past: photos from the 40's

i would love for readers of this blog to see this collection of photos. yes safe to look at. photos from the 40's. for some reason in my mind those decades are all black, gray, and brown. go now!

you should look at url for this library of congress photo

new orleans pelicans

would you rather learn about the bird than the basketball team? travel here to national geographic.

could this be a new orleans pelican?

get the name of the dog

i've been listening to the podcast version of Roy Peter Clark's "Writing Tools". first, i recommend you give the time to these short podcasts. i think you'll find that these tools will work for your public speaking and storytelling (which should describe your public speaking method).

thought I would comment a bit on the tip titled "get the name of the dog". your story comes alive when you use describe in detail the color of the rotary phone on the wall, the color, model, and year of the car, the exact weather of the moment. notice this in the next news article you read. i think you will discover journalists usually give "the name of the dog" even in a story of just a few hundred words.

so, the next time you tell a story; describe some element of the plot in some combination of brief but significant detail. see if you can win that "my story is better than your story" conversation exchange that characterizes most adult interactions.

why does attention improve at the end of the talk?

it is what it is

this is such a defeatist idea and cliche. i hope most of us realize it is a cliche. a trite meaningless expression. something that lets us connect and commiserate with each other.

first lets consider what is negative in this phrase. and then as i plan to do in all cases, lets consider the power for good such sad statements can effect in our lives

ok. what's negative. this "it is" speaks of surrender to me. some may suggest that the comment merely resigns to the past and the unalterable. i suggest that thinking this way also colors our future. and the colors are gray and black and beige. (you know boring, austere colors. don't get me wrong the black and gray are my colors of choice. i always look slightly dressed up. good for my image.)

if my filters to the past color my perspective hopeless, don't you suppose that same filter blinds my sight to hopes, opportunities, and possibilities ahead.

the positives. "it is" because i can do more. i can look at the past and accept my chance for improvement. "it is what it is" this is my chance to create deliberative future actions that shapes the "it" to my vision for life, hope, and happiness. sure something went badly or horribly wrong. redefine the past to terms that positively effect the future. sure these trite platitudes i spout may annoy you. but come on you folks with the half full glasses love this stuff. we all should. emotional response is a choice for most of us. make yours a choice you can live with in your "what it is" present".

a graphic i decided fits my post

contemplating zero

i think that most of us are afraid. we are afraid we make the wrong choice for a major. we are afraid we'll choose the wrong career. the wrong second job. the wrong go back to school degree. the wrong mortgage.

you get the idea

it seems to me advice experts want you to see opportunity in failure. a new sun rising over the mountain brightening a day of hope and possibility.

you know what failure is just what we should think it is

it means our idea was bad. our plan was bad. our widget was a disaster

failure is not the hope of the new. it is the reasonable abandonment of a stupid choice. a terrible decision.

own your failure. reject it. and forget about. get back on the horse. stand after your fall. dust yourself off. start over. embrace the emotional or physical pain of your mistake. make it a part of who you are

and please don't do something stupid twice. some single actions won't offer you any recovery. if i can't say dumb things on my own blog, then why have it.

john cleese on creativity

take the time to watch a master improvisor discuss invention and innovation.

thinking about childish behavior

today's post inspired by some foot stomping i overheard round the corner from where i am sitting.

the matter leading to the tantrum carries no importance. i just wanted to type and think about the incident for a bit.

imagine the last time you didn't get your way. how did you respond? there was a pout on your face. you had to surpress it. only children pout. you alomst stomped your foot. you had to hold your self still. only children stomp their feet.

i think that these behaviors never really leave our lives. we just modify them. now instead of body language which sends a clear communication. and offers the possibility for real discussion, we engage in "grown-up" behaviors. passive aggressive actions. saying and not doing. nodding our heads while we both ignore what is said and plan to undermine the other person.

the withhold of relevant emotional and intellectual information is a damaging practice. those who lead find themselves resented and disrepected for such practices. those who follow find they kick against brick unable to advance there cause or intentions

i imagine most of us would initially become tired of a workplace that fills up with phrase like: "that makes me feel sad" "how do you feel about this" and so on.

yet in a workplace that encourages and does not punish such discussion, i suspect many of us would grow to love and expect this culture. eventually finding that we cannot work in any other such environment. is conflict and its resolution encouraged wher you work? or suppressed?

welcome the opportunity to say what you really feel. find some freedom. and please prepare your thoughts and offer solutions. complaining without answers is just whining.

top reasons people quit

a post about concrete: walls are cool

Check this out. Maybe we can grow vegetables up walls. Give college dorm residents an excuse for mold in the showers. Tell people our house is supposed to look overrun and dirty.

your house is nature. and it is alive. if we forget to water it how long will it take our house to die? all of this fron fastcoexist.com

social impact bonds

i want to introduce readers to social impact bonds. this article is at fastcompany.com

this is something i learned about only last year while reading the economist.

the concept is gaining gound among investors. as you can imagine this is a high risk investment. but the possible problems solved in such an instrument are limitless. you just need backing. perhaps one among us could create a venture capital firm for social impact investment.

and if you already know about these and are offended that i would think you don't know what they are: read a different post.

what? i have to wait 10 seconds! i'm gone!

if you want to know what the goldfish are about, just read the last bit of the post.

i saw an article suggest we would tolerate 2 seconds of delay for a video. the idea is if we have to wait 2 seconds we pick another video. that seemed a ridiculous assertion to me. so i waded through the paper a bit. it will take a lot more than then ten minutes i just gave it. so after you click the link don't bother reading the article. none of us are smart enough to get it.

here's a quote:

Viewers watching videos on a better connected computer or device have less patience for startup delay and so abandon sooner. For instance, a viewer with fiber broadband connectivity is 38.25% more likely to abandon sooner during startup than a similar viewer with mobile connectivity.

so if were on the old Galaxy, Nexus, iPhone or whatever we'll wait.

if were on fiberoptic cable internet we have the attention span of a goldfish (really, really short).

atomic typos

atomic typos. unintentional letter switching. the switched letters produce a legitimate word. and you don't notice. there are two posts at datagentics. link at the right. this is a link to the post with the word puzzle quiz.

waste some time. and get smarter.

monopolies in social media

take a look at this at wsj.com. so this company and the one it bought provided review platforms to commercial entities. as a one person consumer base, i had never heard of either of these firms. i use cnet, consumersearch, amazon client reviews, etc.

chime in. tell me why i am so out of touch. are they a software platform only? although this is a fantastic innovation. i had stupidly thought companies managed their own review collections.

this graphic from nielsen

online storefronts and the brick & mortar stores

target recently moved to overcome amazons pricing power. all of us have stood in a store, phone in hand. we check the store price, then we visit our preferred online retailers. lower price wins. and usually the lower price is online.

consider now that these storefront retailers are vital to online retailers. we go to the store to see if the product meets our needs, provides the services we think it should, and lives up to our expectations.

most of us prefer to try or to see before we buy. as long as this is the case we will go to the store. imagine what happens to the online retailer as stores fail.

we will order. they will ship. we will do as we would in the store. examine. evaluate. accept or reject. when we accept the online retailers takes revenue and we get what we want. when we reject, our return becomes their liability as the product returns to unsold or unsaleable inventory.

without the stores available to showcase the products, online purchase returns will increase. the online retailers will have permanently increased costs. amazon, blue nile, zappos, and the like benefit from the brick and mortar store providing consumers with a look before they buy. we don't usually buy what we can't check out first.

from marketingcharts.com

to all you advertising wonks

look at this infographic on ad agency names. find yours. or grow yours large enough to bne put on this chart. or start your own. found at designtaxi.com

you wish pluto was still a planet

you're still angry at astronomists with nothing better to do. they meet. they destroy your beloved solar system mnemonic. and rip the "p" right off the end.

get back at them with this (while parting with thousands of dollars). because it's about the love of our distant system brother, man.

see the trees are the forest

let's redirect our minds away from the urban centers. look to and then go to nature. because in going there your immunity will improve, your blood pressure will, lower, your creativity will increase, and your brain will get away from it all.

so says this article at outside magazine.

here's a look at "tsukin-jigoku". read the article.

Original Content: Connectedness

As I look round and of myself look down to the glow of the colors coming up from this phone, I write of things much said.

Remember your world before smartphones. This was a time with more eye contact. A time with longer attention spans. Decades ago we had to read The Hobbit.

Now, if you agree even a bit with this, then take another step back in time. Remember when your cell phone was just a phone it was a tool much like the phone on your wall. You increased your tethers to your personal community.

And now the student loan reps could reach you all the time. Each of us lost "I wasn't at home as an excuse". Though some will jump and say answering machines and voicemail took that away. In our lives, many of us may say those messages always fell to the black hole of inattention and unwritten messages.

Now those of us who can. Remember the lone, black, rotary phone on the wall. Ringing alone in the house on Maple Street. Unloved when we were gone. And ignored when we were home. Can we, you and I, reclaim those days?

There is value in time for thought. I move too fast, decide to rashly, avoid circumspection.

Real connections take time. Now we convince ourselves we are connected. Because we respond continually, send out words instantly, and forever answer something.

Don't get me wrong, I am part of the game and the problem. I just turn off my phone and my computer a lot.

cities wasting the most time on twitter

before you look at this chart, guess which major city was resposible for the most tweets June 2012. but since you won't do that just look.

from semiocast.com (link @ right)

from Andrew Pipers book and reprinted at Slate an answer to a question you may not have considered: is e-reading actually reading?

prisoners favorite music

consider NPR in Britain. this NPR acronym is different than the American NPR.

we don't suggest that music is somehow a gateway or a cause to effect. the themes for this favorite artist may sometime coincide with the listener's lives. at nme.com

websites that spy on your blog

today's featured uglystat.com. a website valuation service. type in your blog or site. then see their algorithm crank out a value. then try and find a buyer. best of luck. if you have 1 billyun or more there are some great deals available. maybe not ll things have a price.

in a very short time

many of us have a very short view of our futures. we may not see much beyond tomorrow. and some of us don't look beyond today.

we suggest the key to our future success. all of us cultivate the same skills mastered by those that shaped much of what we have today.

the world needs visionary people. there is much that can happen in our moments of dedicated imagining. picture yourself in 1 year, 5 years, 50 years if you think you have that many.

those things you see in that personal vision are the images of what will be. choose something that bothers you. think on a way to solve the problem. combine existing tech and principles. this imaginary chimera you create is your answer. how much time do you have to give us the next wheel, light bulb, integrated processor, antigrav machine, transporter? this survey sets your deadline