Two Countries

Hotspots of Hate

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 ~ We're two countries alright, just not divided the way you might think:

The map shows the use of hateful epithets used in tweets, aggregated by county.

Um, so just exactly where is "middle America"?

A lot of related maps to look at and more detail here. Especially interesting (or sobering) to zoom in on where you live, or other places of interest, both to see the localized hotspots, and which hate words predominate. (Here in Washington State, the hate in Aberdeen is visible from space. What's up with that?)

Phytelligence at the Hort Show

Success!

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 ~ I've missed blogging the past several days, because I was way too busy to spend any time on social media things. Instead, I've been getting ready and doing the Washington State Horticultural Association's big annual show.

We had a great time and it was a great success for us. Will post more on the Phytelligence blog soon.

"So, What Are You Doing?"

"(These Days?)"

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~ I get asked this a lot. So, just as I did a year ago on my last lap around the sun, I'll write a quick update.

I'm still doing consulting and contract work, as well as working on some startups (of my own as well as others.) The best description that more or less braids all the strands? Entrepreneur-at-large, pitching in wherever there is opportunity to create or grow an interesting business from idea to revenue.

Some of my current projects are the same as a year ago. A couple didn't work out and had to be put down. There's also a few new ones:

Worthy Website—IV

Let's Go Drill the Arctic!

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 ~ This website has been around a while, but it has been freshened up lately because of Shell Oil's imminent plans to start exploratory drilling off the coast of Alaska. A sample crowd-sourced advertisement for Shell's "Let's Go!" campaign:

It takes a few minutes of poking around for most to realize that this is not an official Shell Oil website, but a very clever and detailed parody. Like all good satire, it is darkly humorous and all-too-plausible.

Just a Castaway

Plastic Trash or Social Networking?

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 ~ While the problem of plastic in the oceans is real, and serious, there is a tiny fraction both purposeful and amusing:

Over the last two decades, Harold Hackett has sent out over 4,800 messages in a bottle from Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province along the Atlantic coastline.

Every message asks for the finder to send a response back to Hackett, and since 1996 he has received over 3,100 responses from all over the world.

Go to the BBC webpage to see a video wherein Hackett talks about his hobby.

That's a pretty good response rate. I hope direct marketers don't seize on this for some kind of ill-considered promotion.

"So, What are You Doing?"

"(These Days?)"

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~ I've been asked this, or questions like it, quite a bit lately. Perhaps, thanks to this lovely turnover economy, it's because many of us are changing positions, jobs or careers at a frenetic pace. Perhaps, unfortunately, it's because my LinkedIn page doesn't provide the simplest summary. Or perhaps it's because today's my birthday, and birthdays are a great time to ping friends and colleagues with such whazzup questions.

It's hard even for my close friends to figure it out; the line-up changes all the time. And indeed, I need several prosthetic memory devices (laptop, Droid, calendar, and many, many lists) to stay on top of it myself.

While I do consulting and contract work, what I really do is serve as a kind of entrepreneur-at-large, pursuing several opportunities where I can help turn the chaos of a general idea into a growing, successful business.

The current line-up? My favorites (that I can talk about):

The Internet is a Toady

Confirmation Bias Confirmed

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~ What is the Internet hiding? Eli Pariser pulls back the drapes in a thought-provoking TED talk of just under 10 minutes:

The key idea: most of the web sites and services we use do not provide us an unfiltered stream from the Internet. Much is hidden from us, and the implications are disturbing for a democracy that depends for its vitality on a generously informed electorate.

The Future of Work

Geoffrey Moore Keynote at Washington Innovation Summit

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~ Geoffrey Moore, author of the seminal book Crossing the Chasm, captivated the lunchtime audience at yesterday's Washington Innovation Summit with a fast-paced and ranging, but conceptually deep exploration of the digitization of everything, globalization, the reconfiguring of how business is organized, social media and the future of work. Some of his ideas he's already put in earlier books, but perhaps some will find greater elaboration in his forthcoming book, Escape Velocity: Free Your Company from the Pull of the Past, which will be published September 6th by Harper Collins. Some of the corollaries of his remarks are very encouraging for the future competitiveness of America business and, in what would be a great relief for many locally, for Microsoft in particular.

A More Frugal Economy

Remarks by Futurist Glen Hiemstra at WCTA

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I had the pleasure yesterday of introducing Glen Hiemstra to the monthly breakfast meeting of the Washington Clean Tech Alliance (WCTA). Glen gave a wide-ranging but thematically coherent and engaging talk on what the future might hold over the next 10-50 years. One key point was how we have moved, perhaps permanently, to a "frugal economy" where people have less, buy less, and want less. It may be making a virtue of necessity for some, but for others, especially those focused on sustainability, it has a deeply satisfying appeal.

The Outernet and Search Inversion

The Lobster Trap of Internet Privacy

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Internet anonymity is disappearing. I've written earlier about why I've given up on maintaining a distinction between my professional and personal selves. Not only is it impractically difficult to maintain, but attempting to do so increasingly marks one as an information age fuddy-duddy, or as someone trying to hide something indelicate. Everyone is connected all the time and everywhere by ever-more ubiquitous mobile computational power and fat-pipe bandwidth. What we do, when and why are now continuously memorialized. The GPS features of phones, along with applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla provide such a rich timeline that the future job security of forensic investigators is likely imperilled.

Ceding one's anonymity also entails abandoning quaint notions of privacy. When I Google myself some of the results include comments I have made to blog posts in the past, some of them years old. (Yes, I do periodically search on my own name. Doesn't everyone? Brand experts advise one do so. You know potential employers and business partners are searching on your name; don't you want to know what they're finding about you?)

The signs of our complete Internet outing are everywhere. Remember anonymous comments to articles and blog posts? A thing of the past--"Login to comment" is utterly standard and unremarkable to nearly everyone. The imprecations to surrender to the 'net are relentless. It doesn't matter how many times I tell Google or Twitter "No thanks" to "enabling" my location disclosure, both services continue to badger me with the question. I suppose at some point, as with a tireless toddler whining for some treat, I may, through irritation or inattention, agree to do so. And having been given their figurative ice cream I suspect they will not check back frequently to ask me if I'd like to rescind my newly granted cyber-exhibitionism.

Networking Made Memorable through Storytelling

Another networking opportunity

Did you know I once slept in Elizabeth Taylor's bed?

Why have I never told you that story? Perhaps you have a great story too that you've never told me?

The indispensible Scott Adams wrote a stimulating blog post with the amazingly boring title Active Listening. (Important though the concept is, a title like that usually makes me tune out.) Most of the post is basic Dale Carnegie stuff (seek first to understand and only then to be understood, etc.) but there is a nestled gem lurking in the penultimate paragraph:

Most people have at least one good story in them. And you can usually find that story by asking where the person lived and what their parents did for a living.

Networking is much much more fun when you can get people to talk about unusual things. It's always more interesting precisely because it's unusual, and who doesn't like things that are more interesting? It's also more memorable and, as Adams points out, it leads to deeper and more meaningful connections with people.

What's interesting? Well...

Socializing

In starting this blog I wrestled a bit with the problem of scope--what should I write about? A blog is part of the social media landscape and that's been changing rapidly--not just the channels, but also the content.

Today I attended the Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN) workshop on social media, given by Andy Boyer and Xavier Jimenez, co-founders of social3i.com. Lots of great material, useful references and actionable ideas.

I asked about the increasingly blurring or even disappearing line between business and personal content: many of us have a LinkedIn profile that describes our professional experience, relationships and expertise. Many of us also have Facebook pages or Twitter feeds that we share with our friends. Until recently I largely kept these separate, with my business contacts in LinkedIn and my friends and family on Facebook. But over time this doesn't really work. My friends are often part of my business network. Business colleagues find me on Facebook and want to connect. Different social media platforms are much more effective when linked together. Twitter feeds into Facebook. Plaxo and LinkedIn status updates are synchronized. Links to new Youtube videos and blog posts are broadcast on Twitter. And webpages have links to all of them.

So, it's time to bust down the Chinese Wall. While our business selves may want to write primarily about our areas of subject matter expertise, it's OK, even necessary, to also pepper it with other pieces that paint a fuller picture of ourselves, even beyond our business personae. Andy made a great point (which I paraphrase):

Be a SME (subject matter expert)--yes--but more and other kinds of content is necessary too. If someone is going to not hire me because of social comments, that's OK. You can't hide. The more authentic and transparent you are, the more confidence people have when seeking you out.

Andy added that much web content is now consumed through filters--Google Alerts, aggregators, Twitter searches, NetVibes, and the like. People mostly see what they're looking for, which might be only snippets of all the content one generates.

So, the upshot? I'll write about what interests me without worrying much about whether this blog follows some carefully circumscribed theme. So I expect to post on energy technology and policy, climate change, the future, the dismaying and ongoing attacks on science, the shocking decline in critical thinking by our media, self-appointed pundits, and so-called leaders, occasional humor, and thoughts arising from experiences I've had as a manager, as an entrepreneur and as a business consultant.

Pick what you like. Ignore what you don't. Better still, make a comment, post a link, start a conversation.