April 23, 2004
This Old Infrastructure
Just Checked Out Doc's new "Doc Searls IT Garage" and was so impressed with this idea. I love it as it stands--a digestible weblog featuring the war stories of IT folks. Doc's tagline is "News, ideas and real world stories about how IT folks solve their own problems."
But I can see this blog evolving into more.
I don't know if it's the simple, welcoming design of the blog or Doc's loveable mug at the top, but I conjure images of This Old House meets Ambush Makeover. Or This Old Infrastructure meets IT Ambush Makeover.
Can you see Doc and company rushing into, say, Buy.com (on my current shit list due to my recent laptop purchase) and surprising them with the news that they've been selected for an Ambush Makeover for business?
Doc and crew would be the ones to put some foundation and lipgloss on the less-than-attractive e-commerce processes and infrastructure at buy.com. Can you see Frank shaking his head at the CTO -- "Uh uh honey--you need some help."
I bet after a makeover from IT Garage, when you place an order at Buy.com, you'd actually get an email back letting you know that Buy.com has RECEIVED your order. I dunno, call me goofy, maybe they'd even THANK YOU for your order. And I dunno, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe they'd keep you INFORMED along the way about what's up with your order.
And I know Doc could run them down with a powder puff assault and a bold new cut with blonde highlights, so that if, let's say, you place a $1,000+ order with Buy.com, you'd even be able to find a PHONE NUMBER where you could talk to a real live person about your purchase.
And if Doc were in charge of the Ambush makeover, I just know he'd have the sense to throw some gloss on at the end, so that SOMETHING was inside the box that shows up three days late offering the buyer something special (say, a coupon for a new laptop case for me, or a 10% off thank you certificate = cross-sell/up-sell opportunities for buy.com; good feelings for happy.buyer).
This is more than IT, I know. It's process stuff too. But it's process stuff that is powered by IT, and Doc & Co. has the smarts, experience, and balls to do this kind of thing right.
I say get the cameras rolling and let Frank and Doc hit the streets donning cables and wires and hard hats with servers in tow, instead of sissors and hair dye and the latest low ride jeans.
You go, Doc.
April 21, 2004
Off center
It's way too easy to type on this laptop, the speed with which I can move now. It's a great great thing. It's also not such a great thing becuase I haven't felt like blogging. Blogging is so much a part of who I am now that I can tell something's up with me when I don't want to come here. I've been busy, that's for sure. New computer, still getting used to it. But it's more.
I don't know what. I wish I did. But I don't.
Maybe I do.
The shape of a memory that came back recently, about three weeks ago. I didn't know it was there. And when it came back, since it's come back, I haven't really been in myself at all. And when I'm not in myself it's hard to come here. This is where I integrate.
So I'm Dissociated, note the capital D, maybe. Okay, yes. Living outside myself, just off to the left and up a bit.
My sister tells me he was 87 pounds when he died.
pulled through a wormhole I'm transported lightning quick to an place and smell and grey white sky. That image. Oh Jesus. That one was hiding in the gaps. In the black space between my hyper-real colors. The place where if I'd never tripped upon it again, I wouldn't have noticed except that I've been living in and out of that black space all of my life.
Was he home?
Sometimes. He'd go into the hospital and then come back home, and then go back in, and then come home.
Did I go see him there?
No, you were too young to go up to his floor. You'd stand on the hood of the car and wave, and he'd wave to you from his hospital room window
shot through the wormhole again, ripped apart and reassembled at the doorway of the memory. I see him there waving, ravaged form hidden just enough by the drapes that I see mostly hand. moving back and forth. Daddy!?!
Over and over I say inside so very deep inside in the middle of my middle in the center of my soul: "I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him."
I still do.
Zooom or Gooom
You know on Zoom, the kids sing this little song about Zmail, which is email you send to the show. Zmail, it's email.
jeneane.sessum at gmail.com
google mail.
dig that gmail stuff.
email with google search capability might just save email. give us some meaning back by making it easier to talk to each other.
"Print Conversation" -- I like it.
Far too many innovations these days. I need to spread my excitement out. I can't keep getting jazzed about cool new things.
April 20, 2004
April 18, 2004
Nate Adam's Illicit World of Wireless
In bed. Oh god. So good. Supposed to be working but I have this keyboard that I don't have to backspace on. You don't understand. You remember when, through the kindness of my blog friends, when I got shitcanned/voluntarilyseparated from Ketchum your generosity gave me enough cash to get my refurbished Dell. And that was good. That was a lifesaver. But the thing is, even with the extra memory, it could never keep up with my typing. It would double type letters and skip multiple spaces. By last month I literally spent as much time backspacing as forward typing, and besides, after visiting a few sites, I'd get the old broken-link demons, even with spysweeper, which helped, my life was hell. I live on my laptop--literally--for work, play, and self-torture.
So along comes Sheila mentioning the very affordably priced Acer notebooks and there I go grabbing one from buy.com (DO NOT BUY FROM BUY.COM - DON'T BUY.COM - THEY SUCK) and this keyboard is a thing of beauty. I'm going and going and going and going. I'm FREEEEE!
Then add the wireless mojo on top of that and I feel like I just fell into the future.
But I digress. I'm meta-teching.
Frank, we could have a writer's workshop I suppose. But I wouldn't want anyone to write. We would have to do things like read history and poetry and play vollyball and roll in sand (first find some--maybe florida would be better) and sit at the edge of the ocean with just one foot waiting for the waves. It's not form, you know? It's not even techniques. It's stories. So we have a conference where we all set out to find stories. Maybe we don't confer at all. Maybe we go off in pairs or quads to explore woods and fish or something, and then we come back at night and tell stories. Or we roast marshmallows and weenies and sing by a campfire. That's what writing is.
Fuck blogging and fuck politics and fuck journalism and fuck religion (sorry AKMA) as TOPICS. Go live three layers deep within those things and then write your way out. That's how you tell a story.
That's what I say. And I have new keys to speak with, so watch the fuck out.
no possible way
there's no possible way i'm stretched out on the couch with this laptop, all wirelessly connected n shit. holy hot. this is the life. you guys been keepin a big secret from me. Here's how you blog like you do all the time. I've been tapping my fingers to the bone on these subpar machines, hooked into a cable and plugged into the wall, for years. When did technology get this good?
I have to push post now, just because I can.
