dot boom boom

Web 2.0 has the feeel of the speeedy dotcomboom times, but we learned from that little experiment, right? So it feeeels similar but it's all bouncing along on strange roads with foliage we've seen before. It's neither here nor there but the secret password is required for entrance.

Open Sessume

2.0 is going to go better than 1.0 ever did, and I really think so, because the refugees of boombangbust came to blogging in droves, most never abandoned the net in the first place, although they might have had second jobs as the under employed and bored as hell after trading in their jobs at exciting but defunct Internet 1.0 companies for the security of established enterprizes. The beauty of Established Enterprizes is that kow how to do real layoffs, where severance packages beat stock options and involuntary separation is a welcome break from the monotony of corporate servitude.

At first I wasn't down with the 2.o label. I was all about label-free, man, just let it be. But we have to call it something. We have to recognize that these opportunities are the ones WE WE WE WE WE have made. The cluetrain dare realized.

Something's afoot when Hugh lands Budget, knowtImean? When betas are sprouting like tomatas.

I didn't go the conference, I haven't seen the movie, I'm too busy to watch the film at 11, but I know when i'm in the middle of something important. We are. No Forbes is required to spell out their fear - I believe in the business arrangements happening as we walk away from the monitor long enough to shake hands and kiss cheeks and say okay then, let's go.

There's really nothing to it. The hard work's been done. The momentum will carry us home.

weeee!

if there is one kind of writing i hate

and truth be known there is more than one kind, and sometimes it's every kind of writing that bothers me, but the one I can depend on hating every time is proposal writing.

Oh Lord, give me a white paper, give me technical specs, give me a god-awful press release -- send me any of that before you send me into proposal hell.

I'm working on one for a client over the weekend that we started early last week, and the funny thing is that every proposal I've ever done (probably about 40 of them representing a total of probably $200 million) comes down to the last frigging minute. What is that about? What is it about proposals that invite the most exhausting processes in all of cobbling content together? Even the big companies I've worked for that either 1) claimed to have a proposal writing process together or 2) gave me the authority to build my own, never seemed to be able to stick to a schedule, timetable, or process--except the Big D Deadline

It's as though every proposal is a big sack that you know you have to hand over to the garbage man on Monday and you cram as much important stuff as possible into it for as long as you can until you start to get nervous--then you start picking through to take out what just doesn't fit, a Kleenex here and a used condom there--right up to the moment the truck pulls up. And the poor person waiting to tie the bag. Never mind.

So that's what I'm doing today. Dealing with Kleenex and condoms and the wonderful world of proposal writing.

more-more-more-more-more-more-more

Some good proposal writing reminders over at the Media Orchard.

random stuff

Weird things I got called this week:

1) High and Mighty
2) Holier than Thou
3) Too Principled

Weird thing I have right now:

• Hiccups

Other weird bodily anomalie:

• This boil thing on my right shoulder

Weird online happenings:

• Technorati is faster - and behaving

Weird offline happenings:

• Back to Hiccups

People in High Places

THE KING OF PR MEETS WITH
THE RULER OF THE FREE WORLD

Shuffle off to Buffalo now Michael--then stop by D.C. again and kiss some Bush.

OH my aching head

everything due everywhere at once and oh.

off to take jenna to basketball practice. it's cold here now and george cleaned the garage. i almost got out the cold weather clothes then it got hot and now here it is brrr again.

george does the laundry- he doesn't let me touch it because i always mix up the hues and he's very hue oriented, washing greens with greens and blues, red with reds oranges and pinks, yellows with beiges and pales, and white all by themselves same with blacks. You'd think an integrationist like him would not be so paranoid about laundry, but he is the klansman of the washing machine talking about the purity of the colors that comes out if you're careful.

me i throw it all in together 1 load for lights - near darks, and the other for darks and brights. My dryer lint is always dark grey. His dryer lint is the beautiful hue du jour.

so all this clean laundry piles up and he's all like, can't you at least put it away? and I'm all like, no. I'm busy, and he's all about I WASHED IT ALL and I'm like, that's good now it is clean and pure of hue, so put it on, and he has started some kind of protest whereby he will not bring clean laundry up from the basement unless i put away what's on the bed, and truth be known there is nothing I like better than sleeping under a pile of clean, crumpled laundry. Shhh.

He's got another musical gig--busy, busy. I guess I could put a few shirts away.

can you tell--i don't have a single, solitary brain cell left.

half of that problem is all yer faults.

blogger romper room - hi michael and tom and gary and mike, hi shelley and liza and lisa and rox, hi david and doc and chris and dean, hi betsy and sheila and jennifer and denise.

byebye

It's easy to keep the body count down...

...when you don't bother looking for them in the place that the most people died.

I was always under the impression that there would be a hard- target search at some point following that to determine whether or not there were any casualties left in those dwellings. As of right now -- in fact, the day before yesterday, in my own jurisdiction, a family came home to discover a family member who had been reported missing.

COOPER: Oh, my God.

STEPHENS: It was a horrible -- it was a gruesome sight. Very -- and again, people don't deserve any more grief and pain than they're going through right now. I mean, this whole process has been so excruciatingly screwed up and slow that, I mean, you're starting to feel a real sense of anger and hostility on the part of people locally and, my God, it's well-deserved.

new pictures not pictures

I know you're used to my sarcastic side. It's endearing isn't it? It's also been protecting me this last year. I mean I'm not saying I'm letting it go because it gives me a GREAT deal of pleasure to share it with you and it's what helps me make great fun of Those in Power and we all need that every third Friday.

What I'm meaning to say is that something's opening again. blogging doesn't like that, not grown up professional blogging, RSS doesn't understand because aggregators are flat like TV and you don't have to travel to them, like you do when you go to a friend's house or blog. Aggregators are channels and you tune in to flat feeds so my wounded feed doesn't FEEL any different than my SARCASTIC feed or my PR feed because everthing sits in the flat aggregator window and what do I care really?

Please understand: I don't care.

What I care about is that I saw new pictures of my father this weekend.

Have you seen them? What I mean is that when you are a child and your parent disappears forever, you're left with a finite set of image-memories -- like a deck of playing cards you take out now and then and shuffle through -- and then you get older and these are your 'bread and butter' of memories. They're the stock pictures you conjure when you think about the missing person. They are known because you have seen them over and over behind your eyes, year after year.

In all of my father memories, the face looking back at me is frozen in time, still, it is the dad I have seen in photographs and in home movies. My memories are the pictures of him that I've seen on the walls at relatives' houses, in the old box of black-and-white photos in the closet. They are a birthday party memory snapshot here; a vacation trip there; they are the paisley pajamas of my heart.

In loss, eventually, your memories grow still. Movement slows, then finally stop. You are left with disjointed snapshots that tell the only parts of your story you can absorb.

This weekend I saw my father in motion. It felt something like this:

Hi Dad! HI! and he was smiling back and Oh My dad that was your smile and YES I saw the corners of your eyes turn down and I see the SIDE of your face, this is not a picture, I see YOU, and you are MOVING inside you are in motion you are three dimensional you are NOT an RSS feed memory you are with me HI DAD! HI! do you see me? YES. You're dressed in a white cotton shirt, not pajamas and not clothes from the home movies, and it's really you, and where are you going daddy? What are you doing and why are you here like this. Only one time you came to me new and in motion, and I was 16 and you sang me a song in the kitchen, and now I'm 43 and you're back, moving your head and you're so real I could pinch your cheeks, and if I could just reach your shoulder..... and I wonder why you are back, and have I said I'm SO glad to see you? I can't believe I SEE YOU!!! You look so good--I wish I could get to you, what are you about 1o yards away? The way you tilt your head to the right.... of course, yes i'm your baby. yes i'm your baby. OH hellohelloiloveyoudaddy.

And it is going on and on like that. I have no explanation and I have no pretense about it. It just is. He's here and I'm not sure why, but you should all know that something is moving.

Dear Cigarette that I Want

Dear smoking,

I want to tell you some things, the first thing is that I love smoking and I love to smoke and it's legal and I don't think there's a thing wrong with smoking as long as you quit between 50 and 60 and as long as you're not my kid. That's just how I see it and I think it comes down to genes and also what The Man puts in cigarettes today because my grandpa smoked until he was 76 and he started at like 7 and he never even coughed. Same with all my Italian relatives and now a days you have to buy good cigarettes like American Spirit brand in order to avoid inhaling sugar and insecticide although since Reynolds bought my beautiful brand (i think that's who bought them) i am not sure i know who to trust. but i did trust them in that i love them with my very being I would wrap myself around an American spirit this instant if I could, and i would inhale so deep I'd disappear. All my thoughts and worries and complex problems and ideas would adhere to the plumes and make perfect sense.

Smoking did you know they say that i used to use you to push anger down? i don't know what the fuck they're supposed to be talking about because i'm not fucking mad at any fucking one except when they say that about you. I stick up for you all the time because you were my buddy, smoking, and when everyone else gave me grief, you sat there in your cellophane and paper not giving me one ounce of trouble. sure, yes, well blah blah senate commission.

I saw a thing yesterday at the store that takes tar out of cigarettes before you inhale them and i know that they're not too far away from coming out with that safe-smoke cigarette and do you know what smoking? when they do i am so there. I am right there. I am in line overnight for the concert of my dreams.

did you know i fell in love with you at 11? I stole for you. Every day. You know that right? I bet not many kids did that for you or know you like I did.

Anyway, I have to go now but i wanted you to know that no matter what you're always a part of how i think and feel, even when you're not around. as soon as you clean yourself up you come back and see me and we'll talk about how we can maybe get together again. because sometimes my head just won't clear out no matter how hard a shake it, and i get that messy cloudy feeling or i start just bawling for no reason or i get pissed enough to break shit, and smoking i know you're the one who can talk me out of those places.

in the mean time, you try not to hurt anybody now and I'll see you pretty soon.

I want to smoke so badly

I'm on a passive smoking binge. That means I want to smoke SO badly that I'll do anything to keep wanting to smoke. I suck the wind downstream of friends who exhale. I swear, to my own shame, that I had a tear stream down my cheek yesterday when I saw that the convenience station VERY near my house carries my brand of American Spirit -- the brown packs.

"Oh Oh Oh," I said to the cashier. "You've got my brand. Right here. Do you know that? Oh oh no."

"Which?"

"American Spirits, the brown, look at them above your head there, don't they look good?"

"Sure. $10 for the gas."

"I know but, do you know I used to smoke those? I quit a year ago, but that's my brand and I think I should get them."

I hand him the $10. He makes the register go cachunk and sticks the money in.

Then he looks at me. I'm thinking he wants to talk some more about my smoking days. Then I realize he's waiting for me to move out of the way so the guy behind me can pay for his gas.

Sometimes I just don't get people.

And DON'T come on here and tell me not to smoke, fucking shit I know I shouldn't smoke, what do you think that doesn't piss me off when you tell me that?

I love you.

Watching Gum

I don't watch TV much anymore. Hardly ever. Only during an active hurricane season. My bedroom TV has now become a stage for Elimitaste gum, preferred gum of the bloggerati. You need some gum, you come see me. My TV makes a great distribution center. I've got my Smoke Screen in one stack, my Zapp in another. Ladies and gentlemen, I AM supply chain efficiency.

I've only got 10 minutes...

...before I'm out the door again. Being back on my own business wise means mo-meetings. I was around people yesterday. I find it odd, entertaining, and energizing. Until I leave, and then I have to pass out.

I used to do these blog jaunts where I'd try to post 30 posts in 30 minutes. I never made it. I once posted 30 in a row but it took an hour and a half. It seemed like 30 minutes.

So here's the thing about Jenna's school. The teacher sent home 'corrected' class work the other day and I looked it over to find that the teacher had marked THREE problems wrong that were actually right. One of them was 51 - 48. Jenna got it right. The teacher didn't.

I AM VERY SCARED.

Can you hide an entire house?

Wow, this is one way to tidy up!

Or keep your secret dungeon hidden from the inlaws.

FleshBooks(SM)

I talked to RB today about a new business model that's been brewing in my head (the last 20 minutes). I'll call it a distribution methodology, and I shall name and brand it here and now as my own: FleshBook(SM).

Under the FleshBook(SM) brand, we will write our stories upon flesh -- all of us. We will move in numbers, tatoo words not pictures, string ourselves together to make meaning.

Words are what I see on flesh, I am a walking chapter, I read myself and you, I read myself in you. I paint stories in blood.

What's your genre? What font family? Mine is a deep, dark typeface that screams.

I am busy now writing stories upon my flesh.

I write them with my fingers. I cut and paste, I peel layers.

What word for my little finger, then? Secret.

Some choose to encrypt themselves.

Reading them requires a decoder. It is necessary--it is worth any price.

Story consumers must pay a lifetime's worth of a living wage for a decoder to read an encrypted teller's story.

The ending is everything.

Mothers, make stories of your children.

Tellers are seers. Their flesh is hairless and smooth.

We will write books upon the beautiful people and send them out into the world to carry our message.

We will write poetry books on the injured, the wounded.

Talk to me.

Latest project up!

Wshew--world record pace completion of content for InComm's new website. Went up today. InComm's Fastcard(R) Network is what makes it possible -- not to mention quick, easy and cost-effective -- for retailers to sell you all of those cool gift cards you'll be buying for holiday presents. They're a smart, nice bunch of folks. Wrote this 100-page website in about three weeks I think--I'm not sure. I call it creative amnesia. What was I saying? Why do I feel like shopping?

BY THE WAY woman who did the Web design on the site is looking for work -- she'll be updating her blog soon. Let her know if you have work for a Web project manager with XHTML/CSS experience. She is one of the most organized and easy-to-work-with women I've done business with in a looooong time.

Creative Propagation

creativity cycle

Happy Furry Half a Million

Speaking of which, there are some really great prizes at stake for being Happy Furry Puppy Time's 500,000th visitor!!!! Click early and click often!

Apparently Frank...

...and the rest of blogging are at some Senior Sex Addict conference... I really--I had no idea--I mean Frank seems so.... innocent....and I think he's like 31.

Near as I can tell, it's Weinberger, Paynter and a bunch of women bloggers. Somewhere up north.

I don't know. I never thought Halley would bring Jackson to SSA.

...wait...maybe i've gotten my letters mixed up....

Can Google Kill the SEO Industry

Well, it helped build the industry, so sure. If it wants to. Because when Google moves there are a thousand rippling counter moves. And I can already hear the shirt sleves rolling up.

It's not in Google's best interest to kill the entire SEO industry. It is in their best interest to take aim at a piece.

Personally, I would like to see the SEO companies go through Conversation Sensitivity Training before they pretend to know how to Make You More Visible online. Not because I think it would do any good. But because it would be fun to watch.

Now, I've had to learn to write search-optimized copy because it's my business to know how. I'm STILL not good at it because it's like writing my way into a shoebox, and if I wanted to write my way into a shoebox, then that shoebox better contain some really super comfortable and nice looking black pumps, not your average bla-blahdy-blah tissue paper and one right shoe.

SEO is a low-return-for-the-investment activity. A year of looking at it hasn't changed my mind. It comes down to two different ways to spend your money:

You can figure out how to join or support conversation, or you can pay companies to help you circumvent and avoid the conversation. It's that simple. There are no wrong answers. But each approach comes with a pricetag. Guess which one is higher. Guess which model is more sustainable.

Ding Ding--YOU WIN!

So is the best part being above the super models?

Or this most awesome post from Tom who knows I've been brooding more than usual lately? I think by far Tom's bruit post is the best thing.

Oddly, I'd been thinking for the last four days that I would come back into circulation as an independent kind of like Prince, because from a contractual standpoint, being a symbol opens up brand new horizons the law has yet to completely settle on. I was looking for the perfect non-name to represent The Blogger Formerly Known as Jeneane.

Tom's most appropriate Trinacrian symbol is just what I was looking for! Now, what kind of computation mechanism would be required to tell Google (but no one else) that [(insert trinacrian symbol here)] is the blogger formerly known as me?

Or maybe I should just put it on a cafe press t-shirt.... hmmmmm. ;-)

In case you don't know, Tom's the best.

--posted by

Song and Dance and The Color Purple

With George Sessum a founding orchestra member of The Color Purple, which first hit the stage in a five-week pre-broadway shakedown here in Atlanta, I've been following the show's journey to broadway from the sidelines. This I know: it was an intense schedule and experience for the cast and crew who first brought The Color Purple to the stage at its World Premiere at the Alliance. And since that time, the Broadway-bound company has spent a year improving and refining the show.

With Oprah signed on as a co-producer now, I'm sure that no expense will be spared to ensure the show has a long, successful run.

It was fun to see the original cast members I'd met do their thing on Oprah last week. Hope to get to NY to see the end result.

Standing O for all involved.

*************************
Bonus Links - MP3s & Such

My original post on
The Color Purple World Premiere

MP3s
Push Da Button
What About Love
The Color Purple

Video
Videos on Oprah.com

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Jeneane 2.0

This news item will be as brief as I can make it.

I've left The Content Factor as a partner. While I maintain a relationship with my existing clients through the business, I am otherwise unhitched, departnered, unattached and free. In fact, I'm just one big forward looking statement!

Eventually, I'll write about some of the tough lessons I've learned during the last year in working to build what has become a very successful business.

But now's not the time for that.

If I stop to look back, I risk falling into a giant, goo-filled pothole. Now is not the time for goo. (Not sure when the right time for goo is, well kinda, but never mind.) Now is the time to entertain new ventures and opportunities. Some of which I'm already entertaining.

You too can entertain me.

(Sing Elvis, Dance!!!!)

Contact info and recent work is represented here.

Welcome me home.

I'm glad to be back.

Wshew.

Redemption Song

[audio]
[interesting 2nd - audio]

Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
from the Bottom less pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation
triumphantly

Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had
redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time

How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing,
these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had,
redemption songs, redemption songs,
redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes some say it's just part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom