You've got a friend... (and maybe more)

OMG OMG OMG - KAT!!! Whoa.

Tags: KatHerding, KHM, Jermy Outerbridge - Powered by Qumana

New Social Marketing and PR Shop - Kat Herding Media - Makes Its Debut

Already advising global clients like Wal-Wart and others, and with a penchant for the sizzzzzle of web 2.0, Kat Herding Media is Busting the industry Wide Open.

Putting the Kat in Kat Herding, Chris Locke has more on KHM over on RageBoy.com.

THE PRAISE FOR KAT HERDING MEDIA ROLLS IN....

Marshall Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch: "I'm scared."

Jonathan Peterson of WayNu: "Such shallowness takes talent."

Robert Scoble: "Fun. But is she real?"

Tags: Kat Herding, Kat Herding Media, Web2.0, Tech, PR, Advertising, Marketing, Blogging, Edelman, Ketchum, Weber Shandwick, Jeremy Outerbridge, KHM New Media, Social Media = Powered by Qumana

Thank Yourself for Not Smoking Even If You Still Want To.

Mike Rodriquez has a moving post today about quitting smoking, not quitting smoking, death, and not dying. At the end is a pretty heavy video. I try to tell my friends who do a lot of unhealthy things to themselves--as I have done and do--that it isn't the dying that worries me; it's the being sick and stuck in a hospital. That shit scares me silly.

After being hospitalized that time with my womanly problems for 10 days, I have to do what I can to NOT go back anytime soon. So, I gotta try harder. We all gotta try harder to be well. And that's why I'm still managing not to smoke even though I want to so very very much.

Congrats to Mike who's still smoke free after lots of quits, just like me. I started at 12, quit at 14, started at 18, quit at 25 started at 27, quit at 30, started at 34, quit at 35, started at 36, quit at 42.

Keep giving up what you've given up that you know's bad for ya--kay? wwwoooorrrrdddd.

Tags: death, dying, NOT having a fatal heart attack, smoking, smokeout = Powered by Qumana

growing up girl

The thing is, I'm basically a homebody who would rather sit--or lie--in front of my laptop doing what I love to do making pixel-words on the screen, or maybe taking a drive to the store with Jenna, going to a movie, or going watch George play. The point is, I opt to do pretty much anything in place of that painful physical stuff better known as exercise.

I love going to the Y to swim. I love it more once I'm there. Other than that, though, I'll skip if given half the chance.

Except when you put a ball in front of me.

Doesn't matter if it's a football, kickball, soccer ball, or volleyball -- if there's a ball and someone who wants to beat me by doing something with that ball that I'm supposed to prevent, then I. Am. On. The. Case.

(You notice I didn't include golf. Golf doesn't count. I do mano a mano.)

Blame my brother for my obnoxiously competitive spirit. Seven years older than me in a home without a dad, he was my sports mentor. Or maybe the point is, I was his only teammate, and although it happened that I was a girl, that could not change anything about the game at hand--especially the game of football. If I got the wind knocked out of me, he added  padding. If my nose bled too often, he'd put a helmet on my head. He taught me the plays of the day, drawing them on his palm--and if I didn't understand, drawing them on mine--like a fortune teller. I knew them all--from the statue of liberty play to the flea flicker, to the Hail Mary.



He had no qualms about sending this girl to do a man's job. And I did it. And if it hurt too bad, I asked him to stuff some pillows up my shirt so it would hurt less. And he would.

Getting back to that physical sacrifice is crucial for me.

It's a going home of sorts, a way of thanking my brother for playing with me, for suffering my gender on the field, for knocking me into the boards at the hockey rink just the same, for believing in me enough to sail a spiral into my waiting hands.

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excuse my while i scream in pain

I actually did it. I played 3 games of co-ed volleyball tonight--a total of nearly 2 hours of getting blasted by the big boys over a stinking regulation-size net, in games that actually had RULES (like you have to set the serve--wha?) and very little pity on the new girls. Three women, 10 men. Much aggression.

Oh. My. Aching. Everything.

But I hung. This out-of-shape, non-smoking, non-diving, good-digging, fine-setting, non-spiking, high-fiving lady actually hung. I made every serve. I aced two. Sure I screwed up probably half of the plays I was in on, but I'm prouder of the half I unexpectedly made. Come on stella, you can get that groove back.

Four ibuprofen, jenna asleep, George at a cast party for the 1940s Radio Hour, which he's in through December, and ME IN A HOT SHOWER NOW!!!

In case anyone is wondering, getting in touch with your own flesh is a painful process.


        Next Year: Mud.

Tags: health, sports, pain = Powered by Qumana

Fo' Shizzle My Amandizzle

Vlogging pioneer Amanda Congdon makes a biiiiig announcement today -- see her talk about it here. Here's my rundown:

Amanda will become the first video blogger for ABC News.

Amanda will appear on ABC News Now as an Internet Correspondent -- popping up on Good Morning America and such.

Amanda's developing at TV show for HBO -- both for the web and TV and the space in between.

Amanda will keep blogging at amandacongdon.com.

Hmmm. I wonder if she'll make techmeme, being that she's missing a penis and stuff.

Alright on you, Amanda!

Tags: Amanda Congdon, ABC, HBO, Video Blogging, Blogging, RocketBoom, Web2.0, Celebrity = Powered by Qumana

the alders...

in a winter wonderland...

Tags: winter, cold, snow, aaaah! = Powered by Qumana

Mary Clarifies What Dabble Is and Is Not

Mary Hodder would like you to know that Dabble is not a host--Dabble is video search, and they're doing just fine:

While I absolutely love Flickr, Dabble is *not like* an image hosting site. Just to be absolutely clear, Flickr, Odeo and Podshow either *host* or *make* content. They do not search all images, or all audio, or across video or even the web. Sites that would be comparable to Flickr include YouTube, VSocial, Revver, Blip.tv, and the other 300 hosting sites for video that Dabble searches. There is a very big difference between a site that creates or hosts content, and search engines.

Dabble searches all video content across all hosters, as well as other sites on the web, and we continue adding more results to our search engine every day.

So to set the record straight, Dabble is video search -- it's neither a host or content engine. It is not odeo or flickr or youtube. apple, apple, apple, orange.

Tags: dabble, mary hodder, search, tech, business = Powered by Qumana

danah defines social network sites

...and she's better at this shit than any other human on the planet, so I'd go right ahead and etch this one into stone:

-----------------------------------------

A “social network site” is a category of websites with profiles, semi-persistent public commentary on the profile, and a traversable publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to the profile.

To clarify:

1. Profile. A profile includes an identifiable handle (either the person’s name or nick), information about that person (e.g. age, sex, location, interests, etc.). Most profiles also include a photograph and information about last login. Profiles have unique URLs that can be visited directly.


2. Traversable, publicly articulated social network. Participants have the ability to list other profiles as “friends” or “contacts” or some equivalent. This generates a social network graph which may be directed (“attention network” type of social network where friendship does not have to be confirmed) or undirected (where the other person must accept friendship). This articulated social network is displayed on an individual’s profile for all other users to view. Each node contains a link to the profile of the other person so that individuals can traverse the network through friends of friends of friends….


3. Semi-persistent public comments. Participants can leave comments (or testimonials, guestbook messages, etc.) on others’ profiles for everyone to see. These comments are semi-persistent in that they are not ephemeral but they may disappear over some period of time or upon removal. These comments are typically reverse-chronological in display. Because of these comments, profiles are a combination of an individuals’ self-expression and what others say about that individual.

------------------------------------

Has anyone called danah boyd the mother of social networks yet? Okay if not I just did.

Tags: social networks, web2.0, blogging, tech, danah boyd = Powered by Qumana

Ray Sweatman, Tearin it Up.

Consistently, year after year. Ray.

REPRINTED without the express, written permission of Sir Ray, but with immeasurable respect:

Monty please, Door Number Three

November 5th, 2006 ·

I am nothing more than the dreams that dream me.

Inventing games under the cover of innocent trees,

cashing a paycheck, working the latest gadget,

walking down the aisle, smiling for the cameras,

comparing the different boxes of instant rice

falling from the ceiling of the supermarket,

getting stung by bees, trying to cover my

naked bumps down an empty corridor

of footsteps and bells banging from

the inside of a locker Let me out. 

There are three dreams that dream me. 

Minus the one where we are holding hands,

our circle the sun in a foreign land our differences

a celebration at the apex of the union the rails

of the balcony come loose we say goodbye

to each other and spend the rest of our time ducking. 

But this is not the one.  The first is (and of course

these have no order; they come when they do

like Variations on a Broadway tune

played by a drunken Master after the bars

are closed from Chicago to Paris

in the space between the needle

and the rush in the breath of an open cork)

the one where the mushrooms turn sinister

and we’re chest deep in red liquid, the cheese

is wrapping tightly as we grow smaller and

smaller, our arms flapping and flailing.

We wake to the usual alarms but there is no escape.

And there’s the one where you’re hanging

by your feet from the top of a lamp pole

inventing Bungee jumping with your own

shoestrings with all that you’d believed in

at the bottom in a heap.  The neighborhood cats

are rolling their eyes and the dogs are salivating

though they don’t know whether to bark,

lick or fuck you. It’s the one then

where it’s just you and the horses

following the sound of the creek

reminiscing about how insecure

she was in the mirror.  Just you

and the horses navigating the darkness.

An empty flask broken off from the narrative. 

A place where home has no map.  A place

where you don’t feel here.  And even that glimpse

of where you thought your senses knew it.  

The one how light looks through black iron bars

and the shadows she left after she was long gone.

The one where leaves are hand-me-downs

from generations hibernating. You mark

it down as just another delusion of an

estranged mind.  And now then the third one

(how we like to impose order, how we like

to simplify the world into something we

can understand like the mozzarella inside

our heads) is the one where I’m trying to

get home (yes the way she gives herself

after all the years of gorging on poppies

we thought were the other. The way

her voice sounds the first, the last, every time)

and I’m trying to get home (one here on earth)

but I can’t find the way and though she’s

left the crumbs I’m still a wolf

trespassing through gates and

covering my fingerprints, when

they (the keepers of the Neighborhood

the ones that insure that their property

values remain their highest, the

keepers of the civilized world)

round me up and put me in the Van.

There they proceed to shave me from head to toe. 

Tickle my Feet.  And laugh and laugh.

And go.  And there alone in the cul de sac

where the signs say No Outlet,

I realize I shall interpret light no more.

I will no more interpret silence.

I cannot interpret them

any more than I can interpret you.

Rather we shall lose ourselves in it.

And when they come that’s how

they’ll find us.  They will come

with their notepads and measuring

sticks and they will make what they

will of us depending on their mood.

A brooch, a hat.  A religion.  A crime.

They may even call it love.

Tags: with glue and feathers, he holds me together. Powered by Qumana

Wish I had the $ to Hire Nick Douglas...

Build your own brand, Nick. You're one of the funniest writers in tech (okay you deserve a better compliment than that). You are the only person I know to slap around the Technorati Elite and have them still like you.

You got game, baby.

Today, without you, ValleyWag reads like a bad day at work and looks like a bad night in the ER. Anyone can be pissy. Anyone can mock. Not just anyone can make me feel good about participating in the abuse.

Nick Denton will find his footing there; he's obviously pro. But Nick's not Nick. He's Nick.

If I were one of those Silicon Men with a few dozen million dollars in my pocket, I'd hire Nick Douglas in a flash. Instead, I'm a girl blogger meant to populate the underposts of techmeme and link to all of those impotent--oops, I mean important--guys with the bazillions in their pockets.

Tags: Nick Douglas, Fare Thee Well = Powered by Qumana

Web 3.0, Google Docs and Spreadsheets as E-Room Killer, and Giving Thanks

Posted earlier at BlogHer.org.

I have enjoyed seeing Anne Zelenka jam with Sheila Lennon about why more decimals and numerals aren't what's changing on the net--what's changing are our needs and wants around making work and life easier to endure, and maybe even enjoy. Anne says:

What we want from the next generation of the web or even this generation of it is action. We need it to handle more of the tedious details of life. Sheila Lennon points out where this morning’s NY Times article got it wrong. It’s not about meaning. It’s about software agents who can do our bidding and remove some of the friction from managing our days.

Sheila gives an interpretation of what we can do, and why it matters, and then gets some input from those who live and breath software design on usefulness.... and slinkies.

When restaurants are online in realtime (yet to happen), my computer could display Providence restaurants serving cordon bleu tonight at what prices, ask me to choose one (around when?) then make a reservation, reserve a portion of chicken cordon bleu for me, and notify the restaurant's computer if I'm hung up in traffic. It will not think about chicken cordon bleu. Its mouth will not water.

And -- being my agent -- it will not suggest I've had enough calories already today and should have salad instead.

Bonus: The HAL transcripts.

Update: A couple of bloggers more tech-savvy than me address this post, and further it.

Programmer and tech author Shelley Powers, On Meaning:

What most people want (from the Semantic Web) is what Sheila is describing: systems that work together seamlessly; that integrate immediately; that help us do something we couldn't do before.

...I find it interesting, though, to see these writings about the web of meaning now, when I've finally reached a personal epiphany that as cool as this stuff is, it has about as much practical use as a Slinky.

While Nick Bradbury has decided the semantic web isn't ready for prime time, I think there are other questions to consider before deciding that Web 3.0 doesn't validate.

What I Think...

If the dot-com era was about commerce, and web 2.0 about conversation and innovation--an explosion of features, then web 3.0 is about combining those innovations with commerce. It's ALL about making many-to-many collaboration real. And I mean effortless, ubiquitous, simple Me-to-You (m2y) collaboration. I mean working together with people online through free platforms -- often people we've never met (or would have never met) offline -- to build businesses outside of business, the same way we built conversations outside of business.

How very fitting that a mega-company like Google is leading the charge--it is the only company that can, because it is the only company with nothing to lose by doing so, because it came from this space. Its business model is intrinsic to this space. That's why Adam Lashinsky of CNN Money is right when he says, It's all about Google, although I'm far more optimistic than he.

It's become easy--I would say cliche--to poke holes at "web 2.0" and its components. Smart people--and the net is full of them--are thinking about how to fit within Google's model or how to rival it. Meanwhile, Google is developing (and buying) what all of us need to get from here to there.

So who wins?

We win.

The commons wins.

For once, we win. We the workers, the 'force' has never counted in the 'work force' can collaborate nearly for free GLOBALLY and efficiently, using our brains instead of the shop floor to manufacture, then barter and exchange whatever products and currencies WE CHOOSE with others. Linden dollars, real dollars, books, sex, cash FOR ideas, products, charities, whatever.

Why? How? Because what all of this innovation has resulted in the ability for us to become co-producers and partners with business, and with one another. Creators as well as consumers, makers and buyers. We are not an after thought in commerce. The world has become too flat for that.

Yes, the earth is flat. Or at least it's getting there.

For me as a business person and marketing/PR pro, although I have a lot of problems with the industry that germinated those terms, this Web 2.0/3.0 debate is not an existential exercise. It is my daily reality.

Since 2003 I have pined for a solution like Documentum's E-Room for collaboration with my global colleagues I have met through blogging and online social spaces. I have long identified such collaborative spaces--ones that work easily and seamlessly--as the single biggest competitive differentiator for large firms against the independent, networked worker. Because they cost several thousands of dollars each year and require great technical know how to administer. These differentiators-as-barriers are ripe for the net to overturn.

Enter Google, barely making a sound, but unleashing the most simple and powerful document collaboration platform -- for FREE -- with google docs and spreadsheets. I was blown away when I started using it just last week. You can collaborate with others, including your clients, real time, inside of documents (uploaded word documents, excel spreadsheets and others), in a shared space. You can administer editing and viewing rights. You can export and import to common file formats. You can even subscribe to docs via RSS to track changes! I mean HOLY CRAP. All of these years I've been begging for this, and Google tosses it out there like a crouton atop a luscious salad.

And how did Google develop it? Through web 2.0 acquisitions and software innovations. What have they created with those things? A web 3.0 collaborative nexus.

So Now What...

Just for today, decide that you are going to love the net, love what is going on here, remember how it was before, look around the room you're in right now and think about what has changed in how short a time. Forget what we call it, forget semantics, forget decimials, forget numerals. Remember the people you have met--people you've always thought, "Damn, I wish I could work with her," and understand that you can, we are, and that is a very very very cool thing.

Tags: Web2.0, Web3.0, Internet, Commerce, Tech, PR, Marketing, Advertising, Business, Anne Zelenka, Sheila Lennon, Shelley Powers, Google, E-Room, Docmentum, Knowledge Sharing, Human Resources, Blogging = Powered by Qumana

A different kind of T&A

A week from today we get to go back to the ENT to see what he can make about Jenna's tonsils and adenoids.

We went about 3 years ago, and they decided to watch her instead of removing the works then. In the last three years, things haven't improved much. She still gets strep a lot; she still gets so sick when she gets even a little sick that she misses school and too many fun events, and these illnesses still trigger her asthma. So we're thinking that maybe it is time to reconcile with the idea of surgery. Although we've run hoops to avoid it through other means for  long time.

I remember getting my tonsils out back in the days of ether.

In those days we went in the night before and stayed a couple of days. I hear now that children often go home the same day. Wow.

I remember getting wheeled into the operating room; i remember the big round face sucker coming down, i REALLY remember the smell, and saying, "No, no I'm going to throw up!" And the condescending man saying, "No you're not, it's just the smell," and me saying, "Yes I am!" And i REALLY REALLY remember throwing up all over the operating table, and i REALLY REALLY REALLY remember them jumping out of the way and shutting everything down and being pissed off, maybe swearing a holy shit in there, and i remember not knowing why they were mad but being embarrassed anyway, and then i sort of remember them sending me home with my tonsils and adenoids just where they were before the hospital visit until i could come back and not throw up in the OR.

I went back to kindergarten not with honor, for having heroically survived the operation we all feared, but an outcast for having gone to the hospital and come back the same as I was before: sick and with tonsils.

They tried again a month later, and I managed not to throw up. I dreamt of all the ice cream they said I could have, and wanted none of it. And I didn't get sick again until college.

If the T&A (tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy) is in store for Jenna, I pray for none of the drama, none of the vomit, but the same good results.

Tags: T&A, Tonsils, Adnoids, Tonsillectomy, kids, parenting, surgery, health, strep = Powered by Qumana

Tagging Gmail - Meta Mail Madness

Talking to the birthday boy via email, trying to track some conversational metadata, when I say, "I'm gonna start tagging my gmail," you know like body tags -- maybe, say, a couple tags per email or per thread -- that will pull very specific info when I search by my tags. Subject lines shouldn't be tags. They are a synopsis for the recipient. Tags are all about me. so if you see something like [[weekly status 11/13]] at the bottom of an email that isn't about weekly status at all, but maybe that's how I want to find it later, well then you'll know I'm tagging our thread.

Gmail thread tags, exchange tags, something to it?

Tags: gmail, tagging, email, blogging, web2.0, conversation, tech = Powered by Qumana

Heaven Forbid!

Isn't that like asking religion to steward government's future?
Oh... wait.
imho,  the last thing we need is business thinking it can influence anything. except commerce.


Powered by Qumana = Tags: jeff jarvis, doc searls, business, journalism, stewardship

Chris Locke, the God Father of Blogging, And RageBoy, Celebrate Their Birthdays!

Send wishes to day to your favorite blog father and new age crime fighter -- and his evil twin -- at clocke AT gmail DOT com. It's not to late to say WTF? And it's WAY not too late to visit the fellas' wishlist:

Make a brotha happy:





Tags: chris locke, rageboy, birthday, twins, blogging, web2.0, spiritual, new age, religious, marketing, gonzo = Powered by Qumana