Aretha's singing on MY blog. From before. From back when I should have been grieving. But I was too young. I could only listen. Til I grew up. Then I came here to grieve. And now she's here from back then on my blog retroholyshittingme silly and blowing out the condenser mic. All for me!
I mean do you see that? Hear that?
I mean is it me or what?
Answer my prayer now baby.
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so this whole user-generated content thing, right? okay, you with me? you have companies all salivating to get content for free which is why so many are gushing about user-generated content (UGC), consumer-generated media (CGM), and other terms they lovingly use to refer to the Shit We Make (SWM). what it means to these companies is that they get us to do stuff for free that they can use. wow--it's a lose-win!
but thankfully, we'll know how to actually put to USE user-generated content better, because its that me2you thing, m2y (m2y.us), in other words, my blog is user (jeneane) generated content that uses user (you, youtubers, myspacians, etc.) generated content, and so the third level is going to be down the hierarchy, not up. heee heeeeee.
so see the joke is that we're the users that are using user-generated content and generating it as well. so really the market makers--the ones who enable us to do that faster/better/wider will win. Not the content suckers. And of course us. We'll win too.
anyway, i was just chortling to myself over the meta-ness of it all.
back to brookers now.
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Building jumping. Holy shit, Golby, Don't.
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'cause i like 12 year olds and 212 year olds. and i like myspacians. some of my myspacians...
montrose
lonnie plaxico
jaleel shaw
burden hand --> plays are only in the 100s. i predict big things. yeah, they have jaco's son.
nedra johnson
steve ewing
Hill St Soul - and here
Martin Luther, still a fav.
gotta have some wooten bros.
Tags: myspace, music, bandhopping = Powered by Qumana
I didn't know Grief Tourism was a segment of the travel industry, but I'm not exactly surprised. Personally, I like to get away from grief when I vacation. A sandy beach. A little snorkeling. Sleeping in late. Stuff like that. You know, save Auschwitz for a rainy day.
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During the agency days in Internet boom 1.0, mainstream reporters and editors leaped around from job to job so fast your key media email addresses (and fax numbers back then) were out of date before you could think up a pitch. So, we would subscribe to whateverthehell service it was that sent us regular emails, the sole purpose of which was to update who just left where to go where.
This was like fix-a-flat for MediaMap (now bacon's media source), because they couldn't get database updates done fast enough to keep up with the job change mania. So these in-between emails were essential for making sure a story idea didn't fall through the cracks.
all of this is to say, with the pace of the social mediasphere now surpassing that of MSM 1.0, there's a little microservice money to be made in a daily (or weekly, with breaking news on scoble or Om type moves) email and RSS service whose sole job would be to track who's going where (and how to contact them). Nice added feature: provide updated links to their blogs, and update RSS feeds and email addresses at the person's new gig if and when available, and RSS links to other stories/blogs covering the move.
let me know when it's up and running. I'll pledge my $25 a year subscription today. thanks!
Tags: web2.0, tech, marketing, human resources, employment, robert scoble, om malik, media map = Powered by Qumana
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!
Tags: gemini, george sessum, musick, birthday, june 14, flag day = Powered by Qumana
In a new survey, more than a third of companies responding indicated that their company had been hurt by the disclosure of sensitive information via blogs, discussion boards etc.
translation: employees talking online to other people about how companies suck can affect these companies.
Easy answer: Fire a blogger.
Smarter answer: Stop sucking.
Tags: blogs, tech, web2.0, marketing, pr, research, security = Powered by Qumana
worth watching tony on blogging.
tony pierce, blogging, writing, tech, pot, girls = Powered by Qumana
this is the kind of search that isn't search but find, the kind of search that will reveal itself more and more in the coming months as it matures, as the uncloaking of desire, the uncovering of meaning through "search that doesn't make you search" becomes more important.
exploration should be colorful. discovery has layers.
As a way to look for things that are like other things, discovery and uncovery will become the search standard, not the odd blip -- and we should all wonder what google has in store; dear friends that spreadsheet app was a purposeful distraction: something big is brewing at Web Headquarters. slight of hand. strike up the band. count on it.
But the more nimble startups don't have to wait for it to be perfect. sometimes they can't handle everyone who comes looking, sometimes they can't handle anyone, but we will keep coming, hoping to find that which we think might be x but might also be y, what it sounds like 3 and makes us feel like Orange.
they'll get there.
this is the web. i want to explore in the round, not in trajectories.
pointer: theory is the reason
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Hello, We are sorry to have to stop temporarily the radio.
The number of visitors has reached such a level that given the way we currently operate the broadcast the cost has become too high.
Thanks to all who encouraged us, made comments on the service and recommended it around them.
We plan to rapidly provide the service again on a more sustainable basis.
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Tags: context, meaning, search, discovery, musicovery, relative search, france, web2.0, tech, liveplasma = Powered by Qumana
The latest false celebrity death rumor going around concerns Jaleel White (best known for playing Urkel on Family Matters). Supposedly he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. This rumor is old. It was first posted on my site over half a year ago (in the comments to my post titled 'Is this Jaleel White?'). It's no truer now than it was then.
Tags: internet hoax, TNT, Steve Urkel, Internet, Urkelnet, urban legend, google, SEO, tech = Powered by Qumana
Stowe has added something called "blips" to /Message where he offers micro-reviews on new products. Cool! First batch from Stowe:
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looking at comment utilities outside of blogger to incorporate. you'd think someone would have developed the killer comment app by now. arrrgh.
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Here's a giggle om: Valleywag scooped Om on his own story: Om's quit Business 2.0 to turn gigaom into a competitive venture.
Whooo. it gets crazier and crazier.
Next up: I'm quitting blogging so i can write. (don't tempt me.)
P.S. Good for Om. He's the pro's pro and I'm sure will be very successful. Should be fun to watch as he grows out his space.
Tags: om malik, valleywag, web2.0, tech, venture capital, job changes = Powered by Qumana
to me anyway: Mixed Media Watch. it appears yesterday was another kind of wedding anniversary. i should know these things.
Today marks the 39th anniversary of the win that spurred all remaining states to overturn their anti-miscegenation laws. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were the couple behind the fight to give marriage rights to all interracial couples involving one white partner (a little known fact is that many of the states that prohibited a couple like Mildred and Richard from marrying would have had no problem with an Asian man and a black woman marrying. Similar to the one-drop rule, anti-miscegenation laws were meant to keep power and ownership of land and property within the white population. Once whites married people of color, the power would potentially be distributed/shared with spouses and mixed children).
On the anniversary of this win, we should think about how crazy it is that as of 1966 (before the Supreme Court overturned all anti-miscegenation laws), there were still 17 states across the country that prohibited interracial marriage. It’s also crazy that so many people don’t even realize that this case exists — that at one time, it was illegal for mixed families to exist in many places. Think about that, and ask yourself, how far have we come? Sure, it’s legal now, but I would caution anyone against celebrating this win and stopping there. If we remain satisfied with the basic rights we are given, we are in huge trouble. Having the right doesn’t negate the fact that there are still many ways that interracial couples are targeted and subjected to racism and discrimination.
Tags: race, ethnicity, anti-miscegenation, happy anniversary = Powered by Qumana
i'm coming off the steroids. tomorrow's the last pill. that means i'm miserable. and manic. i took the daughter out today to get her hair fixed up. it was going to be some simple braiding, but nothing hair related in the ATL is simple when you're the mom of a mixed kid with a black woman doing her hair at XYZ salon.
it's always a ride, it's always a dance, a sideways glance, a sizing up ritual so she can figure out if i'm one of those mothers of bratty, tender-headed beige girls who hacks all the baby's hair off because I'm lame or lazy (i'm not), or one who doesn't moisturize (i do), or one who knows how to braid (suck at it), or knows the difference between texturizer and relaxer (i do), or what. Plus they never ask where her daddy's at even though they want to.
listen, it's like that.
yesterday i drove around for two hours looking for a place to cut and braid my little-miss-swimsuit's hair for at least part of the summer. that was my three steroid day. i wasn't really coming down yet--i was still in my productive, get-it-done mode.
except we didn't get it done because no one was open except the middle eastern salon and they didn't want to know about my kid's hair when we walked in. And then out.
So today i got hold of a woman who said she'd cut and braid it, and jenna's hair's never been this bad, but something about this year's pool or about her changing hormones or aging or whatever has made her hair completely crazy, unmanageable, uncombable, matted, out of countrol -- no matter how much pre or post conditioning i do.
so we go in at 4 and i'll have you know we got out at midnight.
mid-fucking-night. because i got had is what i did, and my kid now has a full hairweave, a set of my god there must be fifty braids and weaved bangs, and i don't recognize her at all, put her on TV and let's call it a day, and how the hell is this going to help with swimming like i told the woman i wanted, but she smiled after she got paid for spending 8 hours on my kid's hair.
i wish i lived in idaho.
Tags: atlanta, ethnic hair, race, beauty, braids, steroids, mania, depression = Powered by Qumana
Don't use it until you have a good base. Leave it out in the sun with you so it liquifies. And don't get the BLUE Blue Magic, get the GREEN Blue Magic. It's all the rage at my pool. Rub it on your arms, legs, chest, and whhhat have you. Lanolin and Olive Oil are the featured ingredients. It's greassssey, but it's good.
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Written before the bsn - big scoble news - this post by Jon lays out a good nine yards about the workplace, this place, and sacred self expression.
What price freedom, principles and basic human dignity ...such as the right to an opinion of one's own, and the freedom of self-expression in a context essentially totally removed from a workplace. Do employers "own" you ? Always a good question to ask yourself.
I've been hanging with Scoble all day, had dinner with him and John Furrier last night (also Jason Calacanis, Leo Laporte, Steve Gillmor, Janice Fraser, Maryam Scoble and Amber Dawn MacArthur). I've been all around this deal, so close to it, it's hard to comment.Scoble is my friend, has been for many years. We've had ups and downs, lately it's been up after being really down. I didn't like how Microsoft was changing our relationship, and I told him so, really clearly. You can only be at such a large company for so long before it changes you.
Scoble really is a big generous guy, but not when he's in such a large stifling organization. When he finally decided to leave, it's as if a huge weight came off him, and all of a sudden, the old Scoble is back. I'm sure that losing his mother had something to do with the changes as well. One big change begets others.
I'm glad that Scoble and Maryam will be moving back to the Bay Area, I've been encouraging them to try the East Bay. I'd like to see Furrier open a studio in downtown San Francisco, I have some ideas about that, and may open one myself, or use theirs.
Robert's just put the kabash on the most fun I've had participating in something live and in progress online since... i dunno, since... a long time ago. But that's how it goes.
So, what about the other news? This is a rapidly-evolving part of my life. I just made this decision and it got out before I was completely ready to talk about it. I invite you to meet with me at the VLoggerCon tomorrow evening at 3 to 6 p.m. in San Francisco where we'll talk about it further (and I'll post again tomorrow about what's going on in my life and why I made this decision)
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Chris Pirillo says it’s 100% true. Scoble is heading to PodTech.net. He also lists the VARIOUS breaking news outlets around the web at midnight++ on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. From Chris Pirillo, See:
Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a Silicon Valley startup
Scoble Leaving Microsoft - News at 11
Scoble moves
Robert Scoble to Leave Microsoft, Joins PodTech.net
Microsoft’s top blogger Robert Scoble is leaving…
Scoble leaving Microsoft…
Evil Web 2.0 Part II
The Scobleizer calls it quits at Microsoft
Is Scoble leaving Microsoft
Scoble Leaving Microsoft
Is Blogger Robert Scoble Leaving Microsoft
News Flash- Robert W. Scoble Is Leaving Microsoft
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Who will be the next microlizer then?
Om always gets the scoop, so I'm sure it's twue. The move should put some serenity into Robert's life, not counting Silicon Valley, and Microsoft's life too. It will be interesting to see how Robert's blog fares over time without the MS banner flying in the wind for both critic rifles to aim at and fans to wave high. Whatever the deal, congrats to robert and his family.
Next question: Will Liz Lawley attempt to follow him there? No one knows for sure. No one even knows why I'm asking. Except maybe someone.
Been a big week in job changes. Does that mean we're out of beta?
Does it mean I can kick someone's ass yet?
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OH HOW i wish the blogosphere was the way it used to be, because there are three to four people who I would like to link to and simply say this: shut the fuck up. And if now was then, I would just do it. And we'd go a few rounds and come out the better.
But now's not then and there's all of this civility bullshit you have to consider. Plus i have clients who read me (LOVE YOU!) but I never ever ever let that bother me because I want clients who understand what we are DOING here is talking and engaging and becoming, and sometimes THAT ISN'T PRETTY OR CIVIL, and my clients do understand that. God bless their shiny little heads.
But see, it's my tags, it's tags that are pulling me into discussions about tech and web 2.0 and blogging by these SAME people, droning echoes between my ears as they yammer on and on about the same old same crap, their cadence annoys me; it's as regular as clockwork. They are driving me to distraction with their predictability and vanilla-ness.
Sure, it might have something to do with the steroids, but I think this whole illness thing has been like a week long drunk for me. You know, they say the stuff that comes out when you're drunk is what you really think since you're more honest because your guard is down? WELL, if that's true, then enter steroids, and my guard is a motherfucker, and I think maybe the real me is nearly ready to EXPLODE with A PERSONAL invitation to the melonheads littering the Internet with the remains of their circle-jerk wackoffs to take their playthings and head to another sandbox.
web 2.0, zebo, nebo, crebo, flickr, bendr, mothrfuckr, whatevr!
and what, was W.H. Auden going on about with Freud--you don't think he was pleasuring the good doctor behind the tavern with the thatched roof? I don't know, I'm asking is what I'm doing.
you can't answer these things for me. and that's okay. but you can do one thing, you can start writing with something other than your fingers and a keyboard. You can bring your heart here, and your balls, and your bare ass. You could do that much.
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someone knew what i needed and sent me a friend.
Told you he wouldn't last long enough unemployed to make the public doll--our BusBlog Hero, Shakespierce, has become editor of LAist. w00t! Congrats, Tony.
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when spam hits at home, there's always MySpace comments for some snazzy bday wishes. Thanks also to all of my buds who called, skyped, and emailed. I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!
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....in comments last night and this morning. As a result, I have a mountain of shit to clear away from the mountainside here. And it seems if you leave a little litter, they find you by the smell of it.
I don't have time at all. I wish there were micro-services we could purchase as bloggers, like in New York when you hire someone to shovel your driveway, or if you really get busy and don't have the time or energy to shovel at all, you hire a plowing service.
Just as so many Web 2.0 product offerings are more feature than application, I wouldn't at all mind paying for micro-services, like spam cleaning, at a rate of say 5 cents a cleansed post.
I was thinking of another micro-service related to my blog and internet client life last night, but it was one of those great ideas I took to sleep with me.
Of course you'd need to be bonded if I hired you to spam shovel for me, because I want to know that I can at least sort of trust you not to blow away my blog while you're in there with admin rights. "Bonded" in the age of the social web means that we trust the same people, and so we trust one another.
MySpace has tons of micro-service opportunities. I'm too tired. And George drank the saki at the Japanese steakhouse, not me!
What micro-services could you use that you don't have time to do yourself, and what kind of micro-payment value would you attach to them?
Tags: social software, social marketing, web2.0, comment spam, blogger = Powered by Qumana
Tom has some surprising information about my past. Well, maybe not so surprising. See, you have ordinary crime, organized crime, and the authorities. Like cogs in a wheel, these elements work together to keep law and order rolling. But sometimes, lines blur. People crossover. Convergence happens. Don't tell the family. Shhh. It's not that easy. Less shit more wind. That kind of thing... What can I say?
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Shit. a girl shouldn't have to turn off comments on her birthday.
:-(
email still works. ;-)
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Whenever you do maintenance, I suffer. What work did you do the last two days while Blogger was down? Whatever it is, I'm being creamed by comment spam - like it's never happened in five years. Like hundreds. WTF? Happy birthday to me?
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And so i begin my 45th year. Six years longer than my father lived. That's the old mile marker, you know. I don't use it as much as I used to. But it's the metronome of loss, marking time by the absence of, the sting of without.
When I used to think of being 40... who am i kidding, i never thought i'd live to see 40. that's a common thing for kids whose parents disappear dead out of the blue -- at least to the clueless kid -- one day when they arrive home from school.
That does something to your sense of balance, warps your perspective, reminds you there is no safe. You want terrorism? I'll give you some terrorism. What is terrorized doesn't grow right. The loss of a parent at an early age distorts the whole order of nature -- what the child thinks he observes he never trusts again.
So then, what do you do?
Well, first, you expect everyone you hold dear, including yourself, to make an early departure from the world. And you live with that stark reality knocking on the right side of your skull 24x7x356. Award-winning service for the dearly dissociated.
it can get complicated.
especially when you never thought it really bothered you much.
Rambling here.
Papa George says I'm the youngest looking 44 he's ever seen. It's the genes. You get the good with the bad.
Jenna has all sorts of things planned for tomorrow. I love her up and down my spine you know. GOD I love her.
And i'm on steroids, so let's see if i can enjoy the day without slipping into mania every fifteen minutes or so.
rapid cycling. wait until I come off of them.
i can breathe.
it's alright to be okay.
Everything changed when I hit 40. Everything. Every. Thing. Did I already tell you?
family, job, love, kid, marriage, health, self -- no one escaped the hit.
Category 5 heading straight for the heart of my city, my soul, no way out.
covert to overt--watch the show, the best view is on the hill to the left, bring a blanket to sit on, the nights can get chilly.
I don't want to scare anyone who hasn't hopped over yet, and maybe you've had a great life, and maybe you have nothing to grieve, or you've cloaked yourself in a new age narcissistic blanket of impenetrable white light (good on you!), but if you're real, I can tell you this from my neck of the woods: everything I knew with certainty from birth to my 40th year, turns out, was wrong.
Pretty much reverse order in fact. Pretty much a perspective flip. PRETTY MUCH HAD TO HAVE MY LIFE TWISTED INSIDE OUT. PRETTY MUCH ALMOST KILLED ME.
40 was so very tough. 41 was so hard. And i have worked every inch of the way since to make it less hard, safer, find the safety, seek it, divining rod to water-->let me find what i never had, i can't be on high alert another second, there must be a safe corner somewhere, dark and quiet, shhhh.
But that was then. Before. When I hit 40 and the shit hit the fan.
Now I'm 44. Less shit, more wind.
But what has stopped--what has stopped is the searing, slicing pain, phantom limbs of loss exposed and re-amputated before my eyes.
It felt something like that.
I didn't bring all of it here, but I brought all of me. Every single moaning second of me. And every single second I was making sense of it.
The functioning and the not-so came here. This is where I came. And when I didn't write about it, I wrote FROM those places of despair, terror, disbelief, agony, and relief. Always from.
I said it back then, when I first started blogging: "This is where we heal. This is how we heal."
I can say that. At least I can say that.
Today I want to say something out loud here too:
I'm going to be okay.
I am okay.
Permission. permission to be okay, to begin to become, to become who I am. the permission I gave myself four years ago.
no one can give it to you. it's permission you take. shhhh. take it.
happy birthday you crazy shit; you're okay. It's okay.
Even when it's not, it's not always fatal.
it's not always fatal.
i didn't understand, didn't get it. everything was fatal. always.
fatal--my default.
best friend said: "Sometimes you get better, you know."
I said, "Huh?"
A row of doors flew open, knobs twisting on their own, open open open open open, reverse slamming.
wooooooosh.
like that.
And even with the tremendous relief that accompanies survival, there's a rip, a gash, a more powerful ache beneath, below. Cixous would say step down, step down into it, and so I do, and there I face the cruelest joke of all: my being okay means that she can't be. She's not because I am. I am not disabled; she cannot care for me if I am well--she can't find her way to me, around me, without her role..
The masks don't fit, they fall, and I want to help rearrange them, to make sense, to reshape them, to comfort and fix. I already know the answer. Oh. How I love her, the honest beauty she would show only to me, and only in the earliest hours of the day, before waking completely, the morning stirring her own trauma into terror.
So much more, so many more hearts, broken, so long; it's been so long. I have lost and let go until my palms ache from the unfolding.
To make it to this place, a place I trust enough to say it out loud.
I'm okay.
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what's a word for what happens when you've been pronouncing a web 2.0 company name in your head one way for like four months and then you hear a podcast or someone talks to you on the phone from that company and you realize you've been pronouncing it wrong in your head the whole time.
ready...go.
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Repeat after me:
"If I should decide to take a vacation or a break from blogging, I will not ask anyone to guest blog for me. I am not that important. The Internet has and will survive without me, my brilliant wit, and my stunning prose -- indefinitely."
Tags: reality check, blogging, tech, social media, guest blogger = Powered by Qumana
it's nice to see people continue to discover and apply the highly relevant Cluetrain Manifesto, even as others race to be the first to unveil "what's next."
I argue that what comes after cluetrain is cluetrain.
Because cluetrain is not linear, it's hyperlinked. With hyperlinks--surprise--there is no beginning and no end. Cluetrain is a way of relating, not a marketing program or campaign. Cluetrain is the journey -- toot toot -- not the boarding pass. It's the "along the way," not the "here we are."
And in keeping with it's purpose, Cluetrain is as personal. as personal to me and him and her as it is to chris, doc, and david.
That's why those red flags start-a wavin' when I hear anyone proclaim this or that as "the next cluetrain"
My god, we just got here. We lugged a goddam big huge boulder uphill at great personal risk (independence means under-insured) over the last seven years, and we're three steps from the summit.
Except that it's a web, not a hill. We traverse across, not up.
HA!
This is the cluetrainian era, not the post-cluetrainian era.
Fry up some baloney, layer on some mayo, and enjoy it.
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It's sinus infection time--oh that lovely time of the year when my face is filled with staples and my brain is pushing up marshmallows, and I can't unearth a single cogent thought from the mucus sea inside of me.
cripe. i'm sick and i am not good at being sick. not now not ever.
I have three deadlines waiting for me, they have come to life, staring at their melting Daliesque watches wondering when I might deliver. One cogent thought. Just ONE, and I might be able to rescue whatever phlegm-encrusted bits of self-belief I had going into this rapid-onset sinusitis.
aaaahrgh. my face. my teeth. o.
I looked up photos of hookworms today because that's what Sophie has (or had now that i've dosed her with five syringes of wormer) and there were 17 other things I should have been doing, but the vet telling me how hookworms have teeth and how humans can catch them (I guess by dancing on dog shit), left me too curious for my own good.
You see them, right? Let me just say that if they were the size of my pinky finger, I'd stick one between my eyes right now so it could suck the crap out of my sinuses--teeth and all.
they had it right with leeches.
now, imagine that hookworm face singing opera.
Funny, eh?
k. good night.
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I always click through the blogads that I accept (sometimes even before I accept them!) to make sure they're sending folks where they're supposed to, to see what's at the other end of the tunnel, etc.
The most recent ad about the Atlanta Film Festival and Future by Design caught my attention as I explored inward.
I'd never heard of the work of Jacque Fresco until I accepted the ad for my blog. I found the site fascinating. Whether or not the future cooperates with Fresco's design, I have to say I wouldn't mind seeing the movie OR living inside a world like this virtually--3rd life, the underwater version.
Look at these designs. They're amazing. Maybe we can engage Mr. Fresco to re-design Atlanta.
"there are no civilized people yet. it's a process constantly going on. As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you're in the early stages of what they call civilization. All of the marvels and wonders of technology amount to nothing unless it elevates humans to their highest potential." -- Jacque Fresco
Perhaps that's a bit new-agey, but when you've lived a long time and designed entire future worlds, I can suspend my disbelief long enough to pay the proper respect.
Here's Fresco's Inventions and Designs- many of which have been patented and have had wide commercial acceptance.
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SDOTI -The Lemur says stuff about my new job and about coffee and the telephone and conferences and power balls which you should not miss.
practicing my new signature...
Jeneane Sessum
Social Director, The Internet(TM)
Jeneane D. Sessum, SDOTI, OBGYN, PC
jeneane sessum
soc-dir, internet
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when a man loves a woman
I was thinking of a REALLY BIG prize for the first person to accept my challenge re: SYO, SYOPML, OPIEML, OATMEAL.
Alas, no one won the prize because THERE AREN'T ANY. There will be though. And he will choose them. And you will let him.
Or maybe is why (from McD in comments):
FYI: When you download the OPML Editor and install Dave's newRiver aggregator you get Arrington's, Scoble's and Dave's blogs as defaults... when you export the OPML and upload it to "Share Your OPML" they each get another reader in their stats.
Same as it ever was... gaming the stats. Arrington reviewed the site twice... he loves the site in the second review and thinks it could really help the "long tail". FYI: He's not Dave' best buddy... He's the lawyer that brokered the $2.15M deal to sell Dave's struggling weblogs.com "blog ping service" to Verisign. The site that fell over the last time Dave asked for the possee to support him.
Tags: BlogHer, Winer, SYO, OPML, Web2.0, Posse, Rogers Cadenhead, RSS, McD = Powered by Qumana
There's more news in the job-change department. Like hamsters to a wheel, these are the days of our lives.
And fittingly, it appears I've been promoted!
Who Knew(TM)?
It all started innocently enough. I began my inserting rapid, if not useful and timely, links within a chat I was having with one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world (number 47 I think) when I began to pre-link (that's when you send someone a link before they know they need it) with such skill and adroitness that it could hardly go unnoticed.
In fact, that particular talent is said to have inspired my promotion to Social Director of the Internet. (The whole thing, yes.)
Some might say the Internet doesn't need a social director. Well sure it does! Some might wonder, what the hell does that job description look like? It's long! Some may wonder, says who? I'm certified! Some may ask themselves, my god, how did i get here?
Let's be perfectly clear about this: you're either for the Internet or your against it. You have to take a stand. No one is safe. We have a common enemy. If we aren't fighting them there, then we're fighting them over here. And in the war on not being safe, I'm the right woman for the job.
whoa. got carried away.
So, on that note, you may all go home.
That's right, I'm closing the place for the weekend. Lights out. Air Conditioning goes off at 8 a.m. Your card for the parking garage won't work. So, you might as well unplug, detach, and be free.
No, I'm not pulling your leg.
You're free to go. Go on then. Get outta here you crazy kids!!
Tags: Social Networks, Web2.0, tech, employment, social media, social software, social director, internet = Powered by Qumana
I find it really hard to believe that Buzznet let go of Tony, but if I were a web2.0 or publishing company looking to push/pull into/from myspace, photo space and/or video space, I wouldn't let this guy sit around long... I would grab and fast.
I saw Tony at SXSW, and even after I went home, George hung with him some. Tony worked his ass off there and is the kind of guy crowds gather around because he can talk to anyone. He had some, uh, rather impressive results during his 7 months on the job, too:
all in all i was responsible for at least 13 million page views to buzznet in the seven and a half months that i was there. no one user had ever attracted more than 2.5 million hits other than the pretty boy bass player of the top 40 band fall out boy. i had one user account that got 9.5 million hits, another which is at 2.3 million, and my personal account went over a million hits just a few weeks ago, meaning not only had i been the only person to ever have two accounts to ever get over 2 million, but the only one to ever have three go over a million.
and to be honest, before i showed up no one even thought that anyone could get a million that quick, but one of my accounts did more than that in a week.
i took over 4,000 pictures and posted them, i wrote over 100 blog entries, i sent out over 50,000 messages to our users, and in seven months i hosted seven buzznet meetups in three different countries, most of the time at no cost to the company. i think i was a pretty decent community manager.
unfortunately not everyone saw it that way. which is why tonight im unemployed.
Tags: tony pierce, bus blog, buzznet, web2.0, tech, PR, marketing, word-of-mouth = Powered by Qumana
Talked to the Head Lemur today who is as fascinating and riveting on the teley as he is on the bloggy. There are still some passionate bloggers out there--ones who don't give a rat's ass about what the CONSUMER might think of them--and they aren't afraid to keep talking until they hit on cosmic-shifting gems of wit&wisdom. That Lemur's one of them.
George was like, "Who were you talking to?" upon my hanging up, after hearing me snorty-laughing a couple of times. I said, "The Head Lemur." He said, "Who?" I said, "The Head Lemur--the BLOGGING Head Lemur." He was all: "OH! THE HEAD LEMUR?!" I was all, "YEAH, HOW COOL, HUH?" He was all: "WOW!" I was all, "You have to talk to him next time." And then I told him a story that the Lemur told me and George was all: Whoa.
That's kind of how it goes at home.
p.s. in the puppy department, we finally got the new puppy to the vet for all her shots. she was loaded with hook worms. Down the hatch went the first of five worm med doses. eeee. poor thing has probably had them since she was born. the vet things she's about 4 months. She's 30 pounds, and is still bony but not as bony since I've had her on the $$Eukenuba$$ puppy food.
Tags: The Head Lemur, Phone Con, George Sessum, Blogging, Tech, Talking, Laughing = Powered by Qumana
"In recent years, Tanya has been told that her father had cobalt treatments, which severely burned the skin on his neck, yet she has no recollection of seeing burns on her father. She has also been told that the initial lump was followed by several others and that her father's disfigurement increased toward the end of his life.
"At the very end of his life, her father's voice changed, and his ability to breathe was compromised. Yet despite these obvious changes, Tanya has no recollection of ever seeing the physical changes taking place in her father or of having the opportunity to talk about the changes with members of the family....
"It is not merely that Tanya's family prohibited talking about her father's illness. The veil of silence that fell over her childhood prohibited her from seeing what was going on. The denial assaulted her sense of what was real. Her memories of the time from age 10 to 16, the period of her father's illness, are either distorted or nonexistent. Because she was not allowed to see what was going on, it was impossible for her to remember what happened."
Tags: Trauma, Death, Children, Loss = Powered by Qumana
For Jonathan.
"For most people, death does not make an appearance until an individual has enjoyed a full life. We are spared having to deal with loss and tragedy until we are better able to handle the trauma of death. When people meet death in childhood, it marks them. Often, they change the way they understand their own lives, the way they perceive time, and the way they move through the life cycle. They also alter their view of death itself. Death is no longer a mere character in a story but a very real presence that has robbed them of something precious and dear.
"To say that one is marked by early loss may sound dramatic and perhaps extreme. Survivors of early loss do not 'look different' from the rest of us. Their loss is invisible and unseen by most of us. Yet it was surprising how many people I interviewed had come to live and share their lives with another survivor of early loss. It was as if each did indeed bear a mark perhaps only visible to another survivor, but a mark nonetheless recognizable and clear to one who had been through the same experience. In Ben Hecht's words, these were all people who had been 'to the edge of the world and looked over its last foot of territory into nothingness.'"
--The Loss That Is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father, by Maxine Harris, Ph.D.
wecomefullcircle.
I am thrilled to hear Ray has a book coming out. Thanks to Tom, who should also have a book coming out, for the pointer.
Let us know when we can get it, Ray.
Tags: Ray Sweatman, Poetry = Powered by Qumana
We should have listened to him. NOW look what's happened.
Tags: The Head Lemur, Steve Rubel, Macro Invasion = Powered by Qumana
Maybe I am feeling older. Maybe it's the nature of the beast. Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I live too far inside the Net. Maybe it doesn't matter.
Maybe it does.
Tonight I went to the spring fling gathering of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association, which was really a nice get together, but something I wouldn't have gone to if I didn't know a couple of very COOL women who said, "Hey, you should come!"
Toby Bloomberg is just a great lady. She's smart and warm and instantly makes you feel at home. Even when you meet her in person at the top of an escalator at the Atlanta Airport that your child refuses to ride.
Although Toby and I first became aware of each other through a real-world business associate (he who shall not be named), we bonded in the blogosphere, and you know how that goes. Secret handshake, reinventing business on the sly, in our spare time. Toby and I are both involved with BlogHer and are going to the conference in July. I'm hoping we'll wind up on the same flight so she can help me entertain Jenna with stories of Divas and Marketing and why the escalator is our friend. Anyway, Toby was great at the event tonight, as was Maggie Buerger, another well-connected PR and marketing veteran on the Atlanta scene.
And never mind the food--it was awesome, except for saucer-size plates that fit one chicken wing and two spring rolls, and folks when I go from working like mad to driving up to camp to get jenna to dropping her off at my sister's to a 30-mile trip downtown after therapy to attend a marketing whoohaa, you better give me a dinner plate because I haven't eaten since noon and it's 8:30 p.m., and this may be your happy hour, but to me it's a tactical pit-stop on my way through life.
And again, I digress.
The thing that stopped me cold tonight wasn't the drive or the saucer-size plate. It was being back in a tavern that I hadn't been in since the flush days of Ketchum, during the dot-com boom, when we'd celebrate a big account win after work there or cut out early to have some drinks and laughs, and then after the bust, when we substituted a Friday happy hour here and there for our lavish all-company weekend retreats in the mountains.
Let's just say the place has memories.
So I find myself in that same place, with a sea of (mostly young) folks who looked like my colleagues from six years ago--I mean some were dead ringers for their former selves--and yet, I didn't recognize anyone I knew.
And I thought, I had more colleagues in Austin at SXSW than I know in my own town. When I walked into the bar or restaurant in Austin, I screeched with delight to see the people I have known and worked with virtually--and some I had met--for years.
But when I walked into the former haunt of my former business self, I didn't recognize anyone except the fine ladies who led me there.
And what THAT made me realize is how far across the net I have traveled in the last six years. How telecommuting has morphed into broadband living. How part-time in the office has morphed into full-time connectivity. I don't just do my work OVER the Internet anymore; I work across and inside the Internet. My browser is my office. I don't work in Atlanta. I live in Atlanta. I have some clients in Atlanta. But as far as a workplace--mine is online.
The intense, passionate intimacy of this non-physical place we share here never struck me so obviously as it did tonight, standing in a sea of people who were not you.
Tags: web2.0, tech, marketing, atlanta, PR, Ketchum, SXSW, Austin, blogging, blogosphere, social computing = Powered by Qumana
Tags: Mike Golby, BubbleShare, middle age, skateboarding = powered by Qumana
After noticing that i missed Euan's birthday, I realized that it's 10 days until I turn 44. HOLY SHIT.
Tags: menopause =Powered by Qumana
| Fascinating find at George Kelley's friend's house... |  Hitler speech mystery Originally uploaded by allaboutgeorge. |
This continues to blow my mind--share your OPML? share your jism in the net's latest circle jerk is more like it. Let's review the first dozen in the top 100....
1. dave winer's best guy friend
2. geekfest playground
3. dave winer's second best guy friend.
4. wealthiest netco in the world run by guys blog.
5. conglomerate blog of gadgets written by guys
6. digg
7. joel
8. mostly cory doctrow
9. dave winer's biggest enemy, himself
10. what?
11. they still publish wired?
12. an aggregator, how meta.
and so on and so on.
A prize for the person who identifies the first blog/feed written by a woman, and only a woman.
Why does it all look the same as everything we've seen before? Because sharing your OPML has nothing to do with sharing as in "evening things out." it's an old boss/new boss kinda thing, ya see....
Tags: share your OPML, arrrgh, popularity, RSS, feeds and weeds = powered by Qumana
I got my very first valley schwag order--yah you can count me in on the valley wanna-bes, but not really, from a distance is okay crowd--and was very pleased. I'm proud to be among the last in the run of recipients who will receive their schwag wrapped in a burlap sack. Apparently, hand painting 1,500 of the things got the schwaggers thinking twice. I guess!
Along with t-shirts and a pencil, buttons and a tattoo, I got some really cool stickers that made me think I should get on board the putting-stickers-on-your-laptop bandwagon, but then I thought (Seriously!), "Oh, I really like these stickers--i don't want to waste them on a laptop I won't be using that long..."
consumables, they be a changin'.
Tags: PC, laptops, web2.0, tech, valley, valleyschwag = Powered by Qumana
I definitely see someone... Jesus.... Dave.... Frank... Steve... Chris... Doc.... I gotta go with David. Go see if you see someone you know in the shroud of the Lemur's doggie door.
Tags: Jesus, Dog Doors, David Weinberger = Powered by Qumana
This is not the kind of post that makes clients feel warm and fuzzy. So if you are one, go read about my puppy. For everyone else, let me describe how much cosmic energy I am devoting to remaining hyperaware these days to stave off the MFU--Major Fuck Up.
It happens to me about once a decade. Always has. The first time, I was 24 and it was only after printing thousands of magazines (printing was a big deal in 1986) for the New York State Board of Education--me having done the typesetting and layout in PageMaker on a Mac (was it a disk-swaping 512K or SE back then, I can't remember), as well as the photography, the editing, and managing of the production--that the head of Grants Development who wrote an article for the publication noticed her title read: "Director, Office of Grants Develoment and Procurement" - develOment. develoooooment.
Besides that, it was perfect, but close enough for jazz doesn't count in publishing.
The next time was 1996 and it was my first big contribution in my new director of corporate comm position at the now-defunct Systems Techniques, where I talked them into letting me design and print catch-all folders, classy die-cut ones, that we could use for press kits, presentations, proposals, etc. In other words, I was trying to help the company grow up a little from stapled handouts. And the resulting die-cut, classy folder was beautiful, except that no one who proofed it--including yours truly--noticed that the name of the company had a typo in it on the front inside flap: "Sytems" Techniques. Clear as day. How the heck? Amazing how that shit shows up like neon once you have 10,000 printed and stacked in boxes.
Ingenuity is the mother of CYA, so I spent the next months, whenever I had free time, cutting the flaps off the folders and turning them into presentation covers we could use as fronts and backs with our binding machine to dress up our presentation handouts. Not exactly a perfect solution, but it beat tossing them in the garbage. My very forgiving CEO started using the folders anyway: "Hell, I didn't notice it," she said, "I doubt anyone else will."
Now it's 2006, and I've always been one with a keen sense of time, just ask George, and I can feel that little MFU devil on my shoulder at least twice a week --> "Hmmm, something seems amiss, did you forget anything? double check, triple check and watch what you say..."
Maybe blogging this will break the curse, the jinx, the repetition compulsion -- whatever it is -- or maybe I'll just have to be thankful that small print runs don't cost what they used to, and print on demand makes fixing screw-ups easier.
Tags: jinx, 10 year itch, imperfect, screwup = Powered by Qumana
That Canadian Thing is not my imagination.
Tags: Toronto, Canada, Web2.0, tech, VC = Powered by Qumana
Sheila's got the goods (good links, good listening, and good lord a lot more!).
sheila lennon, reggae, desmond dekker, wow more stuff = Powered by Qumana
You too can hear Euan talk about connections in business and life, social computing wise, here. (dig that intro!) Among other things, Euan masterfully handles the then-and-now of his now indie status.Engage that man!
Tags: Euan Semple, Social Computing, Web2.0, tech, blogging = Powered by Qumana
More glimpses into Mike's world as he picks up the photo slack in Shelley's absence. In fact, he's posted 400 photos across 10 blog entries using BubbleShare, which I think earns him some special lapel pin. GO MIKE! I'm viewing now. It is amazing to see your world up close and personal. How wonderous. How truly amazing.
Tags: Mike Golby, BubbleShare = Powered by Qumana
is days worth of new Ze Frank to watch when you come back!!!
Tags: are the new viewers gone yet?
Tags: curb your dog // Tags: wonder twins // Tags: duckies!!
Tags: ze frank, comments, change, knowledge, pointy ears = Powered by Qumana
Well you knew that had to happen. I was just searching up my tag-based feed for Atlanta when I encountered several dozen florida-based florist posts tagged with Atlanta for technorati. Well crap. Was hoping they wouldn't get that smart.
Tags: assholes =Powered by Qumana
I've been beyond busy these last few weeks. No sign of it letting up. That is good news. I haven't entered a summer as a solo practitioner in four years where business is as good as it is right now. Al Gore and his Internets. Who knew?
Listen, in the puppy department things are interesting. We have a rickety fence that needs fixing. This makes it tough. Bando has long escaped our backyard to have breakfast at one of several neighbors' houses and then be back in the driveway by the time I come back from car pool at Jenna's school. But now little Sophie has learned how to escape too. Bando climbs over (yes climbs, like spiderdog), and Sophie tunnels under.
fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
Apparently Bando was smart enough NOT to follow her out of the subdivision the other day, when she decided to spring the neighbor's dog and run off to the Tires Plus auto store down the road.
Busy road to be exact.
I got a call from a nice woman who said she read the tag on the puppy's collar and it said to call this number. "She's at Tires Plus?!" screamed I. "Yep--we gave them water and kept em out of the antifreeze," replied she.
ahcrapoloa.
Off I went, never thinking to put a blanket on the back seat, which I would have if I'd known that she ran away with a 100 pound somesuchdog and that they had both managed to find a MUDINFESTED CREEK to roll in on the way.
ahshitola.
Anyway, all's well that ends, and they are back in their rightful places.
Sophie's doing pretty well in the house, but she likes being outside, and she likes being with Bando, and unfortunately they both like escaping, and unfortunately we are getting estimates for someone to put up a new fence. George intends to bury chicken wire along the bottom. I intend to place a classified ad if that doesn't work.
Did I say that the old owner who couldn't take care of her and let her go, whom we met through our neighbor who talked us into this mess, said that she was told the puppy is german shepherd and st. bernard?
yah, kay. thanks for playing the home game.
Tags: puppies = Powered by Qumana
From tagging to printing, and search to the new vertical slide for your blog sidebar, you gotta get your BS on with some awesome new features. Albert has the rundown here.
Tags: BubbleShare, Flickr, Photo Sharing, Albert Lai, Web2.0, tech, photo printing, widgets = Powered by Qumana
