Stone Age

A friend forwarded this invite to a poll that Ad Age is doing on employees wasting time blogging:

Be Part of the News - VOTE IN THE AD AGE WEEKLY ONLINE POLL BACKGROUND: A report last week by Advertising Age Editor at Large Bradley Johnson noted that about 35 million workers -- or one in four people in the U.S. labor force -- spend an average of 3.5 hours, or 9%, of each work day reading blogs. This blogification of workplace time is no minor concern -- the total losses across the national work force are estimated to be the equivalent of 551,000 years of paid time that is being spent on blogs via the employer's own computer systems. Another important point was that the time spent reading blogs on the job was in addition to the time already spent surfing the Web in personal pursuits. The debate appears to be one of reasonable limits. At what point, or at what length of time, does the use of company assets for personal activities become unreasonable? And is the problem likely to become an even greater one as more and more TV content goes online, becoming easily accessible from one's office computer? Do employers need to find new ways to police their computer systems? THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Should employers allow their staff to read blogs in the workplace?

Since the poll is now closed, I thought I would re-write this solicitation in a more Web 2.0 way:

Help Us Feel Useful in the Age of the Net - VOTE IN THE AD AGE WEEKLY ONLINE POLL BACKGROUND: A report last week by one of our guys who's hanging onto his MSM title for dear life noted that about 35 million workers -- or one in four people in the U.S. labor force -- spend an average of 3.5 hours, or 9%, of each work day educating themselves without dipping into your "professional development" budget while at the same time escaping the tedious mindlessness of watercooler chitchat. This blogification of workplace time is no minor concern -- when the slaves find out they can make money without living in the quarters out back, your business stands to lose 551,000 years of indentured servitude, which means fewer workers to fire just before retirement. Another important point was that the time spent reading blogs on the job was in addition to the time already spent surfing the Web looking for jobs at clued companies, not yours. The debate appears to be one of reasonable limits. At what point, or at what length of time, does the use of company assets for building tighter connections with your markets become a problem? And is the problem likely to become an even greater one as more and more of our print subscribers use the publication for toilet paper, potentially in your own office bathrooms? Do employers need to find new ways to police their computer systems? Because we're having to find new ways to seem interesting. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Should employers allow their staff to read blogs in the workplace?

My suggested changes are bolded.

This one's on the house.

HAT TIP: To me for fortuitously predicting this stupid discussion during my first week of blogging November 10, 2001.

And if the corporation knew what we were doing, what would they say? "Wow, what an amazing forum--who are you talking with? what matters to them? what the hell is going on out there?" No, I'm pretty sure that's not what's going to happen. Like blocking napster access (back in the day), I'm pretty darn sure the corporate eyebrow would raise not-so-slightly, with the ageold warning: "Don't let this affect your productivity." I'm willing to wager we'll start to hear non-gonzo proclamations of 'no blogging at work,' or worse yet, "Hey, set one of those blogs up for the marketing department, will ya? we can talk about our new product launch." egads.

It's not easy being right.

Let's Go to the Movies

Atlanta's Kaneva is making headlines again with the launch of IndependenceMovieFest.com, a joint effort with Campus MovieFest (CMF).

From what I understand, they're currently running an online Independent Movie Festival that sounds like something I wish had taken place when my nephew was studying film at RIT. He'd make these incredible short films with a cast of characters from the campus and I remember thinking I wish someone who could make a difference in his 'after college' life would see these things. As it is, he changed majors because it was frustrating wanting to make films but not having an audience outside of the family and professors to appreciate them. Man, they were funny. (Hi Russ, if you're reading).

That's why I like this idea--and I like that it's aimed at young film makers looking for an exposure platform. I also like that the Movie Festival will let community participants play movie critic along with a panel of legit judges who'll be reviewing the work. I like that it might bring back good short-film makers who might have given up on getting their work out because there wasn't "a better way." Now, better technology makes watching movies online a real option. And as a distribution platform, control goes back into the artist's hands.

They're taking submissions now through May 15, 2006. The festival ends and winners are announced July 4, 2006. (Get it--INDEPENDENCE Movie Fest...)

You can watch trailers free after registering at Kaneva. I'm still not sure how pricing for the festival works for us moviegoers -- like can I get a wristband similar to going to Six Flags? Can I pick certain days to watch and get a pricing deal? I do know there are some free movies and some dollar movies. And I do know the Kaneva folks will answer questions if you ask 'em.

Check out the official details here.

If there's a filmmaker in your life, send them here.

Weinberger Real Disclosure Forward Looking Statement (WRDFLS)

WRDFLS Rating: FT, FT2, SUT, WTOMS, IJND++

Here's what's amazing

When Josh offered to help me out of my template mess here, I gave him creative license and a huge grin he couldn't see from his side of the monitor, and the same with Andrea who helped on my portfolio site.

The thing is, I didn't see Josh's rendition until he was pretty close to finished.

That's the first time I saw the tree. Right there. Above here.

And I told Josh what I'll tell you now, but I didn't get a chance to really explain it to him, and maybe you won't believe it because you think, I know how she can be, but really, how am I? So what I meant to tell Josh is what I'm telling now: that the farm I've written about so often, the place where my father died when I was younger than my daughter is now, that home of innocence shattered, sat directly across the road from this field, this tree, this very day, the sun falling just so.

Or it could be.

And I mean -- during those years when the farmer across the road gave his soil a rest, and that field was cut clean and green, watered well by gray western New York skies, giving way to welcome sun and a so-damn blue -- the only thing standing between me and forever, forever being the end of that field I never reached on stubby five-year-old legs, was that tree.

Right there.

Josh put me across the road, wondering when the farmer would cut us a path back to forever, the end of his field, which he would do each year, and my brother would race me as far as we could go, which was never to the end, if it had an end. I never found out.

And now there, in that place that Josh gave me back, stand pricey new homes of vinyl and pressure treated lumber, no field, no tree.

And no forever.

Except for here.

Into my fifth year...

In 2001, the Financial Times Group named Christopher Locke one of the Top 50 Business Thinkers in the World. 2001 was an interesting year. Many of my clients and colleagues were finishing up their happy dance soon to be tripping on the bad foot.

Chris Locke already knew what was next. That same year, he issued a challenge to his EGR readers: Start a blog and I'll blogroll you.

I'd already been blogging over at Gonzo Engaged, and around that time welcomed anyone and everyone onto the blog who wanted to come and experiment. Oh they came. A rowdy group o regulars still hangs there. Tom, Marek, Ken, Frank, Denise, Kevin--you know who you are.

When the challenge came, quite a few bloggers you know today took Chris up on his offer. If Chris is your babydaddy, then give him a shout out. Leave a comment here.

He was this allied's blogbaby daddy. And finer stock there isn't. Just ask his psychotherapist.

The day I took the challenge was November 4, 2001. Which means tonight I'm ready-or-not entering my fifth year of blogging. With a new look, courtesy of Josh Hallett. And a new attitude, courtesy of Andrea Roceal James, cause like I said, if I didn't have me some blog friends I'd have no friends atall.

Thus and such having been revealed and not meaning to mix past present and future, here I am doing just that.

And why not. This is the Web. Linear's dead. There is no Christmas Past. Every day is a holiday and a day of mourning in the same instant. We walk on invisible lines toward and away from one another 500 times a day. Someone is always coming. What's better than that.

So, in my own celebratory way, I'm thinking about why I'm here, not philosophically or metaphysically speaking, or even spiritually speaking, unless you count the places Google takes me sometimes.

And in this throw-my-own party, where do we go from here, frame of mind, I have to toss in some kind words from the guy who started a generation of newbies on the road to each other and to you. And who told me a long time back what i needed to be doing, and that if I did well then by golly somebody gonna take notice...

If your aim is to genuinely inform your markets about what you're up to and why anyone should give a damn, hire Jeneane. You can't go wrong. That's assuming, of course, that you are up to something worth giving a damn about. If not, hire robots. They're cheaper and they don't seem to mind writing crap. Jeneane does mind. Although she has many laudable communication skills, suffering fools gladly is not high among them.

Aside from that, she's a very nice person and doesn't (usually) bite.

Right. Not usually.

Happy Anniversary.

Thank you Josh and Andrea and this blog's babydaddy.

And thanks to everyone who keeps coming here.

Damn. What else can I say?

i want to feel like this

HELL YAH!

instead we are all sick here.

i have made the yelp part of my blogger profile.

I think it captures my essence.

I love you all.

in steroids,
j.

always tell people it's a PDF

Doc gets pissed about PDFs. We all know that. And we know why. He's right, they are a pain in the ass in terms of loading time, hogging resources, and searchability, although I think google spiders them now, right?

But what is a pain is that PDFs aren't as fast and manuverable as HTML.

What's nice is that you, the author, controls the look during the browser wars of today and tomorrow.

My solution is to simply TELL readers that the document they're about to click on is a PDF. It's really very simple. Just put [PDF] after the document link.

That'll make Doc happer. It'll make me happy. And we can all get some rest.

I'm telling you

If I were to tell you all about what I'm going through right now, your hair might stand on end. Or it might not. Because you've been around here before and usually I have something going on. Lots of times that something might make your hair stand on end.

I'm the quiet retiring sort.

What I can tell you is that talented and busy information architect (mom i wanna be an infoarchitect when i grow up!) Josh Hallett is making me a cool new template for this joint, and talented web designer and geek icon Andrea Roceal James is working on a cool site design for me, and David and Chris have two very big shoulders--well they probably have four of them when you stand them end to end, but that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, unless they decide to carry purses, but most certainly if it weren't for blog friends, I'd have no friends at all.

I want a signed copy of Cluetrain by all three guys (sorry Rick). I think I'm going to ask for their addresses and enclose self-addressed stamped envelopes and ask them each to sign and pass it on. Do you think they would? I know in the end it would sit in Chris' livingroom pile-o-books. I guess that's okay.

In other news, I'm sick, George is sick, Jenna is trying to get better. I need more steroids. If you have a medrol dose pack, please send it to me.

Oh the stories I could tell you and will one day, maybe in code, maybe because you know me so well code is all you need. The holy code of blog disclosure, because I never go back on my storytelling word.

Did you all see what David made the other day? I think this is brilliant. I love it. I want it on a business card.

tadum--i gotta go now. get some sleep.

thisblogsucks.com

I know I haven't updated. I know this blog has been SUCKorama for the last two weeks. It's because someone's working on a nice new template for me, and I just can't abide this ugly place anymore. Sometimes your words need a place to land before you bother taking all that effort to link them together into fragments and occasional sentences and toss them into the world. For crying out loud bloogle, you might know that and throw us a template bone once every quarter century.

Now I think my swiki has gone and bumped down all the stuff on my sidebar--or it's probably blogger's fault, because generally when blogger fixes some stuff, your template gets all funny...

not to mention half the time I come to read my own non-posting and I get an error message.

My house here is just a mess. I hope to have it back in order soon.

in other news, i'm coming off steroids, grumpy, and tired as fuck.

hope everyone's well.

My Poetry as Pain in the Ass

I don't quite know how to share the good news. So read David. And Euen.

Euen has captured it in PDF for posterior--I mean posterity.

Apparently one of my more heartfelt poems has been search optimized right to the top of the Hemorrhoid pile.

I mean, I'm verklempt.

I've saved the PDF in my, errr, samples folder.

Thanks, fellas. ;-)

Shelley's been workin' on the railroad all the live-long day.

Whoa.

Wordsworth.

According to the latest calculations based on the real-deal street appeal, I'm just up to my ears in net worth.

ALLIED

My blog is worth $124,198.80.
How much is your blog worth?

BLOG SISTERS

My blog is worth $75,083.82.
How much is your blog worth?

GONZO ENGAGED

My blog is worth $11,290.80.
How much is your blog worth?

Bidding opens at a buck fifty (as in $1.50).

I'm a Top 5 Peurto Rican Blogger!?

WHO KNEW!?

I'd like to thank the academy, all the little people, the sun that tanned me, and my Chevy van. Really.

It's just me.

okay, i thought the fake boobs were funny sort of. like because they're fake. not just not real, but completely not real on a not real dummy. george is like, so what's so funny. I'm like, get it, it means "tough titties!" and he's like what does that mean. i said it means like tough shit. and he's like, i never heard that phrase to mean that phrase. so i said, then i guess it's just me, and now it's just not funny at all.

i think i'll blame it on the template.

are you not reading blogsisters?

You all should be reading Blog Sisters.

I bet you wanna know about some stuff...

Well TOUGH


OH shut up, they're not even real. They're on a pretend human from that place that makes real dolls, or whatever they're called. Remember? Charlie in the bubble bath a week or so back?

So what's that do to you? Worse than a dead woman. A pretend woman. HA! And I'm the freak. Yeah. Okay.

Listen, you've been asking for content, and here I am all fudging around with my template, and there's just nothing I can do about that. There's only so much brainpower to go around, and I'm running three guns shy of a posse (I SAID POSSE), so you have to bare with me or go read DOOCE.

But I have help on the way this weekend and damn if I don't need it. More on that and a big fat thankyou link later.

Mean time, there is one cool little thing over on the right hand side there that Sir RageBoy has already asked to play with. And I said okay, and I hope that's okay with the people who invented the little doosie. It's the lil swicki over there with my words in it.

You know you want one.

You've been looking at it saying WTF is that?

You want one badenuf, send me an email.

I'll let you in.

How 'bout that for some content.

"TELL me about it!" -- Halley Suitt

It never fails. When I talk with Halley by phone, I always end up in stitches.

We each play a part in what eventually ends up being a snot out the nose fiesta, even if fiesta probably isn't the right word. Now in this space, I don't hesitate to give Halley a hard time and she doesn't hesitate to give me lip back, but when we catch up and talk turkey, we're two slap happy freak moms on the phone.

Usually I'm driving, or she's driving, and it's dangerous. Especially when we're talking about kids and school and how THEY DON'T HAVE SCHOOL ANYMORE what with all the holidays, and while we get extra Bible-Belt and Hurricane holidays here in landlocked Atlanta, Halley gets the Jewish Holidays, and we both get "inservice" and "teacher workdays," approximately every two to three days. And every public school parent in America understands the threat of Conference Week.

SHIT!

Conference week resulted in Jenna being off half-days all last week, unless you take into account the fact that they're not half days at all; they're "drop your kid off, take a shower, and see them in 23 minutes" days.

Then I'm all: Halley, I remember actually GOING to school; do you remember that? And she's all--TELL me about it! And I'm all Halley remember summer school? AS IF!

So she tells me they still have summer school up there, but you really have to work to get in--and I mean fail everything including classes you didn't even take; and I tell her hey, down here they don't have summer school--public schools are locked up like Fort Knox all summer for you to lust after as you tote your kids to friends, relatives, camps, because goodness knows at least in Suburban Atlanta there's no one home to make for real neighborhoods anymore because everyone's working 17 days a week.

Then I had to hang up because a business call came in, and I had to take it, and after all I was on the way from therapy where I'm busily working on other people's personality disorders, mine being well in-hand by now.

The moral of the story: Don't Suitt and drive.

quote of the day

"STOP BRAGGIN' AND WRING THAT CHICKEN'S NECK!" -Granny

From an early episode of beverly hillbilly's that jenna is watching while I work and she holds her throw-up bowl next to me.

hmmm. she sure has been quiet.

hmmmm.

okay, quite honestly?

I don't like this template either. And you know what? Blogskins has been taken over by 15 year olds obsessed with Japanese anime. Okay? There's nothing wrong with that, unless you (I) spend three hours scrolling through skins fascinated by the change in the inhabitants of that site that I used to rely on for templates.

I just had to update you.

I'm still feeling displaced. The swicki's cool though, eh? --->

Do you commune?

Okay, I need a teensy weensy piece of your brains. I have a client. God smiles upon me: I have more than one even! Anyway, for this client, whom you will be hearing more about even from other strings on this web of ours, we're developing a kind of edgy fun community-group blog around a specific activity. Don't get all PR-sey on me now, I know from what I speak and it won't be dweeby. What I'm saying though is that I want to know what community type blogs you think have the best look - feel - interface - features - valueadds - content - quirkiness - easiness - attitude - photos - forums - whatever else - etc. Some of you may even want to jump on and off of it once it's up.

So, got any good examples, better known in the real world as best practices, to point me to? I'll make it up to you. Probably not for a month or so though. Long story. Tired body.

I was trying to put in some really cute code at the bottom here--guess what, it didn't work.