TWITTERS

Caught this twitter via Steve Hodson after reading about the death of Sam Harrelson’s cousin. I agree with Steve and I feel for Sam. Bitter irony given some recent work with virtual war memorials.

Sam twittered:

This probably isn’t Twitter material, but this is my sounding board. Just found out my 1st cousin (very close) was killed in Afghanistan.

and I tweeted back…

@SamHarrelson It *is* Twitter material my friend, more so than the latest tech sighting…thoughts are with you & family of your cousin.

WHAT IS TWITTER MATERIAL?

I am surprised Sam doubted it.

Twitter material, in my eyes, is playing Scrabble with Robert Scobel until 5 am after Monkey phone calling him on a podcast and calling his cellphone to waste his time and get his opinion, or talking X-Box Smack with Steve Rubel who I feel needs Twitter therapy.This twitter discussion weeks after offering him a monkey phone call via LinkedIn after some Edelman crap. I truly felt for the guy- but maybe I wasn’t very compassionate, but it was as compassionate as I could be about his employer I suppose.

Steve please try to keep being human and not an agency, continue to tear into magazines you don’t like. As you can see I am a laughing prankster and jerkweed, but I really do have a soft center.

Perhaps it is meeting up with Fleep and learning about her life and work at University of Cincinnati- a chain reaction I have dissected ad naseaum on this blog- just search “Fleep”. (Thanks for the dance Chris!)

Twitters are little pieces of our lives, fragments of our existence, or little earthquakes if I wanted to go all Tori Amos on you…in part, or as a whole or mix them together. They are tiny ignition switches.

THE CON JOB

Pieces from Steve Hodson’s post: The Great Web 2.0 Con Job.

One of the biggest selling points that Web 2.0 proponents like to wave about is the immense social change that it is going; or has brought about. It is the incredible democratization of our society that will forever change the way we interact with each other and the world at large. It is the warm and fuzzy on a global village scale were everyone knows your name and is your friend.

Well I have only one thing to say about this idealized rose colored view of the cyber-landscape - bullshit.

Proof is in the pudding, there are changes on a microlevel maybe, but it certainly hasn’t trickled up to how we act as a “society”

or “global community”…one more key paragraph (although the jabs at data, information and the power of Facebook I can appreciate- read the privacy policy- hell don’t - no one does.)

Myself I do believe whole heartily that the web and technology can still effect great social changes but not as long as we continually get distracted by catch phrases like Web 2.0 which are nothing more that cool catchy marketing terms. Funnily enough and even though Robert Scoble might have declared them dead and boring I do think that blogs can play an important part in any future social changes. I even think that the Web 2.0 darling Twitter can be more than a bit player. The future social fabric of our society will depend on more that Facebook nudges or pat on the back groups. It will depend on more than bland second rate web applications that feed monstrous advertising money machines. It will depend on more than us snacking on bit size morsels of information.

As long as we keep falling for this illusion of how Web 2.0 is going to change the world though the kool-aid makers will keep getting rich off of us, the technological divide will continue to grow and social change will continue to be a marketing catch phrase used to further fleece us of our information.

WHAT WILL MAKE THE CHANGE

I think Twitter is a big deal. I think blogs will have their place. To Steve Hodson- most people don’t take the time to read well-thought out pieces or even shitty ones. The ones that do are probably forward thinking change agents anyway. Many do not contribute or take action. Simply sharing their lives, pulling back that veil is a good step. Small, but positive. Bite sized info won’t do it, at best it serves as a catalyst one would hope. You hope it makes people think, stop, halt and maybe to nudge them to act.

Ultimately Web 2.0 will *not* change the world- it will only change how we negotiate our reality.

People, individuals and folks en masse, ultimately have to make the changes.

ONE BLOG EXPERIENCE and WHERE AVATARS FAIL

I understood that clearly after a decade of writing and blogging basically what I now consider mental gymnastics- of which I will return too I am sure. I laid out a post after being flat out depressed and unable to write anything. I was bothered. So I wrote what I thought, more- what I felt. In some ways I felt like I “open sourced myself”- or tried.

Despite haven been in the middle of so many adverse issues, or in hostile debates or taking on criminal rogues, etc…It was one of the hardest pieces I have written yet I received more feedback (counting e-mails, IMs, skypes, comments, virtual conversations, etc) from this one piece on “Deaths and Shovels”. than hundreds previous combined. Real feedback, the type of sharing that changes one’s world view, one that changed my path and has lead me to some new revelations. One executive, who I respect a lot, called me up and his no-holds barred sharing of personal experiences stunned me. How personal they were, and how they made me think. Hell- even my father skype’d me…I think just to check-up.

AFTERMATH

Shortly after I wrote the piece and had my catharsis of sorts I learned a good friend’s baby had died in a tragic accident. That was it- blow to the stomach. We knew each other in a virtual world, had become fast friends and collaborators- why do bad things keep happening to good people? As he told me of this event tears rolled down my cheeks. Not just for him, but for “all of us” on the techno fringe.

How do you comfort an avatar? You really can’t.
Oh there are loads of animations, but how many for grief? How do you throw an arm over someone’s shoulder if no one has scripted it? Why would you?

When I look at the range of emotions in avatars- what an avatar CANNOT do shows me how much work “we the people” have yet to do and what is rewarded and what is not. Social change…heavy order for humanity. Our priorities are still wrong.

So I will have more to say on shovels and fate…I have some nerve up. I am trying to keep pushing the “open source myself”. I can’t take action until I can say what I want to say…getting there…and I didn’t quite get to where I wanted…

FLASHBACK

This is not poetic. There is no poetry or meter in this…this is splattered ink on a canvas.

I recall being a child and taken from school. It was lunch time, I was eating green peas…ice-like silience on the short ride back.

What is wrong?

Silence from Aunt and Uncle..I was perplexed. What could this mean?

Enter home…people, many- gathered- crying…being eight I had no idea the revelation or the impact awaiting me- it was out of my scope.
Beyond my reason and reality.

My two little brothers and sister herded to the back room where my father was…looking at us- eyes red. He was young then, far younger than I now. In retrospect I wonder if he rehersed the words? I have no idea. We know so little of our family at times. We know so little of what makes people tick, what drives them, what shaped them or shapes them….we don’t ask or they don’t tell.

He gathered us around in a semi-circle with his arms and delivered the news the only way he could and told us- our mother was dead- I can’t even type the exact words though I know them well. Age 26…All went black, utterly and totally dark. There are no memories for hours and hours after that. I awoke playing Chinese checkers at my grandmothers with my cousin in front of the gas heater. I love open flame gas heaters to this day. They are warm.

I thought about that incident when writing the piece. Should I include this deeply personal piece? Would it matter? How much should or was it just my business? Would people see a different aspect? I don’t want pity. Is it just public psychotherapy? No.

I have reconciled the best one can after something like that- children tend to lose part of being children when tragedy strikes. The difference writing about it this time as a 37 year old father… I, for once, appreciated my father never left our family, always showed up at ballgames, cooked or taught us how, always ensured we could survive and instilled in us a desire to learn and adapt. Too many thanks to count. I didn’t feel any cause to worry and no tear for me. If I were to cry it would be for my dad.

Because no father should ever have to tell that to his four little children.

Yet I know these words are delivered to children all over the world- everyday, under different circumstances, both here and abroad. I just don’t know what to do about it, talking about it? I guess, Sam, in my eyes this is all appropriate material and we should not worry that it is not.

No morals. No preaching. Kids are out now looking for candy- it is trick-or-treat.

I have far more important things to do right now.

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