The other night, we got a last-minute chance to see our friends perform in a neighborhood production of Les Miserables.
I had a blast shooting to the rhythm of stage lights and beautiful kids.
See the rest of the Flickr set here.
Overheard this while working in a cafe today:
On her way back from the ladies’ room with Mommy, a 3-year-old cutie asks, “Mommy, can we text Natalie?”
Mommy: “I don’t have my cell phone.”
Cutie: “I do.”
The best part is the silent moments as interviewees search for words—vulnerable, human faces. I showed this to my son, and would like you to see it, too.
After I posted this note, I happened to rediscover Only Human, “a community where people share stories publicly or anonymously about mistakes they’ve made in life and their advice to others.” Not a lot of recent posts, but I wonder what would happen if they created an area for project post mortems. 
I’m now a 3-week-old Tweeter, and new enough to be having daily ah-ha’s (and woopses). I’ve followed, then un-followed some good folks whose messages were more than I could process. I’ve obsessed over replies and RTs, downloaded TweetDeck, and installed, uninstalled, and then reinstalled TwitterFox.
I waited this long to sign up because I just knew all this would happen, and feared the rest of my life would come to a standstill. It was only when I watched election day tweets posting live at about three per second that I realized the standstill had happened anyway. A large, lovely, inexorable wave was headed toward and over me, whether I chose to jump on or not.
This is not a “How to Get Started with Twitter” post. Those are here and here, and elsewhere. This post is dedicated to other new Tweeters, though, because there are a few people I recommend following, mostly—but not only—if you are thinking about ways to use Twitter as a business tool.
1. Mack Collier
2. Chris Brogan
Both Mack and Chris would be saying essentially the same thing if this were 1909 or 2109, because their insights are based on a fundamental respect and esteem for other human beings. They do have a vision for the future of social networking (not just online), and they know how to use it. On their blogs (Mack’s main blog is The Viral Garden; Chris’ is plain old Chris Brogan), on Twitter and in person, they discourage people from using social media as another “tactic”, and believe that the really outrageous successes come from listening and making genuine connections. I must add that Mack is way more into sports than I will ever be, but I’m dealing with it.
3. Todd Henry
Todd doesn’t post more than once or twice a day, but he’s always thinking and writing about something intriguing. His blog, Accidental Creative, as well as his tweets, are so practical, immediately usable and down to earth, I’m delighted he’s in my universe, and happy to share.
4. Guy Kawasaki
When Guy is on a roll, I see as many as 30 posts from him in a single day. I’ve considered un-following, but too many of them are links to stuff I want to know about. Because of this, I’ve given him his very own group on TweetDeck, and have learned to quick-scan it for gotta-reads. For more practical inspiration, check out his blog, How to Change the World.
Side note: You’d think this fella would be too busy to reply when I tweeted him about a $5 bet I made that he did, in fact, know how to make a screenshot with an iPhone. The mensch replied within two minutes.
5. hashtags
Trust me on this one. If you’re new, you probably won’t use it today or next week, but eventually, you will come back around to it. Learn more about hashtags here and here.
It only gets better with time!
Birth is personal, miraculous, mundane. Mothers and fathers have been profoundly transformed by the experience of having a child as far back as human beings can remember, and yet we accomplish it with no training or even forethought.
Now consider cliques, teams, buddies, clubs, tribes, neighborhoods and nations: Community is just as fundamentally a part of our humanness, whether we connect for shared needs, shared desires or shared meaning.
I’m confident that, like birth, communities have been happening since at least the dawn of human consciousness… that they, in fact, came before self-awareness, and that to avoid community requires great effort.
Now that we are focused on it, now that we want so much to consciously create it, it has somehow become (for many) a Herculean Undertaking.
Look at what has happened to modern Western childbirth and perhaps we can find clues of pitfalls to avoid when seeking to create and/or tap Online and otherwise-conscious communities.
More to the point, however, is that in retrospect, the social network—the development of web communities—was inevitable, because it is what we do, and to a great degree, it is who we are.
At my favorite wireless café/laundromat, the washing machines are (understandably) in an adjoining shop to the café, so customers who use both services must leave their table to check on their clothes. Recently, I settled down with computer and coffee on a comfy couch, not far from another laundry/café customer, and got going with a project. After awhile, she asked me to watch her stuff while she went next door. Next, it was my turn. The other customer simply looked up and nodded as I moved passed her. I smiled, understanding that I didn’t have to say a word—my computer would be safe.
When I came back, there was a third person, seated near my spot on the couch, who looked at me sheepishly and confessed she had accidentally sipped my coffee. She offered to buy a replacement, and all three of us shared a laugh while our new café companion described how the first had looked up and gasped, attempting to warn her of her mistake (but not quite in time).
When I got up to leave, the first customer was over in the laundromat. I couldn’t wait for her, so the second took over the “watch”. I popped into the laundromat to let the first customer know what was going on, and exchanged a hurried, but friendly, goodbye.
This is a big city—it’s unlikely any of us will ever meet again. It was a short-lived community of three, begun and ended with grace, and some other nice human qualities.
As we involve ourselves in the art and science of creating online communities, it’s important to remember that human communities surround us, and are born and re-born constantly, with or without Web 2.0, PHP or Ajax. They are a natural, abundant and profoundly renewable resource.
Brown’s Descent
by Robert Frost
Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.
And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.
Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!
Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove
And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.
Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.
Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,
He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
”I wonder what those signals are
Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He’s celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange.”
He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle
Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.
“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.
Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I’m asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:
Yankees are what they always were.
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;
Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,
And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o’clock,
It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:
No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;
But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s
’Bout out!” and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.
From the book, Mountain Interval, published 1916
I’m still staring blankly at huge parts of it, but that’s a good thing: iA’s 2008 Web Trend Map is ready to download, admire and puzzle over.
For the third time, iA has selected the websites they consider to be most influential and successful, and pinned them down to the greater Tokyo-area train map. Not only that: There are some great related posts, including some intriguing head-butting with Microsoft’s Steve Clayton.
iA has adopted a “magazine” format that I find maddening. Thank goodness, I was able to scrabble through the admittedly enjoyable and forward-looking jargon, and figure out that the Notebook is the simple chronological archive I was looking for. In other words, it’s the “blog view” of their blog.
Check out the Notebook to find more posts discussing the Web Trend Map. Or, tell me how you navigated the site to find related articles.
Did somebody say this is the Age of Community? How about hundreds of somebodies? (Google found more than 10,000 occurrences of that exact phrase on the web, but it’s not exactly rigorous research to stop there.)
Still, what’s a community without Elders?
Heart-labor of Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel, a awesome endeavor called, “The Elders” brings together a group of people “who have the trust of the world”, and who are able and willing to speak freely and act quickly when conflict arises.
Given form by Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, other members include Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson. They plan to work both publicly and behind the scenes, answering to whatever needs emerge with all the means available to them.
The website says it like this:
Never before has such a powerful group of elders come together. Free from political, economic, or military pressures. The only agenda of The Elders is that of humanity. And their only purpose is to ease human suffering in three essential areas:
1. Offering a catalyst for the peaceful resolution of conflict.
2. Seeking new approaches to seemingly intractable global issues.
3. Sharing wisdom: Reaching out to grassroots Elders and to the next generation of leaders. Listening and helping to amplify voices for good all over the world.
Visitors to the site can send comments and elder nominations, and subscribe to updates.
Everybody needs to know about this. We need to have a party, and declare a global holiday. I bet you think I’m joking.
This Jeff Han video (see the first one I posted here) demonstrates more specific applications to show how the multi-touch interface is evolving. This presentation was part of Adobe’s TED2006. Han is a research scientist for NYU’s Media Research Lab, and the inventor of an “interface-free” touch-driven computer screen.
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