May 2008 Archives

It wasn't for the blow, the coke or the angel dust.  It wasn't for the adrenaline run or the jungle safari.  I spent a splendid week in the beautiful blazing sun of history rich Cartagena, Columbia at the invitation of a Canadian expatriate friend to celebrate his wedding to a local south american princess.

By definition (via the NYT article of a similar name): "Call them "sophistonauts" -- those wide-roaming urban nomads, often third-culture kids, expats or grown-up diplo-brats who tend to live outside their countries (plural!) of citizenship and bounce around a social web connecting them to equally geographically flexible, curious confreres. The sophistonauts have not been visiting Colombia because they are braver than you and me. Nor have they been going for Cartagena's balmy climate or the city's peculiar colonial architecture or its rowdy history of pirates and plunder. The sophistonauts are flocking to Cartagena because they've been invited, in this case by proud Colombian friends eager to show off their favorite national beauty spot in full flower after decades of abandonment."

My wife and I loved it there! Absolutely. If you have a friend or a reason or an excuse for a reason; go, go go. Cartagena is one of the most beautiful cities I've seen, from both the air and the ground and the ocean. It is vibrant, it is friendly, it is vastly underrated and it's people are so filled with pride of their traditions and beauty that you wish you would have visited long ago. As you tour the coastline and see the endless line of construction projects of high rise condominiums you ponder the reasons you don't move down for a few months of the year... you know because with Twitter and everything, who really needs the office.

We also spent some time in the Islands of Columbia (yes they exist). San Andres was like a paradise lost. Rustic, Island culture. A half sunken ship, lost 100 years ago blocking the setting sun. A people again, so proud of their beautiful country and yet so persistently aware of their nation's reputation.

Colombia is a gem. Visit, then visit again. Then post a comment and thank me. Better yet, invite me and we'll be Sophistinauts together.

I recently attended the mesh conference in toronto (and meshU).  I tend to take non-linear notes, not so much as a way to revisit the words, but as a way to keep my mind focused on the lecture or panel discussion and to make myself feel a little more apart of the conversation.

Anyway, I posted my notes up to flickr and I just noticed Michael O'Connor Clarke used them in a recent blog post.

To add my feedback to the quote in controversy ("The Customer is not that Smart" by Dave Jones). I don't think it's something you want to tell your customers to their face (or behind their backs), but as it relates to what they hired you to do, it's probably true, or they wouldn't have hired you to do it. It also doesn't mean that they're dumb.

Thanks Michael.

Synsepalum dulcificum: I have got to try these tripping berries out. 

Rumour has it that just one can tangle your tastebuds in such a trippy way as to make tabasco sauce taste like donut glaze and lemons like a sweet sugary treat.

"The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy." - iht

Of course science has to step in and keep us from believing that there is a small subtle saint wrapping his wings of love around our tongue to invert the flavours. According to wikipedia, "when the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, the molecules bind to the tongue's taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet."

Anyone up for a bit of a twist on the flavor flav? Want to throw a party? Any idea how to get these?

(thanks truemors)

i can see the stars
i can see the moon
i can see the sky
i can see the clouds
i can see a passing airplane
i can see a bird
i can see a tree
from my prison cell

I want to run for the green party one day.

We need more content creators.

There are too many content reviewers... To many internet observers... too many apologists and evangelists...To many tweets twittering the latest and feeds feeding ravenous on their own selfish and anything but subtle self analytics.

We need content creators of diversity and vision and uniqueness.... risking the critical eyes of the observers in their millisecond glance and off-handed dismissals. Dancing a dirge in the mist of the vociferous fangs of the technorati and their buzzfeeds.

At least that's what I need.

Who do you believe?  What do you believe?

The world is a vampire.  Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

Seven minutes of terror and a hollywood ending!

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Congratulations to the entire team. I guess the iterative, release early, release often approach doesn't really fit this type of work.

I attended the Mesh Conference this past week (and also MeshU). Good times had by all, especially the proverbial bump and grind with the microcelebrities of the inter-tech world (Daniel Burka, Nora Young, Leah Culver, Ethan Kaplan, David Usher, John Resig, Ryan Carson, Avi Bryant, Lane Merrifield, Garret Camp, Eric Schonfeld, and more!!!)

One of the main themes I felt that all the participants addressed in one form or another was the Social Web. Or social media. Or social. Or welcome to the social. It's an obvious concept and it seems that most of the conversations, both public and private, focused on this.

I can't Dance

I might be behind the curve or dancing in the wrong club, but for the most part, especially with regard to the enterprise conversations that focused on monetizing the social space, the true concept of Social was misunderstood and even ignored. When the enterprise looks at taking advantage of the "new social space" or the red-bull entrepreneur seeks out the next big thing, it undermines the truth behind "the social". And it's no wonder so many start-ups fail and enterprise social experiments suck.

Referencing Microsoft's rumoured desire to purchase facebook, Scobleisimo writes,

"Google is locked out of the Web that soon will be owned by Microsoft. We will never get an open Web back if these two deals happen.

This has created HUGE value for Microsoft and has handed Steve Ballmer an Internet strategy which brings Microsoft from last place to first in less than a week."

read it here