Month: October 2005

I DON’T FRICKEN BELIEVE THIS! I THINK I’VE JUST FOUND MY DREAM JOB! I was just cruising Craiglist’s Vancouver Job Listings and I came across a job listing for a new company in town called Social Signal which is being created by Rob Cottingham. I found a post on his blog that describes the company and job in detail. When I went back to the Social Signal site though and read the About section of their site, I nearly fell out of my chair! Take a look at this!

What is a distributed collaboration network?

A distributed collaboration network is the next generation of online community, creating shared value through technology-supported collaboration. It leverages “Web 2.0” tools – tools like blogging, tagging, and RSS – that push the Internet beyond information portals and towards collaborative communities. It’s a decentralized, non-hierarchical way of working together that facilitates nimble, project-specific teamwork within a larger, ongoing community.

This community is supported by an ecosystem of web sites that share content and relationships using technologies that make group collaboration an almost effortless extension of individual workflow. A blog post written on one site might pop up in a topical web page on another part of the network. A collection of useful web resources created by one user could be syndicated and republished by half a dozen other sites. A breaking news story could be published on multiple sites, inspiring a blog-based discussion held across multiple sites that is then collected and mirrored on a single web page. There is no hub in a distributed network, just an ever-expanding network of sites that each offers a different point of entry, catering to particular interests and users.

HOLY CRAP! This sounds exactly like my connected communities idea that I’ve been talking about! Ok, let’s do a breakdown of what they said above.

Blogging, tagging, and RSS – Big ditto on that! The idea is to use simple technologies in new and different ways to achieve amazing things. Also the simpler the technologies the more flexible and scalable the system can be.

Collaborative communities – Their name for what I call “connected communities”.

It’s a decentralized, non-hierarchical way of working together that facilitates nimble, project-specific teamwork within a larger, ongoing community.  – Like oh my god, I have a sentence somewhere that says almost the exact same thing! The only thing not mentioned here is the necessary change of company or organizational culture required to utilized such a system. I mean when you say “non-hierarchical”, you’re really talking about equality within the system, with everyone having a voice or part in adding to it and also accessing it. That’s why blogging isn’t so much about a change of technology, as a change of thinking.

This community is supported by an ecosystem –  Yes, this is it! This directly relates to my more recent thoughts on the Web being a permaculture which directly relates to an “ecosystem”. I remember David Weinberger back in 2002 telling me he didn’t like some of the words in my notes on Paradox: In Giving, You Make Yourself Stronger because it made the Web sound like some sort of “organism” but now I realize why I used those words. The Web IS an ecosystem which is why when I started to read about permaculture, everything just came together and made perfect sense to me.

There is no hub in a distributed network – Exactly! Decentralized is the way to go! That way you don’t have a centralized system that, if it overloads, can bring down the entire network system. Instead each community site works independently, sharing and relaying information to the other sites (almost like how the cells in our body work collectively together as our immune system).

Want to see something even more hilarious that relates to this? Check out this posting I did to Craiglist’s Vancouver Resumes section back at the beginning of September just after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Are You A Caring And Creative Tech Company?

Do you know of a caring and creative tech company or organization located in Vancouver, BC who is working on a Web 2.0 social software application to allow millions of people around the world to collaborate and share information more effectively? If so please let me know. I’m feeling fed up and frustrated by the Katrina Disaster and would like to work with a group of people who are working on ideas and technology of this nature to help make the world a better place.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE TYPE OF COMPANY THAT I WAS LOOKING FOR! I don’t believe this! Even more so, here’s another couple of excerpts from a post to Craiglist’s Vancouver Resumes section from farther back in April of this year.

I’m a professional seeking a startup company to help…

…In a nutshell, I am jack of all trades who primarily strives to be a very proactive and efficient problem solver on a variety of fronts, preferring to solve problems before they even happen. This is exactly why I think I’m perfectly suited for a startup over a larger company because from what I’ve seen most larger companies usually prefer more specialized niche people (and may think a multitalented individual’s skill sets are spread out a little too thin for them).

Again this has been my primary problem in trying to find a company to work for. I keep wanting to try to find a startup because I know in those types of environments I’ll be able to utilize more of my diverse skill set instead of just being stuck in a box doing one thing. Their job description pretty much sounds like they are looking for the type of person that I am. Someone who is proactive and can help out within different areas of the entire company.

Man, this is unbelievable! I will do ANYTHING to get this job! I don’t care if I have to scrub the toilets in the company! Hehe, I’ll do it! Ok, I have to rework my resume. I think I might need to add back in my older clerical office work I did in the past for the Federal Government (when I worked for the Community Futures branch as a clerk/receptionist, organizing stuff for the BC region, such as mailouts, meeting schedules, meeting notes, etc) as the job description talks about that kind of stuff. It’ll make my resume more than two pages but I think it will be better to show more of my diverse skill set.

BTW it looks like they use Mac’s in their office as well! I had a iBook G4 with a wireless Basestation last year but I stupidly sold it to my sister because I wanted to try another stab at the gaming industry again last year (which uses PC primarily). Therefore, I sold it to her and I got a Dell XPS machine instead. WORST computer decision of my life! I’ve been dying to get back to an Apple machine since then. Hopefully if I can get this job with them, it would allow me to get back on a Mac machine as well.

HOLY CRAP! I just realized something! Remember how I was just talking about creating a nowblog and how I thought these viewpoints that you made on a specific topic were important because it shows a collective “focus” on something of interest to you in your life? Well duh! What if blogging software could do this for you automatically??!!

I mean think about it. What type of content did I just say I would be collecting in a nowblog? I’m giving a description of my topic and why it’s important to me, then I’m listing not only posts from my own websites but articles posts from other websites, not to mention general website links and items to purchase (ads) that relate to my topic directly. Ok, so I started thinking here that all those article posts that are from my site are just posts with a category or topic tag that groups them together and lists them all. Hmmm, now what if all of the articles links from other sites on this topic were tagged daily links that I had posted on my site? Again, you could just show the listing of these daily links centered around this specific topic. Hell, even ads could be handled the same way if you made a post for each ad and tagged that ad.

All you would really need to do to accomplish this dynamic nowblog viewpoint would be to create a new archive template in Movable Type that displays these lists one after the other in a design display format of your choosing. My default format was just one after the other but hell, you could get creative and make the books which relate to the topic as a vertical thumbnail gallery off to the side or however you choose to display them. The important thing here though is that you could dynamically create these viewpoints on the fly and have a static URL that people could view it at. Hmmm, in effect what this nowblog page sounds like is an Uber category page of not only your journal posts but everything that you’ve seen that relates to this topic (i.e. website articles, websites, books, movies, etc)!

I just discovered this post by Avi Solomon and I’m blown away. This echoes my thoughts remarkably on my post about A Record of My Life. Here’s a quote from his post.

A storyboard is an apt metaphor for how we make sense of our own life history. Storyboarding can be used to sense emergent patterns in our own life story and to envision the life experiences that we wish to welcome into our future.

What I didn’t go into detail on this post about but what I have talked with others about, such as Anthony Casalena of Squarespace, is the need for a blog display format that allows you to achieve this storyboard. In effect, when you pan back to this “orbit view” that Avi talks about, what you are doing is filtering your view based upon your life’s key moments what I called my “transitional moments” which are those moments in your life where a major change or transition occurred within it. Anyways, attached below is my email I sent to Anthony about this blog display format back on September 29, 2005.

—-

Anthony,

Blog Content Display Views Are Crap

For example, if you got a chance to look at the Project Comet demonstration, then you’d see that no matter which view you looked at the site content with, they all looked pretty much the same. Either you saw little mini-streams of “what I’m reading” on the sidebar (with little book thumbnails to represent them) or you saw an endless scrolling views of blog posts, either from a single person or from multiple people. I can describe one word for this display format. Crap!  🙂

Record of Your Life

You see Six Apart themselves reminded me of the problem and potential solution when they said that they wanted Project Comet to be like a “record of your life”. When I heard this I visualized something amazing but Project Comet didn’t even look anything like it. Even Dave Winer himself of Scripting News reminds us of this “record of your life” fact when he talks about what he wrote about a year or so ago in his blog. And here in lies the issue, if our blogs or journals are a record of our life, then why aren’t we taking advantage of them (like Dave Winer appears to do)? The obvious answer to me was because they aren’t formatted to take advantage of this recorded information.

Everything Just Focused On The Here And Now

This is why I said at the start of this email that I wanted our recorded thoughts to be not only “useful to us now” but also “useful to us later”. Right now, if you look at most blogs. The emphasis is primarily on what that person is thinking right this moment. You see their current thoughts posted in the main content area with a listing on the side of their recent ten thoughts as well as recent movies, books, music, whatever. Everything you are looking at is focused on the here and now. Yes of course people have archives as well but it is how these archives are displayed (or not in this case) in relation to the current content that is the problem.

No Feeling of Accumulation

You see THE single most frustrating thing I find about blog journals is that there is no feeling of accumulation or buildup in a sense of learning from the past. Instead it just seems like people are talking over and over again in some endless loop about a certain topic. What I’m looking for is a way for me to look at my content now in relation to where I’ve been and to where I’m going. For example, when I talk about culture in my journal, it is focused on the hope and the desire that we as a society will eventually shift away from our current negative cultural focus to a more positive one. A lot of this has to do with the way businesses work and how I believe they work against people’s common cultural values (i.e. open, honest, truthful, etc). Yet the problem with my journal is that I can’t easily say look at all of these culture posts from “a thousand feet up” to survey what I’ve spoken about and where I’m heading with the topic. The best I can do right now though with blogging software is wade into this stream at “ground level” and trudge through it thought by thought because no one has figured out a way to look at an accumulation of thoughts from a distance and still retain their meaning.

Your Life/Journal Timeline

Well I think I may have stumbled upon a way to do this (although I’m not 100%) and I’m already in the process of doing up some Photoshop mockups of what I have in mind. What’s the potential solution? From an idea standpoint (not technologically speaking), imagine a timeline that you can slide along in, zoom in and out of, and even filter by specific thought stream. So a typical weblog of today might be the timeline set for “today”, with the zoom set to almost “maximum”, and the stream filter set to “all”. And let say that each of these zoom views changes the amount of information displayed based upon how far you zoom out. So at maximum zoom, you get the full details of everything you are pointing at (because you’re up close). While at minimum zoom (almost looking at your entire life in one scoop), you see only the key elements that defined your life with extremely brief descriptions to accompany them. Again let me emphasize, I’m not talking technologically here but from a general idea standpoint. This isn’t any fancy Flash application.

Your Music Timeline: By Day & Month

Ok to some examples. Imagine you’re looking at your journal and you switch your stream filter to say “music”. Immediately we see just my latest posts that relate to music. Ok, pretty normal with regards to today’s blogs but what if we zoom out and change the setting from just viewing a day to instead viewing a month, year, decade, or even life? What would you see then? Wouldn’t you start seeing patterns and changes in your taste of music? Zoomed into the “month” of September, you see the days of the month as horizontal bars stack one below the other (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc) but you only see those days where you added music to your journal. In addition, you also see the rating of the music and a brief excerpt of your review of it (if you had it).

Your Music Timeline: By Year

Now if you zoom out to the “year” view what happens? Ok, now we see all of 2005 with each month being a horizontal bar stacked one below the other (i.e. Jan, Feb, Mar, etc) with only those months where you added music being show (which may be every month). For each horizontal month bar, we see a row of album covers for that month, sorted with the most popular album on the left and the least on the right, with a maximum of 5 or 10 albums shown. So by looking at the 2005 view we see our most favorite, interesting, and meaningful music of 2005 for you.

Your Music Timeline: By Decade

Ok now we zoom out to the “decade” view. Now we see all of the 2000’s, from 2000 up until 2005. Each year now is represented by a horizontal bar (i.e. 2000, 2001, 2002, etc) stacked one under the other. Upon each bar we just see thumbnails of the albums of again say of our top five or ten rated albums for that year with only the album name shown with it.

Your Music Timeline: By Life

And finally if we zoom out to the “life” view, we see our entire life broken down into decades. Again each decade is represented by a horizontal bar (i.e. 1970, 1980, 1990, etc) stacked one under the other. Upon each bar we just see our top rated music for that decade with its rating. In effect, we are probably seeing the music that literally c
hanged our lives at key transitional moments in it (i.e. Pink Floyd).

Imagining Other Filtered Timelines

Ok so now that we’ve seen what a music timeline can be represented, what about other thought streams? For example, what if you recorded in your journal descriptions of the various jobs you are working at, as you make the transition into them? By switching various views wouldn’t we almost get a resume of our work experience? What about photos? Wouldn’t by switching out to the “life” view, we would see a collection of thumbnail photos in each decade that basically represented the key transitions in our life (i.e. assuming we rated photos not just by how they looked but how meaningful they were to us)? If we were younger when we first started blogging, wouldn’t we see photos of our first date, first car, first home, getting married, notable vacations, notable jobs, etc? What about if we focused just on a thought stream like my one on culture? Well if I zoom out to a “month” or “year” view then what I’ll see is my top five or ten rated posts (by title with small excerpt) that were my key defining and transitional moments in my stream of thought. By looking at this view, I can see the “waypoints” in my thought of where I’ve been and also project forward to see where I would like to go.

Project Management, To Do’s, & Reminders

Now another thing you’ll need to realize is that you don’t need to be using this system for long to take advantage of the year or decade view even. I mean look at people using Flickr. When they post photos, they can manually set when the photos was taken. So even though you are adding it today, it can be an old photo that you took years ago. You can still add it to the timeline at the point it was taken. Of course, you can do the opposite as well. Why not define posts to the future? What if I’m working on a project and I want to set waypoints or milestones for the project that I’ve defined as a stream? If you can post to the future, then you can do this. When you view your journal though, it’s focus still comes up to the current day though. But imagine if you had a future post reminder for the upcoming Web 2.0 conference? Not only could that post remind you of the conference but after you’ve been to the conference you could turn that post into a full description of the event itself. What about a future vacation reminder? Same thing. After the event, you can fill the post with what happened during the vacation or create a followup post instead that talks about it.

Summary

Ok I think you’ve probably fallen asleep by now, so I’ll wrap it up here. If you do want to see a Flash application that makes use of a timeline approach, check out the Classic Motown Timeline below.

http://classic.motown.com/timeline/

That’s it for now. When I get my mockups done, I’ll probably be putting them up on my site. I’ll let you know when they are there.

Nollind

PS. BTW I was just reminded of Dave Winer’s constant checking of his archives for interesting tidbits again. You could probably even add that to your sidebar somehow to show what you were listening to, reading, and watching a year ago, not too mention your general thoughts at the time. Kind of like a This Day in History which you show highly rated items on this day from various years in the past.

Oh ya, that was another interest idea I had. Some streams themselves are not always constant. For example, I used to be heavily into computer gaming but right now I’m not actively discussing it. It would be kind of interesting if you could zoom out to at least a month or year view and see the activities of those streams! Even more so, why not show only the most active streams in your sidebar (with a link to the full listing on another page). Hell you could even go back a year and see what thought streams you were discussing the most at that particular point in time, showing your evolution of interests over time.

Below is an email I sent to David Weinberger back on Feb 28, 2002 due to a flurry of thoughts that I woke up with in the middle of the night at 2 AM on Feb 27, 2002. While we were both interested in these thoughts that seemed to just flow out of me in a torrent that morning, we really couldn’t figure out the importance of them, although David strongly suggested I read Chris Locke’s book on Gonzo Marketing which I did. I am reposting these notes today because I keep seeing things today that keep relating back to these thoughts I had so long ago. For example, a lot of the words I use in my notes below, such as “energy” and “flow”, have remarkably strong connections to my current research on permaculture and how I believe it relates to the Web as well.

—-

David,

Instead of trying to reword and make my notes pretty, which seems to just confuse me even more, I’ve decided to just dump everything here in raw form for you to see.  This is pretty much exactly word for word my scribblings from yesterday morning.  For you to make sense of some of it, here are some assumptions you need to know first.  Take note that when I reread my scribblings, I was even confused at some of the stuff that I wrote, as it just seemed to flow out of me.

Also, if some of what I’m saying sounds confusing, ask me, and I’ll see if I can explain it better.  If some of it makes a lot of sense to you and gives you a “leap”, I’d obviously like to hear that as well.  In a conversation about it, hopefully more things will emerge.

Actually, I almost wish I didn’t go to work yesterday because more ideas were coming out of my head which solidified what I scribbled down even more.  By this I mean, the more holes I tried to make in it, the more I solidified it.  However, since I didn’t have a notepad and was getting into work, I decide to shut my brain off to it and hoped to pick up later.  Unfortunately, the flow disappeared and I forgot what I thought about walking into work.  Hopefully, though, as I said above, a conversation on what I scribbled down will stimulate it again.  We’ll see.

Nollind

—-

[assumptions]

Word: Below
Example Usage: “The sites below you.”
Explanation:  I realize the Web is not hierarchal because of links get rid of hierarchies.  By below, I mean the sites that link to you.

Word: Above
Example: “The sites above you.”
Explanation: Refers to sites that you link to.

Word: Power/Energy
Example: “It is a very powerful site.”
Explanation:  I’m assuming this refers to the level of interest, attraction, or maybe even traffic of the site.

Word: Flow
Example: “The flow of energy between sites.”
Explanation: No idea why I used this word.  It just seemed right at the time.

——-

[start]

[1]

A powerful site has a lot of other sites connected to it but more importantly those other sites have high “connectivity” of their own.  When such a site connects to another site, it shares its power to the other site and they both increase in power.

Recently Added Notes: Connections are what is is all about. The more connected something is, the more powerful it is.

[2]

A weak site has no power, even though it is linked to, because if the sites linking to it are not linked themselves, then no “flow” is created.

[3]

Is the Web like a body or organism?  Is it is kept alive and made stronger by this “flow” of interests?

[4]

Google says that your sites rating is based on how many sites connect to your site.  The more sites connecting to your site the higher your rating.  The higher your rating, the more powerful your site is.

Recently Added Notes: Again this ties in with being connected. The more connected we are, the better we feel, the more we can do, the more awareness we have about the things going on around us.

[5]

The beauty of the Web is that you gain more power by giving, not by hoarding or controlling/looping the flow of energy inside.  When this happens, the energy dwindles and eventually dies.  Constant flow with the Web as a whole needs to be maintained to maintain a strong and vital energy for a site.

Recently Added Notes: Connectedness isn’t just about everyone pointing at you but what you point at as well (as you are bringing awareness to others). That’s why highly connected sites are so popular (i.e. search engines, Boing Boing, etc).

[6]

When a large site flows its energy to a smaller unknown site, a huge amount of power is transferred to the smaller site.  Yet, if the “interest” of the smaller site is high then the energy of the larger site is increased as well because the people going to it know it is a good power/starting point for finding interesting things, particularly those of particular interest to them.  Thus more people will converge on the site.

[7]

This is why good search engines are so important and visited by people as a starting point because it is more likely that you will find something of better interest there then anywhere else.  Search engines are extremely powerful points on the Web.  This is why people go to them.

[8]

Search engines like Google make money by taking ads because companies want a higher interest rating to their site which means more power to them.  Google knows sites with power without people even having to use Google.

Recently Added Notes: Awareness network. People create links to bring awareness to something and thus make it connected. Sustainable.

Advertising of the future will provide connections or links that are meaningful instead of meaningless. They won’t just be links off a site but will instead show a direct correlation and context between connector and connectee. We are taking a step closer to this with Googles Adsense. Ads on sites now relate somewhat to what you are talking about. Talking about games? Then your ads will probably be related to games. Ads of the future will take a step further though. Instead of getting ads for just any game, ads of the future will tie in directly with what you are talking about. Talking about Half-Life 2 and how great it is then all the adds on the your site will relate to Half-Life 2. It needs to go farther than this though. The ads need to be specific and define by the person talking, so that he can show the ads that are in context with his discussion. Amazon Affiliates programs works like this to a degree. I can specifically create my own ads for items that I think relate to and matter to my content. Even more so, Amazon only pays me money when an actually product is sold.

Can Google do this? Yet how can Google show a valid interest and connection with their site? Sure if someone buys a product off their site then the link should be paid back for their help. But what if a sale isn’t made? How do you define if someone is actually interested in site? Even more so, how do you prevent this determination method from being abused (i.e. continually clicking link to site)?

[9]

Companies are paying Google to pay other sites to link to them. (?)  Why would a company pay to support a site?  Because in supporting that site, they are supporting their own.  By giving to those under you, you strengthen yourself.  Therefore, in the same way  a gaming company would support a large fan site, so too will the large fan site support smaller fan sites unde
r it, especially those that are doing well with higher interest ratings, as they will help the large site even more.  This sustainability is bestowed to those below you by yourself which is self replicating.  (Like a virus?)

Recently Added Notes: The first sentence of “Companies are paying Google to pay other sites to link to them” is definitely confusing.  Not sure why I wrote this. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I saw companies paying Google to link to them thru advertisements and I thought that these communites should  be able to get a cut of this money because they themselves link to the companies as well (but get nothing in return for their support).

[10]

Although support is passed down to those sites under you, that support doesn’t always have to be cash based.  It could be services based or another form.  PlanetQuake (www.planetquake.com) offers hosted sites a wide variety of services in exchange for increased interest to its site.  So why pay cash to someone below you?  It all depends if you want as much power/energy from that site as possible.  If you pay them cash, you not only support the site, you support the people running the site.  This means they can dedicate more of their time on their Web site (almost to the point of being a full time job).  When they have full dedication to the site, it makes their site better and in return makes your site better (as higher interests are passed upwards).

[11]

So a gaming company spending their advertising money instead on fan sites under them will benefit in multiple ways.  Not only will they benefit from the loyalty and gratitude of the fan site they help, they will in return get more attraction to themselves (which is what they want in the first place).

Gaming companies would want to support gaming news sites as well, since Blues News (www.bluesnews.com) and Voodoo Extreme (www.voodooextreme.com) promote more new daily traffic than anyone else for them.  Imagine if companies who were frequently linked by Blues News paid him each $100/month?  Can you imagine what he could do with this site?

[12]

About maintain integrity.  Its not about placing an ad to get/promote attraction, its about paying sites for their existing attraction.

Sites can take money to place a link but it should more about supporting/paying for those who link freely.  People know BS when they see it.  If you place a bad link on your site, it affects your site’s interest rating (as you turn people off).  Maintaining high quality links is more important.

[13]

This is why search engines like Google place more emphasis on maintaining the integrity of their site listings as it will maintain a higher user interest to their search engine.

[14]

What about companies that don’t have sites under it to support it?  Then they need to start creating conversations around themselves to help promote the creation of such sites.  In doing so, they create more interest and attraction to themselves.

[15]

Money crosses over from the Real World to the Web World.  Companies that have high attraction make money from Real World products or services.  This helps support the sites under them in the Web World.  At the same time, a site in the Web World can be successful enough to support things in the Real World.

[end]

Note to self. Stop hyping things. I wanted to make a note of that because I keep talking about things I’m planning on doing and being all secretive about them but, in actual fact, these things really aren’t that big a deal. Why? Because as I said before, what I’m talking about here is a change of thinking instead of a change of technology. There is no fancy new interface or design. It is just the same content but represented in a different way.

So what’s my change of approach? Well I’ve been talking repeatedly about how I don’t like the format of blogging, that you have to keep grinding the wheel daily to make a blog successful. Well, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to live 24/7 online. However, I do want to get my ideas online so that people can access them and spread them to other people if they find them interesting. Most importantly of all (which is why I went off the deep end in frustration for a couple of days) is that I’d like for my site to sustain me so that I can continue sharing my ideas with others. I believe I can now do this with an approach that Seth Godin calls a NowBlog which he mentions in his latest e-book called Squidoo that also happens to be the name of his new online venture.

Sometimes we need a starting point, not a movie. We need a nowblog.

TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW.

Point me in the right direction.

Put all the clues on the table at once. Tell me at a glance whether I can trust you and how I can discover the meaning I seek. That’s what most Web surfers want.

That’s what everyone often wants.

And that’s been missing from the Web.

We need a nowblog. A place where a stranger can go to get insight and meaning—and then leave that site and go somewhere else. Leave to go back to work, or leave to read your best blog posts, or leave to go transact somewhere else online.

A nowblog is a place, the best place to start. I call this place a lens.

So, here’s the deal: I want you to go build some lenses.

Now when I read this, I immediately realized that Seth had literally read my mind. This is what I had been looking for and I immediately understood the importance and impact of his new approach. Instead of creating a blog where you’re talking about a topic over and over again repeatedly, until the cows come home, with a nowblog you are creating just a single page that focuses on a single topic. In my case, each post within my nowblog will be a single topic that I will talk about and reference as much as I can but also as briefly as I can. Remember the trick here is to make these pages like a focused overview of the topic with which to start from. I guess you could almost think of them as mini-Google pages or at least the search results you would like to see back from Google. Therefore, not only will I briefly describe what the topic is about and my own viewpoint on it but I will also be providing links to an assortment of other things related to the topic. It could be links to books, movies, podcasts, news articles, websites, or whatever! The key is to create your own cluster for the topic that interests you.

Ok, so you’re thinking what’s the big deal? I just create a page with a bunch of links on them surrounding a topic? That’s it? Not at all, the important thing is the richness of those links. Remember the key here is to “polish” these “lenses” occasionally, as Seth calls them, so that they become extremely well focused on the topic they are pointing at. Of course, the more focused and rich your links are, instead of just being a random collection of links on the topic, the better your “lens” will be and the more traffic will come through it (because of your higher PageRank). So instead of creating a blog where you are continually broadcasting something different everyday, with a nowblog you are instead refining your single topic at your convenience. As I said in my previous post, this totally reminded me of tending a garden. You plant the seeds and let the garden grow naturally, tending it occasionally with some “weeding” and “grooming” now and then. This is exactly the type of approach that I’ve been looking for. Not only because it means less daily work but it also allows me to start doing something I’ve always dreaded doing but which this new approach allows me to do in a more logical and natural way. What’s that? Advertising!

You see I hate advertising! Yet obviously it is a necessity if you want to create a sustainable site and, more importantly, a profession out of working the Web. The thing that I have always hated about advertising though is that it was so intrusive and most often times unrelated to what I was searching for or reading at the time. I mean I could be reading about computers and up pops an advertisement for a new car. Get the hell out of my face! I didn’t ask for this crap! Yet what I realized when I read Seth’s idea is that this is the perfect opportunity for advertising to become so focused that it actually becomes the content and focus of what you are talking about. And course when that happens, no more annoying ads (well as long as they aren’t flashing in your face) because the content becomes the ad which is what the person wants to read or view. Here’s a quick example of what I mean. One of the my nowblog topics is going to be the culture of the Web and how it is transforming not only the culture of business but the culture of the world as well. Now after I give a summary of what this topic entails, all of the information below it will relate and hopefully justify my beliefs on my topic. For example, the origins of this idea sprung from The Cluetrain Manifesto, were later discussed somewhat in Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and then were even touched upon in Gonzo Marketing. Therefore, in putting these books down as “related books on this topic” I’m actually helping the person coming to my nowblog find and discover more about this topic of interest. However, what I’m doing is actually advertising because these books I’m showing will include links to Amazon.com which will allow the person to purchase the book if they so choose.

I mean think about this for second with other topics. What if you loved gardening and knew a way to grow a beautiful one compared to others? What if you love baking pies and all your friends rave about them? Can you see what I’m getting at here? For the person who bakes amazing pies, they could not only list some of their recipes from their blog but they could list their favorites sites (where they got their best cooking tips) as well as list various links to cooking utensils or pans that they use that make a big difference in their cooking and of course some of their favorite cooking books. The key here is to make the ads as directly related to your topic so that, as I said, they no longer become ads. They instead become things that people will actually be looking for. I mean already I’m thinking about creating a specific nowblog for Harman Kardon stereo equipment that I myself own which will provide articles links (that I’m aware of myself in using the product) that talk about the ups and downs of the equipment and allow me to place direct ads to the products that I think are my personal choices or recommendations.

Anyways, I’m raring to go! Obviously “planting the garden” with these nowblogs is the hard work but afterwards it is just a matter of “tending the garden” now and then, “weeding” out mediocre links for better ones that come along.

Oops, sorry! That’s not true! Gordon Campbell doesn’t discriminate like George Bush does! You see Gordon Campbell doesn’t care about children in general (at least in British Columbia anyways)!

Sorry but I have to rant about this fricken idiot premier especially in light of the recent BC teacher’s strike. All I hear about is how great the provincial government is because they “care” about students while the teachers don’t care because they are on strike. Man, I wish the media would grab a fricken brain! Why the hell do you think the teachers are on strike in the first place you moronic twits! Focus on the real issues here! They are on strike and are complaining about the situation because they do CARE about the kids they are teaching. Why is the media pushing so much about parents having to come up with daycare for their kids? How about asking those parents if they care about their child getting a good education? I mean stop worrying about that kid being out of school for a couple of weeks and start looking at the long term consequences of that child’s poor education because of a system that is falling apart.  I mean do you honestly believe that getting teachers back to work and for them not to strike again in future is going to make everything better? The system is still screwed Gordie. Only thing different is that the teacher’s can no longer force you to do something about it, since they are no longer allowed to strike.

So what’s my point here? Well if Gordie CARES so much, then let’s see him put his money where his mouth is? Fine don’t give the teachers a raise to finally put them on par with the increase in inflation over the years but what about investing money in the education system Gordie to reduce class sizes and restock school supplies that are almost a non-existent joke? Why do you think kids, parents, and teachers are always on fund drives? You said you wanted BC to have the best education system, right? Well, you got this surplus Gordie. What the frick is your problem? Too busy spending money on giving raises to your own members?

I kid you not. Wait a couple of years. You will see a few things happening due to the idiocy of this government. You will see teaching conditions continually getting worse and you will see less people getting into the teaching profession because of that fact. People go into teaching because they have this idea in their head of what teaching should be (i.e. helping kids). Once they get in and have to deal with the bullshit politics of less and less funding each year for them to do their job then they will say enough bullshit and leave. I mean, how do you think you’d feel in the same situation if no one gave a shit about you and they just said “Shut up, quit complaining, and just do your job!” That’s pretty much what Gordie’s doing right now. Making something an essential service doesn’t mean that you care. It means that you don’t have to care anymore because those people in that profession can’t complain anymore about the conditions they are working within (well other than to quit that is or move to another province where teachers and the education system are treated much better). Way to go Gordie! Your doing a great job of driving teachers out of our education system you moron! Nice way to greet someone after five or six years of university education, with the hopes of getting into a professional career, you idiot!

Oh but don’t worry! I predict that Gordie will come charging in on his white steed to save the day near election time. I’m sure you’ll hear a big announcement by then of the provincial government investing lots of money into the education system (but he probably still won’t give teacher’s shit for the cost of inflation that they’ve had to deal with themselves over the years). All his cronies will pat him on the back and he’ll hand out raises again for everyone in his cabinet. You rule Gordie!

Oh and as for breaking the law, give me a break. They made up the law and passed it immediately so that the teacher’s strike would immediately be made illegal. I mean I’d love to create my own law that says idiotic premiers should be arrested and jailed for life, pass the law today, and get Gordie thrown in jail tomorrow but that would be idiotic wouldn’t it? This law, that was just passed, is no less idiotic.

Related Web Articles:
Why B.C. teachers are leaving their classrooms
How are you coping with no school?
Teacher Dropout Rates Escalate
The New School War
Defiant Teachers Stick To Their Guns

Oh ya! I’m back baby! And this time I think for good. So why the change of heart and mood? Because I think I’ve finally figured out a way where I can talk about everything I want to talk about (in other words, the things that matter most to me) without blogging my head off everyday (because I’m sick of talking about the same thing over and over again). Even better, I think this new approach may even be able to support me financially assuming I take the right path with it. I’ll talk more about this later but one more thing before I go. This journal will now become sort of like my site news and thus will probably be only updated on occasion from now on. The “meat” of my site will lay elsewhere. And hopefully if all goes well, I’ll be able to relaunch by Monday (at least that is the plan). Stay tuned…if you can put up with me that is.

Cya around! Uh, maybe.

James Torio’s thesis entitled Blogs: A Global Conversation (via Doc Searls).

It’s good to remember people complain about things they care about and are interested in. Companies should only be afraid when customers are not saying anything at all.

And therefore you can say that since I’ve complained about a hell of a lot in the past, it is only because I cared a hell of a lot. I mean if I didn’t care, why complain right?

One of the reasons I spent so much time researching my ideas and sharing them on this weblog was that I hoped it would eventually lead to getting a job with someone. I assumed that once people read my ideas, they would see that I was passionate about them and would want to hire that passion to work on projects of a similar nature (i.e. building online communities, social software, etc).

Well not only did no one take interest in hiring me but very few took interest in what I had to say, at least as far as I can tell anyways because very few people care to comment on my ideas and thoughts on my site. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m too far out there with my thoughts or what, as I’m usually talking about future thinking stuff. I mean I’ve even considered removing the “comments” link from posts because I mean what’s the fricken point right if barely anyone is commenting? Anyways, I’ll keep them in for now to see if my radical deviation in flight trajectory has peaked anyone’s interest at all.

And finally I’ve decided what the hell, I’ll throw up my resume (ZIP’d PDF 57K) online as well to let people take a look at it. Personally I think it’s crap and doesn’t justify what I’ve done in the past. So why not just change it? Because that’s the hard part. How do I show that I’m more of an idea person than a technological person? Resumes usually focus on showing off your technological skill sets but that isn’t my greatest strength. My greatest ability seems to come from being able to help a company solve problems throughout the entire company (not just with web development work) by coming up with ideas that provide solutions for them. For example, here’s an excerpt I sent to someone in an email about what I did in my last major role within a company.

Now the strange thing to note is that my transition to Senior Web Developer while happening quickly, almost occurred naturally (which is why the official title came later). In addition, as I’ll explain below, it is also why I had so many other official and unofficial titles in the company. You see I became the unofficial team lead first because people naturally seemed to gravitate to me for advice and guidance with regards to problems or doubts they may have been having. It wasn’t like I was looking to be the team lead (or even thinking about it). I instead just focused on helping as many people in the company as I could because that’s what I liked doing. And this is why I later got titles like Usability & Community Architect and also became a Business Advisor for the company as well. Actually management themselves were even having a difficult time because they couldn’t figure out what the hell to give me as a single title because I did so many things for them besides just web work. For example, a typical day for me might be doing my own web work, helping other developers with their own work, making recommendations to the Project Manager on a course of action on an existing project as well as stating the needed requirements of information for upcoming projects, assisting staff with computer/printer problems, setting up computers for new staff members, assisting management with creating a streamlined operations process, doing research on new upcoming web technologies and software, assisting the marketing people in reviewing their client proposals, counselling people with regards frustrations they were having at a company level, and, most importantly of all, helping in guiding the overall direction and goals of the company. And that’s only the stuff I can remember off the top of my head. 🙂

Now the really funny thing in all of this is that people would always tell me that I’m an amazingly talented individual.

Um, whoopdie do! What good is talent if it can’t be utilized?

That’s pretty much how I feel like right now. I’ve got all these ideas in my head and there is no outlet for them.

I would love to work with others on projects but I need to get paid so I can pay the bills.

That pretty much scratches out working with just a few individuals on our own because everyone would have to support themselves till the project came to fruitition.

Therefore, my only real option left is to go work at a company. And again we’re right back where we started.

How do I show my ability and talent on a resume when I have a hard time trying to explain it myself?

I can sit there and tell stories about myself all day which is exactly what I would love to do because those stories help communicate what I did better than a resume ever could.

Grrr, it’s so frustrating. I’m sick of this. Oh well, whatever. Back to getting a part-time job again I guess to tie me over till I can find something better.