Nollind Whachell

It’s funny. We’ve learnt so much from the Web and the way it works but it seems like some things can’t be carried back over into the real world. Take for example the debates going on right now around the limited access to Web conferences.
Of course it’s impossible to invite everyone to speak at a conference because if you did it would get too large and out of hand. Then again by limiting it, you’re relaying a culture of exclusivity instead of openness.

And it doesn’t just end there. Instead of inviting just A listers you may want to go off the beaten track and invite different speakers who may not fully be on the radar yet but still have a lot of innovative thoughts to share. Yet if you do this, you may upset others who want to see these A listers or even upset the A listers themselves, since they may have newer insights to share.

So what do you do about? How do you make everyone happy? I’m not sure if you can. But hopefully those that want to be a part of these events realize the reality that only so many can fit into one space within a certain period of time, thus respecting others and the situation. At the same time though, hopefully we’ll see those who have already spoken at these conferences in the past deciding to step down to let others get a bit of time in the spotlight as well, thus promoting a positive culture of sharing and diversity. Who knows, maybe if we all just gave up a little, we’d all gain a lot more. 🙂

Hugh MacLeod wrote the following about releasing ideas on the Web via your blog.

If your ideas have merit, bloggers will talk about them. If they don’t, they won’t. This lets you know what to expect when you finally unleash your ideas for real on the big, bad world. Without spending a king’s ransom finding out the hard way.

I disagree (but I do understand where he’s coming from). People have always been telling the explorers of the world for ages that they are nuts. Just because people don’t understand what you’re talking about now, doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. With a change of time comes a change in thinking. Unless you already have a close knit readership of people who fully understand where you’re coming from, I’d disregard what the average person says about your ideas.

I think it’s important to remember that just like how edges are important in nature to create an interface between two areas, so too are people on the edge important in creating an interface between two different stages in our evolution. These are often the pioneers and explorers who can see past the next paradigm shift before others can. Therefore, just because their words don’t make sense at the moment, it doesn’t mean their stupid or crazy. It just means they’re…different. 🙂

I just made the following comment on my site here (although I’ve mentioned something similar to this in the past).

Reminds me of when I was talking about video games becoming more and more 3D realistic, yet if you want want to experience some amazing 3D realism just turn off your computer and walk outside.

It seems like I’m not alone in these thoughts though, as Darren Barefoot just put up a Second Life spoof site called Get A First Life that’s quite hilarious. I think it’s Rob Cottingham’s words below though that ring true more than anything about the times we are living within.

And yet something about it strikes me as poignant. Maybe it’s the number of people out there who aren’t exploring their first lives with any sense of play, discovery or fun.

Big ditto on that. But ask yourself why this is happening? Why have people lost this sense of play, discovery, or fun? Do you feel like you’ve lost it? If so, what’s changed in your life compared to a younger age, when you felt you still had it? And most important of all, what is found within these virtual worlds that seems to give this feeling back?

The following is today’s quote from my One World Almanac 2007.

A school is not a factory. Its raison d’être is to provide opportunity for experience.

J.L. Carr
British Novelist
(1912 – 1994)

Randy Komisar talks about social entrepreneurship, mentioning examples like Global Giving and Ignite Innovations where young entrepreneurs are committed and passionate about making the world a better place.

Peter Merholz on the Adaptive Path blog mentions culture as one of the main qualities that help to relay an experience. I couldn’t agree more.

Culture
The big one. The framework of codes (manners, language, rituals), norms of behavior, and systems of belief within which the person operates.

Guy Kawasaki gives a presentation relaying the principles from his book The Art of the Start. While I read his book a while back, it’s still always enjoyable to watch him give a presentation because I can never get enough of his sarcastic humour. 🙂

Better Bad News shows the falling of Justin Timberlake beside Bill Gates onstage at CES. It’s pretty hard to watch. I only made it through half of it before I had to turn it off.

As I’ve noted before to others, dumping millions of dollars into an ad campaign isn’t going to help your product one bit if it can’t stand on it’s own two feet once it’s released to the public. People will see it for what it is, good or bad. Therefore, quite wasting your money on celebrity endorsements that only end up making you look like a complete fool and distance you from your customers even more.

Hell, if you want endorsements, just go to your customers and relay what praises they are singing about you.

Bence Kucsan has a lovely video he made for a friend’s birthday. While watching it, thoughts about what true friendship or love is really about drifted through my mind. One thing that I immediately thought of was accepting people for who they are, good traits or bad ones, because no one is perfect, as we all have our strengths and weaknesses. As soon as you realize this in a relationship and accept it, it’s like a weight being lifted from everyone’s shoulders. At that point, people can just be themselves, who they really are, instead of being something that is expected of them, who you want them to be.

PS. BTW as Bence notes, the letters in the video spell out “Happy Birthday” in Hungarian, just in case you’re wondering.

Hmm, does anyone know of a blogging service or application that allows you to insert your own URL link for the title of an entry post? The only one that I can find that has this ability built in from the very start is Radio Userland (which offered this years ago when blogging first took off). It can be done with WordPress as well but you need to modify your various templates to do it in combination with a new custom field. I’ve searched Drupal and Textpattern as well but didn’t see anything related to such a feature.