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Exploring The Intersections Of Technology and Society

Essential Thoughts On ListeningJanuary 7

It amazes me how often I have to “build a case” for listening. I don’t mean listening in the Social Media sense where “listening” is often a proxy for what Neuro-linguistic Programmers would call mirroring. What I am interested in promoting is the philosophy of paying attention to voices outside of your head and using what they say to drive action.

Our power as people in a society is that we aren’t limited by our own creativity. We can turn to others and use their expertise to bolster our own. When building a business or just bringing an idea to market, creating this kind of feedback loop is critical.

I once had a conversation with Scott Rafer (Lookery, MyBlogLog) that he probably doesn’t remember, but I definitely do. In it, he told me that successful entrepreneurs recognize the fact that they are a “cover band.” We build

Watch, Listen, LearnJanuary 7

We all think we lead the most exciting lives ever to grace this fair planet of ours, at least I do.

In fact, when I think of the passion and intrigue of my average day — well, let’s just say that the movie of the week is going to blow your socks off but I digress.

Today I challenge you to put aside your autobiography and take some time to really listen to your network.

We spend all our time trying to be interesting and we neglect the fact that opportunities only open to those who are interested. If you have been building your network effectively, you have a lot of creative, intelligent people in it who think you are creative and intelligent as well. Take this opportunity to see what they are sharing, what they are talking about and where your projects and ideas can help them improve their lives.

I’m a strong believer that the difference between success and failure on the web is in your ability to build a story around your ideas, ask any Freshman English Major and they will tell you — a story with only one character is rarely interesting.

Goals -

• Spend between 20 minutes and an hour watching one network operate.
• Use the networks search functio

The Blogs That Inspire MeJanuary 7

Earlier today I mentioned on Twitter that out of the nearly 100 feeds I subscribe to and the 1000s of posts that are pushed to me every day, I was having a hard time finding five daily that I really wanted to read. This is a 180 degree shift from last year around this time.

The content hasn’t changed — in fact, I’d say the writing has gotten better over the last year.

I have changed.

More importantly, the reason I consume information has changed.

I don’t care about “tech news” as such. I get enough briefings and have enough primary access through Twitter, Friendfeed and my mailbox to not really need to ride every hype wave to take over the minds and hearts of the techosphere. Headline content is good for just that, making headlines, which I gratefully read in places that are more conducive to that sort of thing than my feed reader.

What I care about now is reading content that makes me think. I want to read about

Essential Twitter GuideJanuary 6

I want all of you to subscribe to Twitter, as a platform to discover, track and disseminate information it’s unparalleled and if properly used it can be a boon to anyone searching for a way to spread an idea.

Before you head into the field, however, I want to arm you with some essential tools that will help you make the most of your Twitter experience.

Jeremiah Owyang

From, “What Web Strategist’s Should Know About Twitter”

Best Practices

The savvy Twitter user realizes that the effective communications aren’t just ‘pushing’ content to readers, but they will also dialogue and converse with others by replying to them. I use this tool as a global chat room, responding to others, building relationships, and listening in. Like blogging, the rule of anti-marketing marketing is required for success, engage your community. Unlike traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Twitter is “opt-in” meaning that users will ‘follow’ a twitter account, abuse will result in a user unsubscribing. For rules of engagement read Brian Ob

Lesson From Entrepreneurs: SwigDecember 30 2008

Dawn Douglass is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. She has been working hard on projects based around the idea that the web can be a force for good for creative professionals, looking to make money off of their talents. For me, she has been a lesson in how perseverance and hard one came help to bring projects to their fruition. Today she is talking about her latest project, Swig.

What makes Swig different from Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and all others is that Swig will be a social-economic network. While providing tools for conversation and discovery is fundamental to any social network, I believe it’s just as essential to allow members the means to increase their economic well being and to simultaneously help the products, companies and people we each care about survive the economic collapse and all its reverberations that will likely be felt for years.

I’ve designed Swig to be a more efficient, more useful and more encompassing social network than anything else available, but it’s also a bottom-up solution to the economic crisis. Swig will generate demand and boost product and service excellence as quality and social goodwill are rewarded.

I’ll give you an example…

Say you’ve lost your job and despera