Chris' Insytes

Welcome to ChrisHeuer.com

2006-06-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

I can not believe it has taken this long to get done, and in fact, it still is not done, but it is close enough. This is my last entry at Blogger for my own personal/professional blog. From now on, my personal Blog will be over at http://www.chrisheuer.com/. I will continue to write the unconference stuff over at http://www.brainjams.org/ and I am about to be announcing something really cool about the new home for my professional communications and marketing insytes, so stay tuned at http://www.chrisheuer.com/.

Whew.... data ok, latop not

2006-05-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

So we were able to recover the data off my hard drive and back it up to my iPod this morning at the Apple store in Kendall. Poor gramps was bored stiff as we waited over an hour, but it was worth it because I got to show him a bunch of photos on Flickr. Now I need to get a new laptop because it seems the logic board is bad. Perhaps I can get them to give me a credit on a new MacBook Pro instead.

Dangit - Laptop dead again!

2006-05-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it. 2 east coast trips in less than 6 weeks and once again, as was the case with Boston, my laptop has died while on the road.

This time, it is extremely hard to deal with. Last time there was not really much of a loss, other than a few emails and a bunch of photos, which I was able to recover later. This time however, I lost a presentation I was working on for NetSquared conference that is due Tuesday, a ton of important emails, about 100 photos from the Beyond Blogging event, 100+ photos of my big brother and his family, a requirements document I was working on for one of my startups, 2 blog posts I wrote on the plane, the podcasts I recorded at the event and a couple of other important documents I worked on while flying east on the way out here.

Really big bummer and it really hurts this time because so much was lost and will need to be recreated. Worse still, now I am really behind an already overloaded schedule and I have to borrow access on my friend's PC. Now I will need to take it in to the Apple store tomorrow and get them to look at it and/or perhaps pay one of the data recovery companies a few hundred dollars to retrieve the data.

It would not be so bad if this had not just happened about 5 weeks ago. I thought I was supposed to have a new hard drive after the last one failed under warranty, but perhaps they replaced it with a refurbished one? Regardless, there is not much I can do other than deal with it, defer all the deadlines and pray that the Genius Bar can get the drive up long enough to burn the stuff over to DVD.

The weird bit is how it happened. I was working on the blog posts on the plane, when I went to save them as Word docs and the spinning color wheel came up, only to freeze in place. When trying to restart, it just went from the bright white screen to a grey one. After landing, it restarted in the car miraculously, but then froze. It started a couple more times after that, but would not shut down when I closed the laptop. So on the way home tonight I picked up some CDR's with the intention of recovering whatever I could get off of it - after many failed attempts, I have finally given up and just hope it might come alive tomorrow.

I am more of a spiritual, not religious sort of guy, but please do pray for something good to happen from this for me. Apple did such a great job in fixing the laptop last time, going really above and beyond. It would suck to know that they gave me a crappy refurb hard drive that died just a few short weeks later causing me all this anguish and loss...

2006-05-05T00:33:00.000-07:00

This is the final session from our small, but powerful mixup of New Orleans natives and people who care and time did not forget. Photos to be posted shortly to the fllickr account here -
http://www.flickr.com/tags/brainjamsneworleans

Interview with a corporate blogger...

2006-05-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

On Thursday May 4, 2006 I sat down with Earthlink Blogger Dave Coustan to talk about his experiences as a corporate Blogger. This follows up on the Blog post entitled "Reflections on Blogging for Someone Else." There are some really interesting insights from his experience working at Earthlink as well as some more simple details on certain aspects of the work. You can reach Dave through his Earthling Blog.

<P>Beyond Blogging 2006 is an event for communications professionals being held on Friday May 19, 2006 being brought to you by Fleishman Hillard and DC Communicator.</P>

The Blog Rollercoaster, Starting the Conversation

2006-04-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

There is an old saying that goes, "Some days it is in the cards, and some days it isn't". My grandfather used to say that a lot about whether or not he would be able to golf when the summer rains came, but it just as well could refer to my relationship with Blogging. Rather than looking at blogging as 'my job' which I must do every day, I go with the flow and my blog posting frequency changes dramatically as a result.

Somedays I am so excited by an idea or news item that I must put other things on hold to blog about it. Sometimes, I end up writing posts just for me that never get published - many never even saved, just written. Other times, like the past couple of weeks, I am so deep in the activities of 'work', having conversations with people and simply being in the real world, I have no time for it. Even if it is important to share or perhaps just personally meaningful, it is nearly impossible for me to get a blog post published. I suspect a lot of people out there are like me in this regards - sometimes we are just too busy with life, work or whatever to find time to blog.

The key is that I don't need to blog every day, or several times a day to make an impact, but it would certainly help in some regards. My goal is to merely communicate with people who care about the things I care about - to have my voice heard and be recognized for my ability to understand a particular topic. So I do it when I have time and do my best to share valuable insights, stories and experiences with you. Depending on your goals, or the goals of your organization though, the demands on your time could be vastly different. I know of at least 2 startup companies here in Silicon Valley who don't do plan to do any traditional PR activities. They expect their blog will be the company's official voice to the public, to their customers and to the press at large. They blog when they have something to say. not everyday for the sake of blogging.

The month ahead is going to be an interesting shift for me as I move from the free flowing Blogger mentality of writing when I feel like it for the sole purpose of serving my own passions to blogging every day as part of my work life. Today marks the beginning of a new gig I am doing with my friends over at Fleishman Hillard. I have this incredible opportunity to lead an online conversation leading up to an event they are sponsoring with DC Communicator called Beyond Blogging 2006. The premise is very dear to my heart and is something I have been talking about for quite some time.

The truth is that Blogs are a free style, free ranging form of communications that have made it possible for people and organizations to more directly communicate with the world over the Internet. It does not require an army of 'techies' to publish, it does not require some special knowledge of some cryptic computer language and it does not require any real capital expenditures. A Blog can be started in under 5 minutes, it can be free or a few dollars per month, it can be private or public, it can be used as a simple outbound communications channel or it could be used as the foundation of a community. Blogs are just another tool in the communications arsenal, so I am glad we are not doing another conversation on Blogs - it is time to go way beyond the initial idea and look at the bigger picture of how all of this fits together and can be used properly by all communication professionals.

Too many people think that the 'Blog' is some mythical panacea for communications. Too many people don't understand the idea of Blogging within the proper context of participating in the conversation. Too many people think that the Blog is just another fad. (even I have written about Blogging being a fad previously) Regardless of what we think of Blogging, it is here to stay - the power of the tools are growing tremendously along with the number of people who are using Blogs for personal and professional communications. So this event, and this Blog, represent a great opportunity to dive into the conversation with communications professionals who are on the front lines of the industry. Together we will explore the strategic and tactical aspects of Blogging in the context of the shifting media landscape, to collectively gain a better understanding of where it fits within the broader context of communications.

So your first assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to dust off your old copy of The Cluetrain Manifesto and celebrate the 7th anniversary of this landmark book with me. The majority of what we will be talking about over the next month leading up to the Beyond Blogging event on May 19th will likely be based within the key principle of Cluetrain thinking - "markets are conversations". From my perspective, the job of communications professionals, marketing pros and even sales people is to engage people in conversations - this is perhaps what has been forgotten by a few and is what real people are craving - but that discussion can wait for another day.

Over the month ahead, join us in a discussion that will go beyond the ideas and the strategies and dive into the practical applications of how it all works together. We will start off by delving into some of the basic questions like "What are tags? and How do I use them?" As we get closer to the event, we will be hearing from the panelists more directly and moving the conversation into areas that are of interest to you. So let's get this party started - post a comment and let us know what sort of things you want to discuss.

Technorati Tags: blogs, beyondblogging, thecommunicationsstrategy

Join Us in Revitalizing New Orleans

2006-04-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

Though I have only been to New Orleans once before, I have a deep love for this great American city and I really want to help bring it back from the tragedy that was Katrina. As a technologist, business strategist, entrepreneur and humanist, I have been been working with BrainJams over the last few months to bring people together to learn from one another in the real world. While I can't rebuild the houses that were lost or donate millions of dollars, I can work towards connecting the small businesses of New Orleans with an understanding of how they can make the most of emerging Internet technologies. More importantly, I can help facilitate real, personal connections between the people who are building these Internet tools and the local business community in New Orleans who need the best available thinking to help rebuild their local economy.

BrainJams is about people sharing what they know with one another - people helping people, treating one another with respect and working to understand each another's unique ability to contribute towards a common goal. If you are interested in working towards
revitalizing New Orleans, won't you join us for a conversation between the business community in New Orleans and people who understand emerging Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, tags, open source software such as Drupal, and other Web services?

I believe that together, we can discover innovative solutions to the business problems that are being faced today, as well as learn from one another how to make the most of what we already have. We know from firsthand experience that the traditional way of running a conference was seldom best for the attendees. The most interesting parts of the conference were often the hallway conversations we had with other attendees. Often times, the people in the audience have better insights to share than those speaking on the panel. BrainJams takes away the "power of the podium" and puts it in the hands of the people in the audience. We turn attendees into participants, and in so doing, make it easier for everyone to get what they need from the event while having a turn to step up on the soap box to share their ideas, concerns and experiences.

So rather than coming to hear me tell you how it is, we will get together on Thursday May 4th in downtown New Orleans to figure it out together. To share our insights. To learn from each other. To identify the needs of the business community. To launch new projects. To pump new life into the heart of the city of New Orleans. To Jam with each other like Jazz musicians, riffing on each other's ideas, leveraging everyone's unique contributions.

There will be many different topics discussed over the course of the day, all of which will be chosen by you and managed under the principles of "Open Space", which is a simple structure for enabling more powerful conversations for large groups of people. In the morning, participants will create an agenda that addresses the most important issues and opportunities for the New Orleans business community and how it can best use the latest technology. The rest of the day will be spent in small group sessions working on the specific issues that matter most right now. All of the proceedings will be documented and a wireless network will allow us to post all of our notes directly to the internet, where others can find them and support our work. The point of the day is to start conversations that matter while making new connections to the people who can contribute to projects that will make real impact. If you care about what New Orleans has been and where the city is heading, your participation is essential for our success.

Please join us! BrainJams New Orleans is free for all to attend - just complete the registration form and put it on your calendar.

Technorati Tags: brainjams, brainjams04May2006, brainjams:neworleans, katrina, net2, neworleans, jazzfest, Recovery2, reliefopedia, unconference

WARNING: Don't Use ReNu Saline Solution

2006-04-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I almost missed this. In case you did too, read the article from CNN and check out the official statement from Bausch & Laumb about ReNu with moistureLoc potentially being linked to a rare eye infection that damages corneas. Several people have had to have corneal transplants as a result. There is also a generic brand they make but I did not have time to find those specifics.

Thankfully I don't use my contact lenses as often any more, but I did use ReNu and I did leave my lenses in at night, which increases the risk, but everything seems to be ok.

Technorati Tags: healthwarning, eyes, renu

Questions from the Art of Hosting

2006-04-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

When have I truly lived my passion and what in particular was powerful about this?

More often than not, I feel my true self and complete happiness in my being, when I am connecting with others and sharing my ideas, insights and individuality. When I am able to be of service to others by exploring our shared connections, reveling in our passions and feeling comfortable at the edge of the precipice, staring off into the distant unknown and figuring out how to get there together.

The most powerful thing about this for me has shifted over the years. At first it was a matter of simply gaining external reinforcement of my purpose for being. Eventually it shifted to the perception of power that was bestowed unto me when people were giving me their attention. Now it has settled fully into the understanding that the real power came from an unknown future in which I would play no physical role, but one in which my ideas, insights and voice would be given life through the hand of another - fertilizing the seed I previously planted and watching it grow, far from my own eyes.

What do I now sense is the next level of my passion and practice?

The next level involves bringing together all that I have experienced in a way that can be of value to others. It is through service to the community of my peers - which is all of my fellow man, not a specific industry nor a type of person. The next level is a return to an old idea infused with new life. The Noble Pursuit is my dream of a better world that allows me to be within a space where my passion can be felt by me with every awakened breath, and seen by the world through open eyes. Not hiding in fear of failure, but being ever present in the learning, smack dab in the middle of the circle, but not necessarily up on stage.

It is the work that has already begun for me through BrainJams and is within the space that my new friends call Hosting. These things are one and the same, though rather than trying to teach others the art of hosting, we are working to teach them the art of participating, with respect for every individual and their unique ability to contribute. Even when the contribution is manifested as silence. It is a community of participants rather than hosts or attendees. When each participant has their own leadership held within the space, if only for a moment...

The next level of my passion and practice is the development of the community of shared resources that is BrainJams, the tools and virtual spaces that make up Insytes and the way of being which is at peace with myself, in balance with the world around me.

If this is the next level of my passion and practice, what could stop or come in the way of this?

"as we shine more light, the shadows get bigger" - Debbie from Berkana

While I do believe that the past does not equal the future, it has been hard to live with this principle on a daily basis. The fears of failure, and even of success to a certain degree, have in the past held such a grip on me that I would often choose to not take action to remain with the possibility of some future success. As an entrepreneur, you would most likely not guess this of me, but as a human without someone to take me by the hand and encourage me to take the leap - to provide external validation of the figments of ideas that swirl within my mind, it was nearly impossible.

The only thing that can stop me is myself. Today, I choose not to stand in my own way, but instead to lend myself a hand - a hand up, a pat on the back and a round of applause. All of these powers are within us, we just need to practice with more - we need to give ourselves permission to try, to pursue with vigor and undeterable purpose, that which burns within our hearts.

On this day, I choose commitment over complacence, movement over stillness and love over fear.

While the things that could stop me are many, I will not allow it. I will overcome whatever obstacles I may face. There is always a way.

What is the burning question that will help me step more fully into the fire of my hosting?

The focus can no longer be on the costs of taking these actions, or on what I need before I can take these actions, it is squarely within the question of "What will it cost if I don't step fully into the life I was born to live?"

How will it feel if the world heads into complete chaos and fear, and I have to live with the fact that I did nothing to stop it? How will it feel to live with myself and my loved ones everyday for the rest of my life, knowing that I could have made a difference but chose not to act because I was afraid or thought that I might be judged unfavorably by others?

At least they were honest...

2006-04-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Many, many things to talk about this week, but I only have a minute since I have to leave for Boston in 6 hours. This article on CNN about the Muslims protest over the launch of Playboy in Jakarta is a telling tale of the deep value conflict between the our different perspectives. Many of the hardliners, such as those from the Islamic Defenders Front, are still protesting and threatening violence even after the magazine debuted with much tamer content than is displayed in the local tabloids and other magazines daily.

As reported by CNN

group spokesman Tubagus Muhamad Sidik. [said] "Even if it had no pictures of women in it, we would still protest it because of the name."

Trouble is this is the same problem that we have between our use of different names for the power/being in whom we faithfully believe - for the entity that proves there is meaning and purpose in this life, a reason for being and a reason for all things. The belief that someone is in control, it is of course the word I believe in who is in control. For you disobeying the one I give this name to, you will be punished - I will punish you. We fight over the many different names we have for the same idea, in this case, the blind faith in a higher power we call God, Muhammed, Jesus, Abraham, Yahweh or even within new age circles, "The Light".

I obviously disagree with people who take to violence in light of calling the same thing a different name, but at least he is honest, which means there is just the sliver of hope that we can learn to get along with one another not only in spite of our differences, but because of them. We really need to get past that sort of reaction to the things we dont have in common and see that the people around us are all people - the ones in the ivory towers and the ones in the streets. Respect of our fellow man and a love for them just 'because' they are people, regardless of their beliefs, their looks or their station in life is the real shift we need to make to energize our society.

What we give to others, we get in return. Give a peaceful smile, share it with everyone. See what happens as the world lights up around you.

On a lighter note, this is very much similar to some of the disagreement around calling the new new, Web 2.0 and the meaning of Marketing going on over at Burning Bird, where I have more to add tomorrow...

Technorati Tags: playboy, religion, tolerance, web2.0

Chevy Embraces Creatives: watch out for those sharp teeth!

2006-04-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

Tara has a great article on Chevy's 'create a commercial contest' for the Tahoe brand of ubersized SUV's that serve little purpose other than to take over the role that Jaguar once did for those with fears of inadequate equipment. The story is a must read for everyone, as is watching the actual user created commercials which are over on news.com

On top of it all, her post contains all the right elements of an exceptional blog post that people can look to as a case study.

1. It is informative - she told me something I did not see elsewhere
2. It is entertaining - she was clever with her delivery and the story itself is actually quite amusing
3. It is engaging - I wanted to share it with you and talk about it
4. It is educational - her advice for Chevy to embrace the vitriol rather than hide from it is spot on

In response to her earlier call for suggestions to rename "Pinko Marketing", I wish it could just be called "marketing", but that term has been tainted like a used car salesman in a loud suit. In a very real sense, she is really talking about "Cluetrain 2.0" through the lens of the Web 2.0 era. I don't honestly know what is wrong with simply referencing the original Cluetrain Manifesto, other than marketing the 'New' "New". Don't get me wrong, I respect Tara immensely for what she has done and she fully embodies the core principles of the Cluetrain in her blog and her work, but I am in the camp with those who don't think Pinko Marketing is the right phraseology for helping more people to "get it".

It feels a lot to me like the original statements Chris made about "Open Source World Domination" before he changed it to the more powerful "Liberation". I just don't see anything remotely "Pinko" about it, it feels more like "Real", "True", "Authentic", "Genuine" or "Honest" might be most appropriate. Steve Wrubel calls it "Open Source Marketing", which may be accurate, but is not simple or fun enough to catch on - or perhaps it is, we will have to wait and see.

This reminds me of what I have often told people about the 'marketing' of BrainJams - "If you mean to say that I am trying to reach those people who will get the most benefit from what we are doing, than yes, we are marketing. If you mean to say we are trying to sell our ideas to more people to just get better numbers, than no, we are not marketing." Unfortunately, for too many people, marketing has come to mean the latter, rather than the former. As I have been telling people through my work on "The Communications Strategy", the goal is not to get sales for the sake of sales (though this is what is still taught at most business schools). The real goal is to find customer's who can obtain the right value from what you are offering and deliver that value while creating a reasonable profit to sustain and grow the organization. The job of marketing is to identify the unique needs of those specific customers and be of service to those needs.

The bottom line is to understand that people are talking about what they are talking about and your company can't control the conversation any longer and you can't ignore what is being said when it is not favorable. Companies need to, as Pat Riley said in his book, "embrace the ugliness" and just deal with it head on. Either you take your stand in righteousness when others are misinforming the conversation, or admit you have a real problem and deal with it as Tara suggests.

With regards to Chevy, it will be interesting to see what there response is to this, and if any of the vaulted General Motors' Bloggers will respond. As of this moment, they are sticking with the contest.

Technorati Tags: chevy, cluetrain, pinkomarketing, opensourcemarketing

More on Web 2.0 Semantics

2006-04-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote a post on Web 2.0 as a state of mind, with it really being an attitude of openness that defines our era. Shelley Powers writes about this again in regards to Doc's thoughts on Business Morality. Since most blogs don't post trackbacks from Blogger (another reason to change platforms), I am cross posting my comment here.

While I still detest the phrase Web 2.0 myself, I feel forced to use it in order to converse with others about the nature of what is happening now and what is different about the emergent practices we are seeing. Shelly is right that there is no version of the web per se, and while the technology has evolved somewhat, I still think it has its place. The phrase Web 2.0 still represents the attitude of this new era as good as anything else I have heard thus far including what I have called it - The Open Web.

The difference that is really touched upon in Doc's post (though with terms I don't really like) is the nature of Open systems versus closed systems and human behaviour within those systems. Systems now really do put people at the core and these new systems are contextually aware of the individual's relationships with other people.

Yes it is still about communications as was the original promise of the Web being bantered about in 1994 after Mosaic's release. But today more then ever, it is about the ease with which we collaborate with one another within organizations and uniquely, in the commons. It is the spirit of openness that manifests itself as participation in services that allow us to more easily gaze into the collective consciousness that every so often gives rise to an insight from the collective wisdom.

For some the characteristics of the technology matter most, just as the numbers matter more to the accountants than the narrative does. For others like me, it is about the differences in human behaviour. The idea behind Web 2.0 is complex and changing and many people are still working to describe it from their own perspective. In the end though, I think Doc was right when he said "I think it's what we'll call the current bubble and the next crash".

Above all else, and regardless of the semantics, it is what we call the time we are living in today, no matter how much we like or dislike the term.

Technorati Tags: Web2.0

Filling the Funnel - the shift that is fueling BrainJams

2006-04-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

I had said I would put my BrainJams post here any longer and I meant it. Instead, I want to point out a pretty long piece I just posted there that really explains a big part of my thinking behind the transformation society is undergoing at this time. To put it simply, in the old competitive model of the world, people fought one another to "climb the ladder", in today's cooperative world, we are all helping one another to "fill the funnel."

Shortly after posting this to BrainJams, I visited Doc Searl's site and read about an idea that was posted over on O'Reilly's Radar that deals with this same subject from a slightly different angle, that of 'business morality'. Supported by our discussions on collaboration at the UC Berkeley BrainJams event, I think Doc is spot on with these ideas. I posted my comments on this over there, but I am really wondering if anyone has any better language to use for describing these loosely joined ideas that are the core of what is happening in our economy.

Technorati Tags: fillingthefunnel, businessmorality

See, US Airways does Suck

2006-04-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I don't want this blog to become a place that only complains about crappy customer service, but after reading this article about an annual survey on the airline industry, I wanted to share the bad news with you. While there were not major revelations in the survey, this particular nugget was satisfying at least, because it shows I am not alone in being treated poorly by them.

Southwest Airlines had the lowest rate of complaints, 0.18 per 100,000 passengers, while US Airways had the highest, 1.86.

JetBlue was of course the favorite (and I agree), but I was a little surprised to hear that AirTran was one notch ahead of Southwest. In the past, I have purposefully avoided AirTran, even when they were cheaper because I had thought they were not up to par. In the future, I will at least consider them, though my loyalty is now clearly to JetBlue, with American close behind because of my gold status and membership in their Admirals Club.

Unfortunately, this weekend I am flying US Airways for my Boston trip (actually America West planes). We need to be more budget conscious, and I had to use the $190 credit we had leftover from that little incident I wrote about back in November. I was grandfathered into gold status with them last year before our problems with them, so perhaps the experience won't be so bad after all.

Cingular Sucks Ass

2006-03-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe how incompetent Cingular is. I am almost ready to start a site for people who hate them as much as I do. And hate is a strong word for me, because I love most everyone (except perhaps those folks who backed into our car the other night because they did not bother to look in his rear view mirror, but that is another story I will let Kristie tell). A quick Google Search yielded 492,000 results for "Cingular Sucks".

We have complained about their terrible systems pretty much since the week we signed up. They have occasionally shined, or rather one of the people in customer service did if ever so briefly. I feel sorry for those people, though I remain frustrated with them all. To have such a big corporation in charge which can not get its basic systems of operation and customer service right is incredulous, but ever so true. Cingular sucks plain and simple and I advise everyone to stay away from them at all costs.

What did they do this time? Well Kristie has been kind enough to deal with our latest billing snafus that resulted from her Treo's untimely death and resuscitation, but they forgot about me, or just screwed me after the fact. It seems that they never properly credited our account for returning the phones she bought but returned. When she dealt with this problem last month, they screwed up our plan / service bundle again. The last bill included over $400 in per minute charges, even though we had over 6,200 rollover minutes in reserve. She took care of that problem last week and was told we would get a 30 day reprieve from them taking any actions on the account while they sorted out the troubles.

WED night at midnight however, they shut off both our phones (we are on the family plan) so yesterday Kristie was on the phone with them yet again, explaining the problem to another rep. The rep supposedly corrected the problem and restored service to both our phones. Since my Treo's antenna is broken (anyone have some spare Treo 650 parts laying around?) I did not use it yesterday, but did see that I missed a call last night, which means the service was temporarily restored. Of course, I say temporarily because it is now disconnected once again and pissing me off to no end. The amount of time we have had to invest in correcting their mistakes in intolerable and I have just about had it with them - I think it is time to bite the bullet and switch to Verizon, though I really don't want to lay out all that cash for the new phone and the early termination fee (they should pay us at this point!).

Are there any Cingular folks out there who even listen to this? I suspect not - if I worked for them, I certainly would not be paying attention to the endless stream of complaints, it would probably drive me into the insane asylum. Well, now I get to wait on hold to try to clear this up once again...

UPDATE: 15July2006 - things seem a bit more stable now with regards to the billing, nothing wild lately, but you never know whats around the next bend really. I tried out some of the VCast phones and really lilked the video clip and music download, but I need a keyboard for easier texting. This one is free over at Amazon with their current incentives (will change at some point I am sure) The reviews are pretty good on it, but I have not used it more than putting it through its paces at the booth in the mall. Does anyone have any other reccomendations?

Technorati Tags: cingular, cingularsucks

No More BrainJams Posts Here

2006-03-31T08:58:00.000-08:00

I have written about separating my blog posts topically for quite some time, but knowing that I was getting more reads here than there, was very reluctant to do so. This resulted in me cross posting the BrainJams content to both blogs so that I was able to get the messages out to a wider audience. This also meant that many of the searches performed for the BrainJams stuff I was writing resulted in duplicate search result entries, which was just confusing the situation instead of making it better.

Well, after one week of using the new BrainJams site hosted over at Bryght, I am satisfied that the BrainJams blog has a solid, seemingly permanent home. So I am going to finally make the move I should have done long ago and cease posting official BrainJams announcements and unconference thoughts here and focus this Blog back on Web 2.0, Knowledge Marketing, The Communications Strategy and other items of more personal interest.

Also, if things go well over the next week or so, I am going to finally move my blog over to ChrisHeuer.com and make the switch from Blogger to WordPress. But rather than keeping a separate personal and professional blog, I am going to keep working on Chris' Insytes all together because that is who I am. I was dreading the prospect of rebuilding my link rank all over again, but with the NOLA event coming up and looking to be pretty big, this is perhaps an opportune moment.

So if you are interested in keeping up with BrainJams, please subscribe to the feed via Feedburner or just visit the BrainJams site regularly.

Technorati Tags: brainjams, insytes

WTF - Do they think NOLA is back to NORMAL?

2006-03-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

The fight against Municipal Wifi efforts has reached the streets of NOLA, and its not going to be pretty. I missed this piece last week, but am glad Eran over at Supr.c.ilio.us brought this to my attention. The Telco's are understandably not happy with cities who want to offer free WiFi services which would compete for customers of their services, but are they really fighting the local government in an area where they can not even provide service to half the population?

Red Herring has an interview with Greg Meffert, the New Orleans CIO who opened up the city's WiFi mesh to all residents for free. While the telcom lobbyists fight to get it shut down, Greg vows to fight on until they throw him in jail. Now with a real taste of freedom (VOIP anyone?), there is no turning back for the city's small businesses and the returning residents who are struggling to rebuild. Internet access is proving to be a key public utility and cities who want to help bridge the digital divide are seriously considering this same sort of move all across the country.

Given the situation in New Orleans, perhaps the Oil Industry lobbyists should step in to fight for the rights of the city against the Telcoms. Or better still, maybe someone in the Bush administration can put some pressure on these folks to back off. It would be a small token of apology for the incompetence that they have demonstrated on so many levels, but it sure will go a long way toward helping the city rebuild the local economy. If the legislature stands up for the rights of the big corporations and ignore the needs of the countless small business owners that serve as the backbone of the economy, it shows how corrupt politics really are in the south. The legislature should be rewriting the laws to allow for such provisional use - the camel's nose is already in the tent. Instead they are perhaps thinking about the next elections and trying to figure out how to fund their campaigns without the contributions of BigCorp.

A good synopsis of Greg's story can be found over at Jeff Pulver's blog. I wish I had known Greg was here in San Jose at the VON conference a couple of weeks ago because I would have made it down there to talk to him. Now I will hopefully get to Skype with him in advance on the upcoming BrainJams event down there. If there is anything more we can do to help you Greg, let us know.

Technorati Tags: brainjams04May2006, brainjams:neworleans, wifi, Recovery2

BrainJams New Orleans - Big Announcement!

2006-03-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

On Thursday May 4th we are going to bring the best of Web 2.0 to the New Orleans small business community in what could be one of the biggest Unconferences of the year. This will be a day of conversation, peer to peer learning, and developing a better understanding of how the technology community can serve the needs of this vitally important city as it comes back from the trajedy that was Katrina. Our goal is to help small businesses understand how they can make the most of blogs, social networks, tagging, wikis and other collaboration tools - but I have a feeling that much more will come of this.

In looking at the recovery efforts (and the ongoing clean-up) I have been shocked by the sheer scope of the problems down there and inspired by the resilience of those who suffered through the disaster. While there is no doubt that many in the community still need basic necessities and technology can do little to ease much of the human suffering, I really think we all need to look forward together to the potential of the new New Orleans. From my perspective, the small businesses are going to be the backbone of this revitalization, so I want to empower them with knowledge of how they can use these incredibly useful tools the industry is creating to support their efforts.

For this event, we will be applying all we have learned from our direct experience and the wisdom of other unconference organizers. While the format may be subject to change somewhat, I think that participants will really get a lot out of this structure we have put forth for the event. We hope to kickoff the day with a short introduction/keynote from a local leader to provide a better perspective on the role of small businesses and technology in the rebuilding efforts. We would really like to have Harry Anderson who has owned a couple of small businesses there for many years and is one of the clearest (and cleverest) voices of common sense we have heard coming from the region since Katrina.

The majority of the morning will be spent with our signature one-on-one knowledge networking with the group being split between small business folks and technologists. This is where you have 5 minutes to talk to the person sitting across from you about what you are passionate about and what you are working on now. After 5 minutes, a bell rings and everyone has 1 minute to move one seat to the left. The intention is to share knowledge and resources (sites, books, people etc...) with one another and to see how you might be able to help one another.

The afternoon will primarily encompass three types of activities going on at the same time.

A Main "Confersation" track to serve as an introduction to the most important aspects of Web 2.0 for small business owners - blogs, collaboration tools and social networking.
Open Space sessions where the participants will lead conversations on topics of their choosing which could be focused on everything from rebuilding the local tech community, to developing tools to meet the needs of the local economy to addressing social/political issues.
Peer to Peer Learning, where individual experts will offer their time to share their direct expertise, teaching other individuals how to do certain tasks (like start a blog, set up a web site, use BackPack or other 'mini-lessons')

But this day in May is only the beginning of the process. We intend to build a vibrant community of technologists from around the country to provide ongoing advice and support to the local economy by engaging in genuine conversations. One of the hopes of the event is that this leads to a BarCamp/SuperHappyDevHouse sort of weekend that will build specific tools and information services for the local economy. But rather than being a couple of 'one-off' events, we hope to establish an ongoing collaboration between the six tribes (art, education, for profit, government, non-profit and technologists) that brings involvement from all across the country, and around the world. Indeed, it is our intention to donate at least 50% of any proceeds from the sponsorship revenues to go towards this cause as well as establish a separate fund that can take donations directly. Finally, we hope to inspire the people of New Orleans to embrace this new form of ad-hoc community driven collaboration and put on their own events just like WoolfCamp has done here in the Bay Area.

While we are pretty much starting from ground zero at this point in time and still need Patrons to cover the cost of the event (attendance will be free!), I have faith in our community's ability to pull this all together and make it happen in a big way (Dave Winer? Mike Arrington? you out there?). We also still need a large venue with good power and wifi as well as local technical support, peer teachers, volunteers to support local logistics and local promotion to get the right sort of people to the event, If you are interested in helping in any way, will you please contact me and join the BrainJams community to discuss how we can all contribute to this important cause.

PS - For those of you who have not been to JazzFest before, this is the perfect time to experience the soul of New Orleans that lies in the heart of this great city's music. The second weekend includes some of the best Jazz musicians in the world as well as Jimmy Buffet, Warren Haynes, The Radiators, Robert Randolph, Paul Simon, Lionel Richie and Fats Domino!

Technorati Tags: barcamp, brainjamming, brainjams, brainjams04May2006, brainjams:neworleans, confersations, unconference, Web2.0

Web 2.0 is a State of Mind

2006-03-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

Every now and again Memeorandum points me to an exceptional post. I generally dislike the echo chamber it creates, but it is one of the better filters for the attention strapped among us. Still, I have read so many tales of woe concerning what Web 2.0 means over the past 6 months, I almost skipped this piece from Paul Boutin on Slate since it is getting so tiring.

With my silicon valley influenced perspective (and a lot of pent up frustration with some engineers I have known) I decided we should move beyond Web 2.0 and on to Web 2.1. To move away from the technology focus for the sake of the technology to put people back in the center of our lens. A couple of months ago, I was finally able to put forth a model that I could use to explain my perspective to those outside the meme - the Human Centered Web.

As I have been explaining to friends, acquaintances and anyone who will listen, Web 2.0 is like the proverbial elephant and the 3 blind men. Each one is describing a different aspect of it, each one is right in their own limited view but each one is missing the bigger picture. As with most complex ideas, people need short hand phrases to capture the essence of it, without getting into all the messy details. Of course, this causes confusion from people who can not quickly grasp the bigger picture and are being informed by only one of the perspectives. This is why I am generally OK with the use of the term, though I detest how it has been used and misused.

In his piece on Slate, Paul references three general definitions that are bantered about by different groups of people. The O'Reilly definition that focuses on participation and collaboration; the Web developers perspective on Ajax interfaces; and the opportunists play of making a company from user generated content. Hmmm. I like O'Reillys definition, but it is overly complicated to explain to lay people. The other definitions don't play well either. So what really matters to the non-technical majority of society in this discussion?

Well, I think NewsWeek got it mostly right, which is really good news. It is definitely about the collective wisdom and participation, but I think it is above all else a new era in society, a new spirit of possibility and a resurgence of optimism from which great new companies and ways of thinking are being formed. Web 2.0 is shorthand for representing this new state of mind above all else.

When we take a closer look at what constitutes its physical (or rather virtual) manifestation, there are really 3 primary elements that should be explained to the uninitiated (and AJAX is not among them).

The Live Web - As NewsWeek focused on Mary Hodder's quote, this is a key descriptor of one portion of this era. It references the immediacy of the ability to create and contribute in near real time to the collective wisdom and to a lesser degree certain aspects of living online.

The Social Web - This was an underlying element of the NewsWeek piece and referenced often through examples in the Slate piece, but it deserves to be called out separately. This references the network's awareness of our social relationships as well as the fact we are able to organize our social lives and engage one another socially.

The Open Web - Again, this was referenced but not called out by name. In stark contrast to the proprietary standards that marked the launch of the PC industry and the early Web days, we have established key standards in many areas that enable any person or company to create systems that easily interoperate with other systems. The Open Web is not just about published API's and open standards though, it is also the key element of the state of mind that permeates this new era. While it is not something that the majority of society will focus on, people need to understand that this means freedom from the clutches of any single corporation and lowered overall costs for whatever people want to do.

So Web 2.0 is above all else a state of mind that is based on the World Wide Web being live, open and social.

Technorati Tags: brainjams, The Open Web, Web2.0, Web2.1

BrainJams Clarity: The Unconference Community

2006-03-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

Over the last few months, I have been trying to figure out what we were really going to do with BrainJams, and now I finally know.

We are going to keep it as simple as possible and build BrainJams.org into the Web community for Unconferences. The place where you can go to find events in your local area, resources to make the events possible and a willing community of participants who want to learn from each other rather by sharing their wisdom and insights. In short, a place where people interested in Unconferences can go to share best practices and resources so that their events will be more successful.

While this may seem obvious enough to you, it was a very murky vision for me to see in the proper light. Those of you who know me through personal interaction can probably guess why this was difficult for me. I don't want to bore you with a rambling personal diatribe at this time, but this indecision stemmed from the depth of my lifelong personal struggles - continuously generating complex visions for how things could be, biting off more than I can chew, wrestling the demons of ADD, fighting off my fears of failure, suffering through the disappointment of past perceived failures and longing to be understood/embraced by a community of my peers. Simply put, my greatest gift is also my greatest weakness, and it makes seeing things simply hard for me. It also kept me asking deeper questions (can the brand work as a plural? does the word brain create the wrong impression?) and kept me striving to be perfect rather than following Nike's advice to 'just do it' instead of talking about it for so long and frustrating those around me.

So I can now finally put the other big ideas into separate buckets and focus on cultivating BrainJams to fill the people's need that remains unmet today. But I can not do it alone. I really need your help making it real.

To this end, there are many organizational tasks that need to be addressed, but more urgent is the matter of gathering, tagging and organizing resources such as venues that are available, equipment that can be borrowed and people who can help facilitate unconferences like Kaliya. We have established a basic structure within the Drupal site that we launched last week to allow for anyone to join the community and do any of the following tasks:

Organize your own event using our site
List your event for other people to discover
Create a site for your own group
Submit resources via quick blog entries (setting up tag feeds soon to also pull from Delicious and working on a resource directory Drupal module)
Share your thoughts on what works in which situations via personal blog entries and our collaborative guide for organizing your own Unconference

The topical focus of each Unconference is not important to what we do with BrainJams as we want to support Unconferences across the entire spectrum of thought, discussion and practice. We want to help people find out which formats work best in which situations. We want to help people get the most from bringing people together. We want to see the world made into a better place by people like you who know that Panel discussions and talking heads suck ass. We want to support peer to peer learning exchanges like the one we have proposed for One Web Day. We want to make it easier for someone with a desire to bring people together to share with each other. We want others to benefit from our mistakes, so that they can be more successful.

Wonderful things can happen when real people have real discussions with people who are different from themselves. Talking to people who are similar to you, who share the same perspective as you and hold the same beliefs as you will only reinforce the status quo within an echo chamber. So BrainJams should be about bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and holding constructive dialogue between people with opposing points of view without resorting to calling someone an asshole or behaving like trolls. I believe that if we focus on a few things we have in common with those people with whom we disagree, and respect everyone for their own uniqueness, we can come together to solve all sorts of problems. I believe this idea applies equally well to everyone involved with for profit business, non-profit endeavours, educational pursuits, technology, art and government.

But it all starts with you realizing that you have the power to make a difference and wanting to bring people together to discuss and work on whatever it is that holds your true passion. This is my passion, this is my Noble Pursuit and this is BrainJams, The Unconference Community.

Technorati Tags: ad-hoc collaboration, ad-hoc+collaboration, amateurevents, barcamp, brainjams, brainjams:planning, confersations, conversationalintelligence, knowledgeeconomy, net2, socialconference, The+Open+Web, thenoblepursuit, unconference, Web2.1

Lake Tahoe Geekend FR-SUN

2006-03-27T09:39:00.000-08:00

I really have not had as much time to promote this as I would like, but I have been trying to get a bunch of people together to go up to Lake Tahoe this weekend. I posted on Upcoming a couple weeks back and a few people are watching but have not gotten any confirmations from anyone yet, other than Ted Rheingold of Dogster, Kristie and myself. If you are interested in heading up to Lake Tahoe for some geeking out and skiing/boarding this weekend, please let me know by tomorrow, Tuesday March 28. Our house has a foosball table and high speed WiFi. Better still, there is a ton of snow. We will most likely be heading to Alpine Meadows on Saturday.

We will be going up on Friday afternoon no matter how many people are interested...

BrainJams Community - Help with site needed

2006-03-22T15:09:00.000-08:00

I could really use your help with getting the new BrainJams community site together. I have tried to do this on my own for too long, and was wrong for trying to do it all. Nate has helped out a bit, as well as many other friends, but when I finally had a chance to sit down with Will Pate the other day, it all really came together and now we are moving forward in earnest.

This is good because we can now really kick ass on the New Orleans event, as well as forming a local group for New Orleans to leverage into the future.

I have published a BackPack Page to get you an idea of what I need help with. If you are interested and available to kick in a few hours on some of these items, please email me and let me know.

The End of Media Barons

2006-03-17T18:53:00.000-08:00

Finally going through a few of those tabs that have been open forever and came across this very important piece in the MediaGaurdian talking about Rubert Murdochs speech to a 612 year old newspaper association earlier this week. While there are many quotes of note which really means you need to go read the piece, the most striking thing to me was this Murdoch quote:

"Great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart"To his credit, he seemingly understands that this is the great power of blogs and user generated content. That the medium alone is just the medium - the real power comes from people touching and influencing other people. The packaging can be flashy and upscale, or as simple as the Denver Tech Meetup. As the 'stuff of [citizen] journalism' resonates with people by feeding their mind and their heart, it changes everything.

Long live the Web.

Technorati Tags: citizenjournalism, newscorp

Time to Raise the Decorum Levels

2006-03-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rober Scoble jumped into the latest dustup between Dave Winer and Roger Cadenhead that has the blogospehere abuzz. I posted some of the below post as a comment to his piece entitled "The new A list" but wanted to repost it here since it is so important to me.

What can we do about trying to keep people focused on discussing the issues rather than letting the conversation deteriorate into a childish name calling battle? We can lead by example. To a lesser degree, this issue came up with Tara's response to a post in which she was referenced by another blogger with derogatory remarks. I almost hate linking to it, but the issue of rising above the name calling and moving to respect and dialogue is coming out a lot lately.

We need to set examples for how to deal with this so that the community standards shift from that of name calling and demeaning each other back to reasonable discourse focused on the issues (when they are important at least). I don't know if it will ever happen fully, because, as I have said before, "there are always going to be assholes out there somewhere shitting on other people - online and off". It is really unfortunate that this is the way some people get their feelings of self importance - by putting other people down instead of lifting them up. it is that never ending cycle of abuse that was the key driver in many individual's socialization while growing up in 'broken' households. The good news, is that people can rise above that - they just need a little help in finding their way sometimes.

As Scoble and Mike Arrington said, I don't know about the facts of the matter here, but this is exactly the sort of issue which is a perfect case study on decorum in the blogosphere and the nature of public disputes. Because the blog/comment system enables it so easily, we are able to see the long tail of low value commentary much more easily - I dont necessarily think this is an attack mob, though I could see how it would FEEL like one. I just think that all the people who have felt wronged by Dave in some way are expressing their emotions and frustrations thinking this is the opportunity they have been waiting for. Cadenhead even admits to being an ardent supporter of Dave previously, most likely behaving in a similar manner on Dave's behalf instead of against him, but I don't know those facts - just pointing out the possibility that this is subjective and shifting.

Of course, that just muddies the waters of the point I am trying to convey.

The bottom line is that people like Scoble and Arrington have the power to influence a lot of others to refocus the dialogue on the issues rather than resort to name calling. But its hard, so most people will take the easy way out. Instead of laying out an argument as to why somebody said or did something they believe to be wrong, or behaved in a way that is pereceived to be inappropriate, they just call the other party names which is really just like putting some Crisco on that slippery slope...

I have been trying to make this point for the last several years, but am often dismissed by those who believe in the free form chaos of the Web - by those who say "F___ off - its our Web and we will say what we want". By the people who think it is ok to call Bullshit, or call someone an asshole rather than laying out why they think differently than them. It is a tough but delicate line to manage here, because to a degree they are right - free speech means people can and should be able to say what they want - but when the speech is of a derogatory nature that it prevents the dialogue from moving forward and puts everyone 2 steps back, I think there are reasons for some of us to step into the ad-hoc mediator role and refocus those around us away from the name calling and back to the truth telling.

We should all learn to be more respectful of each other and to focus our energy on tearing down ideas we believe are incorrect, not tearing down the people who believe differently then we do. Robert, I hope you are able to move this idea forward better than I have been able to...

Technorati Tags: ad-hoc mediator, ad-hoc+collaboration, blogosphere, citizenjournalism, thetruthtellers

What I Want from Amazon's S3 Grid Storage

2006-03-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

So I read many of the posts on this after I saw Mike Arrington's take over on Tech Crunch and at first I could not really figure out what to make of it, but now I know. Putting aside the business model of monetizing their internal expertise of creating highly reliable server ecosystems, I now see the real practicality of being able to have a trusted, reliable server backend to hold all my Web services data - particularly given the long tail of single developer web services that may never make much of themselves, but I digress.

My first thought was this could be a great backup system for my files. I already have 2 mostly dead backup hard drive I need to recover data from, so we need to do something about this fast. But as I went through my daily ritual of browsing and filing away a few of my email newsletters for future search capabilities, I saw exactly what I need from S3.

Someone should create a Web service that accepts an email from a list or digest and archives it within S3 for future searching. I know this is a lot like Usenet, but perhaps it is UseNet 18.0? The storage and bandwidth would need to be paid for somehow, and I have some ideas on this if anyone is interesting in pursuing it. Or perhaps someone can use the API's from the Internet Archive to host such content databases there instead. Regardless, this is something I would really like to see happen soon so I can unsubscribe from all these email newsletters I am personally archiving in Entourage and know I can still get access to the collective wisdom they contain at some later point in time.

Of course this also implies that we need an improved search interface to go with it - but that is what Insytes is for...

Technorati Tags: freeideas, freeideas=chrisheuer, Amazon, Web2.1