Now, to the point: zephoria asks for participation in her Case Study for the HBR.

Of course, in reality, few companies have their senior management, or their possible [...]]]> google. lower case google: you get more brand recognition and mind share by being a verb, not a brand: air is free, yet we all breath it.

Now, to the point: zephoria asks for participation in her Case Study for the HBR.

Of course, in reality, few companies have their senior management, or their possible employees, on facebook. Social media is quite recent, in geological years, although old in internet time.

But I see that, here in middle earth, people are afraid of or unaware of the possibilities of social media, opting for the more direct approach: house visit or phone message.

That said, it is interesting to see sites like linkedin generate all this interest, doubtless because people are running scared in a recession economy, and thus using all venues to enhance their employability prospectus.

Me? I do it for the social capital.

1. Stories matter. Numbers were inserted here and there to make a point when talking about dire need or how a person made a difference, but they seemed like more of an afterthought. The story was the measurement: [...]]]> And, just as with the like the eightfold path or the pirates’ code, these are rather like guidelines.

1. Stories matter. Numbers were inserted here and there to make a point when talking about dire need or how a person made a difference, but they seemed like more of an afterthought. The story was the measurement: how much trust was there? How much was revealed? Did we identify?
2. It’s about kindness. And it seemed that everyone there had it in spades. Or maybe we were all in the same boat…slightly nervous that we wouldn’t be accepted for who we were, then overwhelmed with gratitude when we were, so it spread.
3. Share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share share. If that includes linking, then so be it. It isn’t for the kudos, it’s for the connections.
4. Community, cooperation, collaboration…we gather to make things happen. Because we NEED one another. We can admit that we can’t do it on our own. Or at least, it would be much more fun together.
5. Mentorship is the way to go. Newbies need encouragement. The surest way to measure the success of a community is how fast someone moves from newbie position to mentor position.

I have to go to one of the BlogHer conferences: creating not by competition, but by encouragement and connecting. I didn’t thought that the divide was that crucial. We change the question and its subject, from a “how to get me one of those”, to a “how and why to create some of those.”
Go to Tara’s and share.

Second, eternal September, once more, using facebook as ]]> First, they took the walls off the garden using another social media site.

Second, eternal September, once more, using facebook as the new aol.

via burningbird, who [...]]]> And speaking of princesses,

At one time, Movable Type was the princess to Blogger’s Queen, a potential successor to the kingdom of Blog, Blog Away. Ben and Mena Trott were feted and fawned over. They were even invited to contribute to the book on weblogging that O’Reilly published, and to which I contributed.

via burningbird, who points to the news that MT is going 4.0 GPL, as detailed at ReadWrite, who correctly points out

Since 2004/05, many bloggers have migrated to the open source Wordpress – and perhaps of more concern, a lot of third party developers transferred their efforts from MT to Wordpress.

Personally, I was tired of the spam, the despairing emails from the hosting co., and the clunkiness of that old MT. Rather than a princess, it looked like and old dowager, left alone and forgotten, while its heirs played at being Shreck in LJ and Typepad.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the dashing Wordpress, although not a darling and full of clunkiness, is hackeable. As the peopole form MAKE say,

Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.

And I prefer

Screws better than Glues.

But let’s not talk about Glues that way.

So I went. And lo and behold, the kite became the metaphor for whatever culture I was in: It was just a matter of letting go, of lifting restrictions and eliminating poisonous influences, to start writing again.

Do you think that Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is racist? Never mind, some people do.

I like that [...]]]> Go fly a kite!

So I went. And lo and behold, the kite became the metaphor for whatever culture I was in: It was just a matter of letting go, of lifting restrictions and eliminating poisonous influences, to start writing again.

Do you think that Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is racist? Never mind, some people do.

I like that book: it is an allegory for the process of discovery, the realization that we ourselves tell our stories and discover the world according to the tales that we weave around that perceived reality, fro which we, humans, are responsible; the book presents again the story of Anansi, and while allowing the story to unfold, it also gives us back that memory of, as Llinás Angulo would say, the world we create.
The little, weak, infinitesimal spider defeats the mighty tiger through the use of stories, tales, inventions and subterfuges – but more importantly, the world is not anymore of those mighty and powerful, but of those with the ability to create the story, to tell the story according to what they need.

I loved Skunk Anansie and only now I get the meaning of the name, the weight of the stories, the enormous pain and rebellion against that which used to be:

I’ve seen behind your wall of words
You’re sneaky with the facts
Look who’s hiding now
Now I’ve seen through cracks

Go fly a kite: and in flying the kite I was allowing myself, at last, to be free of pain and thinking, letting the thread go and the kite fly on its own, while I went on walking, distractedly achieving my purpose, rewriting my story.

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