A high school teacher's experiment in fascism

Click on the title above (or cut and paste this into your browser):

http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/Auxiliary/Psychology/Frank/Thirdwave.html

Read it all. Don't wimp out. Ask yourself: can this happen again? Ask yourself: do our political leaders use tactics like this today? Even a little? Just a enough to bend things and create, at least in shadow form, some of what the world experienced in the late 1930's and 1940's? You know.. 'just a little'?

China and the startup world

This is an interesting one.

My company is in the process of working through the creation of a company in China as a partnership with a Chinese company and a European company. China brings, well, China, among other things (like high level government contacts, licenses to do business in China, localized knowledge, distribution, etc); the EuroCo brings cellular technology for OTA (Over The Air) type digital content delivery and we (ClickCaster) bring the content/delivery platform.

Intriguingly, what seems to make this venture so interesting to everyone involved is the fact that an American internet startup is involved. It seems to have a sort of cache that is getting people's attention (from government and industry to investors in Asia).

We're working with a very high energy women who is an executive of the Chinese company and would be at home in a fast paced American company (she speaks perfect American English with just a faint twinge of English accent periodically creeping in) and she's got honest to god vision.

Now, having working in China before in my Motorola days, this is more than a little unusual. And she honestly gets what the whole user generated media world is about. During one of our regular weekly progress calls (currently we’re co-writing the overall business plan), I brought up the potential of bringing in the US Television folks (I recently spent a week in LA with some true Hollywood types- I’ll blog about that one in the near future) and the initial response was 'well, we could do that, but why? This is about replacing the old media'.

Well, damn. She sounds like she lives in Boulder or Silicon Valley and like she's the CEO of a small user generated social networking focused software startup company we know and love! (yea.. us). Heh. Whodathunkit.

More on this as it develops. Compared to my past China business experiences, this is more than just refreshing, it's downright exciting.

The personal economics of blogging

I haven't really thought a lot about this until just recently, but what are the personal economics involved with blogging?

By personal economics, I mean the cost, and the payoff, to the blogger of fulfilling the need to write what amounts to a personal journal that the entire world can see real-time.

I know many of us think we have a lot to say. That we're somehow unique in our point of view. That we have some specialized set of knowledge worth sharing. And some of us use it as a way of expressing our creativity, or our angst and anger at the world.

I know bloggers that share knowledge of their industry that's invaluable to their readers. There's a fellow here in Boulder (Brad Feld at www.feld.com) who's a Venture Capitalist and who writes about the VC world, and his life in general, regularly. The knowledge he imparts, at least to a specific audience, is literally invaluable. He also shares some of his passions. He is a marathon runner and is running in the Boston Marathon this year. He was invited to do this because of charity work he did for an associated to the BM charity, and, well, he's a marathoner.

I know he was very happy to have this opportunity (not everyone get's to run that marathon) but when he blogged about it, one of his readers sent a scathing letter belittling his 'buying his way in' to this rather elite runners event. He posted some of it (with a thoughtful and measured reply). What this person wrote was more than hurtful. It was bordering on vicious.

By his reply it was obvious that he was taken aback. This was a special event for him. Something he'd worked toward (in ways he's particularly gifted at) and rewarded for. And he shared that goodness with his readers only to be lambasted and ridiculed.

Many would hang up the blog after something like that. He, of course, took it in stride, but it had to hurt.

We share our experiences and, in some ways, we teach using blogs. We teach about things we've learned in live. We impart knowledge and experiences. And we're, often, rewarded by our readers with notes of thanks and encouragement. But we pay a price as well. We open ourselves up to attack from people we often don't even know (but who feel they know us because they read our blogs regularly, and take a little tiny piece of our minds with them).

When someone like Brad who's blogging truly adds back to the world has something like this happen, you have to wonder if the price is worth it.

In a limited way, I suppose it's a little like becoming a celebrity to a very specific audience. He has several thousand regular readers who know him pretty intimately through his blog. Many, I'm sure, feel he's their 'friend'. It really is in a (very small) way like being a movie star. People feel they can say things to you (because of what, to them, is intimate familiarity) they would never say to someone they'd never met before.

As with most things, it's a two edged sword. The good (kudo's encouragement and thanks for your insights and observations) countered by the unbalanced and irrational attacks of someone who, I would guess, couldn't get into the Boston Marathon and was pissed off Brad did, so attacked. Hard.

It does make you wonder though. It is worth it? Maybe it's a 'that's life' thing, but it never ceases to amaze me how people can take the good someone does and turn it into pain.

I doubt it will change Brad's blogging much. But I would bet it'll change what he writes about to some degree. And I'd also bet that he'll think more about what he puts in his blog and the reaction they may or may not evoke (at least for awhile).

The personal economics of this? You’d have to ask Brad, but there’s most definitely a cost.

The Non Blogging Lifestyle

I'm beginning to wonder if blogging is really such a good idea.

I know that transparency is considered good in all things web. But, is it such a good thing regarding your own personal view of the world? We are tracked, categorized and pchyographed every moment we're on the web. Ever clean your cookies out? Notice how, no matter how often you do this, there's always more? More tracking. More 'where's he been, what's he doing' all the time.

And do our friends and family really need to know how pissed/sad/lonely/regretful/happy/satisfied/enter adjective we are at any given moment?

Sometimes I think it might be better if we just live our lives and not spend so much time analyzing, comparing and obsessing over things that, in the long run, just don't matter.

Think I’ll go do some living now. ;-)

Good podcasting industry overview

Every so often, a really good overview article comes out on what we're doing over at ClickCaster (i.e. podcasting).

This one:

http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=14457_0_11_0_C

(or click on the title of this blog) is one of the best we've seen in awhile. Yes, ClickCaster is mentioned (a few times) but he's got a great overview of the industry in general, and all of the significant players.

It's from Always On. As they say:

"AlwaysOn's goal is to keep its global members in front of the most powerful players in technology, media and entertainment in an innovative blogging and social networking environment."

Worth a read if you're interesting in the wild wooley world of podcasting.

The Unit- Good TV Show, Better Propoganda

Ever watch The Unit TV show?

Well done. Entertaining. Good scripts. Lot's of action. Depth of charactor development. Balanced view of military life. Traditional 'American' value content. Bombs, guns, good guys, bad guys for the men. Family, realtionships, community and 'stand by your man' for the women. A bit simplistic, but a very watchable and pretty entertaining TV show.

And a Bush Administration dream.

The premise: An elite army unit that reports only the President of the United States. It goes where it's told to go. Does whatever it's told to do. Ignores all laws (operating inside 'enemy' lines or US borders, using whatever means necessary to protect our country, legal or illegal). The wives (about 30% of the on air time/dialog) is all about supporting the guys. Sticking together. Making it work. Sucking it up and taking it cause, hey, they're holding the line for all of us.

You know, I don't even disagree with this. There ARE forces out to get us. I'm alot more careful about travel out of the US now than I was before 9/11 and the Iraqi war. Amercia is 'on top' and the top dog is always targeted by the rest of the dogs. Ask Bill Gates.

But, I've got t ask, is a TV show about an elite group of Army operatives particularly adept at a (very) wide range of destruction (which admitely always ends in 'good things' like hostages being freed, bad guys planning mass destruction being cut down and other horrible things being stopped dead in it's tracks) a good thing to have running around without any kind of check or balance?

When a group of people, empowered by the single most powerful person in the world, have the power to act 'on the spot' as judge, jury and executioner. and you're spoon fed how good this is and how much we need this kind of protection and all the great things that come from it on prime time TV.. a medium that tends to seep into your brain making things seem ok that are, well, really not ok.. is that good?

I gotta wonder.

Shows like this have just got to be making our current government, with it's penchant for listening in on citizens on a surprisingly massive scale and it's lawyers saying that, regardless of what the law says, the office of The President will do whatever it decides is right to do what it feels is necessary to protect Amercia.

I like that protect Amercia thing. That's good. But I really don't like that a powerful branch of the goverment, some would say the most powerful, feels it doesn't have to obey laws passed by the legal representatives of it's people.

And, yea, The Unit, in it's own kinda sneaky highly entertaining way, helps the Bush Administration make it ok in the public's mind that ignoring the law, it's own law, is OK.

Dan the Man

I just spent a couple of hours having lunch with Dan Burgin (you can click on the title of this entry and be taken to his blog profile).

It's always great when you meet someone new that's a sort of 'kindrid spirit'. In our day to day interactions, it's rare to find someone that you really understand and get a sense that they understand you. Much of it, of course, comes from shared experiences and cultural contextual cues (when I say: KBFR, he knows: Oh yea.. Boulder's pirate radio station.. bunch of people doing underground radio from a van, ran for years, best radio in town..etc. etc.).

I've never met Dan before. I discovered him by doing a search via BlogPulse (www.blogpulse.com) on ClickCaster and found a post he'd written that was critical of podcasting based on an article he'd read about ClickCaster. I felt compelled to write a response comment on his blog. He followed up with an email to me thanking me for the comment and inviting me to lunch.

If I'd gone with initial impressions (i.e. the critical blog post about what I do every waking hour) it's likely I would have had a less than generous opinion of him. But by opening a conversation and then meeting in person, instead, I now have a new friend. And I had an opportunity to meet a really interesting person (his professional life has ranged from being a startup CTO to a professional opera (tenor) singer!).

So, I think more of this is in order. Making the time to meet with interesting people who may (or may not) agree with you, but are deep and wide in experience and views. Best couple of hours sitting and just talking with someone who started out a stranger and ended as a friend I've ever had.