Well I’m still very much under the weather.. but wanted to blog something.. mainly just for the purposes of blogging something… but its hard when I’m feeling this weak. Blogging for me is often about focusing on something so tightly that eventually you have this kind of breakthrough moment.. where something interesting pops through.. or at least that’s how I’m conceptualizing it.. in practice it might be different from that but…

My head is full of madness as I right.. so much stuff flying around that I want to share.. stuff from podcamp, pre podcamp, even post podcamp.. seems I’ve been so busy meeting people, learning things, having random adventures..  just with little to no time to out put much of anything.

Ok.. lets focus Matt.. .how about..

Matt Gets a new iPhone?

This is my first cell phone.. first one I’ve owned..  never mind a smart phone….

If you’re a social media type.. having a smart phone of some sort is a real game changer.. or that’s what I’m learning… Just being able to email from where ever.. twitter from where ever.. always being connected.. it really changes your perception. And its brought my to think about life streaming again.

Life Streaming

Terminology is.. fuzzy.. but basically life streaming is like.. you’re living.. and the stream just goes on.. like having a web cam attached to your forehead as you ago about your daily living..  I’m not much of a consumer of this sorta media.. I sorta wonder why the hell I’d want to follow around someone’s forehead as they live there lives.. but, that’s not to say I don’t see amazing possibilities here.

Social Media / New Media.. you must understand.. in this world there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s like.. predefined boxes… “this is a podcast,” “this is a blog,” “this is a wikki,” these are known quantities..  but what’s real is not something that’s confined to a box.. boxes are conceptual frameworks that allow us to be lazy.. or perhaps efficient.. a method of cognitive compression, if you will.. or “optimization” as we say in the biz…

But you’d do well to hold your horses… because one of the most awesome things about social media / new media is that it is anything but a known quantity. If you seek to be a practitioner of any merit.. my advice to you is to look for the potential in the landscape.. where who you is, and where it is, somehow overlaps: go there, do that thing.

I used to dream of doing life streams when I was a little kid… No, seriously, I did!

A few latter:

Life streaming presents a number interesting aesthetic issues… by aesthetic I mean “philosophy of art.” Broadly I’d say you have the line between realism and formalism.. realism being that which brings us closest to.. shall we call it “empirical reality?” Formalism is.. something that is the opposite of that.. calling our attention to the medium its self.. it is a sorta different sorta reality that it brings us to.. perhaps a surreal reality? Surreal reality might be linked to subjective reality.. the object as a pose to the subject.. “real reality” is after all both subject and object.. both subjective and objective.. Life streaming gets rid of time compression.. and thus brings us closer to objective reality.. in interesting ways.

In my own work there is always a dialog between realism and formalism.. I generally prefer formalism.. the truths I want to express are often best expressed in what one might consider surreal manners..

In any event.. while all of this sorta philosophical mumbo jumbo has its place in a critical analysis of the matter.. and while I think we ought to be thinking of such things.. it’s a long way from this to the pragmatic analysis..

The Pragmatic Analysis

What is it that you want to do? I suppose what I’m looking at is the subject of “story telling.” Story telling.. in the live stream.. how does one go about that?

A few latter

The answer that floats through my mind is a complex one.. One that’s frankly too complex for this blog entry.. particularly given how sick and weak I’m feeling… and lets just face it.. its mostly presumptive stuff given that I haven’t actually spent too much time following any live streams.. never mind making them.

A few latter still 

But.. as this line goes.. one can start one’s thinking with what’s already been done / is out there.. or by sorta thinking about the possibilities.. and the structure of the medium.

In social media we have a range of communication formats that range from.. roughly speaking.. the synchronous to the asynchronous..  What are the implications of any point in that range?

Obvious stuff

•  Synchronous / live stuff.. it is difficult to have the same sorta production values as what you would have for stuff on the opposite extreme.. time / energy / money put in, per moment, of communications.. One can develop strategies for dealing with this sorta thing…. but.. 
• The more live / synchronous you go, the less control you generally have
• The more live / synchronous you go.. probably.. the more the context of what your doing is important. 

A few latter:

Some of these points strike my as somewhat dubious… at least from a serious philosophical perspective. Another thing to think about is that we are talking about “social media” which is to say it’s social.. or at the very least interactive… So the live stream is.. not really a one way affair..  necessarily. What this means is that an understanding of pscyho-social dynamics is helpful in approaching the medium..  The approach most of the successful folks in social media.. at least the ones I know.. seem to take is something like a game theory esk solution..  What game strategy would be most successful? If you’re dealing with a “merit based social hierarchy” which.. as it turns out.. is to say a “female social hierarchy” then.. status bares a relationship to your contribution to the collective..  

So the place to start is to ask your self “what has thou to contribute?” There is a sort of “invisible market place” which.. in a rather supply and demand esk way.. influences the value of various sorts of contributions.. What drives this market place is the various challenges folks are dealing with. (Chris Brogan has a recent interesting post on “content marketing” and the future of marketing, that supports this claim.)

An anarchical institutional theory of value? 

Each of us is a unique individual.. with unique qualities / virtues as well as vices.. what constitutes virtue or vice has to do with this ecosystem.. how the “crowds wisdom” defines you, so to speak. So.. for this reason.. I think it helps if you get in there and play.. before you really develop a serious hard lined sorta strategy.. or to put it another way.. always experiment with an eye open for magical possibilities.

Now listen.. I know this sounds a little creepy.. this notion that the crowd shalt define you.. for the artist’s in the audience, it’s a bit like Arthur Danto’s institutional theory of art.. accept not quite so exclusive.. For you who feel uncomfortable with this notion.. I understand.. and for you I ask you to hold on till such time that I can give this notion more attention.. at which point I’d imagine it would become a good deal less creepy.. for now I ask simply that you indulge me this one.

So there’s this kind of interrelationship between who you is, what the collective is, and this sorta dialectical relationship inside of which you evolve… and its somewhere in here that you build your personal brand..  

Next day sometime:

Well, hmm.. lets see.. so I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a certain sorta strategic subtext to the life stream..  That might not be the best way of putting it but.. Well I guess I should just post this and return to the subject latter.. seems like I never really got to anything too interesting here.

[Editor’s note: It turns out that “The Dr”. Has been hanging out with Carl Sullivan.. somewhere in rock port.. and via a secret under ground army (yes some people in the government know about this, but you know how conspiracy’s go) message got back to Matt, and it was Matt’s Job to publish this report… This accounts for the madness of it all ] 

First a video  

Ok, did you happen to catch that? I mean the symbolic significance, it didn’t get past you did it? Yes indeed-e, the fellow for whom the term “cool-aid” comes from.. more or less… he would seem to be… *gasp* making some sorta social media thing. I mean is he not talking about social media? Danger will Robenson.. how could this be?

Ok… Ok… Ok, dig it.. I’m not a bid Dead head, or anything like that.. and I’m not someone who ever made a life style out of LSD… so don’t chew be thinking I’m coming at you from quite that angle! Lets curve, and swerve.. around a bit.. so I can speak to you about what it tis… 

Yes, Beware that Cool-Aid! 

Well.. it’s not that there’s anything wrong with cool-aid per-say.. the question has more to do with from where the cool-aid came.. something to do with the brewing.. a kind of DNA like imprinting…I’m now given to calling myself a social media philosopher.. that seems like the best kind of language.. at least of what I’ve found thus far, to talking about where I is a come-in from..

Err.. perhaps I should shift my manner of speaking.. so that my tonality might not confuse.. the some..I have developed a systematic, you might say schematic, of the underlying dynamics which influence the evolution of social media. That’s probably not saying quite strong enough.. We aren’t talking about influence, we are talking about “is.” Another words.. I’ve cracked the code.

As near as I can tell.. nobody’s cracked the code yet.. but much like Darwin, I’m not actually talking about it too much.

[Editors note: The Dr.” is getting a little esoteric on your but-ox, Darwin worked out his theory of Evolution long before he actually published it.. he just sorta sat on it for years.] 

[Note to self: Thy readers proll-e think I’m nuts now.] 

Ok.. lets scoot-a-dew on over to some of this here top secret schematical stuff..  

[Note to self: I should probably make people buy ticks before I show them into my top secret Hanger 18 type laboratory.. well as long as the don’t spot my top secret world domination plot, I’m sure I’ll be ok]

Um.. so what I’m trying to get at is.. the DNA… hmm… did I mention information was a virus?   

Take it Away Laurie

So language.. that’s a way of encoding information, isn’t it? So is it language or information that’s the true virus? Language.. at best can point to the truth.. its always somehow removed from the actual reality.. can only take you part way there.. This would be a kind of Kantian thang.. 

So.. When I’m talking about cool-aid, I’m not actually talking about reality it’s self.. I’m talking about something to do with something that can influence our understanding of reality. The reality, in my view.. and the cool aid.. there’s some overlapping truth..  here…

[Editor’s note: Word in the underground was there was some king a crazy banging going on in that there cell block.. just after we lost the transmission, so you’re going to have to make of this what you will.] 

Yeah.. well I am, I’m just not posting quite enough. *sigh* I embark on these huge posts.. never to finish… And mostly they are probably too long to read anyway. So, how about a little update?

1.  I got the liquid mix 16
2. The New Metal is going amazingly well.. though perhaps not fast enough

There’s a lot one could say about these things.. and indeed I do say them.. in those un-posted drafts… and perhaps I say more then one should ever say.. .just so damn long. How will I ever break this habit?

I’ve also discovered some interesting connections with what I’m trying to do musically and the collective consciousness of our times (pretty groovy, ha?)

So be for warned.. mass writing will likely follow!

Oh, in other news.. Podcamp Boston is just around the corner.. so there’s some chance I might try and revamp my website a little.. for the occasion.. so stay tuned for that, ha?

Ok, I’m out. 

Ok.. so… according to my stats.. when I was blogging like every day.. sustained for.. however long I sustained it, my stats doubled…. so there is a pragmatic value in at least pumping something out every day.. which.. is pretty well known… but um.. it’s striking to see.. so I’m going to try and do that, put out something at least every day.

You know.. I have this habit of writing sorta long entries.. which.. for various reasons isn’t the greatest blog strategy thing.. I suppose if I’m forced to blog every day.. maybe what happens is I don’t feel the same need for the long stuff..

Still.. the long stuff is so me.. the long kind of think pieces, I guess.. .

Latter that night:

Into the Sound Studio Stuff

I’m debating more studio tools things.. kind of an old story that I’ve probably blogged about too much as it is.. but.. its on my mind, and talking about it sometimes helps me get think it through, so here goes:

I’m looking at Liquid Mix 16.. which is half the power.. plus a little less hardware interface / controller then the full Liquid Mix..  The full is selling for $800 these days, and the 16 is at $500… last I checked… and my thinking is sorta evolving.

This is software that runs on a processor that is a part of what you’re buying when you buy these packages. Basically.. if you’re a sound engineer on a budget.. this is an awesome deal as it puts really good quality emulations of classic EQs and Compressors at your finger tips…. for way less then it feels like these things should cost..

As a point of reference… Waves makes a native software emulation (meaning it runs on your computer’s processor) of the EQ and Compression found on SSL consoles.. the list price for which is a grand, and I think they’re now selling for a little over $700. The SSL console EQs and Compressors are highly prized items…  with the exception of dealing with short attack times.. what I’ve hears is the emulation in Liquid Mix is better then what you get in the Waves bundle.. plus you get a boat load of other highly sought after EQs and Compressors and what not..

Ok.. so here’s the deal with 16… You get 16 instances.. an instance counts as being able to apply both the EQ and the Compressor to one mono channel in your mix.. as a plug-in. If your dealing with stereo that number drops down to 8. This is at a 44.1 kHz sample rate.. and it might even include 48 KHz. Without explaining digital audio, 44.1 kHz is the sample rate found on CDs.. It is now considered standard.. when doing music production, to be working at substantially higher sample rates… I wonder bother to bore you with the explanations why.. I’ll just go so far as to explain this much.. . Now the deal is.. as soon as you jump the sample rate up.. with Liquid Mix.. your instant count cuts in half… and if you go really high, a quarter.

So I’m thinking.. $500 for 4 stereo instances (each stereo instance counts as 2 mono instances) versus $800 for 8..  perhaps I should go with 8? There is an expansion card.. I wanna say it’s running at around $250.. that will give you your full instant count at the higher sample rates… In any event, you can see why I’d be leaning for the full version.

But now I’m starting to contemplate this from a different angel. For starters there’s the question of what I need / what is optimal.. which is a difficult to answer question. First off how many channels do I have running in an average mix anyway? The answer is probably less then 8… although that number reflects working on a G4.. which was very limited in how many instruments I could get going at once anyway…  So in point of fact we don’t actually know how many instruments I’d be using when I’m in a situation where I basically don’t have limits…

The second question is how many instances of EQ / Compression do I use? The primary reasons for EQ and compression is.. exerting control over the dynamics of your mix, and carving out frequency spaces for the individual components of your mix. The process I have always used, and I’m sure this will sound crazy to many a sound engineer… is one where I don’t actually use any EQ or Compression at all!

That said.. we have about 3 things going on that are changing.

1.  As the number of channels / instruments in your mix expands.. the need to exert control over the frequency space, at least, goes up… Thus if I do start dealing with higher track counts the need for EQ and compression go up.
2. Besides one’s mind and ears, EQ and the compressor are the most important tools to the mix engineer.. so if I want to really master art and science of mixing.. well, I’m gong to need to start using more of this.
3. I’m getting into a Heavy Metal production thing.. which is a style of music that needs EQ and Compression in a way that the music I was doing previously didn’t.

So.. Basically how many instances of EQ and Compression we would need is an open question at this point. That said.. between what is currently a part of my studio tool kit, and what I’m imagining will soon be a part of my tool kit.. there are other nice EQs… and perhaps even nice compressors… so, running out of instances doesn’t necessarily have to be a big problem. 

When I think about where I’m likely to go with the metal I see a few possibilities:

I could treat my instruments as mono instruments.. guitars and bass and vocals.. The guitars would no doubt be multi tracked.. meaning there would be many component tracks of each guitars, each wanting its own EQ… But we are still probably only talking about around 8 instances.. maybe add 2 for the stereo buss.. 2 for the drums.. another for the bass.. lets say 4 for the vocals.. and assuming I’m working at 44.1 kHz… I’m only ok at only 16 instances.  

So clearly there are trade offs.. but it also seems like those trade offs might not always be too significant… and when I then stop to think about what I could do with $400, the price difference between the full version and the 16… It becomes clear that if I were to work with smaller sample rates.. perhaps a limited number of instruments…  I’d have a better studio.  

Next day sometime: 

There are problems with Liquid mix out side of the issue of instance counts.. one of the bigger ones is latency. Latency is the time gap between when you play a sound into your computer and you hear it played back. Latency is a big issue… the way you work with Liquid Mix is.. via your DAW, via production.. in a way where latency no long matters.. You don’t use it in a live setting. I have some mind to work at being a live sound engineer… a context inside of which liquid mix is worthless.. and there are many contexts inside of which I would want an EQ or compressor that didn’t suffer from latency issues.

In the broader mix of my sound work at this moment.. these kinds of applications are at a minimum.. but there is a huge revolution going on in my sound work.. and we don’t really know what its going to look like at the end of the day. 

The Road Map

I have a vague sorta schematic of ideas.. which.. may or may not be indicative of what things will look like at the end of the day.. the trouble is.. for most of these ideas.. the cost of the technology is prohibitive.  Lets look at some of those ideas… mind you we are not to take them too seriously.. in terms of what they are.. but more if we can see these ideas as manifestations of thoughts in one moment of time.. that are more expressive of a trajectory then what they are at the momment… which is a little hard to explain but.. 

• Live sound engineer: I know a reasonable amount about the mix engineering field.. even if most of that is directed at making records.. the task of bringing those to bare into the live context.. at least to get started, its not so bad. The business reasons for being interested in this are multi fold: Networking inside of the local music scene.. I have packages I could offer bands.. from web design, recording mix engineering, some kind of a studio, photography..  I could do your live mix, and also a record based off that live mix.. social media marketing… video production.. internet and social media strategy more generally… and the list probably goes on.
• Electronic Music type DJ: There’s always been the challenge of.. well how making music live fits into how the music business usually works.. doing the live DJ thing is certainly one approach to trying to solve this problem. As with the live sound engineer stuff.. what we need here is a lap top plus a few other software odds and ends. For DJing.. it might make sense to look at hardware controllers.. the digital equivalent to turn tables..
• Lets become a street Musician: This is sorta equivalent to the DJ shtick.. again we need a laptop.. some sorta PA system / amp thing that makes sense for this context.. perhaps a controller.. grab the guitar, midi food controller.. You could sell your CD, hand out free postcards / stickers that relate to your web presence.. not to mention the free music from that.. You could do live video streaming on the internet of these performances.. etc.
• Lets put together a Band: I suppose I really just need a real guitar amp, right?

I’m going to cut this short.. as this is really something that, to really go into.. it would take a whole other blog entry, at least.. there’s more stuff to list.. but this gives us a broad brush stroke outline of some of where we might be going. It’s enough to bring back to the subject of what sorta gear we ought to be looking at. 

Verdicts, I think, where all this leaves us is..

Going with the Liquid Mix 16.. might very well be the best choice. There’s a fairly cheap bundle of effects I’m looking at that runs at $200 that offers various eqs, compressors, and other odds and ends of this sort.. which I think could really offer some good stuff to my mixes for not a lot of money… this would then leave another $200 for other stuff.. I’m thinking digital delays and reverbs.

 Of course there’s another part of my brain that’s thinking Max/MSP/Jitter Check out this DIY controller someone mad… working with said software.   

I haven’t talked too much about the Max/MSP/Jitter thing in this blog yet. It’s a bundle that costs $700… for electronic music.. its on the geek out side… But it’s also the land of the hard core serious electronic music stuff.. this is where the serious cutting of the edge happens, right? Perhaps this and CSound? 

Basically.. this bundle is sorta equivalent to Native Instruments Reaktor… with certain pros and cons…. of which I don’t know as much as I’d like. My understanding is the Max/MSP/Jitter this is better on your processors.. also.. Jitter is a program that does very interesting things with video.. in an interactive way.. which is probably the only solution that makes sense for certain video ideas I’ve been playing with.

So yeah.. those are some thoughts

Well we hope anyway, right?

I have a ton of entries in draft form, waiting to be published, and at the moment I’m thinking of just.. going through them and kinda editing them.. and posting them more or less as is… The reason being is that they document a thought process that lead me to this point.. The point that I’m at now.. and I’d just like them to be on here…

I have such a bad habit of writing sooo much that I never post….. *sigh.*

I’m still feeling critical of how I blog.. I’m hoping that by just pushing forward, eventually, things will kind of click for me.. and I’ll get past my self criticisms. 

My self criticism is.. is really from a kind of social media / blog strategy perspective. I’m not sure if how I’m feeling, in relationship to.. the shticks of folks who talk about social media / blog strategy… What I mean is I have a certain sorta reaction to these fellows.. and I’m not sure how I feel about my reaction.

Of course.. there’s really only one possible reaction to all this: 

Frank Sinatra, believe it or not, was apparently a fan of this version of his song.

The extent to which I’m not sure of this reaction… well I do feel the need to wrestle with this stuff a lot more, I suppose. 

In slightly other news I got a link on a blog of one of my heros.. Thomas Barnett.  He posted links to blog posts who mentioned him..

Barnett has been a hero from my day’s as a C-Span addict…. It was just one of those mind bending moments for me.. I think that and a presentation by David Weinberger where the two big ones of that time period.. These were presentations that… It’s a little hard to explain this really.. It was a little bit like hanging out with aliens in a sense..

I’ve been having a rough time blogging much of anything lately.. principle because my computer keeps on crashing…. resulting in my loosing whatever it was I was blogging about.. So today I guess we’ll blog somewhat randomly.. and this will be our little chance to catch up a little.

First off there’s the blog strategy stuff.. which in this case amounts to the “why you should bother reading this” stuff. Good question.. I must say I’m an unreliable narrator in this department.. and.. Well.. I’m really just trying to work all this stuff out..

Generally speaking.. I think.. hmm.. I think this blog could have value to.. a kind of wide variety of types. When I write on any subject, no matter how deep I go.. how much I geek out.. or.. just whatever.. I do my best to try and make it so.. if you didn’t know anything about what I was talking about.. you could still follow along.. you could still be a part of the conversation.. And I try to do this in such a way that.. it doesn’t cause me to have to water stuff down.. or simplify things too too much.. That is the person who’s the expert on the subject wouldn’t be bored… Hell, the expert is probably laughing at how poorly I’m treating the subject.

The philosophy of this is.. maybe kind of strange. See, I believe that I can basically do anything.. if I just take the time to learn how to do it: to cultivate within myself whatever aptitudes or capacities are required for the task at hand. My feeling is that we are all capable of this.. but I think…

Well I think we have these notions of Identity inside of which we say “I’m good at this” and “I suck at that,” and somehow we believe that’s the last word on the subject.. as if the reality to that thought wasn’t it’s self a kind of artifice of our own creation… an expression of a static moment that lacks the ability to see the potential trajectory of.. well I suppose the moment.. through space and time, to put it a certain sorta way.

So.. you know.. one of the things that I think is sorta special about me.. is that I’ve transcended that kind of thing.. and that’s something you pick up fast if you follow this blog for any period of time.. that I’ll jump from subject to subject.. where the breadth and depth covered is.. well it might be one of the most impressive things about this blog… so I guess I’m a kind of an exemplar of the idea.. but the thing is.. I think we can all be such exemplars in our own way.. and perhaps we even are but simply fail to recognize it.

Beyond this I think we are all experts in some areas and novices in others…. and there is more area that we are novices in then we are experts in. Frankly, I don’t even really think of my self as an expert in much of anything I write on.. in all of them I’m struggling to climb the mountain.. to be a master of the subject.. I don’t want to be the jack of all trades, master of none.. I want to be the master of all! (I know, I have issues)

I think, on some level, some place in us.. I think we all kind would like that.. but generally don’t have the opportunity. Perhaps we simply don’t know where to begin, or perhaps didn’t even know such a thing was possible at all… or even more likely.. we probably have bigger fish to fry… or what I mean is life has given us other things to concern our selves with.

In any event.. what I figure is I can kind of take you on a little ride.. and you can kind of peer over my shoulder.. to see from a vantage point where you can benefit from whatever understanding I’ve managed to gain from my climb… and perhaps in some way I can cast the light on how one can do this sorta thing.

So that’s kind of one dimension to my thinking about what this blog is.. and why someone might find value in it.

Another dimension is.. I might be blogging on subjects that you might want to learn something about.. and maybe I can help you learn about that stuff. Hell, maybe we can climb together? (What I’d give for a little comradery on with this sorta thing).

Now there are also times where I talk about things from a very personal perspective… You could maybe even argue I’m always doing that. At the very least you could say “now this blogger does not have a detached objective point of view to his narratives.”

Well.. I’ll tell you what.. I think objectivity is in large measure illusory. Even if we take a position of believing in objectivity.. ultimately what you want to do is assimilate that objective stuff into your own thing.. in which case it’s not going to be so objective anymore..

Err, I think I’m doing a crappy job explaining this one.. What I mean is you want to assimilate knowledge, synthesize it with what you already got.. by giving you this stuff in the context of a personal narrative you’re not experiencing it as if it where in a vacume.. further I think there is something known as ’subjective knowledge,’ which for complex reasons isn’t terribly valued today.. but I think there’s something to be gained from it.. particularly when your getting this stuff in that context.

If only I was explaining this stuff better!

The final thing I want to say.. on this dimension of the story is.. there is a kind of personal and collective level to all our stories.. there is a dimension to our suffering that is a universal suffering.. It is a suffering of.. well what is grave and constant in the human experience.. to sorta echo Joseph Campbell.. and even if I’ve gone off in some direction where I don’t have the faintest idea of what value it could have to you…. well what the hell, I’m not really the judge of that anyway, am I?

Beyond all this.. I imagine that some of what I have to say could be of value to you.. and some less so…

Ok.. so I think that more or less covers it? I mean it covers my rational… how I rationalize this blog in relationship to.. blog strategy stuff.. The whole.. know you’re community.. that what you blog about ought to be for that community.. what is it that they want?

But I’ll tell you what.. you tell me what you want.. cause I haven’t the faintest idea.. I’d love to help yeah.. . just give a little yelp in the comments every now and then.. or contact me one way or another.. If this was the sorta blog that had lots of comments.. well.. that surely would help… And I suppose that’s one metric that tells me I’m not doing the greatest job with this blog… but I also know that there’s, generally speaking.. not a high percentage of blog readers who actually comment.. Further more, different blogs elicit different behaviors in readers in relationship to comments..

I have a friend.. lol, he’s kinda crazy.. and I suppose that’s one of the things I love about him… He’s a rather successful fellow.. in the world of PR.. and he does have a hand full of personal blogs.. one of which is a porn blog.. His porn blog has lots and lots of readers.. but guess what? Nearly no one comments..

So.. I guess the note is.. what do you think? I mean do you have any sense of who this blog might be for? Do you think I’m self dilluding in my rational? I don’t know…

Long time readers… if I ever posted that post I meant to post.. will know all about “Bad Matt.” Bad Matt, as you might well imagine, is an evil bastard! What is the unspeakable evil that Matt is giving to partaking in? Well Matt has been known to spend large sums of money on books, music, DVDs and.. of course.. computer and studio related stuff. And today my fine friends… bad matt has struck again!

That’s right..  well you see it all started when I went to a little Boston Media Maker tech thing, MediaTechTonic. This was a little workshop sorta thing, led by David Tames, that explored WordPress. WordPress is a “blog engine” that’s very popular… In the circles I run in, it is the most popular. Indeed my podcasts, and this blog, run on WordPress. A long standing problem I’ve had is not really knowing how to do “theme design.” Theme design is.. well its like web design with a content management system… so you want to know  your xhtml, css, dom, and what have you.. and then you probably would like to know a little php… and um.. a bit about how WordPress works. 

Theme design has proven, at least for me, to be a major pain in the butt.. in part because I’ve had such a difficult time finding one source of information that sorta pulls it all together. David’s presentation..  gave an overview of some of the issues..  and was enough to really open my eye’s to the power of WordPress. Further, though he didn’t totally recommend it.. he sorta did: WordPress for Dummies.. which is so far the only good source I’ve found that brings all that together in one place.

Next Day:

So of course on my trip to the book store.. I made my way over to the WordPress for Dummies.. but…  Well the badness of bad Matt was such that I didn’t even stop there! Oh no, I went over to the music section! In the music section I found my copy of “The Indie Bible.”

If you’re an independent music person, the Indie Bible is a must have.. It’s basically a giant directory of resources for the independent sound person. It lists, as a for instance, radio stations, podcasts, periodicals, and what not.. that will play / review the work of independent sound people… and it does this by genera and location…

I suppose its worth saying something about where I’m at as it relates to this? As we speak the main thing I’m working on.. if I’m working on anything at all.. It’s at least the preamble to a project of some sort.. that I’d actually ask people to spend there hard earned money on… and of course I don’t know what the project will look like.. even what it will be actually… just that this is roughly my goal..  (which is not to say there aren’t a zillion ideas, much of which can be found scattered around this blog)

To be successful in the commercial aspects of this project… It would make a hell of a lot of sense if I did something to promote the works I’m currently giving away for free. This way.. you can just go check it out you’re self, and if you dig it, maybe you’d be interested in the project I’m now embarked on. So.. if I were able to sorta run a publicity type campaign while I’m working on what I have to work on.. to sorta get the word out.. then I could potentially build a fan base for the upcoming projects product cycle. So that’s the thinking anyway.

If you’d like to check out some of my music you can, of course, go to mattsearles.com/music where you can find 2CDs worth of free music. 

I wanted to give an update on the podcasting adventures.. just in case anyone’s interested.

I have 2 podcasts… which I update pretty infrequently these days..  

The first one to note is the Asymmetric Biz Cult Podcast… For this one I team up with Mark Hanser, and Evan Pew.. where we talk about “the new asymmetric business of culture creation.”  Umm.. this is a somewhat complex subject.. but basically it’s about how modern technology is changing business, and what this means for artists.. or at least that’s sorta what it aims to be. Beyond this I have my own personal take on convergence.. a kind of complex evolving philosophy.. which I regard as having some value.. I think in someways I have a very unique take on what’s going on in these departments.. and if I can ever get the podcast so that its “actually good,” it may just become a must listen.

I think the Asymmetric Biz Cult podcast has faded for a few reasons.. One of which is just the events in our lives.. my mom died, Evan had a baby, and Marks life has grown its own complications. The other reason, I think, is because I’ve been obsessed with this area for a few years now.. and Mark and Evan are sorta new to this stuff to such an extent that.. that I don’t know if they’ve even known quite how they could contribute..

The Matt Searles podcast is another matter. Again, loosing my mom has turned my life upside down in a lot of ways.. and I’m still just sorta struggling to maintain sanity in the wake of it…

My mom’s passing, and the sorta of shifting realities that go along with that.. have really put me in a position where, at least for a little while, I can focus on what I think I need to be focusing on.. in a way I haven’t been able to do for years.. This includes upgrading my studio.. and putting together a tool set that is appropriate for what it is I see myself as all about.

There’s been some real questions for me.. as to what the hell this blog, and the podcast, ought to be about. I think if you want to be successful, and of course it depends on your definition of success, you can’t think of your blog or podcast as being about you.. it’s about your readers / listeners / community. Of course I’m not at a stage where I have an active community.. so its hard to know what a community would want.. so if you have any wants.. do communicate them to me! 

But the point is, I feel like I’m a little to focused on me. I suppose I’m an artist, and my art is what I tend to spend my time thinking about..  and I’m basically just blogging about whatever might be on my mind on any given day.. which, you know, is fine.. but…

Next day sometime:

Well I guess my point is that I want to create a blog / podcast / whatever.. that has value. It’s an odd sorta thing though..  and maybe I’m just speaking from the vantage point of my own anxieties.. It’s almost as if there were certain “strategic considerations” that I’m.. aquatinted with to one level or another.. that have to do with how you gain some success in social media.. but… you know, you gotta be you.. and who I am is in someways antithetical to the strategic stuff.. 

I suppose, in someways, this is the point I mean to get to, and even why I’m here.. in this space. It’s this feeling that we need to harmonize our own internal nature with the external demands of life.. That this is important for our mental health.. and social media might be a way of going about this.. and certainly from the point of view of the artist and the arts.. what a true artist does.. you don’t start from questions of commercial viability.

Here’s the way I would describe it.. and it is perhaps somewhat radical, at least in some ways: You can literally go in any direction you like.. and if you can bring that direction to a certain state of evolution.. of maturation.. you’ll eventually get some place of value.. some place of interest.

A mass media market place has different views on this problem..  and tends to dictate, to one degree or another, what directions could be considered commercially viable, and what directions might not. I tend to believe that if you have something that’s “good art,” wether it’s commercially viable or not has more to do with how we approach the markets then it does the art its self. This might not be 100% realistic, but it’s an idea with some merit. The merit is made more true by the shifting economic realities brought about by our current technological disruptions… This is a shift who’s implications are still only faintly understood today.

This blog, I suppose, is like a journal of an artist trying to explore these new realities.. or at least these ideas of new realities.. as is the podcast. It’s the chronicles of his experience..  often in a very introspective sorta way. That onto its self is interesting, it seems to me… and gives this blog, and the podcast, some value.

Further, I think the challenges I face are not challenges unique to myself. I suppose if I’m looking to nurture a community around this blog.. around these efforts.. what would likely bring us together is the commonality of the challenges we face.

At one in the same time we have both the common and the individual: I’m at this exciting, and somewhat scary, moment.. where I have all this new technology to try and learn.. DP, Kore, Komplete, Adobe CS3, Final Cut Studio, Cinema 4D, and the list goes on… and on and on. My guess is.. when I talk about these technologies.. I’m not sure to what degree we hold these in common.. 

Well I mean I want to write in such a way that a general reader can follow me, even into the most technically challenging of subject matters.. I mean if you want to follow me in there. Sure, it’ll probably be challenging in that you’ll have to learn a good deal in order to follow me so far in there..

See, I read the collected works of Freud and Jung when I was in high school.. And it was wonderful as, in a certain way, I felt like I got to hang out with those guys.. and wrestle with there challenges. I loved that experience.. and I’d love to give you that experience.. to sorta bring you to the challenges I’m facing.. wether or not you’re an artist or not.. or wherever you might be coming from.. I mean if this is something you might find interesting.

Well anyway.. you can subscribe to the Matt Searles podcast via iTunes via clicking on this link, if you like. 

The last bit I want to talk about is the technical challenges..  I have a Zoom H4 that I usually use for podcasting.. its a portable recorder.. with which you can record right onto these SD cards.. trouble is, and I don’t know why, I’m not able to get the files of the Zoom and into my Computer.. so I’ve recorded stuff for the podcast that way, and it hasn’t wanted to work.

Secondly.. I seem to be having some trouble with Digital Performer.. which doesn’t want to export my audio… I finished another podcast episode last night.. but DP doesn’t seem to want to let it out.. 

[editors note, this was started yesterday] 

I’m not doing real good on my effort to write short blog entries today..  I’ve written parts of two really long ones.. for some reason these never seem to want to get published.. oh the pain and suffering of it all!

As we speak, I’m preparing food.. just chicken, I’m starving.. 

Today I watched some internet TV which has me thinking a little differently about what I’m doing. I’m thinking I might want to think more seriously about Qik. Qik is a website that allows you to stream video live, via a cell phone, out to the internet, where anyone could watch. Of course you need a special sort of Nokia smart phone sort of cell phone, and a special sorta internet connection.. to make it happen… but the more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking “wow, this could be cool.”

The question, of course, is how much it costs. You need a phone.. they seem to be more then $500… you need an unlimited data plan.. I have no idea how much these are going for.. Apple’s is what, $60 a month for the basic plan? So basically, I have to look at my budget and fiscal situation, and try and figure out just what my priorities ought be..  

So here’s sorta what I’m thinking: Pseudo Life Casting. What I mean is that it’s a means by which you can bring an audience into your world…….

I haven’t quite figured this all out yet.. But the way I see it is.. I’m creating a story.. between the blogs and podcasts and media work. There’s what we might consider “a total story” and then there’s “particular narrative threads.” This is perhaps terrible terminology, but bare with me.. Any particular consumer of my story may only be interested in particular threads.. For instance.. perhaps you’re interested in music production.. so only the blog entries in the music production subject of this blog are of interest to you.. you really don’t care what my cat had for lunch! But then there are other people.. perhaps friends, who might actually be interested in what my cat had for lunch… or at least they are interested in pretending to be interested…

So.. can you create a granularity… where someone can tune into a grain.. and only get that grain’s content.. and not have to suffer the rest of it? I doubt it.. or.. I’m sure there’s ways of achieving this..  but I don’t think the technological ecosystem of the moment is capable of doing this out of the box, put it that way.

It might make sense to not go a qik route.. as I think of it.  What is the meaning of Live? How important is live content? As I ask this question multiple thoughts come to me. For one thing… Live can mean user interactivity.. where you can comment on the live feed, and the person in the video can in someway react to what your saying..

Also.. imagine Live as one part of a larger whole. Lets say you’re life is the narrative. You have twitter, which is pretty close to real time.. lets call them grains of thought. You have a blog which is.. well ideally I’d like to think of it as a daily thing.. A podcast, which ideally is probably a weekly thing.. In someways, doesn’t it sorta seem like.. the closer to real time you go, the closer to the person you go?

I’m almost thinking.. forget about the audience.. in terms of thinking what might be interesting. I mean who knows, right? Lets just do our thing and see if anyone tunes into it..  Imagine you’re just constantly creating content.. almost like breathing. Would the constant flow of content, almost on it’s own, generate an audience? Sorta like.. I could type out anything here… and Google, and other search engines.. will see this text, and it’ll show up in searches.. so that it probably doesn’t even matter what I say.. if I just keep talking, an audience will develop.

Well no, not really.. who wants to read crap, right? Sure, you’ll see it, you’ll read a couple lines.. and then you’ll go “wow, this is stupid” and run away… so sure.. I can get zillions of people to take that first look, maybe.. just as an effect of creating lots of content.. but that’s not really what we want to do.. what we really want to do is to have folks who actively follow us.

I suppose we could look at these followers in terms of various segments.. There are people who might know who you are and casually follow you.. say if you connect with someone in a particular context.. they might be curious enough to sorta visit your stream…  That person is a consumer.. but you know.. not a big consumer.. Then you have someone who’s.. lets say a fan.. or better yet, we are talking about a hard core fan! The hard core fan, depending on how hard the core is.. that person is likely to consume a lot more content then the person who’s only occasionally bumping into things.

Ok.. so look at that.. Isn’t that interesting! What I mean is… the hard core and the casual consumer want different things. The way I would look at it is like this.. the casual consumer hears your music on the radio, the hard core consumer buys your CD. When you only know a band by there TV and Radio appearances.. that you happen into by chance.. versus someone who actively seeks this band out.. you have qualitatively different experiences..  When communicating with the casual consumer… you speak in sound bites, when speaking to the hard core fellow, you speak in paragraphs.

I guess my point is.. you can see why a social media strategy would want both.. and perhaps the full spectrum in between. 

In marketing, the subject of “conversion” is not insignificant.. of how to convert someone from a casual consumer, lets say, and a hard core consumer.. or even from a non consumer to a hard core consumer. 

Next day:

Good enough, lets post 

I’ve been thinking a bit about this blog, this site, projects, strategy, and blah blah blah… about where thing’s be at, and where I should like to take them…  Seems worthy of a little blogging, don’t cha think?

You know, social media.. a big part of it is “you should be your self:” Success in personal branding has something to do with authenticity. Mitch Joel talks about “the snow flake theory” in relationship to personal branding.. that we are all snow flakes, each individual, and thus we differentiate our selves via nature, as a pose to via consciouses will.. Ok, maybe Mitch doesn’t use anything like those words, but if he had my background he’d say it like that!

Yeah… so like.. I’ve been thinking about this sorta thing and thinking.. hmm.. sometimes I go into this super duper intellectual mode.. which is something I dig, to be sure..  but folks who have a different sort of insanity from my own… I think that kinda talk can produce certain digestive challenges. And it occurs to me, I have a whole lot of what we call in the biz “personality.” And that personality ain’t coming through so much… Or maybe it’s not that… maybe it’s just like.. I want to speak more freely.. or I want to do something.. I’m not even sure what it is.. It’s just that I feel it in my bones, do you know what I mean?

Anyway, I figure I need to blog more..  I’m thinking I’d like to have more blog entries.. probably shorter.. just like snippets of thoughts… Just little things. I also think there are certain “blog strategery” reasons for doing this.. 

I suppose a lot of what I’ve been doing with this blog is.. just getting my feet wet a bit. I mean I haven’t even been keeping this blog for that long.. since sometime around Boston Podcamp 2… so in so many ways I still feel the need to find my voice…

I mean.. how much of this should just be my personal voice? “And this is what I had for lunch today.” Can what a person had for lunch today be interesting? I tend to believe anything “could” be interesting.. depending where the beholder is coming from.. and I’m fascinated by consciousness.. as well as streams there of.. and I don’t mean to go so far as to talk about life casting.. but… there’s something in there of value to me.

A few latter:

So would you like to hear some thoughts about new things on the drawing boards? I’m thinking about creating some new podcasts…  The master podcast feed, for these, which would include them all, you can subscribe through iTunes by clicking here. Right now that’s a somewhat faded podcast.. But one idea I had was to have several things you subscribe to.. that would all be sorta “they come out when they come out,” which is to say producing regular content wouldn’t be on the agenda but…  One idea is to show works in progress.. as we speak I’m working on some new Reason content, and I’d love to be able to take you into the studio with me.. lets check this out.. Where I’d share these projects I’m working on.. and sorta talk about what they are all about..  

A whole lot latter:

In keeping with the notion of posting more often, and making them short, how about I post this now?