What follows is my reaction to a post by David Kusek entitled Searching for Salvation on the subject of the future of recorded music, and the problems the music industry faces today. He’s running a contest for new business models..   I wrote this in the comment section of his blog, and realized I should probably post it on my blog to.. cause I have this crazy habit of writing comments like this.

I don’t know entirely if I agree that recorded music is dead.. I think what’s dead is the old business models. I also think there’s a lot gong on in the evolution of the kind of technological ecology.. of like.. how people find new music, filters, financing, and whatever.. that needs to happen.. and once it does, the picture will shift a bit more.

I’ve been going without internet for a while now.. well.. actually I only have internet on my laptop, not my desktop.. which is all backwards… I went without any internet for about two days… and this apparently triggered a freak out online.. which is sorta mysterious.. and mystically my friend Greg PC showed up at my door to help matters… he’d never been to my door before.. and somehow the knocking at the somewhat late hour freaked me out and it took a while to regain my head.. so why not talk about this story?

It all started when I bought a certain microphone preamp.. Microphone preamps can be quite expensive.. I’ll likely make a post about this soon.. I got mine for a little less then half the list price.. well, it was used.. but Jesus, half off the list price? I would not have been able to afford this preamp other wise.. and it was a kind of preamp I REALLY wanted! So lots of excitement.. couldn’t wait to try it out.. but there was one problem..

The manual was more adamant then any manual I had ever seen.. on the importance of grounding.. which is to say.. the 3 prong plug thing.. blah blah blah.. and in the room that used to be my studio.. there was no such 3 pronged plug.. which meant.. if I wanted to play it safe.. I’d have to move the studio.. which.. was no small feat!

The biggest issue, of course, was the internet.. Version is my ISP.. it comes into my room via a drilled hole in the wall.. to this modem with wifi.. which I connected to via an ethernet cable but.. its not terribly mac friendly the way they’ve set it up.. so.. in order to ACTUALLY have wifi throughout the house.. and to actually be able to move files between computers.. via Wifi.. I can’t use there wifi..

I don’t really know what I’m doing.. so I wont go into all the gory details… but something funky was going on.. and I don’t get it.. where I couldn’t get my bass station and time capsule to get internet via the modem.. which is both why I had not internet for two days, and also why this laptop is my only internet connection.

I don’t really understand the networking thing today.. all the details..  Mac’s tend to simplify all the technical stuff.. but.. they simplify it to a point that.. if you have to go out of the simple zone.. you’re suddenly in this very disorientating world.. if you don’t know what your doing. Definitely painful!

But the good news is the studio is now mostly moved.. to the TV room.. which is sorta dramatically different, and has 2 dramatic implications.

1. Its a lot bigger.. which means I can bring parts of my studio into service which I’ve more or less had hidden away for ages… like say my 16 channel digital mixer
2. It’s a lot bigger.. which presents a different sorta acoustic situation.. the principle issue for acoustics in this situation is you don’t want the acoustics of the listening space interfering with the sound your ears are hearing.. and small spaces are notoriously hard to deal with… in the TV room.. there’s lots of space.. so.. by the time the audio bounces off a wall or something, and gets back to my ear.. it’s so low in volume.. that its not really coloring my impressions.. plus there are fairly sound absorbing surfaces in the space.. so.. I could finally make the move away from headphones to monitors.

I suppose this bears talking about. For a number of reasons it is considered a no no to mix on headphones.. but, given a choice between low end monitors and a terrible acoustic environment.. and higher end headphones.. take the headphones!!!

The jump to monitors, at least for me, is pretty mind blowing.. and yes… they are, at least in terms of price, low end monitors.. but I think they are quite nice.. as does Mr. BT.. and the guy at the store was like “yeah, if I had only this much to spend this is what I’d get.” Oh.. and not only are they relatively cheap.. but they were having a Thanksgiving weekend special deal on them!

Of course the only trouble is one of the monitors is defective.. so I have to go return it for another pair once they get them in.. hopefully tomorrow.. but.. what you find is a whole lot more detail.. you’re able to hear.

This is a somewhat odd thing.. you listen to.. well mostly I’ve been listening to the sound track of command and conquer.. which I’ve always regarded as a somewhat generic sound track.. but now that I can hear the details.. I’m actually quite impressed.. of course you can argue that they sure as hell should have made it sound better on lesser speakers.. but that’s sorta besides the point..

Anyway… yeah.. so I feel like I’m leveling up!

Howz abouts another crazed entry? Sure, why not? I hear this first paragraph is very important.. you gotz to makez it keyword rich.. but is that how you wantz to start off your blog entry? With some keyword rich action? What is this, a newspaper; where we gotta give you an overview of whatever it is I’m going to post about in the first paragraph.. and then kinda go into it a little here, a little there.. circling around.. till I’m finally allowed to deep dive? Is that how we are to do it? How it’s supposed to work? Well I mean.. whatz ifz I’z wants to do something else.. I mean.. half the time I start a post and I don’t know what the hell it is I’m going to write about it.. till I getz to it. So who knows whatz the hellz this one’s going to be about? More social media bitching perhaps?

I don’t know.. I’m in a weird mood thinking about everything… See I’ve been sick in bed for a freaking week.. and it sucks.. cause I walk around wondering what the hell happened to my momentum.. plus my life is at this weird point where we kinda don’t know what’s up.. with various things.. and.. its like the cliff hanger sustains.. so we can’t quite acclimate to to whatever the actuality turns out to be.. and we got a lot of this kinda thing to start working out.

But then I fell into this odd way of thinking… that basically.. its kinda all in my mind anyway.. or I mean.. a certain amount of it is. Or.. see it’s like.. what’s there to be anxious about, really? I’m not saying there’s not a lot.. or that there’s not a lot on my plate, and life isn’t overwhelming in reality.. and that I’m still feeling like I’m failing to live up to it all.. I’m not debating that part of it.. more the big picture anxiety over living through this and getting to some better reality.. All the feeling of..  like that will never happen… and the wondering how much of my life’s efforts might be in vane, or any of that. 

So here’s a little tip from you’re uncle Matt.. when you’re in that there valley of darkness.. this is not the time to assess such things! In the dark.. so much is in shadow.. and.. what you see in the shadow.. in all the question marks… tends to be just a projection of your mood.. and if your mood is dark.. well.. there you go. And with this comes the question of.. just what is momentum..

A couple latter:

Seems like I’m circling around a thought worthy of examination..  which is like.. about the baggage we cary with us through our life.. its effects on pathology, and the unfolding of our lives.. This feeling like.. if we could just break through it.. but somehow breaking through seems.. beyond what we are capable of.. and you wonder if you’re like some elephant that was taught he was caged.. by a giant chain around his leg.. and now it’s just a string.. but we still feel the cage.

I have found.. I absolutely can walk outside my own cage. I have.. in various ways.. and yet it is still there.. and yet, is it?

One of the things I was thinking about.. oh a month or back or so.. was the importance of interacting with lots of people.. for the sake of my sanity.. And in social media.. I discovered this by going to a bunch of tweet ups.. I have lots of social media friends.. friends I enjoy hanging out with.. having a beer with.. etc.. But now it’s looking like I might not be able to make so many tweet ups.. meet ups.. or whatever. 

The thing about hanging out with lots of different groups of people.. having lots of different types of friends is.. the way we kind of define our selves socially.. that is how our identity in part comes from this social interaction.. and Well this might sound like crazy talk.. it’s part of a theory I developed under the influence of psychedelics.. that as a part of social cohesion.. there is a kind of center point that happens when you interact with one or more person.. that.. in a certain way.. could be thought of as a kind of modified version of Freud’s super ego.. whatever it is that brings us together.. or whatever it is that we have in the way of shared values.. because like our value system.. and the basis of social hierarchy.. sorta.. 

For men, of course, pecking order is very important.. and the vibe you have about your place in the universe.. and all this.. Now.. the deal about the value of lots of people.. means you have lots of little places where different things are valued.. different parts of your being..  So.. your view of your self.. if not super good.. could have something to do with the folks you are hanging out with.. the world  you’re in…

This is not to cast aspersions to the folks I regularly hang with.. but that my regular experience is not… ideal in terms of my whole self.. that its unbalanced.. 

So in this sense.. the cage within.. and is it really a cage at all.. how much of this feeling is a part of a sense of identity.. based on the world I’m experiencing myself through? Is what I’m asking…

We are a complex web of interrelated wills..  a will echo system if you will.. that has some sorta interrelationship with our needs as human beings.. and how well or poorly these things are being met. To attack the problem in a kinda Maslow hierarchy sorta way.. it can be hard to reach higher stages of spiritual enlightenment when there’s some question of if you’ll even be able to eat tonight.. But I think there’s lots of hierarchy’s in us.. not just Maslow’s.. surrounding all sorts of things.. so that there are certain things we can’t achieve until this other set of things is taken care of.. and this is the sorta thing that can create creative blocks.. or just whatever.. and sometimes you just have to kinda put you’re ear to the unconscious to find your way to the next place you need to be at.

So in this way it’s all quite hard to tell what’s really up inwardly.. what’s creating the cage phenomenon of the mind sorta feeling.. 

A couple latter:

I think I mentioned somewhere.. this association I’m having between sickness and and neurosis.. neurosis being a substitution.. substituting illegitimate suffering for legitimate suffering.. not that being sick isn’t a legitimate thing.. but.. it’s at least neurosis like in that you aren’t doing anything about whatever the thing is.. that you should be doing something about.. and the like between excuse and reason can be fuzzy.. 

Speaking of which.. I’d finish this thought.. but I have things to attend to.  

I guess I’ve been posting some crazy ass posts while sick, ha? It’s good to post! I encountered this bit of inspiration over at Pluperfecter.. this interview of Steven aka Vaspers the Grate from some 5 years ago.. On the subject of what a blog is.. Steven quoted Doc Searls… a blog post being like an email to the world.. and this thought just sorta inspired me.. should I blog like that? Should I blog as if this were a personal email to the world? Me to you? And you over there as well? 

You know.. I can dig that kinda idea.. like.. I don’t know.. so often there’s all this “how to blog” crap.. smart crap though it can be.. it’s the game of it.. everything from your SEO / SEM / Copywriting, key working, whatever ing..  top 10 lists.. and God knows what else. I mean sure.. it can all be good.. but um.. I don’t know.. I never feel totally comfortable with it.. just as I’ve never felt totally comfortable with best practices.. I’m not trying to refute there utility.. and it’s not that I want to sabotage my own plight.. It’s just that sometimes it feels like just a lot of rubbish to get in the way… You know?

I don’t know.. I feel as if.. on some level.. if I blog there should be some sorta strategery about it.. or some purpose.. some excuse to poor energy into it.. I wonder if I’m adding any value to the world or to anything.. Why am I doing this again? If strategical.. shit, my spell checker didn’t underline that word.. is that a real wold?.. err.. strategical tactical al-tick-al whatever..  el.. Salvador of dolly.. parton.. pardons.. I don’t fucking know.. but just the.. 

Ok.. so there’s an ecosystem that works a certain way.. which causes somethings to rise, somethings to fall.. blah blah blah.. and the el strategic-o tacktic-o is in part born out of a close observation of how all this works and “How you to can be a social media rock star” or at least.. well.. whatever.. and I think all this is important.. and if you have a goal.. and that goal is your success metric.. well.. you ought to adopt all that…

But then I think.. and I think real deeply.. so deeply.. it-id scare your mofo ass.. you know.. like “what’s this life for” deep? Well screw that line of questioning as that make you walk around like a head without a body.. lol, which is to say not walk all that well at all. . No what I’m thinking more is like.. look inward.. Who is you, what is you about? Like really on the super deep levels. Deep enough that you eventually get to darkness and must confess incomplete knowledge on the subject.. and here, if nothing else.. aren’t you supposed to be the supreme grand-poo-bah expert on the subject of who and what you is? And you don’t fucking know? If  you hit rock star big.. good luck to you’re F’n biographers right? 

Yeah, I’d bitch at those vicarious-ism addicts to… which would bring me to this crazy existential question I’ve been pondering lately.. but.. we’ll skip that for now..

I’m thinking about mind mapping the subject.. kinda mandala esk action for yeah.. like what’s all the crap on your mind.. not just consciously.. what are the things you are after.. what’s up with these obsessions of yours.. looking at all the aims you gotz in your life.. map that shit out.. see the cross relationships.. 

So like each thing you do is like a piece of puzzle of a bigger you… a Nietzschean super man quest.. err.. well maybe you’re not that bad ass but.. to one extent or another we are always in a process of waking up to our selves.. and we have.. lets say it is a part of the soul.. a kind of destiny.. that we are always driving towards.. with all our pathology stuff.. conscious or not.. this is what all our impulses are doing.. even if we are tangled in knots and.. our lives a mess.. and whatever else..

So if  you view a blog inside of these terms.. if it, in the biggest of all pictures, is about your becoming.. then it’s success has to do with your becoming’s success.. and that is an utterly different thing from all SEO / SEM, top 10 lists of whatever strategical tactical al-ical of the smart sort… or that is just a part of this larger thing..

A few latter:

Well I gotta work out what I’m going to do with this whole blogging thing.. or it’s on the to do list of stuff to work out.. but I like this idea of the personal email to the world.. and I like the idea of being an anarchist in the writing..  

I was just in a conversation with a friend about what sorta computer she should buy.. or more to the point.. should she get this particular computer.. and.. well she didn’t have a lot of money and.. we couldn’t actually see what the price was.. but this triggered me to thinking about net books.. which I know is pretty well trotted ground in the blogosphere.. but I figure, what the hell.

The first thing you must know about me is that “I’m a Mac.” I’ve always been a Mac.. ever since there were Macs.. sure, I’ve owned 1 PC, played with Amega’s.. etc, but.. I’m a Mac.

The Trouble with Macs 

The trouble with Macs, or Apple, as I contemplate it now, is that they don’t make a netbook.. Well they make the Mac Air.. which is there idea of an ultra portable laptop computer.. The Mac Air is great except for 3 problems.. #1 Expensive.. like starting at $1500.. #2 Weak.. I think it barely has 2 GHz.. and #3 lacks a CD / DVD drive..

See, the thing of the matter is.. if I’m going to get a netbook type computer..  besides being tiny and ultra portable.. I expect it to be a secondary computer.. a kind of computer I can  take and use anywhere without really thinking too much about it.. For it to be this tiny it must have a tiny screen which makes it totally not capable of doing most of what I do on a computer.. thus.. I’m unwilling to spend a lot of money on it.. especially when you consider that it doesn’t have much in the way of power.. Thus.. $500 might be more then I really want to spend!

Not having a CD / DVD drive is not a deal killer.. but I do want a laptop that I can at least watch movies on… but that doesn’t have to be the netbook.

So the issue is, at least right now, if I want such a computer.. it’s not going to run the Apple operating system unless I hack it to run the Apple OS.. which is maybe something I should look at because.. well.. there is the question of what I would, in practice, want to do on a netbook.

Net Book Ideals 

To me the Net Book ideal is as follows: You have this computer that’s so small you can take it anywhere without thinking about it.. has great battery life.. one way or another you’re connected to the internet..In this kind of scenario.. I might like to have the ability to take images off my camera.. or a video camera.. and perhaps even edit them.. adjust them a bit, and quickly post to the internet. I want to check emails, write blog posts, maybe edit a podcast or do simple audio things… 

So one super basic reason I’d prefer to run the Apple OS is because then I can run the software I already own that does that stuff..  I don’t have to buy, or learn how to use new stuff.See, one of the issues I’m confronting is..

I do need “a better computer” then my current Mac Book. Well.. I really need firewire so I can have a decent audio interface for live shows… and currently.. it looks like I might need the 17″ Mac Book Pro for its expansion slot.. and a 17″ Mac Book Pro is not terribly portable.. but.. I can do live shows with what I have now, so I’m in no rush.. 

Do you see a Tablet in my Future? 

All of this said, there is the Rumor of an Apple tablet… which might very well meet my netbook needs.. accept.. well.. its just a rumor.. The rumor is that it’s like to have something like a 13″ screen, if that.. will run the iPhone version of the OS.. all touch screen.. This would mean I couldn’t run my current apps.. but if you look at the iPhone App Store.. I think some of these needs would be met pretty easily.. though who knows about the video thing! 

I’ve been meaning.. gosh, for ages and ages, to share content and stuff that I’m digging.. But really, in many cases, it’s more personal then all this, cause we are talking about social media.. and so it is a social kinda thing.. it’s people whom I dig.. Probably most of my friends these days.. are social media folks.. folks who actually produce content of one form or another.. 

So how about some highlights?

My personal favorite blog has probably gotta be Catskill Cottage Seed ( ccseed on twitter ) from Richard Reeve.

I discovered it via a strange series of serendipitous events.. starting with a Berkman Blogger meet up where Joe Cascio shared his architectural ideas for a distributed twitter like micro blogging platform, (which has since morphed into an email program that Google Waves reminds one of) where Laura Fitton suggested that I should really follow @bikerbar… which somehow lead to following a lot of.. I guess you could call them “the mystics of twitter..” Lots of interesting crazy debates there.. and someone retweeted a quote from Carl Jung that I hadn’t heard before.. which is rather rare for me… and of course it was Richard.. so I immediately had to go and read his blog.

I left a crazy comment.. which seems to be my way.. and oddly Richard emailed me back.. seemed to really like my comment.. insisting that he doesn’t usually email commenters that way.. and, well, he’s been tolerating my crazy comments ever since.

Err, I hope I get this right.. as I listened to someone interviewing Richard many moons ago.. But… essentially he moved out to the Catskills… err, sometime ago.. in a slightly farmer-ish way.. growing food on his land that he integrates into meals as much as he can.. and looks into selling some of it at market.. in addition to other things.. and of course is studying to be a Jungian Analyst..

He’s only been on planet social media for.. I want to say a bit over a year? …And I think he’s doing an amazing job of it.. 

What you get on his blog are regular meditations on various Jungian concepts as they apply to daily life.. among other things.. and sometimes the post it’s self will strike you as a metaphor for something else.. kinda mediations on life…

Err, How about a music video to get us in the mood

How to Live.. and Jung Fun 

So in some respects.. you could see Richard’s blog as a response to Audio Slave.. which seems to be whaling the howl of our modern plight.. The spiritual challenges of our times.. and of course the analyst is a kind of substitute for a priest…

You know I dig Jungian psychology above all others cause it tends to grapple with these deeper things.. I imagine the modern psychologist ought to be a pragmatist.. taking what he or she can from all the schools of psychology.. applying where needed.. but mostly, modern psychology as I have encountered it on a personal level.. seems to suffer all too much from the sorta power relationship issues that Foucault wrestled with in, say.. Madness and Civilization..   

This point is that underlying the world of medicine is the prejudices of modernity’s value system.. how society is organized today has much to do with what defines a thing as a disorder.. The disorder has something to do with, perhaps we could say, challenges to adapting to the modern world.. never mind that it could be the modern world that is the problem.

Or at least that was the basic argument I gave the last time a therapist wanted to put me on medication! “What, and undermine my psyche’s natural attempt to heal me? Not on your life!” Those psycho wounds, after all, are wombs from which to be born again.. 

Out side of the subject of psychology, Richard is also big on social media.. which, as you no doubt know, is the latest sensation to sweep the nation. I LOVE social media, and what I think it means for the future of civilization.. but much of the conversations surrounding it are very business application centric.. and business conceptualized.. again, from the a certain modern view point which.. has those kinds of prejudices.. like unconscious metaphysical presumptions underlying all thought. In both medicine and business the problem is not the modern, but the modern subverting that which is becoming.. the tomorrow… 

And so we have a certain amount of system gaming going on.. or shall we call it Strategy? Tactics? Many of these things are filed under the heading of “best practices” for “social media practitioners.” The trouble is, from my point of view at least, that this often means a certain subversion of content.. and of becoming. We are not trying to be total people, merely successful people… and our metrics for what constitutes success… is.. not really what is really needed.

All of  this is somewhat inside social media baseball.. the point being that Richard’s take on all this.. is such  that in his values you don’t get these kinds of subversions.. That there is something greater that he’s after, and social media is a tool for that adventure.. and I think that’s great. 

Cloud City 

As a final note.. A little while ago Richard did a post on publishing in the clouds. This is one of a series of themes he revisits fairly regularly which.. I guess you could say are kind of wrestling with a number of things related to technologies evolution as it relates to social media.

Anyway, in this post he calls me out on my crazy comments.. and I thought offered interesting insight into my madness.. and clued me into where one can read my comment streams… or some of them anyway.

His post left me blushing a good deal.. and of course I wonder how could anyone possibly ever mistake me for a functional human being? I mean that’s just crazy talk! Don’t cha know!?! Meant to thank him for the generosity of it… 

The publishing in the cloud post I think also sorta centers on the issue of.. the future of this space.. I’d go off for eons on this.. but… well.. if I do I may never post this and.. it’s been far too long since I posted.. so lets post, shall we?!

I don’t know how realistic my video ideas are, or what.. my feeling at this particular moment is.. probably the most important thing is simply to commit to them.. in a long term sorta way.

Ok, here’s the basic deal.. Video is like.. big these days on the internet.. you may have noticed? I’m basically looking at video as packaging for my music.. or as an extension of the experience of my music.. as a part of the art object. I’m really approaching video from a unique sorta aesthetic perspective… 99.9% of all video production today is produced inside of a certain set of conventions that don’t really get pushed all that much. Sure, there’s great video and film work made this way.. This isn’t a giant value judgement about that.. but its also not what I’m seeking to do.. What I’m seeking to do is approach video from a very ART perspective.

At the moment this means.. screwing around.. It’s a combination of exploring certain ideas as they come to you, and trying to learn the tools… At the moment the tool I’m working with is Apple’s Motion… which is a part of Final Cut Studio.. as an aside, its breaking news that a new version has just come out.. but we shant speak about that.

The project started on a sorta doodling branding adventure a few months back.. I was working in Photoshop and Illustrator.. trying to craft out a logo.. based on some sketches I had done.. This also included messing around with photography.. what follows is a part of that project.. as it looked at one moment in time…

 Motion is a motion graphics / animation program.. and one of the things you can do is import photoshop files.. complete with there individual layers.. I did some funky things.. and placed the different layers at different places in space.. to basically turn something like the above image into a 3D image that I could fly the camera around.. and play with various.. well.. ideas.

I’ve been working steadily on this for the last 3 or 4 days; creating these various little psychedelic video clips. The resulting clips seems to be about some kind of exploration of identity and personal branding… or at least that’s what they made me think of.

The idea originally was to simply put out a sorta complicated screen cast of my DAW.. put it on Youtube.. so that I could sorta share what I do in a certain way..  and I figured if I did that.. I’d at least need some sorta titling / motion graphic sequences.. to sorta.. make it look serious.. I may still do this.. I don’t know.. but now I’m thinking of it more like music video elements.. to be sorta remixed together latter on.

There’s a whole sorta visual language.. set of icons.. symbols.. whatever.. that make up the visual identity I plan on making for myself. [editors note: Matt has been working on this language since at least college] It’s something you are much more inclined to read as Fine Art then.. well communications / graphic design.. Though as I elluded to earlier.. I am thinking about this from something of a design perspective.

My kinda goal is to try and produce something that looks like a million bucks.. something that makes you go “wow, that’s fucking cool.” Make something that would seem to have the sorta production values you could expect from the music video of a major label artist.. way back when they had big budgets…. But something totally different.

The hard fact of the matter is I’m early in on learning to do this stuff.. and a great distance from where my ambition is aiming.. and it is not totally clear that I’ll be able to realize these goals I’ve set for myself…

Well.. whatever.. I actually don’t think those kinds of production values are all that important.. I mean they are for my vision.. but I also think if you just do good story telling.. and put together a number of good pieces… I think you really can have something.. so that’s really kinda what its about.. but.. why not aim high?

It’s about 7 in the morning.. I haven’t slept yet.. and yeah.. still feeling sick. I can’t find the nyquil, which would help me sleep… Hours earlier I went to a bar, the Chicken Bone.. and perhaps smoked too much.. the drinking seemed fine.. err.. I lost my keys on the way out to the bar.. and must have spent about an hour looking for them.. this task onto its self would have seemed to have whipped me out.. but chilling at the Bone didn’t seem to effect me that way.. if it had I would have called it an early night. Anyway, it was just good to get out.

I have a habit of falling asleep to various DVD commentaries… If I’m watching a DVD and get too tired to follow I switch over.. sometimes I won’t even watch a film if it doesn’t have a commentary… if I know I’ll be dozing off or something.. Anyway.. tonight it was Rain Man… which, as it turns out.. has a hell of a lot of commentaries on it… I got through listening to the directors commentary, and now I’m onto the writers….  but in all this I can’t seem to get to sleep.

Mean while I’m full of phlegm… and I’m in the middle of an eczema break out.

12 30 PM

I’m just waking up.. I don’t think this qualifies as quite enough sleep.. and I don’t know how much time there was between turning away from writing this and getting actual sleep.. It is probably best to just lay here and rest.

My head still feels like a mess, I’m definitely tired..

2:12

I’m still up but still in bed….  I could use some tissues, but don’t know where such things might be lurking.

So at best I might have had 5 hours sleep last night… but in all likely hood it was probably an hour or two less.. When I’m feeling healthy I need a good 8 hours…

I’ve been reading.. BorderSac, and participating in the comments.. It’s written by Alex Lindsay.. who’s pretty well known for the pixelcorps.. The this week in media podcast, this week in photography.. on that various TWIT podcasts with Leo Laporte.

It’s hard for me to generally think of these guys as truly social media.. I suppose it’s that these guys are in the kinda stratus sphere were social media currently doesn’t scale well.. so they seem a lot more of the one to many then the many to many sorta thing.. and generally I don’t find things going on where they have open comments… so this is sorta fun.

Alex is very smart about 3D graphics and special effects.. a film maker friend of mine told me a story of moderating a panel that Alex was on..  and how hard it was to shut Alex up.. to give other panelists a word in edge wise…

Politically Alex seems interesting… I don’t know that you could really call him a conservative… he surely is independent minded.. but he often seems to have a little libertarian flavor to him.. where ever he stands. All this is notable as I am from a land with a conservative shortage.. generally you take a left-ish position and you get a lot of heads nodding.. which isn’t something I’m particularly against.. only that I fear that the foundations of that head nod might not involve too much critical thought.. more a herd instinct sorta thing..

Ok, its almost 3 PM and I feel that I have a choice to make.. Choice 1, get out of bed.. even if you feel like you’ve had enough rest.. and go about some modicum of a daily routine.. most notably setting about getting something to eat.. and from there onto addressing the issues of the day. Choice 2.. stop playing with the computer, roll over, and try and get some more rest.

A few latter:

While I’m leading towards choice 2, I am still at the computer, aren’t I? Well I need to publish this bad boy sometime.

I had this thought.. or series of thoughts.. and I thought I should try and edge my way through them.

One of the things I’m wrestling with is blogging.. how should I blog, what sorta tone should I take.. just a lot of content related sorta questions. I often find myself thinking two things.. even if I don’t always go with them.

1. You should create content that serves a community.
2. What if you were an artist and your community were folks that were into your art.. only trouble is that none of those folks exist yet?

Err…  So the serve the community shtick… to some extent I think I do that when I write about.. I don’t know.. any number of things.. but I don’t know that I totally 100% think of it in terms of the value it would give that community. I don’t think in terms of “lets go write a magazine article esk thing.”

There’s a big part of me that feels like.. well lets just have a conversation.. like perhaps I should just jabber on.. and on and on and on.. about God knows what.. just jabber.. and perhaps try and turn the jabbering into an art form.

I’m reminded of an experience I have in tweet ups.. or really any kind of social situation.. that’s like.. involving meeting new people or whatever. There’s this sorta surface film.. which is like the bullshit everyone is saying. If the social situation was a meet market and you were trying to hit on women.. it would probably amount to saying something like “you’re hot.”

WTF is the value of saying “you’re hot?” Well sure, it is not totally vacuous..  but if that’s the sum total of whatever.. well how’s that working for you? No.. what you need to do is find someway of expressing something.. what that something is is.. dependent on any number of things. What’s the message you want to send?

If you are feeling a certain amount of anxiety.. you might be reacting to that anxiety in your messaging.. You could start behaving like an idiot.. I mean if you feel uncool you might go out of your way to try and act cool.. which often doesn’t really work out.. in part cause no one really thought you were that uncool in the first place.. so your just overcompensating which is saying “this fellow is feeling awkward.” Which.. is perhaps not terrible into its self, but..

Well back to the meat market analogy.. My thinking would probably be something along the lines of.. ok.. I’m sorta like a particular brand of meat.. I ether appeal to you or I don’t.. in any event… the values of my kinda meat.. that’s something to perhaps express.. another words.. what is great about me.. that if you’re someone to appreciate this sorta thing.. you’ll totally go for. Out side of that its like “above all else we are here to have a good time, hopefully I can help you have a good time in the process.”

This latter idea speaks to this crazy set of theories I have on psycho social dynamics… which is to say in any group situation there are certain core things that have brought us together.. to the extent to which you can provide value on those core things.. well.. you rise in the pecking order. So… one presumes that women in a meat market want to have fun.. Taking an attitude of “all I want to do is score tonight” might be enough to make you miss out on having fun.. Not to mention that meeting someone worth talking to might not be bad ether…

1:36 AM

Never actually got to sleep.. but eventually found the nyquil.. a short while ago.. its starting to kick in.  I’ve spent about 90% of the day in bed.. with a short excursion made to pick up a subway sand witch.. which.. is perhaps better then my usual diet.

I couldn’t tell you what my meet market rant was all about.. accept that it would lead into some early ideas I had about the nature of social media.. which.. is perhaps an odd topic.. as social media land has seemed to have changed so much in the last few months..

Perhaps I should say something about that? Well I would accept.. well idk.. I guess what I’m really thinking is.. that I want to go more crazy as far as blogging / content development style is concerned.. perhaps following these old ideas about social media.. forgetting about “what the kids are saying these days” and sorta try to cut my own crazed path through the space.

This idea, I think, strangely leads into the subject of theme design for wordpress.. wordpress as that’s the blog engine I’m using these days..  But this is a rather long conversation about the wordpress platform, content management systems, and web design and development.. and frankly the nyquil’s kicking in to hard to really follow that thought thread.. so that will have to wait till my next post.

1:09 PM

Time to post this bad boy

It’s been a while since I was an active blogger.. and I kinda hate that I’m not blogging so much these days. Bad Matt!!! So.. tonight.. I’ll try and write something and post it…  Something where I don’t bother to worry about any of the SEO stuff… or the.. how to write a good blog post stuff.. stuff from a strategic point of view.. Now.. I’m just going to spout off.. and as near as I can tell.. a number of the folks whom are often given to reading this blog.. well.. they seem to dig that kinda thing.. So here we go.

I have a number of posts in draft form.. waiting to be posted..  I never know if I’ll ever post them… but.. because they are there, I don’t want to talk about what’s in them.. even if what’s in them is the sorta thing I find myself thinking about most.

Err, maybe I could talk about Iran or something?

This is one of those subjects that.. I feel the need to make a major post on.. which are the prime candidates for never getting posted.. never finished.. but screw it, lets me throw some stuff at you…  

Some points to consider

1. Even evil dictators have to operate inside of political realities.
2. On the “is twitter going to topple the Iranian government?” All the important social / political movements in history started at the grass roots level.. they started by people networking.. one way or another.. tools like twitter and other social networking tools are, to use Pentagon terminology ”force multipliers.” 

Ok.. so that’s only two points..  but for other points we have to deep dive..

Gandhi believed that none violence would work even against Hitler. I think he was crazy on this point or.. well.. his point is a complicated one to take on if we are to talk about it seriously. But the notion of none violent protest going on in Iran.. versus the “lets go fly some plains into buildings” idea.. if none violence where to work in this instance.. I believe it is possible that we could see ripple effects throughout the middle east.

On Twittering the Revolution

I’ve heard some commentary as of late, about.. well folks on twitter have been turning there avatars green to show there support for the Iranian people and protesters. The commentary is suggesting that “it isn’t going to do or make any difference.” What these people are missing is.. at least for some of us who’ve done things to our avatars.. we are reacting to watching Iranian police beat the crap out of crowds.. our hearts cried out to them.. so our avatars are really a sign of a metaphysical realization.. that we are one people.

Since 9/11 there’s been a heightening of a kind of racism against people from the middle east.. fundamentally racism is an inability to see the human in the other. I think most Americans.. understanding of the world is not terribly sophisticated.. we’ve heard that the Iranian government hates America, that the people love us.. but I’m not sure if we ever truly believed it.. after all they’re all Middle Easterners and don’t they all hate us?

So I think the avatar thing.. does send a powerful message.. if nothing else, that we don’t hate Iranians..  And it represents a kind of revelation about our larger world.. Which I frankly think is important for the future of America.

Should Obama do more?

I think the “should Obama do more” debate is a fundamentally stupid debate. I think most of it is lead by a certain fraction of the republican party.. a party that’s ready to grab onto any straws it can find.. If there is any truth to the idea that Obama should do more.. they’ve managed hide it.. make it look like the only folks who would think that have a political axe to grind. But what is really stupid is the amount of attention this question has been given.. and not really the question its self.

The story coming out of the Obama administration is that they don’t want to give the Iranian government something to blame us for.. to use as an excuse.. as a way of twisting the truth.. in there own desperation to hold onto power. Again, I think this is a story that’s told so much that.. well.. its not quite as true, I don’t think, as you would think for how loudly we are being told this. Sure, its true but.. lets face facts.. the Iranian government will find excuses no matter what.. and we shouldn’t let a fear of that sorta thing get in the way of our.. pursuit of our national interests.. or of.. doing whatever we can do..  But of course we should be careful.

Ok Matt, what can Obama do?

I think this is an Iranian revolution.. I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot anyone can do who’s outside Iran.. accept show our support.. If anything.. as I said earlier.. even evil dictators have to operate in political realities. I imagine if you’re Obama you want to follow the situation very closely.. using whatever intelligence assets we might have.. to do our best to understand the situation and motivations of the folks in power in Iran. I think whatever we can do is going to have to do with what sorts revelations might flow this meditation.

Generally speaking.. I’d probably advice against taking an overly aggressive stance.. as that could potentially galvanize the political forces in Iran into a nationalistic direction which could actually work against the protesters. So.. you know, its complicated.

Will we see a revolution in Iran?

I think what we are seeing are intrenched political tensions.. its a warning sign for the folk in power in Iran to loosen up.. The country wants to go in a “loosen up” sorta direction… So far it would seem the Iranian government is going in the opposite direction.. in reaction to the protests.. All that can really do is heat up the situation.. if things get too hot.. you got your self a revolution.. and to some extent we are already seeing this in the form of various power struggles.

If the Iranian government were to loosen up a little.. if say the investigation into the election proved not to be a farce.. if the election its self proved not to be a farce.. if they did the whole thing for real this time.. and power changed hands on the electoral sorta level.. well.. the lead cleric fellow, it seems to me, could stay in power. But the more they appear to be corrupt, lying, basically evil.. abusing there people.. tyrannical.. all this does nothing more then keep the heat on them.. welcome to the power of none violent protesting.. basically.

And of course now Iran has the spot line on them, right? This is more of why I don’t think Obama has to worry too much about if the Iranian rulers blame us.. lets face it, they are systematically destroying there credibility.. and while a giant spot light is on them!

I do think that there’s no escaping, in the long term, change coming to Iran. I think the force for change in Iran is a pretty unescapable reality. But I don’t know if we’ll see this change happening inside of the next 6 months, or the next 6 years, or more.. If nothing else, eventually.. the generation who we find protesting.. will come to be the generation in power.. when that happens.. you will see a different Iran. 

Further Reading

Steven Streight, aka @vaspersthegrate on twitter,  did a recent post on the roll Twitter is playing, Twitter versus mainstream media, and all that good stuff: Twitter, Iran, Citizen Intelligence Agents.

The Washington Post did a thing on Iran Elections: A Twitter Revolution?

The Berkman Center at Harvard has been looking at the roll cell phones and the internet have been playing in the Iran demonstrations, along with what the Iranian government has been trying to do to censor this sorta thing.. and this whole story.

Perhaps my current favorite podcast is Media Hacks.. Mitch Joel is currently kicking around the idea of writing a book on “the great unteathering” which is to say the migration away from folks working on at a terminal.. a desktop computer of some sort..  to going mobile.. to a world where internet connectivity is everywhere.. ramifications of the rise of the iPhone and all that.. Something that is likely to be next great disruption.. In episode 12 of Media Hacks, how mobile is changing the way people connect and market is looked at.. and of course Iran comes up in the conversation. I think this adds some good texture to this conversation.

Thomas Barnett, a kind of Pentagon war planner, did a post.. though shorter then mine, sorta saying some of the same sorts of things I’m saying… Regarding Obama’s increasingly “tougher stance”..  close by on his blog are some of his reactions to various journalists coverage of the Iranian election protests.

Barnett is also interesting for talking about… well, what do about countries like Iraq.. or whatever.. what should be done, how we need to change how we doing things.. here’s his TED talk on the subject:

Are Celebrities Killing Twitter? @repecor of RebeccaCoriliss.com and HubSpot, posed this question on twitter today, with a link to an Advertising Age article: Twitter is Peaking: Get Ready to Follow Geeks Onward, by Steve Rubel.

The article I have problems with on many levels, but the question of how Twitter and Social Media are changing / might be changing.. in light of the explosive growth of Twitter, along with business swarming into social media more generally.. is something I’ve been thinking of a great deal lately.

So.. first off…

Are Celebrities Killing Twitter? 

Steve Rubel asserts… well a number of things. Basically.. there’s a kind of course that online communities follow.. where you have these early adopter folks.. geekdom in technology land, if you will.. whom bring the community to its tipping point.. that, once reached.. community becomes less fashionable, at least.. and so the geek hip move on.. 

But I think twitter is different: It’s different because how communities on twitter work is different.. Each of us follows, and is followed by, a different group of people..  a group we define.. so that the only way my experience of twitter is really changed, by the twitter explosion, is in the character of folks whom start following me.. whom I may or may not choose to follow back.. 

So I guess my point is.. My experience of twitter doesn’t necessarily degrade in anyway as a result of celebrities on Twitter.. or the only way it degrades is as a result of Twitter’s technological problems keeping up with the massive growth.. 

So it’s really a question of substance versus fashion…

I do confess that it’s a very surreal thing to find celebrities, and “old media” folk talking about twitter so much.. not quite “getting it,” and all the rest..  ..and there is something about “old media” talking about twitter that makes twitter seem less cool.. 

I joked on twitter, at some point, that maybe digital natives.. or social media natives.. need better immigration policies.. sorta suggesting that.. the rate of growth is such that the culture we’ve had can’t really assimilate the influx.. that this will likely change the culture. And this is the real thing of why the early adopter / “geek folks” would want to move on.

Still.. there’s something structurally different about twitter and social media then anything we’ve seen in the past.. and I feel a little like Allan Green Span, in the heat of the tech bubble saying “no, the productivity increases we see as a result of the technological revolution is not merely bubble talk.” He was right of course, but many people blame him for not removing the cool-aid..

The structure of social media is still one where, in rather Thomas Friedman esk language, flattens the playing field.. we see huge power diffusion.. the relationship between business and consumer is shifting.. Who knows what the future of journalism and the entertainment industries might look like? Ultimately.. I think we all think that a mass behavioral shift in peoples media consumption patterns.. is a good thing.. The question is just how will all of this play out. 

So will the Geeks leave Twitter?

I think.. the nature of the web 2.0 type technology is such that it’s very low hanging fruit to get started.. a do it in you’re basement while still having a day job kinda thing.. which creates a serious issue of asymmetric competition challenges for the MySpaces, FaceBooks, and Twitters of the world, whom want to maintain there dominance. And.. in a down economy.. more and more developers have more and more basement time.. All of which is good for the evolution of the space.. and difficult for the business of change management..  

In marketing.. there is this sorta metaphorical relationship between.. sex and relations.. with.. trying to get that quick one off sale.. versus building long term customer relationships..

And so it is that I think Mr. Marilyn Manson might have said it best when he said “I’m not in love, but I’m going to fuck you, till someone better comes along.”

Conclusion 

I don’t think Twitter is necessarily really peaking as we speak.. it’s just a new tipping point.. and the real question is how with the structure of the Twitter user experience relate to the tipping. There is a certain level where the “Web 2.0″ technologies aren’t really as Web 2.0 as is generally believed.. which creates an opening for next generation of web apps to come along.

So, we’ll see.