Facebook question
When I come across an update such as this:
Ted Kennedy's Passing on FaceBook
The question is: should one "like" it? I certainly don't like the fact of loosing Ted to Cancer, but I do like the fact that someone shared it on FaceBook so I could find out.
I just didn't feel comfortable enough "liking" this.
Cut back on Social?
30 ways to shock yourself by bre pettis (cc: by-NC)
I'm quite tired of Social Media. I'm rather amused by how much we tend to think it does and how little it ends up delivering.
I've had enough of watching the promise go in vain. I've seen too many examples of agencies and companies tuning Social Media into television. What do I mean? They have made novel (sort of) media into the same old waste. We've failed on the promise (premise?) of transparency, we've turned too much of it into mere entertainment.
This has pushed me to look elsewhere lately. I'm desperately looking for the next unstained piece of technology that I can help colonize before the evil greedy arrogants unavoidably take over.
Cloud computing? Too dull, too backend. Interesting, but overly niche.
Semantic Web? Well... I like it, yes, but, once again, something only nerds would find interesting.
Mobile? Not my game. By far.
So I default to what I know. And I become a critic. Maybe I will not colonize a new theoretical space but put up a good fight instead. Try to raise the values of authenticity and conversation close to the heart.
Thus I shall denounce every crappy campaign, every false premise, every piece of painted cardboard I come across.
Because Social Media might have been bastardized to near-death, but it ain't over till its over.
The Challenge shall become darker, more sarcastic and more acid than ever before.
I'm back for good.
Rambles and Riff Raff vol. 5
I am seriously time constrained this days. I promise a good post later today or tomorrow (read that: tomorrow).
In the time being the infamous unordered list of random thoughts with no connection with reality whatsoever.
- Being having musings about crisis and leadership lately. Discussed some of that with "da Boss". Food for post. Not right now, but expect it soon.
- I have hosed my system. Rendered it unusable. IT was of no help, so I did what any nerd would do. Grabbed a copy of windows 7 beta and installed it. Corporate IT should be pissed if they find out. But let's just keep it a secret for the time being. (more first impressions on Windows 7 after the end of the list)
- I am very distracted. The fact that I might become a parent any time now might have a lot to do with that. Lots of doctor appointments and stuff like that.
- Starting to feel excitement and inspiration in relation with work again. I have one person to thank. He knows who he is. He thinks he is no good at motivation. I say BS.
- I have written 5 drafts in the past 2 days. Lots of good "starting ideas", but I'm procrastinating on giving those posts the tie and attention they require.
Windows 7 on my T60p
So... what has this linux-evangelist-wannabe have to say about with Windows 7?
I'll be doomed, but I like what I see. It is still not there (it is a beta after all), but it is a good improvement from Vista and from XP. I have encountered some bugs and quircks and there are some behaviours that one should get the choice to remove alltogether (for instance all the confirmations you get when installing software!). But the OS behaves quite well, quite stable and fairly nice.
I have also noticed some stuff which might be inspired on things I've seen on Linux for a long time (look and feel, placement of user profiles, application data).
Finally I also got rid of Lotus Notes 7 and installed 8.5 beta. That is also a fairly good improvement that will make my life easier.
The only memory hog left on my system is TweetDeck. 250MB on Ram for a program that retrieves images and texts from the web is unacceptable.
Rambles and Riff Raff vol. 4
Not too much to say and too enough time to say it anyways. Going through some changes ate work. Massive changes. More on that in the near future.List of unordered thoughts (which should have the <ut></ut> HTML tag)
- It is rather crazy at work. Which I think is the scenario on most companies. After some very grim weeks there might be light at the end of the tunnel.
- I hate IT. I truly, honestly hate IT. I could make a huge list of IT related -and easily solvable- issues. Of those on IT support department of various different places were not such idiots life would be a much better place.
- I have barely used twitter lately. I feel happy about that. I think I'm a better person now
- I am reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. It is an amazingly interesting history book. A tad too abridged (even with 500+pages) but takes a novel but natural-feeling approach on how Human Societies evolved.
I promise I'll write with more substance soon.
This blog was hacked
Earlier today I realized this blog had been hacked. Bummer.
I should be pissed, but I'm not. Truth is that if a door is left open something of this sort is ought to happen. Mr. ASEROH was kind enough to deface the site but left the Databases unharmed. He proved his point, caused no major harm and I'm humbled.
I will take some precautionary actions, but that might require a new host (this one does not have some of the apache modules that I need).
I leave you with a screenshot of such historic moment:
My site looked like this for a while
There was a great Douglas Adams paragraph I wanted to cite, but I don't know where I left the hitch-hickers guide.
2008 in review
Despite economic crisis and some personal dark notes 2008 has been an awesome year. Putting it in perspective is a hard task; too much happened.
Beijing 2008.
Until September everything in my life had olympic rings attached. Unlike some other projects, we had a due date written in stone: 08-08-08. Everything needed to be oiled and working by then. It was one-in-a-lifetime oportunity.
"Voices of the Olympic Games" was a fun and demanding projects I was ever involved with. I have written several posts about it all over the months. Here's a link to the tag "Olympics" in this same blog in case you want to read them all.
On the "lowlights" side of things: during the games my father got seriously sick and passed away the last thursday of Beijing 2008. Talk about messy weeks.
Public Speaking.
I am really fortunate. Some people think I'm worth listening to, and I was invited to speak at We Media Buenos Aires, WordCamp Buenos Aires and DigitalTalk. Hopefully I'm getting better at this thing of trying to share ideas, visions and experiences with others.
Oddly enough I think I get more out than I give back to this events.
Huge thank you to the people who invited me.
Lenovo.
It has been a crazy year at lenovo. Olympics, new product launches (such as the X300, the IdeaPads, NetBooks, servers... ) and a global crises.
I got a little bit more settled in my role within the company. I must admit I don't quite like "settled" and I will be looking at new ways to make me uncomfortable and drive myself mad soon.
Personal.
Despite the noted lowlight, it has been a nice year personally. The most important news is that I'm bound to become a parent in March.
There's still a lot that needs to be worked out. I really don't like living in Buenos Aires, particularly I'm not fond to raise a kid here (since I was able to grow up in the mountains and forests of Patagonia) and my apartment has started a self-destroy sequence some months ago.
Yet the good news is so overwhelming that all the problems and issues become secondary.
Also, in the "growing family" department I got to meet a "new" Brother. Life has some very strange twists.
Posting.
I haven't been posting too often to this blog. Yet I think there are a couple of entries readers might find interesting:
- This series of posts on mixing metrics, social media and maths.
- A post in April doing some futurology thinking if Social Media Marketing could survive a crisis. (Also available in Spanish at Mariano´s Blog)
- Then I put Social media in perspective Stating that it is not the center of the universe.
- Two pieces from this same month: on Influencers and on Shopping Processes.
Note: it is an interesting exercise to read thoroughly a year worth of posts to see how much rubbish I usually write and how little substance.
For 2009.
High expectations and profound changes. They will either happen or I'll force them to happen. Although responsibilities should increase with parenting the adventure and nomadic spirit within me is about to burst.
Print what you like
Great service that allows users to print only certain sections of webpages. It is green, it is handy. Proof that by "being green" oyu can actually save a couple of bucks.
Kudos to the developers
PrintWhatYouLike.com was created by Jonathan Koomjian and Cassie Schmitz, two web developers in Des Moines, Iowa who were frustrated that there was no way to print web pages without wasting reams of paper.
Link.
We Media Buenos Aires pre-presentation
Sitting here right by John Bell, about to start twittering and live blogging about WeMedia.
I'll let you all know how my presentation goes (due in about 2 hours) and post more substantially after I'm done.
Orthodox Economy is an Oxymoron
I have very seldom display my thoughts outside the social media / web / marketing world lately. The sheer amount of stupidity that I have been reading lately has called for an intervention.
image credit: scriptingnews @ flickr
The world is in recession. Forget about being politically correct and trying to avoid panic by not using terms that sound "so very negative" about the economic situation. Things are screwed, not looking good and policy makers are as lost as they usually are.
I had a professor that once stated: "Economists are the only professionals who see their theories being grounded on a daily basis and still abide to their discourse". The concept proves to be right now more than ever.
According to wikitionary Orthodox means:
Adhering to whatever is traditional, customary or generally accepted.
Well, if economy was written in stone "Orthodox Economy" would make some sense as a general concept, but people would hardly make any money. But that's not the case.
Economy, as a general (and almost abstract) entity is always changing. People and companies find new ways to make and loose money on a daily basis. Markets adapt, laws change, conditions get altered. Prices rise and fall. It is a living and breathing animal.
This does not mean that crisis such as the one that's currently underway can't be foreseen; but rather that what has proven to be traditional, customary or generally accepted in the past might not be so as the world evolves.
I expect that as readers go through the previous paragraph I'll make a statement for the bailout.
Wrong.
The proposed bailout is too little, too late. The usual band-aid on a broken leg stuff. It will (if passed this Thursday) create little relief on the very short term and a big problem in the medium to long term.
Something must be done in the short term. Trust must be restored, credit must flow again. "Bailing Out" does not restore trust. Or would you trust the plane you just bailed out off?
A money injection into the financial system is just a minor thing, 700 billion can be sucked up almost overnight. But what's required is not a rescue, but a reform. Life without credit is not a nice thing, trust me. (Over Argentina mortgages have ~24% interest rates)
Over my 29 years I have witnessed 3 serious economic crises. To be honest I only have recollection of the last 2. The last time the banking system was so screwed up that the infamous "corralito" was imposed over all of us. People could not withdraw more than X amount of money per month. Things went down the drain, we had devaluation and now we live with inflation.
Things here weren't solved, just fixed enough to get going and sooner or later Argentina will be facing another economic crisis.
Final word is: timing for this crisis couldn't be worst. No politic wants to put out his head for chopping with less than a month left until the general election. But I'm afraid some serious and not-so-popular decision making must happen. And it can't wait 29 days, much less until Inauguration Day. Hopefully real leadership will surface as it has done in the past.
Comments gone (intense debate sucks)
I tried IntenseDebate for a couple of months. It Sucks. Badly. I've seen comments vanish, disappear, make all sorts of odd things.
I've seen comments going to ID but not to the blog and viceversa.
As a result I decided to deactivate the doomed thing today. And I lost a lot of comments thanks to that dreaded 2 decisions.
I'm really pissed. But, what can you do. I'll look at ways of recovering those comments.