Faster, bigger, better, MOOOOOOORE

Picking up the ideas from the last post on convergene and pace of change;
then again - like the brilliant The Pace of Modern Life shows, we have felt for a long time that the past was a lot simpler, the pace more bearable, the interactions more meaningful and deep.

Perhaps it is like Agent Smith implied in the Matrix, feeling a bit miserable and nostalgic is part of the core of the human spirit and our underlying "OS". We fill whatever time is available to the brim and then some, and then we look at change as something unnatural when it is the only constant.

Reboot?

Quick meta note; this should go out as post 26 for June, and 46 in total - making the first half of 2013 match the total for 2012 - meaning also that we are on good track to finish on par with the 06-08 run of around weekly post on average, at the very least.

Fragment my convergence

Mobile and digital is making everything possible, and breaking down boundaries between products, services and utility. And it is happening at speed.

This is not about media convergence. It's about something bigger. Things change. Things change so fast that sometimes, it's hard to see it. We tend to think about our businesses and our lives in terms of keeping up with change.

The New Convergence by Mitch Joel, ends on the question: what do you think?

I think it will go to pieces for a while

In that the world we've had for a few years now, with Google and Facebook dominating the web, and Apple driving mobile and apps forward is changing into a plethora of markets, devices, ideas and changes.

Kickstarter is one force driving that forward. Products like the Pebble e-paper watch sold for $10 million unseen, untested and with out reviews. It could have sucked. But it still got made and changed how a watch and a remote and a sensor display is viewed.

Sure it has a lot of potential for improvement, but compare the Newton to the iPad and add in innovation at a digital pace - and five or ten years down the road you might be able to "drag" any app from your main device onto one or more support devices, to show the data you need right now just right.

Platforms like Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are making the "somewhat smart" gadget even more affordable and providing a huge step up to total diy. We put up a Pi showing 3 twitter feeds on a dedicated screen, at a fraction of the cost of a whole laptop, and also a lot cheaper than trying to get a  better gpu. Because it was disposable, we might as well give it a shot.

Mobile is back in the trenches, Android gaining ground as the smart phones move into mass market and lower income brackets, and as the top of the line models outstrip the 5 for power, style and innovation. Microsoft still pushing, with some Nokia steam. Blackberry not so much in Europe, but die hards in the US pushing pushing. And Samsung? Making everything from TV to fridge, and a lot in between. Will they make a substantial move, or continue to play the horses?

And startups? With Amazon, Google, Microsoft and more pushing the cloud solutions onwards, upwards and all over every day, the barriers to entry are mostly about attention.

So, change is here.

It will be here for a long time.
It might not get faster - at least not on the same scale as the last two decades,
but it will certainly be stranger.

Music makes me take control

Bodum Pavina - double layer for extreme isolation and clear taste

Two things for inspiration and finding the flow - coffee and music;

The coffee has reached room temperature. The bitter bite reminds me that it is time to refill the cup again. Morning will not move forward without this action. Refilled I can once again type. Let the words pour forth with the hopeful goal of something worth keeping.

Like the post on toes in the grass, this one called Finding the Flow came up over the weekend, by another member of the rat pack of social and digital media - aka Media Hacks.

CC is clearly carving his own path, doing speaking and books, along with being a dedicated dad, rather than working for an agency. Pushing the podcasts every now and again, as another item in the content mix.

And that is part of the joy of reading his post, hearing his thoughts and reflecting on his questions.

He brings another view and vibe, kicking it up with the music, relaxing with a cup, and generally bringing a smile.

I've had a lot more fun with music over the last few months, after I (finally) got on the streaming bandwagon and subscribed to Wimp (similar to Spotify, Norwegian based rather than Swedish, paid only and more focus on blog and recommending music across genres, less cover bands)

Rather than having it as background while doing things, I've used it to explore new ideas and themes, and to have a jump back into years long gone - songs that played on the radio that never bought, artists that seemed strange at the time but grew into something more.

Not simply a tool to tune out and zone in, it has added a little bit at times when that was needed. And all for one less pint each month. While feeling sort of good that some of that money is being kicked forward.

Unnamed idea

"I know who I want to be. Do you? An important part of discovering / creating your own future is to find out, or plan, who you are going to become."

From the aptly named Untitled Essay - by the foul mouthed media hack extraordinare, Julian Smith. Currently making the world (or at least the US for now?) a bit of a saner place with Breather, basically a half way house between hangign in the nearest coffee shop and taking into an hotel for a full day.

It all seems so simple when people like Seth spell it out. Be the linchpin. Make the purple cow. Fly high towards the sun.

Yet it is hard enough that most people never do, try or imagine a reality like that.

Then there are books like the last manifesto in the Domino series. Flinch by Julien. Still free for Kindle thanks to generous sponsorships. And listed as "best books of 2013 so far" - despite coming out in december 2011....

Walk the talk, and those who can do - are perhaps trite, but in this case it fits. Julien took his own advice to heart, built a future he wanted and a service he felt improves the world a little bit every day.

Sure, Breather might fail, or it might be a tiny tiny niche even years down the line. But he stood up, faced the darkness, the voices inside and said; lets do this.

How large of a buffer do you need?
How many hours of planning, dreaming and doodling?
How many stories of "rags to riches" to make it better than playing the lottery?


Along with Pressfield, Flinch is on my re-read for summer list. And pushing content here five times a week on average is a step on the way to that end.


Then, come summers end?

...?

idea?
plan?
action?
ship?

Feels like clover

I read recently that the very simple act of walking barefoot on grass is a powerful and natural stress reliever.

Brogan post, via Pocket, The Business of Simple - and also testing a bit of typing with the touchfire, since it seems that the web version on blogger works passably well for basic use in chrome on the iPad. (Meaning I'll add in the links later, just doing placeholders and typing out the ideas for now)

With summer more or less in full effect the outdoors is an ongoing topic of interest for several blogs, this one resonated well with my own feeling of bliss sitting in the playground earlier as junior ran around enjoying life.

Walking barefoot in the sand or in high grass gives extra texture to life, reminding us of something more than just the digital grind and the laptop. It shifts around, it teases and touches us. Shifting but constant at the same time.

Looking in close at something so seemingly simple and uniform as sand is also a good way to appreciate complexity.

The myriad of small crystals that make up a simple handful is staggering.

A good way to test your digital camera, in terms of resolution, sharpness and stability. Get down there and discover the magic.

In a sense that is a benefit with the keyboard here as well, giving that little bit of tactile feedback during the typing, means that the speed is almost up to my normal typing on a smaller keyboard. With a bit of predictive type ahead, it works out reasonably well overall.

Minor gripe that I'm now typing unseen, behind the keyboard, had to do a double finger scroll to get back in screen, but still a lot better than any previous blogger iOS experience. Guess that says a lot about understanding mobile and tablet, and why Android is still filled with 3rd party "skins" on top and fragmentation like nobodies business. I mean, Samsung is releasing 3 tablets - using two differnt versions.

Better to have than never?

Just a short post, going out directly not from a draft but from a too long open tab, as summer vacation takes it toll on the posting streak;

Now or never, now or never, now or never—the words niggled at me like a song stuck in my head.

The quote is from the intro to the story in PodCastle 219: The Circle Harp - and you can listen in full, for free as with all the goodness from Escape Artists. The theme is about taking a chance or sticking to what you know.

At what point will it be better to go for something "a bit over the moon", rather than playing in the same small pond? Is it better to lose in the big leagues, than to dominate in the minors?

Can you develop your art without stretching beyond the comfort zone? Do we need to push it into the next gear? Or is there a place for doing it good enough, providing what is needed and valued by the audience we have? Trade off or cop out?

- ...and the sun is promising a warm wonderful day of summer, and 7 new drafts made it into the backlog via ifttt ...

Democracy, because you're worth it

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want 

and deserve to get it good and hard."

via Quotes of the Day, one of many attributed to H. L. Mencken - listed as US editor (1880 - 1956) and it is the second to last of the draft backlog here. Fitting in a way.

It certainly reflects on thoughts going back to Plato and others, that the masses are more or less stupid, and giving them the full power will give them what they "deserve" rather than what they "need". Guidance rather than understanding being the defining bias. Some know better, and they should not only be elected, but preferred.

Democracy is not a single thing, and every nation that has at least one version running, does it differently. It is the ultimate open source forking model. Some states run things differently for different levels. Local, regional and national each having their rules and measures.

So it is a "broken" concept, yet it is vastly better than the alternatives seen so far. We can live with the small "injustices" of uneven representation or extended campaigning over political labour. And come fall here in Norway, the whole spectacle will get into gear. Because we deserve it. Because it is worth it.

Dumb and dumber? D'oh...

Well now, as Wordpress would say, this is a bit embarresing... down to the last few drafts and then there is this;

Ben canosha:

1. Review information omnivore ?

2. "web makes smart people smarter, dumb people dumber..."

- need skill to get value  Easy to fall through auto cracks?

So, it looks like I wanted to write something about Ben. Casnocha that is. Most likely after hearing him on SPOS #310 a year ago. But trying to find the book review he talked about is turning up as little now as it most likely did then. 

Guess we'll have to run with part two - more or less a qoute at that;

"web makes smart people smarter, dumb people dumber..."

If you just let the sites serve up what ever makes their ctr go boom, then you might not be getting all the value you could from the web. It is still a slightly lean forward proposition, at least in terms of curating your curators.

Of all the millions of twitter accounts you can follow, how many add value, for you, in your position at your skill level and in that industry? Or the industry you want to get to? 

Make a list, or three. And then cull it every now and again, removing those that no longer add to the flow.

Same goes for blogs and assorted sites - get a reader, like feedly, set up with a handful of starting points. Then follow links and add in the good ones you find.

Supplement it with a semi-smart tool like Zite or Flipboard, but spend some time pushing the direction you need to go up front.

Find three or five key areas you are intrigued by, and that will help stretch you. Find a few at the edge of comfort, and at least one just beyond.


Then take a step back, add a list or two just for fun stuff, and do the same for blogs or topics. Be it specialty coffee, ManU or Dilbert. Every diet needs a bit of sugar and dessert.

Urgency is a state of mind

Of course you need to click and get all of it from Seth Godin: Urgent, please read asap

That's what gets done, of course. The urgent. [...] The problem, of course, is that the queue of urgent never ends, it merely changes its volume as it gets longer.

Stay the path

Back? Yes, you need to finish up here, then on to the next post or the next feed. Then that other app. And then newspaper. Quickly back to the inbox, skim a few more messages.

Fire off a reply, forward another message and push the third into the todo folder. Not the urgent folder, or the current project. Just the todo. For those days that never come.

The daily uploads to YouTube are probably more minutes of video than you will watch. Same for the snaps on insta. Not to mention the number of newspapers and tv channels around the world.

There is no way you can see, read, understand or watch it all. FIlters and priority is a fact of life. No one is going to celebrate if you give it the extra 5%. They will just assume you have yet another 5% and continue to push things your way.

Me? 

I turned off my work email on the iPad since that is my main device for consuming news and secondary for books. Set up auto away mode on the phone, and if I'm off for more than a weekend I'll turn off push notifications on the phone as well. Made 8 subfolders under to do, all for storing ideas and links that might be useful, depending on which project actually has priority at any given time.


How are you swimming in the currents, playing with the flow and surfing the expectations?
#urgenttodo

-...and the sun will shine, and the rain will fall, and we'll be here, through it all ...