kathleen forden

Stephen Fry - Beloved Actor, Writer, British Tweeter

Those 140 little characters, perfect for getting to the point.  Perfect for sharing.  Perfect in this time of bullet point explanations in our mile a minute society.

Yep, for those of you that know me, you know I’m a big fan of the micro-blogging site Twitter.   As soon as I saw it in action in 2008, I knew it would grow and attract millions.

I’m an information junkie, a resource sharing, technology and society learning, walking talking encyclopedia of facts and knowledge about the use of technology and society’s future.   Let me translate in TwitterSpeak:  “Early Adopter, who is passionate about learning and sharing information about technology, society and our future.”

While I love it for all those reasons and more, I also knew about the dark side that would soon appear when it reached critical mass.  Human nature has a way of showing its dark side with or without accountability for its actions.  Always has and I think it always will.

When you live, work and breathe technology for decades like I have, you see the stuff that is not always public to the masses.  You see the virtual fights that start up over a difference of opinion and you see the nasty behavior of those who feel shielded behind a keyboard.  Years ago it was almost always done behind an alias that would take a while to track to a person’s name.

So along comes Facebook, and they required “real” names and “real” email accounts.  Once that started to become the norm you could see the shift hitting the web.  People started using real names and real connections to themselves.

Now we have virtual fights happening everywhere, but more and more frequently on Twitter.  It starts as simply as one person who says the mildest things about a celebrity, and are attacked by folks who believe these celebrities to be demi-gods of our society.  I mention this due to the crazy event that has happened over the last few days on Twitter.

Stephen Fry is a celebrity in Europe and throughout the World.  He is also one of the most celebrated godfather’s of British twitters.  Finally, he is a self-admitted individual who suffers from a bipolar disorder.

Another Twitter user named Richard tweeted this tweet: “I underdstand @stephenfry‘s tweets but, much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit… boring…. (sorry Stephen) “

And so it started.  What appear to be mild exchanges between a celebrity and a fan; turned into several internationally reported articles from the mainstream world press.  While also tumbling out of control with anger, hatred and bile in the Tweetesphere for days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8335793.stm – Fry ponders leaving Twitter sitehttp://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7178&edition=2&ttl=20091101134401

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8336425.stm – Fry ends row with Twitter critic

The exchange:

STEPHEN FRY:  @brumplum whereas yours are so fascinating I can barely contain my fluids.

RICHARD: @stephenfry I shall have to put more effort into fluid-extraction! *blushes at the thought of S.F. reading my wibbles*

RICHARD:  My life is complete, @stephenfry has @ replied me, rapidly followed by blocking me. My previous comment clearly hit him hard. Sorry.

STEPHEN FRY:  @brumplum You’ve convinced me. I’m obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone.

STEPHEN FRY:  Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it’s been fun.

The fallout:

Richard was besieged on his blog, twitter and email from fans of Stephen’s worldwide.  The BBC picked up the story, radio stations and talk stations picked it up.  Stephen was going to quit Twitter and it was all due to one comment.

Hours went by and Twitter was awash with the shock and anger generally used during a mob rush over human right infractions.  A Twitter Storm erupted and it appeared folks couldn’t be meaner or nastier if they were screaming at each other at a KKK rally in the Deep South.

Two days later and people are still adding comments about the incident, releasing steady streams of anger, frustration and bile.  The two primary individuals involved however, have apologized and moved on.  It’s only the captive audience of folks out there that can’t move on.

The future:

It’s official in my mind; the lid is officially off our ids.  What is the id you might ask?  It’s one of the parts of how our personalities develop according to Freud; “ The id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation.”

You can expect to see more and more virtual exchanges that have mobfeed mentality erupt.  Only in the future, you will also see someone who doesn’t have any self-control or control of their own disorder, eventually harm another person over it.  Someone who will combine their internal conflicts with the mobfeed mentality and will track down the person who they perceive did them harm.  As we continue to live our lives in public, expect all aspects of the dark side within to start to surface as we continue evolving with the use of technology.

I guarantee it.  Laws haven’t kept up, social etiquette hasn’t kept up, foundation building in our youth hasn’t kept up and the organizations leading the way haven’t done so with any morale compass.  Why would society as a whole when the foundation needs such drastic repair?

We are reaching a tipping point in society, a point in which it might be too late to turn it around.  What are you going to do about it?  Who are you going to start the conversation with to start turning it around?  Do you even notice or care?

Posted via web from kforden.com

Wordle example of blog

I love seeing data in a Visual Data Diagrams almost as much as I love Augmented Reality.  It’s become my second biggest interest in emerging technologies lately.

Thank you IBM Research for allowing Jonathan Feinberg, the ability to reuse code he wrote on your dime to develop this awesome, fun, cool, educational application.

Try it – you too will fall in love – http://www.wordle.net/

<from the site>
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.</from the site>

I’m just rereading a piece about higher education dying just like the newspapers and I can’t help thinking that newspaper publishers need to just redefine themselves and their products and find new sources of revenue.

How do newspapers make money?  Ad Sales and Readers, right?  Who really cares what the medium or channel is.  Expand your market base as one side constricts.

With ad sales, I’m pretty sure that the news agencies invested in technology spends to run those online digital ad networks across their sites.  Start offering those services to a larger market with a better price point.  Offer to sell ads for the Pennysaver like coupon papers, small publications and other publishers living on the ad spends; expand your sales for your services not your content.

You have the experience with sales, ad creation and technology to run it all.  So use it for more than your own publication.

I mentioned getting revenue from services, so I’m sure lots of folks are shocked.  Don’t be, I think they should continue to sell their content to readers with subscriptions.  Subscriptions sold by paper, digital or mobile, sell them all just drop their price.

Did she just say “Drop Their Price”?  Yes, I did.  Expand your other market with content.  Sell it to and for every blog etc that wants to republish it.  Allow all teasers for free to entice and offer a soft baseline of information.  But sell the republish rights for each item for a penny.  One cent.

Will these ideas offer a big enough return to be considered by the Knight Ridders (The McClatchy Company) of the world?  Maybe not, but then again I never said I had the solution just a few random thoughts…..

What do you think?

<excerpt from Wikipedia> The stone is said to have been presented to Cormac McCarthy by Robert the Bruce in 1314 in recognition of his support in the Battle of Bannockburn;[1] popular legend holds that this was a piece of the Stone of Scone. This stone was then installed at McCarthy’s castle of Blarney. When the castle was rebuilt in 1446, Dermot McCarthy had the stone preserved in the new castle.

The proprietors of Blarney Castle list several explanations other than the Stone of Scone for the ancient origins of the stone, many of which suppose that the Stone had previously been in Ireland but was then taken to Scotland and returned to Ireland in 1314.[1] The theories listed include those that the stone:

* was part of the wailing wall in Jerusalam brought to Ireland during the Crusades.
* was half of the original Stone of Scone – presented to Cormac McCarthy by Robert the Bruce in 1314 in recognition of his support in the Battle of Bannockburn.[1].
* was the stone that Jacob used as a pillow, and was brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah.
* was the pillow used by St. Columba of Iona on his deathbed.
* was the Stone of Ezel, which David hid behind on Jonathan’s advice, while fleeing from King Saul, and may have been brought back to Ireland during the Crusades.
* was the rock that Moses struck with his staff to produce water for the Israelites, during their flight from Egypt.
* was related to the stone was known as the Lia Fáil or “Stone of Destiny” – part of the king’s throne, with mysterious powers.

None of these provenance stories account for why a stone of such significance and antiquity would be used in the construction of a fifteenth century castle, inconspicuously incorporated into an exterior wall and exposed to the elements. Apart from discoloration and wear caused by human contact, the stone is not readily distinguishable from its neighbors. </excerpt from Wikipedia>

Cultures, People, Google Logos, World's Celebrations

I’ve been a fan of the Google logo directory for a few years now.

http://www.google.com/logos/logos09-1.html

This morning I was just reviewing the new logos for the last year when something hit me.  I’ve been visiting this site because it shows creativity and imagination with each cool design.   But, I also love it because it reminds me that we live in a global society.  A fact this is sometimes easy to forget when you are managing all your “life responsibilities”.

Each culture has their own traditions and holidays represented on these pages.  Scrolling through the logos and reading each holiday  is a quick way to feel just a little bit more connected with all the other folks out there beyond our cubicles or homes.

Go visit and let me know what you think.

http://www.google.com/logos/logos09-1.html

Sometimes even the best researchers forget that the answer you get depends entirely on who you ask. A new Forrester survey of 2,000 information workers has revealed that despite the hype, it’s not Gen Y that’s getting business to adopt collaborative technology. Gen X, those who are 30-43, are the ones leading the charge for social computing.

Forrester’s analysis is that despite their different view of technology, Gen Y, Millennials, or whatever you want to call those 29 and under, don’t yet have the clout within organizations to make real change. The same Gen X employees who are the fastest growing demographic in Facebook are the ones getting management to accept new technology as more than a fad.

Just Ask Employees

A common method for researching about how people use technology is to ask industry experts and management about what they’ve provided to workers and how they think it’s being used. That’s how many market researchers go about their business.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/09/forget-gen-y-gen-x-is-making-r.php

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder…, originally uploaded by fgfathome.

Drove to the Marin Headlands but it was way too foggy so I went low near the Coast Guard station for this shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Microsoft asked INVIVIA to come up with two extreme concept videos about augmented realities. What would we be able to do if the digital and real world were seamlessly combined?  These are what they came up with.

Old Adage, originally uploaded by Aen Tan.

Still holds true.