HyperBored

RIP JD

I love this pic of JD Salinger. Like most of us I loved Catcher in the Rye. I doubt that there's a teen in America (possibly most of the World) that can't relate. There's so much of Salinger in that work, in all of his work, really. I love this picture because he looks hurt, paranoid, scared and a little bit angry. Which pretty much sums up his work and his entire recluse nature. Rest in peace JD. I'd say you'll be missed but you already removed yourself from society to the point that most people probably thought you were already dead. Even those of us that knew you were alive had no hope of you turning out any extra work. In fact many people are speculating at the body of work that might be discovered postmortem. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="160" caption="Catcher in the Rye"] [/caption] I'm now going to re-read Catcher in the Rye and be glad that you don't have to witness the ensuing circus that is sure to follow over your estate.

contest time!!!!

ok, i posted this the other day on face book, and got a couple responses. so i have decided to post it here and have you respond to this post. mostly to help me keep track of all the entries. i am going to run this contest throught the end feb. i know that seems like a long time, but i want to give you all time to thinks about and post your answers. ok, here is the contest...."what is your theme song"? every good super hero has to have one. so what is yours? mine is "so what" by ministry. i am going to give away a free zip hoody to the winner. that is the person with the best song wins. don't worry, i'm not going to say i win with my song. i might even have something for 2nd and 3rd place. so think hard, put some thought into it and good luck super heros!!! post your answer here, please. thanks

How to Save The Office: Nic Cage as Michael Scott

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="306" caption="Nic Cage as Michael Scott"]

[/caption] There's a great bog called Nic Cage as Everyone. One of today's gems is Nic Cages as Michael Scott. You can see the original Michael Scott photo below. That's some really good photoshop work IMO. Is it me or has The Office lost its way? I haven't watched all year. I warned Jen that once Pam and Jim got married the show would loose it. She didn't believe me. Its pretty safe to say I was right. What would you do to save The Office? I'm just hoping for a Dwight Schrute spin off. Maybe Dwight Schrute could do a Scranton 911? It'd be a total rip off of Reno 911 but it worked the first time for The Office. What other Office spin off's should there be? The Andy and Creed show?

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If Violent Video Games Caused Youth Violence I Would Have Killed You All

It seems like this site is about 10 years too late but better late than never? Anyone respectable Gen Xer will tell you that video games don't cause violence, anger causes violence. My POV is that if you are inclined to violence video games will fuel that.

But why is this important? Because video games is a huge, I mean HUGE business.

97% of 12-17 year olds in the US played video games in 2008, thus fueling an $11.7 billion video game industry. In 2008, 10 of the top 20 best-selling video games in the US contained violence.

ProCon is a non-profit dedicated to "promoting critical thinking" and has recently started a new website Video Games - ProCon to look at whether violent video games cause youth violence. Because of that you won't find one main Pro or Con but a view of both sides. Did You Know?

* Sales of video games have more than quadrupled from 1995-2008, while the arrest rate for juvenile murders fell 71.9% and the arrest rate for all juvenile violent crimes declined 49.3% in this same period. * The 2008 study Grand Theft Childhood reported that 60% of middle school boys that played at least one Mature-rated game hit or beat up someone, compared to 39% of boys that did not play Mature-rated games. * In 2008, 298.2 million video games were sold in the US, totaling $11.7 billion in revenue. Six of the top ten best-selling video games included violence, with four of the games carrying a "Mature" rating recommended for persons aged 17 and older.

via PR Newswire

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Facebook is the Mashup of My Life.

As Facebook has grown to become the dominant social network a strange thing has happened: My World's are colliding. Some people are uncomfortable with the mix of personal and work life that Facebook has come to represent. That isn't a problem for me. I am who I am and I have nothing to hide. But as someone who has reinvented himself every 5 years or so, leaving one "world" to create another for myself I never expected any of those worlds to meet. I sometimes worry that matter and anti matter will touch and I'll cease to exist. Here are the many different worlds which not only collide in my account but sometimes even within the comments of my status updates.

My Family

This consists of three very distinct factions My Mom's Side: This is my mom's side of the family. They are matriarchal (because all the men seem to die, doesn't bode well for me), extremely ADD (13 grandsons and everyone of us has pretty major ADHD) and I love them for all of their quirks. It's because of my mom and her family that I am the person I am today. I love them dearly. My Wife's Side: My wife's family is about as normal a family you can get. They're loving, never fight, kind and caring (at least that what I'm told normal families are supposed to be like). My Dad's Side: I never knew my dad's side of the family. They were the water to my mom's oil family. Which is probably part of the reason my parents eventually divorced. Quirky to be sure but a bit of an unknown quantity. There's also my father's newest franchise, my step siblings. They're considerably younger than I am (his youngest daughter is the same age as my oldest daughter) and just now starting to join Facebook. It's a little awkward.

My Career Lives

I say lives because I've had multiple career's and they are starting to collide. Boise's Social Media Pioneer: Besides being a partner at a small DOA marketing agency, attempting a few startups, and being the EIR at Highway 12 Ventures, I was "that guy" in Boise. I was the first one to really start evangelizing social media (then called new media). There were a handful of us doing it and a few more who "got it" and were using it, but I think it's safe to say that I was the one screaming the loudest from the tallest soap box. I started and helped start many tech/social groups in Boise like The WaterCooler (an incubator/cowork space) TechBoise (a blog and monthly events), IgniteBoise and other things. Leaving Boise was hard but I knew I would keep my connections. In fact this is probably still the largest group of Facebook friends. Social Media Professional: All of the above Boise activity was counter pointed by being one of the few dedicated social media people at HP. There are even more now but at the time there were only a few of us. This is where I really started to gain traction on the larger social media stage. I was gaining real enterprise/brand experience and getting recognized for my work. Most of my friends from this space aren't actually HP employees, they are the people I met during this time and still interact with mostly on Twitter and at conferences. Most of these people duplicate their Facebook and Twitter updates so my Facebook interactions are pretty limited. Seattle Social Media: The last group really bleeds over into this next group. While the last group is more industry wide the Seattle group is it's own distinct flavor. As an active participant in the Social media Club (when I'm in town) and a board member of Seattle's Social Media Breakfast this group is growing as I become more integrated into Seattle. Skateshop Owner: This is by far the most interesting group of Facebook friends. Many of you know that I used to own a skateboard shop in Las Vegas. This was ~6-7 years ago. The best marketing tool I had was a MySpace page. It worked beautifully. Every skater in Las Vegas was on MySpace, I really didn't need anything else. When I sold the shop and moved back to Boise and got back in to marketing/communications I started blogging and then using Twitter a lot more and started using MySpace only for finding new bands. I left that life behind and all of those friends with it. But as Facebook grows and MySpace dies these fringe early adopters have been making their way over to Facebook where I've slowly been reforming friendships. While it's a little weird at times it's also why I love social media so much. It's turned my life into one big mashup.

Star Trek just got a lot Geekier with it's own MMORPG

Wow or should I say WOW. This could be the geekiest thing I've read all day.

Atari, Inc., one of the world's most recognized videogame publishers, and acclaimed MMO developer Cryptic Studios™, announced today that the highly anticipated Star Trek Online for PC has entered open beta, bringing fans one step closer to playing in the final frontier. The open beta runs through January 26, 2010. Fans with valid open beta keys can explore the Star Trek universe and play the first-of-a-kind massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Information about where to obtain open beta keys and where to download the open beta client can be found on the official Star Trek Online website at: http://www.startrekonline.com/openbeta. "We are thrilled to give open beta access to fans as we draw nearer to the official release of Star Trek Online," said Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer on Star Trek Online. "We are looking forward to the launch of our first-of-a-kind MMORPG with anticipation and excitement and we expect Star Trek Online to explode onto the scene, giving fans and gamers a Star Trek experience like no other."

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4th dimensional creatures

so i have this thought, and i would kind of like some feedback, if i could. ok, so jason gilmore actually planted this seed over 2 decades ago without realizing what would become of it, well jason, here is my thought. jason told me of a story about a conversation between a 2 dimensional object and a 3 dimensional object. and basically it came down to, the 2d object could not see the 3d object, but it could see the shadow of the 3d object. and the 3d object could see the 2d object because it sees through the 2nd dimension. now that i have said that, here is my thought........ the 4th dimension is time, right? well what if "spirits" or the "spirit world" existed in the 4th dimension. because if we existed in time we would exist in all time, or no time. and this is how God knows all. because he exists in all time. now, what if these ghosts and spirits that people see are merely the "shadows" of 4th dimensional creatures. and if all that is true, then we are 4th dimensional creatures trapped in a 3 dimensional object. and through this is what allows us to do "super human" things. times when we shouldn't have been able to accomplish something, (whatever), and it happened. the power of will? we do know that the spirit world is here on earth, right? it just happens to exist in a different dimension. i say the 4th. time. so, basically we r 4th dimensional creatures residing in a 3 dimensional object. what say ye... i've been thinking more about this, and kurt vonnegut writes about it in slaughter house 5, when he talks about being "unstuck in time". (mark twain also talks about a kind of time line manipulation in the 5 boons of life. i think that is what it is called.) so being unstuck in time  would make sense if we were 4th dimensional creatures inside 3 dimensional objects. if time is the 4th dimension, and we are creatures of said dimension, then we already exist in all time. we exist in the time when we were born, as well as the time when our bodies die. all points in between, and if we learn to look hard enough through what some people call the 'vail", we can learn how to look into our own futures. just as easy as we can look into our pasts. you may say, we can look into our pasts, because we have already lived it. and i say, we have already lived all of our moments and we just have to catch up to them. just like a star that burnt out a million years ago, but we are just now seeing the light. does that star still exist? i say yes. and just like that star, we may "burn out" but we still continue on. now, gravity transcends all dimensions. so if we are 4th dimensional creatures, and when the 3 dimensional objects we live in, stop existing, then our selves will still be here on this spinning rock. they won't be sent into space where there is a magical place for the wise and the wicked. we will still be here trying to progress. just like we try here. if we aren't growing here, it will be the same on the other side. just a little different because we will exist in all time. all things that have happened will exist in on moment. or no moment. all time. or no time. so as we try to look through the fog and see what is to come, we can change what will happen. kind of. it takes a great effort on all fronts. mental, spiritual, physical. changing lifestyle. or something easy like opening a window, or not opening the window. but as soon as it happens all things after will fall into place. just like they are suppose to. if you push something over there is a reaction, and all things fall into place the way they should according to what had happened. just like if you don't push that thing over, then all the things will still fall into place the way that they should according to what just happened. just like opening the window, or not. more to come when the thought comes back. got lost in time. sorry...

The Importance of Pondering

It's very easy to get caught up in the rush of things.  The fire hose of the real time web never stops. The importance of speed has never been more important. We are always on. And I for one see all of this as a good thing. Knowledge workers with a gift for seeing connections and order in the chaos few in numbers and are in high demand right now. For those of you who filtering and multitasking doesn't come naturally, don't worry you can learn. In order to successfully manage this flood of multitasking data there's an important step that may seem counter-intuitive: Stopping to ponder what you've collected in that brain of yours. Ponder - To reflect or consider with thoroughness and care. I love the word, ponder. To ponder is a powerful skill. It's different than, but related to stepping back to let yourself think. It's not unplugging or recharging. It's very deliberate, active and engaged. It's equal parts conscious thought and equal part subconscious. It's about filling your brain with a very deliberate set of knowledge, sometimes related and sometimes seemingly random. And then you pick it all apart mentally. Like untangling your Christmas lights. Most people skip this process. They often rely on sparks of intuition that come in the shower or in that space between wake and sleep. They seek out council from colleagues and friends. These are important steps too but it's not the same as pondering. Pondering is active not passive. It's also an internal and is not a collaborative process. Pondering is an important step in balancing out group think. Group think happens too much at most companies and we see far too much of it in the echo chamber of social media. I've been doing a lot of pondering lately. When I'm taking in information I'm very active online. I'm a social learner so I learn by interacting with all of you on this blog and Twitter and Facebook. Last week and this week I've been a little more quiet than normal (normal for me that is). That's because I've been pondering many things. I really enjoy pondering but it's a more insular activity. What makes effective pondering:

1. Deep and rich immersion in the information to be pondered.
2. Time away from distractions and the mental state to ponder.

For me walks are a great time to ponder or just sitting in a coffee shop with headphones, a pen and a notebook. But it's probably different for everyone. What works for you?

If Your Cell Phone is a Digital Leash, This is a Leash for Your Leash.

I remember when people used to complain that their BlackBerry was a "digital leash." While useful I can't help but think this ensures you always have your leash with you. It's like the ankle bracelet of mobile electronics.

Cool stuff unveiled at opening of Consumer Electronics Show (photos) | VentureBeat

Zomm unveiled a Bluetooth wireless leash. It will sound an alarm if you walk away from your mobile phone, making it easier not to forget it somewhere. The Zomm device goes on your key ring and is wirelessly paired with your mobile phone via Bluetooth wireless. If you walk out of range, Zomm will vibrate and flash lights. It will also provide you with a sound alert for incoming calls when your phone is out of sight. You can answer a call by pressing a button. Then you can use Zomm as a speaker phone.

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more proof that EVERYTHING is better in slow motion