Thursday, October 16, 2003
Randy Holloway: "The more you try to control the message, the less effective the message will be." That's profound.
Comment [] Trackback []Corey makes me jealous. Jeff Sandquist doesn't give me cool stuff like this. Just kidding, Jeff promised that I'd get one too.
I watched the playoff game while having a delightful dinner with Randy Holloway -- he's here for the CIO Summit (I pinch myself everytime I get to meet someone like Randy, I really do have an awesome job). Personally, I learned more from Randy than I did last Friday while munching with the Google founders. Seriously.
I commented that I should cheer for the Yankees because they are the Microsoft of baseball. But, I was cheering for Boston. My cheering didn't do any good, though. They gave up a lead to New York and couldn't close the door.
There's a lesson in there somewhere. The Yankees are expected to win. If you want to beat them, you can't give them a chance.
Regarding all the presentation tips that are being thrown around. I must be honest. I am horrible at presenting in front of more than a 1000 people. I froze up when I presented at Frankfurt infront of a large crowd. Don Box asked me "why you shaking?" There's something about being on the big stage that takes your breath away. If you haven't been up there, you'll never know that particular fear. What was interesting is that Don admitted to me that he used to feel the same way.
What's really weird is I never give a second thought to writing to so many people. But, then, I can look at my words and consider the impact of them before hitting "post." (And I don't need to look you all in the eye as you're judging my every move).
My hat is off to anyone who gets onto the big stage voluntarily. It's not easy. At least it's not for me.
Don Box told me something important, back on that fateful day in Frankfurt a few years back: you'll improve over time.
That is true! But, many of us are judged on our first time and never given a second, or fifth, chance.
It's weird, yesterday I spoke to 10 or so very important people (all the folks who run the MVP program). I didn't feel that fear at all, even though these are people who could have changed the course of my career even more than the thousand or so that I talked to in front of at other events.
Anyway, to all those newbies who're getting on stage for the first time, I'm supporting you and want to hear what you have to say. Just take a deep breath and say it!
I guess I posted too much last night.
One thing, though. I write my weblog in the browser. I believe in the "one idea, one post" methodology. Why? Because then if someone likes one of my posts they can repost it on their own weblog. Or, they can email it around. I find lists of 60 things in one post not to be as useful. Also, I type my weblog in a browser page. Ever typed an article for an hour and then had the page refresh because you accidentally clicked on a link? I have. So, I don't write for an hour usually in one post.
Yeah, it means pissing off my readers when I post 69 things in one evening. But, then, the alternative is not to post at all. I'm still largely doing this weblog for myself anyway. I put things I find interesting into it. That way later on I can use Google to find things I find interesting (Google is really cool when you've done a weblog for nearly four years -- I can find almost any post I wrote by searching for its subject and adding the words "scobleizer weblog" to the end of it.
OK, that's enough for tonight. I'm tired.
I've seen a few people at work checking out the new Napster. What do you think? Should I sign up for it? I don't mind the DRM, just wanna have some tunes to listen to for a reasonable price. I heard you get five free songs if you sign up before October 29.
Jeffrey Zeldman's weblog is one of the 546 blogs I now read. If you're a web designer, he's got one of the best. Today he points at Microsoft's Tantek's Mid Pass Filter to get around IE5 CSS bugs.
The other day I was trying to point to Tony Toews' website for Access users and programmers, but I forgot to link to it. Sorry about that Tony. Here's the LinkLove.
Shifted Librarian: Text generation growing up online.
Doc Searls is at Digitial ID world and is covering that event with the usual set of links, including this one to the aggregated feed of a bunch of different webloggers. I still like PDC Bloggers better. ;-)
Two interesting utilities: Check out Windows PowerPro. It's a little "bar" that hangs around on your desktop -- and it is immensely configurable. It supports multiple virtual desktops, hotkeys, clipboard history, timers, quick launch, post-it notes, macros, (etc, etc.)
And then, for the "info bar" type of look, try something called Desktop Sidebar. It tells the time, shows your upcoming appointments, tasks, RSS feeds, and a bunch of other stuff, too.
Kevin Werbach talks about a marketing company devoted entirely to recruiting prominent bloggers to talk up their client's products. Nokia is one. I'm more up front about it than that. Is a company clueful if they need to hire a PR firm to do their dirty work?
Chris Anderson says there are ethical problems behind camera use in public.
Um, did you know that if you are in public you have the legal right to take a picture of anyone? You're just not allowed to use that picture in advertising unless you get them to sign a model release.
Think about it. News photographers don't ask your permission to snap shots.
That said, a thinking person will be careful and only take pictures of willing subjects, but I've never had an ethical problem of taking pictures of someone in public view.
What kind of ethical problems are you thinking about?
Taking a picture up someone's skirt? That can be shown to not be in public view. I'm talking about stuff that you don't need to do anything out of the ordinary to catch.
Microsoft's TechNet program has a new IT Pro Security Zone.
Don Park: Stay away from Red Hat 9 everyone.
Tekguru is UK's largest Pocket PC website and now they have RSS feeds. Plus done by an MVP. MVPs are those guys who love helping people learn Microsoft technology.
Oh, cool, the .NET Guy is building blog software.
Yossi Vardi is getting around. Next he's going to speak at Harvard. He's a real interesting guy and is leading a very interesting life -- his son was one of the three kids who started ICQ. He's now a VC guy over in Israel. Among other things.
Christian Hougardy keeps a weblog similar to mine, albeit in French.
Hey, .NET guys, here's one for you. I have a Microsoft guy asking me for what's the best weblog software out there. He wants to run it on his own box. He wants it to be highly customizeable. Is Das Blog the best?
Russell Beattie (who I still like) writes about Weblogs and Job Hunting.
Are you into mobile phones? Want to start a blog on new Microsoft phone technology? Let me know, and I'll hook you up.
At ITU Telecom World 2003 on Monday, Microsoft and Vodafone outlined their plans to help create mobile Web services standards that will enable new business opportunities for application developers and mobile network operators. They'll be at the PDC too. More details on the Microsoft Mobile Web Services page.
Security Focus: Linux vs. Windows Viruses.
Discover Magazine has an interesting article on "How the Web Edits News." Analyzes Technorati.
One of the highlights of the weekend was listening to David Sifry talk about Technorati. (Tim Bray wrote up the session here, scroll down).
Tom Mertens points us at the RSS feed for Microsoft downloads.
Oh, cool SmartPhone from VOQ. This thing looks interesting. Keyboard and all. Coming in 2004. Don't know many more details than that.
