Ross Mayfield's Weblog

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

This weblog has moved
My blog is now at ross.typepad.com

My RSS feed is http://ross.typepad.com/blog/index.rdf

Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions.

3:37:12 PM    comment []

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Legacy Blog
A thought occured to me, perhaps I shouldn't transition my Radio archives. Its a good part of my past that I'm proud of, an artifact perhaps best left intact.

When I started on Radio it was the best tool available. I still like its intergrated news aggregator. For whatever the present brew ha ha is, I respect Dave for what he did and Userland for what they have done for the industry. I also think his recent moves have been more reasonable, allowing him to get the historical credit he deserves while letting him and others move on.

Its just time to move on.

I guess a reason for transition would be to avoid loosing Googlejuice and Technoratisweat, but Im not an attention junkie. Haven't written for mass appeal, something actually easier to do, but for the relationships the tool supports. Many people know me through this blog, most will find the new one, I'll keep posting, link back to it, a social re-direct while renewing myself.

And I just dont have the time to muck around with transition. Switching costs have been raised purposely, and Im a victim. At least with TypePad I don't have to concern myself with what's next while getting a hosted service that meets my needs with simplicity.

Pardon for burdening you with my indecision. But is this a cop out, or a real notion of avoiding revisionism?

5:19:14 PM    comment []

What's New
Posted what I believe are the dominant trends that arose since the bubble.

1:35:36 PM    comment []

The Network is the People
Seems I won my little bet with Clay.

9:31:50 AM    comment []

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

I have my pad of type
Okay, Im moving to http://ross.typepad.com/

But before I do, I need some help. Anil shared a great resource for Radio users to "make the move" if they are not hosted at weblogs.com. Unfortunately I am. Can anyone help me import my Radio archive?

1:04:47 PM    comment []

Monday, August 04, 2003

Brains, Brains, Brains and more Brains
The smartest blogging is going on at Zack Lynch's Corante: Brain Waves, by the brainiacs of guestblogging. Pat Kane brilliantly redefined play for us last week. Steven Johnson is up next, asking "What happens to our layperson brains now that we're able to talk about our mental events in a much more direct, non-metaphoric language?"

July 28-Aug 1: The Future of Work is Play

Pat Kane, author of the forthcoming book, The Play Ethic: Living Creatively in the New Century (MacMillan 2004). "Play will be to the 21st century what work was to the last 300 years of industrial society - our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value."   See Brain Waves Post: Harry Potter and the Rise of Kidults

Aug 4-8: Personal Experiences with Neurotechnology

Steven Johnson, author of Emergence and Interface Culture describes his experiences with brain imaging, neurofeedback and other mind oriented topics. Steven also writes the Emerging Technology column for Discover magazine each month. See Brain Waves Post: Express Yourself

Aug 11-15: Neuroeconomics, Trust and Neurosociology

Paul Zak is the Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He is a leading researcher on the neurobiology of trust and is in the process of raising money for a new Center for Brain Studies in the Inland Empire. If you are interested in becoming a donor please contact Paul or myself. See Brain Waves Post: Economics From the Neurons Up

11:47:17 PM    comment []

Almost Typepad Time
Counting down the minutes until I can get my hands on my Typepad. Planning a little blog transition.
11:33:21 PM    comment []

Friday, August 01, 2003

10,000 feet
At 10,000 feet your blood runs thin. You don't worry about if you are seeing the forest for the trees when you are above the tree line. Take a fall on a mountain bike, land in pummus only at the risk of exfoliation.

12:02:36 PM    comment []

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Mammoth

The Minarets from Minaret Lake

Off to Mammoth Lakes for a few days. Mammoth is on the Eastern side of the Sierras, where tectonic plates collide so elevations rise. There are few places where you can access the backcountry so easily.

No reception. No blogging.

Hiking, mountain biking down Mammoth Ski Area, stagpiles, pummus, hot springs and kayaks. We make a point to go once a summer.

11:49:28 AM    comment []

Blog for Governor
Peter Kaminski:

In case you've not heard, the Democratic Governor in California sucks. Well, that's what a rich Republican spoiler and a million Californians think. Personally, I'm not sure he sucks more than a lot of other politicians in the country, but that's another story.

Anyway, the petition to have a recall vote for Governor has succeeded, and we're to have a recall election October 7th. The first question will be whether or not to fire the current Governor, and then there will be list of candidates to replace him if is fired.

The interesting thing is that it's pretty easy to qualify to be a candidate. You need to be a US citizen and have 100 voters from your party sign a nomination form. There's a $3,500.00 filing fee, but you can submit 10,000 signatures from voters in lieu of the filing fee. Those are the high points; for details, see the recall docs at the California Secretary of State site.

Should blogspace field a candidate or two?

Should blogspace field a thousand candidates, in a civil protest about the process?

There is only a vanishingly small chance such a blogspace candidate would be elected, but just fielding a candidate and getting a couple hundred thousand votes would say, "We are here." It's an interesting opportunity. Paperwork is due August 9th.

If we did field a candidate, part of the message should be how silly this is. Its an abomination that 5% of the population can force a recall. If only the requirements were so low to initiate a public referrendum to amend Article 2 of the California constitution.

11:39:37 AM    comment []

Friday, July 25, 2003

Digital Polity
Attended a networking luncheon this week where Reed Hundt gave a speech quite different than two weeks prior at Supernova. Perhaps he drank the superjuice -- it was very emergent democratic and second superpowery.

The first speech centered on his proposal to provide Universal Broadband Access to over 90% of US homes by 2013. Americans take the Net for granted more than anyone, while other enlightened countries (Korea being the poster child) make it a mission.  This year's Supernova had a greater focus on policy and Reed's was the one specific policy proposal I heared -- invest an amount less than the subsidy to analog TV for digital ($75b) to maintain economic competitiveness. Unless there is a plausible path for ILEC demise, this is the best proposal on the table. Reed also gets open spectrum, so sing a hallelujah and hope something happens.

One thing is for sure. When Dean showed he could raise money on the Net, politics changed forever.

Previously the Net had demonstrated its ability to influence decision makers through individualize pluralism, beginning when Kevin Werbach set up the first citizen feedback email address. Over 2 million emails were sent by citizens on the issue of media ownership, at last count according to Reed. Blogs have also demonstrated the ability of an influential deliberative network to force the media to play their role as the 4th estate, Lott being the poster child.

But now the Net has become a constituency. Decision makers like to say they are accountable even the poorest residents of their districts, but money is the source of their power and the group they serve is the group that elects them with it. Dean has shown the Net as means to money. And now every politician is finally paying attention.

Reed's talk last week was on the digital polity vs. the analog polity. He spoke eloquently about the rising constituency and how its "not just that things reoccur, its that they get better." There are core ideals, parties are means towards those ideals, but are largely ineffective. A new party of a digital polity is emerging that holds certain core beliefs:

We know more than our leaders
We pay nobody to say what we want to hear
Information is percipient and wants to be free
We are build on systems and networks, not organizations
We synthesize the whole instead of constructing barriers and silos
We believe in truth and civil debate

Now I may not have everything word for word (thumbed it into my Palm). He also stated digital polity principles of privacy, representation, honesty and equity.   He implies that leaders still have utility and a role to play, but they need to engage the digital constituency and build trust. We don't depend upon the media because we are skeptics and experts, we are global and can engage in collective action without government. That said, digital needs to negotiate with analog. But these are powerful and re-occuring themes.

What is encouraging, if not remarkable, is that Reed is a civil servant, nay, politician, who undertands his new constituency and its reasonable demands.

At the end he did casually remark that we should abolish the US Senate, as they are a distortion of representation, serving only 15% of citizens. The point he is making, though, is that leaders fall behind their citizens (especially in times like these). Perhaps because they are not engaged with their constituents. Perhaps because their interests are conflicted. But the difference is our representatives need to recognize our new found powers to deliberate and represent ourselves at a pace they need to understand.

Which brings me back to Dean. If a candidate and causes can raise money on the Net, they can engage in institutional pluralism. Direct participation within the social network of decision makers. This scares most policy makers, as the game has changed.

Its a grass roots game ripe for changing minds and policy. Valdis forwarded a paper, Encouraging Political Defections: The Role of Personal Discussion Networks in Partisan Desertions to the Opposition Party and Perot Votes by Paul Beck, that I found absolutely stunning. We are bi-polar in our political views by nature, tend to filter out news we can identify is from the opposition and are comfortable in the absence of change. But when an issue is socialized we have a greater chance of changing our minds. When our social network provides new ideas and affirmations, we are more likely to take new positions.

Perhaps that's the power of Dean's use of Meetup. Meetup collapses time and space for deliberative groups to get together. Inevitably, some participants are strong ties for affirmation and weak ties for new ideas. What Dean is doing is opening up discussion at the social level to enact political change. How neofunctional of him. What Dean needs to do, however, is get more of us to debate -- instead of the candidates.

4:40:43 PM    comment []

Resistance is Futile
Liz Lawley made a great post on in-class and in-conference back-channels over at Many-to-Many.

A key takeaway is that the back-channel will always exist. You can resist or incorporate it into your activities to focus the channel.

3:52:06 PM    comment []

The Other Buzz

Buzz narrowly escapes his 15 minutes of fame. Today's NY Times story on back channels at conferences has provoked lots of interesting commentary around the web today. One tidbit to pass along. The story includes the archetypal conference blogging story of the impact of Doc Searls and Dan Gillmor sharing a link from Both "forwarded by a reader in Florida." If you want the story behind the story, go check out Buzz Bruggeman's blog buzzmodo. Buzz was that "reader in Florida" and he describes his near 15 minutes of fame. [via McGee's Musings]

Im posting this to help Buzz get a little more fame, as he deserves. The role of a remote participant has grown because of his role.

With all the attention on heckling, good to note remote participation can also be a positive contributor to an event. Arguably in a position to provide greater focus, they can cull revelvant resources and affirm points made by a speaker.

3:44:52 PM    comment []