DISQUS

"The true economy of friending is what you get out of these networks - not what they get out of you."

Steve: I recently read the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, that really put the concept of "networking" into perspective for me. I finally think I understand what it's all about.

I've never wanted to be a "master networker", circulating around in a party (or jumping up and down to try to get DWiner to notice me), because it felt more like manipulation - becoming friends with someone to get something out of them. Ferrazzi turns this concept on its head: he says that the real power of building a network is to try to help others - to try to find ways to connect others to their (mutual) benefit, to try to make things better for everyone whenever/wherever you can; and in the end, he argues, the network in turn will help you.

That approach makes more sense to me. Since then I've started connecting with more people, whenever it feels easy and natural - and I find that folks have helped me without my even trying (or asking).

So the real power of these social networks may be in making contact with others and figuring out ways to share/interact/help them (perhaps in some small way) - eventually, we can all benefit!

Mathew: I agree that TED seems incredibly elitist - but at least they're fairly open and transparent about it. I imagine there must be other invite-only organizations for the "elite" that I don't even know about. (Does that sound paranoid?)

Having said that, I'm really thrilled that the TED folks are making many of the speakers' presentations public - the TED videos provide incredibly high-quality ideas from some of the leading thinkers of our time., and they're open to all.

As an example, I've highlighted the following video of Sir Ken Robinson's presentation on my blog - it's pretty thought-provoking, and there are many other videos equally worthy:
Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity and Education

The response URL above is not accurate; it should be:
http://blog.softwareabstractions.com/the_software_abstractions/2008/02/semantic-web--.html

I agree, although I would qualify that further as saying that the biggest problem is the lack of meaningful applications that leverage the awesome potential of structured data on the web.

I've blogged a response here:
http://blog.softwareabstractions.com/the_software_abstractions/