Disqus - Latest Comments for Roy Blumenthal

Re: Open Source Creativity

Roy Blumenthal — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 05:41:16 -0000

Hiya Jeremy…

Got your link off kathy Sierra’s blog. I’m in the process of co-creating South Africa’s first opne source industrial theatre company.

I’ve posted a draft business structure for it on OPEN BUSINESS. My piece is at: http://www.openbusiness.cc/2006/05/28/exploring...>

I’d love it if you could take a look and offer your insights.

I used to work in advertising, and I remember reading David Ogilvy’s instructions about trade secrets. He had this thing that if you threw an idea away in the rubbish, you would be fired if it was found, cos that’s the same as giving away trade secrets. Blah.

Blue skies
love

Roy

Re: Bribing the cops

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:49:14 -0000

Hey Paul...

Hehehehehe. The ethics of this are clear: bribery is unethical. I'm not proud of the fact that I bribed a traffic cop.

I'm wondering, though, at what point blurring one's own personal ethics becomes acceptable. Some scenarios, ranging from extreme to slightly more subtle...

(1) You're Jewish. It's 1939. The last ship out of Nazi Germany is sounding a long slow horn indicating it's about to leave. You know you've GOT to get out, and the only way to do it is to bribe the guy letting people onto the gangplank. It's a substantial bribe. And it's in your back pocket. Do you bribe the guy? Do you not bribe the guy, and thus prevent you and your family from escaping?

(2) You've just arrived at the Zimbabwe border in your 4x4 en route to Kenya. You KNOW that a bribe is a normal part of doing business at these border posts. Do you pay the bribe and continue your journey? Do you not pay the bribe and get turned away? Do you not pay the bribe and spend a week in a holding cell?

I dunno. It's easy to be moralistic. Less easy to be morally correct.

(And I'm NOT digging at you or Jane (the person commenting on my post) on this one. Cos I happen to agree with both of you.)

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Bribing the cops

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:49:14 -0000

Re: Spoilt?

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:47:06 -0000

Yo Paul...

Are you serious??? Can you find pictures of porn on the web??? How does one, say, go about this? If my... uh... friend wanted to find naughty stuff on the web, where would he start????

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Spoilt?

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:47:06 -0000

Re: My birthday cake

Roy Blumenthal — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:12:01 -0000

Yo Paul...

Happy happy happy, dude!

Re cutting the cake... Surely it's obvious? You can't cut on the man of steel himself. The knife would just bounce off.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: My birthday cake

Roy Blumenthal — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:12:01 -0000

Yo Paul...

Happy happy happy, dude!

Re cutting the cake... Surely it's obvious? You can't cut on the man of steel himself. The knife would just bounce off.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Two interesting developments … both involving Yahoo!

Roy Blumenthal — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:00:01 -0000

Yo Paul...

I'm busy sinking my teeth into delicious at the moment, and it seems pretty potent.

The way I'm starting to use it is....

1. An online repository of my bookmarks.

2. A taggable set of bookmarks. In the traditional bookmarking style or things, you have A folder that you put a bookmark into. And that's where it lives. But say a bookmark lives in several catgories? You'd have to make that bookmark in several different folders. Here, you just add as many tags as you think are relevant.

3. A sharing tool. People can go to my delicious page and see what I'm bookmarking. http://del.icio.us/schmucknews.

4. More than that... I can tag things for the attention of people I know. So, for instance, if I find a story that you might want to read, I tag it as such. (I haven't figured out what happens to the story that's been tagged like that. But hey. All in the fullness of time.)

5. It's a research and brainstorming tool. Thanks to the tagging system, you can cluster things for specific projects. When those projects end, you can just shift tags around or delete things.

6. It's a communal tool. Some of the sites I've bookmarked have been bookmarked by other people. I can go and see what ELSE they've bookmarked.

7. I can see who is bookmarking MY pages.

I'm sure there's more. And I suspect the flexibility is what makes it so potent.

I'm likening it to the revolution that gmail represents to email. Gmail is a paradigm shift. So is delicious. Very cool.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Two interesting developments … both involving Yahoo!

Roy Blumenthal — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:00:01 -0000

Re: Love podcasts

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:52:27 -0000

Hiya Paul...

I'm not entirely sure how to get my podcasts ON to the iTUNES store.

Looking at my stats, I see that more than one person seems to have subscribed to my podcast feed from iTUNES, so it must be searchable through that system somehow.

I truly can't seem to figure out iTUNES myself. It SHOULD be simple. It should be a matter of using my feed URL in iTUNES, but I don't know how to do that.

The feed URL is http://schmucknews.libsyn.com/rss.

As far as I know, that's what you need. Will you let me know if you get it to work? And also what you did to get it to work?

(I haven't recorded any new podcasts since the radio show, but I'll be resuming my podcasting activities pretty soon. It's SUCH a cool activity!)

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Love podcasts

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:52:27 -0000

Re: Welcome to Grouchy Blogger

Roy Blumenthal — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:10:10 -0000

Yo Paul...

You've dropped the 'd' in 'wiredgecko' in the url both here and on Neuvo.

Happy Pesach.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Welcome to Grouchy Blogger

Roy Blumenthal — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:10:10 -0000

Yo Paul...

You've dropped the 'd' in 'wiredgecko' in the url both here and on Neuvo.

Happy Pesach.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Pricing matyrdom

Roy Blumenthal — Mon, 29 May 2006 16:29:52 -0000

Hiya Paul...

In my experience as a freelancer, the only time to charge lower fees than the competition is if you want to get bruised and hurt and abused by your client.

This is not a function of the clients WANTING to abuse you. It's a function of perceived and actual value.

In my business (I'm an industrial theatre practitioner and facilitator) the client generally wants to know that he or she is in safe hands. There are huge repurcussions to getting an intervention wrong. I find that they will happily pay a premium price to get a brilliant intervention.

I'm more expensive than the other people around doing what I do. But I generally get called first for gigs. I believe this is for three reasons: (1) I know my stuff. (2) I deliver. (3) I'm more expensive, and am partly perceived to be higher value.

(Being more expensive is a pre-screening tool to ensure that I don't attract loser-clients. Those who can afford to pay my price are people who have the necessary resources to successfully implement what I come up with. The reverse doesn't ALWAYS hold. For instance, there are NGOs who have limited resources, who are NOT losers in the slightest. However, with paying clients who are in the business of making money, price should be a non-issue. Value should be the determining factor. (And value is NOT a price issue. It's about measuring the deliverables and the outcome of achieving those deliverables.)

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Pricing matyrdom

Roy Blumenthal — Mon, 29 May 2006 16:29:52 -0000

Re: I am really getting into Gmail!

Roy Blumenthal — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:55:43 -0000

Yo Paul...

Here's an interesting application that you can use to add muscle to your Gmail useage: http://thetechnologycircle.blogspot.com/2006/06/use-your-gmail-account-as-external.html. It's a hack that lets you use your Gmail account as an external harddrive for backup or data-portability.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but I will at some point. Wouldn't mind a 3G data limit that exceeds 1 gig though.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: I am really getting into Gmail!

Roy Blumenthal — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:55:43 -0000

Re: I am really getting into Gmail!

Roy Blumenthal — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:58:20 -0000

That URL should not have a dot on the end of it. The correct address is: http://thetechnologycircle.blogspot.com/2006/06/use-your-gmail-account-as-external.html

Re: I am really getting into Gmail!

Roy Blumenthal — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:58:20 -0000

That URL should not have a dot on the end of it. The correct address is: http://thetechnologycircle.blogspot.com/2006/06/use-your-gmail-account-as-external.html

Re: Official Powertoy: My Font Tool for Tablet PC

Roy Blumenthal — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:50:20 -0000

Ah! Thank you so very much for this piece of software. I've just made three different handwriting fonts for myself, and I'm really happy with them.

Thanks hugely!

(Two pieces of feedback -- I'd really like to see smart quotes in the font set, and the space allocated for the signature is WAYYYYY too small.)

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: The i.Tech Virtual Keyboard Give-Away

Roy Blumenthal — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 06:54:08 -0000

Wow! What a cool contest!

I hope I don't disqualify myself by having a film AND a book. Heeehheeehee. I'll take my chances.

FILM:

Without a shadow of a doubt, BLADERUNNER, the director's cut. The world Ridley Scott created is just so plausible, so possible. Those little android toys that that mutant toymaker created. Yeowww!!!!! Eeeeerie! Awesome!

(TOTAL RECALL comes a distant second, simply cos it was realllllly amazingly tongue-in-cheek. Arnie taking the piss out of himself in the best way possible.)

BOOK:

Ooooooooooooo! I think William Gibson's NEUROMANCER trilogy just just just beats Neal Stephenson's KRYPTONOMICON and BAROCK CYCLE to the post. Simply cos Gibson was the first science fiction writer in my experience who crossed over into literature. His ideas don't lay waste to his characterisation or storytelling. That trilogy made me WANT a little slot in the back of my neck where I plug in!!!! Sheesh. I can't wait!!! Stephenson is equally worthy, cos his world is AS plausible and literary. And KRYPTONOMICON is about as good as they get!

Thanks for a mighty contest! And I hope you have terrific fun revieing that li'l keyboard. I'm jealous.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: http://www.geardiary.com/2006/12/08/snap-or-not/

Roy Blumenthal — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:25:30 -0000

Hey Judie...

I have to report that my experience with SNAP is that it's EXTREEEEEEEEEEMELY annoying. The VERY worst thing about it is that it doesn't have a kill-button. So when you're just reading a page, and this little irritation pops up, there's no way to gt rid of it. Ugh!!!!

And I don't really get the idea behind it. Why on earth do I want to see a miniature preview of a web page? I KNOW what web pages look like. They all look the same! With minor changes. If I'm interested in what you've written, I'm going to click the link regardless of whether or not I've seen a chihuahua version of it.

My vote? Send it to Angola or Mozambique to hunt for landmines.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Tara at Riya is trying to learn about tagging

Roy Blumenthal — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:55:17 -0000

Hmmm. I don't tag cos I truly don't know how to do it. I'm on blogspot. Don't even know if it LETS me tag! (My delicious entries are mostly tagged, when I remember to send my bookmarks there.)

Re: Tara at Riya is trying to learn about tagging

Roy Blumenthal — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 03:51:20 -0000

Robert...

Thanks for asking this question. Got me hunting the web for how to tag on BLOGGER. Found a load of information. The most useful of which is a little standalone program created by Rhys Wynne in Wales. You simply type the tags into the program, and it generates the relevant html code to clip into your blog post. Here's the URL: http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk/2006/01/technorati-....

I'll be tagging from now on. Thanks again.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: The joy on her face

Roy Blumenthal — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 14:49:34 -0000

Hiya Robert...

Thanks mightily for the candid clarity with which you're doing this.

You turned Microsoft around for me. In my past, MS WAS 'the evil empire'. Now it's a company that great people work for, and great people sometimes leave.

I'll continue following your blog. It was never the MS content of the blog that got me reading. It was the humanity of Scoble. And the example you set for others.

Thanks, dude.

May your new position (and deeper partnership with Maryam) bring you abundance, joy, and loving.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: How I feel

Roy Blumenthal — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:46:12 -0000

Hiya Robert...

Thought I'd do another drawing of you. Hopefully this one looks a little more like you than the first one did.

It's on my Flickr Gallery at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/royblumenthal/1683...

Blue skies
love
Roy

------------------------------------------------
ROY BLUMENTHAL
Corporate Facilitator, Coach, Creative Thinking Specialist, & Artist-at-Large

Mobile: +27 82 659 3165
Email: royblumenthal@gmail.com
Home: http://royblumenthal.com
Blog: http://schmucknews.blogspot.com
Sketches: http://www.flickr.com/photos/royblumenthal/
Voice: http://www.voicebank.co.za/artistlink/artistid9...
Voice: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/rb000004/voi...
------------------------------------------------

Re: PodTech’s content and Web site challenges

Roy Blumenthal — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:27:03 -0000

Hiya Robert...

I'd like to add my half a cent...

There isn't any bandwidth information next to the podcasts. This makes it very nasty for people who live in countries where bandwidth is NOT free.

I live in South Africa. I operate off a package that allows me one gigabyte of bandwidth traffic. Once I go over that limit, I pay through the eyeballs!

So... how about an ultra-low resolution option for non-Americans?

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: How I feel

Roy Blumenthal — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:05:32 -0000

Aaaaah, Warner...

Thanks very much for your praise! And yeah... Robert Scoble's talking about tablet pcs definitely turned me onto them.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Scoble has “long and boring” videos…

Roy Blumenthal — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:01:06 -0000

Hiya Robert...

My 'hassle' with the long format ISN'T actually the time it takes! It's the amount of bandwidth consumed.

I live in South Africa, where we have monopolistic bandwidth pricing policies. And things come in various packages.

A typical one is the 3G wireless 1gig package. This costs a certain amount a month. Then you hit your cap. And then you pay through your eyeballs for every meg over that gig.

So I'm pretty conservative about the amount of downloading I do. Simply cos it costs a fortune.

Many of the Scoble Show vids weigh in at around 200 megs. That's five Scoble Show vids to eat up an entire 1gig bundle for the entire month.

I wanna watch MUCH more of your vids. But the bandwidth precludes that. So I end up only watching small bits of some, and the odd full-length one here and there if I have bandwidth left over at the end of the month.

I would appeal to you to make a much lower resolution file available. That would make it easier for 'emerging world' surfers to get the benefit of the interviews.

Thanks for your incredibly rich sharing, Robert. You cook. Deluxe.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Scoble has “long and boring” videos…

Roy Blumenthal — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:25:38 -0000

Dude...

I've just watched the 5 minute version of this. And I don't give a damn HOW MUCH it costs me in extra bandwidth...

I'm downloading the full version. This is an honest to goodness mindduck!!!! Wild!

Great work.

Thanks.

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Why we’re going to FastCompany.tv

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:47:24 -0000

Wow, Robert!

What a mag group to work with!

When Wired started getting tired, I found Fast Company to be a more compelling read. Was disappointed when it went through some sort of recession. Glad to hear that it's getting better again.

You'll probably turn me into a Fast Company fan again. Yay!

Thanks for being the pioneer you are.

And thanks for introducing me to all the new tech you've been playing with.

If you ever need illustrations, please think of me. (And I'll be more than happy to come and do live visual facilitations of your chats as a sidebar live-cast.)

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Social Media and Video As Conversation Agent – Speaking at DMAW Confab

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:20:33 -0000

Hiya Jim...

Here is a cut and paste of my Tweets to you on the topic...

STARTS...

Big companies MUST open up to FaceBook. It's one of the most powerful tools I know of for quick sharing of important stuff.

The confluence of Facebook, Google reader, and Twitter means instant info distribution by and to trusted parties.

The fact that I was able to respond to your Tweet is BECAUSE your infrastructure is open to such things. [Means that you're] Using it well, then.

Places that accuse their workers of squandering company time on social apps have NO idea that biz is conducted in conversation[.]

I've been using Flickr as both a portfolio for visual facilitation (http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation) and a storage house[.]

I upload pics as I finish them, and they become available immediately to net-savvy delegates. Works very well for me.

My girlfriend teaches ten year olds. One came to her crying cos her mom was putting pressure on her to excel at math[ematics.]

Jennifer [my girlfriend] had a meeting with the mom. And said, 'Preparing your child for the jobs YOU know is useless. When she grows up...'

'...There'll be jobs we can't even IMAGINE!!! So stop the maths pressure. And let her be herself.' THAT'S why Web 2 is [so important!]

...ENDS

Blue skies
love
Roy

Re: Social Media and Video As Conversation Agent – Speaking at DMAW Confab

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:47:14 -0000

Yo Jim...

Here's my answer to an email interview by Arthur Goldstuck, a media/web analyst in South Africa.

When he refers to SABC, that stands for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. This is the 'official' state broadcaster. It has a history of being politically biased in favour of whichever ruling party happens to be in power. When apartheid was still around, it was a Nationalist organ. With the ANC in power now, post-apartheid, it's being accused of being very much an ANC mouthpiece.

In my answer, I talk about working at SABC3. That's one of the three tv channels in the corporation. It's a sort of high-end entertainment channel, aimed at top earners.

I think my musings in these answers deal a little bit with the topic you're handling.

Blue skies
love
Roy

STARTS...

10. Getting specifically to your role at SABC, do you foresee any intrusion there of Web 2.0 practises, principles or platforms?

I used to work at SABC3 for a long time (three years -- for me, that's a VERY long time). I was a promo-producer there. Basically, that meant that I would create teaser 'commercials' for shows like SURVIVOR, DARK ANGEL, AMAZING RACE, and try and addict viewers to the box. The station succeeded if I succeeded. Because they measure the ratings for every show.

Web 2.0 comes along, and the world is a different place. Because now there's the possibility of a community of viewers, rather than the old fashioned 'viewer'. Digital set-top recording means that the old-style television revenue model is finished. Dead. Fast-forwarding live tv means that the channels have to reinvent themselves as more compelling entertainment deliverers than things like YouTube and the porn versions like YuVuTu.

Sadly, I think the SABC lacks the necessary vision to even understand the new paradigm, let alone take measures to stay compelling. Just last night, after Survivor (yes -- I addicted myself to the show I made promos for), one of the promos gave away the storyline for the episode of LAW AND ORDER that was coming up. It told me that the 'overprotective father' was the culprit. So I switched off in disgust.

If they can't get something as basic as a promo right, how the heck are they going to 'get' viewer communities? How are they going to understand that you've got to speak to people in your own authentic voice, not that of the 'official spokesperson'?

The only joy I get out of this is that the propaganda potential of South African television is plummeting. Its life as an organ of government control is being snuffed out by vaster technologies.

11. Will blogging replace traditional journalism? (yes, you're right, it's a trick question, but you still have to answer it)

It has already replaced traditional journalism. For me, at any rate. I read almost ALL of my news via my Google reader. I aggregate about 80 blogs there. Robert Scoble, who used to be Microsoft's evangelist, aggregates around 800 feeds. That's THOUSANDS of stories a day. With skillful ears and eyes picking out the great stuff.

Journalism actually died the day Princess Diana died. On that day, the world's journalists proved that they have no objectivity, that they serve the gluttonous appetite of public taste. They DON'T serve news. They serve entertainment. And they have no self-reflexivity. They cannot turn the cameras or observing eye upon themselves. They're manufacturers.

Blogging exposes the manufacturing industry that journalism has become. When a journalist says something, several million people around the world, including better placed people than the journalist, are able to analyze and pick apart the errors -- philosophical and factual. And give readers a new truth. A new way of perceiving the very notion of truth.

...ENDS

I must add that I've left out 'on the spot' media like Twitter.

Re: Social Media and Video As Conversation Agent – Speaking at DMAW Confab

Roy Blumenthal — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:29:37 -0000

Hey Jim...

A quick thought... did you ever follow the McDonald's blog? I was following it on Bloglines, and only ever got three or four posts. And then the feed stopped. I don't know if that's cos the blog died, or cos they cut the feed.

It was one of those corporate embarrassments. Strictly partyline. And spokespersony. With no freedom for the writer/blogger to actually respond realistically to the flood of comments.

Proof that when it's done badly, as a misunderstood corporate strategy, it backfires. (Actually, 'proof' is a big word. Maybe it's not proof. Maybe it's a hint at something.)

Hugh Macleod's work with Stormhoek, a previously unknown South African wine, is exemplary as to how to do it right. He showed them the blogging tools and strategy, and they now kick Britain's wine-market ass! (That's arse in Britain.)

Blue skies
love
Roy