Disqus - Latest Comments for LEMills

Re: Happy Canada Day

LEMills — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:46:58 -0000

The song that most reminds me of Canada, without outwardly being a Canadian song, is River by Joni Mitchell. (It's right up there with my favourite Christmas songs, too, but that's another story.) Cold, ice, skating, singer from Saskatchewan, etc.

I think it helps that the Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston is on the album cover, too.

So there's that one, and now there's anything that's played on the Six String Nation guitar...
-L.

Re: Throwing down a challenge to PodCamp Philly

LEMills — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:12:40 -0000

Wow, but this challenge would be an even more wonderful idea if you had some Philadelphia people involved in either the planning or execution!

To begin, you wouldn't have lost credibility in your exposition by knowing that those two cheesesteak places are there mostly for the tourists, and that unimaginable poverty is everywhere, in everyone's backyard. (And if you think that you actually saw a poor neighborhood the last time you were here, we'll need to do a field trip at some point later.)

Regardless, it's a lovely idea, just one that I think you shouldn't limit to the PodCamp in Philadelphia.

Why not make it a global effort, and save the carbon footprint guilt by encouraging PodCampPhilly to be a Philadelphia event? To really save the planet, stay home and tend your own garden... that's a no-brainer!

When and if you get the chance to get to Philadelphia, though, take a look at who the Mural Arts program is teaching all over the neighborhoods, and what the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Philadelphia Green program is doing to help communities reclaim thousands [yes, thousands] of abandoned lots for gardens, and how PhilAbundance distributes fresh food to the needy, and how innumerable others are helping people -- all people -- as only neighbors can.

We were a little slow in adopting the Junior League Cookbook phenomenon, but that's probably because we were busy doing our own thing for a couple of hundred years...

-L.

Re: If FailCamp succeeds, is it still FailCamp?

LEMills — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:37:15 -0000

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Truly an act of guts and vision and no small measure of hope.
It was *so good* to hear the voice of human perspective coming from all angles.
Let's keep it going!
-Linda

Re: Alltop Launches Frienderati to Help You Find FriendFeed Friends

LEMills — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:37:44 -0000

Chris, it's nice to see the inclusion of my favorite e-mail expert in that list....

I'm heartened by the collaborative comments on FriendFeed (which usually aren't conversations, per se, but rather acknowledgments of others' thoughts). There's a listening that's happening there, and it's refreshing.

Re: drew olanoff dot com. - What Pisses Me Off About Twitter

LEMills — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:23:34 -0000

Head of nail, meet Drew's fist.

Amen.

What we really need is a lot more press about how it's NOT working!
-L.

Re: BlackBerry Rules the Smartphone Roost

LEMills — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:04:49 -0000

I loved my treo and some of the apps it had, but its loss has been overshadowed by my love for the Curve. Decked out with Opera and a gaggle of Google apps, it's all I need for access on the go. And because I can't seem to leave my little Fujitsu notebook behind, the Curve is my modem, too.

All that *and* "cut and paste".
-L.

Re: Have the Data Wars Begun

LEMills — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:48:41 -0000

As someone who has left FaceBook, I can attest to the "warm goodbye"... Removing myself from FaceBook was an interesting exercise in seeing how many pages had default-checked boxes that allowed my information to remain active in certain circumstances.

I think I found them all, but with a semi-final wave, they were waiting with my email address on the home page to re-sign me up if I ever want to reconsider my silly decision to break free of them.

Well, almost break free of them. Some may find this warm and friendly; I find it just plain creepy.

Re: Deeper Twitter- Tuning Twitter for Value

LEMills — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:48:57 -0000

Hi Chris.
The biggest problem with twitter is that it doesn't allow me to do what I'm doing right now: reply to you in an open conversation. Yes, the @ function is clever, but I can see those posts only if I'm following both the 'from' and 'to' twitterers. Otherwise, they're dead to me.

What I find completely perplexing is how such media-savvy types can miss the usefulness of Jaiku, which allows open comments such as this one and permits participation by anyone seeing the post. By dumping my twitter RSS into Jaiku, I need go to only one place, and if a tweet-owner also has a Jaiku account, they can see my comments on their posts there. Sure, Jaiku's still ironing out the SMS details in the US, but once that happens, I'd predict that twitter will need to modify itself or remain the domain of the narcissists.

A friend and I were just talking on Skype about the continuing preponderance of what we'd call the "who the hell cares" posts on twitter, and to my surprise, I've realized that I follow 11 people yet am followed by 66. Djeez. I don't even post there much any longer.

Think of all the things we could get done if we weren't interrupted by someone's need to tell us how much work they've gotten finished on any given day.

Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend who doesn't even have a cell phone, and I can't wait, because I know that what we'll talk about will be surprising and refreshing, untarnished by the false intimacy that twitter seems to impart. The good old days aren't always that bad, right?

-L.

Re: Bacn- A New Internet Term

LEMills — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:39:16 -0000

If we all weren't so busy being clever in the self-referential ego chamber [and credit to Mr.ERMurrow for that], we'd all answer email as it arrived or sort it appropriately and be done with it.

But then we also might not have any of those really-stupid-if-you-think-about-them words such as "proactive" and "impact" (for "effect" OR "affect") and "stakeholder" and "friending" and anything N-point-zero. What would a world without them be?

There's evolution, and there's regression. I'd suggest that anything that makes a bunch of tech folks look laughable may well be the latter.

Back to the uphill battle,
-L.

Re: Why 78 is Better Than 878

LEMills — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:04:28 -0000

79. If you'll have me. It's been a busy week....

Re: Three Things LinkedIN Does Better than Facebook

LEMills — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:57:41 -0000

It's always worth remembering that LinkedIn started as a professional tool for employment recommendations, and in that sense (and in the EEOC sense), photographs really shouldn't be part of it.

LinkedIn has subsequently been hijacked by the mass-adders, which is too bad for those of us who valued the personal recommendations that were once a reason to be part of that site.

Mike O'Hara has a great interview with Dan Nye on Episode 33 of the Cold Calling Podcast (http://coldcallingpodcast.com/). It must be an interesting situation to be in... watching something you've developed and nurtured getting pushed onto a completely different track.

Re: Flee The Fishbowl and Re-EMBED in Reality

LEMills — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:22:09 -0000

You mean, it's not all about me?
It's about time!
-L.

Re: Future Phone

LEMills — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:48:19 -0000

Great ideas, Chris, but no amount of cool kit will be of use if the websites and apps restrict access through it.

Case in point: With no DSL access this weekend, I tried to get some work done through my Treo's web browser. Specifically, I wanted to change parts of my Facebook profile. The mobile version of the profile on Facebook is pretty much read-only, with very few exceptions. I only succeeded in making changes on mine by searching for the Facebook blog site, signing in through there, and NEVER requesting the 'Home' page (which I learned took me back into the mobile version immediately).

I was admonished by Facebook that I had to make profile changes on a computer. And so what was I holding in my hand? I'd call it a computer that just happened to have a phone in it. All I can say is "smarten up"!
-LEMills

Re: 5 Ways to Extend the Conversation

LEMills — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:44:35 -0000

How about talk with your neighbors over the back fence about the great podcast you found?

Last week, at the local computer center, the guy at the register asked for an email [yeah, I know...mailinglist hell... but keep reading], so I gave him the one I have at Podcast User Magazine. He had to type it in again to confirm, and it opened up a discussion. I found out what sort of music he liked, and I pointed his hip-hop-loving eyes to Julien's show, and I gave him the short 'you don't need an iPod' explanation of on-site players, and I gave him my PUM card.

All in 30 seconds. (there was no line at the register, which was a help)

So let's get out there and talk, with mouths and breath and not just typing fingers. It won't kill us.
-LEMills

Re: Front Load Your Writing

LEMills — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:51:00 -0000

How a message is constructed still depends on the listener and the listener's knowledge. Michael Bailey has it right about the need for background at times, and the skillful writer or speaker knows how to make that understandable and concise. That consideration for the audience is often neglected; I wish we could see numbers on the topics dismissed because the curious were at sea from word one.

Why is it that everyone seems to have become a sloppy reader and listener these days? Self-importance? Lack of empathy? Too many distractions in too little time? Preference for grunting?

Re: Jon Glassett Opens a Time Capsule

LEMills — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:22:24 -0000

Oh, someone please photoshop in PodCamp logo for one of those buttons. (I almost read one as Feedburner!)

Loved the whole concept of these pix, until I remembered where I was in the 80s, which for me was a whole generation after the high-school years. (I think I successfully avoided any and all mullets!)

Off to find the paisley and tie-dyed cottons, the bead-embroidered jeans jacket, and the guitar,
-L.

Re: Steve Garfield Invents Twittermail

LEMills — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:37:23 -0000

Nice idea, isn't it? We've been sending tweet-like messages in the day-job office this way for ages. Who has time to open mail?
-L.

Re: Maintaining Community Spirit In Larger Communities

LEMills — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:55:06 -0000

/me waves arms in air and shouts 'Amen'!

My PodCamp baptism was in Toronto, and I could pick at least 20 different parts of the event that set precedents for me, but the best one was the new definition of 'talks'. 'Talks' were conversations: if there was a part that was formal (and trust me, that word is used here as loosely as possible), it hardly took up half the allotted time, with the rest of the session becoming a conversation among the people in the room. THAT was the participatory element, and those were the moments that brought everyone onto the playing field, evenly and enthusiastically.

You can bask in the rockstar metaphor if you want, but I propose that we all look up at ourselves with wonder and leave the rockstargazing for others. Everybody has experiences and insights to share, everybody is as important as the next person, and everybody still puts on trousers one leg at a time. (And if you don't, I'll be looking for a demo in the hallway!)

Re: Sing the Network2 Jingle With Me

LEMills — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:21:44 -0000

So, CC notice aside, where's the disclaimer that 'no hamsters were harmed in the making of this video'? (even though Jay's hamster does sound as if he can take care of himself just fine, thanks.... hope I never meet that guy on a dark exercise wheel.... ha!)
-L.