Disqus - Latest Comments for brhubart

Re: Why Gaming is the Future of Everything

brhubart — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:04 -0000

My first thought after reading this was of Pekka Himanen's 2001 book, "The Hacker Ethic," and it's description of the enthusiasm software developers apply to their work. It also brings to mind a conversation I had with Floyd Teter and John Stouffer at the Oracle ACE dinner during OOW09, in which we talked at length about how software development is as much a lifestyle and a culture as it is a career path. I know this is somewhat tangental to the subject of Paul's post, but there is a connection.

The first bunch of developers I met when I began my IT career in 1997 were young people who had little or no formal training in computer science or software. They were, without exception, gamers, who learned their craft by customizing or deconstructing their favorite games, starting as kids. The passion and focus they applied while playing -- and playing with -- those games as kids became the defining characteristics of their approach to the work they did as highly innovative -- and highly employable -- developers.

So, to bring this back around to Paul's post, imagine what kind of an economy we'd have --hell, what kind of world we'd have -- if every job, every task, could inspire that kind of passion and focus and sense of fun and challenge and satisfaction.

BTW: Similar thoughts expressed in my 2001 review of "The Hacker Ethic": http://bit.ly/h4WR2

Re: Feeds: Dead to You or Still Kicking?

brhubart — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:39:22 -0000

That should be "I didn't mean to imply..."

This is what happens when I multitask...

Re: What Was I Doing Again?

brhubart — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:25:31 -0000

Jake, if you're a dinosaur, what am I? Don't answer that.

Re: Finding Your Social Media Purple Cow

brhubart — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:59:00 -0000

With all due respect, within any given domain, is any company really all that unique or significantly different from it's competitors? Isn't that the point of this article? And while Darren doesn't really address the idea that humor is difficult, his ideas are sound.

Re: The Rise of Microfame

brhubart — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:23:41 -0000

"Microfame" is a term that attempts to define a particular state or condition in the in the evolving nature of human connection in the Internet Age. The use of Web 2.0 and Social Media is all about The Three Ds: democratization, decentralization, and disintermediation. Anyone with access to a computer has access to a global audience. That means that the fame pie is being sliced into increasingly thin pieces as more and more people compete, consciously or not, for the attention of an increasingly fragmented and distracted audience. Ultimately that means that Andy Warhol was right about fame, but he was wildly optimistic in his prediction of how long each of us gets to be famous. In the end, microfame is the flattening of fame. It's what happens as Web 2.0 and Social Media continue to transform fame from a vertical to a horizontal phenomenon.

Re: Video- Find Your Voice in Business

brhubart — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:56:27 -0000

Chris,

You've hit on my primary soapbox issue when talking to people about the use of Social Media in a business context. The problem -- well, my problem -- with "traditional" marketing communication is that it's so obviously fluffy and phoney and too often absent any signs of life. Yet in my experience so many marketing people seem to think that the audience will suck that up. That's one aspect.

Another is the idea that businesses don't communicate, people communicate. The use of Social Media makes old-school faceless, sanitized, "official" communication obsolete. This is the age of technologically extended personal connection to a global personal network. In that network the lines between business interests and personal interests is very blurry indeed. And that's as it should be. As individuals our professional and personal lives are inextricably intertwined.

In that environment, can a business survive if it continues to engage with customers, partners, suppliers, or employees as a single monolithic entity? I think not. A business is a collection of individual people, a kind of techno-organic network -- a network within the larger global network. The use of Social Media allows individuals within one network to engage with individuals in other networks on a more personal, and thereby more effective level.

As individuals we are all nodes on that overarching global network. Social Media tools allow us to create and manage our own connections. This is a cataclysmic change in the business environment, but it's a cataclysm that businesses can survive if they learn to unleash -- and trust -- the individual voices within.

In order to be effective, those individual voices must reflect the legitimate passions, interests, and expertise of the individual, rather than spewing out the same tired old monolithic marketing message. Every time I see a press release disguised as a blog post I want to stab myself in the brain with a pencil.

And that brings us back to your excellent point about the importantance of the legitimate, real, individual voice. With a little luck and a lot of enthusiasm Social Media can finally drive a stake through the heart of the monolithic business-speak and marketing fluff that gets in the way of the more valuable personal connection businesses of all sizes must make with customers and the other roles that are essential to the business.

Re: Taking the Plunge: Part 2

brhubart — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:11:21 -0000

I recently converted an old laptop to Ubuntu. I'm not a command-line kind of guy, which has complicated earlier excursions into Linux. But I've found Ubuntu to be very easy to use. I haven't had any of the problems I used to have with XP on that same machine. And let's face it, there's a lot of appeal to what amounts to flipping the bird at Windows.