Disqus - Latest Comments for ryancoleman

Re: What would it take to start a “floundering startup” buyout firm?

ryancoleman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:31:27 -0000

I think it could work as has been mentioned it would take some serious guts and a very sharp team.

You'd probably find some VC groups willing to entertain this idea if they get some preference in following rounds etc. - i.e. when they've got companies that they still believe in the idea but are on the fence about putting more money in they may be willing to let a turnaround group come in, put their own money up to reseed and then be first in line to be able to re-up should the company make it out the other side.

There's probably also a market for entrepreneurs who have just lost the drive but the company still has potential where they'd be open to a group coming in and turning it around.

There'd also be some opportunity for mixing and matching companies (i.e. picking up to related companies and combining them to make the proper service)

Heck, I'm sure there's guys out there already doing this discreetly...

Re: Skimming and Plunging

ryancoleman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:26:42 -0000

I painted with a pretty broad brush, I'm sure there are pockets of progress being made in the education system but I don't think they've achieved the next evolution that needs to happen yet. I think the changes are limited more to individual teachers who have evolved vs. wholesale changes in curriculum.

"While skimming seems to have picked up steam, the deep dive, the all in plunge is what seems to be missing. While some kids naturally want to explore and become expert, I'm afraid it is not the majority."

I'm not so sure the deep dive should be mandated in education - if you give students the tools to be able to find and process the information they need they should also be able to to self select the deep dives that interest them. The kids who don't have the interest will never truly be experts and what they do learn would gradually become obsolete if they don't subscribe to the notion of life-long learning.

Re: Skimming and Plunging

ryancoleman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:56:23 -0000

Amen. This is why the education system is so screwed right now. They still teach based on a culture of memory - there just wasn't the access to the volumes of information there is today. Tomorrow's education system needs to focus more on skills (searching, filtering, processing & life skills) more than content.

All the information is right at our fingertips - the real challenge is making sense of it.

Re: .: all lit up :. - First Plenary at #SoCap09

ryancoleman — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:28:02 -0000

"Watch out! The plant monsters are going to get them!"

Perhaps the little shop of horrors wasn't the best venue choice ;)

Re: davehyndman.tumbl - I love this shot of Obama meeting with aides in...

ryancoleman — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:26:57 -0000

That flickr stream is great... I love just seeing the candid moments from the administration & you get a great sense of what the team is really like...

Re: .: all lit up :. - Have no idea what this is but I almost drank it....

ryancoleman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:36:30 -0000

wtf? is that from home or cottage water?

Re: Location, Location, Location: More on /Location and Microsyntax

ryancoleman — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:13:38 -0000

I love the notion of a tag for indicating location but have issues with the "/" just because it shows up in so many other natural uses already on twitter, namely URLS & shortforming "or" etc.

My personal preference has always been "~" a) it's not as commonly used as many other characters (especially in tweets) and b) Because it has some connotations of "approximately" in some contexts - i.e. Because most locations given will be fairly general i.e. ~Paris - I find it reads really naturally as a geo indicator. I get your mobile argument but I think people are already used to switching to alternative moves pretty quick to get numbers, hashes and other characters so I'm not sure how big a deal it actually is.

Personally I think there's lots of room for multiple glyphs (@, #, /, ~, ^) in front of keywords to make tags on services like twitter - bring it on :)

Re: Twitter: “We Screwed Up” on #fixreplies

ryancoleman — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:51:01 -0000

"And tomorrow is Friday... Think about #followfriday for a minute. Anyone who normally would start their post with @user is screwed. No one will see that post tomorrow."

Almost no one would have seen it before the switch. People who were starting follow friday tweets with @'s clearly didn't get how twitter works from the get-go...

Re: Der Nussknacker.

ryancoleman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:24:07 -0000

"You pay an extra fee and get it back when you return your dish or glass. Love that. "

Even at the street festivals the beer stands do this with their plastic cups... of course it took me several beers to realize why people were being so "considerate" and bringing all their cups back when they got another :/

Re: How To Survive A Horrible Seat Assignment

ryancoleman — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:52:17 -0000

You've got stronger willpower than I do fred... if I had been you, in that position I probably would have hedged my bets someone was headed west to pitch, stood up and loudly offered a term sheet to the first entrepreneur to trade seats with me ;)

I did have an exit row turn into a window seat that wouldn't recline, facing a bulk head (I'm 6'2" so basically the bulk head was hell) that also ended turned out to be missing half an arm rest going from Zurich to Toronto... I used up all my flight karma/luck when it turned out there was one aisle seat still free in the entire plane though that I ran for as soon as the attendant pointed it out.

Re: Yes, Twitter is a source of journalism

ryancoleman — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:28:06 -0000

It's all fine and dandy to point to the marriot example, except when you step back and realize that CNN/IBN were reporting, for hours, that the Marriot had been bombed.

On 9-11 I remember the networks talking about a mysterious 5th plane that was still up in the air somewhere.

I think the reality is, when it comes to chaotic situations like these - where even the MSM are falling over themselves trying to cover it there's going to be some misinformation & confusion.

The real problem is a almost total lack of critical thinking from a huge majority of the population when it comes to digesting this information. Anything I take in in a breaking news context (regardless of source) gets taken with a grain of salt and I usually try to keep track of things in the days that follow as a more realistic picture emerges. But for every one of me there's probably 10 people who heard CNN's resident chief make shit up on the fly correspondent Miles O'Brien say something and it gets etched in their heads as fact.

Re: davehyndman.tumbl - from Ryan Coleman

ryancoleman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:22:35 -0000

I've been photographing that statue for 4 years... first picture of it that's really worked! (noisy background in the city, always something ruining the composition) - thx for posting it!

Re: When base-jumping goes wrong

ryancoleman — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:02:02 -0000

Actually I'm pretty sure in a lot of places you do get the bill for your rescue costs...

Re: Online fiction, Facebook and transparency

ryancoleman — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:42:44 -0000

I see both sides of the coin and was sitting behind Eden (& next to someone with an even stronger reaction).

I wasn't bothered by it but there was a difference between myself and Eden... I'd encountered the story before and discovered the Facebook profiles as part of meandering through the "story".

Where I think Jill screwed up, and I told her this later, was having the characters proactively "friend" people on facebook who we're not engaged in the story. When people got the friend invite, many of them checked to see if they had mutual friends & many did because many people who were engaged in the story had Added the characters as friends.

The difference though, was that the engaged people ADDED proactively - rather than an unsolicited, uncontextualized invitation.

Re: Slideshare

ryancoleman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:37:29 -0000

12 Hours sounds extreme... I've had it take 30 min - an hour at the worst of times.

My biggest beef is it's font issues... I find it really hard to get a deck to upload without having some sort of font problem.

It's otherwise a great site...

Re: Loren Feldman vs. Shel Israel

ryancoleman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:28:16 -0000

oh, and as for the domain... I can't imagine how Shel never registered his name.com ... complaining now about someone else grabbing it is just strange.... I'd kill to get myname.com. (had to settle for .ca)

Re: Loren Feldman vs. Shel Israel

ryancoleman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:25:50 -0000

Joe: I get the "crosshairs" notion... there's been a few times I've had the back of the mind thought "I'm so glad I don't even appear on Loren's radar" as I've watched some of this stuff unfold.

That said, I largely agree with Matt's sentiment - while it comes across as "mean" Loren tends to keep it at a place where he's only calling people on the points where they're being unauthentic (unauthentic?) to what they preach ... but at the same time he delivers it in his usual style of keeping one last toe on the line so he can claim he hasn't stepped over it (the child hood equivalent of "I'm not touching you!!!).

Sure Loren puts it over the edge from time to time, but that's Loren. Personally I think he's a good barometer to have around the 'sphere to keep egos in check in a edgy & funny way.

Re: Which is worse: piracy or anonymity?

ryancoleman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:22:57 -0000

I almost agree with that sentiment except for one minor modification:

"the biggest problem for the music business is THE GROWING NUMBER of people who not only don't download music, but never buy it in any form and probably never will."

What they have to recognize is that freeloaders will always exist - there is no solving that particular problem.

What I would argue is that the tactics they are employing today to try and squash that minority are actually alienating a large portion of the people who sit on the fence and increasingly pushing them into the download/don't buy category. Stop trying to squash the deadbeats and focus on delivering value to the people who actually represent a revenue opportunity.

Re: Which is worse: piracy or anonymity?

ryancoleman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:53:38 -0000

Clearly what is needed is a tax on blank paper...

Seriously though... (are they?) When you look at how books are shared/sold/consumed I can't see how internet piracy is anything bigger than a tiny, tiny blip on their revenue radar.

Libraries, Sharing/loaning, Used book stores, Amazon's Used Book service - the written word has long been exchanged in forms that provide no further compensation to the original author.

I think what any producer needs to acknowledge is they have NEVER, ever, ever received revenue for every single person who has consumed their "product'. The Internet has just made it easier to acknowledge and track.

They also need to check their def'n of "losses" - the reality is, most stuff (music, books, movies) etc. I've consumed for free (via any channel) are usually things I wouldn't have bought/rented. The reality is though, much of the stuff I've "borrowed" has led to follow on purchases.

i.e. years ago someone loaned me a copy of a Harry Connick album - that "loss" for the recording industry led me to acquiring just about every album he produced. Likewise, the first Stephen King book I ever read was a loaner... etc etc

Re: Moving The Goalposts

ryancoleman — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:26:54 -0000

"but the question is how do you make a living as a songwriter who doesn't tour? ... it should be my choice, not the fans/"

You have the choice of how you try to make money but ultimately the fans/customers have the choice about whether or not they choose to give you money.

Tour/Merch has long been recognized as a place where musicians have the opportunity to make a lot of money - If you choose to ignore/avoid that model then I think you need to decide whether you're doing this for the money or as a hobby - Consumers have no obligation to provide a business model for you.