Matt’s Cuppa

I’ve got some follow up news regarding a few different apps were mentioned previously at Matt’s Cuppa. To begin with, and to my disappointment, I was not chosen to be an Utterz Ambassador, despite submitting my story about the flack I get from certain family members about my Bessie t-shirt.

Even though I was overlooked, (For good reason. Those that were picked are long-time contributors to the Utterz community and will now be given even more of an opportunity to influence the direction of Utterz going forward. Congrats Ambassadors!) I will continue to say great things about Utterz and, like my post title states, I’ll always be an Ambassador in my own mind!

In the meantime, the guys from BooRah are kind enough to keep me informed about new developments on their end. I’ve described BooRah as a restaurant information aggregator, but they are quickly expanding beyond my simplified definition. In a recent email, Nagaraju Bandaru, BooRah’s co-founder and CTO, explained a partnership with BookingAngel that will allow online reservation to some 30,000 restaurants, as well as OpenID support. (<- Good move guys!)

And my last bit of news is that Molly over at Demo Girl came through with an Orgoo invite for me. I’ve already got my tea (an apricot oolong) picked out and a little space cleaned up in the sun on our patio, and I’ll be playing with (er, testing) that this afternoon. Molly, you rock!

Ah, yes, and I’m using this post to play around a little more with Apture, so hover over and click on a few of the links in this post and tell me what you think of Apture vs. traditional hyperlinking.

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Farewell Baby Wrens | Christine Kane

When I met Christine Kane at SOBCon08, I was pleased to find that she is in real life just like her music. Very thoughtful. When she speaks, she speaks genuinely. And she notices moments that most of us would miss. This blog post, and its accompanying video, captures one of those moments.

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I was sitting at a table at Emerald Loop last Friday with a boatload of bloggers when Thomas sat down and introduced himself. He noted that I wasn’t drinking and asked what I prefer instead of alcohol. “Well,” I responded, “I prefer a really good tea.” “What kind?” he pressed. I took a deep breath and began to tell him about Runglee Rungliot.

Runglee Rungliot is a tea garden high in the Darjeeling region of India, and also the name of the tea produced there. I was first introduced to this tea nearly a decade ago and have yet to be disappointed, assuming it is properly brewed. The name Runglee Rungliot is translated as something like, “Thus far and no further,” referring to the garden’s situation at top of a mountain. Now, if one were to take one of these tea plants and plant it anywhere other than this garden at the top of this mountain, it would not produce the same tea. In fact, it would most likely produce dreadful tea. In short, it would no longer be Runglee Rungliot.

I realized as I was speaking that we each have our own personal Runglee Rungliot. We each have our mountain to climb and somewhere near the top of our mountain is a garden where we produce our best, whatever that best may be. There’s a place up there where the soil is perfect and the temperature is just right, and rainclouds cling to the mountain side in just the right way.

It’s up there, but we have to climb our mountain to find it. In today’s world it’s not easy to make that climb. The news media, politicians, and product marketers all want you to climb their mountain. So many distractions exist that get in the way and confuse us into thinking we’re hiking up the right slope when we’re really not.

It’s up to us to look deep inside ourselves, to see the shape of the mountain at our core. The mountain represents the landscape created by our unique combination of skills and abilities and talents and beliefs. All these culminate, at the top of a steep climb, in the right conditions for you to become You.

This was a bit of a sweeping vista of a thought to have while sitting in an Irish pub talking to someone I’d met less than five minutes ago. It’s what we’re all struggling for in life, though, to find our mountain and to stand on its peak looking down at how far we’ve come. We each have our own personal garden up there– our very own Runglee Rungliot– It’s up to us to make the climb.

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As much as I am all for using web-based applications, I’m not for using them all the time. Web apps offer all sorts of advantages– the benefits of increased productivity, mobility, etc. The downside is the reliability factor. You’re not in control over the safety of content you produce via a web-based application.

Yeah, that screencap above refers to the latest article I was working on. Rather frustrating. Thankfully, I have a local copy.

As I was telling my wife about this (venting, actually) she turned to me and informed me that using web apps is a lot like being in the financial industry. You’ve got to diversify so that if one sector of the market tanks, you can still meet your investors’ demands by turning more heavily to parts of your portfolio that are not affected.

What does this analogy mean to the web worker? It means that if it’s important, back it up someplace that’s not on the web. If it’s on a local PC, back it up online instead. It means that perhaps one should use one app provider for every piece of content one produces. Numerous other suggestions are out there as well. Email your documents to yourself at a special email address you create for storing these. Purge your account of unneeded content periodically. Perform regular maintenance on your local PC. Consider printing hard copies of particularly important documents. The list goes on, but you get the idea. You only need to lose one piece of important content to drive home how important diversification is to the knowledge worker.

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Hey! ABC! Can you hear me now?? I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t realize that your actions could potentially influence this election. I will not charge you with manipulating your audience because I know that you would never do such a thing. You are an upright and unbiased media producer whose wishes nothing more than to be a clean conduit between ‘the people’ and their government during this most important election period.

I will assume that your decision to delay this broadcast was a simple over site. However, I, and other bloggers, podcaster, citizen journalists, etc., will stand up with the likes of Erin Kotecki Vest and applaud her for her candor.

Erin Kotecki Vest: ABC Show Us the Debate LIVE - The Huffington Post

In case you also missed the other memo, user generated content is kind of a big deal. In fact it has been noted on a few occasions, that it is the driving force behind what is being discussed and what is shaping this election.

Time to get with the program. You’re not in charge any more. We are.

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I really like ReadWriteWeb. Their articles are always well researched and filled with relevant quotes and links. I have this to say regarding a recent post on bloggers and the concern that our content is being devalued.

I’d say it’s fairly obvious that what we, as bloggers, write is now another part in the commodity called ‘new media’. We’ve seen our words quoted by other bloggers since the birth of the blogosphere, transported off of our blogs via the growing use of RSS feeds, and even quoted in the traditional news media.

It seems that there is an inconsistency in the model of revenue-generating blogs. Blogs were designed from the beginning to send our words out among the stars. We called this ‘discussion’. But ultimately we want people to come to us so we can make money when they click on adds or buy our products and systems.

Sarah Perez asks if we’ll embrace the commoditization of our brands or if we’ll fight. What is there to fight? Did we not create this situation in our eagerness to publish our brands? Surely, we who railed on the RIAA as they dug their feet in and tried (are still trying) to hold onto their old outdated business model, won’t make the same mistake!

I don’t know what the next thing is, but we’d better agree on it quickly! I have confidence, however, that bloggers will be among the first to recognize our new place (wherever that may be) in the consumption of media.

Luckily, I’m not dependent on my writing to put food on my table. What this means is that I can ride the current wave of “Whatever do we do next?” with minimal financial impact. As a writer, I’m quite happy to lend my words, so long as my name stays attached to them. I can fully understand the worries of commercial bloggers, however. But we, of all people, should recognize that opportunities arise due to changing circumstances. We must change with the circumstances, too.

Content Is Becoming a Commodity - ReadWriteWeb

All that’s left to decide is where you stand. Should information (even yours!) be free? Is your motto “steal my content, please?” Or will you fight this disruption and try to cling to the old model like the RIAA and MPAA did? Or maybe you think there is still some middle ground to be had.

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Sent from Express News
BEIJING - China on Tuesday accused “Tibet independence forces” of
planning to use suicide squads to trigger bloody attacks - the lastest
in a string of accusations that have taken aim at supporters of the
Dalai Lama.

The prime minister of Tibet’s government-in-exile denied the claims, saying Tibetans are committed to a “nonviolent path.”

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press Writer

I wish I could say that this was an April Fool’s Day joke, but I don’t think it is. Does anyone else think that China is looking worse and worse in the eyes the international community with each new step they take in handling this issue? Accusing the Dalai Lama of inciting violence? Tibetan suicide squads? Seriously…

I certainly don’t know the answer to this situation. But it appears that neither does the Chinese government. The protests began with the purpose, one can assume, of increasing international awareness of and sympathy for the Tibetan cause. If this is the case, then the Chinese government swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker. Filtering media reports and throwing out wild accusations are not things that tend to garner trust. If the Tibetans hadn’t already convinced me of the validity of their cause, then the Chinese government sure would have!

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“We can then make the ecological decision not to pollute the world with our own confusion.”

That quote is from the book The Buddha at War by Robert Sachs. What he’s referring to is our tendency to let things fall out of our mouth for reasons other than to communicate whatever it is we’ve said. For example, how many of us have dropped someone’s name at a networking function either to gain prestige or to facilitate an introduction?

I’m really drawn to this quotation because there are so many messages embedded in the words. (Being an environmental advocate, the ecological comparison won points with me as well.) I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on Sachs’ imagery. One can almost see a thick oily fog of conversation swirling around the average break room.

Sachs’ call to pay more attention to what we say to others is not a simple admonishment that we don’t lie or don’t gossip. It’s more like an invitation. He’s giving us permission to not say anything. And if you’ll pardon the pun, this like a breath of fresh air.

What Sachs’ is doing is relieving us of the burden of filling the air with sound. With this burden lifted, we begin to really notice what goes on around us. We pick up on details that were inaccessible to us before we stopped talking. And we begin to hear the real meaning beyond a person’s words.

All of this sounds good, but where’s the practical application, right? That is where things get really interesting! Chances are that if you say only what you actually mean to communicate, your conversation will be in much higher demand. Simply put, if you want to be recognized as an expert in your niche, stop offering advice on things that aren’t in your niche! Instead, use the time to observe the situation and identify the real needs.

There is an ethical responsibility that goes with Sachs’ words as well. It’s not enough to not say the wrong things. Once we’ve developed the skills to discern the difference between what is Sachs’ pollution of confusion, and what is not, we have a social obligation to use those skills to prevent harm rather than cause it. In other words, insider trading isn’t allowed!

If you’re like me you find it odd that not talking can increase your credibility and reputation. And that not speaking is a skill that must be developed. I think this highlights how mired in the pollution of our own confusion we each can get if we aren’t conscious of how we are contributing to the conversation.

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Sweetest Tweet Ever

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Wikileaks Censored Tibet protest videos March 2008, AVI video encoding

WikiLeaks has put together a (large) collection of video footage relating to the protests in Tibet. Some of this footage is of the actual protests and some are interviews with interested persons, including H.H. The Dalai Lama.

In support of an international investigation and because the WikiLeaks servers were receiving so many hits, I posted all of these videos on one of my sites. I will also be uploading the zip archive of all videos and a html index page. If you have five minutes right now, please watch one of the videos and tell someone about it. If you have space, please download any of the videos or the archive and host them on your site. Then tell someone about it.

The Olympic Games are, from their very inception, a celebration of peace. How can we prepare for peace by unleashing violence on our closest neighbors?

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